One of the things that I really liked about the Original was that each show stood independently, but they tied together in a loose thread. The original series even took (what I consider great) the step of out-of-sequence plotting. some shows from the second season were earlier stardates than in the first season. If you are a big fan, its neat to pick out the differences in the consoles, uniforms, etc. used to portray the presage of time. If you aren't a big fan, you still get an enjoyable story, and you aren't going 'huh?' because you had a date the week before.
I hate soaps, and I don't watch daytime tv. TNG fell victim to serialization in spurts.. some shows would be pure sci fi capsules (adventure at Far Point), some you had to see 5 in a row (Wolf 359) to even get a basic grasp of the story line. Beyond TNG all of the star treks were more 'one-life-to-live' than anything Gene Roddenberry would have signed his name to.
B5 was just as soapy as DS9 yes but I think they were both horribly outside of the definition of SCIENCE fiction. Come on, they were both just 'another world' outtakes.
As for today, Enterprise is just too much of a good thing. The stories are capsulated well enough (so far) but the whole timeline has been too well defined by the later shows. Within the first 5 minutes of each episode, i have too much knowledge about the adversaries and have picked out the hole thats being plotted. Add in the commercials, and I end up not making it to the end of each sho. I already knew what was gonna happen anyway...
Andromeda is much better about giving you a real story within one hour, and only loosely tying each show together.
I would really like to see some radically different futures put onto the screen.
One example would be James Blish's "Cities in Space" series. In this future, space "ships" are not the main mode of transport, as light speed and hybernation are never conquered. Instead whole cities put to space and spend generations flying from star to star. Frankly this is a much more believable future. I'd find it wonderful entertainment to see London isolated for 200 years meet up with Boston isolated for 100 years, and have them fight over who gets the "Roads for Orion 6" contract. New York landing on Taurus 5, and discovering that drugs have replaced metal as the galactic currency, and having to back out of their contract and go into hiding seems nothing like the 'we lost our dilithium, gotta land and get more' scenario. You'd have to read the book to really see how it works in a plot, but it would be a refreshing change from TV lands overdone human look alike aliens. Hollywood would never make this, because it would require a whole new set of actors every week (but then they did it with the Batman movies, so who knows.)
Another story line worth a series is Isaac Asimov's robot planets vs. human planets series. This is a 'priveledged few' are always outdone by the masses theme, and has many real-close-to-home learnings in it, without having to resort to "Q" preaching the last 5 minutes of the show.
One of the one's I'd really like to see (and the one that's most likely to become a show) is Heinlein's 'Friday' series (with maybe less on the sex and more on the action) The whole 'spy in space' thing is WAY under-done on any screen, and its a much easier way to write different screenery every week than dragging a whole space ship around the galaxy.
I would really like to see BLADE RUNNER minus 10. That movie is the most chock full of eerie predictions I've seen. There's enough material just in what made the screenplay to fill 3 seasons. I really want to know what happened in the 10 or so years before BLADE runner... the sudden loss of population to colonization, and the 'replacement humans' that are dreamed up to fill the gaps all over as humanity suddenly has 100's of planets to fill instead of one. Thats a wonderful story that deserves more air.
'Television' is owned by the few...all content in the US is approved by fewer than 100 people (ok, maybe 1000)
I want to be able to ZAP my son's first baseball game and send it to all my relatives. (They won't watch it, but it is still a better choice than 50 of the 60 channels on here.) Release us from this video prison. What's on is CRAP, even my son could do better.
I want a VIDEO recorder, not a TV or buybox .
Take your TIVO and... just gimme a video INPUT jack on one end and a DVD compatible disk on the output end. I haven't seen anything on TV in a decade that I'd want to watch again (ok maybe Babylon 5, but the decade mark for that is coming fast.)
The recording industry is losing its hold, and they should when you look at whats on TV these days... I would rathcr watch 10 year olds play sports anytime to the criminals in today's professional sports. There have been 10 movies in cinema's in the last 5 years here in the US that feature TALENT instead of big hollywood money. (its about who you know anymore.. you can't be good and get on any screen anymore, and if you do.. the set is crowded with daddy's girl thats IN, so your talent is more than offset by el-stinko.)
There is the mythical 'OGG Tarkin', the unborn cousin of OGG vorbis sound compression. its supposed to handle still images, recorded video, and streaming video. Basically it doesn't exist yet.
There should be an open license that pre-dates the patent ownership by microsoft.
under patent law, if you release a patent, it can't be later 'reclaimed'.
under patent law, you must agressively defend a patent or you lose the rights to it.
