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Babylon 5 Creator Pitches Trek
pdawerks writes "According to Sci-Fi Wire, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told fans on a B5 Usenet group that he and Dark Skies creator Bryce Zabel have put together an idea for a new Star Trek series, which he said would revive the ailing franchise. 'I got together [with Zabel] and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how to save [Star Trek] and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way,' Straczynski wrote. 'I actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere with Paramount, who knows?'"
...is a rest. For about 10 years. I don't say that unkindly...I like Star Trek, but familiarity breeds contempt. Only time can make it fresh at this point. Well that and interesting characters, decent writing, and fewer solutions that involve reversing the polarity of something and shooting it out the deflector. But I digress.
"Captain, it's a planet where they allow men to marry men and women to marry women!"
"Well, that's something Earth had to recognise as a fundamental human right..."
"But, Captain, they're doing it in polygamus unions!"
"WHAT!?!? Helm to starboard! Weapons officer, load all topedo tubes! Raze their capitol!!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As the series centers around Wesley's travels around the galaxy as a higher being.
-- Not Wil Wheaton
If the writers are reading this I have an idea for the pilot.
Captain Archer of enterprise saves the life of a crew mate and SUDDENLY disappears in a flash of blue. He awakes to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that are not his own...
I know what you guys are thinking...
"OH.... BOY"
...have Rick Berman shot, drawn, quartered, and then really hurt. That man has done nothing but ride the noble stallion, passed on by Roddenberry, that was once Star Trek to death, and after the horse died, Berman has been beating the fucker with a stick for a few years.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
What irritated me the most about Berman ruining the Star Trek universe was that it had so much great potential. And he just pissed it away. This could be something very, very cool. I really think that these guys, for lacking of a better description, get it.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If he has enough ideas to make another trek show, he might as well spend the time to create another series in the B5 universe - it will be better received.
...from Berman, Straczynski can.
Technoli
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Star Trek TNG was the best series by far. What made it great was the chemistry of the crew. Enterprise has lost ratings, in my opinion, due to the crew simply not having good chemistry...it's just not as believable a show because the interactions of the crew seem contrived at times. The captain, especially, puts too much effort into his acting. Patrick Stewart captured the fans because of his ability to convince the audience he wasn't faking it (like any good actor incidentally) Any new series would really have to focus on crew chemistry to gain a fan base
that this is going to ride the wave and give us:
Str Trek:CSI
I really need to sell my TV.
Bab5 guy first went to Star Trek guys with the idea of Babylon 5. But they didn't accept the "space station" suggestion at that time, so Bab5 was born independently.
Later Star Trek guys came up with DS9. (no comments here)
Now, I wonder what will be different.
JMS once talked about his doing a trek series. It was back in the hieght of B5 and someone asked him what he would do if Paramount handed him a Trek series. He said something along the lines of (can't find it on Google Groups right now): I'd start by getting away from the federation. Kill off a few people so the fans know that this is not going to be the same-old and then start to tell some interesting stories.
It was funny because he said that before Voyager and Andromeda (which was originally a Trek series about the fall of the Federation as Rodenbury had pitched it) came out, and the good points of BOTH of those series were exactly that: getting away from the Federation and establishing their own stories. Woefully Voyager just entrenched itself in its own static mythos and Andromeda as plagued by execs that couldn't stand how dark it was.
Personally I don't see JMS being able to play ball with Paramount. I think he'd last 3-6 months tops before he blew up at them and walked. He's just not enough of a political animial (his detractors would say he's too much of one) to be able to put up with it.
Come on Malda, this is "News for Nerds"! Trek is large enough to deserve a separate category icon (even dispite of "Star Trek: Enterprise").
I suggest either a picture of the Original TOS Enterprise (NCC-1701 without any suffix) flying towards the user or a Starfleet Emblem.
You know it makes sense!
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
Fascinating.
Does that mean he'll solve that pesky "The universe resets at the end of every episode" bug?
