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The problem with Enterprise had absolutely nothing do with the show, especially since the 4th season had picked up steam, but entirely to do with the fact that it found itself marooned on UPN.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Mar 2007
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I wonder anymore if spacefaring Sci-fi shows can survive on network TV.
The Sci-Fi channel thrives off them, and they are loyal to them. Network tv is ready to dump anything at a moment's notice, and rarely gives them a chance to succeed, see Firefly.
Sci-fi, I mean real futuristic sci-fi, seems dead everywhere except Sci-Fi Channel and maybe USA. Heroes and LOST are geeky shows, but where're the phasers and the shields? Or at least the space ships.
There's a place for it on television, we're just not getting it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:The problem with Enterprise had absolutely nothing do with the show, especially since the 4th season had picked up steam, but entirely to do with the fact that it found itself marooned on UPN.
I can assure you that I didn't stop watching it because of what station it was on.
I stopped watching because it didn't find it interesting enough to keep watching.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by nateetan: The problem with Enterprise had absolutely nothing do with the show, especially since the 4th season had picked up steam, but entirely to do with the fact that it found itself marooned on UPN.
The two highest rated Star Trek shows were TNG and DS9. They were also the only syndicated shows. I really think there is a connection, and I think any future tv Trek should be syndicated.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Who exactly is screaming that there's no room for originality in the Star Trek universe? I think it's just the opposite problem: Paramount has sucked Star Trek's well of creativity dry.
See here's the thing. Star Trek takes place in a UNIVERSE. Have we plumed the depths of ANY universe including our own?
Theres plenty of material in just EARTH. Why should we run out of ideas in a universe?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Who exactly is screaming that there's no room for originality in the Star Trek universe? I think it's just the opposite problem: Paramount has sucked Star Trek's well of creativity dry.
See here's the thing. Star Trek takes place in a UNIVERSE. Have we plumed the depths of ANY universe including our own?
Theres plenty of material in just EARTH. Why should we run out of ideas in a universe?
You mean other then time travel? I don't think that is possible for Paramount (as much as I love time travel).
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:See here's the thing. Star Trek takes place in a UNIVERSE. Have we plumed the depths of ANY universe including our own?
Theres plenty of material in just EARTH. Why should we run out of ideas in a universe?
Um, because it's an artificially shallow and limiting universe?
Could you elaborate on why you believe the universe is artificially shallow and limiting? I agree with you but I was not sure if I did for the same reasons.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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If they did a series tracking the revocation of the Prime Directive, with in-depth examination of it as a morally bankrupt premise, I'd watch. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: See here's the thing. Star Trek takes place in a UNIVERSE. Have we plumed the depths of ANY universe including our own?
Theres plenty of material in just EARTH. Why should we run out of ideas in a universe?
I came up with an analogy a while back that sums up my feelings on fictional universes like Star Trek. You hit a rich vein of ore and mine it for a while. Then you want to get some more, so you start making more mines. Pretty soon you give up on that approach and start strip mining or pit mining. You turn whole mountains inside-out looking for more ore. Sure, you may be getting a lot of ore, but you leave this behind.
Simply put, I don't think that plumbing the depths of every fictional universe is necessarily a good thing.
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The way I see it, kennecott copper mine would be the what a show like "The Simpsons." uses. The Star Trek universe has a mine the size of the earth to work with.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I disagree. The Simpsons seems far less bound by a premise than Star Trek does. And the size of the universe (a galaxy instead of a town) isn't directly proportional to the number of interesting stories you could tell about that universe.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I disagree. The Simpsons seems far less bound by a premise than Star Trek does.
Might I submit that I think Star Trek starting with TNG has done far more exploring of it's casts backgrounds and psyche rather then exploring for unknown alien species?
edit: On second thought I am not sure I agree with my above statement.
More accurately I think there is still plenty of possibilities on the 'new alien species' front.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I think there's plenty left to do, originality wise, in the Star Trek universe. I don't think they should go backwards and do prequals or re-imaginings. They should push forward and expand things. And they don't necessarily need to push out another movie, either. THey should let it all rest for a while, instead of pushing for this re-imagining. IMO, they never finished imagining the old Star Trek universe.
Posts: 1042 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Could you elaborate on why you believe the universe is artificially shallow and limiting? I agree with you but I was not sure if I did for the same reasons.
