This Starship has Gone off Course

Review of the Star Trek Discovery series.

At risk of outing myself, I do occasionally watch Star Trek franchise material. Their original series was incredibly hokey by today's standards, but contained a beloved kernel of curiosity and adventure, and the franchise later matured into a thoughtful and inspiring series in The Next Generation. The ensuing series, such as Deep Space Nine and Voyager, kept to similar themes, and had fine moments (such as the spiritual environment of Bajor, and its supernatural orbs, within their orb cabinets). The last series of the original franchise, Star Trek Enterprise, was sort of a dull affair, with particularly wooden acting, before it veered, in its last season, into total "war on terrorism" territory with torture and other gratitous violence. My watching of the movies has been spotty, and I won't comment on those, as they are not really at the heart of the franchise, as I see it.

What makes (or made) Star Trek special was its modicum of thoughtfulness and philosophy, in a medium and genre otherwise ridden with thoughtless stereotypes, plots, and action. Its genre originated in the Western, but evolved into something all its own, which now can be endlessly replicated, mocked, and spoofed. While fights, killing, and other elements of typical plots abound, there are also elements of curiosity, scientific pursuit, ethical conundrums, and genuine compassion. It is in some ways a workplace drama, but about people who are all passionate about the work they do, making its world one to look forward to, and its tasks ones of adventure. At its very best, it can interrogate relevant social dilemmas in a way that is distanced enough to be entertaining and novel, while incisive enough to pack a punch.

A lengthy and rich history, but what does the future hold?

The three more recent renditions of Star Trek have included an independent series by Seth McFarlane, (The Orville), and official reboots from Paramount including an animated series (Lower Decks), a Patrick Stewart vehicle (Star Trek: Picard), and its main series, Star Trek: Discovery. The Lower Decks offering has been delightful- a very snappy, funny, and intelligent spoof of the whole Star Trek concept,  (and those who watch it), located on the USS Cerritos, named after perhaps the most uninteresting city in California. Only one season has been put out so far, but it has been superb, and fundamentally consonant with the founding Star Trek ethos.

The Orville series has been perhaps the best of the new bunch, despite not being an official part of the franchise. All the names have been changed- such as a "Planetary Union", in place of the United Federation of Planets. While it was originally conceived as heavy on the humor- some quite juvenile- McFarlane was clearly (and perhaps invountarily) taken with the Star Trek concept, and has progressed, as the episodes went on, to more adventurous and serious plots, ending up with complex time travel and one of the most thrilling episodes of TV I have even experienced (season 2.20, concerning the Kaylons, whose name may derive from the Mary Kay franchise ... who knows?). With the third season, his ambitions may have outstripped his resources, in addition to running into a Covid-induced hiatus. That season may never appear.

Meanwhile, Paramount put most of its effort into the Star Trek: Discovery series. This is set slightly before the original series, and features tremendous production quality, and a typical mixed cast of aliens and ethnicities on the bridge. But something seems to have gotten lost along the way. We are immediately launched into a war with the Klingons, who are now so festooned with makeup that they look like giant toads. Rather than exploring strange new worlds and civilizations, we are cast right into a heart-pounding deathly fight with a baroque enemy, complete with gratuitous torture and operatic pomposity on both sides. It is like we have landed in a Die Hard 2 reboot instead of a Star Trek series. "Discovery", indeed!

One would think that, to an erstwhile fungal researcher, the mycelial spore drive central to the Discovery plots would be a welcome bit of fictional technology. The premise is that an invisible (if sparkly) fungal mycelium pervades the galaxy, allowing suitably tuned neural systems to map it out and then follow its paths by travel that is not warp 5, not warp 10, but instantaneous in time. The crew's first tuned neural system was a humble tardigrade microbe, blown up in the show to monster proportions and strength. Later they develop an interface to a crew member, who sacrifices his sanity to the need for speed. Even given the modest standards of Star Trek tech talk/science-y fiction, all this is absurdly ridiculous. While tardigrades may be able to stand exposure to space, they can hardly live there. Likewise with fungi and their mycelia, (not the same as spores), which need water like anyone else. These technologies are so transparently and carelessly grabbed from decade-old issues of Science News that it is embarrassing. If the writers could not come up with something even remotely plausible, it would have been better to devise a nonsense bit of techtalk, which has a storied history in the franchise.

On the whole, Discovery has been a severe disappointment, at least to someone with minimal tolerance for empty action plots. As of episode 9, I can only watch a few minutes at a time before hitting action-trauma overload. Thankfully, there is streaming. It would be unimaginable to watch this the old-fashioned way, as everyone did who was fortunate enough to see the original series over its first few decades of broadcast and syndication.

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