# Why Startrek is Dead (Opinion Thread)



## BrooklynKnight (Mar 26, 2005)

Many many people have opinions and reasons for why Startrek has declined.

10 years ago Startrek still pulled in high ratings, in fact it still does today. TNG and DS9 on Spike TV have drawn more viewers then episodes of Enterprise (at least during the marathon runs). Factoring in the fact that most of TNG was available on DVD and half of DS9 was as well, thats pretty impressive. (Or pathetic depending on how you see it).


Here are my "reasons" for why Enterprises ratings are so low.

Inconsistent writing
Inconsistent production values
Fluxuating format
Time Slot
Network Aired on.

To be more specific, TNG and DS9 (and even VOY) had much more consistent quality in terms of the storyboards and direction of the series. The production values of their episodes were higher and there were fewer "shifts" in the direction of the series along their careers. TNG was always an episode to episode type series. DS9 had one major shift in direction, which worked (the Dominion War, the change is highlighed by the return of Worf) , and one minor change (season 7 with the departure of the actress who played Jadzia) which worked less, though the series was on its way out anyway. Voyager had a consistent theme the entire series, which was hard to keep up. There are only so many ways to tease them with ways home before it became stale. The shows primary problem was overuse of time travel, more so then any other Trek series before it. However it returned to the roots of Trek, exploration, and thus it held its ratings till Season 7. ENT however changed its focus and direction EVERY SEASON. Not to mention it soured fans Right out of the gate with a bad themesong, and basically spitting in the face of trek continuity. 

So, Ent started by shooting itself in the foot, but what really killed it?

Enterprise aired on UPN. UPN a fairly new network (compared to NBC, ABC, CBS, and even FOX) had more trouble finding its niche then the WB. There were various attempts at Sci-fi shows over the years from Seven Days, Special Unit 2, and Jake 2.0, however none of these shows were really given time to shine. UPN slowly became a "network" BET. In many places here in NYC you can find HUGE billboards with an all black cast advertising "UPN, RATED NUMBER 1 AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICANS". Obviously UPN cared more about getting ratings (and revenue) from its "target" crowd then from an established entity like startrek. Because of this Startrek was often shafted and placed in bad time slots competing against shows which drew on the same ratings pool.

According to various sources (mine are my Broadcast Textbooks, all published within 2 years ago, and these facts should be easily verified on the net) 98% of homes in the US have TV's and 92-95% have Cable (or Satelite, or Digital TV or some sort of service which delivers more then what they can receive in their local broadcast area). 

Today, Enterprise competes with Stargate and Battlestar Galactica....two extremly well done SCI FI series. Done better then Enterprise. Its no guess to see why Enterprise has crappy ratings.

Unfortunatly UPN (and their parent company Paramount, which i beleive is owned by Viacom) and Brennan/Braga dont care enough about the Trek Franchise, or its potential to give it the proper treatment. 

"Whats the proper treatment?"

The 4th season of ENT was finally getting on Track in terms of Production Values and Writing, though ratings werent rising due to competition.  ENT, or any startrek show, needs to be coupled with another sci-fi series, on a friendly network, at a timeslot that does not compete for the same ratings pool. 

For example, if Enterprise were coupled with The SG1/Atlantis/Galactica block on Sci-fi its ratings would surge. What geek could resist a 4 hour block of Sci-fi at its best?

Alternativly, moving to Spike TV and coupling with re-runs of another trek series, or a new/fresh sci-fi show would do wonders too.

Paramounts/UPN's attitude has killed 2 incredible shows, 7 days, and Jake 2.0 (one of which has found a home on Spike TV), due to their unwillingless decide what their true audience was.  Now its killing a 3rd...(4th if you count Special Unit 2, 5th if you count Nowhere Man).

This whole "rant" was brought on in my Broadcast Management class at college. It got me an A+ too.


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## trancejeremy (Mar 26, 2005)

6th if you count "Homeboys in Outer Space"

(It was a parody of both cheesy sci-fi and blaxploitation shows, a concept which many people didn't seem to get. Since I guess it was a pretty unique combination)


But to answer your ST question, I think a large part had to do with the timeline.  It was set in the past. Yet, it really wasn't the past as developed in any of the other shows, it was almost on it's own. 

Also, the sets were too grey.


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## James Heard (Mar 26, 2005)

> For example, if Enterprise were coupled with The SG1/Atlantis/Galactica block on Sci-fi its ratings would surge. What geek could resist a 4 hour block of Sci-fi at its best?



Just to be clear though, at least around here Enterprise IS part of the 5 hour block on Fridays. I know because it took some kicking and screaming to get it programmed correctly into my DVR - It's Andromeda (which usually gets summarily ditched)/Enterprise/SG-Atlantis/BSG/SG1 IIRC. With only one flip. It's was a whole lot easier than convincing the devil machine to record Lost and Smallville at the same time, let me tell you.

Anyways, the block works - just not without going to a second showing. I sort of figured it was Scifi hedging its bets with the viewing audience by programming things that way really. But yeah, I get what you're saying. Universal has so mismanaged the license for the past several years that SciFi couldn't hardly screw up worse - even if they resorted to flatulent puppets and Kevin Sorbo.

Actually I've been thinking that perhaps the truly daring approach to Star Trek might be in reinventing it entirely- look at BSG. It might magnificently offend purists and canon-freaks, but it's not as if the essence of the show isn't reinventing the same wheel-shaped ship and cast each time anyways. Maybe a musical.*





_*Just kidding._


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## gtJormungand (Mar 26, 2005)

James Heard said:
			
		

> even if they resorted to flatulent puppets



Sci-fi's _Farscape_ had one of those... it was helium, too.


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## Shemeska (Mar 26, 2005)

BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> 5th if you count Nowhere Man).




God I loved that show...


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## BrooklynKnight (Mar 27, 2005)

Shemeska said:
			
		

> God I loved that show...




There were more too, does anyone remember FX the Series? 

There were also some lower budget but still "good" shows, The Sentinel (also on Spike Today), Team Knight Rider (i know I loved it, as campy as it was), and a show that revolved around a car that morphed itself into a high-tech crime fighting machine.

None of these shows were ever given their due because of the terrible management at UPN.

Even Buffy wasnt given its due on UPN. (Though I do admit I loved the Musical)...


I was hoping to stir some more conversation with my post, hrm.


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## BrooklynKnight (Mar 27, 2005)

James Heard said:
			
		

> Actually I've been thinking that perhaps the truly daring approach to Star Trek might be in reinventing it entirely- look at BSG. It might magnificently offend purists and canon-freaks, but it's not as if the essence of the show isn't reinventing the same wheel-shaped ship and cast each time anyways. Maybe a musical.*
> 
> 
> 
> ...




An argument can be made that Enterprise WAS that attempt. Couple the complete lack of respect for continuity, with the bad design (a 22nd century ship that looks more advanced then a 24th Century Akira Class? What?) One reason ENT was "always" lax on ratings was because it alienated the fans from the start by not respecting the franchise to begin with.

Sci-fi Channel, it appears, has always respected the franchises they have taken over. Stargate is one really big shining example of this.


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## DaveMage (Mar 27, 2005)

Several things doomed Enterprise from the start, but there are three that stand out for me:

1. It was a prequel that messed with an already-inconsistent canon.  
     Such as:
     Suddenly vulcans aren't our friends.
     All the races which we supposedly don't meet face to face until in later series are here: 
     (borg, ferengi, romulans), yet it's revealed that the Romulans have made contact with
     the vulcans.  Okay, sure.  
Prequels are about the past, while Start Trek (IMO) should be about the future.  Stupid to make a prequel of a franchise that takes place in the future.  It got old when not only did they have humans mispronounce "Klingon" in the pilot, but then to have Sato mispronounce "Romulan" the first time she hears it.  Gah!  We get the joke already.  

2. The opening credits.  The producers said they wanted to portray Enterprise as it's own show and not the "same old" Star Trek.  They failed to realize that there are a very large number of Star Trek fans who love familiarity.  Suddenly, this opening credit sequence is not what we've become used to for the franchise.  Gone (for seasons 1-3) are the words "Star Trek", and gone was a familiar classical theme.  In its place we have a song.  A song that has nothing to do with traditional Star Trek, rather it's a theme about having faith to fulfill your dreams.  Great.  After the first episode, Enterprise was in space, and the song was stale.

3. UPN.  Until 4 months ago, we didn't have a UPN station.  Trying to *find* Enterprise became a season-to-season challenge.  Originally, it aired on the local WB network at 10:00 PM a few days after it was shown on UPN.  Then in later years it was on Fridays at 4:00 pm on a CBS station.  Sometimes it would be pre-empted when said CBS station showed a basketball tourney, or somesuch.  Pathetic.

I say let the franchise rest until a legitimate cable network demands a new ST show.  From what I'm hearing about Star Trek XI, it looks like Berman just doesn't get it.  He's talking about a whole new cast and a whole new plot - in the past.


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## James Heard (Mar 27, 2005)

> An argument can be made that Enterprise WAS that attempt.



Oh, I know - but I'm saying that maybe the way to go was to head off toward a Trek that respected continuity only as much as say Star Fleet Battles does. Something obviously related, but completely seperate.

Unfortunately, as it's been said, continuity has never been Trek's strong suit in the first place so it might be difficult to automatically seperate itself from canon right from the start without confusing the average viewer. BSG gets away with it mostly because the tone of the plot is almost a complete 180 from the old series, and I think that would be the exact wrong way of distinction for a Trek series. I suppose if one were really brave you'd recast Kirk and shoot something that would force people to shriek in horror at first, a quick sink or swim right from the get-go (because the acting would have to absolutely top notch and flawless at least at first).


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## Orius (Mar 27, 2005)

Why Star Trek is dead? 

Because it's constantly beaten like this on the Internet much like a deceased equine.

Seriously though, I've been arguing the UPN is part of the problem for a while.  They're not going to pull in big ratings when UPN is only aired in larger TV markets; how are they going to compete with ABC/CBS/NBC or even Fox, which have stations all over the place?  There's no local UPN station here, but at least Enterprise stayed in a stable synidcated time slot.  Voyager however kept bouncing around.  That sort of crap's going to kill the market.

Then it doesn't help when you don't have the right audience on your network for the show in the first place.  WB at least got its act together fairly quickly, and found some success in airing programs that appealed to teens and young adults. UPN spent about 10 years airing all sorts of stuff like it was a Big 3 network back in the old days.  Only within the last few years did UPN find it's own niche, which I understand is urban minorities and 18-35 women.  Not exactly the demographics for sci-fi.  It didn't help when WB stuck Smallville in the same time slot (can't stand when networks pull nonsense like this).    So  what do they do?  They pull the genius move of putting it on Friday night, which is a bad night for viewership in the first place, and in the second place has become a big night for Sci Fi  to air their big shows.  So naturally the ratings tanked.  Maybe if Viacom execs had half a brain, they would have pulled Enterprise off UPN and put it somewhere it could thrive becore it tanked.

I think some blame should be placed on Berman and Braga's heads, particularly Braga, but Viacom's mismanagement of Star Trek played a significant role.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 27, 2005)

Star Trek became a franchise, it no longer boldly went where everyone else has gone, the shows dumbed themselves down to appeal to the largest TV demograghic, it was no longer smart sci-fi but standard TV and standard TV over the years has fallen on hard times, PCism, and the bottomline.


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## Darth K'Trava (Mar 27, 2005)

BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> An argument can be made that Enterprise WAS that attempt. Couple the complete lack of respect for continuity, with the bad design (a 22nd century ship that looks more advanced then a 24th Century Akira Class? What?) One reason ENT was "always" lax on ratings was because it alienated the fans from the start by not respecting the franchise to begin with.
> 
> Sci-fi Channel, it appears, has always respected the franchises they have taken over. Stargate is one really big shining example of this.





That ship was too advance to be prior to Kirk's Enterprise. It should've been a simpler design ala Cochrane's warp drive rocket ship.

It wasn't meant to be "your daddy's Trek" from the get-go. Maybe that was its problem: being different than the "norm" for Trek and then trying to fit everything we'd seen in the previous post-TOS shows on this one: ridged Klingons, Ferengi...


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## Ranger REG (Mar 27, 2005)

*A Longtime Trek Fan Speaks...*

Sighs. Why _Star Trek_ is dead or dying (as some hopefuls would say)?

You need remember two names, is all: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

Until they resign from the franchise (even better, resign from Paramount), I'm gonna keep bashing on them, day after day after day.

I was ready to sign off _Enterprise_ as Braga's second failure (his first being a replacement executive producer of _Voyager_). This season -- albeit too late -- Berman and Braga made what I believe the smartest move in the history of their employment with the franchise: they hired Manny Coto.

Manny Coto is the sole reason why fourth season is a lot easier to watch than the previous three, despite the fact that Berman and Braga can still override him and they're his boss. But he was brought in too late.

OBTW, don't spoil me on the series finale. Once I heard that it will be penned by Berman and Braga, I knew they just had to screw this series one final time, for old time's sake.


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## Alzrius (Mar 27, 2005)

BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> Not to mention it soured fans Right out of the gate with a bad themesong




I can't believe this part contributed to your A+. Russell Watson's rendition of "Faith of the Heart" is extremely well done (much better than Rod Stewart's take on it, certainly), and the montage of images displayed during the opening theme sync up rather well (if not perfectly) with the song.

I personally think that most Star Trek fans had just gotten much too used to the opening we'd seen over the last four incarnations (which was basically the same theme song and imagery rehashed...yes it was different for each, but the basic music and imagery were all of a piece) to be able to accept something so different, like lyrics, and images of things that weren't celestial phenomena and alien planets.

To me, the opening theme of Enterprise has been unfairly panned simply because it dared to go where no (Star Trek) opening had gone before.

...

The show itself sucked, of course.


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## John Crichton (Mar 27, 2005)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> I can't believe this part contributed to your A+. Russell Watson's rendition of "Faith of the Heart" is extremely well done (much better than Rod Stewart's take on it, certainly), and the montage of images displayed during the opening theme sync up rather well (if not perfectly) with the song.
> 
> I personally think that most Star Trek fans had just gotten much too used to the opening we'd seen over the last four incarnations (which was basically the same theme song and imagery rehashed...yes it was different for each, but the basic music and imagery were all of a piece) to be able to accept something so different, like lyrics, and images of things that weren't celestial phenomena and alien planets.
> 
> To me, the opening theme of Enterprise has been unfairly panned simply because it dared to go where no (Star Trek) opening had gone before.



I basically agree.  I didn't love the opening but it does work with the theme of the show.  Heck, Voyager had the classic Trek opening and that series really sucked.



			
				Alzrius said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> The show itself sucked, of course.



Oh right.  

Actually, there were some pretty good Trek eps from S1-3 but they weren't consistant and the TCW was handled badly.  S4, however, has been an bitterly ironic sucess.  To me, it begs the question of:  had VOY come after ENT would it have mande 7 seasons.  That answer, I have to assume, would be no.  ENT death is a victim of timing and bad network decisions and standing.


