Star Trek United

[Ruin Explorer]

But tbh, I find The West Wing also hasn't aged well, and while I get the idea ... for me, I don't know if mashing up two shows I don't care to rewatch will generate a show I would want to watch.

Right?

The West Wing always seemed deeply self-satisfied and bombastic. Now it seems deeply self-satisfied, bombastic, and hopelessly, childishly naïve. Like "should not be allowed out of the house on its own" levels of naïve. Further, it's seemed that way for quite a long time - I don't think it really could talk to the post-2008 financial crash world at all. Because in the world it operated in, that crash could never have happened, let alone been as bad as it was, due to various nigh-infallible, super-smart and good-hearted politicians and their attendants. Even the "evil" or "bad" politicians in the West Wing setting wouldn't have let that happen as badly as it did, and would have direly punished the people who made it happen. But that was shown to be complete fantasy!

It's a very "End of History" kind of show that started airing before "history" came back online, and finished its run before "history" really turned it up to 11.

I think the sort of supercilious attitude it absolutely revelled in would be an extremely poor fit for the extreme earnestness required for a Star Trek show which talked about the politics of the Federation. Also, I'm not sure you'd even be allowed to make a show about a society as extremely socialist, IDIC, and directly anti-capitalist as the Federation simply is, if you focused on the Federation (rather than had it just in the background) so we'd almost certainly see Federation values massively compromised with cheap, nasty 21st century values. I've noted that at times Strange New Worlds briefly forgets itself and treats the Federation as like, New York City In Spaaaaaaaaace, and that's problematic for me. I suspect any show like this would necessarily go that way, which would be no good.

I like Scott Bakula, he's a good actor. I think he was ill-served by Enterprise, a show that stripped him of his charisma and just ... Archer is the worst.

That's the other problem. I like Bakula too, but Archer is easily, no contest, hands-down the worst captain/leader in a Trek show on just about every single level, from simple likeability to actual competence, to sticking to real Federation values. Even bloody MacFarlane's self-indulgent self-played captain on the Orville is a hypercompetent Federation saint next to Archer.

And let's not even start on a crew so bad they make both the Voyager and Discovery crews truly amazing by comparison (again, on every level).

The fault is largely with the showrunners, but that's not reason to go back there.

 

[jian]

Right?

The West Wing always seemed deeply self-satisfied and bombastic. Now it seems deeply self-satisfied, bombastic, and hopelessly, childishly naïve. Like "should not be allowed out of the house on its own" levels of naïve. Further, it's seemed that way for quite a long time - I don't think it really could talk to the post-2008 financial crash world at all. Because in the world it operated in, that crash could never have happened, let alone been as bad as it was, due to various nigh-infallible, super-smart and good-hearted politicians and their attendants. Even the "evil" or "bad" politicians in the West Wing setting wouldn't have let that happen as badly as it did, and would have direly punished the people who made it happen. But that was shown to be complete fantasy!

It's a very "End of History" kind of show that started airing before "history" came back online, and finished its run before "history" really turned it up to 11.

I think the sort of supercilious attitude it absolutely revelled in would be an extremely poor fit for the extreme earnestness required for a Star Trek show which talked about the politics of the Federation. Also, I'm not sure you'd even be allowed to make a show about a society as extremely socialist, IDIC, and directly anti-capitalist as the Federation simply is, if you focused on the Federation (rather than had it just in the background) so we'd almost certainly see Federation values massively compromised with cheap, nasty 21st century values. I've noted that at times Strange New Worlds briefly forgets itself and treats the Federation as like, New York City In Spaaaaaaaaace, and that's problematic for me. I suspect any show like this would necessarily go that way, which would be no good.


That's the other problem. I like Bakula too, but Archer is easily, no contest, hands-down the worst captain/leader in a Trek show on just about every single level, from simple likeability to actual competence, to sticking to real Federation values. Even bloody MacFarlane's self-indulgent self-played captain on the Orville is a hypercompetent Federation saint next to Archer.

