lol fuck rick berman forever

[Baffalo]

Voyager had its flaws, but I still watch it. I may not like each episode, but there are some that are definitely worthy of the name Star Trek. Every series has its flaws, TOS included, but we tend to overlook some in favor of others. However, Enterprise is a major problem in that they tried to go back and get the feel of Star Trek without realizing a few major problems that could've been fixed fairly early on.

An example would be the types of computers we saw on the original Enterprise. They were limited, as only the 60's could be, because computers were very limited. A single panel on the NX-01 has more computational power than everything they showed in TOS. If they'd done something to actually appear even more primitive than the TOS Enterprise, it would've gone a long way to cement their status as a prequel. Have actual guns instead of phasers (or whatever they called them), mass drivers and lasers instead of torpedoes and pulse cannons. That's part of what bugged me. DS9 felt more in keeping with the era than Enterprise because they weren't always given nice, pretty and clean solutions.

I know I'm just bitching about the same shit but Berman's history of fucking things up starts with TNG and ends with ENT. DS9 was a fluke because he didn't have full control, but when he did we saw what happened. Personally, I'm glad Paramount ended Berman's reign as king of Star Trek, because he just made it worse and worse.

[ThomasP]

If they'd made Enterprise as a real prequel you'd just have nerds whining about how it's not 'real star trek'. Nerds say they want different shit but the reality is it won't fly on TV, because your audience is unimaginative and can't handle the ambiguous or unfamiliar.

SGU was a fresh take on that particular universe which had some clear flaws, but also a lot of potential. Try that move with a Star Trek show and you've got once canceled show and a lot of internet whining.

[Stofsk]

SGU had horrible characterisation and utterly boring plotting; that's what doomed it. I came into it as a neutral viewer and left after the fifth or sixth episode I think. It may have had potential but frankly if by a certain point you haven't shown me SOMETHING that's good why would I stick around week after week?

A 'fresh take' in writing is held up to be an elusive gold standard, but it's pretty worthless really - mostly it's just a gimmick, or some kind of attribute in the setting that sets it apart from any antecedents. Say, DS9 is a Star Trek show set on a space station. Voyager is a Star Trek show where they're trying to return home, not go far from it like in TOS and TNG. Both of these shows had bad flaws but in various ways, but at least DS9 tried to make use of its gimmick by calling attention to it in novel ways. Yet even then they still caved in and got themselves a starship so that they could go away and have adventures on alien worlds. As for Voyager? Its gimmick or fresh take didn't last the end of the premiere episode before they abandoned everything and went 'well let's just treat this show as TNG mk.2, without any of the things that made TNG work, like the characters we grew to love'. Half the crew is supposed to be rebels yet they caved by the end of the pilot and had them all dress up in Starfleet uniforms with provisional Starfleet ranks. The ship is supposed to be decades away from getting home and thus things like repairing and refueling the ship are going to be a Big Deal, yet by several episodes into it they're already doing a holodeck episode. That show's a remarkable contempt for the audience.

Enterprise's biggest draw was in showing us how it all started, how the Federation and Starfleet were like in their formative years. But what's important in a show like that is not violating previously established continuity. Because if you do it shows that the writers don't respect the stories that make up the foundation on which they're working on, and if they don't respect it why the fuck would an audience member invest their time and energy watching a show like that? I do not agree that the problem is the audience in general is unimaginative or can't handle the unfamiliar. TNG season 1 was pretty bad television all told, but people accepted it because it both did something fresh and was unfamiliar to the standard set before it, but it also wasn't creatively or imaginatively bankrupt like the spinoffs were. Sure many of the episodes in TNG's first season sucked, and so did the ones in the second season, but enough of them were good and had a lot of effort put into them to make them good. And it still had that sense of 'while we have unfamiliar faces in the cast, and an unfamiliar looking ship, they are still out there doing very familiar things'.

[TheFeniX]

Both of these shows had bad flaws but in various ways, but at least DS9 tried to make use of its gimmick by calling attention to it in novel ways. Yet even then they still caved in and got themselves a starship so that they could go away and have adventures on alien worlds.

I don't really think the Defiant was them "caving" so much as giving the show a more formidable mobile platform, although I do recall an actor saying something to that effect. To be honest, I was getting fucking tired of away missions into the Gamma Quadrant (basically Space Australia, where everything there wants to kill them) being done in Runabouts.

They never really bothered to "call attention" to their gimmick using the space station. DS9 was not only the setting, but also a core focus of the show throughout the first 5 seasons. It's used in too many forms for it to be considered a gimmick. Overarching story-lines concern the competing technologies of the station being held together with O'Brien duct-tape, showing how characters view it as a prison or backward step in their lives to it becoming their home, and as a hub for one of the most important locations in the Alpha Quadrant. And at least we see some changes in the station over time. It goes from the risk of destruction by 3 Galor ships to taking on an entire Klignon fleet over the course of a few years.

