Forbidden Trek

No, I am not just now realizing that Star Trek owes a tremendous debt to Forbidden Planet. Every time I watch FP I imagine that it is the greatest unfilmed Star Trek episode ever. I mean, really: Leslie Nielsen is pretty much a Roddenberry captain, he works for the "United Planets," and the four main officers are the commanding officer, first officer, ship's doctor, and chief engineer. The only thing missing is a Spock figure, and I'm not sure that "Doc" wouldn't fill that role pretty well.

Probably the weakest aspect of the movie is the romance between Nielsen's J.J. Adams (that name's oddly familiar too, given who directed the latest Trek) and Anne Francis' Altaira, and that's not all bad. I bought it from her point of view, but by the same token Adams knows full well what she's feeling and to my mind takes advantage of it.

Still, it's great fun to spot the other elements which would later find their way into Star Trek. The mysterious loner and his female companion figured in "The Man Trap," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," and "Requiem for Methuselah," the all-knowing computer was a staple of Original Trek, and of course there's the design of the deceleration devices.

Oh, and Dr. Morbius reminded me a heckuva lot of Dr. Orpheus from "The Venture Brothers." Now I want to see Dr. Orpheus' daughter in the Anne Francis role....

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The "Hey, You Look Familiar" Meme

Kalinara mentioned a couple of variations on a meme (ha!) and I thought I'd try 'em both.

Version One:

[C]reate a team of four heroes, a.la the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, only the catch is that each hero must be a character portrayed by the same actor.

Thus, the League of Extraordinary Patrick Stewarts:

1. Ahab, monomaniacal commander of the whaling ship Pequod;
2. Ebenezer Scrooge, newly-reformed uber-capitalist (and the group's financier);
3. Professor Charles Xavier, mutant telepath and educator; and of course
4. Jean-Luc Picard, starship captain.

One could also have the League of Extraordinary Sean Connerys:

1. Allan Quartermain;
2. Robin Hood (from the film Robin & Marian);
3. James Bond; and
4. Draco the dragon (from Dragonheart).

Finally, the League of Extraordinary Johnny Depps:

1. Jack Sparrow;
2. Ichabod Crane;
3. Willy Wonka; and
4. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Then there's Version Two:

[C]reate a team of four to eight members, which comprise of sets of doubles as played by the same actor.

Here goes...

1a. Dr. Sam Beckett, time-traveler (Scott Bakula),
1b. Jonathan Archer, starship captain (Scott Bakula),
2a. Dennis/Denise Bryson, DEA agent (David Duchovny),
2b. Fox Mulder, FBI agent (David Duchovny),
3a. Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson),
3b. Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson),
4a. Brisco County Jr. (Bruce Campbell), and
4b. Ash (Bruce Campbell).

How's that?

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Thoughts on Star Trek '09 (Trailer Edition)



After spending an unhealthy amount of time following our thrilling Presidential election, I had been wondering whether I’d find a new obsession...

... but then the new Star Trek trailer appeared. I am (in a word) stoked, and can’t wait the (barely!) six months which tick away just to your right.

Of course, other fans -- who appear to be a small but insistent faction -- are not so sanguine. For them the trailer, like the pictures which have been trickling out over the past several weeks, confirms their collective fear. The long-dreaded reboot (gasp!) of Star Trek must necessarily explode four decades of canon (or “cannon,” if you’re not particular). To this point the history of the Trekverse had been assembled out of plot points and throwaway references into a workable structure, albeit rickety and creaking in parts, upon which had nevertheless been hung hundreds of hours’ worth of stories and characters. Without canon, Star Trek is merely a collection of stories. With it, though, Trek is a vast centuries-spanning galactic tapestry. I understand why it’s maintained so intricately, and I’ve enjoyed the interconnections (intentional and otherwise) myself.

Star Trek ‘09 aims to reveal finally a new wing of the structure -- the “origins” of the famous Five-Year Mission -- while looking back into Kirk’s and Spock’s childhoods. With so much background material available, the participants in this story seem obvious: all those trivial (in the strictest sense) names and events relevant to this period which had already been mentioned on-screen. The story itself seems like a mere matter of connecting the dots, from “The Cage” to “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Thus, the subplots would be Pike to Kirk, Number One to Spock, Boyce to Piper to McCoy, etc. For good measure, throw in all the people from Kirk’s Academy days and early career: Mallory, Finnegan, Ruth, Carol Marcus, Captain Garrovick, Ben Finney. Perhaps most importantly, there’s Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s best friend, who may even have been his first officer when he died as part of “WNMHGB’s” climax. A “Year Zero” story would need to address the doomed Kirk/Mitchell friendship ... wouldn’t it?

In a word, no. Star Trek ‘09 appears to answer those kinds of issues in the resounding negative -- or perhaps worse, with resounding indifference. Pike is in it (the trailer casts him as a father-figure to Kirk), but the other “Cagers” are nowhere to be found. Neither is Mitchell or Number One. Furthermore, the sets are pristine, the Bridge is spacious, and the bulkheads are concave. It all looks familiar, but obviously it’s been changed -- and for some, those changes are dealbreakers.

Now, I can speak only as a second-generation fan who grew up on the movies and ‘70s syndication, but the original Star Trek may be the last major bit of pop culture associated indelibly with unsocialized geeks. Not surprisingly, many fans have turned this perceived stigma on its head, charging that any attempt to update or “make cool” the Original Series is actually “dumbing it down.” Thus, like any other so-called cult phenomenon, Star Trek is too good for the unwashed, who must prove themselves worthy of it, and not it of them. Having spent most of my life trudging up such steep learning curves, I have some sympathy for this perspective. It’s only natural that, with our efforts rewarded, we want others to be rewarded similarly only after similar efforts.

However, when think about re-registering at the TrekBBS ... well, it’s literally asking for trouble, isn’t it? The memories of debates gone by, and the spectacle of today’s polarized fanbase, are huge obstacles. Writing about comic books is much easier by comparison. For example, the Legion of Super-Heroes boasts a vocal fanbase doggedly supportive of, say, the Adventure Comics days and/or Levitz/Giffen, but to my knowledge they don’t go around making dark pronouncements like The Legion died in 1989.

No, these bitter, angry Trek fans are people who feel betrayed, and again I am sympathetic -- but I have to ask, by what have they been betrayed? By the foreseeable effects of advances in time, age, and technology? By the business aspects of movie production, which necessarily demand stories with wide appeal? By the thought -- and here I freely admit I’m speculating -- that accepting a new version of Star Trek somehow betrays one’s fidelity to the original?

Look, I know what it’s like. Because there are fewer and fewer old-school fans out there, you think that if you don’t stand up for the good old days, pretty soon no one will. Although you came in late, you were converted just the same; and therefore others can be converted similarly. There’s nothing wrong with the basic ideas, just their execution. Above all, you don’t want the thing you love to sell out, because you don’t want it to lose that unquantifiable spark that makes it special.

Nevertheless, I am now officially stoked about ST09 because I can see Pine and Quinto as Kirk and Spock, even in the fewer-than-two-minutes they’re on the screen. The differences in the Enterprise, the bridge, etc., aren’t big enough to be distracting.

Besides, when you get down to it, Star Trek is about the boldly going. So what if the Enterprise doesn’t line up exactly with the original? It is still recognizable as the Enterprise NCC-1701, and these folks are recognizable as her crew. I’ve said before that the key to making Star Trek viable for new generations lies not so much in creating yet another new crew, which will be compared inevitably to the five previous -- but in finding ways to re-acquaint the general public with the original. As much as I enjoyed having eighteen years’ (!) worth of TV sequels and spinoffs, at their core those shows could only riff on the original. For Star Trek to start over it had to do something like this ...

... and for something like this to work, it can’t be hamstrung with minutiae. The Star Wars prequels had to hew to a certain structure, because they were parts of a single large story. Conversely, Star Trek takes an almost entirely opposite approach. It’s set up to tell individual stories, not one big one. ST09 may be concerned with the two biggest individuals in all of the series, but it’s not the final piece of any narrative puzzle.

Indeed, the earlier movies helped frame the exploits of Kirk and Spock in recognizable character arcs. The Motion Picture showed Spock reconciling the inner conflicts between logic and emotion; and The Wrath of Khan featured Kirk’s midlife crisis. Naturally, both movies built on the original series, but had less to do with character moments in individual episodes (“Space Seed” notwithstanding, of course) than a general sense of who the characters were. By that I mean that I can recall nothing in either movie which is a specific callback to, say, “The Naked Time,” but obviously Spock’s struggles in “Naked” (and “This Side Of Paradise,” “Amok Time,” “All Our Yesterdays,” etc.) inform his growth in TMP.

It bears repeating too that the Kirk and Spock of ST09 are not quite the characters who appear in those episodes, or for that matter in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Instead, by coming to know each other they are in the process of becoming those characters. While it might be informative to see how Gary Mitchell or Number One affected that process, it’s not necessary, and in fact those characters might be more of a distraction to the casual moviegoer than a redesigned Bridge will be to a hardcore fan.

So, with all due respect to my fellow Trekkies and Trekkers, I say engage! to this version of Star Trek. As a certain velvet-voiced officer once said, “any chance to go aboard the Enterprise...!”

[P.S. I know that the trailer shows a familiar-looking starship being constructed out in an open field -- but are we sure that this ship is the Enterprise, and not one of her sisters?]

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New comics 7/23/08

Apropos to the release today of the new X Files movie, let's start with The X Files vol. 2 #0, written by show writer/producer Frank Spotnitz and drawn by Brian Denham. It's a 22-page comic book which tells a self-contained story that -- as far as I know -- doesn't tie into the movie at all. Instead, it's chock fulla references to the show, including the "Post Modern Prometheus" episode and the "I made this!" sound bite. Most of its first page is a sequence of images pulled from the opening titles. In short, it seems to want most to say how great!, just great! it is to be back in the saddle.

