Star Trek Social Club

11554 readers

7 users here now

r/startrek: The Next Generation

Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...

Maybe a little slash fic.

New to Star Trek and wondering where to start?

Rules

1 Be constructive

All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.

2 Be welcoming

It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.

3 Be truthful

All posts/comments must be factually accurate and verifiable. We are not a place for gossip, rumors, or manipulative or misleading content.

4 Be nice

If a polite way cannot be found to phrase what it is you want to say, don't say anything at all. Insulting or disparaging remarks about any human being are expressly not allowed.

5 Spoilers

Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episode. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.

6 Keep on-topic

All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books, etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/Quarks.

7 Meta

Questions and concerns about moderator actions should be brought forward via DM.

Upcoming Episodes

Date	Episode	Title
11-28	LD 5x07	"Fully Dilated"
12-05	LD 5x08	"Upper Decks"
12-12	LD 5x09	"Fissure Quest"
12-19	LD 5x10	"The New Next Generation"
01-24	Film	"Section 31"

Episode Discussion Archive

In Production

Strange New Worlds (TBA)

Starfleet Academy (TBA)

In Development

Untitled theatrical film

Untitled comedy series

Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.

Allied Discord Server

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

ValueSubtracted@startrek.website

USSBurritoTruck@startrek.website

OpticalData@startrek.website

A "test" to judge Star Trek shows (startrek.website)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Indy@startrek.website to c/startrek@startrek.website

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You've heard of the "Bechdel-Wallace test" and its potential value to some people in measuring various media in a given context.

I propose a measure we'll call the "Captain and Crew Test"....

I was enduring -- yes, that's the word I'll choose -- an episode of a certain Trek show and found myself thinking that I seem to enjoy Star Trek shows where the captain isn't the center of attention for the continued story, rather the crew as a whole (including the captain as professionally and relatively required) works together on the story of the day or is portrayed in multiple dimensions without the commanding officer present.

So, here's my attempt at codifying this "Captain and Crew Test":

The episode/show has to have at least two crew members (i.e. not the captain) essential to the story,
who interact with each other without the captain,
about the story without specific direction from the captain

I think these "rules" could use some adjustment and addition, but I think you get what I'm proposing/suggesting/inciting.

UPDATE 2024-07-04 04:35:34 UTC: Check out the quick and amazing work by @danielquinn@lemmy.ca to compile a subset of the percentage of lines for each character in a few Star Trek shows.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Indy@startrek.website 4 points 10 months ago

To be fair, I think every series has a lot of episodes that would fail this test, some of which were excellent, like DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight”, and “Far Beyond the Stars” or TNG’s “The Inner Light”, but if used to assess a series, I think this could be a good metric.

Indeed, "In the Pale Moonlight" is one I thought of which fails as well. I still think it makes a good measure to see how many episodes of a show pass/fail overall. Only to see if it's really about the whole crew or mostly one character. (Arguably, early TNG comes really close to being Star Trek: Wesley while mid/late TNG comes close to Star Trek: Data.)