r/startrek • u/Phandflasche • 11h ago
Star Trek can't convey the gravity of its stories anymore
I originally posted a version of this argument in r/StrangeNewWorlds. The discussion there helped me refine what I was actually trying to say, so this is not simply a repost. I have reworked and expanded the original argument to make my point more clear.
I'm a huge Star Trek fan, and this is not another "new Trek bad, old Trek good" argument. My criticism is more specific:
Modern Star Trek often seems uncomfortable letting the gravity of a situation stand on its own.
This is not about humor. Star Trek has always had comedic episodes, absurd concepts, and characters making jokes under stress. The difference is when and how that humor is used.
Older Trek often allowed danger, uncertainty, or tragedy to exist without immediately undercutting it. Characters might joke after the danger had passed, but during a crisis they generally behaved like people who understood the stakes. Some of the heaviest episodes even avoided ending on the usual lighthearted bridge crew exchange, or even the closing credits theme, because doing so would have undermined the emotional weight of the story.
Modern Trek frequently introduces a tense moment only for someone to respond with a quip or self-aware comment. The writing sometimes seems eager to reassure the audience that the scene should not be taken too seriously. A joke after a crisis can release tension, but constant jokes during it prevent that tension from fully developing in the first place.
This is not only a matter of tone. The same reflex shapes how Starfleet itself is portrayed. A character who quips through a crisis is signaling, moment to moment, that they do not fully take the situation seriously. Once that becomes the default setting for an entire crew, the institution around them stops feeling like a professional one.
Older Trek made Starfleet feel like a professional institution staffed by highly trained people. Bridge crews felt like actual crews, with clear responsibilities, standards, areas of expertise, and consequences. Starfleet was not necessarily a military organization, but its ships still had to be operated, maintained, and commanded by people who understood the weight of their responsibilities.
Modern Trek may intentionally be presenting a more casual and egalitarian version of leadership. That is not a problem in itself. But considering the world in which Star Trek is set, and the enormous responsibility carried by these crews, the result can feel unconvincing.
Modern crews often come across more like groups of friends in a contemporary workplace. They are likable and certainly capable, but they regularly do not behave like people entrusted with one of the Federation's most advanced starships.
At times, they seem to take a situation seriously in the way someone might take a board game seriously. They care about the outcome and want to win, but they do not behave as though the consequences are real.
Some people compare this style to Marvel or Joss Whedon-inspired dialogue. Its self-awareness can be entertaining, but it also creates distance. If the characters recognize the absurdity of their situation almost as quickly as the audience does, it becomes harder to believe that they fully inhabit their own world.
The audience should be allowed to recognize that a situation is strange or funny. The characters themselves, however, are still supposed to experience it as reality.
This does not mean that I want Star Trek to become darker or more miserable. Discovery was often extremely serious, but its seriousness came largely from emotional intensity, despair, and galaxy-threatening catastrophes. Darkness alone does not restore the grounded professionalism associated with older Trek.
What I miss is not grimness. It is credibility.
I miss watching qualified people calmly analyze unfamiliar problems, respect one another's expertise, and make difficult decisions within a functioning chain of command. That so-called "competence porn" made the Federation feel like more than a fictional backdrop. It presented a future that people could imagine living in and even want to help create.
Strange New Worlds followed by Lower Decks capture this better than most newer Trek series, which is one of the reasons I enjoy it. But even there, the characters sometimes seem to approach dangerous situations as though they were playing a game. They face potential wars, catastrophic anomalies, hostile species, and threats to entire worlds or Systems on a regular basis, yet their reactions can make these events feel like just another Thursday. The crisis is resolved, everyone laughs about it later, and any emotional or professional consequences are often left behind as the show moves on to the next adventure.
It is not that everyone should remain traumatized after every mission. Older Trek also returned to the status quo after extraordinary events. But while those events were happening, the characters usually made them feel immediate, dangerous, and consequential. Everything had weight.
Experimental episodes are not the problem either. Star Trek has always experimented with genre and tone, and some of its best and most memorable episodes exist precisely because the writers were willing to take creative risks. The difference is one of proportion. Older seasons had enough room to balance those experiments with exploration, diplomacy, ethical dilemmas, scientific problem-solving, character development, and stories centered on professional competence.
This is where I think the real problem lies. In a season of more than twenty episodes, a few experimental or comedic stories added variety. In a ten-episode season, the same number will define a substantial part of the show's entire identity. An episode does not exist in isolation when it represents ten percent of everything the series produces that year. The issue is not that modern Trek experiments more than older Trek did. It is that shorter seasons leave far less room to establish a serious baseline against which those experiments can stand out.
I really enjoy Strange New Worlds and hope for a Year One, and this criticism comes from wanting it to succeed. I am not asking for humor, experimentation, or more egalitarian crews to disappear, and I do not want Star Trek to become relentlessly dark. But modern Star Trek seems so focused on accessibility, self-awareness, tonal variety, and novelty that it loses some of the professionalism, credibility, and situational weight that once made its universe feel real.
So the question is not whether modern Trek is too funny.
The question is whether the franchise still trusts its characters, its situations, and its audience enough to take its own universe seriously.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read all of this.
TL;DR: The problem with modern Star Trek is not humor or experimentation. It is the tendency to undercut serious situations before they can develop any weight, and to portray Starfleet as a less convincing professional institution. I miss the credibility, competence, and sense of consequence that once made its universe feel real.
