Topic: Maybe Trek IS dying...? (Read 15353 times)

SghnDubh · « **on:** April 16, 2003, 02:05:18 pm »

http://www.salon.com/ent/wire/2003/04/16/spike/

9th paragraph down. Thoughts?

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #1 on:** April 16, 2003, 02:12:54 pm »

Nielson Ratings are the bane of the television industry, it sets false standards in veiwership that the broadcast companies take far too literally. Nielson ratings are supposed to be a "representative" slice of the United States television viewers. Unfortunatly Nielson doesnt try to get a very diverse set of families to base a proper sample. Neilson needs to be eliminated from the Television industry, but I dont see that happening anytime soon.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #2 on:** April 16, 2003, 02:44:24 pm »

Quote:

Nielson Ratings are the bane of the television industry, it sets false standards in veiwership that the broadcast companies take far too literally. Nielson ratings are supposed to be a "representative" slice of the United States television viewers. Unfortunatly Nielson doesnt try to get a very diverse set of families to base a proper sample. Neilson needs to be eliminated from the Television industry, but I dont see that happening anytime soon.

Exactly

TV ratings determine everything in the market (Price of Commercials, Which shows stay on the air, Who keeps their job)

And it really doesn't reflect the whole ratings.

NannerSlug · « **Reply #3 on:** April 16, 2003, 02:51:51 pm »

i think it goes more toward TNN than it does trek in general. though i must admit, i like TNN... but my television time is spent either on one of three channels (depending on who controls the tv. heh).

1) History Channel
2) HGTV (home and garden channel - go figure who controls the remote on this one. heh)
3) Fox News.

once in a while I will watch TNN.

people need to also consider the war and where cable viewers where tuning in during the war.

and yes, cost per point/ratings dictate television simply because advertisers look for a metric to determine their return on investment. if they do not make the predicted ratings during that time, there is somthing called "make goods" (meaning that if the client does not recieve the rating points which they paid for they must get free advertising to pay for it).

so for all television advertisers, it will be interesting.

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #5 on:** April 16, 2003, 03:34:09 pm »

the fact that NBC was nearly boycotted in 1969 will show to ALL television Execs why its a bad idea to stop airing Star Trek

DONOTDELETE · « **Reply #6 on:** April 16, 2003, 04:54:00 pm »

Yeah, but this aint your fathers Star Trek. (Or mine, for that matter!)

No one mounted a letter writing campaign when TNG was cancelled, simply to start making movies that did nothing but start at decent and go down-hill IMHO.

Nor DS9.

Nor Voyager.

And when Enterprise is cancelled, no one will mount a campaign to save it, either.

Trek died with the words... "Second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

Us oldsters who would rather watch a rerun of even a horrible TOS episode like the one with the intergalactic hippies all looking for Eden (oy vey!) are the ones who made Trek the unstoppable juggernaught it was.

Nowadays, there is simply too much competition, too few decent story lines and too little content in Trek, and it is suffering for it.

From ST2 to ST6 I did not miss the opening of a Trek movie, taking off work if required, attending midnight showings, etc. You still see that for Star Wars, but not for Trek.

B+B have run it into the ground and are currently stomping on the coffin lid.

Oh well, my .02 credits worth anyhow.

And for the record, I hold TNG in a very high regard, but DS9, Voy and Enterprise tapes are mainly suitable for evening out a broken nightstand.

Have a nice day!

Accidently said TOS instead of TNG in first paragraph!

NannerSlug · « **Reply #8 on:** April 17, 2003, 01:08:08 am »

well... in my view, what happened was technobabble killed character development. the show ceased to become about people solving issues and became more about achieving "perfection." problems were solved by "compensating" and to me at least, things are glossed over a bit too much.

in my view, ds9 (toward the end), had far better writing and character development than TNG. TNG for the most part felt to me like giving the weekly god-like alien of the week the bird. in a word, it was sterile.

in the TOS series, each character seemed to be developed more.. maybe the producers demanded more from the writers as it was not a franchise. then again, thank goodness ST: phase 2 never happened.. i saw some of the stuff they had planned and in all honesty, it probably would have killed trek.

right now, i feel like enterprise has a wider acceptance - but things are still sliding down a bit.. if you ask me.. it really, really HURT paramount by starting their own network and jerking it from syndication. trek was at its height during syndication and rapidly fell after UPN network started and paramount moved trek to wednesday nights on its own network.

admit it, how many of you guys know your local UPN network, let alone watch it?

that, in my view, has more to do with trek's demise than anything else. they killed the writing and the soul of getting the word out by starting their own network. i wonder how much the UPN networks are making nowadays.. i know that CBS owns/runs it.. so i am interested to see where it goes. i do not see upn network going away or doing anything real soon.. but i do see those programs on it dying off from main stream - that includes trek.

one other thing to think about... trek ran during the height of space exploration... since then, space no longer captures peoples imagination due to "social" concerns. that might also have a huge impact.

Nomad42 · « **Reply #10 on:** April 17, 2003, 07:55:55 am »

How many times can you watch the same show.
Many most people have seen them all again.
Take them off the air for a year or 2 then put them back on.
Ratings will improve.

I live in the NYC area.
I wish they would put DS9 on some where.
True it is not as good as TNG but I missed alot of episodes.
And the last couple of years really rocked.
It would be fun to watch the show from the beginiing again.
(The tribble episode was really fun)

I find that Enterprise is boring.
The time line problems also cause me to tune out the show.
Although I like the last episode with Klingons.

Tremok · « **Reply #11 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:25:11 am »

I don't think Trek will ever die. Atleast not for a long, long time. It may take breaks, it may need reforms, but there is just something about it.

Personally, I found TOS only ok. I did not like Voyager at all, the crew annoyed me so bad I went to the brink of insanity. Only reason I watched it was because it was Trek. I find TNG and ENT to both be decent. DS9 was my favorite Trek, and one of my all time favorite shows.

Well, they do say there is something different about DS9ners.

Firestorm · « **Reply #12 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:47:55 am »

What ever happen to the rumor mill that Riker was going to be the captain of the next new Star Trek around the USS Titan that he was being reasigned to at the end of Nemesis??? I thought I heard it would center around Riker and Troi, with all new cast/crew, kind of a new start. It sounded good to me, but haven't heard anything lately about it?!?!?!?!?!?

Firestorm · « **Reply #13 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:48:56 am »

Then of course for Enterprise, they could always just show T'pol in her pajamas more often, that would help ratings!!!

Cocomoe · « **Reply #14 on:** April 17, 2003, 11:42:59 am »

Trek started dieing when TNG took over.

Karnak · « **Reply #15 on:** April 17, 2003, 01:19:02 pm »

I think Star Trek needs to go back to the story-telling and character development done in the movies: ST2, ST3, ST4 and ST6. It was these movies that saved Trek in the 1980s and led to the development of TNG. Star Trek 4 is the highest grossing of all the Star Trek movies due to the min. techno-babble, rapid but rich storyline, and mucho fun character development. A lot of non-trekkies could watch ST4 and like it. Trek needs to reach out to these people more.

Trek still has to achieve the same ST4 success in all the TNG shows and movies. Only "ST8:First Contact" came close.

NannerSlug · « **Reply #16 on:** April 17, 2003, 04:40:43 pm »

your right karnak.. if you look at how those movies were made - they are leaps and bounds better than many of the tng movies.. you can thank nicholas myer for much of that.. if you watch the little film that comes with the ST2 collectors dvd you will note that myer was NOT involved with trek up until that time - and that, might be whats needed.. what i mean is that the focus was on telling a good story, not so much with technobabble.

hope that makes sense.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #18 on:** April 17, 2003, 05:31:27 pm »

Have you watched it recently?

Just don't watch the stupid Borg epsiode comming up

If you see "Future Tense," "Cease Fire," or some of the "better" episodes, you'll see that the series has hope to be good (never great, and not TOS, but good)

DH123 · « **Reply #19 on:** April 17, 2003, 06:21:09 pm »

UPN Killed Buffy!!! Has anyone seen how bad that show got after it moved to UPN?

Enterprise has some interesting moments and some cool characters (not to mention T'pol's "assets" . . .). It could be good if they focus on that.

DS9 had the best characters since TOS. I as well live in the NYC area and would loved if somebody would repeat it.

Paramount should hire J'inn as a consultant. Most of his RP is better than what they put out.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #20 on:** April 17, 2003, 06:29:45 pm »

lol J'inn

That would be, um, interesting

Why not?

Sounds like a good idea

Just one problem.

What happens when the Enterpise is in an Asteroid field?

Scipio_66 · « **Reply #21 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:33:22 pm »

Enterprise has everything it needs to be a success........ except writers. The writing is bland, boring, and far too PC.

Paramount went with Enterprise (they said) so that they could tell a different style of Star Trek story with a frontier attitude. But the characters on Enterprise don't have a frontier attitude; they've got the same sterile attitude we've seen in Voyager and Next Gen. Where are the attitudes that drove these people to explore because they find civilization repressive? Why is Archer so PC? Why is the crew so refined in their dealings with aliens?

I'm not sure how writing works on Voyager and Enterprise, but I get the impression of a standing committee. I see a group of yuppies working with cookie-cutter storyboards, and passing their formulaic stories though a heavy coporate filter. We're not getting new stories and attitudes; we are getting the same old formula with different props. I could be wrong as I don't hav the facts, but this is the impression I get. It's like watching a fliming of a book that is itself a TV-adaption. This is a far cry from TOS, which bought scripts from the likes of:

Harlan Ellison
Theodore Sturgeon
David Gerrold
Dorothy Fontana
Gene Coon

I'll note the last few episodes of Enterprise have shown a bit of improvement. (At lest with the energy creatures they did flat-out destroy an attacking ship, instead of giving it a chance to surrender or limp off with a nasty toungue lashing.) Hopefully this trend will continue, and the crew of NX-01 will continue to act more like a rough-edged group of individuals pusing back the frontier. The new show is superior to Voyager enough that I continue to watch it with hope.

