Usually, but I love the optimistic fanfare of the TNG intro, and it has a habit of drawing me in.

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Thanks, and I’m desperately trying… Lol

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This is why I love TNG so much. Even though TOS is the original that laid the groundwork for everything, TNG took that “boundless optimism” and ran with it. Watching TNG inspires me to continue to self-improve and encourage it in others.

Yeah, there’s a singular implied “universal morality” throughout Star Trek of accepting diversity and learning to not impose on other civilizations or each other on the basis of one’s biological differences or culture, even for Klingons! I’d say the rest is hard to define and subjective, as @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website said above, but post-scarcity and free agency in life to follow your passions has to be pretty close!

Ah damn, sorry about the paywall. It let me hit “continue reading” on mobile, but I know sometimes these types of sites can be inconsistent.

It’s just another tired bit about how following orders and perfect institutions are what Star Trek is really about, to hell with any evidence to the contrary.

I’d argue that the theme is less about following orders and more We are all individually flawed and are at our best when we follow our shared values - which is represented by both Starfleet and the utopian setting as a whole.

I can see the argument (for fiction and real life), that as we trust institutions less, our focus becomes more on individual judgement rather than collectivist ideas. It also tracks for me that as this occurs in real life, our media would reflect individualism more and more.

I’ve admittedly still only watched up through the 90s, but I’d definitely say that DS9 depicted a significantly more “morally gray” version of Starfleet than TOS or TNG.

I think the point the author is making is that the extent to which this idea gets explored is reflective of our society’s growing mistrust of institutions IRL, rather than suggesting the theme has never been explored.

This is almost certainly it, but my first thought was that it was just one of those weird alterations that scifi shows/movies do to everday objects to make them look different and futuristic.

The one after that is a classic too! “Is There No Truth In Beauty?”

It’s the 2nd episode guest starring Diana Muldaur (a fan favorite, and Dr. Pulaski in TNG), as Dr. Miranda Jones this time.

Season 3 is where I noticed in my last rewatch that they really dial it up like they were desperate to keep the audience interested. So many love interests, fight scenes, and experimental camera-work. Apparently they also had their budget slashed and one less day to finish each episode.

There are some great episodes in S3, but there are also a few that I wonder what the hell they were thinking, lol.

I hope you enjoy it! Maybe by the time you finish TNG, you’ll have switched “sides”!

Why aren’t we fixing this?!

I’m a big XCOM fan, but I haven’t ever given this game a shot since it was so different. Will have to check it out.

(I also crossposted this to /c/XCOM)

Oh, hey satan