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Should Star Trek Die?
securitas writes "The New York Times Television reporter William S. Kowinski writes about questions of the Star Trek franchise's viability due to overexposure, audience fatigue and creative exhaustion. Star Trek actor and director LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) is in favor of a hiatus, and is quoted as saying, 'Star Trek's just not special enough, not anymore.... They need to shut the whole thing down, wait five years, create an interest, an excitement, a hunger for it again.' Also quoted are Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and executive producer Rick Berman. The article is particularly salient given the recent announcement of Star Trek Online, a massively multiplayer online game scheduled to launch in 2007. Remember that Activision sued Viacom over the Star Trek franchise last year, ending the license despite a 10-year licensing agreement that originally expired in 2008. So the question is: Should Star Trek die?"
even slashdot thinks so:
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
But a simple hiatus won't fix ST. ST needs better writing, fresher ideas, and to get away from this fixation of techno-babble saving the day. And while I'd be the first to jump into a goo chamber with T'Pol, the "FOX approach" is simply gratuitous and insulting.
ST needs to get back to it's cerebral roots. (yeah the current line in Enterprise is better, but after living through Voyager, it would be hard to get worse.) It needs a rest, but it also needs intelligent direction. coughfirebermancough.
a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...
The answer is: God yes, please die, now.
The question is, should we bury it, or spritz it with Fabreeze and see how long we can milk it "Weekend at Bernie's" style.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
The good of the many outweighs the needs of the few...
Overexposure is what Madonna has.
Star Trek is "not special anymore" because it's been taken over by people who can't understand what made it special. Bring in some real writers who understand why Threshold and Meridian were terrible stories and why The Inner Light was a great one, and the viewers will follow.
Yes. *Please*. Send T'Pol back to SG-1 and dump the rest...
Star Trek:
Western in space. Kinda campy but did have its moments. Very memorable characters. Fanbase: Big enough to get a few movies going after its cancelation. Noteworthy: The fans loved the show and movies enough to get an entire freakin' space shuttle renamed. Nae bad.
Star Trek: The Next Generation:
Pretty deep plots. Much deeper than much of what is shown on TV, which really doesn't say much. Very memorable characters. Very powerful episodes. (Remember the one where the crew find a probe and Picard spends a lifetime on a dieing planet?) Had many people who aren't fans of scifi watching. Noteworthy: Roddenbery died during this series.
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Very deep storyline spanning many seasons. Characters not as memorable as those on TNG, but memorable none the less.
Star Trek: Voyager:
Unmemorable characters, superficial plots, enough gaps in the plot to make Spock have a stroke. The previously immortal and near unbeatable borg were made to look like a bunch of pussies in this. Time travel became more cliche than it previously was. It's crap, Jim.
Star Trek: Enterprise
New 'hip' series that shits on the pre-federation history laid out by the previous series and movies. Superficial. Unmemorable characters. Plots so shallow not even an infant could drown in them. Superficial. Tries to grab your attention with random semi-nudity. Predictable. Superficial. Theme song sucks. Superficial.
As somebody who used to be a HUGE Trek fan 10 years ago - good. The horse is laying in the middle of the field, four broken legs, broken ribs, and is oozing blood out of its ears. Just shoot it and get it over with. I hate seeing my childhood fave raped for ratings.
--
We are the collective Slashbot HiveMind
Star Trek can't die. It can enter a state of suspended animation, however, and that's what it should do. Hibernate, if you will, to be revived when we have the technology to cure it. Put the whole thing in a time capsule and dig it up in five years, conveniently "forgetting" to pack any oxygen for Berman. That should do the trick nicely.
Money for nothing, pix for free
More like twenty. Things went to hell in a handbasket when TNG started to spawn all these spinoffs. In a better world, TNG would have ended with season 7, and after that a long wait, until in say 2005 we'll be salivating over the prospect of a new ST series carrying on from there, perhaps concentrating on Timefleet.
Sorry this is so cruel, but it made me laugh.
John
But I still have to scream "KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!" when thinking of it.
Trolling is a art,
He's dead, Jim.
We have learned so much for star trek. Its true, I know a lot of people that substituted star trek for an education, it works.
Yes
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!
If Star Trek would die, so would half of the conversations on Slashdot!
Long live Star Trek!
So, nothing is "dead" today, so we've started putting up stories that ask for things to die?
Seriously, when has anything really just DIED?! Technology gets reborn into newer applications, fads resurface, trends rise and fall. Quit it with the incessant death babble.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Honestly, it just hasn't been all that exciting and great recently. Star Trek 10 was supposed to be this huge movie with grandiose themes and all. It was kinda lame and it felt like the star-trek wagon's wheels were falling off. Not to mention Enterprise....blech.... There comes a time when you just let a thing go and have its legacy.
we need to stop making all these spin-off's. TNG was great. It had the whole star trek spirit, but things like Voyager make me want to puke. Endless encounters with the borg, and no general mission besides "making it home." Can the borg win for once and just blow them up? :)
It's dead, Jim!
12:50 - press return.
...I'd be in favor of a hiatus. Spend five years planning the hell out of the next series.
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Clicky Clicky
Personally I agree, it's already dead. Voyager sucks, and theres not a big following of Enterprise. The last movie sucked.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
I can't get sci-fi to disappear from the main page. I set it in my preferences to not show, but sci-fi still does. Any suggestions on what to try? Or is slashdot trying to convince me to watch sci-fi tv (which I don't watch tv at all) Anime gets blocked, but for some reason, sci-fi never does.
I'd agree that there is too much exposure, lack of creativity (it's the same old plots over and over) and way too much trying to be uber-politically-correct and "visionary". It was better when they put the social commentary in without ramming it down your throat.
I love the idea of having a great spacefaring future, but the best new sci-fi / space shows out there were canned (Farscape and Firefly). I don't really care too much for Stargates; too sappy for my tastes.
While it may be sad to have no new Trek, I think it would be best if they just let a good thing go and not risk tarnishing the franchise any further.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Too many channels are playing too many episodes of all the Star Trek series. Let it die.
The writing sucked to begin with. Too many mindless drones keep watching it and the TV stations keep putting it on for the Trek Zombie Army.
Let it Die
Fear is the enemy; the one true enemy. {Sun Tzu-The Art of War}
But only if there is an opening on Boston Public for Jolene Blalock. :)
"It's dead, Jim"
Of course it shouldn't die. It should go into hibernation.
Which is kinda making it a bit antequated. I mean, we all already have the original communicator (cell phones), we've got teleportation working (kinda, only a few particles at a time over short distances but still).
Point is, Star Trek is highly based on "science", which is how Gene wanted it. Unless they can find a way to move away from the science, and do more morality stuff, then yea they need to pause.
Maybe in a decade or two we can revisit Star Trek, only it'll be the Next Next generation. Ugh, and let's pretend the temperal stuff never happened.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Is already dead, they just should stop with the beating thing.
P.S. too lazy to log on
When will we have 20th century faires featuring people dressed up as 13-year-old boys in coke bottle glasses, fantasizing about growing up to become an astronaut?
Sorry, couldn't help myself
Current Trek is a good reason to get rid of
all the brain dead marketroids
Big breasts & tight fitting costumes should
be the hook for the show not the main plot.
Help! help!, the termites are eating my DRAM!!!
Star Trek has grown a little old lately. They should take a break of ten years. Yes, ten years. After that they might be able to come back with new and fresh stories.
After DS9 there hasnt been much. Voyager is crap and only the first two seasons of Enterprise where good. After that it has become... well, dont know what it actually has become but it is no longer real Star Trek.
So let it die please. Ummm, no wait, I mean: let it rest.
.. ever since Star Trek TNG when they took all the OS characters, split them in two (Kirk = Picard+Riker, Spock = Data+Troy, etc.) and turned up their smugness factor by 1000. And then forgot to employ any decent writers with original storylines...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
... but not as we know it!
Sorry, had to.... Now mod me down.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a network executive.
It was a fun ride but it got old a long time ago. Same with the Star Wars family.
good things are only good until they get ruined by over-indulgence. They've explored all the angles into a mind-numbing state of mediocrity.
Star Trek = cool
too much Star Trek = boring, repetitive, predictable, stale.
Better to spend their energies creating the next cool thing instead of re-hashing and desecrating the last cool thing.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
If you don't already know who Levar Burton and Leonard Nimoy are, you:
A) Shouldn't be on Slashdot
iii) Aren't qualified to talk about any Trek, because you missed the only two good series in the franchise
Enterprise is a great show. They just need to divorce the Star Trek name from it. Great sci-fi, but it doesn't belong anywhere in the Trek timeline.
Star Trek is alive ??
Sorry, english is not my mother tongue
take a hiatus. And in the meantime, someone get Firefly back on the air. Firefly had some problems (Doctor and his sister developed too slowly), but I felt the writing and timing the actors had made it a great show.
Fox has the rights for 10 years, so no more episodes I guess. Oh well, I'll just wait for the movie.
but I am still greedy for Star Trek.. and I am looking forward to the next ST:Enterprise Season.
;)
You can get into a big discussion wether it should be historically correct based on the previous series' but IMHO it isn't so important that anyone should get desperate about it.
Personally i dont like the original TOS.. its so cheesy and artificial. I am an early adopter so I like to play around with new things all the time.
A new star trek episode every week is exactly the thing i need
Play well..
Rick
Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
its about time
Yes.
Errrr.
No? I watched one episode of that new one, you know, with quantum leap guy (IANASTL) and it was too dumb actors stuck in a ship, with no air, and then it was cold, then they plugged a hole in the hull with some stupid food.
I think it has been dying a long and painful death, and we can already smell the advanced decomposition of the script writters.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Did I miss an episode or something?
Original cast, from left, Grace Lee Whitney, Majel Barrett, Walter Koenig, James Doohan, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols and the astronaut Neil Armstrong
WTF?
You mean, it's not dead yet, Bones?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Yes, Star Trek should die. Right before one series ends an other begins. between TOS and TNG There was a good time frame difference and plenty of time to rethink new ideas new planets and alien creatures. Then DS9 came along DS9 wasn't to bad either it many ways it was a lot better the TNG. But after DS9 Voyager and Enterprise (although Enterprise is better the voyager) are still just kinda sucking the franchise dry. Give them some time for the nature of politics to change and for some of the issues of today be different. Also some time to revaluate our technology that we have in the future to really make a good guess what the future will be like. But the franchise is still struggling to match the ideas of the future of the 1960s and trying to loosely follow that time frame. I Think they need to make a new franchise that will make more sense.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes, and they should bring back Firefly instead!
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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YES. yes. long overdue for death. the whole thing is getting ridiculous. and CHEEZY. way, way too cheezy.
-end of post.
When I think of Star Trek I remember the endless hours of watching the old series and TNG ... but with the newer series (DS9, Voyager ...) Star Trek seems to have lost its "trekkieness" ... in my eyes it has become something completely different - something i didn't enjoy in that special way as the old series. ... and return when it's ready.
Since then Star Trek has been dead for me and the only thing that reminded me of its existence were the new cinematic releases. Then I kind of remembered being a trekkie but a few days later I sort of forgotten it all over again.
I don't know if I'm the only one that feels this way but I think Star Trek sould cease to exist in the way it has existed tha last couple of years
Never underestimate the power of idiots in large groups
What makes a good sci-fi series is:
1) The quality of the writing
2) The quality of the acting
3) The quality of the special effects
Many shows get this backwards (such as the current ST series and the horrendous ST Voyager). The old Dr. Who series with Tom Baker had ultra cheap special effects (the special effects budget must have been about five pounds) - but are still enjoyable when viewed today. The original ST's special effects were not special by today's standards, and Shatner's acting - well 'nough said. But, the quality of the writing created the whole franchise. B5 and Star Gate (though I'm a little worried about the later) were good because of the many excellent scripts. Forget overexposure - get some decent writers that understand science fiction and can write interesting, thought provoking scripts. That will revive the franchise. Anything else, and it's doomed.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Seriously. When I think back to how much I liked TOS and TNG, I can't help but think about how much brighter and more colorful the episodes were. After Gene's death, the uniforms became almost all black and DS9, VOY, and ENT are all half-lit.
Maybe I was just a kid, but a major part of the enjoyment of ST for me was the promise of a better future, a place that you actually wanted to live in (i.e. not your mom's basement, which is what the series look like now).
It's time for Star Trek to die. It really should have stopped with the death of Rodenberry.
What they should focus on is Babylon 5. I think the B5 universe as a whole has much more depth than the Star Trek universe. I just got done digging up a lot of the made for TV B5 movies even with bad production value they were quite good.
When the creater of B5 croaks, so should the franchise. While he's alive, I want more!
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
I haven't watched Star Trek in years. I haven't seen the last two movies, the last seasons of DS9 and Voyager, and not a single episode of Enterprise. I have been Star Trek out for quite some time and no longer make it a priority to watch the shows. I agree give it a hiatus for maybe a decade. Then see if the countless reruns and online game will generate a hunger in a new generation of trekkies as well as the old.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
After Voyager and Enterprise, the only way Star Trek could be brought back as a fresh and viable franchise is if Spock placed his hand on the left side of Rick Berman's face and said, "Remember...". Thereby, infusing his soul into Rick Berman. Creative thought seems to have left Rick Berman's head!
There is still money to be made as the franshise digs itself even deeper into the ground, but my vote would be for no new series or movies for at least 5-10 years.
I think Timothy should have posted this story here
--
We are the collective Slashbot HiveMind
Does anyone else wish Star Trek would stop trying to be profound with its social commentary episodes?
In this article Levar Burton mentions a future episode where they hope to parallel questions and concerns about the war in Iraq to some civil war on Vulcan. I know geeks love this kind of stuff, but most of the non-rabid Trek fans hate it.
Why? Because Trek moralizing is geek moralizing. It's that naive, "I live in an ivory tower mommy and daddy paid for" philosophizing that makes the series so unapproachable. You know the storyline is going to end with a darker hand shaking a lighter hand, and the entire universe commiserating about how stupid and violent we humans are. It's goofy and embarassing - you know, like that stupid poem Data recited about his cat.
Trek needs to get cool again, and it needs to get cool again fast. Why don't people realize that the reason people liked Kirk was because he was a man's man? He took his ladies and he beat up his enemies. He didn't recite Shakepeare at them.
Personally, I would settle for the canning of Berman & Braga. These guys have taken Star Trek so far from the spirit of what was created by Gene Roddenberry, it is ridiculous. New people, new ideas.
I bet the next things on their list are shot for shot re-makes of TOS with new actors & CGIs...
If you haven't read the New Frontier series of books by Peter David, you should. The characters and story lines would make a great series, and would bring back the old feeling of the series that made it great.
...it should be put on hiatus for a while. Simply producing one series after another for sake of "having something" is not the way to go. This "have-to-have-it-now" and "have-to-have-it-always" mentality is really doing nothing more than producing inferior works and tarnishing the genre.
