The lure and danger of nostalgia
Sep. 2nd, 2018 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakLeafing through other people’s Star Trek reviews and –thoughts reminds me of something which is by no means an original observation of mine: one key difference between Star Trek: TNG and Star Trek: DS9 on the one hand and every iteration of Star Trek thereafter until Discovery on the other – and even Disco is an arguable case due to its setting – is that the former two are neither built on nostalgia for the franchise nor succcumbing to it as the story goes on. On the contrary, both are at pains to carve out their own identity and keeping a distance from their immediate predecessor. (This despite the fact that a lot of writers who cut their writerly teeth on TNG went on to write for DS9, and of course anyone who did start at TNG was a TOS fan first.)
Given the big success that TNG eventually became, it’s easy to forget, but not only was at first a very vocal part of fandom beating the „nothing not featuring Kirk-Spock-McCoy can be Star Trek, forever and ever“ drum when it started, but there people involved in the production, from Gene Roddenberry downwards, consciously tried to make the new Trek show as different as possible while still staying within the same universe. There was a „no Vulcans!“ mandate at first (and as late as the season 3 episode Sarek, there was an endless to and thro as to whether or not Spock should be mentioned by name in said episode where his father is a main character), which given the importance of Vulcans in TOS was really pointed. (Instead, there was a Klingon on the bridge, and developing the Klingons from one dimensional bad guys into allies with their own culture and politics was going to become one of TNG’s signature elements.) There was, of course, the 24th century setting which meant that other than Vulcans, TOS characters would be either really ancient (see: McCoy cameo in the pilot) or dead, and the main characters and their dynamics could not be paralleled to the TOS crew. It’s noticable that the one time TNG did try to downright copy a TOS dynamic, it turned out to be a very misjudged decision hastily abandoned after one season. (Making season 2’s Doctor Pulaski and Data into bickering partners a la Bones and Spock. The big difference here was of course that Spock always gave as good as he got, whereas Data, especially early in the show, had a naive, almost childlike nature, so Pulaski taking verbal shots at him didn’t come across as sparring, but as bullying.) Now, later on, once TNG had become a critical and commercial success in its own right, you did get TOS homages and mini crossovers (other than the earlier mentioned Sarek and Sarak, Scotty in Relics, and less successfully Spock in Unification I & II). But these happened on TNG terms, and you never had the impression the show wanted to be TOS. It didn’t have to be.
Meanwhile, DS9, between its stationary setting, letting Sisko punch Q with the words „I’m not Picard!“ in season 1, blowing up Galaxy class starships in effigy and letting O’Brien (who’d served on the Enterprise from season 1 – 5) declare Sisko the „best Captain“ he’d served under, had „We’re not TNG, we don’t want to BE TNG, we want to be something different!“ all but tattoed on ist collective forehead. (Mind you, drafting successful TNG character Worf in s4 to boost the ratings, which necessitated keeping the Dominion storyline on hold for an entire season in favour of a Klingon war storyline to justify Worf’s presence was not quite in that spirit, but to the show’s credit, Worf’s addition to the ensemble was done in a way that was quite exemplary: none of the other characters were suddenly lacking screen time or character developement because of him.) By and large, the kind of stories that DS9 told were ones that were depending on its specific DS9-ness and could not have been done on the Enterprise-D. The writer used the differences between the shows very creatively. There were TOS homages (far more than nods to TNG), not just the big anniversary episode Trials and Tribble-Ations, but never to the point where you had the impression the show wanted to be TOS, either.
And then we get to Voyager. At which point there were external factors interfering, true, from the ratings (ever since the end of TNG, there had been a steadfast drop) to some of the writers now being employed to write Star Trek for almost a decade, and it showed, to difficulties between producrs, writers and actors. Crucially, Voyager wasn’t the only game in town the way TNG had been; there were now several popular new non-Trek sci fi shows on tv, and they felt fresh. Now the difference having not two but three female regulars all the time, one of them the captain with whom everyone interacts made was new. But still: I’d say Voyager was when nostalgia for its own past became more and more of a factor for the Star Trek franchise. Indications: the very point of the Delta Quadrant setting of the show was supposed to be the chance to explore new aliens, to put the Voyager crew in utterly unfamiliar surroundings. While we did get new aliens, we also got Ferengi and Romulans. We got the Borg, aka TNG’s most iconic villains, not just via Seven of Nine but as an ongoing feature. We got a series of stealth TNG crossovers featuring Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi. (Both of whom I’m very fond of, and I liked the episodes in question. But in retrospect, they also paved the way for the decision to make Star Trek: Enterprise‘s finale into a TNG episode reducing the actual Enterprise characters to holodock figures.) It’s not that Voyager didn’t try to come up with its own thing but that it lost confidence when its own thing wasn’t rewarded by big ratings, and then it tried the nostalgia appeal to make up for this. Which didn’t work. See also above: competing new shows.
