BERMAN WAS RIGHT

[Balthier the Great]

How does '93 become the year that the "effects of the '88 writers strike began to be seen?"

I don't think it does. At best you could put off the effect to 1990. For normals, the effect would come 6 months later when the shows run out of scrips. So if the strike started in Jan 1988, the scrips run low in Jul 1988, or possibly as late as november if you were stockpileing. 1993 wasn't the year the writer's strike came home to roost.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The further Trek is set in the future, the more 'unrealistc' it becomes.

Eh? DS9 was the most realistic of the Star Trek series, in terms of how it depicted human (and humanoid) nature and politics, and it had the second furthest-out setting (VOY only being set two years after that on average).

Enterprise had a GREAT concept.

True. But they went wrong right away. I could tell from the premiere episode that Archer and the gang were pretty much the same as the TNG etc type of Starfleet people. They certainly weren't "less evolved" than the people of Kirk's time, as they should have been.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Enterprise could have been a great show but it wasn't executed very well. DS9 had some great actors and great episodes but I don't really consider it Trek. It was the black sheep of the family, spent too much time de-constructing Roddenberry, it had too much religion, too much soap and frankly I think Babylon-5 did the story telling better.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Enterprise could have been a great show but it wasn't executed very well. DS9 had some great actors and great episodes but I don't really consider it Trek. It was the black sheep of the family, spent too much time de-constructing Roddenberry, it had too much religion, too much soap and frankly I think Babylon-5 did the story telling better.

Well, for me, a long time trek fan since 1968, I think DS9 is the only original TREK show since TOS. All the others are just variations of the same TOS formula. As for BAB-5? The BAB-5 arcing stories were better. But I think the stand alone character episodes DS9 kicked butt on. BAB-5 never came close.

Rob

 

[psikeyhackr]

Greetings and Salutations,

This is my 1st post. I found this by searching on DS9 vs TNG.

Let me start by saying I am a science fiction fan not a Star Trek fan. I watched TOS when it first aired. I loved it. But I recognized it a TOO 60s even then. That was the result of comparing it to sci-fi that I was reading. James T. Kirk was the Lone Ranger in space and Spock was his Uncle Tom Tom alien. It was like The Green Hornet and Kato.

The Next Generation was better though I think kids on star ships is a basically dumb idea.

I consider Deep Space 9 to be the best of the Treks but I don't have a problem with people saying it wasn't really a Trek. It was more like REAL SCIENCE FICTION than the other Treks but Babylon 5 was better overall than DS9.

I think there are two aspects of Trek that are better than B5. The first is technologically significant. There was no Scotty or Jordy type character. Now here we have a 5 mile space station with lots of ships coming and going and small fighters and fusion reactors and jump gates but and much as possible the tech people and tech jargon disappears. I can understand that as a kind of theatrical decision because Trek often went overboard with the techno-babble but it was just funny to me. I went to college for electrical engineering. When Miles O'Brien said hysteresis I knew what he was talking about even if the actor didn't. But in a way that was unrealistic for the setting.

The other thing that made Trek better was that it portrayed a human culture that had actually changed significantly from today. I am not saying that is what I think will happen or even that I want it to happen that way but people in the 24th century are going to be different from today and the human culture of B5 was too much like today. That again is a kind of theatrical decision depending on the kind of story JMS was trying to tell.

I was turned off by Enterprise because the Xendi attack seemed like too much of a 9/11 take off and practically quit watching the show until 2005. It doesn't annoy me as much now. Voyager had some good episodes but it went back to the goody two shoes Federation stuff and Tom Parris annoyed me with the 20th century nostalgia. I remember liking Flash Gordon as a kid but Captain Proton totally turned me off. Since I hate cars the idea of building a Camaro on holodeck was totally bizarre.

WWII planes could do 400+ mph but we are still supposed to love piston cars when a turbine almost won the Indy500 in 1968.

People that like real sci-fi should know real science and technology.

psik

 

[darkshadow0001]

I believe Berman was right about one aspect of Trek. The further Trek is set in the future, the more 'unrealistc' it becomes.

The beauty of TOS, and Enterprise for the matter, was that they are not really that far ahead of us in terms of time. Regular people (meaning, potential new fans) could almost put their hands around it. The people on TOS, and early parts of Enterprise, were more like us.

By the time you get to TNG, the ships and people are starting to become less tangible. ENT-D was pretty much cruise ship in space. And new show placed further in the future, 25th-26th or beyond centuries, would continue going down the wrong path, IMO.

Enterprise had a GREAT concept. That crew should have been raw for the length of the series. Toward the end they should have been 'getting' it. Watching mankind's first footsteps into an unfriendly universe, via a star ship. was a great idea.

I think I still would rather have a series set in the future. Enterprise didn't work because a prequal for Star Trek was hard to do, since there was so much established between the other series/movies. I'm not bashing Enterprise, I like some of it, but I think it's difficult to make a prequal for the reasons I just said.

As for as the crew of Enterprise and of TOS acting more like us, I think the characters on DS9 did also and even Voyager. TNG was really the only show where they had everyone try to act "perfect." I noticed that the other day after watching some old episodes. DS9 had the same concept, but that was with only humans. Since humans were not thet main focus on DS9, a lot of the characters acted like us I think. And in Voyager, I believe Janeway, Chakotey, and maybe Neelix were the only ones that tried to act "perfect." All the others seem to protray us in that series as well.

So I don't agree with you there

 

[RobertScorpio]

I believe Berman was right about one aspect of Trek. The further Trek is set in the future, the more 'unrealistc' it becomes.

The beauty of TOS, and Enterprise for the matter, was that they are not really that far ahead of us in terms of time. Regular people (meaning, potential new fans) could almost put their hands around it. The people on TOS, and early parts of Enterprise, were more like us.

By the time you get to TNG, the ships and people are starting to become less tangible. ENT-D was pretty much cruise ship in space. And new show placed further in the future, 25th-26th or beyond centuries, would continue going down the wrong path, IMO.

Enterprise had a GREAT concept. That crew should have been raw for the length of the series. Toward the end they should have been 'getting' it. Watching mankind's first footsteps into an unfriendly universe, via a star ship. was a great idea.

I think I still would rather have a series set in the future. Enterprise didn't work because a prequal for Star Trek was hard to do, since there was so much established between the other series/movies. I'm not bashing Enterprise, I like some of it, but I think it's difficult to make a prequal for the reasons I just said.

As for as the crew of Enterprise and of TOS acting more like us, I think the characters on DS9 did also and even Voyager. TNG was really the only show where they had everyone try to act "perfect." I noticed that the other day after watching some old episodes. DS9 had the same concept, but that was with only humans. Since humans were not thet main focus on DS9, a lot of the characters acted like us I think. And in Voyager, I believe Janeway, Chakotey, and maybe Neelix were the only ones that tried to act "perfect." All the others seem to protray us in that series as well.

So I don't agree with you there

DS9 and Voyager were not exactly super big ratings winners..I love DS9, but it was already clear by then that the public was tiring of Berman Trek...The general feeling out there, I think, it that they just did Star Trek to death...Nimoy believed this, Shatner did, and even Berman admitted so at the end...

And by the time Enterprise came it was done...over...as Sisko said, "too much of a good thing isn't always good."...he was right

Rob
Scorpio