Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Back to the 90s

In my poll as to the best Star Trek captain, it was split between Kirk – Shatner and Picard. These two have dominated that question since the late 80s and a lot has been written about why. So I give my ideas about it.

Those two represented their eras more than the other captains.

Kirk was the bold captain of the late 60s. A time when we were going to the Moon. The world was engaged in a new type of war. A war of ideals, with America pushing Democracy and well regulated capitalism as the way to help the most people and Soviet Union pushing planned economics and communism as an alternate way.

It was a time when new bold ideas were encouraged and Kirk personified that.

In the late 80s the war of ideals was over and no one cared about helping the most people. Picard represented the voice of stability. The Enterprise D wasn't going where no one had gone before, it was tying together the edges of the expansion made in Kirk's era. Just like how America wasn't boldly expanding into new markets and new research.

Sisko was a Captain that was aired too early. I watched DS9 when it first ran, then again in 2004 when the US was at the height of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Watching the Federation rebuild a world that had been badly occupied for years took on a whole new meaning while we badly occupied two nations. DS9 wouldn't have been allowed on the air during that time.

Janeway was taken out of the Federation space and they didn't even try to have her reflect society of the time.

Archer, Enterprise didn't know what it wanted to be until the 4th season. By then it was too late. I never watched the last season until it was in reruns.

Kirk – Pine: The theme was fortune favors the bold, at a time when banks are stealing peoples homes, the social safety net is all but destroyed. A failure in a non-traditional industry is headline news and given as a reason to abandon the entire industry. Kirk- Pine was almost the exact opposite of today's society.

There are millions of other reasons TOS and TNG were the fan favorites but those are my reasons.

On to the next poll:

Today “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” ended.

I never saw the reason for it in the first place. I was 13 when two men that went to our church got married. When I was 14 my sister was shocked that two women that were friends of my mom only had one bed in their home. My reaction was, “So?”

So what do you think about Gay Marriage?

It's Fabulous!

The Decorators have their work cut out for them.

Damn, more wedding invitations.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

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