What Will's (not) Watching

Star Trek-Picard: We didn't watch it, but Red Letter Media did:

The guys argue that Star Trek is being produced and written by people who don't watch Star Trek. Because it's 2020 and Hollywood is Woke, the show's writers are holding up a mirror to society. Hacks.

Gene Roddenberry had a vision.  Star Trek is a post-modern utopia. That's the point. Now, we can argue if that's good or bad, but that's the point. 

Woke Trek

Via Ace, Patrick Stewart says Star Trek: Picard will be totally woke:

The new “Star Trek” series starring Sir Patrick Stewart isn’t being explicitly billed as “woke,” but it seems the series’ star, who will reprise his role as the legendary Enterprise captain, Jean-Luc Picard, believes “Star Trek: Picard” will have a message for anti-immigrant leaders and global isolationists. The series will have a “more pessimistic take” on Starfleet, the quasi-military arm that handles discovery, research, and, generally, law enforcement duties for the United Federation of Planets, according to Newsweek. Stewart described the fictional organization, now years past the events of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and the subsequent Star Trek films, as hopelessly corrupt and cruelly “isolationist” in the face of a galactic refugee crisis.

Ok, ok, original Star Trek took on the race issue once, and TNG would ask viewers to consider modern issues, but always did so in a non-preachy, non-obnoxious way.

Do these people even understand Star Trek? Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek is supposed to be hopeful. The Federation is a utopia where mankind has evolved into a more perfect being. This is a world in which one wants to live. That's the whole point.

If one wants space pessimism, one should watch The Expanse. Would anyone want to be a citizen of the UN's Earth, where half the planet is unemployed? Actually, we haven't even been able to get through Season 4, Episode 1. So far it feels like an episode...of Star Trek.