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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.'"
Microsoft: Windows may not suck next year
KNW
Oh, give it up. It's over. End this soap opera. Don't try to save it. Be like Buffy; she knows when to quit.
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.
"I don't really want to get specific about it, but we're not talking about a tiny change. We're talking about a change that is going to, to some degree, alter our mission"
Maybe Archer will change into a woman, he's touchy feely enough already.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
They kill off Firefly halfway through the first season but let Enterprise go on for three years. Shheesh.
Hot gel-showering hot chicks aside.. I kinda like the series. I do think a "change of direction" would be an improvement though.. you can only go so far in space with that naive "we're from earth.. please don't kill us" thing. Maybe they'll develop some better weapons and grow some larger space nuts too!.. and MAYBE... just MAYBE... we'll get the scoop on this whole Klingon forehead thing.. No ridges... Ridges... That's a choice in potato chips, not aliens dammit!
chown -R us
Said in the paper today its Bill Shatners birthday 2day, hes 72(yipes!). Happy... Birthday!, Captain.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Voyager had one of those season finales every year and the show just kept getting better and better!
paintball
... Rick Berman, Executive Producer of the Star Trek(r)(tm)(c) franchise is announcing his retirement from creative control of Star Trek...
C'mon guys... It won't stop sucking until Berman is out of the driver's seat. He doesn't know how to do anything truly creative. He was Roddenberry's financials guy, for crissake, not the creative pillar behind the series.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Archer wakes up with Suzanne Pleshette in his cozy bed. We realize the whole thing has been a dream and Archer is really a balding Chicago psychologist.
Time travellers from the future reveal that future Trek series will suck just as badly. In a last ditch effort to save Enterprise, the crew must travel back in time and assassinate Rick Berman.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Scene:
Enterprise Bridge. Archer occupies the captain's chair, his crew working busily around him. Archer suddenly sits bolt upright, and then sags as if exhausted.
Archer: I feel a great disturbance in the force.
Crew: The whaa?
My guess would be that they've finished the Saliban so its only natural to work on the next nemesis of the galactic peace, Piraq.
They're getting older though... It'd be "Star Trek: Seniors in Space". Although ST has been shit since DS9, I mean... Come on, It's ben way too much ficussed on "character building", I want some action too. I'm sure that even in the future normal human arrogance, greed and innate hostility still remain. Coupled with big-ass spaceships, this SHOULD make an excellent combo. Instead, we're getting to see how Sisco governs a space station with mentally incapable crew, a less annoying incarnation of Wesley Crusher and Silly Putty as a security officer, with the supporting cast of the one and only non-hostile Cardassian and a derelict Ferengi whose brother has the Ferengi equivalent of Down syndrom. Yay.
I'm not even going to mention Voyager. Come on, dealing with the Borg to attack another, even more powerful species and STILL win, with a ship that's build for long range exploration/scouting. I mean, Picard had his ass kicked by the Borg and that was the fcking FLAGSHIP. Also, Janeway is an idiot. "Oh no, we're 75 years away from home! Instead of the quickest route home, we'll visit every little cloud of dust we see and seriously ruin any culture we come across! Tally-ho!"
No more Star Trek for me, I'll miss Shatner and his magically ripped shirts, along with Patrick Stewart and his shiny dome...
Hate me!
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.
There are many nasty things you can say about Rick Berman: lousy writer, assumes audience consists of morons, rips off actors and writers, etc. But even if he had none of these issues, he'd have no hope of producing a watchable SF series. 'Cause he has no idea what SF is.
He thinks SF is all about the Gee Whiz Factor. Fancy effects, pretentious pseudo-science, lots of gadgets. That's why he abandoned the Picard/Sisko/Janeway thread: it was getting to hard to top himself with fancier and sillier gadgets and effects. So he goes back a couple centuries, where he can derive GWF from the "this is where it came from" element.
Real SF has nothing to do with the GWF. It's about playing with ideas, fiddling with them, seeing where they will go. That's why Star Trek developed a serious following in the first place.
Enterprise has pro forma "ideas" of course. But they're lame, silly, invented by retarded people who don't even know Junior High science.
Ironically, absence of the GWF is also why Stargate SG1 is doing so well. Which is really weird, because the premise of SG1 has got to be the silliest ever. (The USAF is secretly involved in intergalactic exploration and warfare? Yeah, right.) But the better SG1 episodes do what Star Trek used to do -- find interesting ideas and use them to tell simple interesting stories.
Bah, Berman has fell victim of the conservative trekkies. There are a lot of people who already like Enterprise. And majority of the people who like Enterprise are a "new breed" (IMO) of Star Trek fans (such as myself) who have never seen Star Trek before, but like this series.
The reason I like Enterprise is because it's more "humble". There really isn't a prerequisite to the show, so I was able to be introduced to "Star Trek" just as the crew (staff) of the show is. It's less technical and deals more with the human experience. (Like Voyager) I heard that people dislike the intro, but I think it works very well. It keeps up the "human"/"humble" theme. Even though the orchestra openings are good, I don't think there's a problem with the opening song (Faith of the Heart). (BTW, if you want to see what the Orchestra version would of been like, a "leaked" recording is here*.)
Now that I got into Enterprise, I've also started watching Voyager nightly, and now TNG on the "New TNN" and I'm having a new appreciation for Star Trek as a really good collection of shows, instead of the stereotype "geek" show that I used to make fun of.
