Star Trek Discovery

You may have seen this. And now you can listen to this… The Incomparable podcast “Young Sexy Harry Mudd” which deconstructs it admirably.

I have to say I think it looks pretty great. And someone made a point that it may look too good, that they can’t keep that level of visual excellence going week after week.

Apparently there are complaints that it doesn’t look white or male enough. As one of the contributors to the Incomparable noted (and in the link above those on io9 also noted) clearly those complaining have no experience of… Star Trek!

Or as io9 puts it…

What sets this breed of intolerant Trekkies apart from other types of internet loudmouths, though, is how deeply incorrect their understandings of their beloved franchise’s core concepts are. Star Trek is quite literally about an organization of interstellar explorers who could not do what they do, were it not for the fact that their society is based on interplanetary cooperation and acceptance of one another.

It always, from the off, had central non-male, non-white cast members. That was one of its main features, one of its strengths – even if at first that was a limited number – Uhura and Sulu. But they were there, on the bridge of the Enterprise, from day one and it was a deliberate and important step forward.

And then as time moved on and there were new series that feature became more pronounced because again it was a strength. And eventually others woke up to this. And the society which reflected and inflected these changes changed too.

As it happens after all these years I find that TOS, DS9 and Voyager are the three I find most enjoyable. I would actually slightly prefer Enterprise these days over TNG. Just slightly, and not in relation to the first two seasons of Enterprise which were pretty poor.

But it’s an odd time. There is a Star Trek film franchise which functions reasonably well – but the TV show sounds like it will be a bit of an additional add-on. Perhaps not. Let’s hope so. If it can retain the scale on display here…

(by the way, great comment on io9… “Can we all just start pointing and laughing whenever anyone uses the term “white genocide?”” +1).