I’ve got a busy, messy morning of bottle washing ahead of me — the first fly lab of the semester is on Thursday, so I’ve got to get that teaching lab in shape. The flies are ready to go, but the glassware? Nope.
So I’m going to leave you with something important to wrangle over: Stephen Miller thinks Star Trek is too woke and wants to put 94 year old William Shatner in charge of the new show. Way to go, presidential advisor: you are stupid and wrong, and you propose a stupid solution to your imaginary problem. That is so perfectly Trumpian.
I’m going to mostly agree with this video — Star Trek has always been idealistic, to a sometimes corny degree. That’s why people watched it.
But I also kind of hope it happens. I was a huge fan of the original Star Trek, and I used to beg my parents to let me stay up late to watch it. I was 12 years old. As I got older, my taste changed, and I wanted something better — The Expanse was probably my ideal for a while (in spite of the magic engines that propelled the whole show), but I don’t even want that to continue on. New ideas are good! Star Trek has been in a rut of familiarity for 60 years. I didn’t even care much for Star Trek the Next Generation, not because it was different, but because it wasn’t different enough.
It’s been running on dual fumes from two sources: people like comfortable familiarity and will complain about any change, and in case you haven’t noticed, capitalism loves a profit-making franchise, and will keep shoveling cash at a reliable series, even if it is getting creaky and as crotchety as William Shatner. I watched about 20 minutes of the latest iteration, Star Fleet Academy before giving up. It has the good idea of galaxy-wide collapse of the old Federation, making it a total reboot…but then I could tell they were using it to reconstruct the same old framework, as if total societal collapse wouldn’t be interesting unless it was about restoring the old story.
Miller is a fool who is wrong about everything, but I think demolishing Star Trek, as his ideas would accomplish, has some virtues. Move on, please.
Related: I see HBO has created a new spin-off of Game of Thrones, a prequel set 100 years before the events in that catastrophically ended original series. Once again, capitalism wants its cash cow back. I’m not tempted to watch even a minute of that.
Also, at the end of the above video, they give a Hero of the Week award to the citizens of Minnesota. I’m one of those citizens! Thanks, I’ll wear the badge with pride and use the cash award to heat my house. There is a cash award, I assume?
I actually hate-binged Picard just to marvel at how awful it was. I know, a low point even for me.
I liked TNG, TOS was a bit old and, well, theatrical… for my taste. Of the later shows I agree with you that The Expanse was pretty awesome.
Thanks for the reminder. Time to queue up a re-watch of the best Star Trek movie: Galaxy Quest.
Good idea. Captain Kirk would have decked Miller by now.
Miller might want to watch his step. I seem to recall during Trump’s first disaster seeing Shatner on the Kimmel or Colbert show taking digs at Dumb Donnie in a dramatic reading of sorts. So Shatner running a new Trek series might be even more woke than the past.
You’re right about how the money-czars want to keep milking cash from a franchise.
But it’s also artistically challenging to have an “end” to a work. Whether it’s a piece of music, a play, a movie, a book, or a TV series: ideally, there is wonderful, engaging stuff going on, then NOTHING, forever after that.
Some authors faced that directly: Mark Twain, in “Tom Sawyer”, frex. Some with a satisfying but bittersweet coda: Calvin & Hobbes. But those are things that are under the control of a single artist, not some moguls that will either cut off a production for “reasons”, or extend it beyond where it should be brought to a conclusion.
Rather like life itself.
PZ,
I don’t know for sure, but I think the new A Game of Thrones series is based on work my George RR Martin:
“The Hedge Knight is a prequel novella by George R. R. Martin, part of the “Dunk and Egg” series, set 90 years before A Song of Ice and Fire, following the adventures of the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, as they navigate a tourney at Ashford, leading to a conflict with a prince and a trial by combat. It was first published in the anthology Legends in 1998 and has since been adapted into a graphic novel. ”
So, the new series could very well be based on Martin’s work, and not just slopped together to make money.
First episode was yesterday, I am going to check it out.
I agree that “Star Trek” needs to die, simply because it’s served its purpose in its time and there’s really no point in keeping it going so far past its time. But it’s already fading away with no help from any idiot Trumpanzees, thankyouverymuch.
And I’m not sure where Miller gets the idea that William Shatner would give us a less-woke Trek — he’s the guy who made sure that interracial kiss made it to the final cut. Miller may be thinking of Shatner’s kinda-buffoonish-but-not-evil character in “Boston Legal.” Either that, or he’s harking all the way back to Shatner’s flaming racist demagogue in “Shame”…
Do you think Martin isn’t slopping stuff together to make money?
