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.