#don't come at me if they're not bongos you KNOW that SPIRITUALLY those are BONGOS

[mylittleredgirl]

i will always love the original version of the deep space nine theme song best, but i do understand why they put more zip to it in the later seasons. breathtaking musical composition, but yeah it's kinda slow for an action/adventure tv theme song, so if you're already remaking the opening sequence to add the defiant, go ahead and punch it up. good idea, good execution.

fully hilarious though that enterprise tried to do the same thing ten years later, because as memeable as faith of the heart is the Skip Intro era, it's really hard to overstate how much vitriol people had about the theme song in real time. i will say that fandom history overstates this a little because it wasn't universally treated as a sin against god, there were at least twelve diehard trekkies out there (including me) who looked at this gorgeous intro sequence paired with a mediocre cover of a rod stewart song and went "hmm. weird choice, but you make a good point, i would like to have strength of the soul and reach any star."

but the star trek fans who like being mad about star trek were frothing at the mouth. it wasn't just silly and bad this was the rallying point for how enterprise was an affront to star trek. they were NOT going to take it lying down, they had torches they had pitchforks, they were nailing a list of grievances to the church door and THE FUCKING THEME SONG HAS LYRICS was thesis #1.

(followed by "why are the vulcans jerks :(" and an itemized list of every single canon inconsistency)

so it is so, so fucking funny to imagine the network meeting that must have taken place sometime in late season two when they were bleeding audience numbers and UPN started making the worst previews of all time ("tune in for next week's SPECIAL ENTERPRISE EVENT: ✨Canamar✨!") (the previews also spoiled the ending of every episode for months, like they weren't just bad they were actively damaging) (it was soooo so hard to have a good time as an enterprise fan in 2003).

so this meeting happens and they go okay. we know what to do here. first up. put "star trek" back in the name (it was just "enterprise" for the first two seasons to "attract a new audience"). next. is there a way we can make this about 9/11. great great good job. can we put jolene in a different catsuit? and then some intern whose job it is to monitor the forums on television without pity timidly reminds them about the torches and pitchforks and they're like oh yeah we should remix the theme song! and the intern is like WHEW so should i book an orchestra for like an hour to do an instrumental version of the closing credits and then bermaga or some clown at UPN is like no no no you're not getting it. the lyrics aren't the problem. they just don't understand our vision because there weren't enough bongos.