I'm in agreement, I don't think DS9 was too dark as the darkness agreed with what I think is the underlying theme of the series; that it's easy to be a saint in paradise. And despite this rebuttal being an intrinsically darker idea, I don't feel that the series ever discarded the importance of the utopian ideal. In some ways it became more inspiring because it's not as if the protagonists have evolved to perfection; they have to work at being good people.
By contrast I don't feel as if ST:D has a reason to be dark, or if the characters particularly care about being good/better people. I still find it unintentionally hilarious that after making a large show to the Pahvo fairies about how they believe in peace and the fairies trying to bring them together with the Klingons for an impromptu peace summit; Discovery proceeds to destroy the Klingons and leave without so much as a GoodBye! to the natives
Some blame DS9 for why STD is so dark and being successful with its "unTrek ideals" or "ideals that Roddenberry would never have approved of." Riiiiiight. As you might guess, I am NOT a fan of said argument. The big problems of DS9 came near the end, and it's stuff they clearly didn't think through, or that the rushed pacing of the last arc meant they couldn't explore them to fullest flower the way they probably would have wanted to, but it was still a quality show. STD? It's uninspiring. As a prequel, it doesn't near the tightest continuity it should. And it's useless. I don't feel it grasps what made Trek so good. Stuff like "The Devil in the Dark," "Cause and Effect," or "The Visitor" prove you don't need to be needlessly dark to tell a good story. What you need is intelligence. And that's lacking in the current crop of writers. By contrast, I don't expect STG to be good at all, or adhere to the larger Trek canon, which upsets me, because it's set twenty years after DS9 and Voyager. It needs to adhere to said canon, or it's just going to piss fans off.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
If you ask me it had some intensity and it did miss the more optimistic tone that TOS and TNG had going for them. But it at times had more depth.
I mean were there dark things in the past for TOS characters? Kirk was a survivor where a planetary governor was having half the population put to death. And Kirk had to struggle with his own hatred for the man. Kirk faced an energy cloud being as a young officer and held the guilt of not firing fast enough to save other lives. Spock has more than a few times gone mad and tried to kill his friends. And McCoy comes off as a speciesist around Spock.
TNG: Riker worked on illegal experiments and covered the whole thing up. Tasha came from a world with roving rape gangs. Worf had issues. From killing someone as a boy, to being a sole survivor. To his hatred of romulans coming from that sole survivor
Now look at DS9. Dax committed a war crime. Only, no he didn't. His friend the 'hero' did. Kira was written with a fiery temper and despising needing the federation to help her now freed people. Add in a general loathing of cardassians for their race. What made her great? "KIRA: Captain, as a Major in the Bajoran Militia, I must officially protest Starfleet's refusal to turn over this station to my government.
SISKO: Your protest is duly noted.
KIRA: Good. Now that that's over with, Kira Nerys reporting for duty. "
And so forth. I think DS9 is darker because people want to hate on it.
The way I see Star Trek is sort of a V TOS in the middle at the base with TNG branching off to the left and DS9 branching off to the right. TNG was mostly about exploration and diplomacy and generally advocated peace, was more optimistic about human evolving and sometimes peace at all cost. DS9 on the other hand dealt with the politics and the pragmatic end and mainly the show was about fighting to preserve freedom. TOS is the balance of the two shows where Kirk were willing to fight, break rules to preserve freedom of sentient beings whilst taking in consideration that you can't go too far in provoke. I never saw DS9 as something separate to Star trek (as some people believed it betrayed the series) but rather taking the pragmatic sides of TOS and focusing on it whilst TNG took the optimistic side of TOS and focused on that.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
abki wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:53 pm
I'm in agreement, I don't think DS9 was too dark as the darkness agreed with what I think is the underlying theme of the series; that it's easy to be a saint in paradise. And despite this rebuttal being an intrinsically darker idea, I don't feel that the series ever discarded the importance of the utopian ideal. In some ways it became more inspiring because it's not as if the protagonists have evolved to perfection; they have to work at being good people.
That's how I feel about DS9. We had, for the most part, characters who were decent people and usually managed to maintain that decency in some very trying circumstances. Sometimes they slipped up but I think you could fairly claim that they did better than an awful lot of people nowdays would. And they still felt convincing as people - I could see in them a society that had moved ahead from ours and earned the claim to have improved, rather than one that has had everything solved for them and were never really challenged to show that.
Yukaphile wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:16 am
Sometimes it got a bit too dark, yeah. Which is ironic given that I liked "In the Pale Moonlight." But making Sisko a rape baby and never commenting on it, or presenting "comfort women" aka war rape victims as complicit collaborators? No. Just... was awful.
I don’t think that’s an issue of going too dark, but rather perhaps, not going dark enough...or wanting to go dark without actually going dark.
Sisko could have easily been a prophet baby without being conceived in rape. Instead the writers went dark, but didn’t want to follow through with it.
The comfort women plot was just disgusting. At least the Sisko acknowledged the bad, even if the plot was quickly dropped. An entire episode telling us that rape victims are to be blamed? I just cannot even watched that episode.