And an old saddle it is, too -- this is an episode which could have taken place at any time after "PoMoPro" and before Mulder's abduction. I could try to pinpoint it from Scully's hairdo, but I don't have all my DVDs at the moment. The story won't be unfamiliar to fans of the series, since it involves kidnapping, body-hopping, and arrested aging. I wish I could say it was a more lively affair, but what would probably sound natural coming from the actors just comes across flat on the page. Maybe it's because there is little space for anything but the main plot -- very little humor, and nothing in the way of meaningful Mulder/Scully interaction. The plot itself is hard to keep straight, mostly since one of the main players is never seen.

The art, however, is fairly good, and it gets a big boost from Kelsey Shannon's coloring. Shannon keeps things moody for the most part, but occasionally enhances the wide-open spaces which helped convey the show's sense of isolation. (Clouds reflected on a car hood are a nice touch.) Denham does likenesses well, although at times his faces seem two-dimensional. Honestly, this issue reads like one of those 8-page stories TV Guide would advertise in some Special Collector's Issue. I read a good bit of Topps' X Files comic back when the show was in its heyday, so I know that translation need not be a problem. I want to believe (sorry) that this issue's done-in-one format contributed to my problems. This creative team is certainly worth watching, and I'll probably pick up X Files #1.

And as long as we're talking about licensed properties, Star Trek: New Frontier #5 (written by Peter David, drawn by Stephen Thompson) wraps up the current miniseries with an issue which does little to untangle any of its confusing bits. I might read it again, and if I ever decide to catch up on the prose NF offerings, I might find this miniseries more enjoyable. Wish I didn't have to have those conditions, though.

In a nice change of pace from wacky setting-based antics, The Spirit #19 offers three stories, each written by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier. They're all fairly pleasant. The first (drawn by Jason Armstrong) reveals how the Spirit dealt with a childhood bully; the second (pencilled by Aluir Amancio and inked by Terry Austin) finds the Spirit catching up to a reformed criminal; and the third (drawn by Paul Rivoche) is a whodunit about the murder of a comic-book artist. Again, it's not that they're done poorly -- far from it -- but nothing strikes me as especially innovative.

I hesitate to say that something like Batman: Gotham After Midnight (#3 written by Steve Niles and drawn by Kelley Jones) comes closer to what I expect from a Spirit book, but GAM does have a unique sense of design. This particular issue features a monstrous Clayface, engorged on the bodies of random Gothamites, and a very silly ending. It's a superhero comic book which isn't ashamed to be a superhero comic book. As part of that aforementioned silly ending, Clayface calls the screaming rabble "puny humans," and Batman commands him to "pick on someone [his] own size." If you don't mind that level of dialogue, and you like Kelley Jones, you'll like this book. In any event, it's better than the Millar/Hitch Fantastic Four.

Green Lantern Corps #26 (written by Peter Tomasi, pencilled by Patrick Gleason, inked by Drew Geraci) concludes the Black Mercy/Mongul storyline in a way that, were Alan Moore dead, might just get him spinning in his grave. I didn't mind it, but I'm a little more forgiving. Mongul suffers an ironic punishment, and Mother Mercy herself ... well, that's the part which I suspect would offend whatever's left in him that hasn't yet been offended by DC. Aah, I'm probably making too much of it. The issue was fine. Tomasi seems to fit better here than at Nightwing, and Gleason and Geraci are reliably good.

Penciller Renato Guedes, inker Wilson Magalhaes, and colorist Hi-Fi provide a nice Jack Kirby pastiche in Superman #678 (written by James Robinson). It fills in the background of Kirby's one-off character Atlas, revealing who brought him into the 21st Century, plus why and how. The rest of the issue continues the fight between Atlas and Superman, ending (much as #677 did) with the promise of more fighting. For his part, Robinson's omniscient narration gives Atlas' story a somewhat wistful tone, although Atlas doesn't seem entirely sympathetic. The present-day scenes are pretty good too -- Atlas is basically a big slab of muscle, drawn beefy and bulky so that he can stand believably against Superman. This is basic superhero stuff -- active figures against believable backgrounds -- but it's all done very well.

More action in Justice League of America #23 (written by Dwayne McDuffie, drawn by Ed Benes), as the JLA takes on Amazo. This time, though, Benes doesn't seem as concerned with his female figures, and the issue benefits as a result. Practically the whole thing is devoted to the fight, with a dozen or so Justice Leaguers each getting their licks in, but Benes keeps everything moving. There are a couple of awkward panels (one where Amazo holds a helpless Flash, one where perspective makes Wonder Woman look about 8 feet tall), but on the whole it was a good issue. McDuffie's script makes Amazo a credible threat and the Leaguers capable opponents.

It wasn't until about halfway through The Brave and the Bold #15 (written by Mark Waid, drawn by Scott Kolins) that I realized this issue's headliners (Nightwing and Hawkman) were intended to match up with last issue's (Deadman and Green Arrow). Nightwing and Deadman both come from the circus (Deadman's costume even inspired Nightwing's first one), and Green Arrow and Hawkman have a longstanding friendly rivalry. Anyway, this issue boils down to pushing the Reset Button, but first, Nightwing must trick every other superhero (including Ambush Bug!) into leaving the planet. Therefore, he and Hawkman (the designated expert on magic) have no backup as they storm the demon-possessed Nanda Parbat. Like JLA, it's well-choreographed action backed up by snappy dialogue.

And finally, if snappy dialogue is what you crave, look no farther than to Ambush Bug: Year None #1 (plotted and pencilled by Keith Giffen, scripted by Robert Loren Fleming, inked by Al Milgrom). Its sense of humor might not be for everyone. This particular issue mocks DC's alleged misogyny, with the Bug asking right off the bat "[d]o you have any major appliances that don't come with a dead body in it?" and the female salesperson replying "It's a standard feature." Indeed, throughout the issue female corpses are used as cannon fodder (which I think refers to something tasteless Bill Willingham said last year in San Diego). Anyway, ABYN's targets are many and varied, but modern storytelling techniques get hit pretty hard, especially narrative-caption boxes. Oh, how I laughed. This may be 2008's Architecture and Mortality; and if you remember how much I liked that story, that's pretty high praise.

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To Ramble Boldly Where Others Have Rambled Before

Everybody's talkin' Next Generation -- hey, me too!

It took me about six months, but I watched every episode of TNG, DS9, and "Voyager," plus the four TNG movies, in a rough Stardate order. (I had to use a spreadsheet.)

Now I'm on "Enterprise," heading into the home stretch after polishing off the season-long Xindi storyline ... but there'll be time for that later. Back to the 24C shows.

I feel pretty confident in saying that TNG's greatest asset was Patrick Stewart. Stewart sold even the goofy early-season episodes with a great combination of calm and charm, taking that stuff seriously, although not to the point of camp. Plus, he had that British accent which, with us Yankees, counts for a lot. Stewart made Picard cool, so Picard helped make TNG cool.

TNG also benefited from Paramount's seven-year commitment. Despite how you count the Original Series episodes, TNG had almost one hundred more. Clearly this provided room for all those character spotlights and political arcs. Yes, traveling from one mission to another no doubt leaves a lot of down time -- perfect for rehearsing that play or practicing that instrument -- but sometimes it felt like Picard's crew spent as much time with their hobbies as they did with the lateral sensor array.

Allow me to digress for a moment. As it happens, here's plok/pillock, commenting on his own post:

[...] clearly the main problem that faces the crew of the Enterprise-D is that they’ve got entirely too much free time on their hands. Christ, don’t these people have jobs? Everybody plays the violin, and everybody reads Shakespeare, and an awful lot of the military personnel of the future seem to be heavy into sculpting…and all the chicks wear high heels, and there! I’ve just summarized their culture pretty decently, I think. BOOOOOO-RING!

Of course, Riker's trombone and Crusher's dancing were meant to round out the characters precisely by getting them away from gadgets and technobabble. Still, when the Season 6 opener featured the crew hiding out in old San Francisco as a wobegone troupe of frustrated actors ...well, I suspect you either thought that was an hilarious extrapolation of all those shipboard plays, or you wondered how much time there was on the Enterprise to kill.

And yet, the one character on TNG who I wouldn't have expected to be exported so well was O'Brien. Sure, there was his star turn with his old captain in "The Wounded," and his and Keiko's wedding in "Data's Day," and he was showing up pretty reliably by the time he left. However, watching all those TNG DVDs, I was on the lookout for signs of DS9's O'Brien, and I didn't see too many.

It's funny, and a little cruel, to realize that O'Brien -- the guy TNG fans could look to on DS9, at least until Season 4, for a familiar Enterprise face -- becomes DS9's designated punching bag. He's thrown into two different Jails Of No Return. He has to face the possibility of a suddenly-grown, feral daughter. His wife is possessed by a Pagh-Wraith. He's briefly, but intensely, attracted to Kira while she's carrying his child. He's even replaced with a time-displaced duplicate about halfway through the series. Naturally, DS9 respected O'Brien's TNG hobbies (kayaking, the cello), but pairing him with Bashir both expanded his horizons and gave his free time some structure.

Maybe that's part of my frustration with the TNG cast's free time -- those hobbies are all so random. Picard loved literature, archaeology, and the theater, but had a wild streak finally curbed by that Nausicaan. Riker loved jazz and cooking, Crusher the performing arts, and Troi chocolate. Even O'Brien's TNG hobbies seem to have come off some wheel of fortune.

