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New Star Trek Series Rumours
HashCode writes "The Star Trek franchise is about to take a warp speed trip down memory lane ... Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. It looks like its going to become a reality. " Free Advice to paramount trek producers: Go to farm. Find horse. Kill it. Beat it until fists hurt.
A related story from
Adam Juda confirms that Voyager will land in 2001.
Actually please leave the Novel writers to Novel writing. I will take a good sci-fi book over a movie or TV show anyday. I have read Snowcrash and Neuromancer multiple types and they always entertain me. You can imagine the VR in Snowcrash and the console cowboys in Neuromancer so clearly and vividly in your mind (though the Matrix special effects were pretty awesome). Read a book and you won't care if the next Trek lives or dies.
On a seperate rant, sci fi like Trek is highly annoying. The writers should not try to explain how a highly advanced technology works. As Arthur C Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is virtually indistinguishable from magic." and that is how it should be. This technology does not exist so do not try to explain how it works. Star Trek is highly guilty of this sci fi sin. I prefer the Star Wars or Matrix or most sci fi book take, it just is. The Star Wars movies don't try to explain lightsabers or lightspeed (damn fans do but thats a whole different story), Matrix didn't try to explain why you die in the Matrix (one line...the body cannot live without the line DONE!), as most books do not try to explain how their magic works. If I want to know how something works, I'll take something real like O'Reilly books, Thank you very much!
Original Series. Great concept, low budget, good cast ruined by W. Sh1tners terrible acting. He's a total ashole in real life btw.
ST: Next Generation. Continued to have great concept, mostly excellent plots, this time the whole cast is excellent because ST is big name now. Also they get cash for special effects bought somewhere besides CVS.
Deep Space 9. Mostly as good as Next Generation, finally get a Afro-american captain, even change the ship to a space station, but I think they tried to save money this time around, and the scripts werent as strong as ST:TNG's. Better than ST:TOS in general but starting to lose steam.
Voyager. They put a woman in the command seat, which is all well and good except that Janeway's acting sucks. With a better actress maybe, but since the rest of the show is pretty sucky too, this one never had a chance (eg, the plots suck, the characters are lame, and they whine about the same stupid crap in every episode). It's fairly obvious they cut corners on every most aspects of this show and built the plot around the fact that they were just pumping in a little cash so they could whore the Star Trek name as cheap as possible (Delta quadrant==less extras, Female lead==glass ceiling, and the inside of their ship could fit in my backyard)
Star Trek really died with Gene Roddenberry, bless his soul. Once the creative fire went out and the bean counters were put in charge, shit like Babylon 5 and Seaquest started to settle in. Thank god they died out.
Since it looks like Star Wars and Star Trek have both had their blood thoroughly wrung from them for the sake of profit (SW:episode one was cock, admit it if you're over 6 years old, even if it had a couple visualy good scenes) I find myself wishing they would mess around with the V* concept a little more; some of those movies/episodes were really cool, and they haven't smooshed it to pulp yet.
If the TV networks were really smart they'd realize that Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Niven, and company have been creating stuff that's so entertaining, PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ IT OUT OF BOOKS!
I know a lot of Steven King has gone from book to video, why not Heinlein or Asimov whose books touch on things that might be important someday instead of just being "scary". Alfred Hitchcock's "the Birds" deserved to be made... "The Langoliers" was total crap. Someone needs to secretly replace the TV execs with Nerds and Geeks so we can get some decent SciFi on television.
*V: for those who never saw V (pronounced vee) it was about a race of aliens who come to earth and give us medicine, technology, help us build industry etc, but it turns out (of course) that they are really evil reptile people wearing masks, who are farming us like cattle and shipping us back to their other worlds to be their meals. They also eat live birds and mice, and can interbreed with us. Somewhere between Star Trek and Alien Nation in terms of how good it was. I see it on TV every now and then; i think there's like 30 episodes, an hour each? not sure.
PS the cycle I refered to in the title is, lowbudget_badacting/ highbudget_doitright/ decliningbudget_doitalmostright/ lowbudget_badacting. Hopefully an equilibrium closer to ST:TNG than Voyager will be reached, 'cause you know Star Trek is gonna get whored until our great grandkids are watching the reruns on payperview on Risa.
Score 387, Insightful as Hell, and contains no sentiments which might in any way be construed as a troll or flamebait. M$ sux! linux rulez! open source forever! BANZAI!!!!
Lessse, the ship is taken over what, once a month, on average? And they let them run around with phasers, photon torpedoes, and whaterver else that week's plot needs (planet destroyers??? as a stock item???)
.
These folks shouldn't be allowed deflectors, let alone weapons.
And they've brought security through obscurity to new levels: oooh, an access code. Control any one federation ship, know where to look things up, and you can control them all.
Kind of takes the fun out of collecting . .
And haven't these folks ever heard of an ignition key? No key, no warp drive?
Babylon 5 succeeded in spite of its bad acting and sometimes-cheesy plots. Why? Because it was a serial; it was telling a story from beginning to end. Unlike any of the Trek series, where all of the characters have to end an episode in the same way they began it, Babylon 5 was free to introduce new regular characters, kill off important ones, and change the universe in some really drastic ways. Unlike Voyager, where no one cares what the crew goes through from week to week because the Big Red Reset Button keeps being hit, B5 viewers enthusiastically tuned in every week so that they wouldn't miss anything, and one of the most fun pasttimes was to analyze previous episodes to figure out what would happen in future ones.
