Leafing 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.