What annoys me about the hobbies is that they distract from the more interesting parts of the show. Remember when the crew's memory gets wiped by the new First Officer, and Riker and Ro theorize that maybe they were really lovahs? That never went anywhere. (Heck, nothing with Ro ever went much of anywhere.) Instead, we got Worf/Troi ... which also went nowhere, except to show (in "All Good Things") how much Riker still lurved her. Furthermore, would it have killed TNG to explain Geordi's transition from navigator to engineer a little better? What about an episode where Wesley hijacks the holodeck for his own onanistic purposes? Yes, that's what Barclay was doing, but who's to say a desperate Wesley, petrified of his secrets being laid bare before a crew of a thousand, might not just blame the malfunctions on poor ol' Reg?

(Speaking of whom, note how easily Barclay transfers to late-period "Voyager," which also constructed episodes out of the crew's leisure-time pursuits. Now, obviously the Voyager crew has more justifiable reasons for their hobbies, but still.)

I realize I'm not addressing either Tim's central point (TNG was trapped by its fidelity to the sensibilities which millions of Trekkies held dear) or plok's (TNG ignores its own implications about the universe in favor of a bland status quo). Well, from what I understand, TNG's relentless devotion to camaraderie came from Gene Roddenberry's directive that there is no conflict in Starfleet. (This, of course, led pretty directly to the built-in three-way crew conflicts of "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager.")

However, another Roddenberry directive, going back to the original "Star Trek," was that Kirk et al. needed to be recognizable as 20th-Century humans. David Gerrold's The World Of Star Trek quotes Roddenberry's Star Trek Guide:

[T]he only Westerns which failed miserably [at the time] were those which authentically portrayed the men, values, and morals of 1870. The audience applauds John Wayne playing what is essentially a 1966 man. It laughed when Gregory Peck, not a bad actor in his own right, came in wearing an authentic moustache of the period [emphasis in original].

Gerrold then goes on to say, "What Star Trek is, is a set of fables -- morality plays, entertainments, and diversions about contemporary man, but set against a science fiction background. The background is subordinate to the fable [emphasis in original]."

Now, to me that sounds more like "Galactica 2.0" than any of the 24C Trek shows. Just about every installment of the current "Battlestar Galactica" fits into the macro-plot. It has never engaged in the kind of navel-gazing, look-how-this-works episodes which were staples of Ron Moore's previous employment, because by and large the show uses familiar, even retro gadgets. Sure, there are FTL spaceships and the corners have been cut off the paper, but one of the early Caprica episodes had Starbuck driving a Hummer, f'r goshsakes. There are no salt shakers standing in for laser-scalpels -- the scalpels look like scalpels, and the salt shakers like salt shakers. The tech is not the point -- "the background is subordinate."

Of course, that could also have been the mantra of much of "Voyager," with its self-repairing corridors and spontaneously-reproducing shuttlecraft. Ironically, I think of "Galactica 2.0" as "Voyager" crossed with late-period "Deep Space Nine" -- all politics, intrigue, and survival, with a dollop of religious commentary. However, "Voyager's" weekly renewals were in the service of its secondary message; namely Janeway's desire to preserve Federation ideals and protocols thousands of light-years from home. "Galactica," like DS9 before it, ponders what kinds of catastrophes must necessarily alter a society's most cherished beliefs. "Voyager" responds overwhelmingly in the negative: the Federation is what we know, and true to the Federation we will remain, right down to steam-cleaning the carpets and replacing the lightbulbs after each week's space battle.

And yet, "Voyager" is known for that episode where Tom Paris evolves into the lizard (making lizard-babies with Lizard-Janeway), plus a good bit of altered timelines and holodeck emergencies. Remember the 29th-Century Captain Braxton, stuck for 30 years as a homeless person in 20th-Century Los Angeles, cursing Janeway's name the entire time? "Gritty Voyager" gets explored via "Year of Hell's" alternate timeline, and in a roundabout way through the beleaguered crew of the Equinox [not Phoenix -- must proofread more!]. The alt-crew even gets mashed up with the holodeck in "The Killing Game," when they're brainwashed into thinking they're fighting Nazis in WWII France. Seven threatens to re-Borgify, the Doctor becomes an entertainer on two different planets, Janeway fancies herself da Vinci's assistant. For a while the whole ship is even duplicated, and the duplicates have their own set of adventures before dying anonymous, ignominious deaths. Trek lore holds that Kirk's Enterprise was the only Constitution-class starship (out of twelve!) to return from its five-year mission relatively intact -- well, Voyager spit itself out of that Borg transwarp conduit better than new. No wonder Janeway (again, like Kirk) was made an Admiral....

And that brings us back to "Deep Space Nine," a show that at times seemed all about the background. Not quite in the techno-philic way that TNG or "Voyager" were, but in the sense that a working knowledge of about a dozen characters' backgrounds was really necessary to appreciating all the subtleties. There were no subtleties on the other two shows; at least not like on "Deep Space Nine." Its characters, and I suppose its Starfleet characters particularly, were transformed from TNG's brand of idealized-human into more recognizable people.

This was the exact opposite of "Voyager's" secondary mission statement, which had Janeway and Chakotay reorienting their Maquis crew to regular Starfleet practices. Instead, DS9 found not just O'Brien, but Sisko, Bashir, the Daxes, and even Eddington, changed by their time on the station. The non-Starfleet characters (Kira, Jake, Odo, Quark) grow and change too, but their fundamental orientation to society isn't challenged in the same way. (Well, okay, Odo's is; but he's a special case, needing first to find said orientation.)

See, if Starfleet represents the baseline code of ethics for the fictional Trek universe, it follows that challenging that code takes a lot. Even when Kirk or Picard runs up against Starfleet, it's in the service of remaining true to the code itself, as opposed to the people trying to enforce an alternate interpretation. It didn't take too long, though, for "Deep Space Nine" to have its characters explore those alternate interpretations themselves.

Both TNG and DS9 were self-referential. However, TNG concerned itself with refining the traditional Trek ethos whereas DS9 allowed itself to test the ethos' limits. To appreciate those tests, though, required that aforementioned working knowledge of Trek.

Also, "Deep Space Nine" made much better use of its holodecks than did either TNG or "Voyager" (a baseball diamond! a Vegas nightclub!) ... but I'm getting tired and this has gone on too long. I welcome your comments, because I hope it'll help me focus my thoughts more.

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New comics 7/2/08

I've been saying for a while that DC should (once again) just let the Marvel Family have its own little corner of the Multiverse where Billy and co. don't have to age too quickly and whimsy can be the order of the day. Well, here's Mike Kunkel's Billy Batson And The Magic Of Shazam! #1, taking me up on it. Except not quite, because this is a Johnny DC title and therefore has no influence on the main-line Marvels. Instead, it's a sequel to Jeff Smith's Monster Society miniseries, picking up with Billy and Mary in their familiar roles.

Kunkel has redesigned Cap slightly, giving him a ridiculously broad chest and a how-you-doin'? look. This goes with Kunkel's take on Billy, who always tries to do the right thing but who realizes without much prompting just how good he has it. For example, Captain Marvel poses as Billy and Mary's father, but naturally favors Billy in parent/teacher conferences. Of course, hilarity ensues, especially since Kunkel shows that Mary is the smarter of the pair.

Kunkel also introduces Black Adam, but leaves the resolution of his subplot for a future issue. I haven't read hardly any of the Johnny DC books, but I suspect BBMOS is one of the few to employ multi-issue storytelling; and it makes me wonder who the real target audience is. This is a dense book which aims for rapid-fire delivery through small panels and packed word balloons. Not being 10 years old, I can't say whether this would appeal to kids, but it does seem like an older reader's idea of what a kid's comic book should be. Yes, that extends to the secret-code messages, which I thought were prohibitively long and which I still haven't tried to unscramble. Even so, I appreciated Kunkel's efforts, and I'll be back at least for the next issue.

Part 3 of "Batman R.I.P." hits in Batman #678 (written by Grant Morrison, pencilled by Tony Daniel, inked by Sandu Florea), in which our hero is reduced to his lowest point before meeting his spirit guide (did it have to be a Magical Negro?) and starting to rebuild. Also, other bad things happen to Robin and Nightwing (poor Nightwing...). Morrison's standard take on Batman in JLA was that "Batman always has a plan". Well, here, he's been completely cut off from his plans, thrown into a roiling sea of anarchy by the Black Glove, and made to put the pieces back together using stone knives and bearskins. As with Final Crisis, it's pretty nerve-wracking stuff, but at least we're at the halfway point.

I'm getting frustrated with House Of Mystery (#3 written by Matthew Sturges and drawn mostly by Luca Rossi). Its first arc seems determined to establish that Fig can't leave the House. However, we know this to be true, because that's the point of the book. Thankfully, that also seems to be the point of the issue, so I hope that settles it for Fig for a while. The issue does introduce a new antagonist, with a callback to the mysterious couple seen earlier, so maybe there'll be a more entertaining twist next time out. Still, if this arc ends only with Fig accepting her new status, I'll be pretty disappointed. I'm getting tired of books which take five issues to lay out what could have been one issue's worth of setup. I do like the art, though.

I'm also getting a little tired of Nightwing (#146 written by Peter J. Tomasi, pencilled by Don Kramer, inked by Sandu Florea), likewise because "Freefall" seems to have gone on for a couple issues too many. Yes, Dr. Kendall was a bad man; yes, it's good that Dick stopped him. However, the story seemed rather lifeless (no pun intended), and I don't know if that's due to Don Kramer's art not being quite as expressive as Rags Morales'; or Tomasi's talky scripts sapping the energy out of the action. Next up is a "Batman R.I.P." tie-in, so maybe things will pick up.

