Category: Culture

A while back there was a flap over Jim Dobson and comments he made regarding a video involving SpongeBob SquarePants.

To hear some tell it, Dobson accused SpongeBob of being homosexual or of promoting homosexuality in the new video.

Since I have previously said that I find SpongeBob funny, a number of readers sent me links to stories and asked me for comment.

I didn’t comment at the time because of what I considered an absence of hard fact. The stories seemed shaky to me–long on conjecture and short on fact. Frankly, I didn’t trust them. I suspected that something was being blown out of proportion somewhere.

Sure enough, by coincidence I happened to catch an appearance of Dobson on the Hannity and Colmes program in which he vociferously denied having claimed that SpongeBob was gay or that the video–which only has a few seconds of SpongeBob in it and which features just about every major cartoon character currently on Nickelodeon and similar networks–promotes homosexuality.

What he had said was that certain teaching materials associated with the video (which features cartoon characters singing the song "We Are Family" and which is to be distrubuted to schools for showing to children) are in some way supportive of homosexuality. He said that SpongeBob and the video were fine in and of themselves, but they were being used as part of a bait-and-switch strategy on school kids.

There’s some merit to that charge.

While the teaching materials that Dobson (is alleged to have) quoted aren’t readily available, the website of the makers of the video is, and it contains the following "Tolerance Pledge":

Tolerance is a personal decision that comes from a belief that every person is a treasure. I believe that America’s diversity is its strength. I also recognize that ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry can turn that diversity into a source of prejudice and discrimination.

To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own [SOURCE].

The (probably deliberately) ambiguous phrase "sexual identity" can well be construed as referring to those who have "sexual identities" other than the straightforward biological categories "male" and "female." It likely is meant to cover people of one biological sex who have homosexual (or other) temptations. Certainly it’s ambiguous enough that it lends itself to this interpretation. The words are clunky and suggestive of an interpretation meant to cover more than what the simple word "sex" would have covered.

If I were a parent with a kid in school, I’d certainly be critical of any attempt to get my kid to say a pledge like that, including showing him a video of his favorite cartoon characters that is sponsored by an organization promoting this pledge.

Even apart from the "sexual identity" clause, there are better, more direct, and more effective ways of teaching kids to be tolerant of the legitimate differences of others besides encouraging them to say pretentious pledges. For that matter, there’s too much "tolerance" rhetoric in the schools (and in society) than is good for us, as it’s used as a codeword to stigmatize those who want to maintain traditional moral values.

"Tolerance" is not an abstract virtue any more than "intolerance" is an abstract vice. Some things ought not to be tolerated (murder, for example). Whether tolerance in any particular case is virtuous depends entirely on what one is proposing as the object of tolerance. Propose the wrong object and tolerance of it is a vice.

Now, why have I decided to comment on all this now when I didn’t at the time?

Basically, because I ran across

THIS WENDY McELROY EDITORIAL THAT CAME OUT LAST WEEK.

She says a number of things in it that I find valuable, including underscoring the basic point that people shouldn’t be dogpiling on Dobson or creating a media furor without first investigating the facts of the case, and the facts in this case are precious few.

I always like it when people in the media point out that we shouldn’t go off half-cocked before we have the facts (the latter being a chronic danger of their profession).

McElroy also points to contributing factors that led to the furor, including the fact that the media is simply hostile to Dobson.

I’d add an additional contributing factor that McElroy fails to mention: SpongeBob has been at the center of rumors of homosexuality for some time. I’ve encountered the "SpongeBob is gay" rumor a number of times from well-meaning Christians who have never watched the show but who have heard it from others.

Lemme set the record straight on that: So far as one can tell from the show, SpongeBob ain’t gay. He even has a (kind of) girlfriend. (I say "kind of" because shows meant to be enjoyed by young children tend not to get into romance very far these days.) It is very easy to explain what SpongeBob is:

He’s Jerry Lewis.

