Why Startrek is Dead (Opinion Thread)

[Alan Shutko]

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]

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]

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]

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.

Ah, fandom. I thought you meant those Star Trek novels from ROC.

 

[mojo1701]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.