Hello listeners and welcome to appointment television. This is Margaret and I'm joined by my co-hosts. I'm Catherine. And I'm Andrew.
And we're here to talk about the television you think is important enough to sit down and watch maybe even live. And this week we're going to be talking about the television that's so important. It decides to talk about how television is made within the TV. Just like a picture frame inside a picture frame inside a picture frame.
We're treating into infinity. Shows within shows. Shows within shows. Shows.
Yeah shows. So much more economical way of saying it. I do like the picture and picture metaphor though mostly because we had a TV that did that. Yeah so the premise for this segment was that we would talk about these shows within shows or behind the scenes shows.
And I think there is a distinction to be made between the shows that are really about television shows. So your Sorkins and 30 Rock and there's sort of an older tradition. There's Murphy Brown and there's the Larry Sanders show. And then I think the more general type that you can extrapolate which is the shows that are also about being behind the scenes just not specifically of television.
So if you think about it all of the Sorkins fit into this model because West Wing is really behind the scenes of the West Wing. Right the White House. The Tichelas. Sure that's the better way to put it.
I don't know if you guys would have done it. But then I was also thinking you know there's NBC's famous failed smash behind the scenes of the musical. Oh that's R.E.P.S. still has you to terrible show.
I know. You have behind the scenes of a radio show so like written news radio back in the day. I think there are a lot of these and they're all kind of interested in the same sorts of things. So it's really fun for me to think about what makes these a type and whether there are sort of interesting patterns that emerge out of each of them.
Well one interesting thing to look at right away is the situations where it's notionally behind the scenes so but really functions more as a workplace comedy. Like I'd say news radio. Sure. Very little of the stuff that goes on with news radio is about like the mechanics of making a radio show.
You don't see much of the radio show that's going on. It's basically just a workplace that could ostensibly contain wacky types. As opposed to smash or the vastly superior slings and arrows which are both about the nitty gritty of the actual productions and make a point of taking long pauses in their rising and falling action to just show you theatrical performances going on. Yeah.
And those two bring forth the maybe most fraught aspect of any kind of show within a show or art within art which is like if you're presenting it as good it had better actually be good. If you're like these are great actors like they should do some amazing Shakespearean monologues. That was one of the things I liked a lot about 30 Rock because one I mean the show within a show stuff faded a lot especially after the first season like it was used more and more as a backdrop instead of as a driving force for the show but also like the gags as the series went on like made it sound like this was just a terrible like a worse possible version of Saturday Night Live than nobody was watching. Yeah.
And it was just how terrible the sketches would be. Right. Yeah and I guess I'm impressed by Tina Fey doing that because some of us and else sketches just end up that way but like not because you're trying to make fun of it. Yeah.
And she just really leaned into it. Well they figured out the trick of that whole problem that Margaret was talking about right which is that you know if you can't make it actually good by being funny by itself it's funnier to just be a terrible version of whatever. Right. And they even like set right up to the line there's that episode in season one where you think like to to for and Tracy are going to put together this amazing sketch that just like blows open issues of racial identity in America and like the last minute it's cut so that Tracy can do like a terrible bit about like Star Jones like vomiting all over her kitchen because she's had gastric bypass surgery and to for like this is better.
And it's just like even bait and switches you I just appreciated that so much in the season of Gina Fey is wearing the same show as Aaron Shurker but shorter and funnier. That was that was a particularly joyful moment. So I was going to ask everyone about sort of their favorite examples of this genre. Andrew is 30 Rock your favorite do you think or is that just kind of the one that comes to mind.
I mean that's the one that comes to mind most for me it's probably my favorite just because like the musical shows you were talking about I was not I was not a viewer of smash I did not watch that. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. I'm out now it's it feels so good to do it to somebody.
Oh that show is such garbage I loved it so much. I mean depending on how I mean news radio was really good and really tragic also just because of because of Phil Hartman's death. I mean it depends on how wide a net you want to cast like our medical shows like behind the scenes shows if like political shows are because then you get into like scrubs which was uneven for for a bunch of its run but you know the first few years were really good. Yeah so here's the difference for me.
I think for it to really be interested in a lot of the same ideas as the more straight up shows about television shows there has to be at some point a line between when they're on stage and when they're off and there's a difference between the personalities that they are whenever they're acting or the characters that they portray and then the whoever they are the characters they're portraying when they're the backstage person. So even news radio which you're right is mostly a workplace comedy you know they get a lot of mileage out of like he's in the booth sound and all serious and they walk out you know and they play a lot with that with that distinction and so for me that's really crucial to the nature of these shows and what distinguishes it from and why I think that actually the West Wing still qualifies I mean it's iffy I'll grant you it's borderline but I see it. Yeah well just because I do think it's all about talking about what the White House presents as its public face versus the what actually happens. Sure yeah and I guess I'm thinking of Veep in the same thing even though it's like a dark mirror universe like everybody in Sorkin's West Wing is like hyper competent and everybody in Veep is like the polar opposite.