Like Jerry Lewis, SpongeBob is a comic character trapped perpetually between childhood and adulthood. He’s a perpetually awkward character who in some ways functions as an adult (he has a job, a house, he lives on his own) but has many of the mannerisms and limitations of a child (he’s socially inept, can’t drive a car, has a high-pitched voice, and is naive as all get out).

There are only two major differences between SpongeBob and Jerry Lewis: (1) He’s a sponge, and (2) he’s actually funny.

I’m given to understand (though I have not verified this) that some in the homosexual community have tried to adopt SpongeBob as a mascot, and it’s easy to understand why they might want to do so. Many in the homosexual community (like any community) enjoy the thought of popular figures being members of their community, and the fact that SpongeBob is a popular and perpetual awkward man-child unlikely to ever overtly contradict the idea that he’s gay (when was the last time you saw a cartoon character do that?) makes him a tempting target.

Indeed, there is even an impulse in the homosexual community to take wholesome images of adolescence and turn them into a kind of homosexual parody. That’s why homosexual men dress up as Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz at gay pride parades. Judy Garland’s character Dorothy is such a wholesome image of a person trapped between childhood (where the character was) and adulthood (where the actress clearly was) that homosexual activists have delighted in corrupting that image.

Well, that’s their lookout. I’m not about to let the fact that some of them have tried to subvert Dorothy into some kind of gay icon stop me from enjoying The Wizard of Oz, and if some are trying to do the same for SpongeBob, I’m not going to let that stop me from laughing at his humor.

All this does go to the question of why the Dobson vs. SpongeBob thing took off as fast as it did, though.

Though I appreciate much of McElroy’s editorial, I’m not persuaded by all of it. In particular, I’d cut Dobson more slack than she does. I’d also challenge her on one particular point. She writes:

[O]ne of the first questions I would ask is whether he would object to cartoon characters being used to inculcate sexual values with which he agrees. Frankly, I doubt he would protest Winnie the Pooh being used to advance the traditional family or the choice of women to become mothers and housewives.

Yet those choices, no less than homosexuality, are politically charged and offensive to some.

After beating up on others for conjecturing rather than checking the facts, it’s a little surprising that McElroy would feel to free to conjecture what Dobson would say about a situation without checking with him.

That aside, I’ll speak directly to the merits of the question she raises: What schools should do is reinforce the traditional moral values that society needs to keep running and that promote human dignity. Heterosexuality, the traditional family, and the choice of women to become mothers and housewives are high on that list. Those are the things that keep society running and they should be encouraged for all too obvious reasons.

If American social fabric has disintegrated to the point that this idea is now taboo in schools, all I can say is, "Well, that’s one more reason my children (should I be so fortunate as to have any) will never be placed in public schools."

A while back there was a flap over Jim Dobson and comments he made regarding a video involving SpongeBob SquarePants.

To hear some tell it, Dobson accused SpongeBob of being homosexual or of promoting homosexuality in the new video.

Since I have previously said that I find SpongeBob funny, a number of readers sent me links to stories and asked me for comment.

I didn’t comment at the time because of what I considered an absence of hard fact. The stories seemed shaky to me–long on conjecture and short on fact. Frankly, I didn’t trust them. I suspected that something was being blown out of proportion somewhere.

Sure enough, by coincidence I happened to catch an appearance of Dobson on the Hannity and Colmes program in which he vociferously denied having claimed that SpongeBob was gay or that the video–which only has a few seconds of SpongeBob in it and which features just about every major cartoon character currently on Nickelodeon and similar networks–promotes homosexuality.

What he had said was that certain teaching materials associated with the video (which features cartoon characters singing the song "We Are Family" and which is to be distrubuted to schools for showing to children) are in some way supportive of homosexuality. He said that SpongeBob and the video were fine in and of themselves, but they were being used as part of a bait-and-switch strategy on school kids.

There’s some merit to that charge.

While the teaching materials that Dobson (is alleged to have) quoted aren’t readily available, the website of the makers of the video is, and it contains the following "Tolerance Pledge":

Tolerance is a personal decision that comes from a belief that every person is a treasure. I believe that America’s diversity is its strength. I also recognize that ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry can turn that diversity into a source of prejudice and discrimination.

