The anti-what? Or: Stop Labelling My Space Shows

[selenak]

About two weeks ago, going through a copy of the British magazine SFX, I read their reviews of the early season 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, one of my beloved new shows. The reviews were very positive. At the end of reading, I was fuming nonetheless. Why? Because the reviewer did what everybody and their dog keep doing since decades when they want to praise a new Sci-Fi series: bash Star Trek.

Seriously. Can you think of a show that hasn't been called "the anti-Star Trek" in an approving tone of voice? Or, the second variation of this particular kind of bashing/praise, "capturing the spirit of the original series when Star Trek was fun before it got bland and boring blah blah etc."? (Because for this brand of fanboy, TOS is the holy grail. There is a parallel going on with the bashing of the SW prequels (and sometimes RotJ, with SW: ANH and ESB being declared perfect) in Serenity reviews, but cadesama already put up an excellent rant about that nonsense, so I'll just point you in its direction. She hid the one spoiler for the movie under an lj cut, which meant unspoiled me could read the rant anyway.)

Now. Firstly, I love a lot of the shows that have been called "the anti Star Trek": Blake's 7, Babylon 5, Farscape, and of course the new BSG. But you know, if I want to praise them, I can do that on their own merits, sincle out why I love whatever I love about them, their own unique qualities, not waste time declaring my hate for another show in about a third of the praise.

Secondly, the "anti-Star Trek" label is usually used in a way that gives me the impression the reviewer or blogger doesn't know what (s)he is talking about and has seen two or so episodes of the later shows (with some fuzzy nostalgic memories of TOS) at best. Take the BSG reviews that set me off. In them, the reviewer wonders how Ron Moore (the headwriter and producer of BSG) could have learned his craft writing for Star Trek (Moore joined the TNG staff in its second season, became quickly one of the more prominent writers and later was one of the main writers of ST: DS9) when everyone knows that in ST, characters never argued, orders were always followed, relationships and characters never developed and there were never any consequences.

Well, excuse me.

For starters, this ignores the entire run of Deep Space Nine. Which usually happens when someone bashes ST, or makes up "why X is better than ST" lists, because DS9 with its use of backstory, ensemble character and arcs flies in the face of all those dearly held prejudices before you can say Terok Nor. Secondly, it's not even true for what was probably the most harmony-among-the-crew promoting incarnation of Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Where Worf killing Duras against Picard's direct orders (in a Moore-written episode, I think, he usually got the Klingon stuff) is made a great deal of, with lasting consequences. Data develops throughout the show (no matter my issues of Brent Spiner at conventions, he does an excellent job with that, and when the TNG finale presents us with Data at three different points in time, the start of the show, the end and about twenty years in the future, he and the script make the differences very clear). Or let's take Voyager, because Voyager is even more popular than TNG among the bashers as an example of Trekian inferiority. Seven of Nine clashes frequently with Janeway from her first appearance onwards. Paris/Torres predates (barely, but it predates) Worf/Dax and Kira/Odo as an example of two regulars starting a romantic relationship on the show and maintaining it instead of ending it within the same episode. Now you can argue about whether or not the chemistry works for you, or how well/ill written or acted it was, but it's factually wrong to claim there were no changing relationships, arguing or developing characters on Voyager.

It seems to me that the fondness for using the "anti-Star Trek" label rather displays one of the more ridiculed ST clichés, time travel. Because outside of the idea someone is eternally trapped in the late 80s and very early 90s when ST was the only Sci-Fi gorilla throwing its weight around on tv, and did need the challenge because being an only gorilla can make you complacent, I don't see how this kind of thing could make the bashers feel like members of a plucky creative minority. As I said, today everybody and their dog is using the label. Show me the new Sci-Fi show that actually is praised for being "like Star Trek" (and not with that condescending addendum that it's like TOS with better GCI) instead of being praised for being unlike and anti.

