How William Shatner Changed the World

Overall, I enjoyed this presentation. A lot of this is not new stuff, (Communicators are cell phones; We get it already!), but its presented in an entertaining enough way.

What I have a problem with is the last half hour or so. As Shatner gets into the later Trek series (DS9, Voyager, Enterprise), the show becomes less about Trek-science influencing the real world, and more about Shatner bashing the later Trek shows, and offering his opinion on why they failed.

According to Shatner, it all comes down to getting away from Roddenberry's shiny, optimistic view of the future.

First of all, DS9 and Voyager lasted 7 seasons. While they may not have had the ratings of TNG, they certainly had an audience, or they wouldn't have remained in production. 7 seasons is not a failure by any stretch.

Secondly, any problems those shows might have had were not necessarily due to the lack of Roddenberry's vision. Enterprise, in particular, suffered a lot simply because fans were annoyed that continuity was ignored at times.

My main complaint though, is that the whole thing is tacky and classless. There's no reason to spend time bashing the work of the later Trek generations. If they ran out of material for the "science" end of things, then produce a shorter special. There's no need to pad it out, and certainly not by attacking the later series for daring to experiment with the formula established by TOS.