Maybe after it "sits" for a while we will anticipate and appreciate it more--of course, they'll have to deliver...
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
And needs to be taken off the (supposed) lifesupport that has Enterprise crawling along as a mere shadow of TOS. It needs to be killed dead, and left so until Brennan, Braga, and Co. at Paramount who chronically Do Not Get IT are also dead.
Then we can maybe consider a glorious resurrection.
I don't just want Trek's Death, I want revenge for the last 4 movies!
Some of the Best Star Trek writting was done during DS9's last season.
Expansion of Klingon Politics, the Dominion, Cardassians, even the annoying Ferengi played a vital part.
Some of the best special effects ever seen on television.
I have yet to see ANY Romulan politics. How about expanding on the knowledge that Voyager obtained in the Delta Quadrant?
I think it's just the writters and directors are burned out. Time to bring in some fresh blood!
and use all of that creative energy to bring back Space 1999. I can't wait to see if those people made it off Moon Base Alpha.
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Star Trek community when recently Neilsen confirmed that Star Trek accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all TV viewers. Coming on the heels of the latest Slashdot poll which plainly states that Star Trek has fewer fans than the Goatse troll, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Star Trek is collapsing in complete disarray.
You don't need to be a Q to predict Star Trek's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Star Trek faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Star Trek because Star Trek is dying.
Things are looking very bad for Star Trek. As many of us are already aware, Star Trek continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. "Enterprise" is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core viewers (preteen males with an income of $100 - $500).
Due to George Lucas' ego, abysmal sales of "Episode 1" and so on, some Star Wars fans turned to "Enterprise" who sell another cheesy repackaging of the same plots and characters. Now "Enterprise" is also dead, its cast soon to be turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Star Trek has steadily declined in market share. Star Trek is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Star Trek is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. Star Trek continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Star Trek is dead.
Fact: Star Trek is dead.
Leonard Nimoy (Spock)
Thanks for that insight. Does anyone, I mean anyone on Slashdot not know who Leonard Nimoy is? He sang the Bilbo Baggins song. The loon.
No, Star Trek doesn't need to die. It's a huge brand name with instant worldwide recognizability (read: marketability).
Perhaps Star Trek in its current incarnation needs to die - but there's absolutely no need for a hiatus, unless Burton (et al) really think that the problem is overexposure and not overworked/exhausted/apathetic/etc. "handlers". The ones calling for a hiatus - just a guess - are probably the producers' friends. Burton, e.g., has had many "Trek" directorial roles since TNG ended, so he's obviously got something invested in Berman & Braga. I wouldn't take his opinion at face value, really.
Give Trek to someone else, and it could be big again. In Roddenberry's day, professional science fiction writers were hired as script writers... in Berman's day, scripts were given to soap opera writers, and fans of the show (!). It can't all be blamed on overexposure when (to stay in the metaphor) the real problem is a thumb over the lens.
Thanks to the google cache... about two thirds down the page posted by "Jesper T". Had to use the cache because the direct link to my original search came back with a resource denied (original google search text: "Western in space. Kinda campy but did have its moments. Very memorable characters. Fanbase: Big enough to get a few movies going after its cancelation. Noteworthy:").
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
As someone who just watched Enterprise s01e22, "Vox Sola", I have to say: YES!
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Maybe someone should cue Berman in on the fact that aliens can actually be used to examine the human condition and are not just an excuse to do cool makeup or skin-tight jump suits.
Honestly, even though the acting/stories/sfx of TOS were crappy, Gene knew that non-human races were the best way to explore human issues. I mean look at Spock, a character with no emotions that can blatently comment on the sometimes conflicting nature of human emotions. Or the two aliens with different coloring on each side of the face to demonstrate the sillyness of racism.
ST will be good again when the writers realize that aliens can be used more for introspection that exhibition.
But only if Netcraft confirms it
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I think you mean "death rattle."
;)
Seriously though, are you going to try to tell me Enterprise is not a better show than Voyager? It's good SF - not GREAT SF, with a few exceptions - but it's well-written and well-acted.
Can you people give me some good reasons why you seem to hate Enterprise so much?
(I mean, hell, I'll give you Voyager
+++ATH0
The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of tri-lithium you carry, reinserting the prime directive. After which you will be required to select from Cyrano Jones 23 items, 16 female, 7 TRibbles, to rebuild the Enterprise.
Scotty: If I were you, I would hope that we don't run out of scotch again.
dr who anyone.. ?
I honestly can't believe they are still pumping out new versions of the show, I like TNG episodes but after that they just get watered down, like even the writers are getting sick of comping up with new episodes.
Definately wait at least 3-4 years, spend some time getting a decent amoutn of quality episode ideas and then come back strong. I think they can really do a lot with the series if they weren't just going through the motions.
It just needs new people in charge. Berman is a fool and has destroyed the franchise. We need more sci-fi. Trek has a place there, but it needs to be put in the correct direction. Not trying to fad it up with hot Vulcan chicks.
Hello? STORY!
Deep Space 9 was an excellent example that Trek can have an ongoing story thats excellent.
In summary: In a time where all the network suits want us to see is reality, Sci-fi is needed more than ever. But if the little shreds of it are not good, then sci-fi gets a bad rep. Trek can stay, but get Berman out and someone with good ideas in.
Oh dear god yes
and we are sworn at birth to hate all that is Star Trek, I actually enjoyed Deep Space 9 (please don't take away my SW Fanboy membership card!!).
Should Star Trek die? Without a doubt, Voyager was the straw that broke the camel's back (which subsequently killed it). Now Enterprise has become the club that is being used to beat said camel's rotting corpse.
Besides, imagine what would happen to the value of Trek memorabilia on Ebay if it DID go on hiatus for a decade or so.
Step 1) Put Star Trek on hiatus
Step 2) ?????
Step 3) Profit!
Yeah, good idea. Let's beat Trek to death just like Sci-Fi and Comdey Central did to MST3K. Infact, let's beat it so far into the ground as to alienate not only the fans but also those who are hands-on involved in the production. That's the ticket.
Or perhaps the ticket is to let Enterprise finish it's run, hire some completely new writers who've never touched Trek and give them a few years to spin up some new concepts. I doubt it will happen, instead we have a machine that produces Trek just to produce something. The vision seems to be gone.
One thing is for sure; if they continue on this breakneck pace there won't be enough left of Trek to make a comeback for over a decade.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
While I admit to being a Star Trek fan, I can also admit to not wanting it to become the big, bloated, loathable behemoth that Star Wars is. So, down with Trek and up with my DVD budget.
If it dies, what are we going to do with all the Trekkies?
Due to lack of disk space this user has been discontinued
Slashdot Poll: Should Star Trek Die?
"I am a Star Wars fan, you insensitive clod!"
...but I am still greedy for Star Trek.. and I am looking forward to the next ST:Enterprise Season.
;)
You can get into a big discussion wether it should be historically correct based on the previous series' but IMHO it isn't so important that anyone should get desperate about it.
Personally i dont like the original TOS.. its so cheesy and artificial. I am an early adopter so I like to play around with new things all the time.
A new star trek episode every week is exactly the thing i need
Play well
Rick
Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
Alien Nazis from outer space (Enterprise cliffhanger)? What were they thinking?!?
and beam it down with jim, bones, spock and the femme fatale. that'll kill it.
what does salient mean?
Star Trek is living the old Dylan Thomas poem "Do not go gently into that good night..." Unfortunately, Trek's raging makes for very bad TV.
I watched the original Star Trek (TOS) as a kid, and I was captivated and stimulated by the series of new and amazing things it revealed: scientific wonders, new forms of life, alien cultures, and above all the feeling of adventure "out there" among the stars.
Trek TNG followed this formula pretty well, although it became too immersed in "technology" plots - how many variations on the holodeck plot can they expect us to endure?
DS9's theme was more political, exploring the various relations between the Federation, the Bajorans, and the Cardassians - and, to a lesser extent, the Klingons and the Ferengi. This variation on the theme seemed to bore a lot of people, but it seemed to me it produced some of the best writing of all the Trek series.
Voyager was where I seriously began to lose interest. The "journey home" theme - a kind futuristic retelling of the Odyssey was a good foundation to build on, but the series never seemed to take advantage of its potential. You know that a Trek series is failing at its primary mission when the producers feel the need to add cheesecake like Seven just to prop up its ratings.
Enterprise? They've lost me and I can't even bring myself to watch it. Don't even know its regular time slot. For my sci-fi fix I now turn to Stargate *, and reruns of Farscape, DS9, and Babylon 5. Oh, and I have great hopes for Battlestar Galactica - the human race fighting for its survival is a hugely compelling theme, and from the looks of the premier, the SciFi channel wants to do it right.
Yes, Star Trek needs to be put to sleep, or at least into a deep coma. I don't even have to RTFA to tell you my opinion on this.
From what I've heard, They're just flailing in the script-room, pulling plotlines out of nowhere...and even plotlines that don't make sense. I'll admit, Voyager sure wasn't TNG-2nd season, but it wasn't the last season of TOS either. There were some good parts and some bad parts.
LaVar has probably got a pretty good idea that it should be shelved (or at least shoved in the frezer for a while). Let the hubub over "Berman killed Star Trek" die, spend that time fleshing out something more cereberal (or at least philosophic) if they even bother to make another series: they've almost run out of concepts!
I say Shelve it for 5 years and see if anyone's come up with anything interesting by then
-- Now we see the violence inherent in the sysadmin
What's up with the rumors that B5's JMS had a proposal to bring new life into Trek?
I think there is the possibility for another good ST series... but not with the current leadership. Paramount should give up on Berman et al., let Trek rest and recover for several years, and then bring back a new series, with new writers and new producers.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
It's worse then that... He's DEAD Jim!
Dr. Demento I believe...
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I agree to a certain extent that the Star Trek franchise as we know it should die. Or at least take that hiatus they spoke of in the article. By doing that, they wouldn't dilute the value of the Star Trek we all know and love. Let the fanatical fans continue with the conventions, the underground activities, etc. That way, when a new movie DOES come out, there will be a big to-do about it because of all the hype, all the memories that get exaggerated over the years, and the fact that the movie producers will actually want to make a GOOD movie so as not to let down the fans.
In a similar sense, look what happened to "Star Wars". The original trilogy has so much awe around it. After years and years of nothing but old Star Wars toys and watching "Empire" over and over on VHS, they brought out Episode One. Look at the fervor it created. Unfortunately, the movie blew. Then Episode Two came out...it blew even more. Fans will go see Three, but it just doesn't have that "Star Wars!!!! I gotta go see it!" appeal.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
StarTrek is....oops wrong obligatory quote.
Seriously though, the StarTrek franchise has seemed like it was on it's last legs for a couple of years now. I'm not even sure the Genesis probe could bring it back at this point.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
I mean, come on!
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Anyone who really likes Star Trek cant get enough of it. It's that simple. So the answer is No.
Due to George Lucas' ego, abysmal sales of "Episode 1" and so on, some Star Wars fans turned to "Enterprise" who sell another cheesy repackaging of the same plots and characters.
The real bottomline there is that TV & movie "sci fi" is a joke. I'm personally sick of phasers and aliens. Is that the scope of sci-fi today? On TV and the silver screen it is.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Back in the 1960s, in the days of Commies and Sputnik and the Space Race, a show about astronauts warping around space with a dashing captain punching the Evil Empire in the nose was exactly the right formula to grab America's attention. Surround him with beautiful but deadly women, tear his shirt off in a fight over them every so often, and it captured the interest of teens and young men and women all over the country. And since there were three whole networks of TV channels to choose from, competition for attention was scarce.
But now, there are hundreds of channels with thousands of shows. The internet is high speed and in the kids' bedrooms. Soccer moms spend every waking minute taking their kids from activity to activity. Kids just aren't interested in Star Trek. It's now just a show for their dads and moms to watch; there is no excitement for kids, nothing new in these movies and series. There's no evil villain that they could show that these kids haven't already virtually shot a thousand times in their Nintendos.
Star Trek won't die as long as we adults keep hanging on to our memories of Captain Kirk. But we can't expect our kids to hold him in the same "reverence." And no matter how "special" the stories might be to us, they're just another level in a video game to the current generation.
John
...like BSD?
Yes, yes it should.
In my opinion Star Trek died when Roddenberry died.
What we see nowadays is a soap opera in Star Trek clothes.
All new Trek-series made after 1991 have been pure BS. There have been only about 2-3 good episodes per season. I'm personally ashamed what Star Trek has become.
We need to find a pseudorandom collection of people we don't need on earth and install them into the ISS for a few months. Hey, I might volunteer..
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
The lame theme song for Enterprise alone is worthy of burying the entire franchise.
/yawn
The biggest problem with the series is that they've pretty much exhausted their ever-redundant plot devices: time travel, super-superior uber hostile aliens that all conveniently have simple secret weaknesses, crew members going bad, intra-crew sexual tension, emotion as an asset/liability, etc. I'm so tired of watching a new episode only to see an old theme played out with different actors.
Wow, look, the Enterprise season finale has them tossed back in time to where? Of course, WWII and Nazi Germany.
Give it a rest Paramount.
YYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSS
What lameness filter ! It's for Star Trek, right ?
What, my karma diasppeared ??? why ???
.
#include "coucou.h"
I watched them all, and I remember a campy western set in space, a all-to-perfect soap opera buried in technobabble, a total fluke in the Trek saga in the form of DS9 when the show sucked until they dropped any semblance of it actually being like "Trek", and went much darker and was far better than the prior series. Voyager shouldn't even be commented on. It was the worst part of all the sci-fi shows on TV all mushed together in a shocking display of suck. Enterprise has been entertaining, I suppose. The acting is horrid, but its never been good in the Trek franchise.
In all of those, however (even being a Trek fan), I fail to see any semblance of a cerebral root.
Lets face it. Star Trek has run out of steam , and the work being done by the current people is not very creative. Star Trek needs to take a hiatus because what we need here is new people to work on the series. I don't want Rick Berman working on any new Star Trek series ever.
With regards to the game, it should continue onward.
I think there is more than enough material in the Star Trek universe to make it exciting provided that the game is developed properly and is fun to play.
Contrary to what I'm sure a lot of others will write, I actually like the current direction of Star Trek, particularly Enterprise. I actually think Enterprise is one of the best shows yet, probably on par with Next Generation (feel free to argue below - I can take it). It's been a very inventive and original series, and I've been impressed with the ways they've linked our near-future with the events and concepts of the existing Star Trek universe (Andorians vs. Vulcans, not seeing the Romulans in person, etc.). One of my big complaints about Star Trek before Enterprise was that they rarely revisited old storylines and species. Enterprise is the first series to connect the dots to my satisfaction.
