I think the reorientation around conflict actually began with Rick Berman after he took over from Roddenberry back 90s or early 2000s or whenever it was. He explicitly stated that he wanted more interpersonal conflict between the crew of the enterprise. His notion was that Roddenberry’s utopian vision of the way the crew worked together was just not realistic. Of course he missed the whole point, that it may not be realistic today, but it was an aspirational vision of a better future. I watched TNG religiously as a kid, but once Berman took over and began infusing pointless interpersonal conflict, I lost interest.
That said, everything I’ve seen of Strange New Worlds so far is excellent, it’s like the old Roddenberry vision reincarnated.
> once Berman took over and began infusing pointless interpersonal conflict, I lost interest
Berman took over basically near the end of season 2/beginning of season 3 when the original writers were slowly kicked out and Gene Roddenerry's health was in definite decline. This was also when the show got good.
Berman had many faults he brought to TNG (and magnified in Voyager, and you can see was Star Trek but with a looser Berman hand is like on DS9), but this wasn't one of them. If anything he stuck up too much for Gene's vision which sometimes struggled fitting into actual scripts that were compelling and made sense.
Season 3 was when TOS started to go all to hell. All of the very worst episodes were in Season 3. It was almost a relief when it was cancelled.
Season 3 started right after the Apollo 11 moon landing, when people had got a hint of how difficult and terrifying space travel really was. Aliens with bumpy heads weren't inspiring anymore.
Strange New Worlds is the Trek everybody (including me) was asking for - just give us a ship and a crew that does adventures rather than a soap opera. The actors are good and it looks good, but the writing is trash. The technology doesn't make any sense, there are plot holes that you could fly a 747 through, and endless impossible dilemmas solved by deus-ex-machina. Just low-quality.
Can you give an example of the kind of conflict you thought was pointless? Early TNG seemed like a new age cult to me, and then it became more real without losing the positivity.
This isn't uncommon in TV series. How many I Love Lucy plots were recycled later on? All in the Family? I can go on, but great writing and plots are often reused later.
Absolutely, I still listen to the soundtrack from season 1 & 2, he brought a lot of variety and character to the score. Some of his musical choices certainly do date the show, but its part of the charm.
I say this a bit loosely, but Lower Decks is best new Star Trek since DS9. They not only capture Trek, but do it with a silly genre (yes, Orville proved this out first). My problem with Disco/etc is the extreme over indexing on a singular characters, great as they may be.
Either way, SNW is fantastic and I agree with your comment.
>I watched TNG religiously as a kid, but once Berman took over and began infusing pointless interpersonal conflict, I lost interest.
Really? So you actually liked Season 1, and lost interest at the start of Season 3? You're a really rare person then. Most fans acknowledge that the first season was pretty bad (esp. the racist episode), and the second season was better but still rough (Pulaski was annoying), and that season 3 was when all the classic episodes started. You're the first person who's ever said they liked the first season the most.
>> Compare the old shows, TNG & DS9 with the new shows - Discovery and Picard.
> I think the reorientation around conflict actually began with Rick Berman after he took over from Roddenberry back 90s or early 2000s or whenever it was.
Well, I watched season 1 of Picard. So I can't do much with the comparison being requested.
But DS9 is completely oriented around military conflict (between the Federation and Cardassia, or between the Federation and the Changelings), and it throws TNG's notion of a communist society with no money out the window. (Jake does once remark that, as a human, he has no money, but whenever Riker shows up he has plenty of it.)
I don't think you can relate TNG to communism. Communist society still had/has money, people still go to the store and buy things. They're more concerned with who owns the means of production.
But TNG (and TOS to some extent) is a total post-scarcity society. Effectively infinite energy from anti-matter reactors combined with energy->matter conversion "replicators" solves scarcity totally. The only limit on what can be created is how complex it is, and how advanced the science and engineering of the reactors and replicators are.
Hence TNG society is totally oriented around science and discovery, rather than production, economic growth, and financial gain.
There was never a communist society on Earth, even if you take the propaganda of the countries that are colloquially known as "communist" at face value. The people, and the parties that they formed, called themselves "communist" because they were supposedly building communism. However, not USSR, nor China, nor any other place ever claimed to have succeeded at it.
