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Modern Trek is not my Trek, and that's okay. But the latest show is so clearly not for the older/original fans, and so clearly "Dawson's Creek In Space", that it's over-done. (Also, how Holly Hunter plays her character makes me want to slap the face off her.)
As well, if anyone thinks it's too gay and queer and multi-culti? Excuse you, it's packed to the gills with racism! I would have thought this was a parody, but "he/hymn/it/xe (and more neos)" seems (on the face of it) to be serious.
Oh noes they separated a mother and child? Yeah, because Mommy is a convicted criminal accomplice to murder and even AmeriKKKa doesn't send six year olds to jail with their criminal parent. Of course, the right thing to do is let all criminals off if they have kids, because you can't send the kid to jail, you can't separate a parent and child, so that only leaves letting the parent off scot-free (else you get headlines about ICE arresting and detaining a five year old as though they're acting like the child is the criminal, and not abandoned by family who refuse to take him):
Guy goes to military academy and they insist on a haircut? Brutal non-consensual attack!
Gosh, with a modern audience like this, how can it be anything but a smash hit?
EDIT: More seriously, for a show supposed to be set centuries in the future, it's weirdly "all the 21st century West Coast liberal talking points". Apparently we now have canonical drag queens, because of course SF of the 32nd century is still Progress Pride Flag Central. (Although, seems like the performer may indeed be a Trek fan, so good on that). It's just the anvil to the face nature of it all that is tiresome. I don't object to having a sensitive Klingon who just wants to study medicine! Of course not all Klingons, just like all historical societies with ruling warrior/kingly castes, were not all warriors, you had different castes as it were, so a doctor is perfectly fine career path. But on top that make him a refugee gay polycule kid? Sigh, when is he coming out as nonbinary otherkin?
This wouldn't be out of place in the earlier Trek canon either: a good chunk of the Worf-centered episodes of TNG and DS9 focus on how to straddle "warrior culture" and "modern neoliberalism" to attempt to satisfy both, not always succeeding. Worf ends up teaching martial arts (Mok'bara) to crewmates, takes up prune juice as "a warrior's drink", and manages to be a questionable father to Alexander.
Honestly, some of the best Trek episodes are reflections on the human conditon like those.
If you think about it for five seconds, of course Klingon society has to have farmers and doctors and construction workers and all the rest of it. Even if it is a warrior-ruler society, they need people who work for them doing non-warrior stuff. Mr. "I'm a lover not a fighter" kid need not be spectacularly different, but the show can't resist piling on the agony to make the point about No, Seriously, We're Talking About Anti-Immigrant Racism In America.
Grew up in a refugee camp (because home planet was destroyed during The Burn), abandoned by both his dads in the polycule (er, what?) and now he just wants to watch birds and become a healer.
Knock yourself out, kid, would be classic Trek attitude here.
I didn't watch the show. What motivates such a character to attend Starfleet Academy of all things?
No freakin' idea. I can't watch this slop for more than seconds at a time, else I'll explode from apoplexy. It really is a teen show for teenagers, because functionally it's Starfleet High. We got yer bullies! We got yer nerds! We got yer Cool Principal! We got yer love triangles, figuring out romance, navigating relationships, and becoming an adult! We got yer Parental Issues by the bucketload in both Mommy and Daddy flavours!
We also have I ate my combadge and sweet Kahless in Sto'Vo'Kor, the only thing that makes sense of this entire morass is that this is not the real, actual, genuine Starfleet Academy for training future Starfleet officers, it's Remedial Education for the crayon-eaters. Hence why Principal Galboss who can't sit properly in a chair, see she's relatable to the kids who also can't sit straight, walk straight, or refrain from eating their combadges.
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You're preaching to the choir.
I am constantly amazed how each new version scrapes that barrel bottom even thinner. New one is "we're a queer show for queer people, wait why is nobody watching? it must be racism and transphobia is why!"
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