The (First) Final Frontier: The Enduring Appeal of Star Trek and The Moral Imagination

 

One of the things that has been keeping me sane in (solitary) lockdown is movie nights with my friends. With two close guy friends from high school, in particular, I have a weekly date for a movie at 8 p.m. EST (1 a.m. GMT) and this week it was my turn to pick the film. I had given the selection a fair bit of thought ahead of time, and presented them with a few options that I thought would be fun to watch; we settled on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

One of my friends had never seen any Star Trek property, and the other had only seen the new films, although his dad had been pressuring him to try the older ones. At the end of the film, they were so taken by what we had watched that it was decided we are going to Zoom again to watch an episode of The Original Series (any of my selection) and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock on Friday.* Such an enthusiastic response left me wondering, what exactly is the magic of the original films and show?

I am not much of a sci-fi fan and tend to be picky about TV because I don’t watch particularly much, so it surprised even me how much I enjoyed TOS the first time I watched it in high school. Although I’ve dabbled in the other properties, none of them ever provoked the lasting affection or interest that the ‘66 series and its movies did for me. Likewise, the friend that had seen the new J.J. Abrams films had never bothered with the originals because, though he thought the new movies were good, he didn’t think they were special.

At its core, I think that the most outstanding part of the films and show is their fundamentally conservative message and embrace of the moral imagination. By a conservative message I don’t mean that TOS subscribed to the economic principles of Milton Friedman or celebrated the thought of Russell Kirk, but that, within the framework of a quite progressive society, it had surprising fidelity to some very Burkean ideals and ideas about man and his nature.

Part of what brings this message to the forefront is the setting of the show. A lack of physical money and the presence of the United Federation of Planets, among other things, suggests to viewers that the crew of the Enterprise hails from a post-scarcity system, something some fans describe as a “utopia.” They, though, have escaped the utopia and traded the sure and steady for danger and adventure. As much as anything, Captain James T. Kirk is a cowboy, setting off for brave new worlds armed with a phaser and a set of quite traditional principles (duty, honor, honesty, etc.) that he intends for both himself and those under his leadership to live by. Such an openly paternal, though not condescending, figure might find little affection among critics today.

And the crew of the ship is as much bound by personal fealty and love as shared ideals. Indeed, it is the true diversity of viewpoints resident on the vessel, especially among the three main characters (headstrong Kirk, logical Spock, and compassionate McCoy), that allows it to operate as smoothly and successfully as it does. I’ve always thought the conception of the triumvirate as the divided parts of a whole both beautiful and valid, and the idea of the divvied up heart, mind, and soul speaks to a view of man as a creature that needs more than reason to thrive, and at the same time benefits from control and strong moorings.

Those relationships form the most obvious manifestation of that conservative message, showing that even hundreds of years in the future, in space, and among aliens, the fundamental need of man for love and companionship has not perished (very Burkean, indeed). Each man judges the other for his actions and ideals, not his position on the ship or status as a part of a particular race (much as McCoy antagonizes Spock for his duel heritage, he extends the same fierce protectiveness and exasperated affection to the alien, albeit with a different flavor, as he does to Kirk), and they are improved by their tripartite bond. Purely as a viewer, this evolving, complex relationship is the most compelling part of the series, a high wire act of mutual love, annoyance, fear, and hope that becomes its narrative and emotional core.

I think it’s instructive to explore one episode for an example of the holistic reality of this message. Take “The Empath,” from Season 3. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy encounter and are imprisoned by a race of science-oriented, emotionless humanoids on a dying planet, and, after a series of failed escape attempts and injury at the hands of their captors, the captain must choose which of his two officers will undergo an “experiment” that has a high chance of rendering him either dead or insane. The morality play that ensues, both between McCoy and his superiors and Kirk and the Vians, would be, at its fundamental level, as at home in Shakespeare as in outer space. In other words, “human” nature, across species and time, never fails to assert itself, and the moral quandaries which plagued Elizabethan noblemen do likewise to 23rd-century space officers, their answers coming from a similarly ancient source.