The time period of an Excelsior series is rampant with possibilities. Space is being explored, but there's still a lot unknown out there; the Klingons are now our allies, but it's an uneasy truce at best; a lot of new technology is being developed, but it doesn't always work quite right. There's a lot of room for political intrigue, commando squads, tense standoffs, heroic bravery... the very sorts of things Hollywood loves these days. Throw in some marauders causing tensions between Starfleet and Klingon, add in some more of those high-ranking officials from Star Trek VI who believed the whole thing was doomed to fail, and there's your writers' bible for you.
The problem with a 'Birth of the Federation' series is that it's going to annoy fans when they inevitably get the details wrong... and who cares about the big clunky starships which had pea-shooter-power phasers, anyway? At the other end of the scale you've got Voyager-era Trek, where people fiddle with time and reality on a regular basis so that nothing's sacred any more. The Excelsior era comes at an exciting time in Trek history, and there's not a lot canon about it yet; I really feel Paramount's making a grave mistake by not listening to its fans here.
Please, oh please, oh please let there be no transporters.
That is the death of all things good in science fiction. This is the ultimate technology and they have to keep coming up with reasons why it won't work to solve a particular problem in order to have a plausible stories.
Hostages on the planet? No problem, beam them out.
Hostiles on the ship, no problem beam them into bulk heads.
Nano technology in the captain, beam out the circuits.
Pimples, beam them off.
Get rid of transporters, make it all like Space: Above and Beyond was and you will have a show I want to watch.
MSTK3000 was very funny.
It was also supposed to be taken as funny, as implausible, etc.
Star Trek, and other fantasy/sci-fi stories deal with the idea of a willing suspension of disbelief. They want you to accept them as plausible alternate realities. Not just as a show. A soap opera is the same way, they want you to believe.
What that (willing suspension of disbelief) means is, I am going to show you something fantastic, that is different from the world as you know it. I cannot necessarily explain this fantastic thing and why it can exist, just know that it does. Just accept it. Once you do, everything else will make sense in relationship to that acceptance. Oh yeah, and that fantastic thing will actually make the world different in realistic ways.
Examples: 1. There are two moons and nighttime is aslit up as a cloudy day. So, there is a thriving nightlife on this world because it is never really night. Construction, shopping, farming, whatever go on at all hours of the day. Society is changed in fundamental ways because of this. It is not ignored.
2. Gravity on this planet is 1/4 of Earth's gravity. Changes you might see as a result of that in a place that is the equivalent of our 20th century might be hovercrafts instead of rolling cars, architecture that builds up more than out. More orbital traffic as the cost to launch is less. Extreme sports more extreme than we know of.
3. A planet with two dominant, yet distinctly different species. Imagine a world in which there are humans, and city building lobsters in the oceans. Imagine the conflicts that arise from this about polluting, the hurricanes the lobsters make to turn over their underwater farmlands, a human society that couldn't explore the oceans because they would be killed by lobsters. No coastal cities unless they were heavily armed for defense against the lobsters. Or, if the races get along, imagine the underwater exploration that would be possible for humans, or the special niches on land the lobsters might be able to work. Imagine what the Olympics would be like between the two species?
The Matrix is a great example of the willing suspension of disbelief. All you really have to accept is that, "You've been living in a dream world Neo." Everything else makes sense in relation to that one fantastic revelation. Everything except that damn kiss from Trinity.
Space: Above and Beyond is great with the examples of the AI war and the Invitros. The fact that humans fought a war against their own artificial creations will make them leary of automation of too many processes and stay away from technologies that will lead to that. The fact that they made cloned humans led to eventual social, political, and spiritual situations that had to be, or were still being resolved, at the time of the story. Similar to Picard trying to get Data declared a human (or the Bicentennial Man), except you have thousands of clones who need some sort of acceptance and civil rights. Much like the blacks in America. Whether they were slaves at one time, or free people who had law given rights but not the ability to execute those rights, to a society that has nearly removed those barriers but because of the long history of blacks being second class now find it difficult to get the education or motives to move beyond the life that 100+ years of persecution have left them with. Did that sentence make sense?
Anyway, Star Trek sucks because it rarely moves beyond the scope of the single show. If the crew of the Enterprise discover or invent a new technology, where is the ripple effect as that techonolgy moves throughout all of the Federation? If Geordie's warp engines are more efficient than any other, why don't people come study underneath him? If the Dyson's sphere is discovered, where the heck in the scheme of things will a metal sphere 1AU in diameter fit into the scheme of things?
Anyway, I enjoy Star Trek. It is fun and entertaining. But if I was writing a novel or a screenplay, it is not the universe I would want to base it in.
A couple of months ago, I talked to Lolita Fatjo, and she said at the time that:
1) They'd have to tell her about 18 months in advance of a new series.
2) They hadn't told her yet.
3) If they wanted to do one in fall of 2001 they'd have to start making public noises in a couple of months.
Now here we are.
Birth of the Federation was one of the ideas she mentioned as "not having been completely ruled out as too stupid" so I think we've got a pretty good chance that this thing is really gonna get off the ground.
I think you're going to be disappointed on continuity, though. Remember, they have to basically pretend like all the technology in TOS didn't really look like it did, or this one would have to look REALLY crappy.
