By Shawn Trommeshauser
(Dreaming in Digital)
- Spoiler Alert
Ever since Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air in 2005, there has been a distinctly Star Trek shaped hole in television. But in 2017, two shows have appeared to take audiences back into space. The Orville, Seth MacFarlane’s Trek-Inspired show which airs on Fox, and CBS’s own Star Trek: Discovery, the official Trek series that the fans have waited over a decade for.
One show brings the heart and camaraderie of Star Trek back to television while the other only seems to bring the franchise’s name to get attention. I offer opinions based on specific events and elements from both shows which may or may not give away key elements and plot twists.
I wanted Discovery to be good. I honestly did! Star Trek: Discovery IS an interesting science fiction saga (with phenomenal special effects) and it is building a world that can tell some amazing stories. Unfortunately, it’s only shown the barest glimmer of the identity that Star Trek developed over the last fifty years.
I understand that Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman want to make their own mark on the series, but when they are put in charge of bringing back a beloved and long-standing series it’s important to remember WHY it’s loved and long-lasting. Change for the sake of change, while impressive looking for new viewers, can severely alienate the fanbase that already exists.
I’ve brought up several reasons why I was concerned with where Discovery was going in my previous post. But I was not prepared for the shift in tone that this series delivered. They wanted Battlestar Galactica’s feel with Starfleet logos in its place. For example, we have:
- Near constant bickering and arguments among Starfleet staff.
- Enslavement and torture of a potentially sentient life form by a member of a Starfleet crew.
- Klingons raping of prisoners of war.
- The main character repeatedly disobeying instructions but always getting away with it because of a ‘chosen one’ approach to the story.
- A Starfleet captain killing his entire crew.
- Beer pong.
None of these elements feel like they fit in with Star Trek, and there has been no attempt to acknowledge the time period this series is set in beyond a few passing references.
Visually the show looks much higher tech than the technology shown in the original series back in the 60’s, and that is a completely understandable upgrade as real-life technology has surpassed much of what science fiction looked like back then. But with very few exceptions, such as the hand phaser looking like an updated version of the original prop from “The Cage,” there’s almost nothing in the show that mimics the aesthetics of classic Trek and it’s props. A Klingon D-7 battlecruiser appears in one episode and is referenced by name, but it looks nothing like the classic ship everyone remembers from every Star Trek show from the 60’s through the 90’s.
And the Klingons … Oh, the Klingons ….
I remember seeing how the Klingon design had been modernized in the 2013 J.J. Abrams film Star Trek: Into Darkness and thinking that was one of the best redesigns in the newer Star Trek movies. It added to the alienness and intimidation of the Klingons while still being instantly recognizable as to who and what they were portraying.
Discovery’s Klingons aren’t an update, but a complete redesign from top to bottom. If the viewers hadn’t been told who they were supposed to be, no one would have realized these were supposed to be Klingons. The costumes, the makeup, the ships, and the weapons have all been completely redesigned and none of it is recognizable. This not how to bring change to a legendary alien race that is absolutely beloved by the fans.
Yes, the Klingon makeup has changed in the past, most noticeably in Star Trek The Motion Picture. This film was the first time we saw what became the standard aesthetics of the Klingons. Everything from the ridges on their heads to the alien lettering on their screens and equipment stayed consistent for nearly 40 years until Discovery changed everything.
Showrunner Alex Kurtzman tried to justify these changes:
“There have been lots of questions about that, there have been lots of questions about the look of the Klingons and the truth is that we wanted to shift everyone’s perspective about what the Klingons are because they’re so traditionally relegated to just being the bad guys, and that meant making visual changes, too, while hopefully maintaining and retaining the spirit of the original Klingons.”
“… when we conceived of the idea of the first season being about the war with the Klingons it was terribly important for all of us to make sure that we represented both sides of the war in a way that was understandable and relatable. And while the Klingons have been given specific treatment and various iterations in the past, we needed to know what it was like for them to go through this, too, and to humanize, for lack of a better word.”
“So, you’ll see lots of different Klingons, is the answer. And they were all built around the central premise of what the Klingons are but it is terribly important to us along with everything else to humanize them, to give a story to their experience, to give understanding to their culture, to give understanding to why they want what they want. If we didn’t do that and we made them a one-dimensional bad guy then we wouldn’t be Star Trek.”
A fellow Trek fan from New Zealand expressed her own displeasure at Kurtzman’s feeble defense of the redesigned Klingons.
From AiryAiryQuiteContary’s Tumbler page: (used here with permission):
“The Discovery Klingons have been presented relentlessly as savage, orc-like monsters, betrayers, cannibals and torturers, plus an implication of sexual coercion and perhaps rape in the latest episode. They have been dehumanised.”
She goes on to point out that the Klingons being “traditionally relegated to just being the bad guys” is complete rubbish by showing a gallery of heroic and noble Klingon characters including Worf and B’elanna Torres.
And I am in complete agreement with Airy when she says that this treatment of the Klingons…
The Klingons haven’t been ‘generic villains’ since the Original Series in the 1960’s and the other issues that Kurtzman brings up have already addressed in the 80’s. The Klingons have been firmly established as a culture with a rich heritage and mythology of their own full of heroes and villains. Michael Dorn’s Worf has been in more Star Trek episodes and movies combined than any other actor in history and has as big of an influence on Klingon culture and behavior as Leonard Nimoy had on the Vulcans. But I’m sure no one has ever suggested redesigning Vulcan culture or appearance to “humanize” them.
