There is now 880 episodes of Star Trek and 13 movies

[Vael]

Trekkie, Gene Roddenberry HATED Trekker.

I prefer Trekker, it's a more active descriptor. Besides, Gene also thought Troi should have three breasts.

 

[Ryujin]

Have not gotten to that episode yet, damn, is it a female character that does this?

I literally just started watching the Orville today, although I had to make a break after epsode 3.

This is the series that was supposed to be less political then Nu-Trek? And its way more serious then expected, I was expecting Galaxy Quest, but without the they are really actors in modern times angle, played straighter, but still super funny.

Its more Sarcastic Star Trek, nothing like Galaxy Quest which was genuinely apolitical.

I mean episode 3 is a miracle in that it didn't get boycotted by multiple different groups angry at different things.

And episode 2 makes a weird comparsion to Zoos that just doesn't work with the alien race presented which is too human like for it to work.

It is funny at times, but most of the humour is sarcasm based, or the unprofessional behavior of the helmsmen.

The aestetic they nailed and the setting is great and I love the characters, but some of the attempts at deep moral comundrums I wasn't expecting from this show so it feel more shocking then I think it would otherwise.

But the moral condrums don't land right or work properly. The Mocklins are right for viewing the Union, or more specifically the humans as hypocritcs, and they fold way too easily, major cultural change is never that easy.

And the death in episode 1 was so unexpected and horrifying that it felt like it belong on different show entirely, like a punch from outside your field of vision.

I kind of like the show maybe, parts I didn't like, but its so far from what I've been lead to believe it was that I feel I need time to digest it.

I feel sooooo mislead.

It does become somewhat more mature, in the later seasons. It needed season 1 to find its feet. The humour is still there, but not as in-your-face.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

On this note, I will admit I was a bit shocked at the storyline in Battlestar Galactica when the humans are under Cylon rule began a terror resistance including suicide bombings. A position that was entirely sympathetic...

nuBSG was pretty ballsy.

No accident that Ronald D. Moore was involved with both DS9 and nuBSG. I just wish he hadn't got distracted by Pervlander Outlander for years, but hey, For All Mankind is absolutely off-the-hook in a similar way to DS9/nuBSG (apart from That Plotline lol wth man - I blame overexposure to Outlander).

Not only did it have the humans as terror-bombing resistance being clearly the sympathetic good guys, it did it at a time when that was literally happening in Iraq, at a time when politicians were saying stuff like "You're either with us, or against us", and generally anyone who wasn't gung-ho for invading Iraq was being demeaned/dismissed in the media. Hell in the UK we had massive protests against the war, and the media just wouldn't cover them in any real way. Very revealing about who the media actually serves (not the truth nor the public, that's for sure). We've finally got to the point where it's fashionable to admit that the Iraq war was, in fact, a massive and unwarranted screw-up - hence a bunch of recent columns etc. from people who were gung-ho for the war vaguely musing that'd it'd have been better if we didn't do it - without apologising of course.

And there was ol' nuBSG saying "Yo blowing up your oppressor is pretty understandable/relatable" on TV back in the day.

Ironically today I think a show being that direct would have got called out a lot more, because back then you could fly under the radar as most politicians/pundits were either so media illiterate they didn't get the analogy, or they felt it was beneath them to acknowledge it when it was a "silly" SF show, not The West Wing or something (screw The West Wing btw, most pompous, delusional and self-important TV show ever made). Or they were employed in ways that didn't rely on "clicks" or whatever. In the era of the culture wars and more importantly countless pundits relying entirely on clicks/views/likes/subscribes as their metric to get paid, we'd have seen absolute desperation to paint nuBSG as "traitorous" and demands that we oppose NBC. Kid Rock would probably have made an Instagram video of him* "shooting" S1 nuBSG DVDs.

* = As with the beer he'd actually clearly be missing and someone off-screen was making the actual shots.

 

[Umbran]

This is the series that was supposed to be less political then Nu-Trek?

I don't think it was ever "supposed to be" less political, meaning being less political was never part of McFarlane's plan.

And by the way - all Trek has been political. Making statements about how the world should be has always been there, and is by nature political. It is just that for older Trek most of us have moved on from the issues of those days, so it seems less political than it was at the time.

 

[Umbran]

... and they fold way too easily, major cultural change is never that easy.

Spoiler: ... oh, no they don't. That was only the first volley in that conflict, which carries on through the end of the series.

 

[payn]

I don't think it was ever "supposed to be" less political, meaning being less political was never part of McFarlane's plan.

And by the way - all Trek has been political. Making statements about how the world should be has always been there, and is by nature political. It is just that for older Trek most of us have moved on from the issues of those days, so it seems less political than it was at the time.

I think in the past without social media these discussions were less concentrated and less intense. Folks still cared as much as ever, but they couldn't coalesce around topics like they can now. I think we are still trying to learn to understand and live with this change.

 

[AnotherGuy]

And by the way - all Trek has been political. Making statements about how the world should be has always been there, and is by nature political. It is just that for older Trek most of us have moved on from the issues of those days, so it seems less political than it was at the time.

I feel that the some of the politics within nu-Trek are an unnecessary regression and very much on the nose.
When you have had a Captain Janeway, Colonel Kira Nerys and female admirals within Star Fleet, Disco politics feel amatuerish at best. Writing likeable characters whether they're good or villainous also has a role to play on whether the politics slide into the background or not and finally @payn makes a good point about social media which can unfortunately aggravate the situation.

 

[Mallus]

I feel sooooo mislead.

The Orville ends up being an effective homage to both TNG and DS9. To be fair, I don’t think many people saw that coming!

 

[Umbran]

I think in the past without social media these discussions were less concentrated and less intense. Folks still cared as much as ever, but they couldn't coalesce around topics like they can now.

I think I see what you mean. But, with respect, TOS aired at the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement, and in the middle of the Vietnam Protest Era and the height of the Cold War. The idea that somehow folks didn't coalesce around political topics at the time is... maybe not as solid as one might think.

I think we are still trying to learn to understand and live with this change.

There's a lot of things about social media we do not yet grok in fullness, most assuredly.

 

[payn]

I feel that the some of the politics within nu-Trek are an unnecessary regression and very much on the nose.
When you have had a Captain Janeway, Colonel Kira Nerys and female admirals within Star Fleet, Disco politics feel amatuerish at best. Writing likeable characters whether they're good or villainous also has a role to play on whether the politics slide into the background or not and finally @payn makes a good point about social media which can unfortunately aggravate the situation.

"On the nose" is a good way to describe a lot of writing these days and not just Trek. There has always been caricaturized people in film/television but it feels a lot more prevalent, provocative, and persistently lazy in current writing. It doesn't help that there are folks that make a living out of pointing this stuff up and being incendiary about it. The two cant seem to help but play off each other. I suppose when there is money to be made...