Picard Season 3

[Ruin Explorer]

The struggle, as I alluded to be before, is that these characters (the so-called "Tokens") are judged by the same metrics as all the "standard" characters- as good or bad as characters.

And I think that's where Discovery has been somewhat weak. Adira really stands out for me - they're doing a lot of representation there, great! - but the character is just blehhhh. And they didn't have to be - using a Trill as a non-binary, great, that makes sense on multiple levels, and Trek has touched on it before ("old man") - but the writers made Adira just very young and quite boring/annoying.

Whereas Stamets/Culber were great. I mean, I gotta be honest I love a gay couple a little more than a straight one, but either way. But I never heard any of the "THEYRE SHOVING GAY IN MAH FACE!" like you're saying. Not on actual Trek forums or reddits or the like. Not from Trekkies - and not really on general forums even, actually. The only thing I heard a lot of (justified) complaints about was Kill Your Gays. They just weren't even near the center of ire.

Burnham has been hampered by the writing and bizarre-yet-dull character decisions, and ended up as probably the least-interesting Black character in Trek, well, okay, after Mayweather from ENT. Sometimes they manage to get her to shine for a bit (more as the show goes on), but too often they just write her as nearly bland and boring as Archer was, but in a different way. Also Booker, really the blandest supposed "rogue" in sci-fi history, which is saying something given how many utterly bland "rogues" we've had. They gave him like nothing to work with, because he's such an all-round nice guy in terms of what his character actually does yet the show is trying to act like he's a dashing rogue. That's just bad writing.

When characters are really solid, people don't start saying tokenism (an accusation rarely coming from the right, I note - the right doesn't care if representation is worthwhile) - and again I have literally never heard that about Stamets/Culber. Or Tilly, who let's be really real, was "fat" representation, something we'd basically never seen in Trek before. Because people loved her though, that didn't get commented on (or rather, a few people tried a "there won't be overweight or fat people in the future!" lines but were shut down so hard that never came up again after the first few weeks of the show).

Also again, let's not confuse whole fake-ass Trek fans saying stuff like "Trek has gone woke!!!" deal, which was always essentially false flag stuff because those people obviously were not Trekkies given Trek was always high-grade "woke" for its era, with weak characters.

What is unfair is when people act like it's worse than ENT/VOY, and there has been plenty of that.

IMO they should have got rid of Chakotay and Neelix a long time ago if they were going to focus so much on Seven. Harry Kim was due a promotion. And some spotlight was needed for Paris and B'Elanna Torres, particularly the latter who sadly got the rough end of the stick in the later seasons.

Paris and Torres were terrible characters, because they chose to write both with terrible personalities. Paris is arrogant, pushy, and just wildly slappable. He has no real likeable or redeeming traits. He's not even good at stuff for the most part. He's like a weedy, unattractive, uncool, nerdy dude who thinks he's James Bond. Those people exist - the UK is full of them. But I don't need them on TV being presented as if I should respect them. Torres was just he biggest downer long-time character Trek has ever had. Just endlessly moaning and moping. I get that Worf did a bit of that too, but he managed to increasingly undermine it with a twinkle in his eye as time went on and eventually they just wrote him that way. They could have had both grow as people significantly, change, improve, but they mostly didn't after the initial S1/2 changes.

Chakotay was was a wildly racist stereotype based on the work of a literally-fake pretend Native American, and who only survived because the actor had infinitely more charisma than the awful character. Neelix... clown with pedo vibes. Why did you make "pedo vibes" into a character on your show, Berman, Piller? Explain yourselves. Why did you go to considerable lengths to make like a clown-ish character (bad enough to start with) also have massive pedo vibes? Why?!?!!??!!??! WHY?!!?!??!?!?!?!?!? It's like they were doing a bit. Again, the actor tried to make what he could of it, but goddamn, the material he was working with. He's got like one good episode (the war crimes one - we don't talk about Tuvix).

Poor Harry man, they meant to kill him off, but they found out younger teenage girls absolutely loved him because he was the living ideal of "non-threatening boy". It was totally real and amazing because my much-younger sister would like sit down and watch VOY if she saw Harry, and actually watched it with me for a couple of seasons. But they also failed to give him any real character development.

VOY was always in trouble because they didn't have many good/likeable characters, in stark stark contrast to TOS/TNG/DS9. Imagine a VOY where they didn't bring Seven on to the show? I don't think they'd have made it five seasons. Yeah she was objectified and sexualized by the ridiculous outfits, but they also gave her an actual character, who was genuinely compelling and yes it did kind of become the Seven/Janeway/EMH show and I guess that was for the best.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Paris and Torres were terrible characters, because they chose to write both with terrible personalities. Paris is arrogant, pushy, and just wildly slappable. He has no real likeable or redeeming traits. He's not even good at stuff for the most part. He's like a weedy, unattractive, uncool, nerdy dude who thinks he's James Bond. Those people exist - the UK is full of them. But I don't need them on TV being presented as if I should respect them. Torres was just he biggest downer long-time character Trek has ever had. Just endlessly moaning and moping. I get that Worf did a bit of that too, but he managed to increasingly undermine it with a twinkle in his eye as time went on and eventually they just wrote him that way. They could have had both grow as people significantly, change, improve, but they mostly didn't after the initial S1/2 changes.

