I mostly agree, but with shows like Starfleet Academy, the writing is bad in part because of the forced inclusive themes. You’re broadly correct: these could be handled with tact for a better show. I still think these themes are handled best when they give the audience room to consider nuanced and complex ideas. Don’t shoot me, but instead of a classic New Generation episode I’m going cite an episode of The Orville - “About a Girl”. Bortus and Klyden have a baby, who is born female. They try to argue that she should be allowed to remain female, but ultimately the court rules that she undergo the Moclan gender reassignment procedure.
This touches on contemporary issues but also doesn’t present the situation as “this side is 100% right, and this side is literally Hitler.” The audience is actually left wondering, where does this sit in the contemporary debate? If a child is born one sex, should they be given the right to remain as that sex? Or should a court be allowed to step in and reassign sex? The episode also brilliantly explores the difficult dynamic between Bortus and Klyden, and doesn’t portray one as a cartoon villain and the other as a male Mary Sue.
This is where New Trek fails horrible. Zero nuance. Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.” That’s not Star Trek. Most importantly, that’s not interesting. It’s not good storytelling. It might appeal to people who really like circlejerking about that particular issue, but that’s a minority of people.
A specific example would be “Vox in Excelso.” Jay-Den learns the Klingons have become an endangered people after the Burn, General Obel Wochak rejects the Federation’s offer of asylum on Faan Alpha because accepting it as charity would dishonour them, and the episode resolves that by staging a fake battle so the Klingons can claim the planet “by conquest”. To me, that lands too neatly. The episode tells you very quickly that the Federation position is the sensible one and the Klingon objection is mostly pride that needs to be worked around, rather than really sitting with the possibility that their view of dignity, sovereignty, and survival might have more weight than the script gives it.
Another example is “Ko’Zeine.” Darem is pulled back to Khionia for an arranged royal marriage to Kaira, and the episode is clearly building toward the conclusion that suppressing your real self for duty and tradition is tragic and wrong. That is a fair theme, but the show signals the moral endpoint so early that there is not much room left for genuine ambiguity. Kaira ends up being understanding, Jay-Den is framed as the voice urging honesty, and the traditional path mainly exists to be rejected. Compare that with something like older Trek, where you were more often left to wrestle with whether duty, culture, and individual freedom could all make a legitimate claim on the character at the same time.
So when I say the show lacks nuance, I do not mean it should avoid these themes. I mean it too often starts from the answer and then builds the episode backwards, instead of letting the conflict stay uncomfortable long enough for the audience to think. And when the story concludes, they make it VERY clear which way the audience is expected to land. They do not allow for any ambiguity or moral disagreement. They present the “right and true” path, and make it clear that any deviation is wrong and immoral.
I mostly agree, but with shows like Starfleet Academy, the writing is bad in part because of the forced inclusive themes. You’re broadly correct: these could be handled with tact for a better show. I still think these themes are handled best when they give the audience room to consider nuanced and complex ideas. Don’t shoot me, but instead of a classic New Generation episode I’m going cite an episode of The Orville - “About a Girl”. Bortus and Klyden have a baby, who is born female. They try to argue that she should be allowed to remain female, but ultimately the court rules that she undergo the Moclan gender reassignment procedure.
This touches on contemporary issues but also doesn’t present the situation as “this side is 100% right, and this side is literally Hitler.” The audience is actually left wondering, where does this sit in the contemporary debate? If a child is born one sex, should they be given the right to remain as that sex? Or should a court be allowed to step in and reassign sex? The episode also brilliantly explores the difficult dynamic between Bortus and Klyden, and doesn’t portray one as a cartoon villain and the other as a male Mary Sue.
This is where New Trek fails horrible. Zero nuance. Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.” That’s not Star Trek. Most importantly, that’s not interesting. It’s not good storytelling. It might appeal to people who really like circlejerking about that particular issue, but that’s a minority of people.
Can you give me a practical example of Starfleet Academy lacking the kind of nuance you would like to see?
A specific example would be “Vox in Excelso.” Jay-Den learns the Klingons have become an endangered people after the Burn, General Obel Wochak rejects the Federation’s offer of asylum on Faan Alpha because accepting it as charity would dishonour them, and the episode resolves that by staging a fake battle so the Klingons can claim the planet “by conquest”. To me, that lands too neatly. The episode tells you very quickly that the Federation position is the sensible one and the Klingon objection is mostly pride that needs to be worked around, rather than really sitting with the possibility that their view of dignity, sovereignty, and survival might have more weight than the script gives it.
Another example is “Ko’Zeine.” Darem is pulled back to Khionia for an arranged royal marriage to Kaira, and the episode is clearly building toward the conclusion that suppressing your real self for duty and tradition is tragic and wrong. That is a fair theme, but the show signals the moral endpoint so early that there is not much room left for genuine ambiguity. Kaira ends up being understanding, Jay-Den is framed as the voice urging honesty, and the traditional path mainly exists to be rejected. Compare that with something like older Trek, where you were more often left to wrestle with whether duty, culture, and individual freedom could all make a legitimate claim on the character at the same time.
So when I say the show lacks nuance, I do not mean it should avoid these themes. I mean it too often starts from the answer and then builds the episode backwards, instead of letting the conflict stay uncomfortable long enough for the audience to think. And when the story concludes, they make it VERY clear which way the audience is expected to land. They do not allow for any ambiguity or moral disagreement. They present the “right and true” path, and make it clear that any deviation is wrong and immoral.