1000% This.

1000% this.

1) keep the budget of the modern shows BUT allocate them across those 20+ episodes; make everything less shiny and high tech! Bring back the cheesy sets! “Hey we blew the budget on the big space hand in episode 11 so now at least seven of these episodes are gonna take place outside or in a room” AND THATS FINE!! That would totally be okay!!

2) Bring back modern scifi writers?! Are you kidding me?! That would be brilliant!!

Martha Wells.

N. K. Jemisin

Nnedi Okorafor

Charlie Jane Anders

Becky Chambers

Elaine U. Cho

Valerie Valdes

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Fuck it, get Chuck Tingle and Grant Morrison too!! I’d kill to watch a Star Trek episode or two-parter or anything by these writers!!

3) Nu Trek definitely has the feeling of being pure escapism now. Even when Discovery or SNW or even Picard try to do something outwardly political it doesn’t really work. Maybe it’s the studio or executives, maybe it’s the low episode count preventing more risks in storytelling. I don’t know. But at least try.

4) An unfortunate side effect of the mid 2000s’ boom of grounded, gritty, and more realistic storytelling meant that things couldn’t be silly anything more. Everything has to be realistic now. And the Marvelification of Hollywood has only brought that idea to the edge, where most of the silliness inherent in comics are wholly and completely removed from the movies and shows.

We can be afraid to be silly. It’s fine to be silly. Star Trek, while maybe not originally intended, IS SILLY. And yet from out of that silliness has come a franchise that in many forms stands the test of time. When we allow our pride and egos to step aside and embrace camp, amazing things can happen.

“return to old trek,” but it’s the return of 20+ episode seasons, of bringing contemporary scifi writers to write episodes, of doing social commentary so acute it blasts the “it’s just escapism” argument to bloody bits, and most important, the return of silly costumes and camp