Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Science Fiction

True.
Tom Brosz — (archived)

But the creators of Star Trek, even back in the 1960s, knew that if they made their characters too far off the cultural mainstream, it would make lousy television, and said as much. There were plenty of SF writers exploring such themes successfully without Star Trek having to do it.

It was interesting to see the cultural paradigm shift from the 1960s to the 1980s. It was obvious that the main characters in "Star Trek, the Next Generation" had a different outlook on things. There is an entire set of fan literature devoted to comparing Kirk to Picard in how they dealt with issues. I saw Kirk as being a bit too impulsive, and Picard as being a bit too smug.

There was one show I found a bit irritating where Picard thawed out some frozen 20th century businessman, and the show spent the rest of the hour making fun of the profit motive from the perspective of a society that supposedly didn't have one. And of course, crapping on the Ferengi was a full-time occupation.

Odd. The Federation seemed to be a standard free-market economy as far as I could see, with many different commodities traded as valuable items, although like our own civilization, production efficiency was so high that prices would be very low.

Kirk could be excused for dropping monkey wrenches into some of the cultures he came across. A number of these cultures captured his ship and/or crew and wanted to do something nasty to them. I'm not a big enough Trek geek to remember specific episodes.

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