I’ll take more workplace comedy with Tawny Newsome.
Lower Decks was the best of the newer Trek series and her podcast had been a real hoot. It was fun seeing her in the Lower Decks x Strange New Worlds crossover, so I bet she’ll do well in a series.
It would be cool to see more SNW, too.
Edit: reminder that paramount is owned by a right wing oligarch who is actively trying to control our media and destroy our democracy so don’t pay them a fucking cent!
She’s writing for Academy, and was cast in one (excellent) episode of Academy as a character who seems quite likely to occasionally recur, btw.
I really would love Kurtzman to fuck the fuck off at this point.
He has never understood Star Trek at its core. The intricacies and nuances that never should have been messed with; and the superfluous excesses that could be. This is obvious in so many ways. But none more than how he has pushed the narrative in lazy directions repeatedly; yet consistently these were shown not to work. It took him the entire run of discovery to learn this lesson! And even then, never completely.
It has only been relatively recently, when the shows have embraced Trek’s historical strengths in order to create a new vision, that shows have started to truly excel and grab both fans and public attention. But even then, there’s a lack of bold vision and gut. These shows are timid when it comes to exploring ethics and philosophy in ways the 90s and 60s shows never were for their time.
For me, I think fundamentally it speaks to a dumbing down of story telling. It speaks to a lowest common denominator prioritisation by shown runners. It speaks to networks who never take chances.
With Kurtzman it has seemed that each iteration had a predictable path involving a big threat that must be extinguished by the end of season. High stakes with extreme predictability. Because of this prioritisation, so often it felt like the characters served the story, rather than the other way around. That’s not how you get people to care for characters on a show.
Trek was never about this. Historical Trek was about exploring modern ethical dilemmas in a safe sci-fi environment first and foremost. Secondary to that it was about showing how human beings could exist in balance with each other and other species. We need this positive vision now more than ever and yet modern trek feels like a shadow of its former self. It feels too often like skin deep lip service. But, it is improving iteration to iteration.
So please Alex, fuck the fuck off and give some other splendid bastard a shot in the big chair. Unless Ellison intends to replace younwithba fascist. In which case I’m your biggest fan.
PS (and slight SFA spoilers): Did no one else briefly turn off starfleet academy after they tased Nus Braka, even though he was in court, unarmed and only mouthing off? I was outraged that SFA began in such a manner, it didn’t serve the plot, and was wholly unnecessary and disporportionate. It made no sense in the context of the rest of the season.
SFA then ended with a slap and punch to Nus’s face. The casual brutality bookended an otherwise great series. It was a baffling choice, unless it is viewed as being a means of desentising the audience to unnecessary violence from the state. Then it makes perfect sense. That, that is perhaps the thin end of the fascist wedge.
I thought the opening scenes were clearly there to show how the Federation had lost its way after the Burn - it had survived, but only barely - not wholly in body or in spirit. It is a shadow of its former self. Ake’s resignation and her reluctance to return to service were also ‘about’ this.
The redemptions of Ake and Caleb (and, to a smaller extent, many of the other characters) are only possible because the Federation is also redeeming itself. And both their and its redemption are fragile, precious things that require vigilance to sustain. That’s been a theme throughout the entire series.
For what it’s worth, I also found those opening court room scenes in SFA absolutely maddening. The whole scene made so little sense. Why was Caleb even in that room? Why did the Federation rip a child away from his mother like that anyway? Even if his mother was arrested, why did they go about it in the most trauma inducing way possible? If Nus is so dangerous, why was he just allowed to stand next to the person accusing him of abuse?
I feel like we already have solutions to so many of the issues in that opening scene alone in the backwards 21st century, why were we again struggling to solve them in the 32nd?
You’re absolutely right friend.
But I also think there’s an argument for exploring the effects of trauma in modern Trek.
As a modern society, we are so much more aware of how trauma is perpetuated today. But there’s also so much room for depth in that understanding. This is narrative fuel. It’s definitely a topic rich with potential for exploration within Trek. But it needs to go deep and remain clever. Psychologically and philosophically grounded.
But, this is where their line of inquiry seems to stop in the writers room. Instead of coming up with novel and unique ways to create traumatic situations for our characters, that don’t challenge and eventually break the universe these stories inhabit, and that delve deeply into the nature of trauma and its effects, we find our characters living in a quasi-utopia that speaks more to our time period and asks questions but gives no answers.
This utopia is one that I could imagine might have existed more in Archer’s time. But in the 3100’s is, even with the burn taken into account, unbelievable and disappointing.
This is where a show runner with a bit more awareness, intellect and gut could create more believable and novel scenarios for our characters.