I'd expect movie-era technology in terms of user interface, don't expect it to look even older than TOS.
Blake's 7 was always much better than Star Trek, because
And finally, 20 years on, they're going to film it :)
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"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Hey Paramount - want a good new ST series - let JMS (B5, Crusade) write / direct.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Well, here are my credentials: I have all 79 TOS episodes on videotape, and I could probably hold my own in any trek trivia contest. Having said that, I am completely confident that any new trek series will suck just as much as the current one.
The only way that this new series could possibly not suck would be if all the writers suddenly got a reality check. The key difference between TOS episodes and all the rest of the bunch comes down simply to this concept called "writing", and I have very little hope that any one of the current crop of screenwriters can come any close to cranking out the same quality of stories that Gene Roddenberry, and the rest of the original gang, did back in the 60s.
Now, taping those 79 original episodes, when they ran on the sci-fi channel, was quite an educational experience. I've seen all of them before, of course, but not recently. Before trek had its sci-fi run, the original episodes haven't been seen in years, and it was quite a perspective to see them again, after a decade, or more, of assorted trek spinoffs.
The conclusion that I came away with, after seeing the TOS 79 again, was as following. The acting sucked, yes, and I don't think I need to go extrapolate any further. But the reason why TOS became the hit that it was was simply because it was one of the best damn-written TV shows that ever was. Sure, there were occasional fuckups, like "Spock's Brain", but on average, the story lines, the concepts, and the ideas behind each episode were fresh, unique, insightful, and after seeing the credits roll at the end you can't help but ponder, for a few moments, of the message behind each episode.
Having said that, I've pretty much given up on Hollywood these days. I have very little hope that there's anyone left back there who can come up with anything on the same level again. Look at your average Voyager episode. Voyager is directly the opposite of TOS, in this case. Some episodes are pretty good and insightful, but, on average, the episodes are a complete waste, 40-some odd minutes of technobabble and gobbledygook, with gratuitous close-ups of whatsherface's ample curves. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but frankly I prefer doing the real thing with my g/f.
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My bet was that the next Trek series was gonna be Starfleet Academy: 90210...
On the up side though, I won't have to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon...
Personally, I think that if they're going to keep churning out Star Trek series, they should map them out more coherently (like a five year plan ala B5).
What does this button d$#%* NO CARRIER
I've heard all the arguments in this thread before (I used to be a regular on Usenet). Voyager sucks, DS9 sucks, Paramount should let it die, yadda yadda yadda. Look, it's a property. As long as they can make money from it, they'll keep trying new series. Nobody's forcing you to watch.
The basic problem I have with Star Trek, though, speaking as a loyal fan who thought that the best of TNG (e.g. Yesterday's Enterprise) measured up to the best of TOS, is that DS9 to some extent (which I initially liked very much for its somewhat darker world view) and Voyager much much more had this enormous problem with their fourth acts. They'd set up some wildly original premise, take you through a decent three acts of learning about it, then wrap it all up in lightning fashion, always too neat, always restoring the status quo ante, and bam! the show's over. I eventually stopped watching DS9 because I was tired of the war with the Delta Quadrant, and Voyager because every time I still liked a particular episode by the 45 minute mark, they would pull the rug out from under me and make me hate it in the last fifteen minutes.
I think it's born of the paint-by-numbers script teams they use. I know writing for television is hard, and I know writing SF that's 100% consistent with 400 pre-existing episodes is a professional impossibility, but building a story formula/framework that's obvious as the scaffold around the Washington Monument isn't the answer. (Well, it made money, so I guess it was at some level.) I appreciate that they insisted that every story was in fact a human story, even if this tended to weaken the SF elements. Really, the stories weren't true SF; the SF elements were always inserted later. They'd use "tech tech tech" in the early drafts before Okuda or someone could insert appropriate polysyllabic words, but especially towards the end you could also see them inserting human emotions the same way. As a bit of a writer myself, I didn't appreciate being able to see the puppeteer's strings so easily.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Slashdot is hardly representative of the science-fiction watching public.
Give me a break.
Star Trek is about the only show that has consistently kept science fiction programming on mainstream television.
My journal has hot
We all know what this is going to mean- more weird-ass vortexes, more mindless fights, more anomalies-of-the-week, and probably more women in catsuits. The Baywatch-ization of Star Trek will be complete
And this is one of the reasons I have so much respect for JMS, the writer of Babylon 5 and Crusade. After the amazing success of the first 4 seasons of B5, another season and eventually a follow up season were created. However, the Powers That Be (TNT, the sponsoring channel) wanted to turn the show into "Baywatch In Space." He said 'fuck that' and chose to end Crusade to maintain his creative vision.
And what a vision it had been. B5 was one of the most well written series I've ever seen. The character development was there, especially between Mulari and G'Kar. The first 4 seasons all intricately tied together. They even made a prequel movie 'In the Beginning', and it was good.
The writers of Star Trek could learn a thing or twenty.
And to CmdrTaco: Star Trek is NOT a dead horse!!!
Alas, too true. It's an evil undead vampiric corruption zombie hell-horse, that needs a stake through the heart, decapitation with the body quartered and sent to the four corners of the earth, a holy wafer put into the mouth of the head with the lips then sewn shut with black silk thread and then buried at a crossroads during a full moon.
But that's just my opinion.