I do appreciate Discovery’s theme of multiculturalism and inclusiveness vs Nationalism and xenophobia as the basis of the Klingon War, but this message was very quickly buried under a mountain of lens flares, quick cuts and “edgy” characters. It has some neat ideas under the presentation, but this is no longer the Federation or Starfleet that I grew up wanting to live in, where humanity had finally moved on and matured. This incarnation of Starfleet isn’t aspiring to anything beyond a generic sci-fi military organization that happens to bring a few scientists along to make a good impression.
I honestly don’t know if I’ll be continuing to watch when the series resumes in January; episodes began streaming on CBC All-Access beginning Jan 7th.
I generally enjoy Seth MacFarlane’s work. Ever since Family Guy began nearly 20 years ago I’ve consistently enjoyed it along with the other animated series and films he’s produced since. However I do understand that to be a fan of these shows, you have to accept his brand of humor and occasionally heavy-handed political commentary. MacFarlane isn’t afraid to make fun of any subject with every tool available to him from subtle and clever humor that might slip past the viewer unnoticed to low brow toilet humor. As a result, these laughs can be very hit and miss and that was what worried me when I heard that he was developing an episodic science fiction series inspired by the classic Star Trek shows.
But I decided that if Red Dwarf can pull it off, who knows what a new voice in Sci-Fi might be able to come up with?
Hitting very few speed bumps in its first season, The Orville is a visual treat, using both CG effects blended with fantastic model work, the world is clean and colorful. It’s a dramatic contrast to Discovery’s dark blues and distracting lens flares. the creative team does an amazing job replicating the familiar feel of Star Trek while building an original world full of its own aliens and technologies, and this is in part due to the passion MacFarlane has for Star Trek as well as the talent behind the scenes being full of veterans from 80’s and 90’s Trek. With a pilot directed by Jon Favreau, best known for helping kick off the incredibly successful Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man in 2008, and episodes directed by Star Trek actor/directors Jonathan Frakes and Robert Duncan McNeill. Executive Producer Brannon Braga was extremely involved in Star Trek throughout the 80’s through the 2000’s. He was executive producer and writer of several Trek series, and even co-creating Star Trek: Enterprise.
The crew includes characters such Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) who is getting over a difficult divorce and isn’t sure if he truly earned his position. The second in command, Commander Kelly Grayson who IS the captain’s ex-wife whose infidelity is what caused the divorce. Lt. Yaphit, an engineer who is a gelatinous, shape-shifting blob that constantly and aggressively hits on the ship’s doctor. No one on this ship would fit in with the more professional atmosphere of Starfleet, but the environment presented on The Orville allows for a more relaxed, relatable crew, and the writing takes advantage to create its own identity.
The Orville has been delivering fantastic scenarios such as one involving a generational starship that’s been in flight for so long that the inhabitants no longer realize or believe that they are even in space, leaving the Orville crew with the job of convincing the population of the truth in time to prevent the ship from falling into a star.
In “The Krill,” there is an attempt to infiltrate a warship from a hostile alien species. The objective is to gather information on their religion in the hopes of finding common diplomatic ground. In the end, Captain Mercer has to make the difficult choice to severely damage chances of peace when he has to kill the crew of the Krill ship in order to save a human colony world from a devastating superweapon.
Following in classic Star Trek’s footprints, The Orville hit the ground running with social commentary, offering obvious topics presented in science fiction terms. An early episode depicts a single-gendered species of males where any child born a female is expected to be subjected to corrective surgery to change the child to the socially accepted male gender. Several viewpoints and opinions are offered, but just like in real life, such issues are never going to be easily resolved.
Another episode, “Majority Rule,” looks at how our society is slowly becoming fixated on the idea that information must be true if enough people are ‘liking’ it on the internet. The episode shows us an alien world where the rule of law is based on upvotes and likes, rather than objective facts and education. Where being “downvoted” too many times will literally get a person arrested and lobotomized so they will no longer upset the general public anymore. It’s ridiculous to see this type of mentality taken off the internet and presented as a real-world concept, but at the same time, it shows how dangerous such behavior could be to our own society.
The show has already had several very recognizable guest stars throughout the series. Liam Neeson shows up in one episode as an alien leader who became erroneously remembered as a god by his people. Charlize Theron plays an antique dealer from the future who travels back in time to steal merchandise in mint condition. Fan-favourite, Robert Picardo even makes an appearance as the father of The Orville’s chief of security.
As enjoyable as The Orville is, there are some issues to deal with as it moves forward. Several cast members simply don’t have much chemistry with each other. Character interactions often devolve into what one might expect from the average modern sitcom rather than a serious science fiction series. Seth Macfarlane’s performance of Captain Mercer is very uneven, bouncing between confident and dignified to childish and unfunny within the same scene. Some of this could be intentional, and some of it could be the simple fact that this IS the first season of a new show and everyone is settling into their new roles. The potential is there for this program to be truly great, and I hope the show lasts long enough to find its way.
Being a science fiction series on Fox hasn’t traditionally ensured a long run, but with the recent acquisition by Disney, the future of The Orville is completely unpredictable at this point.
If you enjoyed the style of storytelling that could be found in Star Trek: The Next Generation, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t give The Orville a chance. It just might surprise you. Both Star Trek: Discovery and The Orville have been renewed for a second season. Let’s hope that things only get better for both series because this could be the beginning of a big comeback of quality science fiction on television.
P.S. So is Discovery really trying to tell us “We Trying to Stay Alive” by Wyclef Jean is still a party song in 200 years? Is it still a party song even now?