Time & Perspective Quote by Tracey Ullman

Ullman’s jab lands because it skewers a stubborn piece of cultural laziness: our collective habit of picturing “the future” as a costume department. Space helmets and silver foil aren’t predictions; they’re visual shorthand left over from midcentury sci-fi, a time when tomorrow had to be legible at a glance on cheap sets and black-and-white TVs. The punchline is that we keep recycling that shorthand even as real futurism shows up in quieter forms: apps that decide what you see, corporate language that sandpapers personality, devices that disappear into your pocket.

The “talking like computers” part is the sharpest blade. Ullman isn’t just mocking robotic speech; she’s pointing at how humans increasingly perform a kind of machine-ness in public. Think customer-service scripts, tech-bro optimism, the flattened, frictionless cadence of people trying to sound “efficient” or “data-driven.” It’s satire about aspiration: we don’t merely imagine machines; we imitate them, as if affectless precision is a status symbol.

The Star Trek dig does double work. It’s affectionate enough to be recognizable, mean enough to sting. “Bad episode” signals that the problem isn’t science fiction itself, but the cheap version of it: future-as-kitsch, future-as-branding, future-as-aesthetic. Ullman’s intent is to puncture that pose and remind us that tomorrow won’t arrive wearing foil. It’ll arrive wearing whatever makes us feel modern while quietly changing how we talk, desire, and comply.