input.

Perhaps there’s no more fitting tribute to Stargate SG-1 ending ten years on the air than this clip, I’m stuck on a glacier with MacGyver!

(Via Gateworld’s Farewell to SG-1.)

(Via.)

It was 70 degrees at noon today in Williamsburg, VA.

Sometimes, lunch must be taken outside, even if you’re working at home.

itchy tail! | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

The more things change…



… the more your tail itches.

brrrr | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

Just a friendly reminder that Michigan is cold.

Jiffyfactoryandtrainc | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

Skyy_harvesting_captioned | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

tresev1 | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

Do not try to move the goat.

Via Boing Boing: tokyo - hectic —

broom, no warlock. Hosted on Zooomr

Note the absence of a certain 1-year old in this picture.

(He was off getting more brooms.)

Monument 163 | Originally uploaded by theorem.

whiteboard.jpg | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

Current score, per barn whiteboard.

151_5156c | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

Then, Skyy.

128_2883 | Originally uploaded by banjocat.

First, Tiz takes the test.

Do the Wave | Originally uploaded by jurvetson.

I’m a sucker for good raptor pictures.

How did I miss this one? Diet Coke and Mentos:

One of Merrystar’s coworkers asked me at a party if I could recommend some books about the First Crusade for his summer travel plans.

I, of course, was overjoyed to get such a request. (And yes, it was a fun party, these sorts of conversations are normal for them.)

So, instead of just linking to the Wikipedia entry, I spent some time tonight going through my bookroom, browsing to see which books I would recommend.

• A good introduction to the Crusading movement is The Crusades by Hans Eberhard Mayer. This offers a good introduction to the ideology and places the First Crusade context of all that follows. (Plus, it has the Mongol Yoke!)

• Next, source materials. The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials (edited by Edward Peters, no relation) is where moderately serious history begins.

• Other good primary sources include Chronicles of the Crusades by Joinville and Villehardouin and The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. I thought about recommending The Song of Roland and The Poem of the Cid, but they are really better for later Crusades (especially the Reconquista.)

• For views outside the Christian participants, I would recommend Arab Historians of the Crusades by by Francesco Gabrieli for contemporary accounts and The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century by Hugh Kennedy for context of the Caliphate at the time of the invasions.

• I’m still searching for a good contemporary Byzantine history (other than those already included in The First Crusade and The Alexiad), but The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity 395-600 by Averil Cameron is a good place to start.

• I am sadly at a loss to provide a good book recommendation that deals solely with the rise of anti-semitic violence in the wake of the First Crusade, but many of these others touch on it, particularly the Peters book.

• If you are looking for good introductions to medieval history, Norman Cantor’s Civilization of the Middle Ages is deservedly respected, though I used Edward Peters’ Europe and the Middle Ages as my primary introductory textbook in college. I see they’re on the fourth edition; I used the first (which was blue, I think) and replaced it with the second (red) after my first year.

While it’s outside of the scope of the First Crusade, I can’t let the opportunity pass without also plugging Early Medieval Europe 300-1000 by Roger Collins. I had a photocopied version of it for years from my Medieval History I class (yes, we wrote to the publisher for permission, I had to pay $30 for it) that was an eyesore for years before I stumbled across a copy in a used bookstore in Bellingham, Washington. I squeeeeed like a little fanboy when I found it, but that is a story for another time.

Enjoy!

Recently read: The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (The History of Middle-Earth, Vol. 1), by J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien

Recently read: After the Ice Age : The Return of Life to Glaciated North America, by E. C. Pielou

Recently read: The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle.

Recently read: Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie.

Recently read: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford.

So, I don’t quite know how to bring this up, so I’ll just say it.

I watched an opera tonight… and liked it.

The Light In The Piazza was on PBS, and Merrystar and I were enthralled. Enthralled by an opera.

Do you understand the problem here, people?

What the hell is happening to me? First posts about pragmatic approaches to software, and now opera?

Maybe it is time for bed.

(Did I mention it had Beverly Sills introducing it? Huzzah!)

Merrystar and I are watching a few of our favorite Stargate and Star Trek episodes tonight:

• Stargate SG-1: “Fail Safe”
• Stargate SG-1: “Window of Opportunity”
• Star Trek TNG: “Cause and Effect”

We’ve both watched these episodes dozens of times over the years, and every time — every time — Data says, “a collision is eminent,” Merrystar yells “Imminent! Imminent!”

