How did Trek Become Such a Phenomenon?

[sabrinathecat]

Yeah, well... OK, short version: Because everyone was telling me that DS9 was as good (or nearly as good) as Babylon 5, I started to watch from the beginning. Bored 1/2 way through season 1. Asked trekkie friend "when does this get good?" He replied end of season 2. So watched last half of season 2. "So, when does this get good? Half way through season 3. OK. Watched season 3.
1 really good episode (W. Thomas Riker steals the Defiant)
2 good episodes.
Bunch of meh.
3 eps so bad I turned them off when the opening credits began
2 so horrible I'd rather volunteer for experimental bowel surgery than risk watching them again (Quark's klingon marriage, Quark deals with his mother's modern/foreign business practices)
So, when does this show get good?
Oh, season 4.
<Expletive> If it takes more than three years for your show to figure out what it is doing, your show is in serious trouble.
Babylon 5 was amazing from the get go with the pilot episode.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, well... OK, short version: Because everyone was telling me that DS9 was as good (or nearly as good) as Babylon 5, I started to watch from the beginning. Bored 1/2 way through season 1. Asked trekkie friend "when does this get good?"

It sounds like you needed to be rather more specific than "good" if you wanted to get real information before putting time to watching.

Babylon 5 was amazing from the get go with the pilot episode.

No, it really wasn't. It was okay, but not amazing. At least, I was not amazed. The first season has long stretches of leaden acting, and a bunch of incidents of just poor writing. Seasons 2 and 3 were both good. Season 4 was, of course, rushed, and season 5 suffered because of it. So, while the show overall was excellent, and is one of my genre favorites, it only had two seasons I'd say were really solid. The rest were hit-and-miss.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Also, as to why Trek is so popular: music. Star Wars may have a few of the really memorable themes in movie music history, but the overall body of music written for Star Trek is unparalleled. Good and bad movies alike have scores that have stood the test of time after decades, and there has been a recent trend in rereleasing complete score albums for Star Trek movies. The television shows are different, but their use of large-scale orchestral music sets them apart from many other shows that use annoying licensed pop songs or cheap minimalist stuff. The music is what pulls people into it emotionally.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Compared with what else was available, B5's pilot was pretty spiffy. Remember, this was about season 4 or 5 of TNG, Time Trax, Sea Quest, and not much else.
"When does the story get good?" How about that question?
Yes, the soundtracks for the first 3 Trek movies (even the disco version for Trek3) are great. OK, TMP title is now tired after being reused for trek 5 and 7 years of TNG. Trek 2&3 also probably represents the pinnacle of James Horner's career (there's a reason he reused the themes and motifs in Aliens and Enemy at the Gates).

 

[Ahnehnois]

DS9's "Golden Age" was really the fourth, fifth, and early sixth seasons.

The pilot for DS9 was actually quite good, but the rest of the first season was largely lousy knockoffs and crossovers that tried and failed to leverage the popularity of the existing canon. The second and third seasons were more original, but still uneven and sometimes lacking in direction and initiative. The show really got good when it embraced serialization and delved in to the politics of its world (and when the main creative staff stopped paying attention to it and let the DS9 writers and producers do their own thing). The result was a story that did leverage the existing Trek universe, but took it to new intellectual ground (which the other Trek spinoffs have largely failed to do). A lot of the better episodes are really astonishing at predicting post-9/11 social issues, even though they were written in the 1990's. The journeys of all the dozens of side characters were involving. The war was thrilling; something I don't think any television show has ever duplicated.

However, to get DS9, you have to be steeped in Trek and watch a lot of mediocre episodes before you get there. Certainly, only the Star Trek name would allow a show years to find its footing. Because of this, it could only ever be a cult/niche show. But it is good.

As for B5, it may have been well written but the episodes I've seen just bored me. I imagine you'd have to watch it from the beginning, but even then their characters/actors just lacked charisma. I never saw the attraction.

Yes, the soundtracks for the first 3 Trek movies (even the disco version for Trek3) are great. OK, TMP title is now tired after being reused for trek 5 and 7 years of TNG. Trek 2&3 also probably represents the pinnacle of James Horner's career (there's a reason he reused the themes and motifs in Aliens and Enemy at the Gates).