It’s dead, Jim! Star Trek is beyond even the use of the Vulcan mind meld to resurrect. The producers have sucked it dry until only the husk remains, essentially becoming a Weekend at Bernie’s affair. The more they try to revive it, the more difficult it becomes to remember how exceptional it once was. For god’s sakes, let it go!
The story the new “Game of Thrones” series is based on was supposedly written more than two decades ago. It is possible that Martin rewrote it a bit, but it is likely more “selling stuff for money” than “slopping stuff together for money”. Quite possibly selling something that wouldn’t have been considered without his name on it, but not actually ‘new’ stuff.
I actually liked the first episode of Starfleet Academy.
It’s probably the only episode I’ll ever see since it was put on PlutoTV yesterday when I just happened to be watching and thus saw it, because I’m absolutely not going to give any money to Paramount.
But I’ve also liked Star Trek Lower Decks. Haven’t bothered with Picard or Discovery at all.
Really, I’m over grimdark sci-fi that’s just a bunch of assholes backstabbing each other, if I want to see that all I have to do is check the news. I’d like to see more optimistic looks at the future. But I don’t think we’re going to get that from Starfleet Academy given Paramount’s willing capitulation to Trump. They’re going to censor all the LGBTQ content, remove anything that could be construed as political commentary (or else turn it into “why conservatism is right,” and otherwise neuter the show, I’m sure.
Deep Space Nine was always my favourite…
This is worth watching: Star Trek is Propaganda
@5 Snarki, child of Loki
This happened to the Gospel of Mark. People were not happy with the original ending, so a longer version was added in rewrite.
@13 Reginald Selkirk
And in the OT Ecclesiastes also got a few wholly stupid final paragraphs added by later redactors, that undermine the nice message of the previous text.
Reginald Selkirk @ #13 — Folks didn’t like the beginning either which is why we have two beginnings in that god awful collection of ancient stupidity. The first one is thought to be newer than the second.
Iasius — Lots of those writings in the god awful collection are actually themselves collections of writings from different times, different people, and with different intents and points of view. The assigned authors are all fictional myths to imbue a given collection with authority.
Yes, Miller really doesn’t know Shatner, nor does he understand Roddenberry’s philosophy. I think that IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) was the basic philosophy of all of the Star Trek shows. That is truly the opposite of what Miller wants.
Like Microraptor @ #11, I liked the first Starfleet Academy episode. In fact, I loved it and I can’t wait to see more.
I think that it helps that my husband and I have watched every episode of both “Discovery” and “Picard”. The new show has been referencing them right and left. To truly understand “the burn”, viewers need to to have watched “Discovery” to know what it is, and what a devastating effect that it had on The Federation. There have been several direct quotes from “Picard”, and we’ve been delighted when we catch them.
It’s also obvious that the writers are trying to draw a new generation of viewers to Star Trek. “Below Decks” wasn’t of great interest to us, but it was definitely aimed at a younger audience. “Starfleet Academy” probably is, as well.
As for William Shatner, I think that he has mellowed in his old age. We love SciFi Cons, and I met Shatner at one in 2017.
We were volunteers at that event. I had assisted in moderating a panel discussion with Jonathon Frakes (who is absolutely the sweetest, most gentlemanly person anyone could ask to meet). I was escorting him back to the guest lounge, and he took a detour to pick up Bill Shatner. I found Shatner to be brusque, but polite.
My husband and I met Shatner and had our picture taken with him last August at GalaxyCon, San Jose. We were warned to not touch him without his permission. He saw me struggling forward on my crutches, reached out his hand and told me to lean on his shoulder for the picture. With my husband smiling on his other side, we looked like three old friends posing for a picture!
Shatner squeezed my shoulder as we left, and wished us well. Definitely more mellow at age 94!
As a special treat for our 50th anniversary, my husband managed to get VIP tickets to the 60th Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas this August. There is going to be a long list of guests from all of the shows, and I am very, very excited. I’m hoping to meet both William Shatner and Jonathon Frakes again, as well as other actors whom I admire.
My husband will probably dress as Captain Picard, since he looks a bit like him, and I’ll dress as Dr. Beverly Crusher.
Next month, we’ll be attending a Dr. Who convention in Los Angeles. My personal engineer is busy making my powered wheelchair look like a Dalek. We won a prize with it at GalaxyCon, and were advised to go to the Dr. Who Con.
We’ve decided to have lots of fun in retirement!
I really liked Lower Decks. It’s probably the most faithful Star Trek series, and you can tell the creators and script writers have a deep love and knowledge of the franchise. It’s goofy cartoon, but it shows people of all walks of life (and species) trying to build a better future. And for that alone I want to live in that future.
