Good TV Submitted Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 8:56:04 PM by Klaitu
Wow. I watched Enterprise tonight, and... it was almost good! Don't get me wrong, I like Enterprise, but it's not even close to The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, or the Original Series.
Tonight's episode had some religious fanatical aliens hijacking Enterprise. Their goal is to use Enterprise to end their Jihad against some "heretics".. that is, end it by eliminating the other side of the conflict.
That's basically the synopsis posted everywhere, so when I read it, I thought "Wow, a story based on the whole Muslim thing, that's original!" And, it turns out I was more or less right.
I was actually pleasantly suprised by this episode. I wasn't bored with it, and there was no Vulcan bosoms, nor was there any romantic liasons. There was no detox gel. This in itself makes it the best episode this season.
There's a scene where the bad guy lets Archer choose the member of his crew who will be executed. He gives Archer 6 hours to "think about it". In actuality, the audience has already deduced that Archer will choose himself, because he obviously is not going to choose someone else.
There is another scene later on where the bad guys are defeated, and their leader is in the brig. Archer says "We've arrived at your homeworld" and then shortly later says "I'll show you truth". The instant Archer says this line, the audience has deduced that "oh, they destroyed themselves" and sure enough, the audience was spot on.
I give them an A for effort, the idea for the final scene in the show was great.. the bad guy leader looks over the rubble of this huge metropolis, and the credits roll. It's too bad we saw it coming from a mile away.
They could have made that a much more effective "shock" moment by having Archer say "We're turning you over to the Triannon authorites" instead of "I'll show you truth". Then, when they land on the planet, they see dead bodies and refugees.
I think that quite possibly, this has been the best episode of Enterprise this season.. and thats somewhat sad. It dosen't compare to DS9's Siege of AR-558. It dosen't even come close to DS9's The Visitor. It's miles away from TNG's The Inner Light. It can't even stack up against TOS's City on the Edge of Forever.. and it was written almost 40 years ago!
But, you'll notice that the TV logo is up there in the corner, and not the Star Trek logo. That's because it's not just Enterprise that is not so good. In fact, there are very few shows that are worth anything on TV today.
I think there's a rift in the generations of Television. There is Golden-Era TV, which would be like Leave it to Beaver, Star Trek TOS, Dragnet, and all. There's classic-era TV, which would be like The A-Team, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I., Battlestar Galactica, and others. Then there's new-age TV like Xena, Buffy, and Smallville.
If you're like me (and there's probably not many of you out there) then you prefer Classic themes in your TV. You don't really give a flip about Smallville's kryptonite-powered villian of the week is. You don't care about the occult. You're not even interested in how Xena's cleavage stays in that leather swimsuit.
I think that it's because yesterday's TV producers had more guts. They had more style. They were all about the show. Current events were the launchpad, not the conclusion.
Case in point: Quantum Leap (by Bellisario) The story is that a genius gets trapped in a time machine that he invented. His consciousness "Quantum Leaps" into people's bodies in the past. He can't control where he goes next, but he always ends up in someone during his entire lifetime. His enture goal is to figure out a way to leap himself into his own body, in essence, to find his way home.
In the end, he is given a choice. He can choose to save Al, his companion from the future who helps him via a hologram.. or he can choose to leap back into his own time, forsaking Al. He chooses his friend over his own needs, and the series ends with the words on the screen "Dr. Sam Beckett never leaped home."
And that was it. There was no more Quantum Leap, the story was ended. Talk about shock!
Then, what about Magnum P.I., which was also a Bellisario creation? In the "supposed to be" final episode of Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck DIES. He's dead as a doornail. It was a PERFECT ending for the series. Later on though, the fans were so outraged that they wrote CBS, and CBS did another season as if Magnum hadn't died.
Not enough?
What about Farscape, where the two main characters have had this love interest, but something always gets in their way. In the final episode, they finally get together and settle down. The guy proposes to the girl, but what's that? BOOM! Blown up and turned into dust! In the final episode! The final shot is the bottom of an ocean (they were in a boat when they were shot) with the engagement ring half-buried in the dirt!
This is shock value that creates a conclusion that means something.
What do today's shows do for shock value? Well, I'll use it loosely, because they don't actually know how to do shock value.
Smallville, Oh yeah, you probably saw it. Superman.. Clark Kent, whatever you want to call him is Superman because of the way he was raised. In Kansas, no less. He's the all-american boy, the patriotic ideal of what little boys should grow up to become. A paragon of virtue, if you will. For shock value, the WB (or whoever the heck runs that series) decided that for a "shocker" season finale, that Clark should run away from home, to Metropolis, and rob banks.. and oh yeah, Jor-El is evil. This isn't so much "shock value" as it is "not understanding the characters you have inherited".
Ellen, What do you do for shock value on a sitcom? Well, If you're Ellen you decide to become gay, and then let the rumor persist for a couple years until it destroys your career, then admit that you were never gay to begin with.
What part about this is shocking? Would you be shocked if I told you Amanda Bearce (Marcy D'arcy from Married with Children) is gay? Of course you wouldn't. It's obvious.
Who shot J.R.? While I didn't like the show, that J.R. thing was some serious point of conversation. It's famous. What's the question everyone asks now?
"Who's going to win American Idol?" "Who's getting kicked off the Island next?"
LAME! If I wanted to see reality TV, I would buy a camcorder, record my own life, and then watch it back again.. and the sad part is, that my life is about 100 times more interesting than anything they've come up with so far.
So, all you TV producers reading this (all none of you) I say this: Forget lesbians. Forget voting people off the island. Forget giant silicone bosoms. Forget makeout scenes.. and for goodness sake, forget you even made "Tremors: The Series". Give me some meat, give me some potatoes. I'm tired of the sweets, I want a real meal.
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