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## MacMathan (Mar 27, 2005)

I was one of the few in our house that appreciated the different type of opening for ENT. If the show had dared to be as refreshing it might have worked. I agree that Berman and Bragga need to be replaced ASAP.

As a sidenote- I can't believe I am hearing the new BSG referred to as "good" sci-fi. :Yarp: I couldn't even make it through more than half an episode at a time.


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## John Crichton (Mar 27, 2005)

Allow me to retort.    I do love me a good Trek conversation.



			
				BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> Many many people have opinions and reasons for why Startrek has declined.
> 
> 10 years ago Startrek still pulled in high ratings, in fact it still does today. TNG and DS9 on Spike TV have drawn more viewers then episodes of Enterprise (at least during the marathon runs). Factoring in the fact that most of TNG was available on DVD and half of DS9 was as well, thats pretty impressive. (Or pathetic depending on how you see it).



I take it as neither.  Both shows have a built-in, loyal fan base that can only increase with repeated viewings of its best offerings.  Continued exposure via current media forms just makes sense.  And Trek has always done well in syndication which is essentially what is continuing now with DVDs and chronologically correct syndication.



			
				BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> Here are my "reasons" for why Enterprises ratings are so low.
> 
> Inconsistent writing
> Inconsistent production values
> ...



Comments have already been made of the theme song so I'll just leave that alone.  As to why Voyager stayed on the air, I'm really not convinced that it was because of the classic exploration theme.  I believe it had more to do with a lack of similar programming on the air and the steam of Deep Space Nine.  Recall that VOY aired concurrently with DS9 for 5 years.  So those with a Trek jones could tune in and catch a little extra Trek that was in the vein of the original and TNG but with considerably worse execution, acting and writing.  So between many Trek fans (unfairly) not liking DS9 to begin with it Voyager simply had to make it 2 more seasons on its own steam.  Not a hard thing to do on a new network that had no other programming that pulled in ratings.

I will agree that the timeslot change did not help one bit.  Few shows have survived the Friday night slot, most notably the X-Files but that one eventually got a better one.  If it had started on Fridays that would have been one thing but moving there after being on mid-week gave it almost no chance on a network that didn't reach as many homes as syndication would let it.  Being against another genre show on Wednesdays didn't help, either.  I blame UPN soley for this just as I blamed Sci-Fi for their mishandling of Farscape's airing schedule.

As for the inconsistant writing, production values and format I can only say that these factors had little in the way of ENT's cancellation.  The writing is subjective so I will not comment simply because I dissagree.  Same for the production values which only showed a noticably decline in the 4th season, ironically.  As for the format, I don't see your point.  If you mean that because it changed to season-arc format in S3 or mini-arc format in S4 that contributed to it's cancellation you may be right, but only if supported by other examples of this.  You can't really compare it to Trek because it has had done both formats (episodic and arc) sucessfully.  Genre TV works that way.

In short - Trek's decline and ENT's eventual cancellation had more to do with DS9, VOY and UPN than the actual show.



			
				BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> So, Ent started by shooting itself in the foot, but what really killed it?
> 
> Enterprise aired on UPN. UPN a fairly new network (compared to NBC, ABC, CBS, and even FOX) had more trouble finding its niche then the WB. There were various attempts at Sci-fi shows over the years from Seven Days, Special Unit 2, and Jake 2.0, however none of these shows were really given time to shine. UPN slowly became a "network" BET. In many places here in NYC you can find HUGE billboards with an all black cast advertising "UPN, RATED NUMBER 1 AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICANS". Obviously UPN cared more about getting ratings (and revenue) from its "target" crowd then from an established entity like startrek. Because of this Startrek was often shafted and placed in bad time slots competing against shows which drew on the same ratings pool.
> 
> ...



We certainly agree that UPN didn't handle or more likely couldn't handle Trek correctly.  They had the mediocre Voyager to start with and the average Enterprise to follow.  Both would have been better served to air like TNG and DS9 - in syndication, on weekends with repeats on Sundays.

An bigger problem that I can see related to the network is the budget to make the show.  Genre TV doesn't have to cost alot to make, however space sci-fi typically, especially Trek typically does.  Other genre shows such as Buffy and X-Files didn't cost nearly as much to produce (at least for the majority of their runs).  So if the audience was there in any force (say, a cult following) the show was a good shot to stay on the air.  ENT had good ratings for the network but the budget (just like other genre casualties) was a dead weight around its neck.



			
				BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> Unfortunatly UPN (and their parent company Paramount, which i beleive is owned by Viacom) and Brennan/Braga dont care enough about the Trek Franchise, or its potential to give it the proper treatment.
> 
> "Whats the proper treatment?"
> 
> ...



Sounds about right.  ENT was/is not a strong enough show to stand on its own without help from similar programming.  I feel this was changing in S4 but that isn't relevant to the past.

As for other genre shows being better so folks became hip to the "inferior" ENT, I don't really buy that.  There were considerably better genre shows on the air than VOY but that managed to stick around.  Look at other genres and you'll see tons of varied degrees of quality.  While shows may be compared to its peers there is hardly enough sci-fi space TV out there to justify your statement.  BSG and SG did not contribute in a major way to ENT's cancellation in any way related to quality.  The only comparision that could be made was the competion for a time slot in one season which hardly means a thing considering that the show was on the ratings decline since the start.



			
				BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> Alternativly, moving to Spike TV and coupling with re-runs of another trek series, or a new/fresh sci-fi show would do wonders too.



Well sure, but SpikeTV couldn't afford the show's production costs either and simply wasn't willing to take a chance on it.


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## John Crichton (Mar 27, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Sighs. Why _Star Trek_ is dead or dying (as some hopefuls would say)?
> 
> You need remember two names, is all: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.
> 
> Until they resign from the franchise (even better, resign from Paramount), I'm gonna keep bashing on them, day after day after day.



I don't hate these two guys.  Especially since Braga was responsible for some of the best Trek ever in the TNG days.  But they have stuck around too long.  That is the problem.  They are spent and both need to move on.  This should have happened 5 years ago.  I blame Paramount.



			
				Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I was ready to sign off _Enterprise_ as Braga's second failure (his first being a replacement executive producer of _Voyager_). This season -- albeit too late -- Berman and Braga made what I believe the smartest move in the history of their employment with the franchise: they hired Manny Coto.
> 
> Manny Coto is the sole reason why fourth season is a lot easier to watch than the previous three, despite the fact that Berman and Braga can still override him and they're his boss. But he was brought in too late.



Couldn't agree more.  Coto gets it and has done a great job cleaning up the place.



			
				Ranger REG said:
			
		

> OBTW, don't spoil me on the series finale. Once I heard that it will be penned by Berman and Braga, I knew they just had to screw this series one final time, for old time's sake.



Heheh.  I haven't read any spoilers either and would appreciate the same.  The previews are interesting but I really don't want to see those either.


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## Alzrius (Mar 27, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Actually, there were some pretty good Trek eps from S1-3 but they weren't consistant and the TCW was handled badly.  S4, however, has been an bitterly ironic sucess.  To me, it begs the question of:  had VOY come after ENT would it have mande 7 seasons.  That answer, I have to assume, would be no.  ENT death is a victim of timing and bad network decisions and standing.




Truth to tell, I agree completely. I liked Enterprise quite a bit. I only said what I said above just because it was humorous, not because I actually thought the show sucked. If there were any justice, another network would pick it up and let Manny Coto do the writing for a few more seasons. 

It's ironic that this seems to be going the way of the original series (without being resurrected by the fan campaign).


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## Chimera (Mar 27, 2005)

I'm not going to go into too many issues, because I think we know them well.

Instead I'm going to touch on the repetition of storylines, plots, scripts.  The bottom line for me is that they've built a formula that they keep going back to FAR TOO OFTEN for the stories to be fresh.

Such dead-horse-beat-to dustflakes as;

1.  The old Shuttle Accident story.  Most often two people, usually ones with some tension between them so that you've got that "human drama".
2.  Time Travel.  This alone killed Enterprise.
3.  We've got to stop "the weapon" (torpedo, remote controlled ship, whatever).
4.  Kidnapped crew member in peril!

Those are just four I can think of off the top of my head.  I know there are others that are escaping me right now.

They need fresh stories and they need to start by eliminating any and all of these stories that have been done a half-dozen times on EACH of the various Trek series.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 27, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> I don't hate these two guys.  Especially since Braga was responsible for some of the best Trek ever in the TNG days.  But they have stuck around too long.  That is the problem.  They are spent and both need to move on.  This should have happened 5 years ago.  I blame Paramount.



Well, I used to like Braga in the early days. After all, he was a co-creator of the Borg race. He is a decent writer, but only if he has someone over him editing his material. But when you put him in th executive producer's chair, let's face it, most stuff under his leadership sucks. He managed to mangle his own Borg creation during his reign of _Voyager._ In summary: a good writer, but a bad producer.




			
				John Crichton said:
			
		

> Couldn't agree more.  Coto gets it and has done a great job cleaning up the place.



Had Rick Berman hired him since season one as an executive producer instead of Braga, I would have considered backing off of Berman.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 27, 2005)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> It's ironic that this seems to be going the way of the original series (without being resurrected by the fan campaign).



FWIW, it lasted one season longer than _TOS._ But the fan attitude is different, with much of the mainstream remains the same.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 28, 2005)

I think it's because the fan base isn't growing. 10-30 years ago, people knew what a Klingon or a Photon Torpedo or a Phaser were. When I talk to the people in my classes or in my residence here, they don't know anything. It's stopped becoming a cultural icon.

That, and once it stopped being spoofed on SNL or MadTV was a dead giveaway. At least DS9 had a sketch on one of the earlier MadTV seasons called "Star Trek: Deep Stain Nine" or so.


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## James Heard (Mar 28, 2005)

I didn't even like the Borg. Inhuman adversaries just don't do much for me (allowing that the best aliens in ST are the ones that are basically human emotional personas). That's really why I think TOS worked, they're basically more of a "look at people" instead of "look at aliens" sort of thing. The borg worked best when they were off screen and you got to deal with the human drama of Picard on the bridge.


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## Dark Psion (Mar 28, 2005)

I think Voyager and Enterprise failed for two key reasons.

One: Failure to follow thru on the premise
Go back a look at the description of what Voyager was going to be; Maquis and Star Fleet in conflict, Maquis must learn to work within the rules and Star Fleet must learn when to break the rules and all of the crew must learn to survive without the resources of the Federation.

And Enterprise is supposed to take place before everything we know even happened, but how long did it take both shows to go back to Holodecks, Feringi and Borg? Neither show took any risks, they kept it simple and stayed where it was safe. Look how many FX shots from Voyager have been recycled into Enterprise (Flea Ship= Romulan Drone, Science Station=MIDAS Array) as well as stories.

Both of these series had something the writers and producers said they wanted, freedom from the franchise. They always complain that there is too much back story, people can't jump into Star Trek, well both of these series had the chance to create their own rules, their own universe.

Two: Abandon the fan base
Remember when 2nd edition D&D got rid of Demons & Devils? They did it to appease the "Angry Mothers from Heck", those who disapproved of the game. But all they really did was piss of the fan base of gamers who actually played the game. Critics are not going to just stop criticising, that's what they do and they are not going to start buying the product just because you made a little change.

Both Star Trek series tried to "reach a new audience" and there seemed an effort to divorce themselves from the "Trekkie" fan base. But all they managed to do was dumb down the shows and piss off the fan base. And after a while it got personal between the fans and Berman & Braga. You can see it in the writings of both sides, and if the final episode of Enterprise pulls off a Dallas-like ending *Spoiler* 



Spoiler



It was all a Holodeck program


, B&B may need bodyguards.

As with any TV or Movie series, it has to be made by someone who loves the topic and respects it. In the best shows, you can see a passion in the writers, actors and fans. I don't see it in the last two Star Trek series, I see more imagination on fan sites like Ex Astris Scientia than in Enterprise, at least until the 4th season. You can tell Manny Coto is a fan and wants to please the fans. While Berman and Braga are just wandering around out in the corn field behind left field saying "We are very pleased".

As far as most fans are concerned, they can keep pleasing themselves out there.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 28, 2005)

James Heard said:
			
		

> I didn't even like the Borg. Inhuman adversaries just don't do much for me (allowing that the best aliens in ST are the ones that are basically human emotional personas). That's really why I think TOS worked, they're basically more of a "look at people" instead of "look at aliens" sort of thing. The borg worked best when they were off screen and you got to deal with the human drama of Picard on the bridge.



I liked the Borg ... that is, until they started to humanize them.


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## Orius (Mar 28, 2005)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> I can't believe this part contributed to your A+. Russell Watson's rendition of "Faith of the Heart" is extremely well done (much better than Rod Stewart's take on it, certainly), and the montage of images displayed during the opening theme sync up rather well (if not perfectly) with the song.




I agree.  I don't know why fans bashed the opening sequence; the whole idea of it was a nod to humanity's thirst for exploration and desire to reach out to the stars. It felt right for Star Trek.  It also connected history and the modern world more firmly to Trek.  Were Roddenberry still alive, it would probably be a touch he'd approve of.

Also, the fact that it doesn't have a more classical type of score and so is bad is a bad argument; TOS didn't have a classical score for its opening credits either.


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## John Crichton (Mar 28, 2005)

Orius said:
			
		

> I agree. I don't know why fans bashed the opening sequence; the whole idea of it was a nod to humanity's thirst for exploration and desire to reach out to the stars. It felt right for Star Trek. It also connected history and the modern world more firmly to Trek. Were Roddenberry still alive, it would probably be a touch he'd approve of.
> 
> Also, the fact that it doesn't have a more classical type of score and so is bad is a bad argument; TOS didn't have a classical score for its opening credits either.



I remember the first time I saw/heard the opening sequence.  I didn't love the song (I warmed to it later) but the whole package made me feel good about the series as a whole.  Kinda bridged modern times to what could be seen as the future.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 28, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> I remember the first time I saw/heard the opening sequence.  I didn't love the song (I warmed to it later) but the whole package made me feel good about the series as a whole.  Kinda bridged modern times to what could be seen as the future.



The opening song? Liked it in the first season, until they decided to add more drumbeats. Now it sounds a bit like "bubblegum" pop music.


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## John Crichton (Mar 28, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> The opening song? Liked it in the first season, until they decided to add more drumbeats. Now it sounds a bit like "bubblegum" pop music.



 Yes, the newer version is inferior to the original theme.  I have no idea why they felt the need to "pop" it up.  Oh well.


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## Raven Crowking (Mar 28, 2005)

*Reviewer Wars*

Just a side note:

Do you think that the ratings failings on Enterprise have anything to do with the lousy reviews it received?  I, for one, was apparently watching a completely different show than, say, KJB was for his Trek Report on IGN.COM, where even the best episodes under B&B seemed to get lukewarm reception at best.