To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own [SOURCE].

The (probably deliberately) ambiguous phrase "sexual identity" can well be construed as referring to those who have "sexual identities" other than the straightforward biological categories "male" and "female." It likely is meant to cover people of one biological sex who have homosexual (or other) temptations. Certainly it’s ambiguous enough that it lends itself to this interpretation. The words are clunky and suggestive of an interpretation meant to cover more than what the simple word "sex" would have covered.

If I were a parent with a kid in school, I’d certainly be critical of any attempt to get my kid to say a pledge like that, including showing him a video of his favorite cartoon characters that is sponsored by an organization promoting this pledge.

Even apart from the "sexual identity" clause, there are better, more direct, and more effective ways of teaching kids to be tolerant of the legitimate differences of others besides encouraging them to say pretentious pledges. For that matter, there’s too much "tolerance" rhetoric in the schools (and in society) than is good for us, as it’s used as a codeword to stigmatize those who want to maintain traditional moral values.

"Tolerance" is not an abstract virtue any more than "intolerance" is an abstract vice. Some things ought not to be tolerated (murder, for example). Whether tolerance in any particular case is virtuous depends entirely on what one is proposing as the object of tolerance. Propose the wrong object and tolerance of it is a vice.

Now, why have I decided to comment on all this now when I didn’t at the time?

Basically, because I ran across

THIS WENDY McELROY EDITORIAL THAT CAME OUT LAST WEEK.

She says a number of things in it that I find valuable, including underscoring the basic point that people shouldn’t be dogpiling on Dobson or creating a media furor without first investigating the facts of the case, and the facts in this case are precious few.

I always like it when people in the media point out that we shouldn’t go off half-cocked before we have the facts (the latter being a chronic danger of their profession).

McElroy also points to contributing factors that led to the furor, including the fact that the media is simply hostile to Dobson.

I’d add an additional contributing factor that McElroy fails to mention: SpongeBob has been at the center of rumors of homosexuality for some time. I’ve encountered the "SpongeBob is gay" rumor a number of times from well-meaning Christians who have never watched the show but who have heard it from others.

Lemme set the record straight on that: So far as one can tell from the show, SpongeBob ain’t gay. He even has a (kind of) girlfriend. (I say "kind of" because shows meant to be enjoyed by young children tend not to get into romance very far these days.) It is very easy to explain what SpongeBob is:

He’s Jerry Lewis.

Like Jerry Lewis, SpongeBob is a comic character trapped perpetually between childhood and adulthood. He’s a perpetually awkward character who in some ways functions as an adult (he has a job, a house, he lives on his own) but has many of the mannerisms and limitations of a child (he’s socially inept, can’t drive a car, has a high-pitched voice, and is naive as all get out).

There are only two major differences between SpongeBob and Jerry Lewis: (1) He’s a sponge, and (2) he’s actually funny.

I’m given to understand (though I have not verified this) that some in the homosexual community have tried to adopt SpongeBob as a mascot, and it’s easy to understand why they might want to do so. Many in the homosexual community (like any community) enjoy the thought of popular figures being members of their community, and the fact that SpongeBob is a popular and perpetual awkward man-child unlikely to ever overtly contradict the idea that he’s gay (when was the last time you saw a cartoon character do that?) makes him a tempting target.

Indeed, there is even an impulse in the homosexual community to take wholesome images of adolescence and turn them into a kind of homosexual parody. That’s why homosexual men dress up as Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz at gay pride parades. Judy Garland’s character Dorothy is such a wholesome image of a person trapped between childhood (where the character was) and adulthood (where the actress clearly was) that homosexual activists have delighted in corrupting that image.

Well, that’s their lookout. I’m not about to let the fact that some of them have tried to subvert Dorothy into some kind of gay icon stop me from enjoying The Wizard of Oz, and if some are trying to do the same for SpongeBob, I’m not going to let that stop me from laughing at his humor.

