Is It Too Soon For Another Trek TV Series?
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2011-08-25 13:16 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
Late to this thread - I've been busy, and still am, and don't check this sub-board often - and I don't have a really coherent idea at the moment of what I'd like to see in a new Trek series. I just wanted to point out that what BrandX was wishing for back on page 1 - a show where a Federation starship is thrown into a broken-down future - has already been done. It was called Andromeda, based on a concept by... Gene Roddenberry. 
(And then around the second or third season, "Shatner" got creative control and used it to run the show into the ground, including getting rid of the fan-favorite "Nimoy" character who kept stealing HIS spotlight.)
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Yeah when I read that post by BrandX (re: post-fall Federation setting) I also thought it sounded quite a bit like the premise of that "A-word" show. But years ago I took a personal oath to pretend that show never existed so I resisted the urge to point this out. |
Originally Posted by Megajoule
I just wanted to point out that what BrandX was wishing for back on page 1 - a show where a Federation starship is thrown into a broken-down future - has already been done. It was called Andromeda, based on a concept by... Gene Roddenberry.
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For what it's worth I'm not exactly against the generic idea of a Trek show being based in some far distant future where all the galactic civilizations we know and love are in decline. I just think the particular show that we're talking about which already used this idea as its premise was handled so badly that comparisons between such a new show and that "A-word" show would be bound to happen. And that would not likely be a good thing by any measure...
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That's like saying if we removed all the bad parts of X-Men The Last Stand we'd only have a twelve minute movie. Implicit in the complaint a movie or tv show has really bad parts is the assumption you're going to replace them with better parts, not have viewers stare at a black screen.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
Here in lies the problem...
The perceived story doesn't need time travel The actual story is nothing but time travel Season 1 - Enterprise continuously runs across the Suliban who interferes with the Enterprise... The Suliban are a genetically altered and risen species that is created and controlled by a future faction. Season 2 - Enterprise searches for info on the Suliban up until the end of the series where the Xindi attack earth. The Xindi who are controlled by a future faction that is defeated by the federation in the future and thus try to stop them early on. Season 3 - Enterprise make their way to the Xindi homeworld and in doing so learn about the future aliens trying to attack in the past and as a result stop that event from happening before it does. Season 4 - The Enterprise starts taking an active role in the past where they fight the temporal cold war with Daniels and thus reset the timeline to what it should be... That is to say that entire series never happened in the canon of star trek as far as a historical point of view and the entire story is about time travel and the future interfering with the past. Now if we remove that what happens to the series? It pretty much removes the entire series' story archs. |
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No what I'm saying is the entire story is about time travel which is supported by the entire story being about time travel. If you remove the time traveling bit the series is like 80-90% different because without the time travel parts the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th season don't exist and most of the 1st doesn't either.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's like saying if we removed all the bad parts of X-Men The Last Stand we'd only have a twelve minute movie. Implicit in the complaint a movie or tv show has really bad parts is the assumption you're going to replace them with better parts, not have viewers stare at a black screen.
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If it were 80-90% different it might've been good. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
No what I'm saying is the entire story is about time travel which is supported by the entire story being about time travel. If you remove the time traveling bit the series is like 80-90% different because without the time travel parts the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th season don't exist and most of the 1st doesn't either.
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Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Regardless of the time travel elements in Enterprise I think it's safe to say there were at least a few nuggets of coolness sprinkled around in that series. The parts with the early adversarial relationships with the Vulcans and Andorians were interesting and we did get a couple of nice Mirror, Mirror episodes out of it. Sadly it's pretty clear that maybe a season's worth of good episodes out of four was not a very good batting average for an entire series. Hopefully whatever they go with for the next series will have a better record than that.
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"Make it so number 1."
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Originally Posted by Lothic
There's a whole bunch of stuff I'd like to "retcon" out of Star Trek but as per usual wishing does not make it so.
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I could read what you wrote a thousand times and you would still be wrong. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
It would be nice if you read what is said and not just go make up things that are not.