-S'Cipio

nx_adam_1701 · « **Reply #22 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:57:01 pm »

I say show more variety, honestly, I have seen all the TNG already, everytime I turn to TNN its like I saw that already, the only ones I stay and watch are the hit episodes like the Borg and etc..., If they would air DS9 which was a real hit because the show surrounded war then maybe rating will go up, also its what they show, they tend to repeat alot of the episodes but hey, I hope Star Trek won't die out but then again it might, last thing is they should do like what happen with DS9 and TNG, they should make another series as ENT is going on

Adam Out

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #23 on:** April 18, 2003, 02:40:12 am »

Sadly, Enterprise wasn't even aired here in Phoenix, the U.S.'s 7th largest city. It was pre-empted by a basketball game. I really hate UPN. This is the second time this season that a new, never before aired episode of Enterprise has been pre-empted by sports.

Jwest · « **Reply #24 on:** April 18, 2003, 08:13:53 am »

My big problem with Enterprise is that Archer *never* makes a mistake. The way their writing this show, you have to wonder why the Fleet ever implemented the Prime directive, after all the Vulcans always try to enforce it, and they're *always* wrong, while Archer flouts it and is consistently correct. Let face it - He makes Jim Kirk look like the pinnacle of restraint.

Plus the fact that the continuity sucks, but I can get past that - TOS continuity was no great shakes, but the writing made up for it. I'll give it time - the first two seasons of TNG were really bad too, then they finally brought it together and had a heck of a show, but while Enterprise has a good cast, they really don't have anyone of Patrick Stewarts caliber to carry them while they get it together.

Jwest

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #25 on:** April 18, 2003, 08:42:25 am »

It happened in Philly too

But at least I got to watch Jordan's last game (although it was on ESPN, my Cable wasn't working)

I'll try to catch it tomorrow

ancientangel · « **Reply #26 on:** April 18, 2003, 01:09:02 pm »

Here is just a minor list of good shows with a good following that have died do to reasons out of the viewers control.

BattleStar Galactica : To costly and cutting edge moral classes (Socialator ie, "Prostitute") Needed more of a Family appeal and sufferd for it.
Space Above and Beyond : Bad timing not the best enviroment to show a war type show during the Gulf War, Fox quickly and quitely ended the series at its peak.
The Others : Probably the most unseen show I have ever run into. If you missed it words can not even begin to describe its story. Only aired for one Season on NBC, during the bloodiest post season work I have ever seen in which they axed their enrite sunday (?) night line up. Killing off The Others, Profiler and Pretender with out any word.
Farscape : The unholys of unholys, the sci-fi channel killed this show after 5 years do to a bad programing schedule and constant time slot changes. Hard to build an audiance and keep them when you do not show even a rerun for nine months. Winner of many sci-fi awards, this show will be missed. www.savefarscape.com for more info.
Witch Blade : Very orginal work that always keeps you guessing. Got pulled just shortly after a year and a half by TNT. Once again they stated it was because of lack of ratings but other issues point out to certain cast members and dependancy issues.
Legand of the Rangers (Babylon 5) : Not the best story line out of the B5 Universe but it did have a little merit, give time say two years it might have panned out. Another supported Sci-fi channel production.
Crusade (Babylon 5) : Slow to get you hooked but over all quality fairly good. It was quickly put down like a rabbid dog after some 17 shows. Once again the last few shows tend to be the best and draw you in for that Aww Dam it! thats it ....no more type feeling. Another supported Sci-fi production.
SeaQuest DSV : I think this was an NBC show, how and the hell the company sold this idea to NBC and won I have no clue. It was a fairly good show which took a weird twist around the end of season two. For whatever reason, I find it hard to believe that NBC funded this show, since only a select few people would watch a story about a Deep Sea Vessel.

These are just the shows off the top of my head that could be somewhat placed under a Sci-fi type theme. Some others where not named since most shows have a natural life span of around 5-7 years depending on the story line.

Now if I had the money and the resources I would start up a Dead Channel Network and revive these shows.

Chris Jones · « **Reply #28 on:** April 18, 2003, 02:33:34 pm »

Trek is in Remission.

TNG was the Best - DS9's later episodes - some Voyager was fun to watch. Early DS9 was boring., until they got to the Jem'Hadar, where the Odyssey was destroyed. Some Voyager was just plain stupid, but I watched it for continuity.

Enterprise I simply cannot watch. I try. i really do, but i seem to find other things to do on Wednesday nights, like mod a TNG SFC game.

TOS I grew up on. I swore by it until TNG's 3rd season episode, 'Yesterday's Enterprise'. Then I forgot about TOS for a long time. When I first saw that episode I thought, now there's real Star Trek.

TNG riveted me, right through the opening of DS9 and the 1994 series finale, 'All Good Things'. By the time TNG ended DS9 was getting good, then they spun off into Voyager. When Voyager came on DS9 was in its heyday. I stuck with Voyager after DS9 ended because I saw it as an extension of TNG and DS9. Endgame I liked, although the ending left me a bit empty.

Enterprise what's that? sorry..

Movies 1-6 - The first one was kind of a fun nostalgia trip -- 2,3,4, and 6 are all classics. 5 should've never been made.

Generatons I liked - Kirk and Picard. "They have found a way to penetrate our shields. .. Lock phasers and return fire!"

First Contact - My Fav all time trek Movie.

Insurrection - not bad - reminds me of a long TV episode

Nemesis - My 2nd all time Fav Trek movie - real close to First Conact.

By my age I should be a TOS guy. It holds a place in my heart, but TNG rules. I am reminded of a DS9 episode 'Trials and Tribulations' great DS9 there!!

i think Star Trek is in remission. Even if LOTR had not been released last December Nemesis still wouldn't have done well, I believe.

It will be back with a vengence....

and so will the mods.............

Karnak · « **Reply #29 on:** April 18, 2003, 04:18:07 pm »

Does anyone know if a Collector's Edition for "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country" will be made like they did for St2 and St3?

EE · « **Reply #31 on:** April 19, 2003, 04:27:24 am »

When I had DirectTV for my TV viewing pleasure, I would watch ESPN, Fox Sports, Discovery, History Channel, The Learning Channel, Comedy Central and the normal 2-13 channels ( Abc, NBC, Fox, UPN etc ). Now that I dont, I get three channels, Pax ( UHF ), NBC and ABC. ( Channels 7 and 9 ). I mainly watch channel 7, It comes in the clearest of the two.

32nd Halcyon · « **Reply #34 on:** April 19, 2003, 04:17:55 pm »

I don't think Trek is dying. I think people are just buying the TNG seasons on DVD now that they are avaialbe. This can cause a decline in viewership. Why watch trek with the commercials when you just need to throw your shiney DVD in and watch it to get your fix?

DestinyCalling · « **Reply #35 on:** April 19, 2003, 06:07:58 pm »

There's no "buzz" in it anymore..... I'm sure everyone will remember how excited we all got back in 1985(ish) when TNG launched... Even though it sucked and blowed in equal amounts (I still cringe at the thought of Farpoint Station jellyfish holding "tentacles"..... Oh and Denise Crosby constantly overacting), it was given plenty of time to develop, with a whole stack of great trek episodes rolling out mid run. The trouble nowadays is that a new series is launched and everyone goes "Oh look, a new Trek series....... I wonder what's happening on the Simpsons?"

BTW............ BRING BACK FAMILY GUY............!!!!!!!!

Anyway, trek these days borders on mindnumbing overkill. After all, you can only tell the same story so many different times.

IMHO.... Star Trek started declining when we lost Gene Roddenberry (with a few exceptions of course) and his "human touch" is greatly missed.

Pull Trek from the airwaves for a year or two to give people the chance to "miss it" but most of all....

PARAMOUNT NEED TO RELEASE ALL 79 TOS EPISODES ON DVD.......

That'll help....

Adios

Magnum357 · « **Reply #36 on:** April 19, 2003, 11:03:16 pm »

I agree with DestinyCalling, there are so many different ways to tell the same story. I remember my mom saying to me, who was an English teacher and was a Star Trek fan herself, that the Greeks had already come up with all the plots in stories anyway. No new show comes up with anything original because the Greeks already came up with the same plot only we put a new twist to it today.

Earlier on this post, someone said that

"TOS used Romulans as Chinese, Klingons as Russians, and Feds as U.S. & U.K., we need Star Trek to go back to that kind of Trek story writing. We need episodes to explain points in political situations we have today like we did in the 60's with hippies or coldwar problems"

Only thing I can say is... why???

Why does Sci Fi have to be someones tool to express a point about something? Why can't someone just write a good story and not worry about political events? Setting aside the TV shows for a moment, and just looking at the stories of the movies, I would have to say my most favorite ST movie was Star Trek 2. Not because it probably had the greatest starship battle scences and combat (although it was cool even for todays standards) but the plot made sense and the Characters seemed beleiveable. Heck, the whole point of the Story in Star Trek 2, although sort of rediculas, but about Kirk getting too old and feeling like an antique and his ship becoming obsolete, and at the same time extreme hatred by Khan from his past as a dictator and loses he suffered on Ceti Alpha V. The point I'm saying is that this simple plot was interesting and exciting. Why does Star Trek need to back to old TOS where you have to symbolically put political events of society as the main focus. Star Trek 2 and Bablyon 5 have always seemed similar to me on flavor of how a good plot should be planned out. I remember an interveiw with the creator of B5 and asked him does he share the same veiwpoint that other writers had in adding elements of society into his stories on B5, and he said he never liked doing that because it devalues the story you originally want to convey. Just like he said he avoids adding Robots and Children as the main emphisis in stories. Guess he was right because look at the problems Star Wars had lately.

Ok, that was a lot of garbage I just wrote. Anyway, Star Trek 2 had a fairly simple plot to it and it worked out great. I don't think Enterprise is having a problem with Plot as some of the episodes I have seen lately have some original stories, its just that B & B needs to kinda inform the Star Trek audience which direction he wants go with this series. If he wants to keep it consistant with the Star Trek Universe as we know it, then he needs to do some research in the Star Trek Encycolapedia and stay consistant. TNG and DS9 did a pretty good job of this. If B & B is trying to completely rewrite Star Trek (Star Fleet Battles Universe Perhaps?) then he needs to explain that to Star Trek fans so that they know which way to look at Enterprise. Stop sitting on the fence and make a decision B & B because its getting mighty close to Season 3.

