Star Trek Has Become Too Dependent On Time Travel

[T'Cal]

While I enjoy a good time travel story, and usually don't mind one with a reset at the end, I wish that rather than hit that button at the end of a single episode, the altered history would be allowed to carry on for several episodes.

Oh, and in a few days I will go back in time and prevent this question from ever being asked. I'm always somewhen else when you really need me...

 

[Field Mouse]

I think time travel/alternate universes can make (and have made) for Trek's very best episodes when they're done right:

The City on the Edge of Forever (TOS)
Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG)
Tapestry (TNG)
All Good Things (TNG)
The Visitor (DS9)
Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9)
Children of Time (DS9)
Year of Hell (VOY)
Timeless (VOY)
Relativity (VOY)
Shockwave, Part One (ENT)
Twilight (ENT)
In a Mirror, Darkly (ENT)

And then you have the movies 'The Voyage Home' and 'First Contact,' both time travel heavy and very well received.

So, I don't think time travel themes (and alternate universes) are a writers' crutch. I think they've made for many of Trek's very best hours, because they open up so many avenues that you normally couldn't approach. And, once in a while, that's refreshing and makes for a striking change of pace.

There are a few clunker time travel episodes, sure, but ... they're usually better than they are bad. And when they're good, they can be stellar. So, I'm happy to have them, as long as they don't become the main gist of the overall story. Like, Enterprise's third season is one of my favorite Trek seasons. It was made possible became of time travel/manipulation, but it wasn't ABOUT that, so ... I had no problem with it at all.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Just how many time travel stories have there been in Star Trek. And how many equal too many or "dependent". Even ENT, which included time travel as part of its design didn't do straight up time travel that often.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

I don't see how anyone could want a Trek series based around time travel.

Tell that to Braga.

 

[Michael]

I don't see how anyone could want a Trek series based around time travel.

Tell that to Braga.

Well, it's not like he's getting the chance to develop another Trek series in the near future anyway.

 

[Nerys Myk]

He's too busy trying the work "chronoton particle" into Jack Bauer's dialog

 

[Mr. Fergy]

I like time travel, so the use of it in Trek hasn't been an issue for me, except Enterprise and "The Temporal Cold War" crap.

 

[Can]

The problem is lack of creativity by writers. Since DS9 Trek is telling same stories and episodes over and over again in several episodes. Time travel is worst of the lot. Unless it is not used in a clever and creative way ( like an organic part of Babylon 5 main preplanned storyline arc in "Babylon Squared" , "War Without End I-II") time travel aspect sucks. It is basicly writers saying "Gee sorry guys we can not think anything new and original besides we need our safety net with RESET button. So dont worry. Everything will be predictable and remain same , status quo preserved. Timeline would be same as always..."

 

[Nerys Myk]

Since Ds9???? They've been telling the same stories since TOS season 1!

 

[jbake]

The last series, Enterprise was basically built on the idea of time travel (Temporal Cold War).

How did this happen?

UPN demanded that Enterprise have something futuristic. The 22nd Century wasn't futuristic enough for the network.

Not quite. Braga had been wanting to do an entirely time-travel based Star Trek show. Sort of an anthology that would jump around to any period that he found interesting.

I really like time-travel episodes, as others have said allows exploration of ideas that cant be permitted due to the edicts of the show owners.
So that Braga time-travel series would have been amazing for me.

On the 29th C point,
I was disappointed by the glimpses of the 29th C I saw in Voyager. The design, the look was just a minor variation on a 24th C theme. For me it showed how tired those involved in making Trek were becoming.

 

[crouteru]

Time travel episodes have generally been done very well on trek. I didn't much care for ENT's temporal cold war, it felt forced. The resulting time travel eps that came from it didn't make any sense because they weren't contained to that episode and were never payed off. All the rest from TOS to VGR were great though.

 

[Kail]

Time travel eps are my favorite. A lot of fans often suggest a Trek show based soley on time travel. I'd watch it.

Here was my idea for a Star Trek time travel series.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It seems to me that Star Trek overall has become too dependent on the notion of Time Travel.
IIRC, the original series featured time travel as a key part of an episode roughly 4 times out of nearly 80 episodes.

The recurrence was a result of success. One of the most popularly-regarded TOS episodes is still "City on the Edge of Forever". Time travel.

Often mentioned as a favourite: "All Our Yesterdays". Time travel. (A popular early novel: "Yesterday's Son", which acted a sequel to both episodes, and spawned its own sequel, "Time for Yesterday".)

Most popular TAS episode? "Yesteryear". Time travel.

Most popular TOS movie: "ST IV: The Voyage Home". Time travel.

Most popular TNG movie: "First Contact". Time Travel and the Borg!

It's inevitable that a popular and profitable theme will be repeated.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Time travel eps are my favorite. A lot of fans often suggest a Trek show based soley on time travel. I'd watch it.

Here was my idea for a Star Trek time travel series.

I thought Edgar Winter was an Albino.

 

[Dayton3]

It seems to me that Star Trek overall has become too dependent on the notion of Time Travel.
IIRC, the original series featured time travel as a key part of an episode roughly 4 times out of nearly 80 episodes.

