Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios

The Star Trek universe was built on an optimistic/naive/hippieish vision of the future. There's no hunger, there's no money, there's no religion (imagine...), and the Earth is a member of a galactic version of United Nations. It's all a benign version of communism. All the main characters are unambiguously good people, conflicts are a result of cultural misunderstandings, and even most baddies are just fighting their corner and can be redeemed. Classically, the stories were mostly episodic with a bit of long-term story developing in the background. Each series was a mixture of episodes concentrating either on an ethical question, or on adventure, or on humour. The story was told mostly in words i.e. dialogues, action sequences were just for illustration and could've been completely dropped without losing the essence of the story. It was all laid back and didn't take itself too seriously.

“Star Trek Discovery” is nothing like what I described above. It's a completely different thing, not Star Trek at all. It's a little wonder that it's being praised by people who say that they never liked Star Trek (including critics), while actual Star Trek fans are turning to “The Orville”. I think that the biggest inspiration for the series was clearly “Game Of Thrones”. Viewers like surprises? We'll surprise them! Viewers like main characters killed off? Well, we can't afford that, but we'll kill a few off, and then bring most of them back as their alternate universe alter egos, or mushroom ghosts. GoT had an after show? We'll have an after show! And we'll have a gritty, dark side to it, somewhat literally. One can suspect how the series was pitched to the money folk.

if you're into SF, read on.