Red Alert Chief O'Brien!

(The red is a reference to the liberal-progressive politics of ST (red's not very accurate, but there are no "pink alerts"))

There's not a bad chance that "In The Spirit of Malcolm X" will be the last large post on N. Ireland that I do, although you can expect small ones something like once a month in response to events, plus I'll probably continue bringing Ireland into almost everything else I talk about (the tourist people there pay me to : )). Although I didn't intend for it to be like this, the "blog" resembles more a web-site, and I think I'm done providing all the large chunks of information about N. Ireland. From now on the posts will probably be about 1,000 words and will be responses to current events, often in the form of comments I make on some other blog, more lyrics and maybe some other stuff as it comes up.

This will be the first of at least two, at some point about seven posts on what is a passion of mine. Although it's accurate to say I'm just short of being a Trekkie/Trekker (there's debate about which is what, and I don't care), I am certainly a Star Trek fan. And there are three Irish connections (YAY!!).

1. At the bottom of my four favorites of the main characters is Miles O'Brien, primarily on DS9, although he was cool on TNG. It's probably true that part of why I like him is that he's Irish. Although in the ST universe this is no biggie, in the 1990s it was still very uncommon for there to be interracial marriages, and he and Keiko make a good couple. In general he's a good guy, but among the main characters in all the series who are Starfleet, I think he might be the most flawed, which I like. Towards the beginning of DS9, he's kind of a jerk to Bashir. Also, although it's mild and the show makes it clear the other characters and Starfleet disapprove, he's kind of an anti-Cardassian bigot.

2. In a TNG episode about what they refer to as "terrorism," it's stated that such struggle resulted in Ireland being united at some point (2024). Although I can't remember how well they discussed the issue of "terrorism" and they probably didn't define it well if at all, they did seem to lean towards approving of how Ireland was united. So much so that the British channel showing ST didn't show that episode originally.

3. I'm adding this because I might, over the course of the next two years or something, do many posts on this (of course in that situation, a second blog might be better, but if I keep it all on the same blog, everyone will see both, and they are connected). As I'll describe further below, there's a lot stuff in ST compatible with the progressive-left politics of this blog. And as far as the republicanism, well, a major theme in DS9 is the Bajoran resistance to Cardassian Occupation (which ends just before that series begins), and there's other things in ST about resistance to national oppression comparable to what has happened in N. Ireland.


This post will be a more general intro to my thoughts about ST, in later posts, maybe MUCH later, I'll go into some more details.

THE ORIGINAL SERIES MOVIES I like, although I'm not so sure about the very first, and "The Voyage Home." My favorite would probably be "The Undiscovered Country."

THE TNG MOVIES "Insurrection" and "First Contact" were good-great, "Generations" was okay-good, "Nemesis" was okay, although I'm not sure how I feel about Data dying.

The latest movie. My timing on wanting to do posts about ST could be better. Probably won't be seeing it anytime soon for various reasons.

UPDATE 3/2/11 I have since seen the new movie. In general I liked it, except for the part where it deviated from ST canon by destroying Vulcan years or decades before events in The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.

THE ORIGINAL SERIES Probably seen each episode an average of once, probably 1/3 of the episodes I haven't seen at all, and most of the total number of viewings (probably about 80) would have been in the 1980s. As you might guess, my least favorite of the series. Not sure why. It's not meant as an attack on Roddenberry, who I give a lot of credit to for starting the thing and for the role he played with making the original movies and TNG and laying the basis for my two favorite series, DS9 and Voyager.

I've also heard that TOS had the nation's first TV inter-racial kiss, and that the first woman of color in space, Dr. Mae Jemison, was inspired to apply to NASA by Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on TOS.

ENTERPRISE My second least favorite series, although it is ST and therefore I'm bummed that it was canceled. Not quite sure why I didn't like it. It was interesting after the three 90s series which focused on one period of the ST universe, to see a very different period- they barely ever used transporters! And the characters were pretty cool.

But the politics were either relatively absent compared to the 90s series, or sometimes not what you would expect from ST. The third season was inspired by 9/11 and although the details are mixed and we can debate, it leaned towards a "Crusade" type response to a terrorist attack on Earth. Also, there was one scene where Archer basically endorses torture. Now, this came up once before, in Voyager, where Janeway uses torture, but in that scene, Chakotay intervenes and later, when she re-instates Chakotay (he was suspended or something for intervening) she acknowledges that he was right and she was wrong. That didn't happen with Archer.

