Carrie and the final frontier...

January 26, 2013 3:29 PM

Trek and the City "Needless to say, the Prime Directive wasn't the only thing Samantha violated that night." (Single Link Twitter Feed)
posted by crossoverman (39 comments total)

It makes sense when you realize "The Carrie Diaries" are to S&TC as "Enterprise" is to TOS.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:40 PM on January 26, 2013

I liked this one:

Worf broke up with me. ON A POST-IT.

but most of the others followed a pretty simple "star trek-derived thing is x, but relationship/sex/S&TC thing is not-x or x-with a twist" pattern that seems improvable-upon.
posted by clockzero at 3:51 PM on January 26, 2013

Yeah, it's a little formulaic, but I think the formula itself, the Carrie monologue machine, is actually the Sex & The City-derived part: (1) trite or conventional observation about the world, but (2) actually it's true in a slightly unexpected way!!! or else the opposite!!! So it feels to me like the real superfluous joke-killing icing here is the borrowed S&TC character names, actually; it's funnier when it's just the Trek characters being described in the manner of the other show, not Samantha chasing Klingons.
posted by RogerB at 4:04 PM on January 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

I dunno... is "Samantha says that the final frontier is doing anal with a Cardassian" funny if we substitute the names, Kira, Tasha or Kirk?
posted by crossoverman at 4:12 PM on January 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

I dunno... is "Samantha says that the final frontier is doing anal with a Cardassian" funny if we substitute the names, Kira, Tasha or Kirk?

It certainly isn't funny if we don't.
posted by clockzero at 4:18 PM on January 26, 2013

"Kirk says that the Final Frontier is doing anal with a Cardassian." Well, it's certainly more fun to picture that way.
posted by koeselitz at 4:20 PM on January 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

It certainly isn't funny if we don't.

I disagree. I think the image of Samantha having sex with a Cardassian is much funnier and the joke works on the level of Carrie's narration and Samantha being in the Star Trek universe.

Carrie narrating Tasha, Kira, Janeway and Seven of Nine's sex voyage through the Trekverse, while amazing, is less funny to me.
posted by crossoverman at 4:47 PM on January 26, 2013

I dunno. I'm mildly entertained, but it feels like the author does a search and replace on show quotes more than making up anything.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:53 PM on January 26, 2013

Tough crowd; I thought this was hilarious. But I guess the intersection between people who actually enjoyed S&tC as well as Star Trek is pretty small.
posted by nev at 4:56 PM on January 26, 2013 [5 favorites]

A party of Klingons had taken the bridge, but as Samantha saw it, being taken by Klingons was always a party.

It was worth it for this alone.
posted by arcticseal at 5:13 PM on January 26, 2013 [8 favorites]

I follow this! Along with @seinfeldToday, @TNG_S8, and @AuthenticWmGibs. I don't know what to call this category, but "twitter fanfic" might suffice? I love it.
posted by rebent at 5:21 PM on January 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's been done.
posted by condour75 at 5:36 PM on January 26, 2013 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: I'm mildly entertained.
posted by vibrotronica at 5:46 PM on January 26, 2013

condour75, if you actually looked at the Twitter feed - the only link in the post, you can clearly see that the author knows Kim Cattrall was in The Undiscovered Country.
posted by crossoverman at 5:49 PM on January 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh man @seinfeldToday is fantastic.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:14 PM on January 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah I'm guilty of posting that before rtfa. Although in my meager defense, someone visiting the feed who was unacquainted with trek vi would very likely assume the image was a photoshop.
posted by condour75 at 6:51 PM on January 26, 2013

The terrible thing is that when I first saw this, I thought, "huh, I wonder if you could pitch this as a show? Four sassy friends trying to find love, or at least a good time, while traveling the galaxy."

Then again I don't think there's ever been a successful sci fi comedy, so.
posted by Sara C. at 7:12 PM on January 26, 2013

Red Dwarf had its moments.

Not a lot of sex though.
posted by Artw at 7:16 PM on January 26, 2013 [4 favorites]

I almost posted exactly what Artw said.
posted by crossoverman at 7:18 PM on January 26, 2013

Embarrassing: I had no idea Red Dwarf was a comedy until right now. I kind of lumped it in with Babylon 5 and Stargate and such, for whatever reason.
posted by Sara C. at 7:22 PM on January 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE: Hyperdrive
posted by Artw at 7:28 PM on January 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

Then again I don't think there's ever been a successful sci fi comedy

Never read any Douglas Adams, eh?
posted by axiom at 8:45 PM on January 26, 2013 [6 favorites]

Douglas Adams never wrote a 22 minute network sitcom with commercial breaks and a laugh track. I guess you could describe some of his work on Dr. Who as comedic, but it's definitely not the kind of stuff that reads as Comedy on American TV.

Of course, nowadays American network TV can play a little more fast and loose with what Comedy is, but still, I doubt anything as interesting as Douglas Adams would fly here.
posted by Sara C. at 10:18 PM on January 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, both Farscape and Stargate SG-1 were action comedies.
posted by Authorized User at 2:03 AM on January 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Drink all the Cosmos" suddenly takes on two very different meanings.
posted by ShutterBun at 4:19 AM on January 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

Red Dwarf had its moments.

