Interview: Tawny Newsome On Finding The Sweet Spot For Her Star Trek Workplace Comedy
Interview: Tawny Newsome On Finding The Sweet Spot For Her Star Trek Workplace Comedy
At SDCC CBS sent us a synopsis, essentially a workplace comedy on a vacation planet – not Risa, not in the Federation. So are those fundamentals are still the same?
Those fundamentals are the same. But what I can tell you is what we’re really working on exploring, are the sort of overlooked sections of what happens when a world and a culture that is not that was not [sic] in the Federation. What happens when they decide to be?… So Federation outsiders and what’s kind of the nitty gritty involved with joining the Federation and involved with… yeah, I’m really struggling [to avoid spoilers]
That's an interesting adjustment...
I don’t think you needed [sic], just the comma that StarTrek.com omitted.
So, this is a big reveal - the scenario is a planet that has not been but now is a part of the Federation.
The viewpoint is civilian.
The resort workplace setting, like the old Loveboat or Fantasy Island, means that anyone can come by as the guest star.
I don’t think you needed [sic]
Just wanted to make sure - I stumbled over that sentence when reading it!
Hopefully things go better than with Bajor.
It's a comedy, so I hope so too! I imagine the planet, being a vacation/pleasure planet, will have a lot of kinks that are taboo to the Federation and that's where you will find the narrative tension as they apply for membership. The planet will have a constitution at odds with the Fed, full of kinks. They might welcome species that have kinks not outlined in said constitution. They might welcome federation citizens that are exploring their non-Fed kinks on this planet.
We've seen plenty of criticism of the Federation's nanny-state. Lately, that criticism has come from the writers of the shows who seem to have lost the narrative that the Federation is our ideal. Sure, it has issues, but none of us should be ashamed of reaching for utopia. I hope the new show is a continuation of the SNW and Prodigy reboot of a less cynical Trek.
Any show that tries to paint the federation as less than aspirational has entirely missed the point of trek, and the product is a stillbirth.
Pointing out flaws, or highlighting the morally grey areas like ds9 did is fine, because it still preserves the federation as a multicultural utopia.
E: always nice to get downvotes without further discourse. How does anyone consider "the office but in the alpha quadrant" star trek? I don't want to watch random people doing a mediocre job in some bureaucratic apparatus while they wear trek uniforms. I don't want to watch s31 as some sort of idiot CIA. I want to watch modern TNG.
A sense of wonder and optimism, the exploration of fantastic things never seen before. Engagement with philosophy and real world issues through a sci fi lense. A hopeful tomorrow, a ideological roadmap to utopia.