The words are the greatest. I've been having trouble with that show this season we have almost watched all of it. I don't know if either of you guys are current one. Oh yeah I am way behind but I'm happy to be spoiled I'm already aware of all of the internet.
Just for season for season four I won't get into like specific stuff but she becomes the actual president of the United States. Yeah. Because of things that happened at the end of season three and I feel like the humor doesn't play as well like the conceit of the first three seasons was that the vice presidency is sort of a joke like you don't really have much actual responsibility and so it's cool if you have somebody there who is totally incompetent can't do anything but when you have that person be the actual president with actual power and her and like everybody around her are still bumbling idiots like it. I don't know it's it feels like it's fun to me.
Yeah. Yeah that's interesting I mean I kind of I suppose I disagree just because I there are a lot of things I really love about what they're doing with the fourth season and I think it still fits into the model or at least is playing with the model where she's the president now but she's still this complete bumbling problem right and they're still talking about this distinction between what happens when Barry's standing there right behind behind her handing her you know sleepy time tea or whatever it is and then she has to go off and be the leader of the free world which is so absurd. So Margaret what do you feel like if you had to name one of these which would it be and why? Gosh if I had to name a favorite behind the scenes show.
Oh it's very difficult for the sake of variety I will say slings and arrows. Oh that's what I was gonna say. Oh no I was gonna take it back. No no no it's fine it's fine.
It's fine. Yeah it's time to think of another one it's fine. The 30 Rock is also you know way up there especially that first season I just think they mind so much effective comedy. Right okay but yeah but slings and arrows is just great because like I'm a theatre person like a thwarted theatre person and so just to get to watch like those absurd cast parties where it devolves to the point that people have like a Shakespearean duel because they are drinking too much and like the stage manager like loses her mind trying to wrangle everybody in it just rings so true to my life that it's delightful and just a type of person I can't be around all the time but I love to be around so much in certain controlled doses.
Right you like to have a screen between you and them. Yes yeah. Elective, elective involvement with theatre people. Right.
I mean I see that for me that's not the reason that I just am completely obsessed with slings and arrows is more that I think it is really really hard to make television about that takes seriously the process of like I'm trying to create an important serious hard thing which they do a lot of silly stuff also but there are so much silly stuff but there are so moments when you know they're in these incredibly intense scenes of Shakespearean drama and it works and they are really taking on a lot of ideas about what it means to be like a creative genius and is that whole idea bullshit anyway and you know is inspiration an actual thing and it's so hard to represent all of that kind of thing without it seeming incredibly cheesy. Right. And I think slings and arrows is one of the few that really sort of pulls the rabbit out of its hat in that category. Oh and another thing that I think it does well that I appreciate in good behind the scenes shows is that it gives appropriate weight and drama to the bureaucratic wrangling part of any organization of any size.
So true. Like you spend almost as much time with the board of directors as you do with the artistic director and watching him try and balance the sort of artistic impulse he wants to pursue and the business impulse he has to pursue is fascinating and it's so much fun and that's the kind of stuff that most TV is too lazy and creative to really dig into. Yeah it's too easy to say like oh those are the boring number crunchers and they really mind that material in a way that is really interesting. Right or to create a false dichotomy between like the noble like artsy serious creative people and like the stiff suits.
We just want them to know. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Just for the ratings. You know if you pick slings and arrows and we've been bashing on Sorkin but I feel like if we're going to talk about great behind the scenes shows you have to talk about sports night right. It is really good. Because I think it really is the best of Sorkin funniness at some points and it manages often to not take on the intense self-seriousness that overwhelms you know some of the later Sorkin.
Yeah. Yeah that thing. Yeah. And it's really well I have a real soft spot for shows that are kind of like rough drafts for other things.
How do you mean what does that mean? Well I mean literally you can see pieces of the West Wing being set in place in sports night where he's like figuring out character types. I mean not even character types but like you can watch those YouTube videos where you just repeat the same lines over and over again from movie to show to show to movie. And so he's sort of like trying to figure out how he likes all of his speech patterns to be and he's trying to figure out he's trying to fight against a lot of the networks that come models.
He's doing the walk and talk stuff. But something about the fact that it's rougher in sports night that it's not really fully there yet. It's not completely polished all the time. I think it's actually you know really appealing.
It punctures a lot of the hot air that takes over the newsroom by the end. Oh boy. Yeah you're just your man I had a really smart thing to say and then I was like you'll come back to you. Okay sure.
Yeah. Anyway Margaret you were saying about Margaret's Margaret's Margaret's not a complex or smart thing too. Yeah. What I was going to say is I feel like it's very classic academic of you.
It's like the like rougher cut thing. No. Because it's certain where the structure more truly true. I'm a structure nerd.
Oh my god I'm spoiling the rest of this episode. It's really interesting to watch somebody develop a style which is what I was trying to say. No you're absolutely right. It's the same thing where you go back to like a famous show and watch like the original pilot or like the try out videos or something like you can see the stuff and that goes for you know people behind the camera people in front of the camera.