What I wouldn’t give for Ronald D. Moore at the conn.
We’re going to need to differ on Ronald D. Moore.
I wish Trek fans would stop calling for him to helm the franchise when we have not seen adequate evidence that he can carry through to make the kind of Trek that represents IDIC for future.
What I am seeing from him is a pattern of starting great new shows but not having as great ideas about following through long multi season arcs.
The Battlestar Galactica reboot was riveting for the first two seasons and then spiralled to a disappointing conclusion.
For All Mankind spun out in seasons two and three with an Oedipal storyline about a kid who becomes obsessed with his foster mother and wreaks havoc. Not to mention that all the heroic women characters in from season one had to be shown to deeply flawed by season three in a very male-perspective way.
For All Mankind isn’t as bad in terms of having a cisgender-male viewpoint writing women leads as say the Sheridan show Lioness, but it’s not succeeding as a show women see themselves in.
I can’t comment on For All Mankind, I haven’t watched it yet, so I will take your word for it. I can only speak about what’s in my sphere of awareness, but it sounds like you’ve not had a good time with it.
I have to ask, did you not mean to level your criticism of BSG post season three, rather than post season two?
Three is arguably the best season of the series. It had so many highlights, from the devastation of New Caprica, to the climax at the end of the season that the series spent three seasons building towards. There’s so much to point towards in that season that was truly excellent sci-fi.
If you made a typo/mistake, and you actually meant post season three, I can understand your view point and completely agree that from then onwards it wasn’t quite the same. But where we differ is in regards to blame. I think you’re missing important context.
There was a writers guild strike at the end of season three, and it completely derailed the series from then onwards. In fact, it wasn’t the only series that suffered in such a fashion at that time. It’s worth having s read about it if you have the time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_the_2007–08_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike_on_television
I don’t think it’s just to lay this particular criticism at Ronald D. Moore’s feet.
I am also struggling to reconcile what you’ve said about his weak portrayal of women in For All Mankind when he did such an incredible job on BSG. If that’s the case I’m heartbroken.
The reason why I am so enamoured with the idea of an RDM helmed Trek is because Trek has shown consistently that it thrives when it leans more into standalone series over serialisation.
Its current hybrid approach is a strength that SNW and SFA has shown works. This is something I feel RDM has shown he can do excellently in the past. BSG was an excellent example of hybrid serialisation until the strike. And for his series work, his writing credits in TNG alone are exemplary:
“Yesterdays Enterprise” “Data’s Day” “Ethics” “Disaster” “Tapestry” “Sins of the Father” “The Pegasus” etc…
I’m going to say that I saw some of the problems to come in BSG season three, but I still bought the physical media up to that point.
I don’t think you can blame it all on the writers strike, any more than you can blame Picard season two or Discovery season four’s weaknesses on the pandemic.
Other shows managed better. It’s the test of a good senior production executive to manage through those situations.
I was deeply disappointed in where For All Mankind took its women characters. I was hoping that having Naren Shankar join after he finished with The Expanse would redeem it, but it just kept getting worse in its treatment of women.
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!a driven engineer who becomes the head in Houston only to fall into a honey-trap and feed the Soviets information!<
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!an astronaut who played up her physical beauty and whose top-gun husband became a despondent alcoholic when she leaves him responsible for the kids!<
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!an astronaut who hides her sexual preference through a fake marriage!<
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!the neglected wife of an astronaut who is stalked and manipulated into a one time sexual encounter with a young man she once looked after as a child, then carries the burden of responsibility for the impact of his obsession.!<
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I’ve given up. I didn’t finish Discovery. Got bored with SNW. Haven’t even seen any episodes of SA. I just don’t care about Star Trek any more. I’m not angry, just bored.
I too get bored with things I don’t even watch.
I saw enough to warrant walking away. Whatever Trek is, it’s not what it was. And what it has become is not for me.
Oddly mature of you in this day and age to recognize that instead of publish an hour long youtube rant on the topic
So, fuck Nerdrotic and all the other overtly anti-woke political gatekeepers with a following. They don’t care about story, they care about shoehorning their ideology into everything cultural. They’re culture warriors, not storytellers. But there are good ones out there. For example, I really like Steve Shives’ work, he’s focused on the storytelling and has been fair in his Trek criticisms (IMO). YouTube is a mixed bag, but there’s good stuff out there too.
It’s okay to take a break. Come back if you feel the itch.
I took a big Star Trek break after PIC S1 and came back to the franchise appreciating more than ever before.
OMG: Picard. I forgot about that show. I didn’t finish that one either.
