And another crazy week comes to an end. Today turned out to be a so-so day. I spent most of the day walking around with a headache, one that didn’t go way until I came home and napped after work.. A lot of what happened at that UMAC meeting weighted heavily on me throughout the day as well. As the day progressed I was able to get it more out of my mind, but my emotions are still pretty high with it. It helped to be able to talk to Joel and process things out a bit – especially from someone who knows the situation but wasn’t there… Interesting perspectives from my good friend.
Work was great today. My project is back on track and I made a lot of head-way with another project I’m working on. I’m ready to hit the ground Monday and feel pretty good about everything.
So my night tonight… Was a complete waste/veg-out night. I went and got take out Chinese and killed some time in front of the Tivo. What an unproductive evening! In some ways it’s exactly what I needed after a busy week, but in other ways the weather is beautiful and I should have been outside.
But being that I was in front of the TV I managed to catch the series finale of "Enterprise". Now being that I am a closet Trekie (yes, it’s true… I’ve been a Star Trek fan for the better part of 13 years… And no I don’t go to the conventions, wear the pointed ears or even go around quoting the stuff, but I have seen a lot of Star Trek, especially back in the glory days) I do feel compelled to give my viewpoint to the end of another installment of (and for the time being THE END) of the Star Trek franchise.
And to put it simply IT SUCKED!!!
Now I’ve never been a huge fan of Enterprise. The original concept was great and I did enjoy watching the first few episodes, and throughout its run it had it’s moments, but the show has been poorly written, especially for Star Trek. I understand that each series had it’s own flavors that attracted certain fans, but this one never managed to find it’s niche. And to make matters worse they tried to sex up Star Trek… The words "sex" and "Star Trek" really don’t belong together (just ask all of those convention losers). So this concept really hasn’t worked. With that said, I’ve really respected their attempts to get back to the franchise’s roots, especially during the 4th season. This season produced some of the best quality shows of Trek that I’ve seen in quite some time. It was nice… and definitely deserved better than what happened tonight.
First off they base the premise to be 6 years into the future (and you gotta love this being the 3rd "Trek" finale that’s been based in the future – what a tired concept). But to make matters worse they didn’t even really travel back to the past. Instead an older, heavier, receeding-hairline version of Riker was trying to pass himself off as a 12-years younger version of himself. And what were they doing? Jacking around with the Holodeck! That’s pretty much the equivalent of an entire TV series turning out to be someone’s dream at the end of the show’s run. What a joke! So the current cast, characters and storyline totally got jipped. The finale seemed to be based more around the Next Generation series rather then Enterprise. It was like "Oh yeah, I guess this show’s been around for a few years.. Maybe we should feature the ENTERPRISE cast in the ENTERPRISE FINALE!! Hmmmm…"
At what point did this seem to be a good idea? And to make matters worse, they ended up killing off one of the characters. Did he die saving the ship? No.. Did he die to save the crew? No… He died because he put some wire into another socket and blew himself up… What a stupid death? Completely meaningless as well! And I love that in the show the characters grieved for about 3 minutes and then everything was back to normal . What a joke!
Now when I heard Enterprise got canceled I wasn’t that sad to see it go. Truth be told after 18 consistent seasons of Star Trek and over 630 episodes during that time – I think that the time had come for that old dog known as Star Trek to be taken out back. But they didn’t bust a cap into Old Yeller – instead they decide to rip his nails off and let him lie there bleeding to death.
As immortal as we thought "Trek" to be we all knew the eventual end of this franchise would some day come, but for it to tank the way… There’s are two people who are to blame for this: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga . Now granted, back in their prime they put together some of the finest "Trek" years in The Next Generation and carried a great legacy of Gene Roddenberry into DS9 – these guys have now become mere shadows of once they once were. And like Willie Mayes dropping fly balls in the outfields these guys have managed to embarrass themselves and bring the entire Star Trek franchise down with them. What could have saved Trek? A lot of people said their biggest mistake was moving from syndication to UPN and the way being on a network ties you down. I subscribe to that notion, but ultimately what screwed up Trek was THE HORRIBLE WRITING! The plot lines were unoriginal, there was little or no character development, and the moral and philosophical struggles in Star Trek storylines had been replaced with action sequences, burning ships and naked Vulcans rubbing ointment on people’s backs…
My only prayer is that if and when Star Trek comes back, that Berman and Braga are as far away from this as possible! Please, just GO AWAY!
So yes, sorry to go off on Star Trek of all things, but I felt that the end of an era (although nerdy) deserves a bit of reflection….