How do Niners feel about Voyager?
- Thread starter TheGodBen
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Heh, didn't Berman have some quote about "Star Trek has never done anything like this before."?
I think the exact quote was: "We're very pleased about having never done this before."*
*(unconfirmed)(needs citation)(bunch o' baloney)
Well, if he said we, since he had zero (or something like 0.00001%) involvement in DS9, he may be technically right.
Associated Content interview with Nana Visitor:
Q: Rick Berman. Criticism of his handling of the franchise has been pretty severe. Some other Star Trek actors have said Rick Berman was never a hands on producer and rarely visited their sets. Was that the case with DS9?
A: Producers Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr were my guiding lights in the show. And I adored and I will always adore them both.
Quite a misunderstanding here. No, this was Nana Visitor answering (or not answering) to a question how she felt about Rick Berman, in an interview I linked to in the post above.
Interviewer's question: "Rick Berman. Criticism of his handling of the franchise has been pretty severe. Some other Star Trek actors have said Rick Berman was never a hands on producer and rarely visited their sets. Was that the case with DS9?"
Nana Visitor's answer: "Producers Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr were my guiding lights in the show. And I adored and I will always adore them both."
What a way to say what she thought of him without actually saying it.
Yeah, he was involved (though 'just as' may be debateable, he was probably more involved with ENT's first three seasons than with DS9's).
In fairness, he was the guy who was never keen on the Dominion War. On the other hand he was the guy said that he wanted the space station to be recognisable on the small screen from another room (so you'd immediately know what show is on); a sensibility which doubtless informed DS9's rather bizarre and unique design.
Still, most of the hate directed at Berman comes from being TPTB for VOY and ENT, rather than his TPTB during TNG and his influence on DS9.
I've never really hated the guy, but I did feel he made some good calls (famously: Getting Michael Piller into the Trek franchise, and from Piller came most of the rest of the writers who made TNG and DS9 work) and some less than good ones (wallpaper music? Egad, wallpaper music).
Well the question here is: how much was he involved? 0.0000001% may have been an exaggeration on my part, but from everything I keep hearing, his involvement seemed to amount to things like asking Behr to end the Dominion war in as few episodes as possible. I don't get the impression that he was involved in developing storylines, working with the writers, or that he had any kind of communication with the actors (see interview with NV above; also see Berman's video interview posted in General Trek a few months ago, where he didn't know the difference between Ro and Kira).
Well, I tried to to explain his strange statement about "never having done this before"...
He was trying to sound good for the interview instead of saying "Yeah, we're just doing what was done 6 years prior again."
Berman was the one who came up with the idea for the Dominion, he was the one who worked with them on the Maquis storyline, wrote some stuff himself (which means interacting with the writing staff, etc). Not knowing the difference between Ro and Kira, so he slipped some words on two characters who were originally supposed to be the same character anyways, cut the guy some slack.
Honestly, Abrams in is for several years of abuse if Berman is any indication.
And the worst part is that the ones who made him a scapegoat completely ignored the ones who were REALLY responsible for most of the VOY/ENT problems: The nameless UPN Execs who ordered the VOY staff around. They only went after Berman because he had a name.
Berman was the one who came up with the idea for the Dominion, he was the one who worked with them on the Maquis storyline, wrote some stuff himself (which means interacting with the writing staff, etc). Not knowing the difference between Ro and Kira, so he slipped some words on two characters who were originally supposed to be the same character anyways, cut the guy some slack.
Honestly, Abrams in is for several years of abuse if Berman is any indication.
And the worst part is that the ones who made him a scapegoat completely ignored the ones who were REALLY responsible for most of the VOY/ENT problems: The nameless UPN Execs who ordered the VOY staff around. They only went after Berman because he had a name.
Well, I think it can be sensibly said that DS9 in the long run was the Berman era show Berman was involved in the least, but that's still a series he co-created and execrised executive producer rights over (however nominal) for the whole series run. That's not to be taken all too lightly.
As far as developing storylines goes, he was credited for "The Maquis", which was part of an interesting experiment in itself: A story idea that simultaneously gets developed on TNG and DS9 so it can become a centerpiece of a third series, VOY. But that's a pan-franchise storyline rather than one specific to DS9, and it's notable DS9 then largely ignored the Maquis until they were able to make them an internal DS9 concern with Eddington.
But yeah, DS9 is obviously the redheaded stepchild.Well, I tried to to explain his strange statement about "never having done this before"...
Personally, I don't think that Enterprise's third season was a rip-off of the Dominion War, the two had entirely different structures and personality. Serialisation and gritty story-telling were not invented by DS9.
Where did you get that from? Everything I've read and heard indicated that Piller/Behr/Wolfe came up with the Dominion with Wolfe doing a lot of the heavy-lifting in fleshing out the three races. I've never read anything to suggest that Berman was involved, he seemed to be more focused on Generations around that time.
Berman did much good work on Trek over the 18 years he was involved in it, and you are right in saying that it was the UPN execs who were mostly to blame for the problems on Voyager and Enterprise. But his influence on DS9 is still open to dispute, and he doesn't help his case when he forgets that Trek has done serialised stories before and when he can't remember the names of main characters.
Really?
Where did you get that from? Everything I've read and heard indicated that Piller/Behr/Wolfe came up with the Dominion with Wolfe doing a lot of the heavy-lifting in fleshing out the three races. I've never read anything to suggest that Berman was involved, he seemed to be more focused on Generations around that time.He didn't really work with them, he was involved with co-creating Voyager which meant he was co-creating the Maquis and it was decided to plant the seeds for that organisation in TNG and DS9.
He wrote nothing on DS9, he is credited with two stories, Emissary and The Maquis, both of which he is credited for because he was involved in creating DS9 and Voyager.
Berman did much good work on Trek over the 18 years he was involved in it, and you are right in saying that it was the UPN execs who were mostly to blame for the problems on Voyager and Enterprise. But his influence on DS9 is still open to dispute, and he doesn't help his case when he forgets that Trek has done serialised stories before and when he can't remember the names of main characters.
Really?
He told them that the Cardassians alone wouldn't be a good series antagonist, and that there should be a villain group from the other side of the wormhole with three tiers to it's organization. That idea developed into the Dominion.
Yes, but where did you get that information from? It was my understanding that they introduced three races because they didn't want to run the risk of creating one race as the major villain that fans hated so they decided to introduce three at once, hoping at least one would be popular. I've never seen any indication that Berman was behind that idea. I'm not saying that it's impossible, just that I've seen no evidence for it in the past.
Really?
He told them that the Cardassians alone wouldn't be a good series antagonist, and that there should be a villain group from the other side of the wormhole with three tiers to it's organization. That idea developed into the Dominion.
That's total BS.
The idea for the Dominion did not come from Berman and certainly did not originate with a 3 tiered hierarchy.
The original concept for the Dominion was that it was sort of an anti-Federation. It would feature multiple races united in a more malevolent alliance. In fact the earliest mentions of the Dominion indicate that there are many planets involved. Indeed it was implied that some of the races that came though the wormhole in early episodes might have been involved. The writers wanted to have multiple races, but budget concerns meant that only 3 races were ever shown.
Please remember that the Dominion ultimately shown was a dramatically scaled down version of the original concept and that there were elements that never made it on screen (like the idea that the Dominion was aware of the Federation before the discovery of the wormhole)
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