This week the demise of the latest Star Trek series "Enterprise" was announced amid mixed reaction. Star Trek has been declining in audience since the premiere of the previous series "Voyager", which ran its full seven years. "Enterprise" ran four years before its ratings fall in the face of the new Scifi channel's three show lineup (Stargate: SG1, SG: Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica) guaranteed its cancellation.

The cancellation by the UPN network had been rumoured for months and had been presaged by the ousting of original series showrunners Brannon Braga and Rick Berman by longtime writer Manny Coto. Collectively this group had been the main creative forces behind the Star Trek series since "Deep Space Nine" in the 90s. The cancellation means that for the first time in fourteen years (god time has passed) there will no longer be a current Star Trek series on the air.

Star Trek has been a familiar staple for science fiction television for most of my adult life and my feelings are lukewarm toward it. This season's episodes of "Enterprise" were not bad and at least a couple were good. However, the series format (another crew, same formulaic plots) has been stale since "Voyager" never found its feet. Rather than being a bad concept, it has in a way been a victim of its own success as the writers seem constrained by the four series' worth of plots, the weighty Star Trek canon and characters that seem like modifications of previous casts. After so many shows, Star Trek has felt, at best, as 'safe' entertainment. You know the characters will be happy at the end of the episode or arc, the Enterprise will be sailing on and the story neatly wrapped up.

Last season's year long 'Xindi' arc attempted to inject the feeling of risk into the series. After all, the fate of humanity was at stake. But even that felt like a lesser cousin to the more intense Battlestar Galactica miniseries the same year. The problem centrally was that the cast and crew still were those Star Trek cliches. Archer, for that season, was pushed to be more of a ruthless captain because the stakes were so high. But when it is too much to expect real changes in a series (see The WIre and Oz for series that have real surprises) the feeling of risk is not there. The high stakes are not fictional humanity's, it's the stake you have with characters.

We live in a world with startling, cataclysmic changes. When the fictional world fails to keep up with our real world, then it needs shaking up.

Winter driving, some of it in the snow: 12.9 L/100 km or 21.6 MPG (44.52 litres to travel 342.6 kilometres)

Err.. on its way? Things have been extremely busy in and out of work so much that I haven't been able to chip away at the new site. Taking two courses at SFU (technical writing), juggling contracts and spending time is making life extermely full. I've also been learning Adobe InDesign so I can write the upcoming Clipstream™ Video 3 Manual. So business as usual until I can get a free weekend.

A great book about bank robberies in "the bank robbery capital of the world" which is Los Angeles. The reason why it is the bank robbery capital of the world is because the freeway system allows perps to take off after the heist and be many miles of way within minutes of the crime. The book is related by William J. Rehder, a longtime FBI agent who worked bank robberies exclusively and mostly in Los Angeles. Each of the five chapters are long and concentrate on one signficant robber but within those chapters Rehder provides some great background, forming a nice counterpoint to the fiction of bank robberies we see on TV, film and in other popular media.

The subjects he chooses range from the nice guys (polite, never use real guns), to the vicious (cracked up homies), to the psychotic (the North Hollywood guys) and also, in one intriguing chapter, a crew of amateurs who got away after planning three ingenious heists and seemingly stopped their criminal lives after a near escape. Highly recommended for those who like crime stories and who like writing about crime. Rehder spends one good chapter on the life of an FBI agent and the rest of the book contrasting that with the loser-dom that is the life of the bank robbers, however varied they are.

Although Rehder uncovers many robbery techniques (the good and the bad), he writes that any criminal can learn the same and more current methods by being in prison. He also shows that no bank robberies in general do not pay in the long run despite what Hollywood likes to portray on the big screen (Rehder worked as a creative consultant for Keanu Reeve's character in Point Break) . Each successive robbery puts the odds against the perpetrators and the economics of bank robbery do not work out. Publisher link >>

On a personal note, I extend my congratulations to my big brother and best wishes for accepting an offer by Bioware of Edmonton. Kevin is moving to Edmonton in March to take on duties as a producer at the well-respected game developer studio best known for its D&D licensed RPGs. Kevin has been wanting to get back into the game business since he was a producer at Electronic Arts in the 90s. His love of games and good nature probably recommended him to his new employers. I iknow that he is going to do extremely well. The well wishes also are extended to his wife, Vicki, who will now be faced with the challenge of raising a newborn (due in a few months) in frozen northern Alberta.