You can see the stuff that got captured and the stuff that they got rid of and like usually the people who go far are the people who get rid of the stuff that's not working. Right. Well and that's and it's so great because also because that's what sports nice about right. You know there this I mean it's the sort of it's a classic sort of like we're this kind of show but we should be at this kind of show you know and so they are trying to figure out just as much as sports nice trying to figure it out and I look look I know it's I know it's lame but I just I love the meta commentary like that to me is just super entertaining every time.
It's always nice to see Sorkin playing a scrappy underdog when he was actually himself kind of a scrappy underdog. Right. That's just like constantly striking that pose as it grows less and less and less appropriate. Right.
Right. Right. Well in the beginning it's actual self-awareness and at the end it's like I'm making a show about the show and I'm talking about how I'm trying to figure myself out and you're like dude you were literally like one of my ex girlfriends. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm going to use this show to tell everybody what's wrong with America. It's going to change everything. I'm going to blow a hole in this.
And it's like look I'm actually here I'm here for Sorkin telling me what's wrong with America up to a point. What I couldn't handle about the newsroom is that like it was watching him play T-ball. You know he just wanted to set up scenarios that were so transparently the right choice was so easy for every character to make. Yeah.
It was being presented as incredibly difficult and incredibly great. And it's like I'm happy to see you write heroic characters. You mostly do it well sometimes. Occasionally you do it exceptionally.
But there it was just he had too much contempt for the art form he was showing a meta version of. Right. Right. Well this is so fascinating about these about these television shows right is whether the relationship between the backstage and the on stage is like a loving embrace like it really is in slings and arrows or whether it's like stabby stabby stabby which I think is the case for Unreal which if you haven't watched it.
It's so good. We're going to make you. We're going to make you. You guys are going to send me a list of things that I need to watch to like catch up with the two of you.
It's no problem. It's not writing the list of the whole lives. Yeah. Yeah.
Like you know what 30 Rock where she's making an intentionally bad version of the show like she obviously loves like sketch comedy and probably she has respect for those mediums. And so it's very much like making fun of your goofy brother or whatever. Like it's like it's understood that you still love that thing. Yeah.
But you're also allowed to make fun of it because you understand it so much. Well and even when you're making fun of it, I mean when you're loving it you're still making fun of it because there are still loads of things that I write. Like each one of those digs comes from a place of like and I do also feel uneasy about the fact that we get to this. Yeah.
You know I mean I think that's where a lot of that that's when really funny stuff happens. I think Vip is certainly you know I'm completely you know completely obsessed with the political and I love the show of it and it's incredibly upsetting that these people are the poofoons that they actually are. Right. Yeah because this Vip is not just about how those people are idiots but it's about how the electorate was collectively stupid enough to put all those people in positions of power.
Yeah and then create this system that it did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay so the question that I had thought about for the you know wrapping up this kind of discussion was if you were going to make a show that it was behind the scenes of something. Oh my god I know. What's behind the scenes of yes Margaret Margaret's very excited. I have an answer.
Okay. I think we desperately want to see either a sitcom or a dramedy set behind the scenes of like a small liberal arts college that's like financially collapsing and like I know community sort of dabbled with that but that was more about the student life and less about the professor life and I just think that you get such fucking weirdos. I don't know if we were making something podcast or not but no it's hard. No it's not.
Such fucking weirdos. Huge egos. Yeah. Small fights that take on epic proportions it just seems like we should have so there's so much to mine in academia.
Yeah. And we are failing. We are failing. Yeah.
So that's fine. So that's mine. Hands down. Excellent.
I would watch that. I think we all would watch that. Yeah of course. I think it could be really.
It's close to home. Think about what a P.F. Cluga ask character. That's what I was going to say.
You need to get him on to executive-produce. So glorious and bleak. So bleak. Oh lord.
Okay Andrew. I mean maybe this is going to sound dumb because this is the industry that I work in but I would like to see like a good show that focused on issues of like journalism and how the news is covered fair fair fair. Not like the newsroom which had its own. Okay so tell me where you like what specific areas you feel like.
like need dramatic improvement other than like the whole thing. Well, I feel like this is not like I'm not doing myself a favor by citing this as a president, but I think some of the things that the fifth season of the Wire got into with it's like journalism arc. Yeah. What was interesting because there's like, you know, there's the public interest part of it.
There's that we've got to keep the lights on part of it. There's like there are like the personalities in those newsrooms and how they interact. Like I think there's a lot of material to be mined from that. That's not all like sanctimonious melodrama.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Huh.
And like there are I think most journalists have to do things that they don't necessarily want to do to satisfy the business side of the operation or whatever. Like real advice. Yeah. There's interesting dramatic tension there that I think could be explored by.
Greek or by somebody who didn't think that the internet was wholeheartedly. Right. Yeah. By somebody who didn't have contempt for the industry and everybody working in it.
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Are all of these so sorry before I name mine, are all of these shows just love letters?