I’m pretty sure Martin isn’t going to slop something together for money, simply because he has tons of money, and doesn’t need to slop anything together to keep getting his royalties. Also, he’s probably sick of the whole fantasy world that he built, and never wants to hear another word about any of his ASOFAI books again (past, “Here’s another royalty cheque.”).
I’m sure HBO is happy to slop something together out of his books for money, though.
The whole bit about ‘woke’ Star Trek is giving me flashbacks to the whole ‘Sad Puppies’ thing (gah, was that really over ten years ago now?) where one of the things leading up to it involved one of the people starting it complaining about how you ‘didn’t know what you were going to get anymore’, how he expected starships and rayguns and action if they were on the cover of the book, not politics. And he quoted Star Trek as good non-political SF.
Which led to a whole lot of people pointing out that, A) he was literally trying to judge a book by its cover, and B) had he every actually watched the original Star Trek? It was a show so actively political for its time it probably wouldn’t have got on the air if Lucille Ball hadn’t been putting the full might of DesiLu Productions behind it. It’s just that it’s mostly political in ways that became the cultural default over the next couple of generations, so most of it is ignorable by those folks who only see ‘politics’ when they disagree with it.
Oh God, what have I done? I watched 20 seconds of that video and now my feed is 80% Star Trek. Nerds everywhere!
Yes, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is actually a book by GRRM, which I have. It’s a fixup of three novellas about Dunk and Egg. There are references to it in the later ASoIaF books, too; Maester Aemon is actually Egg’s brother. According to this review I just saw, the show is mostly faithful to the book. (I haven’t seen the show, and probably won’t.)
FWIW, William Shatner was the ostensible author of a series that was utterly crapulent and derivative but sorta successful do to its professional ghostwriter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TekWar
I’m old. I admit to watching only the original Star Trek. That was enough for me.
The thing about capitalists and most Republicans: They’re afraid of anything new that might NOT make money. And, they have no imagination.
[Star Trek TOS] was a show so actively political for its time it probably wouldn’t have got on the air if Lucille Ball hadn’t been putting the full might of DesiLu Productions behind it.
And it’s important to remember that science-fiction wasn’t even Roddenberry’s first choice of genre. He had wanted to make a show about current events and issues, and had to redo it all as SF just to get it on TV at all. This is why the science-fictiony bits were so bad — they were just making stuff up on the fly to make each story “work” in a future setting. Then they had to deal with the limits of funding and visual-effects technology.
And as an early Trekkie who’d seen every TOS episode five times before starting high school (and who got a lot of his civics lessons from it), that was the full value of the series. And I feel we don’t really “need” “Star Trek” anymore, because it’s no longer the only TV show that dares to deal with contemporary controversies. But that’s just, like, my opinion, man…
Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel): “Shatner responds to Stephen Miller. [Screenshots]”
Shatner:
Miller:
Rando: “He has zero clue Shatner is mocking him. It’s amazing the lack of self-awareness.”
@25 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain
Did I just read that? I understand he was not a favorite for many of the cast members.
I’m an old fan, with particular fondness for TNG (My first) and DS9 (My favorite). I only watched a couple of the reboot movies, so I can’t speak for the state of the newer Treks, but it always amazes me that so many wingnuts obliviously claim it’s “non-political” or some such. Meanwhile, I’m seeing a quote from The Drumhead showing up in my social media over and over again because of its relevance to today:
It’s just a formulation of the “thin end of the wedge” argument dressed in Star Trek robes and delivered with Jean‑Luc Picard’s gravitas, Recursive Rabbit.
Start Trek is “too woke” for Stephen Miller because it was very anti-Nazi. Miller is analogous to Deputy Führer Melakon from ST:TOS episode “Patterns of Force”.
Being “assimilated by the Borg” is 100% apropos to being pulled into the Apple-device world. You’ve been warned!
I watched every episode of STTNG with joy almost solely because of Patrick Stewart’s Royal-Shakespeare-Theater voice. I would have paid money to hear him read a phone directory.
I turned on the first episode of Picard, anticipating more pleasure, but alas, all voices change with age, and his had. And, that was the end of Star Trek for me, forever.
Kirk shouldn’t have died in Generations? The only reason I watched the one before that was because I was under the impression that Kirk was going to die in that one (and Shatner deserved it for the colossal pile of crap that was the God-with-a-starship one).
@Kukulkan #29 Exactly.
[meta]
NitricAcid, very patriotic series, however, was TOS.
