obviously, i'm biased in a big way, but you'd think all star trek fans would be biased in the same way, and apparently they're totally not, because i loved starfleet academy and i guess a lot of fans didn't?
so here's why i think the current trend of hate-campaigning a show you don't like is for small-spirited people. i saw a lot of social media comments while the show was on saying, "i kept hearing how bad starfleet academy was, but then i watched it and it's really pretty good, actually." and i'm betting for every one of those comments, there was somebody who heard it was bad and didn't watch.
which means the hate-campaigning suppressed the viewership, right? did it suppress the viewership by a lot, or by a little? who knows. but what i do know is, the hate-campaigning relied on dishonesty and caused some fans to cheat themselves out of a show they would have enjoyed. maybe it even caused enough people to avoid tuning in that the show's cancellation might have been avoided otherwise.
now what do i mean, it relied upon dishonesty? i don't mean that there was no reason to find any fault with the show. it's a star trek show, guys. you can find fault with every season of every one of them, if that's what floats your shuttlecraft. i also don't mean that it's not okay to speak up if a show isn't your thing.
but the number of people out there calling it "terrible" and full of "awful writing and characters" was nuts. you want to say, "it did nothing for me, and i hate having a star trek show do nothing for me," step right up and say that. also okay is, "i was so disappointed that they did this show about young people instead of a mature show like i wanted based on picard season 3." more power to you, even though picard season 3 was way dumber than starfleet academy.
what's not okay is to say it was terrible and awful and a sin against star trek and absolutely worthless. because nobody who knows anything about writing and has watched a lot of star trek can reasonably reach that conclusion. maybe you loved tos or tng to pieces. maybe ds9 was totally your thing and you thought voyager was even better. and then along comes starfleet academy and you hate it compared to those ones.
that's super!
only you aren't hating it because it's terrible writing. you're hating it because it's not as good as you want it to be, and it doesn't do what you want it to do. how do i know this? because i watched all those other shows too, and the average writing quality on their first seasons (except season 1 tos) didn't even come close to the average writing quality of star trek overall. i love those shows! but their first seasons? lots of lame-o writing. even tos, if you look at the biggest stinkers of season 1, had at least one episode way worse than any of the starfleet academy episodes. (i'm looking at you, "the alternative factor.")
i think a lot of people, if they were being honest and if they took an honest look at the writing in other trek shows, could certainly say, "i hate that i don't love it," or "i hate that it's got such a different tone," or even, "i hate that it's not up to snuff with the best trek, because by now people ought to have learned from the best trek episodes how to do trek at its best all the time." you could even reasonably say, "i hate that it's mediocre television."
but it's not awful and it doesn't have terrible characters, even if none of the characters appealed to you personally. and by spreading that kind of judgment around when it really isn't true, you hurt some of your fellow star trek fans. you convinced some of them not to watch a show they might have enjoyed. and you contributed to the cancellation of a show many people obviously did enjoy.
and if you know that and you're proud of it, you're kind of a bad person. sorry, but you are.
around here, we thought picard season three was crazy dumb. parts of it were super-fun anyway, and it was great to see the old crew get back together, but holy moley did the characters just do the dumbest stuff right and left all season long. i had to elbow msg sometimes because he groaned too loud about the worst moments.
but did anybody around here go online and rant about any of that dumbness?
no.
because what we were seeing other fans post was beautiful. suddenly, for the first time in years, the bulk of the social media discussion about a star trek show was actually people going on and on about enjoying it. they obviously weren't noticing all the dumb stuff ... and that was okay! seeing other star trek fans happy made us happy.
be bigger people, okay? if you don't like it, say you don't like it. but admit to yourself that not liking it doesn't automatically mean it's the worst writing ever, so ditch the exaggeration and just talk about your opinion like it's your opinion and not like it's the unbiased verdict of the cosmic deity of all good writing. don't talk about it like your low opinion of the show means the show's creators are bad people who weren't even trying. anybody who's done a lot of writing knows it's hard. even writers who've done a decent amount of it turn out stinkers from time to time. you being disappointed doesn't mean the writer wasn't sincerely putting in a lot of effort.
okay, beaming up from my soapbox now.
live long and prosper!
claire
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