I love Star Trek. I really do. But sometimes the art direction makes me cringe a little, particularly in regard to some of the outfits they chose to dress aliens (and even crew) in. You can somewhat expect that from the original series--they had a limited budget, were breaking new ground, and it was the sixties after all. They had an episode with Space Hippies for Spock's sake! Although you'd be hard pressed to find a good explanation for that weird helmeted Starfleet Security uniform that pops up in The Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan.

The Next Generation showed the influence of the eighties by dressing fan favorite Wesley Crusher in that god-awful grey sweatshirt thingy with the Fruit Stripes at the top. Just thinking of it makes me ill. Though, not perhaps as much as the sight of someone wearing the "skant" outfit from the first season. If you're gonna put a guy in a skirt, at least make it Scotty in a kilt.

I thought by the time Voyager, the 4th series, had rolled around in the mid-nineties, that some of this silliness would have been left behind. Imagine my shock when the other day I caught a first season episode in which the crew visits a planet Rainbow Brite threw up all over. Maybe they felt they hadn't exploited their Fall palette enough in the series. I dunno. I just shook my head and sighed (at least that's the story I'm sticking with. I certainly did not roll up into the fetal position and chant "This isn't happening. This isn't happening!" over and over). I'm not sure why I was surprised--Christ, half the time Neelix (see left) looks like the wall to a dentist's office.

I bet if there were still a Star Trek series on TV today, the aughts would influence it just as much. At some point I'm certain we'd meet an alien species bedecked in plastic shoes and t-shirts bearing vaguely amusing pop-culture references.