Star Trek

[Strangelove]

I grew up likeing "The Next Generation" and really liked that show at the time, generally for it's positive vision of the future. However as I got a little older the moral relativism and socialist communist stuff *really* started to great on me, but in addition to that, you can see a clear progression in TNG from real plots to "technobabble pseudo plots" where problems arose with mysterious psuedoscientific causes and solutions, instead of real conflicts and challenges that were overcome, until eventually the plot became = to technobabble, see the episode where Wesley defeats the energy thing guarding the water by clacking away on the tricorder. It's lazy writing, but fans started to love the technobabble so it became a cornerstone of the show.

Gene Roddenbury was less of a Communist and more of a atheist humanist. So while his vision of the future downplays property and currency, he certainly does not take the Communist rhetoric to back up his ideas. I would agree with the sentiment that while in general very good, TNG did get occasionally too politically correct and technobabble filled. The characters were also more boring and it was after Gene died that all of a sudden the characters were actually allowed to be interesting as opposed to boy scouts.

The final nail in the coffin for Star Trek was Babylon 5, which I think is arguable the best Sci Fi show ever concienved. The author wrote all five seasons out before filming any of the show, and the plot questions revolve around deep philosophical questions, leading up to a great galactic war. The future depicted in B5 isnt a communist utopia but it is clearly progressive, rational, and heroic, and definately not communist. But more than that, the charachters undergo significant growth and change throughout the course of the series, some you start out hating but end up really liking, some go through grand epiphanies, some see their people enslaved. Things that happen in one episode remain relevant to all other episodes, yet each episode is self contained as well. Unlike star trek where soething that happens in one episode is completely disconnected from every other Episode. In B5, JMS (the writer) had a story and a message he wanted to tell, in Star Trek liberal english socialist writers merely sat around tables thinking "ok what are we going to have happen this week?!"

Hmmm.... I would think that Objectivists would be much more averse to B5. (I am not an O'ist.) The series tends to have a very positive portrayal of religion, especially with the quote "Faith and Reason are like the shoes on your feet, you go further with both then just one."

I agree that B5 was helped by its intricate plot but its not a perfect show. A lot of Season 1 is simply unwatchable and there are a lot of episodes which need to be watched for the plot but are just not that good, like "Walkabout."

There are some very boring characters as well like Sinclair. Even Sheridan is not that engaging. The best three characters were probably Ivanova, G'kar, and Londo. Garibaldi is alright but spends a lot of time just being grumpy. Lennier and Delen are cool though I have always felt that her courtship with Sheridan was rather bland.

Also, although I do love the general over-arching ark in B5 (which has since been a model used very well in Battlestar Galactica) I do think that there is a benefit to having an episodic series. The entire original Star Trek was entirely episodic but that did not make it less of a good show.