As for the Story writing of Nemisis, well... I sort of liked the movie in someways, but I must agree with others that it seems like the writer of the script just copied concepts of Star Trek 2. As I had said above, it looked like Nemisis was a complete copy of same type of plot where Picard is getting old (although not sure if the Ent-E is obsolete, heck it was only build like 5 years earlier or something. Even the Galaxy Class is still useful) and the Evil guy (was his name Shizon or something) was again just a Khan copy. What I think they should have done if they wanted to End Star Trek was to use the Character of Tasha Yar's Daughter (half Romulan and Human) in the story and have her die along with a lot of the cast and crew.

SghnDubh · « **Reply #37 on:** April 20, 2003, 01:58:14 am »

Well first, don't take what I said out of context about allegory. I'm not interested and I don't advocate the scenario you painted.

But second, if you watch (or read) for plot only, you are ignoring 90% of the richness of the story. All of the best stories work on many levels; they can stand on their own with a good plot, but they also have metaphor, subtext, allegory, etc. to think about and examine. Those are what make a story interesting.

Besides, Trek always has the same plot: Explore, fight, get saved in the nick of time, win, start again. So it has to make use of other literary conventions to be entertaining. Your plea for "just a good story" hasn't ever relied on plot alone. That's why we need "those other things."

(sidetrack off, returning to thread now)

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #38 on:** April 20, 2003, 12:58:41 pm »

It's interesting to note that a really good Trek episode is usually one that departs from the usual Trek episode synopsis. Cases in point from DS9 alone: "Trials and Tribbleations", "The Way of the Warrior" and "Sacrifice of Angels", three of the best loved DS9 episodes of all time. Also, it seems the worst Trek episodes also depart from usual Trek plotline. One memorable case from TNG: "Conspiracy" a season 1 episode that, in my opinion, is the worst Trek episode of any series, including TOS: "Spok's Brain". So it seems that departing from the norm is a hit or miss operation, ending up in either extremely good or extremely bad episodes. It takes a lot of guts for a network to allow episodes like that. Either guts or being totally oblivious about what's going on. Either way it's interesting.

Lepton1 · « **Reply #39 on:** April 20, 2003, 06:28:50 pm »

I'm just going to say it. TOS is just too campy, intentionally or not, and in terms of sci-fi philosophy too naive and juvenille. I mean Nazis in space!! Isn't there some other way to make a commentary on democracy and fascism? TOS was made by the actors and their interactions in their characters which is exactly what the new shows lack. Flat characters, no spice. Archer, the diplomat. He's Picard without the smarts and philosophizing. Boring!

Although I faithfully watch Enterprise, the thing I look most forward to is when a TOS race pops in. Roms, Tholians (damn, I wanted to see one), Gorn. That makes it for me.

Here's what Trek needs. Ideas coupled with space battles. By ideas, I mean good sci-fi ideas like temporal nuttiness, alien weirdness (Do we ever get to know anything about these races? Don't we want to know? Fill-in the backstory for goodness sake), etc all tweaked with a bit of non-sentimental post-modern philosophy. All this to give us an interesting perspective on reality without resorting to human centered sappy emotional truth BS. Like the TNG episode with Worf jumping around in alternative universes all to come away with the fact that he loves Troi or something like that or some other "Life Lesson". ICK!!! I get my melodrama elsewhere, thank you very much!

I happen to like the Temporal Cold War idea. I just wish it took a more central role in the series instead of dropped in for season cliffhangers. Most sci-fi shows lack an arc. Can't speak about B5 or Farscape. Never saw them to my dismay.

And of course, space battles. Have we ever gotten enough of this? Even in Star Wars movies with fighter action, it never seems enough or done right. The scenes are always far too short and have more to do with moral rectitude of the victor or moving the story along, than something "believeable" or just cool in terms of a battle. I hate that I missed all the Dominion War episodes on DS9, so I don't know if they got it right then. I would suppose that they did not. So much of the battle episodes seem to be about the human drama and yelling orders than let's see the ships doing things.

Whiplash · « **Reply #40 on:** April 20, 2003, 08:13:29 pm »

Lots more shooting ships? Yeah, I'd like it. Won't work, though. It would get too dull. Even in Star Wars, the amount of time zooming around on a fighter's tail blasting away isn't that much. They have as much as they do only because it is a movie, not a series. Too have lots of it, it needs to be more sophisticated.

Are there any war TV series on right now? How many have there ever been? MASH does not count. It was a comedy, not an action show. You can't do enough with war to build a series around. Trek combat is particularly dumbed down. There is a lot more to worry about in today's warfare than in Trek combat.

Most of the characters are too stilted. The Federation is boring. Admit it. There haven't been any really interesting characters since Picard and Data. Even a knock-off of Kirk, Spock, Picard or Data would be inadequate, even silly.

To survive, Trek is going to have to move in some different directions than they have. Maybe they need a Betazoid psychic espionage agent. Or maybe someone with some strange powers even they don't understand fully, someone who is being sought by all the races, and can't even turn to the Federation due to that secret group that made the Founder disease. Whatever. Something dark, dangerous, people with issues. Or something simpler that incorporates some suppressed romance like they do in Smallville, or the stuff they did in Moonlighting years back. You know what I mean.

They have the chance to introduce some more interesting elements into Enterprise still. Let's hope they do with this "new direction" they are talking about.

W.

Magnum357 · « **Reply #41 on:** April 20, 2003, 09:06:49 pm »

Hey Lepton1, sorry to hear you didn't see much of the Dominion War. In my opinion, Seasons 5 to 7 was probably the best of the DS9 series. If you wanted space battles, these two seasons would have been up your ally! But still not enough in my opinion. But I could see why some Trek fans got turned off by Ds9. Once they focused on war with the series, some of the Trek purists got turned off because DS9 wasn't turning into "seek out new life and new civilizations" type Star Trek anymore. If you ever do watch DS9 episodes, try to consider the perspective more like Star Fleet Battles then Star Trek.

The one good thing about DS9 was that it kept pretty close to very few inconsistancies yet an interesting story in my opinion. To this day, I just don't understand why people are so negative torward DS9. I would not mind at all if Enterprise was geared like DS9. I even think the Temperal Cold war idea was interesting, but it would be nice if B & B would at least let us know if this Temperal Cold war has already effected the time line. That way, it would make a little better sense (just barely though) in why the series has so many inconsitancies.

DONOTDELETE · « **Reply #45 on:** April 21, 2003, 08:15:40 pm »

If Trek doesnt die, it will need a serious enema to clean out the B+B feces it is currently impacted with.

TOS was campy, but it was SUPPOSED to be, it was the '60's after all! Go-go boots and mini-skirts, oh my. The reason the TNG/DS9/Voy chars dont have the depth of the TOS chars is quite simply due to the fact that there are so MANY of them.

Ever hear the term "The Enterprise three"? Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Mix in a wee bit of Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura for fill, but K,S + M WERE TOS. In TNG, GR tried to split all his characters up...

Kirk = Riker the lover and warrior, Picard the thinker and diplomat.
Spock = Troi the telepath and Captains confidant and Data the thinker and semi-unstoppable defender of the Captains ass.
Scotty = Geordi the "almost" miracle worker and O'Brien the engineer turned transporter operator.
McCoy = Guinan the bartender (Romulan ale? Why Bones, you KNOW this is illegal...) and Crusher the empathic healer.

After a few seasons worth of growth, these characters WORKED, and only got better with time. Worst thing they did was take TNG off TV. (Besides taking TOS off the air, of course!) I watched DS9 pretty regularly up until the Dominion wars started... Once it appeared they were finally out of TOS/TNG originals to bring to DS9 for ratings, they had to turn to the inevitable borglike "boogie man" in the Jem'Hadar and eventually the Dominion.

While the battles were pretty, it was NOT Trek. It was Star Wars, wtih different models. Call me a purist if you will, but I am not against Trek warfare, least you forget I am a strident SFB'er. But combat in Trek was for a purpose and was story driven, the combat in DS9 WAS the story. Example?

ST2:TWOK: Enterprise vs Reliant, Kirk vs Khan, Good vs Evil. No better motivator around.
TOS: The Balance of Terror: Direct copy of "The Enemy Below", a WW2 based destroyer vs sub movie, the BEST Trek episode concerning combat IMHO.

Wheras in DS9 the Dominion war WAS the story and the characters were part of the war, not the other way around.

Sometimes the mere THREAT of combat in Trek was enough... TOS: "A taste of Armageddon" is one of my fav episodes as well... No phasers fired, no Starships blown up, but the mere threat of the Enterprise executing "General Order 24" sends chills down my spine every time Scotty gives the planet notice of their impending doom. (If you havent seen it, Kirk and party are held hostage, and Kirk tells Scotty to implement GO#24 in 2 hours, which would entail the Enterprise, a FEDERATION Starship targeting every sign of civilization or habitation on the surface of an entire WORLD and erradicating it in the most borglike fashion. Big eye opener for those who grew up watching the TNG, "PC" version of Trek where Picard would never even CONSIDER giving such an order...

I could go on forever, but to surmise my ramblings...

1)Character development watered down due to very large numbers of permanent cast members. I cry EVERY single time Spock dies in TWOK, without exception, and for nearly 20 years now my wife laughs at me each time. It causes me near physical pain to see the Enterprise blow up in ST3:TSFS. Kill Picard, blow up the ever upwards spiraling registry numbers of the newer Enterprises and its "ho hum". The Enterprise ("No bloody A, B, C OR D" WAS a member of the crew, never doubt it.

2)PITIFUL story lines. Total lack of creativity. They are either stealing from old TOS episodes, or other shows/movies, or they are just making up crap.

3)TOTAL disregard for the timeline and established events, simply due to the total lack of those responsible for #2. And puh-leaze, the Akiraprize blows. A ship 100 years older than the first Enterprise, but it IS named Enterprise (change of history) and it is an almost unchaged model of a DS9 ship and obviously looks it.