Certainly, there is much to make fun of in the original Star Trek series. William Shatner’s sometimes hammy acting, and seemingly pathological need to be shirtless at least once an episode, aliens that look curiously like small dogs donning party store horns, Leonard Nimoy’s heavy eyeshadow, and Kirk-fu all strike a less-than-serious chord and render some parts of the series basically unwatchable, but its fundamental message, skillfully conveyed in so many aspects, makes it a special cultural product despite these shortcomings. The magic of Star Trek is in the world that it builds, full of fresh possibilities and diverse, full characters who encounter the inevitable challenges of every human life with all of their flaws and triumph and fail.

*Update: We watched The Search for Spock and, after some negotiation, an episode of TOS, “The Enemy Within,” last night/this morning (there’s a time difference between us and it was 5:30 a.m. by the time I got off the call), and I am happy to report that all enjoyed the movie and the show, and we learned the valuable life lesson that you can tell the evil product of a transporter accident by the (frankly unsightly) amount of eyeliner he is wearing.

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  1. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin Doesn’t C… (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    Bishop Wash (View Comment):

    Lockdowns are Precious (View Comment):

    I’ve always thought the enemy that would finally defeat Kirk and the Federation was Interstellar Herpes Simplex Kobyashi Maru, The No Win STD Scenario.

    Somewhere on the internet I saw a critic point out that the producers of the new Star Trek don’t know anything about Trek. One reason is that they don’t know how shows are abbreviated and named the new show Star Trek Discovery.

    Well, considering how good the show is, that seems like an appropriate acronym. It’s about as pleasant as one.

    I confess that except for the awkward insertion of the effenheimer, and the unbelievably chemistry-free gay couple (neither of whom can act), I actually enjoyed the first season. I haven’t watched past that, though.

    You’re better than I am, I only made it an episode. But according to this there isn’t necessarily much point in watching past that first season, because the second doesn’t get better and the finale in fact writes everything that has happened up to that point out of existence.

    So they did one thing right.

    • #61
  2. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Kirkwanderer,

    I was 13, 14, and 15 years old. After school, usually, I’d go over to my friend Howard’s house. We’d try to destroy each other at ping pong and then chess. Always a main topic of discussion was the latest Star Trek episode. We were agreed that Rodenberry’s ability to create an entire Galactic civilization with a Federation of Planets and fleets of Star Ships keeping order, was pure genius. However, each show took you on a special plot adventure obviously dealing with political and philosophical issues that no other program on television would come close to.

    The possible problems of artificial intelligence, for instance, received the full treatment.

    Howard got his Ph.D. in philosophy and wrote a fair-sized book on Aristotle to good review. Go figure.

    Regards,

    Jim

     

    • #62
  3. Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… Inactive
    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai…
    @Gaius

    Hot take: All of the Star Trek Series are good. All of them.

    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t prefer Deep Space 9. It’s the best of them at not only because the plot superstructure was ripped off from Babylon 5.

    The worst is Enterprise. It’s a poorly executed show in a lot of ways but the premise of a Starlfeet that’s still basically NASA is compelling enough that it never quite stopped being worth watching.

    I could go on.

    • #63
  4. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    James Gawron (View Comment):

    Kirkwanderer,

    I was 13, 14, and 15 years old. After school, usually, I’d go over to my friend Howard’s house. We’d try to destroy each other at ping pong and then chess. Always a main topic of discussion was the latest Star Trek episode. We were agreed that Rodenberry’s ability to create an entire Galactic civilization with a Federation of Planets and fleets of Star Ships keeping order, was pure genius. However, each show took you on a special plot adventure obviously dealing with political and philosophical issues that no other program on television would come close to.

    The possible problems of artificial intelligence, for instance, received the full treatment.

    Howard got his Ph.D. in philosophy and wrote a fair-sized book on Aristotle to good review. Go figure.

