Category: Television

My dear friends, it has been a shitty year. Rather than indulge myself with an overwrought novella concerning all of the bad things that happened in the last 365 days (as I used to do), I’ll engage in something completely different. Here is that entry about Star Trek: The Next Generation that I promised earlier. Specifically, without fanfare or excessive prelude, here are my top 10 favorite episodes of TNG. All two of you may find this entry trivial or inconsequential, but I have to say that, ever since I lost my dad six months ago, Star Trek (TNG in particular) has been a tremendous source of comfort to me.

SPOILER ALERT!!! Yes, the Locutus episode is number one. Duh!!! Any self-respecting TNG fan who doesn’t name the Locutus episode as their favorite is full of gagh.

Note: This was a much more difficult task than it was compiling my TOS list. There are only 80 TOS episodes, but there are 178 TNG stories to choose from. Outside of the obvious choices, this proved to be pretty tough. It actually took me a few months to whittle down the bottom five. Also, I am treating two-part episodes as one entry because…reasons.

10. “The Enemy”:

This is one of those rare episodes in which the blind guy gets to carry a major portion of the story. More to the point, it’s a story in which he actually functions as a blind character, rather than as a sighted guy with a thing on his face.

When Geordi is trapped on a storm-ravaged planet with an injured Romulan, his visor starts to fail, leaving him blind. Geordi has to use the Romulan as a reader in order to modify his visor to emit a beacon so that the Enterprise can locate him. But can he do it before the Romulan’s mother ship shows up and fires on the Enterprise?

This episode is also notable because we learn that Worf is unapologetically prejudiced against Romulans. Humans may have evolved by the 24th century, but Klingons have not.

This was an early episode from the show’s third season and, in my view, provided the first solid evidence that the quality of the series had consistently improved under the stewardship of Michael Piller.

9. “All Good Things…”:

When the series finale of TNG finally aired in 1994, I was underwhelmed by it. I wanted Borg, Romulans, Klingons, battles, and for Riker to nut up and propose to Troi. That’s not what we got.

Captain Picard finds himself flitting back and forth through time. Is he going mad, is he caught in a temporal phenomenon, or…is Q screwing with him? Gee, I wonder.

Three decades later, I love this farewell to the crew of the Enterprise D. Maybe it’s because we’ve gotten so much drek passing for Trek in the interim, but this really was the best possible send-off for Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, Geordi and Troi. It really is the perfect bookend to the series premier and it illustrates how the show evolved for the better over the intervening seven seasons.

8. “Reunion”:

This episode contains so much TNG gold, it’s tough to know where to begin. It continues the story of Worf’s discommendation from the Klingon Empire, first started in season three, we see his girlfriend K’Ehleyr again and Worf learns that he’s a daddy. We also get to meet Gowron, High Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, who will play a major role in future episodes of TNG and DS9. On top of all of that, we get to see Worf murder his hated enemy at the climax in a bloody sword battle. What’s not to love?

This episode continues several plot threads begun in earlier installments. This was almost unheard of in Star Trek up to this point. It showed that consequences were not unknown in the Trek universe.

7. “The Offspring”:

Data was probably the most popular character on TNG. This episode showcases him at his peak as he follows in his father’s footsteps by creating his own android child, Lal. Everything is going along swimmingly, until Starfleet shows up and claims that Data doesn’t have the right to raise his own kid. I think a few blind parents can sympathize here.

The episode has everything from overt sentimentality, comedy, conflict and ultimately, heartbreak. I never fail to choke up at the end. If you don’t get a little misty, you have no soul.

You’ll notice that “The Measure of a Man,” did not make my top 10. It’s a good episode, but I’ve written about its flaws elsewhere. In short, if you want to convince my brain that Data is sentient by staging a courtroom drama, you will fail. If you want to convince my heart that he is sentient, give him a child, then kill her off. *sniffles*

6. “Darmok”:

Star Trek is at its finest when the Enterprise encounters new alien species out there in space. This episode is probably the best example. The crew encounters an alien race who can only speak in metaphor. How do you communicate when you have no common frame of reference? Things get extra hairy when Picard is kidnapped by the alien captain with unknown intentions.

The Tamarian captain is played by Paul Winfield, who played another captain who fell victim to Khan’s evil brain worms in The Wrath of Khan.

5. “Q Who”:

This is the episode where Q introduces Picard and crew to the Borg. He does so to teach them a lesson in humility because they have gotten a bit too high on the smell of their own Federation farts. Ultimately, Picard has to beg Q for help, because the Borg have them completely outmatched at every turn. We also discover that Q and Guinan don’t like each other. It may be the only time that we see Guinan get pissed.

“If you can’t take a bloody nose, maybe you should go home and hide under your bed.”

4. “Chain of Command”:

Some of the best episodes happen when the status quo is shaken up, like Captain Picard handing over command of the Enterprise to another, much more hard-ass captain. Picard, Crusher and Worf go off on a mission to spy on the Cardassians, while Riker clashes with Captain Jellico. SPOILER!!! Picard is captured and tortured, while Riker gets relieved of duty for insubordination.

The Cardassians were almost an afterthought on TNG, but they would go on to play a critical role on Deep Space 9. Also, “There are four lights!” became the ‘90’s version of Orwell’s, “How many fingers, Winston?”

3. “The Inner Light”:

The Enterprise encounters a mysterious probe that zaps Picard, knocking him unconscious. In real time, he’s out of it for only 25 minutes. In his head, he lives an entire lifetime on a dying alien world where he gets married, has children, plants a tree and learns to play the flute.

I honestly can’t explain it better than that. The story is so, so much richer than the synopsis I’m writing here. It was so good, in fact, that Patrick Stewart named it as his favorite episode.

2. “Yesterday’s Enterprise”:

At this point, you should just be nodding along going, “uh huh.”

To fully appreciate this episode, you have to understand that Tasha Yar was a regular character who was killed off in season one by a giant lake of chocolate pudding.

At the start of this episode, Worf is having his first glass of prune juice in 10-Forward with Guinan, when suddenly, everything changes. The Enterprise is radically different, Worf is gone, Tasha is back and the Federation is at war with the Klingons. Things get even weirder when they encounter the Enterprise NCC-1701-C in a temporal rift.

… And that’s just the first five minutes. Ultimately, Tasha falls for Shooter McGavin, but she has to go back with the Enterprise C. crew to sacrifice herself in battle in order to restore the correct timeline.

God, what an episode!

And finally, 1. “The Best of Both Worlds”:

It’s my considered opinion that, not only is this the best episode from the series, but it is the best episode from all of Trekdom.

Q gave the Federation ample warning, but they were still unprepared for the Borg threat. This is what happens when you put a civilian government in charge of war prep. So, the Borg show up, kidnap Picard, turn him into a Borg named Locutus, and [proceed to take no prisoners at Wolf 359. Riker has to assume command and give the order to kill his erstwhile captain before the Borg can assimilate Earth. Oh yeah, and there’s a pushy, ambitious, ‘90’s-era professional female type hovering over Riker’s shoulder who can’t wait to get his job.

