According to Trek Today, Rick Berman plans to write a tell-all book about his experiences with Star Trek.
What do you think the best title or tagline for such a book would be?
Here are some possible contenders:
"It Wasn't My Fault!: Reflections on the Decline of Trek"
"Susan Suckett's Got Nothin' On Brannon Braga"
"Still Bitter: How DS9 Succeeded When I Wasn't Looking"
"Mediocrity As High Art: The 20-Year Rewards of Taking No Risks"
"Fulfilling Your Vendettas: The Writing of "These Are The Voyages...""
Feel free to add your own.
14 comments:
How about..."Destroying a Dream"
Berman...oh boy...Berman.
It's all been said and he knows we hold him responsible...Either he thinks we'll read it because we want explanations on why, WHY. or he's actually deluded enough to believe that the fans of Trek hold him in any esteem.
He's not as bad as you think really. I enjoyed both Voyager and Enterprise and accepted them with open arms into the Star Trek mythos. Sure they were different from the other three series, but that, I thought, wasn't a bad thing.
I think the main thing about Berman and Braga is that they seem to think less about the character interactions and ideals and more about the action/sci-fi aspect of it. TNG: Cause and Effects (written by Braga) is a great example of this. It's a great episode, but it's clearly less character driven than many of the TNG episodes, having more to do with the temporal anomoly than the Enterprise's crew.
Still, despite this, there's very little of Star Trek I really can't stand. Sure a number of the episodes were rather forgetable and there were a few (along with two of the movies) that I outright hate, but I found most of the really 'infamous' episodes (such as Night in Sickbay and Threshold) fell more under the 'forgettable' category.
Again, I liked both Voyager and Enterprise and really, when I watch them (even the worst episodes such as VOY: Meld), I really can't see what everyone is complaining about.
Oh and Scott Bakula is NOT a terrible actor. I agree he isn't up to the standard of the other four captains, but he's good in his own right. I think it's largely becuase he has a different style.
Indeed, all of Enterprise has a different style. It's Earth's dawnign days of exploration so the cold, milistartic 'we're scared of space' style as opposed to TOSs more layed back AUstin Powersy 'we can take anything you can throw at us man/baby' thing is no big surprise.
I don't hate Berman and Braga. I don't hate what they've done with the series. As to why everyone else does, I really don't know...
By the way, when I said 'I think it's largely becuase he has a different style', I meant that in reference to why everyone seems to think he's a bad actor.
I have had good and bad times in Trek...there's not one Trek series to have a perfect run...TNG was rotgut from the start...then progressed.
Star Trek Enterprise was atrocious from the go as well. While it did get better...the very idea sabotaged Star Trek.
Berman seemed to forget where his meal ticket was coming from. He no longer sought to please the fans. And as I've stated on numerous site...It's not Paramount or Berman that decided if something is canon...the Fans make that decision. Now for a Star Trek vs STar Wars debate that may not hold water...but it doesnt matter. Enterprise proved that fans will ultimately make the decision to accept a show as it is or abandon it.
I was one such fan. I recall racing home well above speed limits to see Voyager...It wasn't a perfect series. It disappointed me alot, but It's the one I wanted to suceed the most. I never felt that way with Enterprise.
I felt no connection with Enterprise. The characters were flat and distorted compared to what we knew before. Vulcans expressing emotions, tech showing up where it shouldn't, the name Enteprise showing up where it shouldn't
This is one series that should never have gotten clearance from the Dock Master. It was a disappointment from start to finish. It accomplished nothing in Trek History. It jumbled what fans thought they knew.
At some point point Paramount need to realize that sometimes feeding into certain fan expectations is the right thing to do...And sometimes you should ignore us about wanting borg in every series.
Stay to the dream. Eyes on the Prize and Trek will never let you down.
They Hay day of turning on the TV to watch two new episodes of two Good Trek series is over.
I will miss it.
"Still Bitter: How DS9 Succeeded When I Wasn't Looking"
"Mediocrity As High Art: The 20-Year Rewards of Taking No Risks"
The two best titals, which to choose from.
Saquist I agree with pretty much all that you've said, I think the idea to set Ent in the past (before Kirk) was actually a good idea. My problem was the running storyline they choose, the temporal cold war. B&B were too in love with time travel stories which are hard to write well.
