OT: Star Trek Nemesis

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Berman and Braga are the current executive producers of the entire trek franchise. Berman was hand picked by Roddenberry to lead the franchise.
On DS9, he handled the studio-production link and gave the writers free range to do what they want (something forbidden on nearly all shows even now). In response to the poor viewing results of DS9, voyager was a total clampdown.

Majel was pretty much run off the series after DS9. Majel has also stopped her involvement with Tribune Entertainment after they destroyed EFC and Andromeda. I think all she gets is the meager royalties from the various franchises roddenberry made.

The Temporal Cold War is just a gimmic to attact the x-file viewers now. As a seperate show (and universe), it would have been interesting to see.

Babylon 5 : 8
Space Above and Beyond : 3
I just never felt comfortable with the Overwhelming aspects of christian religion (while totally ignoring all others) in babylon 5, but it gains points for perfect handling. Space:A&B suffers from the slipping of nazism into the series.

In the TOS era, TV shwos ran around 50 minutes, in the TNG to Voy era they ran about 45.
In Enterprise, the episodes run roughly 38 minutes.

I could accept everything going on in Trek as an alternate reality type stuff except for one thing. Gene Roddenberry wrote the series as what humanity should be in this reality.

[Major Tom]

My sci-fi television shows rank as follows (when it comes to space war like shows like these).

Babylon 5: 10 (except for that Last season)

Farscape: 11 (either you love this show, or hate it)

TOS: 10 (I can watch any episode of this, simple plot, character oriented)

TNG: 8 (was excellent during the middle, early too cheezy, late too boring [signs of what to come after Rodenberry died])

DS9: 5 (was ok, but definite rip off of B5 epic-battles, and done too poorly)

VOY: 1 (never watched this beyond the odd episode)

Earth Final conflict: 0 (knew some people who worked on the set, it was very cheaply done, even from behind the scenes)

Third Wave: 8 (got caught up in this, only to realize it was cancelled the year before)

Stargate SG1: 9 (never watched this until there was nothing on during a particular boring part of the day, started watching it, and it really caught on. Simple 1 topic plots, character development, added applicable humour at parts, same 4 people, keeps continuity in plot. Really reminded me of TOS)

G vs. E (good vs. evil): 9 (sort of a sci-fi, all about dead demon hunters (basically neutral people working their way into heaven after they die) done in a 1970's style, yet again cancelled)

The absolute best thing that ever came out of the Star Trek universe, according to me, is 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'. It was an unbelievably bad script, but was done very well. To me, this is what Star Trek is. ONE main plot, the starship all by itself solving its problem, action, using skill over technology [what star trek was until late TNG decided it was technology over skill].

Realistically, Star Trek died with Rodenberry. The rest are merely cover-bands or Elvis impersonators.

[tesco samoa]

G vs E was a great show....

[dogscoff]

I'll throw my Ratings in here. Maybe someone should start a poll?

B5: 9.5 - just about perfectly executed plot arc. A bit dodgy in the first series, and some distinctly wooden acting in places, but overall a near- perfect blend of space opera and personal drama.

Farscape: 8 Good characters, decent plots and a break from the same old same old "guys in uniforms uphold human values of truth & justice". A bit episodic but very fresh and imaginative. Loses marks for not having a handy TLA

DS9: 7 The best of the Treks. The competition from Bab5 did it a lot of good, IMHO when it started to introduce politics & (gasp!) story arcs.

TNG: 6 A bit cheesy & episodic by today's standards, but I remember it looking fantastic when it first came out. It really did a lot for sci-fi at that time. Oh, and Patrick Stewart is the most convincing starship Captain ever.

SG1: 5 Nothing amazingly good about it, but nothing wrong with it either. Good for a Sunday afternoon if it's on TV. If I watched more of it I could probably get into it.

TOS: 4.5 Silly, silly, silly. Hopelessly outdated, with hardly any continuity and shallow cowboy characters. You can hardly class it as sci-fi, but it did something amazing for the genre and it gets points for that.

VOY: 4 Formulaic and dull. This did nothing new or interesting, it just gave everyone what they expected while pandering to the lowest possible denominator. Just about watchable, I suppose.

Enterprise: ?Never watched it. Don't intend to.

Space A&B: 2 Overly militaristic techno gun-porn. It's a while since I watched any but I remember thinking it was way too far to the right, and not in an ironic "Starship Troopers" way. It had a few moments of watchability, but by & large, unentertaining crud.

Andromeda: 2 Pretty crap so far, it reminds me more of that ****ty space precinct than anything else, although I confess I've only seen 3 or 4 episodes. Far too glossy for me. The Captain badly needs a haircut.

And for my "whatever happened to..?" entry, I nominate the excellent "Alien:Nation", about a few million of aliens who get stranded on earth and become the new ethnic underclass. There was a buddy cop element, and some realy good characters. I seem to remember they left a series a cliffhanger then cancelled the show! NOOOOO!

