I’m guessing that this page will require registration at some point, but Orson Scott Card has a piece in the L.A. Times about the (current) death of Star Trek. He seems even happier to see it go than Jolene Blalock.
To put this in perspective, Card is a homophobe and a right-wing religious nut…excuse me, Mormon…so perhaps the tolerant, secular universe of Star Trek makes him uncomfortable. Not perhaps–it would have to. Not that Star Trek ever managed to address homosexuality directly. Though I suppose it’s implied that Phlox is bisexual. Then again he’s also polygamous, which maybe gives him a pass in Card’s book.
So why is Smallville better than Star Trek? Because no one ever manages to have sex, of course!
I am shocked but I agree with OSC about the other, better sci-fi shows out there. NOT that I want Star Trek to go off the air; that show has so far surpassed the realm of show-dom that seeing it stop is like watching an entire universe die. I don’t *care* if it’s good sci-fi at this point, I just want the assurance that somewhere out there that alternate-universe-on-TV is still going and going and going. Even if it *is* past the point of saying anything new or meaningful.
Yes, please, more new plots and ideas and characters as in Firefly and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But to let Star Trek go forever is to let go of a collective dream where we’re all nobler, kinder and more logical. Why would we ever give that up?
I was going to respond, but it ballooned into a new post.