Off the top of my head:
There's the refusal to explore the ramifications of the new technology or science they develop to combat the timespace anomaly du jour.
Same thing with most of the interesting aliens (i.e., the ones that aren't funny-looking humans [or not even funny-looking at all, like the Bajorans] with one or two human traits emphasized. In short, most aliens aren't alien -- they are really just demihumans, like elves and dwarves. (I realize that this is extremely difficult to work around, given the medium of TV and movies).
There's the blandification of human nature by saying that mankind has overcome persistent human problems such as privilege, poverty, jealousy, money, disease, hunger, want, etc..
There's the idiotic (refusal to develop cloaking technology) and morally bankrupt (prime directive [to steal Dag's phrase']) sense of honor in the Federation.
There's the too-powerful technology which requires far too much effort to explaining why why in this situation they can't scan for lifesigns or beam him up.
There's the refusal to make things different. Enterprise was supposed to be exciting because they didn't have all this magic technology to fall back on like the other Treks. But before long, they were raising shields, powering up weapons, and beaming people up just like in all the other Treks.
posted
Star Trek was a shoddily constructed universe, anyway you slice it. Still, it could be fun.
And hey, since alternate universes are already a part of Trek canon, a new universe with alternate Kirk and Spock really contradicts and reboots nothing. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Star Trek was a shoddily constructed universe, anyway you slice it. Still, it could be fun.
And hey, since alternate universes are already a part of Trek canon, a new universe with alternate Kirk and Spock really contradicts and reboots nothing.
I would be all for it if they came right out and said this was a mirror universe, and delved into what happened in the mirror universe after the original episode. I'd be all for it. But this reimagining bs sucks, imo.
Posts: 1042 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Star Trek was a shoddily constructed universe, anyway you slice it. Still, it could be fun.
I agree with you there. As much as I gripe about Trek, I still enjoy it.
I just think that the time to do something like this is after time. Right now, Trek fans are still pissed off about Enterprise. In five years, the fins will forget how annoyed they were and will be more nostalgic about what they did love.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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First of all, all fictional universes are limited in their scope because no television series or series of television series can hope to explore all the possible options. The point of storytelling is imagination and invention and the way I see it, Star Trek is no more limited than any other science fiction universe, including that of Firefly.
quote:There's the refusal to explore the ramifications of the new technology or science they develop to combat the timespace anomaly du jour.
I recognise this as a valid point but I don't see it as part of the "point" if you will, of the star trek universe. The original ST was far more sociological and used technology to make a sociological, comic or historical point, instead of the reverse. Nowadays, that might seem shallow, but that doesn't mean that a prequel Trek can't take this into account.
quote:In short, most aliens aren't alien -- they are really just demihumans, like elves and dwarves.
You are right, this is a relic of television, but again, IMO the point of Star Trek and its limited television budget was not to show how crazy aliens LOOKED but how they were different from humans. And yes, they weren't that different because I think that it's easier to deal with creatures who are similar.
In addition, there have always been a great deal of bizarre completely non-humanoid creatures tromping around the ST universe. The fact that most of them being people is an artifact of the fact that human actors are, in fact, human shaped.
quote:There's the blandification of human nature by saying that mankind has overcome persistent human problems such as privilege, poverty, jealousy, money, disease, hunger, want, etc..
Were I to make a prequel show, this is EXACTLY the point of view I would present and then defeat. I would suggest that by eliminating negative sociological traits such as poverty we do not dehumanize ourselves. Certainly, I do not think that was the goal of TOS: the characters are indeed driven by their own personal goals, desires etc. They are clearly human.
I think the point of Star Trek is to show that in spite of the "loss" of such sociological traits as poverty, humans are still human. They do not need to be greedy, violent, or poor. We still have negative traits aplenty for us to deal with.
In my opinion think a show that (as a small part of its plot) combated the belief that to be poor and hungry is "part of the human experience" wouldn't be terribly poorly received.
quote:There's the idiotic (refusal to develop cloaking technology) and morally bankrupt (prime directive [to steal Dag's phrase']) sense of honor in the Federation.
Both of these are relics of the eras they were conceived in. Neither are applicable to a prequel-era show. They do not have to be dealt with.