And every time, I wish Data would talk faster when he talks about depressurizing the main shuttle bay, and clearer when he talks about the collision. Every. Single. Time.

As it is clear that these television episodes about time loops have caused time loops within my own life, with the addition of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “Groundhog Day”, I hereby dub this the Infinite Recurrence series.

(Yes, I know “Fail Safe” has no time loop in it. We still love it. Deal.)

I think my favorite Superbowl ad is the United one:

Trip will totally be that kid hanging upside down from the swing. I’m such a sap!

Don’t forget - in addition to that other Bowl, Puppy Bowl II is on tonight.

(There is also figure skating, sans Michelle Kwan. Such an event is much like golf without Tiger Woods or snooker without Ronnie O’Sullivan; watchable, but puppies playing will usually win out.)

Ooo, it’s back! SciFi Channel’s Friday night lineup is fantastic:

• Stargate: SG-1 continues to satisfy. Ben Browder did a great job tonight, even if it felt a little like a sequel than the original. (That’s not a bad thing, by the way.) I’ll continue to call his character Crichton, however. It’s a bit like Quantum on Enterprise. Very happy with this one tonight.

• Stargate: Atlantis has really grown on Merrystar, and I am coming around to it again. (I liked the start but faltered midway through last season — now I’m sucked back in.) Unfortunately, I fed Trip and put him to bed at 9:15, so I have to tape the late showing. But Mitch Pileggi was on tonight! Sweet! (Unlike Merrystar, who reads spoilers to see if she wants to watch a show, I avoid prescience like the plague and am usually pleasantly surprised by simple things.)

• Battlestar Galactica is really really great television with flippy ships. The flippy ships are key. Merrystar hates it - I think, ultimately, because the show lacks a sense of humor, unlike Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - but I forgive it that because of the flippy ships.

Hooray for the new season! Now if only Television Without Pity would cover either Stargate, I’d be truly content.

American Idol, by itself, isn’t very compelling.

American Idol plus Television Without Pity? Pure addictive genius.

(For what it’s worth, I wanted Bo to win tonight, but I’m not upset that Carrie won instead. Good for her — she needed it more. I’ll get Bo’s album anyway.)

Just read a really interesting interview with Mike Sussman, one of the writers for Enterprise. Well worth a read if you’re a Trek fan, especially the bit about killing the golden goose (again):

“It’s very funny in that people say, ‘oh the franchise needs a break, the show needs a break.’ But in the minds of many TV viewers, the show wasn’t even on!” Sussman notes. “I can’t tell you how many parties I went to, where if someone asked me what I did for a living, the response, nine times out of ten, was `Is Star Trek still on the air? They’re still making new episodes?’ How can you fight that? I think the perception was that you didn’t really need to promote it--the Trekkies would always tune in so why bother? I think inevitably the franchise started to slip out of the consciousness of the general TV viewing public.”

…

“It was the Christmas break that killed us, literally got the show cancelled, because we came back in January, nobody knew the show was on, nobody knew we were airing new episodes. It always took a couple of new episodes in January before people started tuning in again.”

Sussman also laments that the show’s DVDs weren’t released at a more opportunistic time. “I think that if they’d released season one of Enterprise on DVD over Christmas, the advertising that that would have generated for the show could have boosted our ratings in January, and our ratings hopefully would have held. Again, look at a show like 24, which really struggled in its first year. In an effort to promote the show, [the studio] released the entire first season on DVD that summer. And people rented those DVDs and watched the entire season from beginning to end, and then when season two premiered a few months later, the numbers went up, as a direct result of the DVD sales.”

Sussman notes that the ratings didn’t necessarily reflect Enterprise’s audience given all the ways people can now access entertainment media. “It’s like the 1960s all over again when the original was cancelled,” he points out. “The apocryphal story is that demographics came into being in the late 60s and when NBC cancelled the original Star Trek, the demographics people told them, you just killed the golden goose. This show had the best demos of any program on television. In some ways we’re in the middle of a revolution right now. Not a demographic revolution, but a revolution in terms of the internet, DVDs, cable television--first run cable programming like Battlestar Galactica. If you look at lists of the most downloaded programs--illegal downloads on the internet—Enterprise is almost always in the top ten. If you look at the most TIVOed shows, I think Enterprise was in the top 25 in TIVO’s last list of the most season passes. The show is popular in ways that are difficult to measure right now with current systems and current technology. I think when and if they decide to bring Star Trek back, maybe it will be a show that you pay $9.95 and you download the latest episode to your hard drive. Maybe that’s the model that will make it profitable for Paramount. Star Trek still is profitable for Paramount, but they’re not making as much as they were before. But it’s too bad that in this world with all of these different opportunities and different ways of making money off of this franchise, it would have been nice if they’d tried a little harder to keep it around.”

