Michael Burnham did run around the ship in a bubble wrap bikini in the very first episode. Then there was the visit to the Orion District at the end of the season...
They've been good since, though.
Was a Rick Berman a bad choice to run the Star Trek Franchise after Gene Roddenberry died?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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They've been good since, though.
Except for the Admiral McCoy scene. That would redeem almost any subpar episode.
Evil admirals.
Leonard let the side down.
Imagine if McCoy looked at the situation, and decided that this untested crew with a child Captain barely 6 decades old, just was plain not fricking ready to fight a god, and he assumed command of the Enterprise during the episode: Encounter at Farpoint.
Leonard let the side down.
Imagine if McCoy looked at the situation, and decided that this untested crew with a child Captain barely 6 decades old, just was plain not fricking ready to fight a god, and he assumed command of the Enterprise during the episode: Encounter at Farpoint.
The franchise did quite well under him. I never looked into him that deeply. But I've heard and seen plenty Gene did that was harmful. Just look at The Cage, TMP, and the first 2 seasons of TNG. Collaboration saved Star Trek every time from how it could have nose dived if left exactly how he wanted it. So I don't know. Maybe Berman wasn't a nice guy to somebody, but Star Trek did great for at least a decade under him.
How were "The Cage(TOS)" and TMP "harmful" other than some fans don't like them? I'll rewatch those in an endless loop over most of the first season of TNG.
"The Cage" had that whole weird "maybe I'll become a slave trader" thing, but that's all I can think of.
And even that can be excused as Pike's "dick phase" combined with the stress following a major landing party disaster that cost the lives of some of his crew.
I suppose a case can be made regarding TMP since Roddenberry was removed from authority over the other movies because of it, but The Cage? It won a Hugo for Fuck sakes. Well, okay, the Hugo actually went to The Menagerie, but let's be honest, that's pretty much just The Cage anyway. How does this damage the franchise?
In fact, it's one of only four episodes in the entire franchise to win a Hugo (the other three being City on the Edge of Forever, The Inner Light, and All Good Things). Did those episodes also damage the franchise?
In fact, it's one of only four episodes in the entire franchise to win a Hugo (the other three being City on the Edge of Forever, The Inner Light, and All Good Things). Did those episodes also damage the franchise?
Well stated. Certainly, Rick Berman made some unpopular decisions (and at least one that was just downright DUMB). But, the Trek resurgence that began with TNG lasted 18 years and four TV series, and kept the iron hot for the Kelvin movies and five more series either active or imminent. There's something to be said for results.
Roddenberry said a lot, I don't believe most of it. On TOS Uhura and Sulu were on the bridge because NBC requested the inclusion of minorities not because Roddenberry was enlightened so why should I believe Roddenberry wanted gay characters when he never delivered while he was running TNG?
Indeed, yes. First season of TNG kept me far away from that show for years, due to the weird way it was presented. "TMP", while not my favorite, certainly didn't cause harm, and neither did "The Cage."
The spirit of TOS is evident in both "The Cage" and TMP. Season 1 of TNG, on the other hand, feels like 1987's take on TOS with far worse stories and less-interesting lead characters.
It often makes me grateful that TOS stopped where it did, otherwise it might have evolved into some of what we saw in the early TNG era, with a lot of self-congratulatory "evolved humanity" pretense that would have killed a lot of the cool pioneering cowboy adventure vibe that I loved so much.
Season 3 had enough episodes that angered the actors because of how they strayed from the established behaviors for their characters and the level of script quality by late 1968 was - let's just say - uneven at best. The final season has some real gems I'll always love and defend but wow, when it got bad it was TERRIBLE.
Rick Berman produced multiple series that were on budget, on time, and for the most part were highly acclaimed. His movie record was not as good, but he had a very successful run. We have to realize that many of his decisions were not his, as he had directive from Paramount and later on, unfortunately, UPN, that he had to abide by. He allowed cast members to direct, and for the most part we've rarely heard of any "toxic work environ" complaints. When TNG began, Berman was saddled with Roddenberry's ridiculously narrow "vision of the future." He expanded that, and good grief can you imagine if Maurice Hurley had been the "guy" instead? Trek would have been dead 30 years ago. Berman saw the potential in Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor.
Now perhaps his views on LGBT stories, and his preference for certain women's costuming were old hat, but that's just how TV was done in the 90s. He did have an overwhelming interest in killing characters off in movies, but for the most part Berman was great at keeping the ship on course.
Now perhaps his views on LGBT stories, and his preference for certain women's costuming were old hat, but that's just how TV was done in the 90s. He did have an overwhelming interest in killing characters off in movies, but for the most part Berman was great at keeping the ship on course.
If TOS had continued, then it would have been under the auspices of Fred Freiberger and Margaret Armen, the latter of whom was apparently being lined up to take over the script editor's job from Arthur Singer for the hypothetical Season 4.
I doubt they'd have gone down the same kind of "utopian futurist" direction that Roddenberry's later writings did, but I wouldn't like to think exactly what directions they would have taken TOS S4 in.
In the 90s, perhaps. The problem was that Berman kept with that approach until the mid-2000s. And he kept with too many other things that made sense in TNG and early Voyager, but had become less so for late-era Voyager and then Enterprise.
Good point. And, honestly, I didn't mind Freiberger's take on TOS. It was different, but I kind of liked it for that reason.
I read somewhere that anti-gay pushback gathered steam in the first half of the '00's (remember, the sodomy laws in 13 states didn't get repealed until 2003, and it was at the will of the USSC, not of the voters). Berman and his colleagues might have been nervous due to that. It is strange that TNG had "The Outcast", an unabashedly pro-LGBTQ episode, and DS9 had Dax's girl-on-girl kissing, and then Voyager and Enterprise had... nothing.
Sigh This nonsense about "the television industry was still homophobic in the 1990s and that's why 90s Trek couldn't do gay characters" is exactly that - nonsense. Plenty of 90s shows had gay characters in them, among them Will and Grace, which featured a gay titular lead character, and that premiered in 1998, when DS9 was in its final season and Voyager in its fifth. There was definitely no reason there couldn't be any gay characters from that point on to when the Berman era ended in 2005. Hell, Enterprise's finale aired just one week before Doctor Who introduced its first LGBTQ+ main character.
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