I tried really hard to hate TNG when it first came out, and they made it oh so easy for me. That’s why no episodes from season one made this list. But when I saw part one of this cliffhanger in June of 1990, sitting in the living room of my grandparents’ house in Beatrice, NE, (the home town of Gene L. Coon), I realized that Star Trek: The Next Generation was the real deal.

It’s worth mentioning that the episode that follows this, “Family,” is also excellent, as it deals with the fall-out from the Borg invasion. Patrick Stewart should’ve won an Emmy for his performance.

Honorable mentions:

You can watch the lion’s share of episodes from seasons three through six and experience TNG at its peak. Exceptional episodes include “Data’s Day,” “Cause and Effect,” “Clues,” “Tapestry,” “Relics,” “Sins of the Father,” “The Measure of a Man,” “Unification,” “Sarek,” “Ethics,” “Half a Life,” “Face of the Enemy,” “Who Watches the Watchers,” “The Game,” “Legacy,” “Deja Q,” and “Ensign Ro.” And these barely scratch the surface.

As far as the top five worst episodes, just watch most any episode from season one. There are a lot of clunkers from season seven as well, when everyone was focused on the big movie coming out or DS9. The material felt phoned in, which makes the finale such a treat. I’ll just list “Code of Honor,” “Shades of Gray,” “Cost of Living,” “Up the Long Ladder,” “Justice,” “Sub Rosa,” “The Naked Now,” and “Emergence,” as particularly, laughably bad.

Should I have mentioned Wesley Crusher? How about Dr. Pulaski? For the record, I liked Pulaski as a departure from Crusher.

Anyway, that’s it, folks. Let’s all give 2025 over to the wind and boldly go forth into the new frontier. Live long and prosper, and merry Christmas.

I’m on a two-week holiday vacation, and I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek,” by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman. It’s a two-part volume that is over 50 hours in length in audio format. Here is just a small sliver of what I learned about Star Trek:

• Star Trek owes its existence as much to Lucille Ball as anyone. She owned the studio that first produced the series. She backed the show when no one else believed in it. She eventually had to sell the show to Paramount because she ran out of money, but she’s the one who got it off the ground financially. If you ever come across reruns of I Love Lucy, give her a good old Vulcan salute.

• Even though Gene Roddenberry conceived the premise of Star Trek, Gene L. Coon was the real creative power behind the original series. Roddenberry hired him after the initial 13 episodes had been written. Coon invented many of the hallmarks that came to define the series, including the Klingons, the Spock/McCoy friendly feud, the Prime Directive and the humor in Trek. If Roddenberry had gotten his way, “The Trouble With Tribbles,” would never have been made. Roddenberry hated humor on Star Trek. D.C. Fontana, Bob Justman, Coon and Roddenberry were known as, The Fab Four, by the crew. Coon quit 2/3 of the way through the show’s second season due to burn-out. He was the first casualty of a recurring pattern by Roddenberry of endearing himself to his associates, then subsequently abusing, misusing, alienating and ultimately burning them out. Later, after the passage of time, he would re-endear himself to them and the cycle would begin again. Writers are a hungry lot.

Gene L. Coon was born in my mom’s home town of Beatrice, NE. His father was a member of the KKK. My mother’s father served under General George Patton in World War II. Coon had an African-American secretary, Andreea Kindryd, who spoke very well of him. She used to answer his office phone by saying, “Coon’s Coon.” This was circa 1968. Coon would occasionally freelance for Roddenberry until his untimely death from cancer in 1974.

• William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were a couple of divas. As they continued to work on Star Trek and their popularity grew, they were notorious for interfering with the writing and directing of each Trek story on set in an effort to get more screen time. This partially contributed to the departure of Gene L. Coon. Roddenberry wrote a stern letter to Nimoy and Shatner during Season Two, including DeForest Kelley only as a matter of form. In the letter, he asserted himself as the sole controller of the series and forbad them from switching character lines, rewriting dialogue and second guessing the episode directors. The letter was taken seriously by both actors until Roddenberry stepped back from the series in season three.

• DeForest Kelley appears to be the nicest guy who worked on the original cast. No one trashed him in the book. Everyone spoke well of him, from his costars to members of the crew to the writers to the fans. Apparently, he used to carry pictures of his children and his dogs in his wallet and he loved showing them to anyone who seemed interested. This validates my love of Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, who was always my favorite character on original Trek.

• Sci-fi authors are the most thin-skinned of all writers. They absolutely hate criticism. This may be part of the reason that Harlan Ellison was so critical of Trek after his story for, “City on the Edge of Forever,” was heavily rewritten by Roddenberry and Coon. This is due to the fact that sci-fi is a concept-driven genre that is often light on characterization in favor of ideas. Star Trek served as a departure from this reality in many respects.

• Roddenberry was a notorious pervert who became more open about his preferences as his fame grew. His uninhibited lusty side came out during the development of Star Trek: Phase Two, when Captain Kirk was swimming nude with a Starfleet admiral’s daughter. Andreea Kindryd spoke of Roddenberry’s open discussion of his private sex life with his wife and other women.

During story consultations on TNG, Roddenberry wanted to know about things like Romulan sex. In the episode, “Captain’s Holiday,” when Picard goes on vacation to the pleasure planet of Risa, Roddenberry wanted scenes of same-sex couples holding hands, couples openly having sex in public, and orgies. The closest Trek ever got to Roddenberry’s lecherous fantasies was the on-screen debauchery during the early TNG episode, “The Naked Now.”

• Ronald D. Moore was one of the very few fans who loved Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He wrote a letter to a Trek fanzine defending the movie after it was panned by critics and fans alike. Later, he would be hired as a staff writer on TNG after submitting a spec script. He would go on to be a regular writer on DS9, as well as a writer on Voyager before an acrimonious exit in 2000 after creative differences with Brannon Braga. There is no better way to endear yourself to Gene Roddenberry than by kissing his ass.

Moore later said he felt cheated when they brought Spock back from the dead in the movies. He felt it was merely avoiding the consequences of death. This is the same dipshit who would go on to kill off Starbuck in his reimagined Battlestar Galactica, then brought her back from the dead three episodes later.

• “I’m going to take these characters more seriously than anyone has ever done.” Nick Meyer, director and coauthor of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He wouldn’t criticize The Motion Picture because, “Making movies is damn hard work. They showed us what not to do.” Ouch! I’d call that a backhanded slap.

• The Wrath of Khan went through many drafts, some at the hands of veteran Trek writers. At one point, Roddenberry had Spock killing JFK to restore Earth’s correct timeline. Ultimately, Nick Meyer, Jack B. Sowards and Harve Bennett began ignoring Roddenberry and hammered out what would ultimately be considered the best movie in the entire Trek franchise. This was a cycle that would repeat itself for the remainder of the original Trek movies.

