The anti-what? Or: Stop Labelling My Space Shows
About two weeks ago, going through a copy of the British magazine SFX, I read their reviews of the early season 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, one of my beloved new shows. The reviews were very positive. At the end of reading, I was fuming nonetheless. Why? Because the reviewer did what everybody and their dog keep doing since decades when they want to praise a new Sci-Fi series: bash Star Trek.
Seriously. Can you think of a show that hasn't been called "the anti-Star Trek" in an approving tone of voice? Or, the second variation of this particular kind of bashing/praise, "capturing the spirit of the original series when Star Trek was fun before it got bland and boring blah blah etc."? (Because for this brand of fanboy, TOS is the holy grail. There is a parallel going on with the bashing of the SW prequels (and sometimes RotJ, with SW: ANH and ESB being declared perfect) in Serenity reviews, but cadesama already put up an excellent rant about that nonsense, so I'll just point you in its direction. She hid the one spoiler for the movie under an lj cut, which meant unspoiled me could read the rant anyway.)
Now. Firstly, I love a lot of the shows that have been called "the anti Star Trek": Blake's 7, Babylon 5, Farscape, and of course the new BSG. But you know, if I want to praise them, I can do that on their own merits, sincle out why I love whatever I love about them, their own unique qualities, not waste time declaring my hate for another show in about a third of the praise.
Secondly, the "anti-Star Trek" label is usually used in a way that gives me the impression the reviewer or blogger doesn't know what (s)he is talking about and has seen two or so episodes of the later shows (with some fuzzy nostalgic memories of TOS) at best. Take the BSG reviews that set me off. In them, the reviewer wonders how Ron Moore (the headwriter and producer of BSG) could have learned his craft writing for Star Trek (Moore joined the TNG staff in its second season, became quickly one of the more prominent writers and later was one of the main writers of ST: DS9) when everyone knows that in ST, characters never argued, orders were always followed, relationships and characters never developed and there were never any consequences.
Well, excuse me.
For starters, this ignores the entire run of Deep Space Nine. Which usually happens when someone bashes ST, or makes up "why X is better than ST" lists, because DS9 with its use of backstory, ensemble character and arcs flies in the face of all those dearly held prejudices before you can say Terok Nor. Secondly, it's not even true for what was probably the most harmony-among-the-crew promoting incarnation of Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Where Worf killing Duras against Picard's direct orders (in a Moore-written episode, I think, he usually got the Klingon stuff) is made a great deal of, with lasting consequences. Data develops throughout the show (no matter my issues of Brent Spiner at conventions, he does an excellent job with that, and when the TNG finale presents us with Data at three different points in time, the start of the show, the end and about twenty years in the future, he and the script make the differences very clear). Or let's take Voyager, because Voyager is even more popular than TNG among the bashers as an example of Trekian inferiority. Seven of Nine clashes frequently with Janeway from her first appearance onwards. Paris/Torres predates (barely, but it predates) Worf/Dax and Kira/Odo as an example of two regulars starting a romantic relationship on the show and maintaining it instead of ending it within the same episode. Now you can argue about whether or not the chemistry works for you, or how well/ill written or acted it was, but it's factually wrong to claim there were no changing relationships, arguing or developing characters on Voyager.
It seems to me that the fondness for using the "anti-Star Trek" label rather displays one of the more ridiculed ST clichés, time travel. Because outside of the idea someone is eternally trapped in the late 80s and very early 90s when ST was the only Sci-Fi gorilla throwing its weight around on tv, and did need the challenge because being an only gorilla can make you complacent, I don't see how this kind of thing could make the bashers feel like members of a plucky creative minority. As I said, today everybody and their dog is using the label. Show me the new Sci-Fi show that actually is praised for being "like Star Trek" (and not with that condescending addendum that it's like TOS with better GCI) instead of being praised for being unlike and anti.
