The wait is over...

1) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

I am not a person who easily emotes in giddy glee; it takes a special subject for me to get hyper-enthused, and Deep Space Nine is one of those few subjects.

It would take hours to describe the multitude of ways that I enjoy the series, so I will list all the things (in no specific order) that make this show special to me in a set of nouns and verbs: Sisko, cast, crew, stories, Promenade, war, politics, religion, Prophets, growth, death, Cardassians, intrigue, darkness, Defiant, credits, and Terok Nor.

Greatest Moment - The End of The Visitor - While the entire episode wrenches my heart like few other shows could, the final scenes in which Jake gives his parting advice to the young author, meets his father for the final time, and the last shot of a grieving Sisko still brings tears to my eyes today.

Within view is number two... (more bad rhyming below!)

2) The Apprentice

Trump's style of speech, hair, and capitalistic rudeness are all intriguingly entertaining. Every part of the show has fascinating insight into the way the real business world works...







...It is too painful to even pretend that I am interested in this show, so I can no longer go on with this charade. I should have known not to be involve myself in Pagan holidays.

2) The Wire

The most heavily serialized show I have ever seen, The Wire's five seasons were a wonderful treat for the soul. Even though the show analyzed the way bureaucracies worked, showing us the depressing side of so many influential organizations, the inspirational part was that there were a few who fought to change it (it was a bit of a downer than none succeeded, but I was still happy).

Best Season - Season Four - Each season had reasons to be included, but the story of the broken school system was easily the most riveting. My mother's own description of the school she works at was eerily similar, though thankfully not half-way as bad. It certainly put in perspective my plan to be a math teacher.

Star Trek: Many Uneventful Voyages

Star Trek has always been successful in the television medium (save for the lackluster series Enterprise); the movies though were a different story. Few installments in the film franchise were hits, most simply hoping to make a profit. While the movie's DVD sales to trekkies will continue on indefinitely, even the biggest star Trek fans agree that eighty percent of the films are crap (getting them to decide on which movies fall where is a tougher task). Like many historians say, "We must learn from our past in order to make a better future." Therefore, I believe an analysis of the past films will shine a new light on the strengths and weaknesses of Star Trek.

The Motion Picture
Strengths: The film's release proved Star Trek was a lucrative enough enterprise that further investments were wise. Good special effects were just starting to be made viable, making science fiction cost effective.
Weaknesses: Made shortly after 2001: A Space Odyssey, this feature contained probably some of most tedious scenes in all of Star Trek. Characters (except Kirk, Spock, and a few cameos) were not given anything remotely interesting to do.

The Wrath of Khan
Strengths: A solid plot compelled the audience to pay attention, filled to the brim with tension and excitement. An antagonist that virtually seethed animosity with every line, Khan was the villain that all other Star Trek bad guys aspired to be like. Continuity with what had come before took a back seat to good storytelling. Nearly every character had a solid story arc instead of simply being window dressing. The death of Spock.
Weaknesses: I doubt that I could think of something bad about this film.

The Search for Spock
Strengths: With solid direction and writing, the film was consistent in its quality. As a direct sequel to the last film, the plot plausibly continued the story it was in.
Weaknesses: The film was almost a rehash of themes from the last (larger than life villain, death of a major character, reliance on Kirk and Spock).

The Voyage Home
Strengths: Some of the best natural humor of Star Trek (funny episodes nearly all being flops on the different shows). The themes of the film were new and took the characters to new emotional territory.
Weaknesses: The film's message was rather obvious, not even concealed in a metaphor.

The Final Frontier
Strengths: I doubt that I could think of something good about this film. Well, there was one good scene involving the three main characters' past.
Weaknesses: Plot holes the width of a wormhole abound. All the terrible things about the Original Series were included (never mentioned before relative of main character shows up, needless special effects that were consistently bad, Klingon animosity forced into the plot, blatant disregard for continuity, an alien pretending to be a God, etc.).

The Undiscovered Country
Strengths: A good commentary on society. Good dialogue and effects. Action-adventure orientation missing from the rest of the films. Believable continuation of past story threads.
Weaknesses: The message might have been a little too topical. Small but noticeable continuity errors that could have been easily avoided (more egregious than those of The Wrath of Khan).

Generations
Strengths: The production values were high. A strong cast in both cameos and primary characters. Amazing crash sequence.
Weaknesses: Obvious writing errors made story points feel forced. Over reliance on a few characters while ignoring others. The rhythm of the film was off, making for an unpleasant viewing experience. Small but noticeable continuity errors that could have been easily avoided (more egregious than those of The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country). The death of Kirk.

