Saturday 10 October 2015

30 Days of Trek - Day Ten


A nice one for the weekend and I'm sure there's going to be no holding back!

Am I expecting Spock's Brain, Shades of Grey and Threshold to turn up here? More than likely but I have come to regard them with something of a fondness. OK, they're not brilliant but the stories behind them make for great reading as you get to understand why they became so derided by fandom.

However, after a recent re-watch of Voyager I don't think Threshold is the worst thing produced. That honour must now go to Once Upon a Time.  God I hate that episode. Look, I can forgive The Original Series for the lobotomy, I can get around the reasons for a clip show in The Next Generation. I might even, at some time, forgive Deep Space Nine for The Storyteller but Voyager can't be allowed respite for Flotter. 

By turning the episode into a children's story cheapened the show to sickening levels of saccharine. I'm not saying I hate the character of Naomi but if this was an attempt to pull in a younger audience it did so at the expense of annoying the older generation.  Even the second story (or is it supposed to be the primary story?) about the Delta Flyer crashing isn't that enticing but anything is better than the holodeck trite that takes up a good portion of the show.  Whatever possessed Michael Taylor to create this 24th Century version of Barney (insert own choice of kids' TV here) I would love to know because this ain't Star Trek and I feel that it almost dumbs itself down to a level no other episode ever reaches. For note, even Threshold is bearable for the first 20 minutes until it starts to go decidedly odd-ball but Once Upon a Time's cold-opener even makes you want to chew your own fist as it opens with the whole Flotter thing.

I'm sure there's a serious message in here but I just think it gets lost in a story which almost relegates Star Trek to Saturday morning kids TV. At one point I even thought it might be presented by the letter F and the number 12....


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