Classics: TNG 1:1 - 1:8 Jeers - Gene Roddenbury is...

As promised, we now begin our examination of Star Trek, The Next Generation (hereafter TNG) and use a format popularized by TV Guide - Cheers and Jeers to cover some ground early and get to the best and worst of the Next Generation franchise. Eventually (after we complete DS9) we'll go back and review each episode individually and fill in the gaps, but for now, we do have a lot to say about all the Treks, so why not start recording some of our more salient points of debate. Having re-watched the first eight episodes of TNG, I realized the first article practically wrote itself. Here, in the early days of Trek's second franchise, Gene Roddenbury was credited as the show's executive producer and the staff was hand-picked by him. They tried very hard to cleave to his original vision of Trek and his oversight of the show was significantly more rigorous, so we can lay a lot of the...erm...credit for the show's early performance at his feet.

Gene Roddenbury is...

A CREATIVE HACK:

Sit down and watch a few episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. This was back in the time when Roddenbury had total creative control over the direction of Trek. The show was FILLED with hyper-dramatic music, insane close-ups, obvious "act out" pauses (when they were about to go to commercial, they always had a big "dun dun DAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!" moment), incredibly corny dialogue and horrendous one-dimensional world building. To clarify my meaning on that last point, world-building is a term used in fandom to refer to the work done establishing the canon world in which your show takes place - the people in it, the conflicts ongoing, the scenery, the science, the basic rules that govern every plot. To Roddenbury's credit, TOS tended not to violate its own canon too badly and, for a show in the 60s, the science wasn't absolutely horrid (many far-fetched bits of technobabble were needed, but I've seen more than one show in the here-and-now that document scientists' efforts to produce technology very similar to what's in Trek).

It was, nonetheless, often a show that practiced the worst kind of dramatic device for science fiction - the concept of "reducto ad absurdem." Recall, for example, the episode in which the Enterprise encountered a race of people embroiled in a bloody war because half of the people were white with black stripes and half were black with white stripes. Whereas a modern science fiction writer, when seeking to make a point about racism, would come up with a story that introduces the irrationality of blind hatred for appearance in some more subtle way, Roddenbury liked to make his points in the most obvious, childish way imaginable as if to bludgeon you about the head with ferocious superiority. "See!" he'd metaphorically scream at you. "It's so f***ing obvious, even you stupid fans should get it! HATE IS IRRATIONAL!!!!!" This sort of rude bluntness was common in the spaghetti western where Roddenbury got his start and there's a reason that spaghetti westerns were never considered great works of art. THe worst thing about this mentality is that Roddenbury's alien races, who became the foundation on which Trek continues to be based, were comically one-dimensional and simplistic in original conception. In fact, TNG and DS9 (and Enterprise...Steph and I will have some comments about the immature fan reaction to a more complicated Vulcan when we get to that series) had to do a LOT of work to rehabilitate the goofy, logically flawed, childish world-building that Roddenbury did in the show's infancy.

Vulcans - the paragon of logic (to Roddenbury, the highest virtue...the show always seemed to bow down and worship Vulcans for their ability to rise above their emotions), Klingons - like Samurai obsessed with war, honor and death (there's a reason the Klingons were the main enemy of TOS), Romulans - scheming, tricky and dangerous, these were the KGB in race form. TNG added other common races under Roddenbury's creative direction...most notably the Ferengi - profit-seeking caricatures of western capitalism, they were supposed to be a formidable enemy, but Roddenbury couldn't conceal his own explosion of arrogance enough to allow them to be written and directed in such a way that they would come across as remotely intelligent, and they were reduced to a comic distraction. Reducto ad absurdem is not a viable strategy for world-building. The worst TOS episodes entirely revolved around taking some contemporary problem and smacking you over the head with it, and the major problems with Trek as a canon universe all stem from the fact that the races that make up the show are, at their very core, ridiculous.

Bare in mind...I love Star Trek...even some of the original series...I am not saying all of this to tear down my beloved Trek. I think what the show has become expresses some truly insightful and important things about American culture and can be viewed as a window into the American psyche as it advances through time. But if you love something, you have to be able to see its flaws and make your peace with them. There are many MANY problems with Star Trek, and a lot of them can be blamed on Gene Roddenbury's simplistic world view and his total lack of creativity. He had a fantastically brilliant idea - Wagon Train to the Stars - and there was a sense of optimism about the potential of humanity that was sorely needed in the 60s when the idea was born. The problem is...he didn't know how best to go about seeing his idea through. He produced every Trek episode he ever touched with exactly the same cornball style that went into one of his spaghetti westerns. It doesn't work for a more discerning audience interested in thinking about societal issues in the context of an imaginative futuristic landscape - the very goal of anyone interested in science fiction. It especially doesn't work if the most creative things Roddenbury invented for his universe were warp drive, some one-dimensional alien races, and a unified, socialist utopia on Earth. The longer you play in a Roddenbury world...the more you realize the moon is made of paper and the sky is made of painted canvas.

