On the origin of the "Gimmick Episode" in SNW...(Spoilers)

[Gepard]

Good thing Gene Coon came along then. To help balance the show.

Coon also started building out a consistent internal mythology, which became more and more important during the Berman-era shows, and which (IMO) runs counter to the "genre pastiche" ethos supposedly so central to TOS.

 

[BillJ]

Coon also started building out a consistent internal mythology, which became more and more important during the Berman-era shows, and which (IMO) runs counter to the "genre pastiche" ethos supposedly so central to TOS.

None of us are perfect.

 

[fireproof78]

The episode had a chest-burster scene, and even a Newt analogue!

Was very hard to take seriously though that point where one of the Gorn hatchlings managed to drag away an adult human when it was still the size of a squirrel.

Judge me by my size do you?

 

[Firebird]

I think if you poke around, you'll find people who disagree with you.

Like me. It’s so blatantly obvious Balance of Terror is a reskinned The Enemy Below.

 

[eschaton]

Judge me by my size do you?

Reminded me more of the killer rabbit scene from Monty Python, TBH.

In the right kind of episode, it would've been fine, but given they were trying to play it straight there, I found it laughable in a bad way. Not enough to ruin the episode, mind you, but a bad choice nonetheless.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Like me. It’s so blatantly obvious Balance of Terror is a reskinned The Enemy Below.

I guess ill have to watch the movie again. Its been a while. I dont recall there being a young couple on board being married or any of the bridge dialog being the same. As I recall wrath of Khan supposedly took elements from the movie. Two vessels fighting. Still its not such an obvious story rip like the "aliens" remake in SNW.

 

[Phoenix219]

Hey guys,

There's been a lot of discussion about the increasing frequency of "gimmick episodes" in SNW, so I thought I'd take a look across the series to see if we can peg their origin.

We might have different definitions of what makes something a gimmick episode, but I think it comes down to one or more of the following three:

• An episode which takes a big swing outside of the core Trek wheelhouse.
• An episode which can be broadly summarized as "What if ____, but in Star Trek."
• An episode which is very clearly meant as a homage to some other form of media.

Anyway looking through the seasons.

Season 1: At first, I thought gimmicks were entirely absent from the first season, as most of the episodes are simple sci-fi tales which help to introduce and deepen the characters without much in terms of high concept. The one comedy (Spock Amok) plays with body swap tropes, but isn't what I'd call a gimmick. And while Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach is a pretty shameless lifting of Omelas into Star Trek, it's enough of a deep cut that I don't think It counts. The Elysian Kingdom plays with some fantasy tropes, but it doesn't feel that far out of the standard Trek wheelhouse. But the obvious answer here for a first gimmick outing is All Those Who Wander, as it's pretty transparently just guided by the desire to do Alien within Trek, hammering away at what was already established regarding the Gorn until they somehow could work here. I think it's the sole real gimmick. (1 episode)

Season 2: The two clear big swings were Those Old Scientists and Subspace Rhapsody, which were both gimmicky concepts (crossover and musical), but ended up being among the greatest successes of the series, building up quite a lot of confidence on the part of the writing team. Aside from that, though the season was pretty normal Star Trek. The other comedy (Charades) had a silly concept, but wasn't really a gimmick, and the rest of the season was a mixture of character drama and a few high-octane action outings. (2 episodes)

Season 3: The gimmicking and the genre play began to snowball here. We get zombies (Shuttle to Kenfori), a holodeck murder mystery meant as a love letter to TOS's production (A Space Adventure Hour), and an in-universe documentary (What is Starfleet?). One can argue that The Sehlat Who Ate its Tail was a gimmick of a sort (albeit an effective one) since it seems constructed to be a backdoor pilot of sorts for Year One. I will say though that although it was an awful episode, Four-and-a-Half Vulcans is not really a gimmick - it just continues the pattern of Spock-centered comedies that deal with body transformation. (3 episodes)

Season 4: Seems like we've reached critical mass. In the first half of the season, at least four out of the five episodes are constructed with the "What if _____ in Star Trek?" concept, making them gimmicks, regardless of how effective/ineffective they are. While Valles Marineris is arguably not a gimmick, it plays so heavily on Barsoomian tropes I'd argue that it's from the same wheelhouse. And we know in the back half at the very least Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass and Once La'an a Time will be big swings as well. (6 episodes - maybe even more).

