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As I have mentioned before, I am in the process of watching the entire run of Star Trek: Voyager on DVD.
Today, I reached a milestone in the series: the second season episode I have derisively called "The Muddy Mudskipper episode" for the past decade, though it's official title is Threshold.
This piece of dreck was the point at which I have long considered Voyager - indeed, all of Star Trek - to have "Jumped the Shark." It was so bad, and I was so offended that it had been written, produced and aired at all, that I stopped watching the show regularly... indeed, I think it was the moment when I stopped being such a die-hard Trek fan, that I never watched Enterprise in later years much either. It was clear to me at this point that the magic that Gene Rodenberry had created was gone, and the writers of the show had gone to the same creative well too many times. I could only take so much insult to my intelligence, and with shows like Babylon 5 (still in my mind the best SF TV show ever), Farscape, Firefly, and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica filling the void of "good SF TV," the Trek franchise had just become tired.
And in my mind, this one episode is where I became disillusioned with Star Trek. Which is saying something, considering I grew up watching the original series, and have always considered myself a Trekkie. But with this episode of Voyager... things started to go downhill. Badly.
The "plot" of the episode is this: Tom Paris takes a shuttlecraft and breaks the Warp 10 barrier. In doing so, he occupies every point in the universe simultaneously. But as a side effect, he starts to "evolve" into a... mudskipper. (Yes, friends, the pinnacle of human evolution is to become a mudskipper!) He kidnaps Captain Janeway, and takes her to Warp 10 also, and she, too, "evolves" into a mudskipper. The two mudskippers mate, and have offspring, and then they crew of Voyage rescues them, and the Holographic doctor is able to revert them back into human form.
Ugh. Bleh. Ack!
There is so much wrong with this episode, that I don't even know how to begin to put it into words. Not only does it violate decades of Trek canon - Warp 10 being the absolute speed limit of the Trek universe - it stretches scientific plausibility and logic beyond the breaking point. Occupying infinite points of space? Then why not just use it to go home? Evolving into mudskippers?!?!? And the doctor can revert this?!?!?!? This episode is truly an insult to my intelligence! The first part of Science Fiction is, of course, SCIENCE, and though Trek has always played fast and loose with the science, it was always able to back it up with compelling characters and good writing. Both of which this episode competely lacks. Never has a more schlocky episode of Trek ever been produced (even counting Spock's Brain AND the movies).
So, why am I watching it now?
I decided when I got Netflix to watch everything Trek produced on DVD, starting with TOS, then moving on to TNG (even catching a few episodes that I had missed during its original run - BONUS!), and DS9 (I didn't have a TV through much of its run). Then I decided to give Voyager a second chance. A number of my Trek friends have long said that the show got better after this, especially after 7 of Tits-and-Ass was introduced on the show - though I will never forgive her for displacing one of my favourite characters, Kes - and so I'm giving it a second chance, holding my nose through the dreck. When I got this DVD this morning, and saw that Threshold was on the disc, I groaned, knowing that I had reached the lowest point of the series.
When I am done with Voyager, I may even decide to give Enterprise a second chance.
But the sad part is, I know that Trek has, for the time being, run out of steam. Even the proposed new movie - a prequel movie that supposedly will feature Kirk and Spock in their early years - is a re-hash of old ideas. Trek has run out of new things to say, and so it is yet again going back to the old stuff for material.
This really saddens me, because there is potential for Star Trek to start afresh. In the 1990s - while Voyager was still on the air, in fact - I pitched an idea to the Star Trek Powers that Be that could revitalize the series in a dramatic new way. My idea was this: Set a series in the Trek Universe that is NOT tied to a particular spaceship, crew, or cast. Make it an episodic anthology series, like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. Call it something like Star Trek: Federation, and make the whole Trek Universe the canvas. Invite the best SF writers out there - like all the ones that abandoned Trek to go work for Babylon 5 - to come back and pen an episode or two, using whatever Trek setting they wanted. (Yes, I know, sets could be a bit expensive). Use the show to explore social issues the way Trek was always at its best doing. Have a new series of Ferengi stories, like the ones that made so many of the best episodes of DS9. Follow Q around for a day. Explore further development of places and people and races that were set up in the 45 years of Trek canon. Continue storylines for Voyager characters after they got back to Earth. There's a whole universe to play with!
In short, break out of the box. See things new and afresh. And make Trek THE place to showcase hot new writers and directors.
It would make Trek vital again.
Anyway, that's my dream. Don't expect to see it happen anytime soon, but it's a dream.
Now I am ordering a pizza, and going back to my Voyager DVDs.
