I know I might be about to ruffle some feathers, but The Orville is how you do representation right imo. The whole story arc with Topa was beautiful.
Like, something that turned me off of nu-trek was how the representation was handled. It felt pandery to an almost gross extent. Like, Jesus Christ man, it's the year 24-something-something, why are you still acting like being gay is a big deal? OoOoOoOoo oh nooooo, there's gay people WoooOoOooo. And while I don't remember there being spoken pandering in the few episodes I watched, there was something about how the scenes were constructed, the shots were lined up, etc, that felt like they were trying to draw attention to the LGBT members doing LGBT things. Again, it's 24XX, I'm supposed to believe humanity has achieved near-utopia, why am I getting the feeling that you're trying to show me how gay these dudes are purely because they're gay. You don't need to do that. It's 24XX, who the hell is still getting bent out of shape about homosexuality 400 years from now?
The Orville, on the other hand, just kinda... treated it like it was normal. Some characters are gay, some characters are straight, but the show didn't really focus on it; some guys just liked other guys more than gals and vice versa. They treated it like it was normal.
Okay, okay, but I brought up Topa, and Topa's story arc is literally all about Topa's gender problems. How does that not go against my previous complaints? Well, Topa isn't human. Topa is from a male-dominated culture that believes femininity is weakness and should be eradicated via gender reassignment. It's not a human culture, and so it doesn't clash with the idea of humanity having a near-utopia. A human utopia involves everyone being treated equally, so when you imply different treatment, whether through dialog choices or cinematography, it clashes with that idea. But the Moclans don't have a utopia, and so putting emphasis on Topa being female makes sense, especially when it comes to the human crew struggling with the clashing ideas of Moclan forced gender reassignment and the human take on sapient rights. Unlike nu-trek, there's no dissonance there.
It’s 24XX, who the hell is still getting bent out of shape about homosexuality 400 years from now?
I'm pretty lukewarm on Discovery, I've seen all of it but most episodes only once, so maybe I just don't remember it. Who got bent out of shape over Stamets and/or Culber being gay?
Who got bent out of shape over Stamets and/or Culber being gay?
teenage redditors
Tbh I might have a unique way of processing fiction, because my brain seems to process it as, "I'm watching a future documentary" or "I'm watching future reality TV" or something. Like, these people have a camera crew or something following them around, so the camera crew is part of the act if that makes sense; so when the camera crew focuses on something, my brain interprets it as being important to the fictional future-history.
As such, while I don't remember anyone actually being upset about them being gay in-universe, the fact that the camera crew seemed to like focusing on them being intimate makes my brain say, "this must be important to 23rd century humans in some way".
Then again, I'm also not super into shows that feel like they spend too much time focusing on romantic relationships, so I might also be more critical that I should be as a result. If you're gonna spend a bunch of time exploring a romantic relationship in a non-romance show, at least make it interesting. Maybe one of them is a cold-blooded lizardman and there's some conflict about the temperature of the crew quarters or something.
There was a multi episode story arc about a teenager (forgot her name, had a teenage boyfriend and got adopted by Stamets/Cullen) coming out as non binary and choosing they as their pronoun.
It was very heavy handed on drama, whereas if there was any internal consistency, there wouldn't be any "coming out" at all because "staying in the closet" wouldn't be a thing. The whole thing felt like having a Jane Austen dialogue in present Norway.
I would love to be able to say this was a one off occurrence, but pretty much all dialogue is heavy handed, with excessive drama not supported by the fiction. While TNG is rather under acted, DSC is heavily over acted. Out goes technobabble, in comes soap opera.
Again, it’s 24XX, I’m supposed to believe humanity has achieved near-utopia, why am I getting the feeling that you’re trying to show me how gay these dudes are purely because they’re gay.
What? When did DIS ever do that? The fact Stamets and Culber are gay is not central to their character or any episodes. They're just normal people who do normal things who is accepted by everyone around them without question. I'm not sure how much normal you can get than that. I think your issue is that they exist because DIS doesn't do anything you claim with Stamets and Culber.
The Orville, on the other hand, just kinda… treated it like it was normal.
No, it doesn't at all. Topa has zero character development beyond being transgender. The Orville only brings her out when they want to make an episode about her being discriminated against. She has zero character development outside that. That isn't normal.
How does that not go against my previous complaints? Well, Topa isn’t human.
It does contradict your other complaint. Your praising the show that does exactly what you said you don't want, and complaining about the show that does exactly what you supposedly want to see. Relegating LGBTQ issues to alien allegories is erasure.