The recurrence was a result of success. One of the most popularly-regarded TOS episodes is still "City on the Edge of Forever". Time travel.

Often mentioned as a favourite: "All Our Yesterdays". Time travel. (A popular early novel: "Yesterday's Son", which acted a sequel to both episodes, and spawned its own sequel, "Time for Yesterday".)

Most popular TAS episode? "Yesteryear". Time travel.

Most popular TOS movie: "ST IV: The Voyage Home". Time travel.

Most popular TNG movie: "First Contact". Time Travel and the Borg!

It's inevitable that a popular and profitable theme will be repeated.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is vastly overrated.

One of the science fiction magazines (Cinescape perhaps) once rated it as the most overrated Trek episode of all time.

The Voyage Home was very profitable mainly because it was not marketed as a Star Trek movie overseas.

And "First Contact" was a lousy movie. Popular mainly because of the Borg.

 

[Broccoli]

The last series, Enterprise was basically built on the idea of time travel (Temporal Cold War).

How did this happen?

UPN demanded that Enterprise have something futuristic. The 22nd Century wasn't futuristic enough for the network.

Not quite. Braga had been wanting to do an entirely time-travel based Star Trek show. Sort of an anthology that would jump around to any period that he found interesting.

When the decision was made to do a prequel to TOS, the "Temporal Cold War" was Braga's attempt to keep his time-travel series around as a component of the new show.

I think you might have some things backwards. A time travel series was never in the cards. The Temporal Cold War wasn't conceived until after they had written their initial drafts of "Broken Bow" and UPN came to them and they wanted more "future stuff" (meaning stuff from beyond the 22nd century).

Now, after that, Braga has said that he thinks the TCW could have been a series all on its own, but it was never pitched as a Trek series.

It seems to me that Star Trek overall has become too dependent on the notion of Time Travel.
IIRC, the original series featured time travel as a key part of an episode roughly 4 times out of nearly 80 episodes.

The recurrence was a result of success. One of the most popularly-regarded TOS episodes is still "City on the Edge of Forever". Time travel.

Often mentioned as a favourite: "All Our Yesterdays". Time travel. (A popular early novel: "Yesterday's Son", which acted a sequel to both episodes, and spawned its own sequel, "Time for Yesterday".)

Most popular TAS episode? "Yesteryear". Time travel.

Most popular TOS movie: "ST IV: The Voyage Home". Time travel.

Most popular TNG movie: "First Contact". Time Travel and the Borg!

It's inevitable that a popular and profitable theme will be repeated.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is vastly overrated.

One of the science fiction magazines (Cinescape perhaps) once rated it as the most overrated Trek episode of all time.

The Voyage Home was very profitable mainly because it was not marketed as a Star Trek movie overseas.

And "First Contact" was a lousy movie. Popular mainly because of the Borg.

Overratedness, miss-marketing, or personal preference doesn't discount any of what Therin said. The stuff that dealt with time travel, overall, seemed to appeal to a wider-audience. If I remember correctly, in B&M's commentary for First Contact, I think they talk how they included time travel in the film because it seemed to appeal to wider audiences (citing Star Trek 4 as an example). It was either in the commentary or in an interview...damn, I can't remember exactly which. I guess I'll go dig out the dvd and give it a watch.

 

[Dayton3]

Rick Berman was the one who insisted on the time travel element in "First Contact". Moore and Braga were the ones who developed the Borg for the movie and IIRC later chose the time in the past the crew would visit.

That said I absolutely hated First Contact.

In time, I'm hoping more people will.

 

[Michael]

That said I absolutely hated First Contact.

In time, I'm hoping more people will.

I think that's a strange thing to say. Why do you want others to hate a movie?

 

[Dayton3]

That said I absolutely hated First Contact.

In time, I'm hoping more people will.

I think that's a strange thing to say. Why do you want others to hate a movie?

So there will be no more like it.

 

[Ptrope]

Time travel stories allow anything and everything to happen without repercussions because it can all be undone. It's a very poor writers crutch that doesn't require any real thought or plotting. And it's frequent use doesn't really make any sense because no matter how careful everyone is eventually permanent changes to the time line would creep in and the "reset" button would not fully work. I really wish they would give time travel a rest in Trek and spend more time on character driven stories. Let's explore alien cultures, Federation history, principle characters backgrounds, etc.

Interesting that so many people want "character-driven" stories in Trek, when so very few of TOS's stories were character-driven. It seems, to a certain extent, that we've come to expect soap opera from everything on TV, with long-running stories that expand the characters much more the norm than simply self-contained stories that are independent of the characters, using them primarily as framing elements. Krik, Spock and McCoy never really 'grew' at all until the movies - much of what happened to them in an episode never affected any episodes that followed. And yet that didn't make the stories - or the characters - any less entertaining or poignant or relevant.

As for time travel, yeah, it's been done to death by Trek, and in most cases, done badly - in even the best stories of the type, the resolution of the plot usually depends upon fundamental abuse of the concept, and too many times, it is just a reset button. It's sad when Star Trek's writers can't grasp the concept and the potential of time travel as well as the writers of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Bring back some old-fashioned plot-driven stories if you really want something new .