And will be get the "Non-trivial character development" patch?
Cool.
My lord, this would be cool. A Trek Series with a plot.
We haven't seen that in ages.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
It's a totally fresh concept. They're merging Star Trek and Babylon 5. It's Star Trek only with a space station instead of a... oh, nevermind...
Unlike others who think that Star Trek needs to go on 'vacation' I don't agree. There is little value to bringing Trek back 10 years from now if its going to be the same as it is today. Berman and Braga are a plague on the Trek franchise that needs to be removed. It is clear that they are too burned out on this franchise do anything useful. For goodness sakes, they have reduced the process of the founding of the Federation into a romp through time. Yeah, creating this massive Federation 'empire' is just too damn boring. I mean all the species, conflicts and technologies that would have to be created would just be too bland to watch.
:)
The problem is with the writing, not the franchise. Its just not interesting anymore - and this latest travesty (Enterprise) is just adding insult to injury. Blue alien nazis? Someone get these clowns outta here
Personally I don't see JMS being able to play ball with Paramount. I think he'd last 3-6 months tops before he blew up at them and walked.
Babylon 5 was extraordinary for two reasons:
(1) An astronomically talented writer
(2) Said writer having complete creative control over the show
That is why Babylon 5 was able to be what it was: an utterly fantastic story stretched over five seasons. JMS himself has said that he had the general structure and philosophy of the story laid down from day one.
I don't see item #2 having a hell's chance of survival at Paramount, do you?
The coolest voice ever.
I think you might be right, but if anybody could salvage Star Trek, it's Straczynski. Babylon 5 is truly one of the best though out sci-fi programs to have aired on television. His focus on a defined and limited story arc really gave the show a sense of purpose from week to week that I think is totally lacking in most of the Star Trek spinoffs.
The biggest problem, I believe, with Star Trek is that they've tended to let the show ride on random events rather than running plots. The times when they have gone to more of a story arc they have made the shows far more worthwhile.
Enterprise has done this to some extent over the last season, tracking down the Xindi and it really helped give the show some energy. Deep Space nine had the same sort of thing happen when they had the shape shifter backed armada coming to wipe out their part of the galaxy. ST:TNG has the Borg and a few other running threads.
But overall, with Star Trek, these runing plots have always felt kinda tacked on. Something to drive a season finale, etc. I think starting a new series with a defined story arc over a fixed period like they did with Babylon 5 would really do well.
For example, perhaps do a series that's entirely focussed on the events that take place during the creation of a peace accord with the Klingons. Pick some key moment in federation history and depict it's course over a period of time. Project star trek out into the future and have some run in with a new species perhaps? What about a major civil war with the federation? There's a lot that can be done with this that could really make for an interesting show.
But anyhow, if they want to go that direction and really freshen the show, I think they can. If they try to crank out yet another bland spinoff, it's going to fail. So if they don't want to try something truly new with it, they need to mothball it for like 20 years. Then they can go back and do the same tired old concept again.
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When the Enterprise is facing yet another crisis and someone suggests rerouting the coffee machine output through a highly focused baryeon ray and then reverse polarizing it through the deflector dish, instead of the usual "Yes that might just work" whats really needed is for more of the other crew members to adopt completely bemused expessions and ask "What the Fuck are you babbling about????", "Is this another one of your loon ideas that involves writing a subroutine in less than 3 seconds with your left hand?", or "through the what dish?, will that affect Sky Sports reception?". Why does no one ever says "what?" on Star Trek, no matter how preposterous the proposed solution, enquiring minds want to know.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Well, there's a limit to how much I'm going to build up the myth of Roddenberry. After all, his insistence that there were no sane villians or informed disagreements -- Roddenberry insisted all conflict was caused by insanity or ignorance -- meant that Next Generation was pretty dull in the first two seasons.
This belief of his is also why Star Trek is chock full of evil madmen, but has few interesting large scale conflicts.
