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Rick Berman: Enterprise May Not Suck Next Year
Steve Krutzler writes "Star Trek producer Rick Berman has made his latest comments in a new interview with a British magazine and he says the season finale of Enterprise ("The Expanse") will begin to change the ultimate mission of the show for the better: 'I think our final episode of the season is going to be quite startling because we're going to do a cliffhanger that will put a new twist on the series as it enters its third year.'"
Of all my friends who are Star Trek fans, none of them watch. I know of only one person who regularly watches Enterprise and she traditionally skips this type of show.
Sure, it's not a representative sample but from what I see Enterprise just doesn't appeal to its expected audience.
They kill off Firefly halfway through the first season but let Enterprise go on for three years. Shheesh.
When Rick (*cough*-ing) Berman talks about creatively working the Borg into a pre-Picard timeline, I get worried. I'm not even going to think about the weirdness of getting Kirk back in it. Then again, the DS9 episode that I watched half of, where they have the tribbles and everything, wasn't that bad. Then again, I didn't see the whole episode, so I don't know *quite* how plausible the whole thing was.
This post made me read the article. This post also made me want there to be a "deeply frightening/disturbing" moderation. I won't comment on the line about how they have been discussing other cross-overs...
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I really wanna hear from CleverNickName
And screw the political sidestepping of the issue. Wil, how would _YOU_ fix it? WWWWD? Inquiring minds want to know!
Don't make me get my dueling glove.
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Enterprise was my turning point. TNG was awesome, deep space 9 was OK, and Voyager was watchable on some episodes (unbearable on others).
I can't even watch Enterprise. Why do all the screens have to be flat(?) screen monitors? Looks pretty non-futuristic (ie we have it today)
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Well I guess it would be interesting to feature Q in Enterprise... Because that could happen, given that Q is this wildcard characters that they can use anytime ... but maybe it's just me being nostalgic of "All Good Things..." :)
I agree with you about Voyager (I gave up after seeing a few random supposedly "good" episodes), but it's quite clear you never really watched DS9. It had some of the best Trek episodes ever ("The Visitor", "Far beyond the stars", "hard time" etc.), and was quite engrossing because it abandoned the "restore to status quo at the end of each episode" formula. IMO, the best of DS9 was on par with or better than almost all of TNG (which I liked most of the time - "The inner light" was perhaps the best Trek episode ever, along with "the visitor"). I saw a couple of episodes of Enterprise from the first season ("dear doctor" because it was recommended by a friend, and I thought it was awful and amoral), and I honestly have no idea what the creators of that show are trying to do. Nemesis was utterly banal and plot-free, and it wasn't even consistent with what we saw in TNG. Unless there's a new show, preferably set perhaps another 200 years in the future of TNG/DS9, with someone like Leonard Nimoy at the helm, I think we've seen the end of Trek. Star Trek 196?-200[3-4] R.I.P.
I've all but given up on Enterprise, it's even worse the Voyager. No, not the show. The fact that now that UPN runs the show, there's not enough episodes.
They play rerun after rerun during the season. I can understand one or two, for a holiday or something.. I've gotten to the point where I assume it's going to be another rerun.
How do they think this is good for the show? Especially considering the show is 2 seasons old, there's not a lot of old episodes to show.
I think the fourth episode of Enterprise was a rerun of the second.
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Borg ???
Your kidding right?
The borg is virtually unknown in the alpha quadrant for at least 2 more centuries until Picard is introduced to them by Q.
They are by leaps and bounds alot smaller and have barely a few dozen worlds conquered in the delta quadrant where they are more known during this time.
If the borg wanted crappy 22nd federation technology that barely works( 22nd is leaps behind the 24th of picards day and many more advanced civilizations have much advanced technology)then they could of easily been assimilated. The borg would of done so long before even Kirck or Spock are born.
I do not watch enterprise due to work and school demands. I did watch one eposide where John Archer talks with Vulcan medical experts on a controversial mind meld from a certain group of vulcans. The vulcans were highly illogical and prejudice against certain vulcans who have the gift. They acted very emotionally towards any hint or rational thought and believed in stereo types about these kinds of people.