The "who owns the means of production" problem was to be solved by socialism. Which then supposedly enabled the higher productivity and faster development that would lead to the true post-scarcity society - which would be communism. This is especially evident in Soviet sci-fi, which would often poke over that boundary - e.g. Yefremov's description of future communism in "Andromeda Nebula" and "The Hour of the Bull", or Strugatsky's in the Noon Verse series.
It appears that some people have downvoted this comment.
Whoever did that is completely ignorant about the meaning of the words "socialist" and "communist", as used in all the countries where communist parties have detained the power.
There's still remnants of scarcity in TNG. For example, technology and resources that can't be replicated and where trade is relevant still. And the amount of habitable planets suitable for colonization is also always somewhat limited. No clue how the Federation distributes "luxury" goods like naturally grown food or, famously, wine from Picard's family's vineyard.
>And the amount of habitable planets suitable for colonization is also always somewhat limited.
This part of ST doesn't really make sense. They're shown as having the tech to build enormous starbases (and with domed artificial habitats like "Running Silent" in the latest SNW episodes), so they don't need planets to colonize: they can just build O'Neil cyilnders.
They can be made to have almost any size. Even with a biosphere. Like the rings in Halo. You can walk and enjoy air that is as fresh as in any natural environment. The real disadvantage is that it is more fragile than a planetary environment. Also, civilizations living there would have to produce technicians that can maintain its systems. Planetary civilizations could choose to become low-tech.
> Of course he missed the whole point, that it may not be realistic today, but it was an aspirational vision of a better future.
It’s not realistic because it’s fundamentally either autistic or straight up dehumanizing and authoritarian. People have deconstructed the Star Trek universe and themes ad infintum at this point, but I don’t think anybody is missing the point just because they find it distasteful.
> either autistic or straight up dehumanizing and authoritarian
It's important to note that in STTNG, Star Fleet is not the entirety of the human population in the show. This concept is often overlooked. The idea that human interpersonal dysfunction is a psychological and maslow-dependent side-effect is abhorrent to some people. It's seen as dehumanizing because such an observer is not able to connect with any of the characters. The assumption is that the writers have somehow taken away their humanity for them to be psychologically stable, mature, and well-adapted individuals. Read into that what you will. This is supposed to be "utopian" despite the obvious conflicts that arise, nonetheless.
Orville does something similar, but magnifies the differences and interpersonal conflicts in a fun way.
> It's important to note that in STTNG, Star Fleet is not the entirety of the human population in the show.
Oh that’s right, they’re often comically overtly racist caricatures.
In any event Star Fleet specifically is a dystopian hell has been analyzed to death. And the genesis of DS9 is completely straightforward. You can use the idealized yet completely ridiculous portrayal of Star Fleet for a movie or two, some short stories. Stretching it out to 7 seasons was admirable (but even they had to make some concessions with story arcs post Roddenberry).
Let’s not forget TOS only needed to last 3 seasons and the Roddenberry era TNG is pretty crappy overall at least outside the diehard fandom.
> In any event Star Fleet specifically is a dystopian hell has been analyzed to death.
Analysis about the dystopian back-workings is fan fiction. It's all fiction, to be sure, but the topic is constrained. STTNG portrays a society, in good faith that it's harmonious. This article is about STTNG, not DS9.
If you're going to make extraordinary claims, you need to provide evidence, not just say "Google it."
I did Google it, though, and found the expected handful of thinkpieces and Reddit posts. Obviously the shows have fallen short or aged poorly at times, and people have discussed that the same way they've discussed everything else about Star Trek. I'm not seeing evidence for your claim that "Star Trek is dystopian" is a settled conclusion.
Also, I'm still waiting to hear what "fundamentally autistic" means.
The themes are hyperfixated on a few aspects of a utopia and human behavior with complete deafness to everything else. That’s the charitable take. The less charitable one is it is a type of willful indoctrination.
Yeah, no, not going down this rabbithole. If you’re already convinced STTOS and TNG were the pinnacle achievements of SciFi TV entertainment then we just have to agree to disagree.
That said, everything I’ve seen of Strange New Worlds so far is excellent, it’s like the old Roddenberry vision reincarnated.