That said, they've made a lot of mistakes recently (not making Captain Sulu on the Exelsior into a series, making Voyager suck for most of its run, and so forth). Their biggest mistake: no hiatus. I actually realized this was a problem a decade ago when Deep Space Nine first aired. I loved the idea of two series airing in parallel, and hoped they'd do some cross-over episodes with TNG (which they failed to do). But after a while it seemed like a lot of work to watch two hours of Star Trek every week, and I realized that one of the things that had driven my interest in the past was the decade of no Trek before the movies, the two years between each film, and so forth. After TNG, they started building on their success a bit too thoroughly. I think Roddenberry wouldn't have treated it as much like a Trek Factory as Berman has.
I hope they keep going in their current direction with Enterprise, and that it becomes more popular. But I also hope that when it ends, they do the smart thing and take a couple years off. No movies, no nothing. The series needs a rest. And the payoff: after a hiatus, a new movie or series will actually excite fans again for the first time in years.
I just finished reading the 2 volumes on the Eugenics Wars. It did a good job of weaving the Star Trek universe into our actual real world events. It is also a good example of the quality of the writers putting out the ST novels. If there are so many novels out there begging to be adapted to movies or a series, why do they keep putting out crappy movies written by people who do not really know the franchise?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I liked TOS! Some of the dialog was corny but the stories were good.
TNG had some stinkers, but it also had some great stories.
DS9 wasn't as good as the first two, but it too had some good shows.
Voyager was when ST started to jump the shark. It had some good stories, but the crap was clearly growing.
By Enterprise, the previously mentioned shark was gnawing on the warp nascells. A show that had a lot of potential was dying fast. Archer's dog was my favorite cast member!
I liked ST, but they haven't given us decent ST for a long time.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Why can't we hire Farscape's writers for Enterprise?
Anyone?
Bueller?
+++ATH0
A while ago, I wrote a quiet little rant about how I broke up with Star Trek.
I think a hiatus would be a very good thing. It just might make my heart grow fonder. But I'm not holding my breath.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Please kill Star Trek while we still have fond memories of the franchise, rather than milking every penny they can by creating crappy series with the "Star Trek" name on them.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I think this describes practically any gathering of geeks, be it a sci fi con, trek convention, or just getting together with your buddies to play a game. Your basic square pegs in the round holes, the ones with the proverbially bad people skills, the ones who use and understand acronyms like IDIC in conversations -- these are the kind of people who can truly appreciate the uniqueness of each individual, and for whom diversity is not some empty political slogan.
So, let us no debate the profound wisdom (or lack thereof) of our beloved series. Of it, we can only say this: of all the series we have encountered in our years of viewing, it was the most
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Let's put it on the shelf for a few years. Keep rolling out the books, and maybe an occasional game, and keep TNG and TOS in general syndication. Around '08 or '09, start thinking about a new movie or series.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
not a vaction
I don't really care for the show because it is set in pre-TOS time. It's hard watching that show and seeing that Enterprise and then watching Star Trek the Motion Picture and seeing that Enterprise. I hate seeing the new props on the show and the old props on the movie because the show is set before the movie. I guess that's my main problem with Star Wars episodes 4,5 and 6 being filmed before 1,2, and 3. I do wish that the Star Trek series would stop for a while. I'd like to see the movies continue but I heard that the TNG characters are no longer going to be used in the movies. What a pity.
There's absolutely no reason Star Trek cannot inspire good, intelligent sci-fi, even after all the over-exposure.
A TV or movie is only as good as the people in charge of writing and/or producing it. Shit-can Berman and Braga and everyone else permanently associated with the franchise these days, and give it to someone who actually knows a little bit about sci-fi. Get some scripts from up-and-coming sci-fi writers. Sure, you'll probably get a lot of shit, but you'll also get the best Star Trek scripts seen in 10 years.
The point being, it's not the concept of Star Trek itself that's the problem, it's the people delivering it to us. Get the right people, and Star Trek can be exciting, interesting, and relevant once again.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Kirk: And, M-5, what is the punishment for murder?
M-5: Thisss... Unit... Must... Die...
(M-5 winks out) Sound/music (dew-diu-do-doo-doo)
Kirk: Scotty! Get down there FAST! Kill M-5. Pull dah PLUHGGG, SCOTTY!
Scotty: Aye, Kep-ten.
---------
Really bring back Voyager, with Harry Kim as a captain. And, god, PLEASE,
--No more Excelsior or 1701 variants!
--No revisits to kirk and 2215/2315!
--No more hollywoodization of audience: the future belongs to EARTH, not the USA, not hollywood, not Los Angeles. Trek, if it needs to die, needs to do so and be reborn as a TRUE international representation of the future. Foreign actors/actresses, not just from up North, or from the UK. A REAL, Native Asian, a REAL, recurring Indian (yeh, they had Engineer Singh, but he dropped or was written out/ignored/replaced)
-- Add you suggestions here
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
It was a game about 3 years ago and it had a huge potential but really failed dismally to live up to its potential.
However, I had always felt that it would have been a better TV series than a game. I can see a huge potential for story telling and a whole new angle on the Star Trek universe that is really exciting.
And it would allow for a better platform in which to discover and explore the potential uses of the technology in the Star Trek universe other than beaming in and start shooting, ducking behind a convienent crate or piece of debris that happens to be laying around.
Fact is, they're behind.
5 tos films 4 or 5 Next gen films.
so, they're behind by 5 DS9 films & 5 Voyager films... That's 10 films to worry about, and only a few years until they have to worry about Enterprise too.
What I propose is this. 1)Take a hiatus from making series' after Enterprise season4. For ooh 5 or 6 years. 2)Do 1 or 2 films with Each of DS9 & Voyager and another 1 or 2 with both of them (and the Enterprise, Riker's new ship, the USS illustrious et al). Ok, these would probably be a special effects fest rather than a heart-wrenching story, but that's what sensible people like.
Note, they onyl actually need 6 story lines in 5 years, even Bermann could think of that... Species 8472 anyone?
Then, when we're all desperate for a series after having been kept interested by a steady drip of films, they can start making a new series with the USS Illustrious as the principle ship.
Well, that's what I'd like to watch, but I'm probably in a minority.
No, I'm not going to tell you what the USS Illustrious is.
FGD 135
Somebody had to say it.....
Yes, yes it should, especially with Doctor Who set to return to the airwaves. It's time to watch a real quality sci-fi programme again.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
If you think about it, Star Trek's turning out like World Championship Wrestling did years ago. They cashed in on previous success and eventually went under because their creative team sucked and they were content to rest on their laurels instead of pushing ahead.
IMO if Star Trek is to stay alive, two things need to happen.
1) Entire creative team scrapped, no holdovers from previous series. It's obvious what they were doing wasn't working, so there's no reason to keep them around.
2) No ties to other series. That means Worf can't take a transfer to the new starship, Scotty can't appear through a Dyson sphere, etc. Every time they do that it just reeks of desperation.
i've waited for this for so long... and yes! dear god, yes!
As hard as its to accept being a diehard fan from the 60's, I've seen the whole thing been beaten to death with sequels and movies and merchandise..
Sure, one or 2 sequel series were expected and ok, but not 4.... Then all the movies.. what are we up to now, 15?
The ideas were all recycled again and again and again, taking away from the original in ways that are hard to quantify, but its happened.. .
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"It's dead, Jim."
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Not every property needs to be in the mainstream. There will ALWAYS be a ST audience. It's just the size of the crowd that the money hungary Hollywood execs are overestimating. Lower volume B movies/music/books/games make tons of money. They just have lower production values (which any TRUE sci-fi nerd cares nothing about. It's the story/science/babes they're interested in. Not the over done 'bullet time' effects).
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Star Trek died the moment they decided that T&A were more important (i.e. Seven of Nine) than quality stories and characters with depth.....
Trek needs a (long) hiatus if all you want to do is come back and recycle the same old material in a slightly different guise yet again.
Personally I would like to see something like a Maquis spin-off, or a Section 31 spin-off, whatever. You know, break the mold, explore some of the not-so-utopian aspects of the federation, have some characters that don't go flying around the galaxy with the starfleet regulations up their arses pissing everyone off. No holodeck episodes. No time travel episodes, or other lame excuses for period peices. There would be no need for a hiatus to do something like that. Wishful thinking though.
Oh no... it's the future.
Star Trek isn't going to die in the context of the current entertainment industry. I think it will outlive it. I believe that television entertainment, as we have known it, will give way to what is currently known as fan fiction. This may seem like a pretty far-fetched almost absurdly technophilic idea, and it does nauseate me somewhat to suggest it, but the reason I think this may happen is that the current entertainment industry is operating in mortal terror of digital recording, storage, and playback. MP3s and Tivo completely turned their world upside down, and this has created a barrier between the industry and popular online works such as RvB and strongbad that I believe will become the walls of its casket.
I've seen several Star Trek themed fan fiction pieces, and they are all based in TOS timeline and feature very good writing, excellent special effects, and reasonably good acting. I think this will be where the soul of Star Trek lives on.
Uh. It has died. Someone just needs to kick some dirt over the body before it starts to smell.
My main concern here is the fans. I mean, if they stop making Star Trek movies and series, what will become of the fans?!
Will they take off the costumes? The ridiculous ears and inverted butt-crack forheads? Will they finally come out of their parents basement and mingle with the rest of society?! Let's think about this for a minute. Let's not make any hasty decisions. Do we actually want to try and reintegrate these people with the rest of us?
Oh wait, there's still reruns. Nevermind.
...only those who think it should.
Kill it, get it over with. Then bring back Red Dwarf!!!
I don't quite understand why people have to do this and have to do that. Why should they put a side a perfectly profitable product (which it must be considering that they haven't put it away yet)? Some people like Star Trek with all the nonsense and brilliance it brings. I like Voyager very much. And I can barely stand watching DS9. So what? I seldomly make someone watch the stuff with me. Why not let the market decide whether ST is good enough or not? They don't owe us anything, we don't owe them anything. It's just a business and when enough people don't like something then it will be replaced. Unless you are a monopolist which ST isn't. There is so much great fiction out there. Why not just look for new material there, make a statement by that and wait for ST to return to something that one personally lokes again? Whining just pisses producers off... lack of income makes them move their butts.
NO! But Berman does!
But is it really the case that ST has gotten worse? I would agree to some extent it has. But I think what many posters overlook is that we the audience/fans and SF have both matured in our tastes.
After watching Babylon 5 and Firefly and Farscape, can you honestly say even TOS or TNG measures up? We have experienced better writing and stories and , dare I say it, acting, than Trek has offered and now when we see any Trek we judge it by our newer, more refined sense of what SF can be.
To some extent even SG1 is trying to reach up, or at least it was trying prior to Atlantis. I will give it time to work it out, though.
The problem with Trek now is that the writers and producers recognize that better SF has been and continues to be made by others, but instead of doing better jobs themselves they sometimes just superficially copy the themes or ideas of the other shows or even past Trek stories instead of coming up with something original (B5 vs. DS9 , way too much time-travel, etc.)
Let me finish by saying, I think Trek has devolved into a formulaic, techno-babble solution in the last 10 minutes of every episode, gee didn't we all just learn a valuable politically correct lesson, pile of special effects with patterned characters and plot/continuity issues to fill several nit-pickers books.
But I also think that the very reason we recognize it as such, is that we are now smarter SF consumers. Good and even great SF films and TV have shown us what we should expect from the genre, and Trek just has not moved to meet these new, higher expectations. pfft...end of rant
Flash is the Herpes of the Internet.
your.opinion >
I'm getting tired of the Borg popping up everywhere. I mean, every time there's a sinister thing happening it's either the Borg or the Romulans. Could we please have some imagination? How many times, exactly, have the Borg attempted to invade earth? I think around 5 times and now the Borg are showing up in "Enterprise"?? HAH! Come on!
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
You're right. I know someone who wrote for Star Trek. He spent three months last year in California as an intern. As far as I know, he was lacking in a lot of the knowledge that would probably have been crucial to the writing. (I realize that not all of the writers on the show are.)
Someone please kill the franchise. It's not cool anymore - it hasn't been for years. I grew up watching the original series. Kirk was cool - he'd knock the crap out of people when he wasn't busy getting it on with alien women. Nothing wrong with that - aside from the fact that he never was worried about catching some kind of strange space V.D. And save the social commentary - in an era when you have 24/7 news, sports, editorializing, etc., it's just not necessary. I want to be entertained - not preached to.
If someone recited Shakespeare at Kirk, he would kick the crap outa em alla star trek VI style. Or, as summarized by one of my favorite Kirk lines:
"Diamonds, rubies, emeralds. I would trade them all for a hand phaser or a good stout club."
You da man, Kirk. You da man!
-Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
The Federation Hillbilly's. Yep, just warp on up and transport a spell. Ya'll join us, hear?
Hmm. What has Bujold done? When I think of new and thoughtful with regards to sex, I suppose I think of Tiptree (new? dunno; dark? most certainly) and Heinlein (new? probably not; lots and lots of it? yep). Also the Tines in Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"---because they're pack-minds communicating via short-range ultrasonics, they don't come into physical contact with each other unless they're fighting or breeding. So when one of them cuddles up to a human, he thinks of it as 'like fucking a corpse' (I may be paraphrasing.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It should have never been born in the first place. It is one of the most dull, hackneyed, trite shows the world has ever been forced to endure. Ugh.
I thought only the extras died?
I probably represent a pocket of the population not often here on Slashdot. I happen to love Enterprise and most of the other ST stuff that has been put out. I don't take it nearly as seriously as some Trekkers (probably the real reason you see so many calls for it to die is that they took it TOO seriously).
I also find it amusing that there are SO MANY commenters saying things like: "I haven't even watched the last 3 movies or the latest series" or "I only watched the premier of Enterprise" and then calling for the ST franchise' demise. If you haven't watched it, you aren't qualified to comment.
BTW -- I have friends that love FireFly. Guess what? I watched the first episode on TV and was unimpressed. I haven't watched it since. That hasn't made me go all over the net posting that it sucked and deserved death.
Come play Moral Decay!
they actually did. TNG had many of the elements that made the old trek appeal. There is still plenty of time for a new movie following 'Nemisis' as well.
Would be nice to see the story thread about the Data prototype expanded upon.
Like the original trek and TNG, cannot stand Enterprise, forgot DS9, tolerated Voyager.
Freaking love SG1 and Atlantis!
Blogging because I can...
Ignoring your plagarism for a moment (mentioned above), I think they lost it much earlier at DS9.
Deep Space 9 was just a Soap Opera covering the life's and loves of the people aboard a space station as they grow. It was no different than any other soap opera plot.
Voyager, was a story of the life's and loves of people as they grow aboard a spaceship travelling back to earth. Same soap opera formula, this time set aboard a space ship. Whoopy!
Enterprise I didn't watch, I switched off half way through Voyager.
Just kill it already, and don't get me started on Simpsons latest series....
IMHO, there is only so far you can go with a franchise and ST has been everywhere. Firefly has a better chance of becoming something cool/new. Battlestar Gallatica (spelling?) as well.