I did like Supergirl #31 (written by Kelley Puckett, pencilled by Brad Walker, inked by Jon Sibal and Jesse Delperdang), despite the jarring change in art style from the soft lines of Drew Johnson and Ron Randall to the quirkier combination of Walker et al. Basically, Supergirl convinces the dying boy's mother to accept the Resurrection Man's treatment by a) flying her to a distant mountaintop and b) telling her how her parents shot her into space. It's the kind of thing which has to be handled very carefully, because once superhero comics get into real-world ramifications of godlike behavior, they're already pretty far down a mighty slippery slope. This time I bought Supergirl's argument and the mom's response, but next time might be different. As it is, this time the argument had to get past Supergirl's bare midriff.

I continue to like Manhunter (#32 written by Mark Andreyko and drawn by Michael Gaydos). The current issue tracks Kate's continuing investigations into the women's disappearances, and features a couple of good scenes with Blue Beetle (super-suits hissing at each other like unfriendly dogs!) and Mr. Bones. Gaydos' art is "realistic" without sacrificing expression, and Andreyko has a good feel for the dialogue of a superheroic world.

Finally, I bought Star Trek: New Frontier #4 (written by Peter David, drawn by Stephen Thompson), the penultimate issue of the miniseries. Thankfully, things start to happen at a little more rapid pace this issue. However, the plot deals with duplicates of people; and the scenes shift so abruptly you're never sure whether, say, the Lefler who was on that planet is the same Lefler who's on this ship. I guess I have to get issue #5 to see whether the whole thing makes sense.

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New comics 6/4/08

Hey, it's June! Who knew?

Lots of books this time, so no time for chit-chat.

Obviously I spent a lot of time with Trinity #1 (written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert), so it wasn't too bad, but OH DEAR LORD another scene of table talk! First Meltzer, then Dwayne McDuffie a couple of weeks ago, and now Busiek. I'm hoping this is the only such scene for, say, fifty issues. It's not like the Four Horsemen miniseries felt the need to sit the Trinitarians down for a Continental breakfast.

Other than that, I will say that I won't mind spending the next year with Busiek and Bagley. For his first big DC outing, Bagley shows he has the chops to do the company's most familiar characters. His Wonder Woman and Flash look especially good. I'm predisposed to like Busiek, so there you go.

Once again I get the feeling that Star Trek: New Frontier #3 (written by Peter David, drawn by Stephen Thompson) would mean a lot more to me had I been reading the NF books. This issue's plot features shocking! revelations about who's being impersonated, or who might be impersonated. The last page had me particularly confused. Two issues to go, so I might as well stick with it.

House Of Mystery #2 (written by Matthew Sturges, drawn by Luca Rossi) doesn't spend a lot of time on the "nested" story (written by Bill Willingham), which is good. The nested story isn't that compelling, despite some pretty Jill Thompson art. However, nothing much happens in the main story either. Its big emotional moment involves Fig, our heroine, discovering that she can't leave the HoM, but we kinda already knew that. The secondary emotional moment, where she starts to spill her guts to one of the housemates and ends up berating him, also doesn't ring quite true. The rest of the issue finds the housemates acting quirky without much to show for it. While I'd otherwise probably fault the book for being too broad, the characters haven't distinguished themselves from one another yet. Mostly issue #2 was just Fig acting out against a bland backdrop.

Much of Tor #2 (by Joe Kubert) is a flashback detailing Tor's pre-issue-#1 journey, which is fine; but it gets a little loopy towards the end and eventually acknowledges that maybe those psychotropic leaves might be affecting it. As with issue #1, Tor fights a prehistoric monster in order to protect his new little friend. Accordingly, as with issue #1, I appreciated #2 for its craft, because who am I to criticize Joe Kubert? Besides, I have to get #3 to figure out what's going on.

I don't have any strong feelings about issue #3 of Batman: Death Mask (by Yoshinori Natsume), so I'll just say it's nice for what it is -- an above-average Legends of the Dark Knight-style story -- and it is getting me used to reading manga. Learning can be fun!

With her own title cancelled, Catwoman is more free to roam around the main line Bat-books, so the cover of Detective Comics #845 (written by Paul Dini, pencilled by Dustin Nguyen, inked by Derek Fridolfs) plays up her appearance. However, the story itself is a nice little whodunit which manages to withstand its conclusory leaps of logic. As such, it focuses on the Riddler, who's been trying to upstage Batman at the whole consulting-detective thing. It also introduces a group who I can't help but think is the Internet version of the old Mystery Analysts of Gotham City. The idea that Batman has a group of online buddies who only know him through a generic username is still a terribly appealing one, so if you like that, you'll like this story.

Rounding out this week's Bat-books is Nightwing #145 (written by Peter J. Tomasi, pencilled by Rags Morales, inked by Michael Bair), an issue which starts to stretch the "Freefall" storyline past its point of usefulness. It wasn't too long ago that Nightwing and Robin brought this particular storyline to a stop, but we're apparently not done with it yet. The issue even appears to bring things back to that same point. Now, to be fair, this time around deals more with Talia al Ghul and Mother of Champions, incorporates Batman, and features the surprising return of another Bat-foe, but still. The concept of a mad scientist creating super-powered soldiers isn't specific enough to Nightwing to warrant this much focus. At least Rags and Bair are back for the whole issue.

Speaking of which, Supergirl #30 finds relief artist Ron Randall drawing the whole issue, with Will Pfeifer taking the place of regular writer Kelley Puckett. Looks like a fill-in issue to me, but it's not a bad one. It helps define the character in relation to Superman in a way which puts Puckett's storyline in a much different perspective, and it even incorporates the Box O' Universe from Puckett's first issue. Randall's art is clean and simple, although it flirts with being stiff and bland at times.

Overall, though, the issue I enjoyed the most was Manhunter #31 (written by Marc Andreyko, drawn by Michael Gaydos). It's the triumphant return of a title which has seen two long hiatuses (hiatii?), so it opens with an efficient two-page recap of the character's history. I'm not that familiar with Gaydos, but his work reminds me of early J.H. Williams, John Paul Leon, or maybe Tommy Lee Edwards -- thick lines and lots of blacks. The main story does proportionately as well with its 20 pages. After opening with the requisite superhero battle, it reintroduces our heroine's family and supporting cast, and through them sets up the current immigration-related arc. Last time I praised the new Action Comics for using its 22 pages well. This time, however, Manhunter really does a great job showing what a single issue can mean to a long-running superhero serial. High marks all around!

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Fantasy Picks for the Final Frontier

(Sorry for the lack of content. I've been sick.)

Good news for fans of Star Trek comics: GTI, which did the Marvel comics-on-DVD discs, is giving Trek the same treatment.

This is a massive amount of books. According to TrekMovie.com, it's

the original Gold Key series, the Marvel series that was placed around the first motion picture, the two volumes of DC releases through the 1980s, Marvel’s second run, and the Malibu and Wildstorm runs to close out the license before IDW came along.

It touches on every TV series except "Enterprise," and should include adaptations of every movie except Wrath Of Khan, Insurrection, and Nemesis. It should also include print-exclusive books like the Pike-centric Early Voyages, Marvel's Starfleet Academy series, and DC/WildStorm's New Frontier one-shot.

And it got me thinking ... as long as we're doing fantasy-drafts for regular superhero comics, why not for Trek comics? I don't intend this to be a meme, but I won't tell you not to jump in.

For the most part these ended up being rather predictable, in the sense that the writer and artist were an established team with a substantial body of work together. I chalk that up to being lazy, but I stand by my picks.

To-wit:

1. Enterprise: Geoff Johns and Steve Rude. Johns I picked for his fascination with continuity; and the Dude because he could make the 22nd Century look great. Why isn't the Dude drawing the Original Series, you ask? Well...

2. Star Trek (The Original Series): Grant Morrison and Richard Case. I trust the prospect of a Kirk, Spock, and Bones produced by the men who brought you the proto-Vertigo Doom Patrol pretty much writes its own proposal. While there is one condition -- a post-Motion Picture setting -- that still leaves plenty of room for the strangeness that helped define the show.

3. Star Trek -- The Next Generation: Gail Simone and Nicola Scott. I'm still not stretching too far here, but I do think that they'd be a good fit for the crew of the NCC-1701-E. (Let's leave the TV era behind, OK?) Honestly, I'd read Simone & Scott on quite a few books, regardless of genre; but TNG has the strongest group dynamic of the Trek series, and clearly they do groups well.

4. Star Trek -- Deep Space Nine: Greg Rucka and Joe Bennett. I haven't read any of the post-series "relaunch" books, but I'd love to see what Rucka would do with the crew. DS9 just feels like a Rucka/Brubaker type of show. As for Bennett, Rucka's most recent Checkmate artist has the clean style which tends to dominate the Trek comics. Thinking about it a little more, though, I wouldn't mind seeing his old Detective Comics collaborator Shawn Martinbrough tackle the former Terok Nor.

5. Star Trek -- Voyager: Chris Claremont and Carlos Pacheco. Ah, now we come to the reason for this post! The one-two Naomi Wildman punches in "Once Upon A Time" and "Infinite Regress" have convinced me that she is a Claremont character if ever Trek had one. Voyager's grownup crew is fairly Claremontian too. If Trek had thought balloons, the bridge of NCC-74656 would be crowded with 'em, all internally monologuing about their secret crushes, struggles with becoming human, and angst-filled longings. Claremont already did some of that with the Debt Of Honor graphic novel, but Voyager practically begs for the treatment. Combine that with Carlos Pacheco's elegant linework (he could make Seven's dinners look believable) and everybody's happy.

Any other suggestions?

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Sunday Soliloquy

I didn't know Zak Kebron had become Excalibur's Counselor (as well as security chief), but that probably made this scene funnier:



[From "Turnaround, Part II," in Star Trek: New Frontier #2, April 2008. Written by Peter David, drawn by Stephen Thompson, colored by Leonard O'Grady, lettered by Neil Uyetake.]

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New comics 4/23/08

Well, Countdown ended on Wednesday, so I talked about it on Thursday. I thought it suffered from a lack of focus which, while understandable, was also avoidable.