Now, let's take a look at some of the so-called "anti Treks". They're all pretty different from each other, which is one of the many reasons to treasure them - originality. However, if you want to use the "anti" label not to indicate "better than" but "has structural and or narrative qualities that are just the opposite of the qualities displayed in...", which is absolutely valid, Star Trek is usually not the comparison I'd choose. I'd probably pick it for just one example, Blake's 7, a show that got produced and broadcast in the late 70s, when there was only one incarnation of Trek known to men (and women; and aliens of third genders, and Q). The Federation in B7 is an Orwellian dictatorship (which happens to have the same insignia the Trek Federation does, turned 70 degrees, and you can't tell me they didn't do that deliberately), the original leading man starts the show brainwashed and broken and successfully framed for child molestation (that kind of stuff never happened to Kirk; it wasn't until Locutus of Borg that it did to a ST lead), the equivalent of the science officer is no ethical Vulcan or for that matter a Han Solo type cynic with a heart of gold but an actual cynic and embezzler who later on will be ready to kill the narrative equivalent of McCoy for his own survival, and while our heroes score some early victories against the dictatorship, the dystopia they live in is so persuasive that you don't really believe they will ever succeed in the goal stated by the lead at the beginning, a free galaxy... and that's before things start to go seriously to hell and the crew starts getting killed off. Above all, B7 is as English as the original ST is American. Not being either, I like both, but they strike me as very, very opposite.
As for the other shows, however: if you want to compare and contrast in terms of opposite qualities, you get far more results when putting them against each other than out of putting either against Star Trek. B5 and DS9 have more in common than they differ in. Farscape is really a special case because John Crichton arrives in his strange new world sans sidekicks or other human personel or environment, which makes him the alien, and that's not really happening in any of the other shows (though the "living ship with crew of escaped criminals" is true for B7 as well, and in its early first season when the Moya inhabitants don't really like each other all that much, there is a B7 feeling at times). As andrastewhite once said to me, if Farscape is the anti-anything in that sense, it's the anti Babylon 5, not the anti-Star Trek. B5 has that tightly organized, still unsurpassed five-years-arc and subarcs for the entire ensemble that allow for crucial characters never to meet each other because as important as their individual stories are for the overall B5 narrative, they don't have anything to do with each other. (Examples of this would be the telepath subarc and Bester on the one hand and the Centauri arc and Londo on the other, or the Minbari arc and Neroon on the one hand and the Narn/Centauri war and G'Kar on the other.) The various alien societies are given their own political stories. Meanwhile, on Farscape, you have continuity, but you get the feeling a lot of it developed more or less via accident (for example, one of the most crucial Farscape elements in the entire show, the chip Scorpius implanted in John Crichton's brain, was something the writers according to their own commentaries didn't come up with until they saw the dailies of the episode Crackers's Don't Matter of Crichton hallucinating Scorpius and were hit by a brainwave). While there is an ensemble of characters, there is a strong, at times overwhelming focus on our leading man, John Crichton, and leading lady, Aeryn Sun. We get to know about the alien societies and their politics only in as much as they impact on our leading couple. For example, the Nebari and their "cleansing" ways are introduced but only really represented in two or so episodes; if this were the type of show B5 is, Chiana and her brother would have gotten their own arc, no matter whether or not it impacted Crichton. Most of all, Farscape has anarchy in motion and an emotional and narrative wildness that is as unrivalled as is B5's tight structure. There is no idea so crazy, no trauma so horrible, that the writers won't go through with it. Which leaves a narrative mess at times, but oh, what a glorious mess.
Back to the start, though, and Star Trek, which was the start of so many things: naturally one can critisize each of the shows. And though I love two of them dearly and am fond of two more, I'm glad there won't be a new one right now, because decades of writing can exhaust anyone, and if there is to be a new ST show, I want something I haven't seen before, which is best given by new, unexhausted people at the helm. But the Star Trek we already have is diverse enough within itself, and offers enough interesting characters, episodes, and storylines that to dismiss it out of hand because it's fashionable means one deprives oneself of some excellent entertainment. And if you've watched some of the non-Trek shows first and are interested in narrative growth, or how one can spot seeds for later shows and other characters in earlier incarnations? Check out some Star Trek. If you find you can't stand any incarnation of it, fine. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the Vulcans say. Just don't go the cheap way of praising some of my other shows at the expense of my older ones.
