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"Star Trek and its ilk are approaching the dramatic stage from the opposite direction: the situation is irrelevant, it's background for a story which is all abo

"Star Trek and its ilk are approaching the dramatic stage from the opposite direction: the situation is irrelevant, it's background for a story which is all about the interpersonal relationships among the cast. You could strip out the 25th century tech in Star Trek and replace it with 18th century tech — make the Enterprise a man o'war (with a particularly eccentric crew) at large upon the seven seas during the age of sail — without changing the scripts significantly." In all honesty, a lot of Trek is pretty bad for exactly the reason the OP states: it's all deus ex machina. And that's boring and lazy. ST:TOS wasn't terrific at this, but ST:TNG took it to new lows. But the above quote is wrong. When Trek shines it does so by forcing the viewer to confront our pre-existing prejudices by placing them in different contexts. Let THis Be Your Last Battlefield is a good example of this; the second season of Picard is as well. There are people who claim to be Trek fans who are actively objecting to "being preached to" by Picard season 2. To which I say: you never understood Trek at all if you object to it being a bit preachy. ST does this most effectively by placing current social debates into a context where the sides are unfamiliar, and in doing so lets us see them in a fresh light. Want to think about the Cold War? Let's talk about the Klingon Empire. Want to talk about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, or colonialism in general? Let's talk about Cardassians and Bajorans. Which is actually where Picard season 2 falls down: by placing the debates in 2024 America, they're arguably too close to home to pull the trick off. Picard season 2 is almost exactly what you would get if you placed the series in the 18th century instead of the 25th.

chipotle_coyote 5y ago
> There are people who claim to be Trek fans who are actively objecting to "being preached to" by Picard season 2. To which I say: you never understood Trek at all if you object to it being a bit preachy. Yeah, there are a lot of valid complaints that can be made about "New Trek," but this is manifestly not one of them. :) (There is an article I have in my head that I will probably never bother trying to get out on paper, er, screen, defending New Trek against dismissals of it as dark and dystopian and "not Trek at all". I think there is a different take on it, but the take isn't "utopia is a lie," it's "utopia is not a steady state": you don't get to say "Federation achieved, everyone, we're now in a post-scarcity society and the only possible threats can come from outside." Many of New Trek's biggest problems, I suspect, come from trying to adapt our current model of short, heavily-serialized seasons, which all but requires ramping the stakes up through the season to ever more absurd levels -- and requires them to be way better at pacing than they've demonstrably been.) > Which is actually where Picard season 2 falls down: by placing the debates in 2024 America, they're arguably too close to home to pull the trick off. Hmm. I can see that, although I'm pretty sure that they've picked 2024 because it's apparently a very important year in prior Trek canon. (Relentlessly burrowing into canon is, if not always a problem, definitely a quirk of all of the new shows so far.)
- morelisp 5y ago
  > I'm pretty sure that they've picked 2024 because it's apparently a very important year in prior Trek canon. And hey, we've already got a billionaire wanting to build a massive ill-considered housing project right in the middle of SF...
dumpsterlid 5y ago
I dunno, I think Picard season 2 is awesome so far. I also thought season 1 was good too, though not perfect. Also, having the main characters prison break an ICE bus was fantastic, I don't care if it is "too close to home". ICE is a fascist organization and it should absolutely be directly shamed by american art as much as possible, the more blatant the better.
krapp 5y ago
>Which is actually where Picard season 2 falls down: by placing the debates in 2024 America Picard is a character study of Jean-Luc Picard. It's about him, his motivations, his trauma, his coming to terms with his legacy, etc. They literally named the series after him. The 'debates' about fascism and destiny and whatever the hell is up with Q are just a dark mirror of whatever Picard has to realize about himself and move on from this season.

chipotle_coyote 5y ago

> There are people who claim to be Trek fans who are actively objecting to "being preached to" by Picard season 2. To which I say: you never understood Trek at all if you object to it being a bit preachy. Yeah, there are a lot of valid complaints that can be made about "New Trek," but this is manifestly not one of them. :) (There is an article I have in my head that I will probably never bother trying to get out on paper, er, screen, defending New Trek against dismissals of it as dark and dystopian and "not Trek at all". I think there is a different take on it, but the take isn't "utopia is a lie," it's "utopia is not a steady state": you don't get to say "Federation achieved, everyone, we're now in a post-scarcity society and the only possible threats can come from outside." Many of New Trek's biggest problems, I suspect, come from trying to adapt our current model of short, heavily-serialized seasons, which all but requires ramping the stakes up through the season to ever more absurd levels -- and requires them to be way better at pacing than they've demonstrably been.) > Which is actually where Picard season 2 falls down: by placing the debates in 2024 America, they're arguably too close to home to pull the trick off. Hmm. I can see that, although I'm pretty sure that they've picked 2024 because it's apparently a very important year in prior Trek canon. (Relentlessly burrowing into canon is, if not always a problem, definitely a quirk of all of the new shows so far.)

morelisp 5y ago
> I'm pretty sure that they've picked 2024 because it's apparently a very important year in prior Trek canon. And hey, we've already got a billionaire wanting to build a massive ill-considered housing project right in the middle of SF...

dumpsterlid 5y ago

I dunno, I think Picard season 2 is awesome so far. I also thought season 1 was good too, though not perfect. Also, having the main characters prison break an ICE bus was fantastic, I don't care if it is "too close to home". ICE is a fascist organization and it should absolutely be directly shamed by american art as much as possible, the more blatant the better.

krapp 5y ago

>Which is actually where Picard season 2 falls down: by placing the debates in 2024 America Picard is a character study of Jean-Luc Picard. It's about him, his motivations, his trauma, his coming to terms with his legacy, etc. They literally named the series after him. The 'debates' about fascism and destiny and whatever the hell is up with Q are just a dark mirror of whatever Picard has to realize about himself and move on from this season.