Does it play on some deep sense of optimism for the future of technology and culture? 'Cause Trek is more than a little silly in both regards.
Aside from faster-than-light travel and unlimited clean energy, the Federation utopia strains credulity at the very least. Apparently humanity has overcome its aggressive and expansionist impulses -- even though the Fed supposedly doesn't allow the genetic engineering that'd be required to remove such a genetically ingrained part of our survival instincts -- and now we just want to hug strange aliens.
(To be fair, some of them are pretty hott...but the others are usually ugly and villainous.)
On a related note, why are the captains such a topic of debate? They all do absolutely idiotic things:
Kirk: Khan, the genetically engineering sociopath, attempts and nearly succeeds at taking the Enterprise by force. Kirk's reaction? "Instead of, I dunno...imprisoning or executing your dangerous and unrepentant ass, I'm going to drop you and your traitor girlfriend on the nearest habitable planet. Good luck!" Really Kirk? I know you're a space cowboy, but that's just moronic. I hope Khan comes back and kills your best friend.
Janeway: Voyager encounters a planet with a humanoid culture in the very early stages of civilization. Two ferengis have already discovered the planet, and are posing as prophets of the local gods in order to take the natives for all they're worth. Janeway, in accordance with the Prime Directive, hatches a scheme to get the ferengis out without freaking out the natives, but of course things get messy. The natives end up deciding to burn both her and the ferengis at the stake, and she figures well, I'll just have Voyager beam us up and the natives will think we're all divine emissaries! Are you f##*ing kidding me, Janeway? You just created a precedent among these people for burning each other at the stake as a means of moral judgment that might last for EONS. You might very well have just steered this planet's people down the path of blind religious zealotry. I hope you're proud.
Archer: Humanity's first encounter with the klingons occurs when the Enterprise discovers a warbird with a debilitated crew sinking inexorably into a gas giant. After resuscitating the klingon crew, the klingon captain goes into battle mode: Despite being at the Enterprise's debt and mercy (his ship is still largely non-functional), the captain threatens to take the Enterprise by force. Archer's response? Finish rescuing the warbird from the gas giant, and then zoom away before the klingons can repair their weapons! All of this after the klingons have told him how proud they are of having pirated some less-fortunate alien ship before getting caught in the gas giant. I could understand maybe taking the klingon captain prisoner, and then giving the crew the chance to show a little sense before leaving them to their fate. But rescuing a clearly aggressive and dangerous group of aliens for no other reason than, gee, maybe someday we'll all be friends or something...that's morally reprehensible in addition to being incredibly stupid.
Picard and Sisko: Nothing immediately comes to mind, but I'm sure they both did things equally idiotic during their respective multi-season reigns.
Yeah, humanity got over their base impulses after almost destroying itself two times in a row during the Eugenic Wars and then World War III.
Note: This post assumes you are being serious, and that I didn't misinterpret sarcasm.
Star Trek, at its core, is not a sci-fi series. Its a commentary on humanity. It's full of moral dilemmas with no easy answers and flawed human characters. The most important relationship in the series is the three-way between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. McCoy represents emotional, illogical human nature; Spock represents unfailing, unsympathetic pragmatism; Kirk straddles the fence in between, constantly forced to make the call in situations with no clear-cut "right" answer. Star Trek often tackled culturally sensitive issues. Notice the racially diverse bridge of the original enterprise at a time when no one else dared to cast minorities in mainstream programming.
Human beings, by nature, are illogical and failable and prone to mistakes. Star Trek depicted "real" people in all their imperfect glory, not idealized caricatures like the Cleavers.
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I don't think it's fair to judge Kirk just from the movies. He did a good job in his commission as Captain for the most part and was more by the book.
Some of it is, "Of course they made stupid mistakes, it's a TV show and if things don't happen there wouldn't be anything to watch. What you think the Professor couldn't have just built a boat?" or "Well we need to jam more Star Trek names into the series so it feels more Star Trek." Almost any time the Prime Directive needs to come up it is usually messed up, but that's normally the focus of that episode.
