If you’re not a big fan of science fiction (or even more specifically, a fan of Star Trek), you may want to skip this entry. Otherwise you will probably find yourself saying, “Huh?” and “Oh my god, this guy is a geek!” a lot....
Star Trek: Good show. Not a great show, but mainly because it suffered from the problems that plagued most science fiction shows pre-Star Wars (which, as far as I can tell, is the movie that made TV and film producers realize that spending lots of money on sci-fi wasn’t necessarily a bad idea). Nonetheless, though the show itself suffered from some dumb plots, some bad characterizations, and other random silliness, it still created a cohesive universe that has lasted 40 years and spawned numerous successful TV shows, movies, books, etc.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The best science fiction TV show ever made. Ever! My friend Tara claims Babylon 5 is the best science fiction TV show ever made, but I’ve never seen it and she hates ST:TNG, so I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. Everything about this show rocks. Well okay, not everything. Riker was a complete tool and sometimes it did get a bit preachy, but other than that I loved nearly everything about it. Especially Ensign Lefler.
Deep Space Nine: In the midst of my übergeek love for ST:TNG, Paramount announced that they would be launching another Star Trek spinoff. I just about peed myself with excitement. Until I saw the first episode. Thus was marked the beginning of the end of my unadulterated giddiness when it came to all things Trek. This was particularly disappointing because one of my favorite characters on ST:TNG, Chief O’Brien (played by the excellent Colm Meaney), jumped ship and joined the DS9 cast. Then, to make matters worse, my all-time favorite Star Trek character from any show anywhere, Worf, joined the DS9 cast shortly after ST:TNG went off the air. I tried watching DS9 again at that point—I really did—but even my boy Worf couldn’t make that show palatable to me. And honestly, that’s saying quite a bit. Because Worf’s hilarious.
Voyager: More of the same. Once again I watched the first episode only to wonder how they could’ve gone so wrong. When Seven of Nine (or however you’re supposed to spell that character’s name) was introduced, I realized why these new Trek shows weren’t appealing to me: because I’m not a sheltered 12-year-old boy whose only access to spank material is the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and whatever hot girls appear on TV in skin-hugging body gloves.
Then came the rumors surrounding Enterprise. Despite my strong skepticism, I really liked what I was hearing. Instead of taking place in the increasingly crowded and confusing post-TNG timeline (i.e., a time in the future that relies on lots of shit like the Dominion and other things of which I had no knowledge), it would take place 100 years before the first Star Trek series. To me, this signified that the producers realized that the last few shows did indeed suck, and that Star Trek needed to get back to its roots: exploring the galaxy, shooting at aliens, reinserting a sense of wonder, etc. Then I heard Scott Bakula would be the captain. Whoa! Scott Bakula, as in the star of Quantum Leap? I loved that show! Sign me up!
So I watched it. And the first episode wasn’t that great. But whatever trigger in my brain that had previously urged me to cease watching DS9 and Voyager didn’t click on this time.
I really wish it had. As we all know, history is doomed to repeat itself and Enterprise has proven to be a textbook case of why the Star Trek franchise needs to take a long, long nap.
So when I heard that Enterprise had been canceled I was almost as excited as I’d (naïvely) been back when I heard that Paramount was spinning off a new show from ST:TNG in the first place. Why? Because I am one loyal bastard. You see, once I’d gotten half a season into Enterprise I couldn’t stop watching. I kept thinking, “It’ll get better. They’re just finding their way. Give them time.” Four years later they’re still dicking around. So UPN has put both Enterprise and me out of our collective misery. Yay!
I haven’t been so excited about the cancellation of a show since The X-Files, and that’s a show I was actually able to stop watching the moment David Duchovney left!
But as luck would have it, things have started to look up on Enterprise. A little bit, anyway. I’m still largely unimpressed by the show, but at least they’ve finally started moving in the direction I thought they were going to explore way back in, like, the first season. Which is to say the founding of the Federation. Why they didn’t start working on this almost immediately is beyond me. I thought that had been the whole point of the show: to take the prehistory of the original Trek show and flesh it out. But instead, Enterprise spent three years goofing around as if it were just another low budget Sci-Fi Channel knockoff, with no sense of history or purpose.
Anyway, as I was saying, a few episodes this year have been okay. Then, this morning I watched the episode that aired last night (because I usually tape Enterprise on Fridays, as I generally have better things to do with the start of my weekend).
And I loved it.
