Ever encounter something you remember, that's nothing like you remember?

[capri0mni]

Audrey's in her room, watching a DVD of Deep Space Nine (just the other end of a very short hallway from this office). I'm kinda half-eavesdropping. I remember liking it a lot, years ago, when I watched it during its first broadcast run (I haven't watched it since, that I remember).

I recognize the voices of the main characters, and the theme (and incidental) music, but ...

Commander Sisko is sounding a lot more authoritarian and quicker to bellow than I remember. As a matter of fact, every character is sounding rather shouty to me, from this end of the hall.

And I can't remember if I even noticed that aspect, back in the day. And if I did, if it grated on my nerves the way it does now...

But it does remind me that the whole Star Trek universe is built around the quasi-military establishment of The Federation.

{sigh}

Comments

[dialecticdreamer]

I've noticed that I cannot re-watch certain shows at all without wondering where my BRAIN was while I was "enjoying" it the first time through. Honestly, I think it was definitely the case that I was being more passive "audience" than I am now, and that I've matured quite a lot in the last five years. My perceptions of the same show are different because I'm in a different mental and emotional space now.

[capri0mni]

My perceptions of the same show are different because I'm in a different mental and emotional space now.

*Nod* Yes. This.

Also, I think that one of the primary reasons I enjoyed any of the shows I enjoyed back then (20 years ago -- eep!), was because of how each stood out against the popular culture background of the time.

When I was watching DS9 (I do not think I even stuck around to watch its full seven year broadcast run), it was years before I encountered the fanfiction community, and all its alternate ways of telling stories, nor was I aware of much of SF from other cultures (Apart from the Doctor Who that had been exported to my television). So it was a relative bright spot against a very dingy and limited pallette; let's say it was a medium-dark mustard yellow against a very nearly black background of rust and charcoal. It's still that same medium-dark mustard, but now it's against a background of much brighter colors all across the visible spectrum, so now, it looks "blech."

One thing in particular that I enjoyed was that there was at least an attempt to show cultural diversity -- not all people from Planet X were the same, and that was a positive development.

Trek, in particular

[dialecticdreamer]

Trek began for me before I started preschool; I watched reruns with my mother. At the time, it was outstandingly different; women of color with REAL responsibility and authority, mixed cultural and ethnic identities, a largely-exploratory mission rather than the war-focused seventies or profit-focused eighties, et cetera.

But, when Rodenberry died, the (oh, do I HOPE they were a small cadre) MINORITY of people charting the direction of the universe also happened to be in extremely powerful positions. Which lead directly to the war with the Dominion in DS9 in particular. And that moment, well, that's the moment when Trek became just another hobby, rather than a deep and abiding passion.

Yes, the Federation ships were structured in military fashion in terms of authorities, duties, uniforms, et cetera, but I think that only served as a unifying framework, rather than the crushing /military/ element it became after the first season of DS9.

Cisco was actually the commander I liked least, for the reasons you cited plus his general "I know best" sheer SMUGNESS.

One of the reasons I'm giving the 2009 reboot any of my time or money is that I think there's SOME pull back toward "peaceful explorers in a harsh universe" -- Khan and Admiral Marcus were shown as /horrifically abberrant/ rather than "command as usual."

Re: Trek, in particular

[capri0mni]

Heh. Trek also started for me before preschool; I watched it because both my parents were fans, and self-identified with its overt leftist culture. My personal name for the show was "Scare Trek," which I've previously written about, here. I was too young/unsophisticated to appreciate all of the outstanding cultural nuances you bring up until I started watching the reruns when I was a teenager (so when we were watching at about the same time :-)).

After I wrote that poem, I did a web search to see if I could find the specific episode I remember most clearly from my earliest exposure -- at least, that's when I remember actually telling my dad, when he tried to reassure me that it was just a story, that I wasn't scared of the monsters, but the guns. It was The Devil in the Dark, and I do remember being impressed that, at least, that one time, the "monsters" turned out to be the good guys -- sorta.

But the next time a related species shows up in a story (The Savage Curtain, 1968), the crew of the Enterprise is forced to enact war games, so that the concepts of "Good" and "Evil" can be studied 'scientifically'... and the ambassadors who take a chance on working out a peace treaty are entrapped and killed, and the explicit moral is: "...that evil runs off when forcibly confronted."

So, I think that the militaristic seeds were there even in ST:TOS, during Roddenberry's reign.

[spiralsheep]

I grew up on (mostly fourth) Doctor Who, and original Star Trek, and Blake's 7 (in which the baddies are a military dictatorship called the Federation, who wear Star Fleet-a-like insignia), so my reactions to military SF, even Babylon 5, have always been informed by the anarchistic worldviews of Who and Blake's 7. I often wished I could like Trek more.

[capri0mni]

It certainly would be easier to be if I could be enthusiastic about those cultural markers that are ubiquitous -- like the Trek-'verse and the Buffy-verse.

What gets me (Confused? Bemused? Amused?) now is thinking about how the whole Trek-'verse has this reputation in the States (and perhaps around the world?) for being this bastion of Leftie, Peacenik, philosophy. Because, of course, it started in the 1960s, had POC good guys on screen, and its creator self-promoted himself in that light. And we just sort of took him at his word.

I still find parts of Trek amusing, but now, it's more like being amused at a kids' talent show: cheering them on for their earnestness and effort, and their clear desire to make something nifty.

[spiralsheep]

Roddenberry certainly benefitted from only having an incredibly low bar to cross in order to look good by comparison with the US cultural mainstream, in both TV and SF.

I enjoyed some Buffy as early evening entertainment at the time, because it's clearly set in a parallel fantasy verse, although that's not what TPTB presumably intended. If I had to think about it as set in a contemporary California then the cognitive dissonance would be painful.

[capri0mni]

If I had to think about it as set in a contemporary California then the cognitive dissonance would be painful.

heh-heh. Just thinking about contemporary (Hollywood), period, creates painful cognitive dissonance, for me.