    Regards,

    Jim

    The Season 1 episode “Court Martial” dealt with the problem of creating ‘deep fake ‘ videos to implicate people in things they didn’t do. We’re getting pretty close to where that’s also going to become a real-world issue.

    • #64
  5. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Hot take: All of the Star Trek Series are good. All of them.

    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t prefer Deep Space 9. It’s the best of them at not only because the plot superstructure was ripped off from Babylon 5.

    The worst is Enterprise. It’s a poorly executed show in a lot of ways but the premise of a Starlfeet that’s still basically NASA is compelling enough that it never quite stopped being worth watching.

    I could go on.

    While I didn’t like the original Star Trek, I did mostly enjoy the later series – except for the first season or so of The Next Generation. I didn’t like that very much.

    • #65
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Weeping (View Comment):

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Hot take: All of the Star Trek Series are good. All of them.

    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t prefer Deep Space 9. It’s the best of them at not only because the plot superstructure was ripped off from Babylon 5.

    The worst is Enterprise. It’s a poorly executed show in a lot of ways but the premise of a Starlfeet that’s still basically NASA is compelling enough that it never quite stopped being worth watching.

    I could go on.

    While I didn’t like the original Star Trek, I did mostly enjoy the later series – except for the first season or so of The Next Generation. I didn’t like that very much.

    The first season of TNG was rocky, as were the latter holodeck-heavy episodes. “Discovery” had the doctor as a hologram, and if you can replace the doctor with a hologram, why not every member of the crew? Think of all the space you could save if you didn’t have to maintain life support. That occurred to me during the first episode. It doesn’t do much for the suspension of disbelief if you are continually thinking “why are you here?” for each and every character.

    • #66
  7. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    Percival (View Comment):
    The first season of TNG was rocky, as were the latter holodeck-heavy episodes. “Discovery” had the doctor as a hologram, and if you can replace the doctor with a hologram, why not every member of the crew? Think of all the space you could save if you didn’t have to maintain life support. That occurred to me during the first episode. It doesn’t do much for the suspension of disbelief if you are continually thinking “why are you here?” for each and every character.

    Which is essentially how things worked in Picard, on the ship he charted.

    • #67
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Can’t beat Matheson’s stories. Although, after watching The Wrath of Khan, I would have suggested “Space Seed” for them.

    • #68
  9. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Can’t beat Matheson’s stories. Although, after watching The Wrath of Khan, I would have suggested “Space Seed” for them.

    I gave them 8 from all of the seasons to chose from (mostly just the ones I like, to be honest, though “Space Seed” was definitely among them) and “The Enemy Within” was the one they chose after a little bit of debate. Personally, “The Empath” and “All Our Yesterdays” are my absolute favorites (I’m a sucker for McCoy and Spock together), but I thought it would be a good idea for them to see something a little bit closer to the beginning of the series, where the friendship that’s so obvious in Wrath of Khan is still developing. 

    • #69
  10. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I’ve found very few episodes of the original series without either laughing out loud or being bored to death.  The movies were better, although the first one dragged and was somewhat anticlimactic at the end.

    Most folks agree The Wrath of Khan is killer, even with some over-emoting from Ricardo Montalban.  I’m one of the few folks who liked The Voyage Home, where Uhuru utters that memorable line, “I hear whalesong.”  In The Final Frontier, I loved it when Kirk asks, “Why does God need a spaceship?”

    I also prefer The Next Generation movies over the series, my favorite being First Contact.  My favorite scene is when the Phoenix is about to lift off and Cochrane punches up the song “Magic Carpet Ride”.  I actually get goosebumps seeing the rocket go up with the music playing.

    And Alice Krige is hot even as the Borg Queen . . .

    • #70
  11. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    There was a post-scarcity universe in which global (interplanetary ) governance worked because everybody (or at least a large majority) agreed to accept American ideals and let mostly white Americans run everything.  

    Women all wore miniskirts in the original and a guy in a Star Fleet uniform (maybe not the red shirts) could get lucky on 100’s of planets. It was a man’s world back in Star Date 2266.

