r/startrek: The Next Generation
Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...
Maybe a little slash fic.
New to Star Trek and wondering where to start?
Rules
1 Be constructive
All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
2 Be welcoming
It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.
3 Be truthful
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5 Spoilers
Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episodes, as well as previews for upcoming episodes. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.
6 Keep on-topic
All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/quarks.
7 Meta
Questions and concerns about moderator actions should be brought forward via DM.
Upcoming Episodes
| Date | Episode | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 10-31 | LD 5x03 | "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel" |
| 11-07 | LD 5x04 | "A Farewell to Farms" |
| 11-14 | LD 5x05 | "Star Base 80?" |
| 11-21 | LD 5x06 | "Of Gods and Angels" |
| 11-28 | LD 5x07 | "Fully Dilated" |
In Production
Strange New Worlds (2025)
Section 31 (2025-01-24)
Starfleet Academy (TBA)
In Development
Untitled comedy series
Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.
What? TNG is only 35 years old, so what’s with the 50 years claim?
when i was a kid, i used to watch tng with my dad every saturday when i went to his house. the only bad thing about picard and discovery is that i wasn't able to watch it with my dad.
I like Frakes.
That said, in also like pretty much all Trek. I'm not a big fan of some of the series, but I don't hate them, nor am I going to go around saying they're "not trek" because reasons.
I'm looking forward to seeing more from the franchise, and I feel a bit alone in my universal enjoyment of Trek. There's so many people hating on disco or Picard or whatever... I enjoy all of it.
I also enjoy Star wars and Orville, and Stargate, and pretty much most sci-fi.... The only stuff, that's popular, that I have no opinion on is Babylon 5, mainly because I have not watched any of it. Between that, the og BSG and some of the star wars properties (like the animated shows), I've watched almost all of the mainstream sci-fi, and honestly, it's all pretty damn good.
I really liked how they forced the issue about time travel in disco, where the time machine suit thing wouldn't go unless she went back to all the points she needed to in order to bring this circumstance to happen. I thought that was spot on. I try to ignore the multitude of time paradoxes in voy, and there are many, but it's probably my least favorite part of that specific show, too much time shit, and it's all done very poorly.
It should end with Riker and Deanna on the holodeck
No it’s a cgi aged-down Wil Wheaton, and Riker barges in to tell him he’s late for his shift at navigation or whatever.
Are you saying it was a holo novel with Wesley Crusher playing as Michael Burnham?
Some ferangi conned him into playtesting and debugging a new holonovel under the guise of it being a prototype training course for cadets. The whole series was the b-plot of a TNG episode about the ethics of clone voting or something.
I'd actually be ok with this.
And Picard.
Retcon them both.
I don't mind people not liking discovery, such is the nature of these things.
People who claim Discovery isn't Trek then swoon over Picard in the same comment can eat my whole ass though 😂
Yeah I don't want to be friends with someone who believes their headcanon can change reality.
Well, I don’t necessarily need Riker, but then I never thought Disco was really Star Trek. It could stand on its own feet perfectly fine but shoehorning it into TOS killed it for me. VOY and DS9 were great and showed that you could do different and still fit well.
I always felt like they stretched a Star Trek skin over another IPs pilot in season 1
It reminded me a lot of Stargate Universe, a complete tonal whiplash that was clearly imitating other popular shows rather than a continuation of the franchise. I was pretty kind to it in the beginning because SGU got pretty good after I got over it not being Stargate as well, but Discovery S2 completely killed any hope I had.
Relying on cultural hot topics rather than real character building killed this show. The spore drive was also kinda "out there" though interesting. I wish the best for the cast.
Relying on cultural hot topics
I might regret asking this, but what "cultural" topics are you saying Discovery "relied on"?
It's not that they're the topic of an episode, but that the show is RELYING on the basic drama of the cultural topics.
Trek is supposed to make allegory for cultural issues, not just blandly do the cultural issues.
Maybe I would understand better if you gave an example from the show?
