General Star Trek thread

This gave me a good chuckle, while a fairly good recreation of the shítty animation style of TAS; the bonus classic Simpsons gag was also gold

Apparently Stacey Abrams - someone I'd know of but wouldn't recognise TBH, despite my interest in US politics - has been a life long Star Trek fan so good for her she got to cameo. That's pretty awesome

I didn't lose my shít when John McCain or Joe Biden appeared in Parks and Recreation; or Tony Blair(!) appeared on the Simpsons (can't recall if that was before or after the Iraq War mind). this is far from the first cameo by a current politician, and definitely not the most controversial either.

Let's not pretend any of us here wouldn't chew off a leg to have that chance of a walk on part. But something something liberals liberals. The politics Jim, the politics.

Who's complaining though? No greater empty vessel than the raging YouTube essay TBH and if the viewer + subscriber numbers still say Discovery is a hit, who cares what a noisy demographic think re. "politics". And if there's one thing that is increasingly clear, it doesn't take much for a certain minority to stream Woke! Politics! Liberals! In some cases, it can be as little as who's cast as the lead.

We've debated this before, and many times but Trek has always been as subtle as a hammer about its politics, it's simply that now "politics" has been magnified by the internet into a competitive sport, our media landscape fuelled by whipped up outrages. It's Recency Bias among other things; do we even have any posters here who were around when ToS originally aired?

The only real difference is the writing surrounding the politics is worse than before, Discovery an embarrassment in terms of professional scriptwriting - but in a franchise where "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" was how it drew allegory can't be called a subtle, nuanced show about its poltiics.

Oh I agree, and I'm speaking as someone who hasn't touched Season 4 - and probably never will. But you also know full well that if Trek did cover Voter Suppression, the same voices would be out screaming "keep politics out of Trek! It's too divisive!"

I started watching the video, and found it exactly the kind of overblown hyperbole typical of what I spoke of. The author spoke of it being "created by the woke left", so no, I don't agree the video was either sober or avoided the usual blather. Raging no, but still full of that kind of absolutist polemic, creating meaning from what ... a 30 second cameo at the bookend of the series? It's a bad start when the title pleads "why X matters". It doesn't, it really doesn't. God knows there's plenty to hammer Discovery on, but constantly returning to this well of "it's too political, look at all the woke everywhere" as a means of dissection is lazy, reductive and overblown.

As I said already, it's especially disingenuous when it's aimed at someone whose career is focused on Voters' Rights. If it was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appearing on the show, then there might be an argument. But Abrams seems like a decent person trying to scrub a problem state of its continued issues with voter impression. But then as @breezy1985 said, better had an episode actually dealt with the subject than use one of its chief advocates.

TNG had its own fair share of clumsy allegory as well, episodes like The Outcast being also commonly name-dropped; but the Original Series is just convenient as it was the literal foundation of the universe. When from the very beginning the franchise aimed itself towards topical politics, I can't say I'm surprised when it continues along that bent. It's has always had a very liberal outlook.