I mean the best ones, are they do they have to be love letters to their objects? Or can you really make one that's fully contemptuous? I think that's my question. I mean I think you can make one that's fully contemptuous.
I think Unreal is doing a good job. Unreal is the closest I've seen. Yeah. And V.
Is that? I don't feel like you can't make V but less part of you actually does kind of like the whole thing. I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe that's just me. Maybe I just kind of like the whole thing. Yeah. I mean they understand the way that political game is played and they represent that really well.
Like they know the kinds of issues people will respond to and like how they'll respond to it. And then they ask themselves, okay, if I was the person in power, what would be the least appropriate way to respond to this? Even if they don't embrace it, they definitely understand it. Yeah.
I think to understand it that thoroughly, you need to have been part of it. Yeah. You need to have some connection to it that's not entirely negative. Yeah.
Right. So mine would be actually behind the scenes of mid-sized public art museum. Speaking from the have had some kind of personal connection. So for many years in my childhood and adolescence, my mother worked in such an art museum.
And it is just a completely fascinating place full of personalities who are dealing with a lot of the same issues that you were talking about. Andrew, the sort of problem of wanting to put on shows, blockbuster shows that you're going to get a lot of people in, but secretly wanting to just throw out every Renoir in the whole collection because it's a problem and all of that kind of tension. But there's even less money than there should be. And then you also, I think, actually interact with the public in a much more physically present way than you do in journalism.
I mean, I don't know how many people of your readers who you physically run into, but literally in an art museum, you can be the director and be trying to go home and walk out and walk past a person who is standing in front of you saying, this whole thing is just a disaster. I mean, there's not a lot of that same, I guess the theater, but even still the theater, there is literally a backstage that you know. For online journalism, that's the function that commenters serve. Oh, I understand, right?
There is some difference, right? If the commenter is actually in the same room with you. Yeah. I think the conversation would actually be better if the person is in the same room with you.
Probably. Probably. But on the other hand, you probably wouldn't get people trying to fashion coat hangers into hooks to steal the pre-columbian gold from the glass cases. Yeah, no, not.
I think you would get that. Anyway, so that's mine. I think it would be really fascinating and weird artists. I'm so mad none of these just exist now.
Well, that's the spin off of this podcast when we actually all become TV producers. That's why we're doing it, right? That's a game? Yeah.
Oh, no question. Hollywood colors. Yeah, we're available. Ish.
We're busy. Yeah, we're available, but not too available. Yeah, we don't want to steam desperate. The money better be pretty good.
That's all we're saying. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, I think this has been great and fascinating.
And I think it's really interesting to just think about the group of them and the way that they all play with some of the similar issues, regardless of the topic that they're working on. And now I think everyone needs to watch Unreal. Yep, everyone needs to watch Unreal. Andrew.
Okay, everyone does need to watch it. The first four episodes are free on iTunes right now. Yeah. Excellent.
I can't believe it. Perfect. And if you do it in a timely manner, a week from today, you'll get to hear me talk about an unpopular happy hour. All right.
That's good. That's good incentive. Totally going to be super smart about it, but that is what is happening to me. Well, I wrote a little thing about it on the outtake on medium, which everyone should go read.
I will definitely go read it. Students are done recording. Excellent. Excellent.
In service of Apple, I can propel us into our next segment, TV, the TV, where we take two things that are ostensibly similar and argue about why one or the other is significantly better. Today, we are going to be deciding which version of Star Trek was the best. And I'm going to be sitting in judgment because I'm ignorant of this subject. And Catherine and Andrew will be trying to present me boldly going where many people were basically the internet was created for this debate.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Andrew, as I feel like you had second pick in terms of topic, I'm going to give you first pick in terms of order.
Would you like to go first or would you like to first cat or Katherine? I think I'd like Katherine to go first. I was going to say you should go first because yours comes first. I know.
Do you want me to? I can make it work if that's going to put you off hard. I want you to invite virtue of your argument, not because I played my game with you. No, but I feel like my argument works best as a it needs it needs to be in springboard off of.
Okay. All right. That's fair. And I have a lot of arguments that springboard off of yours too.
All right. We'll go back and forth. Yeah. All right.
Yeah. We'll go back and forth. But the baton first gets passed to Andrew. I will get us started.
To define the parameters of this debate a little bit, we're not debating which Star Trek series is best because there are like five of them. And I think we are talking about the two best ones personally, but I know we're going to get people who disagree with us. So we are the entire point of ranking things to get people into a meaninglessly high dungeon so that they come and comment on our things and give us remarkable page views. Please come give us page views.
So we are talking specifically about Star Trek Next Generation, which I am going to be presenting about and Star Trek Deep Space Nine, which Katherine is going to be presenting about. So for to understand just the influence or the success of Star Trek Next Generation, you have to take yourself back to when it started in the late 80s and like the state that the franchise was in at that point. So they were coming. Oh, go ahead.
