I have noted, mostly on the Ancient Geeks podcast, my frustration with some of the criticisms of new Star Trek. This is not to say, as I have also noted, that all criticisms are off the table, but there as certain genres of critiques that I find not only annoying, but also just poorly constructed. A recent example came to my attention via Yahoo News from the website Giant Freakin Robot, Star Trek Is Dying And Paramount Doesn’t Get How To Save It.
Side note: I have a vaguely negative impression of GFR (I seem to recall a lot of rumor-driven “news” from the site a while back), and this piece didn’t help that view.
What is “Dying” Anyway?
Let’s start with the title: asserting that Star Trek is “dying” seems rather at odds with the fact that there is currently one show airing, Strange New Worlds, and another in active production, Starfleet Academy, as well as an announcement just yesterday of a kids’ cartoon, Star Trek: Scouts.
To which I give this geeky reference.
If having three Trek properties in production at one time, with four other recent shows having recently finished production, is “dying,” then I am not sure what we would call, say, Trek in 1970.
I always find it frustrating when people conflate their opinion of something and the overall health and reception of that something.
Dead to Thee?
The first paragraph gives away the “argument,” however.
I’m done with modern Star Trek. It is barely even recognizable as the thing it used to be and I don’t think there is any internal interest at Paramount to ever go back to that. The franchise is barrelling forward with gimmicky crap like puppets in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and vapid faux-prequel schlock with Starfleet Academy. Whatever Star Trek is nowadays is not remotely what made it so beloved the world round.
So, the author (Drew Dietsch) doesn’t like modern Trek. That, of course, is a fair position. We are all entitled to our opinions. But it is hard to take seriously judgments based on one publicity still (puppet Pike) and one trailer (Starfleet Academy).
The puppet thing may prove to be ridiculous and even poorly done, but that assessment needs more than a still. I will agree that SNW leans a bit more into the silly than I would prefer, but it also has provided solid episode this season such as Terrarium and and The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail, and I would like more of those than of the Wedding Bell Blues variety, but on balance I find SNW to be entertaining and I think that the short seasons are as much the problem as anything else. I do pine for the days of 24-episode seasons of Trek.
Full disclosure: I liked the musical episode, so who am I to judge?
Speaking of the Good Ole Days
In my previous piece on our Substack, and in our episode about fan service, Tom and I talked about nostalgia, although mostly of the call-back variety. Dietsch’s position is very much nostalgia-driven, but really the kind that wants a bygone era to return in ways that are impossible.
For example.
You want to know one reason Star Trek: The Next Generation did so well and made such an impact? Because it ran in broadcast syndication. It was easily available to folks on their TVs. The barrier of entry was practically nil. Now, if you ain’t already part of the Paramount club, what real incentive do you have to check out a new Star Trek show if it means paying into it without the ability to check it out?
To be blunt, and with the risk of sounding rude, but this is absurd. Linear television is all but dead save for live sports. See, for example, this recent Pew Research Center study: 83% of U.S. adults use streaming services, far fewer subscribe to cable or satellite TV.
Quite frankly, we have new Star Trek because of the need for streaming services to generate reasons to attract subscribers. Trek was definitely a reason I first subscribed to CBS All Access, which became Paramount+. No one is going to find a TV on syndication on a local independent TV station. That time passed a long, long time ago. And note: Voyager and Enterprise were on the Paramount Network, so syndicated Trek stopped with DS9—although IIRC in markets with no UPN station, those shows may have been syndicated.
FWIW, Paramount has put some new Trek on YouTube and broadcast TV, and you can catch some new Trek on PlutoTV. So, there are free options. Still, I doubt many people are just randomly encountering Trek in this manner. It isn’t how TV works these days.
Linear/broadcast is dying, and streaming is here to stay.
If Dietcch thinks people under 50 are channel surfing and are going to just stumble upon Trek that way, he needs to go hang out with twenty-year-olds. They barely understand the concept of “channels” and almost certainly do not channel surf.
Dietsch also bemoans that Trek’s producers may be seeking out new audiences (I think it is because of Starfleet Academy).
Star Trek products aren’t made for actual adults anymore. They have become consumed by the same brand virus as Star Wars: an aging property that needs to remain relevant for capitalistic reasons, and needs to rope in a new generation of consumers. Because of this, the Star Trek offerings we’ve gotten in this decade have all been made purposefully accessible to younger viewers in an effort to nab them for life.
This has had a chilling effect on the franchise’s potential to tell certain kinds of stories. Paramount is not really interested in placating older fans or even older viewers in general. Their clear mission directive has been to generate new fans. I can’t actually tell if that’s working on a macro scale, but it doesn’t help that Star Trek is now a franchise locked away behind a streaming service.
This just in: all producers of all content want more eyeballs on their content! Yes, Trek wants new and younger views. I recognize they want to keep old fans, too, but really, they need the new fans more. I mean, speaking as an Ancient Geek, it does not surprise me that Paramount would rather snag someone 40 or more years younger than me with their programming. On the one hand, sure, I have more disposable income now than when I was younger, but if Paramount just placates people my age, then at some point the franchise (like me) will die.
Morbid observations aside, it is weird to me that anyone could complain that Trek’s producers aren’t trying to appeal to old fans. Discovery and SNW are prequels. Picard was a sequel to 90s Trek, with season 3 being a TNG reunion. Prodigy has a lot of Voyager in it. Even Starfleet Academy is bringing back Robert Picardo’s holographic Doctor.
Will no one think of the old fans?
Back to Dietsch.
The franchise is effectively dead for me, but even outside of my own feelings, Star Trek feels more niche with every passing day. As a kid, I loved watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad. I didn’t need all the flash and zazz that Star Trek now regularly employs for its projects. But I guess kids are stupider today.
Again, he is more than entitled to his opinion, but Trek being dead to him versus it being a dying property are two very different things. But, weirdly, watching Trek in the now is never going to be like watching it as a kid was. Demanding that kind of nostalgia buzz seems unreasonable to me.
But, nice dig at kids these days!
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In my opinion, Dietsch is way too young to be shaking his fist at the clouds and bemoaning the good old days.
Of course, he might be hoping to hook in some readers who are old enough and want to have their opinion validated by some rando, I mean journalist, on the internet.
And of course, there's the whole "hate click" revenue model.