3 reasons Star Trek should avoid a musical episode at all costs

Star Trek producers are pushing for a musical episode, which is a bad idea.

Alex Kurtzman really needs to let the idea of a musical episode die. Star Trek has always had unintended elements of silliness that it’s had to overcome, but rarely have they ever actually been silly. The series is a high-brow commentary on morality at its best and a decent portrayal of real-life interactions at worst. The last thing it’s ever intended to be is silly.

Sure, there are comedy moments, light-hearted and heartwarming moments. Ben Sisko playing baseball with Vulcans for instance. That wasn’t intended to be silly, it was intended to show a different side of Sisko, once that wasn’t explored much during the Dominion War.

Yet, a musical episode is the last thing the series needs to be investing time in for a variety of reasons.

Three reasons Star Trek doesn’t need a musical episode.

Musical episodes are often bad.

Look at some of the other series that have gone into the land of musicals. Very rarely are they any good. The plot is often shoehorned to fit a musical narrative, and often times it clashes with the central idea of the series. One great example is Psych, which had random moments of song and dance in its episode. Despite the already zany nature of the series, even they couldn’t make a musical episode work.

Writing songs that fans will love is not easy.

Why even bother? If Star Trek does do a musical, they’ll either have to write their own music which will likely be uninspired as all other television musicals are, or they’ll use hit songs that everyone already knows. Do you remember when Glee had their first original song on their show? Do you remember what it was? Yeah, no one else does either, because it wasn’t good.

It destroys the tone of the show.

Star Trek has an essence that shouldn’t be tampered with. We live in the age of deconstructionism, I get that, but not every form of media needs to be torn down to sunder just for a gag or a laugh. Star Trek has survived a lot of stupidity over the years, but a musical would sink its credibility to an all-time low. The Short Treks song between Spock and Number One was bad enough, don’t subject fans to an actual episode of it.