What I conclude here is gimmicks and/or "big swings" really don't seem to have taken off until this season. People complained about them last season, but TBH, there weren't that many more than in Season 2. It's just that Season 3 just wasn't very good for unrelated reasons (a bad comedy outing, too much focus on romances, an attempt at a season arc that went nowhere, etc.)

I think those S1 and S2 close-to-gimmicks/tropes that you pointed out count, we just didn't realize it yet at the time, because they were (arguably) better written, and because they weren't overwhelmingly in your face and part of a recognizable pattern yet. I think the writing team changed between S2 and S3 as well, which didn't help, but I could be wrong and just be repeating misinfo here. (i've always heard that a bunch of disco writers came over after S5 ended). I won't pretend I looked into it myself.

 

[eschaton]

I think those S1 and S2 close-to-gimmicks/tropes that you pointed out count, we just didn't realize it yet at the time, because they were (arguably) better written, and because they weren't overwhelmingly in your face and part of a recognizable pattern yet. I think the writing team changed between S2 and S3 as well, which didn't help, but I could be wrong and just be repeating misinfo here. (i've always heard that a bunch of disco writers came over after S5 ended). I won't pretend I looked into it myself.

I don't think there was really a change in the writer's room.

Looking over the seasons, Henry Alonso Myers writes for every single season, which makes sense, as he's the real showrunner IMHO. Goldsman skipped Season 3, and my impression is his role in the show is more secondary. Bill Wolkoff also has been consistent in the writing room. Onitra Johnson has been present through seasons 1-4 (started as an assistant on the show, IIRC). She doesn't have credit for season 5, but that might be because there's so few episodes left.

• In the first season, there were a number of writers who bopped in for a single episode credit/co-credit, like Sarah Tarkoff, Akela Cooper, Robin Wasserman, and Beau DeMayo. All of them have extensive genre background, though DeMayo (who co-wrote the fantastic Memento Mori) has since become famous/infamous due to Season 1 of X-Men 97 and his subsequent firing.
• Season 2 saw the first scripts by Dana Horgan (who works closely with Myers), David Reed (who was another writer on The Magicians with Myers. and Katheryn Lyn (who cut her teeth on a fantastic Lower Decks episode). Reed and Lyn lack Season 5 credits, though Horgan does have one. It also marked the first Kirsten Beyer credit (a co-writing credit on Among the Lotus Eaters - a pretty mid episode). Beyer seems to uniquely be able to bop into any modern Trek series and write some episodes, but I'm not sure she's been formally part of a writer's room since Season 1 of Picard.
• Season 3, despite the big drop in quality, saw relatively little change. The only notable one was adding Alan B McElroy, who's most famous for the creation of the Spawn comics, though he was in the DIS writing room since the second season of that show. It also marks the last credits for Kirsten Byer (co-credit on Wedding Bell Blues), and the last credits for Davy Perez, who had 2-3 credits across seasons 1-3.
• Season 4 has marked the introduction of Robbie Thompson, who wrote the excellent horror homage The Griffin Incident. She'll return for Season 5 Episode 3, working with director Axelle Carolyn again (suggesting another horror episode incoming). Another new name for the season is Skylar Ojeda, who has worked more behind the scenes as Myer's assistant since Season 1.
• The Season 5 credits have a new writer as co-credit for Episode 2 - Vicky Kerkhove. She has very few credits, mostly as a PA, so I'm guessing she provided polish to a Meyers script.

Looking at the episodes, it's really hard to see any general trend, in part because only 15 out of 46 episodes have sole writing credit. It's very different from during Berman Trek, where you knew from the jump you were going to get a very different episode if the credit was Brannon Braga versus Ron D Moore. Nearly every writer who's credited on one of the best episodes is also credited on shitty ones. TBH, my understanding of the way that modern writer's rooms works is the group meets collectively (either in person or on zoom) to brainstorm the general idea of each of the episodes, which are then parceled out to individual writers for the rough draft. This is very different from how it used to work, where writers would pitch individual episodes. So while the writer might be responsible for the execution, the idea of "Let's do a ____" might not come from them at all.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I don't think there was really a change in the writer's room.

