Trek and Beer

Last night I drank this beer while watching Star Trek (original recipe) before going out to eat pizza. It's like college: pizza, beer, and Star Trek. Or like how college would have been if Star Trek had been on. I'm considering writing a post on my favorite episodes, as I've watched quite a few now, but that would require more research, and the tapes are not easy enough to access that I'm going to bother. I will say some things, though.

The show is hilarious, and it's almost unbelievable that a show as good (albeit flawed) as The Next Generation could have been spawned from this. It seems like every other episode involves the crew going to some kind of historical earth planet/simulation. It's not even an allegory or anything; they just go to a Nazi planet to basically learn the lesson that Nazis are bad, which they can't even manage right, ending hastily and seeming to come to the conclusion that Naziism was just spoiled by a couple bad eggs. When they aren't doing that, there's some ridiculous allegory (half-black, half-white episode?) or future re-imagining of Shakespeare or something.

Everyone on the ship is a complete moron and if it weren't a show, they would have crashed into a star on the first outing. Spock is made out to be intelligent, but he really just makes ludicrous assumptions and proclaims them "logical." McCoy is hilarious but ultimately useless, just there to act as a foil for Spock. Chekov and Sulu do nothing, especially Chekov, whose only jobs seem to be making faces at the camera and not having any lines. Uhura's job can be done by pressing a single button. Somehow Scotty is always left in charge of the ship and somehow he always does exactly the stupidest thing possible. It's almost as if the writers had something against Scottish people. He really is that dumb.

Obviously Kirk is the focus of the show, and the writers could not have chosen a better direction. He's easily the best character in that he can magically fix every problem by

1) punching someone in the face

2) seducing a woman

3) seducing a woman and then punching her in the face

I absolutely love this show.