>It surely cannot have been that long holy hell it's been exactly that
>long. I think of Manhunt as being a recent thing. I suppose
>that's only true in comparison to its predecessor.

Indeed.

>Time is weird, man. In my head Diqiu is still the newest hottest
>newest thing... and that was introduced four years ago.

Well, to be fair, it is still that, though that has more to do with the pace of progress recently than anything else.

>>I remember thinking,
>>the first time I read that, that it was the weirdest damn book
>>when it got to talking about that stuff. Like the part where Kirk
>>notes that a lot of people think he and his colleagues are weirdbeard
>>retros for still having surnames.
>
>Right?
>
>Star Trek isn't what I'd consider the best venue for the
>"future societies will be very, very different in fundamental ways
>from our own, let's explore what that could possibly mean" sub-genre
>of science fiction, but you have to give them some points for trying.

Roddenberry wrote the TMP novelization himself, IIRC, so I think it's probably the most direct conduit to the frustration he must have felt pretty much daily at the fact that literally no one else involved in the development and production of Star Trek shared the full extent of his idealized vision. He had to sell it to the network as Wagon Train to the Stars and Wagon Train to the Stars it has remained forevermore, in spite of his most strident efforts to steer it back onto what he considered its proper course, most notably in the early going of Next Generation.

I can relate. It can be really, really annoying when a thing takes on its own ethos without consulting its nominal creator first.

>I mean, don't get me wrong. I've had many long and fun hours trying to
>game out and argue about exactly how the UFP really would work if one
>took it seriously.

In that case, you may enjoy this book, which came up in a list of recommendations on Amazon the other day and in which I, personally, have no interest at all. :)

>I would love to watch a two-part episode whose plot
>synopsis was "The crew of the Enterprise attend an economic
>symposium. Data presents a paper on the sociological consequences of
>matter replication in the late 2200s. Picard gives a talk on artisanal
>crafts in a post-scarcity economy and hosts a wine tasting with the
>products of his family vineyard. Riker has a three-way with a
>statistician and a mathematician."
>
>But I'm what you'd call a niche audience.

I approve of the idea of presenting Riker more like the cop with the mustache from Super Troopers. "OK, who wants a mustache ride!"

>And you know what? My opinion of it has improved. It is still the
>weakest of the Treks, and that's something considering some of the
>shit Voyager pulled, but there's some really good concepts in
>there and they're occasionally executed very well.

Yeah, I wanted to like Enterprise more than I did, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. I think we had a thread about it in General or private-mail or someplace, some years back, when I finally had an opportunity to watch seasons other than the first.

>And Jolene Blalock
>acts the hell out of T'Pol, which, again, is saying something
>considering some of the scripts they handed her.

Agreed; she made T'Pol more likeable than she really has any right to be.

("Wait, are we talking about T'Pol? Zoner, she had a psychotic episode.")

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.