Now, let's take a look at some of the so-called "anti Treks". They're all pretty different from each other, which is one of the many reasons to treasure them - originality. However, if you want to use the "anti" label not to indicate "better than" but "has structural and or narrative qualities that are just the opposite of the qualities displayed in...", which is absolutely valid, Star Trek is usually not the comparison I'd choose. I'd probably pick it for just one example, Blake's 7, a show that got produced and broadcast in the late 70s, when there was only one incarnation of Trek known to men (and women; and aliens of third genders, and Q). The Federation in B7 is an Orwellian dictatorship (which happens to have the same insignia the Trek Federation does, turned 70 degrees, and you can't tell me they didn't do that deliberately), the original leading man starts the show brainwashed and broken and successfully framed for child molestation (that kind of stuff never happened to Kirk; it wasn't until Locutus of Borg that it did to a ST lead), the equivalent of the science officer is no ethical Vulcan or for that matter a Han Solo type cynic with a heart of gold but an actual cynic and embezzler who later on will be ready to kill the narrative equivalent of McCoy for his own survival, and while our heroes score some early victories against the dictatorship, the dystopia they live in is so persuasive that you don't really believe they will ever succeed in the goal stated by the lead at the beginning, a free galaxy... and that's before things start to go seriously to hell and the crew starts getting killed off. Above all, B7 is as English as the original ST is American. Not being either, I like both, but they strike me as very, very opposite.

As for the other shows, however: if you want to compare and contrast in terms of opposite qualities, you get far more results when putting them against each other than out of putting either against Star Trek. B5 and DS9 have more in common than they differ in. Farscape is really a special case because John Crichton arrives in his strange new world sans sidekicks or other human personel or environment, which makes him the alien, and that's not really happening in any of the other shows (though the "living ship with crew of escaped criminals" is true for B7 as well, and in its early first season when the Moya inhabitants don't really like each other all that much, there is a B7 feeling at times). As andrastewhite once said to me, if Farscape is the anti-anything in that sense, it's the anti Babylon 5, not the anti-Star Trek. B5 has that tightly organized, still unsurpassed five-years-arc and subarcs for the entire ensemble that allow for crucial characters never to meet each other because as important as their individual stories are for the overall B5 narrative, they don't have anything to do with each other. (Examples of this would be the telepath subarc and Bester on the one hand and the Centauri arc and Londo on the other, or the Minbari arc and Neroon on the one hand and the Narn/Centauri war and G'Kar on the other.) The various alien societies are given their own political stories. Meanwhile, on Farscape, you have continuity, but you get the feeling a lot of it developed more or less via accident (for example, one of the most crucial Farscape elements in the entire show, the chip Scorpius implanted in John Crichton's brain, was something the writers according to their own commentaries didn't come up with until they saw the dailies of the episode Crackers's Don't Matter of Crichton hallucinating Scorpius and were hit by a brainwave). While there is an ensemble of characters, there is a strong, at times overwhelming focus on our leading man, John Crichton, and leading lady, Aeryn Sun. We get to know about the alien societies and their politics only in as much as they impact on our leading couple. For example, the Nebari and their "cleansing" ways are introduced but only really represented in two or so episodes; if this were the type of show B5 is, Chiana and her brother would have gotten their own arc, no matter whether or not it impacted Crichton. Most of all, Farscape has anarchy in motion and an emotional and narrative wildness that is as unrivalled as is B5's tight structure. There is no idea so crazy, no trauma so horrible, that the writers won't go through with it. Which leaves a narrative mess at times, but oh, what a glorious mess.

Back to the start, though, and Star Trek, which was the start of so many things: naturally one can critisize each of the shows. And though I love two of them dearly and am fond of two more, I'm glad there won't be a new one right now, because decades of writing can exhaust anyone, and if there is to be a new ST show, I want something I haven't seen before, which is best given by new, unexhausted people at the helm. But the Star Trek we already have is diverse enough within itself, and offers enough interesting characters, episodes, and storylines that to dismiss it out of hand because it's fashionable means one deprives oneself of some excellent entertainment. And if you've watched some of the non-Trek shows first and are interested in narrative growth, or how one can spot seeds for later shows and other characters in earlier incarnations? Check out some Star Trek. If you find you can't stand any incarnation of it, fine. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the Vulcans say. Just don't go the cheap way of praising some of my other shows at the expense of my older ones.