No, go ahead. I was going to say I'm not having the John Williams theme from Star Wars, and then I realized if people would actually come to my house and murder me. That's wrong. That's wrong.
I quit. Bye. Later. Andrew will actually come to my house and murder.
So in, I believe this was in 87, which is when TNG premiered at 8, 7 or 88, something like that. The Star Trek franchise had had, you know, the original series had ended like 15 years ago. It had been a while since it was on air, and they had kind of resurrected it with these movies. Wrath of Con was kind of the springboard for Star Trek's modern success.
They had done the third and the fourth movie. They'd all done very well commercially, and that got them talking about, okay, let's bring it back to TV. But they decided to do a new show set further in the future with an entirely new cast. So you have, I mean, even then Star Trek fandom was pretty intense.
And you have, you know, these TV executives trying to pitch the show with an all new cast, you know, like no involvement from the original series cast at all. Like they usually had, most of them had cameos throughout the run of the series, but like none of them were regulars, none of them were involved directly. And you've got to kind of build this from scratch and win over a skeptical fan base and also make it a good television show. And the fact that the next generation did that, I think, is a really strong point in its favor.
So, okay, Catherine, do you have anything to, like, is that a good enough springboard? Yeah, so, so for me, as I hinted at earlier in this episode, the reason DS9 is superior. It should be the first time you use the full name? Oh, sorry.
Thank you. It's okay. Deep Space 9. It's superior to next generation, the next generation TNG, is that it has all of the working sort of engine that the next generation spent so much time building.
It has the, this whole roster of characters. It has generally the politics that are set up, the various different relationships between alien races. Margaret, how many Star Trek aliens can you name? Um, and Pacquiz.
Yeah. Gosh. All right. Excellent.
Okay. The ones with the point of years, Vulcans. Okay, I'm sorry. I got one.
I got one. I got one. I got one. I got one.
I got one. Yeah, I got one. I got one more. I'm sure I can.
There's the one with a crazy face. I don't know. Particularly for DS9. For a DS9.
I think from Hansforth, we can refer to Deep Space 9 in the colloquial. DS9. Okay. We won't let you take you out of the hot seat now.
I mean, I thought you would be able to get Klingons, but you didn't. Sure. I've heard of Klingons. I just won't remember them.
Okay. So, so you have all of this kind of setup and revived in the cultural memory, from the next generation. But the main difference between the two is structural, and it's easy to understand just in their central space settings. So, the next generation is set on board the enterprise.
I heard of that. And it travels around and like encounters things. Boldly going where no one is comfortable. And has adventures.
Right. Deep Space 9 is a space station, which means that it stays in the same place. It is stationary. Station.
Station. You might as well might say. Which in the case of Deep Space 9 is that it orbits Bejor, which has been a planet that has been occupied for a long time by a foreign group of aliens, the Cardassians. So, the Cardassians?
Yes. The Cardassian. They are equally lonesome. And so Bejor has recently wanted independence.
And this whole relationship between the Cardassians and the Cardassians forms the sort of backbone, the initial backbone of the S9, which is that everything takes place on this one space station. So, where next generation automatically flows toward a procedural model where you have like an episode happens and wacky things and it turns out that we can all reach others minds this episode. And then the next episode, it's like an alien showed up and he's different than the other aliens. On Deep Space 9, you know, you have all of these relationships that build between characters and you have like surprisingly complex political system that's perpetually shifting back and forth.
And it's a lot of it's really boring, but when it's good, it's really great. Right. And so I feel like this is a compelling introductory point for DS9, as I guess the kids call it. Andrew, what would you speak up for in favor of Star Trek the next generation?
If Deep Space 9, 1, does it have this narrative complexity that Star Trek Generation lacks or would you like to refute that? And 2, if it does lack narrative complexity, what does it have that's exceptional and of equal value? What's its counterbalance? I will totally give you that Deep Space 9 has the more satisfying story by the end.
Like they have both shows ran for seven years and you know, by the time DS9 had been doing that, you have spent a ton of time with all these characters. You know how they relate to each other. Like, there's just, there are a lot of relationships that you can just, I don't know, that you really, really like and you don't like you've known these characters for so long that you're just just gonna be a ship. You do ship.
You can probably ship people on TNG as well. You can, but it's easier on DS9. Yeah, so everyone comes to us making a joke about their back with their ships. I know, I like that a lot.
So I will give you that and I will also say in reference to the point where you made about DS9 kind of taking many of the successful components of TNG and kind of building on top of them. Next generation had a rough start. Like, its first season is just tonally so strange. It's more similar to the original series because the creator of the franchise, Gene Ronberry, had a lot more say in like how everything went down.
And much like George Lucas, Margaret, to use a cultural reference that apparently you were more familiar with, I think Gene Ronberry works best as an idea man who then lets other people kind of control the specifics of the universe. Like Gene Ronberry initially when TNG was started, made like, he made this weird mandate in like the show bible where the main characters could not fight with each other. Like there could be no conflict between characters because his, you know, his take on it was that humanity had evolved sufficiently that we were just beyond being shitty to each other. And nobody was like Gene, that's a terrible idea for all of you.
