I am really, really tired. Bear with me.
Last night, I went to bed at 6 o'clock, but due to a confluence of evil factors, ended up still awake, tossing, turning, as late as 9:30. That's the last time I remember looking at the clock. I got up sometime before one 1:00 this morning.
I usually get to bed between 7 and 8 o'clock, because of the odd hours I have been keeping for the last few months. I am the morning news anchor on an Albany, New York radio station, and I have to write all my own news. My first newscast is at 5:06 AM every weekday, so in order to get the news written and be ready to go on the air every morning, I have to be up, out of bed, and ready to go by, wait for it...2 o'clock every morning.
Well, every weekday morning. I could, I suppose, sleep in on weekends. But I generally keep to something resembling my weekday schedule on the weekend, both because I wake up then anyway, and because it gives me some quiet time to work on the web site before my kids wake up and chaos ensues.
I really need peace and tranquility in order to work on the web site. When working with HTML, I'm like Doctor McCoy on Star Trek that time he put on the alien learning device in order to learn how to put Spock's brain back in his head. As I feverishly bang away at the computer, the knowledge begins to fade, and I feel inadequate, lost...
Hopefully you've seen that Star Trek episode and have some idea what I'm talking about.
Speaking of Star Trek (and I was, kind of, sort of), as I write these words we're just a few hours shy of the broadcast of the final new episode of Star Trek: Voyager. What a miserable seven years it's been, with this show contaminating the airwaves with its lame plots and aimless scripts. Voyager will be remembered as the show that made even John DeLancie boring. Thank God it's over.
Voyager had plenty of good things going for it in the beginning. Most of the actors were well-chosen (especially Janeway and Tuvok, who could have had a wonderful Kirk/Spock dynamic in the hands of capable writers and producers), the ship looked terrific, and there was even a new idea there. Voyager the ship had a computer system run by bio-neural gel packs, meaning in some sense, it was alive. If I recall correctly, in seven years, exactly one episode played with the potential of that fantastic concept: Voyager's computer caught a cold. Christ!.
Of the 172 episodes Voyager produced, perhaps 25 were watchable. Less than 10 were really any good at all. I don't think these was a single one that was flawlessly good in the manner of the many of the original series episodes, or even Next Generation's "The Inner Light."
Another Star Trek series is in the works, the desperately-named "Star Trek Enterprise." It should be subtitled "Remember? You liked this show when it had an Enterprise in it!"
Frankly, Scott Bakula bores me to death. I know a lot of people liked Quantum Leap, but I always saw it as the A-Team with special effects. Every week, the formula was the same. Find someone in crisis, help 'em out of it, move along. Not far from Touched by an Angel, for my money. To me the only thing interesting about Scott Bakula is that his last name rhymes with "Dracula." Now, that's interesting. But, not very.
You just noticed I really have nothing to say this week, didn't you?
I broke my toe a week ago yesterday. Not just any toe, either, but the big toe on my left foot. I had just picked up my kids after school, driven to the local comics shop to pick up my comics, bought my wife some flowers, and come home. We were on our way up the stairs, when my foot didn't quite connect with a step, and I felt myself begin to go down. Instinct took over (save the flowers! Shit, save the comics!!), and I lurched forward a bit. I felt my left foot bend in half the wrong way as I went down squarely upon it. Crunch.
I couldn't leave the house for over 24 hours, because of the white-hot, nauseating pain that rose up every time I moved my foot. Now, a week later, it still hurts, but not as bad. No, I didn't bother seeing a doctor. You know what they say, there's nothing they can do for a broken toe.
I actually have no idea if that is true, but the pain has subsided a little more every day since it happened, and as long as that trend continues, I will avoid the $15.00 co-pay at my doctor's office.
I'm delighted to see that I have now typed enough words that anyone who glances at this page will think I actually wrote a new column this week. "Job well done!" they will exclaim, as they go read more interesting features than this opinion column. Like Broken Donuts, or the copyright notice at the bottom of the front page.
Finally, to wrap up this Defenders-like "non-column" (just to bring comics into it, at least once), The X-Files wrapped up its season Sunday night, and with it, presumably, the saga of Fox Mulder.
Since actor David Duchovny is leaving the show, except for vaguely hinted irregular guest appearances, one assumes next season the focus will be on Agents Reyes and Doggett. I kind of liked their scene at the end of the season finale, and while there were some stinkers this year, I'll definitely be back next year to see where the post-X-Files X-Files ends up going. It'll either be really, really interesting, or very quickly cancelled.
I'll certainly miss Mulder. Duchovny's wounded coolness was the heart and center of the show, and the relationship between he and Scully was sublime in its best moments. I'm not particularly upset about the kiss the two shared at the end of the season finale, because it struck me as having been arrived at honestly. The only real cheat was the vagueness behind the alien conspiracy, especially in regards to Krycek and whatever he was up to. It could have been cool watching Skinner execute him, but given that we really learned nothing before his death, it was a waste of a sometimes-fascinating character. Ratboy is dead, miss him, miss him.
If the Mulder/Scully story is advanced, it will most likely be in a sequel to the Fight the Future feature film of a few years ago. That film provided some great special effects, and a big-budget feel that the series only occasionally achieved. If the continuation of the TV series allows for another theatrical release as entertaining as Fight the Future was, it has justified its continued existence.
I'd love to write something about the actions taken by Mark Green in the season finale of ER, but you know what? My toe still hurts, it's time to post this non-column, and I may need more material next week.