Download the JMS/Zabel Star Trek treatment

[Kesh]

New shows are being tried all the time. They just keep dying/getting cancelled because they don't get the ratings people want.

 

[Ranger REG]

New shows are being tried all the time. They just keep dying/getting cancelled because they don't get the ratings people want.

Sighs. Yeah, we genre fans are at the mercy of the mainstream dominance (aka the 'in-crowd").

 

[Jhamin]

As the whole thing started to sink in, the more it sounded exactly like a rehash of Babylon 5, with a bit of Crusade tossed in. Five-year arc? Check. Ancient races? Check. Ancient races who tinkered with us? Check. All leading to the question of who are we, why are we here, where do we come from? Check. I just couldn't shake the feeling that while their hearts may have been in the right place, what was on the page was very simply Babylon 5 set against the backdrop of Star Trek.

As for the Crusade angle, That show clearly had an Arc and was clearly building to something when it was axed. When the show was killed the fans begged him to spill what would have been coming. He declined, saying that he was saving his plot in case he ever got another chance at sci-fi........

So yes, there probably are some parallels between the Babylon universe and what was laid out here. And I would be all about that. From what I saw in those dozen episodes Babylon: Crusade made better Trek than Voyager or Enterprise did: Characters from a better future who have tough choices to make with big consequences if they choose wrong.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I would sign on to watch that show in a heartbeat.

Of course, I'm their target audience: a fan of both the group of science fiction writers they mention who worked on the original series and of at least some of the writers they throw out as inspiration for rebooted Star Trek scripts. A fan of varying, even wildly different interpretations of classic characters in comics, television, and films. A fan of Star Trek who agrees that the vagaries of network series production and decades' worth of different approaches that are supposed to fit in one continuity has just dragged the universe down overall.

How many actors have played Sherlock Holmes? Richard III?

Count Dracula? James Bond? Zorro? The Lone Ranger? Starsky and Hutch? Anakin Skywalker?

I'm confused, REG. Why are you vehemently agreeing with Vigilance, here?

I mean, excepting your two latter examples, which also happen to be the only examples where the well has only been revisited once and therefore don't have the statistical weight that the others do, all of the names you mention are of classic characters who have been done well multiple times.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Ugh, that ep is blotted from my mind as one of the most nonsensical examples of sexism on TV. Star Fleet doesn't allow female captains? Wow, what a progressive attitude in our future utopia...which is contradicted repeatedly in both canon and non-canon sources. It is barely more tolerable than Spock's Brain.

So I just have to say... Hubby was reading bits of this thread to me, and when he got to the post preceeding this comment, I started ranting about the level of sexist drivel that episode constituted. When I was done he moved on and promptly accused me of being DreadPirateMurphy.

I would like to officially accuse DPM of stealing my brain.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

So I just have to say... Hubby was reading bits of this thread to me, and when he got to the post preceeding this comment, I started ranting about the level of sexist drivel that episode constituted. When I was done he moved on and promptly accused me of being DreadPirateMurphy.

I would like to officially accuse DPM of stealing my brain.

I profess innocense in that regard. I did, however, grow up in Massachusetts, which is where Kahuna Burger resides. It may just be a case of great minds thinking alike.

 

[Vigilance]

Ugh, that ep is blotted from my mind as one of the most nonsensical examples of sexism on TV. Star Fleet doesn't allow female captains? Wow, what a progressive attitude in our future utopia...which is contradicted repeatedly in both canon and non-canon sources. It is barely more tolerable than Spock's Brain.

You have to remember, whenever discussing the original series, that the Federation was NOT a utopia then. That was part of the TNG reboot.

TOS had people *say* they lived in a perfect society a time or two, meanwhile you have crew members at each other's throats, driving themselves way too hard, boozing and whoring, Star Fleet seemingly populated with a good deal of psychotic admirals and ineffectual paper pushing bureaucrats and the good guys (Kirk and co.) who had to *break the rules* to do good.

TNG actually decided to *make* the Federation utopian.

 

[ByteRynn]

Being the BAD Sci-fi fan that I am, and having never seen an episode of Bab5, this treatment actually sounded down-right perfect to me. It would fix everything that I find empty about Star Trek when I watch old episodes now (TOS's outdated sensibilities and Tech, TNG's over-utopia and again, old tech, DS9's lack of "travel", and the existance of Enterprise and Voyager).

Still, I don't mind waiting to see what Abrams will do with it.

Also, if this had been thrown into production back in 2004, which hot new actors of 2004-2005's TV shows do you think would have ended up on Trek instead of their individual new shows? Any?

 

[drothgery]

crew members at each other's throats, driving themselves way too hard, boozing and whoring, Star Fleet seemingly populated with a good deal of psychotic admirals and ineffectual paper pushing bureaucrats and the good guys (Kirk and co.) who had to *break the rules* to do good.

I continue to insist that psychotic admirals were just as common in TNG, and in DS9 one even tried to stage a coup and take over the Federation. Starfleet has a serious problem with its flag officers, if the TV shows are any indication.

 

[Kesh]

Yet again proving that utopias don't work.