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Star Trek: Lower Decks to Conclude with Fifth and Final Season
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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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Star Trek
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/c/StarTrek: Your safe harbored Spacedock in these Stellar Seas!
Fire up the inertial dampeners, retract all moorings and clear space dock. It's time to boldy go where no one has gone before!
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Let me add one thing I am hopeful about for the show, since I have only said negative things so far. I am hopeful that the show does more to flesh out the Star Trek of the 32nd century. I think that would be a fine thing. Discovery started down an interesting path and continuing down that path is not a bad idea.
Just not, again, at the expense of the rest of Star Trek.
Edit: One more thought, since you brought up LGBT+ representation in Star Trek, something you know I support and wish had happened much earlier... If Paramount announced a show, selling it as "LGBT+ Star Trek," wouldn't that make you at least a little suspicious about the motivations behind the show and what executives might demand of it?
No. I would have been excited as fuck that they finally saw me and gave a fuck about me. After being ignored for years to cater to the straight white man I would have been fucking ecstatic that they were bothering to announce that they would be showing stuff aimed towards people like me. I would have been surprised that they did so because I would know it would piss off a bunch of fans who would be frustrated that it wouldn't be made for them as well as the fans who were just homophobic/bigoted assholes. I would have thought that it was a calculated move but one they clearly were confident in which meant that the product they were going to be making would have been heavily geared towards my specific demographic (thus the announcement) which would loop into more excitement. If we're using current DSC alum then I would be even more excited knowing that the creator of the show (Fuller) was gay, that a number of writers on the show were gay and that they were casting gay/trans/enby actors to play gay/trans/enby roles. I wouldn't have cared about the motivations behind the show. I would only care that after 60 years of watching the same people being waited on hand and foot I finally got a tiny slice of that treatment and got to see a world with people like me in it dealing with problems like the ones I deal with and facing challenges that are reflective of challenges in my own life.
Okay, fair enough. It would make me instantly suspicious. Hopeful since it would represent me, but very suspicious.
Let me use a different example to explain why I would be suspicious. But I also used an example that you were too close to.
Let's use the example of "Black Star Trek." A Star Trek that represents the black experience? Wonderful idea! Look at the explorations of it on DS9 already!
But until these questions were answered, I would be very suspicious:
How much black representation would there be behind the scenes? How much would it lean into stereotypes? Would this be a 1950s "romance stories written for women by men" scenario? Would "Star Trek" be put on the back burner over "black" to the point that it is only a Star Trek series in name and it isn't really "Black Star Trek?"
So yes- LGBT+ Star Trek with a lot of queer input behind the scenes and with actors like Anthony Rapp representing the community on camera, that would be great... but that is not guaranteed and I was in the entertainment industry too long to not be cynical about this sort of thing. And in the case of YA Star Trek, I am not convinced yet that it will not be a bunch of sappy romance bullshit written by people who aren't Star Trek fans and don't understand sci-fi rather than exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilizations.
I am never optimistic about these things when they're announced this way until I find out exactly who will be involved in putting them together. I've seen this sort of thing go south way too many times now.
And therein lies the massive difference between us. I'm looking at this new show and I am for sure being cautious but I'm optimistic. I'm looking at this from the side of more representation for more people, more Star Trek stories told in a new light, more exploration of a new world, more world building, more characters, more time to spend with concepts and core tenants of Star Trek, more time to see parts of Trek that we've never seen before. I'm not blind to the fact that it could go wrong but I'm thinking about this by focusing on the good because my entire life has been dark, depressing and filled with suicidal ideation every day that I wake up. I'm also not seeing it from the perspective of "other people". I'm seeing this as the same way I saw Discovery. That they're showing parts of the Star Trek world to people who've never seen it for them before and who are finally getting attention and the spotlight put on them for a moment and get their chance to shine.
That is fair enough, that's something we will just have to disagree on. But for both of our sakes, I hope you turn out to be correct. I really do. The last thing I want is to be right. Honestly.