Rick Berman, Branon Braga and TOS

[F. King Daniel]

In both cases this is where having some kind of professional fan advisor would be helpful. ‘Continuity Consultant’ or some such.

I believe Trek novelist David Mack fulfills a role similar to that on Prodigy, suggesting continuity ties etc.

Like I said, key episodes. But what would a Prodigy producer take away from episodes like Spirit Folk or Threshold? Would Enterprise be a better show if Brannon/Berman watched Turnabout Intruder?

Three words that sum up Janeway's character better than other entire seasons.

"Delete the wife."

EDIT: Wait it wasn't "Spirit Folk" but a later Irish village episode.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I believe Trek novelist David Mack fulfills a role similar to that on Prodigy, suggesting continuity ties etc.

I may be misremembering, but I'm sure B&B had people like that on the team and routinely ignored them. The quote about Journey to Babel on the previous page is instructive. They were happy to just make stuff up without joining the dots first. It's a sloppy way to work and I think that's reflected in Enterprise. I'm marathoning it now and it's not an easy show to watch sometimes.

 

[Whizkid]

I'll only select 1 out of your list Sir. Or perhaps 2:

The City on the Edge of Forever
and
Let that be your Last Battlefield.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Berman wanting a year off before producing ENT probably is related to him needing to watch TOS to know what stories to pull from. Being force to produce ENT immediately after VOY caught him off guard.

But considering there is a century between ENT and TOS, its not like he needed to tell every story that had a TOS continuity connection within a decade long timespan. Since it just promotes the idea that everything Kirk did, Archer did it first. Establishing species and various powers never heard of before actually made sense on paper.

The plan was for ENT to run seven seasons, like all of the other shows. There was no plans for ENT to be a long running series like Law & Order or NCIS to spread out those TOS linked stories, or have it be an anthology series. And I doubt there were any plans to make any spinoffs of ENT that lasted seven seasons on their own.

In terms of art and production, they certainly tried to make it feel pre-TOS. It certainly could have been better, but it was out of their hands.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I'll only select 1 out of your list Sir. Or perhaps 2:

The City on the Edge of Forever
and
Let that be your Last Battlefield.

Well, it's not necessarily a case of picking favourites. More a case of picking a selection of things the show can do whilst showcasing the different characters. It's a theoretical primer for a prospective producer I guess.

You also want a mix of things the show regularly does. For example, The Man Trap and Devil in the Dark subvert the 'bug eyed monster' trope while The Naked Time and Amok Time both push regular characters to extremes. The there are outliers like Tribbles or Spectre of the Gun (another great one) where the show is going off the beaten track a bit.

I think CotEoF is a great episode, but it's in no way representative of the kind of thing Trek normally does. An outlier.

I do think as a producers primer though that you need more than 2.

 

[The Wormhole]

the problem with their writing on ENT was that they were obviously burnt out and having a lot of trouble coming up with original starship adventure stories that creatively energized them.

There was also network interference, which was really bad with Enterprise. Berman and Braga's original premise with it being Earth-bound and about the construction of Earth's first warp 5 starship got shot down by UPN who wanted "traditional Star Trek." Their attempts to show it was a prequel were rejected, specifically their desire to not have a transporter was overruled by UPN who said "it's not Star Trek without a transporter." Even the prequel concept didn't go over all too well, when Berman couldn't get talked into doing a 25th century show, UPN mandated the Temporal Cold War storyline so there would be a connection with the future. And when Berman and Braga said No to the shipboard boy band who would would spontaneously break out into musical number each episode, UPN responded by dramatically slashing the show's budget.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Imagine what Ten Forward on the NX-01 could have been

 

[Lord Garth]

And when Berman and Braga said No to the shipboard boy band who would would spontaneously break out into musical number each episode, UPN responded by dramatically slashing the show's budget.

Sounds to me like UPN wanted to slash the budget no matter what, since ENT was so much more expensive than everything else they had, and so they made a demand they knew Rick Berman would say "no" to, and then used that as the excuse to slash the budget. "They're not trying to appeal to our target demographic, so we're not going to spend as much money on them." It has Power Play written all over it.

 

[Whizkid]

Well, it's not necessarily a case of picking favourites. More a case of picking a selection of things the show can do whilst showcasing the different characters. It's a theoretical primer for a prospective producer I guess.

You also want a mix of things the show regularly does. For example, The Man Trap and Devil in the Dark subvert the 'bug eyed monster' trope while The Naked Time and Amok Time both push regular characters to extremes. The there are outliers like Tribbles or Spectre of the Gun (another great one) where the show is going off the beaten track a bit.

I think CotEoF is a great episode, but it's in no way representative of the kind of thing Trek normally does. An outlier.

I do think as a producers primer though that you need more than 2.

That's a great point Richard S. Ta. I stand corrected (happily).

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Imagine what Ten Forward on the NX-01 could have been

Like how the hell would the boy bands even get onboard every week? One of the dumbest network ideas ever.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

The boy band idea is one of the most tragically stupid notions in the entire history of the show. That includes stuff like Roddenberry wanting Troi to have three tits.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Like how the hell would the boy bands even get onboard every week? One of the dumbest network ideas ever.

I wonder if there were supposed to be concerts and pubs featuring them? Since the initial premise of the first season was to be set on Earth.