Even when the Federation gets kicked off the station, we still spend a rather large amount of screen time looking at how the station operates under Cardassian Occupation 2.0.

I have plans to plod through Voyager again once I've finished up DS9 on Netflix, so maybe my tune will change: but there are so few DS9 episodes that don't advance some plot or character development as the show goes on. Now, not all of them are good (just most of them), but that's beside the point. You can't just drop in new characters or set-pieces, change a few names, and start re-filming those episodes as "Sci-Fi series X." But the more I watched Voyager, the more I realized that with the combination of a generic ship, cardboard characters, and recycled plots: you could rip over half the episodes off the show, delete "Star Trek," and you could make another Sci-Fi series easy.

I look at an episode like "Waltz" and I see how far DS9 could go without any of it's gimmicks: just two actors playing out their arcs in some cave, leading to Dukat actually saving Sisko's life in the end showing how badly he either wants Sisko's respect and/or has decided he wants Sisko alive when he implements his master-stroke. I just cringe to think how bad the Voyager team would have fucked an episode like that up. That's not true: Voyager didn't even have two characters, much less an antagonist, with that kind of workable dynamic. The best... for lack of a better term... I can think of is Neelix trying to strangle Tom on an away mission because he's a psychotic asshole who views Kess as his personal property.

[ThomasP]

SGU had horrible characterisation and utterly boring plotting; that's what doomed it. I came into it as a neutral viewer and left after the fifth or sixth episode I think. It may have had potential but frankly if by a certain point you haven't shown me SOMETHING that's good why would I stick around week after week?

The first half of S1 was slow to the point of tedium, I agree, but it picked up around the mid-point and by S2 it felt like it had found itself, with gems that had me interested enough to keep watching. I'm forgiving of a lot, especially for an established setting trying to find a new direction in its first season, and it seemed to be finally getting there. Your point is taken, but that wasn't the extent of the complaints either.

A 'fresh take' in writing is held up to be an elusive gold standard, but it's pretty worthless really - mostly it's just a gimmick, or some kind of attribute in the setting that sets it apart from any antecedents.

See I don't agree that it was meaningless in this case. Stargate had turned into derivative hash by the time SGU came about. I'd quit following Atlantis because it turned into SG1...and SG1 decided to rehash itself. I have no beef with the format, but they were getting into exactly what you say about the later Trek shows: nothing but recycling of worn-out plots. At least SGU tried to shake that up and look at that universe from a different angle, with stories besides the next Ancient super-weapon or replicator threat of the week. Concerns about the slow pacing and uninteresting (at first) characters are valid, but there was also a lot of nerd-whining about how "it's not Stargate!" because it didn't have the same wise-crackin' gunplay versus space monsters format.

[Stark]

What Chris is saying is that the idea that 'at least they were changing the formula' is valueless by itself. It is no credit to a crap show that 'at least it wasn't this other kind of crap' or 'at least they took a chance and fucked it up' or 'a daring new direction in this failed show'. Either a show is good or bad, regardless of how new or innovative or daring the format is or isn't. DS9 was 'good' not because it was different, but because it was different and also good. SGU was 'bad' not because it was different, but because it was different and also bad.

In other words, being different is a red herring and no real indicator of quality beyond 'more daring shows have bad ideas' or 'acceptable shows are more accepted'.

[ThomasP]

I have no argument with those points.

[TheFeniX]

DS9 was 'good' not because it was different, but because it was different and also good. SGU was 'bad' not because it was different, but because it was different and also bad.

I think I latched on to the term "gimmick" which is usually pretty derogative.

[JME2]

By itself, SGU was not unique and emulated the wrong parts of nBSG.

Comparing it to SG-1 and SGA, it was at least something different -- regardless of style -- after 12 years of the same plot driven, action adventures. I've been an SG fan since the original film and even I was getting tired by the end of SGA.

[Batman]

I actually thought the original movie was pretty meh and didn't get into SG-1 until several years later (a loss thankfully rectified by up to this day pretty much permanent reruns on Tele 5-I can't remember when there last was a weekday without an SG-1 rerun) and what I loved about SGA was that it was, essentially, SG-1 Mk 2, but with enough twists to keep it enjoyable. SGU essentially ditched everything that was enjoyable about the franchise for the sake of doing something 'new'. Note how the latter half of s2-the one that pretty much everybody agrees might have saved the series had it happened earlier-returns SGU to basic SG universe fare and execution. As others have said, 'new' isn't the same as 'good' leave alone 'better'. Maybe there's a reason a franchise that turned out to be hugely popular never tried that approach before.