Bishop Sanctimonious the Hypocritical (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alex_antonin) wrote2022-05-04 05:12 am
alex_antonin) wrote2022-05-04 05:12 am
Entry tags:
Star Trek hot take
Someone on a Star Trek community was saying something about the TNG intro, it's not important what, but I commented and thus started this exchange:
Me: I always skip the intro unless I have to use the loo or get something from the kitchen. Also I can't watch TNG anymore because I cringe too hard at so much of it. It'll always hold a special place in my heart, and I love the Picard series -- I love seeing the TNG cast in new stuff. I just can't watch most of the old episodes because of cringe overload.
Rando: got any examples?
Me: Pretty much all of the first two seasons where they were barely trying and just copying TOS episodes half the time. The episode where Wesley was going to be put to death by a bunch of half-naked hippies for accidentally falling on their flowers. Their half-baked attempt to condemn gay conversion camps which came across more as pro-trans message (thus salvaging it a bit), though at least I can use that episode to support my headcanon that Riker is pansexual.
Oh and the episode where Troi got knocked up by/with space Jesus. And as much as I love Data, so much of his dialogue makes me cringe because oh they were trying, but not trying hard enough. Or trying too hard, it's difficult to say. But more than that, the way people treated him even when they were his friends was pretty horrible a lot of the time. I mean, if they were coding him as autistic, the behavior of others towards him was pretty accurate and maybe even not nearly as bad as real NT people treat autistic people. But still cringey because I'm autistic, so I know what it feels like to be mistreated over it.
Then there's the fact Troi is pretty much useless. Clearly someone thought having an empath was a good idea and then A. had no bloody idea how to use such a character realistically or effectively. B. realized that if she was a competent empath and/or counsellor, a lot of the problems written for the show would be over in five minutes with a competent and well written Troi in the room, so they nerfed her. Very poorly. And why was she always on the bridge? If she can pick up on individuals well enough to tell what they're feeling from across the millions of kilometers between ships, she could do that from literally anywhere on the ship. Either by calling the bridge if she sensed something useful (preferably BEFORE the people with eyes had a chance to use those eyes to see the same bloody thing she was sensing), or by Picard calling her on the comms to ask her opinion. Instead of being on the bridge, she should've been in her office. There's what, 1000 people on the Enterprise? With as much pressure as they're all under constantly, she should be fully booked with appointments for her services, instead of lounging about on the bridge repeating the bloody obvious.
But oh man... as cringey as TNG could be, it doesn't hold a candle to TOS. There's only like, maybe 12 good episodes in the entirety of TOS. Which brings me to another issue I have with TNG, something it has in common with TOS: it didn't age well. I don't mean the special effects, I mean the writing, the stories, etc. A lot of both series aged like milk. Even in the good episodes of both there's usually one or two "yikes" moments.
Also me: I mean with the Troi thing, if they wanted to nerf her ability they could have done so by simply making it so she has to block most of the empathic noise out consciously, changing her focus at will to focus on one person, a group of people, etc., and then to sense people on other ships she could need to go broad-spectrum because narrowing her focus doesn't work at that distance, and then on broad-spectrum the other ship gets lost in the noise. They could've done a thing where they'd have to get closer to the other ship for her to sense anything. Or only have her able to sense strong emotions like hatred, which could work as an early warning against incoming attacks.
Or heck, even if she could narrow her focus AND sense people on other ships, a possibly nerfing tool could be to have her get headaches sometimes. She's half human, after all. That's a lot of information to take in at once. As an autistic person, I take in more information than neurotypical people do but a lot less than Troi would, and even what I take in from my normal five senses is enough to give me frequent headaches (at least once a week). Troi could easily have been strategically nerfed on episodes where she'd normally solve things in 5 minutes by just giving her (in)convenient headaches caused by using her empath powers too much.
Also me: Oh BTW what I count as a good episode is generally an episode I can watch multiple times. There were a number of episodes that were okay once, and could be rewatched if I forgot most/all of the episode, but if I remembered the episode could not watch a second time because it wasn't bad, it just... wasn't good enough to suffer through a rewatch.
Mind, there are exceptions; episodes that I can't rewatch because I'm super sensitive to things in the episode, but the episodes are still good. Like the Benny episodes in DS9. Excellent episodes to watch once, love them tackling racism and so on, I think everyone should watch them at least once... but I have basically almost a zero tolerance for the "character can't tell reality and fantasy apart / character is being gaslit by mind controlling forces" trope. Especially if a mental hospital is involved. Never been in one myself, but I can't stand depictions of them in media.
Also, I have hyper-empathy, so anything set in the Jim Crow era (up to and including the 60's and sometimes the 70's) or the slave trade era is a no go for me because my hyper-empathy makes me feel like I'm there as one of the black characters. Though to be honest, another reason I don't like that era is because if I got transported back in time to that era, I'm pretty sure I'd get murdered by the Klan for being actively anti-racist. Especially since skin color is not at all a barrier for me in friendships and dating. I can barely tolerate the racism in the modern day, let alone the kind they had back then.