Then I watch tos and spock mentions how he thinks humans are highly illogical because of their prejudices???
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Well, maybe for the first season or two. And it definitely was not typical trek wherein you had one episode that could stand fairly well on it's own. DS9 got to be a very good political soap opera, and I mean that as a compliment - you'd think being based on a space station would be limitting, but it explored whole new areas of trek that had never been done before - how starfleet runs, how the federation conducts diplomacy, how religion and advanced science may not be totally different. On the original series and TNG you knew who the good guys were. On DS9, you just had guys, and sometimes they were good, and sometimes they wern't.
The tradeoff is you pretty much had to watch it every week for it to make sense and play well, but that's not exactly unique to that show (West Wing comes to mind.)
As for Enterprise, I would probably watch it if it wasn't in the same timeslot as West Wing.
As for Berman, he's an idiot. The studio stuck a studio guy in what is a creative man's job. He's trying to make Trek work by doing what worked for Trek before, not realizing that worked for Trek before was doing something that Trek had never done.
The Borg wern't cool because they're the Borg. The Borg were cool because they were something Trek had never seen. Like Tribbles and evil copies of main characters from a parallel dimension, they're only good for so many episodes.
paintball
I suspect the Borg might turn out to be an evolution of that nasty repair station that was hooking victims up into a big neural net.
Ie. Not the Borg we're utterly sick of but a kind of proto-borg that we know the future of but the Enterprise crew don't so they can remain unknown until TNG time.
I'm talking about mixing in some suspense and drama with the sci-fi/speculative fiction.
Kill some characters off. Make the ones that don't change. Have a plot that lasts. The soft-porn sections are (let's be honest) nice, but I'd trade them for a plot.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Then again, I didn't see the whole episode, so I don't know *quite* how plausible the whole thing was.
The episode you're referring to is Trials and Tribbulations. Although they pretty much skipped over the time traveling part of it, the episode as a whole was one of the best imho. It has a lot of good humour (Worf's "We don't talk about it!", referring to the ridgeless Klingons of Kirk's era), and the effects were just superb. The scene where O'Brien and Bashir were in the lineup, with Kirk having a go at them all was just fantastic. The blending of old and new footage was the best I've ever seen. I'm a big fan of DS9, and this is a prime exmaple of why.
I have serious doubts that John de Lancie would reprise his role as the "Q". I saw him at a convention once (yeah, I was a Trekkie geek) and he was truly a complete asshole. He downplays his role as "Q" because he wants to be recognized for his other work in various soaps like Days of our Lives and things like that. IMO a totally egomaniacal jerk who doesn't appreciate Trek fans at all. If Berman and company wanted to use a "Q" character, I think they'd do well to just cast someone entirely different. After all, there wasn't just one "Q" (de Lancie), but a whole "race" of them if you recall.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Then came First Contact. What a travesty. Oh look, the Borg aren't really communists, they're actually a capitalist society taken to it's illogical conclusion (from 'the individual matters' to 'only one individual matters'). They became yet another comic book villain. Wonderful. Like we need more of them . Oh, and the fact that torpedoes fired from a high technology ship at a ground emplacement seemed to have about as much explosive force as hand grenades was just ludicrous. I'd go on, but if I stopped to pick holes in First Contact I'd be here all week. Q was a competent villain, omnipotent but not particularly evil. The Borg were original before First Contact. The Dominion? Oh look, another empire, how exciting. Species 8472? Another empire, vaguely interesting since they could defeat the Borg, and it took the doctor almost a whole week to design a super weapon to destroy them. The Cabal? Oh look, another empire...
Enterprise fails for a number of reasons.
- They have to pitch technology above what we have now by about 50-100 years (I assume a World War III would reduce the tech level of a civilisation), below TOS. Since a number of things in TOS are feasible now, this is quite difficult.
