Actually, as I recall, it's "Even a man who is pure at heart, and says
his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the
moon is full and bright." Maria Ospenskaya.

Part of the problem with American culture is that we're a throwaway
culture...yesterday's fashions get tossed out instantly. To say that TNG or
DS9 are *better* shows than TOS because TOS was "of its time," or "good for
its time" is at heart a foolish statement. Something is good, or it is not
good. Nobody writes like Shakespeare anymore; was Shakespeare good "for its
time?" Is it not good today because it is too much "of its time?" Chaucer?
Marlowe? Hemingway? Dickens? Serling?

We denigrate our past to falsely ennoble our present. "Well, that was
okay for *then*, but it's not very good *now*." We all labor under the rules
and predelications of the moment. Yes, TOS operated under rules of that time,
just as TNG operates under the rules of syndication, and the secondary and
tertiary rules that come along with the fear of not botching the franchise by
doing anything too controversial. One could make a good argument that, by
calcification and commercialization, there are MORE creative strictures on
the ST "form" than there were in the days of TOS; certainly most of the
writers who've worked on the contemporary versions will tell you this.

Nonetheless, we should recognize that people aren't just stupid en masse
one year, then suddenly smarter today. If TOS was good, then it was good;
*we* may have changed, but the quality of the show as perceived then, is still
there.

End of sermon.

Tentative title for #319: "Grey 17 Is Missing."

jms