Then you need to remember that you as the viewer probably have more access to what's going on then a particular character might as well so not to worry so much about that.
Because it's fun to watch and ever so occasionally there's some decent commentary in an episode.
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Note: This post assumes you are being serious, and that I didn't misinterpret sarcasm.
Star Trek, at its core, is not a sci-fi series. Its a commentary on humanity. It's full of moral dilemmas with no easy answers and flawed human characters. The most important relationship in the series is the three-way between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. McCoy represents emotional, illogical human nature; Spock represents unfailing, unsympathetic pragmatism; Kirk straddles the fence in between, constantly forced to make the call in situations with no clear-cut "right" answer. Star Trek often tackled culturally sensitive issues. Notice the racially diverse bridge of the original enterprise at a time when no one else dared to cast minorities in mainstream programming.
Human beings, by nature, are illogical and failable and prone to mistakes. Star Trek depicted "real" people in all their imperfect glory, not idealized caricatures like the Cleavers.
If we think of the Eugenics Wars as a attempt to vaccinate the global populace against viruses - particularly the one that thanks to RNA carried into the human Genome resulted in the emergence of Dark skinned humans over fifty to a hundred thousand years followed up by compulsory gene therapy to turn us all white and thus ending the thousands of years of 'bigotry'...It seems far more plausible this was about what made us human.
Human beings, by nature, are illogical and failable and prone to mistakes. Star Trek depicted "real" people in all their imperfect glory, not idealized caricatures like the Cleavers.
I've never heard anyone describe Trek this way, and the mistakes that the captains make don't strike me as intended to illustrate humanity's fallibility...but maybe I'm just used to more overtly flawed characters. (When someone says 'flawed character scifi,' my first thought is new BSG.)
The timing of the original series also made a difference. The last first run episode of the series was shown just a couple of months before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. That fact alone made many people want to take another look at this show when it began its reruns in syndication. It was with the syndicated reruns that Star Trek became a phenomenon.
Also -- very little of civilian Federation society was shown in the original series. That absence made it much easier to accept that everyday life on Earth and on other civilized planets was much better than life on modern Earth without getting bogged down in the details of Roddenberry's utopian vision of the future. It was enough to show a diverse group of people out exploring the stars because they wanted to, and not for any lack of opportunity back home.
ST has been a phenom for several reasons:
1) Flexibility--the format allowed almost any kind of story to be told: action/adventure, mystery, light comedy, even romance. It could be a western, a cop show, and a medical drama. It could even do historical.
2) In the original Trek, Kirk/Spock/McCoy often served similar roles to Freud's Id/ego/super-ego, allowing tough ethical debates to be examined from multiple sides.
3) Social commentary--especially through characters like Spock (who had some disdain of humanity)and Data (who longed to be human), along with Odo and Seven of Nine, these shows let us see ourselves from a different perspective (aliens of the week did that too, but not nearly as well as examining some cultures over many episodes--Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Klingons, and Bajorans in particular).
4) Hope for the future--Roddenberry wanted us to look forward to the future, not dread it. Even when Trek is gritty (DS9), it still is more positive than grim, apocalyptic futures that might seem realistic but are also depressing.
The sarcastic response is to say there is a difference between flawed characters and flawed character fiction (seriously, for a show about the human condition, BSG quickly ran out of humans. The Robot Chicken bit about it seemed plausible) but the thing with Star Trek is you need to put it into context with the time it was on the air.
Science Fiction at the time seemed to be the either 'fight off the aliens' variety (think of the western 'fight off the Indians' plots and you have the same thing, including the fact that many of the sci-fi actors came from westerns) or the 'horror story' variety. Star Trek was different, and as has been mentioned previously, broke new ground in several areas. The multi-racial crew, the fact that technology made our lives better rather than threatened them, and the (thinly disguised) morality plays all are part of the appeal.
When Nichelle Nichols wanted to leave the show, she got an earful from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself, citing that this was one of the few places where color didn't seem to matter on Television (although gender still did, Spock became the first officer because the network wasn't willing to allow a woman in the role).