UPDATE 5/2/10
1. I have watched all the ENT episodes since I typed this (it was the 2nd time I'd gone through them, the first being about seven years ago) and I found almost as many bits of progressive politics per episode as I found with Voyager and The Next Generation.
2. I also have become a bigger fan of ENT partly because it shows a technologically different period in Starfleet history (i.e. where they use shuttles more than the transporter) (and it's also before the Federation was formed and when there was tension between humans and vulcans).

I've only seen each episode an average of 2 times, so I think I'll skip some of the details that I'll be going into with the next three series.

UPDATE 3/2/11
I will now look at the main characters on Enterprise as I did with most of the other series. I'll look at the political themes of the series soon, after I have finished watching the series this time around.

Archer- Sometimes he kind of annoyed me, but I pretty much liked him
T'pol- For some reason I didn't like her very much, but it was a good idea to have a woman as 2nd in command. I think my sort of low opinion about her is probably just that I don't like Vulcans that much.
Trip- I like him a lot. He's laid back, has a good sense of humor, etc. Although I sort of like T'pol as 2nd in command, considering that Trip is a Commander in StarFleet, I really like it when he has to take command of the ship.
Malcolm- I don't like him much.
Phlox- I like him. He has a positive, friendly attitude except when something else is called for. for some reason I think he fits in well as an alien.
Hoshi- Sometimes I feel like she is simply the operator, answering the phone- if that were the case, that would be pretty messed up. Although I wish she had more often gone beyond that, she did have the language skills, and often helped with other stuff. I liked her a lot.
Travis- I have feelings about him comparable to those for Hoshi. I think he really could have had some more scenes where he contributes beyond just piloting the ship or the shuttles.

UPDATE 5/23/11 One last component about ENT. The following political issues came up (this is not an exhaustive list) :

Internment, overwhelmingly based on race (Detained)

AIDS and homophobia (Stigma)

Bigotry and racial oppression (North Star)

Genetic engineering (Borderlands, Cold Station 12, and The Augments)

Religious discrimination (The Forge, Awakening, and Kir'Shara)

Xenophobia (Demons and Terra Prime)


THE NEXT GENERATION In second place as far as series go. The first 2-3 seasons sucked, but after that it got pretty good, although, as I'll explain shortly, the remaining two series would still be ahead even if the first 2-3 seasons were better. I've seen each episode probably about three times on average

A fair amount of liberal-progressive politics- anti-homophobia, political witch-hunts, sexism, refugees, others (it's been about four years since I've watched and currently don't have the money to go through the series, so I'm looking at the one sentence descriptions on startrek.com and using my memory, and am probably forgetting about seven issues that came up as MINOR themes in episodes).

Anti-homophobia- see below.

Political witch-hunts- "Drumhead" is about that.

Sexism- "Angel One" is about a matriarchal society- good idea ladies, give us a taste of our own medicine.

Refugees- "Ensign Ro" The Bajorans, still under Cardassian occupation, are introduced.

Although they were okay-good, Picard and Riker were not my favorites compared to their counter-parts in the other 90s series- in fact, I might almost like Archer and T'Pol from Enterprise more. There was just something annoying about them.

Characters (besides Picard and Riker)
Data- Very good character, although not so much at first, but I think that after a bit I started to really like him.
Geordi LaForge- Basically the same as with Data.
Worf- My feelings about characters towards the beginning of the series might reflect what I said about first 2-3 seasons. But I think I like Worf more than most of the rest. The first Klingon in Starfleet.
Dr. Beverly Crusher- More or less average.
Deanna Troi- I liked her a lot more when they got her out of the civilian, sort of sexy outfit (I've read she was supposed to look sexy, but it more or less didn't work on me, which tells me it was pathetic- I mean, Sirtis is good-looking, but that outfit did nothing but annoy me) and into something more formal, usually her uniform (she was an officer and a counselor). After that, she was pretty cool.
Natasha Yar- since I had almost no choice but to bring this up with Sirtis, Crosby is very good looking (basically all the ST women are, more or less, my favorites are the two Daxes (de Boer and Farrell) and of course Jeri Ryan). I've got mixed feelings about her dying, she was okay, probably would have been better but she died before the show improved.
Dr. Katherine Pulaski- I'd be happier if she hadn't been on the show at all, thank god it was only one season.
Wesley Crusher- In general, I didn't like him.