Paramount was able to castrate Roddenberry without firing him by promoting him to the job of, Creative Consultant. Let’s call this revenge for the spirit of Gene L. Coon, as well as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and all of the other writers who were maltreated by Roddenberry.

• Kirstie Alley did not reprise her role as Saavik for Star Trek 3 because, of course, she wanted more money than Harve Bennett was willing to pay her. I’ve always felt that The Search for Spock was underrated by fans and critics. Nothing revealed in this book changes my view. Say what you will about Shatner as an actor, but his reaction to the death of his son gets me every time.

• Bennett wanted Eddie Murphy to guest star in Star Trek 4. Murphy was a Trek fan and strongly considered it, but ultimately passed and filmed The Golden Child instead. Later, he admitted that he should’ve done Star Trek. The Voyage Home was the first Trek movie I ever saw in the theater. Even though I don’t think it holds up as well over time, I’ll always have a nostalgic fondness for it. It sure as hell holds up better than The Golden Child.

• William Shatner gives many reasons why Star Trek 5 was a bomb. They are all irrelevant. The story was flawed from the start. In short, Star Trek and God don’t mix.

• It’s not a coincidence that the return of Nick Meyer resulted in Star Trek 6 being a creative rebound. My only complaint is that Meyer went a little heavy on the Shakespeare, which he deliberately did because he was writing dialogue for Christopher Plummer.

• Roddenberry got his revenge for being cast aside by Paramount by assuming full creative control over Star Trek: The Next Generation. Roddenberry established a Chinese wall between the writers and actors, forbidding them to have contact unless he deemed it absolutely necessary. This is why the first two seasons of TNG are mediocre to bad television. The writer turnover was extremely high due to the toxic work environment under Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley, who served as assistant showrunner on the second season.

One of the greatest difficulties for the writers was Roddenberry’s fluid rules for writing Star Trek. His standard objection to any good story idea was, “They wouldn’t do that in the 24th Century.” It didn’t matter if these rules were inconsistent or contradictory from one episode to the next. Roddenberry also used his lawyer as both a sword and a shield in the TNG offices. He would blatantly violate WGA rules by rewriting scenes, threatening writers and actors, then protect Roddenberry from the objections of Paramount and the cast and crew.

• As was the case in the original series and movies, an external force beyond Roddenberry proved to be the savior for TNG. It came in the form of Michael Piller, who was hired at the beginning of the third season in the wake of constant writer turnover. Piller was responsible for the noticeable uptick in quality of the stories and character development. By the fourth season, the writers had firmed up to a regular group of people who were committed to doing quality television. It didn’t hurt that Roddenberry’s health was failing due to years of drinking, cocaine use and probably crotch rot that spread to his brain after he got infected by god knows who, causing him to pull back from the show. Rick Berman served as Roddenberry 2.0 and would stay at the helm until the death of the franchise in 2005.

• One of my criticisms of later TNG and subsequent Trek series was the departure of composer Ron Jones after the fourth season. Jones’ music was interesting and lent itself to the unique nature of TNG. Watch “The Best of Both Worlds,” and tell me that the thematic music isn’t superior to most of what came after. Jones’ successor, Dennis McCarthy, is incredibly dull and lifeless. This was a deliberate choice by Rick Berman, who ordered McCarthy to score the shows with, “Droning non-music.”

• Unlike the turbulent writers room, the cast of TNG has proved to be the happiest cast in all of Trekdom. They never trash each other in the press, they worked well together and all available behind-the-scenes footage shows a lot of laughter and joy on the set. All reports indicate that Jonathan Frakes was universally beloved by everyone in all series that he acted in and directed. He may be the DeForest Kelley of modern Trek. Patrick Stewart tried to start off as the serious, no nonsense leading man, but he found it impossible in the face of on-set antics by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and others.

Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis have been openly critical of the stories given to Crusher and Troi in the series and movies, but that isn’t a matter of on-set discontent. The criticisms are absolutely justified. There was little to no discussion of why Denise Crosby left the series before the completion of season one, or why Gates McFadden left after season one and then came back for season three. My theory is that it had to do with Roddenberry and his predatory nature, or maybe Rick Berman and his misogynistic ways. (See DS9.) Whoopi Goldberg was barely referenced at all. Diana Muldaur said she preferred working on the original series to TNG.

There was something in the book about Wil Wheaton, but damned if I can remember what it was. Ahh well.

• My theory that the final season of TNG was subpar because the creative talents were stretched too thin was born out in the book. At the same time that TNG was wrapping, they were also writing Generations, plus DS9 was in development. Moore and Braga both admitted that both the 7th season and the movie suffered as a result. What a shame.

• Proving that Star Trek fans and good writers don’t always turn out a good script, Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga wrote Generations. Their original draft had Captain Kirk being shot in the back. They reshot the ending after it tested horribly in early screenings.

• First Contact was the best TNG movie, both in front of and behind the camera. It was also the movie in which Geordi La Forge stopped wearing his visor.

LeVar Burton: “80 percent of my vision was cut off when I wore the that thing. And it physically hurt, which was one of the more important reasons I wanted to get out from underneath it. We held on to it for so long because, as Rick says, it was one of the ways we established, in the minds of the audience, the technology of the 24th century. On the series, it became problematic, because it was cost prohibitive. We were never able to show the audience what Geordi saw, because it was too expensive and we were on a tight budget. So it became a barrier to storytelling, physically painful for me, and on a spiritual level, it’s really just a sin to cover an actor’s eyes. I wasn’t really aware of how much of a barrier it had become until we shot this movie. And in the absence of the visor, I noticed that the actors were relating to me very differently. They were engaging me in a way that they never did in scenes. So the visor is dead. Long live the visor.”

Good to know, LeVar. It sure must be nice to take it off at the end of the day. Did you know that I’ve written more about Geordi here than was written in the book? Even Gates and Marina had more to say than did LeVar. The blind guy gets screwed again.

• Insurrection was shit from beginning to end, even though it was written by Michael Piller. It shows what happens when actors interfere with the writing. It was intended to be a serious story, but Patrick Stewart wanted something lighter and more fun.

• Patrick Stewart broke down and cried on Jonathan Frakes’ shoulder during Picard and Riker’s final scene in Nemesis. The book didn’t specify whether Stewart was emotional because it really was goodbye for the cast, or because he knew that the movie stunk worse than the bathrooms in Quark’s bar.

• Would Gene Roddenberry have approved of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? The apparent answer is, probably not. Rick Berman and Michael Piller pitched it to him at his home sometime in 1991. Berman tells a story of how they wheeled Gene in for a private screening of Star Trek 6 shortly before his death. He was mostly checked out and barely registered it. My uneducated guess is that he was in a similar state when they pitched DS9 to him. After the meeting, Rick said, “Well, that wasn’t a hard no, so let’s go for it!”

