Star Trek Meme Nails The Problem With Criticism Of SNW’s Musical Episode-TGN

Summary

• Star Trek has a history of embracing different genres, including comedy, proving that the musical episode is in line with the franchise’s experimentation.

• The criticisms against Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ musical episode ignore the show’s ability to navigate tonal shifts and explore serious sci-fi themes amidst lighter moments.

• The musical episode is a testament to the show’s ability to balance seriousness and silliness, just like its predecessor Deep Space Nine, and showcases the crew having fun while dealing with important matters.

A Star Trek meme circulated on social media nails the hypocrisy of the criticisms leveled against Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode. “Subspace Rhapsody” is the first musical episode in Star Trek‘s 57-year history, but a Star Trek musical isn’t to everybody’s tastes. Back in the 1990s, Ronald D. Moore had wanted to do a musical episode of either Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but the idea was nixed by Rick Berman, who felt that musical theater didn’t gel with Trek‘s serious sci-fi show aesthetic.

However, as @ListeningToFilm on Twitter has pointed out, this isn’t really true. There’s a long history of Star Trek embracing comedy, and other genres that wouldn’t necessarily fit within the realms of serious science fiction. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode is just the latest in a long line of experiments with different genres in the franchise, as proved by @ListeningToFilm’s Tweet below:

Star Trek Has Always Embraced Sillier Episodes

Despite criticisms that Star Trek shouldn’t do musicals, it’s arguable that Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode is less silly than some of the franchise’s other comedy episodes. Ultimately, “Subspace Rhapsody” is a story about the importance of communication, even if that manifests as big song-and-dance numbers. All of Star Trek‘s best comedy episodes have retained a “serious” science-fiction idea at its core. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s “Our Man Bashir” is a James Bond spoof that revolves around the potential death of the entire DS9 crew, safely stored inside Quark’s holosuite.

The joy of Star Trek over the past 57 years has been its ability to steadily navigate wild tonal shifts. One week, it could be telling an incisive story about prejudice during the AIDS crisis, such as in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Stigma”, while the next week it could be Star Trek: Voyager‘s hilarious Flash Gordon pastiche that centers on an alien species inability to separate fact from fiction. These tonal shifts have been at the very core of Star Trek since the beginning, which is why criticisms of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode feel like willfully bad-faith takes on modern Trek.

If anything, “Subspace Rhapsody” proves that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is DS9‘s successor. DS9 is the most “serious” of classic Star Trek shows, but it always knew when to cut loose and be a bit silly. It’s why the wedding comedy “You Are Cordially Invited” takes place just after the grueling, action-packed retaking of Deep Space Nine from the Cardassians. It’s why the heist comedy “Bada-Bing-Bada-Bang” is slotted in just before the epic, eight-part finale of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s final season. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode is just another classic example of the crew cutting loose and having a bit of fun with different genres in between dealing with more “serious” matters.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ season 2 finale streams Thursday, August 10th on Paramount+.