Of? GALACTIC SENATE?!??
Do fans want the prime timeline back? Part 2: Poll edition.
- Thread starter bbjeg
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Even if it's not the case, it's how your posts come across.
I'm fine with a reboot, and I actually wish that the new movies had done that strictly instead of trying to tie it to old Trek. But I think the best place for reboots is likely in movies. I'm not sure how well a TV reboot would do in the current climate, for a variety of reasons.
I'm not sure how well any Trek series would do in the current climate.
I completely agree.
Definitely not a live action Kirk and Spock series, but I think an animated series is within the realm of possibility.
When did I say that ?
The way your post was worded to my reading was that, to quote said post, "the old series was no longer working": the implication being that because the old series was no longer working, a "reboot" was the only desired or logical outcome. That is, as I said, patently false. They could have rested it for a few years and then brought it back in the Prime universe set seventy years later. It would, depending on talent attached and enthusiasm from those involved, probably have been as successful (in it's own way) as the rebooted variant. Doctor Who's success has proven that one continuity can continue after a break, provided it is given fresh and new ideas to run with.
If the goal was to return back to basics to The Adventures of Kirk and Spock, which it was, and which most of the TOS spin-offs tried to do anyway, but without the benefit of having Kirk and Spock in the main cast, then setting things 70 or even 700 years later in the Prime Universe was not an option.
My understanding (I'm an occasional viewer) is that the constant time travels in the new Doctor Who render the events of most episodes and continuity meaningless anyway, leading even to different versions of the same events happening over the past 50 years. The Doctor supposedly lived through all of it - just like the elder Spock lived through all of Trek.
There's a surprising amount of continuity despite the references to "time can be rewritten". I'm probably as big a fan of Who as I am Trek, and simple things from sound effects, visual elements, the inclusion in the new series of UNIT and references to older Doctors, older props, frequent script references to older stories, some that are nearly fifty years old now (including a reference to a known exodus of Earth by humanity in a particular century from a story from 1975 in a more recent story in 2010), the daughter of a recurring character now appearing in at least two stories, and the Doctor himself of course.
Don't try to argue that canon in Who is meaningless - it isn't, and that renders your point about Spock living through two universes moot as the Doctor is in one universe (occasional hops to parallel realities aside) that (give or take) has a consistent history (the occasional three destructions of Atlantis in the 60's/70's aside) whereas Spock was in one universe with it's own history, and is now in a totally different universe with a totally different history. Not the same thing.
Doctor Who in 2005 did what The Next Generation did in the 80's - taking the series further, leaving a gap but having it resolutely in the same continuity - except it did so with far more style and panache. It is a continuation of the same story, the story of the Doctor. New Star Trek doesn't do that. New Star Trek is a reboot, with a different story, different continuity. It was perhaps the "safest" option to bring Trek back, and undoubtedly it's been incredibly successful for those involved, but just like TNG and just like Doctor Who, they could have gone forward instead of restarting.
As there is a huge amount of continuity with the old in the new Trek movies, countless references both visual and in-story.
Surely the alternate reality Spock is in now is no different to the alternate realities the Doctor destroyed Atlantis in those three times? I presume those histories branched off as a result of time travels by the Doctor and others, just as the one Spock is in branched from 2233 when Nero arrived?
The Doctor does back and fights the Daleks in a timeline where many of his earlier battles with them may or may not have happened. Kirk fights the Klingons in a timeline where his earlier battles didn't. Where's the difference? You say Trek is a reboot, yet it's explicitly tied into the original continuity by time travel.
I wouldn't call continuity and referencing to previous stories (that all have different beginnings) the same thing.
Visually, the Enterprise has the TMP saucer on a vague recreation of it's basic shape, ships look vaguely Starfleet in arrangement (albeit far too big) and there's similarities in a couple of the uniform variations. Story wise, there's wholesale ripping off of scenes, but it isn't part of the same continuity. Doctor Who has visual elements comparatively - if not totally - unchanged, and has story elements that tie in over fifty years. No comparison.
No. Those histories did not branch off.
Simple reason? Because it was the 1970's, and they didn't give a shit about continuity because the stuff was hardly ever repeated on BBC telly and there was no such thing as home video. But they are, in fact, almost certainly meant to be in the same universe. God knows quite how, but there was never any mention of "history changing", so no, not alternate realities. One reality. One continuity. Completely different from the rebooted Star Trek in that respect, where there is an explicitly separate reality created by Nero going back in time.