• If the TNG cast was the happiest cast in all of Trekdom, then DS9 had the happiest writers room in the Trek universe. Forces that worked against TNG during Season seven worked in DS9’s favor from Season 3 onward. Paramount and Rick Berman didn’t hover over their shoulder because they were more concerned with the TNG movies, plus the development and launching of Star Trek: Voyager.

A lot of the quality stories on DS9 also had to do with the return of Ira Steven Behr, who quit TNG in exasperation after the third season. Michael Piller took him to a baseball game, pitched the show to him, then promised that he would be the showrunner after two years if he agreed to come back. Ira did come back, Piller kept his word, and the rest is history.

• The DS9 cast, on the other hand, weren’t particularly happy. There weren’t a lot of stories in the book, but Michael Dorn has confirmed that DS9 was night and day from TNG in terms of cast morale. Apparently, Avery Brooks was an eccentric dude who always carried an angry undercurrent that would often boil to the surface.

• Andrew Robinson claimed that he played his relationship with Alexander Siddig with a homoerotic subtext. This was as close as Star Trek ever got to a gay character pre-reboot. Too bad Roddenberry didn’t live longer, or we might have gotten to see some steamy human-on-Cardassian gay sex.

• Does anyone remember the third season two-parter, “Past Tense?” This is the one where Sisko and Dax go back to the old United States when homeless people were held in so-called, sanctuary districts. Well, that was to have taken place in 2024. I’m sure many people in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are longing for those sanctuaries right about now. It’s always fun to compare real history with Star Trek’s predictive history, like the eugenics wars that were to have taken place from 1992 to 1996. The next thing we have to look forward to is first contact with the Vulcans, which will happen on April 5, 2063. Maybe Star Trek is actually real and we’re just living in the mirror universe. President Trump and President Biden do seem more like evil mirror characters.

• The addition of Worf to Deep Space 9 was not a creative decision that happened organically. Rick Berman wanted it in an attempt to increase ratings, which were never good for DS9. The Klingon conflict that was featured in Season 4 was done in the hopes of bringing over fans from TNG. It didn’t really work. For my money, Worf’s addition was unfortunate. I felt the character was neutered on DS9. On TNG, Worf was always the angry outsider. On DS9, everyone was an angry outsider. Worf didn’t hurt DS9, but he didn’t really help it. The real benefit of the Klingon conflict was the addition of J. G. Hertzler as General Martok.

• Was Rick Berman a misogynist? According to Terry Farrell, hell yeah! He berated her for her breast size and other aspects of her physique on multiple occasions. This was one of the reasons she chose to leave after DS9’s sixth season. She would’ve been willing to continue her role in a limited fashion, appearing in a hand full of episodes in the final season, but Rick Berman said all or nothing, so they killed her character off.

• When Nog was injured in the final season, the writers wanted to blow off both of his legs. Rick Berman didn’t want him injured at all. So, they compromised, blowing off one leg below the knee. After all, you can’t have a recurring character be *too* disabled, right?

• One thing noticeably absent from the book was the assertion that Deep Space Nine was a rip-off of Babylon 5. Anyone remember that one? Rumors swirl on the internet that the powers that were stole the idea, and there’s some pretty convincing evidence to back it up. I’m a bit surprised that this wasn’t addressed in the tome.

• When it’s all said and done, why wasn’t DS9 more popular than it was? There’s a lot of, “Wah wah! We were Star Trek’s middle child,” talk from the writers. Some of it comes off as overly defensive and petulant. Sometimes, it was true, but it worked in their favor. They were given more creative freedom than the folks on TNG or Voyager ever got. They also got a full seven seasons despite tanking ratings, unlike Enterprise.

Truthfully, they were indeed more ambitious than TOS or TNG. The serialized stories probably didn’t help. This was the 1990’s, when you were screwed if you forgot to set your VHS timer and missed an episode. The darker themes of war and the grittier characters probably played a role in the lack of fan accessibility.

But my feeling is that it goes deeper than that. I wrote earlier that Star Trek and God don’t mix. Religion plays a large role in DS9. Some viewers were likely turned off by it. Also, politics can turn people off, and there is more political intrigue than usual on DS9. Folks like me dig that kind of thing, but many other people don’t like it. If you don’t like Worf’s Klingon story on TNG, just wait till the next episode. But on DS9, politics and religion are baked into the cake from the pilot onward.

My final verdict is that, yes, DS9 is Star Trek…barely.

• Star Trek: Voyager was meant to be TNG with an edge. It turned out to be the opposite. Michael Piller headed the show for a while and it should’ve been edgier with a Federation starship flung far from home. One of the cornerstones of the show was supposed to be the conflict between the Starfleet and Maquis crew, and how they learned to work together to find a way home. Because of Rick Berman’s interference, the idea of crew conflict was abandoned early in season one and Voyager became TNG light. Piller left Voyager after two seasons, choosing to focus on other projects. He died of cancer in 2005.

• Paramount was finally able to launch their own TV network using Voyager as the flagship show. They’d wanted this for 20 years since the conception of Star Trek: Phase Two in the ‘70’s. I’ll leave it to my gentle readers to decide whether or not UPN was worth the bother.

• Robert Beltran badmouthed Voyager openly. He did it on set. He even did it while the cameras were rolling so the producers would see exactly what he thought of the cheesy dialogue and plots. He still talks trash about it to this day. When the show was in its final season, Beltran would say, “I’m just counting down the days until we’re done.” Brannon Braga straight up called him unprofessional. The book never makes clear why he wasn’t fired, with the character of Chakotay going the way of Tasha Yar and Jadzia Dax.

• Rick Berman confirmed that Jeri Ryan got her gig in Season 4 for the same reason that Worf went to DS9. Paramount wanted to drive up ratings by introducing a Borg babe. For obvious reasons, Kate Mulgrew resented the hell out of her. It only made things worse when Jeri had an affair with head writer Brannon Braga. Kate felt that Captain Janeway was a role model for girls and women everywhere and the addition of the T&A factor would only hurt her cause. For the record, I am totally, 100 percent on Kate’s side here.

Sidebar: As a blind guy, I don’t get the cat suit deal with Jeri Ryan. I’m gonna need some sighted person to explain this one to me. This is a serious request.

• Producer Mike Sussman on Star Trek: Enterprise. “It gets back to the people running the franchise saying, we’ve got to do something different. We’ve got to shake it up’, then kind of shaking it up in many of the wrong ways. Let’s say…all the wrong ways.”

He’s right. Anyone remember the Diane Warren power ballad as the theme song, recycled from goddamn Patch Adams? Anyone remember the decontamination jell that they rubbed all over each other after beaming? Anyone remember the ridiculous temporal war, or the enemy aliens never mentioned on original Trek? Anyone remember the hideous series finale that was just a glorified episode of TNG? Their reward was that Enterprise was the first Star Trek series to be canceled prematurely since the original series in 1969.