What I'd really like to see is a few games that have been out on PC turned into TV shows or movies. Among some of the great games with fantastic plots are Homeworld and Freelancer.
Freelancer is essentially this far-future space shooter/RPG that came out on PC over a year ago. The graphics were dated as it was originally schedule for release in something like 2000 or even earlier, but the game itself is just entralling.
The premise is based on 5 ships that set out from Earth after the war between the colonists (those that inhabited the planets other than earth) and the earth countries warred. The colonists essentially win, and 5 large colony ships take off for some distant system/galaxy never to be seen again. One of the 5 ships is destroyed upon leaving. The remaining 4 establish themselves in systems far away from the colonists.
Fast-forward like four centuries to the previous Earth inhabitants now rebuilding rather well, with some pirate groups having formed to cause trouble with the authorities and all sorts of other issues. The four systems developed into American, European, Britain, and Asian-like systems. They each have their own styles of ships, patrol their own systems, but for the most part, get along with each other.
The unique aspect of the game was the faction system. For example, in the "Rhineland" (German) area, there was a gang called the Corsairs who had decent faction ratings with the Asian system and some mining company in the British system that wasn't the best mining operation in that system, but since the Corsairs protected them, had access to better asteriods and thus minerals.
The whole game had a sort of wild-west in space feel to it. The idea of exploring a frontier where there are ruffians and "unknowns" is what makes space franchises work. They draw a certain crowd, and it would be best if ST would have stuck with that.
And despite what others on here have said, ST:Voyager *was* a return to the final frontier aspects that made Star Trek a good franchise. Their only mistake was that they focused so much on the Borg aspect because it drove ratings.
The whole time in Freelancer I was half expecting the colonists to come back into the game to beat on the four new systems, but it never happened. *That* is what makes a series good. The fact that there is so many directions you can go with it, but you never choose the one that the viewer will anticipate.
Watching Star Trek:Cowboy (or whatever the newest one is) is like painting a pretty picture and then telling those that view it that you created it out of dyed feces. The whole backstory to ST has been ruined, IMHO.
It will merely have its consciousness transferred into a Lucite globe with flashing lights.
Giving it a decent time slot would help. I tried for quite some time to watch Enterprise when the series was new, but they kept changing the time slot it played on the local UPN station. I never knew when it was going to play, and got tired of chasing it. So eventually I just downloaded the episodes to watch them, but I eventually got sick of hunting and waiting for the download, so I said to hell with it.
"He's dead already!"
I make two claims here: (1) TV (and movie) scifi reflects the generational culture of the writers and actors; and (2) Star Trek has been unable to get out of its "baby boomer rut".
TV scifi spans the genrations of the WWII generation, inbetweens, baby boomers and GenX. The early shows like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits reflected the militaristic Us vs Them, cold war of the WWII generation. The first Star Trek series was the betweener generation- those who didnt fight in WWII but pre-boomer. It reflects hierarchial military/corporate sturctures of the 1950s/60s and the optimistic futurism of the times.
In contrast, The Next Generation 22 years later could almost be called "yuppies in space". The actors and writers were the successful professionals in space you see in the tech startups of the 1980s. They had a mission and teamwork. This continued through DS9 and Voyager where the main actors were boomers, and the plots along the same lines.
In contrast again, shows like Andromeda (another Roddenberry concept), X Files, FarScape, and Star Gate reflect the creative individualism attributed to GenX culture. And the actors are of that age too.
Star Trek Enterprise still seems stuck in the boomer rut. The lead character is a 50-year old boomer. The plots are too dated for the younger audience. You may guess what generation I'm in. However, if I watch a movie or show from 20 years before I am born, I generally "dont get get it" and am bored.
Well, I would like to see some sort of Star Trek comedy. Maybe a "Holo-Kirk"?
"They need to shut the whole thing down, wait five years, create an interest, an excitement, a hunger for it again.' "
Excuse me? This is exactly what Disney does with their properties i.e.Sleeping Beauty. Why is it NOT OK for them to do that, while it's OK when it comes to Star Trek?
1) Hand entire franchise to JMS.
2) Let him do whatever the hell he wants.
3) Profit!
Hey, I found a step 2!
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
My preferences are Star Trek, ST: Enterprise, ST: The Legend Continues, ST Voyager, and DS9. The last two being so bad I think I watched 5 episodes total.
I was skeptical about Bakula. I couldn't stand Quantum Leap, each week it was the same woman/black/retard/chimp fighting for liberation. He seems to recognize, or at least is taking direction from someone who does, that the part requires some testosterone.
And let's face it T'Pol is hot. It's the Spock/Bones relationship again, but this time the Vulcan is one sexy bitch. Yeah baby!
But I would recommend a long comma.
Thats pretty much all that can save it. Marina Sirtis should get naked and service Brent Spiner.
Because the long hiatus did wonders for the Star Wars franchise.
Just get some new blood at the top of the franchise who are willing to take risks and fall down sometimes rather than slowly draining any remaining lifeblood out of the concept.
Not that this will happen its easier for the accountants to predict a long slow decline than the unpredictability of the unknown.
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And since "hiatus" was mentioned in the story header, and to remain in-character, shouldn't it be, "Put into suspended animation," rather than, "Die?"
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
They go from planet to planet, getting freaky in different ways with space babes.
Meinwhile you could have a lame character that can'te get any but likes to play in the holodeck, and has all sorts of interesting programs going on.
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
because it would take too long to get through just one soliloquy.
....
To...be!........... Or...not!...........to....be!
Star Trek doesn't need to die, just Wesley Crusher.
(sorry Wil, I know you could use the work but they'll just edit you out again anyway).
Enough said. Any fans of Voyager/Enterprise should take a look at good shows.
Time for the next series: Borg Trek!
We can't let Law and Order have more spin offs than our beloved Treks!
The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.
Compare to Babylon 5 for instance; admittedly ran for a lot less time, but there were tons of options for offshoots there that were never tapped. (And yeah, the ones JMS did choose to branch on may not have been as interesting as they could of, but that's another story...)
Even if you leave the really cool stuff like shadows, vorlons, etc. alone, there are tons of things that could be developed, such as the Psicorps stuff, all those minor races you saw but never heard a lot of detail on, and even the major races such as Narn or Centauri could have been the subject of a spinoff w/o (IMO) overexposing them.
they really ought to kill the federation series. tv movies dealing with other groups such as the klingons or maybe some adventurers traveling through space would be more interesting. it'd still be the same universe but a different approach.
But there is a real good case for letting Rick Berman go.
I've been a fan since the beginning. I spent a good chunk of the 1970's hunting down the scarce model kits, writing letters to networks and studios and have been to the first showing of every movie. When Star Trek came back it was amazing, even if the first movie was very slow paced and not the freshest story line. There were maybe ten people in that first movie showing, talk about keeping faith.
I've watched the followup series come and go and have to say that they all had their moments - even Voyager is not as bad as the general opinion would have you believe.
I haven't always been happy with the directions the storylines have taken - as many posters have said, there is too great a reliance on techno-babble solutions.
Where "the franchise" and I parted company was not Insurrection, which I thought was at least an attempt at making a more thoughtful Trek but Nemesis, which was utter crap from beginning to end. The damning factor is that Rick Berman had no idea that Nemesis was so bad - every interview with him had such amazement that ticket sales were down so much and all the debate since is that this was Star Trek's fault. It isn't.
Look, we need Star Trek, the real Star Trek, more than ever. There are just about no ideals left any more in this crazy violent world. We've been taken over by large soulless corporations, government corruption is at record high levels, and most people are looking out for number one and screw everyone else and why not? Daily we see example after example that things are going to hell and selling out the future pays good money today.
Pre-Berman Star Trek's hook isn't that it has neato space toys that go whoosh and zap, lots of shows and movies have had that. Star Trek's hook is that at its best it shows a plausible and good future with humanity not looking like complete assholes but going for higher goals and brother, there are not many examples of that anymore anywhere.
THAT is why there are new original Star Trek episodes being made at home by people two generations removed from the original show. We are hungering for the higher goals we know we as a race have, and we are doing it in a world where all the higher goals have almost been forgotten in a haze of materialism, fear and violence.
Lose Berman, he just does not get it. Make a Star Trek that hooks us in before the first commercial and doesn't let us go until it's entertained us and shown a little bit more of that better humanity we can aspire to.
Honest to God, some days I feel like Cervantes living in the time of the Inquisition trying to hold hope for tomorrow.
You it's time for a series to die when the male voice-over says in a soft voice, "Tonight, on a very-special Star Trek...."
Put it out of its misery. Please. It should have died thirty years ago.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Its so hard to decide. Normally I'd say that even bad Trek is better then good TV everywhere else.
But there is alot of good SciFi on these days; Stargate(s), the promise of the new Farscape, and Galactica. Then there is the hope that Tripping the Rift will be renewed.
One thing is for sure. Trek needs new writers!
True friends are hard to come by... I need more money. - Calvin
Growing up I was a huge fan, loved TOS and TNG. DS9 had it moment, but bored me much of the time, as did voyager (great idea, ruined by inept writing). Seen a few Enterprise, but the spark has gone.
The biggest problem is that when I was young ST was pretty much all there was (along with Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica), but in the interveining years we've been shown better vision.
For my money Babylon 5 was the ultimate space opera. Better acting and effects than ST and far better written. Where Voyager and DS9 meandered for so long, Babylon 5 always stuck to it's story arch. Worse for DS9 (at least from the airing dates in the UK), it followed in B5s foot-steps:
B5 on a station, DS9 ditto
B5 gets the white star, DS9 gets an new ship
B5 has the shadows, DS9 gets the dominion.
In each case B5 was better. Also, B5 had far better characterisation, an infinite range of grays rather than STs almost comic book blacks and whites, with the odd grey thrown in as an after thought.
Maybe it's the curse of the long running franchise. B5 started to slip after the 4th season (which was originally scheduled to be the last) and the longer ST has gone on the worse it seems to get. The only question is would a break of any length reinvigorate ST? Or have all the stories that can be told have been told already? I find that hard to believe, but the current crop producers and writers seem blinkered to anything new or different.
I think the correct saying is:
:-) It would be a messy because the American Bush/Kerry/Kennedy etc. elite would probably opt for the Cardassian Empire (their legal system resembles the American Post911-system the most and our execution-happy Fuehrer Bush would really "dig" Cardassia because they have the most executions in the quadrant), while the ecosocialist european elites would probably opt for the surveillance-happy, secret police state of the "you are nothing your people is alles" Romulans which corresponds to their "all of nature is valuable except humans" mindset.
The comfort of the ruling elite outweighs even the most basic needs of the many.
A cultural precept practiced in such advanced and enlightened societies such as the Romulan Empire, the Cardassian Empire and Earth.
Btw, a funny thought just crossed my mind. What if our real life Earth was part of the Star Trek Universe and we would have made first contact with the Cardassians and/or the Romulans?
If you ask me this, our Earth would integrate very well into the Romulan or Cardassian Empires. If we made contact with both at the same time however it would probably get very messy with Cardassians and Romulans duking it out just outside the moon orbit
*blinks*
Never quite thought of it that way before. Who was McCoy's other half, then?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They could wait 20 years and if the writing sucks, people won't watch it. Enterprise is getting bad ratings not because people are tired of Star Trek, but because of its lame writing. Didn't help that it started after Voyager -- another weak installment of ST.
You can't go back in time (well, except for ST:4,7,8 and various episodes on TV), but if you could, it'd be nice to see TNG get a few more seasons. It was just starting to get crossover appeal.
Check out the photo of the guy at the booth of memorabilia (the last picture).
It's a plant I tell ya, a conspiracy by the man to ridicule Star Trek fans!
In reality they are all fit, outgoing, mountain bike types of guys.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Insert "Netcraft is confirming..." theme here.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Folks, remember how far along thirteen episodes is. In Babylon 5, episode 13, we had *just* met Mr. Morden in that ep. The Shadows hadn't been mentioned yet. We didn't know what happened to Babylon 4. We didn't even know why the Earth-Minbari war ended. Earth politics were a distant and unimportant murmur.
And I'm too lazy to do this for TNG (which, I suppose, it doesn't work for, since the continuing plot is tenuous) or Farscape (which I haven't seen).
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
DS9 made a good attempt at dirtying up the Star Trek vision to make it more real, and it had it's good points after the first season, but they lost it when they decided it had to be at the center of a galactic war. And then at the end, all the war heroes just went back to work. No promotions, no space parades. "Let's make it really interesting, but not change anything," say the makers, "like when Riker won awards and honors and proved himself the captain's equal, but never took his own command." They forget that interesting equals change and lack of change equals uninteresting.
So, yeah, I'd say the producers should try to live with the riches they make from the franchise, but go tell a different story. ST is not a religion, for pity's sake; it's just a TV show we all grew up with.
Star Trek and Next Generation were really original and held my attention as well as made me want to go pay $9 at the theatres to see them.
Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise just seemed to go downhill becoming even more cheesy feeding the strange habits of trekies at conventions. I stopped watching around this time.
The conventions have gotten to be a joke, I don't want to hear about some guy who met Howard Stern once or some fat sweaty meathead talk about the latest designs of Vulcan Ships.
The only people who really enjoy watching star trek now are the zealots, or people who will watch it if nothing else is on. No normal person actually thinks to themselves "oh hay Enterprise is on at blah on blah I better stay home and watch it"
Get rid of it, and lets put more effort into other shows that are just as good or better...
Ave Molech Setting
Hmmm... I actually liked Voyager but Deep Space Nine sucked. Enterprise is not much better.
What made Star Trek great is that rode a wave. At the time it portrayed a positive view of the future that we wanted to see, mixed in with some good ole 50's esque SciFi plots.
I'm not sure the next Star Trek is really meant for die hard Trekkers, since we all have varying views as what we want.
But I think it's time for Star Trek to turn the page. The 5 year mission of exploration as a structure for the stories is kinda broken. I didn't really get into ST:TNG until season 3 when the characters were established and I started to see what was going to happen to them next.
Somehow Trek has to turn the page. Maybe eschewing starships for a mass transit / wormhole system (I know it's not SG1, but that's the tuff part.) Maybe it's time to take some of those old universe shattering story lines and let the Trek universe have a "shocking change". Not just the Klingons becoming an ally, of sorts, but something that changes the entire context of the stories.
That always seemed the weird part of Star Trek, they kept meeting/finding people or technology that could change "everything" and nothing changed.
The only other thought I could think of would be a montage of "mini-series". Look through the multiverse of star trek literature out there and pick a few of the gems of smaller stories and make some mini series or episodes out of those. See what takes off, see what doesn't. Allow the stories to stand by themselves, and not always have a continuation.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
It's not that Trek itself is bad, it's the exec producers. Mainly Rick Berman. His direction for the series has been all wrong. Hand the helm over to someone else.
