Star Trek as Our Dream

[Brainsucker]

Well, first thing first, there is no novelty that has no end. So even if TOS and TNG was awesome in their era, they are not anymore, today.

The reason is simple, if we consider Star Trek as Science Fiction and not Dungeon & Dragon in Space. That's because Star Trek (TOS, TNG) was the manifestation of American dream at their time.

TOS was the product of '60. You know about what happen at that time? Space Race, the first manned rocket that brought humans to the final frontier; We landed on the moon, UFO mystery was a popular talk.

That's why when TOS gave us weird aliens (human in costume), people love it. The reason is simple, because they wanted to see the realization of their dream. They wanted to believe that there are live in other planet. That's why people love Spock; an alien, human friend, different from us, full of mystery.

Then, we had TNG. Well, the novelty of weird Alien has passed at that time. But TNG offer us new dream. The Utopia of human world. They present us with Utopia Nation called United Planet of Federation with the Enterprise and Picard as their representation. It was awesome, with gadget and technology that we couldn't even think will happen at that time, with human became peace lover species, the symbol of harmony, superiority, justice, peace, and power.

But, look at Voyager and DS9. The reason why they couldn't stand against TOS and TNG was because they didn't represent their era dream. Voyager and DS9 was space fantasy series. They didn't have message. Even if they have, it just what TNG and TOS had already gave to the audiences; only repeat what have we all know already. That's why, TOS and TNG became legend, while DS9 and Voyager became good tv series.

So what happen to Enterprise. They were failed, not because it was bad, but because Enterprise was only TNG in 22nd century with some time travel plot.

Then, if we want another Star Trek series, what do we need? Simple, just ask to yourself, what do you want to see in the future, not "what happen to Vulcan in the next series" it is the future of a planet that has some global warming, almost exhausted natural resource, the emerge of new super power called China, and economy crisis, not the future of '60 dream anymore.

Well, I'm sorry for my bad English, as I'm not fluent in English and almost never use it in my real life.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Your English is better than some people who use it as their primary language (me included), so don't worry about that.

I do think you've raised some valid points that there probably was some disconnect general audiences had with Trek after TNG and that at some point there was a sense by all but the most hardcore of Trekkies of having seen all this stuff before (with just different faces) in VOY and ENT.

 

[Lynx]

I prefer "The dream of the 60's" before today's hell on Earth.

 

[Brainsucker]

The problem is, the general audience's dream is not the '60 dream anymore. It changed.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The 60s was no picnic, with riots, assassinations and nuclear Armageddon hanging over everyone's heads.

DS9 had the same message as TOS: humanity can get better, but only through courage and perseverance cuz it ain't easy. That's a message that's applicable to every era so there's no excuse for it not being the message of the next series and every one to come.

The ratings fell because the TV business changed during the time that TNG was on till ENT premiered. The environment that allowed TNG to be a success is now gone, and of course that's even more true for TOS. Any new series has to deal with an extremely fragmented and distracted audience, and hundreds of cable channels.

The kind of Star Trek that can thrive in that environment is yet to be created, but it will be a departure from all previous series, and it will have to be very different from Abrams movies as well. It will have to be adapted to some cable channel or other, or maybe even an original series on Netflix.

 

[BillJ]

The 60s was no picnic, with riots, assassinations and nuclear Armageddon hanging over everyone's heads.

DS9 had the same message as TOS: humanity can get better, but only through courage and perseverance cuz it ain't easy. That's a message that's applicable to every era so there's no excuse for it not being the message of the next series and every one to come.

The ratings fell because the TV business changed during the time that TNG was on till ENT premiered. The environment that allowed TNG to be a success is now gone, and of course that's even more true for TOS. Any new series has to deal with an extremely fragmented and distracted audience, and hundreds of cable channels.

The kind of Star Trek that can thrive in that environment is yet to be created, but it will be a departure from all previous series, and it will have to be very different from Abrams movies as well. It will have to be adapted to some cable channel or other, or maybe even an original series on Netflix.

The only thing we know is that poorly done Star Trek cannot survive. Even Enterprise debuted to thirteen million viewers at the tail end of the Berman era and hung onto a good portion of that audience until a disastrous run of episodes midway through season two.

There's no proof that something similar to TOS/TNG would perform any worse than "Dark Trek" everyone on here is always on about.

 

[Lynx]

Honestly, I think that Star Trek should continue in the same style as TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager with an optimistic view of the future and with a general idea that difficulties can be won over.

Those who absolutely want to watch an SF-series with a "dark" view can watch Stargate Universe and get more and less bored to death for about one hour by watching the constant arguing, fighting, bickering and complaining among the characters.

 

[RB_Kandy]

Brainsucker, you bring up a really interesting point.
But as interesting as it may be, I disagree that this "utopian future" was the reason behind the success.

First, TOS did poorly in the ratings and didn't become popular until after it was canceled.
TNG was a huge hit because of the network and time slot.

TOS and TNG were different from the other series' because they were about "exploring new worlds".
In TOS Kirk often had to do battle with god-like creatures who couldn't be destroyed with a phaser pistol. Kirk had to use his brain a lot.

Voyager was really, I can't even explain it. They got into technobabble situations and used technobabble to fix the problem. Everything on that show sounded like
Paris: Captain the ship won't go. There is a polaric invariance disrupting our subspace warp bubble.
Janeway: Torres I need you to flood the nacelles with negative protons.
Torres: Captain that much radiation could over load the warp stabilizers.
Janeway: I'm aware of the risks.

Yeah, Voyager was just a mess of Janeway's confused ethics and babbling about make believe technology.

Deep Space Nine was actually very well written show with a great story arc and character development. I have no complaints with that show.

Enterprise was just poorly written from beginning to end. It had nothing to do with lack of a dream future, a utopian culture. It had to do with writers who didn't know how to utilize characters, or write about anything interesting.

The great beauty of TOS was that Kirk and crew found themselves in strange situations that none of us could imagine ourselves in. DS9, as great as it was, seldom introduced us to strange and new concepts, it was mostly all about "our military versus their military" and political alignments shifting back and forth. DS9 was a well written show, but lacked the magic of being in a strange new world. One episode that did remind me of the good ol' TOS days was when Kira was in the cave and that rock kept growing around her body slowly swallowing her up. That sort of WTF moment was just original. It was something different than green skinned monsters firing phaser blasts at you. How do you fight that strange crystal growing around someone's body? That's interesting. How do you fight that group of aliens shooting at you? Well you shoot back, that's all. And I want more out of my sci fi than cowboys and Indians in space.

The one aspect I can really do without is combat. The constant torrent of weapons fire. Sure Star Wars was great in spite of that, but those were 3 exceptional movies. I think sci fi in general needs to stop being a combat, wild west with phaser pistols scenario, and focus more on "strange new worlds" and strange new life forms.

 

[Romulan_spy]

The one aspect I can really do without is combat. The constant torrent of weapons fire. Sure Star Wars was great in spite of that, but those were 3 exceptional movies. I think sci fi in general needs to stop being a combat, wild west with phaser pistols scenario, and focus more on "strange new worlds" and strange new life forms.

I am not against space combat. But I want to see combat like in Wrath of Khan and Balance of Terror where it's like a chess game between two opponents. I also think that space combat should be seen as a last resort like we saw in TNG where Picard was often able to bluff his way out of a mess. When you have a standoff between two enemy ships and you genuinely don't know if they will actually destroy each other, it feels like MAD during the Cold War. There is a tension and an excitement! I don't care for the giant space battles in DS9 where there are a gazillion ships with explosions all over the place and you can't tell what's happening. That is boring to me.