Upon a second watching of the Enterprise finale (this one without the baby screaming through the last 15 minutes), I can safely tell myself that, aside from the broad historical events, it was all just a holodeck simulation created 200 years after the fact.

And thank goodness!

Very solid review from Michelle Erica Green of “These Are the Voyages…” on Trek Nation:

There are probably two reviews that could be written of this episode: the critical reactions of an Enterprise viewer and the overall impressions of a longtime Star Trek fan. Being both, I must admit from the outset that the latter overwhelms the former for me; it’s hard for me not to enjoy any episode that features Riker and Troi (their relationship is one of the few things I love unreservedly in Insurrection and Nemesis), and it’s hard for me not to get a little choked up being told that Kirk and Picard’s famous voiceover was originally their predecessor’s speech to the assembly that became the UFP.

…

I don’t want to take anything away from Connor Trinneer, who really demonstrated in the final three episodes the extent to which he is the most valuable actor on Enterprise. He had me wiping my eyes in “Terra Prime” as he played Trip mourning for a daughter he hardly knew, even though I found the whole instant-paternity instinct rather contrived. His acting is the reason I believe Reed and Sato when they explain that there was so much more to Tucker than redneck hick and solid engineer, because there’s really not a lot in the scripts to suggest otherwise. But really I could say the same for Reed and Sato as well. I doubt that in these reviews I have ever given as much credit to this cast as it deserves. I really like all the characters on Enterprise in a way that I did not in the end like many characters on Voyager, and the credit for that must go to the actors, because if I sit down and try to make a list of things I learned about Sato or Reed as opposed to moments I think Linda Park and Dominic Keating really nailed, it’s pretty sparse.

…

Archer’s Enterprise is returning home to be decommissioned after ten years; we saw far more upheaval on Picard’s Enterprise in only six years. We know that ultimately Riker and Troi do come back together, that he gets his own ship, that they get the happy ending Tucker and T’Pol never will. And maybe they were never meant to, but it would have been nice to see them try, you know, instead of to see them in denial and then be told after the fact that it just didn’t work out and very little changed otherwise on the NX-01.

I don’t think that “These Are the Voyages…” is the stink-bomb of an episode that some of the early reviews have claimed, nor do I think it’s the glorious send-off for the Star Trek franchise that some folk at Paramount would like us to believe. It’s more an orphan episode of an orphan series that never quite worked out its continuity issues, that never fully embraced its role as a prequel to Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek…that provided several seasons of entertainment and likeable characters, but, had it not borne the Star Trek label (and who can forget that it didn’t for two full seasons), would never be classed as the sort of groundbreaking, gutsy science fiction that Next Gen and Deep Space Nine were and that I hope the next incarnation may be.

I have mixed feelings about last night’s Enterprise finale. It didn’t uplift my spirits like Next Generation’s finale, but it didn’t leave me in a frothing rage, like Voyager’s, either. Just sad about what could have been, and what was. They showed things I didn’t want to see and didn’t show things I did, and while it’s always nice to see Riker and Troi, I felt cheated as an Enterprise fan that the finale wasn’t on the terms of its own series, but instead part of the larger Star Trek universe.

And then there’s that whole Trip/T’Pol thing.

Fortunately, I can safely tell myself that, aside from the broad historical events, it was all just a holodeck simulation created 200 years after the fact. And thank goodness!

Did I mention I was conflicted about last night?

So — a fond farewell to Enterprise from one fan. I, for one, will actually miss you.

(The upside is that I will not miss UPN. Off of my Yahoo! Channel Guide you go! My hate for thee knows no bounds.)

Via jwz: Battlestar Galactica Audio Commentary.

Wow. Anyone else really impressed by Bo on American Idol tonight?

frontline: secret history of the credit card | PBS

A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World’s Extinct Animals--completely depressing, completely enthralling. Well done.

“The Drive”

Wow. Enterprise continues to be really good! I caught “Awakening” tonight while having dinner while putting up the Christmas tree and was duly impressed. I’m looking forward to Dolly Andorian’s appearance next week.