B+B are simply milking the cow for the last few drops before it dies. Hopefully Paramount will realize the error of their ways before its too late... Trek is on life support and B+B are pulling on the cord for all their worth.

If nothing else, SFB will live LONG and PROSPER!!!

Have a nice day!

Lepton1 · « **Reply #46 on:** April 22, 2003, 02:11:36 am »

All very good points. BUT.

Was TOS intentionally campy or just campy from our view? I'd like to see some evidence that they knew they were being campy.

No doubt, the big three made TOS, but that was about it. In TOS there was no character development, except maybe for Spock's occasional and totally temporary forays into "humanity" and emotions. They were characters. What made the show good was their interactions. The storylines were as bad as the ones we have now. At least now, we do have character development and the thread of an arc in the overall season or the series itself. TOS was a bodge-podge with the best episodes you mentioned as the exception to Kirk bedding another space babe (see Andromeda for the current instantiation of this).

Oh, look I am a man with black on the left side of my face while this other guy has white on the left side of his face, I must hunt down and kill him, and by the way when I do, we blow each other up. Can someone pull out of my head the rather large and silly hammer used to drive that point into my head?

I don't need social commentary and good yet traditional stories from Sci-Fi. I need something beyond what I can dream up in my head. Give me some crazy non-story driven battles that derive meaning from their spectacle and even perhaps some sort of tactical sense. Give me some alien races with some depth and a good smattering of alien philosophy, culture, and rituals. Give me Sci-Fi ideas, not good vs evil, emotions vs reason, BORING!!!! SCIENCE fiction, not humanistic drama in space. This is the frigging 21st century now and sometimes the 23rd then. Can't we progress beyond these rather provincial ideals that have their roots pre-Enlightenment?! I don't want the same old story. Give me something new!!

OOOOHH, characters, PTHHHHHHH!!!! The changling that can loooove!! The vulcan that can looooove!!!! The klingon that can looooooooooove!!!! BORING!!!! Is this a frigging soap opera or is this Science Fiction? Trek could use a little shot of cyberpunk smack right in the eyeball and a cortical implant to improve its intelligence. I am always surprised how banal Trek and Sci-Fi can be in general. It's the same old value set and ideas blopped down into a different context with very little looking forward. Whatever, you get my drift.

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #47 on:** April 22, 2003, 02:02:50 pm »

On the question of "Was TOS intentionally campy?" the answer is obvious to the historian/Trekkie. Take a closer look at the Sci-Fi shows/movies of the period. Trek was serious Sci-Fi in it's time. It had all the elements of a serious family show, and none of the attempted humor of campy shows. The viewing public at the time was well aware of the allegory mentioned here earlier. The Russians and Chinese were serious business back then. TOS is campy by today's standards, but lets not forget that TOS was one of the first shows on television that was aired in "full color". Next time you see TOS, notice all the strong and colorful red, blue and green backlighting on the sets and actors. That was done on purpose to highlight the show's above-par status since most shows on TV at the time were still black and white. Keep it in context and the answer seems pretty obvious.

The_Joker · « **Reply #48 on:** April 22, 2003, 03:40:37 pm »

Quote:

Does anyone know if a Collector's Edition for "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country" will be made like they did for St2 and St3?

Though, of course, I don't know for sure; I'd say the answer to this is probably yes. They've now released collector's Editions of 1-4. Just makes since they'd continue. I've got all four that have already been released, and it seams that they are purposely being made to look good beside eachother on display.

DestinyCalling · « **Reply #49 on:** April 22, 2003, 05:35:48 pm »

Of course TOS looks "campy"... It's almost 40 years old..!!!

Can YOU remember what it was like in the 60's (I cant cos I wasn't born.... child of the early 70's you see so TOS IS my era)

The thing is that all the "new" series TNG, DS9, VOY and Enterprise have been churned out non stop since Encounter at Farpoint.... Which is what I keep saying, but no-one is agreeing... WE NEED A BREAK AND A CHANCE TO "MISS" IT....

Think about this... If they showed Encounter at Farpoint today as a new episode you would know it was 16 years old....

Now thats down to modern production I'll admit, but if no-one had seen it before you could pass it off as a new episode...

This is really the crux of it now.... The exec's at Paramount are now soooooo paranoid about ratings and how their "flagship" franchise is going that they havent stopped to draw breath....

Pull Trek from our screens..... Get rid of Enterprise cos its getting everyone who cares about Trek's back up....

Then leave it a few years... No new shows... No new series... Just give us a chance to look back and go "ahhhh"....

But, most of all.....

RELEASE TOS ON DVD...... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE.... I'M BEGGIN MAN... I'M ON MY KNEES HERE!!!!!

DestinyCalling · « **Reply #50 on:** April 22, 2003, 05:42:35 pm »

Or........

Start a new series but set it in between TOS and TNG and put Mike Okuda in charge of it.... He seems to be the only one who seems to care....

Oh, and make sure Andrew Probert designs ANY new ships.....

I dont really care for all this modern junk.....

Refit Enterprise = The Greatest of ALL Trek Starships....

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #51 on:** April 22, 2003, 11:17:03 pm »

Actually, I think trek is like the Dallas Cowboys. They both suck right now and everyone's bitchin', but when they're good they'll be loved by everyone again! (OK. All you people who hate the Cowboys can start shooting nowLOL

)
Seriously though, what we need is good Trek. IMO they've been ignoring canon and "the rules" for far too long now. Trek started downhill when they gave photons to the Klingons and disruptors to Romulans. Firing while cloaked and transporting through shields, and such. Someone said earlier that, according to GR, what was shown first was canon and if anything that came afterwards contradicted it then it was just lazy (I say lousy) writers. It's just got worse lately. Don't take Trek away, just take away lousy Trek!

Magnum357 · « **Reply #52 on:** April 23, 2003, 12:25:56 am »

Jeez, you make this current situation sound like a "magic wand" can solve our problems. Trek is in serious trouble. If Enterprise is only averaging a 1.8 in the nealson rating, that means Hockey and Baseball (two sports that don't do well on TV in the United States) is going to catch up with them soon. Paramont is on a sinking ship.

I agree, they probably more then likely need to just take a break for a few years and see if they can revive it later when fresh minds (minus B & B hopefully) can take over.

DONOTDELETE · « **Reply #53 on:** April 23, 2003, 07:37:01 pm »

GR WANTED TOS to be a "Soap Opera", "Wagon Train to the Stars" was his pet name for it. He was FAR more interested in the characters and their development and interaction than in space combat.

As for TOS having chars, but those chars not developing, I say NAY!

McCoy and Spocks love/hate relationship and constant needling and barbing at each other only got stronger as the show went along, and eventually went into the movies. "God, I liked him better before he died." Mccoy, ST:VI, classic line.

Kirks fear of losing control and losing his ship, and his obsessive love for his ship.

Spocks heritage. Spocks family. Spocks gradual trend towards more emotions in TOS, then zero emotion to start TMP and a gradual swing back into emotions as the TMP era went along.

Just like the first season of TNG, TOS was merely a group of actors in the first season, who grew into family over the course of the TOS and TMP eras. Imagine what TOS might have become if given a 7(?) year run like TNG.

As much as I love to see any ship named Enterprise (almost) kick some ass, a show that is nothing but constant combat and warfare would get very old, very quick, for me anyway.

In some of the TOS episodes you only saw the E in the orbital "beauty passes" and all the action took place on the ship or planetside. "Devil in the Dark" is a prime example.

Some episodes, such as the "Enterprise Incident" had the tease of industrial strength Starship combat, but it was only that, a tease. On the other hand, you have "The Ultimate Computer" where the M-5 destroys or cripples 4 Starships without taking a scratch.

Variation is whats required. "Journey to Babel" is one of the most in-depth and background rich episodes of TOS, and it combines ship to ship combat, hand to hand combat, political intrigue, murder, assassination, mystery, family ties, and Dr. McCoy finally getting in the last word. That episode had more DEPTH and potential for expansion than entire SEASONS of Voyager or DS9, IMHO.

To close, I agree, we need TOS on DVD. Indeed, we need "remastered" TOS on DVD. Similar to ET's re-release. Give us the old, re-mastered but unimproved episode, then give us the re-mastered and updated episode, like they did with the Star Wars movies. The old show, with CGI shots of the Enterprise, etc (like they did on the 30th anniv. episode of DS9 with the "trouble with Tribbles" remake) updated weapon effects, updated warp effects, sound effects,etc. Then do it to the TMP movies.

Have a nice day!

Magnum357 · « **Reply #54 on:** April 23, 2003, 09:13:15 pm »

Ya, that DS9 episode was incredible! Although I've never thought much of the cheap TOS sets and models they used in the series 35 years ago, that episode did a spectacular job recreating all the old props and such and the new CGI stuff really made the Enterprise look more beleivable in modern Si Fi shows. I think you are right, with all the CGI and special effects they have today with computers, they could easily remaster a lot of TOS episodes with new graphics like they did with Star Wars a few years ago. Hey Parmount, are you listening?

As for rich Story Lines in TOS being better then the other series, I disagree with that. I've seen some great episodes in the other shows that are comparable to TOS's too. Like my favorite episodes in Star Trek have to be "Yesterdays Enterprise" on TNG (TOS never thought of a plot like that one) and the DS9 Episode that shows Sisko forcing the Romlulans into the War. That one was an all time classic to me! I think many Star Trek fans where so shocked by that episode that Sisko actually did an imporal act to save the Federation, that many Star Trek fans didn't like the episode. To me, that is being very narrow minded in my opinion.

Ya, TOS had some great episodes, but it also had some bad one too.

Lepton1 · « **Reply #56 on:** April 24, 2003, 07:09:04 pm »

LOl, I am sorry but I can't watch TNG, especially first season. It looks so dated, somehow more dated than TOS. The lighting in that show was just terrible, way too bright. Hurts my eyes just to see it. While I like TNG when it was on, now it seems to happy-go-lucky, likeTrek on Prozac, but I haven't seen it in awhile so my opinion might change. No TNN for me.

