this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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I think TOS did a better job giving the communications officer something to do. Mostly because in the 60s they thought space telephones would need operators, but still. Enterprise's innovation of making the comms officer a linguist was very clever, and I think it's a great way to give Hoshi more to do. But I don't think Hoshi is portrayed as performing the essential functions Uhura does, which make Uhura very important to the essential functioning of the Enterprise. Hoshi just presses buttons until the universal translator starts working, and then she's useless. I think that's a big failure of writing. Strange New Worlds was making this mistake too, right up until Subspace Rhapsody which stepped the portrayal of Uhura way up by showing us that Uhura has the telephone operator chops to run comms for the whole ship, and that she is indeed a part of all communications. I like the balance that SNW is striking for Uhura as of 2023, and I hope they keep that coming into the future. Because Uhura's job in TOS was very important and it remains important even with TNG style commbadges. There's a reason the Enterprise of the 60s feels more organised and professional than all later ships, and I think the comms officer is the biggest reason why. Kirk has the ideas, and Uhura gets everyone on the ship on his page. Contrast that with the chaos you see in TNG, which is dialed up to 11 in LDS, and you see the vital importance of the comms officer. Nobody tells lower deckers what's going on, because they forgot to replace Uhura.
It's funny because I have the exact opposite opinion! I feel like in TOS, Uhura just relays messages and presses buttons on her console. Maybe I'm missing something though. Maybe she's critical to the intra ship communications as the "telephone operator" but she never seems to be critical to the mission.
On the other hand, ENT spends a lot of time building up how many languages Hoshi knows, and how quickly she can pick up new ones, even alien languages. She definitely has her moments where she just struggles until the UT works. But in several episodes they rely on her to translate alien writing, and in at least one or two, she learns to speak a whole new language to communicate. She's also shown to have developed major improvements to the UT. My impression of her, even from Broken Bow when Archer recruited her, was that she's a freaking language savant, operating and developing very new experimental tech. It is sad she didn't get to fully realize her transition from timid linguist to badass crew member (and still linguist). But I always felt like she was doing something critical for the mission, whereas I felt Uhura (in TOS) wasn't.
SNW Uhura is very different in that regard, she does a lot more "mission critical" stuff and she's getting an arc that's very reminiscent of Hoshi (totally a savant, hard working, starting out timid but growing). So I love that for her!
Hoshi could struggle to translate an impossible language and succeed. Or her usefulness to the episode could be that Edgar Alien Perv has a crush on her. Telling everyone in the ship what's going on is always useful. There are plenty of scenes in LDS where there's a red alert and nobody knows what to do about it. That's why TOS had Uhura
Yeah that was a super rough episode.
We just are taking two different perspectives about being essential. Uhura was like an organ: quietly essential to the regular operation of your body. Whereas Hoshi is like hands or maybe ears or something: very important for achieving your body's goals, but you can compensate for them not working. You're right Uhura is more essential. I just think it's more interesting watching the hands / ears of the ship helping achieve the mission.
And I'm glad SNW Uhura does both
Yes!
Whoa whoa whoa, failures of writing on Enterprise? Get outta here.