Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (2 Viewers)

[Nelson Au]

Tonight I viewed another TNG episode involving Romulans, Tin Man. Though these Romulans were generic. even so, it’s a good episode.

 

[Sam Favate]

Tonight I viewed another TNG episode involving Romulans, Tin Man. Though these Romulans were generic. even so, it’s a good episode.

I will always have a soft spot for Tin Man. It was when I became a regular viewer of TNG and was part of my intro to many of the characters.

 

[Blimpoy06]

Tin Man is one of my favorite episodes of TNG. Even if it has one of the dumbest reactions ever by a Starfleet officer when discovering an enemy threat to their ship. Does Picard order shields up? Evasive maneuvers? Red alert? Arm weapons? No, we get the classic response..."What?". And the Romulans fire on his ass as they speed past the Enterprise.

 

[Nelson Au]

Gomtuu!

 

[Harry-N]

I've never been enamored of "Tin Man". I think part of my problem is that I don't care for Harry Groener, and this is 'his' episode.

 

[Nelson Au]

Since I completed my TNG Romulan themed episode marathon, I picked a random episode based on a list of the top 25 TNG episodes and that is Cause and Effect. I’ve seen this episode quite a few times. This is a good episode, Frakes did a good Job trying to keep it interesting during each loop. This episode also has Ensign Ro in a very minimal role.

So I decided to start an Ensign Ro marathon. I started with the beginning and viewed Ensign Ro last night. Tonight I carried on with Disaster.

Ensign Ro is a good episode. I forgot the opening with Mr. Mot. That was a fun opening. What I found good is how Ro is so messed up from all her experiences, it’s no wonder she is the way she is at the start of the episode. She just doesn’t trust anyone. So it was quite good that Picard sees potential in her after he learns the truth of her role from the Admiral. And then I liked how Picard sussed out the truth. This is not the only episode TNG explored crooked Admirals. Hard to believe Starfleet ca have corrupt leaders, but I suppose it’s possible.

Tonight I carried on with Disaster. Always enjoyed this episode too. Nicely done cut-aways from each groups of the crew and what they had to do to survive. The funny bits is Worf trying to help Keiko give birth. it was pretty tough with Troi having to learn how to be in command with Ensign Ro trying to do what she thinks is right. In the end, Troi was right and I liked how she says to Ro that Ro could just have been as right. While I always enjoyed this episode, I always had in the back of my mind, the Enterprise would have to have so many safe guards and back-ups, that the ship could not be that crippled. But it makes for a good episode.

 

[trevanian]

I had not seen Face of the Enemy in a year or two and I’d forgotten the connection with Spock. This is a great follow-up to Unification.

I think it was in Cinefantastique's coverage of that season of TNG where I read that one of the writers (Braga?) was actually tempted to put a reference to Spock in as 'he didn't make it.'

 

[trevanian]

I Star Trek II, III, and IV Over the weekend I also watched Star Trek VI. Somehow I Seem to remember that there were supposed to be 7 TOS Cast films. What became of that?

MIght you be thinking that since Shat was going to try to max out on the 'favored nations' clause and direct two movies like Nimoy did, that he was all set to do a fountain of youth story as the sixth film (it wound up as THE ASHES OF EDEN novel.)

 

[Sam Favate]

I think it was in Cinefantastique's coverage of that season of TNG where I read that one of the writers (Braga?) was actually tempted to put a reference to Spock in as 'he didn't make it.'

You could never kill of a major franchise character offscreen with a line of dialogue like that. Even if they'd done it (and invited decades of criticism for it), fans never would have believed it. I always heard that Nimoy expected to come back, but they (Berman/Piller/Taylor) never did it. (Once Jeri Taylor took the reigns, very little happened in terms of revisiting older story lines.)
PS Brannon Braga might be the worst writer Star Trek ever had. It's truly amazing that he had such a hand in it for so long.

 

[ScottRE]

MIght you be thinking that since Shat was going to try to max out on the 'favored nations' clause and direct two movies like Nimoy did, that he was all set to do a fountain of youth story as the sixth film (it wound up as THE ASHES OF EDEN novel.)

Ashes of Eden was actually a pretty good story and better than Star Trek V, but honestly, I don't think anyone, except maybe Shatner, thought he was coming back to directed another after the reception The Final Frontier got. Harve Bennett was expecting to direct Star Fleet Academy and when the studio wanted to a full cast adventure for the 25th Anniversary, Academy was shelved and nobody approached Shatner to direct.

