Star Trek

Bingo, lostshaker. I think you hit the nail on the head. I started rejecting BSG when they landed on New Caprica. And the only characters that deserved to live were Helo, Athena & Hera. And I hear Ron Moore's first draft had Helo & Athena killed in the final battle - but even he thought that was too much.  Again, I don't like "bashing" shows that I don't like because I recognize why BSG appeals to people and people are free to like it. But I'll swim upstream and say I don't.

I just hate the idea that still comes from all sides that Trek characters are "boring" and "too good" and "uninteresting." Bah. Are not. Okay, I'll give you pre-season 7 Wesley.

But I'm going to say that I loved the concept of ENT so far as it had them evolving into the enlightened people we saw on TNG - unlike Picard, Archer didn't have years of intellectual study, he didn't have a huge diverse federation backing him up and he didn't have a "rule book" so to speak. I do think that by mid-season three (North Star, maybe) - Enterprise clicked in its understanding that this was about Archer paving the way for the future and moving humanity away from its brutal past and becoming part of the larger community.

I agree completely with your take on Helo, Athena, and Hera. I was about to write the same thing in the previous post. And I love the TNG characters because they're too good as well. The TNG bible reads as...

"They are not perfect, but their flaws do not include falsehood, petty jealousies and the banal hypocrisies common in the Twentieth Century."

I give TOS leeway with this, because it was the start of Trek, but they also had episodes where the more powerful alien would step in at the end and say something like... "Ah, you've shown the advanced trait of mercy. Perhaps there is hope for you, yet."

Shows like the 4400 were pretty good at having these types of characters too. Ironic, seeing as how Behr - who wrote 4400, said he never completely signed on to Gene's vision of the future.

Braga hurt the franchise, Coto tried to revive it, Abrams killed it.  

Abrams did Star Trek?

Wonder if Michael Piller is still in the loop.  I believe he was Berman's partner in DS9, iirc.  Not to mention that they worked with Jeri Ryan on Voyager, so if those two are still around, they'll be looking for something to do.

Michael Piller passed away several years ago.

Looks like sarcasm (re: the Twitter post).

I've been a little hard on Braga, but I'm going to give his new show "Flash Forward" a chance.  It premieres Sept. 24th on ABC.  The show seems interesting enough to give it a look-see.

Thanks for sharing the above information. I was wondering when Flash Forward would premiere.

I find it curious that some people who really like Enterprise through the seasons, hate Braga. He made mistakes, but if it wasn't for him the Enterprise that I love (and others do too) wouldn't be as we know it, or maybe at all.

Quote (lostshaker @ July 31 2009, 10:21 pm)

Thanks for sharing the above information. I was wondering when Flash Forward would premiere.

You're welcome!

Quote (Vice_Adm_Baxter @ Posted: July 31 2009, 9:21 am)

Season ?4  is some of the best TREK ever and it doesn't work for you.... (not being negative just ehhhh)?

It's not that it "doesn't work for me". I only say it doesn't quite feel like the same ENT of Ss.1-3 anymore. Braga loved these particular characters - Archer, T'Pol, Tucker (even though he "killed" the latter). They were very interesting to him as persons. He could greatly concentrate on them while also creating an interesting, eventful background, and most of the time finding the right balance between the characters and the events. Manny Coto doesn't have the same abiltiy to find the right balance. Maybe he cares too much about "what would the fans like to see?" Not that it's too bad, of course. But if it starts to control the artist, then his driving force is not artistic anymore.
Resume: Oh how hard it is for modern show-makers to work in today's world...

Quote (captbates @ Posted: July 31 2009, 9:42 am)

What about if we took series 1 and 2 of BSG and added them to 3 and 4 of ENT? now that would be a show to watch

I don't know... Imo, the "essence" of BSG characters seems way too different from ENT characters. ENT characters "stay Human in spite of", while BSG's are "well, we're just human, whaddya expect from us?" And the world of BSG is... what is it, really? The "drama set in space" - but what is the great importance to put that drama into space? I'd like to know. "What/how would we be if on the brink of extermination?" - is it greatly important for us today? Well, maybe so, if it's somehow tied to the fear of world terrorism or the end of the world. But why drag it up into space and make it so unreally dramatic? There are lots of movies related to REAL LIFE, real history, with the same kind of dramatic elements set in war actions, concentration camps, etc. All of them show how thin is the line that separates our civillized being from the opposite. But nooo, so many modern viewers find it exciting only if it's brought into sci-fi world. Why so? Would they be as interested to see 4-7 seasons of a show set in a WWII concentration camp?
(Yes, I know ENT dealt with that kind of theme too in S.3. But it didn't overdo that drama - thank you. Braga! )

I always feel discomfort when I hear calls for making sci-fi more "dramatic", more "BSG style". I think: "Space has so much potential for exploring the unknown, for having great adventures. So why not leave it in the first place for sci-fi? If I'm in the mood for something with good drama in the forefront, I would rather watch something real world related." Probably, seeing peole steal, cheat, kill, rape, betray one another in space is more exciting than in real life? Of course, I understand that some points can be better conveyed if showed "indirectly". But there's sense of proportion for that anyway. I don't think BSG had that sense.