Like beyond aside from the fact that even given 400 years I don't think we could get there, that's just not just television. And so the first season is not great. The second season shows flashes of what would later become a successful show. And there's actually, there's a TV trope called growing the beard.
Like Riker, the first officer on that show was clean shave in the first season but came back with a beard for the second season. And so that beard is normally used as like a shorthand for whether you're watching a good episode or anything. But by the time its third season had come around, you know, the cast, the people writing the show had rested some of the creative control from Gene Ronberry, rested is not the right word. I don't think it was an acrimonious thing.
But it would be that it would be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. The relationships between the characters were more interesting. The plots were getting more interesting.
Just the way that the show has executed cop better. So by the time you're in season three, season four, you're getting to the TNG that most people are talking about. And I will just say this real quick is that this show won 18 Emmy's two hero awards, five Saturn awards and one Peabody award. How many Emmy's acquired in the world?
That's my only point. I didn't do, I didn't do, uh, I didn't do, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't.
I didn't. I know that people claim it's not everything but but you'll notice that what I paid attention to was not whatever Emmy's it had received. But the fact that it got a Peabody award, that genuinely speaks as quality. Peabody awards are the best awards.
If I ever went to know what I hope it's Peabody. So yeah, so they succeeded in building this separate cast that, you know, got the show out from under the shadow of the original series. And even though the show was not serialized the way DS9 was like there are specific arcs that are really lightly serialized in TNG. The relationships between the characters all kind of develop over the course of the show.
So you get really interesting dynamics between Captain Picard and data who is, um, every Star Trek show sort of has a character who is not human but living among humans and as such as how to be more human. Like in the original series of Spock in TNG, it's data, NDS9, it's Odo the shapeshifter. Yes. I mean those characters are usually the best ones, like the most interesting individual characters on the shows.
Like the relationship between them was really interesting because Picard like really took it upon himself to like tell data about what being human was and data was really interested in learning. Data and Jordi, the ship's engineer had a really cute relationship. Jordi is just a painter to your judge. That's reading Rainbow.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Lavaar reading Rainbow Burton. Thank you for the benefit of Rainbow by the way.
When he like shows you how to do the all the Star Trek magic. Yeah. Yeah. Where he was on the bridge of the Enterprise.
Yeah. I'll take his word though. So I think that even though DS9 is more satisfying over the course of seven seasons, you do kind of have to like it wasn't as good at the beginning as it got in the end. So like you wait two or three seasons for the main driving force of the show to really pick up.
TNG is more enjoyable. Like you can just pick up like I could recommend you a couple of TNG episodes like right now that you should go watch one. It's called The Inner Light and you should go. Everyone picks in.
I have others. We can talk later. Okay. But I could recommend you those episodes right now and you could go and watch them and you would appreciate as a stranger and a strange land.
As a stranger and a strange land, you would appreciate a story well told. Yeah. Right. I think and DS9 requires a pretty intense time investment to get into.
Not that that's bad, but that it is. It's undertaking and it can't make it through like the first season, especially like you you were gonna miss out on what's going on there. And Katherine, I feel like you should have a response now. Okay.
Well, which is basically yeah, your show floundered for a couple of seasons. Yeah. And then it got good. But if I'm not willing to sit through floundering seasons, you know, I'm just going to be plumbed out of luck.
Right. Yeah. With TNG, you can just skip the bad seasons. You don't even have to worry about it.
I can just go directly to where the beard has been grown and I will be just fine. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, I do I do have to see that that's a point, although I would suggest that even from the beginning, the bad seasons are at least politically interesting.
The premise of the main sort of the captain figure on DS9 is that he's sort of assigned there and he doesn't want to be and it turns out that he's the prophet of a religion that he knows nothing about. And so I feel like if you're going to kickstart a season like that, at least has a fairly interesting engine underneath it to get you going. Setting that aside, I do think Andrew, you missed two points about TNG that I think would really would really pander to your judge first. Well, thank you for making my argument.
There's just no denying that Picard is a better captain. I have this on my list that as good as the ensemble cast of DS9 is, he has some truly great actors and individual characters. None of the acting on DS9 is a really good great. No, I mean, there are some people who do good work with the material that they're given, but every Brooks who is the captain on that show is kind of weird cadence.
Yeah, that's one way of putting it. I do think that he did some good work on that show. He was like, you know how William Shatter talks? He would be nice if I did that, but like a little bit faster in only some parts, but then slower also at the same time, right?
Yeah, that sounds great. But yes, yeah, I was going to wait for it to come up organically and I guess I just did, but TNG has good actors doing good work with good characters. So the other thing that I do just have to say, in case it doesn't, in case it's not already on your list, Andrew, were you going to talk about the Noir episode of TNG? No, I was not going to talk about the Noir.
I was going to try and steer clear of most of the holodecks. Oh no, but Margaret, there's a holodecks episode that's just all of them, they're like in a Noir. It's like a team building exercise, basically, but the holodec breaks. And so then there's a team building exercise for that.
