Star Trek, the original series from the 1960s was, in retrospect, one of the early adopters of 'woke-ism.' It didn't just try to entertain, it made part of its mission to challenge accepted societal standards. It did so without addressing them directly, but as part of its regular storylines.
As a kid, I didn't get that. I just enjoyed Kirk, Spock, Bones and Scotty brawling and shooting their way across the universe in awesome space ships. So I was unknowingly brainwashed a little bit.
Each successive iteration strayed further and further into woke bullshit, until we finally got to the point that the despicable moron Whoopi Fucktard had a role on the show. It kept veering left until even that gap-toothed tub of lard Stacy Abrams ended up on one of the shows. The more left the shows careened, the worse they got. I stopped watching any of them long ago. Fuck all that shit.
The movies were better. But they weren't really Star Trek.
When I saw this new series pop up on my Firecube, I initially dismissed it. But it
looked like the Star Trek I remembered from my childhood. I finally gave it a chance.
It's not the original, but it's close enough that I'm not hating it. Essentially it's a prequel. The central character is Captain Pike -- who was a critical player in the 1966 series pilot. If you remember, he was the one who was nothing more than a head trapped in a robot. He ended up living his life out in an imaginary world with the sexy lady prisoner from the Andy Griffith show. (See below and can't say I blame him)
The guy playing Pike is really good. The Spock character also is done extremely well. Rebecca Rojmin is, for the first time in her history an actual character and not just a bimbo.
This is visually and emotionally as close to resurrecting the 1966 series as anybody could really hope for in today's world. It looks like Star Trek. It feels like Star Trek. It follows the same basic formula as the original series. So far each episode presents a crisis of some kind, the Enterprise crew solves that crisis -- usually by bending or breaking the rules. Kirk confronts an enemy and by force of personality defeats them or wins them over. Each episode is a stand-alone, one doesn't necessarily rely on what happened previously to understand what's happening. They're self-contained and you can pick up at any point, any episode and not be lost.
Don't get me wrong, it's still peppered with woke horseshit. Enough to be occasionally offensive. For example in a sequence in Episode One, Pike references something about the Second Civil War as a video of Trump supporters on Jan 6 plays on a screen in the background. There's also a ridiculously bad Rachel Maddow-looking bitch/bastid at the helm who is the weakest link by FAR in the cast. She wasn't cast because she could act or meshed well with the rest, it was pure stunt casting. Just like the original, there's too much woke preaching. I mean it would be great if there was a utopian society where all focus could be placed on exploration, art and music because all basic needs were met, but in the real world that's absolute farcical nonsense. Some pigs will always want to be more equal than others. It's the human condition.
I wish I didn't like it, but I kinda do. It's done well.
Now to the Andy Griffith link....