I've become discontent with UPN's new "Star Trek" series "Enterprise". Oh I know it sounds so customary in the art of bitching for a "Star Trek" fan to piss and moan about any current version of the Trek franchise, but I'm passing plasma now and coughing up bits of charcoal encrusted lung. This new series sucks, and not in the good-natured "Star Trek: Voyager" sucks compared to "Battlestar Galatica" kinda way, but more like "Enterprise" sucks compared to "Battlestar Galatica: 1980" kind of way. A little too harsh you say? Well then you tell me, what is right with this new "Star Trek" series?

Three weeks and four bounced checks ago, on a slow and sloppy Sunday, I and a mistake of nature friend of mine were parked in front of the boob tube lazily mauling our 3 hour late pizza, with nothing illuminating the room but the radioactive glow of the television set and the government tapped screen of my personal computer. Then "Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers" entered my warped little world, and changed everything I expected from a sci-fi series. That day was a revelation of sorts; first being that you should never order delivery pizza without eating a full meal in advance, and second; that what fans of everything fantastical have been given to feast upon for the last 5 months is nothing but the reheated, regurgitated scraps of a dinner served well over 30 years ago. What crap is this? For too long have we lethargic housebound gastropods been waiting in exhilaration for the warden to dish out the same old gruel and lard for us to fill our gourds with. Well enough is enough. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

A few Wednesdays ago, UPN ran the new "Enterprise" episode "Sleeping Dogs", and I waited with foaming anticipation and an irregular beating heart for one thing and only one thing; the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the…new Klingon War Bird. OH MY GOD! What have I become? Is this all that I have to look forward to with "Enterprise"; new ships and a revolving door of stage actors with pieces of latex, spirit gummed to their foreheads? Wasn't there a time when fanatics watched "Star Trek" for…the story?

When I started Prayers For A Better Enterprise, I knew that whatever I wrote about on that site would not have in any way an impact in the creative process of this new series, but secretly I hoped in earnest that "Enterprise" would deviate from the norm, and give us Trekkies or…Trekkers (serious "Star Trek" fans…what losers) a fresh and…no, let's stick with fresh, a fresh view of the "Star Trek" universe. And what have we been given so far this season? A series unlike anything on television today, that's because the plots supplied by the writing staff are so outdated and pointless, only UPN would have the gall to produce, package, and deliver it. It then comes as no surprise that the only network (UPN-United Paramount Network) that would be willing to carry a show like "Enterprise" would be the one that is OWNED by the very company producing it. Ten years ago, or pre-UPN, "Enterprise" would have been sold into syndication (more than likely bought by FOX), aired every Tuesday night around 9:00 p.m. (until its' ratings slipped the first year), and then finally shuffled off to a 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. time slot (only to be knocked into the a.m. by a 2-hour long "Cops" special).

With "Enterprise", I had hoped in vain for a universe not unlike the one depicted in Luc Besson's visually stunning sci-fi feast "The Fifth Element". Now before you all stop laughing and start sending me a barrage of e-mails suggesting I up the milligrams on my Prozac prescription, remember one thing; no matter how bizarre or strange the images were of mankind's future in "The Fifth Element", audiences accepted this vision as both believable and possible because what they were seeing was grounded in familiarity. Familiarity, that's it…nothing more. It doesn't matter if New York City's skyline is clogged with traffic jam after traffic jam of flying cars, or that people run around in orange rubber tank tops while being hounded by police officers who bare a striking resemblance to upright beetles. All disbelief is suspended for the duration of the event by the familiar images that are continually being intermixed equally with the surreal. Some one loosing their job due to cutbacks in the company, a mother calling to interrogate her child about his/her current love life, that one good cigarette in the morning before the day has a chance to clobber you; each is a situation familiar to most people in today's society, and that familiarity is what we cling to when watching imaginary images of humanity in the future. We want to relate to the characters upon the screen, because if we can relate to those characters in space, then it becomes possible to envision ourselves in that depiction of mankind's future, and isn't that the very reason to even attempt a sci-fi series?

