And DS9 is the conservative one with all the religion and the baseball and the war crimes and stuff.
TNG was run by a Frenchman who thought allowing bronze age species to believe in God was a barbaric act and went to bat as a human rights lawyer for an android who in turn let his first child pick their gender at will. All that while his polyamorous first officer was busy arguing against conversion therapy when pushed upon his trans nonbinary partner.
Uh… He wasn’t against allowing anyone to believe in a god of gods. He only took issue with people worshipping “The Picard” and Ardra scamming.
He gave a speech about how they had moved past religion and he wasn’t going to allow them to go back to superstition
I looked it up.
Horrifying. Dr. Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? NO!
Man was such an atheist I’m mildly surprised he isn’t more of a terminally online conservative. He’s too pro-choice, though, so I think we’re safe.
He knew Ardra was a phony, but still passed up the opportunity.
That takes some restraint and willpower, as opposed to Will-power, cause we all know Riker would.
It doesn’t take any willpower when you’re this man-
While I don’t doubt he (or Picard) could have bagged Cindy Crawford, you can tell they weren’t in the same room based on lighting and shadows.
Why would you expect them to be in the same room for the cover of some TV Guide in the first place?
As much as Renee O’Connor was amazing as Gabrielle, I wouldn’t mind Jeri in that role 👀…
Huh. Didn’t know that was a thing. Way more effort than I thought was ever put into a cover of a TV magazine.
Let’s be real. Picard probably worships the koala.
He’s met it enough times at this point that it’s not belief. You don’t believe in a fact.
Have you been in a coma and missed the birth and growth of this terrible thing called social media?
You mean that place where you don’t believe in facts?
Nah. There is a whole omnipotent being with a massive crush on him and Picard treats him like a nuisance he deals with at regular intervals. First thing he did when Q got briefly depowered was put him in the brig.
Picard knows the Koala is real but he has zero respect for cosmic marsupials in general.
You don’t?
Wait, I thought we all did. Which is why I suggested a superior being such as JLP also does.
Fair enough. May your day be blessed by the holy breath of eucalyptus.
And may you always feel his weird double thumbed hands guiding you in your daily mod report decisions. Channel your inner Dukat.
Yeah DS9 was good, but it took me a long time to get past the fact that they made the Federation freaking space NATO. Martial law, biological weapons on your own citizens, papers please, most with the subtext (or lengthy deleted personal log) that morality is for peace time, and some of your favorite values should be abandoned when the stakes are high.
I think ENT is the most conservative tbh. Who else would go that far to get revenge for Florida?
I haven’t gotten past that, to be honest.
To this day I have a visceral reaction to all the online nerds complaining about NuTrek not being Starfleet enough but having memory holed that DS9 got that exact pushback at the time for honestly way more legitimate reasons.
And look at how DS9 is seen now.
But to be fair, do you really think the future will look back at Discovery the same way?
Hm… had season 5 been better, maybe. Like Discovery it starts with a different tone and then it finds itself, but it unfortunately ends in a bit of a dud. I think seasons 2-4 are good to great, though, it’s just never quite as smart as TNG.
Season 1 is… underrated? It buckles under the pressure of expectations as a revival to kickstart a whole new era, but I think as a movie it would have worked pretty well, honestly. Better than most of the cheap fluff they put in theatres during the TNG movie era.
But I also think DS9 is overrated. besides the straight-up bad wheelspin-y early episodes, my last rewatch ended when they spent a whole show making O’Brian argue for doing a bit of murder, then doing a bunch of murder himself and then the show being so much in agreement with him that this is taken as a bit of a teachable moment.
It’s been decades and I was still pissed. At least Michael got court martialled.
Season 1
I mean, how many Star Treks have a great Season 1? Other than SNW :P
I am not a mega Star Trek fan and skipped Discovery after season 1 TBH, but maybe I will go back and look at the later seasons, thanks.
True. I was in a genuine rage halfway through Lower Decks season 1 and I’m now actively in “Save Lower Decks” team.
I do recommend going back in your situation, then, because it really becomes a whole different show. Especially if you did enjoy SNW, the vibe of Season 2 is different but the characters are consistent, so it’s a natural jump-in point.
Random recommendation at risk of being off topic, but you have to watch Pantheon (the animated TV series) if you like Lower Decks, assuming you haven’t seen it already.
I just discovered it and… holy heck. It’s incredible, and no one knows about it because the distribution/release is a disaster. It’s honestly some of the best sci fi I’ve consumed anywhere, period.
Dear Paramount: Doctor Twink and his boyfriend Fashion Lizard is a spinoff I would 100% watch every week.