Once was a thread here where I also adduced this issuance instance of Holy Writ:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omega_Glory#Plot)
—
(Also, let us not mention the atrocious reboot movies)
I have a sorta complicated view of the Shat. I watched much of original series as a kid and Kirk was an icon. I wasn’t into his own post series movies nor the original series movies much either. Meh! TJ Hooker was a cultural lobotomy on the same level as Lee Majors (another iconic scifi actor) in The Fall Guy. My dad hated Shat for his overacting. I despised Shat for years. That all changed when someone I know raved about Boston Legal and I started watching reruns. He and Spader had the best character chemistry! I no longer think of Shat as Kirk. Shat now has one line that will destroy anyone in a verbal showdown: “Denny Crane!”
As for Star Trek I liked the original series more or less. I admit Shat had stunning good looks and charisma. Castmates may not have liked him much.
TNG took a while to warm up to. Loved Borg episodes.
I was interested more in the fact Sasha from The Walking Dead was in Discovery than the show itself. I tried watching it but just couldn’t follow in medias res.
The reimagined BSG blows doors off any Star Trek. Original BSG was kinda cheesy in retrospect. Fuck Star Wars for suing them though.
The studio heads would rather use the Star Trek name than take a risk trying anything new, but the writers don’t understand Star Trek, and they apparently don’t care either. This is fundamentally what makes Nu Trek so painful to watch.
@8 PZ
GRRM is good at what he does. He may not always crank out page-turners on time, but they are page-turners.
(Which atrocious movies are you (not) referring to, John? The prequels where JJ Abrams pisses all over the whole story? Yeah, no offense to the actors, but fuck that guy.)
Raging Bee @37
I actually liked the first Abrams reboot with Chris Pine (not Pike), but I’ve never been a purist. Probably why I quickly warmed to the BSG reboot. Not too caught up in canon, plus Olmos rocked it.
I am probably an oddball on Star Wars. The original three didn’t age well. My favorite of them all was Attack of the Clones. Even though it took several attempts to get into it Rogue One is my second fave. So dark and tragic! I didn’t hate the most recent movies where Luke returns. And of the series I loved The Mandalorian though Gina Carano disappointed me in real life with her obnoxiousness. Good riddance. A shame as I loved Haywire. The best Starbuck (not Dirk Benedict what a jackass too) showed up in The Mandalorian!
Oh yeah there was an episode of The Mandalorian with Luke and I about stroked out on that intensity!
Raging Bee, indeed.
And let us not speak of the abomination that is…
Hemidactylus@38–
The first Abrams reboot was by far the best of that movie run (not a high bar), but it started the rot by trying to make ST an action franchise. A few SF ideas got into the script, but as the movies went on they became increasingly nonsensical. They couldn’t even make a decent adaptation of Wrath of Khan.
The BSG reboot had the advantage that the original series was pretty awful, so there was little fannish nostalgia to worry about. It also had a genuinely great start…but by 2/3 through the first season it was descending precipitously, and the twist/cliffhanger at the end of S1 was so stupid that I stopped watching.
I’ve been a Trekkie ever since it was first shown in the UK around 1969. TOS tried to chart new territory with some good writing by SF luminaries. TNG had some good episodes but mostly played it safe to protect the merchandising cash-cow it became. DS9 was a rip-off of the vastly superior Babylon 5, although, like TNG, had some good episodes. Voyager was marred by a captain who should have been the first to be shoved out an airlock (followed immediately by Stephen Miller) and a sense they didn’t know hat to do with the characters. Enterprise had promise until they screwed it up with some absurd storylines. The reboot movies were fun but not a patch on TOS. Picard didn’t work because Patrick Stewart was just too old to hold it together and even I found Discovery way too woke. Strange New Worlds headed back towards TOS with a captain who was good except for that ridiculous haircut they insisted on giving him. The Expanse was better than them all and The Orville gets back to the upbeat tone of some of the TOS with some clever and fun stories with a hint of Family Guy thrown in,
chrislawson @41
The second Star Trek reboot was spoofed by MAD:
BSG waxed and waned. They hit on some moral darkness of the Iraq war era. Razor was a standalone movie that got really dark and had old school chrome toasters:
Olmos singlehandedly carried the BSG reboot as he did Miami Vice.
John @40: I did not miss that show. Not saying I watched any of it, just that I didn’t (and never will) miss it.
Hemi @38: the original BSG series just screamed “CHiPs in Space!” to me. But I did like the newer series with Olmos. I also kind of liked “Caprica,” though I don’t know if it ever completed its first season.
