Relative to the time in which each was released Trek has gotten less progressive over time. TOS was released during the height of the cold war and the civil rights movement. It had a black female bridge officer. The line of command isn’t super clear on tos but Uhura was a department head and no lower than sixth in command. It had the first interracial kiss on television between Kirk and Uhura. It had a Russian bridge officer, also no lower than sixth in command. It had an Asian bridge officer also no lower than sixth in command. Earth was presented as a Socialist utopia.
TNG didn’t really back off of that ideologically, though it didn’t do as good of a job with racial representation, but it also didn’t advance it and culture did advance between the 60s and the 90s.
DS9 pulled back on it primarily as a result of its exploration of darker themes. It creates and drives wedges into cracks in Earth’s Utopia. It has Starfleet and even the main protagonist abandon Starfleet’s ideas and principles in periods of adversity. It also started the movement away from the philosophical sci-fi that Trek thrived in before to more action oriented sci-fi.
Ultimately, imo, Janeway was a more “Starfleet” officer than Sisko. She showed more integrity and dedication to the Federation’s ideals under greater levels of hardship and personal risk. All in all Voy was not particularly more or less progressive than DS9 though.
Nutrek tries but it’s too action oriented and doesn’t really explore the themes in a meaningful way and that causes its more progressive moments to come off as less impactful and less integrated into the story. It also seems to forget that Starfleet is a quasi military organization and doesn’t always do a good job at presenting the characters as competent disciplined professionals which makes progressive decisions and moments less meaningful.
So, I agree. Trek isn’t woke enough. It should bring Roddenberry’s philosophical progressive Trek into the modern era.
I think you’re selling DS9’s progressiveness short. The federation is portrayed as less progressive, but the message of the show itself is far more progressive than the norm; if anything, it makes the federation standins for moderate/centrist/liberals and calls them out for not being left enough.
The biggest change happened during TNG’s run, when Roddenberry left the show due to declining health and subsequently passed away in 1991. The writers on the show had long been frustrated by Gene’s insistence that federation officers rise above petty interpersonal conflict. They felt this limitation made it extremely difficult to write compelling drama since all of the main cast had to get along all the time.
The later introduction of characters such as Ensign Ro demonstrate the first fruits (or first cracks) of the move away from Roddenberry’s philosophy. By the time DS9’s cast had been developed, the “no interpersonal conflict” rule had been completely subverted.
The funny thing is, many fans actually prefer DS9 for this. I think it makes the show a lot more relatable. Of course I’d rather live on the Enterprise than on DS9.
It should also be noted that these creative differences aren’t specific to Roddenberry and his new staff, they’re reflective of generational divides that began during the Cold War and really culminated in the 1980s. The exuberant optimism of the counterculture (Roddenberry’s kindred) had long dissipated and the slow demise of the Soviet Union revealed widespread disillusionment with the tenets of communism. In many ways, Star Trek pivoted from communism to full fledged neoliberalism in the 90s.
I read “Nutrek” as “Nut Trek” and I thought that sounded appropriate
There’s also factors like modern TV format and audiences. The shorter one story arc seasons don’t allow any room to maneuver. Bottle episodes got an undeserved bad reputation from the segment of viewers who want a linear sprint to the conclusion. It’s like a boring generic first person shooter with only a straight line from start to finish. No exploration. Writers aren’t allowed to write.
They give the audiences what they they think the audiences might want. That is the safe, easy to write 6-10 episode plot. Sometimes the audiences like it. Sometimes the don’t. Either way they’ve strayed from actual writing anymore. Bottle episodes add dimension to characters. Multi-path seasons add depth and breadth to the entire ensemble.
A side effect of modern TV format is more focus on action. When they don’t have room to maneuver then they substitute with brief action. A bit of plot. More quick action. Advance the single main plot again. Maybe a little B-plot. Repeat until episode 6 to 10. That segment of viewers are so tunnel-visioned on squeezing everything out of less than a dozen episodes. They’re scared of one going to waste on bottle episodes or “filler”.
Writers don’t have any room to explore several different plots. Some spanned entire seasons or even multiple seasons. Some were just one episode. There is no room for it in modern television. Whereas before instead of pointless actual filler of action sequence, they could have started a whole other plot that lead to several more episodes later in the season. That would have opened up a whole world of characters that would be one dimensional side characters in modern television. Discovery was chock full of wasted potential in chracters.
If Chief O’Brien happened in modern TV and for modern audiences, he would not be the O’Brien who suffers. He would be a stereotypical snarky engineer who reads off the scripted technojargon. They’ll give him a likeable character quirk that is relatable to the young STEM crowd and then maybe kill him off randomly, ostensibly to make him a worthy character because he died. That’s as much depth as we’d get. A one dimensional character that people like superficially.
The disdain for bottle episodes might be one of the worst things to happen to the medium. That’s not to overshadow the other issue that TV shows do not have the level complexity they used to.
The seasons are also smaller. Take the episode count, for example. Season 1 of TNG was 26 episodes. Discovery’s S1, by comparison, is only 15.
That’s ten whole episodes of development space lost, which could have gone to stretching out the season plot, or building out the characters.
IMO it’s more to do with the Network/producers wanting to play it safe, since Star Trek is a big franchise, and thus a reliable cash cow now. Either that or it’s a victim of its own fame. No-one wants to be the one who ruined Star Trek, for example.
Parts of the US threatened to take the original series off the air because it was so socially progressive, and I feel like the subsequent series haven’t quite lived up to that part of the legacy, because they don’t want to risk much.
The most emblematic of this, I feel, is the shift to the 32nd century. There was a lot of potential there, and a lot of it was just thrown away to reset everything back to something recognisable, just with a shiny new coat of paint. You would expect them to have at least moved on from warp drives, phasers, and quantum torpedoes a millennium after the fact, or that they would be almost entirely unrecognisable.
I want the first otherkin Starfleet officer. The first plural Starfleet officer who isn’t a cyborg or an alien. I want Starfleet officers with (treated) BPD, NPD, and ASPD. I want the first schizophrenic Starfleet Officer. I want the first transracial Starfleet Officer (transracial people are people who grew up in a different ethnic culture than their biological parents). The first Starfleet Officer with neopronouns.
I want a story about the Federation trying to ban animal meat while respecting cultural traditions. A story about the Federation dealing with democracy for plural systems.
I was going to link this comment to You, and lo and behold-
No-one wants to be the one who ruined Star Trek, for example.
Ironically, toning down the “woke” philosophy to “play it safe” is the surest way to do that.
I have to assume the people who think Star Trek is woke now also believe drag queens in the 90s represented good christian values
also believe drag queens in the 90s represented good christian values
I have no horse in the race, but an argument could be made about there being multiple types of drag, especially in the UK where it’s traditional to make fun of matriarchal figures by doing drag at panto for christmas.
now if the dudes doing that are doing it to get off, who knows, but it’s not all Drag Race queens and LGBT people doing it. (not that there’s anything wrong with that)… also that shit existed back then too.
Picard is my favourite captain, but I’d prefer to be crew under Janeway, she’d ensure I was caffeinated and unTuvixed.
And she might kill an intelligent life or two, just for you
And if she ever gets in your face just remind her of her lizard babies she abandoned.
Shes not out of line and shes right
