UPN to try to lure back _Trek_ fans on Wednesday. (1 Viewer)

[Sean Laughter]

I actually think TNG was the only show I remember to successfully be serialized "just enough."
Shows that are too serialized are hard to get into if you happen to be a late comer -- hence my inability to like anything Babylon 5 for the most part.
TNG built itself up a good history of continuing arcs that played out throught the show, but at the same time was episodic enough that you could pic up with the show at any time. DS9 suffered from "don't know what's going on because I haven't watched it in a year" syndrome.
Anyway, the temporal cold war thing could be cool if handled correctly. I think the evil guy is a grown up Wesley Crusher personally Hehe, nah, but the actor playing the evil guy did say that the writers had no idea who he was yet as of last year. Worrying to say the least.

 

[Paul E. Fox II]

I'm with Lew here! I LOVE the Open Credits and that song gets cranked when it comes on (much to my wife's chagrin)
I'll be watching...every show...every week!

 

[Jason Seaver]

The main problem I have with the "temporal cold war" arc - and it's huge - is that it makes the "Enterprise" crew practically guest stars in their own series. It's not something that they're a part of; they're just sort of on the outskirts, peripheral to the action. Besides, the whole idea runs counter to the whole "back to basics" premise that made "Enterprise" appealing at first.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Which is why TV Guide's writers praised the show in the beginning, and to which the magazine attributed its early good ratings. Not so now.

 

[Shane Archer]

Not only do I like Enterprise, but I even like the opening credits. I loved TNG and DS9 but gave up on Voyager early on, and every time I came back just made me hate it more.

Aside from some really campy/corny dialogue, and the fact that Archer is made out to be a complete buffoon, I think Enterprise still has a lot of promise. The Temporal Cold War storyline could be really good if they spin it right.

For now, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, and I'll keep watching...

 

[Mike Broadman]

You may not like the Temporal Cold War thing, but you can't complain that it isn't original. I have never seen a Temporal Cold War on TV.

Enterprise can use that to its advantage, but the fact that they're making it up as they go along is a recipe for disaster. Then again, they did the same with Best of Both Worlds and look how good that turned out. But, that was only two episodes, this is an entire series story arc.

I always defend Voyager- Enterprise at its worst makes me realise how not-bad Voyager was.

It remains to be seen how it plays out...

 

[Rich Malloy]

Zzzzzzzzzzzz..... you pee in what?

 

[Jason Seaver]

but the fact that they're making it up as they go along is a recipe for disaster.

That's the current trendy thinking, and there are certainly definite benefits to pre-planning the macrostory rather than letting it evolve, but there's a lot to be said for letting television writers have as much flexibility as they can, too.

I don't think the problem is that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga don't have a plan... It's that they're Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, and even if they had a plan, what they produce wouldn't be as good as what Ron Moore makes up as he goes along.

 

[Paul E. Fox II]

I have to agree with the problems with the Temporal Cold War arc. I'd like to believe that it's going to go somewhere and it's just taking a LOOOONG time to get there, and without offending anyone...remember the first season of Babylon 5? It took me forever to figure out why that first season didn't seem to have any direction, but they did come back to it and it was GREAT! Now, I'm not saying that Enterprise is cooking up the same kind of story arc as Babylon 5, but it could be done with some thought!

At any rate, I'm a Trekker and I love the show and will watch it faithfully until they remove it from the schedule!

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Jeff Kleist wrote:

Quote:

Maybe it's not been shown before because it's . . . not a good idea! . . . . . Naaaaah! 90% of today's television would come to a halt if that were the prevailing criterion for programming.
I just find the whole thing utterly fantastic. The enormous resources needed to propel people (agents!) through millenia and across billions of miles of space for a . . . "cold" war????? Now, a hot war . . . .

 

[John Berggren]

The underwear scenes are about the only thing that encourage me to tune in from time to time. The series is fairly bad otherwise.

I'll definitely check it out next wednesday for the Nemesis ad though!

 

[DaveF]

I just find the whole thing utterly fantastic. The enormous resources needed to propel people (agents!) through millenia and across billions of miles of space for a . . . "cold" war????? Now, a hot war . . . .

I don't understand your complaint. Recent experience is that nations spend huge amounts of time, money, resources, and people on a Cold War (ahem, US vs. USSR).
What is it about a "Temporal Cold War" that people don't like? I feel like there's some unspoken, but obvious reason to think this is stupid that I'm not seeing.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Hey Jack, wait'll you get a load of UPN's new bug. It's gigantic and obnoxious. It protrudes a solid 10% into the widescreen area

 

[Rex Bachmann]

DaveF wrote:


Quote:



I don't understand your complaint. Recent experience is that nations spend huge amounts of time, money, resources, and people on a Cold War (ahem, US vs. USSR).






You're not going to try to compare the logistics of US/USSR geopolitical competition spread over 75 years (a human lifetime) and a few thousand miles on a single locality in "space-time" (i.e., the Earth) with crossing thousands of years and billions of miles of space in a wink---okay, two winks---of an eye the way characters do in popular filmed sci-fi, are you? If you do, then you will remain clueless as to the objections.