PS Brannon Braga might be the worst writer Star Trek ever had. It's truly amazing that he had such a hand in it for so long.

Considering Braga wrote some outstanding episodes of TNG (Frame of Mind, Cause and Effect, Parallels), and, with Ronald D. Moore, wrote the TNG finale and First Contact (which is really a solid move). I don't agree. He also did some fine work on Voyager.

Enterprise was hamstrung by UPN, but also by then he knew he was burnt out and that was probably the reason the series lacked a certain energy for a time.

 

[Harry-N]

I agree with Scott. I never understood the way some fans have denigrated Brannon Braga. I've found his contributions worthwhile for the most part, and some of them fantastic.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The buck really stopped with Rick Berman in that era of Trek, so I would generally agree that if someone’s got an issue with the show or episode quality, it’s a Berman issue. Someone was still handing assignments to Braga and then greenlighting the scripts he turned in, which they didn’t have to do. Even when Braga rose to the #2 slot, he didn’t have unilateral authority, and there’s always studio and network meddling to take into account as well.

Berman felt very strongly that it was his job to promote Roddenberry’s “mostly no conflict” ethos and make the shows the way he felt Roddenberry would have. Berman didn’t want things to stray from that and that handcuffed the writers in many ways. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that having been Berman’s decision, but choosing to stay within Roddenberry’s preferred limitations was, well, limiting.

 

[ScottRE]

The episodes of Voyager he wrote with Joe Menosky, like Dark Frontier and Year of Hell, are among my favorites of that series. When Voyager was allowed to really do high concept SF adventure, it was a fun show.

Enterprise has grown on me and aged better than some of the others, but the lack of TOS connection kind of hurt it, especially since Archer was pushed as "Kirk's hero." Since Braga and Berman were not original series fans, I place that at their feet. The show felt more like a TNG prequel than a look into pre-TOS history.

Also, much as I love Scott Bakula, I couldn't understand why I felt nothing coming from him. I remember watching the finale of season two and those moments when he's leaving the bridge and there was no energy or urgency. Bakula's casting should have been a home run, but I felt that he - or his character - was weak at the wrong times. Getting the crap kicked out of him in The Andorian Incident may have been realistic, but for the lead in a Star Trek show, it put him in a bad light for me.

 

[Nelson Au]

These last few posts remind me that back in the day, there was much fan backlash against “Berman, Braga” Star Trek. I think this was during TNG as well as Voyager. Braga was referred to as the Devil Incarnate. This all stemmed from an interview and I remember clearly he was wearing a red robe and had a smirk on his face. The comments that made the fans angry was he never watched TOS and did not want to to avoid being influenced. What was not clearly explained is Roddenberry himself asked him not to watch TOS. Braga has apologized for that comment ever since. This is what I remember at the time. Perhaps the other members here can correct or add to that.

So I think there’s still fans out there who do not like Braga for either dislike of his contributions, or his comments at the time, or both. I’ve always been kind of neutral about him. I just watched Cause and Effect and I still like that episode. I know he always tried to do high-concept stories.

I wish I can find that picture of Braga as the Devil Incarnate.

 

[Sam Favate]

I dislike Braga as a writer because it seems to me his stories had a sameness to them and weren’t a good fit with the kinds of things we were seeing in Star Trek. He loved “alternate reality” stories and always hit the reset button at the end. The “what is reality” stuff - done well in Frame of Mind - got tiresome. His writing just didn’t seem to respect Trek history. He was also never a great one for characterization. His writing was often about concept over people.

Yes, Berman obviously liked what he was doing and kept giving him more responsibility, and that’s on Rick. Ron Moore should have been the heir apparent. Look at Moore’s post-Trek successes, of which there are many.

I will always believe the franchise would have been better off if Braga had been, at best, a minor player in the writing department.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

He loved “alternate reality” stories and always hit the reset button at the end.

I think there’s at least one (if not more) documented instances where the reset button at the end was forced upon him by Berman/the studio/the network but point well taken.

The “what is reality” stuff - done well in Frame of Mind - got tiresome.

Agreed!

His writing was often about concept over people.

