Rick Berman, Branon Braga and TOS

[F. King Daniel]

Since as long as I've been online, it's been part of the "lore" that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga had never seen all of The Original Series when Star Trek: Enterprise launched in 2001. Supposedly this comes from an interview, but does anyone know which one and have a link? Does this rumour have a source, or is it nonsense from someone who didn't like their version of Trek's past?

 

[somebuddyX]

Ron Moore talks about it a bit in this interview from some point pre-Enterprise.
"I think that is really hard for Rick and Brannon. It’s hard for them to do that, because they don’t like the original show. Let’s not mince words. They don’t like the original show. They have never liked the original show. They’ll bob and weave a bit here and there in public. But they don’t like it; they don’t want to have anything to do with it. If you are going to go before the original series and do something, you better have a change of attitude. You better have an epiphany about how much you love the original series. It’s all going to be about leading up to that."
I guess it's not actually saying they haven't ever watched all of it, though.
Reading the text version with it's lack of formatting might make people's eyes bleed but I made a text-to-speech version to listen to in the car last year, if anyone's interested. I don't agree with everything he says but I really like hearing his unfiltered thoughts on where Trek was back then.

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[Tosk]

Yeah, I’ve taken a lashing from the fans, but just for the record, here’s how that started...I think there was a period about eight years ago when I made some stupid comments, in one or two interviews, about never having seen an episode of the original series, which was true. And in fact, when I first started here, when Gene Roddenberry was still alive, he said to me, ‘Don’t watch the original series. If you haven’t seen it, don’t watch.’

And I (asked) why? And he said, ‘Because you will bring something fresh to the table’ — because he was very adamant that (TNG) not be the original series, and not redo anything. So I was like, ‘Fine.’

Well, of course, now — eight years later — I have seen most of them, and I’ve always had a great affection for it, and I know it very, very well. And I know what people like about it. So when it came to certain details of this show (ENT), there were lots of original series details that came from me.

- Braga, 2001.

 

[Sci]

I don't quite agree with Moore on that to be honest. I don't think you have to be a fan of TOS per se to do a TOS prequel. Nicholas Meyer was not a fan of TOS when he wrote and directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, one of the greatest TOS stories ever made. I do think you have to be able to understand and appreciate TOS if you're doing a TOS prequel, which was something Meyer was able to do even if the show was not his personal fandom. I'm not clear if Berman and Braga were able to do that with TOS or not. But I also think a lack of fandom was not the problem with their writing on ENT; the problem with their writing on ENT was that they were obviously burnt out and having a lot of trouble coming up with original starship adventure stories that creatively energized them.

 

[Finn]

So?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone associated with the Star Wars prequels who actually never had seen the original triology

 

[Lord Garth]

Cutting and pasting from an article on from Memory Alpha that sheds further light on Brannon Braga's lack of familiarity with TOS.

-- cutting and pasting --

Mike Sussman was instrumental in establishing which species founded the Federation. "My phone rings and Brannon [Braga] says, 'Mike, real quick – who are the founding species of the Federation?' What flipped through my mind," recalled Sussman, "was that it had never been established, but there had been a lot of fan speculation going back to 'Journey to Babel' that many of those races – the Tellarites, the Andorians and the little gold guys – were among the founding members. For that quarter of a second I'm thinking, 'What do I tell him? If I say it's never been decided he might make up a couple of new races and that might set certain people off'. So I basically lied to him and said 'Oh yeah, it's Andorians and Tellarites.' He put it in the script and now it's canon!" (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 37, p. 15)

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I don't think B&B liked TOS but, at the same time, I don't think they outright hated it. I think they were probably just annoyed that they had to check back to this other version of Star Trek they had nothing to do with, especially when they'd been encouraged by Gene Roddenberry to think the version they were making was better. And they probably didn't like that no matter how much Star Trek they made, most people thought of TOS when they thought of Star Trek and everything else was "everything else", except for TNG for a while in the '90s.

 

[Dukhat]

Berman and Braga certainly aren't innocent angels, but I also feel that they get unfairly blamed for a lot of stuff that wasn't actually their fault. When they were hired to work on TNG, I doubt there was a clause in their contract stating that they had to watch all of TOS to understand their job. Why would they? TNG took place 100 years later, and by the time they were in the business, TNG was its own thing; it no longer needed TOS to help it stand on its own. And as for Roddenberry telling Braga not to watch TOS when the latter was writing for TNG? Makes perfect sense to me. Gene was trying to distance TOS ever since TMP; it stands to reason that he wouldn't want new TNG writers to feel beholden to it. So when ENT comes along and Braga is now an executive producer, he basically knows nothing about TOS even though he's in charge of making a prequel to it (a prequel, that is, that takes place 100 years before it, just like TNG took place 100 years after it.)