I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure if I agree. I think of what Ira Steven Behr said about the portrayal of LGBT issues on DS9, he really feels they missed the mark because they went with a 'technicality', because Jadzia was married to a woman while in a male host, and those thoughts and feelings carried over, and he didn't feel it was actually a portrayal of a lesbian romance, but a cop-out.
There are other episodes which, while groundbreaking at the time, clearly used their allegory to soften the message somewhat. Frakes has lamented that Soren in "The Outcast" was played by a female actor, for instance. Using a female made the relationship more acceptable to the viewer.
I will say, however, that in Enterprise's "Stigma", which on the AIDS crisis via Pa'nar Syndrome, the allegory does allow them to hold up a mirror to intolerance and prejudice. Maybe that's what you're getting at? By showing the relationships and nonbinary gender identities as normal, rather than couching them in a metaphor so they could show the ugliness of intolerance, the writing doesn't go far enough?
It's an interesting point. My instinct is that we're mature enough to see things like gay relationships now without needing to obfuscate them in metaphor, even if the point is to highlight the flaws of intolerant views.
So, putting a gay couple on screen and just having it be a normal aspect of who they are (to be clear: the nature of their relationship was never a plot point on the show) is "blandly doing the cultural issues"?
Was casually putting Uhura, a black woman, on the bridge of a starship on a show airing in the 1960s, without ever calling attention to her race, also "blandly doing the cultural issues"?
My comment is not about any specific lgbtq content but about the general attitude of the writing. The focus on drama over logic completely shallows out the allegory until it's JUST a gay couple being contemporarily gay on screen.
It's not bad to have contemporary representation, it's just less inspired than what older ST did. Mind, I've heard later Picard seasons get better on the writing, and SNW I only stopped watching because I forgot more were coming, so I'm not trying to poo poo on anything except that which people largely already agree aren't that great.
Like the first season of TNG. It's uh... they had some decent episodes but boy were the bad ones something. lol Or the TNG movies for the most part. They're just ... different than the show. Entertaining, but that's not my only criteria for ST, personally.
The focus on drama over logic completely shallows out the allegory until it's JUST a gay couple being contemporarily gay on screen
Yeah. That's my point.
Maybe there is no allegory.
Maybe it's just a gay couple on screen.
Like Nichelle as Uhura was just a black woman in an elevated position on screen.
No message. Just simple representation.
Why is that such a problem?
Because if you ask people in the community, many will tell you they're kinda sick of the gay experience only be represented in a negative light, always a struggle, always a message, as opposed to just them simply and comfortably existing.
I enjoyed the wackiness that the spite drive introduced.
spore drive
I could get down for a spite drive too.
I'd never pay for gas again.
The show has one non-binary character and a gay couple and suddenly they're relying on "cultural hot topics".
Please.
Disco had a lot of flaws, and most of them were the same flaws we saw in Picard: the writers just couldn't write full season plot arcs that were satisfying and believable. This is made worse because each season had to raise the stakes, to the point where it just got kinda exhausting. Meanwhile the show just took itself way too seriously, without really earning my emotional investment.
The show has one non-binary character and a gay couple and suddenly they’re relying on “cultural hot topics”.
the gay men brushed their teeth wont somebody think of the children
No, it's the modern, basic portrayal of those characters and their issues that's the problem.
Star Trek is supposed to reflect on human problems and foibles with allegory. Not just slap you across the face with, "see, gays are normal, too!" Yes, we watch Star Trek. We know. Make it more interesting with an allegory tied to a other characters that aren't supposed to be professional officers from a species that's prescribed as already past these issues.
By putting so much basic and direct human drama in STD, they bastardized the entire bluepeint of the show.
im not sure how one is slapped across the face with normalcy but if you're saying discovery didnt go far enough with the barely-disguised left wing messaging we usually see in star trek i agree wholeheartedly
Ah yes, modern basic issues like being kidnapped into a multiversal network of spores and finding your murdered partner creeping in the wings destroying everything he touches.
Mondays, amirite?
Any "mundane" problems they faced were faced by most of the crew at some point, yet you're only complaining about non-cishets being "normal." You're not very good at masking your bigotry.
