I agree. Discovery is the least progressive Star Trek series and is already aging poorly. The other series use the Star Trek universe to cleverly explore present day issues whereas Discovery lazily frames today's social issues as if they're universal truths. It was a real back step for the franchise.
It's not that Disco isn't progressive; it's just lazily progressive. Case in point: the scene that bothers me to this day is Adira coming out as non-binary, just beyond cringe-worthy and very 21st century. As a viewer, the scene read like Adira was waiting to be judged harshly for their identity, and it just totally took me out of the era. By the 32nd century, I'd expect that being judged harshly for one's gender identity would be at least a millennium behind us, and the conversation should either have not happened or been so matter-of-fact that it was treated as nothing. I get what the writers were trying to do, and it fell so flat and felt so bluntly obvious. I'm all for the message, but the delivery was not great.
The saddest thing about Disco to me is that there were great ideas and great intentions, but the execution of those ideas was so poor. Really, it just shows that you can have great actors, great directors, and great concepts, but if the writers can't make it work, it just all comes apart.
I see your point, but I still don't think the scene works, but thinking about it like that makes it much more watchable. My point is that the scene is simultaneously poignant and a throw-away. It's a "big deal" but also just one scene.
By the 32nd century, something like that should be such a non-issue for humans, that it would be like stating just another fact about yourself (amnesia and trust-issues aside), which lends itself to being a throw-away...but that defeats the purpose of the scene. Again, I am all about the message and Stamets' reaction, but it felt very 21st century and on-the-nose.
I'd have preferred if Adira were just non-binary from the beginning and maybe have a quick correction of someone when they were misgendered. Or, let that scene be the reveal of something else, like the symbiont. With that change (I'd have to rewatch the season to see where this scene was in relation to the symbiont reveal), I think the scene would still work while tightening up the writing. I also think it'd get the message across, too.
Now, if the writers really wanted that scene to stay as-is, there are options. Make them an alien from a culture not as enlightened (which would cause other issues) or have this scene play into a bigger theme of Earth backsliding post-Burn (like a Dark Ages) to have mores closer to the 21st century and show the 23rd century crew as horrified by it and work to bring Earth and humanity back toward enlightenment.
This kinda sums up my main problem with Disco. There were great options on the table to realize a concept, but they just wrote it in an awkward way that is unsatisfying (at least to me). Sometimes, that awkwardness reads as performative/lazily progressive.
The problem I had with that scene (and the whole series, really, especially season 3) was that it framed human culture of the future as being generally oppressive and backwards. Acceptance shouldn't be portrayed as radical or exceptional. It should be normal and taken for granted among humans in the future. Like in TOS, Uhura's role was a big deal for viewers specifically because it was not a big deal for the characters. They just showed us a better future, where a black woman in a respected professional position was normal.
Discovery didn't show us a better future. It showed us a shitty future with a handful of decent people in it. This is just one example, but it's one that stuck in my mind as well.
It was presented as exceptional in-universe, from Adira's perspective. The fact that Adira felt weird about it at all paints the culture they grew up in as backwards.
How so? Perhaps I'm misremembering, but they were born on Earth and raised among humans, right? Does that not say something about the human culture of their time?
I've only made it to season 2, so I'm holding out hope that it gets better, but lazily progressive seems to describe it pretty well.
The one that really rubs me rough it how Tilly is very clearly coded to be some type of neuro divergent, probably autistic, but also only when it is convenient and quirky and will not interfere with the plot too much.
Her suddenly being very socially adept when the plot needed her to pretend to be an evil commander or whatever, and she dropped all of her character flaws to make it happen just felt so out of character and lazy.
Also the scenes with Spock and "child abuse bad" at the start of the red angel arc was very ham fisted.
I much preferred how SNW handled the "our wonderful society is supported by horrible child labor and death" arc. Still about as subtle as a brick, but it at least felt like an attempt was made to encode a message, and not just saying it at the viewer like a pre-school cartoon recapping the message of the episode.
The scene you're describing is a good example. Though I would argue that given this story line is set a millennium in the future, it isn't just lazily progressive, it's an ultra-conservative view of the future. It perpetuates today's bigotries as universal truths instead of challenging the audience to perceive of a future without our current bigotries like the Kirk / Uhura kiss did 50 years ago.
Yeah someone being non-binary or whatever and no one caring or commenting on it at all is a lot more progressive and meaningful. TOS did that really well with Uhura on the bridge. She was a black woman and absolutely no one on the ship acted like that was remotely odd. It sent a very powerful message.
It also felt like it was shoehorning in all the progressiveness for the sake of being progressive which sends the exact opposite message than they hoped for. The crew was so amazingly diverse representing so many different things that any adult would look at it and go "the odds of all these different sexualities/etc. being on one ship at once are so improbable as to be impossible." That makes it feel like pandering, not being progressive. That could work for kids, just being able to see someone like them on screen helps a lot, but Discovery is very much not meant for kids to watch.
Basically they tried too hard and didn't understand what they were doing.
Can you give some examples of this? Admittedly I didn't much care for Discovery and didn't pay a lot of attention through it as a result, but I'm not picking up what you're laying down ;-)
The original series was based in a post-race society. When Kirk and Uhura kiss, it wasn't an interracial kiss in the show because the concept of race doesn't exist in the 24th century universe. It got backlash when it aired because some people couldn't contemplate a the future without their current bigotry existing. Star Trek explored current social issues by visiting some planet with a veiled version of that issue.
Contrast that to Discovery where Burnham is having a conversation with an Admiral and the Admiral brings up Burnham's family's history of slavery.
