Kids these days!

Lately I've been watching TOS reaction videos, like these guys. 

There's a fair bit of commentary on stuff that didn't age well: the unconvincing special effects (even though  inevitably they're watching the enhanced version); the obvious use of stunt doubles (obvious on giant HD TVs, anyway); the mixed messages (Racism is bad but all Klingons are evil! Women are equal but also sex objects! Don't interfere in other cultures unless they're doing it wrong!); the clunky tag scenes capping off tragic events with a good laugh on the bridge; etc. And there's a lot of cluelessness about the cultural environment of the 1960s (Why is Chekov wearing that crazy wig and always saying stuff was invented in Russia?). But what stands out to me is how certain storytelling conventions that we didn't question in the 1960s and '70s really bother younger viewers. The most obvious example is the total reset, where events in previous episodes are rarely if ever mentioned again and don't seem to have any lasting impact on the characters. Also,  the instant love interest, where a character forms a deep romantic attachment in just a few minutes of screen time. 

These were conventions necessitated by practical and business considerations: episodes had to be accessible to new viewers; work as stand-alones; be completely wrapped up in an hour; make sense viewed in any order; not depend on actors to return for recurring roles when not under contract; consist of a teaser, 4 acts, and a tag; etc. I'd like to say that I accepted these conventions because I understood all those considerations, but I'd be lying. For one thing, I was just a kid, and for another, everyone, kids and adults, had so much less access back then to information about how media (and just about everything else) worked -- it's almost inconceivable today, even to those of us old enough to remember it.

I saw  Star Trek in its first run just a couple of times (I was very little), but became an avid fan watching daily reruns in the early 70s. My peers and I were blissfully unaware of anything and everything behind the scenes. We knew shockingly little about how TV was made -- I was 12 when I started going to conventions and learned that scenes were shot out of order, sound effects were added later, actors didn't do their own fights, etc.  The blooper reels were an entire education in TV production. We had no ability to watch anything other than what was broadcast in real time, and we never imagined watching any other way. We had culturally mediated expectations -- we just knew that TV tells stories in a certain way.  (I suppose this is not unlike an ancient Greek audience that didn't question why an onstage chorus always spoke in unison, or an Elizabethan audience that didn't question why all the actors were male.) I realize that even now, knowing what I know, when I watch TOS I fall right back into the old mindset -- or at least, part of my brain does, while the other part, which has added decades of knowledge and experience, not to mention internet access, does a simultaneous running commentary. But even so, I can't relate to not "getting" the way old TV worked; it brings out the cranky old lady in me who wants to kick these kids off her TV lawn.

Anyway, speaking of the old conventions, here's some raw footage that found its way onto YouTube -- I believe I was actually somewhere in that room.

Ruk-roh! Picard finale speculation

Next week will be the season finale of Picard (!!!!!), set up by a twisty "Et In Arcadia Ego part 1," in which we meet Dr. Altan Inigo Soong, son of Data-daddy Dr. Noonian Soong. Brent Spiner is great as Data, but because Data is so gentle (as Picard rightly says), Spiner is even more fun to watch chewing the scenery as Lore or as a Soong (Arik Soong in Enterprise was fabulous).

Soong the younger reveals that there are higher-level, synthetic beings out there, watching us, and that the sub-space frequencies needed to contact them are encoded in the Admonition, the crazy-making ancient vision the Romulans have been passing on for millennia. Conveniently, Soong has already created the necessary beacon to summon these beings.

Meanwhile, we also learn that Soong has been working on a “golem” that requires mind-transfer technology. Now, where have we seen this before?

In the TOS episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of,” Christine Chapel's ex, Roger Korby, has found an ancient android, Ruk, tending machines that can make androids -- and can transfer people's minds into them. Ruk (you remember Ruk -- he's Lurch!) is the survivor of an ancient battle with the “Old Ones, the ones who made us.” But is Ruk the only survivor? Or have his people been out there, waiting and watching, maybe as self-appointed defenders of all future synthetics, knowing that eventually organics will always turn on them, as the Old Ones did? Has Soong been working with information about these beings all along? Is that how he’s making the golem, as Korby once did, and how he conveniently creates a beacon so quickly?

Meanwhile, there’s the question of Discovery and Control, and whether Picard ties in with that story, as I and many others have speculated. Is this an alternative to that theory, or could both be true? Might Control have reached back in time to manipulate Ruk's people into serving its purposes? Or might a message from the Red Angel somehow have called on past synthetics to come to the aid of organic life? The message in the Admonition is ambiguous:

"Life begins, the dance of division and replication. Imperfect, finite. Organic life evolves, yearns for perfection. That yearning leads to synthetic life, but organics perceive this perfection as a threat, when they realize their creations do not age, or become sick or die. They will seek to destroy them and in so doing, destroy themselves. Beyond the boundaries of time and space, we stand, an alliance of synthetic life, watching you, waiting for your signal. Contact us and we will come. You will have our protection. Your evolution will be their extinction."

