Daniel Larison on the new Trek: So Star Trek Isn’t Star Trek Anymore

Of course, I have found almost every assumption that undergirds the old Star Trek universe utterly ridiculous and unrealistic even by sci-fi standards. It is indeed the meliorist’s and progressive’s dream come true, which is another way of saying that it is impossible. There is almost nothing in the franchise’s politics that I find attractive, and the regular sermonizing was at times very unpleasant*. Yet I learned to like it not just in spite of its preachiness and precious political correctness, but also partly because those were constants one could rely on.