Interview: Tawny Newsome On Finding The Sweet Spot For Her Star Trek Workplace Comedy
Interview: Tawny Newsome On Finding The Sweet Spot For Her Star Trek Workplace Comedy
The 'Lower Decks' star reveals if she is writing herself into the show.
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At SDCC CBS sent us a synopsis, essentially a workplace comedy on a vacation planet – not Risa, not in the Federation. So are those fundamentals are still the same?
Those fundamentals are the same. But what I can tell you is what we’re really working on exploring, are the sort of overlooked sections of what happens when a world and a culture that is not that was not [sic] in the Federation. What happens when they decide to be?… So Federation outsiders and what’s kind of the nitty gritty involved with joining the Federation and involved with… yeah, I’m really struggling [to avoid spoilers]
That's an interesting adjustment...
I don’t think you needed [sic], just the comma that StarTrek.com omitted.
So, this is a big reveal - the scenario is a planet that has not been but now is a part of the Federation.
The viewpoint is civilian.
The resort workplace setting, like the old Loveboat or Fantasy Island, means that anyone can come by as the guest star.
I don’t think you needed [sic]
Just wanted to make sure - I stumbled over that sentence when reading it!
Hopefully things go better than with Bajor.
It's a comedy, so I hope so too! I imagine the planet, being a vacation/pleasure planet, will have a lot of kinks that are taboo to the Federation and that's where you will find the narrative tension as they apply for membership. The planet will have a constitution at odds with the Fed, full of kinks. They might welcome species that have kinks not outlined in said constitution. They might welcome federation citizens that are exploring their non-Fed kinks on this planet.
We've seen plenty of criticism of the Federation's nanny-state. Lately, that criticism has come from the writers of the shows who seem to have lost the narrative that the Federation is our ideal. Sure, it has issues, but none of us should be ashamed of reaching for utopia. I hope the new show is a continuation of the SNW and Prodigy reboot of a less cynical Trek.