I liked Torres I admit I may be biased since I also thought she was hot.
You are right about Paris though being arrogant and pushy, but I also recall Janeway giving him a talking-to on more than one occasion. I cannot remember how he was by the end of the series. I'd have to rewatch it.

EDIT: I tend to agree with this and this take on Torres which does admit development of the character and her acceptance of Starfleet and her Klingon heritage.

 

[Zardnaar]

And I think that's where Discovery has been somewhat weak. Adira really stands out for me - they're doing a lot of representation there, great! - but the character is just blehhhh. And they didn't have to be - using a Trill as a non-binary, great, that makes sense on multiple levels, and Trek has touched on it before ("old man") - but the writers made Adira just very young and quite boring/annoying.

Whereas Stamets/Culber were great. I mean, I gotta be honest I love a gay couple a little more than a straight one, but either way. But I never heard any of the "THEYRE SHOVING GAY IN MAH FACE!" like you're saying. Not on actual Trek forums or reddits or the like. Not from Trekkies - and not really on general forums even, actually. The only thing I heard a lot of (justified) complaints about was Kill Your Gays. They just weren't even near the center of ire.

Burnham has been hampered by the writing and bizarre-yet-dull character decisions, and ended up as probably the least-interesting Black character in Trek, well, okay, after Mayweather from ENT. Sometimes they manage to get her to shine for a bit (more as the show goes on), but too often they just write her as nearly bland and boring as Archer was, but in a different way. Also Booker, really the blandest supposed "rogue" in sci-fi history, which is saying something given how many utterly bland "rogues" we've had. They gave him like nothing to work with, because he's such an all-round nice guy in terms of what his character actually does yet the show is trying to act like he's a dashing rogue. That's just bad writing.

When characters are really solid, people don't start saying tokenism (an accusation rarely coming from the right, I note - the right doesn't care if representation is worthwhile) - and again I have literally never heard that about Stamets/Culber. Or Tilly, who let's be really real, was "fat" representation, something we'd basically never seen in Trek before. Because people loved her though, that didn't get commented on (or rather, a few people tried a "there won't be overweight or fat people in the future!" lines but were shut down so hard that never came up again after the first few weeks of the show).

Also again, let's not confuse whole fake-ass Trek fans saying stuff like "Trek has gone woke!!!" deal, which was always essentially false flag stuff because those people obviously were not Trekkies given Trek was always high-grade "woke" for its era, with weak characters.

What is unfair is when people act like it's worse than ENT/VOY, and there has been plenty of that.

Paris and Torres were terrible characters, because they chose to write both with terrible personalities. Paris is arrogant, pushy, and just wildly slappable. He has no real likeable or redeeming traits. He's not even good at stuff for the most part. He's like a weedy, unattractive, uncool, nerdy dude who thinks he's James Bond. Those people exist - the UK is full of them. But I don't need them on TV being presented as if I should respect them. Torres was just he biggest downer long-time character Trek has ever had. Just endlessly moaning and moping. I get that Worf did a bit of that too, but he managed to increasingly undermine it with a twinkle in his eye as time went on and eventually they just wrote him that way. They could have had both grow as people significantly, change, improve, but they mostly didn't after the initial S1/2 changes.

Chakotay was was a wildly racist stereotype based on the work of a literally-fake pretend Native American, and who only survived because the actor had infinitely more charisma than the awful character. Neelix... clown with pedo vibes. Why did you make "pedo vibes" into a character on your show, Berman, Piller? Explain yourselves. Why did you go to considerable lengths to make like a clown-ish character (bad enough to start with) also have massive pedo vibes? Why?!?!!??!!??! WHY?!!?!??!?!?!?!?!? It's like they were doing a bit. Again, the actor tried to make what he could of it, but goddamn, the material he was working with. He's got like one good episode (the war crimes one - we don't talk about Tuvix).

Poor Harry man, they meant to kill him off, but they found out younger teenage girls absolutely loved him because he was the living ideal of "non-threatening boy". It was totally real and amazing because my much-younger sister would like sit down and watch VOY if she saw Harry, and actually watched it with me for a couple of seasons. But they also failed to give him any real character development.

VOY was always in trouble because they didn't have many good/likeable characters, in stark stark contrast to TOS/TNG/DS9. Imagine a VOY where they didn't bring Seven on to the show? I don't think they'd have made it five seasons. Yeah she was objectified and sexualized by the ridiculous outfits, but they also gave her an actual character, who was genuinely compelling and yes it did kind of become the Seven/Janeway/EMH show and I guess that was for the best.

Discovery isn't good but it's season 1 is better than Voyager (gave up) Enterprise (by most account's) and TNG tbh. Treks very hit or miss even the good ones (DS9 is an exception).

