Was a Rick Berman a bad choice to run the Star Trek Franchise after Gene Roddenberry died?

[Armus]

Anyone else agree with me in that TNG really began after Piller joined the crew?

Well that would seem to dismiss some nifty episodes like Heart Of Glory, A Matter Of Honor, and Q Who.

Piller did bring a lot to TNG when he beamed aboard, and the man gave us DS9.

 

[JesterFace]

Well that would seem to dismiss some nifty episodes like Heart Of Glory, A Matter Of Honor, and Q Who.

It's true that there are some great episodes in the first two seasons like 'The Measure of a Man' and 'Q Who'.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

The best Trek in my opinion was the one that Berman had the least do with, DS9. TNG and Voyager never lived up to their full potential under Berman's conservative gaze. Enterprise got half-decent once he removed himself from the writers room.

 

[BigDaveX]

What about Michael Piller? He had a lot to do with Rick Berman.
Is it a completely newb question to ask why he wasn't chosen to take over after Gene? Or was he asked and he declined?
Honestly, I don't know.
I should know, but it turns out I don't.

If anyone other than Berman had been asked to take over from Roddenberry, it would likely have been Maurice Hurley, who was showrunner for the latter third or so of Season 1 and then all of Season 2. However, he was feeling pretty burned out on Trek and feuding with Roddenberry by the end of the latter season, and so quit.

Ironically, had Hurley hung in there for another season then odds are he would have ended up as the person in control of the franchise - or at least would have been equal in rank to Berman rather than subordinate to him, as Piller and the various subsequent showrunners were - when Roddenberry became to ill to have any active role in the day-to-day running of the show. Not to say things would have turned out better in that scenario mind you, but it's interesting to speculate.

 

[plynch]

OP: "Bad choice"? "Bad" is not too meaningful.

Let's see. (I'm not a huge TNG fan or Berman-lover, btw.) TNG became much better, more character-oriented, and became "Star Trek" to millions. (Perhaps more people overall, alas, than the original cohort for whom TOS IS Trek.)

TNG then produced a great spin-off, DS9, which RB at least somewhat oversaw.

TNG produced a good spin-off (imho), VOY, with the first female captain, a REALLY big deal at the time (and to my daughter). Berman also oversaw that at least somewhat.

TNG produced a meh spinoff.

TNG movies, all decent to good (according to me), one of which is generally beloved.

Verdict: "Bad choice"? No.

 

[Dukhat]

The best Trek in my opinion was the one that Berman had the least do with, DS9. TNG and Voyager never lived up to their full potential under Berman's conservative gaze. Enterprise got half-decent once he removed himself from the writers room.

But that’s not exactly true. Berman wasn’t ‘conservative.’ That was UPN. And the only reason Manny Coto was able to do the things he did was that by that time, UPN had given up on the show and didn’t care what Coto did. The entire 4th season of ENT under Coto only exists because UPN needed a certain amount of episodes to sell the show to syndication, and three seasons wasn’t enough. If it had been, UPN would have cancelled ENT and Coto would never have had the chance to shine.

 

[BigDaveX]

I think Berman's biggest strength as a producer also ended up being his biggest weakness - namely his insistence on staying true to Roddenberry's ideals for the franchise. It worked at first, because with TNG Roddenberry had set up a formula that had the potential to work, but between having spent so many years out of television production, his health, and Leonard Maizlish, wasn't able to make it work in practice.

Berman managed to carry Roddenberry's vision through to execution with help from Hurley at first and then Piller later on, and even managed to help create a fresh spin on said vision with DS9 (even if it was the likes of Ira Steven Behr and Ronald D. Moore who helped that show reach its full potential). With Voyager, however, Berman doubled down on the Roddenberry formula a little too hard - and then did it again with Enterprise, only this time his attempt at making the characters feel more "realistic" was to have Archer constantly act like a racist douche towards Vulcans, and then bizarrely try to justify Archer's behaviour by having the Vulcans constantly acting like total dicks - and while the result was a slow bleeding away of the audience rather than immediate disaster, it doomed the franchise in the longer run.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

But that’s not exactly true. Berman wasn’t ‘conservative.’ That was UPN. And the only reason Manny Coto was able to do the things he did was that by that time, UPN had given up on the show and didn’t care what Coto did. The entire 4th season of ENT under Coto only exists because UPN needed a certain amount of episodes to sell the show to syndication, and three seasons wasn’t enough. If it had been, UPN would have cancelled ENT and Coto would never have had the chance to shine.

Yes the man who hated music, didn't want gays in the franchise and treated female actors like second class citizens wasn't conservative at all

 

[Dukhat]

Yes the man who hated music, didn't want gays in the franchise and treated female actors like second class citizens wasn't conservative at all

Source?

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Source?