Widsith

Widsith spoke, unlocked his word-hoard,
he who had travelled most of all men
through tribes and nations across the earth.
Often he had gained great treasure in hall.
He belonged by birth to the Myrging tribe.
Along with Ealhild, the kind peace-weaver,
for the first time, from the Baltic coast,
he sought the home of Eormanric,
king of the Ostrogoths, hostile to traitors.
He began then to speak at length:
“I have heard of many men who ruled over nations.
Every leader should live uprightly,
rule his estates according to custom,
if he wants to succeed to a kingly throne.”

Wow! Enterprise was fantastic this week. I haven’t watched it regularly since season 2, and was completely non-interested in the Nazi Alien storyline, but Home blew me away. Very much like TNG’s Family, with excellent character development.

Finally, an Enterprise episode that approached the quality of Stargate SG-1 and Farscape — now if they can keep it going!

Hugo nominations are out.

GateWorld - Stargate SG-1 Episode Transcripts: ‘Lost City, Part 1’:

JACKSON: … Teal’c said to me. Well he didn’t actually say anything. He just kinda looked at me and did that eyebrow raise thing that he kinda does and I said to him, I said ‘hey, why don’t we stop by and’…

O’NEILL: Is that doughnuts?

TEAL’C: (Holds them up.) Indeed!

O’NEILL: (Doing his BEST Monty Burns imitation) Excellent.

…

O’NEILL: (Sam hands a red drink in a glass to Teal’C. Daniel already has a beer, and is balencing an orange on the beer bottle)You are so wrong. It’s a perfect analogy. Burns as Goa’uld.

TEAL’C: (Daniel’s looking at his orange. He looks quite drunk!) They are merely animated characters O’Neill.

O’NEILL: You are so shallow.

JACKSON: (Drops his orange) Oh Please! Teal’C’s like one of the deepest people I know. He’s so deep. (And you’re SOOO Drunk, Daniel!) Come on! Tell em how deep you are. You’ll be lucky if you understand this. (Smiling and giddy)

TEAL’C:My depth is immaterial to this conversation.

JACKSON: (Excitedly) Oh!! See?

O’NEILL: No more beer for you.

CARTER:I’m sorry sir, but I have to agree. I don’t see the connection.

O’NEILL: Alright that does it. You know the entire VHS collection was going to one of you. (Daniel puts his head down sadly) It’s going to Siler. He gets it. (Knock on door) Thank God. Pizza. (Gets up to answer door, it’s Hammond) Well you’re not the usual delivery boy.

Have I also mentioned that Stargate SG-1 is having a really great run of episodes tonight? (#403-#406)?

From Merrystar:

• A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
• Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft by Dard Hunter

From me:

• Beyond this Dark House by Guy Gavriel Kay (signed copy from White Dwarf Books in Vancouver)

Really quite charming: Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country.

Tonight on SciFi:

1. Highlander 2: The Quickening
2. Highlander: Endgame

Watched the original Neverwhere on DVD this weekend. Surprisingly good - the book (which was written after the series) is surprisingly faithful and just expands a few scenes. Good show!

Must investigate further: MIT OpenCourseWare | History.

In honor of settling the network nomenclature question, I polished off Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song for Arbonne last night. Note to self #20942: must stop staying up and reading.

Stayed up entirely too late last night finishing Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers. Don’t tell me what time I went to sleep, I don’t want to know.

Huzzah! The whole Lord of the Rings - extended versions for the first two - will be shown in theaters this December!

The current timetable:

• August 26: Two Towers DVD
• November 18: Two Towers Extended DVD
• December 5: Fellowship
• December 12: Two Towers
• December 16-17: Entire Trilogy, with bathroom breaks!
• December 17: The Return of the King

Not only have the 2002 Nebula award winners been announced, but the 2003 Hugo award nominees are also out. Though I’ve seen several of the Dramatic Presentation entries (both Enterprise episodes, LotR and Spider Man), I’ve only got one of the books (Gaiman’s “Coraline”). Looks like it’s time for a trip to the library.

What a way to end the year: Merrystar and I are watching Pride and Prejudice. At first, my participation was perfunctory. But now…

We’re on hour four and I’m completely, totally hooked. Aaargh! Get on with it, Mr. Darcy!

Are you happy now, dear? Your triumph is complete.

Last night I went out with the guys from Merrystar’s lab to see Equilibrium. To quote the review I was sent:

You have to see this film.

