Star Trek Is Repeating A Decades-Old Mistake

Written by Chris Snellgrove | Published 42 seconds ago

One of the most interesting aspects is nominally Starfleet Academy is that the series centers around Caleb, an escaped and lifelong criminal who must now rebuild his life as the Federation’s newest space cadet. It’s a provocative background, and one that has many fans believing that Caleb is completely unique in the franchise’s mythology. However, it’s simply Trek’s latest attempt to turn its main character into a “bad boy,” and those attempts have failed since the film’s 1995 premiere. Star Trek: Voyager.

As a franchise, Star Trek has always had bad boys, but they were usually charismatic villains (like Khan in his first appearance) or powerful heroes (like Roja Danar). with VoyagerParamount experimented with the franchise first by making convicted criminal and Starfleet traitor Tom Paris a member of the bridge crew. It was a pretty cool idea on paper, and the fact that Barris was played by former Trek bad boy Robert Duncan MacNeil (he played a rebel) Starfleet Academy Student at The next generation) was just the cherry on top. Unfortunately, this character was never able to live up to her potential because of the method Voyager It was written.

We’ll always have (Tom) Paris

The general hypothesis of Voyager is that the titular ship has launched halfway across the galaxy, and in order to survive, Starfleet officers must blend in with Chakotay’s rebellious Maquis officers. Barriss is someone who was kicked out of Starfleet, worked briefly with the Maquis, and then was thrown into prison after being captured. Captain Janeway breaks him out of prison so he can help her track down his former employers, but a god-like alien ends up hurling Voyager and Chakotay’s Maquis into the Delta Quadrant.

All of this is a nominal recipe for real tension, with Star Trek’s bad boy, Tom Barris, right in the middle. As a sarcastic and conniving ladies’ man, he is the exact opposite of Starfleet’s Captain Janeway idealism. But he is also so reckless that he often clashes with Chakotay, who has been appointed first officer. In this way, Paris starts out as someone who annoys both of the senior officers on the ship, so he seemed destined for more brutal bad boy antics after that first episode.

However, Voyager The writers took a page out of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s book: they didn’t really want any conflict (especially constant conflict) between the main characters, so Starfleet officers and the Maquis started getting along almost immediately. As for Paris, he almost immediately turned into someone who wanted to make Space Mama Janeway proud with his skills as a helmsman. All the trace elements of the bad boy’s origin story were gone, and the only things left that really defined Tom Paris were that he loved to tell jokes and have sex, making him the dollar store version of William Riker.

The new bad boy takes center stage

While you could argue that Michael Burnham was Star Trek’s first true bad Girl (After all, discovery follows her story through her discharge from the service, imprisonment, and then becoming Captain of Starfleet), and it’s safe to say that the franchise didn’t try to create another bad boy until… Picard. This show was presented by Cristobel Rios, a former Starfleet captain whose captain killed two innocent droids on mysterious orders. After helping to cover up the crime and later explaining the captain’s suicide, Rios was kicked out of the fleet and began running around the galaxy in a ship filled with 3D versions of himself, all with different personalities.

Rios had some elements of Tom Paris in him, such as a dark past with Starfleet, but he had more of a general bad boy aesthetic. For example, this bearded villain loved to chew cigars and sip brandy, and enjoyed declaring how rebellious he was towards characters like Picard. He was also somewhat of an artistic bad boy and enjoyed discussing existential philosophy with Picard when they weren’t busy saving the galaxy.

Unfortunately, Rios more or less stopped being a bad boy once he started working for Jean-Luc Picard; He previously believed his former commander to be a father figure, and later transferred these feelings to Picard. After their misadventures in the first season, Rios stopped trying to be a space pirate and became a captain in Starfleet. This was supposed to be part of a rewarding arc for the character (see, he’s come to terms with his trauma and gotten his life back!)

Sexy rebel with a tragic past

Now, in Starfleet AcademyIt’s Happening Again: The main character, Caleb, has his mother kidnapped by Starfleet at a young age, and he becomes a criminal in his lifelong attempt to find her. He’s introduced to us as a bad boy with unruly hair who’s not afraid to get dirty, making him seem like a character straight out of your wife’s favorite romantic fantasy book. However, Holly’s character Hunter soon recruits him into Starfleet Academy, where the carrier immediately gives him a boring uniform and structured haircut.

He’s still nominally supposed to be the show’s bad boy, but unfortunately he’s written out as a template for this show’s main audience: whiny teenagers. He whines about having to wear a uniform, gets bullied by a bullshit teacher, and is generally depressed about all things Starfleet for his Hunter character. But the first episode makes it clear that he’ll follow in Paris and Rios’ footsteps by trying to become an exemplary Starfleet officer in order to impress his older father figure (at one point, he even had to remind Hunter’s character that she’s not his mother).

From rebel to class clown

Caleb is the type of character who will become a better man because he wants to be what Hunter’s character sees him as. This is rather ambitious, and we should all be so lucky to have people in our orbit who inspire us toward greatness. But all of that instantly evaporates Caleb’s cool factor, and he goes from being the suave former runaway to a class clown with a heart of gold in the space of one. day.

Long story not remotely short? The Star Trek writers were taking Freudian pills for it Contractsand they continue to destroy bad boy characters because they are not satisfied with being allowed to be bad. The writers want to redeem these characters, and they’ve collectively decided that the best way to do that is to give these newbies to the franchise mommy or daddy issues and then turn the older officer into the surrogate parent they want to please.

Mother Issues: The Final Frontier

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Star Trek characters having the kinds of psychological issues that people have in real life, so mommy/daddy issues aren’t necessarily Which away. But it’s weird that this has been a narrative crutch for decades of storytelling, and even weirder that Trek keeps giving us bad boys and then refuses to let them be bad. For example, what’s the point of creating an exciting rebel character when they become a yes man whenever they get the chance to please their commanding officer?

Starfleet Academy We had the opportunity to do something new and exciting with the character of Caleb, making him someone we haven’t really seen in this franchise. However, by the end of the first episode, he stopped being a bad boy and became Zack Morris with mommy issues. Rather than spend a few more decades making the same mistake with would-be villains, I have a simple request for Star Trek writers: Could you please talk to your parents instead of taking your issues out on the public with this awful writing?