The Space Sandbox

Watching the superb Star Trek Picard last night and I was genuinely impressed by just how great the show is. 

The characters are well fleshed out. The plots are exciting. The acting is good and Patrick Stewart continues to command respect as both an actor and the character of Jean Luc, even though he's now an octogenarian.

Last night I watched episode 2 of season 2 and it took me back to the days of being a kid in the 1970s and watching what is now called The Original Series (or TOS) on a big clunky telly with my family. 

The story was enthralling and while the "season 2 trailer" had made it quite clear that the cliffhanger was going to be resolved favourably for our heroes I genuinely got a kick out of what I was watching and can't wait for episode 3.

This show is big on nostalgia but doesn't patronise you with it. References to both the series Next Generation and any other show in the franchise are gleefully thrown about and characters from history will show up. 

What I noticed last night is that this show has a 'hard' edge. Fights can be fatal and goodies kill baddies without getting soppy about it, provided the act was justified. People will do what's right for 'the greater good' without flinching or becoming angsty. 

The character 7 of 9/ Seven is ruthless but pragmatic. It was established in season 1 that she is loving and compassionate but events between The Next Generation TV show in the 1990s and this series have made her cynical and pragmatic and God help you if you hurt someone she cares about.

The only even mildly irritating character is Dr Jurati who talks a lot and is socially awkward but that is still within context and only highlighted to forward the plot or add some relief to the more intense sequences.

Overall it's a great show.

And then we have Star Trek Discovery.

I loved the first two seasons of this but gave up caring in season 3 after they all went 900 years in the future. The show is so woke it has insomnia and while its focus on diversity was simply a part of it (from TOG onwards the franchise has always been pushing boundaries. The orignal series had the first interracial kiss on TV and the first black woman in a position of authority on a prime time show) it got tiresome and patronising as time went on. I recently saw an article where star Wilson Cruz talked about "the show's queer appeal and how gay love can save the universe". The problem is THAT is the main focus of this show.

An openly gay doctor and scientist, no problem. But when their relationship and feelings are constantly referenced, just to remind us they are gay...annoying. A socially awkward woman with an eating disorder. Err...OK but how the hell is she now a lieutenant on the ship's bridge. A genius she may be but not a warrior capable of rational decisions under duress. A non-binary character with an asexual boyfriend. OK but don't keep sodding reminding us of the pronouns.

The biggest annoyance was when character Georgiou played by Michelle Yeoh who is a ruthless, heartless killer from a mirror dimension where everyone is horrid...ends up being missed and loved and cried over by her crewmates as she departs the Discovery for pastures new. Fair enough you like her but don't pretend she's a little fluffy bunny under all that genocidal sadism. She was the EMPEROR of the mirror world and therefore a mass murdering scumbag.

Discovery bascially takes what were background elements that people were able to pick up on and cherish, and turns them into focal points that are irritating at best and show wrecking at worst. Nichelle Nichols character of Leuitenant Uhura was simply there. Her colour and gender were not remarked upon by other characters because the show was implying that in the next few centuries mankind would move on from being racist, xenophobic and sexist and regard a black female officer as a normality. Not so innovative today but MASSSIVELY important in 1966. When Nichols wanted to leave the role Martin Luther King wrote to her personally to ask her not to, as she was a role model to many black kids seeing her on the series.

My own theory with Discovery is that they decided to let people be creative with the show but the secret caveat of this was that it had to happen in a way that is locked out of normal continuity. If every character is moved nearly a millenium forward in time then there can be no knock-on effects to current timelines. A sandbox where the events unfolding would have no significance to what we already know or may come up. In the far future they can be as diverse and woke as they like because it is a completely separate entity to the rest of the franchise.

I was dubious as to whether my theory was correct until I saw that episode of Picard last night. The fights were brutal and people made tough decisions. There was levity but it wasn't jarring and people's personal shit wasn't the focus of attention. When one character kills three bad guys (while handcuffed) he doesn't feel bad about it because it was necessary at the time. In Discovery he would probably have had a bit of angst (if he'd been allowed to kill them at all) and wondered if just maybe they could have communicated better in order to solve their differences without resorting to physical violence.

Picard is Trek as it should be. Entertaining, dramatic and occasionally shocking. Discovery is an experimental world that the senior execs at CBS Studios deccided to let happen in a way so disconnected from the mainstream shows that it can be enjoyed by those that want it, and ignored by those who don't.