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August 25, 2023, 8:51pm
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Continuing the discussion from Meta: State of the Writer :
I thought I should repost the relevant part of this here, seeing as it is a recommendation:
On another note, as it happened, when the Feds so rudely interrupted our normal television-watching cycle, we were in the middle of Star Trek: Discovery , and not having our media server serving media any more, decided that the easiest thing to do was to switch to just marathoning that.
This was a good decision.
I’m going to embrace the controversy here, and take a moment to say that Discovery is probably the best Star Trek we’ve seen, bar none. In particular, from where we were – the very end of season two, on through seasons three and four – was exactly what I needed to be watching in our time of crisis and trial. Because when your real-life party has just been crashed by what amount to exemplars of the opposite, hope, and faith, and people finding the inner strength to rise above and be the best versions of themselves, and successfully navigating your way through – and finding the path to ending – the dark times surrounding you through your ideals and principles, and not by immediately tossing them aside like all too much so-called “gritty” fiction has its characters doing, is just everything you need.
In fact, one of the major reasons I call it the best of the Treks is because it is precisely when the world has gone to shit around you that it is both hardest and most important to cling to those ideals and principles that define you, and your response to that challenge that most defines you, and it does a brilliant job of showing it.
(Also Stamets and Culber and the rest of their found family are absolutely goddamned adorable and I will brook no dissent on this. But I digress.)
tl;dr I approve this. Add it to the semi-canonical Media Of Which The Imperials Would Approve list, too.
…
Also, just to bring some canon into this post:
“If there is to be a rapprochement between us and the Republic – and such a thing is, I think we must all concede, profoundly to be desired – I can think of no better basis than this: that they, like we, are a civilization that holds principle above expedience.”
– Talaïs Oravedra, Imperial Diplomatic Corps
I should also like to recommend, as per the title, both Strange New Worlds , and in another sense, Lower Decks . While still an enjoyable enough watch, I had found myself growing a mite cynical about the universe in general during the Next Generation era of Trek , as one might just possibly have noticed.
In addition to the above commentary, I shall simply note that both of these are a delightful return to the form established by the Original Series, and the latter adds to it by being simply hilarious.
Approved and recommended.