Seriously. Can you think of a show that hasn't been called "the anti-Star Trek" in an approving tone of voice? Or, the second variation of this particular kind of bashing/praise, "capturing the spirit of the original series when Star Trek was fun before it got bland and boring blah blah etc."? (Because for this brand of fanboy, TOS is the holy grail. There is a parallel going on with the bashing of the SW prequels (and sometimes RotJ, with SW: ANH and ESB being declared perfect) in Serenity reviews, but cadesama already put up an excellent rant about that nonsense, so I'll just point you in its direction. She hid the one spoiler for the movie under an lj cut, which meant unspoiled me could read the rant anyway.)
Now. Firstly, I love a lot of the shows that have been called "the anti Star Trek": Blake's 7, Babylon 5, Farscape, and of course the new BSG. But you know, if I want to praise them, I can do that on their own merits, sincle out why I love whatever I love about them, their own unique qualities, not waste time declaring my hate for another show in about a third of the praise.
Secondly, the "anti-Star Trek" label is usually used in a way that gives me the impression the reviewer or blogger doesn't know what (s)he is talking about and has seen two or so episodes of the later shows (with some fuzzy nostalgic memories of TOS) at best. Take the BSG reviews that set me off. In them, the reviewer wonders how Ron Moore (the headwriter and producer of BSG) could have learned his craft writing for Star Trek (Moore joined the TNG staff in its second season, became quickly one of the more prominent writers and later was one of the main writers of ST: DS9) when everyone knows that in ST, characters never argued, orders were always followed, relationships and characters never developed and there were never any consequences.
Well, excuse me.
For starters, this ignores the entire run of Deep Space Nine. Which usually happens when someone bashes ST, or makes up "why X is better than ST" lists, because DS9 with its use of backstory, ensemble character and arcs flies in the face of all those dearly held prejudices before you can say Terok Nor. Secondly, it's not even true for what was probably the most harmony-among-the-crew promoting incarnation of Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Where Worf killing Duras against Picard's direct orders (in a Moore-written episode, I think, he usually got the Klingon stuff) is made a great deal of, with lasting consequences. Data develops throughout the show (no matter my issues of Brent Spiner at conventions, he does an excellent job with that, and when the TNG finale presents us with Data at three different points in time, the start of the show, the end and about twenty years in the future, he and the script make the differences very clear). Or let's take Voyager, because Voyager is even more popular than TNG among the bashers as an example of Trekian inferiority. Seven of Nine clashes frequently with Janeway from her first appearance onwards. Paris/Torres predates (barely, but it predates) Worf/Dax and Kira/Odo as an example of two regulars starting a romantic relationship on the show and maintaining it instead of ending it within the same episode. Now you can argue about whether or not the chemistry works for you, or how well/ill written or acted it was, but it's factually wrong to claim there were no changing relationships, arguing or developing characters on Voyager.
It seems to me that the fondness for using the "anti-Star Trek" label rather displays one of the more ridiculed ST clichés, time travel. Because outside of the idea someone is eternally trapped in the late 80s and very early 90s when ST was the only Sci-Fi gorilla throwing its weight around on tv, and did need the challenge because being an only gorilla can make you complacent, I don't see how this kind of thing could make the bashers feel like members of a plucky creative minority. As I said, today everybody and their dog is using the label. Show me the new Sci-Fi show that actually is praised for being "like Star Trek" (and not with that condescending addendum that it's like TOS with better GCI) instead of being praised for being unlike and anti.