[ September 05, 2002, 16:39: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

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I agree, G vs E was good. Maybe a 5, but only loow because I missed a lot of episodes in it.

Seven Days: I would about a 6. Lost it's power in the Last season.

SU2: 4. Needed work. Reminded me a lot of G vs E.

There was many other subplots to Star Trek II, it wasn't single minded.
- The crew is getting older and moving on in life (echoed in ST6:TUC)
- New crew is coming in
- Can't cheat death
- Great things and inventions are often preverted into weapons.
- Scientist vs Soldiers
- Things that might have been.

The director handled it so perfectly, it all meshed together into one plot. Similar to great Trek episodes like "city on the edge of forever, Doomsday machine, and even Yesterday's Enterprise"

A few of those points were carried over by John Logan for Star Trek Nemesis, and for good reason.

The Next Generation is 15 years old, and riker is still a first officer???

For those that want a funny tidbit into trek, Ensign Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact was supposed to be the first gay character on star trek. The scenes showing that was edited out....

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Hadrian Tyrael S. Aventine:
I could accept everything going on in Trek as an alternate reality type stuff except for one thing. Gene Roddenberry wrote the series as what humanity should be in this reality.

What I meant by that was Enterprise as an alternate reality to TOS or TNG. All of them are in our future, so you can say any one of them could be our reality to come. It's just that when they start messing around and have these inconsistancies between series, and even between different episodes in the same series I have stopped trying to crowbar them all and make them fit one single timeline. The writers obviously don't care about that, including Roddenbery before he died, so why should I?

For those that want a funny tidbit into trek, Ensign Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact was supposed to be the first gay character on star trek. The scenes showing that was edited out....

Maybe the first gay regular character (although I am not so sure that Bashir wasn't just chasing Dax as a cover. ) but one of them (Voyager I think) had an episode where they visited a planet where everyone was gay. One of the alien scientists fell in love with one of the starfleet crew members of the opposite sex and it was all very scandalous. Her people ended up "reprograming" her or something if I recall correctly.

Geoschmo

[dogscoff]

Maybe the first gay regular character (although I am not so sure that Bashir wasn't just chasing Dax as a cover. ) but one of them (Voyager I think) had an episode where they visited a planet where everyone was gay. One of the alien scientists fell in love with one of the starfleet crew members of the opposite sex and it was all very scandalous. Her people ended up "reprograming" her or something if I recall correctly.

That was TNG. The aliens were all androgynous (sp?) and it one of them fell for Riker. The fool. There were some nice touches to that ep, actually, although it got a bit silly towards the end.

It's interesting that Trek should shy away from something like the gay issue. The first ever episode of TOS was ground-breaking (and scandalous) at the time for showing an inter-racial kiss. I guess nowadays they're too scared they'll upset all those fans who tune in just to see 7 of 9 or whatever other gratuitous T&A fodder they have in Enterprise.

[geoschmo]

Personally I'd like the next Trek series to be a Monty-Pythonesqe take on TOS. Like the Life of Brian, Trek style. From the perspective of a captain and crew in some backwater part of the galaxy. Use the same sets and costumes from TOS. And make them all perfectly aware of the Enterprise and the "Great Captain Kirk" getting all the good press.

It would be a hoot!



Geoschmo

[Magnum357]

Well, this subject got just a tad off topic! LOL...

One more question I do have about this Nemisis Movie. I don't want anybody to tell me any spoilers, but is this going to be the Last show of the TNG crew? I've heard on a few occassions that it could be.

I guess it would make sense too if it was the Last show of the TNG cast, 15 years and Riker still won't make captain??? Maybe he is scared of the big chair huh?

[Deathstalker]

"For those that want a funny tidbit into trek, Ensign Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact was supposed to be the first gay character on star trek. The scenes showing that was edited out...."

They carried over the plot to a recent StarTrek novel where you get to know the character quite well. (takes place just before First Contact).

And I'm surprised no one has mentioned the greatest sci-fi series of them all. Dr.Who (rates a 10 in my book, at least the Tom Baker years do.)

That and alot of the best sci-fi is Animae in my mind (StarBlazers, Battle of the Planets, RoboTech, etc).

And another 'funny' trek tidbit. IIRC the Babylon5 show was pitched to the Trek guys first and they didn't like the idea, so they went on and made B5 themselves. Then of course Trek had its B5 clone (which is DS9 of course, the similarities are incredible!). Mind you of all the ST series I think I liked DS9 the most, Sisco (however you spell it) was an amazing actor (yes, I can't recall his real name right now ). But I did get real tired of the Kira/Odo thing and the fact that Worf was an 'intregal part of DS9' until a NextGen movie or novel came out where he was 'suddenly free' to save the day with his old Enterprise comrades.