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AND NOW, FROM
THE HOME OFFICE CONVENIENTLY LOCATED IN THE HANDLE OF THE BIG
DIPPER...
THE TOP FIVE
REJECTED NAMES
FOR TEEN SINGING SENSATION
SISQO!
5.
Piqard
4. Kirq
3. The red-shirted ensign that gets
vaporized the moment he gets off the
ships-qo
2. "Help! I've lost nearly all of
my credibility because my former wife keeps attaching my name
to crappy shows!" Oh, wait, that should be in the top
five things Gene Roddenberry says while rolling in his
grave...
1. What else?
Q
(What happened to Sisqo,
anyway? Usher's still around, but this guy's been
missing for years...)
DEEP SIXED NINE
I could cry. The third and
arguably most original Star Trek series didn't end with a bang
or a whimper, but rather a loud flushing noise. I was
definitely looking forward to seeing the war with the Dominion
resolved- for over a year, the Deep Space Nine crew was too
busy trading fire with the Jem H'dar to explore more original
territory- but the last few episodes wrapped up the storyline
a little too conveniently. After months of tooth and
nail battles with the Founders, we're supposed to believe that
one meeting with Bajor's gods was enough to send an armada of
heavily armed starships, packed to capacity with bloodthirsty
killing machines, running back to the Gamma Quadrant with
their tails between their legs? Come ON! And
speaking of cheaply resolved storylines, how's about that last
episode? Y'know, guys, maybe I'd LIKE to see a few loose
ends dangling from the series... that way, the show's best
characters could make cameo appearances in the next Star Trek
movie, or even Star Trek: Voyager (it'd be the only way to
keep people who still watch that piece of crap awake through
an entire episode!). Instead, Sisko tumbles into a lake
of fire, Odo leaves the station to cure his people of a
terminal disease (the gelatinous jerks deserve to die
after being such a pain in the ass for the last five seasons,
I say...), and Quark is stuck serving watered down brews to
every synthoholic who stumbles into his bar. What a
wonderful payoff for DS9 fans who stayed loyal to the
series throughout its seven year run...
SCIENCE FICTION
COMEDY...
Well, enough about the cosmic
truth that is Paramount's stupidity. Let's cast an eye
toward the realm of science fiction comedy instead.
There have been some great books in this sub-genre, like Venus
on the Half-Shell and Glory Lane, but humor's been a pretty
rare commodity in science-fiction television... that is, until
now. Matt Groening's delightfully twisted look at the
30th century, Futurama, convinced my local PBS affiliate to
start running another humorous series set in the distant
future. The British comedy Red Dwarf centers around a
lowly ship engineer with more compassion than common
sense. When he's caught with a pet he snuck aboard for
company, his superiors insist that the cat be dissected and
tested for disease. When Lister discovers that, no, she can't
be put back together afterwards, he refuses to give her up,
and is sealed in a statis tube for four months as punishment
for his insubordination. The only problem is, while he
was sleeping, the entire crew was vaporized by a toxic gas
that floated into the ship through a faulty vent, and it took
the ship's computer three million years to properly air out
the place. When Lister wakes up, all that's left in Red
Dwarf are the ship's dryly witty navigation system, a
holographic simulation of the most obnoxious member of the
crew, and the great, great, great (etc.) grandchild of his
pregnant cat, which he'd stashed away in the ship's hull (away
from prying eyes and miraculously enough the vapors that
killed everyone else). It doesn't take long before wacky
British flavored hijinx ensue, but luckily, much of the comedy
revolves around science-fiction concepts, including a few you
won't see on any of the Star Trek series. There's also a
steady rotation of cast members to keep things fresh, with old
favorites coming back every once in a while for hilarious
cameo appearances. There's still room for improvement,
but Red Dwarf's inventive sight gags (you have GOT to see the
reverse time episode!) and likable characters make other
popular Britcoms like Are You Being Served? look downright
crappy. Even crappier than they already are, I mean.
...AND TRAGEDY
Well, back to the gripes.
The starship Voyager just keeps plodding along in space, for
no other apparent reason than to get on my nerves. I'm
convinced that the only thing keeping this series alive is its
reliance on cameos by Star Trek characters that everyone
loves, like that omnipotent imp Q, for instance. A
friend reminded me of that Voyager episode where Q offered
Janeway a "get out of Delta Quadrant free" card, and she
flatly refused his offer, demonstrating the Voyager crew's
(and writers'!) almost legendary stupidity. Speaking of
transparent gimmicks, I can't forget about the show's latest
and more obvious attempt to draw in viewers! I should be
overjoyed that the writers found an excuse to finally rid the
Star Trek franchise of its most boring and least memorable
character ever, but Kes' dismissal is a bittersweet victory
when you consider that her replacement is just another
distraction from Voyager's miserably low quality. Seven of
Nine gives Trekkie nerds two things they rarely ever see-
Borgs and breasts- but she has very little else to offer the
series, and I hate the way the producers have slowly been
removing her implants (her BORG implants, stupid!).
Guess that's strike 13,478 for this minor league Star Trek
series...
While we're on the subject of
shows unworthy of Gene Roddenberry's mighty name, what's the
deal with this Earth: Final Conflict crap? I've seen
enough science-fiction shows with pompous, limp-wristed aliens
who use humans as doormats, thank you. If this is the
best idea Gene could come up with in the 1990s, it's no wonder
he died... it's probably the only way he could spare himself
further embarassment. Shame on Majel Barrett for cashing
in on her husband with this clearly inferior series rather
than keeping Gene's first Final Conflict script in the garbage
where it belonged! |
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