Improving on Braga

[xortex]

O.k., let's start from the beginning with 'Birthright'. Wouldn't it have nade more sense if Worf's struggle was an external one instead of internal. If the Romulan's and Klingons found out and threatened to destroy the colony, wouldn't that have made a better story? That would have given their choices more meaning and given Worf more credibility.

Problem was Menosky wasn't there yet so there was noone there to do the heavier lifting of developing stories and such. Great ideas are fine and hard to come by but they have to be developed. It's like having a child and splitting. He may not grow up right. What's next?

 

[Christopher]

Problem was Menosky wasn't there yet so there was noone there to do the heavier lifting of developing stories and such. Great ideas are fine and hard to come by but they have to be developed.

The flaw in your assumption is that no member of the TNG writing staff worked alone. No matter who got script credit on an episode, the entire writing staff would've participated in "breaking" (outlining) the story, and the showrunner would've done the final rewrite pass on every script. That's how the "writing room" process works.

In the case of "Birthright," it's completely wrong to give Brannon Braga sole credit for the story of Worf and the POW camp. The idea was compiled from two pitches, one by George Brozak, the other by Daryl F. Mallett, Arthur Loy Holcomb, & Barbara Wallace. Showrunner Michael Piller supervised the entire writing room in breaking the story. Braga was assigned to script part I, while Rene Echevarria scripted part II (the one that dealt more heavily with the POW camp).

So your premise -- that the POW camp story was exclusively Braga's idea and suffered because he had no stronger writer to help him refine it -- is completely contrary to the facts. At the time, Braga was just a story editor, a low-ranking member of the writing room overseen by Michael Piller, one of the strongest writers Trek has ever had. He and fellow story editor Echevarria were assigned the scripts by their writing room superiors who developed them -- Piller, Jeri Taylor, and Ron Moore.

This is why research is important. You could've easily found this out for yourself by spending a few minutes on Memory Alpha and IMDb or checking the TNG Companion.

 

[Mr_Homn]

Man. Birthright was such a tease. It started out so interesting, and you really wanted to know what was going to happen next with worfs family history. Could Mog really be alive? Was this some sort of trap? As soon as Worf finds that camp though, it's all pretty downhill. That second half is damn near unwatchable.

 

[xortex]

Yea, I guess so then I'm probably talking about Eschieverra's second half which was too self contained and character heavy. The first part was just intregue with Shrek and DS9 laying it all in the hands of the second part which was a disappointment. Having two people write a two part is wrong as they could always point and blame the other for the set up or pay off. It just wasn't thought out well enough. Pleasing Piller meant emotional touchy feely stories, though I liked Rene alot and Shankar, but he was too easily influenced by his superiors and just following orders as lower rank members of the writing team but not stepping up to the plate is somebody's fault so I blame Braga as he was the stronger writer. I feel his complacency to push the envelopes started in Voyager really. He broke new ground fine but he didn't cultivate that new ground.

 

[Christopher]

Having two people write a two part is wrong as they could always point and blame the other for the set up or pay off.

Not if they're remotely professional, they wouldn't. And it happens all the time. Again, remember, the entire staff participates in plotting every episode, and the showrunner does the final draft on every script, regardless of what the credits say. The whole thing is highly collaborative. So it's a mistake to assume that either part of a 2-parter is exclusively the work of the credited author. The credited writers came up with the dialogue and the details of how the story was told (although the showrunner would've modified them), but the overall structure and story arc of the 2-parter would've been the work of the entire staff as a group.

...but not stepping up to the plate is somebody's fault so I blame Braga as he was the stronger writer.

It's bizarre seeing all the nonsensical and counterfactual excuses people come up with to justify their Braga-bashing. It's the second half of the episode, the one credited to Echevarria, that you dislike more, but you're blaming Braga for it anyway? This has gone on long enough. Cut the poor guy a goddamn break, Internet!!

 

[xortex]

The writer's frustrations by the show's format seemed to come out by them passive aggressively preaching to themselves and the arguments and shouting matches in the writing room itself since Moore got their as their philosophical appraoches did not gel or agree with each other and Berman standing over their shoulders weighing and anylizing every script. Menosky's mythological apprach was at least grounding conceptually in trying to balance out and offset all the all too hideaosly clever and destructive writers to come during the Voyager era. Braga was too nebulous to be a showrunner and didn't have definate ideas and stratagies going in to Voyager and Enterprise and was hamstringed by Berman. Coto was no good either. Braga neede to be a number two man but to who? Someone in his league and depth - a heavy hitter/lifter. It wasn't Piller. And it couldn't be anyone else at that point either. Menosky took off, so who was left?

 

[Kegg]

Cut the poor guy a goddamn break, Internet!!

I think Braga was at his strongest, Trek-wise, in the Next Generation. Never mind the high concept thrills of "Cause and Effect", probably the hour Braga's best known postively for. "Frame of Mind" is hands down one of the best episodes of TNG. It's intense, unsettling, and gradually unravels both strands of the world. I don't think there's an episode of TNG that's closer to a PKD mentality, which may pinpoint why I love it so much.

Moving on a little bit, "Schisms","Timescape" and "Parallels" are really solid weird-concept episodes of TNG, I liked "Realm of Fear" in dealing with Barclay's temporal psychosis, and co-writing credits on "Reunion" and "All Good Things" aren't lightly scoffed at.

