Dean Christakos« Another victory for Tivo | Main | Reflections on July 4th »
May 8, 2005
If only it were like this...
I have to make a confession that will likely surprise no one. I am a sucker for all sorts of science fiction. This spills over into being a fan of Star Trek. I've watched all of the series. I can even discuss the interactions of the characters in detail. I don't own a Star Trek uniform, but I have been known to own a Star Trek communicator pin and a transporter novelty mug.
However, in my own way, I also have a loathing for Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future was marred too much by a desire to create a utopia of the sort that people don't really live in. It always seemed a bit too much like you could substitute "The Party" for "The Federation," and you'd never see the difference. The world was a little too squeaky clean for my taste, particularly since I was raised on a steady diet of the gritty Star Wars and Alien universes. And don't even get me started on the thinly-veiled allegories that turned too many Star Trek episodes of every single series into an after-school-special. There were some groundbreaking social landmarks in Star Trek, but subtle it was not.
Worst of all is how, with every series, the writers would make the same mistakes over and over again. Can you name a single series that didn't take at least 2 seasons to become worth watching? One of the most egregious offenders of this was Star Trek: Voyager, which took quite a long time to realize that viewers really didn't want to hear about Chakotay's Spirit Guides or listen to Neelix's singing and was instead interested in, you know, science fiction and how a crew would deal with being stranded and forced two separate crews that disliked each other to cooperate. My favorite episode of the entire series didn't come along until the last season.
On those notes, we come to "Enterprise," which is going off the air at the end of this season. It was no exception to Star Trek's various problems. The first couple of seasons were awful. Eventually they started a season-long plot with a thinly-veiled "terrorist attack" on Earth around 2003. Through the entire season, they persisted in having an awful, syrupy-sweet opening sequence. We're supposed to be inspired while we listen to "Faith of the Heart." This was a long decline into new-agey flightiness that started with the ST: DS9 theme.
Now, of course, is the last season of Enterprise, and sure enough, the series has gotten better. A two-parter in February was placed in the mirror universe, and the episode featured a new opening-credits sequence with new music. While watching it, all I could think is, "I'd kind of rather watch this series than what I was stuck with before."
Posted by Dean at May 8, 2005 2:13 PM
Comments
I started watching a bit of Enterprise this season. I've been enjoying it more as a soap opera than as interesting science fiction. Sort of a guilty pleasure. Though they do get extra points for having an episode about disembodied alien space ethnographers, aired just after we learned about observational techniques in my qualitative methods class.
Posted by: Marleigh at May 10, 2005 6:27 PM