Who will seek to destroy whom? Who will have their protection? Whose evolution will be whose extinction? (Putting on my copy editor hat for a moment: Kids, this is why pronouns need clear antecedents!)

Maybe -- and this would fit the theme of Picard, that fear of the Other is the root of all evil -- there will be a spiritual evolution, which will cause the extinction of a false distinction between different kinds of life? Tune in next time...

I love that Picard is leaning into the theme of another of my favorite TOS episodes, “Errand of Mercy,” in which fear of the Other drives each side to believe in the absolute rightness of its own cause,  inevitably leading both sides down the path of violence and hatred. In Picard, that's exactly what happens to the Romulans, the Federation, and now, the synths. I doubt it's a coincidence that the Federation-Klingon conflict in "Errand of Mercy" only ends with the intervention of superior beings, the Organians, and now, in Picard, we're getting some outsider superior beings, too.

One of the things I hated most about TNG (especially in its early seasons) was the idea that somehow, humanity achieves a level of perfection that makes it immune to such basic failings as prejudice and tribalism. That didn’t feel believable or true, so it felt like the show was pushing Utopian Kool-Aid; I mistrusted its rose-colored vision. By contrast, in TOS, there was a sense that we can make huge strides forward, but goodness will still be a struggle, and no matter how far we come, there will always be more to go. I love that Picard is restoring that sense. It seems so much more honest, and in a way, more hopeful, because it speaks to the possibility of improving ourselves despite our weaknesses.

Slingshot around the sun: International Star Trek Convention 1975

Let's travel back in time to 1975, to the other NYC Star Trek con that happened that year. This one was at the Americana Hotel, not that you'd know from the program, the cover of which is pictured above. (You can see the program from the competing con here.) Apparently, there was a schism among the con runners that resulted in two separate events. Of course, I knew nothing about it at the time, being just 13 and all. I was just happy to have more Star Trek. But you can read about it here.

Anyway, this program is notable for a comic that was apparently trying to emulate the underground comics of the day by being vaguely psychedelic and pretty incoherent. The title, Star Truckin', was obviously a reference to Robert Crumb's Keep on Truckin'. Beyond that, I can't tell you what the fuck is going on.

There are also the usual publicity stills, plus the names of everyone involved (but weirdly, no dates or any other useful historical information). Guests included Shatner, Doohan, and Koenig, as well as Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison. You could certainly do a lot worse.

Slingshot around the sun: Star Trek Convention 1975, New York

When I was a wee Trekkie, I was lucky enough to attend seven New York Star Trek conventions from 1974 to 1977. Sadly, I didn't save the program from the very first one, but I did save the rest. I've been meaning to digitize them for ages, but it never rose to the top of my to-do list -- until now. It just took a nudge from my orthopedic surgeon (i.e. I'm laid up after foot surgery).

This is the program from the con held Feb. 14-17 at New York's Commodore Hotel, called (drumroll please) ... Star Trek Convention. Yup. Just what it says on the tin. Guests included Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, George Takei, Isaac Asimov, David Gerrold, and more.

This program (like all the others from back in the day) is packed with publicity stills and behind-the-scenes candids. Back in those prehistoric, pre-internet times, these were like gold and made the programs treasured souvenirs. Also of interest to fandom historians (if such exist): listings of zines and fan clubs. There's also a recap of the previous year's con from superfan Joan Winston. Enjoy!

Disco Daystrom

With the Disco S2 finale just days away, I'm thinking about a Star Trek episode that aired just over 51 years ago.

I've seen a lot of speculation that Disco's Control might be the Borg origin story – but I never see mentioned the TOS episode that this story line resembles even more: “The Ultimate Computer.” That’s the one where the experimental M-5 computer is tested on the Enterprise, only to go berzerk and kill people in self defense. Sounds familiar, right? (This is one of those classic episodes where it turns out Kirk can defeat the crazy AI by talking to it, a dramatic choice that doesn’t really fit with the more action-packed, contemporary approach.)

When you get right down to it, the Control story line in Disco owes as much to “The Ultimate Computer” as Star Trek: The Motion Picture did to “The Changeling.” No doubt many current fans and critics don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of TOS – but some surely do. Yet now, instead of generating the kind of criticism for unoriginality that the movie did, Disco's obvious parallels to a TOS episode don’t even come up. I guess the passage of time and all the additional Star Trek that’s been created in the interim have made the reworked story seem more like an homage than a rip-off. TOS episodes are no longer individual stories so much as progenitors of entire genres.

But anyway, at Disco’s point in the Star Trek timeline, Doctor Richard Daystrom, creator of M-5 and namesake of the Daystrom Institute (which, the Memory Alpha wiki informs me, is actually mentioned in the Disco episode “Choose Your Pain,” so it already exists), is somewhere between his duotronic breakthrough and the rollout of M-5. He is undoubtedly considered one of the Federation’s preeminent AI experts. Right about now, he’s probably in the process of developing the technology to program an AI with human engrams (unfortunately, as it turns out, his own, which tend toward instability and paranoia – hence the M-5 debacle).