Thank you.
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Case closed.
And an impressionable young mind opened
That’s not the only thing that opened
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It’s ok - he’s just a plain… simple… tailor.
The hypothetical discussions will be, without irony, absolutely riveting.
Out of all the shows I’ve seen over the decades, out of all the characters I’ve seen, Garek is probably my absolute favorite. When top tier writing meets top tier acting. Beautiful.
You should read the novel that the actor wrote. It’s the back story of the character, and the first of hundreds of start trek books I’ve been reading.
And he narrates the audiobook himself!
Oooh that’s a nice plus
Oh my god yes. My Dinner With Andre style. Just the two of them flirting for an hour.
I would watch that over and over again.
Where do people find fanfic for Star Trek? Asking for a friend.
Haha why do you guys call him Doctor Twink? The man was a horn dog, chasing tail on the daily.
… Star Trek is and has always been woke. It’s like the core feature of Star Trek
ToS had the first interracial kiss shown on television. And then there was this entire episode.
Still this over VOY clown episode tbh
It wasn’t the 1st interracial kiss on TV. By some metrics it was the 1st in the US but other countries had earlier kisses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_interracial_kiss_on_television
I think it’s most notable for the conservative American censorship.
Being the first on American television was a significant achievement considering how they deal with censorship there. Americans have always been a bit stunted when it comes to accepting diversity.
Not gonna lie, as a straight white man, I would watch a show called " Doctor Twink with his boyfriend fashion Lizard".
I’m thrilled they are making a series about me.
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Once The Doctor gets a Silurian companion.
If you bend things enough, VOY Distant Origin and DW Silurians can be the same thing
Silurian is a type of alien? It’s a whole geological period. Calling something “Silurian” could refer to thousands of different species in the fossil record.
Silurian is a type of alien?
Technically, no. I’m referring to Doctor Who lore.
And they were named that because of of the geological period
They forgot Libertarian Alien who’s there for comedic relief. His kooky libertarian plans reliably blow up in his face like Wile E. Coyote.
Quite woke of them to give representation to a conservative too. We wouldn’t want to ignore any minorities. Not unless they shrink into nothingness. I hope.
Conservatism … in DS9 they gave them an entire planet called Ferenginar.
I’m really loving the episodes with Brunt, Liquidator of the Ferengi Commerce Authority … if any being in the galaxy embodies taxation, it’s Brunt. I love him because I absolutely hate him, a truly genius piece of character creation.
Jeffrey Combs is the most underrated actor of the 90s.
Combs also said of Brunt, “He was the IRS guy from hell. He’s the guy who just kept coming back to make your life miserable, audit after audit after audit. I can imagine that that would be pretty awful. He also typified to me the inflexibility of someone who thinks their way is the right way.”
And now the Himbo is their king
Wokeness is not the issue with disco, et al. It’s terrible writing, poor science even for soft sci fi, and too many cringey moments.
I get that some people love it. But the emotional resolution porn is, to me, just icky.
This sums Dico up perfectly for me. I consider myself “woke”, I share the values they are advocating in Disco very much. But it’s just. So. Shoved. Into. It.
It’s not subtle, it’s not something coming naturally to the story in most cases. It’s just badly writen into a already badly written overall show.
And that, to be honest, is a shame.
Hardest part of liking Disco for me was I couldn’t shake the feeling they stretched Star Treks skin over another shows pilot/first season.
This actually makes a lot of sense. You might be right.
I disagree that it’s because of ‘‘shoved’’ or overt politics. It’s just God awful writing and a terrible idea for a ST show. They made it a chronological story about one protagonist. There’s consistent bridge crew we don’t even know their names, their character or story, or even get to hear them talk besides ‘‘there’s a [thing] captain!’’ Type of shit.
No ensemble stories, no stand alone stories, and very close to no science fiction at all. It’s all just trying to give you high stakes action scenes with close to nothing else happening.
For a great example of this sort of thing done right, compare The Expanse books to the show.
The books kinda glossed over the head of the fucking entire earth’s story and plotline. In the show, she was a highlight. Also, a few characters were merged into one female character, and women, in general, were given more prevalence. Poly relationships were given good voice, and overall, things just fit and felt natural.
That is to say: It can be done right. Disco just doesn’t do right, imo.
I never watched the expanse with that angle in mind, but after you said it I have to agree. Just says something about how natural it was done when it just doesn’t stand out from the rest of the story at all.
My biggest problem with Discovery is that whenever they see something interesting they have to cut to a reaction shot to every single person on the bridge but don’t even show us what they’re seeing.