Yet the reviewer knows how he would write the show, were he given a chance.  Oh, yeah, and this is also the first Star Trek series to not accept unsolicited scripts (which I would not have known had the reviewer not mentioned it).  

In the sf community, internet reviews are read, digested, and talked about.  For many (I feel) they form the basis of personal opinion.

Why is Enterprise cancelled?  IMHO, the #1 factor is that reviewers are writers, and sf reviewers are sf writers.  And they don't get to write for Enterprise.  A combination of sour grapes and the internet did her in.

RC


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## John Crichton (Mar 28, 2005)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Just a side note:
> 
> Do you think that the ratings failings on Enterprise have anything to do with the lousy reviews it received? I, for one, was apparently watching a completely different show than, say, KJB was for his Trek Report on IGN.COM, where even the best episodes under B&B seemed to get lukewarm reception at best.
> 
> Yet the reviewer knows how he would write the show, were he given a chance. Oh, yeah, and this is also the first Star Trek series to not accept unsolicited scripts (which I would not have known had the reviewer not mentioned it).



I find myself reading his reviews simply as another opinion that I rarely agree with.  He is one jaded guy from what I can tell and he gets only a small amount of pleasure from actually watching genre TV.

He does give some interesting "insight" to the TV world in his articles and reviews but I think that just makes him more jaded.  It's almost like knowing all the magician's tricks before you see his show and then say it sucks afterword.  The perspective is shot.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> In the sf community, internet reviews are read, digested, and talked about. For many (I feel) they form the basis of personal opinion.
> 
> Why is Enterprise cancelled? IMHO, the #1 factor is that reviewers are writers, and sf reviewers are sf writers. And they don't get to write for Enterprise. A combination of sour grapes and the internet did her in.
> 
> RC



Reviewers don't kill shows.  If the show was any good and handled well by it's network then it will find an audience.


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## Wormwood (Mar 28, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I liked the Borg ... that is, until they started to humanize them.




The first appearance of the Borg (in "Q Who") was amazing. Totally inhuman, utterly beyond morality or ethics, like a swarm of locusts. Unlike the dozens of other 'unbeatable' foes in the Star Trek universe (from Gary Mitchell to Q), the Borg had no personlity or emotion to explot, no agenda to thwart, no Achilles heel to discover in the nick of time. They simply _were_.

It was a chilling view of the darker powers that remained undiscovered in the Star Trek universe---and I rember being blown away when I saw it.

Sadly, the Borg should never have been used again, since they were diminished whenever the writers revisited them.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 28, 2005)

As a side question: I know TNG and DS9 were produced in syndication, but what about the other series?


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## Raven Crowking (Mar 28, 2005)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> The first appearance of the Borg (in "Q Who") was amazing. Totally inhuman, utterly beyond morality or ethics, like a swarm of locusts. Unlike the dozens of other 'unbeatable' foes in the Star Trek universe (from Gary Mitchell to Q), the Borg had no personlity or emotion to explot, no agenda to thwart, no Achilles heel to discover in the nick of time. They simply _were_.
> 
> It was a chilling view of the darker powers that remained undiscovered in the Star Trek universe---and I rember being blown away when I saw it.
> 
> Sadly, the Borg should never have been used again, since they were diminished whenever the writers revisited them.






Well, the Borg were clearly a take on the Cybermen from Doctor Who...and how can you do that without making them lamer as time goes on?      (Seriously, though, as a big fan of Doctor Who, despite the obviousness of their roots, I still thought that the Borg were better realized than the Cybermen.)

John's probably right about the relative influence of reviewers, but I thought Enterprise was really good.  In fact, I thought it on par with, or better than, anything since TOS.  I certainly agree that not every episode was great, and that some of them downright sucked, but that has been the pattern with almost every series of every program ever.  Don't even get me started on the Doctor Who story, The Gunfighters.    

I liked the characters.  Battlestar Galactica might be flashier in some ways, and the stories are well written, but I don't care about the characters.  The grinding depression is also a bit of a turn-off.  On the other hand, Phlox is definitely one of my favorite Trek characters from any show.

Enterprise was also ambitious.  I mean, the biggest problem with the Star Trek future (or any utopian ideal) is the difficulty in getting _there_ from _here_.  Enterprise sought to at least open that question up, to explore it.  And, to the credit of the creative team, they didn't do it by saying "Earth has the biggest guns/strongest economy, and they'll blow up/trade embargo anyone who opposes them."


RC


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## satori01 (Mar 28, 2005)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I liked the characters. Battlestar Galactica might be flashier in some ways, and the stories are well written, but I don't care about the characters. The grinding depression is also a bit of a turn-off.





Which is actually why I like the new BSG as opposed to Star Trek, the more disposable nature of the characters means you can have realistic deaths, squabbles, and plots that shine different light on them.

BSG, SG-1, Bablyon 5, Farscape all have something that Star Trek as a franchise has not had for awhile now..Dynamicism, and a logical consistent malability at that.

I love Star Trek, I have given each series since STNG a chance,  ALL of them have lost me.  The Federation is sterile space,   the convention have been set in stone in honor of Roddenberry, the utopia is real, and History has ended. Simply put there is not enough life or juice in the Federation to have shows live up to the intresting programs being made right now.

Now if they make a show about the Warlike and cunning Klingons, or a political show set in the treacherous Romulan Empire... I would watch that, and the creaters could truly break the mold of Star Trek convention.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Mar 28, 2005)

The opening theme song was so lame it gave me a bad impression from the get go.  God that song sucks.  The tech level, the changing of continutity, etc.  There was so much stuff to work with but they do Temporal Cold Wars...ugh.  Enterprise is where it was headed from day one, cancelled. 


And good to see that other people realize that the Borg are blatent rip offs of the Cybermen!


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 28, 2005)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Just a side note:
> 
> Do you think that the ratings failings on Enterprise have anything to do with the lousy reviews it received?  I, for one, was apparently watching a completely different show than, say, KJB was for his Trek Report on IGN.COM, where even the best episodes under B&B seemed to get lukewarm reception at best.




Word of mouth - The show alienated its fan base and for the most part made enemies (maybe a bad word to use) of the hardcore ST fans, which did go about ripping the show where they could and that showed in reviews, so, yes. 



> Yet the reviewer knows how he would write the show, were he given a chance.  Oh, yeah, and this is also the first Star Trek series to not accept unsolicited scripts (which I would not have known had the reviewer not mentioned it).




Everyone had a idea what the new show should be like, even I, with Captian Logs.  This goes back to fan base.



> In the sf community, internet reviews are read, digested, and talked about.  For many (I feel) they form the basis of personal opinion.




And that is the failing of the internet: Information/opinion from anyone and you don't have a clue who they really are, their background or if they have an adgenda.    



> Why is Enterprise cancelled?  IMHO, the #1 factor is that reviewers are writers, and sf reviewers are sf writers.  And they don't get to write for Enterprise.  A combination of sour grapes and the internet did her in.
> 
> RC



The reason why it was cancelled, cost to produce vs companies to advertise.  It does not matter how good or bad a show is, if you don't have viewers, you can't sell commercial time, companies want the biggest bang for their buck, hit shows mean more people see your ads and a network can charge more for the spot.  There is a lot of disagreement with Neilsen rating but it is the one used.


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## Raven Crowking (Mar 28, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> The reason why it was cancelled, cost to produce vs companies to advertise.  It does not matter how good or bad a show is, if you don't have viewers, you can't sell commercial time, companies want the biggest bang for their buck, hit shows mean more people see your ads and a network can charge more for the spot.  There is a lot of disagreement with Neilsen rating but it is the one used.






In other words, the fans who bought the big ad in the L.A. Times should have paid for a commercial spot instead!     


RC



EDIT:  Btw, I agree that the "reviewers to blame" was a stupid thing to say.  Just frustration talking.  Mea culpa.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 28, 2005)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> In other words, the fans who bought the big ad in the L.A. Times should have paid for a commercial spot instead!



Or wrote the sponsors or better yet should have placed the ad in the Wall Street Jounral.   I mean, how many people saw that ad in a town of so much happening.


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## Villano (Mar 28, 2005)

Since I don't get UPN, I've only managed to see 2 episodes of Enterprise.  It was better than Voyager.  I still don't understand how that show lasted.   

Anyway, I didn't understand "prequel" direction, especially now that I hear that they used races that weren't supposed to known during that time.  Post-DS9 had a lot of potential.  The Romulans were allies and the Gamma Quadrant was now open.  If they wanted to go back to the whole "exploration and discovery" thing, why not have them explore the Gamma Quadrant?  

Getting back to why Trek in general seems to be dead, my belief is that it:

1.) Became a franchise, not a tv series.  It had to play everything safe.  When Peter David tried writing for B5, he's scripts were rejected as "too Star Trek".  He realized that he was returning everything to the status quo by the end of the story.  

Even when they killed off Data, they replaced him with a lookalike.

2.) Was locked into this utopian ideal of the future.  As the writers of DS9 revealed, they had so many alien characters in that series because the Trek mandate was that, in the future, humans don't argue with each other.  

Replicators did away with hunger and there's no money.  Now you have a world where no one argues and there's no hunger or greed.  Wow, that's one exciting place.  :\


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## Silver Moon (Mar 28, 2005)

I don't think that Star Trek is dead.    The above poster made reference to Peter David.   He's now written sixteen novels in his "New Frontier" series.   Susan Wright wrote an excellent Starfleet Academy novel titled "The Best and the Brightest" which has a great  concept worth expanding on.    DS9 (and even Voyager) left dozens of possible directions to continue in.    Not dead at all, just in need of some fresh perspectives.


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## Mallus (Mar 29, 2005)

Villano said:
			
		

> Now you have a world where no one argues and there's no hunger or greed.  Wow, that's one exciting place.  :\



In the hands of Iain M. Banks it was...  

In the hands of that stable of bloodless ST writers, not so much excitement, no.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 29, 2005)

Villano said:
			
		

> Since I don't get UPN, I've only managed to see 2 episodes of Enterprise.  It was better than Voyager.  I still don't understand how that show lasted.



There is absolutely no way that Braga's _Enterprise_ is better Braga's _Voyager,_ and vice versa. They're the same ship ... stuck in the Suckara Nebula onboard the USS Suckerprise.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 29, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> There is absolutely no way that Braga's _Enterprise_ is better Braga's _Voyager,_ and vice versa. They're the same ship ... stuck in the Suckara Nebula onboard the USS Suckerprise.




My, you are positive! I honestly didn't think that they were that bad. Sure, they could've been improved, and weren't as good as TNG or DS9 (I don't compare to TOS, since that was a different barrel of monkeys), but they still had something. I had a friend who, the only Trek he ever watched was Voyager, and my cousin who got into Trek (somewhat) was through Voyager.


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## BrooklynKnight (Mar 29, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> Word of mouth - The show alienated its fan base and for the most part made enemies (maybe a bad word to use) of the hardcore ST fans, which did go about ripping the show where they could and that showed in reviews, so, yes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




dont even let me get started on what complete and utter crap I belive the Neilsons to be.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 29, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> My, you are positive! I honestly didn't think that they were that bad. Sure, they could've been improved, and weren't as good as TNG or DS9 (I don't compare to TOS, since that was a different barrel of monkeys), but they still had something. I had a friend who, the only Trek he ever watched was Voyager, and my cousin who got into Trek (somewhat) was through Voyager.



Then you better correct them by showing _TOS, TNG,_ or _DS9_ DVDs.   

BTW, how can I stay positive when B&B are in the command chairs? I want to demote them. The franchise need new leadership, not more of the same craps. I mean, come one! Some of you were down on Lucas for the last two films, and I support y'all! He should not be directing! All I ask is for a solidarity against the leadership of the B&B regime. They should not be producers!


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## Silver Moon (Mar 29, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> How can I stay positive when B&B are in the command chairs?....They should not be producers!



I'll remind you that they were responsible for the movie "Star Trek: First Contact", which most people consider to be one of the very best of the Trek motion pictures.     I also thought that "Star Trek: Insurrection", while not what I had expected from a movie, worked very well when you look upon it as a two-hour Next Generation episode.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 29, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Then you better correct them by showing _TOS, TNG,_ or _DS9_ DVDs.




He's seen 'em. If I'm at his house, and I put it on, he'll watch it, but he's not ecstatic about it.



> BTW, how can I stay positive when B&B are in the command chairs? I want to demote them. The franchise need new leadership, not more of the same craps. I mean, come one! Some of you were down on Lucas for the last two films, and I support y'all! He should not be directing! All I ask is for a solidarity against the leadership of the B&B regime. They should not be producers!




Hopefully, Braga will be caught up in his new series. And Berman's old. He's older than my dad.


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## jester47 (Mar 29, 2005)

Star Trek is dead cause Dr. Who is coming back.  Star trek will never have more on screen hours than the greatest of all TV Sci Fi. 

Comon, the Borg are cybermen with better special effects.  Though it would be neat if they did have a sort of Dr Who, Startrek crossover.  It could be done.  There is an earth federation in Dr. Who, so it could happen... hey whats that at the door?  

AAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAH!!!!!

STAR TREK IS IN-FERIOR.  THE DA-LEKS ARE SU-PER-IOR!  THE TEL-E-VIS-ION SHOW KNOWN AS DOC-TOR WHO IS THE ONLY TEL-E-VIS-ION PRO-GRAM FOR LEGAL REA-SONS THAT CON-TAINS THE DA-LEKS.  THERE-FORE DOC-TOR WHO IS THE ONLY TRUE SCI-FI TEL-E-VISION SER-IES.  ALL OTH-ER SHOWS ARE PALE COM-PAR-I-SONS TO THE OR-I-GIN-AL.  ALL OTHERS ARE IN-FER-IOR AND MUST BE EX-TER-MIN-ATED!!!!!

EX-TER-MIN-ATE! 
EX--TER--MIN--ATE! 
EX---TER---MIN---ATE!


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## mojo1701 (Mar 29, 2005)

jester47 said:
			
		

> Star Trek is dead cause Dr. Who is coming back.  Star trek will never have more on screen hours than the greatest of all TV Sci Fi.
> 
> Aaron.




But Star Trek HAS had Big-screen hours.

Seriously, I think that it should go for some more movies now, but it'd be great if we had an Enterprise movie to show the Earth-Romulan war or something. Get Manny Coto to write it or something.


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## DaveMage (Mar 29, 2005)

It seems to me the set-up at the end of Nemesis would be a great start.  

Have the Enterprise and Titan on a mission together, or have one go look for the other.

It practically writes itself...


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## jester47 (Mar 29, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> But Star Trek HAS had Big-screen hours.
> 
> Seriously, I think that it should go for some more movies now, but it'd be great if we had an Enterprise movie to show the Earth-Romulan war or something. Get Manny Coto to write it or something.




Dr Who has had big screen hours, with none other than Grand Moff Tarkin himself as the Doctor: 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060278/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059126/

Granted they were kind of hammer films hokey.

Aaron.


