What would/does Rick Berman think of Picard?

[Amasov]

It's true, much of how Enterprise turned out is the result of UPN's meddling moreso than Berman and Braga's incompetence. As it is, Braga's refusal to include the shipboard boy band that would break out into a musical number each week that UPN wanted actually cost the show, with a significant portion of its budget slashed as a result. Unfortunately, there was a lot of politicking going on there with Berman and Braga essentially having to choose which battles were worth it for them to fight, and in the long run the show was going to suffer anyway. It's just a question of how bad were they going to let it suffer.

And I don't like to draw comparisons, but, sometimes I have to with the naysayers online who like to bash the Kurtzman team. I dug up a few old threads from here dated April, 2002 and specifically looked at the Enterprise forum. One particular hate thread jumped out at me from someone who was bashing Berman and Braga and accused them of not liking Star Trek. You literally could just replace their names with Kurtzman and Enterprise with Discovery and it would be the exact same complaint.

That said, it was still incredibly unprofessional and uncalled for of Berman to go off on Manny Coto the way he did. I mean I get it, he was frustrated by the very fans who were demonizing him worshipping Coto as Trek's savior when Coto had less of an uphill battle to do what he wanted with the show than Berman and Braga did. But still, none of that was Coto's fault, so heaping scorn on him in public the way Berman did wasn't going to accomplish anything.

And Coto essentially just found a better method to utilize the show's slashed budget by telling two and three part stories. So while I've seen some throughout the years refer to season four of Enterprise as 'groundbreaking', what we saw was just the result of balancing a budget. I will say it was a stronger season simply because they were telling stories that made the series feel like a prequel.

As much as people may love the Xindi story (I am not one of them), Enterprise no longer felt like a prequel at that point. I'd critique Berman and Braga for that storyline simply because we knew the outcome before the season even began. While Enterprise ceased to feel like a prequel at that point to me, the show still was a prequel, and didn't believe for one second that Earth was in any peril considering we clearly see it in all the other series set afterward.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yep, all this has happened before and it will happen again.

 

[Amasov]

Yep, all this has happened before and it will happen again.

I'm already seeing some people retroactively say that Discovery's first season was actually good when they clearly hated it at the start.

 

[Sci]

Not arguing all of these nuanced points about Berman's creative decisions, but I cannot emphasize enough how much more important his sexual harassment and abuse of women employees is more important than his creative decisions.

 

[137th Gebirg]

MOST definitely.

 

[The Wormhole]

Oh definitely. To make matters worse, Berman still seems completely unrepentant regarding the sexual harassment. When the way he treated Terry Farrell was brought up in an interview in 2016 for the franchise's fiftieth anniversary, he actually defended his actions by saying "a woman's role on TV is to look pretty."

 

[Lord Garth]

When the way he treated Terry Farrell was brought up in an interview in 2016 for the franchise's fiftieth anniversary, he actually defended his actions by saying "a woman's role on TV is to look pretty."

Rarely do I type this, so when I do it carries some weight, but: What the fuck?

This is becoming a case like with Gene Roddenberry, J.K. Rowling, and Joss Whedon, where you have to mentally separate the creators from the work. Or like how William Shatner is such an asshole on Twitter that I have to completely mentally separate him from Kirk, in order to still be able to enjoy him on TOS.

Rick Berman would've fit right in as a character on Mad Men. No wonder Gene Roddenberry didn't mind him taking over.

 

[thribs]

He would have been like Randy Orton on last night’s Raw.

 

[dupersuper]

Braga's refusal to include the shipboard boy band that would break out into a musical number each week that UPN wanted .

...Wait, what?

 

[137th Gebirg]

I don’t think it was supposed to be every week, but yeah, I remember hearing something about that. Those people were so insanely clueless back then for thinking that might have been a good idea. Honestly, though, would that really have made VOY any more or less watchable?

 

[Farscape One]

I remember hearing that, too. I'm glad we never got that. The theme music was bad enough.

Song choices like that are one of my only gripes about STARGATE UNIVERSE. The music for space based shows should be orchestral. Epic. Big. Not 'popular' emo music of the day.

FARSCAPE took a bit to find itself musically, but when it did... it worked beautifully.

I'll give SGU credit for the attempt to be different, but it just didn't feel like it was doing the show justice.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I know that Blacklist gets a lot of flak lately, and many folks think the only thing making it worth watching is Spader's Reddington, but I've always loved their music choices, especially for huge impactful scenes. They generally pick some Dark County/Outlaw Blues type of songs that I happen to listen to a lot on Pandora (one of my main stations, actually) and it adds a lot if it's done right.

If they were actually thinking of having some live boy band playing some pop song at the end of nearly every episode (no doubt supposed to be a late 20th century holodeck program by Tom Paris), that would have been the absolute pinnacle of stupidity, IMO, and their numbers likely would have tanked. I 100% agree with Berman's decision on this. Then again, the bar is set pretty low in this case, and you'd have to have someone near-braindead in charge to put that little gemstone into action on the show.

 

[Sci]

I remember hearing that, too. I'm glad we never got that. The theme music was bad enough.

Song choices like that are one of my only gripes about STARGATE UNIVERSE. The music for space based shows should be orchestral. Epic. Big. Not 'popular'

I mean, I'm glad that they didn't go with the "boy band on the NX-01" idea, but I strongly disagree with this. There's no obligation of a space opera to only use orchestral music. It's just a convention of the genre that you're more used to. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using any type of music. Any genre of music could be employed if it's done well, with thoughtfulness and emotional impact.