My second biggest problem is the writing. They don’t talk like Starfleet, they talk like people from the 2020s.
Stamets is coming for you.
I know. He and I are very close. My question is how you know.
Yes. We’re gay lovers.
Ah. Yes, one should always be open about one’s entanglements.
Totally agreed, shnookums
:D
Don’t eat the shrooms!
Directions unclear: am now critical navigation equipment for starship.
Too late!
There’s so much wrong with it. Where’s the 80s office décore?
If it doesn’t have some elements of kitsch, it’s not Star Trek.
Star Trek is NOT a Netflix production that can be churned out with improved dark, edgy, and abstract lighting, sleek sets, and dutch angle cinematography… Star Trek is a series of Hallmark SciFi philosophy questions, set on fresh carpet with weird sculptures and props throughout.
Star Trek is NOT a Netflix production that can be churned out with improved dark, edgy, and abstract lighting, sleek sets, and dutch angle cinematography…
Well… It’s exactly like almost all the others. Netflix managed to hit some 3 shows that got improved this way.
The first interracial kiss on TV was between Kirk and Uhura in 1968. Star Trek is and always has been set in a time when humans have achieved a post-scarcity leftist utopian. Shit’s been this way since way before your uncle started calling everything he doesn’t like “woke” which was only like 4 years ago for the record.
Know what was really woke? Keeping watch for police brutality and unjust police tactics. For real. I’m quoting this article lol.
Anything that progressives do is something they try to turn into a curse. They even try it with the word progress and progressive, but it doesn’t have the same effect which they really struggle with.
Is Eddington communist himbo? Rom?
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Thank you. That’s the only one I didn’t recognize immediately, haha. Poor delightful faithful Rom.
took me a sec, too. i only remembered because i’ve seen this meme before
It’s Worf. Rom wasn’t a main character.
Thanks for asking, I was racking my brain trying to figure it out
Bareil?
Communist? More like priest himbo I would think.
Rom quotes Karl Marx, forms a union, and organizes a workers strike in “Bar Association.” I’m assuming that’s mostly where this comes from, though there were also some reforms he instituted near the end of the series.
Communist sure, but himbo?
Yeah, himbo definition is unattractive and Rom is a sexy beast! How else did he land a knockout like Leeta?
The problem isnt woke, the problem is CW level writing. I’ve watched every episode of star Trek up to season 2 of Picard and the writers of discovery not understanding the speed of light, and it feel like the writers are just in qualified for their positions. It’s so bad.
The writing for all the previous shows all had their highs and lows, but characters acted within their characterization and had genuine motivations. Picard season 1 was a rip off of mass effect and old man’s war, with the facade Picard shoe horned in. Season 2 you have him chummy with a cold blooded murderer who faced no consequences.
I liked discovery for the first few seasons, but the plot holes, inconsistencies, and poor characterizations, left me feeling like watching the show was more habit or chore. I also never really felt like I got to know characters because their actions are so off the wall that you don’t figure out the algorithms of their personality and motivations.
I honestly feel like lower decks has been the best Star Trek made in this new era, but I haven’t seen brave new worlds yet or Picard season 3. I just needed a break after Picard season 2.
SNW is much better. It’s not a single story stretched to fit over a whole season helps a lot. It’s definitely one of the best of new era Trek.
Season 3 of Picard is better than the first couple, but doesn’t really add anything.
The stand out surprised at how god damned fucking good it is though is Prodigy. The first few episodes are a little bit childish, but after that it is excellent.
I’ll have to give prodigy a chance, I loved Voyager and I heard there is a lot connections but the Voyager connections to Picard season 2 is partially why I needed a break from Trek, lol.
SNW is legit really good. A return to form. They experimented with different genres like you mentioned on the other shows then when they were writing SNW some brilliant person was like “hey, how about if we tried making star trek?”
Agree SNW followed by LD are the best ones recently. And by far the best episode is the crossover of them both.
I feel like to enjoy discovery I need to mute and turn off subtitles and just enjoy the graphics because they’re really good. But we’ll the most important things is that it open the doors to so many new series at same time, more than ever happened.
Enjoying the graphics, except for their stupid turbolift animation that makes no fucking sense
I loved Discovery, but my god those turbolift scenes, whose bright ideas were those? Bloody idiotic!
I think it was more “how about we create some actually likable, interesting, and multidimensional characters making actually sensible decisions?” I think SNW is better here than even all the old shows. I have the feeling that stuff like Worf being such an inexplicably bad dad or Sisco completely out of character committing genocide in one episode would not happen in SNW.
