Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
It’s been twelve years since Hollywood caved in the zombified head of TV Star Trek. Though season four of Enterprise showed promise, it was time for twenty-three years of unbroken TV Trek to be decommissioned.
After some ridiculous soft reboot films by J.J. Abrams, Trek fans were treated to a new series last night. I say “treat” in a far too optimistic way, like a Guantanamo inmate is “optimistic” he won’t be “treated” to jumper cables clipped on his nutsack. I know it’s only two episodes in, and I know the first season of any Star Trek turns out to be the shittiest. But even with this 80 minutes of new Trek, the already urine soaked grave of Gene Roddenberry prepares for another golden shower.
SPOILERS DETECTED. RAISE SHIELDS, CAPTAIN?
Star Trek: Seinfeldiscovery
This is a show about nothing. The first two episodes had no discernible theme, no lesson. Star Trek, as a “genre,” as a trope, whatever you want to call it, had themes and lessons. Take even the stupidest Voyager episode – at least it had a theme and some kind of lesson.
If you saw the episodes last night, you tell me – what did we learn? What were the themes? Always trust your first officer? No, because even Riker/Kira/Chakotay/T’Pol got shit wrong. That’s not even relatable, even in the fanciful world of trek. Klingons respect power? That isn’t a human theme. Who are the Klingons supposed to be real-world surrogates for? (They were stand ins for the Soviet Union in the Original series.)
Burnham’s total cashiering is bold for Trek, but is that a theme? No good deed goes unpunished? The script went through so many revisions they scrubbed it of any substance. I can’t “engage” (groan) with something that doesn’t mean anything beyond pretty-looking entertainment.
You p’takh know not the meaning of Q’pla! // Photo: Netflix
It’s not science fiction
It’s a space opera, and not the good kind. In 1941, writer Wilson Tucker defined space opera as a “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn,” which these two episodes definitely are. What’s more is that a space opera could be transposed to any setting and still work. I could re-write the episode as a Western – a posse shows up outside of town and the petrified townsfolk wonder whether to engage them or not – and it still works. Even the solutions to their problems are not science fictional. Strapping a bomb to a dead guy as they gather him for burial…not science fiction.
Inserting a root command into the Borg collective, telling them to regenerate (ala the ‘solution’ to The Best of Both Worlds) … 100% science fiction.
Klingon is not a romantic language
Klingon was a real language replete with grammar and syntax, invented for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future) is among the first actors to speak it…in select scenes. For effect. As you can see:
Klingon is not a pretty language. Yet half the show is spoken in Klingon, like we’re watching Intergalactic Narcos. It’s not interesting, nor pleasant for listening to. Klingon is a staccato mess that only (presumably) Klingons find appealing. In canon, Universal Translation was invented about 80 years prior to this series. Use it.
They break the Prime Directive
Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Captain Phillipa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) fight. Gene Roddenberry, in his original vision for Star Trek, decreed the crew would never fight amongst itself as a source of narrative conflict. “So what,” you think. “The dude died and didn’t get to see the bullshit and shenanigans on DS9 and Voyager, so fuck it.” Even then, the crew never fought amongst itself for some cheap drama. It contradicts the principles of the Federation as a harmonious, enlightened society. It’s bullshit characterisation, and it drags Discovery to the level of “any other kind of dipshit show.”
Someone hid the DOP’s spirit level
Dutch angles, fucking everywhere. Seriously, they have artificial gravity on starships. The cinematography can also have it, too. (Marvin Rush is still alive, right?)
Doctor, bring up some Travacalm to the bridge // Photo: Netflix
Sarek doesn’t smile
He didn’t talk to his son for decades over a disagreement, even on his deathbed, but he gives us a FUCKING SMIRK to someone he BARELY KNOWS? Get the FUCK OUTTA HERE
It’s about cool shit, not humanity’s future
Star Trek was pitched as Wagon Train to the Stars. That was for the execs to nod and cluck to. In reality, it belied a potent human message. Despite the conflicts and petty differences of today, we make it. Humanity spreads its wings into the stars, taking its place among the interstellar community. We’re equals with Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites; races far more advanced and storied than our own. We’re impulsive, but we settle down and solve our problems in a nuanced and positive way.
This whole episode was about “how many pew-pews can we insert into any given scene.” Even when things look bleak as hell, at the end of the day, we can depend on our humanity to get us through. Even the immediate future of The Expanse is more hopeful than this pseudo-Federation, the type of Federation that no Discovery writer bothered to research in any great detail. If we’re teetering on the edge of radioactive oblivion and rioting in the streets because we disagree on whether we should say or not say what we feel, I don’t feel like we overcome it with this series.
We’ve got 12 more episodes to go. I hope that the alumni writing staff pen some ish hewing closer to what Star Trek is. Because this definitely isn’t it.
What did you think of Star Trek: Discovery?
