Star Trek (spoilers are likely)

[masako]

For what it's worth, I think Discovery has gotten steadily better each season, with the 3rd and latest being the absolute best.

I think the Mandalorian shows that being true to aesthetic and style makes a show like this more successful, not less, and for that reason, I do really wish that Discovery hadn't been so hellbent on revising what Star Trek should look like. But at least now that they are a 1000 years further into the future, they're free from the shackles of visual canon and really can get away with imagining a whole new future.

For anyone who hasn't yet started Discovery, you may just want to start with season 3, to be honest. At least Discovery has been true to one Star Trek tradition, which is that the first two seasons are always the worst of each series.

You and I clearly have differing definitions of "good", and "better". They've effectively made it a show about Michael Burnham (her character is almost the epitome of a Mary Sue), and not about the Federation, or Starfleet. Every. Single. Episode. She is in over 90% of the scenes, and apparently cannot go more than a few minutes without a good cry, or defying all laws of physics. This doesn't even begin to touch on the virtue signaling that *is* the entire series. The push to the future only cripples other potential series that might have been set in the interval between Picard and the timeline DISCO is now in...there is an expiration date on the Federation...an entire century where space travel regresses to almost Viking age scarcity...and the idea that it's all caused by some ONE kid having a tantrum...That's what you call good/better? Holy crap, it's bad...so bad.

If anyone who reads this has been enjoying DISCO, I say go for it, but to me, it's quite possibly the worse Trek made to date. I'd rather watch the first season of TOS on constant repeat - complete with late 60's era commercials - for an entire year than be subject to the travesty that is DISCO.

[rotting bones]

I don't know, I haven't seen TOS in years. I think it was a rare event, which made it memorable.

In that era, shows were supposed to be standalone, so they could be seen or shown in any order. That's why nothing really permanent could happen.

Where I think you're mistaken is the idea that writers resisted or disliked Spock's emotionlessness. As I noted, it's an old trope. It's also a complement to McCoy's very human emotions. But more than that, writers like challenges.

I really wanted to find stories of stoic Vulcans succeeding at instrumental rationality. What I saw instead is that the episodes where Spock doesn't become emotional are the ones where he isn't the focus of the story. The only exception I can remember offhand is the one where Spock becomes a target of racism. (Edit: I would say speciesism, but humans and Vulcans are interfertile, etc.) Maybe the weekly format created an impression of long gaps separating his lapses?

But I could be wrong about everything. I might have become a serious Star Trek fan if I had watched it at a young age. Unfortunately, my parents didn't get cable TV so I could focus on my studies.

If Trekkies are reading this:

1. Do you disagree that the writers hate Vulcans? If so, please send me recommendations of stories about Vulcans being gloriously stoic and succeeding at instrumental rationality. If you doubt my dedication to Surak, I own an offline grammar of Golic Vulcan. That I bought. Using money. Even though I didn't have to.

2. Do you agree that the writers hate Vulcans? If so, do you agree that the script seems to treat heightening the drama as their raison d'etre? Some of the examples I gave are specific to Spock. Having Vulcans be repeatedly wrong is another commonly employed tactic. IIRC they sometimes even made Vulcans who were not half-human cry on screen.

Edit: In your recommendation, the Vulcan doesn't strictly have to be THE focus of the story. Even being A focus of the story will do.

[Creyeditor]

If anyone who reads this has been enjoying DISCO, I say go for it, but to me, it's quite possibly the worse Trek made to date. I'd rather watch the first season of TOS on constant repeat - complete with late 60's era commercials - for an entire year than be subject to the travesty that is DISCO.

I heard someone say that Discovery is just fantasy in space, and I thought maybe that's why I enjoy it.

[alice]

L. Ron Hubbard persuaded his followers that Star Trek was truth, not fiction.

[Ares Land]

The amusing bit about Vulcan philosophy is that there's nothing alien about it. Reason controlling passions is really a very straightforward idea in Western philosophy.

For a positive portrayal of Vulcan philosophy, I'd suggest, again, the Undiscovered Country. Spock doesn't really break character and his rational attitude to the whole affair (including mind probing his protégé, which seems a rather unpleasant experience for both) saves the day. He takes on a Sherlock Holmes role in that movie; Holmes being another example of a cold rational character in fiction.

[So Haleza Grise]

I watched Discovery mainly for the tlhIngan Hol, pretty much biting my tongue during the rest of it, and then in season 2 they dialled back that aspect of it!