Ah yeah, I remember a moment like that in DS9, where Sisko is lamenting the crew's interest in a holosuite program set in the 50s because of how "our people" were treated back then. It always felt out of place for me, though DS9 is still my favourite Star Trek.
...i mean, let's be fair: voyager set the bar so low the franchise nearly fizzled-out in its wake, and arguably never recovered despite enterprise's strengths...
As someone who watched it with no nostalgia glasses: it is not good trek.
I can't think of a really outstanding episode off the top of my head (maybe the Tuvix one? But even that is just ... rough?). And there are some episodes in there that I actively dislike in a way I don't with most of the other series.
I like Kate Mulgrew, she was a strong actor for the role and the theme is a banger, otherwise .. meh.
I also think it's fairly weak overall but there are some really great outstanding episodes. Blink of an Eye, Counterpoint, Scorpion, for some examples. And I also agree that the worst Voyagers are really very bad, but are they that much worse than other series' follies? Is Threshold worse than Code of Honor? Sacred Ground worse than Turnabout Intruder? Fair Haven worse than Profit and Lace?
Originally sole canadian actress was hired to play Janeway...forgot her name, but you can see some original footage on YouTube, she was so bad as captain Janeway. Mulgrew took the character to a whole other level.
Personally enjoyed Voyager, skipping some episodes however, mostly those personal quests... And Neelix didn't bring much as well.
Enterprise was...meh. Learned to like it and by the third season it felt like they finally found the right direction. Loved the doctor in that series. And the theme song, my god who decided that. Awful.
Strange new worlds is great, feels like it has everything I expect from a star trek series. Atmosphere, decors, characters, theme song...
I'm retroactively annoyed at the stranded but in good repair situation. But voyager failing made Battlestar a thing so....
I also think it's just a weird transition period for tv. Still had crap budgets and weird unpolished plotlines due to the need for season-long fillers. If you cut each season down to 8-10 episodes as we sometimes do today, could be a fine show.
Star Trek really has 2 different genres, there's action/adventure and there's real hard sci-fi where philosophy is at the forefront. Voyager generally appeals more to the action/adventure fans, whereas the previous iterations appeared like the entire series was heading in a more philosophical direction with TOS to TNG to DS9 increasing in their thoughtfulness. VOY was seen as a huge backslide to people who were tuning in largely for the philosophical aspect of the show.
Considering there was and still are very few popular philosophical and thought provoking shows that challenge the viewer's world view and biases, I think it's fair to be upset that the new direction of the show is to dumb down everything and focus more on the action.
Of course, that's not to say that Voyager was completely devoid of any philosophical debate, but I don't think anyone can make the case that it's equally as intelligent as TNG and DS9.
I think that's part of why bringing in Seven of Nine helped the series a lot. Exploring how she adapted to being a human, when she'd been a Borg since she was a child, was much more philosophical and led to a lot of really great episodes.
Voyager was probably the most high concept of the era's Trek and didn't really fulfill that promise. It is funny that DS9 kept better track of its roundabouts over Voyager's shuttles.
They really didn't nail down the writing of the crew. The Doctor and Seven are the best written. However, out of the rest of the crew, only Tom Paris seems somewhat consistent.
You get some good episodes out of it, but I don't think it plays with the parts of Trek they were given to its fullest extent. I also feel like, while some of the shows are pure Trek, they aren't Voyager.
A big part of Voyager's problem was that the writers had absolutely no clue what to do with Kes. You had one of the main characters being just kind of there and largely useless. Once they brought Seven of Nine in and dropped Kes Voyager got a lot better. The writers had a clear understanding of how to write for Seven and she had a ton of character development over the final four seasons. Hell, I'd even say they did a better job with Neelix once they got rid of Kes, since they couldn't keep falling back on "Neelix is super jealous of Kes interacting with any male on the crew" BS they did a lot of. (And dear god was that annoying as hell. And I like Voyager!)
I feel like it wasn't just Kes who had this problem.
The Doctor and Seven were probably the best written characters. Tom and B'Lenna were probably the next two after that. Janeway only got better because she could act as a bad parent to Seven, which vastly improved her character and gave her focus. Neelix and Tuvok kind of drifted off to the background. Kim and Chakotay were blander than that, although Kim got a few decent character beats.
I'm not going to fault the actors on this, since this was the writing.
And Robert Beltran kept upping his salary demands each season hoping they'd fire him, since they were giving him so little acting to do. But they saying yes, so he stayed.
I'm a voyager fanboy since it aired, but it really doesn't hold up well.
Nevermind the fact that it is low quality visually and will never be remastered, but the practically non existint continuity really really really hurts it.
I still recommend people watch it, but it would be 3rd of the 'old' shows I'd suggest. (DS9 1st always because it is fucking awesome, then TNG because it brought Star Trek to the masses and solidified a lot of 'canon')
I really enjoyed Voyager. Saw it for the first time in 2020-2023, so maybe that played a part. Of course Tuvok, Seven, EMH, and Janeway were great, but I even liked Neelix as a character.
Just artifacting I think. There's a slight yellow color in the middle of the bottom serifs of the h that is similar to other h's and which isn't present in the b's
This is often done for consistency. Especially (although I have to admit that does not apply to TOS) when also heavy makeup or prosthetics are applied.
In Voyager, every main cast member is wigged to some extent, even if just false sideburns. Except apparently the Doctor who grew his own pointy sideburns and was clearly not bewigged on top.
Robert Picardo talked about this on I think a podcast I listened to several years ago, so sadly I can’t link to the source as I don’t recall where it was.
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