What weakened Trek, and what can restore it?

[ThePatriot1776]

You need to drink a little less of the Kool-Aid.

Was he as in love with TOS as the fans were? Probably not. Did he hate it? Probably not. But like many folks, he probably felt TOS "was of its time" and tough to reconcile with what came later on.

However, two of the three series he created featured a regular Vulcan character and he tried to recapture the Kirk, Spock and McCoy chemistry in Enterprise with Archer, T'Pol and Tucker.

Hyperbole concerning Kool-Aid. It also does nothing to refute the facts I have presented.

Rick Berman freely admits that he never was a fan of Star Trek. He also stated that he hated The Original Series. The rest of what you've said is supposition and an assumption with zero facts.

Yes, he played it safe and attempted to use the Kirk-McCoy-Spock formula without truly understanding what made that formula work. It's not the races of the characters that mattered, but the friendship between the characters that developed through the series.

You've presented no facts, only statements from someone who had a falling out with Berman.

No one will argue that Berman didn't make a shit-ton of mistakes when running Trek, but no more so than mistakes that Gene made.

Yes, I presented facts from Rick Berman and his views on The Original Series. Altman is a retired journalist and has this knowledge of Berman from their friendship together. Are you implying that you know more than Altman concerning Berman?

Trials and Tribble-ations is consistently one of the highest placed episodes in polls of fans as to their favorite episodes of any Trek series. It "denigrated" NOTHING about the original series.

Your proof that it didn't denigrate The Original Series? Oh just your word I take it.

 

[nightwind1]

You need to drink a little less of the Kool-Aid.

Was he as in love with TOS as the fans were? Probably not. Did he hate it? Probably not. But like many folks, he probably felt TOS "was of its time" and tough to reconcile with what came later on.

However, two of the three series he created featured a regular Vulcan character and he tried to recapture the Kirk, Spock and McCoy chemistry in Enterprise with Archer, T'Pol and Tucker.

Hyperbole concerning Kool-Aid. It also does nothing to refute the facts I have presented.

Rick Berman freely admits that he never was a fan of Star Trek. He also stated that he hated The Original Series. The rest of what you've said is supposition and an assumption with zero facts.

Yes, he played it safe and attempted to use the Kirk-McCoy-Spock formula without truly understanding what made that formula work. It's not the races of the characters that mattered, but the friendship between the characters that developed through the series.

How did DSN mishandle TOS?

The biggest referrence to TOS in DSN was "Trials and Tribble-ations" which many fans consider to be respectful of TOS as opposed to VOY "Flashback".

The entire premise of the episode is the problem. "If you run out of ideas let's go back to The Original Series and muck things up complete with the denigration of the work John M. Ford and others have done regarding Klingons."

As much as I LOVE "The Final Reflection", none of the Pocket novels were referenced by any of the series because they were an entirely separate license.

You sound a lot like a guy that used to spout off and argue on FIDONet and USENet (James Dixon), who regarded "fanon" (especially "Treknical" fanon, as he called it) as more authoritative than what was actually being produced by the production company.

 

[BillJ]

Yes, I presented facts from Rick Berman and his views on The Original Series. Altman is a retired journalist and has this knowledge of Berman from their friendship together. Are you implying that you know more than Altman concerning Berman?

All you have is hearsay from someone with an axe to grind. Unless you were there for the conversations?

 

[ThePatriot1776]

You need to drink a little less of the Kool-Aid.

Was he as in love with TOS as the fans were? Probably not. Did he hate it? Probably not. But like many folks, he probably felt TOS "was of its time" and tough to reconcile with what came later on.

However, two of the three series he created featured a regular Vulcan character and he tried to recapture the Kirk, Spock and McCoy chemistry in Enterprise with Archer, T'Pol and Tucker.

Hyperbole concerning Kool-Aid. It also does nothing to refute the facts I have presented.

Rick Berman freely admits that he never was a fan of Star Trek. He also stated that he hated The Original Series. The rest of what you've said is supposition and an assumption with zero facts.

Yes, he played it safe and attempted to use the Kirk-McCoy-Spock formula without truly understanding what made that formula work. It's not the races of the characters that mattered, but the friendship between the characters that developed through the series.

How did DSN mishandle TOS?

The biggest referrence to TOS in DSN was "Trials and Tribble-ations" which many fans consider to be respectful of TOS as opposed to VOY "Flashback".

The entire premise of the episode is the problem. "If you run out of ideas let's go back to The Original Series and muck things up complete with the denigration of the work John M. Ford and others have done regarding Klingons."