And Voyager is still UPNs highest rated show.
Talk about damning with faint praise...
Really, the birth of the Federation is hands down the most interesting thing in the whole Star Trek universe. It is something we can, and should, take into account when forming the society of the 21st century.
After all, Paramount will soon reveal how the good people of the Federation erased war, famine, illness, indecency and leisure clothing from the known universe. Isn't that something we should all look forward to?
Marko Karppinen
I disagree with you. I think that this promises to be an interesting series - after all, I never knew how the Federation was born.
I hope they can give it an interesting plot, because some of the series were lacking.
Original ST - misfits exploring galaxy
ST:TNG - greater emphasis on politics, technology
ST:DS9 - overemphasis on politics, boring plot (like a sitcom)
ST:VOYAGER - absurd plot
No comment at this time
(thick scottish accent) i've done everything i could captain but she can't take anymore! Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!
Star Trek is schlock sci-fi at its worst. A throwback to the 1950s, when the audience lived for the hero to use his rocket pack or his laser pistol. The characters rarely have any depth, the writers feel they have to constantly preach at us and it gets really hard to suspend my disbelief when I'm asked to allow for successful interbreeding between a species with a copper based metabolism and one with an iron based one. Anyone who's been through high school biology would have a tough time swallowing that one.
You don't have to look too far to find excellent sci-fi these days. Babylon 5 was good and Farscape has some of the best writing I've seen in years. If you're of a surreal mind, Red Dwarf seems to still be running and can be frequently found on PBS. Just let Star Trek die while the franchise still has some semblance of dignity.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I've just had flick through some of the earlier posts and it'd obvious that this item is going to be full of 'nobody wants it', 'flogging a dead hours', 'enuf already' etc.. For the most part I agree, yet another startrek series is the last thing I want to see, and I would never go out of my way to watch it. The fact however remains that whilst viewing figures have declined since the height of next-gen but there are still a lot of people watching it.
So I ask the question who is actually watching it if everybody hates it?
Well, I have to say that all of the ideas for new Trek episodes have been dodgy in some repect, espcially the academy one (nononononono;) I'm pleased to see that the Birth of the federation shall be covered, I think that all fans will be interested to see stories from this time period (and First Contact is my fave ST film) The only worry I have is if they mess up timelines or have cheesily stupid things like having a young Kirk turn up (Hopefully the writers shall be made to watch the Phantom Menace continually- until they get the idea of what not to do!) I've got to say I'm glad to see that the Voyager turkey is definately to be put to bed, Janeway and co. as crew mostly stink- I only care for the doctor really- and the writers have really got stuck in a rut. Hopefully some new writing talent will get a chance in the new series, Will Riker to direct though hopefully!!!
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
The two most popular of the series were the original (because there was nothing to compare it to) and the Next Generation. Why was TNG good? It had nothing to do with the premise, except that the show's premise left it open to *any* plotline for a show. You tuned in not knowing what the story was going to be about.
You see, with Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, each episode follows the previous. I don't want to get hooked on another Trek soap opera - I want a series!
Oh, and it would be nice if the core Trek audience - you know, us geeks - could actually admire the captain in the show. Bring back the swashbuckling captain! To h*ll with the prime directive! Punch it to Warp 9, not Warp 6! Diplomacy is when you shoot first, and throw the survivors in the brig! Come on! Bring back the spirit of Roddenberry! - end_rant
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Anyway . . .
I'm not a big StarTrek fan to begin with. I'll watch an episode every few months, but I don't even turn on the tube on a weekly basis, let alone to watch any of the various Star Trek versions.
The only StarTrek I really ever got into was The Next Generation. This seems to be a rather unpopular choice, but something about the characters and the interaction and the in-depth characters (but not too deep) made it compelling enough that I'll even watch an occasional re-run of it if it happens to be on late at night.
A lot of the success of each version of spin-off appears to sit with the cast of characters. It's a hit or miss operation and I don't think there's any way to really pre-define it. Everything since TNG has catered to a corny mix of some type of alien guy, some type of hot-but-not-human-female, some unemotional (or incapable of emotion, but attempting) form of life (such as Spock, Data, Otto), at least one minority (only a complaint because they seem to so painfully cater to the need for a minority character instead of really allowing them a full, rich, robust character of whatever race with a true purpose and utility to the show), a woman in power, a Klingon, a Vulcan and an overly intelligent kid.
I think the Federation idea is an interesting one. I've sort of grown tired of the tedious "ship out in space finding stuff" plot-lines and wouldn't mind seeing something sort of like "The West Wing" done StarTrek style.
By the way, you have to love 'The Doctor's pitches for potential series ideas in the end of the article.
All in all, you know that half of the known world is going to tune into the first episode, no matter what. Half of that will return for the next episode. Half of that will probably hang around for a year or two. And maybe, if the show is extremely well done, half of those people will stick around through the series.
I'll probably be one of the guys who catches a few episodes and then forgets what night the show is even on.
Heh. I like the Linux idea though. "Captain Tux, I have the Cardassian ship on hailing frequencies."
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
If Star Trek is science fiction, I can only say that it is bad science fiction. Entertaining yes, but still bad science fiction.
It has no consitency what so ever. In fact, there are books and websites about the blunders in Star Trek and how it contradicts itself.
Why don't ground troops have personal shields on them to stop them from being killed?