No. The Doctor's life is in one continuity: his adventures happen in one continuity. Kirk can never reference events of stories that will never happen to him. The Klingons he fights will never reference events that will never happen to them. In the Doctor's universe, if he goes back, then forward again, those events will be the same, in the same continuity. And don't even get me started on the theory of Gallifrey Mean Time...
tl:dr
Doctor Who is in the same continuity, which the Doctor goes to different points to via time travel. It remains the same continuity.
Star Trek is in a new continuity, created by one act of random time travel, that can never return to the original continuity and has instead created it's own.
Anyway, why are we even discussing Doctor Who? This has nothing to do with my point when I posted earlier in this thread, which was simply that Doctor Who returned in 2005 with a continuation not a reboot, and did so successfully, proving that it can in fact be done. This discussion has nothing to do with that point. Doctor Who's continuity remains constant with the older series, and is continually advancing forward from the previous point in the story. Apart from Spock Prime, nothing in the new universe is a continuation of "old" Trek (apart from Enterprise), and is now advancing down a totally different road from the point of divergence, and can never ever go back to the other road by virtue of so much having altered. Different beasts. Simple as.
The interior of the TARDIS changes all the time, doesn't it? And destroying Atlantis 3 times sounds a lot like Kirk and Spock in the warp core after battling Khan - I bet the Doctor didn't remember the other times it happened to him, either.
Obviously the details of the new Enterprise would differ, coming 25 years after a change in the timeline - but look at the models on Admiral Marcus' desk - the Phoenix, Aries IV, Ringship, NX-Alpha, NX-01 which all pre-date the split in timelines and look exactly as they should. Look at the Saurian Brandy bottle is the first movie, look at the Klingon battle cruisers in the Kobayashi Maru test. THAT is visual continuity. As for in-story continuity, they bent over backwards to explain exactly how and why Khan was awakened differently in ID - that's 47 years of story tie-ins.
Trek: TOS was made under the same assumptions.
That makes no sense whatsoever unless it was due to the other stories or something altering Atlantis' history even if it was never stated as such in the episode. I know DW does alternate histories - I recall an episode set on a version of Earth with airships.
It may be supposedly the same Doctor, but since he keeps interfering in history and we've seen the results, it can't be the same timeline in 2012 as it was when Doctor Who began. Just like the new Trek isn't the same timeline as the original. Perhaps the DW spin-off series would be a better example, vs. the version of history that existed pre- or between the Doctor's tamperings?
And the new Doctor Who won't likely go back to those past versions of Altantis or most of his other past adventures. He's been on a totally different road since the 70's and again since the restart. It seems as much a reboot as nuTrek's alternate timeline in the same multiverse is (or isn't)
Actually -- and I was only a casual WHO viewer as well -- didn't DOCTOR WHO almost always avoid discussion of alternate histories and paradoxes? I don't remember it ever being an issue. Maybe they thought it would be too confusing to the viewers.
He never said he didn't, and since he's the same character implied to have the same experiences throughout, as opposed to Spock Prime and NuSpock being separate characters, there's no reason to assume he wouldn't. It might even have been three separate "Atlantis'", since I'm fairly sure that they had different cultures. As for the TARDIS, yes it changes. But there is a difference between gradual evolution of a design and wholesale altering of the visual feel of an entire universe.
That was very clearly a journey to a specific alternate history. Different thing entirely. That alternate world was part of a different universe to the one the Doctor potters about in, and it's explicitly stated that it doesn't happen all that often. The main universe where Doctor Who occurs is a single universe. That universe doesn't turn into an alternate universe when things are inconsistent - it just says "fuck it" and moves on.
Except that he's met Sarah Jane and Jo Grant, he's dealt with UNIT and Davros and the Master, and each of them remember their histories. They continue to exist in a developing timeline of the same cosmos. There's a 50th anniversary story coming up that's entirely about returning to his own past. That's the difference. The new Kirk and Spock can't ever reminisce or make reference to the rich tapestry of Trek history (apart from Enterprise) because it has never, will never and can never happen to them.
And for God's sake, Doctor Who was not rebooted, Star Trek was. I don't care how you think it is, that's the fact of the matter. Doctor Who was revitalised, but the story is a continuation of the story of the original version, not a reselling of a new take on the same story as the new Trek is. Spock Prime's presence does not make this any less of a reboot.
All this arguing over continuity makes me not want to ever watch the new WHO.
You mean the third term of George W. Bush? I completely agree.Couldn't be worse than who we have now.We should vote JJ for president.
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