Voyager was to be the last Star Trek set in the 24th century until now (if the Picard-featuring show actually happens). That’s how obsessed the franchise became with looking back and believing nostalgia to be its tool for survival. Just think about that. Post Voyager, we got Enterprise which is set pre-TOS. And then, years later, the reboot movies went in nostalgia overdrive by going for a TOS retelling. (And one that relied on general osmosis and pop culture image more than on the actual show; as has been pointed out by many a Trekker, Reboot Kirk’s characterisation in his first movie as a young rebel hitting on every female with a pulse corresponds to the idea of Kirk in pop culture, and not so much to the character who in Where No One Has Gone Before is described by old class mate Gary Mitchell as someone up to his ears in books at the academy and in need of a wing man in order to get a date at all.) Again, there was the sense that the production team didn’t trust the audience to love a version of Star Trek if it wasn’t nostalgic, and primarily referring back to what had been loved before. (See also Spock Prime dumping all his Kirk memories into Reboot Kirk in order to enforce a Kirk/Spock friendship in the new ‚verse, to say nothing of Cumberbatch!Khan who could have worked as a new villain Harrison if the producers hadn’t been obsessed with going back to the Wrath of Khan well.)
Purely in terms of the story it tells in its first season, there is actually no reason why Star Trek: Discovery needs to take place in the 23rd instead of the 24th century. In fact, some of its key element like the spore drive might have worked better in a 24th century setting where the audience would not know whether this wasn’t going to be the new propulsion system of the future. Michael’s atoner arc needed her to make a fatal decision in the pilot which would contribute to a war situation, but there was no need to make this a war with the Klingons. If you want to avoid introducing a new alien opponent in the first season: there’s still the untold story oft he Federation/Cardassian war whose existence was declared in TNG’s fifth season. Not to mention that the godawful Nemesis and the first Reboot movie backstory between them left the Romulans in a dreadful state, and empires in dissarray could lead to war situations as well. Making Michael Sarek’s and Amanda’s ward ties her to some of the franchise’s most iconic characters, but, having watched our leading actress in the first season: the actress and the writing are good enough that this wasn’t necessary. Michael could have been raised by two completely new characters from different people, and she’d have been just as compelling. Again: setting Discovery about ten years pre TOS is yet another expression of the fear a not nostalgic Star Trek tale will not be loved by its audience. And that’s a pity, because in most other regards, Discovery truly is innovative, and the most original Trek since DS9.
Given the big success that TNG eventually became, it’s easy to forget, but not only was at first a very vocal part of fandom beating the „nothing not featuring Kirk-Spock-McCoy can be Star Trek, forever and ever“ drum when it started, but there people involved in the production, from Gene Roddenberry downwards, consciously tried to make the new Trek show as different as possible while still staying within the same universe. There was a „no Vulcans!“ mandate at first (and as late as the season 3 episode Sarek, there was an endless to and thro as to whether or not Spock should be mentioned by name in said episode where his father is a main character), which given the importance of Vulcans in TOS was really pointed. (Instead, there was a Klingon on the bridge, and developing the Klingons from one dimensional bad guys into allies with their own culture and politics was going to become one of TNG’s signature elements.) There was, of course, the 24th century setting which meant that other than Vulcans, TOS characters would be either really ancient (see: McCoy cameo in the pilot) or dead, and the main characters and their dynamics could not be paralleled to the TOS crew. It’s noticable that the one time TNG did try to downright copy a TOS dynamic, it turned out to be a very misjudged decision hastily abandoned after one season. (Making season 2’s Doctor Pulaski and Data into bickering partners a la Bones and Spock. The big difference here was of course that Spock always gave as good as he got, whereas Data, especially early in the show, had a naive, almost childlike nature, so Pulaski taking verbal shots at him didn’t come across as sparring, but as bullying.) Now, later on, once TNG had become a critical and commercial success in its own right, you did get TOS homages and mini crossovers (other than the earlier mentioned Sarek and Sarak, Scotty in Relics, and less successfully Spock in Unification I & II). But these happened on TNG terms, and you never had the impression the show wanted to be TOS. It didn’t have to be.