I like Picard S1 more than the general internet, S2 was OK to meh, S3 was good.

SNW I probably like a bit less than the internet buts it's good. Not a Trekkies maybe half of ots decent idk.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't find that the communities in question are worried about tokenism, because they are far too aware of the issue of representation; like everyone, they always want characters to be better.

The struggle, as I alluded to be before, is that these characters (the so-called "Tokens") are judged by the same metrics as all the "standard" characters- as good or bad as characters.

I think part of the Tokenism argument (which I have no idea how much it applies or doesn't to DISCO) is when it stands in as a substitute for quality.

I agree that a really well done character that happens to be XYZ can be a wonderful experience for that minority of people underrepresented. But sometimes it also turns into a way for writer's to be lazy. instead of making them interesting, it just becomes "all about XYZ" and that's when the eye rolls start taking place.

Now that is not the whole critique of course, I do agree there are many people who literally start and stop at "this is different I don't like it", but I think the legitimate criticism can be directed to things above.


Now a good counter example was Charly Burke from Orville season 3. She is a lesbian woman, but its never the centerpiece of her character identity. Her story revolves around the pain of losing the love of her life, and how that embitters her. Its nothing to do with "she loves a woman", its "she loves someone, and lost them". She is an interesting character in several ways, not just "because she's a lesbian".

 

[Ryujin]

I would think that the issue comes when tropes and stereotypes stand in for character but since I'm an old White male, my opinion is truly worth a pinch of turkey dung. What under represented people feel is representation is what matters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Representation matters.

Yes it does. HOW someone is represented matters. If the representation is a boring, unlikeable character it fuels prejudice. "They only got the job because..." But if the character is likable (eg. Nu-Uhura), people simply don't notice how that character might be different to them, and thus acceptance grows.

If you want to achieve change you are not going to achieve it by brow-beating people. You need to slip the new ideas in under their radar.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah this is on the writers, very solidly. It's like, if you're saying "Be a human raised by Vulcans, who wants to live like a Vulcan, but is conflicted", you're asking a goddamn lot, and you'd better be prepared to back that up with some fairly stellar writing for the actor to work from. And they just didn't give her that material, so they basically spent two seasons messing around before going "Okay I guess just have her stop being like that?", and yeah she is better since she stopped but sheesh.

Absolutely. Spock was conflicted, and he was only half human. How much more difficult would it be for someone who is fully human?

 

[billd91]

Yes it does. HOW someone is represented matters. If the representation is a boring, unlikeable character it fuels prejudice. "They only got the job because..." But if the character is likable (eg. Nu-Uhura), people simply don't notice how that character might be different to them, and thus acceptance grows.

Boring and unlikeable tend to be a matter of personal opinion.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yes it does. HOW someone is represented matters. If the representation is a boring, unlikeable character it fuels prejudice. "They only got the job because..." But if the character is likable (eg. Nu-Uhura), people simply don't notice how that character might be different to them, and thus acceptance grows.

If you want to achieve change you are not going to achieve it by brow-beating people. You need to slip the new ideas in under their radar.

So, take Enterprise (as Henny Youngman would say, PLEASE!).

I like Scott Bakula. I wanted him to do well. But let's be honest- Archer had two defining character two traits; he had a dog, and ... wait. He had ONE defining character trait. Which wasn't a character trait, it was a pet. Was Archer "duller" that Adira in Disco? Yeah. I think so. But no one says that Archer is a token! No one goes on rants about Enterprise being bad because Enterprise had too much representation (HA!). No, it's allowed to be judged on its merits, for better or worse.

Why? Well, we know why.

There is no brow-beating people. Instead, this is exactly the problem. We can't just have representation and characters- what, you think that the actual existence of gay, or trans, or asexual, or diverse characters is brow-beating? No, it's reality! It's the same when you see the rehashed arguments about how female leads are "Mary Sues," - we accept that male leads are protagonists, but female leads have to meet a higher standard.

When people talk about tokenism (or brow-beating), they are really demanding a higher standard for representation. That's exactly what this is about. There is not a single person who says that "random white guy" is a token ... do they? No one requires that "random white guy" justifies their existence on a show. And, most importantly, no one would think of saying that Scott Bakula's boring portrayal or Archer fuels prejudice.*

I don't think that this is controversial; if you do, I think that's just a fundamental disagreement that we have. Again, Discovery, like almost all Star Trek shows, is not perfect. But I also find that a lot of the criticism comes from a place that I cannot, and will not, ever agree with.


*ETA- again, I can't imagine someone thinking that the mere portrayal of diverse characters fuels prejudice. This same argument could have been repeated verbatim with regard to Uhura in TOS. It didn't sound good then, and it doesn't good now. To me.

 

[Mort]

To pile on Enterprise a bit:

It really says something that, when forced, to come up with lists of the the best episodes - the two that top pretty much every list are the mirror universe episodes. And shortly following is the period piece Carbon Creek.

It's not great when the best episodes of the show are COMPLETELY disconnected from the actual show.