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## frankthedm (Mar 29, 2005)

Star Dreck was bad Sci-Fi from the start and still is to this day. Aliens should be _alien_, not a shipcaptain's boink-buddies or deus ex machina for kewl powers on the human's side. Nemoy's Spock could have easily been a brilliant human sociopath, but making him an alien made his detachment more palitable. The next generation's Ferengi merchant/ double dealer could have easily been human, but making him alien was a crutch to soften the blow from his actions.

Today there is no excuse for 'Hawt vulcan action'.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 29, 2005)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> Star Dreck was bad Sci-Fi from the start and still is to this day. Aliens should be _alien_, not a shipcaptain's boink-buddies or deus ex machina for kewl powers on the human's side. Nemoy's Spock could have easily been a brilliant human sociopath, but making him an alien made his detachment more palitable. The next generation's Ferengi merchant/ double dealer could have easily been human, but making him alien was a crutch to soften the blow from his actions.
> 
> Today there is no excuse for 'Hawt vulcan action'.




Me confused. What TNG Ferengi?


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## Ranger REG (Mar 29, 2005)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I'll remind you that they were responsible for the movie "Star Trek: First Contact", which most people consider to be one of the very best of the Trek motion pictures.     I also thought that "Star Trek: Insurrection", while not what I had expected from a movie, worked very well when you look up it as a two-hour Next Generation episode.



That was a fluke. Yeah, they managed to make a handful of good episodes, but when you stack them against the pile of unimpressed episodes, it ain't good. So far, out of the four _TNG_ films, that one you mentioned is good. 1 out of 4. If I apply the ratio to a typical TV season, that means only 5 good episodes out out of 20 or so are good enough to impress me. A handful.

This fourth season of _Enterprise_ pretty much did the mandatory 5 good episodes and more, courtesy of *Manny Coto.* Yeah, that's right. He's the one that makes me want to come back to _Star Trek._ Not Berman & Braga. In fact, I will go so far as to praise one time they made the most intelligent move for the franchise in their employment history: hire Manny Coto as the showrunner this season, albeit late.

You can all complain about poor story writing and stuff, but when it boils down to it, you gotta name the people who are doing these.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 29, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> Me confused. What TNG Ferengi?



General Ferengi I would assume, they were introduced in the first show or was it the second and as a foe a couple of times to Jean Luc.  Rumor at the time was that they were to be the new foe, capitalist with no morals: everything for a price and do anything to open a market BUT this was changed (PCism?).


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## Orius (Mar 29, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> As a side question: I know TNG and DS9 were produced in syndication, but what about the other series?




Here goes:

Roddenberry first pitched the idea of Star Trek to CBS way back in 1964 or so.  They turned it down in favor of _Lost in Space_.  He then took it to NBC.  The original pilot, "The Cage", impressed the execs at NBC, but they were basically too stupid to understand it ("too cerebral" were their own words), and so asked for a second pilot.  The second pilot introduced Kirk as the captain, and the NBC execs had an easier time understanding it, since it ended with Kirk in a fist fight.  

However, NBC repeatedly dumped the show in unfavorable time slots, and it was always threatened with cancellation.  It managed to survive three seasons because of huge fan support, but at the end of the third season they pulled the plug.  Of course, if they didn't make the brain dead decision of putting it on 10 pm on Friday night, it might have done better, but who knows?  After cancellation, _Star Trek_ entered syndication, where it gained a great deal of popularity.

An animated Trek series was aired during the early 70s, but I know little about it, and it's not considered to be canonical (for the most part) anyway.

In the late 70's Paramont tried to start up a fourth television network, but plans for that ultrimatly fell through.  A new Star Trek show was to be one of the series offered on the network, and sets were built, scripts were written, and so on.  After the success of Star Wars, they decided to do a featrue film instead, and some of the scripts for this series were rewritten for TNG.

TNG was created during the mid 80's and launched in 1987.  Roddenberry decided to put it directly into syndication, probably because of the bad history Trek had had with networks and/or the fact that Star Trek had done better in syndication than on the networks.  DS9 was also produced in syndication later.

Star Trek returned to the netwroks with Voyager.  In the early 90s, Paramont succeeded in establishing a TV network, and Voyager was the first show that aired on UPN.  Later, Enterprise was also produced for UPN.


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## Orius (Mar 29, 2005)

Villano said:
			
		

> Anyway, I didn't understand "prequel" direction, especially now that I hear that they used races that weren't supposed to known during that time.  Post-DS9 had a lot of potential.  The Romulans were allies and the Gamma Quadrant was now open.  If they wanted to go back to the whole "exploration and discovery" thing, why not have them explore the Gamma Quadrant?




Keeping it in the 24th century would have had some interesting potential from the events of DS9, but I think the whole idea of doing prequels  was in vogue or something when Voyager ended.  Not that I think it was a bad direction for them to take.



> Getting back to why Trek in general seems to be dead, my belief is that it:




Hmm perhaps, but I think maybe the fans deserve some amount of blame too.  There's a lot of people out there in fandom that bitch about every little thing possible, and the Internet has magnified that tendancy greatly.  Not just Star Trek too, read Whisperfoot's rant at the beginning of  the "The Problem with Star Wars" thread.

  Too put it bluntly, I think fandom is its own worst enemy because it wants more of what it likes, doesn't know what that "more" is, and then bitches and moans when it doesn't get what it wants, which is all the time because it _doesn't_ know what it wants.  Not to mention most of these fans are armchair critcs as well.  WRT Star Trek, the problem is that the fans are in disagreement with what Star Trek "should" be doing.  I've read plenty of Star Trek posts here over the last few years, and if the content here is indicative of the larger community, the fans are clearly divided.  Some like the idea of a prequel, some don't.  Some think (I'll call them the Trek grognards) that TOS was the only real Trek and that everything after it sucked.  When the fans can't even agree on what they want, it divides the fan base which is the foundation fo Trek support.  Like I said above, this isn't just Star Trek, it's all of Sci-Fi/fantasy fandom.  I'm perhaps a little guilty of some of this myself, though for the most part I liked Enterprise, I liked the new Star Wars films, I like the 3.x D&D rules, etc.

I'm not entirely blaming the fans though.  I still think that bad writing and lackluster network support played pretty important roles in the decline of Trek as well.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 29, 2005)

I knew about Star Trek being made by NBC, and of the planning of Star Trek: Phase II (I saw a preliminary sketch for the new Enterprise... ugly), but I wanted to know what Voyager did. And you said so.



			
				Orius said:
			
		

> I'm not entirely blaming the fans though.  I still think that bad writing and lackluster network support played pretty important roles in the decline of Trek as well.




True, but I think it's the cynical attitude of people on the internet. Apparently, the only way people feel smart on the internet is to make something bad and saying, "I say this sucks, and I'm right because I'm smart," as opposed to saying what they DID like about the series.


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## Villano (Mar 29, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> General Ferengi I would assume, they were introduced in the first show or was it the second and as a foe a couple of times to Jean Luc.  Rumor at the time was that they were to be the new foe, capitalist with no morals: everything for a price and do anything to open a market BUT this was changed (PCism?).




I think it had more to do with the fact that they simply weren't good villains.  I don't think they started as capitalists, they were just angry midgets dressed in fur and using whips.  Watching the Next Gen reruns on Spike, it's hard to believe how bad the series began.  I can't watch any of the "ballet tights" episodes.



			
				mojo1701 said:
			
		

> True, but I think it's the cynical attitude of people on the internet. Apparently, the only way people feel smart on the internet is to make something bad and saying, "I say this sucks, and I'm right because I'm smart," as opposed to saying what they DID like about the series.




There are some things that have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Watch Howling: New Moon Rising some time.


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## mojo1701 (Mar 29, 2005)

Villano said:
			
		

> There are some things that have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Watch Howling: New Moon Rising some time.




Perhaps so, but that is the exception to the rule.


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## Ranger REG (Mar 29, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> True, but I think it's the cynical attitude of people on the internet. Apparently, the only way people feel smart on the internet is to make something bad and saying, "I say this sucks, and I'm right because I'm smart," as opposed to saying what they DID like about the series.



Which series do you want to know what I like? I fully liked _TNG_ and _DS9._

_VOY_? Just the early seasons that Brannon Braga is NOT an executive producer. While they weren't impressive, they didn't suck either.

_ENT_? Only when Andorians are on. Although I am Fan of All Things Klingon, I personally did not want to see more of them in the Prequel series, certainly not on the series premiere episode, "Broken Bow."

Gee, I managed that in three short paragraphs.


----------



## Alzrius (Mar 30, 2005)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I also thought that "Star Trek: Insurrection", while not what I had expected from a movie, worked very well when you look up it as a two-hour Next Generation episode.




Best description of the movie ever.


----------



## Silver Moon (Mar 30, 2005)

Orius said:
			
		

> An animated Trek series was aired during the early 70s, but I know little about it, and it's not considered to be canonical (for the most part) anyway.



It wasn't bad.  The animation was far better than other Saturday morning cartoons of that time and almost all of the original cast did the voices.  (They skipped Walter Koneig since they wanted to add a visually different alien to the bridge crew - but after he complained at conventions they made it up to him by having him write a script for an episode).   I never could figure out Roddenberry's later comments about it being non-canonical - it's certainly better Trek than the fifth movie.


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Mar 30, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> General Ferengi I would assume, they were introduced in the first show or was it the second and as a foe a couple of times to Jean Luc.  Rumor at the time was that they were to be the new foe, capitalist with no morals: everything for a price and do anything to open a market BUT this was changed (PCism?).




They were originally going to be the bad guys but came over so comically in that one ep that they became the future's "businessmen" instead. And they seemed to have garnered more "respect" as a result. I like Quark from DS9; he was a fun, greeeeedy Ferengi. But Ferengi to the core. This was our world's aspect of monetary greed thrown into Trek with a favorable result.


----------



## Viking Bastard (Mar 30, 2005)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I never could figure out Roddenberry's later comments about it being non-canonical - it's certainly better Trek than the fifth movie.



Which he also didn't want canonized.


----------



## Pants (Mar 30, 2005)

Villano said:
			
		

> Watching the Next Gen reruns on Spike, it's hard to believe how bad the series began.  I can't watch any of the "ballet tights" episodes.



I, personally, cannot watch the first two seasons of tNG.  There were some good episodes, but I'd have to wade through many, many bad ones.  tNG didn't really hit a good stride until Season 3.

DS9, on the other hand, started fairly strong IMO.


----------



## myrdden (Mar 30, 2005)

Orius said:
			
		

> Some think (I'll call them the Trek grognards) that TOS was the only real Trek and that everything after it sucked.




Whoa, whoa, whoa...

The Diaglo sub-routine was strictly programmed with D&D in mind.  Any mention of fads, hobbies, games or shows outside of D&D  is purely speculative...


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Mar 30, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Which series do you want to know what I like? I fully liked _TNG_ and _DS9._




As did I. TNG was already on when I started into Trek fandom a few years later... It was the main catalyst that got the whole Klingon fan base going hot.



> _VOY_? Just the early seasons that Brannon Braga is NOT an executive producer. While they weren't impressive, they didn't suck either.




The early ones weren't that bad, IMO. Then they came up with the stupid cloning shuttles and any way they can get to get Doc off the ship....



> _ENT_? Only when Andorians are on. Although I am Fan of All Things Klingon, I personally did not want to see more of them in the Prequel series, certainly not on the series premiere episode, "Broken Bow."
> 
> Gee, I managed that in three short paragraphs.




They shouldn't have put in races that weren't seen before TNG and DS9.... that was lameness on their part. The Klingon was stretching it as we weren't going to meet the Klingons that early and certainly NOT on Earth....


----------



## mojo1701 (Mar 30, 2005)

I thought that the TCW would've been an interesting Chicken-or-the-Egg paradox, assuming that we get aliens that were involved in the era, such as the Romulans or the Klingons. I didn't like the Xindi (although, as a future species...) as a plot point, not as a species. Same with the Suliban and "Future Guy."


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Mar 30, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> I thought that the TCW would've been an interesting Chicken-or-the-Egg paradox, assuming that we get aliens that were involved in the era, such as the Romulans or the Klingons. I didn't like the Xindi (although, as a future species...) as a plot point, not as a species. Same with the Suliban and "Future Guy."





The Klingons and Romulans were better written adversaries.


----------



## mojo1701 (Mar 30, 2005)

Darth K'Trava said:
			
		

> The Klingons and Romulans were better written adversaries.




Because they were classic and easily understandable. They both had their own culture. What do the Xindi or Suliban have?


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Mar 30, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> Because they were classic and easily understandable. They both had their own culture. What do the Xindi or Suliban have?




Couldn't tell ya. Missed that season.


----------



## Orius (Mar 31, 2005)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I never could figure out Roddenberry's later comments about it being non-canonical - it's certainly better Trek than the fifth movie.




So?  Roddenberry didn't consider Star Trek V to be canonical either, or at least considered some of it's elements to be "apocryphal".


----------



## Arnwyn (Mar 31, 2005)

Orius said:
			
		

> When the fans can't even agree on what they want



You're wanting millions of people to all agree on something entertainment-related?


> Too put it bluntly, I think fandom is its own worst enemy



It's not fandom, it's _people_.


----------



## mojo1701 (Mar 31, 2005)

Orius said:
			
		

> So?  Roddenberry didn't consider Star Trek V to be canonical either, or at least considered some of it's elements to be "apocryphal".




And there's an unwritten rule among Star Trek writers that they are to never refer to any event in the movie, no matter what.


----------



## reveal (Mar 31, 2005)

There are two reasons I stopped watching Enterprise after Season 1.

1) The writing sucked (boooooring). Ooooo... Let's see T'Pal get some blue gunk rubbed over her half naked body by a half naked man. That's sure to catch my interest... not.

2) Scott Bakula was horrible. I've seen less wooden acting in a marionette show. I had really high hopes because I loved Bakula in other tv series and movies, but he was awful in this role.


----------



## mojo1701 (Mar 31, 2005)

reveal said:
			
		

> 2) Scott Bakula was horrible. I've seen less wooden acting in a marionette show. I had really high hopes because I loved Bakula in other tv series and movies, but he was awful in this role.




That comes to the writing, too. He got better in se 3 and 4 (especially 4).


----------



## Ranger REG (Mar 31, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> That comes to the writing, too. He got better in se 3 and 4 (especially 4).



And who is responsible for season 4 writing?


----------



## myrdden (Mar 31, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> And who is responsible for season 4 writing?




Me?


----------



## mojo1701 (Mar 31, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> And who is responsible for season 4 writing?




...Manny Coto.


----------



## myrdden (Mar 31, 2005)

I definitely don't think Trek is dead, but its latest incarnation really didn't appeal much to me.  I expected a prequel series filling in the gaps in Trek Lore and showing us the path to TOS, but instead ended up with a watered down version of TNG with extra heapings of time travel.  Not what I was looking for at all...