I'd be sastisfied with just a rerun of Deep Space Nine.
Lots of stuff should be gone from the air. It is the cycle of life(?) At least they finally killed off Fiends.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Bringing Farscape back permanently on another carrier. Imagine all that $$ being wasted on Enterprise that could be spent on other, better endeavors??
Funny, I thought Trek died when DS9 turned into a horrid soap opera that revolved around Sisko being a demi-god with writing that wasn't even internally consistent, much less good.
Then I thought Trek died when every third episode of Voyager was "7 learns to be human thanks to time travel".
Then I thought Trek died when the best example of Enterprise was "Let's find some way to get the Vulcan chick nekkid on camera."
Then I thought Trek died when to improve ratings they ran off to fight the terrorists in the Bermuda Triangle in Space.
Then I thought Trek died when the terrorist plot (Xindii) was word for word predictable based on a thousand scripts before it in a thousand different genres.
Then I thought Trek died when the best they could come up with for the season finale of Enterprise was "We've done aliens and they're bad guys, Nazis aren't cool enough as bad guys, so how about aliens AND Nazis!"
So I figure if Star Trek is a cat, then it has to die three more times under Rick Berman's leadership (and I use the term very loosely) before it will finally be put to bed. Given the rumored plans for Enterprise Season 4, that should be "Shatner returns!", "Spiner returns!", and "Temporal Cold War Part 31!" After that, Trek should be dead by any possible metric.
I grew up on Star Trek, I love Star Trek, I learned a love of science from Star Trek. Berman is not writing Star Trek, he's writing crap. Fire his ass, give it a rest for a few years, then bring in a new staff of professional writers who have a clue. They're out there, Berman just doesn't know how to find them.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
1) Fire Rick Berman and Brannon Braga...I'm sorry guys, but your time to try and make this work has passed. Not only that, but you keep missing the main point of creating Star Trek stories. It's not just about what sells or what doesn't sell, it's about the story and how it relates to the joe watching the story. Also, and this is a big one too for long-time fans, it's about the timeline or the mythology you create.
This story, like many long standing Sci-Fi shows, (Star Wars, Farscape, Stargate, X-Files, B5, etc...) create a mythology with it's story telling. Berman and Braga have consistently compromised that mythology for the sake of ratings. "It's our idea of it, so we'll make changes any time we want." Sci-Fi viewers are technical people; they like things that make sense to them. Screw up timelines and mythology with your "reinvention" and those fans go away.
2.) Let Manny Coto take a stab at Enterprise. He seems to get the idea that mythology and timelines are important. Let Coto deal with the rest of the run of Enterprise.
3) Wait 3 years before putting out a feature film and a new series. 3 years should be enough time to get fans interested in something new.
4) Hire Nicholas Meyer to direct and write the next Star Trek feature. His movies, not only being the most successful, but his stories seemed to capture exactly what Roddenberry wanted to expose the world to; human stories wrapped up in the distant future dealing with simple subjects, twisted with complex situations.
5) Release the Movie 3 weeks before the release of the TV show, and bill them both together with trailers in movie theaters.
6) Find a good cross-section of existing and new sci-fi writers, and give them a shot at creating character stories for the new series, like JMS or Nick Sagan, or Joss Whedon, or even Shatner (not a half-bad writer with his Tek-War series).
7) Build an audience with another strong Sci-Fi influenced show. Nobody seems to be doing the "blocks" of TV shows anymore together.
Buffy and Angel on the same night was a guarantee for Sci-Fi fans to be tuning in.
8) Most important of all...Pay attention to the fans. Sift through some of the conjecture, and find some common opinions from fans that will guide how you build both a movie and a new series.
Berman and Braga have visibly shown that fans should have no bearing on their attempt at storytelling. This is the reason that Trek has gotten where it is.
"It's better to burn out than fade away"
From which movie and which song?
Brainee28
At this point, Enterprise should die and the producers should take a look at how to make the next Star Trek "different."
Star Trek is about a universe and a history. Somehow, they've established this history without showing us much of what went into the history. Ent could have shown us the events leading up to the foundation of the Federation (and kept implying that those events were a foundation for the series) but it's four years in and it hasn't kept that promise.
The possible upcoming movie with a new crew that might show us the Earth-Rom war? Now that sounds interesting to me!
What is there about Enterprise (or Voyager or DS9) that fans want to see that couldn't be offered by a new, fresh, science fiction show? The characters are all different. The villains are mostly new. The only connection between Enterprise and TOS is a ship named Enterprise and a pointy-eared science officer. There's not even a Federation.
Don't get me wrong, I love Enterprise. But not because it is part of some long-loved franchise. I like it because (when it's good) it tells good SF stories. Remember when SF used to be about the stories? It's not about certain costumes, certain alien races, or certain characters. It's about good writing.
The best TOS episodes could have been written for any show. Captain (insert Captain's name) goes back in time to save a crewmember. Captain falls in love. Captain discovers that to save the future the woman must die. That's GOOD storytelling! All the franchise stuff is unimportant.
I would rather see three new, clever shows on UPN (the ill-fated Jake 2.0, for instance) than to see Star Trek continue just because it is Trek. Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1, and Farscape all offered science fiction fans an alternative to Trek and were very well received. Maybe it's time that Trek producers (and fans) tried something different.
Yes, running around the galaxy looking for terrorists who blew up part of the US is sooooooo original. If I was Osama, Id ask for a cut on the credits.
I wonder if in the Archer universe they'll realize that the previous earth president supported the Xindi terrorists to destroy other parts of the planet just a few years before that finally happened to Florida?
Then we can have the blue faced dude tell Archer: "Blowback is a bitch".
Wait...what am I saying? That hasnt happened yet in our universe. How could Berman come up with it then?
GG
Star Trek? Who cares. What really should die is mass media.
Seastead this.
Don't know, but if Enterprise is any hint of the future, it deserves to die just about now.
:)
Plus, with Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis... who needs Star Trek anyways?
Should there be another Trek TV series?
Definitely not. They've bled them dry and if Voyager and Enterprise are any indication of where the series is headed, then by all means, no more tv shows.
Should there be another Trek Movie?
Not until Jonathan Frakes is either dead or otherwise incapacitated.
No matter about the movies and tv series, the Fandom will rock on under it's own steam for another few decades or until every last series is out of syndication and even then I'm not really sure that the Fandom can die.
People will still have conventions and websites and the multiplayer game if they want the "Star Trek Experience", speaking of which, has anyone visited Deep Space Nine in Las Vegas?
At any rate, Leonard Nemoy is the last person to look to for objective commentary on whether the franchise would die. He's been campaigning for it to die in one way or another since "The Search for Spock". I guess being an icon sucks but if he no longer wants to participate he should just quit showing up at conventions and crap instead of putting on the "woe-is-me" act.
Star Trek can't die! I'm still two hundred after fifty pages away from completing my magnum opus fan fiction novel in which Q brings Kirk, Picard, Janeway and, uh, the other ones together to assist the Sith in an alternate universe that finally explains the link between Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica!
. co m/users/homepages/sciencefiction/startrek/alternat iveuniverses/fiction/fanfiction/DamnYouQ.html
If anyone wants to read some sample chapters it's available at:
http://www.geocities.homestead.tripod.angelfire
Didn't he say he had a plot and everything for a series?? Kill, errr, *replace* Bermen, with him and then we won't have any more problems.
and just to throw in my two cents, I actually *LIKE* Enterprise (ok not all of the Episodes, but then agian, I don't like every episode of TNG, which is my favorite (yes even over DS9)).
With a whole universe and a whole timeline to play with, they could be creative and keep the startrek franchise around by trying something different, like not having the main characters as humans.
The suggestion of a story with the romulans is a good idea. Why not a series that focused on the romulan wars? Or another point in history like the romulan split from vulcan?
Maybe they should consider only commisioning six or eight episodes, like british tv shows, so they can focus on getting the writing good for those episodes?
The networks told the writer (strazinsky?) that there wouldn't be a 5th series so he hurried to get his story arc shoe horned into the 4th series which in my opinion made the last few episodes so bad as to be funny - "Get the hell outta our universe!". Umm yeah. Then the network comes back and says "hey , you can have a 5th series after all. So what does he do? Does he tell them to get stuffed , theres nothing left to do , just leave the story complete even though its been spoilt? Or does he smell money and do a 5th series which meanders around going nowhere and just treading water , paying the actors wages? Well we all know the answer to that. B5 was good but it could have been great. Pity.
Geez. I really enjoyed TNG when I was in my early 20s but even then I quickly grew tired of foreheads being the only feature that differentiated races.
We need a ST series that doesn't care about warp. One that pop through universe bubbles and discover REAL NEW STUFF. Not just a forehead.
And for crying out loud, we could do away with the character repeats. Every ST series has had it's
comical doctor
bombshell bimbo
nerdy teen
over-compassionate captain
stick-shoved-next-to-spine emotionless moron
scores of NPG meat-grinder-ready ensign
Sick of it!
Bring back Spinner/Data. THAT was both a good actor and character wich doesn't need to be brought back through a stupid plot to appear in a show to spur up interest (Dysan sphere anyone? Nexus?)
Turn Voyager around damnit! They're explorers. Not whiners that ought to go back to mommy. They have deep space communications now. No need to go back home. Turn around damnit and see if there's more to this universe THAN FOREHEADS!!!!!!!
Arf.
I'm still enjoying the franchise and, for the most part, I really like ST:E! I find the story is interesting and I like most of the characters. Some of the episodes are obvious rip-offs from previous series but even that is better than most of the tripe that is being aired!
I am sorry...
I feel Rick Berman is killing the franchise. I believe him to be all about the $$$.
A few main things killing the franchise:
1) Lack of creativity. Although Enterprise has shown some.
2) Failure to adhere to cannon. So often now it seems like in order to have a plot the writers toss out previous cannon. Often contradicting the orinal series. This irks die-hard fans in hopes of garnering newer weaker fans.
3) Failure to integrate the Treks. I am sorry I can sit down and within an hour come up with more decent plots than Rick Berman has in 5 yrs.
a) ENTERPRISE EPISODE: Time travel back to medieval age to encounter Merlin "Q" (John DeLancie)
b) MOVIE: ST:TNG Enterprise destroyed. Crew enroute to starbase on Excelsior class. Encounter new Romulan ship generating a wormhole. 4 warbirds uncloak as hailing message from Commander Sela (Tasha Yar's daughter). She explains that they plan to send the ship back to destroy the Enterprise C before the Khitomer massacre. Picard creates a distraction allowing Geordi and Data to beam aboard the new Romulan ship. Meanwhile, Data see Tasha Yar being hauled away and must make a decision to save her or not. They manage to destroy the Romulan ship that generated the wormhole. This collapses the wormhole and the remaining temporal energies cast the Enterprise C into the future. (Thus explaining the episode in ST:TNG.) This was originally conceived after "Generations" and is not really possible with the loss of Data.
c) SERIES: Star Trek: Empires - this series would re-juvinate the Star Trek franchise. Follows two ships (alternating weekly) one a Romulan warship and another a Klingon warship. Episodes can diverge from the traditional "perfect world". The series would be a two year limited series. Imagine watching a diplomacy situation in which the Klingon crew decides to handle things with a planetary bombardment of the colony's moon killing 40 million inhabitants? very atypical from the normal view of Star Trek. (Yes, Klingon humor would make this much more of an adult show.) The 2-yr story arc would result in the re-unification of Romulans and Vulcan and explore a lot of the history. Including a a multi-part story arc to the exodus and the witnessing of the Vulcan mindlords and the arisal of logic.
Just imagine an episode each in which we see how "Q" toys with the Klingons and the Romulans. *lol*
d) ENTERPRISE EPISODE: Caught on a warp wave and brought far into the unknown reaches. The Enterprise encounters an advanced alien race of humanoids. Benevelont, wise, kind, even a willingness to share technology in a mentoring program. Discussions to retrofit the Enterprise with more advanced warp systems and send along a mentoring group occur and all seems perfect until they are informed of a change of plans. Apparently, said race is engaged in a war and are losing. Their main protective defenses have been breached and it's only a matter of time before the enemy reaches their homeworld. The alien race decides that giving Enterprise advanced technologies would be too dangerous without their ability to help to mentor the younger earthlings. They do debate and decide to have one of their ships return the Enterprise to it's own space. The council also decides to launch the prototype of the great weapon. The final version of the weapon is not expected to be ready for several years. On the screen in the council room one can see a comparison of the prototype weapon and the much much larger but only half constructed "Great Weapon". (The prototype being none other than the "Doomsday Machine"...a.k.a. The Killer Ice Cream Cone from ST:TOS.) The Enterprise is returned. Meanwhile...Captain Archer sits with the alien captain as they watch their homeworld being attacked and destroyed by a strange "cube-like" structure. (Yes...the Borg.) This plot may need a slight time shift (easily explain by the warp wave). And would really be a pre-cursor to the Vendetta novel.
Since ENTERPRISE began it has been hailed as being the very worst Star Trek ever done... and after Voyager that's quite an accomplishment. Now, after three seasons of fascistic, racist, and horrifically mysoginistic story lines the TV viewing public, who avoided this show like dog shit on the sidewalk, will get more.
... well, the actual goals aren't defined. Stop the bad guys? Sound familiar? Propoganda is not what I watch Star Trek for let alone a soft sell for the War in Iraq. It's become painfully obvious that Enterprise means to present the 'War against Islam" as a great adventure. Sick.
Why?
Well, we don't know why. But we can guess. And the best guess always goes with the money.
Paramount, rather like NBC losing 'Friends', is horrified to learn that their long standing Star Trek franchise is dead. Dead dead. No one cares for the material except a very, very, smelly and small number of Fan boy freaks. You know... the kind who have no life but fetishizing dolls and other 'collectibles'. Forget those who appreciated the intricate and smart stories from the original series 40 years ago... those people are looong gone. Paramount has opted to do what all giant Corps. do when faced with an artistic crisis... they buy more. They market more. They keep it going even if it looses millions simply because they still have no idea what to do. So they keep doing what they are doing.
Notice how popular shows (can we think of one? Hmm... something by that Joss guy) get the shaft while "franchises" get perpetuated as if they deserve too. The lesson being that a brand name is far, far, more important than a good show.
Worse, Enterprise is also the producers sycophantic pro George "Dubya" Bush cream dream. Notice how the protagonist, Capt. Archer, is the son of a "great man" who was held back by the (liberal) Vulcans. As the show progresses, Archer becomes increasingly more angry and with a terrorist attack on Earth by an alien race he agrees to "do what it takes" to
Then, just to undermine the characters rather like on Voyager... soldiers are brought into the show to "solve the problem". Enterprise just failed first year English... sad.