Meanwhile, DS9, between its stationary setting, letting Sisko punch Q with the words „I’m not Picard!“ in season 1, blowing up Galaxy class starships in effigy and letting O’Brien (who’d served on the Enterprise from season 1 – 5) declare Sisko the „best Captain“ he’d served under, had „We’re not TNG, we don’t want to BE TNG, we want to be something different!“ all but tattoed on ist collective forehead. (Mind you, drafting successful TNG character Worf in s4 to boost the ratings, which necessitated keeping the Dominion storyline on hold for an entire season in favour of a Klingon war storyline to justify Worf’s presence was not quite in that spirit, but to the show’s credit, Worf’s addition to the ensemble was done in a way that was quite exemplary: none of the other characters were suddenly lacking screen time or character developement because of him.) By and large, the kind of stories that DS9 told were ones that were depending on its specific DS9-ness and could not have been done on the Enterprise-D. The writer used the differences between the shows very creatively. There were TOS homages (far more than nods to TNG), not just the big anniversary episode Trials and Tribble-Ations, but never to the point where you had the impression the show wanted to be TOS, either.
And then we get to Voyager. At which point there were external factors interfering, true, from the ratings (ever since the end of TNG, there had been a steadfast drop) to some of the writers now being employed to write Star Trek for almost a decade, and it showed, to difficulties between producrs, writers and actors. Crucially, Voyager wasn’t the only game in town the way TNG had been; there were now several popular new non-Trek sci fi shows on tv, and they felt fresh. Now the difference having not two but three female regulars all the time, one of them the captain with whom everyone interacts made was new. But still: I’d say Voyager was when nostalgia for its own past became more and more of a factor for the Star Trek franchise. Indications: the very point of the Delta Quadrant setting of the show was supposed to be the chance to explore new aliens, to put the Voyager crew in utterly unfamiliar surroundings. While we did get new aliens, we also got Ferengi and Romulans. We got the Borg, aka TNG’s most iconic villains, not just via Seven of Nine but as an ongoing feature. We got a series of stealth TNG crossovers featuring Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi. (Both of whom I’m very fond of, and I liked the episodes in question. But in retrospect, they also paved the way for the decision to make Star Trek: Enterprise‘s finale into a TNG episode reducing the actual Enterprise characters to holodock figures.) It’s not that Voyager didn’t try to come up with its own thing but that it lost confidence when its own thing wasn’t rewarded by big ratings, and then it tried the nostalgia appeal to make up for this. Which didn’t work. See also above: competing new shows.
Voyager was to be the last Star Trek set in the 24th century until now (if the Picard-featuring show actually happens). That’s how obsessed the franchise became with looking back and believing nostalgia to be its tool for survival. Just think about that. Post Voyager, we got Enterprise which is set pre-TOS. And then, years later, the reboot movies went in nostalgia overdrive by going for a TOS retelling. (And one that relied on general osmosis and pop culture image more than on the actual show; as has been pointed out by many a Trekker, Reboot Kirk’s characterisation in his first movie as a young rebel hitting on every female with a pulse corresponds to the idea of Kirk in pop culture, and not so much to the character who in Where No One Has Gone Before is described by old class mate Gary Mitchell as someone up to his ears in books at the academy and in need of a wing man in order to get a date at all.) Again, there was the sense that the production team didn’t trust the audience to love a version of Star Trek if it wasn’t nostalgic, and primarily referring back to what had been loved before. (See also Spock Prime dumping all his Kirk memories into Reboot Kirk in order to enforce a Kirk/Spock friendship in the new ‚verse, to say nothing of Cumberbatch!Khan who could have worked as a new villain Harrison if the producers hadn’t been obsessed with going back to the Wrath of Khan well.)