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| Do I even have to mention Spock's constant struggles to balance his alien and human halves? |
If this new Star Trek show was similar to TNG or even Enterprise (wait, don't throw that stone!), meaning more space adventurer-y, then I would watch it in a heart beat. I love shows like Star Gate and SG: Atlantis. Even if most of the missions/episodes are similar, I like seeing the characters develop.
Plus, it's fun to turn off my brain for an hour or so and just relax. Working two jobs and dealin...err...I mean helping out a pregnant wife will wear your brain down pretty quickly.
More Sci-Fi shows please.
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I don't believe I have to actually say this directly, but when people complain about something being bad, its often because they do, in fact, want it to not exist. If all the parts directly related to time travel, rather than just incidentally related to time travel were removed (and your percentages are severe overestimates) that would be a good thing. Even if the percentage was 100% that would still be a good thing.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
No what I'm saying is the entire story is about time travel which is supported by the entire story being about time travel. If you remove the time traveling bit the series is like 80-90% different because without the time travel parts the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th season don't exist and most of the 1st doesn't either.
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Without time travel, we're still left with most of the Klingon arcs (hit and miss), much of the Andorian arcs, most of the Vulcan arcs, and the birth of the Federation at the end. And *most* of the first season does not deal with the time travel backstory.
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I'd concede the "alien-as-captain" premise might be risky as far as a network TV show that relies on ratings goes. There's no argument that the average viewer would more easily accept another random generic human in such a role.|
Originally Posted by Miss_Freeze_NA
I'd agree that the alien of the week types (when done well) helped progress the exploration of humanity, but I personally don't think an alien Captain would work.
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But part of what made Star Trek great back in the beginning was its willingness to defy convention and do things that were unexpected. Few people remember that there was some flak in the 1960s about Spock being the "first officer" of the ship in TOS because they didn't think it was appropriate for a "non-human" to be in -any- command position on a ship full of humans. Clearly that worry was proven to be quaintly silly in the long run.
I actually believe it's a only a matter of time before we see an alien captain as a main character in a Star Trek show. Trek has always been about shattering stereotypes like this. Having a non-human in the captain's chair is just about the only "glass ceiling" left for the franchise.
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"alien" can still serve as a metaphor for any not allowed to advance to their fullest potential (color, gender, creed, etc.)
I suppose, technically, we already had an alien captain, as Commander Worf was assigned the captaincy of the Defiant (at least when it suited Sisko), though Worf was raised by humans, so he's "tainted".
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I'd like that plus season-wide story arcs (or at least mini arcs). I find "miraculously crazy situations" once a week to be a little hard to swallow sometimes. But a bunch of things happening because of a related event, or task, are more believable. YMMV. |
Originally Posted by Clouded
If this new Star Trek show was similar to TNG or even Enterprise (wait, don't throw that stone!), meaning more space adventurer-y,...
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Also, no alien for a captain. At this point we'd expect it. No, it's time to be more forward-thinking. The ship should be captained by a tinier ship.
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And I'm saying that not only do these people not understand the story which they clearly don't, if you "take out" a majority and a key thing to what something is it is not that thing any more. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't believe I have to actually say this directly, but when people complain about something being bad, its often because they do, in fact, want it to not exist. If all the parts directly related to time travel, rather than just incidentally related to time travel were removed (and your percentages are severe overestimates) that would be a good thing. Even if the percentage was 100% that would still be a good thing.
Without time travel, we're still left with most of the Klingon arcs (hit and miss), much of the Andorian arcs, most of the Vulcan arcs, and the birth of the Federation at the end. And *most* of the first season does not deal with the time travel backstory. |
If you took out all the time travel stuff and all things related to it and all things caused by it which is the majority of the show and it is integral to understanding what was going on then it would no longer be Enterprise. It would be a different series.