In fairness, Season 4 got better when they chucked Brannon Braga and brought in Manny Coto as the new showrunner, but it was too little, too late. They wanted to bring William Shatner back as evil Kirk from the mirror universe, but of course, he was too expensive.

• By all accounts, Scott Bakula is the nicest leading actor from all of Trekdom. I think it was because he already had a cult following from Quantum Leap, so he was kind of prepared for the insane fans and pace of shooting a series.

• Enterprise was the first Star Trek series that was substantially impacted by the internet. Producers became annoyed when story spoilers and behind-the-scenes happenings would leak on to fan sites, sometimes instantaneously. They never came up with effective methods of securing their show.

• So why did Star Trek finally die? There are many explanations, but I think that Trek fatigue was probably the best one. Starting with TNG, Trek fans constantly had something in the pipeline for 18 years. I think they had just hit their saturation point.

• As for the resurrection of Star Trek four years later, there is a section in the book on the J. J. Abrams films, but I didn’t bother to read it. My enthusiasm died with the death of the Rick Berman era. Abrams did have a quote admitting that he connected more with the Star Wars characters than those of Star Trek. Given the way he’s interpreted the franchise, I believe it.

I also have no interest in the new streaming shows. With the exception of Picard: Season 3, which was an overdue reunion of the entire TNG cast, those shows aren’t Star Trek to me. As far as I’m concerned, Star Trek was at its creative peak from the original series through the end of Deep Space 9. However, I may have to give Enterprise another shot.

• Speaking of the Picard show, the third season (which was by far its best) was produced and run by Terry Matalas. His name did appear in the book. It seems that he served as assistant to Brannon Braga during the production of Enterprise. No wonder he understood Star Trek so well.

• Leonard Nimoy passed away on February 27, 2015 at age 83. When all is said and done, Spock is still the most popular character in all of Star Trek lore. Thank you, Mr. Nimoy, for your dedication to Star Trek and the character of Spock.

• Finally, circling back to Gene Roddenberry, there’s been a lot of shit talking about him over the years. From all that I’ve read, from multiple sources over multiple time periods, it seems mostly justified. His son Rod is quoted at length in the book and he says the negative sentiments about his dad hurt him. I respect that. On the other hand, Gene hurt a lot of people while he was alive. He typified everything that makes a bad boss. He was greedy, manipulative, predatory, dishonest, self-indulgent and he was happy to take credit for ideas that weren’t his own. He was a lousy writer, a lousy showrunner, a lousy husband and father and generally, a lousy human being. Yes, he gave us Star Trek, but he really just got lucky. Every other show he tried to create was a major flop. I have no doubt that TOS would have been canceled after the first season if others hadn’t protected him from himself. And that was the story for the duration of his career. Gene Roddenberry will be remembered for Star Trek, but at the end of the day, the way you treat other people is far more important than the professional legacy you leave behind. If that notion isn’t pure Star Trek, I don’t know what is.

As for me, Star Trek will always be my happy place. Enough said.

Happy New Year, all. Live long and prosper.

Here’s the irony about David Chase, the television producer who created the landmark series, The Sopranos. Much like the characters he created in the HBO mob drama, the man is a pillar of misery. He has everything in his life that should make him happy, but like a flock of ducks, happiness seems to elude him.

I’ve never heard Chase state this explicitly in any interview, but I think he always wanted to be a film maker. But somehow, he ended up as a television producer. He found himself chafing against the constraints of network sensibilities from the 1970’s when he served as a writer on The Rockford Files, to the 1990’s when he worked on Northern Exposure.

At long last, HBO and Chase came together in a match made in heaven. The lack of broadcast network control allowed Chase to write and produce The Sopranos with no creative inhibitions. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, he stated that he thought the pilot would fail and he would turn it into an independent film. No such luck. Instead, The Sopranos was a groundbreaking, runaway smash that became the gold standard for everything that came after it on television.

After The Sopranos concluded, Chase made one film called, Not Fade Away. If you’ve never heard about it, there’s a reason. It was entirely forgettable.

Chase was plagued by fans and media figures who all wanted to know if he would ever make a sequel to The Sopranos. It is doubtful that he ever would have done so, even if James Gandolfini had lived. Chase is no more likely to spell out the meaning of the black screen of doom than George Martin is to finish his epic fantasy series. But I think he still wanted to make a film that would be taken seriously by both fans and critics. At 75 years and counting, what better way to go out on his own terms than to make a prequel to his greatest achievement? Yet, in a usual Chase twist, said prequel would hype the origin story of Tony Soprano, but would fake out hopefuls who would crowd into movie theaters everywhere. It would really be the origin story of Tony’s doomed protégé, Christopher Moltisanti by way of his father, Dicky (Alessandro Nivola), with Tony’s role relegated to the background.

So we get The Many Saints of Newark, a period piece set in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s that tells the story of tensions between the mafia in its glory days and African-American gangsters who were trying to break into the game amidst the Newark riots of 1968.

I won’t try to render a synopsis of the movie. It’s pretty convoluted. The high-lights include James Gandolfini’s real life son Michael playing teenage Tony. And here’s a nitpick from a blind fan. Many critics drool over how much Michael looks like his daddy, but he sure as shit doesn’t sound like him. The adolescent future mafia kingpin we are treated to sounds more like A. J., Tony’s wussbag son from the series.) I seriously doubt this was intentional.

Another irony. There’s a reason why television has come so far since the days of NYPD Blue and Seinfeld. It is the best visual medium for storytelling. If Chase had not caught lightning in a bottle with HBO and turned The Sopranos into a movie, he either would have been accused of doing Goodfellas light, or Analyze This heavy. But the idea of a mafia boss going to a psychiatrist to talk about his inner turmoil allowed the writers to meticulously build this universe of flawed characters. It was a formula, but a winning one that kept audiences coming back week after week, season after season. It was also a formula that could not be duplicated 14 years after the series finale. The complexity of the characters, the quiet moments that illustrated their three dimensional aspects, high-lighted by the occasional brutality of their lifestyle, could not be manufactured in a two-hour movie.

There were other things that worked against Chase. This movie was originally set to premier in September of 2020, but the production schedule was delayed due to an illness in Chase’s family. He wanted to direct it, but said illness forced him to turn the reins over to Alan Taylor. Then, there was the pandemic which hit the movie industry hard, shuttering movie theaters across the country and placing an emphasis on streaming services. Once again, this phenomenon worked for and against Chase. Many people found time to get introduced or reacquainted with The Sopranos as they sat stranded on their couches during lockdown like Uncle Junior. This should have stoked the fires of interest of Many Saints, but reports indicate that Chase was angered when he learned that HBO was going to drop the movie on their streaming platform on the same day when it was released to theaters. He clearly wanted this project to be treated solely as a feature film, but many fans regarded it as little more than a TV movie.