All this does go to the question of why the Dobson vs. SpongeBob thing took off as fast as it did, though.

Though I appreciate much of McElroy’s editorial, I’m not persuaded by all of it. In particular, I’d cut Dobson more slack than she does. I’d also challenge her on one particular point. She writes:

[O]ne of the first questions I would ask is whether he would object to cartoon characters being used to inculcate sexual values with which he agrees. Frankly, I doubt he would protest Winnie the Pooh being used to advance the traditional family or the choice of women to become mothers and housewives.

Yet those choices, no less than homosexuality, are politically charged and offensive to some.

After beating up on others for conjecturing rather than checking the facts, it’s a little surprising that McElroy would feel to free to conjecture what Dobson would say about a situation without checking with him.

That aside, I’ll speak directly to the merits of the question she raises: What schools should do is reinforce the traditional moral values that society needs to keep running and that promote human dignity. Heterosexuality, the traditional family, and the choice of women to become mothers and housewives are high on that list. Those are the things that keep society running and they should be encouraged for all too obvious reasons.

If American social fabric has disintegrated to the point that this idea is now taboo in schools, all I can say is, "Well, that’s one more reason my children (should I be so fortunate as to have any) will never be placed in public schools."

Some time ago I began noticing a problem with the make-up on sci-fi shows.

It’s only skin deep.

Sure, the alien may have funny colored skin (blue, green, whatever), but his mouth is always human-red.

Bad idea.

If an alien really has funny body chemistry, blood, and pigmentation, his mouth shouldn’t be the same color on the inside as ours.

I decided that if I were ever in a position to make a sci-fi series, I would have the alien actors rinse their mouths out with food coloring (or something) to change the color of them on the inside.

Well, someone who actually does make a sci-fi series finally got the same idea!

If you look closely on Star Trek Enterprise, you’ll notice that the Andorians have blue not only on their outer skin but also on the insides of their mouths.

Yee-haw!

Improved alien make-up realism!

I noticed this a piece back, and have been meaning to blog about it, but my memory was jogged when last night on Enterprise Shran the Andorian (played by the immortal Jeffrey Coombs–a.k.a. Weyoun, Brunt) was being choked by someone and we got a really good shot of his face with his bright blue tongue protruding out.

Kewl!

Incidentally, in fairness to the make-up artists, it may be that we have only recently developed something that you can put in your mouth to change it’s color without having it last an unduly long time (or it may be only recently they have worked up the gumption to ask actors to dye their mouths for long periods).

Either way, I’m a happy camper.

It’s the simple things in life (like a food coloring mouthwash) that really matter.

Excellent television last night on Monk!

Very creative!

I love it when a show breaks out of the TV box and does something really neat.

Y’know how on detective shows they tend to have a moment at the end where the detective figures out how the crime was done and describes it for everyone, often with us seeing a flashback of what happened during the crime?

Well, on last night’s episode of Monk ("Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever"), we got a double-dose of this–simultaneously!

During the middle of a gun battle at the episode’s climax, Monk and Lt. Discher each figured out how a different crime was committed.

In union, they said "I’ve got it!"

Then, rather than either deferring to the other, they both began to blurt out how the respective crimes were committed, and we were treated to flashbacks of them done in split-screen fashion a la 24, watching the different criminals walk through their misdeeds while Monk and Discher talked over each other.

As the gun battle raged, a confused local sheriff asked Capt. Stottlemeyer, "Which one are you listening to?"

"Neither," Stottlemeyer replied, trying to focus on the gun battle.

Great stuff!!!

Haven’t seen that on TV before!

One more reason to watch Monk!

STAR TREK ENTERPRISE:

"United"

Trapped on a remote-controlled Romulan ship, Trip and Malcolm must outwit their captors to escape. NOTE: This is the second episode of the Andorian arc and continues to lay the groundwork for the Romulan War leading to the founding of the Federation.