The problem, of course, was that a lot of the viewing audience for ENT did see TOS, and saw it a lot. And had (possibly unrealistic) expectations about what a prequel to TOS should look like. It also didn't help that ENT used many of the same writers and production values from VOY, a show that took place 200 years after ENT. So we end up with a show that looks and feels far more advanced than the show it was meant to be a prequel to.

 

[Phil123]

I’d say it’s more in the art and production design that it didn’t feel like a prequel. But - it did feel like a prequel to all the Berman era Trek shows and our future as the world was in the early 2000s.

TOS was always supposed to be our future, something that becomes harder to accept as we move forward. No slight on TOS - I adore it, just a lowish budget 1960s show is obviously not going have that realistic of a 23rd century look by the standards of the early 21st.

It’s still amazing tough. TOS at its best is sci-fi fable perfection.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Ron Moore talks about it a bit in this interview from some point pre-Enterprise.
"I think that is really hard for Rick and Brannon. It’s hard for them to do that, because they don’t like the original show. Let’s not mince words. They don’t like the original show. They have never liked the original show. They’ll bob and weave a bit here and there in public. But they don’t like it; they don’t want to have anything to do with it. If you are going to go before the original series and do something, you better have a change of attitude. You better have an epiphany about how much you love the original series. It’s all going to be about leading up to that."
I guess it's not actually saying they haven't ever watched all of it, though.
Reading the text version with it's lack of formatting might make people's eyes bleed but I made a text-to-speech version to listen to in the car last year, if anyone's interested. I don't agree with everything he says but I really like hearing his unfiltered thoughts on where Trek was back then.

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Ah, so it pre-dates ENT!

- Braga, 2001.

Being told not to watch TOS and then doing it anyway is kinda funny.

So?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone associated with the Star Wars prequels who actually never had seen the original triology

Associated with? Of course. Creating and writing them? Of course not. You don't need an encyclopedic knowledge, but familiarity is essential.

 

[Whizkid]

I agree w the comments above. Berman-Braga were never as involved in ST as EWR. BUT.

TNG nonetheless happened. One of the best reconceptions of what ST could be. Then, DS9! Outstanding! To overshadow Patrick Stewart requires a little bit of training at least. Avery Brooks had that. Not to mention Nana Visitor or Armin Shimmerman.

Now. "Enterprise." For the first 2 seasons it wanted to distance itself from "Star Trek." God knows why. Ratings dropped, Scott Bakula, Jonathan Archer, had NO CHARISMA as a captain. Unlike Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, even Burnham, and Georgiou. He was just the worst thing about Star Trek (he's a good actor and a great guy, but still).

So. No wonder. It's neither rumor nor nonsense. But, something in between.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I can't imagine that those who created the latest iteration of Lost in Space had all seen every episode of the original. I can easily imagine some of them thought it's hokey because at times it is. Same for TOS from B&Bs point of view I guess.

 

[Phil123]

@wizkid I love Archer haha! He’s the best part of Enterprise for me. Him and Soval. But each to their own of course.

 

[Sci]

TNG nonetheless happened. One of the best reconceptions of what ST could be. Then, DS9!

To be clear, Berman and Braga didn't create TNG and Braga never worked on DS9. Berman was a studio executive who came on to executive producer TNG alongside Gene Roddenberry when it was created, and wrote the occasional episode, but he was more a production guy than a writer or creator on TNG. Braga got his start as an intern well into TNG's run.

Now. "Enterprise." For the first 2 seasons it wanted to distance itself from "Star Trek."

I don't really agree with that assertion. Berman & Braga and UPN certainly wanted to try to expand the potential fanbase for ENT beyond the core ST audience and to establish some creative differences from the rest of the franchise -- hence things like dropping the name "Star Trek" from the title and putting in a contemporary pop song as the main title theme song -- but for the most part ENT Seasons One and Two feel trapped in a very late-80s/early-90s style of writing and very trapped in the Star Trek formula. ENT S1-2 feel like they're spending all their time imitating TNG.

I can't imagine that those who created the latest iteration of Lost in Space had all seen every episode of the original.

Why do you say that? I mean, I've never seen either version of Lost in Space, but I can easily imagine somebody being very familiar with one version of a property but wanting to do a very different version when given the chance. One example: the creators of Batman: The Animated Series were big fans of the Adam West Batman (even casting West in a guest starring role), but B:TAS is a completely different version of the Batman mythos than the West version.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I can't imagine that those who created the latest iteration of Lost in Space had all seen every episode of the original. I can easily imagine some of them thought it's hokey because at times it is. Same for TOS from B&Bs point of view I guess.

