In terms of entertainment longevity, very few series can stand toe-to-toe with Star Trek. Despite the fact that it’s presence has been pretty sporadic over the past 60 years, it’s a cultural touchstone because pushed it’s central message so hard that it transcends the gaps in the timeline between TV series and movies.

My first experience with Star Trek was probably with TOS in re-runs as I was born in the mid 70’s and had well missed the last shuttle out by the time I was old enough to care about what I was watching. When we were young, my brother and I would be home from school during the summer while our parents worked — it was the 80’s — and our M.O. usually involved daytime re-runs and a lot of CRPGs. Star Trek was probably among those series, somewhere, at some time and while I enjoyed the science fiction aspect of it, I would say I was still too young to appreciate Roddenberry’s message of a hopeful future.

When The Next Generation debuted, I was there. It looked so different from TOS, with it’s sleek wooden bridge accents and carpet everywhere. It followed the late 80’s aesthetic to a degree, but also relied on the tried-and-true classic sci-fi tropes of weird decor and weirder fashions and materials to make things just that much more futuristic. TNG knew what the Trek’s continuing mission was: show us 1980’s and early 1990’s humans that we can still become better than we were and it certainly didn’t hurt that the vox populi delivered sermons with a British accent and Shakespearean precision.

Unfortunately, I was neck-deep in college during the DS9 years and while some/many/most/all Trek fans seem to hold this series in the highest regard, I wasn’t really that much of a fan. I liked the traveling part of being in space and of the newness of a different planet every week. I similarly missed out on the original run of Voyager and Enterprise. I did make somewhat good in recent years, though, by watching key episodes of DS9 that explained the Dominion War, watching most of Voyager — which is my favorite Trek series — and a good chunk of Enterprise.

While I have enjoyed the movies, I feel that they were done to both cash in on the late 70’s/early 80’s sci-fi craze and then to keep Trek in mind (and possibly the copyright/trademarks current) overall. Paramount was apparently never done with Trek, even in the immediate aftermath of TOS, so while the movies gave Trek a real budget (despite TNG having had an eye-watering million-dollar-per-episode price tag in the late 80’s), I had never been particularly enamored enough with Kirk and his crew to have gotten excited about TOS movies, and TNG movies sometimes felt that they happened because they happened.

Now we are in the age of modern Trek, and I feel like humanity needs to be reminded of Roddenberry’s vision more than ever. I have no quarrel with Discovery; any issues I might have are the kinds I had with Enterprise, Voyager, DS9, TNG, and TOS, which is to say there were good ideas, and there were bad ideas, good execution and bad execution. I love Lower Decks because Star Trek has aways pushed progressive agendas and Lower Decks was a way to step out of line and get batshit crazy and I appreciate that breather. Strange New Worlds was supposed to be a fan favorite, and for a while it was. Starfleet Academy was a show that aired.

Where I think we are with Trek right now is that the current show-runners have taken Roddenberry’s mandate of a hopeful future too literally while also breaking the ancient writer’s chestnut of “show don’t tell”. It feels almost as if the writers don’t trust the modern audience to understand allegory, or to read between lines like we had to do with previous series. It’s also possible that I am completely out of touch, and the crop of new series are completely on the wavelength of a new crop of Star Trek fans, although to look at any comment section, Discord, or subreddit, you’d think otherwise.

Trek has always allegorically confronted the troubles of modern times, but never have those troubles turned their gaze squarely back towards Trek as they have today. Too many old school Trek fans complain that the shows aren’t like their forebearers. Too many trolls complain that the show is “too woke”. The modern Trek series have tried to hit every single note at their disposal in the hopes that one episode, one arc, one season would be considered to be pretty damn good, but it seems that society is too far up it’s own ass to understand that Star Trek hasn’t changed it’s tune in 60 years; it just uses different instruments and maybe it’s audience has gotten a little tone deaf in it’s old age. It might be less subtle and focused more on interpersonal relationships than it does Treknobabble, but I’m not holding out for a future where a warp core breach is a “peril of the week”. I’m holding out for a future where we all turn our eyes towards the stars and what’s beyond, together, for the good of humanity. That message has held firm within the Trek universe for 60 years, and it feels like we need to be reminded of that now more than ever.