A human utopia involves everyone being treated equally,
Which DIS does. Stamets and Culber are treated normally.
so when you imply different treatment, whether through dialog choices or cinematography
DIS doesn't do this. There's no hidden subtext which suggests they're different. Not once are they ever discriminated against, even by the evil empress from the racist universe. I'm literally baffled how you think otherwise. I think your own phobias are making you see something that isn't there.
In fairness, Adira does have a weird moment where they seem reticent about switching pronouns. But I'll defend Disco's representation because I think it's just written with a different lens of how to treat queerness. The themes feel more modern, and more willing to explore what queerness is rather than treating it as something to be tolerated.
I'll never forget my first watchthrough of Season 3 where Stamets refers to Adira as his child. I was floored because I'd mentally joked that Staments shoulda adopted them by now, but here the narrative was coming out and saying it. The writers dove deeper into themes like found family rather than retreading old ground. It's heavy-handed at times, but it feels like queerness written for queer people.
Topa was normalised, it was the reactions against her that were treated as the outlier. Beautiful work.
Expanse did it well too. There is a character that uses different pronouns, and people just used the right pronouns for them. Thats it. Boom representation achieved.
Now I get that trills were used to stealthily start trying to get trans and gender queer screentime in a very hostile 90s era.
In discovery, Adiras coming out had to once again be aided with the framing of the trill.
Adira had to loudly declare their preferred pronouns in the deep future when all of this was supposed to be no big deal.
It would have been so intelligent if they were just called by their pronouns and were just treated like any other character.
I understood the writers managed to get a coming out story that a lot of people can relate to. But in the future people should just be, and not need to come out.
Adira tells Stamets their pronouns, and Stamets says "okay" approvingly. That's it. That's the full extent of what you are calling a "big deal."
You understand that even in a society where everyone is allowed to "just be," accidental misgendering is still going to happen and corrections will still need to be communicated, right? Marco misgendered Nico on their first appearance, so Nico must have corrected him. You are effectively arguing that enby representation is only acceptable if actual conversations about gender occur off-screen.
Star Trek had a coming out story?
A big part of science fiction is how fictional technology and environments of the future that would seem very strange to us are completely normal to them. I agree that this should also extend to society itself and its speculative future progress. In the same sense that a character wouldn't find a replicator to be strange technology it wouldn't make sense to treat someones sexual orientation or gender to be strange if it is a social issue that was supposedly a thing of the distant past. I find that a lot of 21st century social issues seem to find their way into modern Star Trek in ways that don't make a lot of sense.
it wouldn’t make sense to treat someones sexual orientation or gender to be strange
I'm struggling to recall if this ever happened, can you give an example of when someone's sexual orientation was treated differently?
Edit: still waiting
Yeah, I mean, one of the most annoying parts is that there could have been ways for them to draw attention to characters being gay without it feeling pandery. Like, maybe Joestar Humantrek has a Caitian boyfriend and there's a recurring gag where Joestar Humantrek is regularly in sickbay with a bleeding anus. Now you draw attention to the gay characters but it doesn't feel pandery because the focus isn't that Joestar Humantrek is gay, the focus is that Joestar Humantrek keeps winding up with a perforated colon because he can't stop taking his boyfriend's barbed cat dick in the ass.
Like, something that turned me off of nu-trek was how the representation was handled. It felt pandery to an almost gross extent.
you must be nu to star trek
They also don't really force their will onto the Moclans. Sure, everyone else fundamentally disagrees with them, but they still respect Moclan sovereignty. The Orville's federation is content to let them live as they choose. Instead of demanding compliance they agree to disagree. The crew focuses on guidance and assistance so they can help their Moclan allies figure it all out on their own terms.
I kinda disagree with this because at the end of the day the federation kinda did end up forcing their will on the Moclans. However, the federation tried as hard as they could to find solutions and compromises that would have allowed them to maintain their culture while also allowing people who didn't want to be a part of it, primarily female Moclans, to have their own space where they could live the way they wanted to.
The reason why the federation eventually ended up forcing their will on the Moclans was for the same reason that modern society tends to eventually tell bigots to fuck off; the bigots weren't content with bigoting off in their own little corner but instead felt offended by the fact they weren't allowed to bigot everywhere else and threw a hissy-fit about it. Then people got tired of the bigots throwing whiney tantrums about not being allowed to bigot outside of their designated bigot-spaces and said, "fuck you, eat shit."