He fired TNG's first composer because he wanted the music to basically be sonic wallpaper. TNG had no gay characters at time when shows like Dynasty and L.A Law and the Golden Girls all featured Gay characters. Kate Mulgrew is on record as having asked Rick Berman repeatedly for a gay character and his response was 'in due time'. Like, Holy fuck, Mulgrew asked him in 2002. Even by that time Gay characters were old news in television. In regards to women, Terry Farrell has been pretty outspoken about her treatment by Berman. All of this is pretty common knowledge, maybe look it up for yourself.

 

[Dukhat]

He fired TNG's first composer because he wanted the music to basically be sonic wallpaper. TNG had no gay characters at time when shows like Dynasty and L.A Law and the Golden Girls all featured Gay characters. Kate Mulgrew is on record as having asked Rick Berman repeatedly for a gay character and his response was 'in due time'. Like, Holy fuck, Mulgrew asked him in 2002. Even by that time Gay characters were old news in television. In regards to women, Terry Farrell has been pretty outspoken about her treatment by Berman. All of this is pretty common knowledge, maybe look it up for yourself.

No, you brought it up so the burden of proof is on you. Give me actual sources, not hearsay.

 

[JLBTucker]

Well everyone forgets Berman was not Gene's imdeate successor there was Trek between TOS and TNG (I know gene did some work in the TNG era im talking about runners in general)

 

[JLBTucker]

Ok something rare, time for a nuanced take on this. Gene bless the man had problems and the first two seasons of TNG were not very good. Berman took over and it good and gained steam and became the beloved TNG era today thinks in part to him. That being said he was also a dick and also the reason why voyager and a lot of enterprise was not good alot of the time. So we need to set back relax and like Trek can we do that?

 

[Agony_Boothb]

No, you brought it up so the burden of proof is on you. Give me actual sources, not hearsay.

Regarding Ron Jones:
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/28/interview-ron-jones-on-his-suicide-mission-to-compose-emotion-for-star-trek-the-next-generation/
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/notes/box05_disc01.html - goes into a bit more detail about what it was like for Jones to work on TNG with Berman. Interestign to note that he was getting conflicting feedback from Robert Justman (who loved jones's scoring) and Rick berman (who evidently hated jones's scoring. Also has some quotes from Dennis McCarthy where he mentions that he thought that he was going to get fired for one of his scores.

Regarding Berman and Homosexuality:
https://trekmovie.com/2014/09/12/ex...nflicts-with-roddenberry-berman-jj-trek-more/
Here is a quote from Ronald D. Moore where he makes it clear that it wasn't paramount preventing Gays in Trek:
n a 2000 Fandom interview, Ron D. Moore suggested (from Wikipedia):

"Tell me why there are no gay characters in Star Trek. This is one of those uncomfortable questions I hate getting when I was working on the show, because there is no good answer for it. There is no answer for it other than people in charge don’t want gay characters in Star Trek, period... That’s one of the great things about Paramount. Paramount left us alone. They always left us alone. They let Next Gen do whatever it wanted. God knows it let Deep Space Nine do whatever we wanted. It lets Voyager do whatever it wants. The studio is not the problem here. The studio is going to let you go wherever you want to go, as long as they believe that this is quality, as long as they believe it’s good work. You’ve just got to come up with something good."

Here's the Mulgrew quote I mentioned:
That same year Mulgrew stated in an August 2002 interview for Out in America:

Well, one would think that Hollywood would be more open-minded at this point, since essentially the whole town is run by the gay community. It makes very little sense if you think about it. No, Star Trek is very strangely by the book in this regard. Rick Berman, who is a very sagacious man, has been very firm about certain things. I've approached him many, many times over the years about getting a gay character on the show--one whom we could really love, not just a guest star. Y'know, we had blacks, Asians, we even had a handicapped character--and so I thought, this is now beginning to look a bit absurd. And he said, "In due time." And so, I'm suspecting that on Enterprise they will do something to this effect. I couldn't get it done on mine. And I am sorry for that

In regards to Terry Farrell:
This is from the book 'The Fifty Year Mission':
https://books.google.com.au/books?i...q=terry farrell rick berman bust size&f=false

 

[Forbin]

Yes the man who hated music, didn't want gays in the franchise and treated female actors like second class citizens wasn't conservative at all

He didn't mean politically conservative for heaven's sake, he meant conservative as in cautious, not wanting to take chances with the show, keep things bland. But thanks for throwing some political stereotype rage around.

 

[JLBTucker]

Ok im unwatching this dumbetsre fire

 

[Armus]

Regarding Ron Jones:
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/28/interview-ron-jones-on-his-suicide-mission-to-compose-emotion-for-star-trek-the-next-generation/
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/notes/box05_disc01.html - goes into a bit more detail about what it was like for Jones to work on TNG with Berman. Interestign to note that he was getting conflicting feedback from Robert Justman (who loved jones's scoring) and Rick berman (who evidently hated jones's scoring. Also has some quotes from Dennis McCarthy where he mentions that he thought that he was going to get fired for one of his scores.
ng to let you go wherever you want to go, as long as they believe that this is quality, as long as they believe it’s good work. You’ve just got to come up with something good."