I am a firm believer that when doing a prequel series, characterization becomes even more important than usual in a story because the general plot is already known.  We KNOW there will be a Federation.  We KNOW about the Romulans and the impending war.  How can you keep it interesting when the outcome is already known?  You create interesting characters that grow as the series grows and place them in situations that can allow for character development over plot.  

The only character I actually liked on this show was Tripp because he seemed the most believable.  His reactions and actions in some of the episodes were, IMO, a good example of how modern people - new to space exploration would react.  The other characters either had no development (i.e.: Travis and Hoshi) or boring development (i.e.: T'Pol).  Actually I liked Phlox too, but I felt both he and T'Pol were unnecessary additions.  The show doesn't need alien foils to counter balance the human condition in this series because humans have yet to become the paragons of virtue in the later series.  The crew should have been all human and complex in their interactions.

Of course Trek isn't exactly known for complex characterizations and maybe that's part of the problem.  People's expectation of TV has changed.  The episodic format may no longer be what people are yearning for.  Maybe they want more immersive storytelling like BSG or Angel or even Firefly.  I think part of the success of the 4th season has been the multi-episode arcs.  They allow for more characterization and more involved stories which I think people are looking for more in TV.

It's too bad the series went the way it did.  It did have some good ideas, some great production value and the odd really good episode.  But overall I felt the show was floundering due to conflicting directions with my expectations and ultimately missing the mark for me.  I expected a grittier version of Trek, lower technology, more focus on the original aliens that we've heard about but rarely seen (if ever) and a clear arc towards the Federation.  The 4th season has been a large improvement (and I have no desire to bash B&B over the first 3 seasons - I think it's been done enough already) but I think it's too little too late.

Of course YMMV...


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 1, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> ...Manny Coto.



So, why does the franchise still need Brannon Braga and Rick Berman?

This is one case where Paramount is truly out of touch with their _Trek_ consumers.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Apr 1, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> But Star Trek HAS had Big-screen hours.






So has Doctor Who, with Peter Cushing playing the Doctor.

Doctor Who has also had radio and stage productions.    


RC


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 1, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> So, why does the franchise still need Brannon Braga and Rick Berman?
> 
> This is one case where Paramount is truly out of touch with their _Trek_ consumers.




No, no it doesn't. Which is also why I'm saying that they should go back to syndication. UPN's demographics IS one of the things that is killing them.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 2, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> No, no it doesn't. Which is also why I'm saying that they should go back to syndication. UPN's demographics IS one of the things that is killing them.



I'm not just referring to UPN, who had a sweet deal when the franchise cut the order price of each episode by 50%. I'm referring to Paramount Studio Corporations.

And though I like it to return to syndication, it is unfortunate that market is in a steep decline after such a peak in the 90's, when we had floods of syndicated series from _Babylon 5_ (which struggled despite critics' rave reviews) to _Xena: Warrior Princess._


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 2, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I'm not just referring to UPN, who had a sweet deal when the franchise cut the order price of each episode by 50%. I'm referring to Paramount Studio Corporations.
> 
> And though I like it to return to syndication, it is unfortunate that market is in a steep decline after such a peak in the 90's, when we had floods of syndicated series from _Babylon 5_ (which struggled despite critics' rave reviews) to _Xena: Warrior Princess._




I just think that studios don't want to take a gamble anymore. When TNG was first produced in syndication, it was a big gamble (which paid off), but now... very few shows are done so. I mean, most of TV now is polluted with reality TV and CSI spinoffs.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 2, 2005)

The notion that "fandom" is the problem with Trek's current demise is just silly.

You couldn't *beg* for a more loyal fanbase.

I think the problems with Trek are really easy to figure out.

They ran away from the universe that was the show's Strength. 

TOS introduced us to some really cool ideas and some classic races (Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans)... TNG and DS9 continued that trend, filling out the universe more and making it a more vital place that people were interested in. 

Voyager ran to another part of the galaxy and Ent to the past. And yet the writers still wanted to use elements of that universe. So despite the producers' attempts to "run from universe" it kept creeping in. Ferengi and Romulans showing up in Voy, Borg in Ent. 

But these appearances seem silly because they had tried to run from them, so rather than strengthening the series they were just reasons to spew technobabble. 

When you look at the novel series, what do you see? New Frontier- a starship with a controversial captain exploring an area of space forbidden by the Prime Directive. 

IKS Gorkon, a Klingon ship. 

DS9 relaunch.

Tales of the Dominion War short story anthology.

Star Fleet Academy.

Titan, the exploits of Riker's new ship.

And millions read them, and fandom doesnt bitch.

Maybe because, unlike Voy and Ent, they actually seem to be set in the star trek universe?

Chuck


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 2, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> When you look at the novel series, what do you see?



To be brutally honest, non-canon stories. That was decided a long time ago, especially when the TV and film writers have no obligation to follow all of the novels' storylines. While some bits & pieces of the novels (and in one particular case, the young Spock episode from the _TAS_) appeared on-screen, it does not validate the entire content of that particular medium. What appears on-screen is the only canon part of a novel or an animated episode.

Of coure, I do not dismiss them entirely. They can provide further insight to the storyline and the _Trek_ universe. For example, as a Fan of All Things Klingons, I recommend reading _The Final Reflection_ by John M. Ford for his insight into the Klingon's psyche, despite the superficial changes made in contemporary Klingons on-screen.


----------



## Alan Shutko (Apr 3, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> The notion that "fandom" is the problem with Trek's current demise is just silly.
> 
> You couldn't *beg* for a more loyal fanbase.




That's really the problem.  B&B grew accustomed to throwing out whatever crap they felt like and assumed that the fans would fawn over it like puppies.  Paramount treated it like the franchise where quality wasn't needed, because the fans were so loyal.  The fanbase kept saying things like "All ST shows need a few years to get their chemistry right" and kept watching it.  Meanwhile, every other show on TV had to connect with an audience in 6 episodes, and many shows way better than Enterprise THIS SEASON were canned.

Basically, those loyal fans allowed junk to continue way past its expiration date.  What Paramount forgot was that the fans aren't enough to sustain a SF show (with its pricy special effects) and even fans have their limit.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 3, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> To be brutally honest, non-canon stories. That was decided a long time ago, especially when the TV and film writers have no obligation to follow all of the novels' storylines. While some bits & pieces of the novels (and in one particular case, the young Spock episode from the _TAS_) appeared on-screen, it does not validate the entire content of that particular medium. What appears on-screen is the only canon part of a novel or an animated episode.




Uh, I wasnt suggesting they were canon. I was pointing to an area of the franchise where fandom seems happy. Millions of fans.

Canonical or not, the novels seem to be connecting with the fan base, something the last two series didn't do all that well.

What I was pointing out was that the novel writers, with the ability to do the wildest stories imaginable, unconstrained by FX or cast budgets, tend to stay WITHIN the universe.

I find that preferable, and I think the majority of fandom does as well. There were grumblings during Voyager's run which blossomed into a full-fledged fan revolt during Ent's run.

I was suggesting that getting back to what TOS, TNG and DS9 did, giving us more info about the universe, was the right course.

Chuck


----------



## BrooklynKnight (Apr 3, 2005)

DS9 did its own share of running. The entire series was focused on one small area of space, a war, and the gamma quadrant. 

VOY, despite its bad points DID return to a certain root of trek, exploration. Which made the show bareable, and at least for me, extremly watchable.

Your previous post was dead on however. There were so many open ended places that a new series could have gone, storylines cast in all 3 modern series that could have been used, from further exploration of the Gamma/Delta Quadrants, to the Titan and Riker, to stories like "the final frontier".

B&B went the "easy" route because it gave them more room to create "their" Trek. The problem was we dont want their Trek... We want Rodenberrys.

This same problem has occured time and time again since Rodenberrys death.

Startrek, Earth Final Conflict, Andromeda. Once the producers ran out of Rodenberrys original creative material they kept on chugging on with their own ideas. Majel Rodenberry and her son just let them keep on going because its what pays their bills.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 3, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> Uh, I wasnt suggesting they were canon. I was pointing to an area of the franchise where fandom seems happy. Millions of fans.
> 
> Canonical or not, the novels seem to be connecting with the fan base, something the last two series didn't do all that well.
> 
> ...



Ah, fandom. I thought you meant those _Star Trek_ novels from ROC.


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 3, 2005)

BrooklynKnight said:
			
		

> Startrek, Earth Final Conflict, Andromeda. Once the producers ran out of Rodenberrys original creative material they kept on chugging on with their own ideas. Majel Rodenberry and her son just let them keep on going because its what pays their bills.




Although, with Andromeda, it was good right up until they ran out of stories by Robert Hewitt Wolfe.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 3, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> Although, with Andromeda, it was good right up until they ran out of stories by Robert Hewitt Wolfe.




Imo, this is one of the biggest reasons why Berman and Braga need to go. How do you let people like Wolfe, one of the driving forces behind DS9 and Ron Moore, one of the most prolific and popular writers of TNG and DS9 get away?

That's bad management 101... treat your best employees like gold and hold onto them. Can you imagine a writing staff with Moore, Wolfe, Behr *and* Manny Coto on it?

You think they might have been able to liven up Enterprise some?

Chuck


----------



## S'mon (Apr 3, 2005)

I just saw the 4th season Enterprise ep with Brent Spiner as Soong & big _green_ Orions!  Yaay!      It was great - except for T'pol looking extremely anorexic.  They even referred to the Eugenics wars being 20th century - talk about a return to Trek continuity.    I can see why US viewers have praised the 4th season after the miserable 1st 3, I look forward to seeing the rest of it.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 3, 2005)

Just to reiterate, the big green Orion slavers (& Orion slavegirl) were extremely cool.    I always wanted to see them in post-TOS Trek, but when the Orion Syndicate appeared in DS9 they were the usual Caucasian-flesh-coloured humanoids with crinkly foreheads, a big disappointment.  Seeing real Orions was a dream of mine since reading the (very good) STTNG novel Survivors by Jean Lorrah.


----------



## driver8 (Apr 3, 2005)

To why ST is dead or at least comatose look no further than the redux fo Battlestar Galactica or the recent success of Stargate SG-1.

Both series have had good stories, dramatic tension, and interesting characterizations. SG-1 in its prime just had great action pieces that drew on its own internal mythologies. BG despite my initial suspicion toward it does what good Sci-Fi does-it explores what we are as humans-our jealousies, pettiness, fears, as well as our nobility and self sacrifice.

ST has just become ossified.The characters on it are recognizable "types" seen in other ST series. Episodes are formulaic and  predicitible, they focus on a particular character and spotlight him..or they are paint by numbers adventures with little in the way of dramatic tension or reason to invest interest into them.

It has been getting better, but I had hoped that we would have gotten back to the "Horatio Hornblower" feel of TOS, then with trying to keep the technocratic goody too shoes vibe that the series had painted itself into after TNG.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 4, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> Imo, this is one of the biggest reasons why Berman and Braga need to go. How do you let people like Wolfe, one of the driving forces behind DS9 and Ron Moore, one of the most prolific and popular writers of TNG and DS9 get away?



Two words: office politics. Berman has the backing of Paramount. Braga allied himself with Berman. When Ron D. Moore tried to air his grievance to Berman about Braga's iron-fisted leadership over the writing staff (creating a very bad workplace atmosphere), Berman sided with Braga. And that's how Ron D. Moore ended his brief employment at _VOY_ even before the first episode of that season aired.

Still, what goes around come around like karma. Ron D. Moore, against all odds, made his re-imagined _BSG_ series's first season a success.




			
				Vigilance said:
			
		

> That's bad management 101... treat your best employees like gold and hold onto them. Can you imagine a writing staff with Moore, Wolfe, Behr *and* Manny Coto on it?
> 
> You think they might have been able to liven up Enterprise some?



They would have discarded Braga's "Temporal Cold War" arc. Emphasize the contacts and the relations with Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Alpha Centarauns, Rigellians, and Orions.

I mean you're talking about a Dream Team right there.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 4, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> Just to reiterate, the big green Orion slavers (& Orion slavegirl) were extremely cool.    I always wanted to see them in post-TOS Trek, but when the Orion Syndicate appeared in DS9 they were the usual Caucasian-flesh-coloured humanoids with crinkly foreheads, a big disappointment.  Seeing real Orions was a dream of mine since reading the (very good) STTNG novel Survivors by Jean Lorrah.



Shh! You're giving them excuse to recruit more WWE wrestlers, including the return of the Big Show (which btw, T'Pol looks small and nearly fragile in his hands).


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 4, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Shh! You're giving them excuse to recruit more WWE wrestlers, including the return of the Big Show (which btw, T'Pol looks small and nearly fragile in his hands).




Heh, like Fay Wray with King Kong?


----------



## Altalazar (Apr 4, 2005)

I think Star Trek isn't dead so much as dog tired - they need fresh blood in there, new producers, new writers, people with vision, sort of like Ron Moore had with the new BSG.  

I think they need a few years for a break and regroup to find that.  I've heard there is already talk of another series and/or movie.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 4, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> Heh, like Fay Wray with King Kong?



* Ponders *

Nah, the Big Show is a lot bigger than Kong.  

It's like he's manhandling a Bratz doll.


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Apr 5, 2005)

Altalazar said:
			
		

> I think Star Trek isn't dead so much as dog tired - they need fresh blood in there, new producers, new writers, people with vision, sort of like Ron Moore had with the new BSG.
> 
> I think they need a few years for a break and regroup to find that.  I've heard there is already talk of another series and/or movie.




I can agree with that. The franchise does need a "breath of fresh air" or else it'll die of stagnation. Which it's, unfortunately, beginning to do. There's been such a proliferation of Trek that it's hard right now to come up with NEW IDEAS. Especially since they don't want to approach any of the novel writers for screenplays.


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 5, 2005)

Darth K'Trava said:
			
		

> I can agree with that. The franchise does need a "breath of fresh air" or else it'll die of stagnation. Which it's, unfortunately, beginning to do. There's been such a proliferation of Trek that it's hard right now to come up with NEW IDEAS. Especially since they don't want to approach any of the novel writers for screenplays.




Perhaps a change of medium.

Go to a series of movies. Do what Star Trek II-IV did.


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Apr 5, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> Perhaps a change of medium.
> 
> Go to a series of movies. Do what Star Trek II-IV did.




That too.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 5, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> Perhaps a change of medium.
> 
> Go to a series of movies. Do what Star Trek II-IV did.



Originally, the last _Trek_ film would have been the sequel to _INSURRECTION,_ and continue that storyline, whatever that may be.

When it bombed, they decided to scrap the sequel and try to go for a major appeal, one of them being Romulan. But you know how well THAT went.


----------



## Orius (Apr 5, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> When it bombed, they decided to scrap the sequel and try to go for a major appeal, one of them being Romulan. But you know how well THAT went.




It might have worked, if they actually USED the Romulans a bit more, instead of focusing on the Remans.