As much as I LOVE "The Final Reflection", none of the Pocket novels were referenced by any of the series because they were an entirely separate license.

You sound a lot like a guy that used to spout off and argue on FIDONet and USENet (James Dixon), who regarded "fanon" (especially "Treknical" fanon, as he called it) as more authoritative than what was actually being produced by the production company.

Oh yes, if you can't have a civil discussion then let's play the you sound like this person and strawman.

For me the canon is essentially what is set forth by CBS/Paramount, however, I view certain novels to be canon since they handle certain subjects better than what was done under Berman's watch. Diane Duane's Romulans are far superior to what Berman and crew handed us in TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. John Ford's Klingons are superior to what Moore did, but this is my opinion. Just because my opinion is different than yours does not make me a bad individual. It just means that I am an individual that thinks for myself.

I respect people for their opinions and if they like Berman and what he did more power to them. I answered the questions of the thread honestly and openly only to be treated like an unintelligent dolt. Is this how people usually are treated here for being different in how they think or their opinions?

Yes, I presented facts from Rick Berman and his views on The Original Series. Altman is a retired journalist and has this knowledge of Berman from their friendship together. Are you implying that you know more than Altman concerning Berman?

All you have is hearsay from someone with an axe to grind. Unless you were there for the conversations?

Proof that Altman has an axe to grind?

 

[BillJ]

Proof that Altman has an axe to grind?

Let's see, guy wants to write a Trek movie and was obviously rebuffed by Berman who was in charge of the movie franchise at the time. Altman is the only one who states Berman hates TOS.

The rest simply state he didn't understand what made TOS special, which is a sentiment I can get behind.

Did you actually read the whole article?

 

[doubleohfive]

Berman's general disdain for the show is well known and documented from writer/producer interviews. (Though that turned out to be something of a blessing as well as it allowed them to get around his idiotic restrictions as to story tone and content). That disdain meant few crossovers/cross-promotions, lack of support from Marketing,

Care to cite a source for all this?

and cheap shots like trying to Destroy the Defiant in First Contact.

I'd like to see a legitimate source for this as well. Everything I've ever heard/read about the Defiant's appearance in First Contact boiled down to two things: Moore and Braga needed a way to introduce Worf into the fold for the film and 2) As explained in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, Ira Behr simply would have preferred the film not feature the Defiant at all because he didn't see the need for there to be such a blatant crossover.

With regard to the "cheap shot" of "trying to destroy the Defiant", you couldn't be more wrong. Originally, John Eaves was asked to come up with a new type of starship that Moore and Braga dubbed the Endeavor. The entire point of its existence was so that they'd have one ship that would get destroyed in a blaze of glory before the Enterprise shows up to take on the Borg cube. This is all covered in the Star Trek: Sketchbook by John Eaves covering Generations and First Contact. Eventually though, the Endeavor became the Defiant when the writers decided to use it to introduce Worf.

Lastly, your theory ignores the plain fact that Ron Moore was working for Ira Behr on DS9 when Moore and Braga wrote the script for First Contact. Do you really think he wouldn't have fought Berman and Braga over destroying the Defiant if your assumption were true?

 

[BillJ]

And for the record on James Doohan. He seemed to be well in control of his faculties in Star Trek: Generations which was filmed almost two years after Relics.

He wasn't deep in the throes of Alzheimer's.

 

[MacLeod]

You need to drink a little less of the Kool-Aid.

Was he as in love with TOS as the fans were? Probably not. Did he hate it? Probably not. But like many folks, he probably felt TOS "was of its time" and tough to reconcile with what came later on.

However, two of the three series he created featured a regular Vulcan character and he tried to recapture the Kirk, Spock and McCoy chemistry in Enterprise with Archer, T'Pol and Tucker.

Hyperbole concerning Kool-Aid. It also does nothing to refute the facts I have presented.

Rick Berman freely admits that he never was a fan of Star Trek. He also stated that he hated The Original Series. The rest of what you've said is supposition and an assumption with zero facts.

Yes, he played it safe and attempted to use the Kirk-McCoy-Spock formula without truly understanding what made that formula work. It's not the races of the characters that mattered, but the friendship between the characters that developed through the series.

How did DSN mishandle TOS?

The biggest referrence to TOS in DSN was "Trials and Tribble-ations" which many fans consider to be respectful of TOS as opposed to VOY "Flashback".