The Expanse tv show is a decent introduction, but I usually go back to the books when I feel like something warm and familiar. Each book operates as its own contained episode within a larger narrative and the Corey’s manage a unexpectedly consistent authorial voice despite splitting the duties. It also comes to pretty definitive end, albeit maybe a book too long (Leviathan’s Fall is a bit overstretched). Their new series, the Captive’s War is worth a look; less adventure and more examination of life under occupation by an overwhelmingly superior force. An interesting change in direction, but maybe not everyone’s cup of tea.
seversky@42–
DS9 started airing a few weeks before Babylon 5. I doubt either one was ripping the other off.
No, pretty much everyone except Nimoy didn’t like him and it’s kind of funny reading Shatner’s own book “Star Trek Memories” where he interviewed his former fellow cast members and found everyone hated him (for things like taking their lines and diminishing their roles). And he was shocked! He was the asshole, and it took him decades to figure it out. But better late than never, I guess.
chrislawson, thing is, http://sequart.org/magazine/67733/deep-space-nine-and-babylon-5-remarkably-similar%E2%80%94or-similarly-remarkable/
I think there’s are a few other problems with Star Trek that Miller is missing:
The sheer number of immigrants and furriners in critical roles. Lots of Canadians, Brits, etc. Lots of first-generation Americans (children of immigrants), too. Not to mention a former resident of a
concentrationinternment camp… who is very, very out and gay. And American TV’s first interracial kiss, routine use of non-Caucasian actors in non-villainous/victim speaking roles, a Prime Directive against cultural imperialism (however often neglected), computer systems that didn’t try to sell you anything or just give you porn, actual respect for the capabilities of enemies (if not for their aims). Doctors depicted as actually competent, and listened to by decisionmakers.Immensely flawed, yes, in both conception and execution. There are more than a few points of interest, though — which is more than I can say for a massive science-fiction franchise that started about a decade later…
seversky, @42:
chrislawson, @47:
Well, actually… Yes, the B5 pilot aired a few weeks after the first episode of DS9, but the first season of B5 didn’t start airing until nearly a year later, by which time DS9 was already halfway through season 2.
Dunc, we know it was his because he interacted with fans at the time, with teasers and suggestions by them.
cf. https://jmsnews.com/
Just the other day I was saying to my good buddy ( ;-) ) StevoR that I was watching a documentary about how many Black kids were inspired by Uhura on Star Trek. I mean that wasn’t the topic, but it was a theme. They interviewed the brother of Ron McNair – one of the Challenger 7 – and he told how when they were kids it was unthinkable a Black person could go to space; until Uhura. And that inspired his brother to get his degrees and become an astronaut.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/01/16/too-soon-too-accurate/#comment-2290466
And I recalled an anecdote from the actor who played Uhura:
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-martin-luther-king-taught-star-trek-actor-nichelle-nichols-about-representation/8wntuxr9r
And he was right.
This is why we have “DEI”. It changes lives. This is why we need “woke”. Representation is SO important.
Tl;dr Star Trek’s “wokeness” transformed lives and it just wouldn’t be Star Trek without that.
@ ^
To be clear, when I say “Challenger 7” I am referring to the seven people who lost their lives in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. That’s what we called them back in the day.
Googling “Challenger 7” these days it appears to be a shoe. X-D
The Google machine also showed me this:
in case you think I’m making shit up.
(I wouldn’t make shit up. Now how in the hell would Morales survive if I just stole his job like that.)
Shatner who is pretty woke really and a strong environmentalist -stronger than ever after his spaceflight as he stated himself :
Source : https://www.good.is/william-shatner-shares-why-he-felt-a-deep-sense-of-sadness-after-looking-at-earth-from-space
I don’t think Miller gets either StarTrek or Kirk / Shatner at all.
Demolishing!?
Not making any new ones and continuing the franchise maybe. But what is that what you mean by “demolishing” there?
The German Raumpatrouille (started just a month after the first Star Trek) was also a progressive TV series, with women in prominent positions (the admiral that outranks the main protagonist is a woman). It was part of the pre-Reagan zeitgeist.
Miller probly thinks Kirk should’ve killed the Gorn Captain rather than showing him mercy and didn’t like The Voyage Home movie.. the whales one.
PS. Umm, Steve Shives? Like to see his take on this – great youtuber, Trekkie & human being :
https://www.youtube.com/@SteveShives
One of so many people that Trek inspired and encouraged with being progressive and pro-science and gave examples of some things to hope for into a better less MAGA reactionary, konservative future.
FWIW Loved a lot of Star Trek here. Saw TNG when it first came out from the very first episode (7.30 pm on channel 9 back when I was in high school! Didn’t stay inthat timeslot long..) and loved it as a kid. Later saw & enjoyed DS9, Voyager and eventually caught up with the TOS eps then Enterprise and some episodes of Discovery (season 1?) sporadically recently belatedly shown on TV here. Haven’t seen any of the Picard or the other one. Seen most of the movies – all the original ones and the first Reboot one (Yuk!) either on TV or in the cinemas starting with The Undiscovered Country for the latter.
