Braga throws suits under the bus

[LeadHead]

The suits of a network or a production company don't get the flak they usually deserve. Sometimes their intervention in series is helpful, but oftentimes it's detrimental, driving good writers off shows, eventually causing those shows to collapse, costing them money anyway.

B&B get a lot of the blame for Ent's issues and little of the credit. Doesn't seem out of place for me for them to let everyone know who also planned the party.

 

[SFRabid]

I always thought it was obvious the suits were making decisions. It happens a lot when shows have low ratings and frequently makes things worse instead of better. Not that BnB didn't have their faults. It was not the suits that created TATV or had Archer taking his dog on away missions.

 

[star]

I'm certainly in favor of ditching the idiotic TCW, but why hang around on Earth? The way to do a prequel series is simple: assume that Earth is less enlightened and united than in the 23rd C; that Starfleet is more military; and that resources are not unlimited and capitalism is not dead. In other words, the 22nd C is halfway between the 21st and 23rd. Not an unreasonable assumption.

So if Earth needs resources and there are worlds out there to trade with, then Starfleet has a motivation to start making alliances for economic reasons. If space is filled with dangerous, powerful alien empires - and we know it is - then Starfleet has a motivation to start making alliances for security reasons. And once they're out there, mixing it up with the big dogs, pretty soon they'll make enemies as well as friends through no fault of their own, and any number of stories can be extracted from that premise.

Building starships is not the point. The point is, how to make a show about Starfleet with no Federation? Simple. Earth plays the role of the Federation. TOS has already provided the story template since half the time, Kirk and the gang were doing the Federation's work, not "exploring" - checking on colonies, mining operations and looney bins; taking part in diplomatic maneuvering; and fighting off external threats.

This would have been fantastic to see.

And I have no evidence that Berman and Braga could turn in actual good writing, like the DS9 team did, that could take a challenging topic like "internal politics of a futuristic world" and make it seem even remotely interesting. I've seen TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT, and paid attention to who wrote what. Braga was good at telling zany stories but his writing has no emotional substance. Strip away the gee whiz elements by marooning the story on Earth, and we'd see just how shallow his writing is. For an Earth-based 22nd C story to work, you'd need DS9 writers.

This was the point that I was trying to make just not as eloquently. Thank you.

 

[Praxius]

I always believed studios should let the artists do their damn jobs without interference.... in that the artist should present their idea for a show, if they don't like it, tell them no.... otherwise, sign them up and let them have their freedom of creativity to make the show they already planned before the meeting.

Same goes for the creators/artists of the story/show..... the moment it looks like others are meddling in your creation, pull out and take your ideas and stories with you. Rick has been a part of Star Trek for almost ever, one would think they'd give him a little faith that he knew wtf he was doing.

When you come into a meeting with a story and an entire concept already planned and laid out, only to have some suits more interested in making things cheap while gaining as much profit and ratings as possible stick their grubby noses in the chef's kitchen, you leave the original artists stuck trying to work in the new changes to the already existing story..... which almost always creates holes in the story and poor approaches..... which is normally caught by the viewers and thus reflected in ratings, etc.

But every suit wants to add their own ideas, not to make the show better, but to be able to stand up with their chest pumped out, bragging that they had a part in all of it.

They had a part alright..... a part in leading to the show being canceled after 4 seasons...... and when the smoke clears, who get's hung for the blame?

The original artists/creators..... while those who meddled in the original story disappear and shift the blame to those artists and creators.

But.... while I like some of their original ideas of how to run the show/story..... having a season or most of a season based around the ship building on the planet and quarrels about who's gonna be captain and the political mumbo jumbo some here think would have been a good idea..... I personally feel it would have been boring.

Think about it..... there's no active starship, it's still being worked on..... thus very little alien contact or conflict and it'd all just revolve around talk talk talk..... which I thought was what many complained TNG did too much of.

Perhaps the first two episodes relating to the on-planet ship building and getting the crew setup.... but not a big chunk of the first season.

the other ideas of not having a transporter, photon torpedoes, uniforms, etc. all sounded like good ideas though.

Kind of makes me wonder what their original NX-01 was going to look like before they pimped it to look like a TNG/DS9/Voy starship..... the exterior I mean, not the interior. (two different things)

 

[Gaith]

Think about it..... there's no active starship, it's still being worked on..... thus very little alien contact or conflict and it'd all just revolve around talk talk talk..... which I thought was what many complained TNG did too much of.

The West Wing was a "talk talk talk" show, with only a few scenes of violence in the whole seven seasons, and it was one of the most critically acclaimed and highest-rated shows of its time.

Now, I'm not saying that such an approach would work for Trek for more than a few eps, and I definitely see the desirability of having some fireworks in the series premiere... so I'm not saying that that's what "should" have been done; I'm only cautioning against the notion that Earth-based stuff is inevitably boring.

