Fight the Future

The thing is, Star Trek was never that great. Don't get me wrong, I love all things Trek... but honestly: "No Kill I?" What the hell was that? 50 minutes of television built around a shambling scab? Or what about all of those Bajoran orbs? You'd think someone coulda' dug up the "Orb of coherent writing that's consistent within the universe of it's own creation and not mired in technobabble" by now. William Shatner?

But yeah, I love the damn franchise. The shows, the films (even Star Trek V: Kirk vs GOD")... the friggin' cartoon! Star Trek was my first real exposure to scifi. The first episode I ever saw was Catspaw... you know, the one with the witches from Hamlet, and a giant black cat that turns into Eartha Kitt's not-so-pretty cousin? I was on my way out of the house; my mom was gonna' drive us to Taco Bell. I loved Taco Bell, and rarely got to go there... I was 10... 10ish. I was riveted, standing there in front of the TV... Kirk toying with that puppet posing as a flamingo posing as an actress posing as a bored sorceress? Priceless. I was hooked. I knew right then what we all learned years later: when Kirk and God finally, inevitably, threw down? Kirk would smote some ass. Oh yeah.

But come on... it's crap.

That's just part of why I was so pissed Star Trek: Nemesis got such bad reviews from fans. "It sucks!" they wailed. "Of course it sucks!" I replied. "It's built to suck! It always sucked! Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick! Have you been watching at all these last 40 years?" I thought Nemesis was great -within the accepted parameters of Trek suckyness, of course- and sadly underrated. What it did too well, was... well, be true Trek. It had the classic Trek storylines (man vs man; man literally vs himself; man vs God); the classic Trek camera tricks (remember Troi's tortured empathic search for the Reman Viceroy and the cloaked Romulan "Fist of Unseemly Death" really, really big bird of prey? The light that fell squarely on her eyes?) and the classic Trek "funny, but in no way an ending" ending. It understood Trek's history and respected it. It had it all... and even the fans hated it... 'cause it turns out, Trek is hard to like. Love it all you want... I dare you to like it.

Trek is ham-fisted. The effects tend to suck (but they're still better than any episode of Dr Who... for what that's worth. They make robots out of toilet paper rolls on the BBC). The acting -unless it's being delivered by Patrick Stewart or Brent Spiner- is lame at best. Don't get me started on Enterprise's theme song. I mean... words? What the hell?

So... yeah. I'm not so surprised Enterprise was cancelled. Fans had built the franchise up in their fevered imaginations into something it never really was: credible scifi. Meanwhile, the Great Bird of the Galaxy's error apparant -Rick Berman- just seemed to stop caring, while taking himself and the franchise far too seriously. This last season, when he passed the con to Manny Coto (and have you seen Odyssey 5? Holy shit that show was great... for one season on Showtime, anyway), there was some little hope. The show basked in self-references again... Manny was trying to tie this era together with Kirk's era in a way no one had really bothered to try yet... and succeeding. Manny was having fun... the show was fun... but by this fourth season only Manny's agent was watching anymore... so the Lirpa fell. Color this show boldly went.

You wanna' know how little Rick actually cared at the end? Rumor has it that after almost 750 episodes... after four years alone of this latest chapter in the Trek saga... that the last episode of the last flight of Trek fancy we're likely to see for a very long time... shows us that this entire Enterprise saga was nothing more than a holonovel adventure on the Enterprise D's holodeck! It's a St. Elsewhere ending kids! WOOOOOO! Now who's the autistic son of a janitor in this senario?

I love Star Trek. I'll surely miss Star Trek... but maybe it's time it got back to its roots, you know? Maybe it's time for some simple wide-eyed wonder again... that can't be so hard, right? In fact, that should be no tribble at all.