I heard he has some kind of a cult following, though. Could the same be said about Braga?
Isn't that our Voyager forum?
(kidding, kidding)
Why do they still let Braga do TV shows?
- Thread starter Mach5
- Start date
Isn't that our Voyager forum?
(kidding, kidding)
DS9 started the path of dumbing Trek down for the lowest common denominator,
If that were true it would be another reason to like both Braga and Enterprise itself.
Akiraprise graduated to Vampire Space Nazis, saving the planet from a "space bomb" in the last second and the space battles of the week.
After that, dumbing it down even more to cater to the average NASCAR fan was the inevitable next step.
Yea, but it made everything else look and seem so much better.
I always find it bizarre that the people who hate Braga the most give him more credit than he deserves. Rick Berman ran the show on Voyager and Enterprise; Braga worked for him, and almost always wrote with a partner.
As for Terra Nova, did you see how many producers it had? The list of executive producers, line producers, producers, associate producers, etc. seemed to go on for half the first act. Something like seven of those producers constituted the writing staff, but they answered to the numerous executive producers such as Spielberg. With so very, very many cooks keeping a close eye on the show they were investing huge amounts of money in, it's illogical to give too much credit or blame to any one member of the staff, even the nominal showrunner.
It's also an inept argument to say "This producer/actor is bad because all his/her shows get cancelled," because most TV shows get cancelled fairly young. There are tons of successful creators who have long lists of failed shows. For instance, Stephen J. Cannell produced five shows that ran for a season or less (and one, Black Sheep Squadron, that lasted a season and a half) before he hit it big with The Rockford Files, and he followed that up with three more flops before his string of successes in the '80s. That's why "they" still let producers do new shows even if they've had a bunch of them get cancelled -- because if they didn't, they'd run out of producers. Even doing a short-lived show gives you experience that you can learn from, and experience is good to have.
Brannon Braga is more experienced now than he was on VGR and ENT, and he does better work. So the people who are still stuck in their juvenile Braga-bashing mode from a decade ago need to get the hell over it. He's moved forward, but they're still stuck in the past.
As for Terra Nova, did you see how many producers it had? The list of executive producers, line producers, producers, associate producers, etc. seemed to go on for half the first act. Something like seven of those producers constituted the writing staff, but they answered to the numerous executive producers such as Spielberg. With so very, very many cooks keeping a close eye on the show they were investing huge amounts of money in, it's illogical to give too much credit or blame to any one member of the staff, even the nominal showrunner.
It's also an inept argument to say "This producer/actor is bad because all his/her shows get cancelled," because most TV shows get cancelled fairly young. There are tons of successful creators who have long lists of failed shows. For instance, Stephen J. Cannell produced five shows that ran for a season or less (and one, Black Sheep Squadron, that lasted a season and a half) before he hit it big with The Rockford Files, and he followed that up with three more flops before his string of successes in the '80s. That's why "they" still let producers do new shows even if they've had a bunch of them get cancelled -- because if they didn't, they'd run out of producers. Even doing a short-lived show gives you experience that you can learn from, and experience is good to have.
Brannon Braga is more experienced now than he was on VGR and ENT, and he does better work. So the people who are still stuck in their juvenile Braga-bashing mode from a decade ago need to get the hell over it. He's moved forward, but they're still stuck in the past.
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24 was like that too, i think i could count like 6 or 7 co-executive producers at one point. LOL Yes to the ealier poster braga did start in the 7th season but his workload was light. In the 8th season he did pen a few episodes mostly with manny.
I'm sure he meant VOY.
Braga never had anything to do with DS9.Yknow what, I also have no actual idea what people are talking about when they say that, either. And I want it to stay that way. Because then there's always someone nerdier than me.
I welcome all Braga-bashers into the Lucas-bashing club. Switch to a much bigger, fatter, richer, jucier, plaid-er, more franchise-destroying target!
If I had meant the Tits Of Nine Show I would've said so.I'm sure he meant VOY.
DS9 started Trek's decline from a show about exploration into a loose collection of battles that usually leads up to a major battle in the season finale or following opener. They started the trend where, if writers can't even write their way out of a phone booth, they'll introduce just yet another enemy to distract the audience with some shiny new thing.
DS9 started the path of dumbing Trek down for the lowest common denominator,
If that were true it would be another reason to like both Braga and Enterprise itself.
Akiraprise graduated to Vampire Space Nazis, saving the planet from a "space bomb" in the last second and the space battles of the week.
After that, dumbing it down even more to cater to the average NASCAR fan was the inevitable next step.
Quite a comedown from gigantic space amoebas and transporters de-aging people into children (and putting them back), eh? And come on, those are easy, random examples out of many - the later Trek shows didn't start Trek down any such path.
I enjoyed most of Enterprise a great deal - it wasn't any less intelligent than the previous Star Trek shows, but that's not setting the bar nearly as high as some trekkies seem to think.
If I had meant the Tits Of Nine Show I would've said so.I'm sure he meant VOY.
DS9 started Trek's decline from a show about exploration into a loose collection of battles that usually leads up to a major battle in the season finale or following opener. They started the trend where, if writers can't even write their way out of a phone booth, they'll introduce just yet another enemy to distract the audience with some shiny new thing.
...This doesn't even remotely sound like DS9.
^Yeah, I don't think lennier1 was watching the same show we were... DS9 was pretty darned smart.
DS9 was pretty darned smart.
Yeah, of all Treks, that one had the most layers and dimensions, I guess. At times it almost felt a bit too complex for its own good, but in the end, no loose ends were left untied. Not to mention that no other Trek show comes even near it it terms of character development.^Yeah, I don't think lennier1 was watching the same show we were...