Mentat Jon · « **Reply #57 on:** April 24, 2003, 09:46:22 pm »

I think Trek needs to go underground for 10 years,let it regenerate. Kind of like the space between when TOS ended and when the movies started.

I dont think Trek is dying,it just needs a rest.

my 2 cents...

SghnDubh · « **Reply #58 on:** April 16, 2003, 02:05:18 pm »

http://www.salon.com/ent/wire/2003/04/16/spike/

9th paragraph down. Thoughts?

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #59 on:** April 16, 2003, 02:12:54 pm »

Nielson Ratings are the bane of the television industry, it sets false standards in veiwership that the broadcast companies take far too literally. Nielson ratings are supposed to be a "representative" slice of the United States television viewers. Unfortunatly Nielson doesnt try to get a very diverse set of families to base a proper sample. Neilson needs to be eliminated from the Television industry, but I dont see that happening anytime soon.

NannerSlug · « **Reply #61 on:** April 16, 2003, 02:51:51 pm »

i think it goes more toward TNN than it does trek in general. though i must admit, i like TNN... but my television time is spent either on one of three channels (depending on who controls the tv. heh).

1) History Channel
2) HGTV (home and garden channel - go figure who controls the remote on this one. heh)
3) Fox News.

once in a while I will watch TNN.

people need to also consider the war and where cable viewers where tuning in during the war.

and yes, cost per point/ratings dictate television simply because advertisers look for a metric to determine their return on investment. if they do not make the predicted ratings during that time, there is somthing called "make goods" (meaning that if the client does not recieve the rating points which they paid for they must get free advertising to pay for it).

so for all television advertisers, it will be interesting.

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #63 on:** April 16, 2003, 03:34:09 pm »

the fact that NBC was nearly boycotted in 1969 will show to ALL television Execs why its a bad idea to stop airing Star Trek

DONOTDELETE · « **Reply #64 on:** April 16, 2003, 04:54:00 pm »

Yeah, but this aint your fathers Star Trek. (Or mine, for that matter!)

No one mounted a letter writing campaign when TNG was cancelled, simply to start making movies that did nothing but start at decent and go down-hill IMHO.

Nor DS9.

Nor Voyager.

And when Enterprise is cancelled, no one will mount a campaign to save it, either.

Trek died with the words... "Second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

Us oldsters who would rather watch a rerun of even a horrible TOS episode like the one with the intergalactic hippies all looking for Eden (oy vey!) are the ones who made Trek the unstoppable juggernaught it was.

Nowadays, there is simply too much competition, too few decent story lines and too little content in Trek, and it is suffering for it.

From ST2 to ST6 I did not miss the opening of a Trek movie, taking off work if required, attending midnight showings, etc. You still see that for Star Wars, but not for Trek.

B+B have run it into the ground and are currently stomping on the coffin lid.

Oh well, my .02 credits worth anyhow.

And for the record, I hold TNG in a very high regard, but DS9, Voy and Enterprise tapes are mainly suitable for evening out a broken nightstand.

Have a nice day!

Accidently said TOS instead of TNG in first paragraph!

NannerSlug · « **Reply #66 on:** April 17, 2003, 01:08:08 am »

well... in my view, what happened was technobabble killed character development. the show ceased to become about people solving issues and became more about achieving "perfection." problems were solved by "compensating" and to me at least, things are glossed over a bit too much.

in my view, ds9 (toward the end), had far better writing and character development than TNG. TNG for the most part felt to me like giving the weekly god-like alien of the week the bird. in a word, it was sterile.

in the TOS series, each character seemed to be developed more.. maybe the producers demanded more from the writers as it was not a franchise. then again, thank goodness ST: phase 2 never happened.. i saw some of the stuff they had planned and in all honesty, it probably would have killed trek.

right now, i feel like enterprise has a wider acceptance - but things are still sliding down a bit.. if you ask me.. it really, really HURT paramount by starting their own network and jerking it from syndication. trek was at its height during syndication and rapidly fell after UPN network started and paramount moved trek to wednesday nights on its own network.

admit it, how many of you guys know your local UPN network, let alone watch it?

that, in my view, has more to do with trek's demise than anything else. they killed the writing and the soul of getting the word out by starting their own network. i wonder how much the UPN networks are making nowadays.. i know that CBS owns/runs it.. so i am interested to see where it goes. i do not see upn network going away or doing anything real soon.. but i do see those programs on it dying off from main stream - that includes trek.

one other thing to think about... trek ran during the height of space exploration... since then, space no longer captures peoples imagination due to "social" concerns. that might also have a huge impact.

Nomad42 · « **Reply #68 on:** April 17, 2003, 07:55:55 am »

How many times can you watch the same show.
Many most people have seen them all again.
Take them off the air for a year or 2 then put them back on.
Ratings will improve.

I live in the NYC area.
I wish they would put DS9 on some where.
True it is not as good as TNG but I missed alot of episodes.
And the last couple of years really rocked.
It would be fun to watch the show from the beginiing again.
(The tribble episode was really fun)

I find that Enterprise is boring.
The time line problems also cause me to tune out the show.
Although I like the last episode with Klingons.

Tremok · « **Reply #69 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:25:11 am »

I don't think Trek will ever die. Atleast not for a long, long time. It may take breaks, it may need reforms, but there is just something about it.

Personally, I found TOS only ok. I did not like Voyager at all, the crew annoyed me so bad I went to the brink of insanity. Only reason I watched it was because it was Trek. I find TNG and ENT to both be decent. DS9 was my favorite Trek, and one of my all time favorite shows.

Well, they do say there is something different about DS9ners.

Firestorm · « **Reply #70 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:47:55 am »

What ever happen to the rumor mill that Riker was going to be the captain of the next new Star Trek around the USS Titan that he was being reasigned to at the end of Nemesis??? I thought I heard it would center around Riker and Troi, with all new cast/crew, kind of a new start. It sounded good to me, but haven't heard anything lately about it?!?!?!?!?!?

Firestorm · « **Reply #71 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:48:56 am »

Then of course for Enterprise, they could always just show T'pol in her pajamas more often, that would help ratings!!!

Cocomoe · « **Reply #72 on:** April 17, 2003, 11:42:59 am »

Trek started dieing when TNG took over.

Karnak · « **Reply #73 on:** April 17, 2003, 01:19:02 pm »

I think Star Trek needs to go back to the story-telling and character development done in the movies: ST2, ST3, ST4 and ST6. It was these movies that saved Trek in the 1980s and led to the development of TNG. Star Trek 4 is the highest grossing of all the Star Trek movies due to the min. techno-babble, rapid but rich storyline, and mucho fun character development. A lot of non-trekkies could watch ST4 and like it. Trek needs to reach out to these people more.

Trek still has to achieve the same ST4 success in all the TNG shows and movies. Only "ST8:First Contact" came close.

NannerSlug · « **Reply #74 on:** April 17, 2003, 04:40:43 pm »

your right karnak.. if you look at how those movies were made - they are leaps and bounds better than many of the tng movies.. you can thank nicholas myer for much of that.. if you watch the little film that comes with the ST2 collectors dvd you will note that myer was NOT involved with trek up until that time - and that, might be whats needed.. what i mean is that the focus was on telling a good story, not so much with technobabble.

hope that makes sense.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #76 on:** April 17, 2003, 05:31:27 pm »

Have you watched it recently?

Just don't watch the stupid Borg epsiode comming up

If you see "Future Tense," "Cease Fire," or some of the "better" episodes, you'll see that the series has hope to be good (never great, and not TOS, but good)

DH123 · « **Reply #77 on:** April 17, 2003, 06:21:09 pm »

UPN Killed Buffy!!! Has anyone seen how bad that show got after it moved to UPN?

Enterprise has some interesting moments and some cool characters (not to mention T'pol's "assets" . . .). It could be good if they focus on that.

DS9 had the best characters since TOS. I as well live in the NYC area and would loved if somebody would repeat it.

Paramount should hire J'inn as a consultant. Most of his RP is better than what they put out.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #78 on:** April 17, 2003, 06:29:45 pm »

lol J'inn

That would be, um, interesting

Why not?

Sounds like a good idea

Just one problem.

What happens when the Enterpise is in an Asteroid field?

Scipio_66 · « **Reply #79 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:33:22 pm »

Enterprise has everything it needs to be a success........ except writers. The writing is bland, boring, and far too PC.

Paramount went with Enterprise (they said) so that they could tell a different style of Star Trek story with a frontier attitude. But the characters on Enterprise don't have a frontier attitude; they've got the same sterile attitude we've seen in Voyager and Next Gen. Where are the attitudes that drove these people to explore because they find civilization repressive? Why is Archer so PC? Why is the crew so refined in their dealings with aliens?

I'm not sure how writing works on Voyager and Enterprise, but I get the impression of a standing committee. I see a group of yuppies working with cookie-cutter storyboards, and passing their formulaic stories though a heavy coporate filter. We're not getting new stories and attitudes; we are getting the same old formula with different props. I could be wrong as I don't hav the facts, but this is the impression I get. It's like watching a fliming of a book that is itself a TV-adaption. This is a far cry from TOS, which bought scripts from the likes of:

Harlan Ellison
Theodore Sturgeon
David Gerrold
Dorothy Fontana
Gene Coon

I'll note the last few episodes of Enterprise have shown a bit of improvement. (At lest with the energy creatures they did flat-out destroy an attacking ship, instead of giving it a chance to surrender or limp off with a nasty toungue lashing.) Hopefully this trend will continue, and the crew of NX-01 will continue to act more like a rough-edged group of individuals pusing back the frontier. The new show is superior to Voyager enough that I continue to watch it with hope.