Did like the idea of God – even pretend God – being the villain in V. Yeah, it had its flaws and cringe moments but that ending .. “What does God want with a starship?” Epic ref for atheism I reckon.*
Trek has given me among so very many others so many moments of awe, thought, joy and fun.
Has given us Uhura, Chekov – Takei, Spock, Picard, Data, Deanna, Odo, Kira, the Klingons – & their language, the Borg (& they have a Queen becoz reasons but anyhow.. & ok already have Daleks and Cybermen but, yeah..), Sisko, Janeway, Seven-o’-Nine & so many more. Has shaped so many & our global culture for good. (Mainly for good anyhow..)
Demolish it? Nah
Milk yet more out of a drained franchise & verse? Maybe not. Or better maybe only if it’s done really good and well by people that appreciate and love it for what it is. Oh and can also poke the occasional bit of parodic fun at it and not take it too seriously, eg. GalaxyQuest.
Could hyperlink it but we all know it here yeah?
Ah yes, the Phayngula asterisk vanishing annoying trick. Sigh.
Oh well, what the hell (a lunar crater and various towns FWIW) :
this scene – & are “real”gods less subject tologic and ethics tests? (1.23)
Miller suffers from the same things that I have found a lot of certain class of conservatives do when it comes to Trek. Normal people see a set of shows that all, even when it occasionally takes weird side trips, some of them worse than others, is, at its core, about, “Heh, we still have problems in the future, but we mostly finally figured out that screwing each other over for profit, or power, has a massive negative effect on society, so we decided to do crazy things like meeting people’s basic needs, offering everyone opportunities, instead of gatekeeping success, and valuing knowledge and diplomacy, even if/when we end up in the middle of a war with someone who doesn’t value the same things. Among other totally crazy ideas.” The Millers of the world all see Star Trek and go, “Its a government and military organization, which patrols space, and protects its people from aliens!” Somehow the whole, “Only when needed, not all the f-ing time, and not just so we can steal things from other planets and definitely not to create regime change, so we can steal a planets dilithium crystals…”, part utterly escapes them.
I see nothing in the few episodes that we have got so far that suggest its going to capitulate to the sort of bullshit messaging that the Millers, or Trumps, of the world might try to demand. Sure, its not going to be South Park, but I don’t see anything indicating its going to be the horrible mess that Tim the Utter Tool Taylor did when they made a new series for him, and started kissing conservative ass, and literally every f-ing lie/trope they have even told/been told, and calling it comedy, for example. This is a) their idea of comedy, and b) their idea of, well, everything else – including supposed diplomacy. Star Trek’s, or specifically Academy’s, was, “Well, gosh, if we can’t rebuild the government on Earth, because people don’t trust us any more, then lets rebuild the seat of the Federation, in direct cooperation with the people that haven’t liked us so much recently, on their planet instead, with them openly participating in its rebuilding!” This would be like having Trump and the GOP’s effect on the US being the end of DC, and us “negotiating”, to merge the US into the EU, with a new governing body in (just to be ironic, and Treky) Paris instead of DC.
It would cause almost all of the GOP to have instant heart attacks, so I would be all for it, just for that, but.. seriously… the show also has a literal “military branch” in it now, as part of the Academy story, so.. we are bound to both get more of that, but being Trek, do we honestly think its going to cave to US military doctrine, or poke the bullshit we have done so full of obvious holes that it will send the Millers of the world screaming, “Woke!”, all over again?
I was a big fan of Strange New Worlds until season 3, when it got CBS’d and the stories turned fascist. Like PZ, I watched the first 20 mins of Academy the other day and gave up, also fascist Paramount slop. Star Trek is dead.
I thought season 3 of Picard was nice btw, they gave the TNG crew the farewell they always deserved.
Jaws @ #50 and SilentBob @ #53
Well said, both of you!
My husband recently read an analysis that said that one of the rightwing’s major complaints about Star Trek Academy was that one scene showed three competent women without a male “supervising” and that they were all decidedly NOT the right’s version of beautiful, as in model-thin, perfect make-up and young. I pointed out that it was DEI in action – giving all women inspiring role models. Miller and his goons really don’t want that.
Kagehi @ #60
Exactly! That’s why I much prefer Star Trek over Star Wars and other SciFis that portray the future as dark.
