I am not aware of The Original Series contradicting itself. I'm not saying that it didn't.
What weakened Trek, and what can restore it?
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I am not aware of The Original Series contradicting itself. I'm not saying that it didn't.
For the ten millionth time: quality does not equal ratings. TV abounds in examples of bad shows with great ratings and great shows with bad ratings.
Since quality has no guananteed correlation to success, it's senseless to expect a Star Trek series to succeed just by "not sucking." The far more important factor is that it must appeal to the audience that already watches the channel it's being shown on, because they are the audience that the show can be most easily marketed to (leaving aside fans who will be checking it out in any case).
Depending on what that audience is, the resulting series might suck like a Hoover, according to the fans, but still be a ratings success. Imagine what it would take to make Star Trek a success on the CW. I doubt too many of us could stomach that mess.
DS9 was ahead of its time. That approach would be the right one for pretty much anywhere on cable. On SyFy or TNT a lighter approach might be warranted. On AMC, FX for premium cable, DS9 would have to be butched up, to avoid looking like a kiddie show.
The TNT/VOY/ENT style really doesn't work anywhere anymore. It's suited to broadcast, but the economics of making a pricey space opera work with a niche audience and trying to pay for it with ad revenues alone, that's what doesn't work anymore. Space opera needs to be adapted to the cable environment and what that means depends on where on cable you're talking about.
I liken what you said using McDonalds as an analogy. Is McDonalds quality food because it has sold billions of burgers? Most people would say no and that a more expensive restaurant is better.
If "most people" don't like McDonald's, why is it such a success?
And going with that analogy, Star Trek will be forced to move up the food chain, just to survive. Right now, it's maybe Quizno's at best. But it no longer can survive anywhere in the mass market fast food business, so it will have to compete with more expensive restaurants (cable), which means becoming something its never been in its entire history.
Being McDonald's is no longer an option. The next Star Trek series needs to compete with Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, which I think is a very exciting prospect!
Also scary, since the odds of failure are of course high when trying something that's such an extreme break from the past. There's no example of a space opera series that could compete in that milieu on ratings. Ron Moore's BSG could compete on critical acclaim, but that doesn't pay the bills. The future is terra incognita and there is no model for success.
And going with that analogy, Star Trek will be forced to move up the food chain, just to survive. Right now, it's maybe Quizno's at best. But it no longer can survive anywhere in the mass market fast food business, so it will have to compete with more expensive restaurants (cable), which means becoming something its never been in its entire history.
Being McDonald's is no longer an option. The next Star Trek series needs to compete with Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, which I think is a very exciting prospect!
Also scary, since the odds of failure are of course high when trying something that's such an extreme break from the past. There's no example of a space opera series that could compete in that milieu on ratings. Ron Moore's BSG could compete on critical acclaim, but that doesn't pay the bills. The future is terra incognita and there is no model for success.
Quite a few times.
May I get some examples?
Star Trek doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be on TV or on a network. Technology has moved beyond that requirement and a good series could be done with the internet as a medium. Look at all the fan series just for Star Trek alone and their only source of distribution is the internet. If say Phase II had the money they could put out shows more often.
I never mentioned people liked McDonalds. I merely presented that McDonalds must be quality if it sold billions of burgers. There is a major difference between the two.
According to "The Alternative Factor", if a single particle of antimatter were to meet a particle of matter, then "everything, everywhere" would be destroyed. Wind back to "The Naked Time" and a matter/antimatter reaction is what powers the Enterprise's (and other Federation starships') warp engines.Quite a few times.
May I get some examples?
Then there's the dupicate Earth's the Enterprise encounters. They go from being an amazing once-in-a-lifetime discovery to mundane then back to amazing again.
The era Star Trek is set in fluctuates between 200 years in the future ("Space Seed") and 900 years in the future ("The Squire of Gothos")
Fleet Captain Pike is "about [Kirk's] age" according to Commodore Mendez in "The Minagerie" yet he commanded the Enterprise 13 years prior, and Spock served with him for 11 years. That means Pike became captain age 9.