Me: I always skip the intro unless I have to use the loo or get something from the kitchen. Also I can't watch TNG anymore because I cringe too hard at so much of it. It'll always hold a special place in my heart, and I love the Picard series -- I love seeing the TNG cast in new stuff. I just can't watch most of the old episodes because of cringe overload.
Rando: got any examples?
Me: Pretty much all of the first two seasons where they were barely trying and just copying TOS episodes half the time. The episode where Wesley was going to be put to death by a bunch of half-naked hippies for accidentally falling on their flowers. Their half-baked attempt to condemn gay conversion camps which came across more as pro-trans message (thus salvaging it a bit), though at least I can use that episode to support my headcanon that Riker is pansexual.
Oh and the episode where Troi got knocked up by/with space Jesus. And as much as I love Data, so much of his dialogue makes me cringe because oh they were trying, but not trying hard enough. Or trying too hard, it's difficult to say. But more than that, the way people treated him even when they were his friends was pretty horrible a lot of the time. I mean, if they were coding him as autistic, the behavior of others towards him was pretty accurate and maybe even not nearly as bad as real NT people treat autistic people. But still cringey because I'm autistic, so I know what it feels like to be mistreated over it.
Then there's the fact Troi is pretty much useless. Clearly someone thought having an empath was a good idea and then A. had no bloody idea how to use such a character realistically or effectively. B. realized that if she was a competent empath and/or counsellor, a lot of the problems written for the show would be over in five minutes with a competent and well written Troi in the room, so they nerfed her. Very poorly. And why was she always on the bridge? If she can pick up on individuals well enough to tell what they're feeling from across the millions of kilometers between ships, she could do that from literally anywhere on the ship. Either by calling the bridge if she sensed something useful (preferably BEFORE the people with eyes had a chance to use those eyes to see the same bloody thing she was sensing), or by Picard calling her on the comms to ask her opinion. Instead of being on the bridge, she should've been in her office. There's what, 1000 people on the Enterprise? With as much pressure as they're all under constantly, she should be fully booked with appointments for her services, instead of lounging about on the bridge repeating the bloody obvious.
But oh man... as cringey as TNG could be, it doesn't hold a candle to TOS. There's only like, maybe 12 good episodes in the entirety of TOS. Which brings me to another issue I have with TNG, something it has in common with TOS: it didn't age well. I don't mean the special effects, I mean the writing, the stories, etc. A lot of both series aged like milk. Even in the good episodes of both there's usually one or two "yikes" moments.
Also me: I mean with the Troi thing, if they wanted to nerf her ability they could have done so by simply making it so she has to block most of the empathic noise out consciously, changing her focus at will to focus on one person, a group of people, etc., and then to sense people on other ships she could need to go broad-spectrum because narrowing her focus doesn't work at that distance, and then on broad-spectrum the other ship gets lost in the noise. They could've done a thing where they'd have to get closer to the other ship for her to sense anything. Or only have her able to sense strong emotions like hatred, which could work as an early warning against incoming attacks.
Or heck, even if she could narrow her focus AND sense people on other ships, a possibly nerfing tool could be to have her get headaches sometimes. She's half human, after all. That's a lot of information to take in at once. As an autistic person, I take in more information than neurotypical people do but a lot less than Troi would, and even what I take in from my normal five senses is enough to give me frequent headaches (at least once a week). Troi could easily have been strategically nerfed on episodes where she'd normally solve things in 5 minutes by just giving her (in)convenient headaches caused by using her empath powers too much.
Also me: Oh BTW what I count as a good episode is generally an episode I can watch multiple times. There were a number of episodes that were okay once, and could be rewatched if I forgot most/all of the episode, but if I remembered the episode could not watch a second time because it wasn't bad, it just... wasn't good enough to suffer through a rewatch.
Mind, there are exceptions; episodes that I can't rewatch because I'm super sensitive to things in the episode, but the episodes are still good. Like the Benny episodes in DS9. Excellent episodes to watch once, love them tackling racism and so on, I think everyone should watch them at least once... but I have basically almost a zero tolerance for the "character can't tell reality and fantasy apart / character is being gaslit by mind controlling forces" trope. Especially if a mental hospital is involved. Never been in one myself, but I can't stand depictions of them in media.
Also, I have hyper-empathy, so anything set in the Jim Crow era (up to and including the 60's and sometimes the 70's) or the slave trade era is a no go for me because my hyper-empathy makes me feel like I'm there as one of the black characters. Though to be honest, another reason I don't like that era is because if I got transported back in time to that era, I'm pretty sure I'd get murdered by the Klan for being actively anti-racist. Especially since skin color is not at all a barrier for me in friendships and dating. I can barely tolerate the racism in the modern day, let alone the kind they had back then.