Posted by Ptrope:
MikeSussman, I'm going to put my ass on the burner here ...
While I have not been impressed by the stories your name has been attached to, and I was especially unimpressed by "Regeneration" (I gave it a
D- in a generous moment on the grading poll), and my appreciation of your commitment and concern for the quality and integrity of ENT-as-
Star Trek has been severely diminished by quotes that appeared in
Star Trek - The Magazine, wherein you defended writing shortened scripts by claiming that making the characters speak more slowly, thus somehow imparting "thoughtfulness" to their words (I don't see the characters in
The West Wing as being thoughtless, when that show has probably three times the dialogue, at what must be three times the speed), I
am impressed by your willingness and thoughtfulness to participate in the discussion of your efforts, and your efforts to clarify what are indeed glaring omissions in the story that finally made it onto the screen for public consumption.
I thought
Samuel T. Cogley's review was both hilarious, and spot on. I'm glad you accept it in the spirit in which is was intended, and that you can maintain, as the author, a much broader perspective than so many of those who had nothing more to contribute than an hour of couch-warming, but who are somehow experts on every nuance and unrevealed intent of your screenplay. Personally, I didn't see anything in it that made it a story that needed to be told, either as a Borg story in the context of ENT, or simply an action-adventure on its own. The latter I attribute mostly to poor direction and wooden acting, but the issue I have with the Borg in this episode is not only that they were unnecessary in the context of
Trek as a franchise, but that this particular Borg story did absolutely nothing to either contribute to the scope of the Borg themselves, nor did it accomplish what the original Borg stories were intended for: to make a statement about humanity and its place in the universe. When they first appeared, the Borg were like a force of nature, meant to humble humanity and make them reevaluate both their goals and their arrogant self-assuredness. Later, the Borg provided a skewed mirror upon humanity (even in their appearances in VOY), putting to question the things that made us human: individuality, emotions, dreams and goals.
"Regeneration," on the other hand, reduced the Borg potential to little more than a romp, a rollercoaster ride for Archer and his crew, and worse, it was yet another easy victory that seemed intended to refute the claims that Archer and Co. are ineffective and weak. Their victory in this episode didn't so much develop them as characters as it merely turned to break the fourth wall and say directly to the audience, "See? These guys are heroes," without really allowing them to
be heroes.
The Borg were, IMHO, window-dressing, nothing more. I can't honestly understand what about this story made it a "must-film." There surely must be so many other stories that can be told, stories that don't depend upon ratings stunts, or name-dropping, truly "must-film" stories that will so intensely affect
and develop these characters and this time so that ENT becomes a
real Star Trek series, and not just skewed reference material to all of the other series.
MikeSussman, both you and
DavidAGoodman have demonstrated that the audience, not just the rabid fans, have your attention to a certain extent, and you both have shown evidence that you're as much fans of the concept as many of us. I hope that we can see ENT become the sort of series that
anyone, fan and non-fan alike, can point to as an example of good drama, not just good
Star Trek, and that it doesn't, in the end, become known merely for its unwillingness to stand on its own, to never have been more than a mirror of real greatness and ground-breaking drama and adventure. I still give all the ENT writers some benefit of the doubt, insofar as the publicized level of rewriting and homogenization at the hands of the executive producers has made it seem that they either have little appreciation for the efforts of the writers or little room to allow ideas beyond a narrowly-defined "marketing-biased" approach to the stories. The initial ideas, however, have to come from
somewhere; it would be great if the majority of those initial ideas didn't start with, "You know what would be really 'kewl'? If we could bring in [insert registered trademark here] from TNG/VOY and have Archer and Co. drop a couple lines that will point to the things coming down the line ..."
Thanks for taking the time to join in on the discussion, and to exhibit a great deal of both understanding and humor. We bitch ... because we care
.
Ok, whatever.
