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.
That’s not woke it’s attempted pandering.
That’s the joke, since a lot of “woke” in corporate media is just attempted pandering
I feel like everything features anxiety nowadays. Why does mario have anxiety in the movies?
what does that image mean i keep seeing it
In the old days, Forums would allow you to add text or an image at the end of comments as a signature. I am carrying on the tradition.
Oh it’s a signature… I see. It is not clear; looks like you are including this as part of your body as an emoji. I guess that’s why i have seen it a couple times.
Heres a page of phpbb where people have signature, but you can tell those are signatures. maybe due to convention.
There is at least 1 other person here with signature “this user is suspected…” and that one you can tell it is not part of the main post.
In the default dark hb theme, the horizontal rule doesn’t hardly show up (very annoying) so can’t really rely on that to distinguish body from sig.
Sorry to say it, but the worse one of my bits is, the funnier I think it is
It’s their sick ass custom tuned forum signature
i wouldn’t mind a feature to block it… it takes up too much space on my phone
If you use firefox + web you can install the ublock origin addon and block any specific image.
In an app I doubt it can be done without some kind of firewall messiness.
yeah i use apps on the phone and it really sucks because it takes up half the comment section everyone
Individuated vs collective is a good way to put it imo. The focus of TOS and early TNG was the collective enterprise, with most characters being “shallow” and “static”. From tng ~s2 onwards, the focus became individual characters, their feelings and interpersonal relationships instead of “monster/planet/philosophical problem of the week”
But for me the biggest issue with nu trek (all trek after the original animated series with the exception of the movie) is the vibe is off
Trek has all been downhill since TOS, with the sole exceptions of the animated series and the whale movie
TOS was made by people with a (utopian, lib at times) actual vision and hope for the future. TNG and onward (especially after riker grows the beard) was made by people increasingly resentful of the utopian and “weird” (positive, silly) spirit of TOS, but forced to occasionally pay token tribute to it as they turn the franchise into “star wars but with less magic” to chase mainstream scifi bucks.
That isnt to say all trek after tos are bad, just they dont feel like they have the same utopian spirit as TOS to me so i dont like them as much
vibe is off
From what I recall, discovery just went full serious and gritty. So gross and wrong for trek, it was meant to be hopeful and adventurous rather than desperate and violent:( There’s basically nothing in mainstream media that just contemplates a better world any more, it’s a shame.
I think the creators get a say over what the vibe of trek is supposed to be. I liked discovery when it was being a found family story.
I think the creators get a say
their say has been shitty for 17 years
Dunno that I agree. First seaon of strange new worlds was better than it had any right to be. Starfleet Academy too. Hell of a lot better first seasons than TNG or DS9. Arguably discovery did too but I hated the first season surprise. And like I said, discovery is at its best when its about people having a found family they love and support. The feel good moments always got me. Especially the one on Trill.
that’s a wild besmirching of ds9 season 1
To be fair there are some standout silly episodes like the one with Rumpelstiltskin or “go along home”. The good episodes, like the one where someone tries to steal Dax, sort of feel like they are in a later season, so they might be forgotten.
Silly trek is best trek
Easy to forget that the season as a whole was bad because of just how good it landed the start and finish. Emissary is good, Duet is excellent, In the Hand of the Prophets was good. As a whole it’s definitely better than season 1 of TNG or VOY and these individiual episodes are better than anything nutrek ever produced,
deleted by creator
Dunno how anyone can say this without a wildly inflated opinion of the actual quality of the older stuff. TOS was generally so bad it got yanked from the networks after 3 years only and produced a lot of awful episodes. TNG and later DS9 were both accused of ruining older trek. And the truth is it was just space slop with the very occasional powerful message. Don’t see the justification for regarding the new stuff as being qualitatitive different. You don’t have to like it, I dislike a lot of it, but it’s the same kind of thing.
Worth noting that most of the criticism of nutrek is coming from right wingers who think it’s woke, same as it always was.
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.
Worth noting that most of the criticism of nutrek is coming from right wingers who think it’s woke, same as it always was.
they hated the middle star wars sequel too, for wrong reasons. reactionaries not liking something because they’re illiterate bigots doesn’t mean the thing they don’t like is good quality.
it does mean there’s a backlash to the backlash and you have to walk on eggshells to critique whatever they’re hating today because people will jump down your throat even if you only talk about whether the plot makes any damn sense.
To me it means they’re probably doing something right and get the benefit of the doubt. Worth noting that nutrek is a lot more “woke” than golden age if that’s the standard.
“kill your gays” isn’t woke
Of course they get a say. They did get a say, they literally made the show. But I also get to have an opinion, and my opinion is that they fucked up royally and made a show that fundamentally betrays everything that made old trek good. I’m not saying they shouldn’t get a say, I’m saying their work is shit.
Discovery can’t be taken out of the context of The GWOT.
TOS was made by people with a (utopian, lib at times) actual vision and hope for the future.
