Enterprise: Exec wanted "Top Bands" on the show

[FrontierTrek]

In our ongoing interview with Roger Lay, Jr. (who's producing the bonus content for the upcoming Blu-Rays), he recalls how Rick & Brannon discuss some incredulous suggestions made my execs.

Roger Lay, Jr: ...John Wentworth talks a lot about that. He's got a great story – which you'll probably see in the Season Two or three documentary – where, at one point, one executive in a meeting comes up to Rick and goes, "I have an idea. You guys have a restaurant on the Enterprise, right? Rick and Brannon are like, "Well, we have a mess hall, kind of like a cafeteria…" He says, "Well, here's the thing – every week, at the restaurant, the hottest young bands are gonna play. You know, we're gonna get a different hot, young band every week, they'll play in the restaurant."

TrekCore: Oh, my god.

Roger Lay, Jr.: They were like, "We're in outer space. How are these bands going to get there?" The guy's like, "Well, you can figure that out! ‘Cause then, at the end of the episodes, we have the card for the hot new album that's coming out. We do that on all our other shows; trust us. This is good." That was a moment where Rick – and everyone – started to realize that it was a losing battle.

Here's the full Part 4 from the interview:
http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/02/exclusive-roger-lay-jr-interview-part-iv/

 

[Skywalker]

Ugh.

Sorry, I can't think of anything more to say than that. Just...ugh.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Two words:

Space Hippies.



Although in the Noughties, I suppose they'd have been Space Emos.

People already moan too much already, about having to mute (or now, chapter skip) the theme tune.

 

[bullethead]

I never thought it was possible for UPN execs to get worse after hearing they axed the season long Year of Hell, Braga's ENT S1 plan, forcing ENT to stick to the planet of the week formula, and mandating the future of Trek stuff that wound up becoming the Temporal Cold War.

 

[SonicRanger]

See? Berman and Braga get blamed for way too much that really came down to studio interference.

 

[SchwEnt]

Just convinces me more than I already suspected...

It started with VOY on UPN and then ran thru to the end of ENT--Star Trek became a product, merchandise, a vehicle for income, bereft of creativity or enthusiasm on the part of the suits.

I know television production is a money-making business, and execs aren't in it for the artistry.

But still... there are plenty of studios and execs with some kind of creative sense or passion for the material.

Clearly, at the end here... it was worse than I feared.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I actually wouldn't have minded a radically different approach to the sound of Enterprise. Guitars and synth in there, with the orchestral strings pushed even further into the background.

There's harmonica and a bit of Americana during "Broken Bow" when Archer is thinking about the past, but it could've gone in even more experimental directions.

Dennis McCarthy provided some fine soundtracks, but a Star Trek prequel absolutely needed to move away from the classical scoring, that tries not to be intrusive like Voyager or Deep Space Nine.

Incidental music has appeared before, like Steppenwolf in Star Trek: First Contact and the Beastie Boys in the JJ Abrams picture. I'm not sure how Enterprise would've acheived that. Probably a bit like Movie Night, where the crew can be free to listen to whatever music they like in their quarters off duty. That kind of reinforces that the show is closer to our present day than the 23rd or 24th Centuries and next centuries' popular culture isn't all that different from our own.

Then you've basically got that whole Vic Fontaine aspect of Deep Space Nine, where a guest character gets the main cast to join in singing easy listening material.

It'd be very dangerous to pick whatever's "now", only for that artist or band to disappear and never be heard from again. I'd certainly lean toward Rock more than Pop or R'n'B. They have had to pick something iconic, or an artist that's already well-established but maybe one of their lesser remembered songs. Preferrably with lyrics that creatively fit into the story or else it's basically just product placement.

I'm not down with teen sensation, One Direction being in the Mess Hall, for absolutely no reason other than it panders to a certain demographic. That's the current equivalent isn't it? Selling out. This time next year, that fickle age group won't even remember who the f--king hell they were.

 

[Dream]

UPN didn't want Year of Hell to last a season.

UPN wanted Temporal Cold War.

I'd say the network did more damage to Trek than B&B ever did.

It really pays off being first run syndication like TNG and DS9 were, no stupid network "ideas"!

 

[bullethead]

UPN didn't want Year of Hell to last a season.

UPN wanted Temporal Cold War.

I wouldn't say they wanted the Temporal Cold War, it was just the only way to fit the execs demand for stuff that was even more in the future than DS9/VOY.

But yeah, when I wrote an article about 10 awesome unproduced Trek projects, I lumped Braga's Year of Hell season and his ENT S1 together at the #1 slot. If this interview had been released earlier, I would've ended the article with it. It just changes all your perceptions of the Berman and Braga era.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

Well they had that stupid movie night idea, I guess they could've all gathered round for the latest hot new band night and it wouldn't really have changed tooooo much, just say they're receiving the latest broadcast from Earth, the signal finally catching up with them so they all sit round and see what's going down since they left...