When I first heard about this series I had some hope that it would follow in the trend seen in many series today with an ongoing story and big stakes, I was disapointed in the timetravel aspect. I liked the rivalry between the Vulcans and the Andorians, the show should have been about that. I didint like many of the design aspects of the show, they were too Voyageresque to me (did anyone bother to find out that there was supposed to be a helmsman and a navigator flying the ship?)
Back at SB.com I made a thread about this very subject and got into a long debate, one of the questions was something along the lines of why should the prequal be held to a higher standard of continuity than the rest of the series? I think that the answer to that could be; Voyager was set after the events of the other shows that preceeded it so it had a cleaner slate to imagine new things as new tech or whatever, the prequal takes place before and therfore should not be attempting to reinvent everything that technically comes after it. You can accept what they did or not, more people decided not to accept.
Personally, I feel that the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi arc took a series pitch that could have been very good (espiecielly considering that it could have included elements of the mentioned-but-never-elaborated-on Romulan Cold War, which was suppose to take place around that time) and drove it into the ground. Aditionally, as I've seen others mention on other sites, they pushed Archer a bit too far beyond the line between inexperience in new situations and stubournly incompetent. Oh, yeah, and the gratitous nudity and stuff in the Trip/T'Pol relasionship. My family had, up until the middle of the Xindi arc, watched Star Trek religiously, occasionally even when it was in reruns. During the last season of Voyager, it was the highlight of my week (and for a fourth grader, that was saying a good bit). Yet, after the Xindi arc and the Trip/T'Pol thing being played for a ratings boost by showing T'Pol naked, we stopped watching. I've never seen all of ENT, and may not ever. Personally, I prefer fan reimaginings like Star Trek: Foundations.
Crazy Archer is awesome.
Do you mean from 'In a Mirror, Darkly'? That episode rocked becuase of the Defiant in my opinion. It was sooo much fun to watch kick some ass...
MirrorCrazyArcher was cool, but so was main reality CrazyArcher.
Umm... ok...
some...and and I mean a few of the Enterprise episodes were well written but it didn't circumvent the bad acting...and the bad character developments.
Archer was the worse acting since KIRK. Kirk had style and charisma. ARcher was a hot headed fool...he had no principles and he stunk at giving the crew confidence.
No doubt a stark contrast to the captains Kirk Janeway and Sisko that came before.
And Kirk had a big amount of hubris. Archer was better at keeping things in perspective.
I found Kirk believable, Archer was just stupid. I don't blame the actor, I've seen Bakula in other roles and he isn't a bad actor, he's not extremely outstanding, but he isn't bad. I mostly blame the writing, and the story, though I do think that Bakula probably wasn't the best actor for the position.
I personally think the entire idea of the TCW was stupid. The whole point of the series was that it was going to show us what it was like before Kirk and Picard and Sisko and Janeway, before the Federation, before all the fancy tech they had, when they were still flying by the seat of their pants, from the later captains' perspectives, show us how things fell into place for the Federation, the encounters they made and situations they dealt with in that time period. The TCW took all that and threw it out the window, because now we have stuff all throughout the timeline fouling the water. And yes, I'm an ENT hater. I was very excited when I first heard about it, because that was a time period that I really wanted to see more of, see more ships like the Daedalus, see Trek in its early days, early technology, see the Earth-Romulan War, see Earth's first steps into the galaxy and how the first bricks that became the foundation of the Federation were laid. Instead of that, I got a show muddied up by some temporal war that gave the producers an excuse to tramp on or ignore almost every piece of Trek lore of the period. And I'm going to stop ranting now...
I liked the idea of the show and enjoyed the TCW stuff, but the earlier episodes turned me off. I couldn't keep an interest. But then, the xindi stuff happened and it drew me back in for some of S3 and I watched S4. Because of them, I decided to give 1 and 2 another chance, watching them on scifi and giving them a little more benefit of the doubt. Many from the first 2 seasons I enjoyed (Mayweather should only...only...fly the ship and fire a phaser. He should never have had his own story. Plus, the actor playing him sucked.), but some I didn't (the Enemy Mine one sucked). In the end, they could have rotated the actors out by having them reassigned and new people could have been brought in for another 3 season and it would have been something like TOS, only we saw what the pre-history of the ship was, unlike with TOS, unless you count the pilot.
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