Looking over the seasons, Henry Alonso Myers writes for every single season, which makes sense, as he's the real showrunner IMHO. Goldsman skipped Season 3, and my impression is his role in the show is more secondary. Bill Wolkoff also has been consistent in the writing room. Onitra Johnson has been present through seasons 1-4 (started as an assistant on the show, IIRC). She doesn't have credit for season 5, but that might be because there's so few episodes left.

• In the first season, there were a number of writers who bopped in for a single episode credit/co-credit, like Sarah Tarkoff, Akela Cooper, Robin Wasserman, and Beau DeMayo. All of them have extensive genre background, though DeMayo (who co-wrote the fantastic Memento Mori) has since become famous/infamous due to Season 1 of X-Men 97 and his subsequent firing.
• Season 2 saw the first scripts by Dana Horgan (who works closely with Myers), David Reed. and Katheryn Lyn (who cut her teeth on a fantastic Lower Decks episode). Reed and Lyn lack Season 5 credits, though Horgan does have one. It also marked the first Kirsten Beyer credit (a co-writing credit on Among the Lotus Eaters - a pretty mid episode). Beyer seems to uniquely be able to bop into any modern Trek series and write some episodes, but I'm not sure she's been formally part of a writer's room since Season 1 of Picard.
• Season 3, despite the big drop in quality, saw relatively little change. The only notable one was adding Alan B McElroy, who's most famous for the creation of the Spawn comics, though he was in the DIS writing room since the second season of that show. It also marks the last credits for Kirsten Byer (co-credit on Wedding Bell Blues), and the last credits for Davy Perez, who had 2-3 credits across seasons 1-3.
• Season 4 has marked the introduction of Robbie Thompson, who wrote the excellent horror homage The Griffin Incident. She'll return for Season 5 for Episode 3, working with director Axelle Carolyn again (suggesting another horror episode incoming). Another new name for the season is Skylar Ojeda, who has worked more behind the scenes as Myer's assistant since Season 1.
• The Season 5 credits have a new writer as co-credit for Episode 2 - Vicky Kerkhove. She has very few credits, mostly as a PA, so I'm guessing she provided polish to a Meyers script.

Looking at the episodes, it's really hard to see any general trend, in part because only 15 out of 46 episodes have sole writing credit. It's very different from during Berman Trek, where you knew quite well what sort of episode you knew from the jump you were going to get a very different episode if the credit was Brannon Braga versus Ron D Moore. Nearly every writer who's credited on one of the best episodes is also credited on shitty ones. TBH, my understanding of the way that modern writer's rooms works is the group meets collectively (either in person or on zoom) to brainstorm the general idea of each of the episodes, which are then parceled out to individual writers for the rough draft. This is very different from how it used to work, where writers would pitch individual episodes. So while the writer might be responsible for the execution, the idea of "Let's do a ____" might not come from them at all.

It's all Discovery's fault. Obviously it's the only explanation for why the saviour of Trek was ruined.

 

[HotRod]

I don’t think there is any episode of SNW that is perfect, but I’d rather have a good time with it than suffer through another variation of TNG or Picard.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I think it's pretty clear if you look at TOS Season 1 before Gene Coon came on (I believe it was around Miri) that the sense of "fun" didn't really come from Roddenberry, who originally conceived of Trek as a much more high-minded thing.

So, no actual statement from Gene R, just supposition. Of course the ideas behind "A Piece of the Action" comes directly from GR.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Coon also started building out a consistent internal mythology, which became more and more important during the Berman-era shows, and which (IMO) runs counter to the "genre pastiche" ethos supposedly so central to TOS.

Not sure how those a contradictory.

 

[eschaton]

So, no actual statement from Gene R, just supposition. Of course the ideas behind "A Piece of the Action" comes directly from GR.

