4thofeleven | Entries tagged with 29 days of trek meme

What was the first Star Trek series you watched?

The first episodes I saw were a couple of Next Generation episodes the video library had (I, Borg and The Next Phase), but the first series I saw on anything resembling a regular schedule was, in fact, the Original Series – Channel Nine used to show Babylon 5 and the Original Series late at night during the mid-nineties.

Unfortunately, their scheduling became increasingly erratic after a while, so there’s still a lot of seasons two and three I’ve never seen. I keep meaning to track them down and watch them, but it’s never really been a priority.

I was – of course – a big science fiction reader as a kid, and the original series really is the perfect show for someone growing up on Asimov and Clarke; more so even than the other series, it feels very much like a set of classic science fiction short stories. It’s almost an anthology show, a Twilight Zone with recurring cast. It’s a format that I enjoy – and, thinking about it, may be one of the reasons Deep Space Nine never grabbed me to the same degree as the other series; it didn’t have the same sort of high concept, episodic framework that the original Trek had.

3 - Who is your least favorite character?

Another question where there’s more than a few answers I could have gone with. There’s Neelix – but while he’s utterly intolerable most of the time, when the show focused on him (“Jetrel”, “Fair Trade”, “Mortal Coil”), he was genuinely interesting as it became clear that much of his usual cheerfulness was a mask for insecurity and depression. There’s Dr. Pulaski – early TNG certainly could have used a bit more conflict between the main cast, but there’s a difference between ‘conflict’ and ‘refusing to accept a main character as a sapient being’. There’s Captain Archer, who, in what little I saw of Enterprise, seemed to have as his defining characteristic ‘stubborn refusal to accept more experienced people may, in fact, know more about things that he did’ - he honestly reminds me a little of George Bush...

But in the end, I had to go with the cliché answer of Wesley Crusher. Sure, everyone hates Wesley to the point there’s been a slight backlash against the hate – but honestly, there’s a reason he’s so disliked. The reason being he’s a Mary Sue of the worst kind.

Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot, which is a shame, because I think it is a useful term that shouldn’t mean ‘any disliked female character’. To my mind, the thing that makes a Sue a Sue isn’t just that they’re a big damn hero that the story revolves around. Janeway isn’t a Sue, Kira isn’t a Sue – neither are Kirk or Spock or Picard. In fact, I’d argue that a Sue isn’t a hero or a protagonist at all – the defining aspect of the Sue is that they’re fundamentally passive characters. They tend to have awesome powers or backgrounds right from the start, or are given them through no effort on their own part.

To switch universes for a second, it’s one thing for Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi after losing his parents, seeing Obi-Wan die, facing Vader and undergoing trial after trial throughout the trilogy. It’s quite different for Corran Horn to suddenly, out of the blue, discover he’s an awesome Jedi in addition to everything else he can do. In the latter case, it feels unearned – more importantly, it’s not a story.

And Wesley is a Sue in that respect; the character that the author is too much in love with to be bothered with such mundane details like ‘actually writing a story about them’, or wasting time establishing why they’re so awesome rather than just announcing it and assuming the audience will go along with it. For all that Wesley’s supposed to be a genius, we rarely see him actually doing anything a nameless red-shirt wouldn’t do. The Traveler claims he’s on the path to some sort of transcendent evolution, but he never seems to have any real insights that would demonstrate that power, nor does he have to struggle to attain that destiny.

Paradoxically, Wesley might actually have been a less insufferable character if he had saved the ship more often – at least then he’d be justifying his existence a little more.

2 - Who is your favourite character?

You know, I thought this would be a really hard one to answer, but thinking about it, there’s only one real choice: Captain Picard. Sure, there’s plenty of characters I like in the various series, but none of them can really compete with mon capitan.

Picard, I think, was really the only character the Next Generation writers had worked out right from the start. Which is a little odd in hindsight; he’s not exactly an archetype you’d expect to see in an American action-adventure show; the rather reserved, intellectual, and, for that matter, European character as the leader is rather unusual. But it worked, and to me at least, a big part of the Next Generation’s appeal is that it doesn’t have an action hero at its core. (Something that the later movies managed to miss entirely…)

One thing I always find interesting about Picard is that the Enterprise isn’t his first command, that at the start of the Next Generation he’d already spent years commanding the Stargazer. It’s something that separates Picard from the other captains, he’s a much more mature and experienced figure with no need to prove his ability to command. (And that’s what makes episodes like “Tapestry” so fascinating, seeing Picard before he’d developed that experience and self-confidence.)

I’m not embarrassed to say that a lot of my personal morality and sense of justice is at least partially influenced by Picard; a lot of the credit must go to Patrick Stewart, who managed to give Picard’s speeches a sense of genuine sincerity when many of them could have come across as merely lecturing the audience. I think in many ways almost all of the modern Star Trek series are dependent on the character of Captain Picard and Patrick Stewart, for creating a convincing example of the sort of person who might inhabit the enlightened utopia the Federation is supposed to be.

Saw this meme, thought I’d give it a go – been a bit slack about posting to LJ recently, so something to give me incentive to post every day for a while seemed like a good idea.

1 - Which Star Trek is your favorite?

This is a tough question, it’s down to either Next Generation or Voyager. The Original Series is fun, but sometimes cringing dated, and Deep Space Nine, while it had its moments, never really grabbed me to the same degree as the other series. And Enterprise… honestly, I tend to forget it even existed, which says all that can be said about the impact it had on me.

If I had to pick one, I’d probably end up coming down on the side of Voyager. Next Generation has an incredibly weak first two seasons, and its last season had far more misses than hits. Voyager certainly wasn’t perfect, but if I pull up a random episode, I find I’ve got a better chance of finding something I’ll enjoy than not.

Admittedly, though, when the Next Generation is going strong, then it’s no contest – none of the other series can match it at its best. But there is a limit to how many times one can watch “The Drumhead” or “Darmok”…

Fortunately, I have the full series of both on DVD, so there's never any reason for me to choose.

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Entries tagged with 29 days of trek meme

29 Days of Star Trek Meme: Day 4

29 Days of Star Trek Meme: Day 3

29 Days of Star Trek Meme: Day 2

29 Days of Star Trek Meme: Day 1

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