Star Treks . . . including my tv history and Discovery

[chelseagirl]

It's interesting hearing the expectations that my flist has of Star Treks, and where Discovery doesn't or does match up for them.

I was devoted to TOS during childhood -- had a mad crush on Spock in third grade, seriously. My secret is that I didn't own a TV during TNG's run, so I've seen bits of it in syndication, but my basic reaction is "Picard is best captain!" and not much more. I did see all of the movies, both casts, in the theater, because people wanted to and I was still a Trek fan in principle, at least. I started DS9 and really liked it, but then they moved it to Saturdays and I was single and dating and/or otherwise socializing enough of those nights that I lost track of an arc show. And in those days, I rarely remembered to set my VCR -- it took getting into internet fandom to motivate me. (Forever Knight, then X-Files briefly, then Buffy.) Missed Voyager almost entirely -- and wow, when I watch Kate Mulgrew in reruns occasionally it's amazing that she's the same person who plays Red on OITNB. (I know, that's called being a good actor.)

By the time Enterprise came along, M had moved in and therefore I was hanging out at home a lot more, plus we were better about recording things on VCR and then DVR. But Enterprise did not work for me; I guess it did not work for a lot of viewers as I don't remember it being around long and I think M even gave up after awhile.

So even though I think of myself as a lifelong Star Trek fan -- Spock crush in third grade after all! -- I'm really relatively Trek-ignorant, and coming to Discovery as the only Trek series I've followed in real time, other than s. 1 of DS9.

Plus, Michelle Yeoh, Sonequa Martin-Green, and Jason Isaacs are all performers I've really enjoyed in other things. And Wilson Cruz! And James Frain!

I was worried about Rainn Wilson, especially as M is doing a rewatch of the US The Office right now, and though I'm not watching along, I see the odd scene here and there. But he's definitely creating a character that looks like he could be fleshed out well. But wow . . . he was in love with Stella then. (*If* he really was.) The Stella-bot in Mudd's Women was one of the most misogynist stereotypes in . . . ever. though obviously mediated through Mudd's perspective; we never hear her own authentic voice. If I could stand the characters enough to fic them, I'd reconceive it so she was more like the Wife of Bath or something.

Does anybody else remember Janice Lester in TOS and the whole "women can't be captains" thing? I haven't seen that episode since the 70s, and I'm glad they've retconned the concept, but it definitely supports people's contentions that this is a third continuity, rather than the original one or Abrams's one.

Comments

[lunabee34]

Oooh, I didn't know that Rainn Wilson was in this. It's hard for me to imagine him as anything besides his character from the Office.

[chelseagirl]

That was what I thought -- especially since M is rewatching it one episode at a time before work every morning. But I started to buy him. We . . . actually watched (on tv! for free!) the movie where he played the kid's uncle who got kicked out of a band for being not-photogenic enough back in the day, and then ends up being in a band with his nephew and friends. (Emma Stone is one of the friends, oddly enough.) He was pretty much the same guy as in the Office there too.

Of course, Mudd was always one of my least favorite characters in TOS because misogyny and annoyingness and etc.

[lunabee34]

So he plays Mudd? He must be pretty young, right?

What an odd character to put in the show. Not one I'd have chosen from TOS.

[chelseagirl]

Yup. Not one I'd have chosen either, and strange considering the darker feel of this series.

And he's either bs-ing everyone or he's in love with Stella, which makes me retroactively even more p'ed off.

[rahirah]

I may be remembering wrong, but I'm not sure that anyone other than Lester herself ever said that women couldn't be captains? So you COULD interpret it that this was her paranoia talking, and not actual Starfleet policy. (The fact that no one contradicted her means that the writers probably intended the audience to take her statement at face value, but hey, the author is dead.)

[chelseagirl]

When I last watched it, which was in the 70s, it seemed to me to be *very* certain that women couldn't be captains. Although we know from The Cage that women could be first officers -- though we also know that the network didn't like Number One and so maybe this was Roddenberry throwing them the finger?

I also remember really liking Kirk-in-Lester's body because a woman was actually doing all the things, even if she was really Kirk. I lived for Emma Peel when I was a kid; I never understood why women didn't get to do more in shows.

[rahirah]

I don't trust my memory, so I went and looked it up at Memory Alpha. Apparently fans have been arguing about it for quite awhile:

Lester's remark to Kirk, that his world of Starfleet captains did not admit women to their ranks, implies the Starfleet culture of the 2260s was more sexist than its 20th, 21st, 22nd or 24th century counterparts. An interpretation offered by the Star Trek Chronology suggests Lester's comment referred to Kirk's inability to maintain a relationship, due to his responsibilities as a starship captain. Gene Roddenberry, on the other hand, has gone on record as stating that the line was purely sexist.(citation needed • edit)

Assuming that such blatant sexism was indeed policy or practice in Starfleet, it seems that by the 2280s and the 2370s, the bias against women commanding starships had been corrected. In the early scenes of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a woman is shown to be in command of the Miranda-class USS Saratoga. Also, throughout the series Star Trek: Voyager, Kathryn Janeway is shown to be in command of the USS Voyager. Additionally, Erika Hernandez was captain of the NX-02 a century before "Turnabout Intruder". Some fans have attempted to reconcile this information by suggesting that Lester may simply have been insane and used sexism as an excuse for her own inability to command.

[chelseagirl]

I'm going to say:

I believe it was as I remember it, that when TOS was written/broadcast, women couldn't be starship captains, as Roddenberry's statement seems to support.
But that level of sexism seems so out of keeping with the Star Trek universe as it's evolved, that later iterations have retconned it and changed the history, as have the fans.

I'm 55, and I remember when women first moved into combat roles in the military. And that my guy friends in college had to register for the draft to get financial aid while the women did not. So I think fan perception has changed as outside circumstances have changed, and thus the episode is being read differently. I didn't watch TOS when it first aired, but did watch it in syndication on and off from grade school right through high school.

[trepkos]

I have't managed to get round to seeing any of it yet - don't do netflix. So I guess I'll have to hope it comes out on DVD.

[chelseagirl]

If only it WAS on Netflix in the US, since we already pay for that . . . but NOOOOOO. CBS decided to make us pay for CBS All Access to watch it, and my husband insisted.

But I can't really complain because I paid for Hulu just to watch The Handmaid's Tale. Although I cancelled it again afterwards, 'til next season, which is the same that we'll do with CBS All Access.

Capitalism run amuck, once again. There is a limit to how many pay stations we are going to pay for. Now there's a new series called Britbox, which is getting all the original-series Doctor Whos which used to be on Netflix. We'd love to have it, but no way.