Not 'popular' emo music of the day.

You do realize that emo music hasn't been big for over a decade, right? Like, emo music is now considered retro. People go to emo music festivals to relieve the 2000s.

 

[The Wormhole]

If anything I should think BSG proved you could have space sci-fi without the traditional space opera style bombastic fanfares and that it works just fine. That said, SGU did makes some rather blah song choices for their montages.

 

[JoseNoodles]

Berman, to me, became someone more concerned about what Star Trek couldn't be than what it could. Also, as Sci pointed out, he had his demons.

 

[Sci]

If anything I should think BSG proved you could have space sci-fi without the traditional space opera style bombastic fanfares and that it works just fine.

Yep. And for that matter, Doctor Who has made regular use of popular music since its revival -- -- everything from "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell, to Britney Spears's "Toxic," to "Moonlight Serenade" by Glenn Miller, to "Abide With Me," to "I Can't Decide" by Scissor Sisters, to "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, to "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele, to "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran, to "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen as covered by Foxes.

Or think about how beautifully the heart break of the season six Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Tabula Rasa" was captured by their using "Goodbye to You" by Michelle Branch, or the same for the Angel season five episode "Shells," which used "A Place Called Home" by Kim Richey. The use of contemporary music can be deeply, deeply moving and effective.

 

[Qonundrum]

If anything I should think BSG proved you could have space sci-fi without the traditional space opera style bombastic fanfares and that it works just fine. That said, SGU did makes some rather blah song choices for their montages.

^^this. Strong acting and plot do far more for the core of a story than supportive elements such as the visual and audio effects. Though nobody, even in 1960, would watch aliens invade and not keep a straight face if the alien guns literally had zap effects that sounded like "pew pew". Go on, say the word "pew pew" every time someone fires a laser. It engenders a rather different effect... (That's a bit trite to use, but it's still a truism... and most sci-fi wants its audience to suspend disbelief and take it seriously. Not laugh at it.)

Yep. And for that matter, Doctor Who has made regular use of popular music since its revival -- -- everything from "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell, to Britney Spears's "Toxic," to "Moonlight Serenade" by Glenn Miller, to "Abide With Me," to "I Can't Decide" by Scissor Sisters, to "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, to "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele, to "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran, to "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen as covered by Foxes.

Or think about how beautifully the heart break of the season six Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Tabula Rasa" was captured by their using "Goodbye to You" by Michelle Branch, or the same for the Angel season five episode "Shells," which used "A Place Called Home" by Kim Richey. The use of contemporary music can be deeply, deeply moving and effective.

Or it is used because the stories have less or nothing of actual substance to offer its target audience, hence the use of bombastic music, pop culture music, and so on, for no reason other than to emphasize an artificial emotional response from the audience as a buoyed proxy. Music can be great but it's got to enhance the story first, not be it - not be the pretty shiny thing to make up for a lack of a compelling storyline and most audiences know when that's the case. If the music feels more potent on its own, and watching the story with the music turned off during the song scene, that's a giveaway that the story might not be that good. I suppose one can argue the same for that other chestnut, that of removing the laugh track from sitcoms but I digress...

I'd argue that, with "The End of the World" for starters, it didn't need to go out on a limb to use music to sell the story and characters to begin with and that one's loaded with anyone over the age of 20 could point out as using too many overdone, cliched scenes - made up for by some innovative characters and Jabe was easily the best of the bunch. (But I did giggle over the jokes aimed at the expense of 2005 society and the makers of "Toxic" and "Tainted Love", since that was the only reason for the music to be there - as the butt of jokes from Cassandra's perspective.) There are few times when adding in pop music can actually work, "Knight Rider" did it the best since it's usually over overly long lazy driving scenes to pad out the story with and it's like us in the passenger seat listening to music like how we do when we're passengers in a car someone else is driving in real life (yawn), but put a bunch of people in a room and do the same plot shtick, they're not all going to agree. But, in the end, the right balance can make any combination work...

 

[Lord Garth]

TOS Only Fan in 1990: "Today's Star Trek is so PC! It's like they yanked it by the balls!"
TNG Only Fan in 1990: "Our Star Trek is so much better than that sexist crap from the '60s!"
Rick Berman: "A woman's role is to look pretty."
Gene Roddenberry: "I still wish Troi could've had three breasts. Maybe some day... "

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I believe a lot of credit for TNG's noticeable uptick in quality season 3 is owed to Michael Piller.

This a thousand times.

Berman for the most part acted more like a production manager than an actual creative force for most of his Trek run. It was only starting with ENTERPRISE that he became more heavily involved in the writing, but that was partly due to the fact that the writing staff as smaller due to how many jumped ship after VOYAGER. Once they brought in more writers into the staff you saw his involvement become lesser in the third season, then practically nonexistent by the fourth.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

As much as people may love the Xindi story (I am not one of them), Enterprise no longer felt like a prequel at that point. I'd critique Berman and Braga for that storyline simply because we knew the outcome before the season even began. While Enterprise ceased to feel like a prequel at that point to me, the show still was a prequel, and didn't believe for one second that Earth was in any peril considering we clearly see it in all the other series set afterward.

I honestly don't get this criticism, that knowing the outcome of Earth means you can never make a riveting story. After all, we don't really brush aside period pieces just because we know the ultimate outcome of a historical event. At least for me, the drama wasn't WILL the heroes save Earth but rather HOW. Like I don't think anyone goes to a James Bond or Indiana Jones film and thinks to themselves "oh no, will they actually survive this???"