Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Hoss

Hoss

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Siliconemelons said:
With streaming they use those direct numbers. The Nielsen stuff is going extinct
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Unless it's changed recently, it only gets counted if it's watched within a few days.

Arative said:
Why the hell were betazeds using sign language. They are a telepathic species. Shit went downhill from there for me.
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It's just the leader who does his speaking with his fingers. The other betas are talking with their mouth holes.
 
Rajaah

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Yeah I guess DS9 does have a lot of The Message with the Bajoran/Cardassian stuff. It's harder to notice these things when I'm watching an episode every two weeks over ten years.

I never felt particularly preached at by it, in any case. Only thing I'm not crazy about is Kira's general rage towards the Cardassians, and the show kinda-sorta implying that terrorism is ok if you're a "freedom fighter" via her.

The Cardassians also never struck me as "the white man". Mainly because they're grey and strike me more as an allegory for imperialists in general. The Bajorans are whiter than they are, and strike me more as an allegory for invaded/conquered nations in general rather than specifically American slavery.

Quite frankly if I were to compare the conflict to anything, it'd be England's domination over Scotland and Ireland. There are a zillion other examples throughout history as well.

Speaking of messages and metaphors, am I understanding right that they butchered Picard's speech from The Drumhead on the latest episode? Was it because of incompetence or was it intentional? Heard something about how they took out a line about breaking chains because the current ideology of the writers is more about creating the chains.

Either way, bonkers that TNG's speech about censorship...was censored by these hacks.
 
Gavinmad

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Rajaah said:
Yeah I guess DS9 does have a lot of The Message with the Bajoran/Cardassian stuff
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Star Trek has always been super progressive going back to the very beginning but they used to generally prioritize telling a good story first and foremost. One of the best episodes of DS9 was the Marritza episode in S1, which is sayign something because the first two seasons were generally pretty bad.
 
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Arbitrary

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Sure, Star Trek was always progressive but it was also even-handed. You present a complex issue and if it's a real world allegory there's enough distance between the real thing and it's simulacrum that the audience doesn't just immediately know what you're up to. You do a bit of work so there's no straw villain and then conclude the story with the audience making up their own mind. You try and tell a good story along the way.

edit - I'm slow
 
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Arbitrary

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In DS9 Kira is an unabashed terrorist. She did what she needed to be done. If you were enslaved by the Cardassians and got blown up working in their mines or factories that's what you get for being a collaborator. She planted a bomb in her mother's quarters in the hopes it would kill Dukat. Serves her right for being a comfort woman. Being a comfort woman is something the show presents in a nuanced fashion. Dukat, who was banging Kira's mom, doesn't even get any comeuppance in that episode. He'll go like five seasons without any.

You could never do this today in a mainstream production. You'd have to soften Kira and you'd never be able to let Dukat be that charming. Kira's mom banging spoonheads got her family the extra rations and medicine that kept them alive and she wasn't treated poorly during it? Throw that shit right in the garbage it's rape o'clock. What if her getting raped to death drove Kira to do the terrible things that she totes regrets but was absolutely right in doing the whole time?
 
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Koushirou

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There's a couple TNG episodes I can think of off the top of my head right away that, while maybe there was more distance back in the day, would be very up front today. The Outcast with the androgynous race and the one who claimed to start feeling female that gets cured always kind of felt like the question of "can you cure the gay" and is it okay if they're legitimately better afterwards. And the episode still framed the question as not having a correct answer. The Host, as terrible of an episode as it is, ended with Crusher not being able to get past the dude she liked turning into a chick, which now seems like a straight question about transgender shit and how humans aren't really built for that. Again, it left it up to the viewer's opinion of how they'd handle that situation and didn't really force an opinion on you. Though, I'm sure activists now would just use it just to scream their own message, sadly, even if the show is more nuanced than that.
 
moonarchia

moonarchia

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Koushirou said:
There's a couple TNG episodes I can think of off the top of my head right away that, while maybe there was more distance back in the day, would be very up front today. The Outcast with the androgynous race and the one who claimed to start feeling female that gets cured always kind of felt like the question of "can you cure the gay" and is it okay if they're legitimately better afterwards. And the episode still framed the question as not having a correct answer. The Host, as terrible of an episode as it is, ended with Crusher not being able to get past the dude she liked turning into a chick, which now seems like a straight question about transgender shit and how humans aren't really built for that. Again, it left it up to the viewer's opinion of how they'd handle that situation and didn't really force an opinion on you. Though, I'm sure activists now would just use it just to scream their own message, sadly, even if the show is more nuanced than that.
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Gates McFadden going lesbian definitely would have increased ratings.
 
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Rajaah

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moonarchia said:
Gates McFadden going lesbian definitely would have increased ratings.
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I can't see Crusher going for that.

Deanna Troi maybe. She always struck me as one to try anything, considering she, you know... BANGED WORF. Which isn't that strange, I guess. Worf is cool.
 
moonarchia

moonarchia

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Rajaah said:
I can't see Crusher going for that.

Deanna Troi maybe. She always struck me as one to try anything, considering she, you know... BANGED WORF. Which isn't that strange, I guess. Worf is cool.
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I speak as a horny teenage boy in 1989. I agree they wouldn't have done that, but it would have increased the show's ratings. A lot.
 
Haus

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As for people talking about "the message" back in DS9 and earlier...

The way I see it ever since TOS, Star Trek has been progressive. But as mentioned they would also focus on good stories to tell. They'd tell a science fiction story, then as your watching it you're just thinking it's science fiction... then at the end you might have a "Hey.. was this really talking about racism?" and Trek would just give you a wink, not say a word, and see you next week with another story.(Which very well might involve Reginald Barkley turning into a spider...) It was good at that, and it worked. It also knew it's swimlane, it was meant to be social commentary wrapped in science fiction, so when they did it didn't seem crazy. But also they didn't do it every episode, it wasn't the core driving season long story arc. And the characters were never so 2 dimensional as to just be labeled "Oh that's the gay one" or "That's the minority", or "Oh that's the autist"..

Just like Star Wars knew it's swimlane. It wasn't social commentary, it was mythological level heroes journey storytelling. When it strayed from that is when it went to shit.

I read that Paramount just declined to resign/reup the contract with Kurtzman, which should functionally kill any future "Kurtzman Trek", and that gave me some comfort. Because good God in heaven he's screwed this pooch until it's corpse doesn't even look like a dog anymore.
 
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Arbitrary

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Although I of course agree and have stated that Star Trek was progressive from the start it's also important to note what that actually meant. We've got a Japanese guy at the helm. There's a Russian in charge of weapon. Roddenberry made sure to place Uhura's station such that turbo racist TV stations in the south wouldn't be able to just edit her out of everything. Kirk and other members of the main cast are right there in frame. TOS has the first interracial kiss taking place between Kirk and Uhura.

You fast forward sixty years and now progressive means really far left current year culture war crap done with all the subtlety of a rabid targ. I know! Let's make Stacy Abrams the President of Earth! It's all so hamfisted.
 
Arbitrary

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Big Phoenix said:
It gave us this.

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There's an episode of Voyager where Seven accuses a man of violating her. She has some repressed memories surface of him performing experiments on her and her borg implants, extracting nanoprobes, etc. Dude denies it, flees, dies aaaaaaaand yeah. It looks like it was just some Borg PTSD and the guy was probably innocent. There's absolutely zero physical evidence for her claims. Episode ends.

It's such a bizarre story to tell. I've got no idea what they were going for.
 
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