STARGATE SG-1:

"It’s Good to Be King", Episode #813.

While attempting to warn a former adversary of an approaching threat, the SG-1 team stumbles upon what may be an ancient time machine. NOTE: Features the return of everyone’s favorite semi-bad guy, ex-Col. Maybourne of the NID.

STARGATE ATLANTIS

"Hot Zone", Episode #113.

McKay must stop a deadly virus from spreading throughout the population of Atlantis.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

"You Can’t Go Home Again", Episode #105.

Adama and Lee put the fleet at risk while searching for Kara.

MONK

"Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever"

After Monk witnesses a Chinese mob killing, he goes into protective custody and is taken to a remote cabin in the woods, where he uncovers another murder.

Star Trek Enterprise is dead. It has been cancelled.

Press release:

02.02.2005

Star Trek: Enterprise Cancelled!

After four seasons, Star Trek: Enterprise has reached the end of its mission …

PRESS RELEASE

UPN and Paramount Network Television have jointly announced that this will be the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise on UPN. [Production will continue until the end of this season, which will finish shooting in March.] The series finale will air on Friday, May 13, 2005.

"Star Trek has been an important part of UPN’s history, and Enterprise has carried on the tradition of its predecessors with great distinction," said Dawn Ostroff, President, Entertainment, UPN. "We’d like to thank Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and an incredibly talented cast for creating an engaging, new dimension to the Star Trek universe on UPN, and we look forward to working with them, and our partners at Paramount Network Television, on a send-off that salutes its contributions to The Network and satisfies its loyal viewers."

David Stapf, President of Paramount Network Television, said, "The creators, stars and crew of Star Trek: Enterprise ambitiously and proudly upheld the fine traditions of the Star Trek franchise. We are grateful for their contributions to the legacy of Trek and commend them on completing nearly 100 exciting, dramatic and visually stunning episodes. All of us at Paramount warmly bid goodbye to Enterprise, and we all look forward to a new chapter of this enduring franchise in the future."

A prequel to the original "Star Trek" series, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE premiered on UPN on Sept. 26, 2001, and aired for its first three seasons on Wednesdays (8:00-9:00PM, ET/PT). On Oct. 8, 2004, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE moved into its current time on Fridays (8:00-9:00PM, ET/PT). Through its four-year run, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE produced a total of 98 episodes and earned four Emmy Awards [SOURCE; cowboy hat tip to the reader who e-mailed this].

With the passing of Enterprise, the Star Trek franchise now goes into hibernation. The franchise has been suffering from fatigue for a number of years, such that even when it has produced quality work (as recently on Enterprise), audiences haven’t tuned in. There has also been a lot of competition from other sci-fi shows, which weren’t on the air when the franchise re-launched years ago with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The cancellation was expected. A year ago Star Trek was only barely renewed, and the Paramount brass apparenly told the creators of the series that they had a year to wrap it up in a nice way. It was also moved to Friday nights, which is a death-night for ratings in general (The Original Series was also moved to Friday night in its last season), and especially so for sci-fi series when the Sci-Fi Channel has such an excellent lineup opposite a show like Star Trek Enterprise.

The franchise is likely to lie fallow for several years, though there are indications that a Star Trek movie (reportedly involving exclusively new characters) is in development.

Though, personally, I wish Enterprise had got to finish its planned seven-year run, I recognize that a hiatus will be good for the franchise, allowing the field to lie fallow creatively and, more importantly, allowing the audience to regain an appetite for Star Trek. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all.)

Whether its eventual re-launch (pun intended) will be successful is entirely up in the air. (Star Wars’ re-launch wasn’t that successful, despite eager fan anticipation.)

At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, allow me to offer a few thoughts on why Enterprise failed.

Apart from the phenomena of franchise fatigue and competition from other shows (and, indeed, a whole network devoted to sci-fi), the creators of the show fundamentally misjudged what the audience wanted to see. They made it too similar to previous Star Trek series in some ways and too different from them in others. What they produced in the early seasons of Enterprise was virtually a mirror image of what they needed to do.