For a ground-up reboot you don't need to have seen all of the original. For a prequel in the same continuity, about the "first" version of the Enterprise meeting all the Trek aliens and doing all the Trek things before Kirk, I'd say it's important.

Like I wouldn't expect someone involved in Prodigy to have seen all 800+ episodes of Star Trek, but I would expect them to have seen all of Voyager since the show is following up on characters and technologies in that show.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Why do you say that? I

Just an example of the top of my head. No particular reason and likely you’re right.

Like I wouldn't expect someone involved in Prodigy to have seen all 800+ episodes of Star Trek, but I would expect them to have seen all of Voyager since the show is following up on characters and technologies in that show.

I think that’s unreasonable. I’d expect them to at least watch key episodes of Voyager to understand what it was all about, but there are great swathes of episodes they’d learn nothing from.

I do agree by the way that if B&B wanted to do a prequel, they should have got on the horse and put themselves through some TOS. Again though, I don’t think all 79 are a requirement. Probably 20 or so. The likes of Journey to Babel, Balance of Terror or Amok Time are instructive. Spock’s Brain, And The Children Shall Lead or The Way to Eden, less so.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Just an example of the top of my head. No particular reason and likely you’re right.



I think that’s unreasonable. I’d expect them to at least watch key episodes of Voyager to understand what it was all about, but there are great swathes of episodes they’d learn nothing from.

What about when they make an episode where Janeway hates pineapple on pizza because they missed the Voyager episode where she says it's her favourite thing ever?

I do agree by the way that if B&B wanted to do a prequel, they should have got on the horse and put themselves through some TOS. Again though, I don’t think all 79 are a requirement. Probably 20 or so. The likes of Journey to Babel, Balance of Terror or Amok Time are instructive. Spock’s Brain, And The Children Shall Lead or The Way to Eden, less so.

Perhaps if they watched them all we wouldn't have had stuff like Suliban and Romulans cloaking their ships and an entire minefield a century before it's "theoretically possible" in TOS.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

What about when they make an episode where Janeway hates pineapple on pizza because they missed the Voyager episode where she says it's her favourite thing ever?

Perhaps if they watched them all we wouldn't have had stuff like Suliban and Romulans cloaking their ships and an entire minefield a century before it's "theoretically possible" in TOS.

In both cases this is where having some kind of professional fan advisor would be helpful. ‘Continuity Consultant’ or some such.

Or for that matter, that’s what series bibles exist for.

Like I said, key episodes. But what would a Prodigy producer take away from episodes like Spirit Folk or Threshold? Would Enterprise be a better show if Brannon/Berman watched Turnabout Intruder?

There’s reasons I as a fan could enjoy any of the above, but I don’t think they are required viewing to understand either show. Expecting anyone to sit through the entirety of Voyager in order to write for a show tangentially related to it borders on masochism.

Edit - I’m sure by the way that In Season 1 of Enterprise we find out Reed hates eating fish, then in an episode from the same Season he has a choice of foods and opts for fish. It’s fair to say by that point Brannon and Berman couldn’t even keep their own continuity and character details straight…

 

[Whizkid]

What about when they make an episode where Janeway hates pineapple on pizza because they missed the Voyager episode where she says it's her favourite thing ever?

Perhaps if they watched them all we wouldn't have had stuff like Suliban and Romulans cloaking their ships and an entire minefield a century before it's "theoretically possible" in TOS.

Lol. Pineapple and Janeway. Hilarious! The Suliban are a tired metaphor for ST trying to resurrect itself. But I do like the Romulans (even more than the Klingons). As Alpha Quadrant's best friend and worst enemy.

 

[Whizkid]

Why don't we compile a list of key episodes?

 

[Richard S. Ta]

To ‘get’ TOS from a flavour point of view I’d pick:

The Cage
The Man Trap
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Naked Time
The Corbomite Manoeuvre
Balance of Terror
Arena
Space Seed
The Devil in the Dark
The City on the Edge of Forever
Amok Time
Mirror Mirror
Journey to Babel
The Trouble with Tribbles
The Doomsday Machine
Obsession
The Tholian Web
The Empath
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

More than enough to get a flavour of TOS and more than enough to get an idea of the breadth of different stories Star Trek can do. Of course, like I said, you’d hire an advisor for continuity, but the above is my (tentative) list of ‘must see’ episodes if you want to get a handle on the characters and the kinds of situations they had to deal with.

Edit - Someone else can try Voyager.