Entertainment
Star Trek’s Best Writer Just Threw Fans Under The Bus
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Arguably, the greatest current Star Trek writer is Tawny Newsome: after voicing the hilarious Beckett Mariner on Lower Decks, she began writing for Starfleet Academy, all while working on a new, live-action Trek comedy. Newsome is a powerhouse writer who helped SFA craft its recent tribute to Avery Brooks, but she ruffled more than a few fandom feathers on a recent podcast appearance. That’s because she basically threw the fans under the bus by implying that anyone criticizing Starfleet Academy is simply hating on the show’s younger performances.
Recently, Tawny Newsome conducted an Ask Me Anything on YouTube, and she discussed the criticism that Starfleet Academy had been getting. “The side of the fandom that enjoys tearing these shows down … they exist. Which is fine,” she said. “But there is something different now with this show, because our cast is so young. And I just want to say: really think about who you are tearing down.”
Calculating Who To Blame For Star Trek’s Failures
Taken at face value, Newsome seems to be conflating most (if not all) criticism of shows like Starfleet Academy. That is, anyone who is “tearing these shows down” is also trying to tear down its young cast. However, this reaction doesn’t make any logical sense because almost all major criticisms of the show focus on failures at the writing and production level.
As someone who is deeply entrenched in NuTrek criticism (having contributed many thousands of words to it myself), I can confidently say most critics and even outright haters of Starfleet Academy focus more on the writers than the actors. Sure, you can find the occasional person taking potshots at, say, overweight characters, but even those critiques are limited almost exclusively to the older actors. The general consensus about Starfleet Academy’s young cast seems to be that they are very talented and would simply benefit from better writing and direction.
You’ll Eat What Trek Gives You, And You’ll Like It!
Why, then, is Tawny Newsome deliberately conflating criticism of the show with criticism of its young actors? The simplest explanation is also the saddest: this looks like a very transparent attempt to silence any and all critiques of Starfleet Academy. That show’s biggest defenders will now use her words to argue that anyone who criticizes this new Star Trek spinoff is someone who must hate its young, diverse cast and is therefore not worth listening to.
This is doubly disingenuous because very few NuTrek critics are interested in “tearing these shows down” for the fun of it. For the most part, these are passionate Star Trek fans (usually on the older side) who want the franchise to return to its former glory. For such fans, Starfleet Academy would be a much better show if it focused less on embarrassing Zoomer humor and more on just giving us a good Star Trek episode. “Series Acclimation Mil,” for example, very nearly ruined its touching tributes to Avery Brooks and Deep Space Nine with lowbrow d*ck and fart jokes that were downright embarrassing to watch.
Naked Hypocrisy From Paramount
Using Newsome’s logic, my criticism of this episode’s lowbrow jokes is tantamount to me trying to tear down the cast of Starfleet Academy. But it wasn’t the youthful cast that filled this episode with weird potty humor; it was the middle-aged Newsome, who wrote it! In this sense, her recent podcast comments take on a kind of self-defensive tone, with her instantly demonizing any and all criticisms of the very show she works for.
Tawny Newsome’s words are already pretty offensive to fans like myself who genuinely want NuTrek to improve. However, what is more concerning is the idea that she might speak for Alex Kurtzman or other powerful figures at Paramount when she dismisses all criticism of Starfleet Academy as some inexplicable hatred for its young actors. The biggest hope among many critics is that the new show will get better over time, but it seems clear that the show will never improve if everyone involved with its production is busy making excuses and generally throwing well-meaning critics under the bus.
Paramount To Fans: It’s Always Your Fault
At the end of the day, all that will matter to Paramount is the numbers. Starfleet Academy has already been renewed for a second season, but the series has proven to be controversial among fans and quickly fell out of the Top 10 ranking on Paramount+. This is despite it being a well-marketed new Star Trek show. Should viewership get low enough, the show might get prematurely canceled, like Discovery and Lower Decks before it.
For Starfleet Academy skeptics, this is the ultimate Kobayashi Maru: if you watch the show and complain, then you are criticized for tearing down the series and its actors, and everyone will ask, “why are you watching if you hate it?” But if the show gets canceled, you’ll get blamed, with fans saying the series could have succeeded if you and other haters had simply sucked it up and watched. For NuTrek critics, Tawny Newsome’s words are a sobering reminder of the Paramount mentality: no matter what negative thing happens to a new Star Trek show, it will always be your fault for not blindly liking it!