Yes the andorian episodes are good but a majority of those have to do with the Andorians helping Enterprise during those events where the time traveling stuff occurred. So they wouldn't happen
The Klingon stuff is made worse in they eyes of these same fans because then there is no out for them and they're just dumb.
The Vulcan episodes consist of largely were drab in my opinion, largely consisting of... "don't do that" "we don't believe you" "T'Pol stop siding with them" "T'Pol stop stripping"
The other parts that don't consist of one of the aforementioned almost all could be summed up by human immaturity and soft core porn.
So what your saying is Trek fans want a soft core Vulcan/Andorian porn where there is a war between the two and the settle it by love. I'm sure...
Would an actual telling of the adventures of the Enterprise be interesting? Yes. Does that make what we got not interesting? No.
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Then again giving a human-raised Klingon the keys to a Federation "pocket battleship" is not exactly thinking outside the box as far as novel characterization goes. |
Originally Posted by Rodoan
"alien" can still serve as a metaphor for any not allowed to advance to their fullest potential (color, gender, creed, etc.)
I suppose, technically, we already had an alien captain, as Commander Worf was assigned the captaincy of the Defiant (at least when it suited Sisko), though Worf was raised by humans, so he's "tainted". |
But I'd grant that "alien" in this context could mean really almost anything that's not a pure 100% pure-blooded H. sapiens.
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Although I'm reasonably sure such a show will never be produced I must admit that if by some miracle it got made I'd probably want to watch it. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
So what your saying is Trek fans want a soft core Vulcan/Andorian porn where there is a war between the two and the settle it by love. I'm sure...
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Dude, just stop. That's not what Arcana is saying at all. I don't know how you even interpreted that from her statements.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
So what your saying is Trek fans want a soft core Vulcan/Andorian porn where there is a war between the two and the settle it by love. I'm sure...
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The fact of the matter is that Enterprise's Temporal Cold War plot line was a badly executed contrivance. It was there so the writers could do almost anything they wanted without having to worry about established continuity. It went nowhere until the Xindi arc came along, and even then it was an afterthought. And the resolution to the whole thing basically means that every single TCW episode was a waste of the audience's time, the equivalent of the whole thing having been Archer's dream after he fell asleep reading H.G. Wells.
Enterprise would've been much better focusing on Earth's early colonization/exploration efforts, relations with local pre-established space-faring species (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, etc.), and the path toward the foundation of the Federation. Instead we got an on-again-off-again boring mess of time travel that was magicked out of the way when they couldn't think of ways to keep it going.
Goodbye, I guess.
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Understanding the story does not mean liking the story, nor does disliking the story mean not understanding it.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
And I'm saying that not only do these people not understand the story which they clearly don't, if you "take out" a majority and a key thing to what something is it is not that thing any more.
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| If you took out all the time travel stuff and all things related to it and all things caused by it which is the majority of the show and it is integral to understanding what was going on then it would no longer be Enterprise. It would be a different series. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
No Brannon Braga and Rick Bermen with people who actually understand Star Trek. Then yes, I think a show would work.
Bermen's and Braga's ideas were horrible and Enterprise they should be in Sci Fi hell for eternity.
Prequel series do not work and especially with Star Trek. With all of us upset over Lucas's prequels in Star Wars, Bermen and Braga thought hey our hate was a good idea if we hated Lucas's idea we would love Enterprise. Not that we hate rewritting our favorite stories and history. They even told George Takai, who wanted to do a Captain Sulu Adventure Series which the fans supported that Prequels do not work. So George told all the fans this with a conjoined letter from B&B and 2 weeks later they announced Enterprise (not even heeding their own advice)
I have been venomously against Enterprise when it was on even on this board. I was against the JJ Abrams Movie, which I own and love. I watched every episode of Enterprise hoping it would be better it was not.
What this sounds like is they have reworked what was previously being considered before B&B decided to do Enterprise. I hope it is more post DS9/Dominion War as was originally planned as the galaxy is rebuilding and I hope the Breen are the threat that was promised.
A new series with some new blood could work. I want to see the final product but it sounds much better than Enterprise.