I used to be quite deep into Trek - it was a big influence on my early conlanging. The discovery of Klingon amazed me when I was young and impressionable.

These days, however, I spend my time mostly getting annoyed in equal parts at the clumsy attempts to reboot the franchise, and at the fan community who complain how bad it was compared to TNG and DS9 - most of TNG, looked at with a fair eye, was dreadful and the principle selling point of DS9 is that it managed to avoid a lot of the dopiest parts of TNG (presumably through cribbing off Babylon 5, although I haven't watched that). It blows my mind that people like Brannon Braga were ever given control! And it always annoys me that The Klingon Dictionary was just sitting there the whole time but most of the time most of the writers could never be bothered using it properly.

I still enjoy the original series cast films, that's about it. Maybe it's just a reflection of my age and what I was exposed to first, but to me Trek make more sense as a movie franchise than a TV show that has to come up with gripping storylines every week. But then, by the end, the movies were clearly about the cast having ego trips - and you can see that again in say, Picard.

Trent Pehrson has apparently created a canonical Romulan language, though I'm very sad thinking that we most likely will never get to see the grammar, or much about it.

I LOVED Discovery's redesigned Klingons, so of course that's an aspect they toned down. About the only other nice thing I can say about it is that they realise camp has to be a big part of a modern Trek show; and they did try to overcome some of the show's legacy of homophobia. But the writing is pretty dreadful. I'm honestly glad to hear it gets better in season 3! But I don't know if I can be bothered.

[So Haleza Grise]

If Trekkies are reading this:

1. Do you disagree that the writers hate Vulcans? If so, please send me recommendations of stories about Vulcans being gloriously stoic and succeeding at instrumental rationality. If you doubt my dedication to Surak, I own an offline grammar of Golic Vulcan. That I bought. Using money. Even though I didn't have to.

2. Do you agree that the writers hate Vulcans? If so, do you agree that the script seems to treat heightening the drama as their raison d'etre? Some of the examples I gave are specific to Spock. Having Vulcans be repeatedly wrong is another commonly employed tactic. IIRC they sometimes even made Vulcans who were not half-human cry on screen.

Edit: In your recommendation, the Vulcan doesn't strictly have to be THE focus of the story. Even being A focus of the story will do.

I don't really count myself as a Trekkie but my comments are broadly that the problem with your assertion is that the Vulcans are what the writers and creators of the show need them to be. Sometimes they're helpful "older brothers" who may not grok human emotion but are still well-meaning tutors on the road to future "federation" (read: human) greatness, a bit like the Greeks towards the Romans or the Brits towards the Americans (in their own minds). For a tiny example of that, see them at the end of First Contact, or the character of Sarek more broadly.

Sometimes they are arrogant and xenophobic thanks to their old (hidebound and decidedly non-rational!) culture and their inability to understand human ways. The Zachary Quinto Spock is a reflection of this - his poor treatment as a child, and also his arrogant attitude towards Kirk.

I'd argue that Spock's whole underpinning as a character - his being torn between human and Vulcan halves - wouldn't work if the writers had too strong a contempt for the "Vulcan" side, whatever that may be. It had to be appealing on at least some level for there to be a dramatic conflict at all.

Most of the time, as a character, Spock is basically treated sympathetically, even as his non-emotionness is played for laughs in the show: but so is Kirk's skirt-chasing! So is McCoy's orneriness!

The Vulcan behaviour in the "Vulcan Hello" - their logical reading of the prisoner's dilemma requiring them to fire first on Klingons - is a rare example of the writers taking the notion of "instrumental rationality" as part of Vulcan character seriously. It felt "out of character" because the Vulcans mostly are stiff-upper-lip WASP or British-as-viewed-by-Americans types, not people whose commitment to "logic" you're meant to read too seriously.

The show is human-chauvinist sure! Watch the Worf Gets Shot Down compilation for a somewhat similar example where what Worf represents - aggressive action - is rejected as a way of showing off how much better the "rational" humans are at doing things. Everything in Vulcan culture in the show is about "heightening the drama" - same is true of Klingon, Romulans, Ferengi, etc. It's only in books and other materials that aren't designed around one-hour shows, with more freedom to worldbuild, that you see more depth. And I don't think the authors of that material hate doing it, they like creating the contrast and exploring it.

[vegfarandi]

For what it's worth, I think Discovery has gotten steadily better each season, with the 3rd and latest being the absolute best.