Plus, in regards to some of the earlier point, I'm sure in just about any show I can find boneheaded command decisions that mainly happened because the writers thought it would make good drama. Babylon 5, Star Wars, all of them suffer from this for the sake of drama. It is a staple of comic books as well, even having it's own acronym among fans. PIS: Plot Induced Stupidity
+1 to this.
The OP needs to understand, the "The Original Series" is really where MOST of the phenomenon comes from. One can argue that all (or most) of the later incarnations failed to live up that that level (vs. the time it was written/aired).
Everything that followed is pretty much inertia.
The OP needs to understand, the "The Original Series" is really where MOST of the phenomenon comes from. One can argue that all (or most) of the later incarnations failed to live up that that level (vs. the time it was written/aired).
The original series was a commercial failure that became a cult hit in syndication, and then a bigger hit with the films, but it was still much more influential than it was actually huge.
It was STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION that took STAR TREK's message to the mainstream and ensured the franchise's long-term, multi-generational popularity. DEEP SPACE NINE was, if anything, an improvement by maintaining STAR TREK's core values through challenging them, and also backing away from ST:TNG's lecturing and getting back to the original TREK's more interesting moral dilemmas versus action/adventure storylines.
VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE didn't resonante (though both had good individual episodes) because they were attempts to simply copy the wheel rather than reinvent it. The new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - written by a number of former TNG and DS9 writers - can be viewed as a response to and criticism of VOYAGER (particularly Ronald D. Moore who hated VOYAGER and quit after working on it for a few weeks).
The sarcastic response is to say there is a difference between flawed characters and flawed character fiction (seriously, for a show about the human condition, BSG quickly ran out of humans. The Robot Chicken bit about it seemed plausible) but the thing with Star Trek is you need to put it into context with the time it was on the air.
And the sarcastic counter response would be that for a show about humanity, Trek doesn't have many humans at all.
But we all know that cylons turn out to be humans in everything but origin, and Trek aliens are aspects of human nature in caricature, right? ;)
When Nichelle Nichols wanted to leave the show, she got an earful from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself, citing that this was one of the few places where color didn't seem to matter on Television (although gender still did, Spock became the first officer because the network wasn't willing to allow a woman in the role).
Wow, that's interesting! Didn't know.
A positive view of the future, rather than a grubby and cynical dystopia, actually appeals to some people. Go figure.
Trek is the future that I'd like to actually live, but not my favorite one to watch on tv. It's relatively lacking in dramatic conflict (particularly among the good guys), action, and comic relief. From a writer's PoV, it's pretty amazing that Trek has endured in popularity for so long.
The new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - written by a number of former TNG and DS9 writers - can be viewed as a response to and criticism of VOYAGER (particularly Ronald D. Moore who hated VOYAGER and quit after working on it for a few weeks).
Cool beans! Had no idea.
If you're not at least 40, you really can't understand why Trek has burrowed itself so deep into our cultural roots, and quite frankly you'd have to be over 50 to truly understand.
Slightly OTT :-) It's perfectly understandable to see how and why TREK became so popular and so immersed in the public conciousness without having to be Grandpa Simpson. I'm 34 and my first brush with STAR TREK was watching WRATH OF KHAN on TV when I was about 4 or 5 years old. They repeated the original series on UK TV shortly afterwards and I got into the whole thing.
The notion that STAR TREK had elements that appealed to Americans in particular are clear, though that's less clear-cut in the sequels: TNG's "Let's call a conference and chat at length about the problem," approach and DS9's much more complex moral ambiguity (born of that show's inspirations in the post-Soviet era and the war in the Balkans) are both rather un-American in many ways. The original show also deeply offended American conservatives further to the right, what with its national inclusiveness (there's a Russian on the bridge!) and racial equality (the furore caused by the first interracial kiss on American TV, which happened on STAR TREK, was ridiculous).
