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The drubbing of the Michelle Yeoh-led streaming film now holds a dubious title—one that reflects something much more interesting than simple schadenfreude.
The drubbing of the Michelle Yeoh-led streaming film now holds a dubious title—one that reflects something much more interesting than simple schadenfreude.
There are definitely a few you can fudge on. “Enough Already With the Klingons” was more a rule in the jump from the original series to TNG. Lower Decks proved you can do a good show and still have a little Klingon, as a treat.
But there are so many good notes in the Bible. Liberal use of the Holodeck gets you outside your own genre. Focus on the sociological and psychological consequences of long-term space travel make your protagonists sympathetic and relatable. Exploration as a guiding theme of the franchise means you’re always free to write a novel adventure for your characters to engage in. Some of my favorite “Strange New Worlds” episodes were simply “Crew finds something weird in space” vignettes. And doing the A/B plot divide between the away team and the bridge crew allows for a bit of action-adventure and a bit of high political drama in the same episode.
There’s a reason Roddenberry was the GOAT of Sci-Fi for so long. And why so many subsequent authors pulled generously from his received wisdom. If you’ve got a good playbook, run with it. The fact that ST:TNG and DS9 reruns are still fan favorites decades later should tell you something about how strong a formula he was working with.
About your point about exploring space: The Orville by Seth McFarlane is a very good example of that in a space show like Star Trek. That’s literally their whole mission for the show, and it provides some interesting stories. Like one where they make first contact with a planet similar to ours, but steeped in religious superstition. Or one where they make accidental contact with a planet that only appears in our universe for like 24 hours once every few months, where in its home universe time progresses at an exponential rate, so you see a microcosm of the impact someone could have on an entire civilization.
Also I just genuinely think it’s a good show.