Happy Star Trek day! (loads of trailers)

[Liu Bei]

i guess I am in the minority here on this subject then, because i like Discovery. it's not a great show by any stretch, but i enjoy it. i wasn't overly fond of Enterprise either but I watched it. they all have good moments and I enjoy them for what they are, not for what i wish they were

I quite liked Enterprise. It didn’t live up to its potential, but it was still good. Great sets and costumes, good actors with good chemistry and interesting characters. And there was almost zero real world politics being shoehorned into it. The show really was focused on just telling good Star Trek stories.

I know allegory has been a big part of Star Trek from the beginning, but it was done so much more subtly and unabrasively (not a word) in the past, by skilled writers who understood that they still had to produce a show that appealed to a large swathe of viewers and make money.

The problem with modern Trek, besides being run by people who don’t understand Trek or view Trek as entertainment, is just how heavy-handed everything and preachy it is. It just isn’t fun.

I loved TNG, but never enjoyed the scenes of Picard talking about how terrible humanity once was (meaning the audience, essentially), but how they’d progressed so much since then. Discovery (and Picard) have taken that idea and put it on steroids. Every story and character serves as a vehicle for the creators to dump on everything loathsome to them in the 21st century. Heroes are vehicles for them to lecture the audience, and villains effigies to be beaten and burned. The show exists to service the creators, instead of the opposite, which is/was the standard operating procedure for many years.

I’m glad there are people out there who legitimately enjoy the Bad Robot / Secret Hideout version of Star Trek. Unfortunately for me, I just don’t. I wish I did and could, but I can’t and don’t. It just isn’t real Star Trek to me. That died with Enterprise, which to me is the last Star Trek I really enjoyed, and could recognize as Star Trek.

[The Bat]

I quite liked Enterprise. It didn’t live up to its potential, but it was still good. Great sets and costumes, good actors with good chemistry and interesting characters. And there was almost zero real world politics being shoehorned into it. The show really was focused on just telling good Star Trek stories.

I know allegory has been a big part of Star Trek from the beginning, but it was done so much more subtly and unabrasively (not a word) in the past, by skilled writers who understood that they still had to produce a show that appealed to a large swathe of viewers and make money.

The problem with modern Trek, besides being run by people who don’t understand Trek or view Trek as entertainment, is just how heavy-handed everything and preachy it is. It just isn’t fun.

I loved TNG, but never enjoyed the scenes of Picard talking about how terrible humanity once was (meaning the audience, essentially), but how they’d progressed so much since then. Discovery (and Picard) have taken that idea and put it on steroids. Every story and character serves as a vehicle for the creators to dump on everything loathsome to them in the 21st century. Heroes are vehicles for them to lecture the audience, and villains effigies to be beaten and burned. The show exists to service the creators, instead of the opposite, which is/was the standard operating procedure for many years.

I’m glad there are people out there who legitimately enjoy the Bad Robot / Secret Hideout version of Star Trek. Unfortunately for me, I just don’t. I wish I did and could, but I can’t and don’t. It just isn’t real Star Trek to me. That died with Enterprise, which to me is the last Star Trek I really enjoyed, and could recognize as Star Trek.

Spot on summery there, couldn't have said it better myself!!

I also enjoyed ENTERPRISE.

[Liu Bei]

Spot on summery there, couldn't have said it better myself!!

I also enjoyed ENTERPRISE.

Thank you, buddy. I thought about it a little more today, and think that Rick Berman was really the driving force of Star Trek after Gene Roddenberry died. He’s the reason why TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT all felt like they were part of the same universe.

Berman really understood Star Trek, and worked hard to keep the franchise true to Gene Roddenberry’s vision. For the new group, and for many of their fans, I hear more and more criticism and even mockery of Gene Roddenberry and his vision of Star Trek. I think this is the clearest indication of all that modern Star Trek now has very little in common with Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, with their foul-mouthed characters, with their bickering, infighting, and betrayals, and the portrayal of Starfleet itself as somehow being corrupt or rotten. It’s clear the new team, in their rush to recreate the 21st Century in 24th Century clothing, no longer respects the idea of Gene’s ideal, utopian vision of humanity.

It’s fine. I know not everyone agrees, and many now believe Star Trek has to evolve beyond Gene’s vision to be relevant to modern audiences. All 12 of them. And that’s truly okay. But for me, the loss of Roddenberry and the absence of Berman has created a void that Star Trek simply hasn’t been able to fill.