I was somewhat disabused of this idea when I saw Gene Roddenberry had 1 production prior to TOS and decided to watch it. A “sexploitation” called “pretty maids all in a row” (CWs include: SA murder grooming paedophilia— in no short measure on any of them). Which in moments actually strikes the same tone as some of the most profound scenes of ST. There are contemplations of a future humanity where humans have overcome their current deficiencies. The main character actually does remind of JLP. And the TOS ep where spock and kirk travelled back in time to land with a woman who was running a catholic worker house (sort of thing) but then she became fascist. Except rather than JLP’s agonizing about the prime directive, in “pretty maids” it is a future where teachers and students all fuck each other according to an ethic of promiscuity. And when you learn about how Roddenberry conducted himself in person… you can see it.
But then otoh, idk, if we consider ST itself as a collective process that Roddenberry wasn’t the sole creative force in, then maybe.
Did you see “what we left behind”?
Havent seen “what we left behind”
I see the sex pervert side of roddenberry even in TOS trek yeah. Idk anything about how he conducted himself tho
Yeah, Roddenberry gets way more credit than he really deserves, and not enough pushback on his sexpest behaviour. Rick Berman as well.
She didn’t become fascist, she just enabling it by her public pacifism delaying entry into the war. US contribution was minor but I dunno what would have happened without that minor contribution because the eastern front was a very near thing. City on the Edge of Forever is really good, diamond in the rough.
I think it’s basically straw communism to say that the characters not being so shallow and static undermines the collective element. The collective element I assume is really undermined, but you’re just surrendering the “individualism vs collectivism” framing to capitalist ghouls by acting like collectivism requires basically eliding any one person’s own humanity and interiority. The problem is surely in how the individuals are handled, not that they get to be multifaceted and dynamic and have interpersonal relationships (?!)
Yeah and this is extremely present in early TNG.
Early tng is an example of how trying to please everyone pleases no one
My issue isnt that they “get” to be multifaceted etc, it is that the individuals and their drama are the focus rather than cool space adventures. I put “shallow” and “static” in quoted bc imo the characters in TOS are neither, but that is how i often see them described.
In TOS there are many relationships (romantic, friendship, antagonism) amonst the crew. They are not the focus of the show however, and are rarely even the focus of a whole episode. We get small mentions of e.g. spocks musical hobby; in TNG we see picards ship collection over and over and over. In TNG and DS9 there are entire episodes focussed on relationship problems, in TOS its mostly incidental to the random adventure of the week
I also do not feel like i am acting like “collectivism requires basically eliding any one person’s own humanity and interiority”. That is a strawman. I am saying that most media made under capitalism emphasises the consumer-individual and their desires. I liked TOS bc it emphasised the ship and cool (relatively) low stakes exploring, instead of the high stakes high political and personal drama of TNG onwards
Was it really that difficult to make TNG but more overtly queer? because that’s all we needed, but they managed to fuck it up several times now so maybe it is hard to do.
Sci fi is I think still in a “dark and gritty” phase. No one seems to be making hopeful stories about a humanity that has survived and transcended capitalism, and that’s a shame. We could do with more hopeful stories.
Any such stories would have to be greenlit by capitalist studio owners who’ve realized that they absolutely cannot let people hope for a future that transcends capitalism.
ding ding ding, nailed it. It’s depressing how heavy the crackdown has gotten, in the 60s you could still make trek as long as you didn’t explicitly say “the federation is a mature communist society”.
Fundamentally, despite being better than it has any right to be considering the haphazard characterization, I just can’t forgive the series for being set in the god-awful “BURN” timeline, possibly one of the worst world-building fumbles in the history of sci-fi
I mean WHY set it in the 31st century? It makes no sense, not only do you have to come up with 800 years of sci fi technobabble to fleshout the likely developments that would’ve taken place, but you also have to overwhelm the audience with a million and one new alien species, in a franchise famous for having maybe too much alien races (they start to blend together) it makes the lore, worldbuilding and storytelling feel cluttered and disjointed
TNG in 1987 hit the mark perfectly, advance the timeline 75 years, not too long, not too short, the old crew become historical figures, while the new crew can still present the audience with a new flavor of Trek that feels familiar but is still its own thing because even in space, history marches on, i.e. NEXT GENERATION
Instead we’re treated to this timeline where the utopia is now a dystopia because a crying baby triggered an apocalypse, but the new dystopia is actually still kinda a utopia??? because it’s Trek and it’s 800 year in the future, so why exactly do all these characters come from hard-scrabble, PTSD-inducing roots when “programmable matter” exists?
Hard to makes your characters feel alive and grounded when the worldbuilding is unstable sci fi jelly
I never watched STD beyond the first half of the pilot, so I had to go read up on this “burn” stuff on memory alpha. It is by far the stupidest idea in televised Trek I’ve ever heard of. What I really miss is when Trek was “small budget, big ideas”. Episodes like “The Outcast”, “Duet”, “Progress”, “Conscience of the King”. Lower Decks is the only thing since the “origin of the Federation” stuff in Enterprise that’s had that spark.
