I saw this Onion item yesterday and thought it was one of the funniest bits they’ve ever done (and that includes the one a while back about how we couldn’t endanger our precious gays by letting them in the military). I say this as somebody who has actually loved all the minutiae of 40+ years of the cult that is Star Trek while looking forward to this movie.

There’s name-checking and there’s name-checking. Tossing out a one-off line that gets caught by hardcore fans in a “hello Cleveland” sort of way isn’t a problem (Doctor Who does this constantly these days and is completely new viewer friendly). Making a big deal about *finally* seeing a Tholian creates this weird little event that only the hardcore would care about and comes across as the wagons being circled from the big bad world out there which doesn’t understand Star Trek.

I remember checking out four or five episodes during Enterprise’s final season (including the much-praised Mirror Universe story) and just couldn’t believe that these were the stories that fans thought would save the franchise… if only they hadn’t pulled the rug out from under them. It was still the same old uninteresting show, now with constant referencing to other Star Trek shows… which, to be fair, was pretty much the point of the series from the beginning as we fire the phasers for the first time, and use the teleporter for the first time, and meet the Ferrengi for the first time (only they don’t quite meet them in order for Picard to meet them for the first time), etc.