I think the Mandalorian shows that being true to aesthetic and style makes a show like this more successful, not less, and for that reason, I do really wish that Discovery hadn't been so hellbent on revising what Star Trek should look like. But at least now that they are a 1000 years further into the future, they're free from the shackles of visual canon and really can get away with imagining a whole new future.

For anyone who hasn't yet started Discovery, you may just want to start with season 3, to be honest. At least Discovery has been true to one Star Trek tradition, which is that the first two seasons are always the worst of each series.

You and I clearly have differing definitions of "good", and "better". They've effectively made it a show about Michael Burnham (her character is almost the epitome of a Mary Sue), and not about the Federation, or Starfleet. Every. Single. Episode. She is in over 90% of the scenes, and apparently cannot go more than a few minutes without a good cry, or defying all laws of physics. This doesn't even begin to touch on the virtue signaling that *is* the entire series. The push to the future only cripples other potential series that might have been set in the interval between Picard and the timeline DISCO is now in...there is an expiration date on the Federation...an entire century where space travel regresses to almost Viking age scarcity...and the idea that it's all caused by some ONE kid having a tantrum...That's what you call good/better? Holy crap, it's bad...so bad.

If anyone who reads this has been enjoying DISCO, I say go for it, but to me, it's quite possibly the worse Trek made to date. I'd rather watch the first season of TOS on constant repeat - complete with late 60's era commercials - for an entire year than be subject to the travesty that is DISCO.

Well, the show has been about Michael Burnham from the start. The whole initial conceit of the show was to focus on not the captain and instead follow the career of a disgraced first officer. As the show has gone on, the secondary characters have gotten more to do, not less, so I disagree that it's more about Michael now than before. I think the opposite is true. Not sure what you mean by virtue signaling and I think I prefer not to know.

I think the fact that Discovery season 4 is essentially set 800 years after the events of Picard limits how much pressure they put on Picard. Especially since there's The Burn in between which resets all expectations and assumptions. So I wouldn't worry too much about potential 24th/25th century stories.

Personally, I'd be very curious to see the alternate version where Les Moonves did not fire Bryan Fuller as showrunner and how the show would have turned out different. My guess is, the show went in quite a different direction than Fuller envisioned which was going to be Klingon-war focused. From what I can tell, only the first three episodes of season 1 align with Fuller's original vision for the show.

Anyway, I liked a lot about Picard, I liked some aspects of Lower Decks, and I'm very curious and excited to see what happens with Strange New Worlds. I'm glad there's Star Trek in the world. Is it how I would do it? No. But has Star Trek ever really been? I remember me and my uncle discussing heatedly about how to better do Voyager back in the 90s. But I still loved it. I can't say I "love" Discovery, but it keeps me entertained and intrigued enough.

[rotting bones]

The amusing bit about Vulcan philosophy is that there's nothing alien about it. Reason controlling passions is really a very straightforward idea in Western philosophy.

Stoic virtue was popular among Western elites all the way down to modern times, but it was not for commoners. In the Middle Ages, one method to detect a witch was to see if a woman wouldn't cry at Christ's Passion. Excessive rationality in spiritual matters was also associated with Judaism, and we all know that's bad because Jews didn't control powerful kingdoms.

(Unrelatedly, unemotionalism was popular in Indian philosophy too.)

For a positive portrayal of Vulcan philosophy, I'd suggest, again, the Undiscovered Country. Spock doesn't really break character and his rational attitude to the whole affair (including mind probing his protégé, which seems a rather unpleasant experience for both) saves the day.

Thanks for the recommendation. I think Nemesis is the only Star Trek film I had seen before. I liked The Undiscovered Country, campy writing and all. (Personally, I see sophistication as an exploration of the territory corresponding to the existential tension between different kitschy possibilities.) However, I have some questions about the plot. Eg. I don't understand the central conceit that finding the gravity boots aboard the Enterprise is evidence of a second ship. If there was a second ship nearby, why not simply keep the gravity boots there? In fact, if a second ship was involved, why couldn't their crew have altered the databanks and left? For the same reason, I don't understand why Spock says finding Klingon blood next to the transporters is evidence that corroborates their theory. Since the assassins had transporter access, couldn't they simply jettison the boots outside the ship? If phasers on stun don't set off alarms, couldn't that have been used to turn the boots to sludge? ...