Why aren't transporters used in a million imaginative ways instead of merely moving people from place to place? At the very least I can think of a few episodes in which bad guys should have been beamed into the nearest boulder to get rid of them.
Why are all the star ships a single vessel and that's it? What happened to carrier groups, convoys, and escorts? Sure would make them a lot more powerful force to deal with.
Going into battle I better have about 30 Defiant style vessels around my Galaxy class star ship for offensive bang. At the very least, 30 shuttle craft with phasers. Think of the Argo from Starblazers.
Why do the vessels take so few hits to be destroyed? Hit one, shields to 60%, hit 2 down to 20%, hit three phasers out torpedo bays jammed, my multizillion dollar ship is now useless. Where is my convoy/escort/defiant ship to save me?
Why does every single freakin circuit have triple redundancy? Do you know how expensive that is? Not just in materials, but time, design, labor, maintenance, space, etc.
How can Geordi know everything about engineering? I mean, we have specialists now who are brilliant but only have the time to specialize. They can't know things about other fields. The world is only going to get more technologically complex. Geordi will know even less outside his area, and his area will be even more narror. Like warp coils for only a Galaxy class ship. That's it.
Yes, just a general rant about Star Trek and how implausible it is. I still enjoyed the heck out of it. Reason, because I enjoy seeing the human underdogs finding a way to win.
Best science fiction I've seen in years was Space: Above and Beyond. So much better because it had real military, real politics, real characters with real relationships and problems, and an actual background that made sense. The AI wars, the Invitros, etc. Very interesting stuff.
Babylon 5, from my understanding, was similar. I could never catch enough episodes of it to get it make sense to me.
The Matrix was great. There is a lot of depth there if you care to see it.
You raise a very interesting point. Pre-Federation implies pre-"Pax Galaxia". The Earth-allied and -opposed forces would probably be dealing on parallel military/"UN-type" lines. I'd like to see realistic portrayal of the military -- and the rest of society (a very weak point in all the previous series, where non-Federation life was sketchy at best!)
Since the founding of the Federation would be imminent, Earth and the known civilizations would probably be in a postwar or post cold-war state not dissimilar to the current world situation.
I believe that a strong reality-based comparison to current politics could be compelling (well, by ST standards, anyway). They would have their Balkan situation, their third world issues, their period of rapidly exploding technilogy, new open trade frontiers, etc. Among the good points of TOS was how it addressed the sentiments of the era. (I was a very precocious pre-schooler when the original series aired, and loved it. by the time I was 11-12, I thought it was boing geek-fodder. I liked SF, and this wasn't it! It was nicely mainstream "speculative" fiction in its original timeframe, and only the 'big issue' episodes retained their real appeal beyond the 60's)
Change #1: Centralize the Red Shirt
The unfamiliar face on the Bridge used to die by the opening credits. I hope the new series has the brains to make the Red Shirt the central character of many episodes, so they can explore the new world (and by reflection, our own) from many vantage points. Episodes might open with an unfamiliar face who was a political refugee, a restauranteur struggling against 'the new Mafia' after the demise of an authoritarian regime, a new-tech entrepreneur, etc.
I'd even go so far as to make the ensemble peripheral, so the show resembled Twilight Zone (to cite an example contemporary to TOS) more than the closed universe of TOS.
No, they'll never do it. It's too big a break from the original franchise. But I sure think that this could be a genuinely interesting show. I'd be surprised and pleased if they even went as far as JAG, Law and Order, or ER. (all of which I very much enjoy, but are admittedly rather insular)
I guess there is a tremendous appeal to the strong ensemble cast, and it might be a real risk to fight it, but I think even the myopic ST writers have been feeling the contraints of the "strong ensemble" since TOS. That's why they were so many 'breakaway' episodes (sometimes called showcase episodes) following one or two characters away from the 'main base' for the entire show.
If any ST:BoF writers are reading: don't showcase existing characters when you need a change of pace. The fact that you need to change is a sign that perhaps you've gone too far in the wrong direction. 'Showcases' have been among the weakest episodes.
Imagine you had to introduce a new 'major character' think of what you could say and do -- you'd never need a change of pace. The Federation is a very Big Place. Now subtract the 'excuse' -- the new character doesn't have to become a permanent character (semi-recurring might be a nice touch for continuity)
You promised us a universe. Show it to us. Follow a black marketeer, a young person oppressed by a regime (Taliban, Red Chinese, politics of your choice) that they don't hate (or didn't until now) and which is part of a culture they love, a corrupt official who is human not evil, a subsistence farmer looking for help with an irrigation project (or trying to get last century's flood-plain destroying eco-disaster of a mega-dam removed, so the land can return to its original cycles of renewal)
Show us real soldiers, real civilians. Steal from the best episodes in all of television history. there *were* some good points) but do it in a framework that is loose enough that it doesn't require gimmicks to justify the plot. No holodecks -- just thye multiplicity of life in a big universe where the pre-Federation is just the government, not the raison d'etre
Show us characters that are sincere enough to make us think, even if we decide they are wrong.
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If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
...is a Star Trek series about the Maquis. IMHO, they are a much cooler aspect because you have that whole "fighting uphill battle against impossible odds" things working for you. (A la Star Wars, rebels versus Empire).