I'm quite convinced, for example, that the only reason the relationship between Spack and McCoy (or Spock and Kirk, for that matter) worked (and became the basis for the explosion of cult fandom that propelled Trek into the modern consciousness a decade after the 3-year series was deservedly canceled for lack of viewership), was that Spock was half-human! He therefore had a greater latitude to occasionally show emotion and virtue not all that dissimilar from his friends on the Enterprise. And I think Roddenbury KNEW this...his cardboard Vulcans were untenable, flawed and BORING...so he made his poster boy Vulcan a little more interesting for the boob tube.

For examples of TNG hackery and lack of creativity...I bring you:

Encounter at Farpoint - while not as terrible as some of the episodes that followed, this one introduces Q...a spectacular fan favorite who's very existence troubles me. The Q are announced as being omnipotent. They can do anything...ANYTHING...their hearts desire...and they choose to put us on trial for the barbarism of our species. This reveals exactly what Roddenbury thinks of modern man. Whatever he sees in our potential, the writers exhaust themselves taking terms condemning us in our current form as absolutely savage and barbaric.

There are other problems...for example Troi being all "I feel...such pain!" and acting like a freshman at the improv with ridiculous layers of ham...or the fully NINE MINUTES devoted to saucer separation and re-attachment...a "whizbang" feature that really made NO SENSE at all and was never effectively used...LOL Oh...and the aliens we free look incredibly lame. Sorry...they do. LOL

The Naked Now - a complete rehash of a mediocre TOS episode in which everyone gets ill from a scientifically questionable mutated molecule of water (??) that makes people act drunk. Oh...and just how the flying hell is DATA influenced by any intoxicant? He's not even CAPABLE of human emotion (yet) and here he is, drunk and boasting about his exploits??

Code of Honor - Also a rehash of a TOS plot meme...someone in the crew must fight to the death for their freedom, but eek...we don't want to kill anyone! The reason we get stuck in this predicament (and don't simply beam Yar away or otherwise abscond with her) is that these primitive Native American-like people have a vaccine we somehow cannot replicate (even though we can replicate like...everything else in the universe including the human body via the transporter). *headdesk*

The Last Outpost - a rehash of an idea found (in altered forms great and small) in everything from the fifth TOS movie to the first season of TOS - uber-advanced alien from dead civilization teaches us all how young and dumb we are for our petty squabbles...and it gets worse, because in this episode, Roddenbury's team introduces the Ferengi. And oh what an introduction. Far from being the devious, intelligent and resourceful men against which they were paralleled (Yankee Traders), the Ferengi were portrayed as bumbling idiotic children...the director even had those actors continuously hopping around, waving their hands, whispering to each other like children spreading rumors...every movement was filled with shakiness and an intent to make them resemble a slithering snake. Even their weapons were snake-like! Who builds a gun that works like a whip?!?! Seriously? What the heck kind of design is that??

Lonely Amung Us - We needed some aliens to blame for ship malfunctions...so...let's say two species at war are both applying for Federation Membership, and for some reason, the Enterprise...the fleet's flagship and lead vessel of exploration and discovery, is reduced to ferrying these passengers - who, by the way, are completely ridiculous - to some neutral world (called...Parliament? Really?)...meanwhile an energy being invades several crew members, but when they recover from the invasion, they...do nothing to inform the crew that something weird just happened? Many of these early plots are so full of holes, I wonder if Roddenbury took the script to the shooting range.

Where No One Has Gone Before - No, the outer rim of the universe is not a billion light years from our galaxy, Gene. Even in 1987 we understood the age of the universe to be roughly 13 billion years. Also...if you believe that THOUGHT is the essence of reality...and that the earliest foundation of the universe was based on a single thought (a necessary second conclusion with the enterprise stranded at the edge of the universe where thought and form collide), then...don't you believe in God? Who else could have had that thought? And why should you mock us for having that faith?

Face it folks...Gene Roddenbury is a complete and utter hack.

A PIG:

While Roddenbury is sullying the screen with unimaginative plots full of holes, simplistic alien races, and childish Utopian visions of humanity, he's also expressing the worst kind of feminism imaginable. The insincere kind. Uhura wore short short skirts in the 60s and her fan dance was the stuff of teenage boys' wet dreams. But that doesn't fly in the 80s. Now, much to the shock of the Ferengi...and the race from Code of Honor...we let our women into command positions and we fully cloth them in normal uniforms! (EKE!!!) Roddenbury's crew calls attention to Tasha Yar's position of power and influence on the bridge so many times it's like he's overcompensating for something. "See...I'm a good liberal feminist...women power...yay!!!!"