Anyways, I hope they don't mess up the series. The last few episodes ("Stigma" & "Canamar") have been pretty good, "Stigma" went on about the politics of an AIDS-like disease among the Vulkcans (via Mind Meld). Though, they should of done something like that years ago.
I'll keep watching.
T'pol and Archer have a baby together - and it's Kirk
The title should read:
"Rick Berman: Enterprise may not suck next year, but it probably still will."
Sorry for the mixup.
paintball
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.
Why don't you send out a company wide email about how your boss sucks?
Wil can't really comment about stuff like this otherwise bad things will happen, like having all his scenes mysteriously cut from future movies.
Oh, wait...
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
I believe the original name for 7 of 9's character was "2 of 38". ;)
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."
Do you remember when Enterprise was first introduced? We were promised it would be "Star Trek with phasers". In other words, lots of action, less "character development" episodes and other slow topics.
That recent "Stigma" episode (T'Pol has mind-meld disease) was as far from "Star Trek with phasers" as you can get. On the other hand, that recent "Canamar" epsiode (Con Air, in space) was pretty cool.
Here is the best hope for the series: Berman and Pillar have stopped writing all the episodes. Every time I watch Enterprise, I make careful note of who wrote the episode. The whole first season was purely written by Berman and Pillar. Recently, we have had a string of episodes written by other writers.
If they want to make us happy, they ought to get some scripts from actual SF authors. How about John E. Stith, David Weber, or Catherine Asaro? (I draw the line at Piers Anthony, though...)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Star Trek is like Windows. They have run out of ideas and just keep recylying old ones. And like in Star Trek, people are becoming aware of it.
Something I wrote for e2 makes sense here-
,
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!
We already have T'Pol. She is filling the niche that 7 of 9 filled in Voyager.
Jeri Ryan played a woman in a tight jumpsuit that played a character that didn't quite catch on to humanities finer points like emotions and social interaction.
Jolene Blalock is a woman in a tight jumpsuit that plays a character that doesn't quite catch on to humanities finer points like emotions and social interaction.
Archer:
tall man with glass jaw
why do you talk so strangely?
your father watches
Hoshi:
sad little Hoshi
Universal Translator
her only lover
Mayweather:
silent, empty chair
what is my function, captain?
the captain hears not
Tucker:
banjo pickin' boy
leave space before she bites you
on your redneck ass
Reed:
they are all your foes
you're only course, sacrifice
serve the greater good
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
- "The Andorian Incident": The transporter is new and not guaranteed to work. By taking hostages, the Andorians have already forfeited their lives, but rather than beaming them out, an away party is beamed in.
- "Cold Front": Near the end, Archer has a phaser on Silik, yet does not kill him.
- "Fortunate Son": The Enterprise away team is under fire from the freighter crew. They could have had their opponents beamed out or heavy weapons beamed in--on the gripping hand, neither option would be necessary if Starfleet Academy could find non-Stormtrooper marksmanship instructors.
Conclusion: The protagonists' survival is attributable solely to their being characters in the Star Trek universe. Were they nonfictional, they wouldn't last five minutes in a firefight.We jump to the year 2258, 10 years after the Earth-Klingon war. Earth is enjoying a period of peace, albeit a fragile one.
A coalition of governments, led by the humans, have constructed a space station, let's call it Beladon 6. It is located in nuetral territory orbiting a planet called Eksilop 2.
The purpose of this station is to provide a place for humans and aliens to work out their differences in peace. It's a home away from home for diplomats, officers, wanderers, business people and others.
Jonathan Archer is put in charge of the station, at the request of the Klingons, which is kinda strange.
By the end of 2258, nothing is the same any more. The Klingon ambassador names Volann, has put herself into some sort of cacoon, and a mysterious alien presence has made an appearance. These aliens appear to be immensely more powerful than any other race around.
We then jump ahead to 2259, where captain Archer has, mercifully, been reassigned to duty on the Klingon homeworld. Strangely, the series seems to improve considerably after that. To replace him is captain Sherinnian, a war hero of the Earth-Klingon war.
About this time, Volann comes out of her cocoon and is a human-Klingon hybrid named Torres (no relation). We also meet a species called the Suliban who use technological means to simulate the effects of magic. We learn in a spin-off series of books that they were created by the mystery race to be weapons.
Sherinnian and Volann fall in love, get married and have a child, but who really cares about that crap anyway.
The mysterious alien race send an agent to speak to all the ambassadors on the station. Along with him are invisible members of the alien race, who we later find out has a name so long we could never pronounce it, so we just call them species 8472 (again, no relation).
Aaaanyway...
Sherinnian leads a coalition of the will... no, an army of light... no, a FEDERATION!, in a war against species 8472. We finally beat them by not fighting at all (don't ask), but we later find out that they had dark allies serving them that are just as dangerous, called the Borg. We'll be dealing with them for a LONG time.
There's also some crap a few seasons down the road about people with telepathic abilities, and Berman and Braga expertly set up a war between them and mundanes for the NEXT Star Trek series, which should start some time around Enterprise' fifth season.
Hmmmm... this all sounds kinda familiar actually...
Don't worry... at the end, Q shows up, resets the timeline and Enterprise goes back to sucking hairy moose cock again.
All I keep watching for is the slim hope that one of Hoshi's tits will pop out during a gel scene and the editors and censors will miss it.
God this show sucks!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa