newsonaut
Turning inner space into outer space
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Star Trek series ranked by characters we came to love
Here's a good way to rank Star Trek TV series — how many characters can you name from each?
My theory is that what people like most about any TV show, including Star Trek, are the characters. If they love the characters, they are willing to forgive a lot, including the occasional really bad episode.
This is especially true of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It had some of the best episodes in the history of Star Trek — but also some of the worst. Dr. Crusher's Harlequin romance with a ghost is found at the bottom of many episode rankings. But fans can overlook this because, well, we love Beverley.
There were also a lot of bad episodes in the original series, but we're OK with pretty much all of these — even the Halloween episode with giant cats — because they had Kirk and Spock in them.
Star Trek: Enterprise eventually managed string together a few good episodes, but it didn't matter. The characters were boring and forgettable. To this day, I can remember the name of just one them — Capt. Archer — and only because the name is cross-referenced elsewhere.
How about the ranking?
1. Star Trek: TNG — I can name all the characters, including those who weren't regulars. That would have to total at least a dozen.
2. Star Trek: TOS — I can name all these characters as well, but there were fewer of them.
3. Star Trek: Discovery — I'm watching the current season, but can only come up with five names, one of whom is new. Book is an easy-to-remember name and he is a cool dude. In the third season, they should be doing better in the memorable character count.
4. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — I can remember a lot of the faces, but only four names come to mind. Worf doesn't count because he came over mid-series from TNG.
5. Star Trek: Voyager — I can remember four names, but one of them is The Doctor, so that doesn't count.
6. Star Trek: Lower Decks — I can remember the names of three of the main characters — more than I expected — after one season. This is why the show is catching on with fans.
7. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — It hasn't come out yet, but I know three of the characters from their appearances on Discovery. This could be a good start.
8. Star Trek: Picard — The only names I can remember are the characters who appeared in previous series. Two of them — Picard obviously and Seven of Nine — are regulars. They need to make us love the newcomers.
9. Star Trek: Prodigy — Another one that isn't out yet, but already looks better than Enterprise because they signed up Kate Mulgrew. So that's Kate versus the guy who played Archer.
10. Star Trek: Enterprise — One. Poor, poor Enterprise.
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Thursday, March 26, 2020
Picard shows us the way back to optimism
Stories about the future, it bears repeating, are a reflection of the present. So when we yearn for the optimism of Star Trek: The Next Generation, what we really miss is the optimism of the era in which it was produced.
The first season of Star Trek: Picard starts off dark, and mainly stays that way, because in order to have any credibility it must reflect our current dark times. Too many of us have allowed our outlook to be based more on anxiety than hope. And maybe we should be afraid — disastrous climate change, with no good solution in sight, is enough to make anyone despair.
The pandemic has only made things worse.
A couple of days ago, I took a walk in my neighbourhood. I could see the fear in people’s eyes. It made me sad when they stepped off the sidewalk onto the street to avoid getting too close to me, even though I understood why.
But I also see all the extra time and effort that so many people are putting into making sure we come out of this all right — maybe even better than before. For example, thousands of people in the community are signing up to volunteer in a variety of capacities to help those in need.
If there is a message to take away from the just-finished first season of Picard, it is that the way back to optimism is by overcoming our fears. The knowledge that we will die is what gives our lives meaning. Instead of being afraid, we need to do the hard work it takes regain our optimism. That means making the most of these precious years we have.
In some ways it seems kind of frivolous to be writing about a TV show during a world wide health crisis. But we take our inspiration where we can.
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Sunday, October 20, 2019
The amazing adventures of Jean-Luc Picard
Credit: startrek.com
I was excited to learn that Jean-Luc Picard is returning in a new Star Trek series — with appearances by Data, Seven of Nine, Riker and Troi, no less.
But the icing on the cake has to be Michael Chabon as showrunner. His novel, the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2001, raises hopes that the Picard series could itself be amazing.