Of course, his real opinion of women still comes out. When everyone gets drunk in The Naked Now, Tasha does Data (the girl who was repeatedly raped as a kid now thinks casual sex is fun when drunk?????), Crusher desperately tries to do Picard, Troi desperately tries to do Riker...and NOT ONE OF THE MEN!! is out there trying to score! They're all playing with toys, longing for normal eyesight, pretending to be Captain etc. Women, to Roddenbury, are nothing more than sex symbols made all the sexier by their uniforms and positions of power. This guy is the worst kind of lying liberal...he wants us to believe he's about female empowerment, but it's crap and no one should be fooled.

In Code of Honor, we are supposed to be impressed with the Native American woman tricking the men into giving her the best possible position (a better husband with more land), and not one person on the Enterprise questions the validity of this cultural arrangement. Native Americans, as you know, are above scorn in liberal America because all of their problems are our fault. We took their land! (Of course, we did, but their cultures frequently were quite barbaric and ignoring this fact would be criminal) The same thing that motivates modern feminists to scorn American business for not giving women here equal wages but totally ignore the subjugation of women elsewhere in the world (especially in Islamic countries) is at work here. They don't actually care about women...they just want to make us believe they do.

In Justice, Riker beams down all exited from the waist down because "these people are friendly and enlightened...very enlgihtened!" (GIGGITY!!!) Yes...it is the enlightened position that free sex with no strings is the way to happiness. Just ask Gene. Or any guy's penis (thankfully most guys listen to their brain at least a little bit and don't abuse women this way). Not that the women get a say...they're just sex objects.

INCREDIBLY NAIVE:

Look at the world Roddenbury created. Even in later seasons, the writers make sure to avail themselves of every opportunity to remind us that in our better future, we don't have poverty, we don't need money, and we all simply strive to better ourselves, and that the old way...the capitalistic way, was bound to cause suffering as people "attained power and wealth by stomping on the backs of the poor" (Season 6, Episode 1 - Samuel Clemens). The writers on DS9 repeatedly ran into this inherently naive world-building concept and said "eh...screw you Gene." Somehow, the members of the station crew managed to pay their bar bills at Quark's, Sisko extorted money from Quark when his plots damaged the station, officers had money to get into Tongo games...etc. Oh...and in this land of limitless wealth potential where whatever we need can be created on the fly...why are there ANY worlds in our territories that have none of this wealth? Why does the Maquis even exist? But stepping outside of that for a moment...

We also get a few other choice shots at modern culture...

From "Lonely Among Us" - "Lt. Yar was confused...you see we no longer enslave animals for food." - Riker

Say what? It's now tantamount to SLAVERY...to eat meat? And exactly why should I believe the girl who grew up on a war-ravaged colony being chased by rape gangs (!) would be confused by the idea of eating meat from live animals?

We won't even talk about some of the things Q brings up as examples of human barbarism...many of which are far...far more complex than he makes them sound. Or the entire concept of a giant, scary, advanced alien dude making himself the God of a subservient race on the planet below in "Justice" thereby mocking our belief in God today. Or the idea that the Ferengi represent "the worst kind of capitalism from ancient Earth." Roddenbury represents everything that's wrong with the way a modern liberal views history. The oversimplifications and idealistic chest-thumping get old after a while.

We've dicussed the Prime Directive a few times here...and its' application in the episode Justice is a great exmaple of everything we believe is wrong with it as a dogmatic absolute. Picard makes this point (in part to appease the alien GOD OF DOOM!!!), and he'll make it a dozem more times before the show is over...so Justice is saved from the lowest of ratings...but it should never have gotten as far as it did...with Wesley mere inches from death by lethal injection for stomping on some flowers by mistake.

In short, guys...Roddenbury is a typical liberal. And liberals HATE early TNG. Go to any fan site and look at the ratings for the various episodes. Nothing in the first season...not even the strongest episodes (Farpoint, Conspiracy, etc) wind up with great scores. Liberals can't stand the reflection in the mirror...no wonder they spend most of their time whining and spewing pessimism and anger on the web.

Not one of these first 7 episodes (Farpoint is one two-hour episode) would score higher than a 6 at our blog...and most would be in the 3s and 4s. A lump jeer was the best way to concentrate the negativity into one post so we could move on and start cheering a few things along the way. We promise...the show gets better...and our responses will too.