I watched the first episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds yesterday (as of writing this) and it got me thinking about something as it pertains to the TV shows we watch today, particularly science fiction shows and particularly Star Trek since that’s where I primarily experience it, and the cultural ferment we watch them in.
Basically, where did allegory go?
The Star Trek Disclaimer
Since we have to make our position clear on the internet these days for fear of being misinterpreted I should outline my position on Star Trek.
I was a fan of original series films, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and I happily watched Voyager and Enterprise (a show which sadly founds its voice too late). I’ve enjoyed Picard series one, and I like Star Trek: Discovery seasons one and two.
I think Discovery season two is one of the best seasons of Star Trek..period.
I’m less enamoured with Discovery season three and four and Picard season two as I think the writing was weaker. Strange New Worlds shows a lot of promise.
There you go, disclaimer done.
This post contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds series one, episode one.
Where did allegory go?
I enjoyed the first episode of Strange New Worlds and it showed amazing promise. This is good as I’ve been looking forward to the series ever since Pike, Spock and Number One were introduced in Star Trek: Discovery.
There was part of it that really made me think.
The first episode deals with a first contact scenario. A planet has developed a superweapon while at the same time its principles of democratic peace are falling apart and the planet is becoming unstable between extreme political factions and insurrections.
How does Pike divert the planet from its course which might risk one side using the superweapon? He literally shows them Earth history as an example of what not to do. This includes footage from the 6th January insurrection at the United States Capitol.
While Star Trek has referenced literal historic events in its script before and often received an associated backlash because of it, it’s rarely been as literal as this.
Allegory and Star Trek
Star Trek used to tell a lot of its stories through allegory. What’s interesting is whether allegory was done to enhance the storytelling or just to obfuscate the subject matter sufficiently to get past the censors? The truth is both can be true, and the latter raises a point we’ll come back to. What’s important is I believe the use of allegory does enhance storytelling.
Star Trek’s use of allegory is largely a feature of the TV shows and it was used a lot. It can even be argued the whole purpose of Star Trek is to tell an allegoric story of the human condition. In the original series we had A Private Little War, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, This Side of Paradise, A Taste of Armageddon, The Apple, The Cloud Miners, The Omega Glory and Patterns of Force.
The whole of The Undiscovered Country is one big allegory of how two cultures locked in a series of wars, proxy wars and a cold war can or can’t trust each other sufficiently to find peace. Similarly, Deep Space Nine is one big allegory, with the situation surrounding the Bajoran’s being a suitable allegory for a number of situations on Earth and this is why the series ages so well. The allegory behind the premise for the series is still relevant to today. We could keep listing examples such as The Outcast and Measure of a Man in The Next Generation.
The argument is the shows after and including Star Trek: Discovery use allegory a lot less and take a much more literal approach.
The Ideas v The Lecture
I think the shows lose something when they adopt the literal rather than the allegorical. This was certainly the case with the first episode of Strange New Worlds. The episode played out and it was just all a bit ‘so that is that then’. It didn’t make me think. It lacked a certain profundity to make me think. It effectively lectured to me.
I agree on the argument presented in the episode and even I felt like I was just being lectured to. I wasn’t offended by it, it just felt like a weak conclusion to the episode. I was left with no ideas to ponder out of the episode, just a lesson.
That’s the key thing. Does being too literal shift the material from a discussion of ideas to just being lectured to? I think there is an argument for that. This could also be the source of why some, not all, people feel the shows are too political. Not because previous Star Trek shows aren’t political but because they were less literal about it.
Some people disagree, they believe that allegory fails to hold the viewer personally accountable. There is certainly support for this view as you only have to look at the various opinions on the internet to appreciate some people like the more literal approach to storytelling. They don’t want the distance and obfuscation provided by a level of allegory. They want to see things delivered directly with no chance of the watcher getting out of their accountability like they have them skewered on a spike and they have to listen now.
Navigating Themselves
The trouble is I don’t think this literal approach works. If you attempt to just tell them in the hope of people going ‘thank God you told me that I’m going to come to a different conclusion post-haste you’re wasting your time.
People have to reach the conclusion themselves.
It’s true that some people won’t engage with the ideas presented within the allegory. The answer isn’t to strip away the allegory and try and pour on the lecture mixed in with a cocktail of accusatory guilt as the person who isn’t engaging with the ideas presented in the allegory to navigate themselves to a conclusion ain’t going to accept your literal google maps route to your conclusion either.
What they will do is react to it.
Whether we like it or not Star Trek is a science fiction show. It’s not a show in our own world dealing directly with real-world issues at the time they are happening. As a result, there is already a level of abstraction in the storytelling. Trying to pull it back to being more literal to now doesn’t work, the allegory works better even if some people may ignore it.
It also makes your writing weaker. Primarily due to the ideas not being discussed or left for the watcher to interpret, you just get a conclusion. A script that presents layers and depth to fuel ideas so a willing person can navigate to their own conclusions is always going to present better writing than one that just tries to give them an explicit google map to the author’s right answer.
On this basis, you start to see why some people interpret the new shows as having weaker writing.
And, Finally…
I like the new Star Trek shows, but I do believe they are weaker in their writing due to often just telling us, rather than presenting the ideas and concepts and, to some degree, leaving the audience to reach conclusions.
The absence of allegory contributes to this, but isn’t the only reason. The absence of allegory leaves the scripts open to just presenting a conclusion to something rather than the ideas. A lack of allegory can feel like a lecture rather than the presentation of ideas. It also means there tend to be fewer layers in an episode as they don’t have to do the work.
The exact same argument that has people thinking removing allegory means the audience arent let off the hook is the exact same reason some people believe Star Trek shows are more political. The argument that this is good as less people can ignore it is a false one, as those who won’t engage with the ideas via allegory will still not engage with it and react instead.
So, while I like the new shows, it is a case of where is the allegory?