    There was still some weird old-time economic activity even though replicators and other tech should have eliminated it. (In Next Generation, Picard’s brother is a farmer/vintner in France with modest means). 

    If you read the Federation documents, it is illegal to proselytize any underdeveloped people.  Missionaries violate the Prime Directive unless they reach out to advanced, already secular and jaded peoples. 

    So anti-communists, early multi-culturalists and global government types (or just  mostly teenage boys) could all join together to watch the Enterprise fight for good and to watch Kirk violate the Prime Directive with major babes across the galaxy.

    • #71
  12. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    Stad (View Comment):

    I’ve found very few episodes of the original series without either laughing out loud or being bored to death. The movies were better, although the first one dragged and was somewhat anticlimactic at the end.

    Most folks agree The Wrath of Khan is killer, even with some over-emoting from Ricardo Montalban. I’m one of the few folks who liked The Voyage Home, where Uhuru utters that memorable line, “I hear whalesong.” In The Final Frontier, I loved it when Kirk asks, “Why does God need a spaceship?”

    I also prefer The Next Generation movies over the series, my favorite being First Contact. My favorite scene is when the Phoenix is about to lift off and Cochrane punches up the song “Magic Carpet Ride”. I actually get goosebumps seeing the rocket go up with the music playing.

    And Alice Krige is hot even as the Borg Queen . . .

    I’m not massively fond of the first movie. I know a lot of people complain because the space/ship scenes drag on way too long, and while I found it interesting to see everyone interact after Spock pursued Kholinar (definitely didn’t spell that right), the plot does kind of feel like it was taken from a not very great episode, but my weirdly retroactive problem with it is Stephen Collins. He’s initially captain of the Enterprise, but all I can see is the dad from Seventh Heaven, and the fact that he himself turned out to be a creep. 

    • #72
  13. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):
    the plot does kind of feel like it was taken from a not very great episode

    There was one episode in the original series where the Enterprise is boarded by one of Earth’s former deep space probes.

    • #73
  14. DrewInWisconsin Doesn't Care Member
    DrewInWisconsin Doesn't Care
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):
    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I still think Generations is the best of the Next Gen movies. Thematically, it’s on the same level as Khan. It’s about dealing with loss, putting duty over emotions, being able to let go of the “what ifs,” the yearning for untraveled roads, the crippling nostalgia for past and move forward confidently (which is both a theme and a meta-theme) . . . I endorse it.

    • #74
  15. DrewInWisconsin Doesn't Care Member
    DrewInWisconsin Doesn't Care
    @DrewInWisconsin

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):
    but my weirdly retroactive problem with it is Stephen Collins. He’s initially captain of the Enterprise, but all I can see is the dad from Seventh Heaven, and the fact that he himself turned out to be a creep. 

    Having never seen Seventh Heaven, I think of him as that airplane pilot from Tales of the Gold Monkey (which I really enjoyed).

    • #75
  16. J Climacus Member
    J Climacus
    @JClimacus

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    There was a post-scarcity universe in which global (interplanetary ) governance worked because everybody (or at least a large majority) agreed to accept American ideals and let mostly white Americans run everything.

    The original series also seemed to be in a post-family universe. The Enterprise is on a “five year mission”, yet there is never any mention of wives or children left back on Earth. Maybe it was a requirement to be unmarried and childless to serve in the crew. Yet no one seems to have any parents or siblings they miss either.

    Women all wore miniskirts in the original and a guy in a Star Fleet uniform (maybe not the red shirts) could get lucky on 100’s of planets. It was a man’s world back in Star Date 2266.

    We were just starting the sexual revolution then as well. You had to be pretty naive to think that you could coop up young men and hot young women in miniskirts in a spaceship for five years with no consequences. Probably not a post-abortion universe. 

    There was still some weird old-time economic activity even though replicators and other tech should have eliminated it. (In Next Generation, Picard’s brother is a farmer/vintner in France with modest means).

