When FOX allowed Joss Whedon an intellectual property blank check so that he could create Firefly, his vision was profoundly unique and decidedly un-Star Trek. The Alliance, Whedon’s Starfleet equivalent, is portrayed as unwanted big government, both bumbling and oppressive. Gene Roddenberry’s starship crews were harmonious visions of a utopian future while the crew of the Serenity must struggle to get along and to survive. No replicators there. Perhaps that’s why Firefly (and also Star Trek’s own DS9) is part of my beloved television show pantheon. It took something I understood very well, and showed me a different way to look at it, and, rather than railing against my established conventions, I embraced the new layers that allowed me to love more deeply.

Now what does that have to do with The Naked Now, a terrible episode of television that I bid you not to watch?

Watching The Naked Now made me think about television fan miracles. I would say that Firefly is the first and finest of the modern TV and Internet era. Fans united online and purchased full-page newspaper ads. They demanded a DVD set and when it was made available it was purchased in droves. The movement caught the eye of Universal Studios, who then optioned and produced the 2005 movie continuation of the series, Serenity.

The more I think about it the more I think it’s an incredible story. The cancellation of Firefly was so tragic and sad while its resurrection was brief and bittersweet—like it was brought back from the dead just long enough for us to say our good-byes. There’s even an epilogue here, take for example, NBC’s Chuck: A show that’s never had the right ratings for survival but a vociferous, savvy, Twittering fan base there to have kept it afloat long enough for the production to go five seasons and draw its own self to a close.

So, that’s today, with the IN-TER-NET. Let’s talk Star Trek. 1960’s Star Trek. The visions and the settings may be different, but I’m reminded that Firefly and Trek are siblings in television history. The first two seasons of Trek suffered in the ratings and that led NBC to cancel the series. A grassroots fan campaign brought the series back to life for a third and final season. Sound familiar? Except this was before this IN-TER-NET thing! Incredible.

Throughout the 70’s Trekkies (My own preferred term—now you know) kept this thing percolating and ta-da, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, we’ve had the pilot episode Encounter at Farpoint and you know what? It was kinda neat, kinda exciting, and certainly worthy of further exploration. Then, The Naked Now burns through the benefit of the doubt surplus so handily I am led to wonder how TNG ever survived.

The episode starts with our new heroes responding to a distress call from the Tsiolkovsky (I had to look that one up because the characters say the name like Boo trying to pronounce ‘Mike Wazowski’ in Monsters, Inc.). The odd bit is that the distress call sounds more like a cell phone call from inside the confines of a raucous frat party. Humorously enough the suspicions are confirmed pretty quickly when an away team beams over and finds the corridors strewn with what look like space-aged beer funnels.

It’s a little silly, but so far the episode isn’t actually doing so bad because there’s actually a decent silliness to creepiness contrast that’s not a very common mix. It all goes terribly wrong when the story makes its way back to the Enterprise. Quickly.

I mean, the crew starts with an alert response to the crisis, as in, they immediately consider a viral contamination as a possible explanation. We know this because on the beam back the away team is fully decontaminated via the transporters. There, good, now what’s the next step? For one thing, it’s not the cavalier approach to LaForge almost instantly appearing to be symptomatic of something. I’m sure he’s fine. And two, the only thing the crew decides to Space Google is Riker’s weak sense that somewhere, somehow, he’d once heard of “someone in the shower with clothes on.”

Truly bizarre, right? Here, let’s go behind the curtain. Back on 60’s Trek there was an episode known as The Naked Time where the same virus now affecting the TNG crew famously caused George Takei’s Sulu to swordfight half-naked in the hallowed corridors of the original Enterprise. I’m willing to bet you’ve seen the clip used for a spoof on YouTube, if not, go ahead, because there’s some really good ones out there. Riker’s odd remembrance is a direct reference to the original Star Trek episode.

