The Problem With Star Trek

For the longest time I considered not posting this particular Blog post, after all, these might be considered controversial comments and I’ve learnt over the years (much to my chagrin) that if you stand up and stand with people the trolls emerge from the caves, and we all know how crawl and unfeeling Social Media can be. While, today, steps can be taken to block those people who make one’s life a misery, it was not always so and very often you either had to retreat and never post anything again, or just not respond.

Which brings me to this post. I love Star Trek, I’ve loved it since it was shown in syndication in the country where I lived – Bahrain – although there were a few episodes that they didn’t show, among them ‘Miri’, ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’ and ‘The Empath’ – although we didn’t get ‘Bread and Circuses’ either, although this was probably because we lived in a Muslim country and this particular episode beat you over the head with Christianity, especially at the end when Kirk himself says “They had both, Caesar and Christ.” So while Islam is fairly tolerant of Christianity as a religion – after all Jesus is mentioned in the Qur’an – he is known as Isa ibn Maryam, it’s made fairly clear that the Muslim faith is predominant in the region, so obviously any Television Show that contradicted this would obviously not be shown.

However, I digress. While today, Star Trek TOS is considered a groundbreaking series, one has to remember that looking back it was considered a failed series. It only ran for 3 Seasons, there were serious concerns that it might actually be cancelled after the second series (but fan protests and letter writing brought it back for a final Season, although like most things there is also controversy about Star Trek being cancelled too.) The reason, and the only reason I think, that Star Trek succeeded was because after it was cancelled, it was then shown in syndication and more people got to see it than did so during its first transmission, thus more people got to see the series who would not ordinarily have had the opportunity to do so and it touched a chord in many people’s psyches. And when you remember that at the time people were living through the Vietnam War, in syndication it was the ongoing Korean Conflict and it must have felt as if the world was going to end in fire, and Star Trek somehow offered people a sense of optimism, that the future would not be bleak, would be hopeful and that we would overcome all of the problems facing us today and we would be able to do so without having to resort to killing one another.

Star Trek TNG built on the reputation of TOS, and in many ways owes its success to that series. But TNG was massively successful, certainly it had some ‘stinkers’ – I don’t know any Star Trek series that hasn’t had episodes that are pure cringe. And this is where my problem with TNG arises – well actually it isn’t with TNG – it’s with the writers. As in Star Trek: The Next Generation was so successful, and so well received that almost every franchise since its inception feels the need to circle back to it. For example the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise ‘These Are The Voyages’ seemed to be less about the crew of the first starship named Enterprise and more about a Holodeck Program being run by Troi and Riker to resolve some issue that seemed to have already been resolved in an earlier episode of TNG, and it’s as if the writers seem to be unable to leave Star Trek: The Next Generation alone. They even did it with Season 3 of Picard. We had to go back to the Next Generation crew for the final series

Now its possible that I’m overthinking this. After all TNG was successful as I wrote, at a time when people were concerned that Star Trek as a franchise might not work, so the fact that it ran for 7 Seasons is in itself phenomenal. But this insistence on revisiting it again and again and again becomes somewhat tedious. It implies that viewers are morons and most of us aren’t. We are quite happy to have other characters appear in other Star Trek franchises – for example Riker in the animated series ‘Lower Decks’; Q in DS9 and (a younger Lieutenant Kirk) in Strange New Worlds; what tends to irritate us more than anything else is when writers insist on revisiting a franchise that is done and dusted. I mean most fans know, that Nemesis was to put it mildly a poor film, and it has been felt by many fans that the final season of Star Trek: Picard was an attempt to redress the nasty taste in the mouth left by Nemesis. But this leads me back again to what I wrote before, every Star Trek iteration has had its ‘stinkers’ – and this applies to the films as well. And there’s probably some karmic justice in that. I appreciate what they were trying to do, they were trying to end the Next Generation on a high note, unfortunately it falls flat because fans look at it and react with, “Oh, God, another Next Generation reference.”

I believe I have written it before, and other writers, better than me have posited this ‘Law of Diminishing Returns’ but the I’m not sure the writers of Star Trek understand this and to a degree I don’t think Paramount get this either. When every single Star Trek series returns again and again to Their Next Generation it becomes tedious. I know that Star Trek: The Next Generation was massively successful and that for many of us it was the Star Trek series we grew up with, so going back to it is like visiting old friends or being wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket. But because of this it’s also stultifying, our need for comfort is like a drug and we’d rather fall back on tried-and-true characters and stories than to explore new ones.

I admit that I’m not a fan of Strange New Worlds, but this is because I don’t like the way that Captain Pike’s mental health is addressed (or not) in the show and I really hate how his disability is portrayed, as though it’s the end of his life and he’ll never be anything useful again. Speaking as someone who has become progressively more disabled over the years, I am well aware of how being disabled means you’re often dismissed by the able-bodied. I love Star Trek (mostly) and for the moment I just wish that they would leave the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation alone, let’s not have a series with Seven of Nine as the new Captain of the Enterprise-E or F. I’m not saying let’s never have another series like that, but could we just leave it for a couple of years? Please?