Still, I did buy other comics, and here they are.

Star Trek: New Frontier #2 (written by Peter David, drawn by Stephen Thompson) brings in a couple more NF characters, just when I was starting to get used to the ones already in play. Essentially, everything's moving towards a confrontation with Jellico and the stolen timeship at New Thallon, but the waiting gives us time for some character interaction. Overall the issue was fine. Exposition was integrated pretty well into dialogue. (There are no narrative captions -- not even a Captain's Log -- in the entire issue, which is a little odd for a Trek comic.) A new Galaxy-class starship comes into the picture too, which is confusing for those of us expecting the only such ship to be the Excalibur. Anyway, the art is about the same as last issue -- rougher than I'm used to for a Trek comic, but true to the aesthetic. Three issues to go, and I have a feeling everything will happen in the last one.

It looks like Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier put all their social commentary into the latest Groo miniseries and let themselves go wacky with The Spirit (#16 written by them and drawn by Paul Smith). Denny Colt is hardly as dense as Groo, but in this issue he errs -- in a well-meaning way, of course. The Spirit goes Hollywood to solve an on-set murder. While it looks play-fair at first, about halfway through it starts getting deliberately convoluted, so the reader is left to relax and let everything play out. Since that includes, among other things, a Carson Kressly parody and a stuntman gig (reminiscent of "bring in the double!" from that one Daffy Duck cartoon), the murder seems almost beside the point. With Paul Smith showing off his cartooning chops, the issue looks really good, but again, it's only Eisneresque on the surface.

Dwayne McDuffie devotes most of Justice League of America #20 (drawn by Ethan Van Sciver) to Wally West's struggle with rejoining the JLA. In its way, it's reminiscent of the "should I be a superhero?" angst which Wally went through 25 years ago, back in the New Teen Titans days -- only now, Wally has his own family, instead of worrying about his parents and girlfriend back home. Thus, Wally and Wonder Woman fight the Queen Bee while WW prods him to live up to his League responsibilities. I thought this issue was executed pretty well. McDuffie writes Wally and Diana well, and while Van Sciver's art is a little stiff, it's miles ahead of Ed Benes' sketchy, pose-heavy work. (The storytelling involving WW at the end is a little unclear, though.) I'd have liked more than two JLAers and a Black Lightning cameo in McDuffie's first crossover-free issue, but it sounds like he'll have time to do his own thing soon enough.

I don't know what happened to regular artists Tony Daniel and Jonathan Glapion, but fill-in penciller Ryan Benjamin and fill-in inker Saleem Crawford bring a bit too much '90s Image overthinking to Batman #675 (written, of course, by Grant Morrison). This issue is the bridge between the alternate-Batmen arc and next issue's "Batman R.I.P.," and it exists apparently to elevate Bruce's girlfriend Jezebel Jade to Silver St. Cloud status. It's the secret-identity dilemma of a familiar "Bruce is trapped in public" situation, only this time Bruce is somehow unable to find a good spot to change. Maybe it's the presence of a Ten-Eyed Assassin, the cult which was part of Bruce's epiphany during the Year of 52. Anyway, I don't have much of a problem with Morrison's script (which also includes scenes for Robin, Nightwing, and Talia), but the art is pretty distracting.

Sean McKeever's last issue of Birds Of Prey (#117, pencilled by Nicola Scott and inked by Doug Hazlewood) turns out to be his best. Misfit gets to show off without being annoying. The Platinum Flats supervillains are both believably low-rent and scary. Oracle makes good decisions. It's a good issue which tests our heroes but doesn't dwell on their troubles, and as always it's told well sequentially by Ms. Scott and Mr. Hazlewood. The bar has been set high for Tony Bedard.

Finally, I say goodbye to Checkmate, as writers Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann turn in their last issue (#25, drawn by Joe Bennett and Jack Jadson). I can't say much about the plot without spoiling it, except that the Rooks take advantage of a truly scary and dangerous mind-link to do their thing as well as they do. Sasha gets a scene with Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman compliment Checkmate, and the final twist took me completely by surprise. Rucka and his co-writer(s) went out on top, and I think it's best to go out with 'em.

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New comics 3/26/08

Countdown #5 (written by Paul Dini and Adam Beechen, story consultant Keith Giffen, pencilled by Jim Starlin, inked by Rodney Ramos) continues the apocalyptic doings from last issue, with the ominous Buddy Blank narration, the expected trip to the bunker, and the also-expected departure of "our" heroes back to the main DC-Earth. It's a harrowing issue, but in the great scheme of things it's hard to say where it fits. I mean, we don't yet know how important Earth-Kamandi will be to the series as a whole; and if the point of these few issues was to show that Earth's origin, and leave it at that, like a Paul Harvey story, well ... it seems kinda perfunctory. I guess if any series can make the end of the world feel like a side trip, Countdown can. (In fact, it already has -- remember the Earth Superboy-Prime destroyed, a few months back?) Accordingly, I'm not sure why it took Jim Starlin to draw this issue, and why we needed to see a Legionnaire devoured by rats.

Countdown To Adventure #8's lead story (written by Adam Beechen, pencilled by Allan Goldman, inked by Julio Ferreira) concludes about how you'd expect, but it's still fun to see Ellen Baker team up with Adam Strange. On its own it's a lot of fighting and shooting and heroic poses, and overall the arc has been pretty good. I can't say the same for the Forerunner story (written by Justin Gray, drawn by Fabrizio Fiorentino and Adam DeKraker), which might make more sense if I ever decide to revisit it, but which does end on a somewhat unexpected note. The story and art have improved over the past few months, but I didn't have much interest in Forerunner before, and I don't appear to now.

Teen Titans #57 (written by Sean McKeever, pencilled by Eddy Barrows, inked by Jimmy Palmiotti and Ruy Jose) continues the "Terror Titans" arc. This issue focuses on Ravager's fight against a couple of Terror Titans, juxtaposed against Robin's attempts at making up with Wonder Girl. I liked the issue pretty well. I thought it was paced well, I liked Barrows' storytelling, I think Palmiotti and Jose improve on his pencils, and I liked how Ravager was written. So, good job, all; and see you next month!

Green Lantern #29 (written by Geoff Johns, pencilled by Ivan Reis, inked by Oclair Albert) begins "Secret Origin," yet another look at Hal Jordan's life. Apparently Hal did just about anything he wanted to from a very early age. The End. Oh, okay, this issue goes into Hal's combative relationships with his mother and brothers, which in turn are based in his hero-worship of his dad, who you'll remember crashed his jet as young Hal watched. If you've been following Johns' work on the character, there won't be too many surprises here, except maybe for the details about his mom. As for the art, I found myself wondering if maybe Reis and Albert might have stepped aside for the flashback scenes. They're quite good on the regular sci-fi superhero material, but somehow their work felt a little too meticulous for this kind of coming-of-age story.

For some reason that I only noticed with this issue, Jim Gordon looks like Captain Kangaroo (with glasses) all throughout Batman Confidential #15 (written by Tony Bedard, pencilled by Rags Morales, inked by Mark Farmer). It's Part 3 of "Wrath Child," in which we learn the origin of the original Wrath and the startling secret of the current one. I like this story because it's high-concept: a supervillain who's the evil duplicate of Batman, fighting Batman and the newly-emancipated Nightwing. It provides a few fun touches: a flashback reveals a '60s-TV-show-style Batcopter and Batboat, and at one point Dick slams fist into palm a la Burt Ward, exclaiming "Holy--!" to boot. Morales' and Farmer's work is dynamic and clean, and I note approvingly that Morales draws this Nightwing to look appropriately younger than the Nightwing he currently draws in the eponymous book. Looking forward to the end of this one, but wishing this team would do more of the same.

The Spirit #15 (written by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier, drawn by Paul Smith) presents a diamond-smuggling switcheroo farce. It wants to be witty and nimble, but sadly comes up short. Although Paul Smith is an able cartoonist who apes Eisner's character designs well, he doesn't go in for the storytelling or layout flourishes that helped distinguish Darwyn Cooke's work. As for the story, Aragones and Evanier are normally very witty on Groo, but many of the gags here seem forced and/or familiar.

The mostly-prose Star Trek spinoff, New Frontier, gets another comic-book story with the new miniseries "Turnaround" (issue #1 written by Peter David and drawn by Stephen Thompson). I haven't read a New Frontier story in a few years, and it looks from this issue that there have been some changes to the cast. Of course, that assumes you're familiar with the cast in the first place. Otherwise, the story doesn't do much to introduce the players. Essentially, an experimental starship goes missing, Captain Calhoun and the USS Excalibur investigate, there's unrelated political intrigue featuring an ex-officer, and another ex-officer is now one of Trek's ubiquitous omnipotent beings. Oh, and there's another familiar-looking person on Excalibur who can pop in, EMH-like, when the story requires. The art is decent enough -- everything and everyone look appropriately Trek-y, and there aren't too many likenesses to worry about. It's not the worst Trek comic art I've seen, but not the best either. I will admit to being intrigued enough by the setup to come back for issue #2, but part of that is the hope that various subplots will start to knit together.

Finally, All-Star Superman #10 (written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Frank Quitely) is a poignant look at the last days of Superman ... at least on his particular Earth. I'm sure you've read about the synchronicity of this issue's conclusion with the Siegel heirs' legal victory, but even before I learned about that I was struck by Morrison's ability to evoke Superman. Morrison and Quitely use the image of Superman's literary creation as a touchstone for the character as ideal, which is a little ironic considering that they're working on an "ideal" version of the character.

But it's only an ideal from our perspective, isn't it? We're used to Superman as a commodity -- as copyright maintenance, as trademark material. We see Superman used as a sales-goosing guest star, as the center of a mythology that expands or contracts with the times, as a paragon of virtue challenged endlessly by fans who want something darker and more realistic.