If you include the TOS movies.... why does everything look totally different in The Motion Picture? Does Vulcan have a moon? Why are Khans followers suddenly all blonde haired? And younger? Do Klingons take prisoners? How old is the Enterprise? Do they use money in the 23rd century?
...and so on...
According to "The Alternative Factor", if a single particle of antimatter were to meet a particle of matter, then "everything, everywhere" would be destroyed. Wind back to "The Naked Time" and a matter/antimatter reaction is what powers the Enterprise's (and other Federation starships') warp engines.Quite a few times.
May I get some examples?
Then there's the dupicate Earth's the Enterprise encounters. They go from being an amazing once-in-a-lifetime discovery to mundane then back to amazing again.
The era Star Trek is set in fluctuates between 200 years in the future ("Space Seed") and 900 years in the future ("The Squire of Gothos")
Fleet Captain Pike is "about [Kirk's] age" according to Commodore Mendez in "The Minagerie" yet he commanded the Enterprise 13 years prior, and Spock served with him for 11 years. That means Pike became captain age 9.
If you include the TOS movies.... why does everything look totally different in The Motion Picture? Does Vulcan have a moon? Why are Khans followers suddenly all blone haired? Do Klingons take prisoners? How old is the Enterprise? Do they use money in the 23rd century?
...and so on...
I would chalk that up to the writers not working with each other, but then to do so would have prohibitively expensively when the show was being written. Long distance charges would have eaten up the writer's paychecks just to talk to each other. In the 60s, the phone company would have any call that was outside of a specific city be long distance.
As far as anti-matter/matter for warp drives that is easily explained by that warp drives have a containment field while in The Alternative Factor was without containment.
It's possible that there could be another Earth out there.
I can give them a pass on the era since Gene made it clear that he didn't want to tie it down to a specific year. He relented during TMP.
Mendez had his facts wrong. People can be wrong.
The rest of what you've said are just nitpicks and not really contradictions.
Then neither are any of the other so-called contradictions between series'. They can all be explained away or brushed under the carpet just the same.
Actually, the contradictions between the series is due to Rick Berman publicly and vocally supporting the removal of The Original Series. That is far worse than anything that happened in The Original Series. Without The Original Series then there wouldn't be Star Trek.
Do you have a source for Rick Berman saying this? I can't imagine a "hater" of The Original Series allowing such tributes as "Trials and Tribble-ations" on his watch.
"The dirty little secret is Berman and the people running 'Star Trek' right now hate 'The Original Series' and hate being compared to it," says Altman, referred to by the Los Angeles Times as the "world's foremost Trekspert." Altman, during his days as a sci-fi magazine journalist, actually used to have a good relationship with Berman until he became critical of "Next Generation" and "Voyager."
"They are not people who have any affection for the old show. When [producer] Harve Bennett and [director] Nick Meyer took over the franchise for 'Star Trek II,' they went back and looked at every episode of 'The Original Series' and learned everything they could about what worked and what didn't. When these guys [Berman and writer Brannon Braga] took over, they hated the original and resented being in the shadow and avoided watching it. They'd be happy if people forgot the original, and that's unfortunate."
Rick Berman is the anti-Gene."
I got that from this article on Salon. Link
Trials and Tribble-ations served to denigrate The Original Series as did every reference from the later shows. The poor handling of Scott and Jimmy Doohan to make him look like a fool during Yesterday's Enterprise. For pete's sake, Jimmy was suffering from the worst effects of Alzheimer's when he did that episode.
James Doohan was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's in 2004, more than a decade after "Relics" was produced.
As for Berman, you're quoting a guy who admits to having had a big falling out with him.
And, it could be argued that *if* he did disregard some of TOS, he was only following Gene's own thoughts. Here's a quote from Paula Block, head of CBS licensing for many years, from Voyages of Imagination (and the Wikipedia page on Star Trek canon
As for Berman, you're quoting a guy who admits to having had a big falling out with him.
