Then you disappeared into the dust

[austin_dern]

I don't often remember my dreams, or even just what's going on when one is interrupted by me waking up. And I haven't written a Top Ten List in about a decade and a half (I was young; I didn't know better) nor been amused by one in about twelve years. So naturally I have this odd lingering memory from waking up this morning:

The top ten reasons for a crunchy stairwell.
10. Crunchy stairs.

I'm sorry my subconscious didn't get to finish that, since it had a strange if pretty funny start.

In unintentional comedy I've seen a few people arguing the demise of Enterprise proves what's needed for the next series is a ``reboot,'' throwing out the established continuity of the shows and starting from scratch, remaking old episodes as appropriate but with modern computer-generated plastic effects and people mumbling to show they're acting, sort of like Enterprise.

Cited as proof of the wisdom of this policy is how the big comic book companies are able to reboot their brand-name comics every decade or two. Truly, there is no better reference to use as solution to the problem of a worldwide phenomenon embraced by all turning itself, over decades, into a pop-cultural footnote with microscopic economic niche than the comic book industry.

Trivia: The Treaty of Windsor, pledging an alliance forever between England and Portugal, was dated 9 May 1386; it is still in force. Source: 365: Your Date with History, W B Marsh and Bruce Carrick.

Currently Reading: Keeping Watch: A History of American Time, Michael O'Malley.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times (but that won't stop me from saying it again): the problem with Enterprise is that they spent the entire third season screwing around with that awful Zindi plot arc instead of working on advancing the overall plot of the show. They could have spent that time exploring the various political fights and allegiances that would lead to the founding of the Federation, and the show could have then wrapped up happily this season with an actual sense of closure. Instead, they're rushing to do the whole Federation plot in about two and a half episodes.

I really liked Enterprise in the first two seasons. Especially the first, when it had more of a feeling of exploring dangerous and weird new worlds and discovering new life forms and, you know, all that Star Trek stuff.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's all right, Enterprise is a great one for nice hearty standing gripes. Usenet's great fun for that.

My problem for the first two seasons was I never believed this gang was a bunch of explorers. I think in 52 episodes they took a sample maybe once, of some comet slush, and they never asked anybody a question that wasn't essential to the plot, instead just wandering around until they find some other aimlessly hardheaded aliens there to put Archer in jail.

I've only seen the last half of Year III -- they fooled me by showing it Sunday afternoons instead of Saturday midnights until I found the listing by accident -- and it seemed, while often exciting, just like any number of space war shows, without the distinctly Star Trek stuff.

Year IV, I'll see my first episodes later this week. Every spoiler I hear for the finale makes it sound like a bigger catastrophe. I'm torn between stopping listening now or seeing if I can actually pump it up to an infinitely bad finale.

Anyway, if I'd been running the show I'd have started the first half-season or so just with the getting the starship up and running and debugging -- frankly, I'd rip off as much of the HBO From the Earth to the Moon miniseries as possible under copyright law -- and then move onto stories where they set off for lost Earth colonies. They'd run into a few ships and species of the week along the way, do things like where if they encounter space pirates one week, they mention this problem in following episodes and try to, like, get interplanetary organizations to do something about the pirates. And no holodecks or wrist pregnancies.

[logan-pendan.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Anne McCaffrey managed the male pregnancy much much better in her short story 'A Horse of a Different Sea' (at least I think that was the title). From 'Get Off the Unicorn'

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't know much Anne McCaffrey as a writer -- two or three ``Ship Who Verbed'' novels and a Pern novel ... I think ``Decision at Doona'' too ... and I felt sated -- but that name certainly sounds like the one it'd be for a male pregnancy story.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

This could become a new, even more annoying internet meme theme.. "Do you have crunchy stairs in your house?"

On rebranding, I think the wonderful huskyteer may have rather an unfortunately prime example here (http://www.livejournal.com/~huskyteer/171535.html). Be sure to view them in the current "current, new" order for full effect.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I have long hoped to create an Internet meme, though I never had any way of getting it started.

That's a particularly nasty bit of redesigning ... I don't know why the marketing department thinks the cure to a (presumed) declining audience is to wipe away everything distinct about their product. It's not as though it has even a faintly successful track record, either.

At least with the collapse of Enterprise we've hit the point where Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are publishing press releases explaining how the show was, in fact, not a failure at all, and it's not their fault for its failure. It makes for very entertaining reading as the people involved start shooting at one another, or anything else, in the vicinity.

[skylerbunny.livejournal.com]

I just don't think Enterprise had any way to win. No matter what they tried to do, they couldn't make any single group happy, and the ratings just kept going down and down into oblivion.

The people that watched Star Trek: The Original Series missed the likable characters and the goofy surrealism...the pure exploration. The entire first season was a treatise of how humans were being held back by the Vulcans, when the entire point of TOS was the triumph of humanity in the inhumanity of space.

The people that watched Star Trek: The Next Generation were missing the far flung technology of the Galaxy class starship. The writers clearly didn't have any ideas to bridge 21st century Earth and the world of the Original Series, so by the time the series was over, they'd all but accepted photon torpedoes, human-safe transporters, the universal translator, warp drive...all the same things were there, just a little slower and 'more primitive'. If they say so.

The people that watched Deep Space Nine weren't seeing the depth of drama they were probably hoping for.

