Well, I don’t usually slow down to gawk at highway auto accidents, but I couldn’t resist craning my neck at this week’s iteration of the slow-motion train wreck that has been Strange New Hair, despite my having resolved to stop watching it.
At first I was quite seduced by it, and very pleasantly surprised at the starkness of the moral dilemma this week’s episode presents. I was ready to sing its praises.
Then I got here, saw
the above posted article, read it, and despaired. The reviewer is bang-on. I’d never heard of Le Guin’s story, though certainly I know of her and I’ve seen the old adaptation of The Lathe of Heaven.
So here I was ready to give the writer’s room some rare praise, only to discover I’d been duped by an ugly ripoff that does exactly what I’ve been persistently complaining about—present all of the TOS trappings, with none of the substance. “Like Trelane’s food,” as Rob put it.
“It is similar to how Voyager and the first two seasons of Enterprise told these stories, treating Star Trek as an aesthetic rather than as an actual object.”
Indeed.
I disagree with the article, though, in hanging the whole thing on Pike. He does try to stop events at the crucial moment when he discovers, too late, just what is being done. Unfortunately, though, the ending leaves him deprived of agency, which is just the sort of hero-emasculation that modern writers seem to really love to do, and something Kirk would never have sat still for.
The article is right—this isn’t just weak writing. It’s a shocking descent into immorality, on a par with the obscenity that was the Tuvix episode of Voyager.
Well, at least The Offer was great.
www.escapistmagazine.com
