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Television Media

New Star Trek Series Rumours 287

Posted by CmdrTaco from the beating-a-dead-horse dept.
HashCode writes "The Star Trek franchise is about to take a warp speed trip down memory lane ... Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. It looks like its going to become a reality. " Free Advice to paramount trek producers: Go to farm. Find horse. Kill it. Beat it until fists hurt. A related story from Adam Juda confirms that Voyager will land in 2001.
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New Star Trek Series Rumours More

New Star Trek Series Rumours

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  • Re:Alternate Series Ideas (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I had an idea something along those lines... say Voyager comes back to Earth and finds the Federation in ruins. Some new alien race is kicking the crap out of most of the Alpha Quadrant; blowing up starships, occupying planets, capturing officers, fun stuff like that. Anyway, Voyager and the remnants of Starfleet go into hiding and form a resistance. Using all the cool Delta Quadrant tech that Voyager brings back, they start to rebuild and launch guerrilla attacks on the enemy. I'd just like to see a series where the Federation isn't the strongest power in the galaxy for once.

  • Re:Can you say "Andromeda"? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    yeh there is a reasonable bit of information on the Andromeda Series here: http://www.cinescape.com/links/tva ndromedanr.html [cinescape.com]

    actually doesn't sound bad

    watch it do half decently, and then paramount go and copy it.

  • Re:Star Trek is not Real Sci-Fi (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why don't ground troops have personal shields on them to stop them from being killed? ...Why aren't transporters used in a million imaginative ways instead of merely moving people from place to place? At the very least I can think of a few episodes in which bad guys should have been beamed into the nearest boulder to get rid of them.

    Because closed source Microsoft Engineers built the technology used in Star Trek and this is the reason why the series went downhill from there. Ever notice that they always require assistance from an engineer just to keep things running?

  • With the number of phrases directed to computers that are usually mentioned in Star Trek, ViaVoice should be enough. Heck, I probably should make a ViaVoice interface to my X-10 stuff [denver.co.us] with startrek-style commands.

    Yes, I have a sense of humor.

  • *heh* no, then all that would happen is time would loop, Janeway would die and everything would start over ;)
  • That's the most important part. We *really* want her voice.

    Wouldn't it be just perfect during boot?

    "Starting network services"
    "Going multi-user"

    I'd probably pay for a package with her voice on it . . .
  • Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were not individuals; they were different parts of humanity. There was no attempt to interest in who was dating, personal interactions, poker games, etc.

    It was about the ideas.

    After the first half dozen or so Next Generation episodes (or was it the whole half season?), this was completely lost, and there was a heavy focus on the characters as characters. This missed the whole point that made Start Trek interesting in the first place.

    And no, I couldn't care less about the stupid robot and his attempt to be human. All of that together wasn't worth a single round of McCoy and Spock.
  • >Another example is the classic 2001:A Space Odyssey, where Arthur
    >Clarke was heavily involved in the visualization of his famous book.

    Nope. The movie was spun from his short story "The Sentinel." THe book 2001 followed the movie.
  • Yes, but the movie was not based on the book, but rather the short story. The book came after the movie.

  • ts also debatable if Star Trek invented Vulcan, as it is used as a planet in a Dr Who show at about the same time as star trek started (ST wasn't shown in the UK for some time afterwards though)

    Wasn't the original Vulcan a theoretical planet that was suggested was the cause of the variations in Mercury's orbit that couldn't be accounted for at the time? I think it was supposed to be orbiting the sun directly opposite the earth, so we would never see from here....or something like that...(and the variations in Mercury's orbit were later used to show that relativity was correct?)

    I can't remember exactly, but it was something like that.

    dylan_-


    --

  • Not even eleven years, dipshit. Star Trek debuted on September 9th, 1966. Star Wars first hit theaters May 25th, 1977.
  • ...the sci-fi universe with the most developed backstory, detailed characterization, realistic society, logical use of available tech, and internal consistency is probably Star Wars.