Sidebar: I have a buddy here in Omaha who is a movie buff and I invited him to go watch Many Saints with me in the theater when it premiered last Friday. He said, “It’s not really a big screen event. Let’s do pizza at my place and we can watch it there.” No such luck. His internet was down, so we had to settle for Independence Day and Husker volleyball.

After watching the movie alone in my living room with my cat, I have concluded that I am thoroughly against prequels. Whether it’s Breaking Bad, Star Wars or The Sopranos, writers can’t help but play connect-the-dots. Instead of scenes occurring organically, many of them have an obligatory feel, as if they have been created for fan service, rather than to serve a unique story. Many Saints is no different, with the rise and fall of Dickie Moltisanti, to a cameo by Tony’s future wife Carmela, to an ominous voice-over track from Michael Imperioli that falls like an Annville again and again. It does indeed feel as if Chase is ripping off Martin Scorsese, from the omnipresent source music in every scene to Ray Liotta playing the unlikely dual role of Christopher’s grandpa and grand uncle. It seems a shame that Chase can’t enjoy being shaped by his experiences as a television producer, but would rather exude Scorsese envy as he tries to break out on the big screen.

At the end of it all, the movie was just mediocre. I feel about it the same way I did about the Breaking Bad and Deadwood movies and how I’ll probably feel about the return of Dexter next month. It may have filled some bank accounts, but it was all rather superfluous. It probably would have come off better as a limited series, but that’s clearly not what Chase wanted. And in the typical style of Chase, nobody really got what they wanted. There’s talk of Terence Winter of Boardwalk Empire fame possibly producing a sequel, but I won’t hold my breath.

As for David Chase, I’m reminded of a line from The Crown, rendered by Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth. “That’s the thing about unhappiness. All it takes is for something worse to come along and you realize that it was actually happiness after all.”

Perhaps David Chase can have that one etched on his lonely tombstone in his lonely graveyard when his time comes at last.

Most TV critics such as David Bianculli seem to agree that, if the Golden Age of Television occurred in the 1950’s in the age of I Love Lucy, than the Platinum Age of Television took place between 1999 and 2010, heralded by the rise of premium cable networks such as HBO. The Platinum Age was kicked off by The Sopranos and came to its natural conclusion with Game of Thrones.

One of the last great series of the Platinum Age was Boardwalk Empire. Most people don’t immediately mention it when they speak of the pantheon of great shows, but I recently rewatched the entire series and am reminded that Boardwalk Empire is a solid, consistently compelling piece of entertainment from start to finish.

The program was created by Sopranos alum Terence Winter and the pilot was directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, so it is no surprise that it is a gangster epic. Based on a novel by Nelson Johnson, the premise concerns the passing of Prohibition in 1920 and the subsequent rise of bootlegging gangsters across the country. The protagonist is Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve Buscemi), the fictional crime boss of Atlantic City who is loosely based on the real life politician, Enoch Johnson. In the pilot, Thompson’s youthful protégé Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), meets up with a young, inexperienced Al Capone (Stephen Graham) and the two commit a bold but ill-considered robbery of a shipment of whiskey. Naturally, because it’s a gangster story, the robbery goes wrong and a blood bath ensues.

Meanwhile, Nucky Thompson meets Margaret Schroeder (Kelly Macdonald), a young Irish immigrant who is a supporter of the temperance movement because of her drunken, abusive husband. Thompson takes pity on her, so naturally, murder ensues. And, of course, we have the dogged law enforcement agent in the character of Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon), who is dead sure that Thompson is a criminal mastermind, but who can’t convince his superiors of this obvious fact.

So begins the saga of Boardwalk Empire as we venture forth through this historical period and meet real life criminals such as Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. We also meet real law enforcement figures such as J. Edgar Hoover and Elliott Ness. We even get to meet political figures such as Warren Harding and Joe Kennedy. In true Wouk style, fictional characters mingle with historical figures and small, insignificant events mushroom and have a major impact on history.

Sidebar: Dana, since you’re about the only person who reads this blog, you might not be aware that Arnold Rothstein is best known as the gangster who fixed the World Series in 1919.

On the surface, Boardwalk Empire is a crime drama, but as is often the case with premium shows in the Platinum Age, there is far more beneath its seething façade than guns, booze and blood. Since it is a period piece, we get to see the state of race relations in the country, particularly through the eyes of Chalky White (Michael Kenneth Williams), a local African-American criminal boss who is in league with Thompson. We see shades of the suffragette movement as Margaret fights for women’s right to vote. We see the lives of veterans of World War I as Jimmy returns home and meets his friend Richard Harrow (Jack Huston), a lethal sniper whose face was disfigured in combat. We even get a glimpse into the life of a closeted lesbian artist in the personage of Jimmy’s wife Angela (Aleksa Palladino.)

There are simply too many characters and stories to give their proper due in this entry. Special shout-outs go to Shea Whigham as Nucky’s brother Eli, Anthony Laciura as Nucky’s put-upon German butler Eddie Kessler, Charlie Cox as Irish hitman Owen Sleater, and Dabney Coleman as The Commodore, Nucky’s former mentor and the original architect of the modern Atlantic City. The Commodore’s lust for power is surpassed only by his lust for under-aged girls.

Boardwalk Empire is a masterpiece of storytelling with its intricate plotting, which sometimes weaves three or four stories together in various locations from New Jersey to New York City to Chicago. But at its heart, it is a crime epic, complete with the usual gangster tropes. Throughout the series, Nucky finds himself in various wars over booze and territory with Rothstein and Luciano, psychotic Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale), and Dr. Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright), an African-American drug lord who challenges Chalky, and even Jimmy Darmody himself. Since Buscemi is the unquestionable star of the show, you don’t often wonder how he’ll come out, but the enjoyment of the story is seeing how it plays out and which beloved supporting character will be the next to die.

Boardwalk is not perfect. No show can make that claim. Some characters exit the show before their time. The most obvious example of this is Jimmy, who exits the show after the second season. Alas, reliable internet gossip suggests that Michael Pitt was a talented but troubled actor and had to be let go for the good of the show. Other characters such as Agent Van Alden seem to outlast their usefulness. I found Van Alden’s arc to be fascinating when he was a pious prohibition agent who chased after Nucky, but less interesting after he fell from grace and ended up in Chicago in the employ of Al Capone.

Some critics seem to think that Steve Buscemi was miscast as an alpha male type gangster who controls an entire city. I don’t entirely disagree. I can buy Buscemi as the wheeling and dealing politician who is the master of the back room deal, but he doesn’t exude the menace necessary to prevail in physical conflicts with gunmen of New York and Chicago. Still, even if you aren’t entirely persuaded by Buscemi in the role, he is not a bad actor and the writing carries him through.

This is a minor nitpick, but the theme music is completely incompatible with the time period and feel of the series. “Straight Up and Down,” by the Brian Jonestown Massacre, is raw Scorsese with its heavy rock guitar feel and would have been far better suited to a ‘60’s or ‘70’s setting, rather than the Roaring ‘20’s.

