From Newsday:
'Star Trek' moves out of orbit
Diane Werts
May 13, 2005
Remember when "Star Trek" was special? A rare and precious thing? Remember when we itched to see the next adventure? Instead of wishing the whole blasted universe would just beam away already?
And I say this as one of the first die-hard Trekkers, someone who was hitting conventions by the mid-1970s and going to work bleary-eyed in the '80s when WPIX/11 was running midnight "Star Trek" repeats. I couldn't get enough.
And then I had enough. And soon there was too much. And now I don't want any.
No more "Star Trek." Not for awhile, please, thank you.
Knowing when to stop has never been a Hollywood strong suit. But this is one of the more painful examples of overkill. As UPN's "Enterprise" ends its run tonight (8-10 p.m. on WWOR/9) - the fourth of the series' spinoffs aired continuously since 1987 - I can't say I'm sorry. In the country-western words of Dan Hicks, how can I miss Trek when it won't go away?
Of course, Trek is now A Franchise. It's a business, first and foremost, that keeps its studio, Paramount, rolling in dough. Cable repeats, DVDs, books, video games, merchandise. You name it, they license it. Once a beloved cult, Trek has become a mega-marketed "brand."
How else to explain the downward quality spiral of the TV spinoffs? "Star Trek: The Next Generation" took the story into the digital age, and you couldn't beat Patrick Stewart for leadership gravity and chrome-domed sex appeal. But "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" didn't know what to do for an encore. Its captain was cardboard, its politics internecine. "Star Trek: Voyager" tried to juice things up with a female captain and a crew marooned in the far reaches of space. Yet it felt recycled. From spinoff to spinoff, the "action" got more plodding, the regular characters more cookie-cutter.
This mushroomed into a crisis when other space shows stopped trying to ape "Trek" and went their own inspired ways. Sci Fi's "Farscape" was the breakthrough - pulsing with edgy wit, hot-blooded characters and a joie de vivre that hasn't coursed through the veins of "Star Trek" since the '60s. By making Ben Browder's lost-in-space astronaut a contemporary quipster amid lone-wolf renegades, creator Rockne S. O'Bannon freed himself from the futuristic bureaucracy that helped bog down the "Trek" spinoffs. "Farscape" turned up the heat on interpersonal conflict and twisted psychology. It was a sizzling show that made "Trek" seem all the more cold.
So when "Enterprise" arrived in 2001? Same old, same old. Sure, it's a prequel, not a sequel. But even the pilot, just out in the first-season DVD set, looks paint-by-numbers. Everything feels familiar, from the orderly pace to the "temporal" tales. It's earnest and weighty and busy with "the particle density of the thermosphere." It also clings to creator Gene Roddenberry's view of women as some exotic "other," in line with the shows' 14-year-old geek outlook on life.
But then all the "Trek" characters have become stick figures to whom things happen, who don't make things happen. "Enterprise" essentially confesses this by ending its saga secondhand: Tonight's final hour casts Scott Bakula's crew as mere players in a holodeck recreation by "Next Generation" stalwarts Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis. This isn't vital human drama. It's a chess game.
Contrast this with Sci Fi's new "Battlestar Galactica," which reinvigorates the space-age power game. "Galactica" teems with political rivalries that feel visceral, and it seizes the original "Trek's" mantle of social allegory. As in "Farscape," women are integral protagonists. But then all the characters are vibrantly gutsy. "Galactica" speaks to us, rather than at us, with verve, bite and gut-wrenching moral choices. It's got a mature approach to sex and wit, too. The whole thing feels nimble - a personal vision, not a lumbering franchise.
Of course, "Star Trek" in the 1960s worked because it was Roddenberry's personal vision, fresh and fired-up. That's the great irony. This new "Galactica" was shepherded by Ronald D. Moore, a key writer for "Trek" spinoffs before exercising his own voice here. And "Farscape's" O'Bannon crafted Fox's great 1989-91 "Alien Nation," evincing a grasp of psyche that should have been lured to "Trek" by any means necessary. Instead, these guys launch provocative stuff elsewhere, while Paramount rolls out more Trek "product." The whole enterprise, pun intended, is just simply tired.
Starting tomorrow, Trek takes a nap. It's long overdue. Here's to inspired dreams and new awakenings.
Remember when "Star Trek" was special?
I sat each day it was on expecting the unexpected and the fun and freedom of adventure. that show of the 60s and 70s represented where the writer and director allowed to join them...