Now, let's take a look at some of the so-called "anti Treks". They're all pretty different from each other, which is one of the many reasons to treasure them - originality. However, if you want to use the "anti" label not to indicate "better than" but "has structural and or narrative qualities that are just the opposite of the qualities displayed in...", which is absolutely valid, Star Trek is usually not the comparison I'd choose. I'd probably pick it for just one example, Blake's 7, a show that got produced and broadcast in the late 70s, when there was only one incarnation of Trek known to men (and women; and aliens of third genders, and Q). The Federation in B7 is an Orwellian dictatorship (which happens to have the same insignia the Trek Federation does, turned 70 degrees, and you can't tell me they didn't do that deliberately), the original leading man starts the show brainwashed and broken and successfully framed for child molestation (that kind of stuff never happened to Kirk; it wasn't until Locutus of Borg that it did to a ST lead), the equivalent of the science officer is no ethical Vulcan or for that matter a Han Solo type cynic with a heart of gold but an actual cynic and embezzler who later on will be ready to kill the narrative equivalent of McCoy for his own survival, and while our heroes score some early victories against the dictatorship, the dystopia they live in is so persuasive that you don't really believe they will ever succeed in the goal stated by the lead at the beginning, a free galaxy... and that's before things start to go seriously to hell and the crew starts getting killed off. Above all, B7 is as English as the original ST is American. Not being either, I like both, but they strike me as very, very opposite.
As for the other shows, however: if you want to compare and contrast in terms of opposite qualities, you get far more results when putting them against each other than out of putting either against Star Trek. B5 and DS9 have more in common than they differ in. Farscape is really a special case because John Crichton arrives in his strange new world sans sidekicks or other human personel or environment, which makes him the alien, and that's not really happening in any of the other shows (though the "living ship with crew of escaped criminals" is true for B7 as well, and in its early first season when the Moya inhabitants don't really like each other all that much, there is a B7 feeling at times). As andrastewhite once said to me, if Farscape is the anti-anything in that sense, it's the anti Babylon 5, not the anti-Star Trek. B5 has that tightly organized, still unsurpassed five-years-arc and subarcs for the entire ensemble that allow for crucial characters never to meet each other because as important as their individual stories are for the overall B5 narrative, they don't have anything to do with each other. (Examples of this would be the telepath subarc and Bester on the one hand and the Centauri arc and Londo on the other, or the Minbari arc and Neroon on the one hand and the Narn/Centauri war and G'Kar on the other.) The various alien societies are given their own political stories. Meanwhile, on Farscape, you have continuity, but you get the feeling a lot of it developed more or less via accident (for example, one of the most crucial Farscape elements in the entire show, the chip Scorpius implanted in John Crichton's brain, was something the writers according to their own commentaries didn't come up with until they saw the dailies of the episode Crackers's Don't Matter of Crichton hallucinating Scorpius and were hit by a brainwave). While there is an ensemble of characters, there is a strong, at times overwhelming focus on our leading man, John Crichton, and leading lady, Aeryn Sun. We get to know about the alien societies and their politics only in as much as they impact on our leading couple. For example, the Nebari and their "cleansing" ways are introduced but only really represented in two or so episodes; if this were the type of show B5 is, Chiana and her brother would have gotten their own arc, no matter whether or not it impacted Crichton. Most of all, Farscape has anarchy in motion and an emotional and narrative wildness that is as unrivalled as is B5's tight structure. There is no idea so crazy, no trauma so horrible, that the writers won't go through with it. Which leaves a narrative mess at times, but oh, what a glorious mess.
Back to the start, though, and Star Trek, which was the start of so many things: naturally one can critisize each of the shows. And though I love two of them dearly and am fond of two more, I'm glad there won't be a new one right now, because decades of writing can exhaust anyone, and if there is to be a new ST show, I want something I haven't seen before, which is best given by new, unexhausted people at the helm. But the Star Trek we already have is diverse enough within itself, and offers enough interesting characters, episodes, and storylines that to dismiss it out of hand because it's fashionable means one deprives oneself of some excellent entertainment. And if you've watched some of the non-Trek shows first and are interested in narrative growth, or how one can spot seeds for later shows and other characters in earlier incarnations? Check out some Star Trek. If you find you can't stand any incarnation of it, fine. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the Vulcans say. Just don't go the cheap way of praising some of my other shows at the expense of my older ones.