Paul Gadzikowski

In one of my first LJ entries, I wrote in part:

Phil Khan observed, in a roundtable in the current Webcomics Examiner, of a particular artist that he's not interested in what the guy does but loves that he does it. scarfwoman didn't like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, because that day she'd been in the mood for something familiar, whereas I liked it, being a student of the way a fiction evolves from one medium and era to the next.

Trekfans railed against Enterprise from the start - at least till season four when Coto, Brennert and the Reeves-Stevens signed on - because it kept poor continuity with the original series. (The reason the year four stories were better wasn't that they kept continuity. They may have been inspired by continuity but the bottom line is that they were better written.) Fans complained that Berman was trying to make Star Trek over his way. But that's what I liked about it. I said so from the start: I said it was the closest he'd gotten to remaking the first series (and in saying so I persuaded scarfmom to keep watching when she hadn't been persuaded by the first episode or two).

More recently I posted (reprinting a comment I'd made at Websnark):

The thing about family is the explanation why I continued to enjoy Star Trek beyond 1995 when so many others were abandoning it or, worse, sticking around just to kick it while it was down. But this is no second cousin, this is a brother. I've always wanted to quote The Search for Spock, "I'm talking about loyalty", when the arguments roll around. ...

Then last week someone on my friendslist commented in a discussion on the current state of Doctor Who,

I like the TV Movie of Cheese too. But then again, I like Star Trek Enterprise. And the Tank Girl movie. ... So, y'know. Take it for what it's worth. :)

And that just brought home the thought I'd had earlier that day, that I've always been inclined to give a screen showrunner more credit for his/her intentions than most of the consuming public despite how actually successfully those intentions were executed in the eyes of everyone else. So if I've done that for Rick Berman and George Lucas, why won't I do it for Russell Davies?

Well, arguably I started, though I've backslid a bit. (And the Doctor's actions at the end of Family of Blood really do strike me as out of character for him and poorly rolemodelish, and as only the most obvious example of such in Davies' body of work.) But certainly I can afford to offer the same benefit of the doubt to the reviver of my favorite screen franchise as I offer to men for whom the internet invented the idiom "has raped my childhood".