Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. This is a core tenet of Vulcan and, more broadly, Star Trek philosophy. However, it can sometimes seem as though it’s rarely promoted vocally by the Trekkie fandom. Especially when there’s new Star Trek content, like the currently airing Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. If you’ve been on social media lately, especially on posts about the new Academy series, you may have seen a wide range of opinions about the new series.
Yes, this is another ‘state of the fandom‘ opinion piece! Put seatbelts on those bridge chairs, as we’re diving into this topic at Warp 9!
Reading the Menu
A lot of complaints about Star Trek shows seem analogous to someone walking into a pizza restaurant, ordering a roast dinner, and then loudly complaining that they can’t have what they want.
Let’s take Star Trek: Discovery. People still bitterly complain that they don’t know who the bridge crew are, or that there’s too much focus on Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). Despite the fact that the show was designed from the ground up to be a departure from the typical ensemble cast of officers on a bridge reporting to the captain.
The star won’t be the captain but rather be a lieutenant commander, “with caveats,” he said. “We’ve seen six series from the captain’s point of view; to see a character from a different perspective on the starship — one who has a different dynamic relationships with a captain, with subordinates, it gave us richer context.”
Bryan Fuller – EW
Those who make this complaint always seem to struggle to name Ayala (Tarik Ergin) or Jae (Tracee Lee Cocco) when presented with pictures. But don’t seem to make the connection that Discovery’s bridge crew in the early seasons fill the same role. They’re there to sit on the bridge and occasionally say yes, sir/ma’am. It’s not until Burnham earns her way back to command that they begin to see more focus on the story.
Picardly Going
Star Trek: Picard suffered from the same treatment. Sir Patrick Stewart got up on stage in Vegas in front of an audience of Star Trek fans to introduce the series. Very clearly laying out that it would be a story about the character of Jean-Luc Picard, and that Picard wouldn’t be the same person that fans last saw in Star Trek: Nemesis.
It may be a very different individual, someone who has been changed by his experiences. 20 years will have passed, which is more or less the time between the very last movie, Nemesis and today. We have no scripts as yet, we’re just talking talking, talking storylines. it will be something very, very different.
Patrick Stewart speaking at Star Trek Las Vegas
So naturally, there was a lot of vocal complaining about how Stewart played Picard differently. As well as the fact that Picard was treated differently within the universe. Though, to be fair, those sorts of complaints were far from new. A subset of the fandom had already drawn an imaginary line between ‘TNG Picard‘ and ‘Movies Picard‘ as though action-focused episodes like “Starship Mine” don’t exist…
Making the Rules
We later found out through Sir Patrick Strewart’s autobiography that he had laid out three rules as conditions of his signing on:
1. The series would not be based on a reunion of ‘The Next Generation‘ characters. I wanted it to have little or nothing to do with them. This was not at all a mark of disrespect for my beloved fellow actors. Rather, I simply felt it was essential to place Picard in entirely new settings with entirely new characters. Perhaps Picard might encounter Riker or Dr. Crusher in the second season, but such encounters were not to be the series’ raison d’être.
Patrick Stewart – Make It So
2. Picard would no longer be serving in Starfleet, and he was not to wear any kind of uniform or badges.
3. The series would run for no more than three seasons. It was clear to me that the writing team was not entirely thrilled with these conditions, but basically, they were all agreed to. The no-uniform rule was the toughest one for them to stomach, for some reason, and more than once, I was asked to reconsider my hard line. I stuck to my guns.
The Response
The autobiography didn’t come out until after the series had wrapped. But it’s worth noting that many complaints about the show’s final form stem from rules Patrick Stewart set as conditions for his return in the first place. Of course, we also know that those rules had become a lot looser by the time the production of Picard Season 3 rolled around. Given that the season featured a reunion of The Next Generation characters, Picard was in a uniform of sorts and even wearing a badge.
Speaking of Season 3…
I enjoy Star Trek: Picard Season 3, I do. But going back to our restaurant analogy, Picard Season 3 feels like the pizza place threw gravy and roast potatoes on the same pizza they were serving everyone else. It’s still not a roast dinner. If you really want a roast dinner, what they serve you isn’t going to scratch that itch. But from a distance, if you squint hard enough, it looks the part.
To many of the vocal detractors of modern Star Trek, it would seem that’s all it takes. If we’re honest with ourselves and take the complaints made about previous Picard seasons and Discovery at face value. Season 3 is much of the same. A serialised story, end of the world stakes, characters being introduced and then killed off, villains with questionable motivations and of course a healthy disregard for established canon (I must have missed the scene in Best of Both Worlds about that codec)…
The cognitive dissonance is most obvious in discussions about the season’s new protagonist, Jack Crusher. If we take a brief trip back in time to Discovery first appearing on our screens, Burnham immediately faced accusations of being a ‘Mary Sue’ (despite the pilot literally being about how flawed she is as a person).
Now I enjoyed Ed Speelers’ performance, and would love to see him in a future Trek show. But if we’re honest with ourselves again, the character had no formal training but is hypercapable in every situation. He’s loved (and fancied) by every character he meets.
Then the cherry on top is that he is given a position on the Enterprise’s bridge as a ‘special advisor to the captain’ after almost destroying the entire Federation because of a vision in his head.
Back to the Present
It’s sad, but not surprising, that we’re already seeing negative sentiment and narratives about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy from those who went in determined to dislike it. Or I imagine in some cases, just didn’t watch it in the first place. I have sadly seen more than a few people proudly boast that their main way of interacting with modern entertainment is through rage-baiting YouTube videos…
That isn’t to say that Starfleet Academy (or any show, really) doesn’t have flaws. It does. Give the show a chance before you start complaining that brand-new characters don’t feel as deep or developed as Garak (Andrew Robinson) or Data (Brent Spiner) (yes, I have seen that complaint). And if you don’t want to give the show a chance? Don’t. Avoid it. There is no obligation to consume every bit of Star Trek content. Even if you consider yourself a die-hard Trekkie. Talk about and (re) watch the shows you do enjoy instead.
But if you do decide to give Starfleet Academy, or any other new Trek content in the future, that chance. Try to set aside your preconceptions about what Star Trek should be and let It show you what it is. Star Trek’s strength is that it’s a setting where any story can be told. In the franchise’s 60-year history, we’ve seen only a small portion of that universe. So let’s not push the franchise into retreading the same old characters, locations and stories. Let’s, well…
Go boldly, and explore!
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