Season 2 you have him chummy with a cold blooded murderer who faced no consequences.
Hey, Picard had already been chummy with Worf for years on TNG.
Picard s02 was a fever dream that fortunately didn’t go onward (s03 is a totally different contained story). I agree with you tho, Disco had different writers at the beginning but turned into a festering disaster and killed itself.
picard 3 is ok if you can tolerate blatant fan service. BNW is pretty good. and i 100% agree with you about discovery and picard 1-2.
Prodigy is the best Trek of this generation, then Lower Decks, then SNW.
They were too cowardly to make Doctor Twink and his boyfriend a thing, so they don’t get credit for that. Fashion Lizard works, though.
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That, and there is plenty of fanfic to fill the void. A little cowardly to leave it to the fans, but it’s not like they didn’t build the foundations. The writers deserve some credit.
There’s also that segment with Andrew Robinson in some DS9 docu where he states his opinion on the matter pretty clearly. Can’t remember his exact words, but his vibe was one of “shoulda let us have fucked”.
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Yeah, that’s the one, and yes, he is! His “Especially the lies!” moment is one of my favorite.
It’s been bloody hilarious if you’re long term fan, he’s gone over the years from coyly hinting at vague interests other than espionage to where we’re at now, where he’s outright saying ‘my motivation was i want to fuck this beautiful man’. Mostly due to society getting its head out of its arse, but still, hilarious
They did! It’s canon in the lower decks mobile game (don’t play it (it’s bad))
Ha, that’s great! Of course, the creators of DS9 had no involvement.
Let’s not forget:
- The Kiss
- white/black Riddler duking it out with black/white guy in an allegory to race relations
- Abraham Lincoln calling Uhura a “a charming negress” followed by a brief discussion about the future’s take on linguistics and equality
- the pilot episode had a woman named Number One who was so named because she was number one at everything she did. She excelled at all the things on the ship. A woman being better than men? Impossible. That’s woke.
- the Enterprise and a bunch of klingons once showed up to a planet so woke they ended war and used space magic to make the humans and klingons also do no wars in their vicinity.
- in another episode the Enterprise went to a planet that still had war but they calculated the results of battles using a video game console and then sent casualties to their death in a disintegration chamber and the Kirk blew up the video game console to force them to either negotiate or go back to actual war as a lesson in ignoring the Prime Directive directly.
- there was a Nazi planet and the Nazis were the bad guys.
- there was also a Yankee planet where they somehow independently wrote the Declaration of Independence in broken pidgin English and used it to defeat the Space Soviets.
- the episode where Kirk and a woman exchange bodies was… not handled well and is not a good example.
- the klingons were soviets, btw.
- basically every episode of the original series had something “woke”, okay? It was literally the whole point of the series.
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Spock was supposed to be red, like the Devil.
Sulu (to Uhura): I’ll save you fair maiden!
Uhura: Sorry, neither.
Well said!!! To continue with your points, I really enjoyed this video essay that goes through a lot of what you’re talking about. Really proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that trek valued diversity in regards to both civil rights with race and LGBTQ. (Even though there’s no need to prove an obvious fact). It starts with DS9 but stretches to the rest of trek and even some non trek references
The Vulcan credo was IDIC — Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations.
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Traumatized Goo
I see they put O’Brien on this list, but then which one is Odo?
He’s the Unionist.
Odo is an identity-seeking pre-proto-fascist who redeems himself. (pre and proto both because he’s not a fascist but he might have become one if the
KardassiansCardassians kept power)Imho
Edit k->c
*Kardashians
Oh fuck it’s with a c.
Haven’t watched in a while and due to my native language sometimes it’s easy to confuse this shit. But also am very much not sober so more excuses from that as well.
Perfectly excusable on either count. Please, feel no embarrassment. Plus, this is one of the funniest mistakes I’ve ever seen!
^ I see what you did there 😏 😉 😂
(pre and proto both because he’s not a fascist but he might have become one if the Kardassians Cardassians kept power)
Disagree there. If there is one thing we know about Odo, it is that he has a very strong moral code and a strict sense of justice. Even when Terok Nor was under Cardassian Rule.
I would not disagree in the slightest that he has a very strict moral code. And that’s exactly why I said what I said.
Because the strict code Odo lives by is one of following rules.
During the Cardassian occupation, he worked as the rules told him to, unbiased. But the thing is that immoral men can make bad rules.
Perhaps proto-fascist is a bit strong. Proto-authoritarian maybe. But either way, he clearly doesn’t go that way, and like I said, redeems himself.
In Tribunal, he talked about how he started out that way, but after executing three innocent Bajorans for a terrorist attack, he learned the meaning of justice.