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I think one of the many reasons why I loved Galaxyquest was that it was a Trek parody written by people who obviously loved Trek. It takes fans to make jokes about fandom that amuse rather than offend us.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You're so right. It's all the difference between laughing with and laughing about.

(Also, while Trek was the main target, one had to appreciate the Omega 13 as a riff on the B7 finale, wouldn't you say?*g*)

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I like you when you're cranky!

(I also like you when you're not cranky. But this was good.) ;-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I try my humble best.*g*

[shezan.livejournal.com]

You're quite right about Galaxy Quest. (And I especially liked the "the-fans-save-the-day" ending, too...)

[kernezelda]

*applauds* Brava!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*bows*

Thank you.

[andraste]

I must credit neuralclone with coming up with 'Farscape is the anti-B5' in the first place *g*.

I myself have always felt that it's Red Dwarf that's the true anti-Trek. Or perhaps B7 is the anti-TOS and Red Dwarf is the anti-TNG ...? (I realise that you've never seen RD and can't comment on that, so I'm just thiking out loud.)

Other than that: word. If a show is great, how about we just praise it for being great instead of bashing some other show? I've noticed a particularly annoying version of this going on in Doctor Who fandom, where some fans of the new series praise it by going on about how much better it is than the old episodes, and some fans of the old episodes go on about how the new version sucks. Argh!

Ironically, last week someone on my flist declared his dislike for Battlestar Galactica 2003 on the grounds that it was too much like Star Trek. I did not bother to argue the point *g*.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Ironically, last week someone on my flist declared his dislike for Battlestar Galactica 2003 on the grounds that it was too much like Star Trek. I did not bother to argue the point *g*.

*g* indeed. *veg*

[andraste]

*g* indeed. *veg*

I think this is the first conversation I've ever seen where BSG2003 has been criticised for being too much like Trek. (Not to mention that the poster's central problem with the show was that he thought it was about American soldiers being heroically American all over the universe. I also refrained from pointing out that he should perhaps see more than one episode before making up his mind about that point ...)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Head. Desk. Though it really is amusing.

[andraste]

Head. Desk. Though it really is amusing.

It certainly wins points for originality *g*. This is my week for unique yet faintly bewildering criticism of shows I love; just today I came across someone complaining that all the women on B5 were gay and none of the men were.

(It says something about me that my first impulse was 'but Londo and G'Kar were so totally doing it!' rather then 'um, since when do Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters constitute the entire female cast of Babylon 5?'

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It says something about me that my first impulse was 'but Londo and G'Kar were so totally doing it!' rather then 'um, since when do Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters constitute the entire female cast of Babylon 5?'

Bwahahaahaa. True, though. Well, both statements.*g*

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Because the reviewer did what everybody and their dog keep doing since decades when they want to praise a new Sci-Fi series: bash Star Trek.

I think it's a combination of two common phenomena: people find it very difficult to praise something without saying "better than X", and they tend to recognise one fixed reference point in any field. So, as andrastewhite observes, some fans of the Doctor Who revival couldn't praise Chris Eccleston without dissing Sylvester McCoy (which upset me, as I happen to think both were fantastic; on the other hand, I know that I upset a lot of fans of the new series by not thinking every aspect of every episode was perfect). And in English cricket every promising all-rounder for the past twenty years has been saddled with the "new Botham" tag, even though a new generation has grown up who know Ian Botham only as a rather boring television commentator. In the case of Star Trek, it seems likely that the critic is not ignorant of all other shows, merely that (s)he assumes that Star Trek is the only common reference point for all readers. Though in SFX I have to admit that seems a very strange assumption.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Dissing Sylvesters McCoy? How dare they.