The plot does frame Kirk's rescue as a result of his crew "having feelings", but all I wanted is a story focused on a character succeeding through unemotional analysis. I'll take it.

He takes on a Sherlock Holmes role in that movie; Holmes being another example of a cold rational character in fiction.

Good point. The detective story is a genre where analytical skill is traditionally applied. I was hoping to see Vulcans extend it to other walks of life.

Also, Sherlock Holmes isn't even a little bit stoic. He's like a coiled spring. (Edit: Basically, he has the personality of a hunter. And a deerstalker cap to match it. See, for example, how bitterly disappointed he was at the end of that novel where he poisons Watson's dying dog.) IIRC he hated Germans because he thought being nonathletic had ruinous effects on their character. Holmes is also more of a superhero with mad science powers than a man of science, but I'm willing to overlook that.

[rotting bones]

Most of the time, as a character, Spock is basically treated sympathetically, even as his non-emotionness is played for laughs in the show: but so is Kirk's skirt-chasing! So is McCoy's orneriness!

I agree. I was offering an explanation for what Raphael called the writers' hostility towards Vulcans. I don't think they were really hostile; they were just heightening the drama.

Thanks for your examples. I'll check them out.

[rotting bones]

It's only in books and other materials that aren't designed around one-hour shows, with more freedom to worldbuild, that you see more depth.

I'm getting lost. I would appreciate it if you could name the specific titles you're thinking of, if you remember what they were.

[Ares Land]

However, I have some questions about the plot. Eg. I don't understand the central conceit that finding the gravity boots aboard the Enterprise is evidence of a second ship. If there was a second ship nearby, why not simply keep the gravity boots there? In fact, if a second ship was involved, why couldn't their crew have altered the databanks and left? For the same reason, I don't understand why Spock says finding Klingon blood next to the transporters is evidence that corroborates their theory. Since the assassins had transporter access, couldn't they simply jettison the boots outside the ship? If phasers on stun don't set off alarms, couldn't that have been used to turn the boots to sludge? ...

I haven't watched the movie in a while, but I think the boots were meant to be a stupid mistake on the plotters' part, with a bad cover-up? (I think they were hidden in weird feet guy's cabin?)

[Raphael]

For the record, when I wrote that I have the impression that Star Trek writers are often hostile towards Vulcans, I was mainly thinking of 1990s and 2000s Trek, not TOS. rotting bones's idea that it's because drama relies on emotions makes some sense, though.

[rotting bones]

I haven't watched the movie in a while, but I think the boots were meant to be a stupid mistake on the plotters' part, with a bad cover-up? (I think they were hidden in weird feet guy's cabin?)

IIRC Spock's theory is that if the Enterprise fired the torpedos, then the killers are aboard the Enterprise. If it did not, the saboteurs who altered the databanks are aboard the Enterprise. Therefore, if they find a pair of gravity boots aboard the Enterprise, that proves the torpedos were fired by a second ship. The assassins had to have brought the boots aboard the Enterprise, and they had no means to dispose of them.

I still don't understand this theory.

For the record, when I wrote that I have the impression that Star Trek writers are often hostile towards Vulcans, I was mainly thinking of 1990s and 2000s Trek, not TOS. rotting bones's idea that it's because drama relies on emotions makes some sense, though.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Star Trek writers keep saying that having Vulcans show emotion makes the show more "interesting", whatever that means. Personally, I don't think good writing needs to rely on emotion.

IIRC he hated Germans because he thought being nonathletic had ruinous effects on their character. Holmes is also more of a superhero with mad science powers than a man of science, but I'm willing to overlook that.

Using athletics as a replacement for reasoning would be incompatible with stoicism, but on second thought, I don't think that's what Sherlock Holmes was proposing. I'm not sure just disapproving of nonathleticism is incompatible with stoicism. Holmes still has a non-stoic, predatory personality though.

Thoughts?

Edit: On the other hand, he did seem to think of character as being molded primarily by irrational factors like athleticism. Maybe that's un-stoic all by itself.

[Torco]

I don't think the writers hate the vulcans, but this is television we're talking about. episodes, you know, with quick, snappy stories. and each one of those episodes has to have a bunch of quick, snappy beats that weave together thematically on top of making sense (this is I guess just how tv is written now). And as if that wasn't enough of a job, each bet as to also have an emotional point to it: it has to be sad, or epic, or poignant, or wistfully melancholic, or, man something. what am I gonna tell the composer to write for a scene if you don't tell me what's the point of it? It's just easy to tap that old "not so rational now, vulcan, are we?" angle. this is, at this point, star trek tradition, I think. succintly put,

Personally, I don't think good writing needs to rely on emotion.

is true, but less true in television.