It was only as Roddenberry gave up control of the series that the show became more dramatic. Roddenberry was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of the Borg, and presumably he would have hated the way Deep Space Nine went once the Dominion War began.
I've always thought it would be great if there were a Federation Civil War. After all, the Federation appears to have an incredibly weak central government (that Prime Directive has actually been invoked to describe why the central government can't interfere with a member planet) and the Federation is spread over a large area, with only slow travel between the edges (apparently, it would take years to cross the Federation).
But because of Roddenberry's guiding principles, that'll probably never happen. "Enlightened people of the future will never fight each other."
Yawn.
Check out my blog: My Galaxy is Milky Way Adjacent
How many stories are there, really, that will fit into a one-hour TV slot? The universe may or may not be finite, but plot possibilities certainly are.
Which is why new shows seem like such dreadful, bloodless retreads of old ones. We've seen all the characters and pretty much every idea you could ever squeeze onto the deck of a starship.
There's nothing really *wrong* with ST. It's just played-out.
If ST could learn one thing from Babylon 5, it would be plot and character development. In the original series, the fact that Kirk and the others were flying through space was somewhat incidental. We might have enjoyed it just as much if the same actors had been set in a western.
Perhaps ST could move toward the sort of long-term plot arcs we saw in Babylon 5, and have come to expect from series like the Sopranos. Freed from the format of episodic drama -- and the crushing weight of our expectations -- Star Trek might be free to again explore the Undiscovered Country.
That would be kinda nice.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
As wonderful as it might be to have a new Star Trek series, there is one axiom about this process: It is absolutely impossible for a creative person to efficiently obtain approval for a new project from a large company.
Proof:
Disney turned down Lord of the Rings
Sony turned down Everquest
Electronic Arts tried to cancel the Sims three times
MGM turned down Gone with the Wind
Now, if they don't mind spending $10,000 a day from the moment they make the first phone call, great. Otherwise, find a way to do it without conference rooms, or it's going to be nothing but anguish.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Just don't let Fox have the rights to air it.
I think a great movie, if not series, would be all about the Borg. How the first nanobytes took control of the first specieis (species 001) and how the collective was created. No Federeation, no Vulcans, etc.. just BORG.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
(Opening comm channel to the UPN Flagship Berman...)
"Captain Berman, First Officer Braga. Only one man - J. M. Straczynski - has done battle with broadcast studio executives while being able to produce five years of good science fiction television. He is behind me. You are front of me. If your employer values the deep-space franchise, be somewhere else!"
I remember cringing at some of the earlier TNG episodes that ended with Riker making some inane remark and Picard saying "Agreed!" * YAWN *
I find it very hard to believe that this state of utopia will ever be reached, because every improvement in society brings its own drawbacks. For example, the richest country in the world today has still not managed to find happiness, look at the sheer size of the shrink and self-help industry. The nation with the highest car-ownership in the world has brought with it an epidemic of obesity and enormous environmental problems. Bottom line, for every problem you solve in society, another is created. This is something that's missing from the humans in the Trek universe.
Lastly, from a drama point of view, people happily getting along makes for unbelievably boring TV. Remember the Itchy & Scratchy episodes where they became best friends? All the kids in Springfield started switching off their TVs and went out to play. We demand TV that keeps us indoors!!!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
ST has become fashionable to hate. It used to be just a geek thing but now even geeks are trying to be hip by saying they don't like it.
If you look at the recent ST series I think the fault is that they tried to be too popular. Instead of aiming at their main audience they tried to broaden it and managed to loose both their old audience and not aquire a new one.
ST:TNG was too softly and soapy (it even had the evil twin sister kinda stuff), Deep Space 9 became a true soap, going away from the 1 hour episodes into an neverending story with returning cast members. Dynasty in space. Voyager never stopped whining. Enterprise is so bad I didn't even watch past ep3. And I am very forgiving to ST.
