So I do like Star Trek a lot, especially TNG, DS9, and Below Decks. Voyager and TOS are fine. Space socialism is pretty good and I can’t get enough of it. There are a few common tropes that irk me. tho.
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Baseball is cracker Amerikkkan nonsense - You telling me that all these different species and planets get together to chill, and the vibe they’re gonna channel is Ohio?? Football (soccer) or some version of hockey make a lot more sense, you can pick up and start playing immediately. I can’t imagine Worf wanting to learn all those pointless rules about balls and strikezones and fowls. Sisko is arguably the best captain of any series, and I really get pulled out of an episode every time he drops some awful baseball trivia. It’s only slightly better than Nascar. I actually know one Scottish person who really likes baseball, and he’s literally the worst person I know.
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The tribunal - It’s so damn common. It seems like every season there’s got to be a court-martial, hearing, or appeal against a Starfleet decision. I guess Law and Order is big there. It’s probably a minor critique, but it does reinforce the ideology that Western courtrooms are fair.
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Kirk is a sex pest - This has been said to death, but leave your subordinates alone.
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Poker in TNG - Poker has to be the worst form of entertainment, and I genuinely like maths. I blame TNG for reigniting the poker craze of the 90s and ruining all my guy friends’ personalities.
The only art-forms that are talked about are ‘high’ art-forms. Operas, symphonies, poetry and the like. Does nobody in the federation make pop music? Are there no holodeck programs that are considered art?
Lower decks again, but the cast does make a micheal bay-esque movie in the holo deck
Voyager actually had an entire running subplot of Paris liking cheesy b-movies.
He was “fascinated with the 20th century”
They brought it up all the time, like that episode where they met Amelia Earhart or when they went back in time to 1997 Los Angeles.
There’s that weird chuchu band in lower decks. When they added the third chu it was crazy
And Klingon Acid Punk
They’re also ‘Public Domain’ art forms. There are holo-novels that seem to be as respected as normal novels are now. I think part of the reason in universe is that you only really see this on tng and Voyager, on TNG it’s the diplomatic flagship so operas and classical concerts are probably regularly scheduled entertainment on the off chance they’re transporting some stuffed shirted asshole alien diplomat, which happens constantly. So it’s like how you don’t bring a visiting foreign diplomat to a punk show or McDonald’s, you go to an opera and a fancy restaurant. The ship is fucking massive and there’s a lot of crew, so I’m sure people are doing stuff that’s actually fun elsewhere. Like in Lower Decks.