-S'Cipio

nx_adam_1701 · « **Reply #80 on:** April 17, 2003, 08:57:01 pm »

I say show more variety, honestly, I have seen all the TNG already, everytime I turn to TNN its like I saw that already, the only ones I stay and watch are the hit episodes like the Borg and etc..., If they would air DS9 which was a real hit because the show surrounded war then maybe rating will go up, also its what they show, they tend to repeat alot of the episodes but hey, I hope Star Trek won't die out but then again it might, last thing is they should do like what happen with DS9 and TNG, they should make another series as ENT is going on

Adam Out

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #81 on:** April 18, 2003, 02:40:12 am »

Sadly, Enterprise wasn't even aired here in Phoenix, the U.S.'s 7th largest city. It was pre-empted by a basketball game. I really hate UPN. This is the second time this season that a new, never before aired episode of Enterprise has been pre-empted by sports.

Jwest · « **Reply #82 on:** April 18, 2003, 08:13:53 am »

My big problem with Enterprise is that Archer *never* makes a mistake. The way their writing this show, you have to wonder why the Fleet ever implemented the Prime directive, after all the Vulcans always try to enforce it, and they're *always* wrong, while Archer flouts it and is consistently correct. Let face it - He makes Jim Kirk look like the pinnacle of restraint.

Plus the fact that the continuity sucks, but I can get past that - TOS continuity was no great shakes, but the writing made up for it. I'll give it time - the first two seasons of TNG were really bad too, then they finally brought it together and had a heck of a show, but while Enterprise has a good cast, they really don't have anyone of Patrick Stewarts caliber to carry them while they get it together.

Jwest

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #83 on:** April 18, 2003, 08:42:25 am »

It happened in Philly too

But at least I got to watch Jordan's last game (although it was on ESPN, my Cable wasn't working)

I'll try to catch it tomorrow

ancientangel · « **Reply #84 on:** April 18, 2003, 01:09:02 pm »

Here is just a minor list of good shows with a good following that have died do to reasons out of the viewers control.

BattleStar Galactica : To costly and cutting edge moral classes (Socialator ie, "Prostitute") Needed more of a Family appeal and sufferd for it.
Space Above and Beyond : Bad timing not the best enviroment to show a war type show during the Gulf War, Fox quickly and quitely ended the series at its peak.
The Others : Probably the most unseen show I have ever run into. If you missed it words can not even begin to describe its story. Only aired for one Season on NBC, during the bloodiest post season work I have ever seen in which they axed their enrite sunday (?) night line up. Killing off The Others, Profiler and Pretender with out any word.
Farscape : The unholys of unholys, the sci-fi channel killed this show after 5 years do to a bad programing schedule and constant time slot changes. Hard to build an audiance and keep them when you do not show even a rerun for nine months. Winner of many sci-fi awards, this show will be missed. www.savefarscape.com for more info.
Witch Blade : Very orginal work that always keeps you guessing. Got pulled just shortly after a year and a half by TNT. Once again they stated it was because of lack of ratings but other issues point out to certain cast members and dependancy issues.
Legand of the Rangers (Babylon 5) : Not the best story line out of the B5 Universe but it did have a little merit, give time say two years it might have panned out. Another supported Sci-fi channel production.
Crusade (Babylon 5) : Slow to get you hooked but over all quality fairly good. It was quickly put down like a rabbid dog after some 17 shows. Once again the last few shows tend to be the best and draw you in for that Aww Dam it! thats it ....no more type feeling. Another supported Sci-fi production.
SeaQuest DSV : I think this was an NBC show, how and the hell the company sold this idea to NBC and won I have no clue. It was a fairly good show which took a weird twist around the end of season two. For whatever reason, I find it hard to believe that NBC funded this show, since only a select few people would watch a story about a Deep Sea Vessel.

These are just the shows off the top of my head that could be somewhat placed under a Sci-fi type theme. Some others where not named since most shows have a natural life span of around 5-7 years depending on the story line.

Now if I had the money and the resources I would start up a Dead Channel Network and revive these shows.

Chris Jones · « **Reply #86 on:** April 18, 2003, 02:33:34 pm »

Trek is in Remission.

TNG was the Best - DS9's later episodes - some Voyager was fun to watch. Early DS9 was boring., until they got to the Jem'Hadar, where the Odyssey was destroyed. Some Voyager was just plain stupid, but I watched it for continuity.

Enterprise I simply cannot watch. I try. i really do, but i seem to find other things to do on Wednesday nights, like mod a TNG SFC game.

TOS I grew up on. I swore by it until TNG's 3rd season episode, 'Yesterday's Enterprise'. Then I forgot about TOS for a long time. When I first saw that episode I thought, now there's real Star Trek.

TNG riveted me, right through the opening of DS9 and the 1994 series finale, 'All Good Things'. By the time TNG ended DS9 was getting good, then they spun off into Voyager. When Voyager came on DS9 was in its heyday. I stuck with Voyager after DS9 ended because I saw it as an extension of TNG and DS9. Endgame I liked, although the ending left me a bit empty.

Enterprise what's that? sorry..

Movies 1-6 - The first one was kind of a fun nostalgia trip -- 2,3,4, and 6 are all classics. 5 should've never been made.

Generatons I liked - Kirk and Picard. "They have found a way to penetrate our shields. .. Lock phasers and return fire!"

First Contact - My Fav all time trek Movie.

Insurrection - not bad - reminds me of a long TV episode

Nemesis - My 2nd all time Fav Trek movie - real close to First Conact.

By my age I should be a TOS guy. It holds a place in my heart, but TNG rules. I am reminded of a DS9 episode 'Trials and Tribulations' great DS9 there!!

i think Star Trek is in remission. Even if LOTR had not been released last December Nemesis still wouldn't have done well, I believe.

It will be back with a vengence....

and so will the mods.............

Karnak · « **Reply #87 on:** April 18, 2003, 04:18:07 pm »

Does anyone know if a Collector's Edition for "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country" will be made like they did for St2 and St3?

EE · « **Reply #89 on:** April 19, 2003, 04:27:24 am »

When I had DirectTV for my TV viewing pleasure, I would watch ESPN, Fox Sports, Discovery, History Channel, The Learning Channel, Comedy Central and the normal 2-13 channels ( Abc, NBC, Fox, UPN etc ). Now that I dont, I get three channels, Pax ( UHF ), NBC and ABC. ( Channels 7 and 9 ). I mainly watch channel 7, It comes in the clearest of the two.

32nd Halcyon · « **Reply #92 on:** April 19, 2003, 04:17:55 pm »

I don't think Trek is dying. I think people are just buying the TNG seasons on DVD now that they are avaialbe. This can cause a decline in viewership. Why watch trek with the commercials when you just need to throw your shiney DVD in and watch it to get your fix?

DestinyCalling · « **Reply #93 on:** April 19, 2003, 06:07:58 pm »

There's no "buzz" in it anymore..... I'm sure everyone will remember how excited we all got back in 1985(ish) when TNG launched... Even though it sucked and blowed in equal amounts (I still cringe at the thought of Farpoint Station jellyfish holding "tentacles"..... Oh and Denise Crosby constantly overacting), it was given plenty of time to develop, with a whole stack of great trek episodes rolling out mid run. The trouble nowadays is that a new series is launched and everyone goes "Oh look, a new Trek series....... I wonder what's happening on the Simpsons?"

BTW............ BRING BACK FAMILY GUY............!!!!!!!!

Anyway, trek these days borders on mindnumbing overkill. After all, you can only tell the same story so many different times.

IMHO.... Star Trek started declining when we lost Gene Roddenberry (with a few exceptions of course) and his "human touch" is greatly missed.

Pull Trek from the airwaves for a year or two to give people the chance to "miss it" but most of all....

PARAMOUNT NEED TO RELEASE ALL 79 TOS EPISODES ON DVD.......

That'll help....

Adios

Magnum357 · « **Reply #94 on:** April 19, 2003, 11:03:16 pm »

I agree with DestinyCalling, there are so many different ways to tell the same story. I remember my mom saying to me, who was an English teacher and was a Star Trek fan herself, that the Greeks had already come up with all the plots in stories anyway. No new show comes up with anything original because the Greeks already came up with the same plot only we put a new twist to it today.

Earlier on this post, someone said that

"TOS used Romulans as Chinese, Klingons as Russians, and Feds as U.S. & U.K., we need Star Trek to go back to that kind of Trek story writing. We need episodes to explain points in political situations we have today like we did in the 60's with hippies or coldwar problems"

Only thing I can say is... why???

Why does Sci Fi have to be someones tool to express a point about something? Why can't someone just write a good story and not worry about political events? Setting aside the TV shows for a moment, and just looking at the stories of the movies, I would have to say my most favorite ST movie was Star Trek 2. Not because it probably had the greatest starship battle scences and combat (although it was cool even for todays standards) but the plot made sense and the Characters seemed beleiveable. Heck, the whole point of the Story in Star Trek 2, although sort of rediculas, but about Kirk getting too old and feeling like an antique and his ship becoming obsolete, and at the same time extreme hatred by Khan from his past as a dictator and loses he suffered on Ceti Alpha V. The point I'm saying is that this simple plot was interesting and exciting. Why does Star Trek need to back to old TOS where you have to symbolically put political events of society as the main focus. Star Trek 2 and Bablyon 5 have always seemed similar to me on flavor of how a good plot should be planned out. I remember an interveiw with the creator of B5 and asked him does he share the same veiwpoint that other writers had in adding elements of society into his stories on B5, and he said he never liked doing that because it devalues the story you originally want to convey. Just like he said he avoids adding Robots and Children as the main emphisis in stories. Guess he was right because look at the problems Star Wars had lately.

Ok, that was a lot of garbage I just wrote. Anyway, Star Trek 2 had a fairly simple plot to it and it worked out great. I don't think Enterprise is having a problem with Plot as some of the episodes I have seen lately have some original stories, its just that B & B needs to kinda inform the Star Trek audience which direction he wants go with this series. If he wants to keep it consistant with the Star Trek Universe as we know it, then he needs to do some research in the Star Trek Encycolapedia and stay consistant. TNG and DS9 did a pretty good job of this. If B & B is trying to completely rewrite Star Trek (Star Fleet Battles Universe Perhaps?) then he needs to explain that to Star Trek fans so that they know which way to look at Enterprise. Stop sitting on the fence and make a decision B & B because its getting mighty close to Season 3.