Purely in terms of the story it tells in its first season, there is actually no reason why Star Trek: Discovery needs to take place in the 23rd instead of the 24th century. In fact, some of its key element like the spore drive might have worked better in a 24th century setting where the audience would not know whether this wasn’t going to be the new propulsion system of the future. Michael’s atoner arc needed her to make a fatal decision in the pilot which would contribute to a war situation, but there was no need to make this a war with the Klingons. If you want to avoid introducing a new alien opponent in the first season: there’s still the untold story oft he Federation/Cardassian war whose existence was declared in TNG’s fifth season. Not to mention that the godawful Nemesis and the first Reboot movie backstory between them left the Romulans in a dreadful state, and empires in dissarray could lead to war situations as well. Making Michael Sarek’s and Amanda’s ward ties her to some of the franchise’s most iconic characters, but, having watched our leading actress in the first season: the actress and the writing are good enough that this wasn’t necessary. Michael could have been raised by two completely new characters from different people, and she’d have been just as compelling. Again: setting Discovery about ten years pre TOS is yet another expression of the fear a not nostalgic Star Trek tale will not be loved by its audience. And that’s a pity, because in most other regards, Discovery truly is innovative, and the most original Trek since DS9.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 03:12 pm (UTC)(Personally I found DS9's at times belligerent "we are not TNG" attitude downright offputting, which made the inclusion of Worf lateron feel a bit like a "neener, gotcha" even though I never was all that invested in either show, but in retrospect I'd say that's where the franchise started turning backwards on a big scale.)
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Date: 2018-09-02 03:36 pm (UTC)Of the reboot movies, I like Beyond the best because that's the one that started to feel like it was playing in its own universe and taking things on its own terms, rather than just trying to go back to the original series and copying it without context.
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Date: 2018-09-02 03:45 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's unfortunately true. Damn, I miss Janeway, too. She was my captain.
I liked Beyond best as well - it was the only reboot movie that actually properly felt like Trek to me.
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Date: 2018-09-02 03:55 pm (UTC)I really, really liked how Beyond integrated with the AU that it had created, the Kalvin pods and Kirk's line about the world he was born into. Plus Jaylah is my bee.
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Date: 2018-09-02 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 05:43 pm (UTC)Aww.
But.... It's really hard not to feel like, "Let's go back to the '80s/early '90s when there was a white guy in charge!" I miss Janeway.
Yeah, it feels that way on Disco with Pike too. "We got the white man back in the captain's chair!" sigh.
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Date: 2018-09-03 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-03 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 05:09 pm (UTC)(Mind you, I recall all those interviews declaring that Worf really was more like a DS9 character anyway and was in his natural habitat there and what not, which amused me in their blatant PR-ness.)
Bringing back Picard definitely is nostalgia as well, but since he's hardly going to be the entire show, they'll have to come up with a new setting and (very probably, since there has been no mention of other TNG characters in hte announcements so far) new other regular characters which finally tell us something about the STverse after Voyager's finale, and that I've waited for for so long!
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Date: 2018-09-02 05:38 pm (UTC)I'm really looking forward to the post-VOY verse, but I admit I'm also a bit wibbly. Such a long gap between new canon usually means the fandom goes batshit when new canon doesn't conform to whatever fannish consensus has developed (or ossified) ...
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Date: 2018-09-03 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-03 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 05:42 pm (UTC)Maybe it was because a lot of Voyager was so terribly awful. But that was more because of horrible writing choices, not abandoning the original TOS era.
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Date: 2018-09-02 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 06:35 pm (UTC)In general, I don't think any of these shows is bad or even worse in any objective way. They all have less-than-stellar episodes, and they all have brilliant ones. But what is definitely true is that VOY was less popular than the others, which may have contributed to the nostalgic turn afterwards.
I admit to still wondering just how much of that lack of popularity is due to a female captain (the Janeway bashing at the time was incredibly awful!), and an - at the time - unusually diverse cast.
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Date: 2018-09-03 07:38 am (UTC)All this being said? I do think the Janeway hate was fired by misogyny, absolutely. And the fact that in addition to Janeway, you had first with Torres and Kes and then with Torres and Seven two more female regulars (as opposed to the earlier two female regulars, which Enterprise would get back to), while the sole white straight (human, since Neelix was an alien and the Doctor a hologramm) male of the cast, Tom Paris, was written in a supportive role both to B'Lanna and Janeway (which I liked about Tom!) - yes, I think there was a lot additional sexim firing up the complaints.
To play devil's advocate again: then again, it's also that the tv landscape had changed, and a lot of the Voyager writing staff had been writing Trek for almost a decade, as mentioned above. And it showed in a way that turned off progressively minded fans as well as sexists. I mean, at that time, you had Farscape, which was one of many billing itself as the anti-Trek and the only one to actually pull that billing off in a creative manner, which was anarchic and wild. You had Stargate for the military-minded crowd. And while Babylon 5 had been in direct competition with DS9, not Voyager, the runs overlapped, and it had just demonstrated for the first time that you could actually pull off long term arcs with an ensemble show. (I'm not without sympathy re: your point re: more self contained episodes in the current landscape, but back then what B5 had done was radical and new. And compared to all this, Voyager looked like it was playing it safe and formulaic, female Captain not withstanding. Now, when it's possible to see Voyager without all this tv context and in a new one, where arc-ness went overboard and so did dark dysfunctionality etc, it's a different viewing experience.