Looking at the original Trek compared to ENTERPRISE one has to wonder why in 1965 they had a multi-racial show that portrayed a ship full of different people while today they can't even give the one black guy on the show lines. The producers lack of giving a shit or even basic morals becomes more apparent. There is an asian girl who is portrayed rather like all women on Enterprise; a weak willed child who's job is so unimportant the stories forgot about her main skill early on. And just when you thought you'd seen the main characters turned into put upon tokens Enterprise will come along with an ep about fundamentalist suicide bombers that deserves an award for being the most racist and ignorant story put on TV in some years.
If this weren't bad enough I can't leave without bringing up the horrifically mysoginistic undertone of Enterprise that is personified by the character T'pol. Even from the first show we see a woman who is attacked by Archer and yet she is drawn to him like a battered wife (and is a psychology T'Pol demonstrates consistantly. I think it's the producers true feelings about women. Scary). Make sense? Only to certain sexually twisted fanboy writers. Anyho', this has continued and is sure to keep on going. Lately, T'Pol has inexplicably decided that wearing a silly cat suit isn't enough to degrade herself so she has become a sort of ships whore by fucking the engineer... again for no apparent reason.
And now for what might be the real reason ENTERPRISE should go away... it's a joke on the Star Trek fans! The producers of this show have, I can only divine, seemingly tried to turn Enterprise into a kind of childish 'Capt. Proton' (if you get me) that takes gleeful joy in ignoring, destroying, or just plain making fun of everything Trek that came before. Noticeably all the good stuff Paramount doe
...but Rick Berman and Brannon Braga need to die in order for Star Trek to recover from the horrible damage those two have inflicted upon it!
Let's have a series that allows viewers to see Kirk as an Ensign or a Lt, hearing about the Enterprise when it was captianed by Pike or April, and wishing he could some day be as cool as those guys...
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I think it is time we discuss organ donation with the patient's legal guardians. Star Trek, through such altruism, could allow others to have the second chance that we believe Star Trek does not at this stage of illness. We regret that Babylon 5 could have been saved if only the DNR order for Star Trek had been given years ago. Let us not make the same mistake again... *sniff*
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Hell NO!.. What else is there to live for?
Theres way too little scifi already, killing off even more is not the answer.. If anything they should try and waken the interest of the rest of the world.. I live in europe and I'm starved for SciFi.. very little ever reaches TV here and when it does its usually years late.. in the US you got new shows every goddamn week.. I'm so envious that I've had to resort to DOWNLOADING THE TVSHOW RIPS ON A WEEKLY BASIS.... if interest is falling its your own fault.. for flooding a small part of the market and starving the rest!
You make it sound like Trek is to blame for Firefly's demise. Try reality shows for the blame.
You know, I always thought that the TOS->TNG transition of Klingons from scheming killers to honorable warriors, and the degeneration of Romulans from honorable Romans to scheming manipulators, was motivated by a TNG avoidance of reproducing Spock. They wanted an alien on the bridge, preferably from one of the main TOS races: Vulcan, Romulan, Klingon, etc. A Vulcan would be shouted down as a Spock ripoff; a Romulan looks too much like a Vulcan. So they had to go with a Klingon. But Starfleet would never let a Klingon in the spirit of TOS or the early TOS-based Trek movies on the bridge of a starship. So they had to turn Klingons into a more honorable people. But they needed somebody conniving and backstabbing like the old TOS Klingons, so they turned the Romulans into them, even though the Romulans as portrayed in TOS were originally much more respectable.
it's too late because of Brannon Braga
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Yes! It has been nothing but shit since TNG.
...but I wouldn't mod you down even if I did. Voyager is infinitely superior to Deep Space Nine, with generally better acting and, in its middle three seasons or so, better writing. The early years and the later years weren't so great, but it was real Star Trek, and played very, very well. Could it have been better? Absolutely. But it also could have been much worse, as both Deep Space Nine and Enterprise have proven.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
"I think, if your goal was not to milk the series, but to create the best conditions under which an interesting Star Trek movie/series/book/whatever would be most likely to be made, you'd just open the intellectual property up to whoever wanted to do something with it. A lot of crap would be made, but maybe some really good stuff too. Of course, you can't expect someone holding such a "hot property" to give it up on their own accord."
I don't think the "property" issue is as big as people think. Fans are going to be fans no matter what. There's both crap, and good stuff being produced by them. Making it public domain is only going to increase one at the expense of the other.
Star Trek really doesn't need lots of cooks, but one good cook. And Berman isn't it.
Remember, you're talking about fox here. If it doesn't immediately attract 99% of america, they drop it. Just look at the Family Guy and Futurama, immediate hits that they just threw away after an insanely short run. And even after large mobs of people complained to burn down fox's building, they have yet to give them the credit they deserve. Maybe if they could hand it over to some other station like Scifi that actually cares about the quality of the show. It has come to the point where I don't expect a tv show on Fox that requires the use of my brain.
Star Trek was been a moras of crap for way too long. Neither Voyager or Enterprise should have been made. And the movies should have stopped at 6. All of the newer ones have been tripe. (Yes, I know, 1,3, and 5 were tripe as well, but EVERYTHING past 6 has been utter crap.)
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
But somewhere along the line--maybe with Roddenberry's death, maybe a little bit after--people started getting the idea in their heads that Star Trek needed to really be sci-fi, and that's when things blew up. You got ridiculous stories it was impossible to care about. You got endless political arcs with no beginning, middle, or end on Deep Space Nine that provided little entertainment or sense of purpose; all those things were provided, and much more interestingly, on Babylon 5. You got the very concept of Voyager, which only became interesting when they discovered they found a back door into the original point of Star Trek: "To boldly go where no man/one has gone before." As for Enterprise, it's all about ret-conning this and setting up that. There's no real substance to it. That's not what it's about. What it is about, though, I couldn't begin to tell you.
They need to hire actual writers to write Star Trek again. Make it intelligent, literary, provocative, forget all the crap that's started seeping into the very fabric of the franchise, that's forced everything to be so boring and sanitary, and let it be again what it once was. They want to ignore Roddenberry's ideas because he was of the past, and that time is gone. But when he was around, Star Trek worked. It just doesn't anymore.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Star Trek should be let lie fallow. Ten or fifteen years would be enough. If there's any real interest after that time, it can always be resurrected.
Besides, any continuity problems can be patched with another time travel story or two.
(No, not Battlestar Galactica).
Is get rid of Berman, and hire someone who gets it - like me
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
If Star Trek was good, you would watch it. You know this is true. I wouldn't call any of the later series flat out bad, but clearly none have been on the level of TNG. TNG and OS both reflected the times and talked about issues in intelligent ways and hey, we still have issues therefore we still need Star Trek. The problem with Star Trek is their inability to try something new. The universe is so big so why are we always focused on the Captain of a spaceship (minus DS9...to a point, it was practically the same formula just on a spaceship that didn't move). Supposedly, JMS has pitched something to them for a new series. We all know Babylon 5 was the real followup to TNG. (And supposedly DS9 was stolen from JMS's B5 pitch). I think he could do a lot for them if they accept him. But I've always wanted to see StarFleet Academy. Berman/Braga won't do it because it's "Dawson's Creek In Space" but so what. Buffy was about teenagers and still managed to be about more. You want new viewership for Star Trek? Well, attract the teens. I want to see supersmart kids duking it out to be the next Jean Luc Picard. You know, something super-competitive like Ender's Game, but in High School. I think this has been the answer for years but they're too closeminded. The close-mindedness is the problem. Star Trek only needs to go away when we don't need it. We still need it, and we'd all be there to watch it, if only it was good. It can only be good if they get of the myopic path they're stuck on.
Haven't you seen the ads for the Farscape Peacekeeping Wars coming in October?
The Two Sentance Rule:
When any TV show can be summed up in 2 sentences, preferably short ones, it's time to kill the show.
While I watch TV on and off, time doesn't permit me to be glued to it. Deep down, I'm happy my local cable carrier dropped the channel that carried Enterprise. Judging by the first few episodes, I haven't missed a thing.
The Two Sentences for Enterprise:
Spaceship crew beats down recycled plots from previous franchised series. Only this series is beating down its own franchise.
Time to stop beating a dead horse.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
yes
I pick Cowboyneal!
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Gosh, I wonder if that's because all the Star Trek baddies are foils for social commentary of present-day Earth!?
What a staggering notion. It's almost like it was a piece of fiction, written by human beings!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Hollywood in general has creative fatigue. Look at all the crappy movies that have come out lately. You don't see anyone saying it should die.
Specks
Batteries not included
Aside from the overall discussion of whether Star Trek should die or not, did anyone really notice what they were saying about those upcoming episodes of "Enterprise?" A vulcan civil war? Are they serious? What is it going to be? The only thing that I can see is a constant barrage of "That is illogical" being shouted back and forth between two large groups of vulcans. And I seriously doubt if this will be the thing that splits the Romulans off from the Vulcans. That should have happened a long time before "Enterprise" started. Vulcan civil war...right.
This space for rent...
The only thing left is to follow the zeitgeist and produce a postmodern deconstructed paranoid conspiracy Star Trek in which all previous assumptions about what's really happening are blown away, revealing a whole new layer of technology and society manipulating the public face of the Star Trek world for its own ends. Put a whole new spin on the rise and fall of empires, the attacks of puppetmasters and Borg, and create some new backstories for the most unusual events including time travel, alternate universe, and yet-another omnipotent-being stories. It's basically Star Trek meets Foundation. The main challenge is to create likable characters within this shadow world, and avoid technology deus ex machina.
Honestly, there is a good bit of life in the Star Wars Galaxy. Take a notice of the Jedi and Sith Wars in the Knights of the Old Republic or the rumored Spielberg Star Wars Miniseries.
The "Rise of Vader" done in HDTV format would be impressive due to Speilberg getting his directing/producing chops in made for TV movies and a wealth of experiance.
With the animation studio ready and there is plenty of Star Wars lore to be explored. The difference between the Lucas Empire and Viacom is that LucasFilm/Arts/IML/Skywalker Sound/Lucasfilm Animation is all in house and focused on Star Wars while Star Trek is nothing more than a former Desilu Production under the Viacom Empire.
when I was growing up, ST:TNG was the only Trek on TV other than reruns of TOS.
It was great, I (and other fans) anticipated each week for a new episode, and it was always a good time.
Then DS9 came along, and it was OK, I mean, everyone knew TNG was ending, and most of us were bummed, we thought we'd have to wait till DS9's 7th season for another series.
But no, someone was like "oh, theres money here" and along comes Voyager (which I liked better than DS9, but most people didn't) and then a few years later, the shitpile they call Enterprise.
Now DS9 is over, as is Voyager (and what a shitty ending too), and we're stuck with this piece of shit Enterprise. As much as I'd like a new, quality, series, I think its time to shitcan it all, ditch the Romulan Wars, and let it ferment for a while, get people fired up again.
Plus, maybe we'll get some new talent next time instead of recycled Quantum Leap...
e to the pi i plus one equals zero
article translation for the trolls: *Trek is dying
Magnatune: Quality (DRM-free) MP3/FLAC/
"Kill me now and ... "
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
"If you were any other TV show, I would kill you where you stand"
Pull the plug. Maybe never revive it.
... unless they want to make the ultimate prequel and explain how we got from the terminal mess we are currently in to the it's-a-small-world utopia of the federation. And how is it, when the world is then at peace, that everything is still militarized?! The ST world has never been particularly believable.
Unless
"It's death, Jim, but not as we know it."
"reporter William S. Kowinski writes about questions of the Star Trek franchise's viability due to overexposure, audience fatigue and creative exhaustion."
Frankly, there is no other reason. The fans are there, thirsty for a great new series. They will always be there... As long as the franchise owners stay true to the spirit of the creation. Sadly, that's not the case. Right now it's being ass-fucked, and everybody knows it. Should Trek die? Of course not. It should recieve a drastic change in ownership however, anything that would stop the raping it's recieving now. And don't let Shatner near it either. If Tek Wars and Star Trek 5 are any indication of his writing and directing abilities, the best you'll be doing is adding some KY.
But if the only way to save Trek is to kill it and starve the owners out of such a huge revenue stream just to get the point across, so be it.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I like Voyager.
I think I like about 1/6th of Voyager...
The thing is, there are some good episodes and a few rare really good episodes, dilluted in all the "Well, there's 5 minutes left, many people died this week...lets go back in time and forget all bout it" episodes, the "17 Borg Cubes! Yellow alert, shoot them down, I'll be in my office doing my nails, call me when its over" episodes and the "Hi, I'm Chakotay. I'm an american indian from another planet. I'll take this space shuttle to go practice a ritual of earth worship, in space. Oh no, I've blown up the shuttle...meh, its just the 4th, or 6th or something I've blown up in this exact same way. The captain will give me another one next time I feel religious all of a sudden." episodes.
The Year of Hell episode and follow ups were fun, despite being time travel shows. The Doctor had a few good moments. 7 was hot...
I liked the aliens with the space-leprosy, they were creepy...
But, in all honesty, it was mostly bad. Some good, most bad.
I'll also cop to liking Dharma and Greg.
Well, I like watching Dharma. : )
You can't take the sky from me...
"All good things come to an end (preferably an honorable death)" I love Star Trek and would love it to continue forever - but a hiatus might be a good idea for a while.
Trash Star Trek...
...
Bring back either:
Firefly (A space series with actual "acting.")
or
Farscape (Say what you want about it, the stories were unique and very sci-fi).
Of course a TV series based on "Star Wars" would rock, but only if they made it without George Lucas being involved at ALL! The guy is gone.. seriously.. gone...
I've only seen a handful of episodes of this show, all from the first season, but I have heard that the writers have been taking liberties with Trek canon and the accepted timeline. But how could they possibly introduce the Borg to the 22nd Century? It was Picard and his crew who made first contact with them in the Delta Quadrant. How did the writers manage to pull this on off?
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
I could swear that at some previous ST discussion will wheaton was identified as a regular slashdot reader.
has he chimed in here yet?
personal feelings about wesley crusher aside, I would be curious to hear from him, given that the last comment I recall from him was a transcript of a script where every third word was "(tech)"
Times like this I miss babylon 5 and farscape, shows that could actually sustain a story line for more than just a 2 parter. It's a good thing that B5 died when it did though, it was beginning to come apart a bit.
good TV shows and rock stars have a lot in common, they are frequently remembered better when they die too soon.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
to be remodulated. As we know from watching the show, there's almost nothing wrong that can't be fixed with a little remodulation.
There has not been a science fiction/space opera series that lets the characters develop from episode to episode and that demonstrates how interstellar war may be and its consequences. I think Star Trek can take that direction; with carefully chosen characters, plot lines and story, it could still be a success.
I concur with many here who have posted a hiatus on production of Star Trek. I think 10 to 15 years would be sufficient to generate some new ideas. However, the Trek Universe is a very rich one with many different angles that could be explored. So dumping the whole thing seems a bit wasteful.
