My students have heard of Star Trek, but never seen any of the movies or tv shows. I'm not sure why. Sure, the franchise began in 1966, but Star Wars began in 1977, and it's still going strong. Maybe it's just because the colonialist, imperialist, ultra-patriotic "Star Fleet, right or wrong" message of Star Trek doesn't inspire audiences so much today.
But they keep churning out Star Trek tv series, and I keep watching them. Next up: Picard, set 20 years after the events in the last Star Trek movie. The 94-year old former Enterprise captain/admiral Jean-Luc Picard (80-year old Patrick Stewart) is living in seclusion on his vineyard in France, writing books on history that no one reads, teaching his dog French, remembering lost loves, and encountering lots of interstellar hunkoids:
1. He is haunted by the memory of ex-boyfriend Data (Brent Spiner), an android who served with him aboard the Enterprise, and gave his life to save him.
2. His staff includes the Romulan Zhaban (Jamie McShane, left), which turns out to be a sore spot. It seems that most Federationists are white supremacists (or Federation supremacists), and hate Romulans.
Picard agrees to an interview with a tabloid news reporter, which, not surprisingly, turns ugly while revealing the complex back story:
14 years ago, the Romulan sun was about to go super-nova, so Picard mounted a rescue expedition: "You tried to devote Federation funds to rescuing a planet full of snarling, bestial terrorists? You filthy Romulan lover! Hey, your assistant has pointy ears...."
"Fortunately," the Federation called off the rescue operation and let the Romulans die after some Synthetics (androids) went rogue and destroyed the planet Mars. Thereafter all Synthetics were banned (I don't know what happened to existing Synthetics. Concentration camps?). "Hey, didn't you have a Synthetic boyfriend? You filthy Synthetic lover!" At that point Picard ends the interview. Wouldn't you?
3. Meanwhile, in an apartment far, far away, a young woman named Dahj (Isa Briones) is playing kissy-face with her boyfriend (David Carzell, top photo, best known for his work in Thunder Bulge, a male stripper comedy team). Suddenly masked assassins beam in, kill the boyfriend, and try to kidnap Dahj, but she somehow knows how to fight back, and kills them all. She also instinctively knows to seek out Picard, who takes her in.
Conducting research and getting mystical guidance from beyond the grave, Picard discovers that Dahj is Data's "daughter," built with flesh and blood so she is physically identical to a biological entity, and implanted with fake memories. Why build an artificial human being? Aren't there enough people in the universe already?
But just as Picard is telling her "Because you're my boyfriend's daughter, I'll love and support you always," hostiles beam in. Dahj tries to fight them off, but they explode her.
Later, security cams reveal an explosion, but Picard was all alone. No Dahj, no hostiles. Uh-oh, the old boy has dementia.
But Picard is sure that Dahj is still alive. Conducting more research (and getting more mystical insight), he goes to the Daystrom Institute (a shut-down Synthetic research facility) and finds that Data had two daughters. There's another one.
4. We see the other one, Soji, talking to a Romulan named Narek (Harry Treadaway). They're on a de-activated Borg cube!
That's it for the hunks in the first episode. But there will be several others coming up:
5. To solve the mystery of the android twins, Picard must track down android researcher Dr. Bruce Maddox. So he commandeers a spaceship, and hires Cristobal Rios (Santiago Cabrera) as captain. Of course, Rios has an agenda of his own.
6. During the rescue effort, 250,000 Romulan children were relocated to the planet Vashti. Picard grew fond of one, Elnor (Evan Evagora), and visited him on occasion, but didn't offer to adopt him or anything. Now he wants him on the crew as chief prettyboy.
7. Back on his days on the Enterprise, Picard adopted a Borg boy (Jonathan Del Arco) who somehow got separated from the Collective, named him Hugh, and taught him how to "be human." Hugh is now working on the Borg Cube with the other Data Daughter. Wow, Picard has estranged sons and daughters all over the galaxy!
8-9. Bodybuilding twins Mike and Matt Perfetuo aren't particularly pretty, but their muscles more than make up for their...um...unique faces. They play Synthetics Rune and Codex (I guess all Synthetics must have information-related names.)
10. Mason Gooding plays Gabriel Hwang, yet another estranged son. He's not Picard's, for a change, but you get the idea of this series' theme: reconciling with long-lost progeny.
By the way, this is Star Trek, so don't expect any actual, canonical gay people, in spite of the numerous gay cast members. I understand that there's nothing except a hint that Seven of Nine (the former Borg adopted by Captain Janeway on Voyager) has a girlfriend.
Basically Vulcans are space elves, with the same dickish "better than you, no deconstruction required" attitude. But then so are the Jedi.
ReplyDeleteThe Romulans were at least since TNG treated like that. They used to be the Chinese in the original series tho.
Star Trek did hint with alyha, but yeah, not canon.
They do have fanservice lesbians tho. Well, Enterprise did. And DS9's version of the evil beard universe. And I'll always remember that whole episode that was supposed to be a gay-coded alien hernaphrodite who dated Riker and was persecuted for being too feminine and, against Frakes' wishes, was played by a woman, so it seems like you have this dystopia of psycho lesbians. (To be fair, Dax is a transgender icon. So, DS9 gets some credit.)
But maybe I'm asking too much. Chakotay was basically New Age crystals as a character.
In one episode, Whorf, who is currently dating Dax, gets upset because she seems to have a romantic history with a woman they encounter. But that may have been a relationship with Dax's previous host, who was male.
DeleteThe only Star Trek for me is the original series which is filled with that obvious Spock/Kirk bromance
ReplyDeleteFor many years I thought the Star Trek-franchise was dead. It was killed off by the poor writing (from mediocre to terrible) in 'Enterprise' and the awful last films - typical Hollywood-ruminating of the original series: keeping the spaceship and the names, but changing everything else. Unfortunately, 'Picard' has adopted a horrible aspect of these horrible films: During 'The next Generation' and its side shows the Romulan Empire showed signs of becoming less evil. But just getting rid of it completely is awful. Letting Earth or the Federation go through a phase of far-right sentiments is obviously a reference to Trumpism. But I still hope that this is all in the clouded mind of a Picard with dementia. I hesitated to sign up with Amazon just for this show, but I won't bother now.
ReplyDeleteLuckily there is hope! I recently watched the first two seasons of Star Trek Discovery. This show is created with the help of a son (grandson?) of Gene Roddenberry. It is set a couple of decades before the original series. And two of the main characters form a gay couple. Warning: there also is a lot of war, violence and psychological trauma.
Sorry, I ment: During 'The next Generation' and its spin-offs...' (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, films)
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