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 @[email protected] to compile a subset of the percentage of lines for each character in a few Star Trek shows.

  • Daniel QuinnEnglish
    122·
    3 days ago

    I like it, and I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that you’re talking about Discovery. I’ve said in the past that the show should be called “Star Trek: Michael Burnham” as it would at least be more honest.

    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.

    • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nlEnglish
      71·
      3 days ago

      The later seasons let go of some of the Burnham stuff and let characters like Adira have their own plots. I believe Paul and Hugh also had a few arcs though I never got into them myself.

      I just didn’t like early Burnham as a character. I didn’t like most of Sisko either. That doesn’t make a show bad, necessarily, but I felt like Discovery didn’t offer a whole lot of B plot/secondary characters to compensate. Without secondary perspectives to offset Sisko’s heavy moral/philosophical arc, I probably would’ve hated DS9 as well.

      In the later seasons, Burnham became more nuanced by having Book as a sidekick, as well as fleshing out the crew a lot more. They were no longer hurdles in the way of Burnhams’s self redemption arc/current goal in life.

      TNG also had their terrible episodes, but there were just a lot more of them. Season 1 of TNG got 26/22/26/26/26/26/26 episodes versus Discovery’s 15/14/13/13/10. There was also no single overarching plot, so Picard could play a flute and live the life of an alien for a whole episode without derailing any story plans. The “monster of the week” approach also helped inspire some real good moral and philosophical debate that would otherwise never would’ve been written into a single story, but also some of the most cringeworthy TV I’ve seen.

      Somewhere in the middle of DS9 and Voyager, Star Trek started aiming towards broader plot lines. At first they were multiple seasons long (though some of them had to be smuggled past Berman), but with Enterprise they became per-season. This makes it very difficult to compare old and new Trek, or even early and late seasons of the same show, because the dynamic changed.

      • Indy@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        I agree with and second many of your statements in here. Well said! A couple specific points I want to highlight:

        Paul and Hugh

        I really enjoyed those plots, especially about loss.

        There was also no single overarching plot, so Picard could play a flute and live the life of an alien for a whole episode without derailing any story plans. The “monster of the week” approach also helped inspire some real good moral and philosophical debate that would otherwise never would’ve been written into a single story, but also some of the most cringeworthy TV I’ve seen.

        I think this is the core of the issue for what I enjoy and don’t enjoy with many Star Trek shows. Surprisingly to me, Expanse does this fine whereas Trek/Who/SG-1 would trip over it and have.

        In general, great reply with excellent points. Thank you!

    • Indy@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
      3·
      3 days 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.)