He was also only brought aboard Terok Nor in the first place because he was seen as a neutral third party.
“… because he was seen as a neutral third party.”
Sort of my point, really.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven.
— Desmond Tutu
Right, but what I am saying is that he figured out on his own while Cardassians were still occupying the station what justice meant and that it didn’t mean just following the rules.
✨ even better! He was a union man ✨
I don’t remember the series that well… did he learn how to impersonate an Irishman?
Monologuing protoplasm
It was woke then too.
Colm Meaney was associated with Sinn Fein (formerly the political arm of the IRA) for a long time, so “Pro-Union Irishman” took me a minute.
Asking for a black and tan at a american fake Irish bar will also seem bad if you know Irish history.
The bad guys on the show were: Space Hitler, Space Karen, Quark
Quark isn’t a bad guy 😢
He was an antagonist. Constantly trying to subvert order.
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If your interpretation of “woke" is the opposite of “the exploitation/suffering of others for my personal gain”, then I can’t see how that’s anything but the opposition of evil, and if you see that as adversarial— well, that speaks volumes about you and your sense of ethics and morality.
And I have absolutely no problem saying that I find that sense of morality and ethics to be fucking garbage.
Don’t bother replying, because I’ve blocked you and you’re fucking garbage sense of ethics and morality. I don’t wanna hear another word of it.
Quark is more of an inside track informant than an outright villain. While he often held to the Rules of Acquisition, he found himself going against the grain enough to be exiled.
You had the chance to call him Space Capitalist
I thought about it. But that didn’t capture the full package as much.
I liked the purity of quarks character. Always after whatever provided the most opportunity and profit. He frequently was thwarted in his shady dealings in the pursuit of profit, but that’s capitalism baby!
Not to imply I’m a fan of capitalism, far from it, but he was portrayed so perfectly as the embodiment of pure, unfettered capitalism. Regulations were little more than a suggestion and if breaking them didn’t result in a loss (of profits), or if it had a fairly low chance of affecting his profits, in his mind, then he would simply ignore rules and do whatever the hell he wanted.
Looking at the world today, that’s exactly what capitalism is doing. If you have laws but no enforcement, corpos will do it because the punishment is basically non-existent. If you have laws and enforcement, but they can hide/relocate/obfuscate that they’ve broken any of those laws, then they’ll do whatever they damn well please, and just hide it. If the punishment for the infraction is less than the profit to be made by ignoring the laws, they’ll do that too.
One notable example I like to go back to frequently is relating to tobacco. The laws are there but enforcement is stretched so thin that the chances that you’ll be caught are pretty minimal. So many places, like corner stores and gas stations, don’t give enough of a shit to enforce the laws. They make so much from just selling to whomever asks regardless of how old they look and whether they have ID or not (within reason, I don’t think anyone is selling to 10 year olds), they’ll just do it anyways. When/if they catch a fine for it, they’ll easily pay for it with all the profit made from not giving a shit about identifying people. As long as you look old enough, or choose enough to old enough, you can buy some. I’ll strongly express that not every place is like this, but there’s a nontrivial number that are.
If you take that same approach with everything, you get corpos just eating EPA fines for polluting that are a fraction of what they would need to spend to properly dispose of their industrial waste. There’s probably thousands of examples, but I won’t waste everyone’s time to dig them up and cite them.
He was the perfect embodiment of this profit-first mentality. Easily one of the best ferengis in any of the trek universe.
Not paid enough to care.
Good news! If the MAGA party wins in November they’ll surely defund, gut, or do away with the EPA entirely, so pollution fines will drop to zero, clearly indicating pollution is gone!
Wasn’t that the strategy with COVID?
Just don’t test anyone so the numbers stay low?
Yep that’s the joke ;)
I always thought of Quark as the moral center of DS9. Hear me out. It’s a darker show, much more shades of grey, a bit of a break from Roddenbury’s vision of star trek. Instead of Jean Luc’s pompous speeches, and Janeway’s infuriating (and inconsistent) adherence to the prime directive, DS9 actually toes the line and crosses it many times. Quark meanwhile has his own code, and he sticks to it as faithfully as anyone can. He is true to himself and his species and pretty much never crosses his own line - he crosses our line for sure, but rarely if ever his own. Pretty much the only time I can remember him doing something un-ferengi is when he turned down a gazillion bars of latinum to run weapons for those people planning on blowing up a planet with a few million people on it. At the end of the day you can always count on quark doing the right thing. He’s quite complex, and by far one of my favorite characters in all of Trek.
And bees.