Not a lot of sex though.


Setting us up for a "Disney Princesses give Yelp reviews" post, are ya?
posted by ShutterBun at 4:22 AM on January 27, 2013

I am disappoint in you all that after 15 hours no one has yet written "Eponysterical!"

Anyway, I trust someone will let me know if there is an entry that tells us Samantha is Valeris-curious.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:21 AM on January 27, 2013

Sara C.: "Embarrassing: I had no idea Red Dwarf was a comedy until right now. I kind of lumped it in with Babylon 5 and Stargate and such, for whatever reason."

And that's after you watched the whole series!

(I'm kidding -- I liked Red Dwarf, although it was weird having a crush on Chris Barrie.)
posted by theredpen at 6:24 AM on January 27, 2013

Tough crowd; I thought this was hilarious. But I guess the intersection between people who actually enjoyed S&tC as well as Star Trek is pretty small.

I'm afraid that my reaction is that I love Star Trek, and still really don't like S&tC.

Chris Barrie, however, is very cute. He's even cuter playing Lister's mannerisms, with a Liverpool accent, in that body-switched episode.
posted by jb at 6:34 AM on January 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

Well, both Farscape and Stargate SG-1 were action comedies.

Except when Farscape had you weeping your eyes out.

It isn't a comedy: it's a drama show with a sense of humour. The plots were written for dramatic purposes, not comedic or action. The mini-series was more action-oriented, which is why I didn't like it that much.

I haven't seen enough Stargate to say, since I only watched season 9. Perhaps it is better described as an action show, but the comedy is more incidental than integral.

All dramas have to have some comedy, or they are insufferable. Just like comedies have to have some real drama or be fluffy or empty.
posted by jb at 6:40 AM on January 27, 2013

Yeah you are correct about Farscape.

However Stargate was pretty much exactly an action comedy. The producers even jokingly said that they are secretly making a comedy.
posted by Authorized User at 7:16 AM on January 27, 2013

Futurama is a SF comedy. Recent Who is pretty damn goofy/ funny most of the time.



huh, I wonder if you could pitch this as a show? Four sassy friends trying to find love, or at least a good time, while traveling the galaxy."

I think I've been working on this spec script for months now.
posted by The Whelk at 7:55 AM on January 27, 2013 [3 favorites]

All dramas have to have some comedy, or they are insufferable.

The crucial difference between the Stargate franchise and the Battlestar Galactica remake. (Maybe there was some comedy in BSG, but I'm hard-pressed to remember any. Although it was well-cast, well-written, and well-acted, for me it suffered from the Dune disease of unrelenting earnestness. SG-Universe suffered for trying to go in a BSG direction.)

I've noticed that comedy may be the crucial element when one, as a scifi fan, in trying to convince a non-scifi-loving friend that a show is worth watching. That was illustrated to me, in a back-handed sort of way, back when ST-Voyager was just starting up and a housemate who wasn't remotely a ST fan (though he was a software engineer; so much for stereotypes) sat down with us to watch an early episode, which already had many of the hallmarks of unwatchability that would come to dominate it. It wasn't until Robert Picardo's snarky holodoctor showed up that my housemate remarked, now, this guy I like! So while the show really wasn't worth watching, it was almost saved by that bit of levity.
posted by Philofacts at 9:39 AM on January 27, 2013

Voyager had high points, usually involving the Borg, the Doctor or everyone getting killed in an alternate timeline, but it's central cast was pretty unappealing and boy did it love backing away from it's own premise.
posted by Artw at 9:57 AM on January 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Let's just say it wasn't a total train wreck, though its attempts at humour were, for the most part, all too self-conscious.
posted by Philofacts at 10:14 AM on January 27, 2013

Sci-fi sitcoms ... there aren't too many. Mork and Mindy might be the most successful fo the bunch, though that's straying pretty far from space-based sci-fi. Tripping the Rift is closer, though more of a gross-out comedy. Maybe Small Wonder?
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:07 AM on January 27, 2013

As for other shows, mentioned or not:

Hyperdrive: lots of talent, interesting premise, decent production values. Fails miserably

Red Dwarf: reasonably funny, but sometimes is dated. Above all else, avoid "season 9". Also, the novelizations were better.

Stargate: reasonable drama, with comedy in appropriate doses. Never fully recovered from RDA's decision to leave.

BSG: Too earnest, plus didn't really have multiseason planning. What they did have was a desire for each season to top the ones before, and greedy corporations that sought to milk an instant hit for all it was worth.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:37 AM on January 27, 2013

And when I used to read fanfic, there were a decent number of crossover parodies, like Cheers + TNG; or a Romana knock off and David Letterman travelling through other classic TV shows like Magnum P.I. or Dark Shadows.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:38 AM on January 27, 2013

I thought Hyperdrive was pretty funny.
posted by BeeDo at 5:01 PM on January 27, 2013