Never have I seen a simile of myself in any episode of "Enterprise"! Yes I realize that the chances of there ever being an overweight (I prefer the use of the word stout or big boned), chain smoking gay man aboard a prototype starship is about a zillion to one ½, but come on dammit, at least throw in some of my more enduring characteristics into a character. If anything, this will help to smother some of the doubts that immediately pop into my noggin whenever I see a depiction of humanity in the far-flung future. Even though "Enterprise" takes place about 150 years from now, I in no way can relate to the humans showcased every week. They seem so…sterile. With "'Next Generation, DS 9, and Voyager", the aloofness the characters displayed towards their personal lives was realistic, because of the notion that humanity had surpassed the need for material goods (DVD.'s), personal gratification (Open Minds here I come), and monetary gain (see the first 2 parentheses for explanation) with a more encompassing goal of enrichment for the whole. The reward for the viewer was in seeing a part of themselves whenever a character displayed an emotion or habit more in sync with someone of today's thinking. While Picard seemed cerebral and distant through most of his 7-year tour, it was in moments such as the one in the episode "Family", where his emotional confession to his brother about being used by the Borg to kill over a 1,000 people, helped bridge the gap between the audience and that character. We felt the pain he was experiencing, because we related to the emotion of guilt. The 300-year difference no longer mattered, because we had connected on a more primitive level. In "Star Trek: The Final Frontier", the character of Sybok had the ability to remove the burdens of the past, by making a person face the very thing they feared or regretted. I enjoyed this aspect of the film (and trust me, that was the ONLY aspect of the film that I enjoyed, with the exception of Uhura singing in the buff), because on a personal level I wondered to myself what would Sybok drag from my emotionally wrecked and pad locked basement of memories if I were in a similar situation? Time and time again, with countless examples to draw from, we see a part of ourselves in those roles on the screen, and the impossible world that those characters inhabit suddenly become real to us because we have found familiar traits between ourselves and the characters. The persons aboard "Enterprise" though…have as about as much in common with present day humanity, as a hemorrhoid has with an asteroid!

The character of Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) is a perfect example of my critique. Here is a character that is an important member of Starfleet, and yet she hates space travel. Now where some might suggest (quiet you) that this particular trait is a great contrast to the norm and thus the conflict creates interest, I say, "What, are you nuts?" She joined STARFLEET! STARFLEET! Wouldn't the name alone tip you off that, perhaps you might just have to go into, oh I don't know, SPACE? In the film "2010", John Lithgow played an engineer recruited for a savage mission to Jupiter. One of the best scenes (and there where a lot of them…I see you smirking) in the movie has Lithgow and a Russian cosmonaut performing a space walk between 2 ships as the surface of Io shines menacingly below them. Lithgow of course is going nuts! He's sweating and hyperventilating his Oscar-nominated butt off (remember his scene in "Twilight Zone: The Movie", heavy breathing and just generally freaking out is not unknown to him) the entire time, and…it's convincing! As he's preparing for the journey, he confesses to Roy Scheider that he's afraid of heights, to which Scheider admits that he also his scared of heights. Lithgow responds with, "We both picked good jobs." Wonderful scene any way you look at it, because here is a believable character experiencing a situation and emotion that both you and I can relate to. Just because he's an engineer of spaceships, doesn't mean that he can't be afraid of falling, even if it means that fall could take a very long time. Ensign Hoshi on the other hand, is afraid of everything in space…including her reason for being there. The ship gets hit by weapons fire (Broken Bow), and Hoshi wants to go home; the crew comes across a dead race (Fight or Flight) and Hoshi must communicate what has happened before the Enterprise is destroyed, Hoshi cries a lot and then wants to go home. This lady not only hates outer space, but she hates BEING in outer space, and to top it all off, SHE'S THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER!!! What the hell were they thinking? That would be about as stupid as me working as a cruise director for the Pacific Princess Cruise lines, because of my over powering fear of oceans and death by water! "Hello, my name is John, and I'll be your cruise director for the duration of this voyage or until we hit something at sea and sink like a rock." Would you hire me? No! So why the hell did they put some one (who has a fear of space) in space, and give her a job where she can broadcast her hatred and loathing to every one in the universe?

Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) presents the same problems as Ensign Sato. In the episode "Broken Bow", Archer is a headstrong captain of a prototype starship, fearless, determined, and unwilling to accept defeat. Yet as this season has shown, the man has done so many 180-degree turns in the last few months, you have no clue as what the guy is going to do next. The writers had created in the beginning, a Kirk-like male action hero, saddled with some of the reservations of Picard, but all in all an explorer.

That's all for the moment. I'll finish this tirade soon.
Till then... Love to the family!