I've been a regular at Roddenberry's philosophysphere.com, but that community, largely driven by EFC's fans, is slowly dying as the show itself bursts into flames, becoming yet, we fear, another trite show that defines itself by the amount of skin and situations that you manouever the Heroine, Renee Palmer, and the one original cast member, Ronald Sandoval -- into. So now that Enterprise has launched, and since EFC ain't completely dead until the Fat Lady sings, so now, I'm here looking for company of like minds who are not entirely satisfied with the way that the Industry crafts and then neglects shows or drastically alters their premise in search of the market that they have already determined is only composed of males of about 18-28.

But they are wrong. Some of us die-hard scifi fans are older and SURPRISE of the female persuasion. Right now, the Suits think they have the Female Viewers pegged, but some of us do not WANT scifi to mix with the sword and sorcery/fantasy genre. We LIKE science fiction, with, well science and fiction that has this thing called a plot and the more complex the better. We are picky about dialogue, about characterization and we would LIKE to see intelligent females in positions that are credible.

In addition, I don�t know if it�s a new trend or just an attempt to broaden their market, but I hear that those who publish scifi are creating a new genre � SCIFI ROMANCE, which I hope won�t be Mills and Boone meet Space 1999 with sighing Nurses in Space melting into a He-Man�s arms or a Female with a Sword, er Energy Weapon looking to fight with, then bond, rather graphically, with a Male or Whatever with a Similar Aptitude. There is a chance that EFC�s morphing into a vaguely Xena like pairing of two female leads is a stab at cultivating the �female market� but really, THAT is not what we want, not a show designed to be what THEY think women want (aside from fluffy kittens, heroines weeping in long dresses on the prairies, women doing back flips with two guns in their hands ).

It always eluded, or perhaps confused EFC�s creators that though the vocal younger female fans were brought in by the buff and generally amateaur performance of Liam/Robert Leeshock, there was a substantial amount of us, often from tech fields and degreed, looking not for �love and romance� -- which is the typical crap that the Suits are so sure that we little ladies crave (note that in most shows, the heroine always wears heels even if she is good with a gun which means that she is designed for MALE appeal and not FEMALE ROLE MODEL) -- but rather an action/mystery format where the world was painted in shades of grey. And we liked the Taelons. We liked androygenous energy beings often MORE than a big sweaty male with hair that looked like it had been caught in a blender. In other words, CUTE BUT DUMB, did not ring our bells.

So, yes. You guessed it we males and female scifi fans like the same thing. And I suspect that in the latest Roddenberry vehicle -- To�pol, if Enterprise is to be successful, will have to quickly turn from Cute Alien Babe to really smart, interesting AND cute alien babe who reminds us that Spock was the first Vulcan we saw. You might say that we just want equal rights to not just admire the scenery but to be impressed with how cleverly the characters extract themselves from dangerous and delicate situations by not just using their bodies but their minds.

And we liked it best when EFC demanded that we USE our minds. Often the fun continued when we took our arguments, our speculations on-line to the Boards. What most of us liked, and discussed in detail on the EFC Boards, was that you had to mull over what characters said, and when, to discern what the Hell was actually going on. We had to THINK, in other words, instead of just sit back, like so much of TV, and enjoy the view using 1/2 of our brain cells.

At first, the show satisfied. It was wonderful, with complex arcs. Then it abruptly turned into Action/Adventure with T & A and many fans set their VCRs and raced though the Man in Black Leather scenes to the increasingly small bits of Human and Alien interaction. The �villians� Zo�or and Ronald Sandoval gradually became more interesting when the Hero Character of Liam Kincaid was never developed. We raved on the Boards, and wrote letters and mailed them to the Suits, calling for scenes that would have intelligent humans engage the aliens into dialogue about how they changed from a violent warlike race into one that was composed of nearly immortal energy beings. We also wanted to know the why of why the Taelons were driven, though nearly religious fevour and complex schemes, to alter our physicality and perhaps our mentality for their own reasons. We called for more explanations of Taelon bio-tech, more of the exploration of the possible connections between us and alien races in our ancient times.

What answer did we receive?