All-Star Superman #10 speaks instead to "Superman's" power to lead by example. It's about inspiration, creation, and imitation in an endless cycle ("neverending," per the story's title). The hero of this story may be dying, but his legacy lives; just as the hero created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster all those years ago has produced a body of work full of its own entertainment and inspiration. I don't mean to evangelize in such a purple way, and the image of a dying Superman is certainly not the hardest way to create sympathy in a reader -- but this issue pulls together the thematic threads of the series so well, and sets up its climax so effectively.

Morrison and Quitely's Superman speaks in simple, declarative sentences. He wears a costume which looks homemade, but not undignified. He's the center of his world, and this issue shows him preparing that world for his departure. Whether the series will actually end with his death seems immaterial at this point.

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How can I miss you if you won't go away?

Dorian says it’s too soon for a new Star Trek movie:

[M]y gut feeling is that the franchise hasn't lain fallow long enough to remove the stigma of being for a hard-core cult audience.... [T]o be truly effective, the franchise needs a Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica length gap between old and new versions; long enough to make the old fans happy it's back, but also long enough to make the wider audience comfortably nostalgic for it. At this point, it doesn't matter how many pretty young men you pack into the film [...], the general public's opinion of Star Trek is that it's something for nerds, by nerds, and no one but nerds would have any interest in it.

I agree generally, but am a little more optimistic about Trek '08's crossover appeal. While I can’t really back up this sentiment in any meaningful sense, my gut feeling is that the general public thinks of Star Trek as having two parts: Original (Kirk & Spock) Trek, and Everything Else. Maybe TNG gets a third part, because I can see people separating it from "Deep Space Nine," "Voyager," and "Enterprise."

Generally, though, everything which came after Original Trek’s TV run* can be, and I think is, seen by the G.P. as “qualified” Star Trek. Either Kirk & Crew are old, or it’s a different crew, or there’s no Enterprise, or some combination thereof.

Accordingly, for the better part of the last 40 years, there’s been no “unadulterated” Star Trek** for the G.P. to latch onto. Instead, the Trek offerings have attempted to expand the existing universe. Twenty-five seasons’ worth of expansion has, in turn, cemented Trek’s nerdy stigma.

However, because Trek ‘08 appears to ignore all of that, I think it gets a pass from the general public. Wikipedia says Doctor Who got a 16-year break (1989-2005), punctuated by a 1996 TV movie; and Battlestar Galactica’s break was 24 years (1979-2003), except for “Galactica 1980"’s short 1980 run. The last original-cast Trek movie was in December 1991 -- but Trek ‘08 isn’t really an original-cast movie, either, so it doesn’t have to follow up on those events.

Therefore, depending on when you consider the last Original Trek adventure to have occurred, the wait between it and Trek ‘08 could be as little as 14 years (November 1994's Generations, which I think is a stretch) or as much as 39 1/2 (June ‘69's “Turnabout Intruder”). Both of those are extreme positions, and I feel the most comfortable going with 17 years for Star Trek VI. That’s an appropriate interval if we’re using Who and Galactica as yardsticks.

Of course, the more people find out about this movie, and the closer it comes to being part of the vast Star Trek tapestry, the more stigma attaches to it, and the shorter that interval becomes.



* To me it doesn’t matter whether you include the animated series in this. I’m not sure if the G.P. is really aware of it, and if they are, they might well count it as a curiosity attached to the regular series.

** I’m not counting fan projects like “New Voyages” or “Starship Exeter,” because (regardless of their merits) I’m pretty sure the G.P. hasn’t heard of 'em.

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Quien es mas Klingon?

The mega-Trek-watching project continues. Yesterday included “Disaster,” which features the birth of Keiko O’Brien’s daughter as assisted by Worf. It’s a broad scene, and perhaps not the most imaginative, but it’s played well. It probably helped establish the “Worf uncomfortable = funny” theory.

However, yesterday it just confirmed my own theory that Worf, son of Mogh = Dwight K. Schrute. Let’s compare and contrast.

1. Upbringing

Worf: Parents killed by Romulans. Separated from brother at early age. Raised on Earth by humans.
Dwight: Raised by humans on Earth, but that doesn’t really do it justice.
Advantage: Dwight

2. Security Credentials

Worf: Security chief of USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Strategic Operations Officer aboard Deep Space Nine. Proficient in Mok’bara and skilled with the bat’leth and mek’leth weapons.
Dwight: Former volunteer sheriff’s deputy. Security corporal, Dunder-Mifflin Scranton (honorary title). Purple belt in Goju-Ryu karate. Proficient, I suppose, with nunchuks and pepper spray.
Advantage: Worf

3. Honors

Worf: Won 2368 Forcas III Bat’leth tournament.
Dwight: Awarded Dunder-Mifflin Salesman of the Month 13 times in 12 months.
Advantage: Push

4. Secret Lovers

Worf: K’Ehleyr -- murdered shortly after introducing him to their son.
Dwight: Angela -- clandestine romance almost completely hidden from co-workers; ended when he killed Angela’s cat.
Advantage: Dwight

5. Disgraces and Separations

Worf: Endured discommendation from Klingon Empire for almost two years. Quit Starfleet to fight in Klingon Civil War.
Dwight: Family shunned him for two years (ages 4-6) for forgetting to save excess tuna oil. Quit Dunder-Mifflin to protect Angela.
Advantage: Dwight

6. Feelings Towards Cats

Worf: Disliked Spot. Later became Spot’s caretaker.
Dwight: Euthanized Sprinkles.
Advantage: Worf

7. Wore Red Uniform As ...

Worf: Lieutenant J.G. aboard Enterprise; Lt. Commander aboard Deep Space Nine.
Dwight: Staples clerk.
Advantage: Worf

8. Pass On What You Have Learned
Worf: Performed R'uustai ceremony with young Jeremy Aster, initiating him into the House of Mogh. Raised son Alexander for a few years aboard the Enterprise.
Dwight: Secretly made Pam Assistant to the Regional Manager.
Advantage: Push

9. Historical Confusions
Worf: Struggled with true identity of Kahless "impersonator."
Dwight: Struggled with true identity of Ben Franklin "impersonator."
Advantage: Dwight

10. Enemies
Worf: Romulans, Q, Borg
Dwight: Andy, Jim
Advantage: Worf

There's more, I'm sure; but I'm not through all of TNG yet, let alone DS9.

Ironically, Star Trek seems to be pretty low on the totem pole of Dwight's nerdy pursuits....

[EDIT: Corrected "advantages" for #s 5 and 6.]

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Bridge work

Looking at TrekMovie.com's walk through Star Trek The Tour reawakened one of my very, very minor pet peeves about this kind of Trek live-action roleplaying. Whenever an Enterprise bridge is recreated, it's always one of the TV versions -- either the Original Series, or TNG's.

(A couple of things about each of those. First, I would not be a bit surprised to learn that the TOS Bridge contained at least one fan-constructed piece "on loan" to the tour. I bet there are more people with a Bridge in their basements than even we hardcore fans think. Second, while the infamous takedown of the TNG Bridge as "the lobby of a Hyatt Regency" is still scarily accurate, I also like Patrick Stewart's observation from one of the DVD sets. He said, basically, the Bridge is like a stage, with Picard et al playing to an "audience" on the main viewscreen. For some reason that makes the TNG re-watching experience more intimate to me, like these people are just putting on shows in their basement. But I digress.)

While I understand that these are the most familiar bridge sets, to me they're not really the coolest. (Ex Astris Scientia has an overview, if your memory needs refreshing.) I like the warm beige-and-black look of Star Trek V's Bridge and the very functional Bridges of NX-01 and NCC-1701-E. I also liked the makeover the TMP Bridge got for Star Trek II. You never see those recreated, though, and it's a little disappointing.

By the way, although I am complaining, I want to emphasize how miniscule that complaint is. I would totally geek out over either the TOS or TNG Bridge. In fact, if I had to choose only one for a photo-op which would totally embarrass the Best Wife Ever, it might well be the TNG TV Bridge. I am a huge TOS fan, but only on the TNG Bridge would I feel right doing Picard's little two-finger "Engage" sign....

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Checking in briefly: TNG and 2007 comics buying

Well, after a Nyquil-flavored New Year, I'm on the road to recovery ... but also on the road in a more literal sense. Therefore, new posts will probably have to wait until next week. In the meantime, though, here are a couple of items which have rattled around my mind long enough.

* * *

The Modern Trek Project, through which I am watching every episode of "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," and "Voyager," in as close to Stardate order as I can get, rolls on. Last night I watched "The Wounded," TNG's first Cardassian episode, which puts me into early 1991, approaching the halfway point of TNG Season 4. It won't be too long before I start alternating TNGs with DS9s as per The Star Trek Chronology.

Still, that's not today's point. What really struck me about the beginning of TNG S4 was its emphasis on "sequels." Virtually every episode up to "The Wounded" basically revisited a previous one.

"The Best of Both Worlds, Part II": Duh; but also, "Q Who."
"Family": Duh, again; but Worf's parents' visit reminds him of his discommendation in "Sins Of The Father."
"Brothers": Looks back at events discussed in "Datalore."
"Suddenly Human": One of the least sequel-y. However, in making Picard a "parent," it plays into the season's secondary theme of "family."
"Remember Me": More with The Traveler from "Where No One Has Gone Before."
"Legacy": Tasha's sister lets the crew re-examine Tasha's death in "Skin Of Evil."
"Reunion": Ties together "The Emissary" with "Sins Of The Father" to begin the big Klingon arc in earnest.
"Future Imperfect": We recognize Minuet from "11001001's" holodeck program.
"Final Mission": Caps off Wesley's Academy arc, including The Boy's recollection of his shuttle trip with Picard in "Samaritan Snare."
"The Loss": Neither sequel-y nor family-oriented, unless you count Riker playing the Imzadi card for the first time in a while.
"Data's Day": Follow-up to "The Measure of a Man."