That’s a big reason this episode fails. It tries to do too much. It tries to reference the original series but in so doing creates an odd plot hole where characters in this new present can’t efficiently respond to a disaster from a famous past (Dr. Crusher uses the original antidote about halfway through this trod and nope, doesn’t work. Why? Just doesn’t. Later she fixes it. Why? Just does!) It also tries to get the egg cracked on these new characters, hey, get ‘em “drunk” and we can see their secret desires, but it’s messy and there’s big hunks of shell in the frypan.

Let’s run it down. We learn that Geordi just wants to see like a real boy (the blind guy wants to see… alright, we’re taking some leaps here). Tasha Yar wants to come-on-get-happy because some bad people have done some bad things to her. Data was apparently partly designed to be a—shudder—robot sex slave. Troi hears the voices in her head including one that let’s her know she still wants some Riker action. Wesley Crusher wants power and fame equivalent to his boy geniousness. Beverly Crusher has woman needs and she’d be all right with having Captain Picard’s help with this, Picard finds the feelings to be mutual—very mutual. Finally, I guess we see that Riker is a functional drunk, and, did I miss anyone? Oh, and Worf’s a Klingon, so there’s that.

It’s awkward and bad. Bad, bad, bad. Data is one of my favorite characters and in this episode he is gross and detestable. My young self, likely through a lack of comprehension, used to forgive sex toy data and his romp with saucy Tasha Yar and her odd pasted down Superman curl of hair. It’s probably because we will get to watch Data grow nostalgic about this very human day in his past. So much so that it becomes an integral part of his story, much like embarrassing moments in our own lives.

The episode wraps up with the cure found and Wesley Crusher saving the day. This is after he uses a fancy voice changer to wrest control of the ship away from the actual, you know, crew, and in fact causes the very disaster scenario he’s destined to solve. Somehow, in a final off note for this episode, this earns the pesky brat more pats on the back than raps on the knuckles and tralalalala—away we go—next episode, please.

This is going to become my favorite show? Yep. Somehow. This is where I imagine the fans to come in. It’s an adoption that makes the show very nearly human. Like Firefly fans were able to awaken their lost love for one last romance, Star Trek fans will allow this child of a series to grow, make mistakes, and do amazing things with them. They are improbable stories, almost as fantastic and inspiring as the ones which will eventually grace our screen, and why I’m inspired to write about these stories, write my own, and live my own.

Lord, that’s cheesy. Eh, so is Star Trek.

Image via Wikipedia

There’s no way to pin down the exact date in time where I first saw an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Likewise, there’s no way to quantify the day I moved from seeing an episode for the first time and becoming a Star Trek fan. Twenty years ago, a nice round number and as good a guess as any, I was nine years old. I would have wrapped up fourth grade, a year of intense bullying and not entirely coincidental first signs of academic faltering—the worst year of my young life. TNG was wrapping up its fourth season and had just wrapped up arguably its best season ever. It was officially established as a worthy successor to the original and already stood on its own as one of the best science fiction shows of all time. We were meant for each other.

Like many real stories of true love TNG and I did not immediately find each other. Our start was rather auspicious in fact, like trying onion rings for the first time—it takes time to establish how great is the good and how awful is the bad. Perhaps my ability to overcome my first experience with TNG it is proof of just how drawn to the show I was.

I remember distinctly walking into the family TV room, an adult show on the TV, my father in his chair. My queries were answered patiently, I learned the show’s title, and maybe I gleaned some concept of… concept. Whatever I first learned as my dad explained Star Trek to me was short lived. My first viewing was cut very short. The episode on the screen was a repeat from season one, the infamous Conspiracy, and I had just stepped into the scene most infamous. Moments into my first viewing of Star Trek, a man was ripped apart by phaser fire, exposing an alien bug living in his exploded torso. I left the room, shaken.