  • You can apply the anthropic principle, or
    something like that, to science fiction. You
    might think it is unbelievable that the Star Trek
    universe contains so many things which just
    happen to make good (or bad) television. But
    consider that there are an infinite number of
    possible sci-fi universes, but only a select few
    get made into books or TV series. Therefore the
    fact that you, the viewer, are watching the
    programme is the reason why semi-inverted
    Hoffenschauer tachyon field anomalies exist. If
    they didn't exist, the writers wouldn't be able
    to crank out a plot, so no episode.


    Does that make any sort of sense?

  • You mean Robin Williams?

    Hey, now there's an idea. Robin Williams cross-dressing as a woman to get into an over-crowded Federation Academy that doesn't have any male enrollments available.

    Or Robin Williams as Patch Adams, replacing The Doctor.

    Perhaps Robin Williams, military radio broadcaster on duty in Cardassia during a Federation war in Good Morning, Cardassia!?

    Maybe they'll just go with a guy who's not far off from Robin Williams -- John Lithgow. They'll do StarTrek: 12th rock from the 3rd sun and the entire crew will masquarade as natives of some planet by meshing in with their society and living in an overcrowded house with some over-the-hill sit-com star -- or Tine Daily.

    Or how about revising his role from What Dreams May Come, by playing a Federation captain who has met up with all the other dead StarTrek crews and cast members on the other side? It could be called StarTrek: The Afterlife.
    ---
    icq:2057699
    seumas.com

  • Q: What's the difference between a trekkie and a person who makes bad jokes?

    A: The trekkie can actually spell "trekkie."

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • The unfamiliar face on the Bridge used to die by the opening credits. I hope the new series has the brains to make the Red Shirt the central character of many episodes, so they can explore the new world (and by reflection, our own) from many vantage points.

    Yeah, and *THEN* kill him. :-)

    Think Tasia Valenza on "Space: Above and Beyond". :-)
  • I'd have to agree with you on DS9. It was easily the best series of the four.

    Um... what?

    The first series was decent. Not great but on par with the last couple seasons of TNG. It was downhill from there. I finally stopped watching at about the third season, after that God-awful episode that ends with the revelation that everything in the previous 2 episodes was basically an illusion, and that nothing had really happened. There was no clever plot twist-- they just got out of these little machines and were told that everything they had just done was VR-type illusion.

    My dislike was confirmed with the fourth season premier (?) which was little more than an excuse to spend an enourmous special effects budget. There was nothing the least bit original about the plot: simply a big buildup to a 10-minute battle scene.

    Now I like SFX as well as anyone, and some of them were pretty cool. But a big space battle does not a story make.

    I still watch it occasionally, and every time I do I am struck by the fact that it is a hollow shell of what TNG was. Many of the plotlines were taken directly from TNG plots, many of the ideas were re-hashes of things that had done before, and most of the attempts at originality were even worse.

    The franchise died with Gene Rodenberry. The series finale was mediocre at best, and from that point on DS9 went steadily downhill. Voyager was never worth watching. Frankly, I don't think the writers are capable of pumping out 30 fresh original scripts for 14 years without eventually burning out. The franchise needs to be put to rest before it embarrasses itself any further. Maybe 10 years from now it can be resurrected (with someone other than Rick Berman at the helm) but for now they need to give it a rest.

    Of course, UPN can still make more money on the fumes of a once-great franchise than on any of the other crap they pump out, so I don't think they are going to be ending it any time soon.
  • The plot seemed cobbled together at the last minute and was full of inconsistencies. Yes, it did a good job of allowing us to get all nostalgic for the last 7 years, but as a story, it was a flop consider:

    The "anti-time anomoly" runs backwards in time. That means that it starts in the future and grows "backwards" through time. Now ignoring the absurdity of this in the first place, consider the events in the "future" story. The Enterprise goes to find the anomoly, finds it missing, and then comes back later and finds it there. But this means that it is running *forward* in time. Otherwise, it would be getting smaller, and would have been there at first and gone later.

