Some of the examples in the Wikipedia page don't make sense to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency_porn

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[–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

TNG is a show about a utopian human society, where the individuals and society are moral and upstanding. It's a reflection of the best parts of our idealized selves. The characters are friendly, forgiving, and well trained. There is no substance abuse, and resources are unlimited.

BSG is about how our hubris led to the downfall of civilization and how we're wasting away, hopelessly trying to avoid extinction in the face of resource starvation, and constantly being on the brink of annihilation. The characters are the best of what's left, whatever that means, and it's only through cleverness and luck that they can persevere.

I honestly think BSG characters show competence better than TNG, because in BSG the deck is stacked AGAINST the characters, but they still pull through due to incredible talent. In TNG it's deus ex machina almost every episode as they "recalibrate the diteron maximizers and send more foonbahs to the replicar inverters"

I love both, but IMO BSG is a much better reflection of actual competence and realistic human personalities, complete with skeletons in closet, bad attitudes, drunkenness, arrogance, etc.

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