 

[star]

^^Yeah but when I watched the West Wing, I knew what I was in for. It was a political show and I expected that it would be talk, talk, talk.

When I watch sci-fi, I want action/adventure and crazy alien stuff.

 

[Shatnertage]

I see that "the suits" has replaced "TPTB" as the current bugbear around here. I don't think that we really have a great perspective on the internal workings of shows like ENT. Speaking for myself, I've got no personal knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes of a television production, outside of what I've gleaned from autobiographies and DVD commentaries. Much of that is going to be self-serving, so I take it with a grain of salt.

Sure, it seems cool to support the "creative" guys against the "suits," but I have a feeling it's not as simple as that. Talk about suits with "grubby noses" trying to ripoff the "artists" and the public seems pretty OTT, and a little naive. I don't think anyone's doing pro bono work on these network shows.

 

[I am not Spock]

Think about it..... there's no active starship, it's still being worked on..... thus very little alien contact or conflict and it'd all just revolve around talk talk talk..... which I thought was what many complained TNG did too much of.

The West Wing was a "talk talk talk" show, with only a few scenes of violence in the whole seven seasons, and it was one of the most critically acclaimed and highest-rated shows of its time.

Now, I'm not saying that such an approach would work for Trek for more than a few eps, and I definitely see the desirability of having some fireworks in the series premiere... so I'm not saying that that's what "should" have been done; I'm only cautioning against the notion that Earth-based stuff is inevitably boring.

TNG and DS9 both had a load of 'talking heads' scenes, and both were considered great TV by many. However, TNG was mainly talk, and little action. DS9 had a lot of talk, but also a lot of battles, weird aliens, etc. You need to find a balance between the two.

 

[Jax]

Its a shame the more familiar Trek trappings (phase pistols, photonic torpedoes, etc) and the TCW were forced on them by the UPN suits. We could have got a much more unique take on Trek than what we ended up with.

I like ENT but the technology bugs the hell out of me at times, its just wrong for the setting. There was nothign wrong with the pulse hand pistols and pulse cannons we saw in the pilot and made more sense for the era. The torpedoes were also so retro and yeh beef em up in power as the shows goes along but photonic ugh its a horrible name and too close to Later Trek tech.

I however always loved the grappler

 

[Anwar]

Didn't Babylon 5 do internal politics episodes as well to give a good understanding of how the Earth government was run? It worked there.

And this talk about "You need DS9 writers" is bunk, really. They just needed a new writing staff, some new blood and creativity who hadn't done Trek before. Berman WANTED to hire a wholly new staff and I say it would've worked.

 

[Leathco]

ya know what? Even with its faults, Enterprise is my favorite of all the shows. It shows how had the team worked to overccome all the issues. At first it was weird seeing Scott bakula as captain, or Vulcans as not as good as we thought they all were, but they worked out I think. I especially was surprised by Scott Bakula, who started doing awesome work. My fave actor will always be the guy who portrayed Trip, just was always awesome. T'Pol was good too. Too bad they never did much with Maywheather, or to a lesser degree Hoshi.

But there's so much they did that was RIGHT. The minimalist engine room. All the LCD screens mounted as monitors. The grappling hook firing instead of a tractor beam. The transporter that was in beta testing and had problems often. The uniforms that looked more like worksuits (with POCKETS! Bout time). The tiny crew quarters and cramped ship hallways. All that stuff helps make me overlook the other errors, like the catsuit, or Phase Cannons (LASERS DAMMIT), Photonic Torpedoes and such. Than again, maybe it does make sense about the phase cannons and photonic torps, and it just took Starfleet a couple centuries to make em repliable enough for the standard fleet. After all, enterprise WAS a testbed.

 

[JarodRussell]

But there's so much they did that was RIGHT. The minimalist engine room. All the LCD screens mounted as monitors. The grappling hook firing instead of a tractor beam. The transporter that was in beta testing and had problems often. The uniforms that looked more like worksuits (with POCKETS! Bout time). The tiny crew quarters and cramped ship hallways. All that stuff helps make me overlook the other errors, like the catsuit, or Phase Cannons (LASERS DAMMIT), Photonic Torpedoes and such. Than again, maybe it does make sense about the phase cannons and photonic torps, and it just took Starfleet a couple centuries to make em repliable enough for the standard fleet. After all, enterprise WAS a testbed.

But that was most of the time just a play on words, and not different at all.

The engine room wasn't minimalist, it was just small, and that's the problem. The ship had warp nacelles and a warp core, and everything was fine, clean, neat, working perfectly, not difference at all to the engine rooms and warp drive 100 and 200 years later. The ringship design would have been awesome in that regard.

The transporter was there, and it worked every time it was needed, like in the climax of the pilot episode. Yawn.

Phase Cannons... glowy lines of light cutting into other ships. No friggin difference to phasers. Photonic torpedoes... Come on.