What I would prefer is to create a Sci-Fi series that appeals to both the geeks, and the normal people enough for a good run on a major network. I applaud Fox for trying with Firefly, but there hasn't been a popular Sci-Fi show on prime time networks for quite some time. Even Trek wasn't popular when it first aired. There are some very good writers out there that could write a fantastic series.
My big concern is that Sci-Fi isn't really for television anymore. Special effects are expensive (even the CGI ones). You can't really have a good Sci-Fi show with stock footage like Battlestar Galactica did. Babylon 5 (from what I've seen of it) was a great show, but no TV network is willing to risk even a good show like that on a prime time slot. If it doesn't involve situational comedy or "reality" programming, its just not going to see air time. Lets face it, the popular TV marketplace doesn't really want characters that are well developed. Everything you need to know about the characters should be part of the premise of the show, or included only in the episodes where it is relevant. How many characters on TV are well developed? We shouldn't be surprised then when we don't know much about what makes Archer or Janeway tick.
I'm wondering if all this frustration isn't so much about a perceived lack of writing talent, but that the core Sci-Fi audience has grown up. The old formulas don't work anymore. Campy plots with big holes just don't cut it. Big words don't impress as much as they used to and don't satisfy as a means to solve the conflict within the story. Our expectations are higher. And the marketplace hasn't adapted yet.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Star wars has been getting worse and worse. it's definitely time for it to die.
oh wait, you mean star trek and star wars aren't the same thing?
But Rick Berman should be permanently retired with a bullet to the head. He's the source of most of the problems, IMHO. He has no clue what Star Trek is and should be. There are millions of talented, creative fans out there, many of which could do a superior job running the creative side of the franchise. Berman's lack of ability would be irrelevant if they could just harness some fan power to replace him and others who have lost, or never had, the right stuff.
What are you trying to tell us, Moofie?
It wasn't that bad! At the begining anyway, new side of the galaxy, new characters, new plot devices. The show however jumped the shark when Kes ascended. Then they brough on Boobs of Borg and started relying on 3 plots (holodeck, borg, something weird hapening and only 7 and the doctor knew what was going on). But before all that, it was excelent, decent casting (admit it, harry wasn't as bad as wesly (apologies to will:P)), new enemies, new situations, the interesting play between the maqui and federation crews, the constant attack from the kazon who were less technologically advanced, but had superior numbers. But yeah, the last few seasons of Voy were as bad as or worse than enterprise, which i had hope for with the pilot, until they brought up that temporal cold war BS. That said, my favorite is still DS9, it was dark, it was different and it wasn't the utopian socioty that TOS had been. Besides the fact that there was an good old full scale war, i think 2 lines sum up why DS9 was so great, Q:"You hit me?!? Picard never hit me!!" and quarks line about the federation not liking ferengi because it reminded humans of a time when they were even worse that the ferengi. DS9 got better with time, unlike voyager... Plus the last few seasons were (quite obviously, not that thats a bad thing) almost entirly WWII in space (bajorans jews, bajor poland, the cardassians nazi germany and the dominion japan, the federation the allies and the klingons the russians)
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
On one hand, the New Frontier books are some of the best Star Trek books I've read in a long time. On the other hand, one of the reasons they're so enjoyable is that they're essentially pulp sci-fi. We have a captain who's more charismatic than Kirk, fights better than Worf, and shows better tactical skills than Picard. We have the requisite half-Vulcan who struggles with her emotions. There's crew members with immortal relatives, crew members who are members of cosmic collectives... *shrug* It's fun reading, but isn't the main criticism leveled at current Star Trek series that they're not cerebral enough, that they're relying on cheap thrills?
That's not even considering the money they'd have to go through to get Ashley Judd back as Lieutenant Robin Lefler...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
... overexposure, audience fatigue and creative exhaustion ...
I started watching Star Trek when I was a kid and have long considered myself a fan, but not anymore. In recent years it's all become too much for me -- like an overdose. They now have a new series, Enterprise, which looks to be an improvement, but at the same time you can also catch endless re-runs of the original series, the Next Generation, etc, etc. Enough!
On top of that, all this exposure has made me realize how silly it all really is. I mean, from a Sci-Fi point of view, Star Trek really has very little to do with science -- it's more like "The Bold and the Beautiful" in space with pure fantasy standing in for science. As far as I'm concerned, the best Sci-Fi is based more often on current technology and scientific theory (either that, or it's just exceedingly well written). Nowadays, Star Trek seems to me too much like 1950's Sci-Fi: outdated and badly written at that. For instance, according to the Star Trek universe, our galaxy is just crawling with advanced, humanoid civilizations inhabiting temperate-zone, 1G-planets with breathable atmospheres. Today, we know this to be a ridiculous premise and it's just one more reason why it has become increasingly difficult for me to suspend my disbelief for this particular series.
IMHO, they should pull the plug altogether, or at least wait for a decade or so before even thinking about reviving the series.
Hmmm.
How about a show based on either Harcourt Fenton Mudd or his great-grandson? Either Enterprise or TNG, your pick.
Make him exactly to type, no ties to StarFleet, not a lot of money and always getting chased after to pay his bills. A guy who lives on the edge between established societies.
and take Star wars with it.
[ I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance ] -- Isaac Asimov
He's dead Jim.
I've always loved the original Star Trek series. but for some reason I have never enjoyed the newer incarnations so much. My main gripe about the new versions is that the assumption that all of the "aliens" are humanoid in form 2 legs , 2 arms. The only variation being oddly shaped heads. Klingons all have a cornish pastie stuck to their forhead for example. others have unusual patterned skin pigmentation....
What happened to things like the tribbles. The creatures in the new series just don't seem to be as exciting as the old one.
Other than Babylon 5, you mean?
No, what should die are the morons that are in charge of the franchise. What we need is intelligent writers, good plots, and something that makes Trek interesting and fun again.
Here's a free idea for the Trek producers...I give it up freely to them: I call this idea Star Trek: Tour of Duty. Instead of the standard Federation-centric viewpoint, why not run a mini-series that takes place on an all Klingon ship (or Romulan if you like) and have the majority of the speaking done in Klingonese (or Romulan)...slowly becoming all English (or whatever your local dialect here is) as we learn more of their tongue? We always see things from the Human point of view. That's very dull. How about a more "Let's kill them all, eat their eyeballs, piss on their graves, drink grog, and go pillage some more" points of view? Trek is filled with great ideas, too bad we never see them because we're stuck with the Federation-centric point of view. And we all know that already.
New blood, people; new ideas. New creativity. That's the way to go boldly...and not wuss out.
NASA and the rest should be working to making the future of humans colonizing space - real.
First contact brought borg back in time, some crashed in antartica, and scientists woke them up. Enterprise is tasked with chasing them down, which they do. And they destroy them. And even though the doctor is infected with borg nanobots, he somehow manages to eliminate them before being assimilated.
It was rather lame.
stopping startrek...
stopping starwars...
stopping stargate...
"kill -9" 'em all!
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
Thats pretty much all that can save it. Marina Sirtis should get naked and service Brent Spiner.
Uh... huh huh. He said "Spiner". Huh huh.
Heh. Yeah! I'd like to see Brent, uh... spine 'er too. Heh. Heh.
Shut up, dilweed! She's like, 80 years old now.
Heh. Heh. I want to see Brent spine Marina Sirtis. Heh heh.
The Galaxy-class starships are the first Federation-built space vessels built with only one conventional bathroom (in the Captain's private cabin).
;-)
The main and battle bridges are ofcourse equipped with enough transporter power to handle an elephant's excrement, should Q see fit to materialize one there.
Now that's planning ahead!
Get it?
You can't take the sky from me...
The lameness filter won't let me post the joke contents, so I'll just post the link:
;).
Top Ten Bad Things About Star Trek
It's obviously written by someone who has watched too much star trek
But in a whole topic about Star Trek nerddom, I just couldn't resist.
Cone to think of it, Chinese characters HAVE been notably scarce in Trek. We've had Japanese on two different bridge crews, a Korean on another, and a handful of miscellaneous Japanese characters amongst the rest of the crew; but I'm having a hard time coming up with even a single actual Chinese character. Curious oversight, that.
FUN FACT: Though George Takei and Gene Roddenberry have both said, in interviews, that the character is most definitely Japanese-American, Sulu is NOT a Japanese name (Hikaru is though.). In fact, you can't even SAY Sulu in Japanese. Sulu got his last name from the Sulu sea, down by the Philippines. When Star Trek is dubbed into Japanese, Mr. Sulu becomes Mr Tato.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
A group of Federation investigators going around solving crimes.
They could even make them temporal investigators, since Berman can't write 3 episodes in a row without some time related happenings.
mod parent up, obvious to all st fans, insightful none the lkess
Anybody remember all the talk that the next ST series (before Enterprise) was going to be Star Trek Academy, basically Star Trek meets Dawson's Creek? I think that would have been a neat show and drawn in a younger crowd.
Also, this idea sprang up BEFORE there ever was Smallville. Now if they do it looks like a Smallville ripoff, but I still want it. It can't be worse than Enterprise.
The ST franchise made a huge mistake by dumping the idea of a show based around the Academy in favor of Enterprise. People would be interested in the academy show (Set after the ST:TNG era), instead of Enterprise.
I agree with most posts. ST needs a break. A couple of years and then bring a GOOD show.
Should Star Trek Die?
With emphasis: YES.
Or look at this way: reality will soon catch up with the Star Trek timeline anyway. Just Let It Go.
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com/
Star Trek. I'm SICK TO THE TEETH of Star Trek! Every SF show that's been created in North America since 1980 (except for Max Headroom--woo!) has either been Star Trek, or a ripoff of it. Why does every damned futuristic show have to be bloody STAR TREK????
SF is a great genre full of intelligent, thoughtful, provoking plots. Throw a TV exec or three at it though, and it all degenerates into Star Trek.
Star Trek was great in its day, but it's now been nearly 40 years since it all started. Can't we come up with ONE original SF show? StarHunter is the best we've got right now (which ain't all bad), but as long as we have Star Trek around, nearly every SF show that gets to TV will be a boring clone of it. Again.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Star Trek should take a breather for a good 10 years. I've since moved on to Stargate SGI (low budget scifi, but decent stories), but after finding out about Farscape, I'm in love.
I would like to suggest people check out Farscape on the SciFi channel. It's difficult to jump into the series midway due to the complex plot linkage going on from one episode to the next; it's like watching one long 88 hour movie rather than 88 individual episodes. And this is a GOOD thing.
http://www.scifi.com/farscape/
There's going to a full rerun of all 88 episodes airing in order every weekday from 9AM-4PM ET/PT, Oct. 1 through Oct. 15. This leads up to the upcoming 4 hour miniseries on Oct. 17th. Warm up your TVRs.
Farscape has definitely given the breath of fresh air I needed from what feels like the same old ****, and will certainly give Star Trek time to rest and recuperate.
Trek fans are also mostly TECH fans, and having to dummy down technology for these prequels is what is killing trek. No one wants prequels. No one wants the technology dummed down. This isn't Star Wars. Star Trek is about technology. The instant that Paramount realizes that Prequels will just not work the sooner they will get their core audience back.
If they need to move 75 years past TNG, then so be it. But it must be done.
Here was an idea I had for a new series before they through Enterprise on us. And don't get me wrong I am an Enterprise fan, and a fan of Bakula. But I am a bigger fan of Star Trek Boldly going where no man has gone before, not going back where he already has been.
"Star Trek: Revolution. Set 75 Years after TNG. The crew of the USS Enterprise 1701-G are a newly assembled group of fresh recruits lead by veteran Captain Frank Talun. Talun chose to lead the Enterprise crew when no one in Starfleet would take on the huge task. Starfleet has crumbled at the hands of the Dominion and The Borg. What once was the strongest combined strength in all the galaxy is now forced to hide on remote planets. But with a newly designed ship that has taken them 25 years to complete there may be a chance.. The Enterprise G and her crew are Starfleets last hope to rebuild."
Paramount, feel free to steal this idea and make me happy. ;)
Trek was the evocation of Roddenberry's liberalism. And liberalism--well, we know what has been done to that.
Successive Trek spin-offs have moved further and further away from his ideology, populated by little more than cardboard cut-outs interchangeable with any other sf series.
In an era of right wing xenophobia and hostility to the basic values of the Trek universe, who wants the franchise to be a mirror to the sickness of FOX News and JAG? Its only hope for renewal is to carry a torch again--to become an antidote to the era of Bush as it once was to its own deeply polarized and miserable era. And good luck getting that on 21st century American TV.
Well as the other AC pointed out. B5 already went this way. Now there's one thing that any prospective writer will need to keep an eye out for. Going further and further into the future. Things will go from bash-bash to more crebral till you eventually reach that uber society that sits around all day thinking. Hard to get drama out of that.
I think the Star Trek franchise should go down in a blaze of glory. Imagine the possibilities!
After several years of surfing the galaxy with the Traveler, Wesley returns and graduates from the Academy. He spends several more years working his way up to where he's finally captain of a starship.
Anyway, give him a character VERY MUCH like Captain Kirk, and give us a ONE YEAR series of We don't need no steenking political correctness!
Captain Crusher hits on every female of every species he encounters. This, of course, constantly gets him in trouble with the PC folks in the Federation, but it helps him make great friends among the Klingons and Ferengi. Whatever mission the Federation assigns him, he blatantly ignores the red tape, and uses bottom-feeding-scumbag tactics to Get the Job Done.
Make the series just barely tame enough for American Television. Make the spin-off movie very R-rated. The whole thing should be raw, over the top, and generally offensive. I don't know if that approach would revive the franchise or seal its demise. It would certainly be fun while it lasts!
Long Live Captain Crusher!
I like it much more than other futuristic movies mainly because of the following reasons:
... and Tasha Yar left the crew much too early) with sometimes a very traditional background (Picard).
1.) The actors are great. They are real personalities (well, except for Riker, Troy,
2.) The Star Trek universe at least _tries_ to be somewhat consistent. The creators do not try to paint a dumb-headed total-war or total-peace picture.
But there are downpoints:
1.) DS9 had far too many "holiday episodes" -- episodes in which only social interactions take place, nearly like a damn soap. GET RID OF THAT SHIT! Of course, the other series had quite a few of these, too.
2.) These guys can beam living biological creatures. But they still suffer from deseases and they still have a limited lifespan! That is ridiculous.
3.) Clingons have stealth shields. How can a primitive race like them invent ANYTHING? Do their scientists seek their heroic battles among formulas??? Well, science is actually quite a dirty battle, but I doubt Clingons look at it the same way *g*.
4.) If the BORG do not invent something themselves, how the hell are they doing any better than their enemies? Just taking the knowledge isn't enough to combine all the inventions of all the different species. These inventions would never fit together. And how the hell can they adopt to randomly changing field configurations? I mean, random is random. You just cannot predict or compute it. That is plane bullshit.