We�re getting Ata-Babes, aliens with breasts and hair who are psychic vampires who move real fast and no �on location� settings. Buffy in a vaguely EFC setting. All the organic Taelon tech will just be backdrops (proving that this is science fiction) for mundane plots where you KNOW the eventual object is to get the Human female alone with the Alien male in a compromising situation, then have her blow him away because he�s �evil and sensual.� And we know, already that the new aliens are EVIL and SENSUAL because THEY told us, in the promos.

So much for giving us credit to puzzle out the mystery with our OWN brains and gone is the fun of pooling our mental resources and attempting, in an electronic simulation of the Taelon Commonality, to make SENSE out of some of the odder episodes. It�s common knowledge that in any Game, the key is to allow the player to immerse themselves by creating a sense of interactivity. Mystery shows, some well plotted Action Thrillers � especially of the Spy genre like Le Carre�s �Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy� series, shows which make the viewer have to enter a well constructed alternative world, are more exciting to the fans, who at times become quite fanatic, because they have to think, to anticipate the many plot twists and turns.

What happened with EFC, highly rated in its first season, is truly sad though there's a campaign on to get the SCIFI Channel to pick up the pieces after the 5 and current season -- a Monster Fest -- will be over. Of course, once the Taelons, bio-energetic aliens from the Maruva galaxy, an androygenous species that possesses aspects of a collective consciousness, once THEY left, it was over for most fans.

The show had a lovely dark irony which it kept up until the aptly named �Point of No Return,� the last episode of Season 4 which wasted two interesting alien races in order to give the plot a shift to Stage Left � where we did NOT want it to go. It may continue to do this, be adult as in witty, intelligent -- but I don't know. The Producers of the show never realized that science fiction fans WANT to know the aliens (often in ourselves) and got locked, early on, into Evil Alien Plots with gormless heroes using energy weaponry to right what was often a wrong created because WE were the aliens to the Taelons and not because they were the �bad guys� whom the Suits were convinced that they were.

Actually, I liked Season 4, partly because they were dealing with the Zo'or and Sandoval relationship. We got good lines, where Sandoval, under Jaridian influence, told Zo'or he was taking over the control of the Mothership and the Synod Leader was pitiful, deluded and helpless (or something of that sort). Zo'or just looked at Ron and asked, "Why have you taken to lately insulting me?"

Ron: "Because it gives me satisfaction."

Zo'or: "Now that that is over, please assist me in...."

The wording wasn't right, but it was one of the times that they actually took care to deal with the fact that to Zo'or WE are the aliens. He didn't seem to mind or care that Sandoval was maligning him. Seemed to understand that Sandoval needed to vent and show his teeth. Then just wanted to move on without showing a flicker of anger. ( And it was clear that the Taelon was puzzled as to WHY Ron hated him and what it had to do with completing his job).

I guess I was just spoilt as a kid by the thoughtful Spock/Kirk or Spock/Bones dialogue. When EFC excelled, it was WHEN they treated the Taelons and us as both being kind of alien. When EFC went off the deep end, the writers stopped bothering about fleshing out the Taelons (or anyone) and just moved the characters around like little action figures, setting up complex scenarios so as to make the Fearless Hero look good and save the day.

To me the POINT of EFC was not about saving the day, but learning how to adjust, to work closely with others who see very alien. This is a very Roddenberry concept, though most of the show was NOT his idea which was just a few notes with Da'an as the only alien and clearly one set up just to be a bad guy. The original creative team had the maturity to realize that many problems on this earth are due to cultural misunderstandings and the tendency that folks get to just push their agenda because they are CERTAIN it is the best way to get things done. Da'an learned quickly to listen to Boone, to gain insight into how our minds work, how we can do violent acts, protect ourselves and not go completely out of control (which is probably how the Atavaii will be protrayed. Pure Id with no internalized self-control. If the storyarc still had a Taelon left to set up a Commonality, to persuade the Atavaii to join it and to become more civilized, I'd be pleased with that. But I don't think we're getting that.)

I still think that if some sensible people purchase the concept, it could still fly. I prefered the first Season and the Taelon myth-arc to the Kimera stuff which felt like a less challenging or morally interesting story. It was always clear that the writers thought that Liam Kincaid was a Good Guy and Zo'or and Sandoval were Bad Guys but we never got the movations or the shades of grey that we got in Season one.