You’ve heard of the “Bechdel-Wallace test” and its potential value to some people in measuring various media in a given context.
I propose a measure we’ll call the “Captain and Crew Test”…
I was enduring – yes, that’s the word I’ll choose – an episode of a certain Trek show and found myself thinking that I seem to enjoy Star Trek shows where the captain isn’t the center of attention for the continued story, rather the crew as a whole (including the captain as professionally and relatively required) works together on the story of the day or is portrayed in multiple dimensions without the commanding officer present.
So, here’s my attempt at codifying this “Captain and Crew Test”:
- The episode/show has to have at least two crew members (i.e. not the captain) essential to the story,
- who interact with each other without the captain,
- about the story without specific direction from the captain
I think these “rules” could use some adjustment and addition, but I think you get what I’m proposing/suggesting/inciting.
UPDATE 2024-07-04 04:35:34 UTC: Check out the quick and amazing work by @danielquinn@lemmy.ca to compile a subset of the percentage of lines for each character in a few Star Trek shows.
Here’s an addendum with a few great episode examples which might pass my “test”.
- TOS: “Amok Time”, (arguably) “The Galileo Seven”
- TNG: “Brothers”, “Lower Decks”, “The Measure of a Man”
- DS9: “It’s Only A Paper Moon”, “Improbable Cause”+“The Die Is Cast”, “The Magnificent Ferengi”
Other shows also have great episodes that pass, but I want to stop here for my examples so as to avoid showing my hand (too much) and stating which show(s) I think fail.
There are so many episodes in all the series but here’s a few from Voyager: VOY: “The Chute”, “Dreadnought”, “Learning Curve”, “Meld”, “One”, "Once Upon a Time”, “Timeless”… the list goes on. Many other episodes focus on a single member of the crew, many times with the Captain not being an important part of the story at all.
I like it, and I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that you’re talking about Discovery. I’ve said in the past that the show should be called “Star Trek: Michael Burnham” as it would at least be more honest.
To be fair, I think every series has a lot of episodes that would fail this test, some of which were excellent, like DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight”, and “Far Beyond the Stars” or TNG’s “The Inner Light”, but if used to assess a series, I think this could be a good metric.
To be fair, I think every series has a lot of episodes that would fail this test, some of which were excellent, like DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight”, and “Far Beyond the Stars” or TNG’s “The Inner Light”, but if used to assess a series, I think this could be a good metric.
Indeed, “In the Pale Moonlight” is one I thought of which fails as well. I still think it makes a good measure to see how many episodes of a show pass/fail overall. Only to see if it’s really about the whole crew or mostly one character. (Arguably, early TNG comes really close to being Star Trek: Wesley while mid/late TNG comes close to Star Trek: Data.)
I think most of ST:LD pass your test, if not all of them
I fully agree that your “rules” need adjustment, starting with the fact that you engineered them around your personal dislikes.