TNG had done sequels and follow-ups before, of course, but I don't think to this degree. Moreover, combined with the "family" theme, the first part of Season 4 really felt like the show was consolidating itself into something cohesive which could both generate new subplots and re-examine alternative takes. It takes a certain amount of confidence to pull these disparate threads together, but obviously the cumulative effect runs the risk of creating too much familiarity.

Also coming somewhat from left field is the sudden emphasis on Miles O'Brien. Sure, he'd been around since the beginning, and I certainly don't object to his being in the spotlight, but in the space of a few months he goes from being a good utility player in, say, "Best Of Both Worlds" and "Family" to major roles in both "Data's Day" and "The Wounded." I'm going to enjoy watching Miles develop, and I know it'll help me appreciate his DS9 work even more.

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And about those comic-book numbers: more analysis is on the way, but the short version is twofold. First, apparently I bought considerably more in 2007 than I have in the previous few years. Second, much of the increase can be attributed to 52, Countdown, and their ancillary series. I am trusting that this will correct itself through attrition in 2008.

Not surprisingly, then, I spent appreciably more on DC in '07. Around 88% of the books I bought were from DC, as opposed to 80% in years past. Again, attrition may return that number to a more typical level, but we'll see.

Back next week!

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Extending the Final Frontier: Thoughts on DC's Star Trek

I'm pretty excited about Star Trek Week over at Dave's Long Box, because it means he'll probably be talking Trek comics for the next couple of months.

Anyway, his latest post is on DC's Star Trek vol. 1 #35. I am full-to-bursting about a certain aspect of this comic, but didn't want to hijack Dave's comments.

For those who don't know, DC got the Star Trek license in 1983, following Star Trek II. However, editors Marv Wolfman and Bob Greenberger wanted to do contemporary stories. This meant picking up from where The Wrath Of Khan left off, which in turn meant switching out Spock for Saavik.

It worked out well enough for the first eight issues. The first four issues were a "Klingon War" storyline involving some familiar omnipotent aliens. A couple of done-in-one issues followed that, and then a two-part "Origin Of Saavik" story had David Marcus come back into the mix to transfer Saavik to the U.S.S. Grissom. By this time it was the summer of 1984 and DC had to lead its readers into Star Trek III.

The problem, as you might guess, was leading out of The Search For Spock with anything resembling contemporary stories. Indeed, Star Trek vol. 1 #9 began with our heroes on Vulcan, wondering how to finesse their surrender to Federation justice. Luckily, an invasion from the Mirror Universe provided a handy opportunity for Kirk & Krew to save the Federation from (goateed and/or scantily-clad versions of) itself. Starfleet couldn't prosecute such heroic figures, so Kirk and most of the regulars (including Saavik) were assigned to the starship Excelsior.

For reasons I can't quite remember, though, Spock was given command of the Surak, an Oberth-class science vessel, and sent to explore a different corner of the galaxy. I'd say this was done not only to preserve the initial Spock-less lineup, but also to make sure that, whatever happened between movies 3 and 4, Kirk was still getting to know the "new" Spock by the time Star Trek IV rolled around. I'd say the same applied to a new Enterprise -- DC couldn't have one in its comics if Paramount hadn't introduced it on the big screen.

Accordingly, from issue #16 through #33, DC's Star Trek was mostly about the voyages of the starship Excelsior, exploring strange new worlds, yadda yadda yadda. DC even did a twentieth-anniversary issue where the original crew (overshooting the 2260s on their way back from "Tomorrow Is Yesterday") met their movie-era selves aboard Excelsior. Nevertheless, it all had to be rolled back again, to get ready for Star Trek IV.

That's where Dave's Star Trek #35 comes in. If memory serves, "The Doomsday Bug" makes Vulcanoids go nuts. It affects a shipload of Romulans and Spock too. Kirk & Ko. become involved in an intergalactic incident, Spock's neural pathways start to degenerate, and the Excelsior high-tails it for Vulcan so Spock can get the help he needs and the others can find sanctuary.

I think this is fascinating (ha ha) for a couple of reasons. First, Paramount apparently let DC have as "traditional" a setup as the events of the movies would allow. On one hand this seems eminently appropriate, because who'd want to come cold to a Star Trek comic only to find two years' worth of "Kirk On The Lam" stories? On the other, though, why wouldn't Paramount want to let the movies tell their own stories, and require DC to publish flashbacks in the meantime? The Star Trek novels still focused on the pre-TWOK era (although designated adaptation writer Vonda McIntyre fleshed out the movies with her own subplots and transition sequences). Indeed, DC's second volume of Trek comics began after 1989's Star Trek V, and at first included the Klingon characters from that movie, but soon dropped its own continuing characters and subplots for a series of standalone stories. Certainly those weren't unpopular, because Vol. 2 lasted 80 issues, but after a while it felt less ... personal, I suppose, than Vol. 1's attempts to create its own continuity.

In short, I thought it was pretty gutsy of DC to do its own thing with the Trek movies. To me it helped justify the comics' existence, because it added a soap-opera element that the TV show never really had. The fact that it worked even within the movies' own cliffhangers and (relatively) tight continuity was also pretty impressive.

The second fascinating aspect of "The Doomsday Bug" is its rollback function. It's the narrative equivalent of cleaning up after that wild party you weren't supposed to have while your parents were out of town. Everything has to be put back just like they left it. In hindsight, this makes parts of the story pretty ridiculous. For example, the Klingon Bird-Of-Prey apparently sat in Excelsior's shuttlebay for some twenty issues, without being appropriated by Starfleet for further study.

Still, the point of a parents-are-away party isn't to obey the rules. The point is to take advantage of the freedom, however fleeting it may be. DC definitely did that. In fact, its "Excelsior period" was designed to give readers the kinds of stories they expected, without strip-mining the familiar five-year mission or even the less-familiar post-Motion Picture era. (Besides, Marvel's series was set post-TMP.) I like the rollback because it acknowledges that those stories existed and could reasonably be incorporated into the movie timeline. After years of superhero comics' simply pushing the reset button, an old-fashioned transitory story is almost quaint.

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Love ... exciting and xenophobic!

Inspired in part by Siskoid's Trek recaps, and mindful of Shaenon Garrity's "Drunk and Watchin' Star Trek," I've been working my way through the 24th-Century series. Friday night was "The Dauphin," TNG's second-season look at Wesley Crusher's first lurve. Yesterday, I watched the "remastered" version of TOS's "Metamorphosis," and noticed some parallels. Naturally, I share these with you.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW.]

"Metamorphosis" first, because it offers more to discuss. Kirk, Spock, and Bones are ferrying diplomat Nancy Hedford back to the Enterprise in a shuttle. Comm'r Hedford was negotiating a peace treaty when she suffered a billion-to-one hit from a deadly virus. Without the Enterprise's sickbay, she'll die. However, the non-corporeal Companion pulls the shuttle down to a planetoid where 21st-century Earth pioneer Zefram Cochrane has been living for the past 150 years. He's told the Companion he'll die of loneliness, and since the Companion has been keeping him alive all this time, the rest was easy.

Cochrane tells our heroes he communicates with the Companion non-verbally, but Kirk literally sees more: in the sparkly, effervescent way the Companion's energy-form surrounds Cochrane, Kirk can tell the Companion loves Cochrane. This is confirmed when the universal translator lets Cochrane hear the Companion's "voice" for the first time -- it's a female voice, and that (dun dunn!!) wasn't programmed into the machine! ZOMG!!!

This is where things get a little screwy. Because the Companion is now demonstrably and objectively female, Kirk basically sings the "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" song to Cochrane. Cochrane is all eww gross, shut up!, and sounds very segregationist when he accuses the Starfleeters of having loosened their morals over the last 150 years. He wants nothing to do with a non-corporeal chick who's warm for his fleshy form, and it makes him more than ready to leave the Planetoid of Eternal Life.

Now, I thought that bit of characterization was appropriate. However you look at it, Cochrane's the guy who basically made the Federation possible. That doesn't mean he has to be a champion of diversity. In fact, I could see the Cochrane of Star Trek: First Contact having this attitude, which is also reminiscent of the Peter Weller segregationist character from the final "Enterprise" two-parter.

No, my problem is with Kirk's attitude, and the plot points it reinforces. First, I'm a little shaky on the idea that "male" and "female" have their own brainwave frequencies that can be analyzed by the universal translator. Second, and more importantly, female + male doesn't necessarly = romance. The Companion could also be a mother-figure, a gender-neutral guide, or even just half of a symbiotic relationship. Yes, I know Star Trek was groundbreaking for subverting audience expectations about space aliens, and making the Companion a relatively benign entity was part of that (see also "The Devil in the Dark," another Gene L. Coon script, where the monster is really a mother), but the way "Metamorphosis" gets there involved a couple of large leaps of logic.

We're not done yet, though. The dying Hedford has heard Cochrane's protests, and she starts to weep. Turns out she's an unfulfilled career woman who's never known love, and here he is rejecting it --! Fortunately, Kirk's been talking to the Companion about how her relationship with Cochrane is doomed. The upshot is, since the Companion's not human, she can't really love Cochrane. He's basically saying "if you love him, and by the way you'll never be 'able' to love him, if you get my meaning, set him free." Actually, if I remember right, Kirk says the Companion needs a soul, not necessarily any other body parts.

Kirk's thinking is that love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice. Well, the Companion's actual sacrifice involves merging with Hedford so that both can continue to exist. Hedford gets to know love, because now Cochrane can love both her and the Companion; and thus the Companion also gets to have her love for Cochrane returned. The episode presents this weird arrangement as very sweet, and it is, in a way. At least everyone looks happy as the shuttle blasts off for its rendezvous.