The original rendering of The Motion Picture theme is still the best. That's why that score has been rereleased repeatedly in increasingly special editions. And I am inclined to agree that, counterintuitively, James Horner's best work was on these early scores, rather than his famous ones later on. There is also plenty of excellent work done for the other Trek series. Goldsmith won an Emmy for the Voyager theme, and I still think DS9's is better. The score for the Next Generation episode Best of Both Worlds was released as its own album. The later Trek movies have plenty of gems (except for the reboots; their music sucks).

We would not still be talking about Star Trek if it weren't for those Goldsmith and Horner scores reaching out for and grabbing the hearts of those audiences.

 

[Umbran]

"When does the story get good?" How about that question?

I think that question may be attempting to forget our TV history a bit.

As I said upthread - Trek has always been first and foremost a series of morality plays. Rather like an RPG, for the series as a whole, "the story" is only an emergent property, seen only in retrospect. The Original Series and Next Gen were neither written with one united "the story". TOS has no long-standing arc or character development to speak of. Next Gen has a little of it, as writers created episodes that referred back to the canon they'd previously created.

The genre was, at the time, dominated by anthology and episodic shows (like "Friday the 13th: The Series"). Babylon 5 brought one new thing to the table - a pre-designed arc plot. This was what set B5 apart from all other major genre shows at the time. Now, there's some argument as to whether or not the writers and producers for DS9 had always intended to do the same, but the fact of the matter is that B5 beat them to the punch, and was the first genre show to *have* "the story".

So, if what you're looking for is B5-type story, you really need to look at stuff written and aired after B5 started. DS9, being poised for it, was able to jump on it fairly quickly, but they couldnt' travel back in time and do it beforehand.

I, personally, don't find, "failed to be ahead of its time" to be much of a criticism.

A lot of the better episodes are really astonishing at predicting post-9/11 social issues, even though they were written in the 1990's.

Well, we forget about the world pre-9/11 somtimes. DS9 started in 1993. The IRA was still an issue. There was war in Bosnia. Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center Bombing, and other terrorist actions were going on.

 

[sabrinathecat]

The thing with DS9 was that when JMS was shopping B5 around, one of the places he went was paramount. Paramount turned him down. Then, when they found out WB was actually making his show, they panicked (the idea of another space franchise they didn't control? ack!!!). They took the notes from their meeting with him, and cranked out DS9. They even rushed production so their pilot would air a couple weeks earlier. From the get-go, DS9 was a B5 copy, or at least based on the same model.
Now, if you just try watching a couple random episodes of B5, it isn't going to work. You can step into DS9 and maybe get lucky. Or you can get Quark marrying into a Klingon family, or ordering his mother to take off her clothes.

 

[billd91]

Trek as a series of morality plays -- that isn't meant to be internally consistent -- I can buy. It's not particularly appealing to me, but I can wrap my head around it.

I don't think it wasn't meant to be internally consistent, rather, that wasn't something they could easily achieve the way shows were planned out at the time. Stories for the season were more or less pitched and then farmed out to a variety of writers all at once. The writers didn't typically have very good cross contact and if one of them developed something new about a character or species, it typically couldn't be reacted to by other writers until the next season. A lot of the consistency would have to have come from writers who managed to work on more than one episode or story editors like DC Fontana.

 

[Umbran]

The thing with DS9 was that when JMS was shopping B5 around, one of the places he went was paramount....

Yes, that's the common story. The counter to it is that Paramount already had ideas for DS9 in motion at the time JMS came to them. It isn't like, "set a space show on a station" is an incredibly difficult idea to come up with. I don't think we are ever going to know the real truth of the matter, and I don't think the speculation is of any value to viewers.

 

[billd91]

Yes, that's the common story. The counter to it is that Paramount already had ideas for DS9 in motion at the time JMS came to them. It isn't like, "set a space show on a station" is an incredibly difficult idea to come up with. I don't think we are ever going to know the real truth of the matter, and I don't think the speculation is of any value to viewers.

And for that matter, Berman and Piller flatly deny even knowing about Straczynski's pitch to Paramount (Berman says he didn't even know who Straczynski was at the time). And even Straczynski backed off his claims that they had stolen his plotting ideas. I do think it entirely possible, however, that Straczynski's pitch could have made DS9 more likely. His rejected pitch in 1989 could have planted the idea in the powers that be at Paramount so that when another space station pitch cropped up with their own properties, they were more likely to accept it. It could have been because it was now less of an alien idea or it could have been because they knew someone out there was shopping the Bab5 idea around, may have found backing, and they wanted to make sure they had an answer to it. I'm not sure it entirely matters, at this point.