posted
With a fifth series on the way I thought it might be instructive if we try and define just what it is that constitutes Star Trek.
To my mind, it requires several things:
1 - The "Roddenberry Future" This dictates the setting. The core of the series is its portrayal of an optimistic and prosperous future where mankind has overcome internal divisions and has, as Gene liked to say, grown out of the stage of being a child-race.
This entails first that we need to set the series in the now well-established timeline at any point from now forwards. More crucially, it must respect the ideals that traits like petty jealousy, greed, intolerance have been removed from the human psyche. Basically, the humans of the Federation are good people.
Despite what some say this does not inhibit drama as much as you might think. People remain human and thus fallible. This allows the show to still explore the "human condition". I am sure even on Earth of the 24th century there are still the occasional "crimes of passion", although it must be remembered that crime would be far less casual than it is now. Even S31 is not totally incompatible with this notion so long as (a) those involved believe passionately that they are doing the morally right thing to do - protecting their society and its ideals from those who would destroy it, and (b) the populace and the government are blissfully ignorant (By the end of DS9 I'd imagine a leak about S31 reaching the press, followed by a huge scandal, followed by a clampdown against S31).
This is why an early-Federation series would be such fun. We could SEE our characters trying to evolve from the pettiness of their 20thC predecessors to the nobility of their 24thC successors.
On another front, the Federation has no established religion. It is tolerant of oalien beliefs, because it is just being polite. There may be some residual followers of one religion or another among humanity, but the majority share Picard's (and Gene's) view that the truth is "something more than either of these philosophies" (see "Where Silence Has Lease" for his speech).
2 - Morality Play Star Trek is also at its core a drama about morals. The best episodes have been where a character is torn as to what to do, or calls into question their actions. This does not need to be preachy, although unfortunately sometimes this may happen. This is perhaps why some find Brannon Braga's treatment of Voyager objectioable; His sci-fi time shenanigans often merely require for closure the crew finding a way to avoid getting killed. Fine, but not exactly a moral dillemma.
3 - Showcaing the technological menagerie Technobabble is unnecessary, but a flattering depiction of the effect technology has on society is another core Trek theme. Gene often said he felt "technology will save mankind", and so it must be in Trek. Science is neutral, but in the Federation it is science utilised for good that made them the success they are.
4 - Exploration Recall the literal meaning of "Star Trek". That is a journey to the stars and all the possibilities that entails. We need exploration, as in Trek's universe this is mankinds defining characteristic - the inquenchable thirst to explore.
5 - Analogies to the Real world Among the gratest of Treks are those which told a morality tale that we could relate to because IT WAS HAPPENING NOW IN THE WORLD. Past Tense is, IMHO, one of DS9's finest moments. Homelessness and poverty were tackled there, but we can also include every Prime Directive show, episodes like "A private Little War" potraying the vietnam dillemma, etc. The Borg as the dehumanising effect of mass culture, submerging the concept of the individual as the Federation (cf.Trek itself) champions it.
I'm sure you'll recall others, although perhaps not so many from Voyager. I hear their "The Collective" trilogy this season is in part meant to draw parallels to the problem of delinquent youngsters, and as such I am particularly looking forward to these shows as a return to a core theme in Trek.
Well, sorry to babble on so much, but I'd be interested to see your responses and suggestions for other things I may have missed.
------------------ "I cannot live out that life. That man is bereft of passion... and imagination! That is not who I am!"
posted
I'll try to limit my response to a couple of your catagories.
In general: good Trek needs something that all good fiction needs; good drama, good writing, and original ideas or takes on old ideas.
Morality play: I agree that a character torn morally can make for a good tense drama. However, when we see this week after week, it not only gets tiresome, but unbelievable. Few of us have ever been in constant moral turmoil about different issues. There simply is not that much that we have divided feelings about. Most choices in our lives fall into a clear cut catagory of right and wrong even if we have to convince ourselves to do the right thing from time to time. So Morality play needs to be used at key moments. I sight the example of Sisko's decision to bring the Romulans into the Dommie war on the Fed side. There had been a long bloody war arc going until this point with very little of "Roddenberry's Trek" going on. Then this fabulous episode came along which put Sisko in a position where he had to make a choice as to what was more important. I thought that put a great spin on the war arc.
The Roddenberry Future: You will notice that upon Roddenberry's death, Trek took a giant turn. Suddenly we have Voyager and DS9, both series meant to have internal conflict at the heart of the story. DS9's premise worked for me; the religious and social differences between Humans and Bajorans. Great idea. It would not, however, have been acceptable to Roddenberry. Neither would Voyager's premise of two groups of humans (essencially) who disagreed with one another. I think the conflict and how humans now deal with the conflict fits into Roddenberry's vision more than he realized it did. I think that these sort of stories can continue to be told and told well and still fit in with 'good Trek'.