And, it could be argued that *if* he did disregard some of TOS, he was only following Gene's own thoughts. Here's a quote from Paula Block, head of CBS licensing for many years, from Voyages of Imagination (and the Wikipedia page on Star Trek canon
Paula Block said:
Just because someone is diagnosed with a disease does not mean that they weren't suffering from it before it was diagnosed. It took the doctor's years to finally diagnose my aunt with Alzheimers, but she displayed the symptoms all during that time. It is still no excuse for Berman and his treatment of Jimmy Doohan.
Paula's quotes are not about what Rick Berman said or did. I already sourced it to where he stated that he hated The Original Series and wanted to destroy it not because of canon, but because of jealousy. The falling out between Altman and Berman is solely on Berman's end. Altman became critical of TNG and Voyager and Berman severed their friendship. I find Altman's comments to be refreshing since it gets past the spin. Paula's quotes are in regards to Gene Roddenberry and his thoughts on canon. Again her comments are not about what Berman has said or did, but Gene Roddenberry. Find something from Berman that refutes what I've posted.
Rick Berman created Enterprise and had the storylines for the first three seasons directly contradict The Original Series due to his hatred. It was done out of spite and abuse of his position as executive producer. Enterprise lost many fans because of it and started to recover when Berman realized that he made a mistake in regards to The Original Series by hiring Manny Coto to be the head scriptwriter. Manny Coto has a well deserved reputation for treating The Original Series and Roddenberry's vision with respect. This is why the ratings started to recover in the fourth season of Enterprise.
His treatment of The Original Series in TNG (post-Roddenberry), DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise is well known for the writers denigrating The Original Series at every opportunity and general distaste for anything remotely associated with The Original Series. If he had cared the slightest for The Original Series the scripts would not have been approved. The mishandling of The Original Series characters would not have happened. Although, Shatner played his part in Generations by appearing in the film.
As far as Gene's statements about canon, he was always very fickle about it, but then he gave up all rights to Star Trek after TMP. There is a big difference between respecting what was done prior and totally hating what has come before to the point of disrespecting the original actors.
Did Rick Berman and Brannon Braga treat The Original Series and the ideas contained therein with respect?
The answer is a resounding no.
You need to drink a little less of the Kool-Aid.
Was he as in love with TOS as the fans were? Probably not. Did he hate it? Probably not. But like many folks, he probably felt TOS "was of its time" and tough to reconcile with what came later on.
However, two of the three series he created featured a regular Vulcan character and he tried to recapture the Kirk, Spock and McCoy chemistry in Enterprise with Archer, T'Pol and Tucker.
Was he as in love with TOS as the fans were? Probably not. Did he hate it? Probably not. But like many folks, he probably felt TOS "was of its time" and tough to reconcile with what came later on.
However, two of the three series he created featured a regular Vulcan character and he tried to recapture the Kirk, Spock and McCoy chemistry in Enterprise with Archer, T'Pol and Tucker.
Hyperbole concerning Kool-Aid. It also does nothing to refute the facts I have presented.
Rick Berman freely admits that he never was a fan of Star Trek. He also stated that he hated The Original Series. The rest of what you've said is supposition and an assumption with zero facts.
Yes, he played it safe and attempted to use the Kirk-McCoy-Spock formula without truly understanding what made that formula work. It's not the races of the characters that mattered, but the friendship between the characters that developed through the series.
The entire premise of the episode is the problem. "If you run out of ideas let's go back to The Original Series and muck things up complete with the denigration of the work John M. Ford and others have done regarding Klingons."
You've presented no facts, only statements from someone who had a falling out with Berman.
No one will argue that Berman didn't make a shit-ton of mistakes when running Trek, but no more so than mistakes that Gene made.
Trials and Tribble-ations is consistently one of the highest placed episodes in polls of fans as to their favorite episodes of any Trek series. It "denigrated" NOTHING about the original series.
