Does The New Star Trek Betray The Socialist Principles Of The Original Series?

The venerable Star Trek universe is really the only major pop culture property that can be claimed as certifiably leftist. But how do the newest batch of shows hold up? In a special crossover episode, Lyta Gold of Art for the End Times teams up with a lively panel of fellow podcasters and Trekkies—David Banks and Britney Gil (Iron Weeds), Leslie Lee III (Struggle Session), and Aaron Thorpe (Trillbilly Workers Party, Struggle Session, and Everybody Loves Communism)—to discuss the most recent Star Trek show to hit the airwaves, Strange New Worlds. Drawing on decades of collective Trekkie experience, they debate Paramount’s increasingly cynical approach to making Trek, and how the whole series succeeds (or fails) in imagining fully automated luxury space communism while still being created by capitalists.