The Vulcans did. Repeatedly. It’s almost all they talk about for the first two episodes, and often after that.
The humans’ (the mostly white, mostly male humans) response was, “Screw you, we’re grown-ups!”, not realising they made the Vulcans’ exact point.
I loved the early episode where they land on a planet and spend more time snapping photos than checking tricorders – missing the poisonous hallucinogenic substance that makes them try to kill each other.
Starfleet didn’t choose scientists. They chose people who would sound good when mentioned in the news. They didn’t even have a human science officer properly lined up. And in the early episodes, Archer honestly believes being a loud extravert reads as “friendly” with the whole galaxy, even though it’s shown it doesn’t even work with his own crew (Hoshi and Mayweather are introverts and better at encountering other cultures; Reed even wistfully asks why the Vulcans had to meet the Americans first).
I spent a lot of time yelling at my TV when I watched it. Because yeah, it’s Doofus Central. But their society thinks they’re the Right Stuff, and to me that’s cringingly plausible.
His people were at war with the Vulcans, remember. His and Archer’s friendship raised the interesting point: what if humans cut ties with Vilcan at a later date? Another thing that didn’t get explored.
I tried to think back on that and I all I remember was the Vulcans being written as sounding like the teachers in a Peanuts cartoon. “Whomp whomp whomp-whomp.” I probably tuned them out like Archer did.
Poor T’Pol sounded like a teacher on a field trip. “You can’t just take a shuttle down and walk around! There might be a reason why this planet has no sentient humanoids on it!”
“Yeah, but we’ve been cooped up in a spaceship for two weeks now. We need fresh air, stretch our legs.”
“We need to do thorough atmosphere, water, and soil scans before we–”
“Hey, you wanna be in the photo? Oh wait, Vulcans don’t smile. We should have you take the photo.”
And if you think that’s not plausible, remember Alan Shepard smuggled golf clubs to the moon in real life. Humans figure out warp drive, crap like that is totally happening. There’s a reason why on TNG, when someone mentioned the 20th or 21st centuries, the other people would wince as if they’d just caught whiff of a bad fart.
The guitar and the obsessing on a pretty woman far too young for him made for an excellent mid life crisis Doctor.
TBH the entirety of Nu Who reads to me like a man in the middle of a mid-life crisis. I think Smith did it best but all of them were old men acting young.
BTW: If the thread goes to a DW discussion I won’t mind.
For me it’s been there all along. Even in TOS there’s all these speeches about equality, and there’s 7 year old me watching random episodes on WUTV Buffalo automatically cheering when Nichelle Nichols, 'cos she’s the only regular woman on the bridge who doesn’t hand out coffee sometimes. Also the only one who takes off a control panel and sticks her hand into computer guts.
So “Star Trek shows a progressive society”… well. They certainly try. What’s interesting to me is how they fail for each show.
Having sympathy for characters who think they’re so advanced but so desperately aren’t is just part of the experience.
(PS last summer I went to a local comic con through last-minute free tickets, and was totally fangirling when I discovered I was in the same ginormous hall as Nichelle Nichols. I refrained from getting an autograph because a) you had to buy tickets ahead of time and b) I was too afraid I’d swallow my tongue if I tried to talk to her.)
