USA Today, TREK, bad reviews...yadda yadda...
By SirTrekker

To be completely honest, I've never lent USA Today much credibility to begin with. Their reviews tend to be slanted and thinned out to conform with mass opinion. Star Trek is, for the most part, being thought of by most critics as a has-been, tired old property that should take a very long vacation, and since their overpowering opinion is that the only people who love and cling to Star Trek are sci-fi geeks and nerds (proud to be one, thank you very much), it'll be more likely that a review of Enterprise will be largely negative. And, I'm not just slamming USA Today because they gave Enterprise's premiere a bad review. I don't totally disagree with their feelings about Enterprise's shortcomings, but I do think the new season deserves a fair shake.

Should Star Trek go away? To be honest, would it make a difference if it did? You know damn well they'd never totally remove Star Trek from the media spectrum, so even if it did take an extended vacation from movie and TV screens, it would eventually come back, especially if its more ardent fans bellyache insessantly for it. The problem with that is, we wouldn't get anything new if and when it did come back. The same people would be in charge, the same people would be writing the stories, doing the FX and make-up...you get what I mean? Berman and Braga won't get the hint that the things they've been doing with TREK have been largely ill-received and sub-par. After all, Brannon has already stated on more than one occasion that the fans are little more than crybabies who can never be satisfied (ok, he didn't use those words, but his recent complaints about fans' issues with continuity speak volumes about his opinion of them). They think TREK is just fine the way it is, more or less. So, we wouldn't have anything that would make Star Trek better and more appealing to fans who have jumped off the bandwagon.

Trek is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. The blood is already spilt; no matter what is done to improve Enterprise, the mass media critics and disgruntled fans will continue to slowly nail Star Trek's coffin shut with negative reviews and narrow-minded opinions of the franchise's remaining fans. The critics who have already criticized B & B's choices to change (and majorly hype) hairstyles and outfits rather than inject anything resembling compelling characterization and risky storywriting aren't saying anything that doesn't echo our own comments on these threads.

And, on a final note, if any of you think that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are going to be at all swayed by any of the negative reviews, you're kidding yourselves in SO many ways. Hell, they won't even listen to the fans that keep them employed, much less the critics. Magazines from TV Guide to Entertainment Weekly have had articles and even fan polls to discuss what should be done to save Star Trek...and do you think we'll ever truly see any of that? I hope so, though I don't recall those articles saying anything like "Give T'Pol a new hairstyle!", or "Sex Up the Vulcan!", yet that's what we're getting.

I am anxiously awaiting the premiere tonight, and can't wait to discuss it on the forums, and read what others have to say. See you after the storm hits. ;-)