    If you read the Federation documents, it is illegal to proselytize any underdeveloped people. Missionaries violate the Prime Directive unless they reach out to advanced, already secular and jaded peoples.

    So anti-communists, early multi-culturalists and global government types (or just mostly teenage boys) could all join together to watch the Enterprise fight for good and to watch Kirk violate the Prime Directive with major babes across the galaxy.

    The thing that always struck me about the Enterprise (in the original series, I didn’t watch much of the others), is that it is ultimately a post-sin universe. The OP makes a perceptive point regarding the tripartite division of the three main characters – the headstrong Kirk, the compassionate McCoy, and the logical Spock, or in standard Freudian terms Kirk is the id, McCoy the superego, and Spock the ego. The challenge in life is to properly balance the three in practice, something that can be successfully achieved through therapy and self-evaluation, which happens on the Enterprise with a quick summing up by one of the three at the end of each episode. This is a compelling vision of the Enlightenment hope that man can achieve wholeness through his own efforts alone, absent any relationship to the transcendent. It works on the Enterprise because there is no corruption and no vice; i.e. no sin. McCoy is never caught fooling around with the nurses, or one of those red shirts caught smuggling some novel drug hoping to make a major score. In such a world repentance is never necessary; all that is needed is some discussion to clear up misunderstandings.

    • #76
  17. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    There was a post-scarcity universe in which global (interplanetary ) governance worked because everybody (or at least a large majority) agreed to accept American ideals and let mostly white Americans run everything.

    The original series also seemed to be in a post-family universe. The Enterprise is on a “five year mission”, yet there is never any mention of wives or children left back on Earth. Maybe it was a requirement to be unmarried and childless to serve in the crew. Yet no one seems to have any parents or siblings they miss either.

    So anti-communists, early multi-culturalists and global government types (or just mostly teenage boys) could all join together to watch the Enterprise fight for good and to watch Kirk violate the Prime Directive with major babes across the galaxy.

    The thing that always struck me about the Enterprise (in the original series, I didn’t watch much of the others), is that it is ultimately a post-sin universe.  The challenge in life is to properly balance the three in practice, something that can be successfully achieved through therapy and self-evaluation, which happens on the Enterprise with a quick summing up by one of the three at the end of each episode. This is a compelling vision of the Enlightenment hope that man can achieve wholeness through his own efforts alone, absent any relationship to the transcendent. It works on the Enterprise because there is no corruption and no vice; i.e. no sin.

    I think it is mentioned at some point that McCoy is divorced, I know for sure that his daughter is brought up at least once in the original run, because they planned on her coming aboard in Season 4. In Star Trek V Kirk says something along the lines of ‘people like us don’t have families’ to his two friends, I would guess with the implication that life long Star Fleet officers were expected as a matter of institutional culture to probably forgo a normal family life in deference to service (also maybe because they were engaged in a long term, long distance mission).

    That’s an interesting point; maybe what makes (at least some of) the movies so compelling is that the three mains either start to come to terms with choices they made that were definitely morally questionable, if not flat out wrong (like Kirk choosing not to be a part of his son’s life), and doing things, like stealing a the Enterprise even when it goes against their duty as officers, which could be cast as sinful. I does seem that in TOS most of the obviously “sinful” choices, like Mirror Spock forcing a meld on McCoy, occur only when they either no longer have control over their actions or are not whole.

    • #77
  18. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    J Climacus (View Comment):
    The thing that always struck me about the Enterprise (in the original series, I didn’t watch much of the others), is that it is ultimately a post-sin universe.

    J Climacus (View Comment):
    It works on the Enterprise because there is no corruption and no vice; i.e. no sin. McCoy is never caught fooling around with the nurses, or one of those red shirts caught smuggling some novel drug hoping to make a major score. In such a world repentance is never necessary; all that is needed is some discussion to clear up misunderstandings.

    Kirk, populating the galaxy with fatherless children. And what wouldn’t he do to remain in command? Hardly sinless, except by the bankrupt standards of the “Enlightenment”.