It gives me hope for the future.
magistramarla: I agree with you about all the dark-dystopian-future SF that’s been coming out the past few decades. I think it all has a cumulative effect of being demoralizing (intentionally?); and it’s just getting monotonous and downright lazy. If they’re trying to warn us away from that path, they’re not doing a very good job — changing course requires a positive choice, and a positive choice requires a positive attitude and at least some sort of hope and a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve. Which a lot of that dystopian or post-apocalyptic stuff doesn’t seem to want to provide.
Eh, I enjoy Star Trek just to piss off the dipshidiots who bewail that it became “woke”.
News flash: It always fucking was. And Discovery especially pissed these guys off and I love that.
…an analysis that said that one of the rightwing’s major complaints about Star Trek Academy was that one scene showed three competent women without a male “supervising” and that they were all decidedly NOT the right’s version of beautiful, as in model-thin, perfect make-up and young.
“Why’d Star Trek have to get all feminist on us?! Why can’t they go back to pretty girls like that Black chick, with sexy miniskirts like all the stewardesses used to wear on airplanes?!”
BOYCOTT ALL THINGS PARAMOUNT. That includes Star Trek.
“My husband recently read an analysis that said that one of the rightwing’s major complaints about Star Trek Academy was that one scene showed three competent women without a male “supervising” and that they were all decidedly NOT the right’s version of beautiful, as in model-thin, perfect make-up and young”
That was the clip including in Miller’s tweet.
Which raises the question about how far they had to actually search to get a clip of three women and no men? Out of two hours this is probably the only 30 seconds in which there are more than two characters and they are all women.
The second main character (along with Holly Hunter’s captain [and do NOT tell me Holly Hunter is not attractive!]) plays a male student. Hard to say who is third billing but I’d say it is the male holographic doctor (nowhere in the first two episodes was there anything about how the male holographic doctor and the female holographic chose to gender-identify). The woman in alien makeup can reasonable be said to have fourth billing (or maybe that would go to another student). The third in the scene is a rando officer. She’ll probably appear in the background and may have a small speaking role for continuity but otherwise not really note worthy. Thing is this may be the only scene in the first two episodes that do feature specifically three women … or maybe there are others. Theres a scene with three male students. Otherwise I wasn’t really paying attention. (Actually, if anything between random admirals and bureaucrats men still seem outnumber women about three to two.)
I’d hardly call it “beyond satire” as Miller did.
I don’t think one singular example of that claim makes it “one of the rightwing’s major complaints about Star Trek Academy”.
So, yeah, cherry-picking, but on the part of the husband.
John Morales. Not sure I agree.
Here is Miller’s tweet in full https://x.com/StephenM/status/2011953450104365511
Someone called “End Wokeness” included a mundane 14 second clip three officers doing the usual pseudo-trekie babble and believed it was evidently “beyond parody” which Miller agreed was “tragic”.
I suppose we can wonder just what about that 14 second clip was “tragic” and “beyond satire” or we can speculate.
One person, one clip. Yes.
Now, whether that is “one of the rightwing’s major complaints about Star Trek Academy”, as claimed, is left unsaid. As is the article from which it is allegedly sourced.
Left unsaid also are how many other major complaints constitute the set.
(Also, online ‘analysis’ usually refers to someone’s mere opinion, rather than actual analysis)
Oh,.. all right then.
But we are talking about this particular instance of specifically Stephen Miller being an ass in a particular tweet. This may not be the one and only or most major of the right wings complaint (then again it might be) but this is one of them. but one right wing idiot.
It’s flooding the zone. Social media is a nice vector. Culture war stuff is chumming the waters.
Been persistent and ongoing.
cf. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/us/politics/trump-policy-blitz.html
—
[related]
An interesting take on the changing political landscape: https://www.vox.com/politics/475325/cable-news-culture-war-social-media-trump
↓
A very simple explanation for why politics is broken
Entertainment got too good.
[pullquote from the article itself]
Key takeaways
• In recent decades, culture war issues have become increasingly salient in American politics, triggering a realignment of the major party coalitions.
• A new study suggests that the rise of cable television fueled these trends: Facing heightened competition, news broadcasters realized that social issues were better at attracting viewers’ attention than economic ones.
• Digital media has made the attention economy even more competitive — and thus, culture war controversies even more prominent.
John Morales @40
A video you provide with 1hr 34min of snark against Picard. Ok. Maybe I won’t like Picard but at 10:19 he disses Isa Briones as the worst actress in the world which is summarily refuted by her work in The Pitt. She plays a kinda annoying quirky character well in that show. Is the rest of trashing of Picard as low depth insulting as that? You’re ok with such trite analysis?
Heh. It’s a funny piece, Hemidactylus.
But the stuff about the show itself is most upmarket.
