Star Trek, the Last Voyage

In 1976, just at the end of their first season, the cast did an extended Star Trek skit which few people will remember. It’s remarkable in multiple ways. First, of course, it features John Belushi as Captain Kirk, with Chevy Chase as Spock and Dan Aykroyd playing McCoy. Given that, we know we’ve got great talent on the stage.

 

The first thing that’s so striking is the combination of their age and weight. Both Aykroyd and Belushi were relatively svelte in contrast to the way they both overindulged over the ensuing seasons. And the audience is appreciative but hardly wild about their entrances on set. It’s just the first season, after all.

Then comes the skit itself, clocking in at 12 minutes in length – wonderfully over-written! And evocative of a different era when long dialog and single camera shots were the norm. This whole thing would’ve been a tight 5:30 had it run even ten years ago.

What we get, though, is a very apparent set of building blocks that become the bones of those SNL years. Belushi has somehow rallied himself into clear enough consciousness to do a bang-up job impersonating William Shatner, complete with the intensity, over-enunciation and attitude, blowing through a hugely wordy script in a single, fluid take with nary a flub.

Chevy is truly funny as Spock and Aykroyd struts his deadpan attitude with doctoral style. And it’s wonderful watching them work together, with our advance knowledge of their future careers arcs. Chase will leave for big screen shenanigans. Akyroyd will partner with Belushi for the Blues Brothers and the HOUSE of Blues and Belushi will, sadly and shockingly, go out in a drug overdose his cohorts must have feared, at the peak of his short career.

As to the skit, no story spoilers here. Just an appreciation of some of the earliest iterations of the extraordinary SNL juggernaut. Enjoy!

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The Guns of Sci Fi

They shoot colored beams of light, in streams, lines and glowy balls. Interestingly, they all shoot slowly, to better illustrate the path they are taking and show off said balls. They're various forms of deadly, depending on the weapon. Some just stun their target, some flame and spark on the clothing of their intended victim as he/she/it stares at the wound incredulously.

Size: Star Trek phasors were quaint compared to most modern scifi weaponry. Your basic sidearm is a big damn thing designed to make you look important, impressive and just plain scary. Gun barrels are 4 inches in diameter, the better to pack a bright flash. Handles barely fit in demure human hands, barrels run from 8 inches to a foot and a half and we're talking side-arms here. Magically, they are lightweight and easily maneuverable. THAT'S a good thing.

Bigger armaments -- handheld rifles, repeaters, bazookas and the like. Them's some POWERFUL colorful light-balls, brah... They'll blow holes in the interior wall of a ship’s hallways, but not to worry, your outer hull always stays intact. Lightweight, easy to run with, big guns use fine-quality scifi materials designed for minimal impediment and maximal explosive appeal. Right on.

Now: Accuracy. The count-onable anomaly of scifi gunmanship.  The law of scifi gunfights -- say it with me is: Good guys hit, Bad guys miss. Simple as that, and think about it, could it be any other way and if it were, would you really be willing to deal with the consequences? There are obvious conclusions long drawn on this principle. Good guys have had access to the finest marksmanship training and munitions schooling in the galaxy. Bad guys have, for the most part, had to deal with aiming at zero-grav space garbage or landfill smeer cans for practice. No wonder they can't hit the broad side of a shuttlecraft.

This is a good thing. It preserves the balance, saves the day, makes for happier endings and indemnifies the genre for future generations. So support your local third act and be thankful for the balance of handheld weaponry in space. It's a simple ecosystem that errant mutants are gunning to change, but good luck with that, sucker. Take your best shot.

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The Orville

Cool CGI, big music underscoring, shiny interiors and costumes that look like everyone is about to get in formation and march down the football field playing an arrangement of the latest Taylor Swift tune.

The Orville (Fox, Sundays) made its debut last night with Seth McFarlane doing what he does best – starring Seth – and opening with a pretty funny bit about spousal cheating when it’s about getting caught in bed with a panic-stricken alien. This one, a blue-hue guy who splooshes when scared.

Let’s be sure we understand this is a Star Trek-type spinoff comedy series, meant to, like, disrupt, outer space, that place that’s always been fraught with peril and discovery and drama. And that no one ought to be more qualified to do so than Mr. Family Guy, who looks cute in his marching suit.  The challenge comes from pushing the envelope every which way until it’s no longer mailable.

McFarlane, the show’s writer, dances between what he seems to want to portray as legit dramatic saga combined with silly pizza party jokes, and illustrates how you really can’t have it both ways. The movie “Airplane!” is the perfect example of a serious soap opera genre going rogue, leaving us with a permanent joke about gladiators and filling every 20 seconds with another pratfall. That was funny, because funny was what the producers aimed squarely to be.

The problem with Orville is that it tries to go both ways, dipping its characters into ostensibly real danger, running around to neutralize it, then relaxing back into goofy characterizations to frame the after-jokes that no longer fit with the seriousness of what was just supposed to have been being portrayed (self-editor: woah, interesting sentence construction).

The net result is a show that doesn’t seem to know what it is. Is it middling SciFi drama lurching boldly forward or is it cartoon shtick, portraying frat-party humor in the 24^th century? Keep on eye on your main screen to see how warped things get.

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