- They lack continuity with the other series'. If first contact with the Ferengi was Picard on the Stargazer, then we should not be seeing them 200 years earlier. There are a large number of races which appear peripherally in the other series' and don't have their history mentioned at all. Why not use some of them? Why invent new species' like the Suliban who are either going to all die during the series, or leave a glaring continuity hole at the end?
- A prequel really wasn't the correct thing to do. When the Time Ship Aeon appeared in Voyager I thought that this would be a great setting for a new spin-off. After a few more episodes in the same line I felt convinced. Then Enterprise came out, with the 'Temporal Cold War' which seems to be trying to do this, but as a back story, not as a series premiss. And failing, I might add.
- Their story lines are cliche. A few episodes (Ceasefire springs to mind) are so obvious you can work out what's going to happen before the opening credits.
I'm going to continue watching Enterprise for the same reason I watched Andromeda up to Season 3. I honestly can't believe that something with so much potential can be as bad as the evidence suggests.I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Make it a drama with contiguous episodes. We need mutli-season plot arcs, and an over-arching theme.
How many star trek episodes have you watched where they discover some AMAZING new technology (new weapons, new technology, new energy source etc.), possibly even something that alters the reality of the show (afterlife, alternate realities, etc) and then that development is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN ?
Think about the big shows right now -- Sopranos, The Shield, West Wing, Buffy, Farscape etc... All dramas, no episdoes where everything is resolved in 44 minutes.
One of the worst abuses EVER was in Enterprise, when they found out one of the crewman was FROM THE FUTURE and that there was a time "cold war". They didnt mention it again for like 6 episodes ... they just kept flying to different planets to talk to aliens ...
Why don't they wanna have a Drama? The show is much more difficult to repeat, much more difficult to write for, and much more difficult to produce. However, in exchange for this they get -- loyal fans --.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
The problem with Enterprise is that the basis is time travel and crummy technology. It was doomed from the start. Both of these plot devices force the writers to cheat, back peddle, and generally create unbelievable plots. The best thing the writers can do is to assume a good enough ship, ditch the time travel arch, and concentrate on character development and other basics of good story telling.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'd argue the whole temporal war subplot is a big clue that the universe that Archer and co. inhabit is not the same universe that begets classic Star Trek, TNG, DS9, and Voyager.
If they bring the Borg into it, that'll be the final straw - we're talking about a parallel timeline... maybe one spawned after the crew of the Enterprise E (and their Borg hitchikers) interfere with Cochrane and first contact. Remember, the Queen was trying to contact the Borg of that era - who's to say she didn't succeed?
Anyways, that's how I treat Enterprise - as a non-canonical spinoff. Makes it much easier to accept all these anachronisms they keep introducing.
I wasn't even aware it "sucked". I do think it attracts a much more mainstream audience, as I pretty much detest MOST of the previous ST series that have been on TV, with the errant episode here or there drawing my attention.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Here's what's going to happen:
Young James Tiberius Kirk is rescued from a giant space rat or something. They let him drive the ship for a little bit, but Wesley Crusher visits from the future, and convinces Kirk that it's a really really bad idea, so Kirk leaves the ship to train as an Iron Chef (Iron Klingon). The entire timeline is changed, except for Wesley, who now travels in a battered blue police box, and is thus immune from the changes he has wrought.
In the meantime, when the Klingons attack Earth after trying Kirk's attempt to cook gagh, and a Vulcan shuttle transporting young Sarek crashlands onto the Picard vineyards, killing the entire family. Just to play it safe. The bistro in New Orleans where Sisko came from can stay. Good restaurants in New Orleans are surprisingly hard to find.
Finally, young Checkov discovers that he has psychic powers, and the rest of Starfleet travels off to meet the Minbari.
OK, we could only wish. But the ultimate problem with what Star Trek has evolved (devolved?) into is that the producers don't actually have a story to tell. They have episodes, and a made-by-committee chronowar goulash to hold it all together. They just don't get it. They need a continuing story, where you can't get everything if you miss a couple of episodes.
