23 Weeks ofStar TrekReminded Me of the Simple Pleasure in a Job Well Done

For the past 23 week , every Thursday a Modern episode of Star Trek has seem on CBS All Access , fork out us Lower Decks’surprising debut seasonand thethird , strongest chapterof Discovery . A pot happened in nearly half a year of boldly going , but looking back , all I can think about was how refreshing it was to watch masses enjoy beinggood at their jobs .

Even in its most devil - may - maintenance days , Star Trek has always kind of been a workplace drama about people who are really into their work . It just so happened that their work happen tobe a starship , and the work so find to be boldly going where no berth drone had gone before — and possibly sometimes phasering the bejesus out of something . But it was still work ; our hero were scientists , explorers , diplomats , dubiously militaristic officer . Beyond that , they were citizenry whosincerely , genuinely caredabout what they were doing as both the ultimate intellectual curiosity and for the betterment of the society around them .

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Beckett Mariner and Michael Burnham, two good people, good at their jobs, who’ve guided us on some glorious Star Trek adventures for the past five-and-a-bit months.

Beckett Mariner and Michael Burnham, two good people, good at their jobs, who’ve guided us on some glorious Star Trek adventures for the past five-and-a-bit months.Image: CBS

You would guess , over fifty years after and in a Star Trek landscape where more musical note and styles of television are being explored in the franchise than ever before — even with those 23 week , last twelvemonth we also got Star Trek : Picard , and in 2021 there ’s at the leastStar Trek : Prodigy — you would perhaps think that maybe Star Trek had moved beyond this earnest gist .

sceptically , looking at this nearly six - calendar month run of episodes , you might be forgiven for think that , on the control surface level . Going into it , Lower Decks show itself as a jokey serial that stab holes at Star Trek ’s longest - hold tropes , a mathematical group of no - in effect national flag who goofed around on the unimportant round of spaceship instruction , because they were n’t estimable enough to be bridge crew fabric . Discovery — a show that has always centered its chosen heroes less as members of a guileful motorcar and more as fated moving company and shakers the whole coltsfoot could orbit around — was coming into its third season toa unknown futurity . It was a future where the Federation we always knew and admired no longer exist , and they had to adapt to this harsher , darker , seemingly base future to hold up .

But the one thing that has really tied both these shows together across this prospicient consecutive run is the defiance of that cynical outlook to glisten an dear , loving light on that old age - sometime truth of Star Trek : there ’s something incredibly pleasurable in watching hypercompetent smart alecs , who get aside with being that because they are sincerely yours passionate about what they do , getting up and putting their space - pantsuits on every day . Lower Decks reflected this across all of its characters — the ensigns or the bridge crew . However , it was especially obvious in having Beckett Mariner asthe focal pointof its debut season . We found out that for all her - know - it - all , almost metatextual power toperceive Star Trek lore(as we , the extremely geeky audience , do ) , it was a distancing tool for someone who knew , deep down , that she had the capableness to be a great Starfleet military officer . She was , like most of us , justwracked with the doubtas to whether she could always utterly rise to the occasion .

Image: CBS

Image: CBS

Over the course of instruction of the time of year , Mariner struggles with this realisation by pushing her family line away and in routine of frequently zany - self sabotage , but when her back was against the wall , she would repeatedly show her true nature and save her friend and crewmates from the menace of the week . Mariner ’s electric arc , and the arcs of her fellow ensign , were not ones about not necessarily becoming a good officeholder , but realizing that her passion and capability in her role already made her a good one , and she just needed tobelieve in that herself .

A like mirror could be found in Discovery this season , both across the gang of the titular ship and in Michael Burnham , all of them having found themselves flung into the strange , unconnected , and resource - scarce future of the 32nd one C . In a future where what was left of Starfleet and Federation bidding — desolate by a cataclysmic interstellar event known as the Burn , igniting the dilithium power starship buckle heart and soul in fierce explosions — was unequal to of link and defend its phallus worlds , the esteemed utopiafinds itself diminish , unable to behave upon its desire to cater aid where it can . Upon their disjoined arrivals to this time , Michael and the Discovery gang are almost immediately challenge by events blossom around them : will they place to theirpositions and idealsas Starfleet officers , or will they cast aside the pretence of their piece of work to simply survive a harsh realness ?

Some answer this inquiry much more quickly than others — part ofMichael ’s arc this time of year , in fussy , involve her finding something outside of the restraint of her workplace in Starfleet to give care about , cross path and fall for carefree outer space courier Cleveland Booker . She may have butted caput about trying to do things in the emphatically non - traditional way at times , and Discovery avowedly may haveslipped up a littlein how it ultimately resolved Michael ’s internal conflict , but it did so to still sustain that marrow of Trek ’s fascination and solemnisation of people who consider in the employment they do .

Image: CBS

Image: CBS

Part of Michael ’s rationality for remain with the Discovery is that she finds her noble-mindedness to do what ’s ripe for the Federation shared with those around her , Book included , inspiring her to keep doing her job and sharing the inspiration that work brings . It ’s an ethic that was tested when the villain of the time of year , Osyraa , invade a sanctified blank byhijacking the Discovery , and reward when Michael fights tooth and nail to keep that space and ispromoted to Captainfor doing so .

That , really , will always be the primal joyfulness of Star Trek , more so than the warp swiftness and the phasers firing and even the cerebral ethics playact that the franchise has cling itself upon for decades and X . Our heroes struggle and hesitation , yes , but they persist on the backrest of their potentiality and pride in the study they do , time and fourth dimension again . Even when Star Trek is as histrionic as it can be , even when it seeks to forever question itself in times of desperation and swarthiness , even as we get more variety of Star Trek stories than we ’ve ever had before , it all comes back to watching these people come together and just be good at their Book of Job .

In our own world , as asylum around us almost unendingly seem to fail under the heaving weight of even the spare expectation , maybe it really is the ultimate fantasy to have spent 23 weeks watch ones rise to the occasion , on the backs of people who really trust in the good they can do .

Image: CBS