Just in case nobody else has mentioned this... there wasn't a lot of science fiction on TV in the 1960s. You pretty much watched all of it, if you were into sf, as a result. And, it had a good cast. Egos aside it was about Kirk, Spock and McCoy and some good supporting characters. It caught my generation at a good time to burrow into our minds. It did give me a phobia about wearing red shirts of course... :)
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DS9 is the only series I'd care to watch again. I enjoyed TOS and TNG but DS9 changed everything for me. Instead of seeing the universe through human or the Federation's eyes, in DS9 we got to see the Federation from the universe perspective. Opened everything wide open and could have lead to a new era for Trek. Trekkers hated it though and so they made Voyager which was a hug step back. Enterprise was a bit of a half measure. I fear we have passed the golden era for Trek. Probably wont see another series for at least a decade especially with the movies taking a more action flick direction.
I'm actually in the middle of watching DS9 right now (I missed it entirely the first time around).
I really like that one too.
TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS were probably better than TREK when they were on top form. They weren't on 100% top form continuously, however (but then neither was TREK). One of the strengths of TREK was the cast, which could liven up even the direst episodes (okay, maybe not so much 'Spock's Brain').
THE INVADERS IN COLOUR: A QUINN MARTIN PRODUCTION was very, very good. It was so dark as to be bleak at times, and the way the guy would nearly prove the existence of aliens only to fail did get a bit predictable.
As for good SF shows people have never heard of, I'd throw in DARK SKIES (which drew some inspiration from THE INVADERS) and STAR COPS.
Instead of seeing the universe through human or the Federation's eyes, in DS9 we got to see the Federation from the universe perspective. Opened everything wide open and could have lead to a new era for Trek. Trekkers hated it though and so they made Voyager which was a hug step back.
I think the "Trekkers hated it," thing is a bit overdone. Most Trekkers I know count either TNG or DS9 as their favourite and second-favourite shows (unless they are older, in which it will be TOS-TNG-DS9 in some variation of the order). I know a lot of the more tech-minded Trekkers loved DS9 because it showed huge fleets of Federation starships on-screen, brought in new classes and gave them a better understanding of how the various races' ships worked (not to mention having enormous space battles).
However, it definitely seems to be more true that casual SF watchers seem to rate DS9 as the best STAR TREK series, but I think that was down to the serialisation, the humour and the strength of characterisation. The argument that DS9 is the 'least STAR TREK' of the major series I've always found to be unconvincing. It's still STAR TREK in ideology and vision, but seen from the outside (with some cynicism that's not in the other shows, particularly from Garak and Quark) and challenged a lot more, but still respecting Roddenberry's beliefs at the core.
However, it definitely seems to be more true that casual SF watchers seem to rate DS9 as the best STAR TREK series, but I think that was down to the serialisation, the humour and the strength of characterisation. The argument that DS9 is the 'least STAR TREK' of the major series I've always found to be unconvincing. It's still STAR TREK in ideology and vision, but seen from the outside (with some cynicism that's not in the other shows, particularly from Garak and Quark) and challenged a lot more, but still respecting Roddenberry's beliefs at the core.
DS9 also introduced the Section 31 with is a dark and cynical element that many felt did not belong.
Good SciFi shows you probably never heard of.
1. Nowhere Man.
2. Alien Nation
3. Max Headroom Pretty much the only cyberpunk TV series of a Gibsonian flavor to date.
4. Ray Bradbury Theatre Look him up. Ray Bradbury was truly a genre by himself.
Maybe it's an age thing (I'm just shy of 40), but I've heard of all four, and watched #1 and #3. I'm too young to have actually seen RBT, and Alien Nation just never did it for me. I was disappointed that Nowhere Man only lasted a season (or was it half a season), so we never got resolution. Plus, to bring to conversation slightly back to Trek, it starred a younger Bruce Greenwood (the new Captain Pike).
I loved the "dinginess" of Max Headroom. So totally Eighties. ;)
DS9 also introduced the Section 31 with is a dark and cynical element that many felt did not belong.
The original series had quite a few evil or corrupt officers, admirals etc. The idea of a behind-the-scenes organisation taking care of the Federation's dirty laundry isn't cynical, it's arguably more realistic. SF utopias traditionally need something to safeguard them, and in that sense Section 31 is simply STAR TREK's answer to Special Circumstances in the CULTURE novels.