As for the Story writing of Nemisis, well... I sort of liked the movie in someways, but I must agree with others that it seems like the writer of the script just copied concepts of Star Trek 2. As I had said above, it looked like Nemisis was a complete copy of same type of plot where Picard is getting old (although not sure if the Ent-E is obsolete, heck it was only build like 5 years earlier or something. Even the Galaxy Class is still useful) and the Evil guy (was his name Shizon or something) was again just a Khan copy. What I think they should have done if they wanted to End Star Trek was to use the Character of Tasha Yar's Daughter (half Romulan and Human) in the story and have her die along with a lot of the cast and crew.

SghnDubh · « **Reply #95 on:** April 20, 2003, 01:58:14 am »

Well first, don't take what I said out of context about allegory. I'm not interested and I don't advocate the scenario you painted.

But second, if you watch (or read) for plot only, you are ignoring 90% of the richness of the story. All of the best stories work on many levels; they can stand on their own with a good plot, but they also have metaphor, subtext, allegory, etc. to think about and examine. Those are what make a story interesting.

Besides, Trek always has the same plot: Explore, fight, get saved in the nick of time, win, start again. So it has to make use of other literary conventions to be entertaining. Your plea for "just a good story" hasn't ever relied on plot alone. That's why we need "those other things."

(sidetrack off, returning to thread now)

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #96 on:** April 20, 2003, 12:58:41 pm »

It's interesting to note that a really good Trek episode is usually one that departs from the usual Trek episode synopsis. Cases in point from DS9 alone: "Trials and Tribbleations", "The Way of the Warrior" and "Sacrifice of Angels", three of the best loved DS9 episodes of all time. Also, it seems the worst Trek episodes also depart from usual Trek plotline. One memorable case from TNG: "Conspiracy" a season 1 episode that, in my opinion, is the worst Trek episode of any series, including TOS: "Spok's Brain". So it seems that departing from the norm is a hit or miss operation, ending up in either extremely good or extremely bad episodes. It takes a lot of guts for a network to allow episodes like that. Either guts or being totally oblivious about what's going on. Either way it's interesting.

Lepton1 · « **Reply #97 on:** April 20, 2003, 06:28:50 pm »

I'm just going to say it. TOS is just too campy, intentionally or not, and in terms of sci-fi philosophy too naive and juvenille. I mean Nazis in space!! Isn't there some other way to make a commentary on democracy and fascism? TOS was made by the actors and their interactions in their characters which is exactly what the new shows lack. Flat characters, no spice. Archer, the diplomat. He's Picard without the smarts and philosophizing. Boring!

Although I faithfully watch Enterprise, the thing I look most forward to is when a TOS race pops in. Roms, Tholians (damn, I wanted to see one), Gorn. That makes it for me.

Here's what Trek needs. Ideas coupled with space battles. By ideas, I mean good sci-fi ideas like temporal nuttiness, alien weirdness (Do we ever get to know anything about these races? Don't we want to know? Fill-in the backstory for goodness sake), etc all tweaked with a bit of non-sentimental post-modern philosophy. All this to give us an interesting perspective on reality without resorting to human centered sappy emotional truth BS. Like the TNG episode with Worf jumping around in alternative universes all to come away with the fact that he loves Troi or something like that or some other "Life Lesson". ICK!!! I get my melodrama elsewhere, thank you very much!

I happen to like the Temporal Cold War idea. I just wish it took a more central role in the series instead of dropped in for season cliffhangers. Most sci-fi shows lack an arc. Can't speak about B5 or Farscape. Never saw them to my dismay.

And of course, space battles. Have we ever gotten enough of this? Even in Star Wars movies with fighter action, it never seems enough or done right. The scenes are always far too short and have more to do with moral rectitude of the victor or moving the story along, than something "believeable" or just cool in terms of a battle. I hate that I missed all the Dominion War episodes on DS9, so I don't know if they got it right then. I would suppose that they did not. So much of the battle episodes seem to be about the human drama and yelling orders than let's see the ships doing things.

Whiplash · « **Reply #98 on:** April 20, 2003, 08:13:29 pm »

Lots more shooting ships? Yeah, I'd like it. Won't work, though. It would get too dull. Even in Star Wars, the amount of time zooming around on a fighter's tail blasting away isn't that much. They have as much as they do only because it is a movie, not a series. Too have lots of it, it needs to be more sophisticated.

Are there any war TV series on right now? How many have there ever been? MASH does not count. It was a comedy, not an action show. You can't do enough with war to build a series around. Trek combat is particularly dumbed down. There is a lot more to worry about in today's warfare than in Trek combat.

Most of the characters are too stilted. The Federation is boring. Admit it. There haven't been any really interesting characters since Picard and Data. Even a knock-off of Kirk, Spock, Picard or Data would be inadequate, even silly.

To survive, Trek is going to have to move in some different directions than they have. Maybe they need a Betazoid psychic espionage agent. Or maybe someone with some strange powers even they don't understand fully, someone who is being sought by all the races, and can't even turn to the Federation due to that secret group that made the Founder disease. Whatever. Something dark, dangerous, people with issues. Or something simpler that incorporates some suppressed romance like they do in Smallville, or the stuff they did in Moonlighting years back. You know what I mean.

They have the chance to introduce some more interesting elements into Enterprise still. Let's hope they do with this "new direction" they are talking about.

W.

Magnum357 · « **Reply #99 on:** April 20, 2003, 09:06:49 pm »

Hey Lepton1, sorry to hear you didn't see much of the Dominion War. In my opinion, Seasons 5 to 7 was probably the best of the DS9 series. If you wanted space battles, these two seasons would have been up your ally! But still not enough in my opinion. But I could see why some Trek fans got turned off by Ds9. Once they focused on war with the series, some of the Trek purists got turned off because DS9 wasn't turning into "seek out new life and new civilizations" type Star Trek anymore. If you ever do watch DS9 episodes, try to consider the perspective more like Star Fleet Battles then Star Trek.

The one good thing about DS9 was that it kept pretty close to very few inconsistancies yet an interesting story in my opinion. To this day, I just don't understand why people are so negative torward DS9. I would not mind at all if Enterprise was geared like DS9. I even think the Temperal Cold war idea was interesting, but it would be nice if B & B would at least let us know if this Temperal Cold war has already effected the time line. That way, it would make a little better sense (just barely though) in why the series has so many inconsitancies.

DONOTDELETE · « **Reply #103 on:** April 21, 2003, 08:15:40 pm »

If Trek doesnt die, it will need a serious enema to clean out the B+B feces it is currently impacted with.

TOS was campy, but it was SUPPOSED to be, it was the '60's after all! Go-go boots and mini-skirts, oh my. The reason the TNG/DS9/Voy chars dont have the depth of the TOS chars is quite simply due to the fact that there are so MANY of them.

Ever hear the term "The Enterprise three"? Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Mix in a wee bit of Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura for fill, but K,S + M WERE TOS. In TNG, GR tried to split all his characters up...

Kirk = Riker the lover and warrior, Picard the thinker and diplomat.
Spock = Troi the telepath and Captains confidant and Data the thinker and semi-unstoppable defender of the Captains ass.
Scotty = Geordi the "almost" miracle worker and O'Brien the engineer turned transporter operator.
McCoy = Guinan the bartender (Romulan ale? Why Bones, you KNOW this is illegal...) and Crusher the empathic healer.

After a few seasons worth of growth, these characters WORKED, and only got better with time. Worst thing they did was take TNG off TV. (Besides taking TOS off the air, of course!) I watched DS9 pretty regularly up until the Dominion wars started... Once it appeared they were finally out of TOS/TNG originals to bring to DS9 for ratings, they had to turn to the inevitable borglike "boogie man" in the Jem'Hadar and eventually the Dominion.

While the battles were pretty, it was NOT Trek. It was Star Wars, wtih different models. Call me a purist if you will, but I am not against Trek warfare, least you forget I am a strident SFB'er. But combat in Trek was for a purpose and was story driven, the combat in DS9 WAS the story. Example?

ST2:TWOK: Enterprise vs Reliant, Kirk vs Khan, Good vs Evil. No better motivator around.
TOS: The Balance of Terror: Direct copy of "The Enemy Below", a WW2 based destroyer vs sub movie, the BEST Trek episode concerning combat IMHO.

Wheras in DS9 the Dominion war WAS the story and the characters were part of the war, not the other way around.

Sometimes the mere THREAT of combat in Trek was enough... TOS: "A taste of Armageddon" is one of my fav episodes as well... No phasers fired, no Starships blown up, but the mere threat of the Enterprise executing "General Order 24" sends chills down my spine every time Scotty gives the planet notice of their impending doom. (If you havent seen it, Kirk and party are held hostage, and Kirk tells Scotty to implement GO#24 in 2 hours, which would entail the Enterprise, a FEDERATION Starship targeting every sign of civilization or habitation on the surface of an entire WORLD and erradicating it in the most borglike fashion. Big eye opener for those who grew up watching the TNG, "PC" version of Trek where Picard would never even CONSIDER giving such an order...

I could go on forever, but to surmise my ramblings...

1)Character development watered down due to very large numbers of permanent cast members. I cry EVERY single time Spock dies in TWOK, without exception, and for nearly 20 years now my wife laughs at me each time. It causes me near physical pain to see the Enterprise blow up in ST3:TSFS. Kill Picard, blow up the ever upwards spiraling registry numbers of the newer Enterprises and its "ho hum". The Enterprise ("No bloody A, B, C OR D" WAS a member of the crew, never doubt it.

2)PITIFUL story lines. Total lack of creativity. They are either stealing from old TOS episodes, or other shows/movies, or they are just making up crap.

3)TOTAL disregard for the timeline and established events, simply due to the total lack of those responsible for #2. And puh-leaze, the Akiraprize blows. A ship 100 years older than the first Enterprise, but it IS named Enterprise (change of history) and it is an almost unchaged model of a DS9 ship and obviously looks it.

B+B are simply milking the cow for the last few drops before it dies. Hopefully Paramount will realize the error of their ways before its too late... Trek is on life support and B+B are pulling on the cord for all their worth.

If nothing else, SFB will live LONG and PROSPER!!!