They also need to start killing off redshirts. No one on the crew has died so far (at least on the episodes I've watched). I want to see Crewman Jones choke to death on space pollen. I want to see a crew member shipped home because of genetic damage caused by routine exposure to the Warp V engine. I want to see some sacrifice here, space people.
I wanna see them complete f*ck up an undeveloped world trying to do good, resulting in the creation of the Prime Directive. It's got to be bloody, and horrible. I want to see them drop off on an unsuspecting planet that really nice scientist who thinks that the Nazis could have been a good idea - but he's really just an evil Nazi bastard like all of them are and secretly went there to create the Fourth Reich in all its glory. [want an alternate universe story? Starfleet vs. Nazis armed by the Klingons].
AND, they need to drop all of their useful crutches, that means:
1. No holo-anything. Not even holo-trinkets from Vulcan.
2. No transporter malfunctions that result in anything other than painful and irreversable death.
3. No mirror-universe
4. No mirrors - let's play it safe here.
5. No Borg
6. No Q. OK, maybe Q, but they can't remember ANY of it at the end of the episode.
7. No time travel chrono war. Have it all resolved in a very special episode with special guest stars Wil Wheaton and John DeLancie.
8. No decon gel. Let's get real, folks. Just let them have space-sex, and we'll get all the fan service we want. Just give us an honest space-erotic massage, and I'll be happy.
Need a plot? War with the Klingons. War with the Romulans. Peace protestors at home. Vulcan and French disapproval of Starfleet military intervention.
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Something I wrote for e2 makes sense here-
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I have to take several of the points against DS9 on right here and now.
# The hero or heroic group does not have to make a physical journey so much as a spiritual or experience based one. Go back and reread Jospeh Campell's Hero With A Thousand Faces or The Power of Myth. Time and time again little minds always equate the heroic call to journey as a travel based journey. Space is only one dimension of experience. Go read Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) for more on experience and expansion thereof.
# DS9 the station may have "sat" there but the characters in it moved across time, space and experience.While other Trek show characters simply mouthed the required catch phrases ("make it so" "blah blah blah logical" "I cana change the laws of phsyics") DS9 characters had to grow, had to expand, had to come into conflict not just with the swirling universe around them but the swirling turmoil in their own selves.
Once again we are hitting on the narrow minded ideas of what makes a Star Trek Production good.
# Besides the many great topics hit on by WolfDaddy take a look at how they dealt with the issue of Race. Many times the plot of a show or arc of shows had to do about a characters race and the conflicts they have in being that race.
The Captian himself has to come to grips with this in the alternate flash back universe of Benny, the black science fiction writer living in the middle of the 20th century.
# DS9 also looked under other unseemly issues that most of the other Trek shows glossed over. In the other Trek shows the Federation were a group of happy content citizens whose every basic need is catered to. In DS9 we finally see the cracks in the Federations shiny armor. People are still fsked up, people are still people rather than holier than thou walking talking good will ambassadors.
I can see where many die hard Trek fans would find this a bad thing. They were happy knowing they were part of a just and right thinking future and here DS9 comes along to tell them all is not as it seems.
Have you ever been to a movie house full of die hard Trek fans? Watch and listen to them. They will cheer as certain catch phrases are used, start citing chapter and verse detailed factoids as to way such and such cant be happening
"well in the third season shows 23 it was clearly shown that Sub Commander Thalls second half sister was on that planet when it was destroyed by speices 776523 and so that character can not be in this movie because that would cause a rip in the space time continuity"
and will have this warm happy glow on their faces no matter how bad the movie or show was. Why? Compare and contrast the audience in a Jimmy Swagart revival or in the audience of any evangelical church gathering. See something interesting? I knew you would.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Enterprise sucks for the same reason that The Young Indiana Jones sucked, it is little more than a vehicle for left-wing politically correct propaganda. The producers behind Young Indiana Jones seemed to believe that using special effects to make it look like they were filming in exotic places would actually make people want to watch despite the fact that the show itself was little more than a gimick to push PC. Enterprise seems to rely on Ms. Spocks cleavage for the same purpose. Personally I like the little asian translator girl better, but neither is enough to make me want to watch the show. A perfect example of the shows purpose as propaganda can be seen in the "AIDS awareness" episode called Stigma. The details of this can be seen here:
http://www.trektoday.com/news/010203_03.shtml
I don't know about you, but I've been aware of AIDS for almost 20 years now and I don't need Rick Berman and company to tell me about it.
