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r/startrek: The Next Generation
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Upcoming Episodes
| Date | Episode | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 07-23 | SNW 4x01 | "Valles Marineris" |
| 07-30 | SNW 4x02 | "Griffin Incident" |
| 08-06 | SNW 4x03 | TBA |
| 08-13 | SNW 4x04 | TBA |
| 08-20 | SNW 4x05 | TBA |
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I agree that this is valid criticism. The Star Trek writers have clearly gotten lazier over the years, opting for hamfisted, blatant, "see? we're being woke in this scene" rather than allowing you to think for yourself.
However, the complaint here is laziness and not the nature of the message. I'd even go so far to say that due to the complex storytelling of earlier series, there's a large contingent of the fanbase that didn't realise their progressive nature, and are objecting to how it's woke now.
So basically I think there's two complaints here: a valid one that you're making: "lazy writing is terrible and arguably less effective", and another one coming from, shall we say, those unburdened by an overabundance of schooling that are objecting to progressive ideas that were always there, but they only notice it now with the lazy writing.
Hard disagree.
People are criticizing 'woke'ness- you're assuming that's idiots who don't want to see progressive storylines but somehow didn't notice that Uhura was a black officer when it was assumed black people couldn't do much more than cook and clean.
I think the reality is that people are happy to take progressive storylines, but people strongly resent the specific combination of progressive storylines delivered ham-fisted which one might call 'wokeness'.
I'm saying that for myself too. I am STRONGLY in favor of inclusion. I have NO problem seeing any race, gender, sexual orientation, etc of character on screen, and I want to see all groups represented fairly.
A great example of that was The Expanse. It's part of the overall series plot that since humans went to space, former national borders no longer applied much so cultures mixed together. So you get this major disconnection between name ethnicity and physical appearance ethnicity (IE, Japanese guy with a French name, Black character with a Japanese name, etc) and nobody bats an eye. One of the first plots revolves around a man and his husband who are going to retire together and nobody gives a shit they're gay. Like it's not even brought up, it's just 'me and my husband are going to retire on Mars' and this is treated as a perfectly normal thing that a man of advanced years would say.
Like myself, I bet you'd find a lot of the same people unhappy at 'wokeness' in Trek have NO problem with The Expanse- because it's not woke, it's inclusive.
Now full disclosure- I've not actually seen any of the new Trek- didn't have Paramount+ until my partner wanted to watch Landman and nothing I heard about any of the new stuff made it sound like a must-watch. So I'm speaking conceptually on wokeness.
But in my experience, wokeness is pretty much the same no matter who's writing it or in what venue. It's NOT the same as inclusion.
BTW- if you haven't watched The Expanse I highly encourage you to do so....
I've seen (and read) The Expanse, and you're right, it's fantastic. One of the authors has also repeated gone on record as doing his best to fight the patriarchy.
And that is exactly my point.
You think The Expanse would be better if Avasarala was a strong woman leader fighting to make her mark in a male-dominated world? I think not. The whole thing that makes her so great is that she can be herself, by not needing to prove herself worthy she proves herself worthy. Or Bobbie Draper- if she was the GI Jane, struggling to be taken seriously in a male-dominated MMC? No, then the story stops being about a badass woman being badass, and starts being about the men who don't recognize that badassery. And that's a MUCH less interesting story. Or Drummer- I've not yet read the books but I understand TV-Drummer was a combination of two characters-- after the mutiny on Tycho she's wounded, someone tries to help her up but she pushes them away, grabs the guys sidearm, blasts the two mutineers, and hobbles off to the infirmary on her own... would that scene be better if someone was saying 'I guess women can have balls after all'?
No, the way you fight patriarchy, or racism, or homophobia, isn't to fight patriarchy or racism or homophobia. It's to show people what happens after patriarchy, racism, and homophobia are defeated, and let people decide that's the world they want.
The Expanse took great strides to fight a number of prejudices. But never once was it 'woke'.