And let's not even start on a crew so bad they make both the Voyager and Discovery crews truly amazing by comparison (again, on every level).

The fault is largely with the showrunners, but that's not reason to go back there.

Agree with all of this. The West Wing has aged extremely badly. Yes, it does capture a period of political idealism and is thus nostalgic for some people, but it’s so smug (and wrong) it hurts to watch now. It just makes me think about how wrong we were to assume the Great Moderation would last forever.

My West Wing show - the one that makes me nostalgic for my idealistic youth but also feels as if it’s still relevant to our modern concerns, and thus remains very watchable - is actually Deep Space Nine, of course. But I do wonder if kids these days would consider it insufferably naff as well.

That said, I would love to see an early Federation show with modern sensibilities that actually discusses how to build a post-capitalist socialist utopian society with equality and resources for all, at the same time as building bridges with new civilisations. I do agree that this does seem rather a long way from the position of whoever is writing SNW.

 

[overgeeked]

That said, I would love to see an early Federation show with modern sensibilities that actually discusses how to build a post-capitalist socialist utopian society with equality and resources for all, at the same time as building bridges with new civilisations. I do agree that this does seem rather a long way from the position of whoever is writing SNW.

We don't have a resource problem. We have a distribution problem. A recent study shows that “Provisioning decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493

 

[jian]

We don't have a resource problem. We have a distribution problem. A recent study shows that “Provisioning decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493

This is absolutely true but clearly we haven't yet One Way Outed ourselves out of the capitalist system.

It's kind of hilarious that Musk, Bezos et al love Star Trek when it's all about making billionaires and the system that created them extinct and forgotten.

 

[overgeeked]

This is absolutely true but clearly we haven't yet One Way Outed ourselves out of the capitalist system.

It's kind of hilarious that Musk, Bezos et al love Star Trek when it's all about making billionaires and the system that created them extinct and forgotten.

It's why I'm beyond skeptical of the new owners of Paramount. They seem to have the...opposite view...from the baseline pro-science, pro-diversity, etc that Star Trek has espoused since its inception.

 

[Morrus]

It's why I'm beyond skeptical of the new owners of Paramount. They seem to have the...opposite view...from the baseline pro-science, pro-diversity, etc that Star Trek has espoused since its inception.

I'm not familiar. Who are they and what are their views?

 

[overgeeked]

I'm not familiar. Who are they and what are their views?

Seems odd you're asking me to violate your own anti-politics rules, but okay.

He's someone who would be almost instantly banned for violating the inclusivity rules.

Here's an article.

Right-Wing Billionaire Larry Ellison Set To Control CBS News - Accountable US

New reporting from Bloomberg revealed Larry Ellison, right-wing mega-donor and election denier, will control CBS News after the completion of a merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global valued at $8 billion.

accountable.us

 

[Morrus]

Seems odd you're asking me to violate your own anti-politics rules, but okay.

He's someone who would be almost instantly banned for violating the inclusivity rules.

Here's an article.

Right-Wing Billionaire Larry Ellison Set To Control CBS News - Accountable US

New reporting from Bloomberg revealed Larry Ellison, right-wing mega-donor and election denier, will control CBS News after the completion of a merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global valued at $8 billion.

accountable.us

Well I didn't know that's what it was (not that it's much more than word salad anyway, and looks like somebody is going to control a news channel, but it looks pretty political). I thought you were going to say they don't like Star Trek or something along those lines. Yes, that needs no discussion here.

 

[trappedslider]

That said, I would love to see an early Federation show with modern sensibilities that actually discusses how to build a post-capitalist socialist utopian society with equality and resources for all, at the same time as building bridges with new civilisations. I do agree that this does seem rather a long way from the position of whoever is writing SNW.

I'd love to see how they got the majority of humans to stop being selfish/envy etc

 

[overgeeked]

I'd love to see how they got the majority of humans to stop being selfish/envy etc

Wouldn't be hard. Just don't raise them in a system that only ever rewards selfishness. Selfishness is not human nature, it's culture. You can tell by looking outside capitalist cultures.