----------



## Felon (Apr 5, 2005)

We are in the days where reality shows reign. Considering how cheap they are to produce, it's no wonder that much more expensive shows that don't garner higher ratings are not sustained. This trend is hardly isolated to _Enterprise_.

Nothing really replaced _Xena_ and _Hercules_. Shows like _Mutant X_ and _Beastmaster_ came and went without notice. And don't forget how _Angel_ got the axe out of nowhere.

Pretty slim pickings these days, particularly if _Stargate_ and _Galactica_ just don't cut it for you. Personally, their continued success bothers me, especially in light of _Farscape's_ cancellation, which had more personality and unpredictability than the other two put together. I really wish there as at least one popular sci-fi show that isn't about a military organization. Why must a sci-fi TV show have a crypto-fascist element to strike a chord with viewers?


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 5, 2005)

Orius said:
			
		

> It might have worked, if they actually USED the Romulans a bit more, instead of focusing on the Remans.



To this day, I don't know why we need the Remans as Romulan Empire's subject citizens. The Romulans themselves can be just as corrupt. They could have continued the Vulcan/Romulan reunification storyline. Plus, I would have loved to see Denise Crosby reprise her Major Sela role and the "G'Kar" dude to reprise his Tomalak character.

Why John Logan didn't think to use them, is beyond my logical comprehension, unless the actors have declined, or something to do with *office politics* with Rick Berman.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 5, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> They would have discarded Braga's "Temporal Cold War" arc. Emphasize the contacts and the relations with Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Alpha Centarauns, Rigellians, and Orions.




TCW and the Suliban and Xindi were big problems, and show the tightrope you're walking when you try to introduce a new villain out of nowhere. Anyone remember when TNG tried to make Ferengi the big bad evil race? Don't get me wrong, they salvaged it masterfully, but go watch the first episode where the Ferengi appear in TNG... big, powerful starships... elctrowhips taking out Riker and Worf... they wanted them to be scary and evil... and it didn't really work.

One very smart thing DS9 did was to take aliens that had already proven they had some staying power. Trill, Bajorans and Cardassians had all appeared as "aliens of the week" in TNG and then slowly worked into larger parts. 

When DS9 *did* introduce new threats (the DOminion) they did it very slowly and carefully. One of the reasons the Dominion was introduced in babysteps (first you see a long Jem-hadar child... then you see a lone Vorta and some more Jem'hadar... then you find out the Founders are changelings... etc...). 

They really introduced them one glimpse at a time and according to Behr one reason they did that, AND the reason they made the Dominion composed of three races, was the fear of the villain not working. They gave themselves a fall-back position and ruthlessly revised anything that didn't quite work. Remember the Vorta's telekinetic abilities? Me neither 

So I don't fault Ent for trying to introduce new things, but when the TCW didn't click, they went with the Xindi, and that (for me) didn't click either. The best thing about the series for me, was the Andorian/Vulcan "cold war"... a case where they were giving more screen time to an underdeveloped species that had already proven it had some staying power (the Andorians).

Add the fact that a prequel series set a number of expectations the show clearly had no intention of trying to meet (you know, actually showing how the Federation came to be and exploring its history and first contact with major races) and you get a lot of unhappy fans.

Given that the storylines people were expecting (the history of the Federation) would have been popular and were what fans were expecting, the new stuff (TCW, Xindi) had to be lights out... and it wasn't.

Chuck


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 5, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> To this day, I don't know why we need the Remans as Romulan Empire's subject citizens. The Romulans themselves can be just as corrupt. They could have continued the Vulcan/Romulan reunification storyline. Plus, I would have loved to see Denise Crosby reprise her Major Sela role and the "G'Kar" dude to reprise his Tomalak character.
> 
> Why John Logan didn't think to use them, is beyond my logical comprehension, unless the actors have declined, or something to do with *office politics* with Rick Berman.




According to IMDb:



> Denise Crosby discussed with executive producer Rick Berman the possibility of using her Star Trek: The Next Generation character Sela in the film, but they could not work out a way to properly fit the character into the movie.


----------



## myrdden (Apr 6, 2005)

Seriously?

If that's the case, the franchise really does need new people...


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 6, 2005)

myrdden said:
			
		

> Seriously?
> 
> If that's the case, the franchise really does need new people...




Although I think it was more of a, "Ok, we've got the script written, and... nope, no place for you anywhere."

Seriously, write the establshed stuff FIRST.


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Apr 6, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Originally, the last _Trek_ film would have been the sequel to _INSURRECTION,_ and continue that storyline, whatever that may be.
> 
> When it bombed, they decided to scrap the sequel and try to go for a major appeal, one of them being Romulan. But you know how well THAT went.




I guess the "sequel" to that went into the new novel based on Riker and the crew of the USS Titan.... 

Note: they're holding a design contest to design the USS Titan.


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 6, 2005)

Darth K'Trava said:
			
		

> Note: they're holding a design contest to design the USS Titan.




Oh?


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Apr 6, 2005)

Yup.

Check the back of the novel about the USS Titan (_Star Trek Titan:Taking Wing_) out in bookstores now.. They have the rules and guidelines in there.


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## Goblyn (Apr 10, 2005)

Why is Star Trek in decline, if not dead?

Because it's no longer TNG, the only good Star Trek there's been.

I don't mean this as a troll post; that's really what I think.

The original was campy.
DS9 was boring.
Voyager was ... well Voyager was okay.
Enterprise is just ... wrong.


----------



## Staffan (Apr 10, 2005)

Goblyn said:
			
		

> Why is Star Trek in decline, if not dead?
> 
> Because it's no longer TNG, the only good Star Trek there's been.



I admit I haven't seen all that much TNG, but what I have seen is pretty underwhelming. DS9 was a lot more fun, especially once they started getting into the whole Dominion thing.


----------



## Darth K'Trava (Apr 10, 2005)

Goblyn said:
			
		

> Why is Star Trek in decline, if not dead?
> 
> Because it's no longer TNG, the only good Star Trek there's been.
> 
> ...





I like the original Trek. It's what got the whole thing started..... sure it may look "campy" today but seems to have held up pretty well over the years...

DS9 was pretty cool, especially the last few years when they redid how they approached it-by more story arcs and complex storytelling.

Yoyager wasn't too bad in the beginning, despite the Kazon who looked like someone crapped in their hair!   Then it went downhill.

Enterprise wasn't too bad. The main thing from the 1.5 seasons I saw (first and some of this one) is that it looks too advanced for the time period it takes place (but then alot of that is the new FX we use today we didn't have previously).


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 11, 2005)

Goblyn said:
			
		

> Why is Star Trek in decline, if not dead?
> 
> Because it's no longer TNG, the only good Star Trek there's been.
> 
> I don't mean this as a troll post; that's really what I think.



There are those who disagree, when they took a second look at _TNG._

But at the time (1987-1994), it was a welcome change for the Trekkies in the US and eventually everywhere, after a 20-plus-year hiatus.




			
				Goblyn said:
			
		

> The original was campy.



Great storytelling, using social issues of that time, particularly issues that tends to be timeless, like racism, blatant disregard for human right, etc.




			
				Goblyn said:
			
		

> DS9 was boring.



Great story and character development.




			
				Goblyn said:
			
		

> Voyager was ... well Voyager was okay.



It was decent up until Jeri Ryan ("Seven of Nine") joined the cast and Brannon Braga was named a replacement for executive producers Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor. Then it began to sucks big time. I called it Braga's First Failure.




			
				Goblyn said:
			
		

> Enterprise is just ... wrong.



Tried to give Braga a second chance, but he failed me again with this silly "Temporal Cold War" main arc (Braga's Second Failure). He should have learned his lesson from _VOY_: He doesn't do time travel stories well. The only bright thing: Having Manny Coto took over the operation of the show for this unfortunately fourth and final season. Like _DS9,_ better stories and better character interaction than the previous three seasons, with more room for improvements.

This is not a troll-feeding post, just my opinions.


----------



## John Crichton (Apr 11, 2005)

Ranger (and others) - Have you by any chance read this article:

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/444/444306p1.html

It is a fantastic interview with Ron Moore.  He talks about Carnivale and BSG, but the best stuff is where you get his dirt on Trek.  He was there for 10 years and really knew B&B.  It really says alot about why Trek has become so sterile, especially since DS9 signed off.

The most revealing thing to me, as well as the most dissappointing:  They had enough material for DS9 (including unfinished arcs) to go at least 2 more seasons.  I recall commenting to a friend while watching the final eps when they originally aired that it seemed the show had plenty left to do.  The 7th seasons of TNG & DS9 were so far apart in terms of quality that it seemed so arbitrary to end it at season 7.  The article goes into the possible " whys."

I'd cut-n-paste it here but the interview is 18 pages long...  

Berman obviously doesn't "get it" and never got it, even from the start.  Kinda makes you wonder what might have been.  I really agree with Moore when he talks about Voyager's concept being good.  Farscape was basically the same thing, done right.  Eliminating all the crew conflict made Voyager unwatchable, IMO.  I'll blame Berman and Paramount for that.  TNG could have been edgier, too.  Man, what I wouldn't give to have Trek back with some conjones.


----------



## John Crichton (Apr 11, 2005)

Goblyn said:
			
		

> Why is Star Trek in decline, if not dead?
> 
> Because it's no longer TNG, the only good Star Trek there's been.
> 
> ...



Ranger said it better in his reply than I could.

It's too bad you didn't like TOS & DS9.  Both series were excellent.


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 11, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> I'd cut-n-paste it here but the interview is 18 pages long...
> 
> Berman obviously doesn't "get it" and never got it, even from the start.  Kinda makes you wonder what might have been.  I really agree with Moore when he talks about Voyager's concept being good.  Farscape was basically the same thing, done right.  Eliminating all the crew conflict made Voyager unwatchable, IMO.  I'll blame Berman and Paramount for that.  TNG could have been edgier, too.  Man, what I wouldn't give to have Trek back with some conjones.




It's interesting to note that most fans complain of both Berman _and_ Braga. Moore confirms of what's said about Berman, but Braga is quite good. From what I've read (other than this interview), Braga really isn't that bad (despite throwing in Bozeman, Montana references).


----------



## Altalazar (Apr 11, 2005)

It sounds like ST needs fresh blood, or someone like Ron Moore calling the shots.  I think he's right that they need to let it lie fallow for a few years, then bring in fresh blood to do something totally different with it - they had themselves too walled into basically an alternate reality known as "boring space" where everything is safe and everyone is perfect.


----------



## Orius (Apr 11, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Berman obviously doesn't "get it" and never got it, even from the start.  Kinda makes you wonder what might have been.  I really agree with Moore when he talks about Voyager's concept being good.  Farscape was basically the same thing, done right.  Eliminating all the crew conflict made Voyager unwatchable, IMO.  I'll blame Berman and Paramount for that.  TNG could have been edgier, too.  Man, what I wouldn't give to have Trek back with some conjones.




It certainly was an eye opener.  All this time I was tending to blame Braga more, and it seems things were the other way around.  It was Berman that wanted to ignore TOS, while Behr, Moore, and the others were fans of the original, and actually paid it homage.  In my mind that is why DS9 is one of the best Trek series, because it tried to go back to its roots while going forward.  That's why the Voyager crew and the Maquis always played nice after the first half dozen episodes, even if there was no reason for them to do so.  I guess that explains Enterprise's rather weak start as well, at least until Coto (another old-school fan) came in and revived it.   In the end, Berman played things too safe, and ignored the original series too much that he ended up alienating the fans.


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 11, 2005)

Braga, compared to Berman, is quite young.


----------



## Laurel (Apr 11, 2005)

I don't think Star Trek is dead, but is it in decline in that the obsessed fans ares till obsessed but those just interested will let it fade from memory and it's certainly not gaining large amounts of new people.

I think would be easy for it to gain a whole new following and gather all those original people back if they came up with something new that catered to everyone.  Somehow the orginial brought that first group of fans in, and TNG played off that.  They also were able to draw bunches of other people in by thier new take on drama, action, special effects, and story line.  The following series highlighted parts of these things, but none (in my opinion) could capture it all.  DS9 did a good job for awhile of trying, but the others just pushed people away.

If they give us something good to watch I think Star Trek would see a fast and great revival.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 12, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Ranger (and others) - Have you by any chance read this article:
> 
> http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/444/444306p1.html
> 
> It is a fantastic interview with Ron Moore.



Actually, I think I can top that. _Fandom_ posted a 7-part interview with Ron D. Moore back in 2000. Of course, the web site is no longer there, but _Cinescape_ was kind enough to archive the lengthy article.

This begins part 1 interview:

http://www2.cinescape.com/0/Editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Television&action=page&obj_id=18708

The introductory article starts off with his goodbye letter dated 1999. Of course, this is all before he did _Carnivale_ and the current _Battlestar Galactica._

He's not the only one having problem with the _Star Trek_ franchise's leadership. I can try to google a posted interview from David Gerrold, on his history with Berman.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 12, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> It is a fantastic interview with Ron Moore.  He talks about Carnivale and BSG, but the best stuff is where you get his dirt on Trek.  He was there for 10 years and really knew B&B.  It really says alot about why Trek has become so sterile, especially since DS9 signed off.




The biggest wow moment in that whole interview, to me, was when Moore revealed that Berman had been talking to Ira Behr about taking over Enterprise. Pity he didnt take the gig, but I understand him not wanting to try and clean up that mess.

Although I also liked his portrayal of Berman as basically the Dilbert boss: "You cant mention Kirk or Spock no matter what" and then later "Did I ever say that? I dont remember it?"

Chuck


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 12, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> The biggest wow moment in that whole interview, to me, was when Moore revealed that Berman had been talking to Ira Behr about taking over Enterprise. Pity he didnt take the gig, but I understand him not wanting to try and clean up that mess.




That was one of those Daily Show/Jon Stewart "Whaa?!" moments.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 12, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> He's not the only one having problem with the _Star Trek_ franchise's leadership. I can try to google a posted interview from David Gerrold, on his history with Berman.




That interview was obviously done when Moore was still bitter. He rips Voyager right and left. And, I must say, every damn thing he said was right... they're the things that I've also heard hundreds of fans say.

But who needs us? 

Chuck


----------



## John Crichton (Apr 12, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> The biggest wow moment in that whole interview, to me, was when Moore revealed that Berman had been talking to Ira Behr about taking over Enterprise. Pity he didnt take the gig, but I understand him not wanting to try and clean up that mess.
> 
> Although I also liked his portrayal of Berman as basically the Dilbert boss: "You cant mention Kirk or Spock no matter what" and then later "Did I ever say that? I dont remember it?"
> 
> Chuck



 Yeah.

It also seems like Roddenberry had lost "vision" (for lack of a swear word) near the end as well.  I never understood why TNG stayed away from referencing TOS so much.  Nothing is worse than a showrunner who won't let his writers write actual human roles.


----------



## John Crichton (Apr 12, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Actually, I think I can top that. _Fandom_ posted a 7-part interview with Ron D. Moore back in 2000. Of course, the web site is no longer there, but _Cinescape_ was kind enough to archive the lengthy article.
> 
> This begins part 1 interview:
> 
> ...