Orville was amazing, everything I remember trek being from my childhood. Weirdly I rewatch that childhood trek now and it isn't what I remember.... But Orville does it right.
Seth hates Disney, so doubt a 4 will ever happen. What I do hope will happen is he comes up with another Orville like show on another platform.
I blame Discovery and Picard. I tried watching Discovery the other day. I desperately tried, you guys. I quit - and I won't be watching Picard. I reject the callous and hamfisted writing, so I've personally rejected it as cannon at this point.
Star Trek Shorts was kind of okay, and Brave New World was definitely a step in the right direction. I'll watch that soon because I'm rewatching most of the shows in chronological order (based on this IMDB list). Also, Prodigy is actually pretty great. I'm glad it didn't get cancelled. It's a kids show, but the Prodigy writers show they actually care.
But my god. The writers for Discovery and Picard really screwed the pooch. I won't even blame direction or acting, like at all. What I blame is the paint by numbers forced progressivism, which pisses me off, because it shouldn't feel forced. It's Star Trek FFS. It used to be the platform for progressive subjects.
Star Trek has been a playground for masters of the powerplay, for subtext, allusion and theme. It was a progressive platform already, but did so through writing methods which has been employed by writers for thousands of years to convey stories and characters, tried and true methods that yield good quality story telling. All of that went out the window with Discovery and Picard. The writing in those shows is the storytelling equivalent of smashing the square through the circle shape.
When it comes to the Orville? It shows that McFarlane really has a love for Star Trek and that he could have helped to modernize it, in a much better way than what the production team did with Discovery and Picard. But much like with the Flintstone's reboot, he got shafted. But at least he got bawled out by Tucker in Enterprise while playing the role of an enson. So he's apart of cannon in some way?
Can you elaborate on what "forced" means?
"Contrived" is a better word I guess. I don't feel like many of the arcs have been fleshed out, leading to conclusions that are ill deserved Burnham as a character arc is a perfect example of this. I think she gets everything served to her on a silver platter, that the action setpieces are not enough to justify the order of things. This might be an issue with cutting for time, but still.
I am decidedly not a Trekkie.
I love every single one of the movies since 2009 (there is one I take issue with, bit it's relatively minor) and every single one of the new shows. I've never seen any of the old shows and they hold absolutely no interest for me.
Having said that, I love Discovery. It is an absolutely fantastic show.
Strange New worlds is among one of the best sci-fi shows I've ever watched. It is absolutely fantastic and Anson Mount is utterly fantastic.
For me, the Orville is a window into old Star Trek. I absolutely love The Orville. The way that it touches on difficult subjects is done so beautifully that I can't even begin to gush about how perfect it is. The moclan arc with topa and the follow-ups were so wonderfully done. As a cis white guy, I can't think of a better way to handle and portray these situations and how important they are than the way the Orville did.
It is my personal opinion that the biggest enemies of Star Trek are it's hardcore fans. You guys shit on everything that isn't old Star Trek and you make it so that new viewers are less likely to check out the shows. You like to crap all over Discovery without understanding that is actually a really good show. It's also a really good way to bring people like myself that could give a shit less about Star Trek into the universe so that I'm more likely to check out other shows like strange New worlds for example which is about the best representation of what Star Trek is that we're ever going to get.
That said I do have one major gripe. Beasty boys? JJ Lim, are you fucking stupid? The movie was great up until that point, and then you chose the dumbest way to close it out. How the fuck did this get out of table reading? What the actual absolute fuck?
I loved season 1 and 2, i just hope 4 will be better than 3
Really? Season three is where I really thought Seth toned down the dick and fart jokes and started focusing on what made ST amazing. The whole left behind story where Gordon is trapped for long enough in the past that he has a whole family he has to leave behind was heartbreaking and exactly the sort of storyline that made me love TNG in the first place.
At least Picard learned to play the flute.
Ah, glad it wasn't just me who thought 1 & 2 were better than 3. 😅
You are not alone!
I always forget The Orville exists and that I've been meaning to watch it, so I'll go and watch an episode and enjoy it, but the handful of episodes I've seen are just enjoyable fluff. They don't stick with me at all, and I feel no compulsion to keep watching. When does it get compelling?
The first few episodes were indeed rough, but by the end of season 1 it becomes the star trek youve been craving.
It doesn’t. The episodes just get longer and more boring as the show progresses. The cancellation isn’t exactly a mystery.