But in any case, I don’t know why they could not have just dressed Russell Watson in some alien makeup and have him do a rendition of Faith of the Heart, since it was already the show theme. Surely that would have gotten the boyband idea across.

 

[Lord Garth]

Now that I think about it, I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't have wanted Boy Bands on ENT... but, I don't think 20-something Lord Garth would've complained if they had Korn, System of a Down, Rob Zombie, Powerman 5000, or Incubus performing on the NX-01. It probably would've gotten me to watch. Just for the wrong reasons.

I wasn't against contemporary music in Star Trek as long as how it's used makes sense. I just thought "Faith of the Heart" sucked. I'm sorry but Rick Berman has Dad Jeans taste and it showed. Brannon Braga's choice of U2's "Beautiful Day" would've been 100 times better.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Like how the hell would the boy bands even get onboard every week? One of the dumbest network ideas ever.

Holograms! They'd just need a lil' holostage. They could even work in a retro 2000's being super cool in 2151 angle, and it would pretty much be the movie night concept we got but with music.

 

[Tosk]

And when Berman and Braga said No to the shipboard boy band who would would spontaneously break out into musical number each episode, UPN responded by dramatically slashing the show's budget.

Little bit of conflation there, I believe. The budget cut came about two seasons after the band suggestion. I'm thinking the budget got slashed due to declining ratings (the show was in danger of cancellation in season three), not a weird vendetta.

 

[Whizkid]

Now that I think about it, I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't have wanted Boy Bands on ENT... but, I don't think 20-something Lord Garth would've complained if they had Korn, System of a Down, Rob Zombie, Powerman 5000, or Incubus performing on the NX-01. It probably would've gotten me to watch. Just for the wrong reasons.

I wasn't against contemporary music in Star Trek as long as how it's used makes sense. I just thought "Faith of the Heart" sucked. I'm sorry but Rick Berman has Dad Jeans taste and it showed. Brannon Braga's choice of U2's "Beautiful Day" would've been 100 times better.

 

[Whizkid]

I also thought "Faith of the Heart' sucked I mean, who does that!' Unless you're crazy and completely unaware of ST! Horrible Horrible Horrible!

 

[Qonundrum]

Ron Moore talks about it a bit in this interview from some point pre-Enterprise.
"I think that is really hard for Rick and Brannon. It’s hard for them to do that, because they don’t like the original show. Let’s not mince words. They don’t like the original show. They have never liked the original show. They’ll bob and weave a bit here and there in public. But they don’t like it; they don’t want to have anything to do with it. If you are going to go before the original series and do something, you better have a change of attitude. You better have an epiphany about how much you love the original series. It’s all going to be about leading up to that."
I guess it's not actually saying they haven't ever watched all of it, though.
Reading the text version with it's lack of formatting might make people's eyes bleed but I made a text-to-speech version to listen to in the car last year, if anyone's interested. I don't agree with everything he says but I really like hearing his unfiltered thoughts on where Trek was back then.

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Is that the Borg Queen doing the voice? Or a TI 99/4A with speech module?

The text version was a great read and more than makes up for the Drunken Seeri...

 

[The Wormhole]

Sounds to me like UPN wanted to slash the budget no matter what, since ENT was so much more expensive than everything else they had, and so they made a demand they knew Rick Berman would say "no" to, and then used that as the excuse to slash the budget. "They're not trying to appeal to our target demographic, so we're not going to spend as much money on them." It has Power Play written all over it.

Though certainly possible, some of the stories about how clueless UPN's leadership was back in the day really makes me wonder. Like after reading one script, a UPN executive went to Berman and asked "what part of the starship is the hull? This needs to be made a lot clearer."

But in any case, I don’t know why they could not have just dressed Russell Watson in some alien makeup and have him do a rendition of Faith of the Heart, since it was already the show theme. Surely that would have gotten the boyband idea across.

This was at the time when such boy bands like Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and 98 Degrees were at the height of their popularity. UPN wanted to manufacture their own similar boy band to cash in on the level of popularity and use one of their shows to launch the boy band, and Enterprise was chosen to be that show.

Little bit of conflation there, I believe. The budget cut came about two seasons after the band suggestion. I'm thinking the budget got slashed due to declining ratings (the show was in danger of cancellation in season three), not a weird vendetta.

Maybe "slashed" isn't the right term, but I do recall Braga saying that when the show was beginning production, the budget ended up being less than originally promised after the boy band idea was rejected.

I also thought "Faith of the Heart' sucked I mean, who does that!' Unless you're crazy and completely unaware of ST! Horrible Horrible Horrible!

It basically came down to Berman wanted the show's theme to be Faith of the Heart, Braga wanted U2's Beautiful Day. The rights to Beautiful Day were way too much for the show to afford, meanwhile Faith of the Heart's rights were owned by Diane Warren, who is a Trek fan herself and basically allowed the show to use the song free of charge. So Berman's taste in music combined with economics is why we ended up with Faith of the Heart.

 

[Lord Garth]

Holograms! They'd just need a lil' holostage. They could even work in a retro 2000's being super cool in 2151 angle, and it would pretty much be the movie night concept we got but with music.

It'll be interesting to see what real nostalgia for the 2000s will be like. Most of it is stuff I associate more with the either the '90s or 2010s.