wix@bergil.DEC (Jack Wickwire) (02/27/85)
This is being forwarded through me to NET.STARTREK. I only do some basic forwarding and I am not responsible for its content. All responses sent to me will be formatted to the author. I've just read two weeks' worth of net.startrek in one gulp. Bear with me. This is in no particular order. I agree that the statement "most females don't like Star Trek", besides being very foolishly phrased (my female cat doesn't like it, but neither does my male cat), is balderdash. Most writers of Star Trek fan-fiction are female. If you go to a Star Trek convention you'll see a heavy preponderance of women, and many of the men are there merely because a wife or girlfriend is inexplicably possessed of this madness. It would probably make more sense to say (though I don't say it) that most males don't like Star Trek. Perhaps people should consider giving up the exercise of making lists of Star Trek episodes wherein each episode is described in one line. It can't be done. Everybody always gets half-a-dozen things wrong. And even if you accurately delineate the plot, you falsify the impression you give, because there is always more to it than that. A single-line plot summary makes some of the stupider episodes sound fascinating, and most of the more brilliant ones sound stupid. Nor are the details selected by any one person necessarily those that will recall the episode to somebody else reading the list. On the other hand, I can see that the mere making of such a list could be entertaining, and certainly most of them, intentionally or not, have some very funny moments. It seems silly for you people to be fussing at one another over whether it's necessary to say why you think this or that episode is good or bad. If you want to do more than shout "'Tis!" and "'Tisn't!" at one another, of course you must say why you think -- or feel -- as you do about the various episodes. The reasons needn't be deep or particularly cogent, after all. I myself will confess that, while the giant hand in "Who Mourns for Adonis" doesn't bother me in the least (Spock tells us several times that it is "not living tissue", and the reaction "A giant hand -- geez" is precisely that of the *Enterprise* crew), the title drives me crazy. It's a reference to a poem by Shelley, which, in the exacting and ancient form of the pastoral elegy, exalts the life and works of John Keats and condemns the insensitivity of the critics who (Shelley believed) drove him to an untimely death. It has a great deal to say about the state of poetry past and present, about Keats, about critics and criticism, and and life and death. It has very little to do with the issues dealt with in the Star Trek episode in question. I therefore found this episode to be even shallower and more perfunctory than it is, and dislike it far more than it deserves. On the other hand, while I agree that the actress who played Lenore Karidian in "The Conscience of the King" was a blot on the universe, I have an unnatural fondness for that episode because it led me to read "Hamlet" and thus introduced me to Shakespeare, whereby I have been immeasurably richer all my life. As for "The Omega Glory", I dislike it because it tries to get its effects cheaply, assuming that everybody's heart will automatically pound, everybody's eyes naturally fill with tears, at the mere sight of the American flag, whether or not the development of the episode thus far justifies such reactions. Bah! -------- PDDB