“So ultimately, I feel like what we’re saying is that in order for Starfleet and that beautiful vision that Roddenberry had of this optimistic utopia, in order for that vision to exist, in order for the light to exist, you need people who operate in the shadows.”
Alex Kurtzman continues to prove that he fundamentally does not understand the property that he’s helming, yet again making me want to puke
Honestly, I think this has more consistently been Star Trek’s approach. Early TNG was the exception. It really pushed for an “evolved humanity” model for Star Trek, where something has fundamentally shifted in our collected psychology. Examples like Dr. Crusher speaking like its remarkable that people used to fear death, or Picard dismissing religion as childish superstition come to mind as particularly strong hints that we’ve changed a lot.
But later Trek pushes against this: DS9 with it’s murky way arc, Voyager with episodes like Equinox and Scorpion, and even late TNG with Pegasus and Journey’s End. They are all more likely to see the “evolved human” as something to be tested by the story, with the drama coming from the possibility that it might fail that test.
And I think this is for the best. If humanity is too evolved and too perfect, the series can feel a bit heavy on U.S. exceptionalism - with the very American coded Starfleet going around to other worlds to fix and moralize about other peoples’ problems, but never needing to self-reflect or improve on themselves. I think a healthy balance is needed to actually model the qualities that allowed humanity to improve in the first place (and that we really need to see more of in the world now).
There are a few PTSD episodes that at least try : Picard at the chateau and Archer on shore leave after the Xindi adventure.
I feel these are the best episodes where a character realizes they have changed and not for the better, but I wish there were more.
Maybe trek is sleeping on the post-adventure recontextualization power of a shore leave coda?