Category: Culture

Last night they started airing the penultimate episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Next week is the big finale.

I won’t spoil too much here lest folks haven’t seen it yet. (CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.)

I do, though, want to comment on a few things.

The episode is better than I expected.

From the previews, I knew that it featured sci-fi regular Peter Weller (a.k.a. Buckaroo Bonzai a.k.a. RoboCop) in the role of an extremist leader who makes fiery speeches. Something about seeing this in the previews gave me a sinking feeling that they were going to do the standard things of giving it a religious/moral values overlay that would allow the series creators to make a veiled statement about "the religious right" (the way they did in that stupid, stupid Deep Space 9 episode where Fundamentalism and the Moral Majority was portrayed under the name "Foundationalism").

But they didn’t!

They had Weller playing a character named Paxton who leads a purely secular extremist group. No talk about religion or values or anything like that.

Paxton’s group is concerned with alien immigration and influence on human society.

The episode also starts setting up the founding of the Federation (to be seen in the series finale, next week).

It’s understandable that many in human society would be hesitant about joining the Federation.

Folks here don’t want to give up their sovereignty to the United Nations (and justly so! thoroughly corrupt and unjust body that it is). Why should people go unhesitatingly into a federation of planets?

It’s natural that there would be a xenophobia problem (particularly if Earth had just been attacked by an alien race like the Xindi!).

The show’s producers even let Weller’s character get in some good points–like the fact that Starfleet has been galavanting around the galaxy giving other, possibly hostile species’ knowledge of the whereabouts of Earth.

There is also mention of the fact that there are numerous "unregistered" aliens on Earth–a deliberate allusion to the U.S.’s current illegal immigration problem.

But despite these fair points, Paxton’s group is still, at bottom, evil, and the episode makes that clear.

What I found suprising was the name of the group.

"Terra Prime."

Y’know what that means in (fractured) Latin?

Earth First.

(It’s fractured Latin because it should really be Terra Prima.)

Still, "Earth First" is a good name for a xenophobic, Earth-centric organization.

Like that there xenophobic, Earth-centric group on Babylon 5, which was also called . . .

"Earth First."

Guess that name was already taken or something.

Last night they started airing the penultimate episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Next week is the big finale.

I won’t spoil too much here lest folks haven’t seen it yet. (CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.)

I do, though, want to comment on a few things.

The episode is better than I expected.

From the previews, I knew that it featured sci-fi regular Peter Weller (a.k.a. Buckaroo Bonzai a.k.a. RoboCop) in the role of an extremist leader who makes fiery speeches. Something about seeing this in the previews gave me a sinking feeling that they were going to do the standard things of giving it a religious/moral values overlay that would allow the series creators to make a veiled statement about "the religious right" (the way they did in that stupid, stupid Deep Space 9 episode where Fundamentalism and the Moral Majority was portrayed under the name "Foundationalism").

But they didn’t!

They had Weller playing a character named Paxton who leads a purely secular extremist group. No talk about religion or values or anything like that.

Paxton’s group is concerned with alien immigration and influence on human society.

The episode also starts setting up the founding of the Federation (to be seen in the series finale, next week).

It’s understandable that many in human society would be hesitant about joining the Federation.

Folks here don’t want to give up their sovereignty to the United Nations (and justly so! thoroughly corrupt and unjust body that it is). Why should people go unhesitatingly into a federation of planets?

It’s natural that there would be a xenophobia problem (particularly if Earth had just been attacked by an alien race like the Xindi!).

The show’s producers even let Weller’s character get in some good points–like the fact that Starfleet has been galavanting around the galaxy giving other, possibly hostile species’ knowledge of the whereabouts of Earth.

There is also mention of the fact that there are numerous "unregistered" aliens on Earth–a deliberate allusion to the U.S.’s current illegal immigration problem.

But despite these fair points, Paxton’s group is still, at bottom, evil, and the episode makes that clear.

What I found suprising was the name of the group.

"Terra Prime."

Y’know what that means in (fractured) Latin?

Earth First.

(It’s fractured Latin because it should really be Terra Prima.)

Still, "Earth First" is a good name for a xenophobic, Earth-centric organization.

Like that there xenophobic, Earth-centric group on Babylon 5, which was also called . . .

"Earth First."

Guess that name was already taken or something.

EXCERPT:

‘The Monastery’, a new reality TV show slated to air this month on the U.K’s BBC 2, has reportedly left a deep spiritual impact on its five male participants, one of whom, an atheist pornography producer, who gave up his trade and became a believer.

The men, none of whom are Catholic, spent 40 days and 40 nights living and abiding by the rules of a Catholic monastery in an effort to show whether or not the monastic life, instituted by St. Benedict over 1,500 years ago, still has relevance in the modern world.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

EXCERPT:

‘The Monastery’, a new reality TV show slated to air this month on the U.K’s BBC 2, has reportedly left a deep spiritual impact on its five male participants, one of whom, an atheist pornography producer, who gave up his trade and became a believer.

The men, none of whom are Catholic, spent 40 days and 40 nights living and abiding by the rules of a Catholic monastery in an effort to show whether or not the monastic life, instituted by St. Benedict over 1,500 years ago, still has relevance in the modern world.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

There’s this Ridley Scott movie coming out called Kingdom of Heaven that’s about the Crusades. Word I’m getting is that it is problematic, though not an all-out Christian bashfest.

For some of the problems, here’s films critic Peter Chattaway semi-fisking the NYT-noids at the New York Times and their comments about the movie.

EXCERPT:

The article continues: "Mr. Scott and his screenwriter, William Monahan, have tried to be balanced. Muslims are portrayed as bent on coexistence until Christian extremists ruin everything. And even when the Christians are defeated, the Muslims give them safe conduct to return to Europe."

Um, this is balanced? All the extremists are Christian and all the Muslims are nice and peaceful? I think the film, to say nothing of history, is more complicated than that, though I don’t think the New York Times is.

GET THE STORY.

For some time there has been talk that George Lucas was thinking about a live-action Star Wars program.

He is.

The series is still a ways off, but Lucas has confirmed that it’s being planned. The series would be set between episodes III and IV and, he says, be similar in tone to the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Like the latter series, the scripts for the first season would all be written in advance. It also would focus on previously minor characters in the Star Wars universe, leaving the actions of the big dogs to the big screen. (Though we might get an occasional Darth Vader or emperor cameo, I s’ppose.)

Lucas is also planning an animated series, this time using computer-generated animation. It also would be set between Eps III and IV.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)