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Re: PIC S1: Stardust City Rag

@Guiding Light
"[Seven] is the moral center of this episode while Picard still is a nostalgic old fool who has to learn that he and his speeches are part of the problem, not of the solution."

What an interesting take! I agree with many of the steps that lead you there but not with this conclusion.

"shows like TNG, with their disregard for the views and interests of minority communities, with their baseless techno-utopianism are what made Trump and Brexit and all the other things possible that happen today. These shows never demanded that the viewers question their priors, they always just re-affirmed them."

I think you underestimate how much TNG made people question prejudices or assumptions when it aired. "The Outcast" was the first sympathetic LGBT representation I ever saw on television. This was huge for me. Growing up in the South, Star Trek is where I first encountered liberal principles.

However, TNG doesn't deconstruct the colonial paternalism of liberalism. I'm right on board with your analysis of how TNG offered utopia without cost and gave lip service to inclusion while often normalizing Whiteness.

Like DS9, PIC rebukes the idea that you can save the galaxy with a pretty speech and then fly off--but that's not the same as agreeing with Seven that there's no room for mercy. Is her violence the least-bad option against an organ trafficker in a lawless territory? Maybe so. But I don't for a moment think that this series will ultimately come down on Picard's idealism being wrong and her cynicism being right.

We're watching a show about flawed people who have become broken, cynical, or hopeless move toward hope and action. We're still in the first act of that story. Picard, Raffi, Rios, Seven, and perhaps also Jurati and Narek will all become the people they wish they were by this journey's end.

This doesn't mean everyone lining up behind Picard, but it doesn't mean that Picard's ideals and speeches will be useless, either. Seven may be a "grimdark" character when we meet her, but we're not watching a grimdark show. This is hopepunk.

Small note: it's weird that you talk about Seven choosing what she'll be called and then refer to her as Annika. Only the villain uses her birth-assigned name. She's chosen to go by Seven.