We’re always shoehorned into summing films up by using other films as references, and more often than not it’s unfair to the film we’re trying to describe. All films (well, except maybe for Being John Malkovich and The Dark Backward) are amalgams of whatever inspired its author. Star Wars drew upon the work of Kurosawa, E.E. “Doc” Smith, and others while Spielberg gained inspiration from David Lean. It’s a circle, and Equilibrium is no exception. You can feel the roots of some of the classic science fiction stories making up the foundation of this film, but Kurt Wimmer’s movie does something few films achieve, let alone aspire to.

It shows us stuff we’ve never seen before.

It’s hard to find (it only opened in like 300 theaters this weekend) but if you can go see it, do.

My darling beloved pointed out that the esteemed Tim Lynch shares my opinion of Ensign Sato:

And, of course, Hoshi’s shirt gets snagged as she drops into the hallway, so she arrives at Reed’s quarters topless. Was that gratuitous? A bit, certainly, but I think it worked a lot better than some of its predecessors like the decon scene in Broken Bow or Trip in his underwear for half of Acquisition. Mostly, it was handled with a far lighter touch: it wasn’t lingered on, it wasn’t particularly leering, and Linda Park projected just the right mix of embarrassment and acute annoyance. Were I in a mood to object, I’d object far more to the fact that when Silik tortures T’Pol he strips her down to a tank top, whereas Reed’s later torture just involves getting smacked around a lot. That’s a significant double standard.

(Of course, that opinion is in no way shaded by the fact that I find Hoshi orders of magnitude more appealing visually than T’Pol. Not in the slightest. No, sirree.)

You tell ‘em, Tim.

Enterprise season two begins tonight.

For the record: I love the theme song. And the puppy. And the com officer.

I just finished reading the very good Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, a collection of bibliophilic essays. Touching and funny in all the right places. I recommend it for all those who spend more time choosing books than clothes when packing for a trip; you know who you are.

Last week, Merrystar’s co-workers organized a daytime trip to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and she invited me to come along. While watching the movie several things struck me:

• Merrystar struck me several times as she cowered during the romantic scenes. Her comments of “oh brother,” “give me a break,” and “nooooooo” were entirely appropriate. I will not object, however, to any movie that both 1) makes my fiancee clutch my arm, and 2) lets me oogle Natalie Portman, no matter how awful the dialogue she’s asked to say.
• Speaking of the dialogue, there are plenty of memorable lines from Episode II. Unfortunately, they’re all bad. “I’ve been dying a little bit every day … since I started using AIPS++” got a big laugh.
• I thought the actors did a great job with their body language. Any flaws in the storylines weren’t because of that.
• I wonder about the unconscious motives of Amidala by her choice of clothes around Anakin. He’s 18, for crimey’s sake! Don’t wear a bustier around someone who can remove it with the Force. Sheesh.
• I regret that more time wasn’t spent on the political plot. I would have gladly traded in all of the romantic scenes for two minutes of footage of the italian countryside, followed by a minute for their marriage. There’s 45 extra minutes to talk about the Trade Federation’s motives for joining the Separatists.
• Five reasons: Yoda, Yoda, Yoda, R2-D2, Yoda. Merrystar didn’t know about the fight scene and was blown away. I knew about it and had the same reaction. Zooming droids are always a pleasure to watch, but bounding CGI muppets are pure joy.
• Did anyone else think of the burning of the Reichstag during the Senate vote?
• The portrayal of the decaying Republic is a little too timely, what with the executive branch taking power from the legislature. At times I caught myself wondering, could Lucas be making a subtly anti-democratic mass-market film? Watch the hands/bounding muppets, people!

This last possibility intruiged me, much as David Brin’s essay comparing Star Wars to Star Trek did. The protagonists of the story support a corrupt, ineffective governement - never mind that it’s representative, perhaps in name only, but we aren’t really shown - that goes to war against seceding planets, who are the antagonists.

Don’t get me wrong: I love morally ambigious stories. But my frustration at having screen time devoted to a romance is understandable when I want to know: is George Lucas an anarchist?

Hmmmmm. Perhaps I should just go watch the bounding muppets.

Harry: But when I think about everything we’ve been through, maybe it’s not the destination that matters - maybe it’s the journey. If that journey takes a little longer so we can do something we all believe in, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be, or any people I’d rather be with.

Tom (toasts): To the journey.

All: To the journey.