But yeah, I loved Buffy, but even so the band appearances seemed shoehorned into that show and they had more justification for teenagers to go to their local club to see a band....

 

[Christopher]

A number of WB and CW shows have been structured to include venues for bands to perform, sometimes having main characters buy and manage nightclubs, e.g. Piper on Charmed and Lana on Smallville. Now Arrow has Oliver Queen building a nightclub above his secret crimefighting lair, which is somehow supposed to help conceal his secret identity. And for like the first third of the season they were evidently obligated to include a nightclub or rave scene in virtually every episode.

 

[Dukhat]

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I actually wouldn't have minded a radically different approach to the sound of Enterprise. Guitars and synth in there, with the orchestral strings pushed even further into the background.

There's a difference between a new approach, and turning your show into a vehicle for commercialism. For example. VOY's "Tsunkatse" was nothing more than an hour long infomercial for the WWE.

This ridiculousness reminds me of the Macross 7 anime, which was just a paper-thin excuse to produce J-Pop.

As far as the OP, this only reinforces my already low opinion of the UPN execs (especially Dawn Ostroff), and that they clearly had no clue about this show at all. It also reinforces my opinion that Berman and Brage get far too much shit from fans for stuff that was out of their control.

 

[Christopher]

There's a difference between a new approach, and turning your show into a vehicle for commercialism. For example. VOY's "Tsunkatse" was nothing more than an hour long infomercial for the WWE.

Well, such things aren't unprecedented. The first-draft script to TOS's "Assignment: Earth," in which the Enterprise has gone back in time to 1968 to conduct historical research, opens with a scene of the bridge crew raptly watching an episode of Bonanza on the main viewscreen. We almost had a Star Trek episode whose teaser was a blatant cross-promotion with another NBC show. (In fact, given how abruptly the teaser begins, I wonder if maybe the scene was actually shot and then wisely cut out, perhaps when they realized it would have to be cut in syndication anyway due to licensing issues.)

 

[Turd Ferguson]

"Captain's Starlog, April 23rd, 2152. We are responding to a distress call from a cargo vessel under attack by the Klingons. But first, we must stop by Earth and pick up the hot new act, 'Menstrual Orgasm.' That is, of course, after we drop 'Surak's Logic Band' off on Vulcan."

 

[Christopher]

I think the network exec failed to understand that the idea behind ENT was that the ship was far beyond where any other human vessel had ever gone or was as yet capable of going. When they finally did return to Earth in "The Expanse," it took them weeks to get there.

But I suppose if the exec had been adamant about the band tie-ins, they could've done something akin to Movie Night, where the crew would gather to watch a subspace transmission of a band performing back on Earth. And they could've claimed that the popular music styles of the United States in the early 2000s had experienced a comeback. (Not out of the question; the source music used at times in TOS sounded a lot like mid-20th-century lounge music and light jazz, and the "space hippie" songs had a very 1960s folk-rock sound.)

 

[ChristopherPike]

The 602 Club was never the same after they installed that jukebox.

Britney Spears' Toxic over and over, and over again...

Commodore Forrest stopped by late one night, brandishing a very large lump hammer.

 

[Dick Whitman]

The reason Berman and Braga get all the blame is we know their names. Do we know the names of any of UPN execs ? I certainly do not. So its easy to lay all responsibility for things fans do not like on the public face of TPTB. Which for television is writers and producers. Even if its not the reality.

This is not unique to Star Trek either. On any show that takes a turn the fans do not approve the known Producer is demonized. Being ignorant about how network tv works.

I know all the various DC Comics tv shows had a lot of different groups having a say in the content. Of course DC Comics itself. Plus Warner Bros, sure they are owned by the same corporation but they are still separate companies with different people working at each. On top of which you have the network which the show is airing on.

 

[Dream]

The reason Berman and Braga get all the blame is we know their names.

They were also the ones that wrote TATV. Unless of course fans think UPN FORCED them to write that story?

 

[Christopher]

^Everyone has off days. The point is that it's simplistic to blame the most prominent people for absolutely every decision you don't like. Hell, I've heard people blame Braga for things he had absolutely no involvement with, like Insurrection and Nemesis. Just because they got in the habit of associating his name with Berman's, they lazily assumed the two were joined at the hip.

 

[Dick Whitman]

The reason Berman and Braga get all the blame is we know their names.

They were also the ones that wrote TATV. Unless of course fans think UPN FORCED them to write that story?

Notice I said ALL, meaning the whole series, not a particular episode.