For me, that’s a plus rather than a minus, particularly in the highly specific genre of futuristic space travel as episodic adventures. When it’s a great concept, the framework of Star Trek really allows for some cool/interesting/weird shit that I love. It predates Braga but I like a lot of the weird season 2 episodes that aren’t very popular because they’re interesting explorations of sci-fi concepts that aren’t always wrapped up in neat little bows.

But these shows all had great casts/characters so I definitely understand why using those characters as mere vessels to explore an idea rather than exploring the idea through the characters we know and love doesn’t always work for everyone.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Ultimately, I think it's Paramount's failure for waiting too long to move on from Berman/Braga. The underperformance of Insurrection both critically and commercially should have been a wake up call that it was time to bring in some fresh voices to shake things up.

At the same time, I can understand why they didn't. Even though Insurrection underperformed, Berman got it made cheaply enough that it still turned a profit. And on the TV side, they had a franchise that basically managed itself and was performing well enough.

 

[trevanian]

I gave up on VOYAGER even before Braga took that over, and barely lasted a year with ENT. I just never understood why Berman favored Braga over Moore, who would have been the right guy to do a pre-TOS show (or just about any trek show imo.) Then again, I've never felt Berman was the right guy to be running things, he was fine for budget but tastewise was a disaster, deballing the scoring and doing so much wrong creatively. Thank God he didn't get too handsy with DS9!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I just never understood why Berman favored Braga over Moore, who would have been the right guy to do a pre-TOS show (or just about any trek show imo.)

So much of Moore's "Battlestar Galactica" reboot feels like the "Voyager" he wanted to make.

I know he felt that Berman and Braga were playing things to safe with the execution of "Voyager", and I know he had a bad falling out with Braga that made him quit. I don't know whether Braga undermined Moore because he was threatened by him, or if Braga was trying to shield Moore from corporate politics and Moore just took it the wrong way.

I do know that Moore's vision for what could have been done with Voyager's premise was far better than what we got.

 

[ScottRE]

There was a lot going on Behind the scenes, especially once UPN was formed and Star Trek was really on Paramount's radar as its flagship franchise.

Moore originally wanted to go over to Voyager but Berman and Michael Piller (don't forget he was #2 guy for a long time also) felt he would be a better fit on DS9. When DS9 ended, he went to Voyager, thinking he would just resume his partnership with Braga. However, Braga was #2 by that point and they clashed (Braga freely takes the blame for that). UPN wouldn't allow serialization, they wanted the ship clean and tidy and no chances really taken ("Year of Hell" was conceived to be exactly that - a full season arc). Berman was still defending Gene's "no conflict among the crew" edicts of 1987, but loosened up some. All of that led to Moore leaving and eventually creating BSG, which is kind of what he wanted Voyager to be.

Both Berman and Braga wanted at least a year between Voyager and Enterprise. They needed the break and they felt the franchise needed one as well. UPN was going to do it with or without them, so they signed on.

As for concepts over people, I have to say TNG is the hardest Trek show for me to revisit because, once Michael Piller arrives, the show started to become a weekly discussion group. Imaginary friends, Worf's son, Geordi's mom, the strict A/B plots (the Enterprise must be in jeopardy every week), the lack of exploration (it felt like another Federation outpost was in danger of something), and because TNG was stuck right between model effects being too expensive for TV and CGI being convincing, they did a LOT of bottle shows. They reused the same models a lot, so they spent less time doing space stuff and more time chatting. DS9 was a benefactor of advancing effects and more interesting characters while Voyager had the high concept stuff. TNG was stull fun when they had the budget for it, but mostly, it became a pretty dry drama. As cheesy as the first couple of years were, I missed their energy. Even though I fully admit there were some amazing episodes in there. It's the only pre-Discovery Star Trek series I don't have on my shelf.

As for Berman and Braga not liking TOS, don't forget, Gene himself wanted as little to do with the original show as possible at that point. It was taken from him, he was an ignored voice in films he didn't like and wanted TNG to be "official Star Trek." He set the tone. I didn't have any problem with it. I wish CURRENT Star Trek would freaking ignore TOS already and just do its own thing instead of swimming in nostalgia or screwing with continuity and saying "oh it's always been that way." And you guys all know TOS is my preferred series. I just wish, with Enterprise, they just matched some things like the Klingon's appearance and leaving Ferengi and the Borg out of it.