Don’t get me wrong; the fundamental problems with this show can’t be fixed, and they were all present in last night’s episode. But it was still pretty enjoyable. This is the kind of backhanded compliment I’ve been reduced to giving a show for which I had such high hopes....
See, last night’s episode took place in the mirror universe set up by an original Star Trek episode called “Mirror, Mirror.” If you don’t know anything about Star Trek (and if that’s the case, why are you torturing yourself by continuing to read this?), the mirror universe is an alternate universe in which earth has formed a brutal empire of galactic conquest. Instead of exploring new life and new civilizations, the Enterprise crew spends its time conquering new life and new civilizations. It’s pretty awesome.
I don’t mean to imply I’m all for fascism and imperialism and the subjugation of other races. I’m just happy to see Starfleet not run by a bunch of pussies for once. One of the main problems with Enterprise is that it’s a timid show. The underlying P.C. nature of the Star Trek franchise (excluding the occasional moments of rampant male chauvinism that crop up, but more on that later) has finally caught up with itself and as a result the show has no bite. But in last night’s episode all these normally goody-goody characters were stabbing each other in the back and generally acting like dicks. It was kinda cool.
Also, T’Pol (the gorgeous Vulcan played by Jolene Blalock) and Hoshi (the vastly underused Linda Park) finally got to sex it up a bit. I would imagine that actresses stuck in a Star Trek show have it pretty rough. You automatically become an object of lust for thousands of overweight dudes living in their moms’ basements and are occasionally forced into these virgins’ wildest fantasies by your show’s producers. Example: In the first season there was an episode in which T’Pol went into heat. Yes, that’s right, Vulcan women go into heat just like an animal, every seven years or so (I think that’s the duration, anyway). This particular episode was one of the most degrading things I’ve ever seen. Jolene had to strip down to her underwear a couple times, pant like an animal, get all glisteny, and generally humiliate herself for the satisfaction of the men who watch the show and who enjoy imagining a beautiful Vulcan woman pouncing on them with uncontrollable lust in her eyes. (It is my understanding that the actress who played Seven of Nine had to suffer similar indignities on Voyager. As a ex-member of the Borg collective she went through a spawning cycle or some shit like that. So you see, this is a recurring theme in the Star Trek universe.)
Another example: In last week’s episode of Enterprise we learned that the Orion slave women (you know, those green-skinned beauties who tempted the boys in the original Star Trek show a couple times) are actually the rulers of the Orion men, not the other way around. Now, aside from the fact that this screws with 40 years of continuity and doesn’t make much sense in the context of the show, it also implies that the women choose to be treated like slaves. This is an appalling assertion that practically verges on misogyny.
The reason why the sexiness of last night’s episode is different is because the women were in control of it. In the first season episode, while she was in heat, T’Pol was at the mercy of things she couldn’t control. That was a pretty sexist episode.
But last night, while Commander Archer was staging a mutiny, T’Pol remained loyal to the captain and helped him retake control of the Enterprise (using a little sex appeal along the way). I should mention that in the mirror universe the Vulcans are just as domineering and expansionist as the humans, so this wasn’t just her logical Vulcan blood working on autopilot; she was a strong woman making a dangerous decision.
Meanwhile, Hoshi took the opposite approach (seducing whoever happened to be in power at the moment so that she remained in a beneficial position), but still doing it in a strong rather than subservient way.
And yes, both T’Pol and Hoshi wore these absurd, midriff-exposing uniforms that I absolutely adored. However, because they were each playing against the “helpless female” stereotype I didn’t feel so bad about loving the fact that they were showing some skin. Perhaps I’m just splitting hairs in an effort to avoid being labeled as one of those aforementioned dudes living in their moms' basements, but what can I say? They both looked gorgeous. And frankly, I’m sure Linda was happy to finally get out of that dumpy jumpsuit she’s been wearing since the show debuted four years ago. (Jolene has been more lucky; her uniforms have been much more flattering for the past two seasons at least.)
Most importantly, though, this episode was interesting, everyone got to fire their phasers a couple of times (normally a rare occurrence, oddly enough), and it was not (entirely) derivative the way most of the rest of the episodes in this series have been.
It ended on a cliffhanger and I’m kind of wishing that the four remaining episodes of Enterprise take place in the mirror universe. It’s a long shot, but at least the show would go out on a high note. Heck, if I were in charge of Star Trek I’d make a new series that took place entirely in the mirror universe. Now that would be something different....
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