You imagine that is analysis?
(My immediately preceding comment kinda answers you pre-emptively!)
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It lists the gruesome way it fails on every level, from concept onwards.
John Morales @75
This is stuff the worst (or second worst) actress in the world pulled off:
https://thepitt.fandom.com/wiki/Trinity_Santos
Picard itself might suck, but I will not stand for Briones being trashed for how some scene in Picard played out. No fucking way.
That mischaracterization of her pretty much calls the rest of the video into question.
PS Mr Plinkett also does “analysis” with the snark, if you want to see it.
John Morales @77
I see you’re not defending the unwarranted trashing of the reputation of Briones as an actress. But you’re also avoiding that issue. Quite telling.
I laughed all the way through, Hemidactylus.
Whyever would I supposedly defend a really funny (and relevant!) romp?
Hang on, lemme go look and then see who this Isa Briones person may be… 10:19, right?
That was the prob??
Heh. I have never heard or seen that person before (the actor Isa Briones) but if you imagine “That mischaracterization of her pretty much calls the rest of the video into question.” then fair enough.
Lemme look up the actor:
Hmm. Nope. Never saw her doing her stuff. Cute looking, but. Youngish.
Quite the corpus! ;)
John Morales @79
So all you got is ageist bullshit then. And that snarky Youtube video demonstrating nothing. Maybe your Boomer hatred of Zoomers. I’ve seen The Pitt and my dismissal of that crappy Plinkett video stands. You might try more empty reply filler, but you have nothing.
“So all you got is ageist bullshit then. ”
What? Where did that come from?
She’s fucking 27, I am 65+. She is bloody well youngish.
That ain’t bullshit. Nor is it ageist.
She is cute. Or is that the bullshit bit?
I mean, your entire shtick is to claim the video is questionable because it dissed her.
(Be aware that video is over 5 years old, BTW — so adducing anything she did after it was published is kinda irrelevant)
Anyway.’Mr Plinkett’ is a comic persona.
That is, a constructed comedic character whose shtick is exaggeration, not a literal statement of the creator’s own views. One of a team, the eponymous Red Letter Media.
(Bit like Uncle Roger)
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You seriously imagined that was analysis and serious dissing?
(Such nous!)
Hemidactylus (several beginning @ 74):
The criticism of Ms Briones in that video reminds me very much of one major-film-industry rag (of course it’s major, it says it is!) review of the film Watchmen, in which the reviewer repeatedly trashed one actress as the worst actress working in Hollywood. My immediate reaction was “Sounds like he had a bad date.” A couple years later, due to unrelated professional inquiries, I found out I was wrong — that reviewer didn’t have a bad date, he had been turned down entirely. Not that there’s no precedent — the legendary disdain of [unjustly lauded NYC-based film critic of last century] for anything by [famous director X] had similar origin.
One wonders if there’s anything similar (in terms at least of “distressed fanboy”) going on behind that video.
[OT]
Jaws, heh. It’s been going on for ages, and their Star Wars stuff is legendary.
They have cred in what they do, they are perfectly ‘woke’, just not weak.
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Anyway, I’ll go away now, after noting that Roddenberry wanted Starfleet to be exemplars of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis (to be fancy).
cf. https://www.slashfilm.com/1632073/gene-roddenberry-star-trek-rule-problem-writers/
@ John Morales
A link to a RLM video! I hadn’t noticed that earlier, but yeah, those Red Letter Media episode recaps for Disco and Picard are practically required viewing.
I think I agree with Mike about the dialogue in Nu Trek. It’s either sappy faux-Shakespearian or cringeworthy Millennial-speak, which is a complete departure from TOS at least all the way through Voyager where the writers made a specific effort not to have the main characters use contemporary slang. Starfleet projects an air of professionalism (ideally), and the characters are supposed to sound like it.
Yet another instance where these writers don’t seem to understand Star Trek and they don’t seem to care.
[I dinna mean to lie, but…]
@67: That is my plan.
And may the next live action Transformers movie never fucking happen.
It still staggers me how many people are totally unaware than the true spirit and essence of classic Trek endures in Lower Decks.
^ Callinectes : It does?
I haven’t seen that series sadly. Would like to.
Please elaborate.
Steve Shives 17 mins long yt clip on
MAGA Trekkies and Their Meritocracy Myth here.
I am old enough to wish for a series that does not pick & mix the last 500 years of European Imperialism and then drop some fantasy science on top of it to make it work.
Write some of moral allegories backed by real science ( to a first approximation the universe will kill any human instantly , the speed of light is not negotiable for a start) not stuff made up to have horato horblower or hopalong cassidy in space.