It was the same thing all over again. A Klingon in the first 5 minutes of the pilot, someone being beamed out of danger in the last 5 minutes of the pilot. Unimaginative standard, and not the promised new, fresh, different take on it.

TPTB thought it was a prequel just because they had to push a button every time to open a door. Problem is that it really wasn't a good prequel at all, because all of the stories could have been set at any time in the Trek universe, 23rd, 24th or even 27th century.

 

[AMQ]

But there's so much they did that was RIGHT. The minimalist engine room. All the LCD screens mounted as monitors. The grappling hook firing instead of a tractor beam. The transporter that was in beta testing and had problems often. The uniforms that looked more like worksuits (with POCKETS! Bout time). The tiny crew quarters and cramped ship hallways. All that stuff helps make me overlook the other errors, like the catsuit, or Phase Cannons (LASERS DAMMIT), Photonic Torpedoes and such. Than again, maybe it does make sense about the phase cannons and photonic torps, and it just took Starfleet a couple centuries to make em repliable enough for the standard fleet. After all, enterprise WAS a testbed.

I love this. In Enterprise they explained how they have come up with Tactial Alert, too. That was a good story, and also those communicators they used were hillarious, maybe they could've been more advanced.
I also liked how the characters used to be amazed by the technology, they didn't take it for granted...
And something else they did right was that Enterprise was not some "super ship" - things would go wrong and so often they had to do things "manually".

 

[Leathco]

But that was most of the time just a play on words, and not different at all.

The engine room wasn't minimalist, it was just small, and that's the problem. The ship had warp nacelles and a warp core, and everything was fine, clean, neat, working perfectly, not difference at all to the engine rooms and warp drive 100 and 200 years later. The ringship design would have been awesome in that regard.

The transporter was there, and it worked every time it was needed, like in the climax of the pilot episode. Yawn.

Phase Cannons... glowy lines of light cutting into other ships. No friggin difference to phasers. Photonic torpedoes... Come on.

It was the same thing all over again. A Klingon in the first 5 minutes of the pilot, someone being beamed out of danger in the last 5 minutes of the pilot. Unimaginative standard, and not the promised new, fresh, different take on it.

TPTB thought it was a prequel just because they had to push a button every time to open a door. Problem is that it really wasn't a good prequel at all, because all of the stories could have been set at any time in the Trek universe, 23rd, 24th or even 27th century.

All made OK by the fact that the captain brought his dog on board.

 

[star]

They did get new writers (or at least new show runners) for season 3 and season 4. Which is why, IMO, the series really caught it's stride then. Too little, too late coupled with the absolute piss poor marketing killed the potential that we were finally starting to see.

 

[Anwar]

People keep saying it was all Manny Coto who fixed the show. Again this is lack of research: What happened was that there was also a change of management at UPN, and the new managers took a backseat to the show's development because they weren't as concerned as the prior ones were. Coto simply got the freedom B&B never got.

 

[Praxius]

The West Wing was a "talk talk talk" show, with only a few scenes of violence in the whole seven seasons, and it was one of the most critically acclaimed and highest-rated shows of its time.

lol.... perhaps it was, but I never watched it.

Since I'm not from the US, I had no interest in watching an hour long US political soap opera..... we got enough of that BS here in Canada to put up with in our daily news.

Now, I'm not saying that such an approach would work for Trek for more than a few eps, and I definitely see the desirability of having some fireworks in the series premiere... so I'm not saying that that's what "should" have been done; I'm only cautioning against the notion that Earth-based stuff is inevitably boring.

Well I imagine it wouldn't be paint drying.... but by the way it was originally described, I found it pretty hard to imagine much being interesting unless aliens attacked or something.

 

[Anwar]

I'd imagine that Terra Prime could easily be a series major villain, have them dealing with lots of anti-alien groups might make Archer and co the perfect candidates for the deep space mission. There's room for story there.

Of course, it would make the Vulcans even bigger jerks for continuing to oppose him if they did, since he'd likely have prevented violence against them earlier on.

 

[star]

People keep saying it was all Manny Coto who fixed the show. Again this is lack of research: What happened was that there was also a change of management at UPN, and the new managers took a backseat to the show's development because they weren't as concerned as the prior ones were. Coto simply got the freedom B&B never got.

But they did get a "free" episode in season 4 and they botched it. Hence the reason that I question their ability to write great trek even if they had, at the start, been given the same freedoms that Manny Coto had later in the series.

The truth is we'll never know. We'll never really know if they had been given that artistic license that maybe their brains would have come up with incredible stuff. I can only base my opinion on what I saw. And I saw a so-so first two seasons (sure, let's blame the suits for those) and when given the reigns to wrap up the series for us, I saw crap.

 

[Anwar]

"These are the Voyages" wasn't half as bad as everyone thinks it is. If it had just been some random middle-of-the-season episode no one would've cared. Being the finale, IE rotten timing, was most of the problem.