Last of all, of course, the people that were going to be picky about how the series was presented weren't going to be happy no matter what the series was.

I lost interest about halfway through the first season, because it felt to me they'd tried to make The Original Series, only with a warp 5 engine and the same aliens we've all come to know and love. I just didn't get it.

I guess perhaps I was strange, because I sort of liked the Xindi saga. The funny thing was, it was both a victory and defeat for the writers. On the good side, they finally gave the crew of Enterprise 'something to do'. Something high stakes that gave characters the desperation and determination to shape them. ...and, on the bad side, it gave the crew of Enterprise something to do. They had to resort to this because two seasons of show more or less showed that Enterprise had nowhere to go - and little to do. You can interpret it either way.

Enterprise tried to be everything for every fan of Star Trek. That's why it just didn't succeed...because it was too generalized to appeal to anyone. Nit-pickers, drama fans, technology buffs, action fans, science-fiction fans. I suspect most people who watched the series felt like that one thing that they wanted to see was missing.

I suppose I disagree with the idea that a 'reboot' will help. It will help some fans warm to Star Trek, but it will completely alienate the ones who want the world of Star Trek to be a beautiful straight line of time whose stories are told once. I could think of plenty of ways the series could branch off, but someone will dislike it horribly:

Starfleet Academy Rock 'n Roll High School: the story of a single cadet through his learning years. Plus: the chance to finally see what the heck a cadet actually learns there. Minus: Saved by the bell meets double secret probation.

Star Trek: The Romulan Wars: The series to follow Enterprise in the timeline, all about the Romulan War of the 22nd century. Plus: Lots of action and a war saga for the fans of that. Minus: The fans who want humanity, heavy science, and a focus on a single ship aren't going to get it. The battleship Bismarck wasn't interesting because it triumphantly blew up ships day after day; it's remembered because of the chase after it and its destruction by the British.

Star Trek: Excalibur: The story of the original series' Enterprise's sister ship, Excalibur, complete with adventures and interplanetary hopping. Plus: The fans of the original series get what they want, except they'll complain about the updated sound effects, uniforms, and the fact that it was filmed in HDTV. Minus: The series finale involves the ship being blown up by the M-5 computer on the USS Enterprise. Oops.

...bah. I just don't see a way for the Star Trek franchise to dig up a series that will satisfy everyone, and I suppose that's my point. I can think of great series they could make, and a few horrible ones...but I just don't see how they can make a series that'll ever get a 30 share in the Neilsens. They're just going to have to pick the fans they want to satisfy, and build a series around it.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, Enterprise didn't have any way of satisfying everybody, but that ship sailed in 1987 when the first Modern Trek gave rise to folks who Liked It All, who Liked The Original, or who Liked The New. That's fractured more with the subsequent shows, sure, but for a time that didn't make any difference; Next Generation got quite respectable ratings anyway and nobody stopped watching the original Trek because of it.

My problem with the show was too many boring scripts with the actors sleepwalking through it. I can't blame them for not putting too much energy into, say, Oasis, which wasn't even the first holodeck story on the show, much less the first ``lone survivor in the holodeck'' Modern Trek's done, but likewise I won't blame anyone for skipping it instead.

The idea of a first-starship show would have been fine, if only they'd bothered to stick to the premise. The only effort they made to make the show ``early history'' is cap the speeds at Warp Five, and to change ``shields'' to ``hull plating'' ... Trek folklore had worked up a lovely backstory of New Orleans- and Daedalus-class ships limited to warp four because before duotronics ship's sensors couldn't process navigational data for the deflectors any faster, and the Klingon empire was a year of travel away, and all these other lovely bits; they were wiped out with ``It's just like Next Generation, but some of the words are different.'' No wonder the die-hards hated it.

And they didn't even stick to the premise; after the pilot the first show was about Hoshi Sato wanting a transfer, overlooking not just that we know she won't leave because her actor's a regular, but also overlooking that there's no place she can transfer to. That's not something only a hardcore fan would know; that's the basis for the series. They could have done a fine story about Sato adjusting to the fact she can't leave no matter how much she wants to; they didn't. No wonder the regular viewer didn't want to stick around for this silliness.

I suspect the next Trek project is going to be a new-cast version of the Original Series, most likely ``previously unmentioned'' stories rather than an actual reboot; likely between The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan or between The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country. New stories set during the Original Five-Year Mission are possible, but who knows if anybody would commit to those beautiful original props and costumes and such for a whole series, rather than a couple stunt episodes, since, you know, they're so un-science fictiony what with having bright colors and appealing sets and such.

If it's done with energy, love, and a plot that doesn't feel like a retread it'll have its own respectable audience. Complaints about canon and continuity flaws and such are diagnostic of an audience bored enough it doesn't care what the story is (case in point: people quip about how, in The Wrath of Khan, Khan shouldn't have recognized Chekov since Khan was introduced in a first-season episode and Chekov joined second-season¹; but nobody hates the movie because of that); they're overlooked or happily forgiven when the story is fun.

¹ However, that classic Original Trek sloppiness in what stardates mean actually solves this one; the earliest stardate when Chekov appears is lower than the stardate where Khan's introduced. If we assume stardates increase with time, then, Chekov was aboard, just not seen on-screen, when Khan came on board. Since the Original Series didn't show all the regulars every episode, this is actually sensible.