You're really just accusing me of making shit up?

Fine - a source:

Roddenberry was balanced, and sometimes thwarted, by producer Gene L. Coon, who joined Star Trek on August 8, 1966—exactly one month before the show premiered, and at a time when Roddenberry was already burning out from innumerable rewrites and production headaches. Described by associate producer Robert H. Justman as “a romantic with an obvious sense of humor,” Coon brought a welcome wink and nod to the production.

“He knew you had to balance gravitas with lightheartedness—that you can’t save the galaxy every week,” said Gerrold. “Roddenberry never understood that.”

With Coon’s encouragement, Gerrold fleshed out “The Fuzzies” into a full story outline called “A Fuzzy Thing Happened to Me.” (He eventually dubbed his title creatures “tribbles” to avoid legal conflicts with H. Beam Piper’s science-fiction novel Little Fuzzy.) Star Trek story consultant Dorothy Fontana compared the outline favorably to a recent episode with distinctly bright overtones. “This story is one we should purchase,” she wrote. “[It has] the elements of fun grounded in serious problems for our principals that made ‘Shore Leave’ so well received.”

“Roddenberry did allow us to take off in lighter directions sometimes,” Fontana told Vanity Fair recently. “He just didn’t want to do an outright comedy.”

But when the so-called “Great Bird of the Galaxy” returned to the Desilu soundstages, he was appalled. “Roddenberry entered Stage 10,” said Marc Cushman, author of These Are the Voyages, a three-volume set about the making of the series, “and saw them filming the scene in which Kirk is buried in tribbles. Shatner was having a ball, and people were laughing to the point of tears. But Roddenberry wasn't laughing.” Shortly afterward, Coon—credited as the godfather of this turn toward comedy—left the show. (Coon became a producer of It Takes a Thief and, under the pseudonym Lee Cronin, wrote several third-season Star Trek episodes. He died of cancer in 1973 at the age of 49.)

Robert Justman, the associate producer, took Roddenberry’s side on “Tribbles.” “Although the concept was amusing, the story was just too cute,” he wrote in 1996. “Kirk, Spock, and the others were real people, and real people just did not behave that way; [I felt] our finely drawn characters should never parody themselves.”

And so Justman tried to shunt the show off into what he thought was a dead zone. “Tribbles” ran at 8:30 P.M. on the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, 1967.

“Justman told me how he was responsible for selecting the order in which the episodes would air on NBC,” said Cushman. “Since he wasn't fond of 'Tribbles' when it was first made, he scheduled it to air when most of the networks were showing repeats.”

 

[Nerys Myk]

You're really just accusing me of making shit up?

Fine - a source:

Maybe next time lead with that.

 

[BillJ]

...but I’d rather have a good time with it than suffer through another variation of TNG or Picard.

I should clarify that Star Trek: The Next Generation was a good show. Just a show that had some of its luster rub off when they tried to recreate it in Voyager and Enterprise. In my mind, it hasn't aged particularly well, though it still has some bangers that are top echelon Star Trek.

 

[BillJ]

...said Marc Cushman...

This pretty much invalidates your argument.

 

[TRON JA307020]

I

I complained about the Xenomorph Gorn, but that is what the writers came up with or someone or someone’s above them. They seem to be in the rear view mirror now, so I’m good.

I don’t think there is any episode of SNW that is perfect, but I’d rather have a good time with it than suffer through another variation of TNG or Picard.

TNG was a success and made a huge amount of money. SNW isnt. TNG any day of the week for me.

 

[BillJ]

TNG was a success and made a huge amount of money. SNW isnt. TNG any day of the week for me.

I don't rate them on how much money they made or make. Just by whether or not I enjoy watching them.

 

[fireproof78]

I

TNG was a success and made a huge amount of money. SNW isnt. TNG any day of the week for me.

Unless I'm getting the money then that metric is hard for me to care about.

 

[Firebird]

I don't rate them on how much money they made or make. Just by whether or not I enjoy watching them.

Outside of the studio producing them, how much money any of them made literally means nothing to anyone else. It's such a worthless metric to interpret objective quality against.