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
Plus, it would be a snap to enter major characters from previous Treks by having them either confront or join the Maquis. In fact, IIRC, the second Riker (Tom Riker or whatever his name way...the transporter clone) was already a member of the Maquis and stole a ship for them in the Deep Space 9 series. Riker would definitely be a big enough name to launch a series and it would be completely plausible (if you can overlook the whole cloning thing to begin with...heheheh).
Plus, having poorly equipt, poorly funded rebels fighting some big, big enemy would mean lots of ppl die in battle, so unpopular characters could die and popular characters could get promoted to the "behind the scenes" work back in the safety of the home bases.
The only question is who they would fight? Dominion would have been my first pick, maybe Maquis has evidence they lied at the end of DS9 and are fighting to prove they are planning a massive strike? Or the Federation is anxious to make friends with the Romulans, but the Maquis can't forgive past attrocities? It would be really cool if the Borg could come back and utterly wipe out the Federation, then all that would be left is the Maquis...but after the crap that Voyager has been handing us (Children of the Borg my f'ing ass) I don't know if I could stomach anything besides the kick-ass 99% unstoppable TNG-era Borg.
Just my wishes...who am I kidding? I'll end up watching it just the same. I just hope that they haven't yet invented holodeck techonology because if I see one more F'ing "Fairhaven" or "Dixon Hill" episode I'll hunt down Rick Berman and "deck" him myself.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
...it's rare enough that I've seen any Trek episode that I didn't find some way entertaining or at even had to resist the urge the urge to flip onto something else. The plots have varied over time between bland and phenomenal, but Trek at its best can be no less riveting than the X-Files, First Wave, Millenium or whatever. For the most part, the plots teeter on the bland edge but it's never bad TV and you don't feel your IQ going down the toilet as you watch it.
;-] ).
Granted, each of the latter series have their characters you just want to strangle (Wesley Crusher, Jake Sisko, Neelix...) but, by and large, there's a lot worse shit out there that I could be watching (This is beginning to sound very half-hearted
Having said all that, a fifth Trek might be pushing it. DS9's last episode was aired on this side of the Atlantic last Monday by Sky, and it left a huge hole open for the almost inevitable DS9 movie. Movies I could just about take; the series, no. Sorry lads...
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
I wish they'd just admit that the Star Trek series is pretty much obsolete, and release the source code for their Starships' OS.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Star Trek has been in a steady decline ever since the end of TNG. Deep Space Nine, while entertaining, just didn't live up to the Star Trek legend. The thing I always loved most about Star Trek was that it was real science fiction. It wasn't the ray gun popsci that Star Wars, nor the '2 hour long music video' that The Matrix was. Instead, Star Trek chose to concentrate much more on the philosophical and human implications of a highly advanced future. Episodes like 'The City on the Edge of Forever' will never leave me. After all these years 'The Wrath of Kahn' still sends chills down my spine...
And here is the problem which Paramount is only exacerbating in a desperate attempt to save the franchise. DS9 was dying: solution throw in a huge war story arc and Ezri Dax. Voyager's always had problems, mostly because of poor beginning charachter development. Solution: Seven of Nine. Did Either of these solve the basic problem? My resounding answer is NO! They only upped ratings a bit, they did not attempt to fix the inherrent flaws.
If this new series is to succeed Paramount is going to have get back to the basics. They need to plan it well from the beginning to avoid the poor charachters which have plagued Voyager. And, most importantly, bring in some good writers. They need to search the sci-fi genre and pay good money to good writers. If they could bring together a group of some of the best writers of today (David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Neal Stephenson to name a few) to just start the series and get some good original ideas it would be much more likely to succeed. It might be too late, but Star Trek seems to be the only way to get good Sci-Fi into mainstream television these days.
Checkout taccom my worl war II simulator
Does this mean a return of the kewl origianl 60's style clothing? Or are we talking about earlier styles? Seem weird if we go from flash looking suits of "pre" federation outfits to the kookie outfits of the original Star Trek... Well anyways... my first post ever and my $2
Star Trek: Linux
My personal favorite, one that paramount apparently did not follow up on is as follows:
[ This was apparently pitched to paramount, who turned it down (I guess it had too much potential)]
The basic premise is a show based in the Star Trek Universe, set in the time period AFTER the fall of the Federation. And Everything has gone to HELL. (let your imagination run wild)
Enter one Star Ship, which has some how been a stasis for up to 500 to 1000 years - so that the Star Trek federation is a faint memory at best.
the goal is to rebuild what was lost, and which everyone now believes to be a fairy tale.
They do have superior technology, but they are all ALONE. If they blow it, that is it.
We as the audience, know what was lost, along with the Star ship crew. but no one else does.
This has potential. Too bad paramount threw it away.
Let me guess...
Captains Log, Stardate May 2001: Following seven years of dim-witted new age sentimentality, our crew is exhausted. The power crystals have run out, the incense is getting stale, and the spirit guides seem to be out of whack [memo to Chakotay, run a level 3 diagnostic on the spirit guides]. Torres can't keep the bullshit compensators running for more than five minutes at a time, and Paris' smarmy "I love the 20th century" schtick is wearing thin with even the dullest executives at Paramount.
There also seems to be a curious shortage of wormholes, Borg pods, energy readings, warp fields, or anything else interesting enough to merit further episodes. After seven years in the Delta quadrant, we can confirm our worst fears: Space is really fucking boring.