Besides that, I do not think that the Prime Directive idea really was, or has to be, "hands off". With a little imagination we can imagine that it was merely intended to prevent the kind of violence and destruction we see today in societies that have abruptly come into contact with our technological expansion. I would posit that much of our problems with the Middle East emanate from an intense feeling of helplessness in the face of cultural erosion. Aboriginal societies have struggled excessively with the industrial world- would it have been better to let a slower pace lead the wide variety of human societies to the same place, instead of presenting an ultimatum? Is it possible that the prime directive; the allowance for a slower, more natural pace of evolution, is in fact a pretty smart idea?
I don't think the Prime Directive was ever really supposed to prevent Starfleet (yeah, now I sound like the largest geek in the world) from intervening in war or famine or such. There are numerous examples of peaceful intervention in the Star Trek canon and some of rather forceful (if not violent).
I think the Prime Directive isn't as morally bankrupt as Dag makes it out to be, although of course it depends on how you interpret it. You must also remember that our perspective on a single planet in the 21st century is quite different because we are ALREADY everywhere. Now, it's morally bankrupt to stay away, but when a hunter-gatherer society across a wide ocean we've never crossed is the order of the day, is it better to merely look, instead of interfering- provided all is going weel? I think that is the status of the Prime Directive.
I don't think it was intended by its inventors that societies should be left to die in some kind of cosmic eugenics program. PLEASE correct me on this if you have evidence of this in ST.
quote:There's the too-powerful technology which requires far too much effort to explaining why why in this situation they can't scan for lifesigns or beam him up.
This kind of kinky/wonky world writing is visible in a lot of sci fi. In my opinion, with clever writing it can be eliminated or made to seem invisible.
quote:There's the refusal to make things different. Enterprise was supposed to be exciting because they didn't have all this magic technology to fall back on like the other Treks.
I agree, but I don't think that ST is just about technology, it's also about society. True, Enterprise completely messed up regarding societal issues too- contentious relationships were gone as fast as technological ones.
I think that with an imaginative and clever person at the helm, a Star Trek universe/movie/show can be created that fits not only within the general canon of the other shows but also within the demands of the real world today. I also think that said show/movie/universe can retain most if not all of the core values- even those of the ideas of elimination of poverty that m_p_h finds so vile and unhuman- and still be very realistic and captivating.
Like all good stories, it must find ways to get around unrealities and explain away or combat arguments against it.
I am of the opinion if you hate ST and find it so far from realism as many people seem to, or you feel it is all wrong for the era today, why are you trying to make it? Why not simply start over?
I personally, however, do not believe that the core values of ST are either invalid or completely unbelievable. ST is not trying to be the vision of the future, it is trying to be just one vision. I think a re-imagining is unnecessary.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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BlackBlade: I think mph already made a lot of my points pretty well. You call the Star Trek universe infinite, but I think it's anything but. There are a lot of things in it that are more or less fixed, like humans, the Federation, the Prime Directive, the other major alien races, and a lot of the themes. And I'd say that different alien races is one of the least interesting aspects of the universe. After all, Voyager featured a lot of different races, and it was a pretty crappy series.
Also, the possibilities aren't endless—for example, if there were an episode in which the crew members evolved into galactic hypersalamanders, then it really wouldn't be Star Trek, now would it? And even if it were Star Trek, it certainly wouldn't be good television.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Also, the possibilities aren't endless—for example, if there were an episode in which the crew members evolved into galactic hypersalamanders, then it really wouldn't be Star Trek, now would it? And even if it were Star Trek, it certainly wouldn't be good television.
How about a Trek were Captain Bauer only has twenty-four of his hours to stop a Romulan plot?
And isn't it always convenient that aliens threatening the Enterprise always convert time to earth hours, and that it always ends up being nice round numbers?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I guess I am in the middle about ST. There are elements that I simply love. I've been working my way through TNG season 5 and, for the most part, really really enjoy it. Yes, there is the problem with trechno-babble and the way it is pulled out of thin air (or other places.) These are major new solutions/technologies that, for all practical purposes, have never been tested. Not a one of them is buggy. Man, MS shoulda hired Geordi for the new Vista OS. Guy can come up with a solution to charge an atmosphere of pollutants, and then use the enterprise as a lightning rod to channel them into space- or it will burn up every living thing in the atmosphere. It's a 50/50 situation, not helped by a guy claiming to be from the future looking over their shoulders asking them to fill out questionaires, saying to ignore him when he makes himself un-ignorable. With that kind of pressure, Geordi succeeds and not only gets the weather back on track, but also completely cleans up the atmosphere.