It would be so nice if the producers understood that stories that are little more than contrivances and vehicles for political and social propaganda aren't something that people are going to relate to. The sad thing is, the people behind this program probably don't even realize what they're doing. Hollywood is so intellectually inbred that they probably believe the programs they're creating will actually resonate with audiences. While these shows might resonate with the people behind the camera, out here in the real world they come accross as a steaming pile of PC.
The job of television programming is to entertain. It is NOT the job of television programming to propagandize. Whenever the people behind a program become deluded into believing that they can use the show to push whatever social or political ideology they subscribe to, the quality invariably suffers.
Part of what makes Farscape so great is that the show doesn't have an agenda beyond entertaining its audience. It makes me wonder if the fact that it is an US/Australian production has anything to do with that. Did the producers have to leave the country before they could make a decent show? What role did its lack of preachiness play in USA network's decision to cancel it? If you ask me, they cancelled it because it makes the rest of their lineup look like a bad joke. I'm almost afraid to see what its replacement, Tremors, is going to be like. How can one create a sustained story line from such a simplistic plot as people running away from underground monsters? Its good enough for an action movie, but hardly something that makes for a weekly TV show.
I can't really complain though since I almost never watch TV. Farscape and Stargate are about the only things I make an effort to watch on a regular basis, and now that Farscape has been killed off I suspect I won't even bother to tune in for Stargate.
Lee
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This sounds like a good way to buy into the series. Unfortunately, deciding it's a parallel universe doesn't help me to ignore the hackneyed writing. Considering the number of Trek fans out there, and assuming there are some in the movie/television industry, why can't they bring in some GOOD writers?
Whatever bad things might be said about Voyager, and to a slightly lesser extent DS9, at least they tried to take things into different directions at times. For all its faults, Voyager was a starfleet vessel with no contact with starfleet (until near the end) and a non-starfleet crew - at least an interesting concept that was only ruined by the apparent insistence on letting that ship get by too easily, IMO. DS9 showed that the Federation isn't pure goodness and light (for example, by showing starfleeters at their worst while in a "real" war as opposed to capital ships throwing broadsides at each other) and brought religion into the mix.
What fresh ideas has Enterprise given us? I haven't noticed any myself (a temporal "cold war" just seems dumb, especially the way they've handled it). Good Lord, they even made the first officer VULCAN - the antithesis of originality. Enterprise, to me, is Rick Berman trying to do ST:TNG again - and not the good episodes...more like the first season of TNG which was filled with rip-offs from the original series.
Ah well, I shouldnt be saying anything at all since I'm not watching it anymore (the last three episodes before they started reruns again finally convinced me they had nothing original). I'll take a look at Enterprise again in two years or so, assuming it's still on, and see if it's managed to become interesting. That method worked for me on DS9.
SG-1 has gone downhill in the past few years. SciFi has been rerunning all the episodes at a frantic rate so I've gotten the chance to compare new against old. (if it weren't for TiVo, I wouldn't be able to keep up).
StarGate has all but dropped the mythology and the integration of sci fi and ancient civilization stuff... In past years, they were able to weave an incredible tale based on facts of Egyptian Mythology. Recently, they have pretty much forgotten this stuff. The cliffhanger this year has the opportunity to bring that back though.
Why do all the screens have to be flat(?) screen monitors?
Because LCDs don't scan like CRTs, thus you don't have the same problems filming them. LCDs are more cost effective in TV or film due to reduced post-production work. They've really revolutionized sci-fi consoles and displays since you don't have to matte them in post. Woo-hah.