And hoping that it gets better past this point.
Today, I reached a milestone in the series: the second season episode I have derisively called "The Muddy Mudskipper episode" for the past decade, though it's official title is Threshold.
This piece of dreck was the point at which I have long considered Voyager - indeed, all of Star Trek - to have "Jumped the Shark." It was so bad, and I was so offended that it had been written, produced and aired at all, that I stopped watching the show regularly... indeed, I think it was the moment when I stopped being such a die-hard Trek fan, that I never watched Enterprise in later years much either. It was clear to me at this point that the magic that Gene Rodenberry had created was gone, and the writers of the show had gone to the same creative well too many times. I could only take so much insult to my intelligence, and with shows like Babylon 5 (still in my mind the best SF TV show ever), Farscape, Firefly, and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica filling the void of "good SF TV," the Trek franchise had just become tired.
And in my mind, this one episode is where I became disillusioned with Star Trek. Which is saying something, considering I grew up watching the original series, and have always considered myself a Trekkie. But with this episode of Voyager... things started to go downhill. Badly.
The "plot" of the episode is this: Tom Paris takes a shuttlecraft and breaks the Warp 10 barrier. In doing so, he occupies every point in the universe simultaneously. But as a side effect, he starts to "evolve" into a... mudskipper. (Yes, friends, the pinnacle of human evolution is to become a mudskipper!) He kidnaps Captain Janeway, and takes her to Warp 10 also, and she, too, "evolves" into a mudskipper. The two mudskippers mate, and have offspring, and then they crew of Voyage rescues them, and the Holographic doctor is able to revert them back into human form.
Ugh. Bleh. Ack!
There is so much wrong with this episode, that I don't even know how to begin to put it into words. Not only does it violate decades of Trek canon - Warp 10 being the absolute speed limit of the Trek universe - it stretches scientific plausibility and logic beyond the breaking point. Occupying infinite points of space? Then why not just use it to go home? Evolving into mudskippers?!?!? And the doctor can revert this?!?!?!? This episode is truly an insult to my intelligence! The first part of Science Fiction is, of course, SCIENCE, and though Trek has always played fast and loose with the science, it was always able to back it up with compelling characters and good writing. Both of which this episode competely lacks. Never has a more schlocky episode of Trek ever been produced (even counting Spock's Brain AND the movies).
So, why am I watching it now?
I decided when I got Netflix to watch everything Trek produced on DVD, starting with TOS, then moving on to TNG (even catching a few episodes that I had missed during its original run - BONUS!), and DS9 (I didn't have a TV through much of its run). Then I decided to give Voyager a second chance. A number of my Trek friends have long said that the show got better after this, especially after 7 of Tits-and-Ass was introduced on the show - though I will never forgive her for displacing one of my favourite characters, Kes - and so I'm giving it a second chance, holding my nose through the dreck. When I got this DVD this morning, and saw that Threshold was on the disc, I groaned, knowing that I had reached the lowest point of the series.
When I am done with Voyager, I may even decide to give Enterprise a second chance.
But the sad part is, I know that Trek has, for the time being, run out of steam. Even the proposed new movie - a prequel movie that supposedly will feature Kirk and Spock in their early years - is a re-hash of old ideas. Trek has run out of new things to say, and so it is yet again going back to the old stuff for material.
This really saddens me, because there is potential for Star Trek to start afresh. In the 1990s - while Voyager was still on the air, in fact - I pitched an idea to the Star Trek Powers that Be that could revitalize the series in a dramatic new way. My idea was this: Set a series in the Trek Universe that is NOT tied to a particular spaceship, crew, or cast. Make it an episodic anthology series, like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. Call it something like Star Trek: Federation, and make the whole Trek Universe the canvas. Invite the best SF writers out there - like all the ones that abandoned Trek to go work for Babylon 5 - to come back and pen an episode or two, using whatever Trek setting they wanted. (Yes, I know, sets could be a bit expensive). Use the show to explore social issues the way Trek was always at its best doing. Have a new series of Ferengi stories, like the ones that made so many of the best episodes of DS9. Follow Q around for a day. Explore further development of places and people and races that were set up in the 45 years of Trek canon. Continue storylines for Voyager characters after they got back to Earth. There's a whole universe to play with!
In short, break out of the box. See things new and afresh. And make Trek THE place to showcase hot new writers and directors.
It would make Trek vital again.
Anyway, that's my dream. Don't expect to see it happen anytime soon, but it's a dream.
Now I am ordering a pizza, and going back to my Voyager DVDs.
And hoping that it gets better past this point.