He was also in The Brothers Karamazov, so can we get some Dostoyevsky quotes as well?
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No, because thatâs historical, not fantasy.
Star Trek is basically being in a really loopy production of A Midsummer Nightâs Dream.
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Stream of Consciousness: (my process below, though that does sound like an episode!)
Best captain: Picard
Best book: Spock Must Die! by James Blish (caveat: Iâve not read many)
Best amusing villain: Harvey Mudd. I also liked Berlinghoff Rasmussen, played by Matt Frewer.
Best episode: ST:TNG âYesterdayâs Enterpriseâ
Worst villain: Q (he can do ANYTHING. Whereâs the drama in that?)
Best character, ST:TOS: Dr. McCoy
Best character, ST:TNG: Lt. Broccoli
Best movie: Wrath of Khan (though the wormy ear thing grossed me out)
Worst movie: Star Trek 5, Final Frontier, though Iâm quite proud of my Official Kraft Star Trek 5 Marshmallow Dispenser, hidden in a box somewhere:
Worst series: Enterprise, though I only saw a few episodes before going âecch.â A âtemporal cold war?â What?
And of course, I did object to a lot of the balonium used as plot devices, especially post Original Series. But then I like hard sf!
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what episode do you get up to? I recently saw the entire run, and I was mildy curious about (the unmade) Season 5. In truth I wanted to see Larry Niven mess with star trekâŚ
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Similarly, I find Doctor Who a lot more interesting when the sonic devices are left out of it.
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The temporal cold war concept sucked, and thankfully went away. I have a soft spot for Enterprise, because I think itâs the Star Trek we deserve, not the Star Trek we want. These characters know people who are old enough to remember the last, devastating world war (ie: the one thatâs already started in Syria, for the exact reasons Rodenberry said it would in the 60s). And when the Vulcans say, âyou arenât ready for interstellar relations and are lucky you met us firstâ, theyâre not wrong.
Which makes for some interesting points that unfortunately get buried under a bunch of other things, like that temporal cold war (that isnât even so cold). Also there are a number of episodes where an interestingly flawed character is thrown into some hero/saviour/Chosen One plot, and it just doesnât work. Uncritical Chosen One plots can get discontinued any time now.
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I donât recall, but it was indeed first season. But I didnât know Niven was going to be involved! On the other hand, I think Nivenâs best work was fairly early; Iâve read some of his later work, and havenât enjoyed it as much. Not to be a critic or anything . . . 
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Well, thatâs good. There were other things that didnât resonate with me â like the shower scene between the female Vulcan and the male human, where they were mopping each other with some sort of cleanser. I mean, really. Hints of porn and Star Trek really donât go together. And I really disliked her character, so I guess that, and what I read about it over the months and years, turned me off.
But I see what you mean about getting more details about the early history.
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Supposedly there was a lot of network interference with Enterprise, and judging from what stuff is ascribed to them, whoever was giving feedback had never seen Star Trek before. The gel thing died off eventually too (IIRC last seen with a funny scene where Dr. Phlox explains he has a strong aversion to casual touching). Those scenes were generally just icky to watch, not least because they didnât have a helluva lot to do with plot or characters â except to maybe remind us this is before Starfleet has holodecks, so everyoneâs dealing with being stuck on a spaceship the old-fashioned way.
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What? Network suits interfering with the creative types? Never!
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The theme song was pretty clearly written by committee
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Yeah, my pet name for it is âGrunge is cool with the smart set and a Bush is in the White House againâ.
I do like the montage it plays over though.
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Ha! I call it âforget 9/11 for a minuteâ
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much better without the vocals.
(the opening titles looked incredible in HD, but youtube adds its own artifacts.)
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If ANYONE in this thread is not aware, the H&I network, available Over the Air in lots of places, and on many basic cable packages too, plays all the Series one after another just now, in order by season. 8pm-1am, weekdays.
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The Nation had a great review of Enterprise when it came out.
