Yea, Discovery is the best case for virtue signaling being a real thing, which is unfortunate because Trek’s literal entire thing is coming off as “common sense” while spreading a progressive message through allegory.
Even then, Trek hasn’t really pushed the boundaries for a good long time. When it hit it big by TNG/TOS Syndication, it ended up being the cash cow, and thus not worth risking for such controversial things.
At most, it’s just been nudging the norm, but the kind of radical shove that TOS had, and nearly got it pulled off the air twice is basically nowhere to be found.
At most, we got one or two token characters or plots, but a lot of it is mostly the norm, or just a little ahead of it.
Compare it to something less established and free to take on more risk, like the Orville. Since it doesn’t have the big brand that networks want to keep reaping without sowing, it gets a lot of flexibility Trek doesn’t really have any more.
I have to say, I tried really hard but holy crap was the “in your face-ness” of it a problem for me and one of like 5 reasons I can’t stand it.
It’s definitely not any of the concepts, etc. Good to see diverse, women-strong, etc casts and plots. But a lot of it was written A) incredibly poorly, like to try to appeal to middle schoolers, B) it couldn’t stop telling us REALLY LOUD and artificially how progressive it was, and it was jarring and annoying.
Edit: and I’d argue they dropped nearly all of the progressive parts of, say TNG. Or, like, where adults acted like grownups.
I was more annoyed at the klingon subtitle style/font being difficult to read quickly. Each one talking like a kid who just shoved a whole pack of Big League Chew in their mouth from all the prosthetics also bothered me.
You know, you just reminded me of the episode of Enterprise where the Ferrengi took over the ship. And I was surprised how much I enjoyed (most of) it, and thought the first act where they didn’t bother giving the Ferrengi subtitlea, everything was communicated without the benefit of dialog.
I’m sure everyone else hated it, especially because of some of the weak plot points and how there wasn’t supposed to be any contact with the Ferrengi for 200 years and because everyone hates Enterprise.
Yeah, really. There wasn’t much enlightened future stuff going on and they pointlessly killed (and then returned, but still) one of the gay guys for shock value(?). It’s just so poorly written that neither that nor any of the empowerment messages landed for me.
Yeah… exactly. Although after all that I only fully gave up on the show when they jumped forward in time to a depressing future in which the Federation had dissolved. Like, way to completely and utterly miss the point of the setting. I’m gonna go cry into my earl grey now.
I was totally on board with that premise, thinking they might basically do their version of Andromeda mixed with late-season Enterprise. But then the actual plot happened.
You hated Discovery because it was too woke.
I hated Discovery because it wasn’t woke enough.
We are not the same.
I loved Discovery
Picard: “We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity”
Tilly: “I went to Elon Musk junior high school”
Yea, Discovery is the best case for virtue signaling being a real thing, which is unfortunate because Trek’s literal entire thing is coming off as “common sense” while spreading a progressive message through allegory.
Even then, Trek hasn’t really pushed the boundaries for a good long time. When it hit it big by TNG/TOS Syndication, it ended up being the cash cow, and thus not worth risking for such controversial things.
At most, it’s just been nudging the norm, but the kind of radical shove that TOS had, and nearly got it pulled off the air twice is basically nowhere to be found.
At most, we got one or two token characters or plots, but a lot of it is mostly the norm, or just a little ahead of it.
Compare it to something less established and free to take on more risk, like the Orville. Since it doesn’t have the big brand that networks want to keep reaping without sowing, it gets a lot of flexibility Trek doesn’t really have any more.
I have to say, I tried really hard but holy crap was the “in your face-ness” of it a problem for me and one of like 5 reasons I can’t stand it.
It’s definitely not any of the concepts, etc. Good to see diverse, women-strong, etc casts and plots. But a lot of it was written A) incredibly poorly, like to try to appeal to middle schoolers, B) it couldn’t stop telling us REALLY LOUD and artificially how progressive it was, and it was jarring and annoying.
Edit: and I’d argue they dropped nearly all of the progressive parts of, say TNG. Or, like, where adults acted like grownups.
Do you have any examples of this?
I was more annoyed at the klingon subtitle style/font being difficult to read quickly. Each one talking like a kid who just shoved a whole pack of Big League Chew in their mouth from all the prosthetics also bothered me.
Even worse than how bad the Ferengi were with that
You know, you just reminded me of the episode of Enterprise where the Ferrengi took over the ship. And I was surprised how much I enjoyed (most of) it, and thought the first act where they didn’t bother giving the Ferrengi subtitlea, everything was communicated without the benefit of dialog.
I’m sure everyone else hated it, especially because of some of the weak plot points and how there wasn’t supposed to be any contact with the Ferrengi for 200 years and because everyone hates Enterprise.
On the other hand, it had Jeffrey Combs.
Yeah, really. There wasn’t much enlightened future stuff going on and they pointlessly killed (and then returned, but still) one of the gay guys for shock value(?). It’s just so poorly written that neither that nor any of the empowerment messages landed for me.
Yeah… exactly. Although after all that I only fully gave up on the show when they jumped forward in time to a depressing future in which the Federation had dissolved. Like, way to completely and utterly miss the point of the setting. I’m gonna go cry into my earl grey now.
I was totally on board with that premise, thinking they might basically do their version of Andromeda mixed with late-season Enterprise. But then the actual plot happened.
I hated it because half of the characters annoyed me and the other half didn’t have enough screen time
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