    McCoy, flying off the handle at almost every provocation and hints of a problem with the bottle. Maybe the mouthiness is a sign of a hangover. And, of course, divorced. Not exactly sinless.

    Spock, wrapped so tightly that every seven years he goes nuts and mutinies so that he can get a little. Quite the paragon. Goes on to pursue a discipline to eliminate any love and compassion from his character. Understandable given his luck in love, but very sinful.

    And McCoy can’t get a moment alone with the nurses because they are all sleeping with Kirk. Who needs a bigger bed to fit his appetite.

    • #78
  19. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    Flicker (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    That’s such a good point, I think the color palate was something that saved even some of the more mediocre episodes, and enriched the series as a whole. Someone was very deliberate in that, especially the way that the officers and aliens were dressed, and it creates kind of a neat, intrinsic contrast between the different specialties and species. Like the difference between the gray robes of the emotionless, dying Vians and the bright colors of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Gem in The Empath, which is a good visual summary of the struggle between pure rationalism and emotional complexity.

    Looking back on it, Star Trek was more space fantasy than science fiction; painted in emotional splashing water colors rather than penciled rational schematics. One scene that comes to mind was in one of the first episodes when Gary Lockwood? and a female crew member got telekinetic powers and fought to the death. They ended up on a planet somewhere with a castle high in the background. That castle and the scenery around it and the sky beyond, was a still matte shot, but the castle was a modified photo of a real middle-eastern castle.

    Star Trek (1966)

    This isn’t it, but it’s nice to look at anyway. This is from Requiem for Methuselah.

    That was Sally Kellerman. More popularly known as the original Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. 

    • #79
  20. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    DrewInWisconsin Doesn't C… (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):
    but my weirdly retroactive problem with it is Stephen Collins. He’s initially captain of the Enterprise, but all I can see is the dad from Seventh Heaven, and the fact that he himself turned out to be a creep.

    Having never seen Seventh Heaven, I think of him as that airplane pilot from Tales of the Gold Monkey (which I really enjoyed).

    Under appreciated. 

    • #80
  21. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Star Trek TOS inherited a sci-fi tradition of the 50s, and made some interesting changes. The popular sci-fi that preceded ST had all the same elements – FTL ships, military structure, analog tech complete with technobabble. What made Trek different was a spirit of professionalism that extended throughout the whole crew. Radio and TV shows that came before had lots of below-deck enlisted types; everyone on the Enterprise had a college degree. It’s a small shift, but not insignificant.

    Did everyone have a college degree? Perhaps by implication in that everyone appears to have attended the Star Fleet Academy. Presumably a future evolution of the US Naval Academy. Deep in the recesses of my memory crystals, I remember buying a weighty paperback about the development and production of the series.

    Here’s what I remember: the crew were all officers because all our astronauts were officers, there was much discussion before deciding on the Navy over the Air Force as the organizational model, McCoy’s medical sensors were salt and pepper shakers.

    I think it’s fair to characterize the ethos of Star Trek as muscular post war liberalism. In that respect, every subsequent version is a reflection of its own era.

    Possibly Unpopular Star Trek opinions:

    Best Episode of Any Version: Edith Keeler Must Die (Sorry Harlan, I read your original script and this adaptation is better)

    Best Episode: Mirror  Mirror

    Most Entertaining: A Piece of the Action

    Wasted Potential: Patterns of Force

    • #81
  22. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    Steve C. (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Star Trek TOS inherited a sci-fi tradition of the 50s, and made some interesting changes. The popular sci-fi that preceded ST had all the same elements – FTL ships, military structure, analog tech complete with technobabble. What made Trek different was a spirit of professionalism that extended throughout the whole crew. Radio and TV shows that came before had lots of below-deck enlisted types; everyone on the Enterprise had a college degree. It’s a small shift, but not insignificant.

