He scored Jeri Ryan. 'nuff said! 
Not to bury Brannon Braga, but to praise him!
- Thread starter Darth_Pazuzu
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He scored lots of tail.siskokid888 said:
He scored Jeri Ryan. 'nuff said!
Braga's TNG output was mostly excellent, even Imaginary Friend was better than I remembered when I saw it recently. I think Brannon was the first writer I actually noticed on TNG, so when episodes aired and I saw his credit I knew I was likely in for a fun episode.
His output after TNG was more hit and miss, but I think the TNG crew were so good that they could somewhat salvage even a bad script. I don't think the later crews were quite up to that so it's more noticeable when the script doesn't work very well.
His output after TNG was more hit and miss, but I think the TNG crew were so good that they could somewhat salvage even a bad script. I don't think the later crews were quite up to that so it's more noticeable when the script doesn't work very well.
No, I like Braga's TNG stuff.
He went off the boil a bit in later years, but in TNG he knocked out some great episodes.
Some of the vitriol directed towards Braga & Berman get on this board is ridiculous. 99 percent of people in this place couldnt write a decent script if their life fucking depended on it...
He went off the boil a bit in later years, but in TNG he knocked out some great episodes.
Some of the vitriol directed towards Braga & Berman get on this board is ridiculous. 99 percent of people in this place couldnt write a decent script if their life fucking depended on it...
As consumers of the "Star Trek product" we don't have to know how to write a script any more than we should know how to build the car we purchase. And as consumers, it's our right to bitch about the product.
That said, however, I agree with you.
Maybe Braga didn't do so hot on subsequent Star Trek series, but he did a good job on TNG and that's what matters to me.
Braga's stuck in perpetual adolescence and has major issues with women. He has to depict them as unattainable ice queens with Barbie-style bodies and then degrade them. Pretty sick.
You make it sound like 7 of 9 was his idea, it wasn't. His original idea was just to have a "Hugh" like character as a permenant member of the crew.
The shapely female thing was UPN's hijacking of his idea, and making her an unattainable Ice-Queen thing was UPN's way of appeasing Jeri Ryan (she kept refusing the role until they told her 7 wouldn't be a bimbo).
Same thing pretty much with T'Pol.
The shapely female thing was UPN's hijacking of his idea, and making her an unattainable Ice-Queen thing was UPN's way of appeasing Jeri Ryan (she kept refusing the role until they told her 7 wouldn't be a bimbo).
Same thing pretty much with T'Pol.
Jack Bauer said:
He scored lots of tail.siskokid888 said:
He scored Jeri Ryan. 'nuff said!
My man! I knew I liked the dude. Oh yea, he wrote a couple of good stories as well.
If it has spatial anomalies, alternate timelines, freaky dream sequences, and/or a reset button, it is a Brannon Braga script.
He was good in the early days of Trek because he brought something new to the franchise. The problem is he has basically rewritten the same four plots above for most of his career. It got pretty old.
Add to it the fact he cared little, if at all, about continuity.
He was good in the early days of Trek because he brought something new to the franchise. The problem is he has basically rewritten the same four plots above for most of his career. It got pretty old.
Add to it the fact he cared little, if at all, about continuity.
Done and have.
I just listened to Mr Braga's Generations commentary on the special edition - its well worth a listen if you want to understand what he thinks makes a good Star Trek story. He regrets basically every part of the film that wasn't mind blowing action, because 'that's what the fans wanted'. He also admits that the first thing he thinks of when writing a film is what a cool poster would look like then writes backwards from there.
Zany, surreal plot twists are great provided that the series has already established strong characters, as was the case with TNG. The problem comes when you only do kewl sci-fi plots and treat your characters as cardboard cutouts who exist only to be tossed around by the anamoly of the week. The majority of the Voy cast and almost all the Ent cast were more like glorified manequins than characters.
Braga had some really good ideas and some really weird ideas that just weren't good (Threshold, for example). In some cases, he benefitted from someone else telling him which was which. He also had a lot of good ideas that failed in the execution of the idea (a lot in Enterprise could have been so much better). Some of his character work wasn't great (I think he benefitted from having such strong characters in the Next Generation, so he didn't have to worry about it). Overall, like any writer, his results were a mixed bag. Still, especially for his TNG episodes, there are more good than bad.
I really like a lot of Brannon's work. He was one of my favorite writers on TNG. He came up with some very interesting concepts and wrote some very entertaining episodes(Identity Crisis, Cause and Effect, Power Play, Genesis, Phantasm. Timescape, Parallels).
He doesn't strike me as a "character" writer but instead uses the characters effectively in his plots and gives them some nice moments or dialogue(Bev/Riker in Timescape teaser, the crew on the Runabout in Timescape, the poker scenes in Cause and Effect, Worf/Troi in Parallels and Genesis)
His work on VOY was pretty good. He wrote some of that series' best episodes i.e. Scorpion, Year of Hell, Cathexis, Prey, Unimatrix Zero.
On ENT he was burnt out although the Xindi arc was pretty cool.
He doesn't strike me as a "character" writer but instead uses the characters effectively in his plots and gives them some nice moments or dialogue(Bev/Riker in Timescape teaser, the crew on the Runabout in Timescape, the poker scenes in Cause and Effect, Worf/Troi in Parallels and Genesis)
His work on VOY was pretty good. He wrote some of that series' best episodes i.e. Scorpion, Year of Hell, Cathexis, Prey, Unimatrix Zero.
On ENT he was burnt out although the Xindi arc was pretty cool.
More often than not though I think his strengths lie in plot-driven high-concept stories. That isn't to say he can't do both. Afterall he was responsible for VOY's Prey and ENT's Shuttlepod One for instance.
Like I said he can give characters nice moments but he seems to really shine on the plot side with the ideas, imagery, twists and the bizarre and dark.
Take for instance ENT. He and Berman tried doing what they considered more character-driven stories in its first two seasons with mixed results. Sometimes they did a good job with Shuttlepod One or Shockwave I. But was less successful with A Night in Sickbay, Vanishing Point, The Seventh.
But then you see the Xindi arc and that sort of storytelling played to see his strengths-time travel, sci fi elements like mysterious spheres, transdimensional aliens, weird aliens, strong visual elements, epic storytelling etc. And I don't think that it is coincidence that those elements played a role in many ways in making the Xindi saga very popular among many fans.
Like I said he can give characters nice moments but he seems to really shine on the plot side with the ideas, imagery, twists and the bizarre and dark.
Take for instance ENT. He and Berman tried doing what they considered more character-driven stories in its first two seasons with mixed results. Sometimes they did a good job with Shuttlepod One or Shockwave I. But was less successful with A Night in Sickbay, Vanishing Point, The Seventh.
But then you see the Xindi arc and that sort of storytelling played to see his strengths-time travel, sci fi elements like mysterious spheres, transdimensional aliens, weird aliens, strong visual elements, epic storytelling etc. And I don't think that it is coincidence that those elements played a role in many ways in making the Xindi saga very popular among many fans.
The Xindi arc was very weak IMO, even for Braga. The large "Death Sphere" was nothing more than the Deathstar from SW. The arc was niether plot-driven or character-driven. It was action driven. Even the science aspect of the science-fiction was weak: 5 Xindi sentient life-forms (Xindi Sloth?) coexisting and developing on the same planet? Lame.
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