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To be (reluctantly) fair, Braga and Berman did make some good contributions to Star Trek. But they stayed at the series' helm too long and their ideas started getting...weird. And bad.
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Originally Posted by UltraTroll
No Brannon Braga and Rick Bermen with people who actually understand Star Trek. Then yes, I think a show would work.
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Goodbye, I guess.
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Back in TOS we had the Mirror Universe episode where at the end Kirk challenged the illogic of waste and how the Empire was doomed from within to Goatee Spock and got him to consider reforming the Empire.
In a DS9 ep, we see that under the right conditions, the wormhole can lead to the mirror universe and we had I think another ep or 2 that dealt with the mirror universe.
Perhaps a series where the Federation is at war with the Mirror Universe?
There were the Shatner novels that dealt with the ramifications of his visit to the mirror-verse but novels aren't canon.
I just hope they don't use a self limiting premise for the show:
DS9: They couldn't go anywhere.
Voyager: They couldn't get home.
Enterprise: They couldn't change the future/present.
And some of the posted ideas have similar problems:
Acadamy: They can't graduate.
Future Stuck: They can't get back home.
This just leads to too many idiot ball moments to maintain a status quo. And it really hurts the suspension of disbelief.
ToS and TNG had it best, because they just had a mission to go and do stuff.
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If you move the Time traveling stuff that's what you are left with. And remember the series was meant to run several seasons longer so saying that it didn't go anywhere is dumb. You build things up. You're suggesting that because the story never finished the set up and such was bad. That's impossible to say because you don't know what exactly the build up was leading to.|
Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
Dude, just stop. That's not what Arcana is saying at all. I don't know how you even interpreted that from her statements.
The fact of the matter is that Enterprise's Temporal Cold War plot line was a badly executed contrivance. It was there so the writers could do almost anything they wanted without having to worry about established continuity. It went nowhere until the Xindi arc came along, and even then it was an afterthought. And the resolution to the whole thing basically means that every single TCW episode was a waste of the audience's time, the equivalent of the whole thing having been Archer's dream after he fell asleep reading H.G. Wells. Enterprise would've been much better focusing on Earth's early colonization/exploration efforts, relations with local pre-established space-faring species (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, etc.), and the path toward the foundation of the Federation. Instead we got an on-again-off-again boring mess of time travel that was magicked out of the way when they couldn't think of ways to keep it going. |
They could have not done the Temporal Cold War, but they did and it was the central driving story and you can't get away from that. It's kinda like if you took and didn't follow the Doctor, but followed Earth through out time. Is the story not still about the doctor? The answer to that is Yes. The story is still about doctor whether you are seeing it exclusively from one side or the other.
Granted, I'll give you that is not what the show was sold on or what viewers expected, but that is still what it is and it was done well. There's no point in trying to convince anyone though because people tend to have formed their opinions and refuse to change them about these fan type things.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Understanding the story does not mean liking the story, nor does disliking the story mean not understanding it.
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| It would still be Enterprise. It would still be the same ship and the same basic crew engaged in adventures during a key time in Star Trek history. Archer would still have faith of the heart, going where his heart would take him; he'd have faith to believe that mankind could do anything. They could have written the show to go in any number of directions, but those were the ideals at the heart of it and like it or not the time travel nonsense isn't key to that. |
Personally, I think taking Trek into a different direction would be a good thing. Note that I said a 'different' direction, not necessarily a 'new' direction.
What I would propose would be to do a series of mini-series, using the Horatio Hornblower model. A mini-series based on the Academy, followed later by a mini-series with a number of the same characters (not all of them!) as midshipmen/ensigns, followed with a mini-series as full officers, etc. Each mini-series as a stand-alone arc, and picking and choosing which characters to follow each progression onwards. Cast can change, time can progress, and there can even be long-term overall story-arc development between mini-series if the writers feel up to it.
That's right. Voyager is the Prius of the Star Trek Universe.
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