    Did everyone have a college degree? Perhaps by implication in that everyone appears to have attended the Star Fleet Academy. Presumably a future evolution of the US Naval Academy. Deep in the recesses of my memory crystals, I remember buying a weighty paperback about the development and production of the series.

    Here’s what I remember: the crew were all officers because all our astronauts were officers, there was much discussion before deciding on the Navy over the Air Force as the organizational model, McCoy’s medical sensors were salt and pepper shakers.

    I think it’s fair to characterize the ethos of Star Trek as muscular post war liberalism. In that respect, every subsequent version is a reflection of its own era.

    Possibly Unpopular Star Trek opinions:

    Best Episode of Any Version: Edith Keeler Must Die (Sorry Harlan, I read your original script and this adaptation is better)

    Best Episode: Mirror Mirror

    Most Entertaining: A Piece of the Action

    Wasted Potential: Patterns of Force

               Best Line: I am endeavoring, ma’am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.

    • #82
  23. Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… Inactive
    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai…
    @Gaius

    Percival (View Comment):

    Weeping (View Comment):

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Hot take: All of the Star Trek Series are good. All of them.

    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t prefer Deep Space 9. It’s the best of them at not only because the plot superstructure was ripped off from Babylon 5.

    The worst is Enterprise. It’s a poorly executed show in a lot of ways but the premise of a Starlfeet that’s still basically NASA is compelling enough that it never quite stopped being worth watching.

    I could go on.

    While I didn’t like the original Star Trek, I did mostly enjoy the later series – except for the first season or so of The Next Generation. I didn’t like that very much.

    The first season of TNG was rocky, as were the latter holodeck-heavy episodes. “Discovery” had the doctor as a hologram, and if you can replace the doctor with a hologram, why not every member of the crew? Think of all the space you could save if you didn’t have to maintain life support. That occurred to me during the first episode. It doesn’t do much for the suspension of disbelief if you are continually thinking “why are you here?” for each and every character.

    As early as TNG, I think that Picard states that an unnamed probe could do the same job as his thousand person, including families, Galaxy class star ship, but that exploration is part of human nature. Each one is there because he wants to be.

    • #83
  24. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Weeping (View Comment):

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Hot take: All of the Star Trek Series are good. All of them.

    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t prefer Deep Space 9. It’s the best of them at not only because the plot superstructure was ripped off from Babylon 5.

    The worst is Enterprise. It’s a poorly executed show in a lot of ways but the premise of a Starlfeet that’s still basically NASA is compelling enough that it never quite stopped being worth watching.

    I could go on.

    While I didn’t like the original Star Trek, I did mostly enjoy the later series – except for the first season or so of The Next Generation. I didn’t like that very much.

    The first season of TNG was rocky, as were the latter holodeck-heavy episodes. “Discovery” had the doctor as a hologram, and if you can replace the doctor with a hologram, why not every member of the crew? Think of all the space you could save if you didn’t have to maintain life support. That occurred to me during the first episode. It doesn’t do much for the suspension of disbelief if you are continually thinking “why are you here?” for each and every character.

    As early as TNG, I think that Picard states that an unnamed probe could do the same job as his thousand person, including families, Galaxy class star ship, but that exploration is part of human nature. Each one is there because he wants to be.

    You could build more probes for what one starship costs. A lot more. If anything, the only shortage you could have would be personnel.

    • #84
  25. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    Percival (View Comment):

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Weeping (View Comment):

    Dennis A. Garcia (formerly Gai… (View Comment):

    Hot take: All of the Star Trek Series are good. All of them.

    The movies, of whatever era, are mostly terrible with the exception of Kahn and First Contact, the later being good and the former magnificent. I don’t count Generations because it’s basically a TV movie.

    I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t prefer Deep Space 9. It’s the best of them at not only because the plot superstructure was ripped off from Babylon 5.

    The worst is Enterprise. It’s a poorly executed show in a lot of ways but the premise of a Starlfeet that’s still basically NASA is compelling enough that it never quite stopped being worth watching.

    I could go on.

