Star Trek is, for many people, the essence of geekery. Many hours of geek lives have been spent watching, discussing, arguing, and pontificating about Trek. And yet, in the hands of its oh-so-careful shepherds at Paramount, Trek has devolved into the standard pabulum of modern entertainment.
No one can claim that Trek didn't have the eye candy. Yeoman Rand, anyone? Counselor Troi? But, the eye candy was just that: decoration. People didn't watch it for the eye candy. And yet, in the two most recent installments in the Trek franchise, the eye candy seems to be what people talk about most. Certainly not the scripts, which for ST:Voyager were almost uniformly bland. I had the extreme misfortune to watch the pilot for ST:Enterprise, and was astounded at how awful the script, the acting, and the editing were, and disgusted at the transparent attempts at mass-market appeal. (The soft-pornesque 'decontamination' scene!)
I have not come to bury Trek, however, but to praise it. I had largely written off any hope of Trek returning to its science fiction roots. (Note for the uninitiated - adding the term 'in space' to a series treatment does not make it science fiction.) I then found out that one of my favorite writers and producers of any genre, Joe Straczynski, had been approached and offered the Executive Producer role for ST:Enterprise.
My jaw hit the floor. Someone over at Paramount has sensed the threat to their franchise that 5 years of gross neglect has caused. Joe, unfortunately for Paramount, declined the position, but said lots of very nice things about Manny Coto, the fellow who was chosen for the job. And let drop that he and Bryce Zabel (The creator of Dark Skies) wrote a treatment for a "Trek revival" series that in Joe's words, would "save ST." Here's hoping that Paramount takes them up on it.
Posted by brent at 12:15