I saw a commercial last Saturday that advertised the station's intent to start airing digitally remastered episodes of the original series of "Star Trek" on Sunday afternoons. As dated as they are, I still enjoy the opportunity to get a little Trek infusion from time to time. Even though my projects right now are largely set in the past or in a fantasy world, I'm feeling the old sci-fi bug beginning to stir again.

Anyway, it so happened that I remembered this commercial on Sunday as I finished washing the dishes, realizing that it was about five minutes before Trek would start. So I sat down with chips and soda, ready to immerse a little into a future where men and women explored the galaxy in velour and miniskirts (though it wouldn't be until later when the men would do both).

And, wouldn't you know it? The episode they decide to air is "Spock's Brain."

For those of you not as deeply geeky as me, "Spock's Brain" is widely considered the worst episode of Original Trek - more properly: Worst. Trek. Evar. Apparently it was used to begin the third season of the show, which gives you some idea of how far the series had fallen from its ambitious origins. And this episode really does have some of the worst features of the series - airheaded space bimbos in go-go boots (and lest you think I'm being mean, Bones and Kirk go to a lot of effort to tell us just how stupid, stupid, stupid they are), Eegah-style cavemen, plenty of MST3K-style "universal lever" controls (both Space Bimbos and Starfleet folks use a few simple push-button controls to accomplish a wide variety of complex tasks, often pressing the same button for different effects), non sequitur lines and camera mugging from Bones and Kirk, a remote-controlled Spock (complete with metronomic ticking every time he moves), and an utterly useless Chekov (having said that, Chekov does give us a fine example of a phaser's "Heat Rock" setting, which should please Michael). And this fine enchilada is wrapped in a warm tortilla of corn: sexist attitudes, a flagrant disregard for the Prime Directive, and loopy "you're supposed to think this is a funny moment" music at the end of the episode. What's really staggering about it was that, surrounded by space bimbos in go-go boots, Kirk fails to even attempt shagging anyone. Weird.

Having said all of this, I had a good time watching it. It was really goofy, and I had a good laugh. A serious show, done poorly, is at least funny. A comedy done poorly, on the other hand...

Marilyn's been wanting to see "Music and Lyrics" for a few weeks now, but every time we're at the rental store, they don't have any in stock. So this weekend I decided to get another movie Marilyn had glanced at more than once, "American Dreamz." It also stars Hugh Grant, and promises to be a satire on "American Idol." Since Marilyn watches that show fairly often (and I mutter darkly about it), I thought it might be a good substitute. Unfortunately, I think someone needed to tell the filmmakers that this was what their movie was supposed to be about. Instead, after about five minutes, we were subjected to a seemingly-interminable political lampooning of President Bush that seemed to have been written by kindergarteners. Seriously, this isn't just my political bias talking here - had he been in the room, I think Kham would have felt insulted. It wasn't clever or witty or cutting; it had about the same effect as watching someone write "Bush Sure Is Stupid" in crayon on a white canvas over and over and over for an hour and a half. I glanced at RottenTomatoes.com to see how it had fared (41%; Rotten). One of the critics quoted put it well: "This overly silly satire aims at too many targets with arrows too dull." However, I think that to say it was 'silly' is being generous.

Against good sense, we clung on and watched the entire thing, hoping it would somehow redeem itself. It does kill Hugh Grant's character in the end, which was different, but even that wasn't enough to save it: he was playing the Simon Cowell role, and since Simon is the only thing I like about "American Idol", it didn't win me over.

"Brain and brain! What is brain?"