The fifth and final season jumps ahead eight years and takes place in 1931, around the time that Prohibition was repealed in America. The truncated season has a Godfather II feel to it as we juxtapose a current day assassination conspiracy plot against Nucky in Cuba with flashbacks to Nucky’s childhood as he rises from poverty to power and makes one moral compromise after another along the way in service to The Commodore.

I mentioned that The Sopranos and Game of Thrones bookended the Platinum Age of Television. Whenever you hear those two landmark series referenced by fans, most will inevitably say something to the affect that, “The series is great, but the ending sucked.” This is not the case with Boardwalk Empire. Fans may or may not be able to predict the ending, but no one denies that it was fitting to the series that came before. The only two shows I have seen that stick the landing as well as Boardwalk Empire are Breaking Bad and The Shield.

It is impossible to reference the series finale without taking a moment to tip my hat to Gretchen Mol, who played the part of Gillian Darmody. Gillian is Jimmy’s mother and as the series progresses, it becomes clear that their relationship is far more dysfunctional and toxic than that of Tony and Livia Soprano. There are times throughout the story when I actively despised Gillian, but as we learn more about her past, I gained more sympathy for her. I cannot think of her ultimate fate now without being haunted by it. The arc of Gillian Darmody suggests writing that is expert at crafting the gray areas that typify the anti-heroes and anti-heroines of the Platinum Age of Television.

In a fortuitous turn of fate, I was putting the finishing touches on this entry when a news alert flashed across my phone. Michael K. Williams, who played Chalky White to perfection in this series, as well as Omar on another HBO crime epic, The Wire, was found dead. He was 54 years old. Mr. Williams was a master craftsman, every bit as talented as his Emmy magnet contemporaries like Gandolfini, Cranston and Dinklage. God bless MKW and all of his excellent work.

As for Boardwalk Empire, it stands up very well after seven years off the air. I suspect that history will treat it far more justly than it has treated its source material, The Volstead Act.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a TV producer named Glen A. Larson decided to rip off George Lucas in an attempt to bring the hype of Star Wars to the small screen.

One year after Star Wars blasted into theaters across America, a science fiction popcorn extravaganza called Battlestar Galactica burst into living rooms everywhere.

The premise concerned the 12 colonies of humanity who were annihilated by the robotic Cylons in a sneak attack. Only a rag tag fleet of spaceships survived, headed by the Battlestar Galactica, commanded by Lorne Green as Captain William Adama. The series was a continuous chase between the surviving humans and the murderous Cylons, who sounded a lot like my first talking Apple 2-E computer in elementary school, as the humans desperately tried to seek out the 13th colony, known as Earth.

This translucent plagiarism did not go unnoticed by 20th Century Fox, who sued Universal Studios for copyright infringement. The results were an out-of-court settlement, while history has rendered its public judgment. Battlestar Galactica lasted for only one season spanning 24 TV episodes, ending in April of 1979. Every kid that I grew up with had Darth Vader or Han Solo on his lunch box. No one knew who Starbuck was.

21 years later, a writer/producer named Ronald D. Moore angrily parted ways with the producers of Star Trek: Voyager. On his way out the door, he penned a pithy manifesto explaining that Star Trek was becoming juvenile, irrelevant and outdated.

After working for four years on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Moore had enjoyed a good deal of creative freedom on the franchise’s sequel series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Moore got to explore themes as wide-ranging as war, religion, overt politics and paranoia; themes that were frowned upon by Gene Roddenberry in previous Trek incarnations. Moore found Voyager to be a tired rehash of TNG (which it was) and was ready for new challenges.

Moore might have gone down in TV obscurity with Carnivale being his greatest achievement, but then, the god of fate smiled upon Mr. Moore in particular, and Hollywood in general. The kiss of fortune came on September 11, 2001, when 19 Muslim extremists hijacked four American planes and turned them into missiles aimed at various targets on the East Coast. The dye was cast for America to enter into a long period that would come to be known as the war on terror.

This war saturated the socio-political landscape of America and more concretely, was waged with boots on the ground in Afghanistan and later, in Iraq.

Like popcorn pop culture, history has rendered its judgments on the war on terror, but in the meantime, a glut of new creative TV sprung forth from the creative loins of Hollywood from such producers as Joel Surnow, David Simon and, of course, Ronald D. Moore. All of these producers used the war on terror as a springboard for creative ideas ranging from an invincible counter terrorist agent, to analogous metaphors to the war on drugs, to the total annihilation of the human race in another galaxy far, far away.

Moore watched an unaired pilot of a resurrected Battlestar Galactica produced by Richard Hatch of the original BSG cast in the late ‘90’s. That flight into creative fancy became the basis for the new reimagined Battlestar Galactica in 2003. At first, BSG aired as a two-part miniseries on the Sci Fi Channel. The ratings were dismal and the show might have died without resurrection once again, but for the intervention of the BBC, who agreed to help finance the regular series if they could have the privilege of airing each new episode before it aired on Sci Fi. Everyone agreed and the show burst forth, much to the delight of critics and a growing fan base across two continents.

The basic premise of BSG 2003 was the same as its 1978 predecessor. The Cylons, a race of artificially intelligent but sentient life forms, obliterated the 12 colonies in a sneak nuclear attack. The remnants of the fleet fled, staying just one step ahead of the Cylons at every jump.

Several of the characters remained. Commander Bill Adama was played by Edward James Olmos, an actor who seems to only speak in a low, growly half whisper, yet who could project the necessary weighty moral authority to guide the fleet through one tragedy after another. English actor Jamie Bamber played his son, Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama. When it came to Starbuck, the powers that be did a very (ahem ahem) enlightened thing and swapped the gender. Starbuck became Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace (Katee Sackhoff), much to the consternation of Dirk Benedict. James Callis played Dr. Gaius Baltar, the narcissistic scientist who betrayed humanity by unwittingly allowing the Cylons access to the defense systems on Caprica by way of his penis. Boomer, an African-American male Viper pilot from the original, became Sharon ‘Boomer’ Valerii (Grace Park), a female pilot who turns out to be a sleeper Cylon agent.

Moore stirred in some original ingredients to his interstellar brew. Included were Mary McDonnell as Laura Roslin. She begins the series as the cancer-stricken Secretary of Education, but is quickly promoted to President of the civilian fleet when she is the sole survivor in the political line of succession after the Cylon attack. Some of the best drama from the early seasons occurs as Roslin and Adama wrestle each other over moral, tactical and political decisions that affect the very survival of humanity. Tricia Helfer plays a Cylon agent known only as Six, and who appears only in the mind of Dr. Baltar; at least, early on in the series, until we learn that there are numerous copies of Six running around space in various get-ups.