I'm not so sure about topping it, per se, but that was a good read as well.  Had some more emotion and bite to it.  It's interesting to see that Moore hasn't changed his story over time, but maybe softened it a tad.

His points about Voyager I agree with.  I'm not totally qualified to say that because I've only watched maybe a dozen episodes but most of them really weren't very good at all.  But either way, VOY should have been better had they handled it like DS9.  People would have been at each other's throats (see Farscape) and there may have actually been some real feeling and impact to the Voyage home.  I never felt (with the exception of one ep) that there was a terrible amount of urgency or real conflict about getting home or simply surviving.  That show could have really used some quality arc storytelling.

Oh well.  It just means that Berman must get da boot.  Give the series to me and be done with it.  I promise arc plots, references to the good times, lots of space battles and some seriously flawed people.  Vote Crichton for Trek Executive Producer in 2005.


----------



## Orius (Apr 12, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> His points about Voyager I agree with.  I'm not totally qualified to say that because I've only watched maybe a dozen episodes but most of them really weren't very good at all.  But either way, VOY should have been better had they handled it like DS9.  People would have been at each other's throats (see Farscape) and there may have actually been some real feeling and impact to the Voyage home.  I never felt (with the exception of one ep) that there was a terrible amount of urgency or real conflict about getting home or simply surviving.  That show could have really used some quality arc storytelling.




Yeah, I know what you mean.  Voyager always felt like they were just going to end up getting back home at the end of the seventh season, so nothing else the did mattered.  And that's exactly what happened.  The problem he states with Voyager was exactly the same problem Enterprise suffered through, they were both shows that didn't live up to the premises, because Berman missed doing TNG.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 13, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> The biggest wow moment in that whole interview, to me, was when Moore revealed that Berman had been talking to Ira Behr about taking over Enterprise. Pity he didnt take the gig, but I understand him not wanting to try and clean up that mess.



You think Ira Steven Behr want to deal with Berman again? Hah. Like he needs another hole drilled into his head.   

As for the archived Ron D. Moore interview, you're right. It was close to the time when he was forced to resign from his brief employment at _VOY,_ but it was vivid and all too true. Though I am glad that he and Braga have settle their difference aside for the sake of friendship, it does not change the fact that the franchise is still deteriorating under the leadership of Berman and Braga. I can never understand why Paramount are not getting this. Are they so removed from their audience that they lost their own humanities?

Sighs.


----------



## Vigilance (Apr 13, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> You think Ira Steven Behr want to deal with Berman again? Hah. Like he needs another hole drilled into his head.




I think it was more the state of the show and the network's impatience with it. He knew that whatever he did to turn things around he was going to have one year to really rack up some numbers.

At least, that's the impression I got from what happened to Manny Coto... he was given a year. 



> As for the archived Ron D. Moore interview, you're right. It was close to the time when he was forced to resign from his brief employment at _VOY,_ but it was vivid and all too true. Though I am glad that he and Braga have settle their difference aside for the sake of friendship, it does not change the fact that the franchise is still deteriorating under the leadership of Berman and Braga. I can never understand why Paramount are not getting this. Are they so removed from their audience that they lost their own humanities?
> 
> Sighs.




I think Paramount probably handles Trek about the way Hasbro handles D&D. They don't understand it, all they know is it makes them money. When it makes them LESS, they talk to the guy who (in their eyes) understands it, and that's Berman.

Judging from what I've heard him say, he's telling them the solution is that the franchise needs to "lie fallow" for a bit. 

Chances are he is NOT telling them the REASON it needs to lie fallow is because he has tried to remake TNG 3 times (TNG, Voy, Ent) only each time with less substance, more action and more sex, and that he has driven off the once-loyal fanbase. 

Something Manny Coto said that really shows how out of touch Berman is, Manny wanted to do shows that tied into TOS. Berman said no because "there are only 3 fans of the old show left".

When Coto told him that the New Voyages fan film based TOS was downloaded 12 MILLION times, his jaw hit the floor, and Coto got to do his TOS tie-ins.

Combine that with his "no references to Kirk or Spock EVER" edict and you have a man who clearly knows nothing about trek, who tries in vain to capture the ratings of TNG by trying to turn the franchise into Miami Vice in space. 

Chuck


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 13, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> When Coto told him that the New Voyages fan film based TOS was downloaded 12 MILLION times, his jaw hit the floor, and Coto got to do his TOS tie-ins.




I can see why.


----------



## WizarDru (Apr 13, 2005)

My .02:

Enterprise failed (if a show lasting 4 seasons could be considered a failure...many Fox shows would *LOVE* to have failed by that definition) because it tried to be too many things to too many people, and ended up pleasing virtually none of them.

In 1987, there was a drought of SF shows on TV.  You had, what, "Beauty and the Beast" and ST:TNG?  Maybe you could include "The Storyteller".  So when TNG came on, we watched it with hungry desperation.  I remember very, very clearly watching each episode and thinking "Well...._that could have been worse, I guess_."  We were very forgiving when we saw episodes that seemed to be BLATANT rip-offs of the TOS episodes....and of stories that were ungodly weak.  Anyone remember the TNG episode where they rescue some 20th century people who were in cyrogenic suspension?  [SHUDDER]

I don't think it coincidental that as Roddenberry fell away from the day-to-day work that the shows scripts and quality improved (even if the overused titles called "The X" (Such as The Call, The Hunted, the Price, The Defector...in the third season, they had a big string of 'The' shows).  The show took some risks, and the stakes got more personal.  Cliffhanger season enders got trite after a while, but "Best of Both Worlds" was a summertime stunner.  Episodes like "Family", "Darmok" and quite possibly the best trek Ever, "The Inner Light" all made the series worth watching.  That these shows hung solidly around Stewart probably isn't an accident, but episodes like "Brothers", where Spiner was given lots of room to shine, stand out as well.

DS9 started out strong out of the gate, but lost me by the third season.  As someone else mentioned above, it didn't follow through on it's original premise.  The intial conflict between the Bajorans and Cardassians was excellent, and whenever characters like Garak were given air-time, it was golden.  However, many episodes felt very Trek formulaic, so when the many shifts started happening (the addition of Worf, the Dominion War) they felt forced to me, and I gradually lost interest.  When I tried to come back, I'd found that the doctor had become a super-genius ("All those times we nearly died in the past?  I was just pretending! Guys? ...Guys?") and they'd cycled a few actors.  I just found it kind of forced.  Some solid plots, but for various reasons, I dropped out.  Biggest missed opportunity, to me?  When Cisco and Quark are held prisoner by the Jem'hadar, Quark berates Cisco for the Federation's snide attitude about the Ferengi, hastening to point out how his race may be greedy and calculating...but they've never had genocidal wars, either.  It was a great thread that could have been followed, making the Ferengi more than just comic relief, but it was never followed.

Voyager.  Hmmm.....yeah, Voyager.  Well, let's see.  I gave it a chance, honest.  B5 had raised the bar in terms of story, for me, so Voyager started out on a poor footing.  I liked the continuation of the Maquis concept from TNG, and the initial concept had lots of promise.  Implementation was AWFUL.  What are the first two episodes following the premiere?  The ship falls into a quantum singularity and a TIME episode.  Compare that with the new BSG's first two episodes, "33" and "Water".  Voyager's plots barely scratched the surface of their premise, while BSG's episodes give it a big, fat, wet kiss.  Every time I returned to the Voyager well, I felt bad for doing so, as the show seemed to get worse each time.  I WANTED to like Voyager...but it just kept making me dislike it.  And don't even get me started on the pandering that was Jeri Ryan.  I mean, really now...could you try and confirm non-fans worst images any more than that?

Enterprise had potential, but it just never clicked.  It was boring, predictable and only had little snippets of what I had hoped for.  I mean, they had holodeck technology shown by what, the third episode?  It just felt forced, to me.  The complete rewriting of canon was fine...if it were used to the show's advantage.  It didn't feel like it was, however, and more felt like an excuse to re-use old concepts from the ground floor, rather than actually redefine them.

So what does Trek need?  A rest is one thing that might work.  Fresh talent and a new eye is certainly another.  Trek gradually got away from the elements, story-wise, that made it so popular in the first place, IMHO.  Being afraid or unable to change things over time except at season enders became a major stumbling block, for me.  I don't need massive change every episode, but if I have to choke down on disbelief from the lack of continuity from one episode to another, why am I even watching?  Trek needs to refocus, and remember that it's not the F/X that is making BSG popular, but the characters and the story.

Science Fiction doesn't have to be about big budgets....but about good stories, well told.  Seven of Nine fighting in an intergalactic bloodsport against The Rock is not one of those.


----------



## Ranger REG (Apr 15, 2005)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> DS9 started out strong out of the gate, but lost me by the third season.  As someone else mentioned above, it didn't follow through on it's original premise.  The intial conflict between the Bajorans and Cardassians was excellent, and whenever characters like Garak were given air-time, it was golden.  However, many episodes felt very Trek formulaic, so when the many shifts started happening (the addition of Worf, the Dominion War) they felt forced to me, and I gradually lost interest.  When I tried to come back, I'd found that the doctor had become a super-genius ("All those times we nearly died in the past?  I was just pretending! Guys? ...Guys?") and they'd cycled a few actors.  I just found it kind of forced.  Some solid plots, but for various reasons, I dropped out.  Biggest missed opportunity, to me?  When Cisco and Quark are held prisoner by the Jem'hadar, Quark berates Cisco for the Federation's snide attitude about the Ferengi, hastening to point out how his race may be greedy and calculating...but they've never had genocidal wars, either.  It was a great thread that could have been followed, making the Ferengi more than just comic relief, but it was never followed.



Perhaps, but to me it gave us good stories when they decided to do a Dominion War arc. Granted, the original premise were decent to begin with, but they notice they're losing audience, so they did what no other _Trek_ show could deliver: a multiple season war story arc. And more importantly, they defied Rick Berman, who thought that by virtue of succeeding Gene Roddenberry, that _Trek_ should not focus too much on wars.

IMHO, _DS9_ have better well-written stories than all of the contemporary _Trek_ series combined.

As for _Enterprise,_ the original premise just plain suck. I never did like the Temporal Cold War arc, whether this is supposed to be one of the crucial element that paved the way for the Birth of the Federation. Now, I'm afraid that with Berman & Braga having penned the series finale episode, we're going back to it.


----------



## John Crichton (Apr 15, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> IMHO, _DS9_ have better well-written stories than all of the contemporary _Trek_ series combined.



Couldn't agree more. The last 4 seasons of DS9 is some of the finest sci-fi on TV ever. Characters to love, characters that you love to hate, characters that you didn't know if you loved or hated and a plot to bring them all together.



			
				Ranger REG said:
			
		

> As for _Enterprise,_ the original premise just plain suck. I never did like the Temporal Cold War arc, whether this is supposed to be one of the crucial element that paved the way for the Birth of the Federation. Now, I'm afraid that with Berman & Braga having penned the series finale episode, we're going back to it.



The TCW was bleh, but I am a sucker for time-travel stuff so it was watchable for me. However, it was terribly uninspired. Trek has used time travel too much recently and for seemingly no really good reason.

I'm not concerned about the series finale simply because the B's have had a little rest from writing for a while and may pull something cool out of their hats. I'm not holding my breath.


----------



## WizarDru (Apr 15, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> And more importantly, they defied Rick Berman, who thought that by virtue of succeeding Gene Roddenberry, that _Trek_ should not focus too much on wars.
> 
> IMHO, _DS9_ have better well-written stories than all of the contemporary _Trek_ series combined.




Well, if Ron Moore is to be believed, it owes more to the fact that Berman was too busy prepping Voyager to pay attention, and later more because he felt DS9 was a marginalized, lost cause...not a 'true' Trek, as it were.  I'm not sure if DS9 had more well-written stories...though I certainly remember it did have some.  But for every excellent episode I saw, like the one about the Cardassian pretending to be a war criminal, I also saw an episode where Jake tries to get his Dad a baseball card.  Not necessarily bad, but very predictable and somewhat trite.

The war picked up dramatically later, but at the time, it seemed like the war was just a 'jumping the shark' plot moment, allowing them to convienently forget that a war was going on whenever they wanted to.  A big problem Trek always presented was that the universe always seemed to return to a 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms' situation when all was done.  They may have changed this later, but when the Dominion first showed up, and then everything seemed hunky-dory but the end of the first episode of season 3...I started to mentally tune out.  Especially in light of the no-holds-barred wars that were happening simultaneously on B5.

As for Enterprise, I thought the concept of 'Birth of the Federation' could have made for some compelling stories.  That's not what I got, though.  I got Temporal Cold Wars and standard Trek plots. It felt...boring.

As an aside about Time plots...in one of Peter David's ST:TNG novels, a research team comes aboard the Enterprise, to study temporal anomalies.  Riker asks where they plan to go, and the team informs him 'right here'.  When Riker asks why, the team leader explains that the Enterprise is a lodestone for these kind of things....why in the last five years, your ship has been host to nearly a dozen time anomoalies alone.  That's more than most of the rest of the fleet!


----------



## Staffan (Apr 15, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Couldn't agree more. The last 4 seasons of DS9 is some of the finest sci-fi on TV ever.



Though they went a little overboard on the whole Vic Fontaine thing.


----------



## mojo1701 (Apr 15, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> The TCW was bleh, but I am a sucker for time-travel stuff so it was watchable for me. However, it was terribly uninspired. Trek has used time travel too much recently and for seemingly no really good reason.




Same here, although I looked it up: the amount of time travel episodes Voyager and Enterprise have had is greater than the amount TOS, TNG, and DS9 have had. And Enterprise, on average, has had the most.


----------



## wingsandsword (Apr 15, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> Something Manny Coto said that really shows how out of touch Berman is, Manny wanted to do shows that tied into TOS. Berman said no because "there are only 3 fans of the old show left".




Berman seems to know squat about fandom.  I remember well a discussion on the net right before First Contact came out that he kept insisting that the inventor of Warp Drive be a hot woman who could be a love interest for Picard, and his comeback to the entire backstory of Zephram Cochrane being well established in Trek lore (and even an appearance in TOS) was:

"Less than 1% of the fans are even going to know or care about something like that!"

I think that sums it up, B&B don't know Trek half as well as a typical fanboy Trekkie and don't really care.  I think most of the successes on their watch have come in spite of them, not because of them.

Trek now has 10 movies, 3 seasons of original Trek, 7 seasons of TNG, 7 seasons of DS9, 7 Seasons of Voyager, and 4 Seasons of Enterprise.  That's around 700 hours of footage (and just the canonical stuff, leaving out the animated series and the hundreds of novels, comic books, video games ect.)  That's enough that playing it 24/7 it would take more than a month to watch all of Star Trek.  They may well have mined out the basic Trek format of "starship flying around our galaxy from world to world, seeing earthlike cultures that provide social commentary on modern America and occasionally getting into fights with aliens who have ships a lot like ours and funny bumps on their heads".

