Especially since Spock was often described by Bones as being a walking computer, and Data was described as an Android. It would be less of a logical leap than having Geordi be the new Spock.
While I agree that Trek is all about finding common ground, I just hope they don’t humanize the Gorn too much. While I’m no Trekologist I don’t think the Gorn become “friendly” until much later in the time line (like late TNG era). Someone nerdier than me please correct me if I’m wrong.
They more or less vanish after SNW. They have their introductory appearance in The Original Series, a few gags/cameos in Lower Decks, and the skeleton in Discovery, but that’s about it.
It’s quite good, although I personally found the first episode to be among the weaker ones in the show. It just made it seem more like a Star Trek-themed Tick and Morty, whereas the later episodes tended to fare better.
I rather liked it, and the more alien take on them, but I can also see why people didn’t.
Part of the issue is probably that Discovery changed them too much. Previous alterations to the Klingons tended to be one thing at a time, except for the TOS films, but even they kept some things the same, like their technology.
Discovery went with a bit more of a complete overhaul, with massive changes to the language (following the pronunciation guide more closely), and alterations for both their technology, and the Klingons themselves, which might have been a bit jarring for most, especially when people were expecting more of a settled look for the TNG/TMP Klingons.
You do have the visual changes for the Klingon Empire in the Kelvin films, but that gets excused as it being part of another timeline, hence all the differences.
Things like the Klingon cleave ship, and the T’Kuvma are massive changes from what people are used to when it comes to Klingons. Klingon technology previously tended to be birds of prey that cloaked and shot energy bullets/torpedoes, not cloaked ship-breakers that used ramming speed as their main vector of attack, and Klingon supremacists didn’t really exist like that. The closest we had to something like that was Worf, who was much closer to a Klingon purist/fanatic than a supremacist.
Although I personally feel that there was a missed opportunity not interspersing things with the various other Klingon designs of the time. Having a supremacist faction within the Klingon Empire, with massive visual changes (maybe due to overcompensating for Enterprise’s Augment Virus?), could have been an interesting way to add depth to the Klingons, and the Empire.
Especially if that diversity of thinking between the Houses is/was one of the strengths of the Empire. Each House was more like a separate power, and they simply collaborated under the banner of the Empire.
I’m not sure that it would be, exactly. One of the problems of that time was that a lot of the series were samey, which the revival seems to be trying rather hard to keep out of the habit of, which would help it avoid a repeat of the same incident.
Assuming that it cost the same as Star Trek medical care, I’d definitely be more open to it.
That said, though, part of the issue is less concern over medical care, but rather more that of having enough time and money. You can’t go around the world trying new things, if you can’t afford to go, or if you can’t get enough leave to be able to do so.
But - like the diversity and inclusion in the TOS cast - TOS’s liberalism (social, not economic) isn’t something that the show hit you in the face with.
It absolutely hit you in the face with it, just in a different way.
Miniskirts, an icon of feminist freedom of the time, were blatantly worn, Uhura was always in shot, and Sulu and Chekhov were front and centre of the camera when on the bridge.
Consider the famous Uhura/Kirk kiss scene. That was less of a hit in the face, and more bulldozed with it at light speed, which threatened to get the show pulled in more conservative parts of America (ironically, the same state/s would threaten the same of Arthur, the children’s TV show, over Mr Ratburn’s gay wedding so many decades later).
You could not be any more flagrant with the rules of the time, and if Roddenberry had had his way, he might have broken a few and put an LGBT character in, since that was part of his plan for TOS.
Not much of a Star Wars fan, but I assume this is David Brin’s critique?
I’m not familiar with him, so probably more coincidental than not. But you do see some Star Wars complaining that the new show is “woke” and shoehorns things in, whilst treating the conquering Empire of the first few movies as nothing deeper than that.
As a TOS fan, I disagree with that. TOS might have had dated drapery, but it also had some flagrantly progressive elements, arguably more than many of the series that followed it. It’s just that the world has moved on, and many of those progressive things are either the norm, or seen as regressive, like the Miniskirts, Uhura being part of the bridge crew, or having an American, Russian, and Japanese man serve as part of the same crew, at the height of the Cold War.
Part of it might also be that they didn’t see Trek as anything more than “cool space show, with a whole bunch of scantily clad men and women”, and didn’t bother to look any deeper, not unlike Star Wars. It’s just guns, cool ships, and shooting, with the imperialistic allegory being ignored, or gone unnoticed.
I like the TOS/TAS and 32nd century designs for pushing the envelope for what a star Trek starship could look like, instead of just iterating on the same basic designs over and over, or repeating generic Sci-Fi starship designs. A starship that’s just a giant disco blob, a bunch of loosely-connected pods, or a space doughnut/colony, are all unique ideas we’ve not seen before or since. Even the Enterprise was unique compared to the rocket-ships of the time, taking a lot of design work to give it that iconic look, unlike any other starship seen before.
By comparison, a lot of series after TOS/TAS tended to mostly iterate on the same design. For its flaws (like using a millennium-old drive mechanism), the 32nd century ships appear to try and buck that with radical changes. Chain and Courier ships look nothing like alien vessels of the time, and the Federation starships are rather different, with ships like the Eisenberg class being tall instead of wide, compared to previous Federation ships we’d seen before.
Kelvin is just a fun modern take on the TOS, even if I’m not entirely convinced about the interior, and like Discovery, lays the groundwork for the TMP style of ships, with their square-ish nacelle designs.
Section 31, the secretive illegitimate covert arm of Starfleet, had Sloan who really seemed like he’d done a lot in the name of the federation. He tells Bashir as much in Extreme Measures so it would be really cool to see some of the darker things the Federation disavowed or turned a blind eye to.
Especially since they believe that the Federation doesn’t go far enough to maintain their peace and balance of power by being as moral as they are. Although I’m ambivalent about them needing to exist, since them succeeding at all would undermine the Federation being successful without having to compromise its morals.
Like how the
resolution to DS9wasn’t entirely saving the day by convincing the Dominion to come to the table. The Federation effectively poisoned the Founders, forcing their hand that way
inadvertently implies that the Federation isn’t successful without their intervention and the whole dark underbelly.
It’s less directed at a single character, but I think the whole synth personhood argument seems like it would be a good thread for development.
We saw from Dr Pulaski’s reaction that even the most understanding and well-meaning members of Starfleet can still have reservations about whether a sapient machine is a person, or just a machine, even if they come around once they get to know them.
We also know from Maddox, the crew of the Sutherland, and the Voyager that some less well-meaning members of Starfleet see them as walking computers, and little more, until they are forced to see reason (whether they come around at that point is unclear, considering the Lal incident).
The Voyager’s crew even went as far as to try and solve the sapient EMH’s issues by treating him like a faulty computer/software, whether by fiddling around with his code, or factory resetting him when things went wrong.
We also know later on that while Data has his rights and personhood relatively firmly established, that ruling applies to him only, and not to any other inorganics. The Voyager’s EMH had to have an entire legal battle to determine whether he would own the rights to a book that he had written, whereas that would not be in the question, had the book been written by a biological humanoid.
There’s also a subtle plot where the Federation can and will use them as effective slaves, even if sapience is unclear. The other Mark I EMHs are used for dilithium mining, and Maddox’s reverse-engineered schematics of Data were stripped down, tweaked, and used to create a non-sapient synth workforce, despite his protests.