First Contact
Strengths: New twist on past formula (tale of uncontrolled vengeance is provided for the protagonist instead of antagonist). Strongest antagonist since The Wrath of Khan's. A-plot and B-plot are smooth and create a natural rhythm.
Weaknesses: Some jokes are a tad flat.

Insurrection
Strengths: The effects are top notch. Its direction is solid.
Weaknesses: The story seems to have copied much of the designs of past films. More over reliance on certain characters while even greater ignorance of the rest of the cast. Needless and bloodless violence.

Nemesis
Strengths: A multitude of great action sequences.
Weaknesses: Though it is the end of The Next Generation's film series, the movie does not give justice to what made both the films and show great. It steals both the good (rival bent on extermination of Earth, dealing with the end of an era) and the bad (more rewriting of characters' back story with addition of previously unseen relatives, violence for the sake of fulfilling an action quota). The death of Data.

Hopefully, the people who made the new Star Trek feature were aware of these pros and cons.

Sketchy comedy

3) Saturday Night Live

A staple of television, SNL will continue in its tradition of being the home of comedy. Through thick and thin (insert reference to Aykroyd and Belushi or Spade and Farley), the show has survived. It never ceases to surprise me that a late night variety show is one of my favorites.

Favorite Sketch - Jeopardy - The combination of a depressed Alec Trebek, topical impersonations, and a wickedly cruel Sean Connery are the ingriedients for prime hilarity. The inventive double entandra jokes merely add to the fun.

Would Futurama work better today instead of in yesteryear?

The early days of the Simpsons were a reflection upon the market of comedies at the time. It was an era of family sit-coms, the likes of Al Bundy and Bill Cosby providing America's laughs. By the late eighties, television viewers were surely feeling tired of the standard tropes of family-centric humor.

The Simpsons was a radical shift from what was on television. With extreme family dysfunction (to the point of child abuse) and the ludicrous lack of intelligence in nearly every character, the show subverted it's genre in a way few audiences had seen before.

A few years later, a cousin of The Simpsons hit the airwaves; its name was Futurama. The show premiered as a confluence of science fiction was permeating the networks. Several Star Trek shows abounded and a stream of lower budget nerd-shows were materializing all around. It seemed to be a prime time for the parody of this specific subculture.

The show was rife with geeky satire, from alien angst to robot idiocy (an entire episode was even devoted to Star Trek gags). The setting of the series allowed it to grow in ways that The Simpsons lagged. They had no requirement to follow America as it changed or even represent anything other than the ideas of the creators. Characters were allowed to grow and certain plot-lines could become serialized. It seemed that Futurama would have the possibility of surpassing its famous relative. Even the fickle critics enjoyed its ideas and wit.

What then occurred surprised Futurama's producers, media critics, and biggest fans: the series lasted only a fraction of The Simpsons life span. It was canceled relatively early, lost to the hazy realm of straight-to-DVD films.

The current climate of science fiction has changed from how it was those many years ago. The genre has sunk into the murk of irrelevance, outcropping into either campiness or inane superiority (sometimes a gross combination of the two). Like the sets of the Original Series, televised science fiction has become outdated. Even as visual effects allow producers to make their imaginary worlds more realistic, the stories can now merely strain believability in an effort to avoid clichés.

It seems that science fiction now occupies the same vessel that family comedies were voyaging in pre-Simpsons television. The degradation of this specific branch of entertainment is probably in the perfect place to be roasted by the satire of Futurama. If the shows' creators had waited until the post-climactic wake of the end of quality science fiction, maybe Futurama would have been the second bolt of lightning caught in a bottle.

All this has happened before, on many other blogs...

4) Battlestar Galactica

An obvious nerd choice is nonetheless an easy favorite. Space battles and moral ambiguity abound while a battered fleet tries to find it's way to Earth.

The best components of Battlestar Galactica were the dark character turns, amazing twists that few see coming (and that logically fit within the story), and the surprising optimism that shined through the death and dysfunction.

Favorite Revelation - Flashbacks to New Caprica - While the identities of the Final Five cylons were shocking, the greatest moment of surprise for this blogger were the memories of a party on New Caprica. The back story of those forgotten days exposed the few moments of happiness and pain that forever altered the characters to who they were after the exodus.

Hey, at least it isn't Buffy The Vampire Slayer...

5) Angel

While a television series about a vampire private investigator seems unoriginal (several shows have had this theme), Angel was more than unique.

Where the show was at its best was when it showed Angel's heroic deeds juxtaposed against the gruesome tales of his soulless alter ego, shining a light on how our personalities are the sum of both our triumphs and mistakes.

Best Villain - Puppets from hell - A group of demons masquerading as puppets on a kids show turn Angel into one of them. While giant monsters and sexy demons are fun and all, a puppet of the main character engaging in an epic battle is surely an entertaining concept.