DEEP SPACE NINE Tied with Voyager as my favorite series. In general, it's possible that independent of anything else, the stories in this series were the best of all the series. It doesn't hurt that since they are partly limited to the area of Bajor and Cardassia, events in one episode frequently come up later, which somehow makes it an even better series- it's neat when some thing or someone pops up again after a season or two, and when the actions in one season have consequences later. Also, it had probably most of the darkest episodes of all the series, and also probably more humor than any other series (usually the dark episodes didn't have much humor, and there were about seven episodes that were mostly light-hearted/funny, and in any case it worked very well). I've seen each episode an average of three times.

Sisko is tied with Janeway as my favorite Captain (although he starts out as a Commander, which is weird). It might be partly because of everything else that I like about the series, and partly because he's black, but he's a pretty cool character in general.

Kira Nerys, although not Starfleet, is second in command, and she's pretty cool, but not my favorite among her counter-parts, she's probably in 2nd place. But she is a very interesting, good character. Her background as a freedom fighter and her religion/spirituality contribute to what an interesting character she is.

(I say that partly because I'm a little annoyed that among the Federation humans, religion seems to have disappeared, suggesting that that's part of the development of humanity just like world unity and some kind of socialism. I'm mildly religious and fairly spiritual, and am glad that such themes were prominent with such an important and well liked character)

Some political themes from this series (quite possibly the most political and progressive of all of them) (I'm skipping some for various reasons):

Palestinians- Although at the beginning of the series the Bajorans are newly liberated from the Cardassians, they are basically representing the Palestinians.

Poverty and Homelessness- A two-parter ("Past Tense") looking at the early part of this century on Earth explores how corporate decision-making leads to homelessness, and shows how to NOT deal with the issue of homelessness.

Freedoms- There's one two-parter ("Homefront" and "Paradise Lost") that focuses on maintaining a free society while combating a dangerous enemy.

Unions- "Bar Association" expresses a fair amount of support for labor unions.

Characters

Odo- Very cool. It's interesting to follow his journey of trying to get a better grip on his origin, and how he adjusts to being human, how he relates to the Founders, etc.
Ezri Dax- Very cool. It's cool to see her adjust to being joined, considering she wasn't planning on being joined and it just happened.
Wof- I like him even better on this show.
Jadzia Dax- Great character, especially her relationship with Sisko, and how her relationships/friendships with Bashir and Worf evolve. I guess I'm okay with her dying, especially considering who replaced her.
Jake Sisko- Not sure I liked him so much when he was very young, although even then his friendship with Nog was interesting and something like the last four seasons he was pretty cool.
Quark- Although I obviously often had a lot of problems with what you might call his political views and some ethical stuff, he was not more than 3/4 bad politically and 1/2 bad ethically, and had his moments where he definitely did the right thing. As far as being entertaining, without Quark the show would have been 3/4 as funny as it was.
Dr. Julian Bashir- Great character. His friendship with O'Brien was pretty cool.

VOYAGER Tied with DS9 as my favorite series. In general, the stories were well written, roughly as well as those on DS9. The general story really got to me- stranded so far from home that it might take somewhere around 75 years to get back, people back home don't know what happened, they have a crew much smaller than what they needed. Also, the aspect where the Maquis were integrated into the crew was very interesting. Although it possibly had less darkness than DS9, it had a similar amount of humor, significantly thanks to the Doctor. I saw each episode an average of three times.

Another part of it is that Janeway is tied with Sisko as my favorite Captain. It's more or less the same reasons as with Sisko, although she's a woman, not black.

One more part is that my favorite second in command is Commander Chakotay. Yes, it's partly because he's Native American (as far as I could tell, it wasn't clear what part of the western hemisphere), and the series in general, and he's a cool guy, plus some more. I find the whole thing about the Maquis being integrated into the crew fascinating, and the relationship between him and Janeway is made more interesting because of that. Also, his spirituality, see above about Kira.

Some political themes:

Nuclear power- "Time and Again" is about an accident at what is the alien equivalent of a nuclear power plant.

Bi-racial identity- Torres is half human, half Klingon, and often struggles with those two parts. Obviously it's not completely comparable to being bi-racial, but it's often talked about in a way that is comparable (her human relatives weren't always nice to her).

Genocide- "Remember" looks at how a people who were not culturally fitting in as society changed were simply exterminated and the genocide covered up.

Environmental racism- "Night" looks at environmental racism.

War Crimes- "Memorial" is about war crimes carried out on an alien planet a long time earlier.

Health-Care- "Critical Care" is about the need for health-care to be available based on need not one's position in society.