I know why I never go in. It's always great. The safeties break all the time. And then there's also a much worse holodec episode later called A Fistful of Data is where they go.
Oh, I love that one. I love the holodecks. I just think that I think that's a good name. Anyway, go ahead.
Yeah, great name. The whole data is a great name. Yes. So I think in response to the yes, there are bad actors and yes, there are bad initial rough seasons.
I think the ensemble cast has this really great interaction that you just never get on the next generation. I love Odo, but it's possible that my favorite DS9 character is actually Gen Zia Dax. Just because I love the premise of that character, which is that her alien race is called The Trill. So there's a human-looking body that has leopard spots down the side because why not?
And then they have literally a horrifying looking slug thing that lives inside them. And the horrifying looking slug thing lives for thousands and thousands of years, but the human-looking bodies die. So Gen Zia is her human-looking body's name, but Dax is the name of the horrifying slug thing that lives inside of her. So there are characters on DS9 who knew Dax, the previous Dax.
So she's basically a doctor and a companion, but in one body. Yeah, essentially. And then- And the current host has memories and even personality ticks that the previous hosts did. Yeah, but that's a really interesting- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, same. So I just think that kind of sums up for me the difference between a shell like DS9 and and TNG because you can- I mean, it's all about whether or not you get to have memory from previous episodes or not. And it's all about whether the fact that you had these previous lives where these other characters gets to re-enter. And in fact, right, one of the big differences between TNG, which imports none of its previous cast members and DS9 is that several cast members from from TNG show up on DS9.
Most importantly, Worf- Yeah, I was gonna say- That's why I think it's so great. DS9 succeeded- Like DS9- There we go. Half Klingon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DS9 got really good when Worf came on. So it's very- It's like growing the beard moment for that show in some ways. And Andrew says that you can't just come in and watch an episode of DS9. But I would argue that you can just come in and watch looking for parmock in all the wrong places and have a really great time for yourself.
Yeah, there are- There are- There are- Parmock is loving Klingon Margaret. There are individual episodes of that show that are really strong that you don't necessarily need to have like five years of backstory to enjoy. I won't give- I will be that. But the episodes are all- That one's a serial number bird's record for Klingon.
So that's the best file. I mean, TNG, how did you know that it was my favorite episode of which bone? Yeah. That's um, like the Worf character is- I mean, I think it's one of the stronger ones in the whole franchise.
Yeah. He has kind of an interesting arc in TNG. Like, some of his stuff is the most serialized that show ever got. And so, you know, he's half Klingon, half human.
Klingons and humans don't get on super well. Nope. And so he's got to like reconcile his Klingon heritage with the fact that he lives and works among humans. Yeah, it's like being half knotty, half Jew.
I guess it's right. But there's this whole arc where he's like exiled from his homeworld. He can't talk with any Klingons anymore. And then he like, he gets back into their good graces and like wins honor among them.
It's a very honor based society. Yeah. A lot of blood too. A lot of blood.
Yes. I think that's a really compelling arc. And it's part of why his character was brought over to DS9 when TNG ended. They did have a couple years of overlap.
Um, was that, you know, they had this fully realized character that they could just import and drop in and it would be good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
I think I have the, I think I have your arguments set. What I don't feel like to make some closing points, Catherine, this time I'm going to make you go first and then Andrew. Well, first, are there other questions? Are there questions that you have about this glorious franchise that we that we've left to open for you?
Probably. So many questions. I tried to give some context. You did.
You did a great job with the context. It's hard to, it's hard to go. I know. I think you guys have solid context.
But as a complete, I've just never watched any of these shows. I don't think I even have like the machinery to know to ask questions. Like I'm still groping around in the dark for the most part, but I have an idea of the overarching points about TV that you guys are making through the vessels of these unfamiliar shows. Okay.
All right. The whole point of them is like, they're, they're good TV. Like they're telling good stories. Yeah.
And that's, that's the core of it. Like that's why people like them in the first place. It's not because all the, all the people with weird face makeup, it's because they're, it's because they're doing interesting things and interesting settings with interesting characters. Yeah.
Well, here, pause. I do have one question. We'll get to the like, the cool, dramatic sci-fi question. So most sci-fi shows set out to kind of tell you a story about humanity.
Yeah. By showing you people who are not human. Yeah. And is a story about humanity the same in the next generation in deep space nine, one.
If no, how do they differ? That's a good question. It's a great question. Thank you.
That's it too. I think that they are slightly different. I think you're absolutely right. And Star Trek in particular is about sort of let's play little, you know, let's experiment, let's define the boundaries of what it means to be, to be a human.
For me, the big difference between TNG and DS9, this is going to turn into my closing argument also, by the way. That's fine. I'm totally right. I'm right there.
I'm just waiting for you. Okay. Good. Is that TNG is like, because of its procedural structure, it's like, let's have this experiment about human nature this week.