*puts on 7th Doctor fangirl sign*

And yes, it probably comes down to these two factors, though I still have my doubts re: ignorance...

[popfantastic.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this magnificent post!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*bows*

[luminosity]

Because the reviewer did what everybody and their dog keep doing since decades when they want to praise a new Sci-Fi series: bash Star Trek.

I agree with you, that this is lazy reviewing. OTOH, I think, when a reviewer tries to say something about a cultish show (for want of a better word), he reaches back into the zeitgeist in order to make comparisons that a mundane viewer can indentify.

I know and love and *prefer* genre TV, but not everybody feels that way (hell! most everybody doesn't feel that way), and oddly, not every TV show reviewer feels that way either. When a reviewer compares a space show to Star Trek, my first reaction is much like yours, and my second reaction is to note that the reviewer probably has no idea about Blake's 7 or Farscape or even DS9. And usually, the reviewer states the comparison and then doesn't compare them at all. Then I dismiss the review and feel smug.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Feeling smug is definitely a better solution than feeling annoyed and insulted. You're a wise woman.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

TNG is held up a sign of Trek inferiority? Well, if that doesn't prove the credibility of these comparisons...

In any case - *applauds every word*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

By the obnoxious folk at SFX, yes. And thank you!

I've seen this, of course...

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

...in lazy reviews, and it's annoying, but honestly, reviews done by non-geeks are *usually* annoying and betray massive ignorance. I remember a loving feminist review of Farscape where the reviewer took time out to bash "Firefly" for its poor portrayal of women. She had never seen "Firefly"; she was unaware of the existence of Zoe and Kaylee. All she knew was that the show was promoted as featuring a high-class prostitute and a naked girl in a box. Well, if you've never seen something, what the hell are you doing bashing it? She just looked staggeringly ignorant.

What drives me bugger-all, however, is when *fans* do it. I remember a meme about "what I would do if I had my own sci-fi show" going around, and the majority of responses seemed to be "how I would make my show better than Star Trek", some of which actually were not intrinsically superior ideas to Star Trek. (I find that Star Trek has such an incredibly original and breathtakingly *different* concept of future economics that absolutely no one understands it, including the series writers themselves, and so when people say "I'm going to have money in my universe, so I'm more realistic than Star Trek" I feel like saying "You mean you're less original than Star Trek.") In fact, I'm kind of sick of the idea that a futuristic universe has to be grittily dystopian to be "realistic." Yeah, I'd have liked Star Trek to inject more realism into its near-utopia, but simply speculating on a future that is better than right now does not intrinsically make a show inferior. (I don't *object* to gritty dystopianism, or brutal realism, I just don't think it is superior to utopianism.)

Re: I've seen this, of course...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

What drives me bugger-all, however, is when *fans* do it

Oh, same here. Of course not all are fans of the same shows, but every fan ought to know how she or he hates it if someone else talks about their shows without actual knowledge, so the reverse conclusion should be obvious.

Agreed on the equal value of utopia and dystopia. And the Trekian economics. Am I wrong or can we say that the Federation is essentially communism in action as it was supposed to be, and on an American show, no less? (Though I snigger each time when watching In the Cards and Nog tells Jake "well, if you're so above money, you certainly don't need mine" *g*.)

[spacedoutlooney.livejournal.com]

Well put! ::applauds::

You put things into better words that I ever could have.

And now you've got me intrigued about Blake 7. I guess I'll have to check that out...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

B7 is definitely worth checking out. It has four seasons, and three of them are available on DVD already.

[willowgreen.livejournal.com]

I despise this kind of writing. I recently read an article about "Xena, Warrior Princess," that was both interesting and enjoyable up to the last line, which was, "Take that, Buffy."

Huh?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Quite. Though thankfully in recent years I've also read the occasional article showing an actually informed writer who didn't go into silly "my show can beat up your show" games. Alas, they're in the minority.