In general, I think since Voyager the Star Trek series are getting better. DS9 was (except its end) the very low of all ST productions. I propose to just let Star Trek get more "realistic". Don't let humans to be the only appreciable species. Give them eternal life. Take in some aspects from Babylon 5.
...being turned into a cube and crushed.
But then the answer would have been obvious.
First...Enterprise sucks for me because I can never see it because it is on the WORST channel there is. Second,I can see a better Star Trek, one that does not try to coddle the number 1 demographic. A Star Trek with great writing as well as great effects so to speak. It is possible. We have seen it with many very good episodes of TNG. My idea....
Gorkman
Whether it lives, or limps, so what?
IT'S JUST TELEVISION, not Shakespeare or Wagner or Impressionism.
Dear sweet Jesus, no!
.... 0x00FEEDFACEC0FFEE
But Christ knows it needs a break. Hell, 1969 to about 1987 --- what's that, like, 20 years?
....what's their name? Um....the big green ships...Romulans?
Give it about a decade. Ten years. I dunno where to start in the Trek timeline; I hate to see any remakes of the original series, since everyone equates (young) Shatner with the Alpha and Omega.
You might have to do something with the Russians (Klingons). Or maybe those other bad guys, the Koreans
Maybe, I guess, the Vulcans?
We'll have it all figured out by the time we get there. Helm, all stop.
. . . I need mod points NOW!!!!!!
I have a friend who works at Paramount. Popular buzz there is that as long as Gene Roddenberry's daughter continues her hate for Leonard Nimoy, the franchise is doomed. She won't approve anything that might result in royalties for Nimoy, and Nimoy has had so much involvement in creating things in the Star Trek mythos that every project that has been proposed to revitalize the franchise has been bounced because he would wind up getting money out of it. So, unless she dies in the next couple of years (unlikely, she's only in her 60s) Star Trek will likely fade away. Paramount is desperately trying to find a film franchise type of thing to replace it right now.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-12 -13&res=l
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
one where they keep recycling scripts from the older series. Get some better script writers, maybe those who took creative writing or something, and create more interesting stories that do not "borrow" from older Star Treks or something else.
Also why is The Federation always making peace with everyone? I liked Star Trek for the space battles and hand to hand and phaser combat. I want the old Klingons back, the ones that had hot blood, a hot temper, and didn't take anything from anyone. The ones that would never accept a Peace Treaty. You know, the ones that never became Targs of the Federation. What is up with the Romulans? They used to be as ruthless as the Klingons, only a bit more logical.
Also underdeveloped alien races like The Tholians, should be developed more. Bring back the Tholian Web! Have a Duel between Trelane and Q, for Pete's sake.
If Doctor Who cannot reach an agreement with the copyright holders of the Daleks, strike a deal with them for Star Trek. The Daleks could liven up Star Trek with a dimensional invasion force. If all other races are at peace with each other and holding hands, have them fight off the Daleks.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I feel that what made the good series' good was the fact that they were not the big kids on the block. in TOS we watch them struggle against equal foes trying to establish a solid federation. in TNG we see picard and company encountering this next level of beings, they were finally powerful enough that they did start to attract notice from the borg and the Q continuum. in DS9 they were back to the equal level in that they had to start exploring a new sector in which there were many species at or just above there tech level. in Voyager survival while keeping your principals was a struggle. and on a side note, B5 had the "old ones" to deal with through the whole thing. in ENT it is all running around like they are badasses and either kicking ass or getting the sh*t beat out of them.
The guys at the Las Vegas Hilton will all have to find new jobs. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Damn them, damn them, damn them. And if that sounded a little crazy, my otherwise normal wife is irate about the Farscape situation and the emergence of Stargate. I don't want to get flamed since I know the fan base must be huge, but I just hate Stargate and see it as a rehash ("ooo those Coloreds in Egypt couldn't have built a great civilization without the help of ALIENS with super advanced technology, now us normal folks are gonna exploit that technology for fun!" The movie was insulting and the success of the series only enforces this.) That by merely existing, Stargate drove Farscape to extinction burns me up.
Sci-Fi (the channel) insinuates that the PK Wars are a way to judge viewership interest with this lie that they might be able to justify bringing Farscape back for a full 5th season. I think they are just throwing us a bone before they simply admit "that's all folks." At least the new rehash of Galactica looks promising.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
YES
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
Crumbs. One way to get round the creative exhaustion would be for the writers to quit pandering to the plotlines about Mom, Amerika and Apple Pie and get back to the Special Effects and Fighting.
Where does that quote originate?
oh crap, now i can't
...to have Annie "Sprinkle in episodes that tell the same story from the perspective of several different characters of different races." Hmmm....
I feel so sig.
Is anyone really under the impression that it isn't dead already?
Sounds like a good time for a nice Dune revival! That series is in dire need of a good adaptation...
Protests. Threats of station boycotts. Continuous warfare between creative staff and the studio and network. Pushing the envelope socially and technically. Race, gender, sexuality. Showing technology no one else is even thinking about. It would have to piss people off (curiously, in the same parts of the US now as then:), and shudder under the special effects budget and plot restrictions required to make it look believable. Basically, it would have to be unlike any science fiction movie or series since.
Obviously, the probability of this ever coming out of a large studio is exactly zero.
People forget TOS was almost a half century ago. TOS was contemporary with the Civil Rights Act. Women professionals had all the universal respect that homosexual marriage does now. Lost in Space. Gidget. "Uhura" had trouble finding hotel rooms. Her uncorrupted mayor dad was almost executed by Capone during prohibition. She was spat on in an elevator for hanging with a white guy. Was raped by a rich white guy without fear of repercussion (ok, that one hasn't changed as much as the others). A black?!? And a woman!!?!! Professional??? This wasn't merely something which hadn't been done on TV. This was bizarre. Something to enrage and inspire viewers. Something one needed to fight the studio and network to include. TOS tried for a female first officer, but a woman in a command position was just too absurd for the studio/network to swallow. Who would believe it? The tech was beyond bizarre. A medical monitoring bed? You mean like a silver robot nurse with a stethoscope?
So, what would a new TOS look like? A TOS, to the contemporary Lost in Space of B5, Firefly, and Farscape.
Pervasive mechanical and computational support for all aspects of human motion, communication, and thought. Wandering hallways, chatting with people, over speaker phones, is soo not science fiction. More like late 20th century radio shack.
Everyone is multiracial. Great variety of sexual morays, homosexuality, complex dynamic polygamies, real sex (not cable channel cartoonish sex) on screen. Weird non-hierarchical decision making (computer augmented of course). Let's see, what other taboos could be bashed. Toilets. Intentional disregard of gender and age roles. Body modification. Diverse religions/philosophical systems, which make christian fundamentalism look like santa clause. All of it, however progressive, rational, humanist, or taboo, being considered by the participants as unexceptional.
So we are never going to see a new Trek like TOS. Nor a new series as innovative as TOS from a major studio. But maybe, some day, a couple of folks working on a shoestring will pull it off. It's not like the best of current sf is managing to keep up with this year's Interop, let alone what's in journals.
TOS was simply a qualitatively different acheivement than all the Drek which followed.
Make a series about 2 Earthlings serving aboard a Klingon ship which newly joined the Federation. It would be a fun, brawling culture clash.
Table-ized A.I.
I threw out my TV. Now I spend all my time posting on Slashdot. Heck, I don't even RTFA.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
TNG usually had a few eps per season that would have Picard doing something atypical and possibly afoul of starfleet wishes.
I never watch DS9 much - found it way too boring, though I hear it got better.
Voyager was the wussiest show I've ever seen. It was all about "Hi...we're from earth and trying to get home...Please be our friends."
Enterprise should be grittier than it is. It is too tame as well. Though in the last season it's been getting a little better...stuff like Archer disabling a ship and stealing it's warp core or whatever.
I really did like B5 though - it was real balls to the wall. Not all polite diplomacy. ST needs to be a mix of what it is, B5 and Andromeda.
C'mon, this is SLASHDOT, after all.
Did ANYONE need to be reminded who Leonard Nimoy was?
In the middle of a Star Trek story?
TSG
Anyone who needs a hint that Leonard Nimoy plays Spock is reading the wrong story.
This all should come as no surprise, given that George Lucas acquired the Star Trek franchise a few years back. He milks ST just like SW.
I think it would be neat to see a show centered around Starfleet Command / Federation Council. Just like the Klingons were obviously Russians, Command is obviously the Pentagon and the Council is obviously Congress. It'd be a perfect way to comment on current political and social issues. Something new and provacative to stir people up.
Seen Enterprise lately? Star Trek in name only. Star Trek is dead. Long live Star Trek.
Die die die. Beam out of here.
I'm tired of Star Trek and all the damn trekkie idiots that still exist. Give it up people.
In the pilot episode "Shot from a Broken Bow", The Enterprise crew has to visit Rigel V to learn why a Klingon courier crashed on Earth. Some fan figured out that at the Ent's max speed of Warp 5 it would take 3-4 months to reach Rigel and asked the writers in a forum why they glossed over that timeframe, making it seem like "just a day or two". Their answer was, "There's really a star called Rigel?"
We're in a new age right now. Things are accelerating, and watching speculative television fiction isn't really the way to stay on top of things. The real adventure is going on outside your front door. Time to take all the mush we learned while absorbing stuff like Star Trek, figure out which parts of it are worth keeping, and then put it into practical application. There were some excellent messages in Star Trek.
Depending on your age group, there's a good chance you're going to be carrying a machine gun by the end of next year. If you want to avoid this, it would be a good idea to disengage from the dream-box while you still can and determine a plan of action. Nobody can make you kill. It's always, always a choice.
-FL
That is right. The Enterprise does not have all the
technology. The OTHER races in the show do. And
they ALL kick Enterprise's butt. How they get from being a techno-have-not to a snobbish techno-have
flaunting their 'prime directive' in the faces of
who THEY were once is a step beyond hypocritical.
What tech they DO acquire, basically , is kind
of like the way the Borg and the Kayson in the other
treks got theirs. They steal it fair and square.
Unfortunately it only seems to work a little while.
What really gets me is the warped concept of distance.....no pun intended. Space is HUGE!!!
And our heroes are always just a few hundred
thousand kilometers from a habitable planet whenever they get in dutch. Think about it!
And I really would like to see some aliens that
are'nt really men in a rubber suit.
Somewhere between Star Trek and Star Gate is a believable navigable universe with real looking
sentient species. Some of these will really be
human looking, as we are an efficient body design. There really could be a planet with humanoid amazons on it somewhere. There could also be, more often than not, a 'Klendathu' from Starship Troopers. We are coming to find out that planets are the banal guests of most stars. We are seeing the jupiters now....we think. We are really seeing transits and then calculating the expected planetary masses from the wobble caused by the sum of all the planetary bodies in those systems acting about the centroid of the mass of those planetary systems. We are mistaking the total mass of all the planets in those systems for the mass of an equivalent single planet. This goes for orbital time estimates as well, as the orbital path of the centroid will appear in their math as the path of the 'planet' they discovered. In time we will see our error here, but that error will not be acknowledged, but conveniently forgotten.
The sort of fool who can ask, or seriously consider, the question "Should Star Trek Die?" really doesn't "get it".
Star Trek is, above all else, an optimistic vision of a future in which humanity has successfully addressed certain critical challenges, facilitating its expansion beyond its germinal, fragile, distressed habitat into the community of the stars.
The question Kowinski is really asking is "should the conceptually tiny, creatively moribund, and increasingly irrelevant commercial aspect of Star Trek - a greedy engine focusing primarily on pandering to an unenlightened mass audience with an oatmeal-like mush of vapid books, television programs, and movies - die ??".
The answer??
Who cares! It can't affect the vision.
Kowinski's feebleminded conception and narrow world-view would appear to rule out the possibility of his (intentionally) putting together any words which might be of relevance.
Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis rocks and so does TNG, DS9, and Voyager.... Enterprise is kind of weird right now
Lol, thought slashdot was digital????
where are my mod points when I need them...
It spoils continuity with the original series because the original series had *TERRIBLE* special effects compared to what we have now.
It makes NO SENSE for a 22nd, 23rd, or 24th century starship to be using knobs, dials and big clunky push-buttons as a control interface when in the 21st century we have reliable touchscreens and computer systems that sure as hell seem to be advanced further beyond what the original Constitution-class Enterprise had.
You have to look at the shows as windows onto the worlds they depict that are colored by the time they were produced. If we can do better now, we should.
+++ATH0
"Hitler had brown eyes and brown hair."
Is it surprising to you that the Nazis were dazzlingly hypocritical? Come on.
+++ATH0
... is the fact that T'Pol is not a stereotypical Vulcan.
Yes. God forbid we show that not every Vulcan is the same.
I wonder if anyone who has been complaining about the show reads the books. It's become more or less an accepted fact in general in the books that different Vulcans have different degrees of control over their emotions, and T'Pol has been having trouble because of her whole drug abuse thing anyway.
Open your Goddamned minds, people.
+++ATH0
what i just stated was I feelt a >>uber-tech C) =
:)
what i just stated was that i felt a uber-tech civilization might be able to do better than a harpoon
I get roasted by "hard core fans" on a regular basis for saying this, but DS9 was the best of all the Trek series. Moreover, a large part of why it was the best is because it goes directly against Roddenberry's utopianism. None of the characters are the shiny perfect people from TNG, Earth is explicitly portrayed as not a paradise, religion was handled pretty realistically, and technobabble rarely saved the day.
It wasn't Star Trek then.
Its not the best Star Trek series at all, its the first fraud. Abusing the name to draw in the fans, but it was actually something else.
That is why the "hard core fans" bash you about it. You applaud the deceit of passing an imposture for what they loved.
You can't take the sky from me...
Star Trek is NOT a HOT motor that needs to be stopped & cooled for it to change for the better.
This statement pre-supposes that the present Trek projects are not successful. I DON'T agree with that silly general Internet view. They have been sucessful but their legacy just hasn't been up to the wild success that previous Trek projects have accomplished. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place!
I believe that Trek has become such a close important public element that it's fans feel they have a too personal connection when they really only have a long distance connection to Trek. That unrealistic fan mindset promotes their egotistic views that every fan thinks they are a Trek studio exec or film Trek producer without the hard work and credentials to get to that position by real film experiences. Berman is fine with me. Everyone forgets B&B Trek sucesses before the present time.
Futurama was canned pre-maturely, so was Firefly and Angel and aside from two versions of Stargate and the pending delivery of Battlestar Galactica, TV is filled with reality TV.
Enterprise is a welcome, if possibly a little too cave-laden and predictable, relief from the relentless string of real-people in "real" situations & Law/Police/Hospital drama type programming clogging up our sets day and night.
If we kill Star Trek - what hope is there?
PS - Fox: Resurrect Futurama you bastards!
What about the Chinese then? I thought Roddenberry said Romulans represent the Chinese, and the Vulcans the Japanese...? Oh hell, can't be the same all the time.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer