OH YEAH!

Put two or more hard core Trekkers in a room and what do you get? Well, within five minutes there is a debate over the best episode from the first season of the original Star Trek. In ten minutes it has degenerated into an argument. In fifteen minutes there will be a physical altercation if someone doesn’t intervene. That is just the natural progression. Trekkers are adamant when it comes to the best episodes, particularly the first season. The topic is as sacred as Spock’s ears.

I use to be like that. That is, until I went through the twelve step program. You know, apologizing to those I offended in the past. Calling my sponsor when I feel like punching someone that says J.J. Abrams makes good Star Trek movies. So forth, and so on. However, recently I fell off the wagon, so to speak. So, I will say with absolute certainty that Balance of Terror is without  doubt the best episode, not only of the first season, of all incarnations of Star Trek. There I said it.

If you’re not a Trekker I’m pretty sure you’re saying to yourself, “WTF is this idiot talking about?” Well, this idiot is talking about the holy grail of modern science fiction, the first season. it was the best written, best produced, and best all around science fiction television that ever existed. Just ask any Trekker, if you’re unfortunate enough to know one.

The first season was like falling in love the first time. The second season was like breaking up with your first love, and the third season was like a really bad divorce. There were a lot of reasons for this. Mainly, it was the networks jerking Roddenberry around so much he totally lost interest in the project and left it to others that just didn’t have the passion necessary to create a quality show. So, you get episodes like Spock’s Brain.  Truly, I shutter to think about some of the garbage that was put out on the air waves in the third season. If only the suits at NBC had the foresight to see the real economic potential of Star Trek maybe the series could have lasted at least five years. Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

Heretic!

Not Asimov, me! At least that’s what my friends call me when I say anything critical about his work. Nothing makes an Asimovite, Asimovian, whatever, more rabid that to mention Issac Asimov in anything less than glowing terms. OK, he was a really good writer. Not great, just really good. In fact, I can think of five writers from the same period that were better: Theodore Sturgeon, A.C. Clark, Cyril Kornbluth, Alfred Bester, and Poul Anderson. Sure, he came up with the Robot laws, the positronic brain, and his “epic” Foundation series, which should have ended with the first Foundation, and he did use plausible science. However, his characters were lacking, especially the women. Maybe that was because he was a virgin until he was thirty. I think that could be explained by those pork chop sideburns, and the birth control glasses he wore. His attempt to be original often caused him to go off on tangents that left me with the feeling he was bored and uninspired.

Sorry about that, this isn’t suppose to be a personal attack.

Later in life he did a series of “Asimov Presents” books. I used these for toilet paper. I mean, I know he didn’t write this crap. He did approve it though. Hence, the “presents” part of the title. Stories with aliens that are described as looking like a “slab of bacon” hardly inspire empathy. They ramble and stumble like a drunk on New Years Eve. What Rubbish!

Sorry about that, this isn’t suppose to be a personal attack. Wait a minute! Didn’t I just do the obligatory apology one paragraph up.

Issac Asimov was an intelligent, thoughtful, kind man. But he sure wasn’t a Scifi God!