Berman's tin ear is something that really hurt both TNG and DS9 in the 1990's. Dennis McCarthy managed to compose some great scores once and awhile but he never was allowed to compose the sublime themes he composed during the first season of TNG. I think the last time he used his Picard theme was in Yesterday's Enterprise.

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[Dukhat]

Regarding Ron Jones:
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/28/interview-ron-jones-on-his-suicide-mission-to-compose-emotion-for-star-trek-the-next-generation/
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/notes/box05_disc01.html - goes into a bit more detail about what it was like for Jones to work on TNG with Berman. Interestign to note that he was getting conflicting feedback from Robert Justman (who loved jones's scoring) and Rick berman (who evidently hated jones's scoring. Also has some quotes from Dennis McCarthy where he mentions that he thought that he was going to get fired for one of his scores.

Regarding Berman and Homosexuality:
https://trekmovie.com/2014/09/12/ex...nflicts-with-roddenberry-berman-jj-trek-more/
Here is a quote from Ronald D. Moore where he makes it clear that it wasn't paramount preventing Gays in Trek:
n a 2000 Fandom interview, Ron D. Moore suggested (from Wikipedia):

"Tell me why there are no gay characters in Star Trek. This is one of those uncomfortable questions I hate getting when I was working on the show, because there is no good answer for it. There is no answer for it other than people in charge don’t want gay characters in Star Trek, period... That’s one of the great things about Paramount. Paramount left us alone. They always left us alone. They let Next Gen do whatever it wanted. God knows it let Deep Space Nine do whatever we wanted. It lets Voyager do whatever it wants. The studio is not the problem here. The studio is going to let you go wherever you want to go, as long as they believe that this is quality, as long as they believe it’s good work. You’ve just got to come up with something good."

Here's the Mulgrew quote I mentioned:
That same year Mulgrew stated in an August 2002 interview for Out in America:

Well, one would think that Hollywood would be more open-minded at this point, since essentially the whole town is run by the gay community. It makes very little sense if you think about it. No, Star Trek is very strangely by the book in this regard. Rick Berman, who is a very sagacious man, has been very firm about certain things. I've approached him many, many times over the years about getting a gay character on the show--one whom we could really love, not just a guest star. Y'know, we had blacks, Asians, we even had a handicapped character--and so I thought, this is now beginning to look a bit absurd. And he said, "In due time." And so, I'm suspecting that on Enterprise they will do something to this effect. I couldn't get it done on mine. And I am sorry for that

In regards to Terry Farrell:
This is from the book 'The Fifty Year Mission':
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=wzuKCwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA519&ots=3yhs-SBV-h&dq=terry farrell rick berman bust size&pg=PA519#v=onepage&q=terry farrell rick berman bust size&f=false

Berman was Farrell and Mulgrew’s boss, but Berman’s boss was UPN. And UPN continually hamstrung him and asserted their creative control. We have no idea how Berman really felt about homosexuality, only that it rarely appeared in the shows. But they certainly did at times (mostly in DS9.) Him saying ‘we’ll see’ would apply to lots of things Trek wasn’t doing at the time because of UPN’s nature for their Trek shows to be episodic and risk-averse.

My point: I’m sure Berman wasn’t an innocent angel, but if you’re going to put the man down, know the facts about the company he was working for before crucifying him.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Berman was Farrell and Mulgrew’s boss, but Berman’s boss was UPN. And UPN continually hamstrung him and asserted their creative control. We have no idea how Berman really felt about homosexuality, only that it rarely appeared in the shows. But they certainly did at times (mostly in DS9.) Him saying ‘we’ll see’ would apply to lots of things Trek wasn’t doing at the time because of UPN’s nature for their Trek shows to be episodic and risk-averse.

My point: I’m sure Berman wasn’t an innocent angel, but if you’re going to put the man down, know the facts about the company he was working for before crucifying him.

I think passing the buck to UPN for bermans behaviour is a cop out. I've never been OK with 'he was just following orders' line of reasoning. A gay character was pushed from almost the beginning of TNG it was berman who put a stop to it because in words attributed to him tng aired at 4pm in some places. UPN can't be used as an excuse for his poor treatment of women either. He was a good businessman and his contribution to trek deserves recognition, but he could also be a very shit person who made some bad decisions and treated people under him poorly. I think that needs to be acknowledged as well and not glossed over

 

[Agony_Boothb]

He didn't mean politically conservative for heaven's sake, he meant conservative as in cautious, not wanting to take chances with the show, keep things bland. But thanks for throwing some political stereotype rage around.

My comment had nothing to do with politics. I'm talking about bermans generally Conservative meat and three veg attitude towards everything. Whether it be gays or music his decisions were based on a philosophy of conservatism and maintaining the status quo.

 

[Dukhat]

A gay character was pushed from almost the beginning of TNG it was berman who put a stop to it because in words attributed to him tng aired at 4pm in some places.

How many late-‘80’s/early ‘90’s TV shows were there that had a gay character as a member of the primary cast, or any other gay character that wasn’t a ridiculous stereotype?