Specifically:

1. They misjudged the main plot of the show. The fans were not excited about seeing another Star Trek series where the characters are just wide-eyed explorers of the galaxy. We’d seen that before. What the fans were interested in seeing was the Romulan War and the founding of the Federation. Yet the creators stupidly set the series too early in Star Trek chronology for us to see that except in brief flash-forwards (complicated by the complicated and never-satisfactorily-resolved Temporal Cold War plotline).
2. The fans were not interested in seeing the sexy aspects of the show, which at times verged on soft-core porn (or so I am given to understand from film critic definitions, never having watched any kind of porn, myself). Sex has always been around on Star Trek, but it has been handled in a less in-your-face way than in the current series.
3. The series showed itself too similar to prior shows by introducing in its first season implausible meetings with aliens not-met-in-this-way or not-met-until-later-series (the Klingons, the Ferengi, the Borg). Rationalizations were offered for why these meetings didn’t violate established first contact facts, but they still alienated fans (no pun intended).
4. The series showed itself too different from prior shows by reinterpreting major facts about beloved races, most notably the Vulcans, who are very different from how they have been portrayed in later series (a fact that was recently rectified in the current season, but only after alienating fans for three seasons).
5. The series also was too different from other series by its "packaging." Instead of the vibrant color and slick design schemes that previous series had, Enterprise was far more drab in its color scheme and mundane in its design. While some of the latter was justified by its closeness to the present in time, the creators went too far.
6. The creators also made a boneheaded mistake by not having the words "Star Trek" in the title of the series in its early seasons. This is a classic illustration of how the "re-thinking" of Star Trek simply went too far.

Having said all that, I look forward to the DVDs of the series, which will begin to be released May 3, just ten days before the final episode airs. The DVDs will allow me to see many of the episodes for the first time. (Since I had The Dinkiest Cable IN THE WORLD when the series began, I didn’t see a lot of them; also I was sufficiently unimpressed by what I did see that I wasn’t motivated to tune in when I moved and got better cable.)

To end on a happy note, the current season of Enterprise is much better than what has come before, and the final episodes of the season are supposed to be even better. The last episode is rumored to be very good and to serve not only as a fitting end to the series (given its cancellation) but also to be a "Valentine" to long-time Star Trek fans.

Watch ’em while you can, folks!

Star Trek Enterprise is dead. It has been cancelled.

Press release:

02.02.2005

Star Trek: Enterprise Cancelled!

After four seasons, Star Trek: Enterprise has reached the end of its mission …

PRESS RELEASE

UPN and Paramount Network Television have jointly announced that this will be the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise on UPN. [Production will continue until the end of this season, which will finish shooting in March.] The series finale will air on Friday, May 13, 2005.

"Star Trek has been an important part of UPN’s history, and Enterprise has carried on the tradition of its predecessors with great distinction," said Dawn Ostroff, President, Entertainment, UPN. "We’d like to thank Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and an incredibly talented cast for creating an engaging, new dimension to the Star Trek universe on UPN, and we look forward to working with them, and our partners at Paramount Network Television, on a send-off that salutes its contributions to The Network and satisfies its loyal viewers."

David Stapf, President of Paramount Network Television, said, "The creators, stars and crew of Star Trek: Enterprise ambitiously and proudly upheld the fine traditions of the Star Trek franchise. We are grateful for their contributions to the legacy of Trek and commend them on completing nearly 100 exciting, dramatic and visually stunning episodes. All of us at Paramount warmly bid goodbye to Enterprise, and we all look forward to a new chapter of this enduring franchise in the future."

A prequel to the original "Star Trek" series, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE premiered on UPN on Sept. 26, 2001, and aired for its first three seasons on Wednesdays (8:00-9:00PM, ET/PT). On Oct. 8, 2004, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE moved into its current time on Fridays (8:00-9:00PM, ET/PT). Through its four-year run, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE produced a total of 98 episodes and earned four Emmy Awards [SOURCE; cowboy hat tip to the reader who e-mailed this].