[kiaforrest.livejournal.com]

"new & improved" is market-talk for "we added a bit of salt to the original formula and now charge 50 cents more per pound of laundry soap"

Every show (whether they admit it or not) wants to be the Star Trek of it's time with new & improved seasoning, duh! who Wouldn't? so many 'firsts' and so many 'denied firsts'. Our bold creator, battling the network, speaking of hope to so many that there would even be a future instead of the 'get under your desk and kiss your bum good bye' bright flash, end of it all charred bits of the world. The squeaky cleanness that is so derided Now was in direct response to the weary, jaded world that this show came out of. Yes, TV tended to pretend everything was Andy & Aunt Bee but people were marching and dying and still, in some places, unable to register to Vote when Star Trek first aired - think about THAT mr/ ms 'anti-trek' reviewer! In 1967, how many of us had air conditioning in our homes? a car? a color TV set? But Roddenberry had us in Space! wow!

And mock what you will but where did 'fandom' originate in all its permutations. What show/ creator/ network does not Want millions of fans like those, ya know... what are they? Trekkites? :grin: (translation: consumers)

every reviewer wants to 'catch' that show before anyone else does. to be on record as the one who spotted it.

But, folks tend to forget that (beloved) Roddenberry was hoping to be the Gunsmoke of His Time (that show ran what? 20 seasons on TV? and 9 years on Radio - six of those years on radio were running @ the same time as TV series!). Can you imagine anyone willingly admitting they wanted to create the Gunsmoke of the 21st Century? Who would even Know what that was? Better the 'anti-trek' in terms of marketing huh? Being associated - even as 'anti'- with Trek still draws the eye to the written word, the ear to the spoken commentary and hopefully sells your product/ review/ show (& by extension - that New & Improved Laundry soap withOut salt, scent or bleach now days and $2 more expensive than 39 years ago)

Mock on reviewers, Star Trek was 'cancelled' 36 years ago. Will anyone still be reading your 'anti-trek' thirty six after You are cancelled? The power of the positive will Always outlive the negative ... given time.

[meganinhiding.livejournal.com]

Amen! My idiot alarm goes off every time a reviewer praises by dissing Star Trek in general and DS9 in particular; the trick sometimes is attributing the idiocy to the reviewer instead of the show. I think once some reviewer praised BSG by saying it was unique in portraying strong women in the thick of the action and suggested this was never before seen in genre TV!! Its lazy, ignorant writing that's more likely to turn me away from a show than attract me to it.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes. One of the reasons why I didn't watch Farscape until it was explicitly pimped by a friend of mine was because I had read such a lazy "the anti-Trek, first time there are strong women and sex among regulars etc. in a sci-fi show" review. To quote Puck and the divine Neil Gaiman, lord, what fools these mortals be.

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I enjoy reading your musings, although this is the first time I'm commenting on one of them. In any case, this was a well-argued piece and one I'd been anticipating since you first mentioned it. I guess that I, too, would rather see something promoted on its own merits and as itself rather than as the "correction" to something I just may not be convinced needs that correcting.

(One point that I had wondered if you would address would be the smirks about Star Trek episodes beginning because of problems with and ending with adjustments to the bafflegab generators, but perhaps this betrays the quality of the criticisms I've tended to hear and the lack of depth to my own understanding. That point seems to have been addressed in part by your own examples.)

A small word of thanks, too, for pointing out the response to lazy Serenity/Star Wars comparisons. I think that's just the latest example of everything being favourably compared to Star Wars; it's quantity, not quality, that wears me down there.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Bafflegab adjustments: in addition to what I said above, these tend to be used as Hitchcockian McGuffins. I.e. they're plot devices but not what the respective episodes are about. For example, in the TNG finale, All Good Things..., technically the solution of the problem lies in sending Tachyon beams at three different points in time, or something like that, but that's of course not what the finale deals with emotionally, any more than, say, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars is all about how precisely the wormhole John conjures up at the end comes into being.

In other news, I'm glad you liked the main argument!