Neelix finally died from his own food poisoning, and we ejected him out the photon torpedo tubes into a primitive planet. The inhabitants are now suing us for flagrant violation of the Prime Directive, reckless endangerment, illegal dumping, and unlicensed disposal of toxic waste. Tuvok is heading up our defense, though we may have to plea bargain it down. There's no denying that Neelix, dead or alive, was toxic waste.
Seven of Nine has received several offers from other ships in the area. Apparently our "Borgorific" crewman was all that saved our ship from premature self-destruction, although I'd like to think that the mature, articulate and charming captain had something to do with it...
[Memo to self: put that buxom bitch in the brig. New standing order: no one with bigger tits than me is allowed on this ship!]
One of our crew, I believe his name is Harry Kim, though I admit I can barely remember him. Some officers are so... forgettable. Anyway, this guy Harry said that we might be able to extend the mission by dropping a "monkey wrench" [memo to self: Throw that bastard Paris and his damn 20th century idioms in the brig with the Borg] into the main deflector. He thinks that the disaster and suspense would be good for a few more episodes, at least. Frankly, I don't see how any monkey could save us now, unless we get a few more of them typing out our scripts. Sooner or later, they're bound to come up with a "Hamlet"- or at least a "Welcome Back Kotter"-quality episode. If only we had sixty-three more years before getting back to the Alpha-quadrant. Goddamn that Quantum Slipstream Drive. Goddamn it to hell....
The Delta Flyer is in the repair shop, and "Joe," an eight-legged slug beast (and mechanic) said, "Whoever put these stupid dials and switches in your 24th century space hot rod was an idiot. This'll take at least two weeks to set right." Briefly, we on the Voyager hoped this would grant a repreive from the producers' axe, but alas, the Delta Flyer, like so many other Voyager props, proved to be entirely disposable.
[memo to Tuvok: don't pay that alien anything. Goddamn invertebrate labor. Memo to self: next time find a humanoid repairman. There's plenty of them here in the Delta quadrant, 70 years at maximum warp from Earth. Plenty of humanoids...]
We've committed ourselves to running at maximum warp for as long as possible. The end of Voyager may be inevitable, but those producers aren't nearly as intelligent as those sentient smart bombs we outwitted. Hell, they put us on the air, didn't they? It seems that no matter how hard we try, we can't just push a little button and make the ending a happy one. Our situation is desperate, we must think of a way... any way... to survive...
On a lighter note, the EMH is up and running, and is giving the crew liberal doses of methamphetamines, to cheer them up after wasting seven years of their careers talking about verterons, antineutrinos, and species 8472.
[memo to Chakotay: that lizard spirit thingy is talking to me again, what's up with that? memo the the EMH: Screw the methamphetamines. Scoth, on the rocks. Make it a double....]
End of log.
- The galaxy is so full of space-time anomalies that you cannot really describe them as anomalous.
- The galaxy is full of beings that are somehow exempt from the laws of physics.
- The galaxy is full of beings that have evolved to eat starships. (One wonders what their ancestors ate.)
- The galaxy is full of beings that have evolved to seduce starship captains.
- The galaxy is full of intelligent species that are just like humans, except for strange growths on their heads and one dimensional personalities.
- The galaxy is full of bad fashion designers.
- The galaxy is remarkably devoid of life forms not mentioned above, such as plants and (especially) non-intelligent animals.
But Star Fleet is ready to take it on:--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Right now, Star Trek is at pretty much its lowest point since the 70s, when there was no series at all. The last movie was a disappointment, both critically and commercially, Voyager ratings are a pale shadow of what they were in early seasons (they're stable compared to last year, but that's only because they really can't go down very much more). Hell, today came the news that Kate Mulgrew's fan club has shut down. Granted this seems to be for personal reasons on the part of the founders, but the symbolism is profound. The fan club of the actress who plays the captain on a Star Trek show- noted for the dedication of its fans- is no longer. Pathetic.
Birth of the Federation sounds to me like an unbelievably stupid idea. Anybody who knows about Star Trek already has a pretty good idea of what happened back then. And frankly, we don't really care. Brannon Braga has never been noted for his dedication to consistency within the Star Trek universe, so now he's going to bring in a time-travel guy so he can fuck things up. We all know what this is going to mean- more weird-ass vortexes, more mindless fights, more anomalies-of-the-week, and probably more women in catsuits. The Baywatch-ization of Star Trek will be complete. But hell, even if they want more of an action focus, the Special Forces concept would be cooler than this.
I think it's time for Paramount to realize what alot of other people already have: the time has long since come for Braga and Berman to move on. The franchise needs a break. Finish Voyager, then just let it sit for a bit. Then call in some fresh blood, or some veteran blood that knows what it's doing. Ronald D. Moore's recent articles on Fandom show that he is a man who understands the franchise's problems and he has a pretty good idea how to fix them. He is one of the key people responsible for one of Star Trek's few recent successes, the final season of Deep Space Nine, which was brilliantly done. Moore would be the perfect candidate to resurrect Star Trek.
Obviously I haven't seen Birth of the Federation so I can't make any final judgments. But I'm definitely not optimistic. Having a Star Trek series cancelled in its first season would be a huge embarrasment and the biggest insult yet to a franchise that's already been largely stripped of its dignity. But having it die might be the only way to save it in the long run.