Those are specific details, not general nature of writing. I'm talking about analysis of the writing style, not how scifi it is.
I agree with the original post. It's what also killed it for me. Felt like the writers went for the lowest hanging fruit.
I mean it's Star Trek, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, nobody cares about that. Be whoever you want to be, you will be accepted. To me that's what Star Trek has always been about, you will always be included.
Don’t even remember when I stopped watching it, I tried a few episodes each season and I just gave up. Burnham has such a great smile but in all episodes she has a nervous breakdown and is always sad. At least that's how I remember the series in my head. Everybody's depressed. Don't remember anything else.
The depression and other emotional issues is what got me. It's supposed to be Star Fleet, yet every character is like 12 flavors of drama that should be seen as unprofessional. I enjoy diversity, however Discovery constantly used it in a way where the characters are either struggling with their identity or have practically made it their entire personality, which is stupid because ST has made clear that in its future, no one gives a shit about that stuff because everyone is free to be who they are.
I mean, they even ran out of oppressed minorities and had to start making up their own like Saru's struggle with being a prey species. Or the fucking ship having an identity crisis.
Honestly, the alien stuff is exactly where there is most fertile soil for allegory there. That's what killed it for me, too. They're all unprofessional drama queens from the 21st century. Not space exploration officers from centuries in the future.
I mean it’s Star Trek, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, nobody cares about that.
You're implying that Discovery showed characters giving a shit about someone's skin color, gender or sexual orientation?
The show wrIters OBVIOUSLY cared. So much so it shined right through the writing.
Yes absolutely! Well said. Progressive themes shined through in the writing, but on-screen the characters never made a big deal out of it. That's been very Star Trek since the days of TOS. An episode like "Let that be your Last Battlefield" would have a shoved-down-your-throat antiracist message, but it was a metaphor and not directly about Uhura, who's race was never discussed.
Well, except that one time by space Abraham Lincoln.
@MotoAsh @Lwaxana I think DS9 writers cared al lot more than Discos ones. Like, Sisko was misgendering Dax almost every time he addressed her (it wasn't serious as it was made obvious it was fine between them, but it was present in almost every episode). And Kor corrects himself quickly when Dax says she is Jadzia now, while the other klingons need more time to accept her. Meanwhile in Disco I only remember one instance of "I'd rather be addressed as this" "sure!".
Yea, that's sorta' what I mean. They cared about writing complex professional characters in ds9 and such, not drama queens doing contemporary art. Regardless of the high production value, it has the opposite soul of Star Trek for focusing on issues over humanized characters.
Ugh, it's so hard to describe good writing when I'm not a good writer. lol
That has been a disturbing trend
Meh. Looking forward to this show dying and making way for the good, new Trek shows, like LD, SNW, and Picard's Season 3 (sorta).
So tired of Michael Burnham and her stupid "Magical Burnham Problem Solving Mary-su Solution Express". Really too bad, because Saru, Tilly, Georgiuo, Staments, Adira, and basically all of the other characters are REALLY interesting in this show. Unfortunately, they didn't relegate Burnham's character for being a "get out of writer's block free card" to the background and that basically doomed it.
Prodigy too, first season was fantastic.
You’ve described precisely how I feel about Disco, Trek is supposed to be about the whole team solving problems but somehow in any century…the destiny of the universe is all about her. Remove deus ex Burnham from the show and it could be so much better. Saru, Stamets and all are great, they’re just background to the Michael story.
Yeah the show would be so much better if they didn't rely on Burnham as the "solver of all things". Literally the first thing they do with her when she walks into Starfleet Command after the time jump is go "YO HAVE YOU TRIED THIS SOLUTION TO THE PRIONS?". It's like the writers can't help themselves.
I wouldn't be surprised if she has a stupid, uninspired speech that is a "These are the voyages" rip off at the end of the finale episode right before they inexplicably promote her to the Admiralty. It would be a fitting f*** you to end the show right in line with what the writers have done so far.