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Date: 2018-09-03 05:21 pm (UTC)Not sure whether Voyager at the time was less popular than DS9 during the years they overlapped
I don't think it's true for the general audience at all, but both critics and the Trek fandom at large seemed to enjoy bashing VOY a great deal more than any of the other shows up to that point. (There was also a lot of hate not just for a female captain, but a black Vulcan in particular. Ugh. A different set of fans, one assumes, than the ones who loved DS9. Or one hopes, anyway.)
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Date: 2018-09-02 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 06:59 pm (UTC)I wanted something a little more episodic
Oh, thank you for saying that! Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who misses the old episodic shows. Much as I enjoy a good arc, the episodic structure had its own benefits, and I wish things hadn't swung so completely in the opposite direction now.
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Date: 2018-09-02 05:41 pm (UTC)Yeah, ITA, and a lot of the original criticism Disco got was because diehard fans thought it wasn't believably ten years out, and there was all this worry about where it was going to fit into the canon. (And now a lot of the producer reassurances are "The second season will show where we fit in, don't worry!" Gah.) Although there were some familiar elements, like Harry Mudd and Sarek and even the MU, that got a fresher treatment. The tribble that sat on Lorca's desk ("Merkin") and was never really important to the plot, other than a sly fourth-wall-breaking clue about Ash/Voq, kind of epitomized the problem.
And next season we get....Captain Pike? :-/ (They hooked me with Number One, though. I'm a complete fucking sucker for Number One, I adored her as a kid. I sat through ALL of Voyager for Janeway, I will be in the front row for Number One.)
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Date: 2018-09-02 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 06:00 pm (UTC)Yeah, "more than an hour and a half of Number One!" and "Rebecca Romijin!" are the big selling points for me too. I also hope we see more of the bridge crew, and Evil Pippa. AND CULBER. I hope Kat and L'Rell don't get sidelined, too. I loved that older actresses had such big important parts in S1.
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Date: 2018-09-02 11:43 pm (UTC)I think my biggest problem with Season One is that I just cannot see this as taking place ten years before the TOS we know - it's not just the uniforms and the Klingon design and the technology level, it's the attitudes. (Not that would wish for a return to TOS sexism, but I have trouble reconciling the world of Discovery with Janice Lester and Kirk lamenting that his female crew will get married and quit Starfleet.)
Voyager remains one of the most frustrating television shows ever made to me. An interesting cast of characters and the most interesting premise a Trek show ever had and they wasted both.
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Date: 2018-09-03 08:28 am (UTC)Well, Enterprise actually got there first, by firmly establishing female captains in Starfleet predating Kirk, which no one has a problem with. (Mind you, when Captain Hernandez became a recurring character on ENT, I'm told some of the fanboys did object with "But what about Janice Lester?". Like the changing looks of not just the Klingons in general but the same Klingon characters - i.e. Kang, Koloth and Kor on TOS versus Kang, Koloth and Kor on DS9 -, it's a case of past changing retcon you either swing with or you don't, but Discovery is by no means the first Trek to do it.
BTW: it's actually not that hard to retcon. "“Your world of starship captains doesn’t admit women" is what Lester actually says, and she's the only one to say it. Given she's not exactly sane, it's always possible to declare that she didn't get promoted to Captain because of that and choose to see it as being due to sexism. As for Kirk's general 60s chauvinism (i.e. Carolin Palamas if she marries Scotty will of course quit Starfleet, etc.), err... it's him, not the fleet?
no subject
Date: 2018-09-04 07:18 am (UTC)While Lester's statement is ambiguous as it stands, there are so many moments in TOS where various characters have decidedly regressive ideas about women and gender that I find it difficult to write off. (I mean, Metamorphasis alone! Not even all Earth creatures have binary gender, let alone weird energy creatures from space. And yet nobody argues with Kirk about this.)
However, there's every chance that Discovery Season Two will reveal we're in some kind of alternative timeline like the relaunch movies, which would explain any number of things, including female captains all over the place and redesigned Klingons and everyone being played by new actors.