With the passing of Enterprise, the Star Trek franchise now goes into hibernation. The franchise has been suffering from fatigue for a number of years, such that even when it has produced quality work (as recently on Enterprise), audiences haven’t tuned in. There has also been a lot of competition from other sci-fi shows, which weren’t on the air when the franchise re-launched years ago with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The cancellation was expected. A year ago Star Trek was only barely renewed, and the Paramount brass apparenly told the creators of the series that they had a year to wrap it up in a nice way. It was also moved to Friday nights, which is a death-night for ratings in general (The Original Series was also moved to Friday night in its last season), and especially so for sci-fi series when the Sci-Fi Channel has such an excellent lineup opposite a show like Star Trek Enterprise.

The franchise is likely to lie fallow for several years, though there are indications that a Star Trek movie (reportedly involving exclusively new characters) is in development.

Though, personally, I wish Enterprise had got to finish its planned seven-year run, I recognize that a hiatus will be good for the franchise, allowing the field to lie fallow creatively and, more importantly, allowing the audience to regain an appetite for Star Trek. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all.)

Whether its eventual re-launch (pun intended) will be successful is entirely up in the air. (Star Wars’ re-launch wasn’t that successful, despite eager fan anticipation.)

At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, allow me to offer a few thoughts on why Enterprise failed.

Apart from the phenomena of franchise fatigue and competition from other shows (and, indeed, a whole network devoted to sci-fi), the creators of the show fundamentally misjudged what the audience wanted to see. They made it too similar to previous Star Trek series in some ways and too different from them in others. What they produced in the early seasons of Enterprise was virtually a mirror image of what they needed to do.

Specifically:

1. They misjudged the main plot of the show. The fans were not excited about seeing another Star Trek series where the characters are just wide-eyed explorers of the galaxy. We’d seen that before. What the fans were interested in seeing was the Romulan War and the founding of the Federation. Yet the creators stupidly set the series too early in Star Trek chronology for us to see that except in brief flash-forwards (complicated by the complicated and never-satisfactorily-resolved Temporal Cold War plotline).
2. The fans were not interested in seeing the sexy aspects of the show, which at times verged on soft-core porn (or so I am given to understand from film critic definitions, never having watched any kind of porn, myself). Sex has always been around on Star Trek, but it has been handled in a less in-your-face way than in the current series.
3. The series showed itself too similar to prior shows by introducing in its first season implausible meetings with aliens not-met-in-this-way or not-met-until-later-series (the Klingons, the Ferengi, the Borg). Rationalizations were offered for why these meetings didn’t violate established first contact facts, but they still alienated fans (no pun intended).
4. The series showed itself too different from prior shows by reinterpreting major facts about beloved races, most notably the Vulcans, who are very different from how they have been portrayed in later series (a fact that was recently rectified in the current season, but only after alienating fans for three seasons).
5. The series also was too different from other series by its "packaging." Instead of the vibrant color and slick design schemes that previous series had, Enterprise was far more drab in its color scheme and mundane in its design. While some of the latter was justified by its closeness to the present in time, the creators went too far.
6. The creators also made a boneheaded mistake by not having the words "Star Trek" in the title of the series in its early seasons. This is a classic illustration of how the "re-thinking" of Star Trek simply went too far.

Having said all that, I look forward to the DVDs of the series, which will begin to be released May 3, just ten days before the final episode airs. The DVDs will allow me to see many of the episodes for the first time. (Since I had The Dinkiest Cable IN THE WORLD when the series began, I didn’t see a lot of them; also I was sufficiently unimpressed by what I did see that I wasn’t motivated to tune in when I moved and got better cable.)

To end on a happy note, the current season of Enterprise is much better than what has come before, and the final episodes of the season are supposed to be even better. The last episode is rumored to be very good and to serve not only as a fitting end to the series (given its cancellation) but also to be a "Valentine" to long-time Star Trek fans.

Watch ’em while you can, folks!