brian baggett dot com

Writer Charles Stross writes about why he hates Star Trek. In a nutshell it goes like this:

• Solving a problem with science should make for a compelling story but most sci-fi treates the “sci” part as incidental.
• Most sci-fi, including Star Trek, is a cliche ridden soap opera.
• There’s no sense of danger; every episode hits “the big reset button” which negates any sense of worry or continuity for the sake of the narrative (except for BSG)
• And finally “the protagonists don’t tell us anything interesting about the human condition under science fictional circumstances.”

All of these are true to some extent, but can mostly be chalked up to the limitations of the medium. Sure these shows are to sci-fi as Applebee’s is to any five-star restaurant but that doesn’t make them unwatchable. If every week you had to use science to come up with a solution to some seemingly insurmountable problem, you’d essentially have MacGyver in space (wait, wasn’t that called Stargate SG-1?) though there were some episodes of Star Trek where you essentially had such a scenario.

It never really bothered me that the science was mostly incidental in Star Trek and that the focus was on the characters and interpersonal relationships. That would be a requirement for any compelling narrative. The critically acclaimed BSG went the same route.

The ‘big reset button’ is a thoroughly valid complaint and it was one of the things that BSG handled very well even if the ending managed to retroactively ruin my respect for the show.

The last point he made isn’t entirely true as BSG made it the focus of their show and while ST:TNG didn’t delve deeply into the culture of the Federation, it was examined from time to time. Star Trek was about exploration and while the juxtaposition of the Federation’s ideals with other cultures was often the focus of many episodes, it never really touched on what it meant to live in the near-utopia that the Federation was supposed to embody.

Three years ago I made a list of 12 ST:TNG episodes and 15 ST:DS9 episodes that were, in my opinion, the best of both series. They may be light sci-fi, but it was still compelling TV.