Although DS9 was by far the best Trek in my opinion, it WAS a huge departure from Gene Roddenberry's vision. The only real issue I had with it being the poorly done large scale fleet battles, which fortunately didn't happen often.
TNG is my second favorite, but Enterprise? The show that buried the franchise? I didn't know it had any fans, curious.
However, it definitely seems to be more true that casual SF watchers seem to rate DS9 as the best STAR TREK series, but I think that was down to the serialisation, the humour and the strength of characterisation.
For me, it's because DS9 has slightly more of the things I desperately want from Trek than the other series: it's a little bit grittier, it has slightly more action, and has a smidge of comic relief in the form of the ferengis.
It's probably no surprise that I love the movie reboots, aside from the time-travel premise. (I know, trekkies everywhere would suffer massive aneurisms if they had simply done a true reboot, but on a purely personal level, I just don't like time travel.)
I loved the 'root beer' speech between Garek and Quark. O course, I loved many of the lines from Garek.
Haha, that was the corniest funniest line of what Trek I've seen, and one of my two favorite lines of all the Trek series!
"This human drink called 'root beer' is like the Federation; it's sweet and cloying, and if you drink enough of it...you'll start to like it."
TNG is my second favorite, but Enterprise? The show that buried the franchise? I didn't know it had any fans, curious.
Have you seen any of those decontamination chamber scenes? Of course it has fans! ;)
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TNG is my second favorite, but Enterprise? The show that buried the franchise? I didn't know it had any fans, curious.
It buried the franchise because, IMHO it tried to hard on some occasions. I loved the crew (especially Scott Bakula), i loved the ship, i loved the fact that war changes people. It was all good. Less technobabble and more relations between people. Oh and i loved Phlox.
It buried the franchise because, IMHO it tried to hard on some occasions. I loved the crew (especially Scott Bakula), i loved the ship, i loved the fact that war changes people. It was all good. Less technobabble and more relations between people. Oh and i loved Phlox.TNG is my second favorite, but Enterprise? The show that buried the franchise? I didn't know it had any fans, curious.
It also "buried the franchise" through no fault of its own. After TNG/DS9/VOY Star Trek needed a "break."
If Paramount had waited three or four years to let the fans/writers/etc. recharge, things might have been more successful.
It buried the franchise because, IMHO it tried to hard on some occasions. I loved the crew (especially Scott Bakula), i loved the ship, i loved the fact that war changes people. It was all good. Less technobabble and more relations between people. Oh and i loved Phlox.TNG is my second favorite, but Enterprise? The show that buried the franchise? I didn't know it had any fans, curious.
Enterprise suffered from a mediocre first season. It picked up after that. I quit watching it during season 1. I watched it later on Netflix. And enjoyed it quite a bit.
My top Trek show was DS9, followed by TOS and Enterprise. Voyager close behind (it too suffered a slow first season) and ST:TNG last. TNG probably suffered from me comparing it (unfavorably) to TOS. Still DS9, TOS / Enterprise (tie), Voyager and finally TNG (which was, imo, pretty mediocre and often too preachy). TNG did have some good episodes and arcs though.
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Never liked either DS9 or Voyager at all. I loved TOS as a kid, but TNG is to me, the best trek. Followed closely by Enterprise.
@werthead so this is the typical Trekker response as far as Midwest America is concerned. Hate might have been too strong a word but the departure from the Enterprise being the universe of the show was too much for most fans here. They cheered when Voyager came out because it returned to one ship one crew; Caricature aliens and all. I was branded a "niner" by my trek buddies because it was the first series that really drew me. Different strokes I guess.
TNG is my second favorite, but Enterprise? The show that buried the franchise? I didn't know it had any fans, curious.
ENTERPRISE is, generally speaking, a lot better-regarded than VOYAGER. This is down to Berman and Braga stepping aside and promoting Manny Coto to showrunner: Seasons 3 and 4 were a lot stronger than Seasons 1-2 (and most of VOYAGER) because of that. Unfortunately it was too late to save the show and even some of the goodwill because of the improvement in writing was destroyed when Berman and Braga wrote that terrible, terrible conclusion.