Also, the fans place a high value on continuity of the setting, the producers never really have.  In the beginning of the first series, they didn't really make up any background about the Enterprise or where it came from or what authority operated it, because they figured it wouldn't come up.  Before "Starfleet Command", they talked about "Space Central", "Space Control" and "United Earth Space Probe Agency" being their agency before settling on Starfleet.  The original series was lucky to have what little continuity it did, during the TNG Roddenberry era he was afraid to even mention the old show for most of the time so it felt half-detached, and for the B&B era they only paid lip service to continuity.  I feel almost a little sorry for Mike Okuda when he penned the official Star Trek Chronology and had to put in so many notes and acknowledgements of places where it just didn't add up at all (although he did an admirable job against a formidable task).

Personally, I place a lot of the blame for the failure of Enterprise on UPN.  I hate just about every show on the network except for Enterprise (it's fixation on "urban" programming, which is a euphimism.)  They schedule Enterprise for constantly changing, inconvenient times and treat it like a burden and obligation instead of the Crown Jewel it was presumably supposed to be.  TOS became a big hit in syndication, TNG and DS9 became big in syndication, and at least Voyager was syndicated out in the later seasons so first-run went to UPN but back seasons went to other channels.  

Also, for the longest time Trek was *it* with regards to TV Sci-Fi in the US.  It was the first real non-anthology Sci-Fi show in the country, and for the longest time it was the most well known and visible one (thanks to syndication, which meant it could be on all over the dial).  Since then you've had shows like Babylon 5, which in terms of writing and acting consistently outdid Trek.  

For a long time, if you asked a Trekkie why Trek was successful, they'd say something about Roddenberry's "Vision" of a perfect future and the standard response of Trek providing a vision of a positive future for humanity.  I believe that's nonsense.  The over-the-top blatant moralizing of Trek always seemed to be almost talking down to the audience.  People who want Sci-Fi and want it well, Trek was the best thing you had for a long time (realize that Lost in Space was the big contemporary).  However, the field has grown and developed, but Trek has felt comfortable to rest on it's laurels and trade on it's name while recycling the same basic plotlines and themes over and over with different casts on different ships.  Stargate, Babylon 5, (New) Battlestar Galactica have all shown a creative spark that hasn't had in a long, long time.


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## mojo1701 (Apr 15, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> For a long time, if you asked a Trekkie why Trek was successful, they'd say something about Roddenberry's "Vision" of a perfect future and the standard response of Trek providing a vision of a positive future for humanity.  I believe that's nonsense.  The over-the-top blatant moralizing of Trek always seemed to be almost talking down to the audience.  People who want Sci-Fi and want it well, Trek was the best thing you had for a long time (realize that Lost in Space was the big contemporary).




This part, I don't agree with. It's what made Trek great, the future that said, we not only survived, but thrived.


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## John Crichton (Apr 15, 2005)

Staffan said:
			
		

> Though they went a little overboard on the whole Vic Fontaine thing.



 That's not to say that there weren't some trip-ups.  

He wasn't bad.


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## Pants (Apr 16, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Couldn't agree more. The last 4 seasons of DS9 is some of the finest sci-fi on TV ever. Characters to love, characters that you love to hate, characters that you didn't know if you loved or hated and a plot to bring them all together.



I think one of the greatest parts of DS9 is Gul Dukat.  There are points in the show where he almost, ALMOST seems like he might be somewhat of a decent guy and then he does something horrible like 



Spoiler



sell Cardassia out ot the Dominion


.  And that episode where 



Spoiler



Damar murders his daughter and the station is retaken by the Federation and Dukat just cracks


. That's a great episode there.



			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> They may have changed this later, but when the Dominion first showed up, and then everything seemed hunky-dory but the end of the first episode of season 3...I started to mentally tune out.  Especially in light of the no-holds-barred wars that were happening simultaneously on B5.



As the series got further and further along, the Dominion War came to more and more the focus of the show.  I'll agree that when the Dominion was first introduced, there would be long strings of 'Defiant discovers weird new planet in the Gamma Quadrant' type episodes before going back to the Dominion.

Actually, the 'war' really didn't begin until Season 5 or so.


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## mojo1701 (Apr 16, 2005)

I don't think you need spoiler tags for a show that ended 6 years ago.


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## Pants (Apr 16, 2005)

mojo1701 said:
			
		

> I don't think you need spoiler tags for a show that ended 6 years ago.



Just being cautious.


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## Greylock (Apr 16, 2005)

You've totally ruined Deep Space Nine for me.   

_*sigh*_


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## Staffan (Apr 16, 2005)

Pants said:
			
		

> As the series got further and further along, the Dominion War came to more and more the focus of the show.  I'll agree that when the Dominion was first introduced, there would be long strings of 'Defiant discovers weird new planet in the Gamma Quadrant' type episodes before going back to the Dominion.
> 
> Actually, the 'war' really didn't begin until Season 5 or so.



I think that was one of its strengths. They took the time to properly introduce the Dominion before running off to war with it. Compare with the Xindi, who came from nowhere.


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## John Crichton (Apr 16, 2005)

Pants said:
			
		

> I think one of the greatest parts of DS9 is Gul Dukat. There are points in the show where he almost, ALMOST seems like he might be somewhat of a decent guy and then he does something horrible like
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I always appreciated Dukat. He was a wonderful character in the overall scheme of the show. He could go from eeeeeeevil to sympathetic and back in the course of one ep. That's hard to do. Besides Scorpius from Farscape he's probably my favorite recurring TV bad guy.

My favorite Cardassian was Garrak. His character really defined the series as Grey Trek vs Black/White Trek. He wasn't a badass, but he was an assassin of words and morals. Twisted and controlled at the same time - whenever he was onscreen ya just knew something cool would happen.


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## John Crichton (Apr 16, 2005)

Staffan said:
			
		

> I think that was one of its strengths. They took the time to properly introduce the Dominion before running off to war with it. Compare with the Xindi, who came from nowhere.



 Heh, there is no comparison.

The seeds of war were growning for a couple seasons before the fecal matter hit the dilithium chamber.  As much as I love Farscape, no TV sci-fi war has touched the Dominion War as of yet.  The only thing that slightly diminishes it is the finale.  Bleh.  That was the only area where TNG had it beat.  Next Gen went out with a bang and DS9 jogged across the finish line.  Knowing that they could have continued the show a couple more seasons does soften the blow a bit, tho...


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## Ranger REG (Apr 16, 2005)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> The war picked up dramatically later, but at the time, it seemed like the war was just a 'jumping the shark' plot moment, allowing them to convienently forget that a war was going on whenever they wanted to.



That's okay. Can't always focus heavily on the war. We too need a breather every now and then, like the lighthearted "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" episode, or the wedding of Worf and Dax.




			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> A big problem Trek always presented was that the universe always seemed to return to a 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms' situation when all was done.  They may have changed this later, but when the Dominion first showed up, and then everything seemed hunky-dory but the end of the first episode of season 3...I started to mentally tune out.  Especially in light of the no-holds-barred wars that were happening simultaneously on B5.



Meh. I was lucky to have a local TV station that aired both back-to-back. I enjoyed both _B5_ and _DS9._ I never had to pick one or the other because I have two Sunday evening hours of sci-fi entertainment.  

But both _B5_ and _DS9_ spoiled me in a way that I can never look at Braga's _VOY_ and _Enterprise_ with sheer delight. Even the best _VOY_ episode can't beat the worse _DS9_ episode.


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## Ranger REG (Apr 16, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> Personally, I place a lot of the blame for the failure of Enterprise on UPN.  I hate just about every show on the network except for Enterprise (it's fixation on "urban" programming, which is a euphimism.)  They schedule Enterprise for constantly changing, inconvenient times and treat it like a burden and obligation instead of the Crown Jewel it was presumably supposed to be.  TOS became a big hit in syndication, TNG and DS9 became big in syndication, and at least Voyager was syndicated out in the later seasons so first-run went to UPN but back seasons went to other channels.



I really cannot blame UPN. If the franchise hadn't bargained away 50% off their usual price per episode, we would not have seen the fourth season, and I personally would not have witnessed a complete turnaround of the series, courtesy of Manny Coto.

But let's face it, Wednesday nights belong to JJ Abrams's _Lost._


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## Darth K'Trava (Apr 16, 2005)

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> But both _B5_ and _DS9_ spoiled me in a way that I can never look at Braga's _VOY_ and _Enterprise_ with sheer delight. Even the best _VOY_ episode can't beat the worse _DS9_ episode.




I enjoyed both shows. I don't recall how "back-to-back" they were. I know that DS9 and Voyager were back-to-back because that's how I have them on tape. My bf at the time didn't want to swap tapes in between....  :\


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## Orius (Apr 17, 2005)

I don't think that DS9 changed its premise so much as it evolved it.  Ok, I'll grant that the Dominion seems to have been invented because people weren't really captivated by the Caradassians as opponents, or various Bajoran extremists as well.  But it reflects the storylines as well.  In the final season of TNG/second season of DS9, the Federation and Cardassia sign a peace treaty, which helped to defuse some tensions there.  In the third season, Cardassia and Bajor sign a treaty as well.  Bajoran society gradually comes together as well, as the various factions put aside their differences under the guidance of strong and respected leaders.  And like Staffan said, the Dominion didn't just pop up out of nowhere, like the Xndi, or even the Suliban.  There were occasional hints planted throughout the second season about them, until they're finally revealed at the end of the season.  And even then, the war doesn't break out immediately; there's several years of paranoia and suspicion before Dukat decides to ally with them and the Federations and Klingons take a stand.  Finally, connecting Odo and the Dominion was a great touch that lead to a number of great stories.


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## Vigilance (Apr 17, 2005)

I agree that the Dominion was not a huge change in gears for DS9, it was hinted at steadily in the 2nd season, until there is finally the big showdown at the end of season 2 and the final revelation that the founders are Odo's people in the first episode of season 3. 

However this is not to say that NOTHING changed. One of the things I liked about DS9 is that they were *ruthless* from a writing standpoint. When things didn't work they were discarded and/or reworked. 

Anyone remember the Vorta's telekinetic powers? The Klingon-Federation conflict? The Cardassians as Klingon victims? Gul Dukat as a daring pirate and resistance fighter in his captured Bird of Prey?

Imo this is a feature not a bug. Id much rather have a show occasionally shift gears than cling to something that is clearly NOT working and does not click with the fans *cough*temporalcoldwar*cough*

Chuck


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## wingsandsword (Apr 17, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Heh, there is no comparison.
> 
> The seeds of war were growning for a couple seasons before the fecal matter hit the dilithium chamber.  As much as I love Farscape, no TV sci-fi war has touched the Dominion War as of yet.



I disagree, the Shadow War from Babylon 5 was better then the Dominion War.  The Dominion was added in the second season to make a real threat on the other side of the Wormhole, they were foreshadowed for part of a season then they came out swinging.  Even the series creators didn't know where Odo came from at first (other than it being implied that he may have come through the wormhole).

The Dominion War was very good, and by far the best ongoing storyline in any Trek series, as it showed something that we really couldn't have seen before and it really gave a chance for some great episodes.  Personally I would have loved it if Enterprise had begun a few years later and been the story of the Romulan Wars (just because it didn't make it into the history books what Romulans looked like didn't mean you couldn't show them, just that all the info is secret, lost, or the witnesses never say a thing).  The Remans introduced in Nemesis gave them the perfect way to field armies without being seen.  Instead we got the lame "Temporal Cold War" which they even admitted they didn't think through in advance.

Babylon 5 was, from it's beginning, the story of the Shadow War, what lead up to it, the side-conflicts it created (The Narn-Centauri War & The Earth Civil War) and the aftereffects and aftermath of the war (the Telepath Crisis, the Drakh plague).  Foreshadowing was set up from the first episode, and it all locked together.  Foreshadowing, plot arcs, character development, that was all B5's strength because it was written as one contiguous show, designed from the beginning and most of the series even written by the same person.

I like both B5 and Trek, but each one has its strengths.  Trek is best for exploring the galaxy and seeing "strange new worlds" on the edge of known space..  Babylon 5 is the story of a huge, galaxy spanning war told in one sitting, told from the point of view of a diplomatic space station caught in the middle of the war, and the side tales around that war, a massive series of interlocking story arcs where problems aren't solved with a bit of jargon and some new particle-of-the-week.


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## John Crichton (Apr 17, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> I disagree, the Shadow War from Babylon 5 was better then the Dominion War. The Dominion was added in the second season to make a real threat on the other side of the Wormhole, they were foreshadowed for part of a season then they came out swinging. Even the series creators didn't know where Odo came from at first (other than it being implied that he may have come through the wormhole).
> 
> >snip<
> 
> the side tales around that war, a massive series of interlocking story arcs where problems aren't solved with a bit of jargon and some new particle-of-the-week.



If you check out my Babylon 5 DVD thread, you'll see that I haven't watched B5 until now.  So, I actually had to stop reading your post mid-way through the first paragraph.  I'm trying to stay away from anything to do with the plot as I know nothing about it right now except from what I've seen in 6 eps.


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## Darth K'Trava (Apr 18, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> If you check out my Babylon 5 DVD thread, you'll see that I haven't watched B5 until now.  So, I actually had to stop reading your post mid-way through the first paragraph.  I'm trying to stay away from anything to do with the plot as I know nothing about it right now except from what I've seen in 6 eps.




You really need to hurry up and watch it!


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## aerofynn (Apr 18, 2005)

I believe one of the reasons why the overall quality of ENT is because Ronald Moore left to do Battlestar Galatica. In my opinion, TNG didn't really gel until he came on board. He was a driving force of consistency (not to mention just plain good ideas) for the show.

I had no doubt BSG would be at least decent, if not good when I learned he was involved.


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## mojo1701 (Apr 18, 2005)

aerofynn said:
			
		

> I believe one of the reasons why the overall quality of ENT is because Ronald Moore left to do Battlestar Galatica. In my opinion, TNG didn't really gel until he came on board. He was a driving force of consistency (not to mention just plain good ideas) for the show.
> 
> I had no doubt BSG would be at least decent, if not good when I learned he was involved.




It wasn't so much Moore's involvement, as so much a lack of Berman. It just happens to be a coincidence that the two ideas are related.


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## John Crichton (Apr 18, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> If you check out my Babylon 5 DVD thread, you'll see that I haven't watched B5 until now. So, I actually had to stop reading your post mid-way through the first paragraph. I'm trying to stay away from anything to do with the plot as I know nothing about it right now except from what I've seen in 6 eps.



I'm workin' on it.  

I'm trying to average at least one ep a day.  Some days I can't watch at all and other days I can catch 2-3 eps.  Also, I don't want to burn through it too quickly as I don't have season 2 yet.  I hate cliffhangers!  When it gets here (just got it off ebay) I'll probably try and speed things up a bit.  I like what I'm seeing so far.


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