I’ve heard that SNW is slightly above average compared to other post-Enterprise stuff, but the few random episodes I’ve seen haven’t had any sort of intelligently-written high-concept plotlines. When the writers try, they fail in the most clumsy way possible. Also, what the fuck have they done with Spock? Have the writers ever actually seen TOS or the original six movies?
This was not nearly as bad as the Stacey Abrams cameo though. I do like that they tried to do something different with the burn, they just failed at it.
I am currently getting my FALGSC fix from reading The Culture novels for the first time. I love how the Culture characters often need the implicit threats and pressures of class societies explained to them so they can understand the anxieties that drive the subjects of the various empires.
are they easy reading? I am in need of comfortable novels soon.
I’ve only read The Player of Games and am now in the early part of Surface Detail.
So far I consider them a more sober and thought-through take on the concept than trek. On the one hand, it makes parts of the story focusing on the Culture more comforting to readers who might frequent a website like this, since the author takes more care than Trek writers do to address the loopholes through which class society might revive itself among the people of the Culture, and to show the qualitative differences that emerge when people come from stateless, classless, moneyless life. But, it also means the author doesn’t sugarcoat the thinly-veiled Epsteinian and Leopoldian nature of the capitalist societies the characters are forced by their adventures to interact with.
A Trek fan will enjoy displays of competence, strategic patience paying off, contempt for fascists, and at least one large powerful social formation being consistently on the right side of history. But the catharsis doesn’t come quite as easy or total as in Trek. The somewhat more true-to-life depictions of communism and capitalism also reduce the escapist value and raise the emotional stakes for the reader. Whether it’s comfortable depends.
Thanks, I will keep my eyes open for them.
i hate barclay
I think his original character concept was interesting: what if, in a world of competency porn, someone had severe social anxiety but wanted to be a productive member of the team? How would they cope?
But they immediately wrote the other characters as making fun of him instead of being supportive, and then went on to write Barclay as a sex pest.
his private fantasies didn’t impact his work tho. He bugged his counselor a bunch but in an Adrian Monk way not a sex pest way.
I am fairly certain I remember a plotline wherein he spends so much time in the holodeck that it does impact his duties.
but it was kind of because he was trying to keep his problems contained and not bother anybody.
although it’s a plot that mimics modern nonconsensually produced AI porn, in the TNG context there was no social media of any kind, so the intention of creating a holo program was that it would never ever be seen by anyone else. the fact that it became public was an invasion.
it doesn’t impact his work in that (unlike la forge) he doesn’t get harassy on women. in fact he keeps trying to evade counselling by troi, because she is sort of turning him on. his impulse is “I have to get out of here!” because he doesn’t want her to see/sense his hard on.
everyone in the show falls off their work at some point or another.
I don’t think that being porn-addicted should really be included under “sex pest”.
i meant he wasn’t harassing the women. all allosexuals have private thoughts about crushes and that’s fine as long as they stay private, we just don’t have a holodeck they can walk into.
Yeah he’s got bad stalker vibes
Geordi’s are worse.
I have never been the biggest trek fan. I think TAS gets more hate than it deserves and enjoy voyager more than I perhaps should, but never really got super into trek. I had been thinking about going back and giving tos/tng a proper watch, but then discovery came out. I’d already found the new movies pretty off-putting with the way they were more action oriented, but discovery just killed any interest in trek for me. The captain fighting his way out of a Klingon prison after being starved and tortured, beating fully armed and armored soldiers with his bare hands, didn’t feel like Kirk’s silly haymakers, it felt like cape slop. I am okay with a slightly chunky Bill Shatner throwing big silly haymakers. I do not like cape slop.
the 90s era trek is completely unlike the jj abrams/kurtzman schlock. If you don’t like the new shit because of those reasons then you stand a very good chance of liking the old stuff because it is so very very much not that.
i hate nu trek more than Khan hates Kirk in the movie named after his wrath.
well since you didn’t mention it, ds9 is (now) famously the best trek series. unappreciated in its day because it makes absolutely zero sense in syndication. the only way to watch it is via the binge, a concept that didn’t even exist until 15 years later. And I’ll be honest, it took me a couple go throughs to really understand all that was going on. But that’s due to the fact that they were doing something way too sophisticated for the medium, they pushed it way past what was possible. So only in the age of netflix can it be properly appreciated.
ds9 is a series that contemplates the colonial, the post colonial and the reactionary fascist. even the fascist within the successful liberation struggle. collaboration, pragmatism, espionage and the blurry lines. it poses communism vs capitalism. in opposition to other treks, it is not post racial. sex workers are recurrent, prominent characters of influence. there are labor struggles, political scandals, conspiracy theories, false flags and cults. there are also real gods; some religion is true in ds9.
eta: the character of dax, and the concept of the joined trill, is an essentially extra-gender and pansexual influence.
There are good episodes of enterprise. There is plenty of good stuff before that. There is nothing good after. (Although the first nutrek movie was fun if you turn your brain off.)
i think i can get some of them, but i’m lost trying to figure out what you’re saying; do you have examples of any of these?