What kinds of energetic sources would be needed? And what kinds could be had and harnessed that wouldn't destroy their (human(oid)) would-be masters? How much would that cost a society in terms of its other functions and its intellectual capital ("guns or butter?")? What would time travel actually do to human(oid) flesh (including the old "gray matter"), even if it could be done over and over at the drop of a hat? (Think "jet lag" and work your way up.) What about the "temporal paradoxes" that would be created by all this flittin' around the clock?

There's just no comparison to anything (technological) done by the US or USSR. NONE!



Quote:



What is it about a "Temporal Cold War" that people don't like?





I, of course, can only speak for myself, but I've said on many occasions that anything to do with "time travel", as treated by Hollywood productions, I find scientifically trivialized and utterly incredible. It's not the "cold war" part that leaves me "cold", it's the time-travel business.

That is, for me, a pure case of ignoring the consequences of the actions in the story and the implications of the plotline, which some people on these boards say they don't like to see happen, but which they apparently aren't really as concerned about as they claim. Even if you buy the time-travel business (going into the past before one has been born or into the future far after one's (presumed) lifespan)---and I do not---the implications are so massive that I don't believe any popular filmed entertainment can handle it. And, to add to the credibility problems, the characters in such stories are almost always simultaneously whisked billions (trillions?) of miles from place to place, usually arriving exactly where they wanted to go to, to boot. (This is one of my big problems with the activities of characters like "Q", as well.)

"Anything is possible", I guess, but the first dictate of science fiction for me is that whatever is presented also be plausible. We all travel through time, of course in that we live and exist. That's the nature of "aging". But to pretend that this can be trivially done and undone with the flick of a button . . . nooooo. To put it succinctly, these shows just heap one implausibility on top of the next till credulity withers into a dry heap. No sale!

P.S.: One of the few filmed stories I've ever seen to take the implications of human time travel seriously is the X-Files episode "Synchronicity". Their motto: "There's a whooool' lot o' burnin' goin' on!" (More like reality.)

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Gee Jack, there's nothing like farting on a thread with the title!
No, UPN is not trying to lure me back, but I'm going anyway. Methinks everybody is trying their best to dig too deep into the whole series. This is fiction, and we don't have any right to say that B&B can't write that because it is contrary to episode xx of show yy.
One reader compared this to a 17 episode British series, which was an excellent one, but apples and oranges don't mix. We're way, way past 17 here. Does anyone know the total for all of the ST shows? 500? More? And we wonder why they ran out of plots?
I know that it has been said here many times, 'if you don't like the subject matter, then stay out of that thread. Jack, what kind of responses were you expecting here? Oh wait, I guess if I'm pro Enterprise then I should get out.
All in good fun!
Glenn

 

[John Berggren]

Are we stuck with station logos forever? They really irritate me now more than ever with my HDRPTV.

 

[Jason Seaver]

What is it about a "Temporal Cold War" that people don't like?

Well, for starters, having time travel involved means the likelyhood of these events will have long-term effects is much lower. They can blow up the Enterprise, lay waste to the earth, kill the main characters, prevent Kirk from being born... and then fix it, no harm no foul. And if they don't, then there's just going to be some unsatisfactory BS treknobabble reason.

Second, this TCW isn't the "Enterprise" characters' story. It's Silik's and the time travelers', and the characters of Archer, T'Pol, etc. go from being the leads to just being supporting characters. The TCW macrostory isn't about Archer and company the way that DS9's macrostory was about Sisko, Kira, et al.

Third, it's an interruption. It's so far removed from the show's regular business that it's jarring when it's introduced and brushed aside. I'm reminded of the people who had a hard time with "The X-Files" because they couldn't see how the characters could just stop working on the alien-conspiracy for weeks while standalone stories were aired (or vice versa; I had little time for the mythology crap and just wanted a good one-hour story).

Fourth, it's got no interesting characters associated with it. I wouldn't miss any of "Enterprise"'s recurring characters if they never show up again. I know DS9 is a tough act to follow here, but, geez... The anti-charisma on display during these episodes is astounding.

Fifth, it doesn't feel like a time-travel story. The Suliban could just be a neighboring power with advanced tech that doesn't like the new kids on the block and it wouldn't be much different.

And, of course, Berman and Braga write each of the TCW episodes... So they'd be cookie-cutter mediocrities even if the macrostory was a good idea.

 

[Mike Broadman]

With all this talk of "luring people back" to Trek, does anyone now what some actual numbers are? Have people actually not been watching?

 

[Anthony Hom]

I agree with the theory that the "Temporal Cold War" will give the writers a chance to change the history based on the past series. They can write anything they want, even if it doesn't make sense in the time line. I thought they didn't really care anyway if any of the Enterprise stories messed up the "canon" of Star Trek.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Pretty much a little bit of everything, with an emphasis on the show's shortcomings. In other words, the thread that has resulted. There's nothing wrong with the thread title.

Mike: The Neilsen ratings for Enterprise ever since late winter/early spring have been dreadful. Like Voyager, it is stuck in the 90s and the 100s. But not to worry. If you're Berman or Braga, you've got six more years to go no matter what. Therefore, the two have no incentive to stretch themselves and the concepts (as if they could in the first place). Refer back to what Jason said about Ronald D. Moore being able to play it by ear and still outwrite B&B. That's the difference between someone who cares about Star Trek and one who doesn't (not to mention latent talent).