i have to talk about star trek again!

[amw]

I really hate the idea that such a thing as "an addictive personality" exists, and even more the idea that i have one. But i do often find myself getting sucked quite deeply into a particular thing for longish periods

Comments

[geminiwench]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds does a good job of getting back to the playful side of Star Trek... maybe because you're following Pike so you can sorta... play again in the original ST world that was less rigid and more gregarious.

Voyager was always my favorite, but they did Seven-of-Nine dirty when it came to their storytelling about her. Also... the new "angles" the assorted camera directors found when it came to exploring her bodysuit with a certain lingering gaze that is otherwise alien on Voyager.

Most of the ruin of Star Trek that happened as the spin-offs proliferated is explained in this mini-documentary about the personality of Rick Berman, the man who took over as ED for Roddenberry after his death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSz2gW8IsE

[amw]

I can definitely see that the writers of Strange New Worlds are trying to capture that original Trek feeling, but i have to say they really lost me this season. The episode about M'Benga and Chapel dealing with their memories of and lingering bitterness over the war almost made me quit the show altogether. I think the writers are trying to write for a mixture of TOS fans and DS9 fans, which is a tough thing to balance, and less interesting to me anyway than the TNG and VOY vibes i most associate with Trek. Plus the modern Treks tend to overdo it a bit with in-jokes and fan service to the point that it starts to overshadow the rest of the story for me

[geminiwench]

I'm 100% with you on everything you said.
But I will also point out Voyager is always ranked really low compared to its contemporaries *because* it takes a lighter tone. It IS the last of a truly... optimistic Star Trek universe.

There are themes that I see in the current generation of storytelling that are about exploring/elevating the rugged-individualist-anti-heroic-hero... and I see Star Trek following style and popularity there, rather than countering with harder to write arcs of *rigorous cooperation* and *thoughtful consideration* that made TNG so... easy to love and different from everything else.

Maybe that quality of writing is... impossible to duplicate in our current Hollywood culture which prefers random dramatic nonsense over more patient and circuitous/passive storytelling.

[amw]

Yeah, it's really interesting rewatching Voyager and every time i'm like "man, what a dud episode that totally mischaracterizes Janeway and the crew" i look it up on wiki and turns out it's amongst the top rated episodes of the series, especially with newer blogs doing rewatch guides. It seems people really love the grimdark stuff, the stuff which gleefully tortures the heroes, or where the heroes end up "crossing the line

[geminiwench]

I think there is **definitely** a different post 9/11 world that is darker, more sinister, and a tipping point in the American psyche where they decided.. "We're SO victimized!" that they're willing to do everything they promised they wouldn't. America AS the tragic hero... torturing (even though we didn't wanna! SWEAR!) spying (if you're not doing anything wrong, why are you complaining?) record deportations.. like everything we said we didn't believe in.

And I think... that changed us. And Hollywood 100% extruded and canned American culture.

Sci Fi STORIES were always the cheap ones. Pulp... like horror, like crime, like romance. Throwaway stories. But unlike horror, crime, or romance... sci-fi is expensive to SHOW.
It takes actual DESIGN, ideas, technology, vision to set itself as a world-apart-from-this-world in a way a boxed situational comedy or even historical drama does not need. And futuristic design is an investment in visual storytelling that most people are intimidated by I think.