The "everyone must do something useful" boredom

[tobindax]

Have you noticed that in almost any episode someone is shown to do something to solve a problem it turns out to be VITAL in solving the problem at least in some minimal but necessary way?

It was ridiculous that I was watching some Enterprise (the series) deleted scenes, and in one of them someone (Malcom) is doing something that does NOT make a difference in the end result of the episode, well, it wasn't in, it was deleted.

What trek needs if it comes back is to ease up a little, be more realistic, be less perfectionist in the depiction of characters. They are not supermen, nobody can be superman, it's simply not believable.

'Roddenberry's vision' is perfectionist but it's an ideal and a way of thinking for supposedly future people, not an idea that depicts all people as perfect and all plots having a perfect composition.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It's standard in fiction for the events depicted to be vital to the telling of the story. If there is a scene that is not needed in the story, it should be left out.

So in any episode of ENT, if we see Malcolm Reed doing X, then we see it because it was important to the story. You know all those times when Reed was cutting his toenails, playing with Porthos, and staring absent-mindedly at T'Pol's bum? Not in the story. Doesn't need to be.

It was ridiculous that I was watching some Enterprise (the series) deleted scenes, and in one of them someone (Malcom) is doing something that does NOT make a difference in the end result of the episode, well, it wasn't in, it was deleted.

Good. It should have been deleted. I have to wonder what the scriptwriter was thinking, even writing a useless scene and wasting production time. It should have been deleted before the script left the writer's laptop.

Maybe the scene was just there for padding because the writer didn't have enough of a story to fill the 43 required minutes. Sometimes those scenes do get through, and it's always obvious that the reason was, because the story was too thin to begin with. That's a sure sign of poor writing, something that ENT had plenty of, without you wishing for more.

 

[Corran Horn]

I thought you were going a different way with this...like, there were a bunch of episodes of TNG where Picard was damn lucky that Data was posted on board the Enterprise and not some other ship at the time because otherwise they would have been fucked.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

I think you also have to remember that this is a TV show and that even if the actors are only in one scene the show still has to pay for them -- so it makes sense to use the actors as much as possible. Unfortunately, there's also this thing about fiction where it's usually easier to focus on a smaller group of characters than a larger group. That's why there would be alot of Kirk/Spock/McCoy and Janeway/Doc/Seven type of episode focusings.

Also, I think the scenes with Reed looking absentmindedly at T'pol's bums should have been left in.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think you also have to remember that this is a TV show and that even if the actors are only in one scene the show still has to pay for them

Depending on their contracts, some actors are paid even if they're not in the episode.

 

[tobindax]

It's standard in fiction

No, what I'm talking about is specific to Star Trek and other "Hollywood-ized TV Soap Operas".

A fictional story is not Quantum Mechanics, there are also relationships and inner personal concepts, if someone is doing something that does not necessarily change the "main plot" it doesn't mean it's useless, you see more about that character. Why does every single "technical operation" on a shuttle pod has to be about "changing a main plot".

It's an over-polished highly unrealistic way to do fiction.

Good fiction shows characters from all their sides, their mistakes and their redundancies.

This over-engineering gives the impression of trying to force the creation of supermen and heroes, if the receiver of that type of fiction is beyond the level of a beginner in storytelling, he can't even start believing in it.

Come to think of it, the personal aspect of Trek is generally weak and Enterprise called of shaping into it. What a laugh, they didn't go beyond it for a second.

 

[Mike Farley]

You just have to accept that the Trek shows, ALL the Trek shows aren't character driven shows. They are plot driven. (This is not to say that there is no characterization or no occasional character driven episodes, but the shows overall are plot focused.) And when you're on television and you only have a fairly rigid timeframe to tell your story then pretty much every minute needs to support the plot.

BSG, conversely, is primarily a character driven show so they tend to devote more time to character driven scenes. And sometimes go for episodes without driving forward the overall plot of the show.

 

[tobindax]

You just have to accept that the Trek shows, ALL the Trek shows aren't character driven shows. They are plot driven.

Yes but, it's disappointing that the main creators of Enterprise said their main drive was to make Trek character driven. Apart from scratching the surface of a sexual relationship between a Human and Vulcan, they didn't go beyond the "intimacy" of TNG.

Oh yeah, and they made rooms smaller, that ought to bring you "closer to characters", what a laugh; who are those people, back to plot-writing school.

 

[Dale]

It's standard in fiction for the events depicted to be vital to the telling of the story. If there is a scene that is not needed in the story, it should be left out.

So in any episode of ENT, if we see Malcolm Reed doing X, then we see it because it was important to the story. You know all those times when Reed was cutting his toenails, playing with Porthos, and staring absent-mindedly at T'Pol's bum? Not in the story. Doesn't need to be.

It was ridiculous that I was watching some Enterprise (the series) deleted scenes, and in one of them someone (Malcom) is doing something that does NOT make a difference in the end result of the episode, well, it wasn't in, it was deleted.

Good. It should have been deleted. I have to wonder what the scriptwriter was thinking, even writing a useless scene and wasting production time. It should have been deleted before the script left the writer's laptop.

Maybe the scene was just there for padding because the writer didn't have enough of a story to fill the 43 required minutes. Sometimes those scenes do get through, and it's always obvious that the reason was, because the story was too thin to begin with. That's a sure sign of poor writing, something that ENT had plenty of, without you wishing for more.

I'd watch an episode where everyone sat around staring absent-mindedly at T'Pol's bum, talking about it, making plans to "accidentally" touch it and placing bets on her reaction. Especially if there were lots of "reaction shots" of the bum itself.