Any new series needs to go back to the roots. 1 hour episodes of a small crew exploring the universe. No whining, no soul searching. Just doing things. Focus on the old fans, they kept the franchise going for decades, we are ready to be milked more. Just don't insult us anymore.
Oh and shoot the person that came up with the holochamber idea. These guys are out exploring space and the best they can do for excitement is do fantasy games indoors? Losers.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think DS9 started off slow but improved and had some great episodes like "The Vistor" #75 (many fathers appreciated it). They introduced the "runabout" (cool ride, kinda like the winnebago of the 24th century) and the "Defiant" (one very bad ass, greatly overweaponed ship). The wormhole allowed for someone interesting plot additions. They showed us how a lot of different species lived, many more than any other ST series.
Not to be forgotten, the "Ferengi Rules of Acquisition" gave interesting insite to greed.
34 - War is good for business.
35 - Peace is good for business.
239 - Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
261 - A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.
Morals were well tested. A "former terrorist", Major Kira, became a respected leader while still having a few terrorist traits; interesting when one thinks of the use of the word "terrorist" today. Some "Black and White" morals were shown to have acceptable shades of grey. To many DS9 was as good as TNG. I think the exploration into the psychology of people make it a good show. Different for TNG, but still good science fiction. And yes, the long lesbian kiss.
Imagine what Straczynski and Zabel could done with it though. There's a lot of life left in the ST franchise.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
This was a strong theme running through Babylon 5 Seasons Two and Three, which culminated in the secession of Babylon 5 from Earth.
Seriously, all the good aspects that people rave about in DS9, B5 did first. DS9 was just a Paramount copy of B5, quite frankly -- almost to the point of lawsuit.
I don't think JMS and trek would be a good combination. One of the things that's hrting trek now is that Berman/Braga and their cabal of writers are locked in and running the whole show. Part of the reason TNG and DS(, and even TOS suceeded is that they had a multitude of writers with different styles.
...and depsite the holy reverence that many scifi fans place on b5, it was not without its flaws. The overall story arc was very ambitious and well thought-out, but many parts of the story - the dialogue was heavy-handed, foreshadowing (no pun intended) was overused as a plot device and frankly dind't always need a riddle-talking alien to be accomplished, etc. b5 was good TV, and certainly surpasses Voyager and most of TNG in quality, but I can't really see JMS helming a show whose canon, universe, and fanbase he can't entirely control. Nor can I see his particular philosophy working especially well with the established continuity. If JMS were going to "Save" trek he'd have to let go of some of teh creative control to allow people to fill in where he's weak, and his track record on such things isn't the best.
Meanwhile, JMS wrote nearly all of b5. And that was in fact one of the things that I felt worked to its detriment. The wrtier's flaws quickly become the show's flaws, and that's one of the things killing trek right now.
----
"I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."
Babylon 5 is an absolutely amazing piece of science fiction but only when you realize that the 5 seasons are really one 80-hour long movie.
When I saw it aired on TV, I thought it was contrived because I didn't understand all the constant references to prophecies, councils, past wars, Valen, etc. I thought that they were doing what Star Trek writers do - reference cool sounding things just to enhance the illusion of the future, but those things are not existant in the actual plot. B5 is completely different; almost all their references are to cool stories in other episodes (both forward and backward) including some mind-blowing plot twists (some that make you giggle when you watch earlier season episodes because you know some *huge* secrets revealed later). It's important to realize that the B5 plot was fully written before filming, something that Star Trek never benefited from.
My roommate got the DVDs for all the seasons and we started watching them one by one. I'm a few episodes from finishing the last season. B5 is a trememdous story, not just out of science fiction, but of any type of story I've ever watched or read. It's one of those real works of art you only see once every few years. Of course I take issue with some scientific points, like their premise of the "first ones" (first race in the galaxy) living for indefinite lifetimes and such, but they are just quibbles.