 

[Christopher]

^You're right. Braga did good work on TNG. Whatever his deficiencies as a showrunner later on, as a staff writer he brought a great deal of imagination to the table.

And those deficiencies are greatly exaggerated. The problem is that people like having simple explanations, being able to pick just one easy scapegoat for everything they dislike, so Braga became the designated punching bag, and people have spent years blaming him for other Trek staffers' creative decisions, or at least assuming that he was joined at the hip with Rick Berman and blaming him for things he had no participation in whatsoever, like Insurrection and Nemesis.

 

[Alrik]

^
This!

Well said Christopher, I don't think anything needs to be added.

 

[xortex]

Yea, but in the same way when somebody orders a steak in a fine resteraunt, the waiter doesn't bring out a cow. When Menosky and Braga joined up, I think the concepts got more compicated like in 'Emergance'. Concepts and raw material need a secondary creative push where things are added in and not 'broken' as they call an outlining session. Concepts grow new concepts and things come about out of them and form because of them them naturally and organically. Finding a good show runner to take over like maybe Menosky was never going to happen because of Berman's involvement in seemingly every aspect of every twist and turn. Every decision had to be okayed by him, the Procouncil from 'Bread and Circuses'. No wonder why Menosky went to another continent.

 

[Forbin]

I do admit to liking his work for quite a while. I think the problem came when he seemed to be obsessed with time travel. At least I perceived he was obsessed with time travel. Trek seemed to be just spitting out time travel stories like watermelon seeds. Time travel is something to be used sparingly, wisely, 'cause it's real easy to do badly. I remember rolling my eyes and getting quite tired of them.

 

[xortex]

I do admit to liking his work for quite a while. I think the problem came when he seemed to be obsessed with time travel. At least I perceived he was obsessed with time travel. Trek seemed to be just spitting out time travel stories like watermelon seeds. Time travel is something to be used sparingly, wisely, 'cause it's real easy to do badly. I remember rolling my eyes and getting quite tired of them.

Yea, they could have substituted something else for time travel like alternate realities, other realm vortexes, parallel universes and dimensions, etc..

 

[Captain Verata]

Agreed about the time travel stories. They never seem to stop on Voyager. Second and third episode in dealt with time travel and all the way to the last episode we had time travel. Too many and worse yet, too many not interesting ones. Other then that, I like many of Braga's stories. Not all but many.

 

[Captain Verata]

Double Post

 

[Forbin]

I do admit to liking his work for quite a while. I think the problem came when he seemed to be obsessed with time travel. At least I perceived he was obsessed with time travel. Trek seemed to be just spitting out time travel stories like watermelon seeds. Time travel is something to be used sparingly, wisely, 'cause it's real easy to do badly. I remember rolling my eyes and getting quite tired of them.

Yea, they could have substituted something else for time travel like alternate realities, other realm vortexes, parallel universes and dimensions, etc..

Or just some GOOD stories, regardless of the gimmick of the week.

 

[RAMA]

I do admit to liking his work for quite a while. I think the problem came when he seemed to be obsessed with time travel. At least I perceived he was obsessed with time travel. Trek seemed to be just spitting out time travel stories like watermelon seeds. Time travel is something to be used sparingly, wisely, 'cause it's real easy to do badly. I remember rolling my eyes and getting quite tired of them.

Yea, they could have substituted something else for time travel like alternate realities, other realm vortexes, parallel universes and dimensions, etc..

Or just some GOOD stories, regardless of the gimmick of the week.

History has so thoroughly been rewritten now (as Christopher points out) that's its impossible to defend Braga's good contributions at this point. He wrote a lot of turkeys--Threshold being my least favorite ST episode of any kind--but I don't think he's a bad writer. Mediocre producer perhaps, but not a bad writer.

RAMA

 

[xortex]

Concepts are the starting gates of great ideas to come out of them and having more than one is desirable. They are like eggs. The metaphysics that surround them and are magnified and sustained and trapped by them. They must be let out, else a misconception should occur or worse yet, an abortion. Concepts must be confronted and challenged and trapped and sustained themselves to shake those ideas out of them. It's the difference btween McDonalds and a fine Italian Restaurant. It's hard to find a great writer who's also a great producer conceptually as all people with power will think they are great writers and producers.

 

[Saxman1]

Braga did a lot of good work on TNG that he never gets credit for. He also did good work after that, something everyone seems to forget in their efforts to crucify him and Berman.

Berman helped keep Trek on the air from 1987-1995 and for that we should be grateful, but all anyone ever wants to do is bash him. No, I don't think he was a good movie producer and I feel the TNG movies were unnecessary, but he did produce a lot of great TV ST. For that I am grateful to both him and Braga.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Cut the poor guy a goddamn break, Internet!!

I think Braga was at his strongest, Trek-wise, in the Next Generation. Never mind the high concept thrills of "Cause and Effect", probably the hour Braga's best known postively for. "Frame of Mind" is hands down one of the best episodes of TNG. It's intense, unsettling, and gradually unravels both strands of the world. I don't think there's an episode of TNG that's closer to a PKD mentality, which may pinpoint why I love it so much.

You're right. I remember catching Frame on a pitch black, October evening and nearly shitting my pants. That was one scaaaary episode. I give Brannon Braga full credit for knocking that script right out of the park.