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May 14, 2005 I'd like to write a series of articles about recent and present scifi; this column will focus on the death of Trek and what was good, and bad, about the Franchise. The short: the Star Trek franchise appears dead, but there are good shows which appeal to a much wider audience, in various stages of life: Farscape, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who. The long: many Trekkies (or is it Trekkers?) are upset that the Star Trek franchise seems to be coming to an end. I really liked Star Trek the Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine, but I thought that Star Trek Voyager was horrible dribble. Alas, the same lousy writers from Voyager went to work for Enterprise. I didn't dis Enterprise for the reasons others did: breaking continuity/time line issues, different theme music, the choice of captain, etc., I just thought the writing was horrible. I'm told that it started coming into its own near the end, but I wouldn't know, I gave up on the series half way through the first season. I thought the original series was a bit over-rated as science fiction, but it had a far-reaching social impact which I thought was needed in America at the time. Gene Roddenberry was a vocal humanist, and his series reflected that. In a civil and rational future, why couldn't you have a black women on the bridge? Why couldn't a white man kiss her? My answer to saving the franchise would be a string of movies based on Deep Space Nine. A two hour movie could spend the first half hour bringing audiences up to speed, perhaps as a series of flashbacks; the way Deep Space Nine ended facilitates this very well, having to do with non-linear beings that perceive all of time as one point. To scifi fans that never got into DS9, I would recommend renting/buying the series and watching it all the way through. While individual episodes are generally weaker than TNG episodes, overall, it's quite a great story with a wonderfully large story arc and maybe even better than TNG when taken as a whole. Of course, no one is going to listen to little ol' me, and the franchise basically seems dead. The Trek movies overall were so-so. Some were terrible, some were excellent. The original Trek movies were by and large better. First, they felt like movies. Star Trek two and three were a nicely related little set. Star Trek Four is a good watch, but it was kind of a fluff-ball science fiction offering. Star Trek 5 was horrible. Star Trek 6 had real potential, but they blew it. Using a book to look up Klingon and constant references to American politics really lowered it for me. When Uhura said, “well, its gotta have a tail pipe!” to explain to us, the 'stupid' audience, what Spock was planning to do to save the day, it made me cringe. A 'seeking bomb' to hit the other spaceship! Brilliant! One wonders why Star Fleet couldn't have thought of this sooner – and it even works on cloaked ships! Many people, I admit, do not like nor get science fiction; that's fine, I understand and accept that. But I think most audiences can sense when they are being patronized, fans or otherwise. The Next Generation movies weren't bad per se, but they weren't real good either. They were glorified episodes - each could have easily been chopped into a nice and neat 40 minute TV show (60 minus commercials). Generations was disappointing in that it handled two big Trek events in non-climactic ways: Data finally gets emotions and Kirk dies. Each could have been a movie onto itself. Data was the favorite character for many for years on TNG – what a let down... First Contact was probably the most entertaining – lets face it, the Borg were a pretty cool enemy, after all. It does leave one wondering, though [ditto for Star Trek 4], if time travel is so seemingly feasible and easy, why don't the various warring alien races constantly try to screw each other's history? If by some miracle they do make Deep Space Nine movies, they must be careful to avoid these pitfalls: don't underestimate the audience, don't leave obvious mile-wide “but if they can do this, couldn't they just also do that” type logic gaps, and don't make a fattened up TV episode; the big screen is a different medium. I've saved the best for last: Star Trek the Motion Picture, the first Trek movie. This movie is as close to hard-SF as Trek gets, and it's one of my favorite science-fiction movies. It takes the best from the old series – the personality of the main characters, but combines it with a sane script. In other words, it's not rigged to have Kirk end up in a fist fight with the bad alien, only to end up kissing the beauty while making bold moral pronouncements about the society which was just interfered with (against the infamous 'Prime Directive', of course). Action wise it was slowly paced, but it was loaded with awe, wonder, and anticipation. The secrets were slowly revealed – it was in no hurry, but to a true scifi fan, it wasn't boring in the least, being very roughly akin to 2001 in that specific regard. It asked important and basic questions: “what does it mean to be alive”, “is there more to the universe than we can understand with the senses” and so on. It also nicely shows that humanism, even secular humanism, allows for spirituality and wonder – no doubt similar to what religion provides for some folks. Next up, Farscape! The best TV show that you've probably never seen. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. Email: dahlek65@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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