It's probably no surprise that I love the movie reboots, aside from the time-travel premise. (I know, trekkies everywhere would suffer massive aneurisms if they had simply done a true reboot, but on a purely personal level, I just don't like time travel.)
I liked the reboot plans from J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel from about ten years ago. Those were quite interesting, from the POV of a cold reboot. I appreciate them trying to tie the Prime and new timelines together in the new films, but it's not really working and is making things more confusing than they need to be.
It also "buried the franchise" through no fault of its own. After TNG/DS9/VOY Star Trek needed a "break."
Agreed. Berman called it 'franchise fatigue' and that after 17 continuous seasons on-air, even with different casts and premises, the universe was tired. I would also argue that the biggest problem was too much continuity of crew behind the scenes: VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE (until Manny Coto came on) had too many TNG veterans. Berman was there all the way from 1987 to 2004, and Braga from 1991 to 2004. That was too long. DEEP SPACE NINE benefitted from having TNG writers who really didn't like the way things were done behind-the-scenes on TNG (Moore and Ira Steven Behr) and a lot of new blood, including David Weddle, Bradley Thompson and Michael Taylor. IIRC, they even gave Jane Espenson one of her first writing jobs before she went off to the Whedonverse.
If you look at DOCTOR WHO, the reason that show can go on indefinitely is that as well as a whole new cast, a whole new production team comes on board every 3-5 years or so (Moffat is arguably hurting the show by staying for another year; a fresh perspective is really needed now). STAR TREK had too many people staying on the franchise when it really needed new blood.
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Granted, I was part of the "Push Hoshi out an airlock" contingent...
Hoshi was the 'Barclay' of Enterprise. If someone has a phobia, it's gonna be Hoshi. If someone is going to freak out, it's going to be Hoshi. She was just a bundle of neurosis, and seemed like the go-to person to be unqualified for and / or uncomfortable with anything that was going on. At least with Barclay (whom I also couldn't stand), he was an 'NPC' that only showed up every 20th episode...
From a writing standpoint, I could understand that the new-ness of the whole 'humans in space' concept called out for one or more characters who weren't just going to roll with it as ideally as Merryweather or Phlox, who were kind of irrepressibly enthusiastic about it, but piling every single insecurity and phobia and whatever onto Hoshi made her seem like the last person that should be representing the human race to a bunch of technologically superior alien cultures.
"Oh hi, angry violent alien dude. Let me introduce my translator, who is wide-eyed pants-wetting terrified of you and won't shake your manipulator-appendage because she's a germaphobe and it's all we can do to get her to breath the same air as you... No offense!"
"None taken." <to his men> "Set murderlizers to 'deep fat fry.'"
Yeah, that didn't work for me. In a way, I understood the complaints that the rest of the cast came across as flat and cardboardy--who ELSE would Earth send on its first deep-space mission but completely qualified, stable, reliable professionals with no personality quirks or oddities that could pose a risk?
But then there was Hoshi... maybe they put her on Enterprise just to get rid of her, I dunno.
And then later, they try to claim she's this badass martial artist who used to run illicit poker games and can break high-security codes while delirious? As a reviewer put it, "Sorry, producers; I saw the Xindi passing her around like a bong at a frat party, it's too late to make her cool now."
I found Hoshi to be one of the most interesting characters early on. I didn't watch that far. Did they invent universal translators over the course of the show because it was too difficult to deal with language barriers?
My biggest problem was the Romulan disguised as a Vulcan.
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My biggest problem was the Romulan disguised as a Vulcan.
Some of the novels dealt with the idea of Vulcans who didn't follow the path of Surak, but followed some warlike path (T'Pel?) of aggression and embracing emotion and whatnot. I would have *loved* to see a passionate Vulcan libertine, prone to intimidation and sudden violence, rather than yet another repressed logic-zombie.
Or skip the Vulcan altogether and have a Deltan or something. Persis Khambatta was hot.