So about twenty years later, TNG produced "The Dauphin," the tender story of a young planetary ruler, Salia, and her shape-shifting bodyguard who can totally whale on Worf and make him like it. I probably hadn't seen this episode since it aired, and honestly I was not looking forward to it, but it's a lot better than I remembered. "The Boy" is immediately taken with Salia, and she with him, probably because he's the first teenage boy she's seen in a long time and vice versa. Wil Wheaton does "smitten" quite well, and there's also a great little scene where Riker and Guinan quasi-flirt. However, as we know, this relationship is doomed, not just because she's got a planet to rule but also because she's a shape-shifter too. When Wes finds out, he gets all pissy and hurt, accusing Salia of toying with him and not giving her the courtesy of saying goodbye. However, his better impulses take over, and he sees in the end that she's really a non-corporeal being. He finds her energy form very beautiful, but in a completely platonic way, and goes off to Ten-Forward to cry in his chocolate.

Again, I watched "Dauphin" the night before "Metamorphosis," so couldn't help comparing the two; and again, I think "Dauphin" comes out ahead in its attitudes towards women. Indeed, "Dauphin's" Anja, the bodyguard, gets all of the "protective," parental aspects of the Companion, and it's Anja who Worf et al. must find ways to control. Maybe that's part of it -- there's no possibility of confusing Salia's role in the story. However, I'm more willing to give "The Dauphin" a pass because Wesley's attitudes are the erratic, unformed gesticulations of a hormonal teenager. I expected more from the adults of "Metamorphosis."

Thinking about "Metamorphosis" today, though, Cochrane actually ends up with quite the non-traditional relationship. True, seeing the Companion anthropomorphized in Hedford appears superficially to be the thing which confirms his love for her, but it could also be a sign to Cochrane of the extent of the Companion's sacrifice. Not to get all religious here, but the Companion was willing to give up her normal existence to be with Cochrane as a human. The X factor here is Hedford, who a) seems to fit the career-woman stereotype and b) has no reason to love Cochrane beyond the fact that he's literally her last chance to ever know love. I guess I feel the most uneasy about her place in the triangle.

Still, I presume they all lived happily ever after....

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Sunday Soliloquy

This weekend's NextGen tribute wraps up with -- what else? -- Jean-Luc Picard giving a Ferengi a tongue-lashing.



By the way, "the Vulcan" is everyone's favorite ambassador/former Enterprise captain, participating (along with Admiral McCoy) in Trek's first semi-official intergenerational crossover. Of course no Ferengi jail can hold him!

[From "Game, Set and Match!" in Star Trek: The Next Generation -- The Modala Imperative, Late October 1991. Written by Peter David, drawn by Pablo Marcos.]

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Friday Night Fights

The glowy-headed guys in the armor are Tholians. According to DC's old TNG title, the suits help them survive in a human-friendly environment.


So they get a little peeved when the humans suggest they "transform and roll out."


Good thing Picard (...huh?) and Worf are there to hand out some punishment!



It's all part of the United Federation of Bahlactus!

[From "War And Madness Part V: Cry Havoc!" in Star Trek: The Next Generation #75, September 1995. Written by Michael Jan Friedman, pencilled by Gordon Purcell, inked by Terry Pallot.]

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Happy 20th, TNG!

Twenty years ago today, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" premiered in syndication with the two-hour “Encounter At Farpoint.” I didn’t like it much at first.

Oh, I liked the effects. I liked the design of the new Enterprise, and I really liked the title sequence, which brought back the opening narration and Jerry Goldsmith’s ST:TMP theme. I liked Captain Picard and Data. However, the rest of it seemed to owe too much to the original series -- not just the three uniform colors, but the style of the show itself. By the mid-‘80s, series like “Hill Street Blues,” “St. Elsewhere,” and “L.A. Law” had redefined the hour-long drama, and even shows like “The A-Team” had brought a certain self-awareness to hour-long action series. Next to those, early TNG was stuck firmly in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It was as if it didn’t feel the need to keep up with its peers, as long as it replicated the feel of its inspiration.

Accordingly, early TNG could be painful to watch, but I didn’t hate it; and I wasn’t rooting actively for it to fail. Whatever its shortcomings, it still felt like Star Trek. Besides, the longer it was around, the more opportunity it had to get better; and indeed, towards the back half of the first season, it did.

Over the break, a two-hour special (called “From One Generation To The Next,” I think) traced the history of Star Trek and teased the second season of TNG. In 1988, I’m not sure what the occasion would have been, but the special (narrated by Patrick Stewart) featured the first all-color edition of “The Cage,” and it probably meant a new home-video release. Anyway, Season Two looked to be a bit more loose, with Riker sporting a beard, Diana Muldaur replacing Dr. Bev, and Troi’s hair freed from that bun. However, a TV writers’ strike put it off until just before Thanksgiving, making the six months between seasons seem interminable. The strike also meant that Season Two’s 22 episodes (well, 21 plus the clip show “Shades Of Gray”) got stretched out over nine months, until mid-July ‘89. With Season 3 starting in the last week of September, the hiatus was pretty short.

And, of course, with Season 3, TNG stepped on the gas and never looked back. Original Trek got worse as it got older, but TNG established the “wait for the third season” rule, which fans applied (with varying degrees of success) to later Trek series. Season Three may be remembered best for its apocalyptic episodes “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “The Best Of Both Worlds, Part I,” but it also had a couple of funny Ferengi episodes (“The Price” and “Menage A Troi”), good Romulan episodes (“The Enemy” and “The Defector”), and the start of the Klingon-politics subplot (“Sins of the Father”). Generally, the ratio of good episodes to mediocre ones seemed significantly better.

Every season since brought at least one milestone. Early in Season 4, TNG produced its 80th episode, one better than the original. Season 5 began in Trek’s 25th anniversary year of 1991, and saw not only the Spock two-parter (“Unification”) and the show’s 100th episode (“Redemption, Part I”), but also the death of Gene Roddenberry and the last Original Series movie. After that, TNG was officially the standard-bearer. Season 6 brought Scotty back in “Relics” and birthed "Deep Space Nine," and Season 7 closed out strong with “All Good Things....”

I was a student at the University of Kentucky for all seven years of TNG’s run. I was a freshman in Season One, graduated right before the end of Season Four, started law school with Season Five, and took my first bar-review class the day of “All Good Things.” My first glimpse of the new Enterprise was on a dorm-lounge TV, and I remember walking home from a football game to watch the tape of “Redemption, Part II.” It’s an odd correlation into which I don’t want to read too much. More than anything else, it makes both my UK experiences and TNG easier to remember. Still, things did pick up for me personally in junior year (Season 3) and beyond.

Of course, TNG also found fans in a number of my classmates, so it was a boon to my social life (certain parts, at least). We got together to watch the conclusions of “Unification” and “Descent,” caught “Parallels” at a Christmas party (between old Rankin/Bass tapes), and stood in line for tickets to Star Trek VI. Because TNG aired regularly on Saturday nights at 7:00 p.m., often it came on before a UK basketball game. I will always associate “Starship Mine” with the 1993 Final Four matchup between Kentucky and Michigan. Kentucky lost in overtime, but “Starship Mine” is still good. Besides, one of my good friends from law school is a Michigan grad and a Trek fan, so I’m sure he was doubly happy.

Overall, the TNG movies were uneven. First Contact is the best, but it still has some problems. Generations and Insurrection were uneven, and Nemesis didn’t seem to want to have much fun. Like TNG in general, they’re all worth watching for Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner’s performances.

Indeed, I doubt we’d be celebrating TNG’s 20th as lustily were it not for Patrick Stewart. He classed up Star Trek enough to get it away from the stereotype (deserved or not) of Shatnerian acting. When the rumors flew in the summer of 1990 that “Best Of Both Worlds” was a way to write Stewart out of the show, I wondered how well it would do, really, with Captain Riker and Cmdr. Shelby as the headliners.

To me, Stewart was TNG's best asset because I got the feeling he didn't have to do Star Trek. With movies like Excalibur, Dune, and Lifeforce on his resume, it's not like was a stranger to SF/F, but still. TNG flew its nerd flag pretty high sometimes, and Patrick Stewart not only sold it, he made it look good.

TNG wrapped up five years ago with Star Trek Nemesis, which killed Data and promoted the newlywed Riker and Troi off the Enterprise. As vital as I think Picard is to the TNG dynamic, breaking up the crew tends to scuttle any interest I might have in future adventures. I was never that curious about Picard commanding the Stargazer, so with half the TNG cast gone, his further adventures aboard the Enterprise would feel more like that. Picard is such a solitary person that despite the presence of Beverly, Worf, and Geordi, I can't help but think of him as isolated without Riker, Troi, and Data to help draw him out.

Regardless, it's good that TNG got a definite ending. I think it's the only Modern Trek series so far which can really say that. "DS9" hinted at Sisko's return, "Voyager" denied viewers the aftermath of the ship's return, and I hope most of "Enterprise's" last episode was holo-puffery. TNG definitely got the most coverage of any Trek series, such that I can't imagine anyone in another 20 years wanting to remake it to fill in the gaps.

I don't know if that's the highest compliment I can pay to the show, but it's up there. After a shaky start, TNG proved to be a worthy successor to an iconic series, which allowed fans to explore pretty thoroughly the Star Trek format's potential. It didn't do everything right, but it set a high standard. For a show where the sky was the limit, that's not too shabby.

P.S. I can't wrap this up without mentioning Siskoid's excellent recaps of what look to be every Trek episode and film. Someday I'll stage my own five-series mega-marathon, from "Enterprise" to Nemesis, but I'll probably be too tired to blog about it!

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