While that memory is seared into my mind I can’t recall anything specific about how I crawled back to that television. Week after week I needed to learn more. This was my first adult show. My first exposure to “repeats.” My first understanding of “ratings,” or “syndication.” Character death. Character romance. Characters! Hope! Aspiration! This was my show, this was my childhood.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, as of July 1, 2011, is available for streaming, in its entirety, on Netflix. Since it has been available it has occupied my TV nearly every free hour of my day. Firefly is a must-see experience… and I love LOST, but this, this, this is my favorite show of all time. After a half-month of hunting and pecking for my favorite episodes, and after gaining some inspiration from the excellent TNG blog at the Onion AV Club, I realized there is a project here I almost have to do.

Although I highly doubt I can ever finish this, boot up your Netflix, set phasers to nostalgic, and trek through my memories while I watch the show that made me.

TNG premiered in 1987, some 20 years after the original (Twenty is a catchy number!) “The next generation” is a clunky tag, but could it be any more appropriate? As a child of baby boomers, the original Trek was for my parents, and TNG was for me. The original deserves a mention here. Oh, I’ve seen it. Oh, I respect what it tried to do, what it did do, and what it meant to my mother, but it will always be a show from the 60’s—a time I didn’t experience, and the disconnect will always be there.

When Encounter at Farpoint debuted, however, I wasn’t really a guarantee. My parents, fans of the former series, were. This made the new series painfully try to live up to its prototype in its early days—just like a bad spin-off but without the usual benefit of an actual former series regular. (Actually, McCoy is going to make an appearance here, but it looks like someone frosted his face with pancake batter). It wasn’t the series I grew to love, but it’s like sticking your nose in beer wort, when you know where the final product came from, you respect the beauty of the aging process.

What surprised me most about Encounter was just how not bad it was. The problem with this pilot is that it’s trying really hard to be two things: a pilot that introduces each character as completely as possible, and an action packed 1980’s made for TV sci-fi movie. It’s a problem for all pilots, even the great Firefly pilot Serenity felt clunky and forced in places, but on TNG the forced character backgrounds are a jarring surprise. That off-putting feeling, however, is not being fair to what Encounter is trying to do, it’s trying to introduce me to people I don’t know when, oops, I know these characters inherently. That’s why, as a writer, I found myself fascinated by Encounter.

There are some crucial character interactions in this pilot. Commander Riker is reunited with his Imzadi (which in Betazoid apparently means mega lover?), Counselor Troi, and while they feign indifference to one another in front of Captain Picard the view is treated to their telepathic soap opera dialog. Picard tests Riker as his new second in command with an unnecessary manual maneuver of the Enterprise—which apparently works because it immediately leads to a terrible conversation where Picard explains that he hates the kids these days and he’s going to need Riker’s help not being such an old man. There’s a truly great scene, a testament to actual decent expository writing and Patrick Stewart’s acting dynamo, where the Captain attempts to save face with his new Doctor, Beverly Crusher, by letting her leave her new post. In her flat refusal to accept pity we learn her prior acquaintance with Picard and that it somehow has to do with the death of her husband.

As a lifelong fan I know all that. The question, then, is why? Do I know facts because they’ve been established in these expository scenes of the pilot? Or, did I come to know it over time because of my faithfulness to these characters and their premise? I suppose what becomes truly great about TNG is that all of this overt characterization will eventually disappear below the surface of these characters, like the way the cops act on Law & Order, and that while these people may be dealing with deep, personal demons they will actually go on to be the best, and highest achieving officers in Starfleet. Instead of hashing themselves out and reorganizing their social structure on a weekly basis like Grey’s Anatomy doctors, these characters will spend the rest of the series being exactly who they are and associating with their comrades at an almost—human—speed.

While meeting the new characters and the sexy new ship is fun with only a few missteps (early data is too smirky, smarmy, and, well, icky) the movie in which they play is unfortunately muddled and at times tedious. I don’t hate it. I just eventually wanted it to be over.