The entire premise of the episode is the problem. "If you run out of ideas let's go back to The Original Series and muck things up complete with the denigration of the work John M. Ford and others have done regarding Klingons."

And which episode did John M. Ford write? My vague recollection is that he wrote a novel called "The Final Reflection" (Of course I might be mistaken). But the novels don't count for what is considered to be canon.

Sure some of the novels are good reads.

 

[DWF]

Sorry but if DS9 was as great of a show as it's made out to be it would've gotten the ratings TNG got.

For the ten millionth time: quality does not equal ratings. TV abounds in examples of bad shows with great ratings and great shows with bad ratings.

Since quality has no guananteed correlation to success, it's senseless to expect a Star Trek series to succeed just by "not sucking." The far more important factor is that it must appeal to the audience that already watches the channel it's being shown on, because they are the audience that the show can be most easily marketed to (leaving aside fans who will be checking it out in any case).

Depending on what that audience is, the resulting series might suck like a Hoover, according to the fans, but still be a ratings success. Imagine what it would take to make Star Trek a success on the CW. I doubt too many of us could stomach that mess.

DS9 had stronger writing, better-drawn characters who were allowed to live and breathe instead of being locked into their cookie-cutter archtypes, and an amazing 7-year through story that showed us a more realistic look at the Federation, warts and all.

DS9 was ahead of its time. That approach would be the right one for pretty much anywhere on cable. On SyFy or TNT a lighter approach might be warranted. On AMC, FX for premium cable, DS9 would have to be butched up, to avoid looking like a kiddie show.

The TNT/VOY/ENT style really doesn't work anywhere anymore. It's suited to broadcast, but the economics of making a pricey space opera work with a niche audience and trying to pay for it with ad revenues alone, that's what doesn't work anymore. Space opera needs to be adapted to the cable environment and what that means depends on where on cable you're talking about.

DS9 came from the same meat facotr that produced Voyager and Enterprise, the only real hit that's been proven over time is TNG. DS9 needed Worf to try and get better ratings and they still lost viewers, whereas shows like Hercules and Xena gained viewers and eventually went on the beat DS9 in the ratings. And like I said it was B5 who won two Hugos in a row and the mainstream audience that TNG maintained were bled off onto other shows.

And how was DS9 ahead of it's time? The show was shot in 4X3 not widescreen like B5 and Stargate SG1 and even The X-Files were converted to widescreen. DS9's story arc wasn't revolutionary nor were their sets.

 

[Balrog]

Rick Berman 'Hated' TOS?

On Rick Berman's watch, we got stories that included Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, Rand, Kor, Kang, Koloth, Zephram Cochrane and Sarek. The shows referenced episodes such as 'Mirror, Mirror', 'Errand of Mercy', 'Journey to Babel', 'Trouble with Tribbles', 'Day of the Dove', 'The Naked Time', 'Arena', 'Wolf in the Fold', 'By Any Other Name', 'The Tholian Web', 'Elaan of Troyus', 'The Ultimate Computer', and 'Metamorphosis'. He featured or referenced original series aliens like Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Andorians, Tellarites, Tholians, Gorn, and Tribbles.

Doesn't sound like 'Hate' to me.

 

[sojourner]

I already sourced it to where he stated that he hated The Original Series and wanted to destroy it

No, you didn't. You quoted an article where someone else claimed that Berman hated TOS.

 

[Talon Lardner]

In my opinion, for Trek to strengthen, we need to combine the strengths of the Gene era writing, and the strengths of the post-gene era writing. They are not as opposed as some may think. I do love Gene's utopian ideas, but utopias don't make for good writing for the most part. There doesn't need to be a complete absence of in-fighting in a crew to show that the federation is a positive influence, for instance. And likewise on the other end, the federation doesn't need to be slung through the mud to show that it is fallable. Perhaps what is best for the franchise is to focus not on flagships, but on average officers on a average ship, trying their best to make a name for themselves.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Rick Berman freely admits that he never was a fan of Star Trek. He also stated that he hated The Original Series. The rest of what you've said is supposition and an assumption with zero facts.

Heresay from a former friend is not a fact. There's a huge difference between not being a die-hard TOS fan (see also: Harve Bennett, Nick Meyer and JJ Abrams who made similar statements) and hating the show and attempting to erase it.

or me the canon is essentially what is set forth by CBS/Paramount, however, I view certain novels to be canon since they handle certain subjects better than what was done under Berman's watch. Diane Duane's Romulans are far superior to what Berman and crew handed us in TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. John Ford's Klingons are superior to what Moore did, but this is my opinion. Just because my opinion is different than yours does not make me a bad individual. It just means that I am an individual that thinks for myself.