One of the main characters in the novel, Joe Kavalier, is a Jewish comic book illustrator who escaped Nazi-run Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. He had to leave his family behind, and makes it a mission in his life to help his younger brother join him in the United States.
He works out his frustrations, with the help of cousin Sam Clay, by producing story after story where a superhero called the Escapist pounds on Nazis. His great pride is a cover illustration of Hitler getting slugged in the jaw.
This is pure speculation, but I wonder if Chabon will take on the role of Kavalier with Picard becoming his Escapist. It would be entirely believable for a much-loved hero such as Picard to go up against personifications of the evils of our time. Racism, nationalism, immigrant-scapegoating — we’ve got many demons to contend with here in 2019.
If Picard does indeed take them on for us, don’t expect that there will necessarily be a happy ending. The Escapist was killed off by comic-book industry court battles. And for Kavalier and Clay, life turned out bittersweet at best.
I have a feeling we will learn new things about Picard’s humanity. The man will remain legendary but not quite as heroic. And we might also learn some uncomfortable things about ourselves, because the villains we fight are, to some extent, in all of us.
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Saturday, January 2, 2016
Star Wars has destroyed Star Trek
I’m such a big science fiction fan that I gave a blog about media and technology an outer space theme. So I should be really pumped about the new Star Wars movie, right?
I wish.
Star Wars movies — every one of them — literally put me to sleep. I’ve forced myself to watch them because they have become a huge part of pop culture and it seems almost impossible to love science fiction and not be at least familiar with the Star Wars stories.
So why do I keep falling asleep? My theory is that these movies basically consist of explosions, running around and wisecracks. There is precious little in the way of character development. The plots are a convoluted mess not worth trying to follow.
Despite all that, I’m willing to set Star Wars to one side and be content with the fact that it provides harmless escapism to millions of people around the world. I just don’t happen to be one of them. Or at least I’m almost willing, because there is one thing about Star Wars that kind of hurts. It has destroyed Star Trek.
Every once in awhile you’ll come across an article that compares Star Wars and Star Trek with the idea of declaring a winner. I definitely like Star Trek better, but as far as a winner goes, Star Wars is clearly the victor.
All you have to do is look at the Star Trek reboot by J.J. Abrams and the the trailer for the next one in the series by Justin Lin — lots of explosions, running around and wisecracks. It’s the Star Wars blockbuster formula shoehorned into Star Trek.
It’s hard to believe that Star Trek started out as a series of stories about exploration. It was right there in the opening to the show: “Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
The Enterprise crew went out of their way to avoid conflict. They were diplomats who tried to peacefully resolve disputes. And if they weren’t able to do that, they considered it a failure.
Star Trek was inspirational because it hinted at a future world where we on Earth could settle our differences peacefully. If Justin Lin wanted to take Star Trek back to its roots, the next movie might involve a visit to a planet with a conflict similar to the one in Iraq and Syria. There would be a starship hero who is a Muslim.
We would be treated to an exploration of both outer and inner space.
I would be very surprised if this happened. Science fiction movies about exploration still exist, but the Star Trek franchise has abandoned them.
You can watch Ex Machina for an exploration of our relations with artificial intelligence. Try Coherence for an exploration of how a group of people at a dinner party react to a passing comet.
Yes, these are good movies, but they aren’t the blockbusters that Star Trek aspires to. The Martian, an exploration of human survival, made a lot of money at the box office — but it’s hardly in the same league as Star Wars.
The Star Trek tradition lives on. Just don’t expect to see it in Star Trek.
Update: There was some hope that we would see a new Star Trek movie based on the original concept. Some fans raised a million dollars and were about to go into production. But now they’re being sued by Paramount and CBS. It’s highly unlikely they’ll be able to withstand that kind of pressure, but they’re hoping to work out a deal.
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Friday, February 27, 2015
We are living in the Age of Spock
The death of Leonard Nimoy is a reminder that the era of the original Star Trek, and its idealistic vision of the future, is sliding ever further away.
