Star Trek: Dark and Gritty?
This is primarily aimed to discuss the complaints about Discovery and how dark and gritty it is. There are some that believe that it’s not ST because it is too dark and gritty. While I have my own issues with DISCO, the darkness and grittiness is one reason I liked it. But I would argue that at points, the TOS was just as dark and at times gritty.
I have been re-watching the Original series on Netflix for three reasons (1) Expose my kids to it (2) catch some episodes I might have missed and (3) Watch them all with the updated special effects. I did this after watching Discovery all the way through. I recommend everyone try this at least once. It does put things in perspective.
For those that say DISCO was too dark in tone, I HIGHLY recommend going back and watching TOS. I have just finished season 1 and there are some seriously dark tones in that season. Maybe these tones are so painted up with plastic pastels and bright lighting that they seem lightened up but they are still dark in tone.
Part of it may be the visuals. In the 60s, that’s how things were shot. The colors were bright and over-the-top because color TVs weren’t exactly HD back then. So while the visual tone might have been bright, I argue that the stories where not. DISCO is only updating the visuals to something more modern.
Ex: Operation- Annihilate. Kirk’s brother and sister in law die, the latter right before his eyes. This leaves a very young boy orphaned. To me that is dark and devastating. While the show did not go down the dark road that would normally take a person when that happens, I think Kirk went there. He may have internalized it, but it broke him inside for a time.
Ex: Devil in the Dark. That is a dark and claustrophobic episode. And it was gritty. But because of the pastels and bright colors (visuals) it did not feel as gritty.
Ex: Taking this to the movies … one of the best of all of them – Star Trek II … VERY dark and gritty. The blood on Kirk’s tunic still haunts me to this day.
There are more, these are just examples. I just think some are letting the visuals disguise the darkness in the TOS a little and not really seeing it in the story.
Just a thought …