Canon isn't a statement of quality. It's merely the body of work which tie-ins and sequels/prequels have to remain consistant with. That's all it really is. I'm not telling you what to like or not, but that word is one of the most misused in Trekdom.

I love Star Trek novels and agree that Ford's Klingons and Duane's Rihannsu are far superior to the TNG+ Klingons and Romulans. But those novels are not part of the Star Trek canon, nor are they consistant with it anymore (that said, many elements of Duane's Rihannsu and a few of Ford's Klingons are still used in the current ongoing novelverse - just not the ones incompatible with the current Trek canon)

 

[xortex]

Rick Berman 'Hated' TOS?

On Rick Berman's watch, we got stories that included Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, Rand, Kor, Kang, Koloth, Zephram Cochrane and Sarek. The shows referenced episodes such as 'Mirror, Mirror', 'Errand of Mercy', 'Journey to Babel', 'Trouble with Tribbles', 'Day of the Dove', 'The Naked Time', 'Arena', 'Wolf in the Fold', 'By Any Other Name', 'The Tholian Web', 'Elaan of Troyus', 'The Ultimate Computer', and 'Metamorphosis'. He featured or referenced original series aliens like Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Andorians, Tellarites, Tholians, Gorn, and Tribbles.

Doesn't sound like 'Hate' to me.

Of course he hated it. Nobody could live up to or do Trek again. He milked it sour for all it was worth. He pointed his bony finger at GR and told the kids with razor sharp teeth to do their best to tear him to shreds as a false god. His deep yet subtle entrenchment made it impossible for anyone to exert their vision and stagnated progress. Moore was thrown out, not that Braga had any vision, and Coto was brought in, Rick's hero, who began cannibilizing and exploiting it right away thereby subtracting from it's lore rather than adding to it.

What Trek need is a whole new premise preferrably turned on it's head with an immenent danger to all life requiring a joint mission by the Federation and the Klingons and perhaps a rescue mission for the Enterprise lost inside V'ger. Yea, they never got out.

Better than JJ Adam's unconscionable art.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

In my opinion, Star Trek died when it became the ridiculous show everyone thought it had always been. You know, the one about spacemen in pajamas who meet aliens with random bits of latex on their face and who end up agreeing that "it's ok to be different" in the end.

Star Trek became less and less popular when it kept being the same kind of show people were expecting, but without an once of the charm, the wit and the innovation that made the original show(s) interesting and fun. Without that, it's just panto nonsense.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Once upon a time, the TNG kumbaya approach worked well enough to attract a healthy audience. But the business changed, gave people more options and they migrated away to stuff they like better, which is all over the map and provides no clear direction.

Should Star Trek be more like a pat, formulaic SyFy show? More gripping and violent like The Walking Dead? More complex, sexy and political like Game of Thrones? An amped-up but still Spielbergian family drama like Falling Skies?

The answer is yes. It could work as any of those things, as long as it isnt misplaced. Falling Skies would be too hokey for HBO, and Game of Thrones would be too much for SyFy. And any one of those approaches is guaranteed to alienate some segment of fandom. I'd personally accept any of them except the SyFy option.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What weakened Star Trek was that it ceased to innovate and started to replicate.

 

[JarodRussell]

What weakened Star Trek was that it ceased to innovate and started to replicate.

That's why they replicated TOS again?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What weakened Star Trek was that it ceased to innovate and started to replicate.

That's why they replicated TOS again?

Funny, but not what I meant. I was thinking of things like Story Structure: The Attack of the A and B Plots.

At some point every episode felt like paint-by-numbers.

 

[Kegg]

Rick Berman is on record not being a fan of the original series, but bit of a stretch to assume he was trying to intentionally sabotage the franchise. He can be argued to have made some bad calls, mismanaged the franchise, or simply stayed there too long, but saying he was trying to intentionally make the show awful is probably pushing it.

More gripping and violent like The Walking Dead? More complex, sexy and political like Game of Thrones? An amped-up but still Spielbergian family drama like Falling Skies?

Falling Skies is probably the best comparison of those three. It's the most optimistic of those shows, the most family friendly (and actually has Trek alumni Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, the creators of Section 31, on the writing staff).

Which I say reservedly, because Falling Skies isn't exactly great TV and may be the weakest of those three programs (depending on how I feel about Walking Dead, which varies).