"Star Trek: The Trekkie-Wife's Perspective"
This week I'm going to make a foray into territory about which I know almost nothing: Star Trek. Specifically, the new series, "Enterprise." I'm going to go out on a limb here: I like it.
Now, much as I try to pretend that I'm not a geek or into scifi or games or whatnot, you pick up a certain amount of knowledge when you date and then eventually marry only the kind of males who can be described as "geeks." I started watching "The Next Generation" when I got tired of my then-boyfriend constantly talking about the characters in an everyday conversation, and saying "Make it so" every hour. Then when I started dating my husband, a new series started, "Voyager," which totally rocked in that it had a great female captain, a hot half-Klingon chick, and an attractive Native American man, and it looked pretty clearly like it was going to have a gay crew-member. When that fell through and he suddenly found a girlfriend as the ratings dropped, I quit watching. Later, the cable channels started showing the old series with Kirk and McCoy and green alien chicks in artful shreds of polyester. Since I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, I started watching a few of those episodes. Never have seen a full episode of "Deep Space Nine," though. It just seemed wrong - a space station, no actual "trek" to speak of. So although I don't consider myself a "trekkie," I now know enough to at least be able to talk, court, and eventually marry one.
So anyway. The new series recently started. And I like it. Aside from the dippy song which gets stuck in my head as if it were intentionally designed to do so and contained government-sponsored subliminal messages, I like it. (I admit it, I even kind of like the song because it makes me think of Bon Jovi music. Shoot me.) The shower scene in the pilot was priceless: self-conscious, exploitive, funny, and still somehow vaguely arousing. And I'm not even the target audience of pimply, horny teenage boys! The captain is a dork, the Vulcan woman is a bitch, and the whole crew of humans seems determined to be "good ol' boys" in the genuine close-minded, cousin-fucking, republican Texan tradition.
But I like it. I like that the humans are bigots. I like that they seem real for once, like the kind of ass-holes who do actually join the military, right now in the present. The kind of gung-ho, "earth is great, any other race we meet must be inferior in some way, let's help everyone be just like our civilization despite a millennia of their own traditions" approach that you see right now today in the American military. I also like that the jumpsuits are so tight. I like that we've seen the captain's package a few times, and know what the military-issue regulation underwear looks like. Now, if only the Vulcan would get laid!
I like that the series is turning back to its roots. I mean, let's face it, the old series was about exploring space and fucking aliens. As my husband once clarified for me in a moment of exasperation, "That's why you explore space! To meet aliens and have sex with them!" Kirk got his fair share of alien pussy (I presume that it was pussy, anyway), and without any actual acting skill! The plots were amazingly funny, and I swear I can't even tell if the writers thought that the Horta was a big joke or if they took it seriously, but to me it's hilarious. And "Enterprise" is just like it! Bad acting, cheesy special effects, sex oozing all over the place. Not the Shakespearean, philosophical, ethical quandaries of "The Next Generation" and "Voyager." Just some good ol' boys, in space, seeing what's out there and if it's fuckable.
TV doesn't get much better than that.