I’ve liked Andor, Pluribus, and Severence. I honestly think the problem with Trek is Paramount execs. Kurtzman is just a symptom. He’s the figurehead to implement a policy of content by focus group. Never mind not knowing old trek or claims of pushing politics, the writers couldn’t write good material even if they wanted to because execs don’t care about that. They only want their target demographic.
Well, I have a much rosier view of new Trek than yours, but I feel the need to thank you for listing some genuinely good modern sci-fi as alternatives. So often in these discussions I just see “they should do what The Orville did,” like a TNG Xerox is an interesting or even viable way to propagate the franchise.
Pluribus in particular did a great job interrogating a threat essentially shared with a classic Trek villain from a refreshingly new perspective. Good recommendation.
For older stuff, I still think Farscape and the 2000s BSG remake still hold up too. I especially like the unreliable narrator thread in Farscape when Chriton had the brain implant. That was peak paranoia. Good stuff. The Expanse was good too.
I don’t think producers like JJ and Kurtzman are idiots. I think they have jobs. They know what their distributors want and give it to them. This is why they remain employed. They’re trusted by the money men. This, in contrast to actual geniuses like Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, John Carpenter, etc, who just want to make their visions come hell or high water.
For all I know, from a business standpoint Paramount execs might well be right. That is, chasing the youth market and hoping for a splash is the demo advertisers want. It’s their property, so good luck to them I guess.
I have a lot of respect for all the artists involved. The set and costume designers, vfx artists, grips and cinematography guys. They put a lot of work in and it visually shows. I hope they all get a good payday.
How about Lower Decks? I found them very satisfying.
I’ve never even made it through a single episode of LD. Just not my bag of tea.
I grew up to reruns of TOS. Watched TNG as it aired. Saw bits of DS9 and Voyager as it aired. And genuinely liked and watched Enterprise as it aired (one of a few).
I did not like JJ’s NuTrek nor the post NuTrek TV shows. I really wanted to like Discovery, because I wanted serial Trek. I think episodic television is boring. But it didn’t work for me. Too many plot holes, tone swings, and internal contradictions. Never mind not respecting Trek cannon, it didn’t even respect its own plot setups.
Like NuTrek, it eschews coherence for flashy action in the moment. It’s like Luc Besson’s Du Look French film movement from the late 80s. All style, no substance.
They are in the middle of — it’s not just drinking from one firehose, there’s probably ten thousand hoses. And so everything is just happening slower as a result of this massive time of transition. And that is not exclusive to Star Trek.
As a corporate drone I see this as an absolute win.
The odds are near their highest that Academy will be rubberstamped simply because it passes a triage check and they’re too busy to bikeshed the details.
I am absolutely okay with Star Trek being just one of many franchises they’re managing, and not the largest or most prominent.
In the case of SFA, I do think they’ll be looking closely at the demographics - are they actually reaching the younger audience they were hoping to reach? I think that’s far more important than “was it a top 10 show” or whatever other limited metrics are available to us.
Even many of the perpetual doomsayers on other platforms are bending to acknowledge that SFA is tenaciously sticking at a rank of #1 or 2 on Amazon Channels.
It’s sinking in that SFA is pulling viewers but not Paramount+’s existing demographic — which means that it’s achieving what it was designed to do.
This is hugely important, and good to hear it’s going that way. As established Trek viewership enters our “extinction period” (ie., middle age and beyond), it’s super important that the show reaches new demographics.
SFA definitely bobs up in rank on Thursday/Friday/Saturday and falls off the rest of the week, but the interest shown on Amazon Channels is consistent across many countries, and not just in the United States.
Paramount will have the hard and detailed viewership data to make decisions — not just US-based brigading on social media aggregators.
I’ve also given up on the franchise. We’ve had our TNG, DS9 and VOY, but enough is enough. We’ve had a good run. I’ve only watched the new stuff because of the Star Trek branding, but it sure didn’t feel like Trek. Except for SNW (which respects the old formula for the most part) and LD (which is just meta humour that non-trekkies wouldn’t enjoy), the newer series were just mediocre sci-fi at best. It’s tiring and every time I put on a new episode I feel like I’d rather be doing something else. It feels like trying to give a crap about all the pokemon that came after the original 151.
Damn dude you picked a bad time to give up.
I’m trying to find a way to reconcile some of Rod Roddenberry’s recent social media statements with the positives in interviews with from Kurtzman and Osunsamni.
Rod Roddenberry has not critiqued Secret Hideout but has talked about how there is potential for more positive Star Trek that fulfills his father’s concept of modeling a utopian society.
So, clearly Roddenberry Entertainment is pressing for some strategic influence in future shows.
That said, it makes one wonder how much strategic direction for darker peak television may have come from the highest levels at CBS and Paramount…
