Gravitational Attraction
What would happen if two people out in space a few meters apart, abandoned by their spacecraft, decided to wait until gravity pulled them together? My initial thought was that …
Star Trek and Storytelling
I'm a big fan of Star Trek. I grew up with it (on re-runs), followed the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine with interest. I did skip Voyager and Enterprise, but definitely follow the recent reboot movies.
Although I still enjoy the storytelling of Star Trek, I do have a problem with it that creeps into other shows as well. I noticed it again in the most recent movie. Because Star Trek is a franchise, almost by definition, none of the characters can actually die or change in any substantive way. Because of this, from a storytelling perspective, dramatic scenes are a lot less dramatic.
One way to see this also is to imagine spinning out possibly story lines, given only the pilot episode. If you did this for, say, Star Trek the Next Generation you would probably hit a few of episodes even as late as season 7. If, however, you tried to do it with Babylon 5 you wouldn't even make it to late season 2. Perhaps this is the story telling equivalent of market failures with monopolies.
I enjoyed the new Star Trek movie (especially in 3D!), but I sometimes wish that this lingering constraint on the show were lifted. Imagine, for example, a series set in the Star Trek universe where the characters actually change? Where there isn't a technological solution to every problem? Where the outcome wasn't really known in advance?