The first mission of the new Enterprise is to go check out the mysterious Farpoint Station for reasons none other than its, uh, mystery. On the way they’re attacked by a space fishnet that makes banging garbage can sounds. This net is created by the omnipotent creature known as Q. John de Lancie’s Q, although my mother hates him for being mean, is instantly captivating. What is instantly gratifying is that Q is precociously malevolent and Picard handles his appearance with both calm and gravitas. It really sells the whole Star Trek premise. Beings from other worlds can zap into existence on a spaceship and hey, it’s just another day at work.

Unfortunately it’s a bad day at work because Q is putting Picard and his people on trial for the savage nature of humanity. How’s that for some science fiction impetus? After Q freezer burns a crew member here and there Picard is forced to concede that human history has been rife with warfare. He asks that before being put to death that this version of humanity (Humanity 2.0?) be tested to prove that Q’s claims no longer ring true. Hey, sweet! Now we can use the original plot!

So, to make a long post short (Checking, nope, still quite long), the Picard kids figure out the mystery of Farpoint Station. With the help of the sudden appearance of a monolithic purple (There’s a lot of purpling) alien spacecraft and the emotional transference capabilities of a character we shall never see again in the run of TNG, I shall call her Useful Troi™, we learn that both spacecraft and space station are giant space aliens. They’re a sort of giant, glow-y jellyfish with the ability to turn energy into matter. The reveal is really quite beautiful except that during take off the space station jellyfish literally high fives the spacecraft alien on take off. Can someone do a YouTube riff where the episode pauses there and the song from the end of The Breakfast Club starts playing?

This is a pilot, through and through, but man, was it stronger than I remember. It gives me high hopes for this project. At Camp Fowler there is a famous staff meeting every year where the staff grapples with what evening tag games we’re going to run for each week of camp. There’s an adult sentiment that childhood needs to be rerun for others just the way we remembered our own. It’s a one-time-only commodity and historically trying to relive it results in failure and disappointment.

I feared that diving back into TNG with adult eyes would tarnish the memory, like trying to play tag in the forest with creaky knees and a newfound respect for fire ants. Here, even the scenes I dreaded, like Wesley Crusher (Oh, I’m sure we’ll get to him) barging onto the bridge, are just the way I remember.

Like Picard at the end of Farpoint, Let’s see what’s out there.

Engage.

Worth at least two looks.

We watched a full year of Conan in good ol' 525. Mikey, Chrispy, JJ, and myself. If school work wasn't done by then, tough luck grades, we had more important things to do.

I'm only complaining about this because on Friday I became aware that one of the only shows I watch, Dirty Sexy Money, is getting booted by ABC.  The ratings are low for the show, which is about a lawyer and the dysfunctional family that he works for, who happen to be the richest family in New York City.  It is not the coolest show I've ever watched (that distinction belongs to LOST,) but it was enjoyable, the characters were outrageous and entertaining, and that's why I watch television, to be entertained.  

This is only the latest addition to the long list of shows that have been cancelled that I have been a fan of.  In 2004, Life As We Know It, a show about high schoolers becoming adults and dealing with the issues that go along with that, was cancelled after 13 episodes.  In 2005, Commander In Chief, a show about the first female President, was cancelled after 19 episodes.  In 2007, The Black Donnellys, a show about black Irish brothers living in New York City was cancelled after 14 episodes.  Also in 2007, and this one really hurts, was Journeyman, a show about a man who randomly traveled through time.  Each episode he would either go back in time or forward and solve a problem that fate entrusted to him.  And now, Dirty Sexy Money will be on that list in the coming weeks.

This may look like I watch a lot of shows, but when they continually get cancelled, I have to trudge along and test out new ones that possibly will replace the fallen show.  I think I'll just become a poet, or a farmer, and get the hell away from television.  However, that day won't come until LOST (the only bright spot in my dark history of television fandom,) stops showing up on my screen.