Brannon Braga or Kenneth Biller?

[HoneyBLilly]

No, this isn't a "let's bash Braga thread" no matter how fun that is. It's just an honest question. Braga is attributed with the horror or Endgame when he in reality had very littler to do with it. Braga has also written some of the worst episodes in not only Voyager but TNG and Enterprise as well.

Kenneth Biller was head story editor for Voyager from the beginning and in the seventh season was named head writer and executive producer. He wrote 36 episodes.

But since Ken Biller only wrote for Voyager I will only name Voyager episodes. Two part episodes will be named as one.

Braga
The good: Projections, Deadlock, Flashback, Future's End, Distant Origin, Scorpion, Year or Hell, The Killing Game, Living Witness, Timeless, Dark Frontier, Someone to Watch Over Me, and Life Line
The bad: Parallax, Cathexis, Cold Fire, Non Sequitur, Threshold, Darking, Rise, 11:59, Equinox, Fury, Human Error.

Biller
The good: Faces, Jetrel, Manuevers, Lifesigns, Tuvix, Unity, Before and After, Worst Case Scenario, Nemesis, Pathfinder, Virtuoso, Haunting of Deck Twelve, Critical Care, The Void, Workforce, Q2, Endgame
The bad: Elogium, Twisted, Q and the Grey, Demon, Thirty Days, The Disease, Repression, Human Error, Natural Law

EDIT: This is a who's better thread. So who do you think is better: Braga or Biller?

 

[BlobVanDam]

Perhaps my reading comprehension is failing me, but are we choosing who is the better or the worse of the two?

I choose Braga as the better. Timeless, Scorpion, Year of Hell, Future's End, Some to Watch Over Me are among my very favourite episodes. Although Equinox and Threshold are among my most hated.

Biller's episodes seem to lie more in the middle for me. Some really good ones, and some not so good ones, but not a lot of them evoke complete love or hate from me (although I loved Critical Care, and Q2 was about the only Q episode in Voyager I ended up enjoying).

Braga was all over the board, but the highs cancel out the lows for me.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Braga, definitely.

But, uh... I don't actually hate "Equinox". If for no other reason than its terrific music.

 

[JB2005]

^ This, it would have made for an interesting arc...if Voyager was allowed arcs...or to be interesting...

I think it's Very YMMV because I wouldn't have put a lot of the episodes in the same places as you, and the SF Debris reviews would offer a third opinion...some are just horrible (Parralax, Threshold, Non Sequitor) but I rate Equinox, even with Captain Janehab and Thirty Days (purely because we got some honest to god continuity from it!)

 

[HoneyBLilly]

So Braga has three fans.

 

[Josie]

Braga for seasons 4 and 5 and Biller for seasons 6 and 7.

I choose Braga. He has more memorable episodes for better or usually worse.

Biller is perhaps too generic. Whilst good at writing nothing really grabs you.

I can't comment on seasons 1-3 as it is Kes infested.

 

[sonak]

Braga.

And I liked "11:59" , "equinox," and some of the other "bad " episodes you mentioned for him.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It didn't really make much difference one way or the other.

 

[HoneyBLilly]

Braga.

And I liked "11:59" , "equinox," and some of the other "bad " episodes you mentioned for him.

Just because I put them in the bad section doesn't mean that they weren't enjoyable. I liked 11:59 and Elogium but by putting them in the "bad" section just meant that they weren't really a 5 out of 10 on the writing level.

Equinox was the only one I let my hate for come through.

 

[Shatnertage]

I'm choosing Biller, mostly because there are more episodes I don't like under those the OP classified as Braga's "good" than Biller's. Although I see that Biller wrote my personal nemesis, "Nemesis."

So I can't argue that passionately either way.

 

[HoneyBLilly]

I'm choosing Biller, mostly because there are more episodes I don't like under those the OP classified as Braga's "good" than Biller's. Although I see that Biller wrote my personal nemesis, "Nemesis."

So I can't argue that passionately either way.

He wrote most of the Chakotay episodes. Nemesis included.

And the episodes that are on there were chosen by my sister, a TV and movie critic, and I from a level of writing skill on a scale of 1-10, not whether or not we enjoyed them. So if they're bad it's from 1-3 and good 7-10, there are a few that fell in the 4-6 range that I didn't mention.

 

[MrPointy]

Braga, easily.

 

[Trek Survivor]

I haven't seen many of the later episodes, but based on the few earlier season episodes I've seen listed above, definitely Braga.

And its hard to ignore some of the great work on TNG he did when considering this. And let's not forget "First Contact".

 

[Saito S]

Braga.

