Everyone on star trek has anxiety, panic attacks, ptsd and imposter syndrome now. It is too much!
Barclay was OK. (In TNG.) He had his episodes but they were interesting because of the juxtaposition against the others.
Like >60% of plot & characters are now about anxiety and mental (un)health. It is individuated vs collective.
I also deeply resent the attempt to create equivalency between AI and LGBT people.
No wonder people hate woke.
TOS was so good that those most vile of groups—network executives and the average USian—rejected it. Commercial success is not the sole arbitrator of quality.
In terms of actual qualitative differences, I’ve got three off the top of my head: TOS has less/no blood; TOS embraces rather than rejects sillyness; TOS is low stakes episodic
In terms of wokeness, i am annoyed that TNG and DS9 arent woker, tbh. For its time TOS was extremely progressive in terms of casting. TNG is about the same as TOS (if anything, slightly worse; theres more POC side characters in TOS) but 30 years later so it feels like no progress has been made.
If it were as progressive relative to other 90s shows as TOS was in the 60s, TNG would have openly queer or autistic characters instead of trying to use robots and aliens as standins
wrt ds9, Avery Brooks (Sisko) apparently had some real knock down fights advocating for what he saw as good representation of Black people in the future. He doesn’t really seem to discuss anything about it in public. Which is a significant sacrifice when you consider how being on trek even for a single episode provides life long income at conventions and such. He has forfeited all that.
As just one example, the whole thing nearly came crashing down when he decided he was going to change looks to shaved head and goatee. Execs thought he was too badass looking for a black guy and wanted the softer look of the first season. Brooks wouldn’t back down and he won the conflict.
The commercial success just never happened until syndication. You can blame the execs if you want, completely agree they’re vile, but there was no commercial success.
Hard to disagree with your characterization of TOS though the movies especially 6 dropped it. And the first two weren’t really carried over into golden age trek.
In terms of comparing TOS to TNG, I agree with what you’re saying but I think since in the 60s the bar was in hell for network TV, you had episodes on TOS like turnabout intruder or, let that be your last battlefield where the message is “maybe black people aren’t completely to blame for racism against them”. I think TNG does better even if it has one of the most racist episodes in the history of television in early Season 1.
wait you’re down on let that be your last battlefield? that’s wild. the message is racism is stupid and it’s kindof amazing it was allowed to air back then.
If you pay attention to the script the black stand in was blamed just as much for racism as the white stand in. It was incredible for the 1960s but has aged terribly.
sure but i don’t expect progressive media to stay progressive. the point of trying to teach the audience a lesson is that they don’t need the lesson anymore.
it’s like that Proudhon quote. (and we look back on his bigotry negatively, so he almost got what he wanted)
Right but claiming black people were half responsible for racism was fucked up in the 60s just as it is now. Just less people recognized it. So it’s a good episode that’s fucking painful to wach.
May I interject that there is an Ep of STE aired in 2003 (North Star) which much more blatantly presents such a situation. It is a planet which is aesthetically deep south (19th C) but has a 20th C deep south jim crow situation. But instead of black people, there are aliens (“Skagarans”). The reason jim crow exists is because the aliens tried to enslave the humans (who are all white IIRC), but the humans (due to their inherent freedom lovingness) revolted and created jim crow as as safety measure to control the aliens.
I personally think it is the worst most racist star trek episode ever, and yes I am including that TNG S01 ep where tasha fights the other woman to the death. This one is so much more racist because it poses that white supremacy was created with the pursuit of justice as part of a liberation struggle! It was necessary at the time Also all the aliens have zero agency, are totally brokendown subjugated and the plot is only advanced by inventions of “good white people”. The submissiveness of the Skagarans is the reason that some humans are able to see them as worthy of any consideration whatsoever.
Yeah and that one came of nowhere too, wasn’t is season 3 during the Xindi arc? Remembering it, I can’t decide if it’s worse than Code of Honor or not. Guess I didn’t notice it first time because I was too busy being impressed by BJ Blaskowicz’s dad standing up for an oppressed population.