And there is one of the great twists of the reboot. The Cylons are no longer cheesy ‘70’s era robots. They are now evolved into fully flesh and blood antagonists who can easily blend into the fleet and work to undermine the efforts of humanity to save itself by acting as spies, saboteurs and propagandists. Once the humans discover this, paranoia runs rampant throughout the fleet as the major question becomes, who is really human and who is really a Cylon? The stakes are further raised when we learn that Cylons cannot die, but merely download into another copy and return if they are killed.

The first two seasons of this epic series range from good to brilliant television. Moore did in deed surpass Star Trek (and even Star Wars) in his wish to tell a thoughtful, compelling story of human survival and desperation in the wake of a genocidal apocalypse. The tone and tenor of the series is best summed up by the premier episode, “33,” in which the fleet is attacked by the Cylons every 33 minutes, thereby depriving them of sleep. The episode climaxes with Starbuck and Apollo being forced to fire on one of their own vessels in fear of its being infiltrated by the enemy.

Other plots involve a continuous tug-of-war between Adama and Roslin over religion, Boomer’s inner conflict as she realizes that she is a Cylon, Baltar’s continual cerebral encounters with Six and the discovery of another military ship (The Pegasus) commanded by Michelle Forbes, which ultimately causes more problems than it solves.

If only Moore and company had not yielded to the lesser angels of their political souls, Battlestar Galactica might have gone down as one of the best science fiction TV epics of all time. Alas, cracks begin to appear in the show’s third season. The humans have settled on a planet they name New Caprica and are trying to rebuild their civilization when the Cylons show up and establish an occupation force. President Baltar immediately surrenders and is taken prisoner, the remaining space fleet jumps away in order to fight another day, and the planet bound military under the command of Colonel Tigh (Michael Hogan) forms a resistance to fight the invaders. Said resisters come complete with suicide bomb vests, which was a deliberate and sympathetic comment on the plight of insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq, circa 2006.

You can be skeptical of the wisdom of the Cylon occupation plot and still enjoy it as I did. The arc climaxes with an epic battle as Adama and Apollo return to save the survivors on New Caprica. More powerful than the battle was Colonel Tigh’s murder of his wife, whom he learns has been colluding with the Cylons.

Much of the remainder of the third season concerns the aftermath of New Caprica as the fleet continues to search for Earth. Baltar is held captive by the Cylons and he learns more about their culture. Starbuck and Tigh deal with PTSD. Apollo, Adama and Roslin all question their choices. A bunch of the crew hold boxing matches to work out their feelings. All of the main characters get married while being in love with someone else. Baltar is returned to the humans and is put on trial for the betrayal of his own people.

And this, my friends, is where the show officially descends into Stupidville. Apollo acts as Baltar’s lawyer and manages to get his client acquitted. This is due to an Aaron Sorkinesque speech in which he basically says, “Sure, President Baltar did some questionable things, but we all do questionable things in the fog of war.” Apollo’s assertion that there are always moral equivalents in war was a nonsensical means of letting Baltar (and by extension, the Cylons) off the hook. The anger and desperation that fueled the early episodes slowly gives way to a facile sense of proportionality that humans and Cylons are equally guilty, even though the Cylons committed genocide, which is acknowledged in our own civilization as a war crime. Rationalizations such as these are often made in comfortable circumstances around a conference table in Hollywood, far from the battlefield of reality.

About the same time as Baltar is getting off, several crew members begin humming notes to All Along the Watch Tower. They meet up in a cargo bay, set up a chorus of a humming choir and figure out that they are all sleeper Cylon agents. One of them is Colonel Tigh. Even though the groundwork was laid for this, the twist still falls flat.

Meanwhile, Starbuck, who died in a cosmic maelstrom three episodes before, suddenly reappears with no explanation and claims that she knows the way to Earth. If you were like me, you finished up the third season finale and muttered, “What the frack?” aloud.

The fourth season is a slog to finish. Starbuck keeps screaming, “WE’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!” which may as well be a metaphor for life in the writers’ room. Baltar becomes a David Koresh-style figure as he becomes the leader of a cult. The Cylons fall into civil war as they begin to question their campaign against humanity. Roslin keeps having weird visions that don’t ultimately amount to anything. Adama softens from a stalwart military figure into a flaccid consort who reverses and re-reverses himself whenever a character cries loudly enough. More characters keep prattling on about God, destiny, fate, etc.

By the time the humans make it to ancient Earth and we learn that we got our Greek mythology from the 12 colonies, I was too weary to care. All I can tell you is that Roslin succumbed to her cancer, Adama built a cabin somewhere in the wilderness and Starbuck disappeared without explanation.

Ahh, Gods. I don’t even have the energy to write about the two TV movies, Razor, and, The Plan.

Why did such a promising series go off the rails? The answer lies in TV critic Alan Sepinwall’s book, The Revolution Was Televised, in which he interviews Ronald D. Moore. Sepinwall dubs Battlestar Galactica as, “Sci-fi for the thinking man.” As Jonah Goldberg points out, only if you don’t think too hard.

BSG is a victim of high-minded pretentions that ultimately amount to nothing more than one big deus ex machina. The writers constantly tease the audience with the promise that the Cylons have some great master plan. As it turns out, their plan is a series of tortured, contorted retcons that make no sense. Moore admits that he merely relied on his instincts in plotting the series, particularly in the final two seasons. He had no grand vision as to where the fleet was going or what they were doing. The resurrection of Starbuck with no explanation is the ultimate proof of Moore’s rudderless, half-baked theologizing under the guise of science fiction. It’s one thing to engage in world-building, but quite another to betray your audience by making them feel cheated by failing to answer questions that you’ve dangled in front of them all along. Many fans compare the underwhelming series finale to that of Lost, another show that was much better at asking questions than it was at delivering satisfying payoffs.

I first tried watching this show during the platinum age of television back in the mid-2000’s. I ultimately gave it up because it was just too visual for me to follow. But I held out hope that one day, I might get it described. The Brits finally accommodated me, but I knew what I was in for. I was spoiled on the ending. Still, I wanted to make up my own mind. If anything, most fans have underplayed the idiocy of the final season and the finale.

Two spin-off series to BSG were attempted, Caprica and Blood and Chrome. Neither got very far, Moore having squandered his credibility with those whom he needed to entice for another investment. . Today, no one aside from diehard fans speaks much of the Battlestar Galactica reboot. Meanwhile, the world waits with baited breath for season three of The Mandalorian.

Put that on your algae cracker and have a good crunch, Mr. Moore. You can digest it and shit it out, along with the hard fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the better series. It is certainly more padded, but it is more consistently entertaining and explores most of the same themes as BSG and does so more effectively.

So say we all, except certain fan boys masquerading as critics. Such as Alan Cylonwall.

Final tidbit. One quote you hear repeated again and again is, “All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” Think that’s deep? Wrong. That quote was lifted from Peter Pan. Maybe the ending would have been more satisfying if the crew of the Galactica had wound up in Never Neverland.