Have a nice day!

Lepton1 · « **Reply #104 on:** April 22, 2003, 02:11:36 am »

All very good points. BUT.

Was TOS intentionally campy or just campy from our view? I'd like to see some evidence that they knew they were being campy.

No doubt, the big three made TOS, but that was about it. In TOS there was no character development, except maybe for Spock's occasional and totally temporary forays into "humanity" and emotions. They were characters. What made the show good was their interactions. The storylines were as bad as the ones we have now. At least now, we do have character development and the thread of an arc in the overall season or the series itself. TOS was a bodge-podge with the best episodes you mentioned as the exception to Kirk bedding another space babe (see Andromeda for the current instantiation of this).

Oh, look I am a man with black on the left side of my face while this other guy has white on the left side of his face, I must hunt down and kill him, and by the way when I do, we blow each other up. Can someone pull out of my head the rather large and silly hammer used to drive that point into my head?

I don't need social commentary and good yet traditional stories from Sci-Fi. I need something beyond what I can dream up in my head. Give me some crazy non-story driven battles that derive meaning from their spectacle and even perhaps some sort of tactical sense. Give me some alien races with some depth and a good smattering of alien philosophy, culture, and rituals. Give me Sci-Fi ideas, not good vs evil, emotions vs reason, BORING!!!! SCIENCE fiction, not humanistic drama in space. This is the frigging 21st century now and sometimes the 23rd then. Can't we progress beyond these rather provincial ideals that have their roots pre-Enlightenment?! I don't want the same old story. Give me something new!!

OOOOHH, characters, PTHHHHHHH!!!! The changling that can loooove!! The vulcan that can looooove!!!! The klingon that can looooooooooove!!!! BORING!!!! Is this a frigging soap opera or is this Science Fiction? Trek could use a little shot of cyberpunk smack right in the eyeball and a cortical implant to improve its intelligence. I am always surprised how banal Trek and Sci-Fi can be in general. It's the same old value set and ideas blopped down into a different context with very little looking forward. Whatever, you get my drift.

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #105 on:** April 22, 2003, 02:02:50 pm »

On the question of "Was TOS intentionally campy?" the answer is obvious to the historian/Trekkie. Take a closer look at the Sci-Fi shows/movies of the period. Trek was serious Sci-Fi in it's time. It had all the elements of a serious family show, and none of the attempted humor of campy shows. The viewing public at the time was well aware of the allegory mentioned here earlier. The Russians and Chinese were serious business back then. TOS is campy by today's standards, but lets not forget that TOS was one of the first shows on television that was aired in "full color". Next time you see TOS, notice all the strong and colorful red, blue and green backlighting on the sets and actors. That was done on purpose to highlight the show's above-par status since most shows on TV at the time were still black and white. Keep it in context and the answer seems pretty obvious.

The_Joker · « **Reply #106 on:** April 22, 2003, 03:40:37 pm »

Quote:

Does anyone know if a Collector's Edition for "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country" will be made like they did for St2 and St3?

Though, of course, I don't know for sure; I'd say the answer to this is probably yes. They've now released collector's Editions of 1-4. Just makes since they'd continue. I've got all four that have already been released, and it seams that they are purposely being made to look good beside eachother on display.

DestinyCalling · « **Reply #107 on:** April 22, 2003, 05:35:48 pm »

Of course TOS looks "campy"... It's almost 40 years old..!!!

Can YOU remember what it was like in the 60's (I cant cos I wasn't born.... child of the early 70's you see so TOS IS my era)

The thing is that all the "new" series TNG, DS9, VOY and Enterprise have been churned out non stop since Encounter at Farpoint.... Which is what I keep saying, but no-one is agreeing... WE NEED A BREAK AND A CHANCE TO "MISS" IT....

Think about this... If they showed Encounter at Farpoint today as a new episode you would know it was 16 years old....

Now thats down to modern production I'll admit, but if no-one had seen it before you could pass it off as a new episode...

This is really the crux of it now.... The exec's at Paramount are now soooooo paranoid about ratings and how their "flagship" franchise is going that they havent stopped to draw breath....

Pull Trek from our screens..... Get rid of Enterprise cos its getting everyone who cares about Trek's back up....

Then leave it a few years... No new shows... No new series... Just give us a chance to look back and go "ahhhh"....

But, most of all.....

RELEASE TOS ON DVD...... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE.... I'M BEGGIN MAN... I'M ON MY KNEES HERE!!!!!

DestinyCalling · « **Reply #108 on:** April 22, 2003, 05:42:35 pm »

Or........

Start a new series but set it in between TOS and TNG and put Mike Okuda in charge of it.... He seems to be the only one who seems to care....

Oh, and make sure Andrew Probert designs ANY new ships.....

I dont really care for all this modern junk.....

Refit Enterprise = The Greatest of ALL Trek Starships....

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #109 on:** April 22, 2003, 11:17:03 pm »

Actually, I think trek is like the Dallas Cowboys. They both suck right now and everyone's bitchin', but when they're good they'll be loved by everyone again! (OK. All you people who hate the Cowboys can start shooting nowLOL

)
Seriously though, what we need is good Trek. IMO they've been ignoring canon and "the rules" for far too long now. Trek started downhill when they gave photons to the Klingons and disruptors to Romulans. Firing while cloaked and transporting through shields, and such. Someone said earlier that, according to GR, what was shown first was canon and if anything that came afterwards contradicted it then it was just lazy (I say lousy) writers. It's just got worse lately. Don't take Trek away, just take away lousy Trek!

Magnum357 · « **Reply #110 on:** April 23, 2003, 12:25:56 am »

Jeez, you make this current situation sound like a "magic wand" can solve our problems. Trek is in serious trouble. If Enterprise is only averaging a 1.8 in the nealson rating, that means Hockey and Baseball (two sports that don't do well on TV in the United States) is going to catch up with them soon. Paramont is on a sinking ship.

I agree, they probably more then likely need to just take a break for a few years and see if they can revive it later when fresh minds (minus B & B hopefully) can take over.

DONOTDELETE · « **Reply #111 on:** April 23, 2003, 07:37:01 pm »

GR WANTED TOS to be a "Soap Opera", "Wagon Train to the Stars" was his pet name for it. He was FAR more interested in the characters and their development and interaction than in space combat.

As for TOS having chars, but those chars not developing, I say NAY!

McCoy and Spocks love/hate relationship and constant needling and barbing at each other only got stronger as the show went along, and eventually went into the movies. "God, I liked him better before he died." Mccoy, ST:VI, classic line.

Kirks fear of losing control and losing his ship, and his obsessive love for his ship.

Spocks heritage. Spocks family. Spocks gradual trend towards more emotions in TOS, then zero emotion to start TMP and a gradual swing back into emotions as the TMP era went along.

Just like the first season of TNG, TOS was merely a group of actors in the first season, who grew into family over the course of the TOS and TMP eras. Imagine what TOS might have become if given a 7(?) year run like TNG.

As much as I love to see any ship named Enterprise (almost) kick some ass, a show that is nothing but constant combat and warfare would get very old, very quick, for me anyway.

In some of the TOS episodes you only saw the E in the orbital "beauty passes" and all the action took place on the ship or planetside. "Devil in the Dark" is a prime example.

Some episodes, such as the "Enterprise Incident" had the tease of industrial strength Starship combat, but it was only that, a tease. On the other hand, you have "The Ultimate Computer" where the M-5 destroys or cripples 4 Starships without taking a scratch.

Variation is whats required. "Journey to Babel" is one of the most in-depth and background rich episodes of TOS, and it combines ship to ship combat, hand to hand combat, political intrigue, murder, assassination, mystery, family ties, and Dr. McCoy finally getting in the last word. That episode had more DEPTH and potential for expansion than entire SEASONS of Voyager or DS9, IMHO.

To close, I agree, we need TOS on DVD. Indeed, we need "remastered" TOS on DVD. Similar to ET's re-release. Give us the old, re-mastered but unimproved episode, then give us the re-mastered and updated episode, like they did with the Star Wars movies. The old show, with CGI shots of the Enterprise, etc (like they did on the 30th anniv. episode of DS9 with the "trouble with Tribbles" remake) updated weapon effects, updated warp effects, sound effects,etc. Then do it to the TMP movies.

Have a nice day!

Magnum357 · « **Reply #112 on:** April 23, 2003, 09:13:15 pm »

Ya, that DS9 episode was incredible! Although I've never thought much of the cheap TOS sets and models they used in the series 35 years ago, that episode did a spectacular job recreating all the old props and such and the new CGI stuff really made the Enterprise look more beleivable in modern Si Fi shows. I think you are right, with all the CGI and special effects they have today with computers, they could easily remaster a lot of TOS episodes with new graphics like they did with Star Wars a few years ago. Hey Parmount, are you listening?

As for rich Story Lines in TOS being better then the other series, I disagree with that. I've seen some great episodes in the other shows that are comparable to TOS's too. Like my favorite episodes in Star Trek have to be "Yesterdays Enterprise" on TNG (TOS never thought of a plot like that one) and the DS9 Episode that shows Sisko forcing the Romlulans into the War. That one was an all time classic to me! I think many Star Trek fans where so shocked by that episode that Sisko actually did an imporal act to save the Federation, that many Star Trek fans didn't like the episode. To me, that is being very narrow minded in my opinion.

Ya, TOS had some great episodes, but it also had some bad one too.

Lepton1 · « **Reply #114 on:** April 24, 2003, 07:09:04 pm »

LOl, I am sorry but I can't watch TNG, especially first season. It looks so dated, somehow more dated than TOS. The lighting in that show was just terrible, way too bright. Hurts my eyes just to see it. While I like TNG when it was on, now it seems to happy-go-lucky, likeTrek on Prozac, but I haven't seen it in awhile so my opinion might change. No TNN for me.

Mentat Jon · « **Reply #115 on:** April 24, 2003, 09:46:22 pm »

I think Trek needs to go underground for 10 years,let it regenerate. Kind of like the space between when TOS ended and when the movies started.

I dont think Trek is dying,it just needs a rest.

my 2 cents...

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