Characters
B'Elanna Torres- Her personality is a little rough for me, although I'm not complaining, there should be a good diversity of personalities in ST, and hers might be influenced by A) dealing with being half-human, half-klingon, and B) spending a lot of time as a Maquis. Overall, I like her, somewhere towards the top.
Tom Paris- I like how he evolves from not really caring much about Starfleet to being a good officer, he was a good character.
Neelix- Intermittently annoying, although not as bad as, for example, Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars I. Overall a good character.
The Doctor- GREAT character, behind Sisko, Janeway, Chakotay and O'brien, possibly my 5th favorite of all the series. Very funny, and the Hologram thing was pretty neat.
Tuvok- Pretty good character.
Seven of Nine- The transformation from Borg to something almost human is awesome.
Harry Kim- Good character, very committed to doing a good job for Starfleet.
Kes- Didn't like her so much, not unhappy that she left, especially considering who replaced her.


ST IN GENERAL

1. It's not clear, probably because of some degree of political diversity on the subject among the creative staff (they're probably mostly liberals and some progressives, maybe 1-2 socialists and aren't committed to articulating a socialist vision) and because of the commercial aspect of their industry and their desire to not be consigned to the wilderness, but the Federation is more or less socialist. Enrichment is described as no longer a goal, here and there there are other things indicating this (i.e. the way health-care is dealt with). The specifics are not gone into, but it still points in the right direction.

2. Homophobia. There's a good wikipedia article on this (my thoughts on wikipedia can be found in the 3rd note of the "notes" post), I think I'll summarize some of what I know and assume that article is in pretty good shape, I have reason to believe it is) (if the article denounces ST as homophobic or claims that Rodenberry was gay, a better source is here (I haven't read that yet, but what I read in the wiki article about seven months ago provoked my memory and seemed something like 99.9% accurate (the only flaw is what I mention below))).

On one hand, ST has been criticized for not having a single non-heterosexual character, but that's unfortunately not true- I say unfortunately because the two clearly non-hetero-sexual characters they had were the mirror universe Kira and the mirror universe Ezri Dax on DS9- the Kira character was a villain, and the Dax character was sort of a villain. So, anti-homophobic critics of ST, we should be happy, there WERE two LGBT characters... and they were more or less villains. : (

One thing I can say for certain is that the episode "The Outcast" made a pretty powerful anti-homophobic statement. It was about an alien race that was androgynous and didn't like the gender-specific romantic relationship that developed between one of them and Riker. When the alien, Soren is scheduled for some kind of brain-washing as a "cure" for what's "wrong," Soren makes a small speech about how she should be able to love who she wants regardless of sex or gender. It was a very powerful statement.

(I just read the Salon piece. It criticises the episode "The Outcast" because Soren's society is basically the religious right's idea of what feminists and the LGBT movement want, but that society is portrayed negatively in the sense that they persecute people who do have gender (and in Soren's case, are also heterosexual))

There's also a bit of anti-homophobia on DS9 when a female Ferengi who Dax thinks is male tells Dax that she's in love with Quark, and, before Dax learns that the Ferengi is female, she reacts in such a way that it indicates she doesn't think it noteworthy that a man would be in love with a man.

3. Racism. TOS featured the first inter-racial kiss on TV. Racism is completely or almost completely eliminated among humans in the Federation and bigotry among member species of the federation seems very close to non-existent (there's probably a few exceptions that I'm forgetting). Racism between species when at least one is not Federation is common, but always portrayed negatively, for example, the anti-Cardassian bigotry of O'Brien on DS9. There are also lots of inter-species couples and their children.

If you look at the characters who are at least half human and are also main characters, somewhere around 40% are people of color. If you consider that while humans throughout the cultural/racial diversity of humanity would have been in Starfleet (all but two of the people I'm counting were Starfleet), and that ST was primarily an American show, and take the average between the % of the world's population that is people of color, and the same for the US, 40% is only something like 10-15% below what it should be, which is sort of acceptable, when combined with the rest of ST's anti-racism. Also, there's Sisko (20% of Captains) and Chakotay (33% of human/part human second-in-commands) (obviously those two figures kind of drag down the over-all picture).

4. Sexism. Pretty good in some ways, although looking at main characters, it was somewhere around 25% women. 20% of Captains were women. 40% of second-in-commands were women. If you adjust for the way that TODAY women are less likely to join the military (almost all the main characters are Starfleet), it looks okay, or maybe good.