It did hurt the franchise's popularity, though, if I'm not mistaken. Mainstream audiences never warmed up to it as much as we fans did.
Why do they still let Spielberg do movies? 1941, Always, Amistad, The Lost World, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. What an awful lot of duds on his CV!
You maybe onto something here...
Yeah, that movie sucked, and wasn't nominated for a single Oscar, or Golden Globe!
Yeah, why would anyone let a guy who made these two pathetic box-office flops make movies? Like, ever again!
Come on, if you're gonna be sarcastic, at least do your homework.
^ The point being, however, that a lot of people hate or are apathetic towards them. Hence I used the word 'duds' not flops. And Oscar nods are no guarantee of quality - War Horse also got middling reviews but a Best Picture nod.
Personally, I actually like 1941!
Personally, I actually like 1941!
OK, but what does that have to do with Braga?
I loved Enterprise, still do. But I can't deny that, both as a TV show, and a Trek spin-off, it failed. That was my inital point. What ever Braga touched since VOY failed, regardless of what his apologists want you to believe.
BTW, I really don't hate the guy. Sure, I think he ran Voyager all wrong, and should have stepped away from ENT before it was too late, but hey, I'm just a fan with an ultimately worthless opinion, one amongst thousands.
^I'm sorry this is all too complicated for you.
But what I was saying, in a throwaway post, was that you could take bits of any producer, director or writer's CV and hark at the movies or tv shows that either flopped or were reviled and ask why they're allowed to make movies or tv shows again. Spielberg is arguably the most successful director of all time, when you factor in commercial and critical success but even he has his movies and tv projects that failed in both regards.
Braga is nowhere near that successful but he's obtained a lot more success than most producers have or will and more than most of us will. So I'd hazard a guess that this is why he's allowed to make more tv shows, just like most execs with a bankable track record. I'm not an apologist for him but he's made some good stuff, some bad stuff and some in-between stuff.
But what I was saying, in a throwaway post, was that you could take bits of any producer, director or writer's CV and hark at the movies or tv shows that either flopped or were reviled and ask why they're allowed to make movies or tv shows again. Spielberg is arguably the most successful director of all time, when you factor in commercial and critical success but even he has his movies and tv projects that failed in both regards.
Braga is nowhere near that successful but he's obtained a lot more success than most producers have or will and more than most of us will. So I'd hazard a guess that this is why he's allowed to make more tv shows, just like most execs with a bankable track record. I'm not an apologist for him but he's made some good stuff, some bad stuff and some in-between stuff.
Well, DS9 certainly started Trek's steep ratings decline.
I'm not an apologist for anyone. I think Braga was the weakest showrunner the Trek franchise ever had. But I deplore it when people twist the facts and make dishonest and nonsensical arguments when attacking him, or when they exaggerate his culpability beyond what is factually valid. We should be fair and honest even in our criticisms, and we should hold people accountable only for their own shortfalls, not outcomes that were someone else's fault or no one person's fault. There is never a good excuse for ignoring or misrepresenting the facts.
Again, you're making the totally false assumption that Brannon Braga is somehow the only person involved in making these shows. Like I said, he worked for Rick Berman on the Trek shows, and he almost always wrote scripts with a partner, not by himself. On VGR, Braga co-wrote scripts mostly with Joe Menosky and Kenneth Biller. On ENT, Berman himself became Braga's regular writing partner, the first time that Berman had actually written scripts for Star Trek since his two TNG contributions, "Brothers" and "A Matter of Time." The Berman-Braga scripts of ENT were generally far worse than the Braga-Menosky or Braga-Biller scripts of VGR, because Berman was not a particularly experienced writer; his strengths lay mostly on the production/logistical side of things. If either partner in that pairing deserves blame for the weak writing of ENT, then Berman is the more likely choice.
Also, a lot of the decisions made on ENT were imposed on Braga by the UPN executives. For instance, Braga didn't want to include time travelers in the show at all, but the network insisted on having some aspect that moved forward from the 24th century because they didn't have faith in the idea of a straight prequel.
And I've already explained why it's inane to assume that someone is a failure just because he's done a few consecutive cancelled shows in a row. That argument would only make sense if it were unusual for shows to get cancelled. But all you have to do is pay a little attention and it should be obvious that shows get cancelled all the time. I gave you Stephen J. Cannell as one example of a producer who worked on something like eight failed series and two moderate successes before he hit it big with a string of popular, multi-season shows. It's hard to find an experienced producer who hasn't worked on several short-lived series in a row, because most TV series are short-lived, period. Seriously, why is this not obvious?
Being a TV producer is like being an animal giving birth in the wild. Most of your offspring will fall victim to predators or disease or accidents, but if you have enough offspring that at least a few survive, then you're a success. TV is not, by any stretch, a safe environment for baby shows. Most of them are bound to fall victim to the fierce competition for survival. That's not a reflection on the fitness of their creators, it's just the nature of the tooth-and-claw environment they're born into.
Then your motivation for fixating on him to the exclusion of all the other people he worked with and for, and claiming that a success-failure record that's not at all unusual for TV producers in general is somehow a condemnation of him specifically, is inexplicable. I can't imagine why you'd be so irrational, dishonest, and unfair in your efforts to vilify him if you didn't hate him.
Much appreciated.
You're a writer, your imagination will kick in, just give it time.
^So you're not denying that you're being dishonest and unfair, and are actually proud of it? That's truly contemptible. Especially over something so trivial as not liking a television show.