    While I didn’t like the original Star Trek, I did mostly enjoy the later series – except for the first season or so of The Next Generation. I didn’t like that very much.

    The first season of TNG was rocky, as were the latter holodeck-heavy episodes. “Discovery” had the doctor as a hologram, and if you can replace the doctor with a hologram, why not every member of the crew? Think of all the space you could save if you didn’t have to maintain life support. That occurred to me during the first episode. It doesn’t do much for the suspension of disbelief if you are continually thinking “why are you here?” for each and every character.

    As early as TNG, I think that Picard states that an unnamed probe could do the same job as his thousand person, including families, Galaxy class star ship, but that exploration is part of human nature. Each one is there because he wants to be.

    You could build more probes for what one starship costs. A lot more. If anything, the only shortage you could have would be personnel.

    My friends and I were all puzzling over exactly how much Kirk owed Star Fleet after he blew up the Enterprise in III. I can imagine that it was a little more than a five year mission’s worth of back pay. 

    • #85
  26. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    Stad (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):
    the plot does kind of feel like it was taken from a not very great episode

    There was one episode in the original series where the Enterprise is boarded by one of Earth’s former deep space probes.

    The Changeling.  Known in German as Ich heiße Nomad!

     

    • #86
  27. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

     

     

    I think it is mentioned at some point that McCoy is divorced, I know for sure that his daughter is brought up at least once in the original run, because they planned on her coming aboard in Season 4. In Star Trek V Kirk says something along the lines of ‘people like us don’t have families’ to his two friends, I would guess with the implication that life long Star Fleet officers were expected as a matter of institutional culture to probably forgo a normal family life in deference to service (also maybe because they were engaged in a long term, long distance mission).

    That’s an interesting point; maybe what makes (at least some of) the movies so compelling is that the three mains either start to come to terms with choices they made that were definitely morally questionable, if not flat out wrong (like Kirk choosing not to be a part of his son’s life), and doing things, like stealing a the Enterprise even when it goes against their duty as officers, which could be cast as sinful. I does seem that in TOS most of the obviously “sinful” choices, like Mirror Spock forcing a meld on McCoy, occur only when they either no longer have control over their actions or are not whole.

    The plot with JoannaMcCoy was, if memory serves, supposed to be an element in that awful space hippies episode but got cut because of network censorship as had the drug abuse element in City on the Edge of Forever

    • #87
  28. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    @jeffp should be in on this discussion. 

    • #88
  29. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):
    the plot does kind of feel like it was taken from a not very great episode

    There was one episode in the original series where the Enterprise is boarded by one of Earth’s former deep space probes.

    The Changeling. Known in German as Ich heiße Nomad!

     

    Hartmann,

    One of my favorites.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #89
  30. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

     

     

    I think it is mentioned at some point that McCoy is divorced, I know for sure that his daughter is brought up at least once in the original run, because they planned on her coming aboard in Season 4. In Star Trek V Kirk says something along the lines of ‘people like us don’t have families’ to his two friends, I would guess with the implication that life long Star Fleet officers were expected as a matter of institutional culture to probably forgo a normal family life in deference to service (also maybe because they were engaged in a long term, long distance mission).

    That’s an interesting point; maybe what makes (at least some of) the movies so compelling is that the three mains either start to come to terms with choices they made that were definitely morally questionable, if not flat out wrong (like Kirk choosing not to be a part of his son’s life), and doing things, like stealing a the Enterprise even when it goes against their duty as officers, which could be cast as sinful. I does seem that in TOS most of the obviously “sinful” choices, like Mirror Spock forcing a meld on McCoy, occur only when they either no longer have control over their actions or are not whole.

    The plot with JoannaMcCoy was, if memory serves, supposed to be an element in that awful space hippies episode but got cut because of network censorship as had the drug abuse element in City on the Edge of Forever.

    I think the plan after that was for her to be Kirk’s love interest in Season 4, and for that to be a big point of contention between him and McCoy. It sounds like a truly awful plot development. 

    • #90
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