Plus there need to be lots of cool ships, and space battles and awesome phasers and quantum torps!!!!
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
posted
Interesting. I agree "In the Pale moonlight" was an excellent ep, and of course you don't need a moral pickle every week, just some of the time.
I'd include SFX to drool over as part of the technological showcase category. That said, I deliberately left out the phrase "space battles". I fear that panders too much to the computer game mindset, and is not essential to good Trek. Take "The Inner Light" as an example. It rates 20 out of 10 on my scale, but not a single phaser was fired.
DS9 made space battles it's specialty, but never really, to me, managed to evoke the sense of awe you expect. Probably because they couldn't afford the time they can spend on things like Star Wars. One good lingering "beauty pass" of the E-E is worth more than any blow-up-another-Excelsior in my book.
------------------ "I cannot live out that life. That man is bereft of passion... and imagination! That is not who I am!"
posted
I think one of the things that make Star Trek different than say Bab 5, is the detailed technology, that is theoretically possible (at least most of the time), and all the technobabble that comes with it. And it's one of the few scifi series that isn't primarily about war like Space: Above and Beyond and Bab 5.
------------------ So small, so innocent, so young, so delicately done, grown up in your poison.
posted
Actually, I'd have said that the tecnology in B5 was much more theoretically possible, at least from the Earth Alliance. Find me a scientist who favours the idea of a transporter, and I'll show you another that thinks the Earth was created in six days by God sneezing.
And B5 was strictly about war. The war(s) themselves only actually occured in seasons 3 and 4. It also dealt with the consiquences of war (both the Minbari War, Shadow War and Earth Civil war). Now that's a tricky thing for Trek to do, as it involved at lot of continuity between episodes, and people being very knowledgable about the shows history. Which (apart from DS9 to a degree), is not something Trek has ever really specalised in. Sure, everyone knows what a Klingon is. But how many of them know that the Federation made peace with the Klingons, then the alliance was broken, then reestablished in the desperation of war? Hell, how many of them know what a Vorta is?
------------------ "Sorry Wendy, I just can't trust something that bleeds for five days and doesn't die."
posted
I guess I'd have to add to my comment by saying Star Trek could use something that B5 and Star Wars have a lot of: namely an epic quality.
B5 and Wars have both been planned out. There is a basic outline for the stories and the writers are thus able to connect the dots without having to force it to work. It already works. The history and the future are already there.
Star Trek is written as they go. There is no quality of destiny. DS9 tried to do this in the latter seasons but it was too late to make it fit. They should've decided at the very beginning of the series that Sisko really was the Emissary. That way, even though it may have been vague at times and we needed a while to be sure, there always would've have been clues and suggestions that he was, not that it could go either way.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
posted
I agree Aban. A good 'epic' quality as you put it, would really give Trek a strong core. I found it really neat when I could go back and look at some old B5 episodes and see some connections to the Shadows and things like that that really didn't come into play, sometimes seasons later.
posted
Personally, one of the problems I had with B5 was that I didn't get that "epic" sense from it, even though that was what the show was obviously aiming at. I can't really explain why... *shrug*
------------------ "20th Century, go to sleep." -- R.E.M.
posted
Going back to the morality issue... I agree that "In the Pale Moonlight" was a perfect example of a great morality story. Y'know what's a bad example? Insurrection. I think this may have been one of the fundamental problems w/ that movie. There was no moral dillemma. Picard and his bunch were "good", the Son'a were "evil", and that's all there was to it. Black, white, straight line down the middle.
The really good morality episodes are the ones that explore the "grey area". Something like ItPM, where an "evil" has to be conceded for the greater good. This is why I like Section 31. I think they show a "necessary evil". They go against the basic ideals of the Federation, but, w/o them, there wouldn't be a Federation. Now, as mentioned, we can't have this sort of thing every week. But, when a morality story is used, it needs to be this type, more than the flops we see in Insurrection, "The Voyager Conspiracy", and the like.
------------------ "The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich. Samuel Morse invented the Morse Code. Plato invented the plate." -Holly, Red Dwarf: "Parallel Universe"
posted
Well, Insurrection was more a case of standing up for marality in the face of indifference and corruption. Although it hit more buttons for me as an allegory of the Kosovan "ethnic cleansing". I recall finding the scene where the Sona are strafing the Baku fleeing the village quite unsettling, showing as it did here amid real life reports from the war zone in Kosovo & Serbia.
------------------ "I cannot live out that life. That man is bereft of passion... and imagination! That is not who I am!"
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