Bab 5 creator going the "d20" route for his next TV show?

[Von Ether]

www.scifi.com

Look at the SCIFI WIRE news section and you'll find a story where the creator of Bab 5 is pitching Paramount with a new series idea for Star Trek, claiming his idea will revitalize the fanchise.

The gamer geek in me said, "Hey, that sort of like Bablyon 5 doing a 'd20' move."

Unless really hard core ST fans boycott the show, that will end any debate on the quality of Bablyon 5 being an equal to Star Trek.

Personally, I like both franchises and the concept of Bab 5's creator working on ST is like adding peanut butter and chocolate!

 

[Umbran]

Unless really hard core ST fans boycott the show, that will end any debate on the quality of Bablyon 5 being an equal to Star Trek.

Not in the slightest. "Quality" is a subjective thing. The composition or number of individuals in the audience don't speak to a show's quality. Only to it's appeal to the mass or specific niche markets.

 

[WizarDru]

Not in the slightest. "Quality" is a subjective thing. The composition or number of individuals in the audience don't speak to a show's quality. Only to it's appeal to the mass or specific niche markets.

Word. How many fans of American Idol consider it to be 'quality' television? How many of them would go out and buy a DVD set of a particular season? How many will want to watch it again ten years from now? Twenty?

I personally favor B5, but that doesn't blind me to its flaws, any more than to the ST franchises various weaknesses. I'd personally be very interested in what JMS would bring to the ST franchise: most importantly, a different perspective. I just haven't been that interested in ST since mid-DS9, when ST's continual recycling of plot elements and tropes simply became something I didn't want to watch. That caused me to miss some of DS9's finest moments, apparently...but I kept giving the franchise a chance with Voyager and then Enterprise...both of which just weren't what I was interested in. The initial premise of each series seemed interesting to me, but the execution drove me away from them.

JMS once pointed out (paraphrasing here) that all B5 fans have, at one point or another, watched Star Trek, the reverse isn't true. In essence, most B5 viewers were, at some point, fans of Star Trek...and could be again, if conditions were right.

However, I don't know if Paramount has gone far enough down the unprofitable rabbit hole to want to try something risky with the franchise, when following the formula has gotten them this far.

 

[John Crichton]

I say give JMS a shot at it.

The bigger news, to me, is the article mentions Manny Coto (creator of Odyssey 5) is taking over the helm of Enterprise next season. This is the first I'd heard of it...

 

[LightPhoenix]

JMS would not last one season doing Trek. Not that he couldn't... quite the opposite, I think he could do a great job. But JMS is also notoriously difficult to work with, especially in taking suggestions from others. There's no way he'd suffer executives trying to make him do things, and anyone who doesn't think Paramount wouldn't try is delusional.

I don't think it will happen anyway though. Andromeda was originally pitched to Paramount, and it would have been a great concept in the Terk universe, but Paramount turned it down because it was too radical. I imagine anything JMS would do would be pretty radical as well, and so I don't see Paramount accepting it.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't think we need another series overlapping. But the sooner they get off the unimpressive "Temporal Cold War" story arc, the better.

 

[Von Ether]

I don't think we need another series overlapping. But the sooner they get off the unimpressive "Temporal Cold War" story arc, the better.

It may be unimpressive, but I don't blame them for implementing it.

Face it, there is more than 30 years of "continuity" in Star Trek that is composed mostly of retrofitting stuff that was never meant to be a solid whole in the first place -- and frankly is outdated since we now have satelitte phones that are smaller than tricorders.

And now you have a show that is set in the "past." Unless you lock yourself in all this stuff that was mostly created to fill in a page count for a licenced "Tech/Space/Alien book of Star Trek circra 1975" book, then you need some elbow room for creative licence, especially since ST seems to run on a "villian race for the season."

So with the "temp cold war" you can do quite a few wild things and the wrap up the season by getting it "back in line" with all that other stuff and still keep the nitpick-style fans happy.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I'll believe JMS running Star Trek when I see it. That being said I would love to see it. Star Trek needs some new blood and JMS has a proven track record of producing interesting sci-fi.