I don't even agree with everything on the OP's "good/bad" lists (for example, I liked "Thirty Days" and thought "Maneuvers" was pretty bad); though such lists are invariably subjective and I assume it was just meant as an overview of eps. But that said, I've never really thought that Braga deserves as much of the blame for VOY's overall problems as he tends to get. Some, sure, but he wasn't demonspawn. And as others have pointed out, he has some great stories under his belt.

My take on Braga is that he's actually excellent as an idea guy. He has some really out there (in a good way) concepts that he can turn into stories. However, he needs supervision and/or a partner, someone to reign him in when his ideas for the actual details/execution of an episode get a little too out there (in a bad way). When someone is there to bop him on the head with a newspaper when he wanders off into WTF-land, we get stuff like First Contact, "Scorpion", "Year of Hell," and "All Good Things...". These are all stories he had a hand in, but he wasn't on his own from start to finish. When he IS on his own, you end up with "Threshold," "Genesis", "Non Sequitor," etc. There are exceptions, of course; I'm not trying to say that literally, every Braga solo story is awful and every Braga co-authored story is great. But I have observed a pattern.

Biller, on the other hand... he has a few good eps, but a lot of bad ones, and I honestly think he's simply not that good as a writer.

 

[number6]

I doubt we'll ever get a consensus about what is "good" or "bad."

They both wrote for Star Trek. You didn't...Well, most of you..

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Saito, I concur. I've always looked at Braga as a less out-there Joe Menoski.

As for Biller, I never cared for many of his episodes, personally. I'm just glad the seventh season of Voyager wasn't as bad as it could have been with him at the helm. No disrespect intended... I just didn't care for his creds much.

 

[TedShatner10]

Kenneth Biller did OK earlier episodes such as "The Chute" and "Tuvix", but he's done a ton of crap and I was not entirely pleased by S7.

Braga has done a ton of crap mixed in with good stuff as well, he's not as good as Fuller or Menosky on VOY nor Moore on TNG, but he's still directly involved in the highpoints in those two sci-fi shows too, and his TNG movie track record is 50/50. I prefer Braga to Biller. Writing/producting for long running TV shows is like politics, it inevitably ends in failure and you get all of the blame, none of the credit...

 

[Sadistro]

Well, I vote for Braga, but I don't mind Kenneth Biller's episodes.

Braga has the best pure horror sensibilities of any of the Trek writers. The visuals and the situations he includes in his episodes, are easily some of the most memorable.

The trouble with his episodes is that he has plainly dreamt up these cool looking visuals and then just cobbled together some vague excuse to be able to put it in. And that kind of 'well who really cares if the science works?' attitude has not endeared him to many fans.

Biller's episodes were also pretty dark, but they weren't usually as overtly 'supernatural' or time/dimension/reality bending. His situations were usually not so reliant on bizarre temporal or whatever calamities.

His were more like extreme survival/ordeal style episodes, where the crew would undergo the most severe mental and physical stress from a generally more down to to earth source, that would nevetheless test their mettle and character.


I like them both as writers, but I feel that Brannon Braga was able to create so many arresting visual moments, and provide an angle of storytelling that few others went near (his stories tend to assume the universe is a dark, terrible place, but that people can still hope and fight for something better).

I just think he was able to take that and carve out a very interesting take on the Star Trek universe. Biller meanwhile seemed like a writer who didn't really make his mark like he would have wanted to.

Part of it seems to be that the characters he tends to focus on (Chakotay, Paris, Torres etc) were so lightly used by the other writers, that he couldn't get the ideas for their characters that he brought up in his episodes to stick.

They were too busy writing endless Doctor and Seven of Nine episodes to notice, it seems...

I think if he had been given the reins earlier, he might have been one of those rare individuals whose written output actually improves substantially, when juggling the added responsibilities of Showrunner.

 

[antiquityscion]

Braga
The good: Projections, Deadlock, Flashback, Future's End, Distant Origin, Scorpion, Year or Hell, The Killing Game, Living Witness, Timeless, Dark Frontier, Someone to Watch Over Me, and Life Line

Considering these, I have to go with Braga.

But as far as "bad" episodes, I actually liked Parallax, Cold Fire, Rise, Darkling, Thirty Days, Twisted, Repression, Human Error, and Natural Law.

 

[TedShatner10]

"Thirty Days" was not bad as such and watchable; there were far better VOY episodes, but not a real turd either, rather like Braga's "Flashback" (which was not a bad episode in of itself and featured the USS Excelsior, but just did not stand a chance against DS9's "Trials and Tribble-lations").

And "dark" does not necessarily mean great - Torchwood's first season was very dark, but stupidly and excessively so.