- Star Trek: Voyager, “Endgame”

Star Trek: Voyager’s season finale “Endgame” recently aired to some 8.8 million viewers in the United States; not quite the 12 million who tuned in to watch Voyager’s premiere, but nearly four times as many who normally watch the show every week. If you didn’t see it I recommend reading Jim Wright’s synopsis (parts one and two).

In “Endgame,” the USS Voyager returns home after seven years in the Delta Quadrant. In what may have been my favorite part of the episode, the series’s seven years are nicely summed in Harry’s speech, above. I would have liked the final shot to have been held a little longer, but otherwise it was a fine ending to a frustrating journey.

But this isn’t a review or synopsis of the episode; there are plenty of those on the net and most of them reinforce my theory that when I watch television and they watch television, we’re watching two different programs. I just want to give folks a little background before launching into the main part of this entry, which is of course “Why Old Trek Doesn’t Suck but New Trek Does.”

My girlfriend’s a die-hard JetCer, which is to say a die-hard devotee to the idea of Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay (Voyager’s first officer) getting together. She’s introduced me to the world of fanfic and slash. Fanfic is fiction written by the fans of a show, using the familliar characters and setting, often detailing the relationships the author wishes to see; Slash originally described homoerotic fanfic written by women about Kirk and Spock but is now a general term for fanfic that centers around a relationship that is usually contrary to the show. Slash is so called because it is abbreviated with a slash between the two characters in question. Kirk and Spock becomes K/S, Mulder and Scully becomes M/S, Janeway and Chakotay becomes J/C, etc.. Merrystar’s theory is that Jet/C derives from J et C. That’s one mystery out of the way.

Needless to say, my girlfriend was a bit upset at the relationship between Chakotay and Seven, the catsuited star of the show. Merrystar wasn’t throwing things or anything like that, but it definitely made her grumpy. But this weekend she really surprised me.

She observed that she would have liked the series to have ended with the USS Voyager not getting home. It’s a problem that most of the modern Treks have suffered from, she said, but especially DS9 and Voyager. Jim Wright pointed this out when he said:

It’s that they never really have to face the consequences of their actions. They have their cake and eat it too on a weekly basis.

The original Star Trek presented authentic dilemmas. They made their choices, they faced their consequences, and the stories had more impact because of it. Let’s take a look at some prominent examples.

• In “The City on the Edge of Forever,” Kirk must choose between the life of the woman he loves (Edith Keeler) and the fate of the galaxy. He chooses the galaxy. Love doesn’t conquer all.
• In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock gives up his life to save the ship.
• In Star Trek III, Kirk gives up his career, his ship, and his son to save Spock and Bones.
• In Star Trek IV, they save the whales, which isn’t topical but is a lot of fun to watch.

Contrast this with Janeway and Voyager. In “Endgame,” Janeway is confronted with a choice - blindly follow her future self and get home earlier but leave the Borg unharmed, or stay and beat the crap out of the Collective but have the journey home take 16 more years.

In the end, of course, she’s able to do both. The only reason it doesn’t feel like cheating to me is because I’m so numb from watching it happen every week on the show. Unfortunately, this is common to the recent Star Treks; “In the Pale Moonlight,” a Deep Space Nine episode where Captain Sisko finds that he will go to great lengths to save the Federation, is a DS9 fan favorite that supposedly illustrates how much darker that series is from TNG or Voyager. Sisko doesn’t make any hard choices in that episode, though; he claims that he gives up his integrity, but I just see a leader coming to grips with what a war for survival is all about and tossing aside the gentlemanly concepts which have heretofore bound him.

But I digress.

Much like “Endgame,” “In the Pale Moonlight” is a letdown to watch if you read and believe the hype. A story about a commander coming to terms with war is presented instead as a grand “breaking the principles of the Federation.” Sisko, with Garak’s aid, deceives the Romulans into joining them in a war of survival against the Dominion by killing one convict, one senator and three guards.

Hey, Sisko! Ever heard “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one?”

It is a moral debate, but it’s not ‘Sisko embraces the Dark Side of the Force.’ Is he right? Is he wrong? Tough to say. Do we really have to listen to him debate it while he symbollically undresses himself? Is the internal debate that interesting?

Deep Space Nine has produced episodes where the characters make genuine sacrifices: Worf ends his career to save his wife, Bashir reveals his genetic enhancements and risks his career and liberty. But these episodes are few and far between; the storytelling of Star Trek has lost its bite. I remain skeptically hopeful that Enterprise will reverse this trend.

No, Brett; tell us what you really think.