“It’s accurate, Captain”

Over the holidays one of the kids meant to compliment someone’s cooking, and misfired the wrong word—as you do—and as a result enthusiastically described the dish as “Accurate.”

Big laugh! Everyone thought it was funny, moved on.

Driving home, it struck me that this was a perfect Star Trek joke, and even more so, a perfect way to demonstrate the different approaches the various shows have taken over the years. All the shows have their designated outsider / “weirdo” whose job it is to do things “wrong” so the regular humans can be smug or condescending at them depending on the decade. I mean, you can almost hear how the Original Star Trek would have done it:

McCoy: Well Spock? How do you like it?

Spock: The Captain’s attempt at Vulcan cooking is accurate, Doctor.

McCoy: Accurate? After all that work that’s the best you can say?

Spock: You’re right, my apologies Captain. It’s extremely accurate.

McCoy: You green blooded etc, etc

And they keep acting superior and antagonizing at each other for however long that week’s episode was under-running by.

The Next Generation on the other hand, would have gone the other way, where Data would describe something as accurate, and then Troi and/or Whoopi Goldberg would fire off a whole speech about how accuracy isn’t the most important thing for humans and how instead what matters is the interplay of smells and textures that create an entire experience; and basically neg him for not being able to experience things the same way they do, again for as long as that week’s show was under-running.

Deep Space 9 would have built an extended joke about how grouchy Odo was, and that the most he was willing to compliment Sisko’s cooking was “accurate”. (As an extended aside, I love DS9, but a real a-ha moment was when I realized that Odo was the exact same character as Oscar the Grouch.)

I won’t belabor the point, but Voyager, Enterprise, and Disco all would have done something similar; some combination of antagonism, mutual superiority, pity, and condescension, where the basic point of the scene was that the “weirdo” was having the wrong reaction, and that’s funny and/or sad.

And then we get to Strange News Worlds, where again, you can also almost hear it:

Pike: What do yo think, Mister Spock?

Spock (enthusiastically): It’s accurate, Captain.

Chapel (amused): Really? Accurate?

Spock (mouth full): Mmmm! Extremely accurate!

Pike (sincerely): Thanks, Spock!

Because SNW also does those exact same “outsider” scenes, but the punchline is always “our neuroatypical buddy is pretty great!” instead of “wow, glad I’m not him.” SNW, unlike its predecessors, has a real, genuine love for people who act different, instead of using them as a way to illustrate how great normal people are. To be clear, I love Star Trek! But the older shows weren’t always the paragon of inclusiveness and understanding that the Paramount marketing department described them to be.

This is one of the reasons Anson Mount’s Pike is my favorite Star Trek captain; it’s impossible to imagine him taking “it’s accurate” as anything other than the genuine compliment it would have been meant as.

Anyway, I hope you’re all having an accurate holiday season.