In one episode, The City on the Edge of Forever, Captain Kirk travelled back in time to the Depression era of 1930 and told a character played by Joan Collins that 100 years from then Earth would begin a transition to peace and unity.
“Let me help. A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words even over I love you.”
We have only 15 years left before that prediction can come true, but as we settle into never ending armed conflict, there are few who would believe in it.
As it turns out, in order for the future to unfold as it should, the Collins character, a pacifist named Edith Keeler, must die. And Kirk, even though he is in love with her, must be the one to allow this to happen.
“But she was right,” Kirk says. “Peace was the way.”
With cold-hearted logic, Spock replies: “She was right, but at the wrong time.”
And later: “Jim, Edith Keeler must die.”
In the end, Kirk follows Spock’s advice and stops Dr. McCoy from pushing Keeler out of the way of the car that strikes and kills her.
McCoy is stunned.
“You deliberately stopped me, Jim. I could have saved her. Do you know what you just did?”
It is Spock who answers: “He knows, Doctor. He knows.”
It seems we are now living in a age of Spock — where we have set aside idealism so we can deal with the reality of economic challenges and terrorist threats.
If the Star Trek crew had landed on a planet where a group was beheading innocent people in videos, how would they have reacted? They might have negotiated a truce that allowed the group its own little country in return for living in peace with the rest of the world. Bombing the hell out of them would not have been a option.
Here in the real world, bombing the hell out of them is the only option.
Maybe we’re just going through a necessary phase, where we make sacrifices in the hope that eventually things will get better. We seem all too willing to forego our freedoms and privacy for anti-terror legislation that we’re told will protect us.
It could be that we suppose these are temporary measures and that we can one day regain what was lost. We will always believe in peace, but it will never be the right time.
Even Spock, for all his logic, would never have wished that.
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Sunday, May 26, 2013
The post-apocolyptic state of science fiction
Somewhere between 1968 and 2013, something went terribly wrong with science fiction movies. I realized this after watching the original Planet of the Apes for the umpteenth time — just a week after seeing Star Trek Into Darkness.
For some reason I never tire of Planet of the Apes. Such unforgettable lines: “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!’, ‘You know the saying, ‘Human see, human do’ ‘, ‘It’s a mad house! A mad house!’. Such unforgettable scenes: the hear-no-evil-see-no-evil-speak-no-evil tribunal, the interspecies kiss, the half-buried Statue of Liberty. An engaging plot with a timeless message and a twist at the end.
I could go on and on.
Meanwhile, Star Trek Into Darkness could be summed up as a series of explosions with bits of dialogue in between. The few memorable scenes are scenes I would just as soon forget: Spock pre-echoing Kirk’s cry of “Kha- a-a-a-a-an!”, young Spock getting useless advice from future old Spock, Carol Marcus showing off her undies. And what is the darkness referred to in the title? Darned if I know.
What happened to science fiction in general is what happened to Planet of the Apes. Sequel followed sequel, each worse than the one that preceded it until the movie-going public couldn’t stomach it any more and refused to pay good money for the garbage being pumped out by Hollywood producers devoid of imagination.
The difference these days is that we get so-called reboots. The original Star Trek movies got boring as hell, so they were rebooted with Star Trek The Next Generation. And when those staggered into deserved oblivion, JJ Abrams came along with the latest series. Hollywood is likely hoping the same thing will happen with a reboot of Planet of the Apes. Their policy, it seems, is that there is a fresh crop of suckers born every generation.
But it’s not just terminal sequelization that is the problem. It’s also the over-reliance on special effects. The original Planet of the Apes would never have made it out the door because there is way too much plot, way too much character building. Star Trek is a gold mine for directors taking advantage of short attention spans — the main characters have built-in stereotypes with little need to evolve except in the most superficial way. That leaves lots more time for things that go boom.
With all the science fiction movies coming out these days, you’d think a buff like me would at long last be happy with the selection at the theatres. Alas, good science fiction is as rare as it ever was.
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