And this wonderful technology will be used?...Never again. That is supremely annoying.
The little things- the language and time-scale issues, the 'shape' and similarity to humans, etc- don't bother me. I know those are simply byproducts of short production time, limited budget, and simplified conventions to cut out the necessary (but lame) 'You have 3.34x10^(24) cycles of the cesium atom to respond!!!'
The thing is, those little thing wouldn't bother so many people if the the big things- things like character consistancy, plot consistancy, willingness to follow amazing stories on to their end and ALLOW them to forever change the characters (Episodes after 'Inner Light', I'm looking at you, here), avoiding the dreaded 5 minute solution after 37 minutes of detective work (in a 42 minute episode).
In many ways, these all boil down to one thing: even though we know it is made up, we WANT to believe it. We will suspend our disbelief and put up with some simplification (time-scale, etc), but only when the over-all arch and series continuity is sacred. When it is as self-contained and consistant a universe as possible. This is partly why, IMO, so many shows with large, series spanning mysteries and archs have become so popular. They provide us with a microcosm universe for us to understand and 'live in'.
When the TOS came out, there was nothing like it. There was just *enough* continuity (real or imagined) and it was new enough that people, especially in syndication, could love it and want to believe in it, however poorly imagined. And even when TNG came out, there was still nothing like it on TV, or hadn't been for a while (the only one I'm can think of is the original Battlestar Gallactica). So they could still do the free-standing, epoch-agnostic episodes that were so necessary to repeats and syndication. But even then, people responded to the true myth-archs. Through DS9 (which evolved, accidently, I think, into an over-arching series), then Voyager, the producers tried to have teh best of both worlds. But we'd already had shows like Babylon 5, X-Files, and so on, that highlighted the good and the bad of the series with tight focus and continuity. Not that every episode has to be part of a larger tapestry (soap-operaish) or can't be fun. But things can never go backward. Smallville is in the same boat and failing miserably.
Enterprise made the mistake of creating many myth-arch episodes (fulfilling the 1st requirement), but ignored much of the previously established continuity. The irony being, they were trying for an internal continuity (lessons learned from the previous series) at the expense of the larger continuity of the whole franchise. That's what caused the backlash. And when it didn't work, they resort to hype. Don't bring the Borg on in what amounts to more than a celebrity cameo, if it violates canon.
My honest opinion is this. If they want to do a movie that rocks, that totally brings all of geekdom to their feet, they need to do this: create a crossover movie that acknowledges meaningfully and uses ALL the Trek series (perhaps minus Enterprise). Not a toss in everything but the kitchen sink movie. But a movie that takes elements and people/situations from all the series and weaves them together. For a perfect example, Greg Cox's 'The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh' or his 'Q-Continuum' series. What amazed me most, aside from the good stories, was the way he referred constantly (but not overly so) to events in all the series. Why could the Enterprise in TOS not go beyond the galaxy? What was the being at the center of the galaxy that called itself God (in the execreble Final Frontier movie)? What was the * creature that thrived on violence in TOS? How are they related to Q and the Guardian of Forever (City on the Edge of Forever, TOS)? How did their actions destroy the T'Kon empire (the ones who moved stars) that Picard found in season 2? Or affect Sargon and his people who put their minds in bubbles? It goes on an on. There is an amazing breadth of continuity and sense of uniformity and reality that he gives to all those elements.
I promise you, a story that used and acknowledged elements/people/plots from all the series in a meaningful way (not stunt casting, like Generations) would revitalize the franchise. People would find it awesome, the breadth of 40 years of ST imagining all brought together. And if a series was done afterward, it would need to have (a) iron-fisted producer(s) to make sure it maintained certain criteria.
It does not need to lie fallow. It needs to be done right.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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Although I don't agree entirely with IanO's specific methods, I agree with his general premise. I think that there is plenty of material- alien, social, "historical", "scientific" to call upon and make a new movie or show both canon, exciting and awesome.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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