Even good-faith non-haters of Discovery and Picard were like “enough with the grimdark already” after a couple of seasons—and look at the Star Trek slate now:
Discovery is an LGBTQ safe space where the computer’s your friend and everyone gets free therapy;
Picard S2 was a fever-dream mashup of “Tapestry” (TNG), “Past Tense” (DS9), the One with the Whales, and “Unimatrix Zero” (VOY), if you took all the lesbian subtext in “Unimatrix Zero” and made it actual, literal text;
Lower Decks, a whole-ass sitcom which also feels like a genuine sequel series to TNG, my ultimate comfort watch;
Prodigy is arguably the darkest series they’ve got going right now, and that’s literally an animated show for kids;
Strange New Worlds, which isn’t afraid to get dark, but which is even less afraid to get silly.
And… I think we won, y’all. We said “Star Trek, please lighten the fuck up”—and it did. At this point I’m almost willing to let Michelle Yeoh’s Section 31 series have a few war crimes—you know, as a treat. 😈️
I do not want my fantasy media to be realistic. I want my fantasy media to be convincing.
ok but like. space shanties.
there’s a thing that should definitely be a thing in sci-fi.
I truly am obsessed with how Knives Out was like. Hello Daniel Craig, man who has spent the past two decades of his career being alternately beaten up and objectified playing an action hero with no personality. Would you like to please put on a shirt and an incomprehensible vaguely Texan accent and flex your character acting dark comedy muscles as well as your pecs for a while. And he's like BOY WOULD I and they made a work of art. Also love that they put Chris Evans in sweaters. Get your beefcakes then dress them nice make them soft and give them some bonkers character work to do it's what cinema needs more of
"You are the dreamer... and the dream."
Alien trading cards, 1979