I thought Discovery was fine. nothing to write home about, but a nice millenial (as far as that goes) spin on the old formula. Much better than the lens flare movies. I agree that the writing is sometimes terrible but, I mean, this is true of the whole of star trek. it's part of its kitschy charm. I foretell that in 20 years the people that are watching those ones as kids will remember both Picard and Discovery as fondly as we in our thirties remember, say, TNG or Voyager.

This is unrelated to the thread, other than being about starwars, but I was watching the new trek thing, Picard, and in one scene I became convinced that a romulan woman speaking in romulan said something that suggested romulan is at least verb final in the kinds of phrases german is verb-final (I've since been disabused of the notion thanks to a quick google lookup of romulan syntax, the future is now old man). Also, isn't it cool that Riker's kid is canonically a conworlder? I enjoyed that little nod.

Anyway, I got this idea of the romulans being german, and maybe the dutch being the vulcans or something. There are parallels, like the romulans have stealth ships (invisible ships, u-boats anybody?), there being good germans and bad germans (the vulcans and romulans are, as I understand it, the same species, weren't they?). is this like a ridiculous notion? it feels like it could be a fan theory I picked up somehwere, you know, unconsciously, but I googled star trek is ww2 and I got zilch.

[Ares Land]

I think I owe it to my 12-year old self to watch at least a bit of TNG.

Would I lose a lot by skipping the first season though? Is there any better point I could start with?

(I watched a few episodes... but the amount of cheesiness is a bit too much to handle. Apparently it gets better later on though?)

(EDIT: to be fair, I watched another S1 episode over lunch, and you know, it was really well-written and I enjoyed it a lot.)

[Raphael]

I think I owe it to my 12-year old self to watch at least a bit of TNG.

Would I lose a lot by skipping the first season though? Is there any better point I could start with?

(I watched a few episodes... but the amount of cheesiness is a bit too much to handle. Apparently it gets better later on though?)

(EDIT: to be fair, I watched another S1 episode over lunch, and you know, it was really well-written and I enjoyed it a lot.)

I'm doing some rewatching of my own at the moment, and I've found Keith R.A. DeCandido's rewatch over at Tor.com quite useful for deciding what to skip, though I don't always agree with his judgments:

https://www.tor.com/series/star-trek-th ... n-rewatch/

A personal observation: IMO, what Star Trek, or at least TNG, usually does best, when it's at its best, is to take an idea, and sort of explore that idea a bit, without caring to much about whether the basics of the idea actually make sense or not. In my experience, that's an issue even with the best episodes, and your attitude towards that approach might well determine how much or how little you enjoy TNG.

[zyxw59]

I've only watched season 1 plus random assorted episodes of TNG, and I think the "watch random episodes when they're on" method of watching it is a lot more enjoyable than the "watch the whole series in sequence" method. It's very episodic (especially compared to the more recent shows), so apart from a few multi-episode arcs, you don't miss a ton by skipping around, and IMO it can kinda drag on watching the whole thing in order.

[Ares Land]

Ah, thank you both.

I seem to agree quite a bit with DeCandido's reviews so far, so thanks for the link.

A personal observation: IMO, what Star Trek, or at least TNG, usually does best, when it's at its best, is to take an idea, and sort of explore that idea a bit, without caring to much about whether the basics of the idea actually make sense or not. In my experience, that's an issue even with the best episodes, and your attitude towards that approach might well determine how much or how little you enjoy TNG.

No, I don't mind if the ideas don't really make sense. Star Trek is at least kind of over the top about it in an enjoyable way.
I don't think Trek is really worse than most SF in that respect, and that includes hard SF. (I approve of hard SF in principle but I'm seldom convinced. If you really want to, you can check my long rant on the Expanse over in the Random thread)
I should add that the writers seem to be paying attention to the soft science. On one episode, the resolution depended on a bit of actual anthropology and that was fairly clever. (Okay, the anthropology bit was underdeveloped, and it was embarassingly racist and sexist... but still.)
It's mostly the bouts of bad acting and bad writing I object to. (Case in point: the Ferengi.)

[Man in Space]

I got my officially-licensed tri-dimensional chess set yesterday. It looks super cool.