Comment on The best answer to "when did Star Trek get woke?"
usernamefactory@lemmy.ca 22 hours agoTrek is known for allegory, but routinely abandons it for time travel stories. Star Trek IV and Deep Space Nine’s “Past Tense” and “Far Beyond the Stars” all examples that tackle societal issues very directly, and they’re all highly thought of.
To be clear, I think Picard features possibly the worst writing in modern Trek, so I’m not setting out to defend it on all fronts. But the idea that addressing societal issues head on isn’t a valid approach for Star Trek doesn’t add up for me.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Maybe it’s a question of degree - I didn’t watch all of DS9 and don’t remember those two episodes, but I honestly can’t think of other instances where characters walked around bemoaning the state of affairs beyond a comment or two. In the Harlan Ellison episode with Edith Keeler nobody commented on it being a shame that there were still millionaires while poor people were eating soup kitchens, for example. Same for the Gary Seven episode - there were brief matter of fact comments on young people being unhappy with things, but no lecturing on the military industrial complex profiting off the Vietnam War. Maybe what you’re talking about evolved later.