And next week, we're going to have this experiment about human nature. And individually, you're absolutely right. Those make great stories, particularly the data ones, because you have these little compact stories about what is it like to be a machine that's actually a human and can you have emotions and, you know, doesn't have a father and all these great, all these great episodes. But for me, the interesting questions about what it means to be a human are very hard to tell without being able to have memory from one episode to the next, which is not, they're not memory in TNG, but that it's optional.
Often you'll have TNG episodes that just sort of veer off in one direction, and it's like, oh, you come back, whereas DS9 is much more consistent in telling a story through. And it's very frustrating when you're trying to get to know a character and you're particularly for a show that's trying to tell you about what it means to be human. If I don't always get to follow my favorite characters, if the human experiment that you ran last week, nobody seems to remember. So for me, that's really the core of why DS9 is just a superior show.
I have to, before I see, though, I have to say, I almost picked Voyager because Katherine Janeway is the name of the captain, and my name is Katherine Jane. And when I toured Kenyon, you guys, the actress who plays Katherine Janeway was on my tour, and she told me she liked my pants. I know her son went to the Kenyon, it was like a year ahead of me. Yeah, anyway, so I'm just saying, she really liked my pants, and that's maybe why I went there, but it's not Voyager, it's DS9.
Voyager is a whole nother thing. We have a whole nother argument about whether it's even good or not. TNGNDS9, I think, explore different aspects of humanity. Before I was talking about Gene Ronberry and how his view of the future is fundamentally optimistic.
In the original series, I think it was optimistic in ways that were really important for the time. This is a show running in the late 60s where an African-American woman and a Russian dude and an Asian guy were all just hanging out with an alien and white people on the same bridge of the same ship, and it was never commented upon. It was just no big deal that was happening. It feels totally normal or totally expected now, but go back to the late 60s and civil rights and all that stuff.
Like the Cold War, it's a huge deal to have all that stuff going on. And so a lot of that carried over to the next generation. One of my favorite little stories about it is that people would ask Patrick Stewart, like, if you live so far in the future, why are there still bald people? Why are you still bald?
And the answer to that is, it's so far in the future that we don't care that people are bald anymore. We're not so petty that we care that people don't have hair. I also screw you for asking. Sorry.
He looks amazing bald. No, he rocks it. He's been good. It's a really aspirational vision of the future, I guess, which initially was kind of boring because the characters could fight with each other.
But given that we'd all like to think that we're progressing a bit by bit every year, every day, every whatever, things are going to slowly and steadily get better as we keep trying, TNG shows a future where that mentality wins. That's what we actually get around to doing. And DS9 to its credit made things more gray and more, I think, more recognizably human to if you were watching it in the mid 90s, people do have multiple sides of them. Not everybody is telling the truth all the time.
Not everybody is motivated by things that are noble. But TNG, I don't know, it makes you, it's more hopeful show. Like even though DS9 uses those elements to good effect, I think that as a depiction of the future, I think TNG is more uplifting. Yeah, there's something lovely about how pure it is.
Yeah. All right. Capably argued, both of you. I am intrigued by the truth, you forgot for it about each show.
And definitely looking forward to watching both of the episodes that you do have recommended in the course of this podcast. And it seems to me like we have a question where it's like, which is the more impressive accomplishment? Is it proof of concept? Is it re-establishing this terrific series and showing the enduring appeal of stories about people in space, optimistic or otherwise?
Or is it working with an established foundation and building complexity and narrative doodads on top of it? And Andrew, as compelling as your final argument was, I think it was what tipped me over in favor of Deep Space 9, because if you give me a chance, if it's like watching humans be noble versus watching humans be human, and occasionally stumble into nobility, I'm always going to pick the second one. Yeah. I love watching people screw up.
That's fair. Yeah. I'm a very optimistic person, but I like to be down in the dirt with like normal schmows, with a lot of great space. I mean, I will say that I said it a couple of times.
I think that DS9 is that taking as a whole, I think it's a better show. The better show. Yeah. Yeah.
But that should not be said at the expense of the next generation. Like they're both really shows in different ways. Yeah. And Margaret, if you have the leopard human lady, if you don't have the slug that lives inside her.
That's right. That's so true. It's so true. And Margaret, as you're summing up, I was like, I think it is almost more impressive to be like, I'm going to reboot this whole franchise and make it's really hard to build something different.
Yes. Yes. Different but the same. That's right.
And the peeling broadly, broad appeal, is not something that I've ever really mastered. Yeah. It's not something that Star Trek is very good at for me. It's first time either.
Like, TNG got a lot of accolades, but you know, there's that whole list of awards that it won. And guess how many awards DS9 won? None awards. Well, this has been, this has been obviously for me a deeply satisfying judgment.
Apparently. Yeah. Andrew, if you and I are going to have to redouble our efforts because we have to take Catherine. Because I'm a master, master, argueroth.
That's true. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
That's, that's a goal for the next time. Take me down. Okay. Thank you everybody for listening to appointment TV.
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