Interesting reading different people's comments. I especially love the ones that start: "They broke what made Star Trek great. What I really loved was..." The basic flaw in that line of reasoning is: a) most of you have no idea what it was about Star Trek that made it work for you, or you'd be writing your own series and b) what made it work for you is almost certainly the one thing that someone else hated.
e heads crowd happy.
Personally, I think it just doesn't matter. The basic problem that Star Trek has isn't acting or writing or special effects or evil execs. It's us.
The fans are really quite blood-thirsty at times, and that has to be difficult to deal with. Not in terms of ego, or hurt feelings, but in terms of audience. When the most vocal part of your audience decries everything you do, you can't assess what you should do.
This is why the series that succede in the fans eyes are always the new upstarts. They have no expectations, so the fans judge them, pretty much, at face value (as examples: Babylon 5, Farscape, X-Files). What Star Trek needs is to back off and wait a few years, but the franchise can't afford that, so they'll plow forward with what the focus groups tell them is hated least, and we'll get the blandest possible thing with a lot of things blowing up, and just enough skin to keep the football-aint-on-yet, channel-surfing, what-the-hell-is-this-shit-with-the-fucked-up-for
They could try being truely daring, and do something that will piss off half of the fans and galvenize the rest into advocates who will pull in the next generation of fans, but that won't fly with the shareholders.
In the end, Trek is dead because fans and studios can't work together. It's both of us that did it, but we'll keep pointing fingers until the last show spits up blood. Of course, then we'll just say: look what you did....
Jenette: Yes, that was the press release from six months ago when it was first annonced that Star Trek: Voyager was comming to an end. Who could have predicted the fan reaction, and outpouring of support. As yet, Paramount has not changed its mind on ending the series, but here at Multi-Mega Theater in Burbank California, a public simulcast of the finale has just finished airing, and folks are just starting to get out. Let's go chat with a few.
[pause while she manuevers over to a teenager with reddish hair poking out from under his Klingon skull-cap]
Jenette: Well young man, what did you think of the conclusion of Star Trek: Voyager?
[The boy looks a bit dazed as he slowly realizes that he's been asked a question]
Kid#1: Uh... woah. I really didn't expect the 328 product placements for modern products in a futuristic series.
Jenette: You counted?
Kid#1: [Starting to get his bearrings] Oh yeah, I got it all here on my padd [waves Palm VII] Some of the highlights were: Bill Gates making a personal appeal to the public to block the breakup of Microsoft (they snuck that in with Data's cameo when he's doing research on historical precidents for the Drakh Plague, er Borg Virus); 22 different sodas and 32 beers lined up in a long, slow pan during the holodeck sequence; 15
Jenette: Thanks, son. And you, miss? What did you think?
[A late teens, college girl walks up, wiping away a tear]
Girl#1: I... I can't believe it. I always knew that the captain and Chakotay had a thing going on, but I didn't think you could hide being pregnant that well. And, wow, for the little guy to be accepted into Star Fleet as soon as they returned, that was just... like... wow.
Jenette: [Looking a bit perplexed] Ok... thanks. Um, you sir! What did... Oh! Mr Nimoy, I didn't even know you were here. What did you think of the final episode of the third Star Trek series?
Nimoy: Actually, it's either the fourth or the fifth, depending on whether or not you count the animated series, but either way, I just want to say that any remaining chance that I would be willing to reprise my, now famous role as Mr. Spock, was just jettisoned with Voyager's trash.
Jenette: You mean you didn't like it?
Nimoy: No, my contract as director of Star Trek IV: Whales in Space restricts me from saying that, but I can say that Vulcans, as I understand them, have never had a propensity for walking around noting how everything has this or that historical connection to a 21st century web-site. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Gene had never envisioned a Vulcan easing the tension of Pan-Far by visiting www.hot-nekkid-chicks.com
Jenette: Well, there you have it. Mixed reviews, but clearly a Star Trek episode that will be talked about for years to come. Back to you, Harve.
Indeed. As much as I liked seeing the resident Borgess bounce around in her skin tight uniform, I'd have to say that It's About Time for the crew of the U.S.S. Politically Correct to get permanent shore leave. I'm not opposed to a series about the beginnings of the federation. I'm just curious if the guy in the off-color uniform will die and the ship's captain will wear a girdle. Just for christs sake don't make the captain a gay black female shaman.
OOG NEVER LIKE STAR TREK, BUT IF OOG DID LIKE IT AT ONE POINT HE COULDNT TELL ANYMORE!!! STUPID COMPANIES KEEP TRY MILK STAR TREK FOR ALL IT WORTH, WITHOUT FOCUSING ON QUALITY OR WHAT MADE IT POPULAR AND GREAT!!! NEXT GENERATION WAS TOLERABLE, BUT CRAP LIKE DEEP SPACE NINE AND VOYAGER WASTE OF TIME!!! ALL THOSE SHOWS RUIN ANY NAME STAR TREK HAD AND JUST SIMPLY TO MAKE QUICK BUCK WITHOUT ANYTHING ORIGINAL!!! ORIGINAL SERIES WAS BEST, JUST WATCH OLD EPISODES INSTEAD OF WASTING TIME WITH THIS!!! STAR TREK SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DIE WITH DIGNITY, NOT LIVE ON IN BASTARDIZED FORM!!! OOG BREAK HEAD!!!
OOG THE OPEN SOURCE CAVEMAN!!! OOG BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!