So as we head into the S2 finale, I’m hoping for, at the very least, a significant Daystrom mention, if not an actual appearance. That would be a very cool piece of canon continuity.

OTOH, it's damn near impossible to explain Spock’s failure to mention Control when M-5 comes along. So either this will just remain a big canon continuity problem (and hey, what would any extensive sci fi franchise be without big canon continuity problems?), or it’s another clue that there is a huge reset coming, with events of this season entirely erased from the timeline, probably as a result of Discovery's imminent trip to the future (which I speculated about in my previous post). We’ll find out soon enough!

I can't let any discussion of "The Ultimate Computer" go by without mentioning one of the most touching Kirk/Spock moments in all of TOS, and here it is.

Tantalus

This is totally batshit, admittedly. But still...

Disco gave us an episode named "Lethe," which dealt a lot with Admiral Cornwell, prompting fans to speculate that she might somehow become the Lethe who was a character in the TOS episode "Dagger of the Mind" -- a woman on a penal colony for the criminally insane who describes her former self, before treatment with the neural neutralizer, as malignant and hateful. Seeing Emperor Georgiou snatched by Burnham and brought along for the ride to the Prime Universe, I speculated, mostly facetiously, that she, not Cornwell, seems more likely to become Lethe. Certainly, the words malignant and hateful describe MU Georgiou pretty well.

And then something hit me -- something I somehow had never noticed in my four-plus decades as a TOS fan.

The penal colony in "Dagger of the Mind" is on Tantalus V. The Mirror Universe device used by Kirk to destroy his enemies in "Mirror Mirror" is the Tantalus Field.

Tantalus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology -- he invited the gods to a feast and cooked up the body of his own son to feed them. ("Here, have my ganglia. You deserve a treat.")  This offended the gods, causing Zeus to hang him forever above a stream for which he eternally thirsted, but of which he could never drink.

Also from ancient Greek mythology, Lethe is one of the rivers of the underworld across which the dead were ferried by Charon. Emperor Georgiou's palace-ship is the ISS Charon.

That's a whole lot of coincidence going on right there, unless it's not. Could Emperor Georgiou actually become Lethe, and somehow her Tantalus V experience find its way back to the MU in the form of Kirk's Tantalus Field?

Crazy, right?

Disco is more TOS than TNG

Riley Silverman writes:

"For the first time, I suddenly know what it must have felt like to be someone in 1987 who saw the debut of Next Generation after a lifetime of love for the only Star Trek they’d ever known. To be like the people who were handed this strange new series with a brand new Enterprise that looked more like a space hotel than a Federation starship and told 'Nope, this is Star Trek now, deal with it.'”

A-yep.

Many TNG-era fans never really understood why TOS broke through all the pop-culture noise of its day to become a cultural touchstone, and why it didn't just attract fans, but inspired the very invention of fandom. They see TOS through the lens of later received wisdom; it was positive, uplifting, and optimistic, and TNG was its natural successor. But for its time, Star Trek was actually often edgy, though no one back then would have described it that way. In a TV landscape of Andy Griffith and My Three Sons, against a backdrop of Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and a burgeoning counterculture, Star Trek was a new voice (not a lone voice -- other shows reflected cultural change as well -- but rarely with the seriousness and philosophical bent of Star Trek). It didn't reflect a perfected humanity, but one that was a little more self-conscious about trying to do better. And context matters (you might even say it's king). What seem like hokey, milquetoast lessons about ideas like racial harmony, multiculturalism, and the responsible use of power were a lot more subversive in the 1960s and 70s. Star Trek's message wasn't consistent, and it wasn't always good drama, but it wasn't vanilla, and its early audience responded to that. When TNG came along, a lot of us wondered what the hell Roddenberry was thinking. It seemed so very vanilla by comparison: everything so clear-cut, everyone so righteous, every answer so obvious. It felt more like a corporate training film about team-building than like Star Trek. 

It was only after Roddenberry left the stage that others tried to nudge Star Trek back toward that more challenging place, to varying degrees and with varying success. But all the series from TNG on were trying to be hybrids that would not alienate that TNG base. 

Until Discovery. They really don't seem to give a shit about that base, and that's pretty gutsy. What's more, they realize that the goalpost for edgy 'n philosophical has moved considerably. A lot of the existing ST fan base seems to think that a show with a point to make about how to do right in the universe ought to be a show in which the right thing is always done. But our reality doesn't lend itself to that kind of storytelling, and frankly, that's never been the best way to make the point, anyway. 

I have little doubt that, as Discovery goes along, its POV will come more into focus. It will become a little easier to tell which way the needle of its moral compass is pointing (though I sincerely hope  they always tell the kinds of challenging stories that make demands of us).  It'll be interesting to see how much of fandom is willing to come along.