Star Trek Discovery in trouble, and a de facto reboot?
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This is not news.So I logged on here to see what the progress of this show was. So, now I see there's a time line/story reboot and this takes place before the TNG.
Why can't we get a kickass that follows where DS9/Voyager left off?
So I logged on here to see what the progress of this show was. So, now I see there's a time line/story reboot and this takes place before the TNG.
Why can't we get a kickass that follows where DS9/Voyager left off?
The scars left from the last post-DS9/VOY story are still too fresh.
Many a-Trekkie still wake in a cold sweat, crying 'Dune buggies! Dune buggiiiiieeeeeesssss!'
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You mean the Argo? I thought that whole thing was Patrick Stewart's idea...
Which doesn't stop the nightmares.
And the writing. But besides the costuming, the makeup, the acting, and the writing the Ferengi were well-conceived.
(A joke, but I'll stand by it. There's hints in their first appearances of the Ferengi as a values-twisted parody of the Federation which would have been a good idea, if Star Trek were capable of light touches.)
You should really log on a bit more often if this is "news"...........So I logged on here to see what the progress of this show was. So, now I see there's a time line/story reboot and this takes place before the TNG.
Why can't we get a kickass that follows where DS9/Voyager left off?
Because fewer and fewer people watched those shows. The ratings slide began with DS9 and continued through the rest of Berman's run.
Aren't the ratings essentially flawed Though? Aren't all of them basically the best info we have, but woefully inadequate of accurate? They are Nielsen data rather than actual viewers...it's not like Netflix (where all the Trek shows have been trending and 'people are watching' for the last few months here in the UK, with Voyager and Ds9 probably showing higher in that ranking than the others even.) where you can concretely say say x numbers of people are watching. They also don't show an international number. International numbers saved Baywatch in the same time period. The idea that 'ratings' are any use on judging quality is so false in these situations.
But, they are what the networks and advertisers use to judge popularity and ad rates.
The last two years of Deep Space Nine didn't even air here in the Cincinnati market. I had to record them off of WRGT-45 out of Dayton at my mother-in-laws house.
When you used to be able to see viewer numbers, things like My Name is Earl were viewed more on Netflix than any Trek series, by a pretty large margin.
Quality and profitability are two distinct animals, they can be mutually exclusive. Look at the Transformers movies or a TV series like Arrested Development.
Though, I've got to be honest, Deep Space Nine andVoyager never hooked me.
I think it would be unwise to continue a timeline and style that led to "franchise fatigue" in the first place. Although I have great affection for the TNG/DS9/VOY period of Trek, I can get my Berman-era batteries recharged by reading the novels.
The BEST period of Trek history for story mining is the TOS era, or shortly before or after the TOS era.
The BEST period of Trek history for story mining is the TOS era, or shortly before or after the TOS era.
The best stories are based on stand-alone science fiction stories, which TOS did a lot of. Franchise fatigue, in my opinion, came as a result of writers getting lazy and writing entire seasons dedicated to a war, dragging it out and essentially leaving the SciFi aspect of the show as a mere backdrop, while ST is at its best when science fiction is at the core of the story.
And since all of Star Trek takes place so far into the future, you can make for an interesting story in any point of time along its timeline. But I guess they would be more daring in the post-Voyager era, so that would be better, I suppose.
And since all of Star Trek takes place so far into the future, you can make for an interesting story in any point of time along its timeline. But I guess they would be more daring in the post-Voyager era, so that would be better, I suppose.
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That's an interesting point...and something I didn't know about Voyager until I came back to watching it recently (I drifted off in about 1998 for various reasons...) is that Voyager probably has a greater number of pure scifi stories than even TOS. Ds9 is still SF...just slightly different SF to what you describe, and over a longer arc.
Star Trek waned because it became formulaic and afraid of change. I've read a couple of reviews that cite a Voyager episode as the place were Star Trek began its downward slide because it became all about the formula, and a fear of changing that formula that had brought a lot of success with TNG.
Couple that with a changing TV market, more competition, and several other factors, and it would equal "franchise fatigue." Why go back to the same old thing, when some thing new is out there to explore?
Except that ratings started to wane with DS9, which was a radical departure from previous Trek.
The problem with the argument that Trek began to fail because of a lack of change is that DS9 is when the franchise began to falter in the ratings, not Voyager, and DS9 was the one show that did branch off into a different direction as well as having the strongest writing staff in the franchise.
It's definitely part of the problem, with Voy and ENT following the TNG formula over and over but it's not the only problem. Plenty of TV still was episodic and formulaic during the 90's and 2000's (and today) and yet they are massively ratings success.
It's definitely part of the problem, with Voy and ENT following the TNG formula over and over but it's not the only problem. Plenty of TV still was episodic and formulaic during the 90's and 2000's (and today) and yet they are massively ratings success.
Yeah, I really don't think there's nothing wrong with the basic premise of having a ship to boldly go and encounter strange shit every week. At least in ENT I felt that the weakest part was the attempt at multi-episodic arcs which were boring and mostly stupid.
Exactly, the best episodes were stand alones, good old fashioned science fiction. The Unexpected, Dear Doctor and Civilization being examples of good (in my opinion) episodes, basically short sci-fi stories.
If 50% of DSC is going to be these sort of episodes, I'll be a happy camper, and if more, I'll be ecstatic.
Which feeds in to other data points, like competition, and the like. I should clarify that I don't think the only reason Star Trek waned was because of the formula, but that it was one of several factors that ultimately led to what has been called "franchise fatigue". As you pointed out, DS9 changed everything and still suffered from dwindling ratings.
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