Microsoft bought something that was already lost by SGI as a protectable patent.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the things that I really liked about the Original was that each show stood independently, but they tied together in a loose thread. The original series even took (what I consider great) the step of out-of-sequence plotting. some shows from the second season were earlier stardates than in the first season. If you are a big fan, its neat to pick out the differences in the consoles, uniforms, etc. used to portray the presage of time. If you aren't a big fan, you still get an enjoyable story, and you aren't going 'huh?' because you had a date the week before. I hate soaps, and I don't watch daytime tv. TNG fell victim to serialization in spurts.. some shows would be pure sci fi capsules (adventure at Far Point), some you had to see 5 in a row (Wolf 359) to even get a basic grasp of the story line. Beyond TNG all of the star treks were more 'one-life-to-live' than anything Gene Roddenberry would have signed his name to. B5 was just as soapy as DS9 yes but I think they were both horribly outside of the definition of SCIENCE fiction. Come on, they were both just 'another world' outtakes. As for today, Enterprise is just too much of a good thing. The stories are capsulated well enough (so far) but the whole timeline has been too well defined by the later shows. Within the first 5 minutes of each episode, i have too much knowledge about the adversaries and have picked out the hole thats being plotted. Add in the commercials, and I end up not making it to the end of each sho. I already knew what was gonna happen anyway... Andromeda is much better about giving you a real story within one hour, and only loosely tying each show together. I would really like to see some radically different futures put onto the screen. One example would be James Blish's "Cities in Space" series. In this future, space "ships" are not the main mode of transport, as light speed and hybernation are never conquered. Instead whole cities put to space and spend generations flying from star to star. Frankly this is a much more believable future. I'd find it wonderful entertainment to see London isolated for 200 years meet up with Boston isolated for 100 years, and have them fight over who gets the "Roads for Orion 6" contract. New York landing on Taurus 5, and discovering that drugs have replaced metal as the galactic currency, and having to back out of their contract and go into hiding seems nothing like the 'we lost our dilithium, gotta land and get more' scenario. You'd have to read the book to really see how it works in a plot, but it would be a refreshing change from TV lands overdone human look alike aliens. Hollywood would never make this, because it would require a whole new set of actors every week (but then they did it with the Batman movies, so who knows.) Another story line worth a series is Isaac Asimov's robot planets vs. human planets series. This is a 'priveledged few' are always outdone by the masses theme, and has many real-close-to-home learnings in it, without having to resort to "Q" preaching the last 5 minutes of the show. One of the one's I'd really like to see (and the one that's most likely to become a show) is Heinlein's 'Friday' series (with maybe less on the sex and more on the action) The whole 'spy in space' thing is WAY under-done on any screen, and its a much easier way to write different screenery every week than dragging a whole space ship around the galaxy. I would really like to see BLADE RUNNER minus 10. That movie is the most chock full of eerie predictions I've seen. There's enough material just in what made the screenplay to fill 3 seasons. I really want to know what happened in the 10 or so years before BLADE runner... the sudden loss of population to colonization, and the 'replacement humans' that are dreamed up to fill the gaps all over as humanity suddenly has 100's of planets to fill instead of one. Thats a wonderful story that deserves more air.
'Television' is owned by the few...all content in the US is approved by fewer than 100 people (ok, maybe 1000) I want to be able to ZAP my son's first baseball game and send it to all my relatives. (They won't watch it, but it is still a better choice than 50 of the 60 channels on here.) Release us from this video prison. What's on is CRAP, even my son could do better. I want a VIDEO recorder, not a TV or buybox . Take your TIVO and ... just gimme a video INPUT jack on one end and a DVD compatible disk on the output end. I haven't seen anything on TV in a decade that I'd want to watch again (ok maybe Babylon 5, but the decade mark for that is coming fast.)
The recording industry is losing its hold, and they should when you look at whats on TV these days... I would rathcr watch 10 year olds play sports anytime to the criminals in today's professional sports. There have been 10 movies in cinema's in the last 5 years here in the US that feature TALENT instead of big hollywood money. (its about who you know anymore.. you can't be good and get on any screen anymore, and if you do.. the set is crowded with daddy's girl thats IN, so your talent is more than offset by el-stinko.)
There is the mythical 'OGG Tarkin', the unborn cousin of OGG vorbis sound compression. its supposed to handle still images, recorded video, and streaming video. Basically it doesn't exist yet.
There should be an open license that pre-dates the patent ownership by microsoft. under patent law, if you release a patent, it can't be later 'reclaimed'. under patent law, you must agressively defend a patent or you lose the rights to it. Microsoft bought something that was already lost by SGI as a protectable patent.