It's also worth noting that besides the brilliant story weaving, B5 also fantastically avoided the concept of "good guys" and "bad guys". I'm impressed to no end how they side-stepped that oh-so-common trapping and actually made several alien races really come to life with politics, emotions, and goals of their own. Very cool.
The third great thing about B5 is that the problems are solved with character solutions. The tech is there to enhance the experience, but unlike Star Trek where they can reconfigure the primary deflector to do the dishes and take out the dog, in B5 they actually work out the problems using more traditional methods, and the interesting tech is for there for the viewer's enjoyment as backdrop, not primary focus.
If you're a Star Trek fan but have never watched B5, do yourself a favor and start with Season 1. Watch them in order, and P.S. there is an extra prequel movie, but don't watch it until after you get into Season 5 because it gives a few things from the middle away.
It makes me curious as to how they'd give Star Trek the B5 treatment, but I'd have to guess that the first step would be to write out a cohesive plot that can cover the first few years of the show before they start filming.
Hey, they're "fresh" and "creative."
And alien nazis (just say it out loud, with a smile in your voice--and remember that, by the 'trek cronology, we're all slaves to Khan right about now)
Where was I? Oh, yes.
The alien nazi (singluar, remember) is a great example of the subtle fact that Enterprise brings into the central focus a topic that goes hand-in-hand with FTL travel and has been only tangentially mentioned in previous Star Treks: Time Travel.
Enterprise is ALL about time travel--it's not set "before Kirk", it's set long after Janeway, after the Federation has won and perfected time travel. It's just told from the story of a ship that blew up in the history that Kirk knew, and only launched because of an incident that never happened to Kirk's historical Johnathan Archer.
I'm of the "Star Trek needs a good long rest" persuasion, myself, but if anyone can revitalize and ailing franchise, it's probably Joe. He has the talent, the background, and the credentials.
It's ironic, though. When Joe first came up with Babylon 5, he pitched it to Paramount. Paramount turned thumbs down on it. Joe pitched elsewhere. What does Paramount come up with next? Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show about a space station located on the borders of several competing interstellar powers. Coincidence?
Joe reportdly hit the roof, but was careful *not* to blame Rick Berman and the other folks directly involved in ST production. Paramount wished to protect the Trek franchise at all costs, and wasn't about to compete with itself by backing a non-Trek SF show. Whether it decided to sucker punch a possible competitor by bringing out the same idea first remains unknowable.
The problem is that Paramount got a successful franchise largely by accident. Star Trek: TOS was originally cancelled part way through, and brought back through fan pressure. It seems likely that Paramount never really understood *why* it was popular, so successive Star Trek: Whatever's have trod the same old ground, in apparent fear that any actual new ideas would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Personally, I was around when the original series was being aired. It was the best SF on TV at the time, but hasn't aged terribly well.
ST:TNG had some good moments, especially when it worked through the backlog of unproduced scripts bought for the original series and started buying new material. There was at least some attempt to deal with adult themes, even if there were embarassing clunkers.
DS9 had moments as well, especially when they introduced the war with the Dominion. Trek always had a schizophrenic attitude toward Star Fleet. Pointing out that the Enterprise was a capital ship, and if there *was* a war, Star Fleet would fight it produced hand-waving and denial from a lot of folks.
Voyager was simply excreble. I think I managed to watch one episode before giving up in disgust.
I had hopes for Enterprise. A show set early in the chronolgy of the series, detailing the early days of the Federation had promise. Promise that, unsurprisingly, has not been fulfilled. I've avoided it, too.
I have a problem with television that makes an implicit assumption that I'm dumb, and that any show with a few SF tropes and some FX will get me to watch. Dramatic story lines, meaningful characters, interesting plots, good writing? Who needs them? It's got the Trek name on it. It will sell...
Well, not to me, buddy.
Joe might actually be able to create a Trek series worth watching again. I'd love to see it. I'd lay long odds against Paramount saying yes.
______
Dennis