The first series, which began in 1967, was an odd amalgam of manly Buck Rogers adventure, cold war pro-Americanism and utopian social drama influenced by the civil rights movement. When Star Trek was revived for TV in 1987 with The Next Generation, the showâs tagline was tellingly updated from âwhere no man has gone beforeâ to âwhere no one has gone before.â And the changes went far beyond gender. Trekâs depictions of racism and caste exploitation got acute, with a series of amazing shows about workers treated as things, and it explored torture and official violence daringly, bitingly criticizing them even as it showed our own implication in them. (TNG also utilized the skills of a heart-stoppingly talented Shakespearean actor, Patrick Stewart.) The next two series, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, steered Star Trek onward into the 1990s. (Voyager in particular took Trek forward, having three aggressive women as the showâs main characters, and also making them the sharpest scientific minds on the ship.)
So, watching the first season of the latest Trek vehicle, Enterprise, Iâve feltâŚnausea and horror. It takes Star Trek so far backward that itâs like Buffy becoming a sex slave chained to a bed for the rest of her television career. Set in Trekâs âpast,â 100 years before Kirkâs time and just 150 years after our own, Enterprise depicts the first humans to have contact with alien races. Emphasis on races: the interplanetary politics seem to have been framed by Pat Buchanan. Though there are two token humans of color on the ship, humans are heavily coded as white and male.
All the previous Star Trek series, over three decades, have been about becoming progressively more catholic, more aware of the astonishing diversity of the galaxy, the provincial limitedness of oneâs own assumptions and oneâs own potential to harm people who are different. The newest offering is a frank vehicle for white male suprematism and resentment.
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Yeahhhh⌠that is not how I read that series at all, which is what I mean by the Star Trek we deserve, not the Star Trek we want.
The planetâs just been through two major wars, and is on the brink of civilisation becoming extinct when the Vulcans show up. Newsflash! Things go kind of retrograde â kind of like what weâre going through now, but worse. The crew of the Enterprise is 1/3 women, according to its communication officer Hoshi (who being both a woman and a Brazillian of Asian descent would notice). And itâs obvious from comments made by the male mostly white crew they think that is progressive.
The whole thing spits in the face of âwe are always getting better and Star Trek shows us getting betterâ. Instead it points out things could easily get worse for a while.
In Enterprise, women can be captains; in TOS they could not. That indicates, if someoneâs scrutinised the timeline carefully, that the path from Enterprise to TNG and DS9 is not going to be one of smooth progressiveness and broadening inclusion. Enterprise deals with this directly in later seasons when anti-alien political movements become popular in communities controlled by humans.
And sorry, if the show is bringing it up in episode after episode (and they do, often in uncomfortable ways that get called ânot Star Trekâ), Iâm down with that. Itâs better than just handwaving and saying âafter we get warp drive it will be aaaaaallll better!â.
Diversity is more than just headcounts.
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I wish that enterprise hadnât happened during the âwar on terrorâ. Nevertheless, it did, and at least one critic noticed.
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I see the concept meeting for Enterprise going like this:
âSeven was wildly popular, you know why?â says the person calling the shots.
âBecause Jeri Ryan is a pretty good actor and Trek is all about finding the humanity in even our enemies and thus her arc epitomizes that ethos?â says one hopelessly naive Trekkie on staff.
âNo! Because BEEEEWBS! This time letâs make a show that focuses on the cast being shirtless a lot.â
It didnât help that âInexperienced with the galaxyâ kept getting written as âClueless idiots with warp shipsâ for the first two seasons. No one thought to give the humans some sort of briefing? Maybe a list of things to avoid?
The Trip Gets Pregnant, Hilarity Ensues Cuz Only Gurlz Do That episode was what made me stop watching the show on the regular. I did make a point to tune in to the Mirror episodes because I love me some Constitution Class. But even Evil Archer was as incompetent as his counterpart.
Long story short: If you tell me Voyager was the worst Trek, Iâm going to assume you were in a coma during Enterprise⌠Nemesis⌠JJ Trek.
Thatâs fifteen years of coma. Welcome back, coma person. You might want to go under again once I tell you whoâs president now.
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