    That this nonsensical problem was the central conflict of the show-- combined with the continuation of the already-stupid premise of the premiere, in which Q puts humanity on trial--says a lot about the quality of the writing. Inventing an "anomoly" as the final villain of the series is stupid.

    The ending was even worse. The crew emits a "static warp bubble," and the day is saved. Since the problem was a bit of technobabble in the first place, and the "solution" was more technobabble, the story falls apart completely. All the melodramatic crap with Q is completely irrelevant. To save the galaxy, all Picard had to do is emit a static warp bubble. Duh! I bet every viewer was slapping his forehead for not seeing that one coming.

    In a good story, the events of the story all lead up to the climax and conclusion. Details that don't contribute to the story should not be there. But the central conflict was Picard versus the static warp bubble. How exactly is any of the other stuff relevant to that conflict? And how does emitting a static warp bubble resolve any of the other conflicts in the story?

    I'm sure there was some good writing in there somewhere. It would be hard *not* to make some moving scenes when you are closing out the greatest Sci Fi show ever made. But the overall story arc was completely uninspired and is completely unworthy of the high expectations fans had of it.
  • The series finale was mediocre at best, and from that point on DS9 went steadily downhill.

    I meant the TNG finale.

  • Step 1: Invent the replicator. Society's problems are mostly due to limited resources.

    Sorry, but replicator technology is prohibited by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

  • Someone once said that the original series was Wagon Train in space. It wasn't great science fiction, but it was a masterpiece in comparison to My Mother the Car [spudtv.com].
  • U.S.S. Politically Correct to get permanent shore leave

    Unfortunately your hopes for the comeback of witty Stratrek classic humour or even the usually correct but still funny New generation are all wrong.

    The times have changed. Scotty is dead. So is Jan Luc. You will have to leave on a bland and politically correct diet. Unless the series are filmed in a country that is politically incorrect for sake of being funny at least from time to time.

  • I remember a time when I had time to play plain old pen and paper role playing games. In the course of our adventuring eventually we'd find someone who had the raddest sword/gun/ship/character in general yet had no REAL way of backing up said cool thing (i.e. actually won it in battle or some such). These people always got rad stuff off-screen, we called these people munchkins. Star Trek always reminded me of these munchkins, especially with the antics of Deep Space 9 and Voyager. I mean of course it's science fiction and some stuff you just need in order to make a story work but as with our role playing games, too much rad stuff leads to not enough innovation and you don't have a fun game.
    Back on topic now. I've thought for a while a good series idea for ST would be one that took place on and around Earth. I was thinking like a series based out of the Starfleet Academy or something, that way you could have lots of characters many of which are not reoccuring. They key to a series ought to be the characters and story, not the quality of special effects. I'd like to see a series with a dozen or more characters in the course of a season. Then the Paramount people could figure out who people liked and keep them and replace the ones people didnt like. If I didn't have to see the same crew and the same scenery all the time I'd watch it alot more often. I think thats what people really liked about TNG and TOS, you saw lots of different people and places and you had the option of seeing dozens of worlds. The series' also didn't have a set path to follow, DS9 had some prophesy while Voyager needs to return home. TNG didn't have much of a path at all, Q didn't rub it in Picard's face much that he had a plan for him. Well thats all I have to say about that.
  • THEY HAVEN'T KILLED STAR TREK!

    You bastards!

  • Star Trek, BSD: only redshirts need apply!

    Pope
  • I love it when a plan comes together, Scotty!

    Pope
  • Star Trek:TOS
    or
    Star Trek:BSD

    Crazy, man, I'll take 2.

    Pope
  • they sorta did that in Wrath Of Khan.

    Pope
  • On my way to cybersquat at http://www.birthofthefederation.com [birthofthefederation.com] , I found Jeffrey Rhind of Avon, MA beat me to it by 72 hours.

    Riddle me this, how long will it take Paramount to launch "photon lawsuits"?
  • Well, I have to say that all of the ideas for new Trek episodes have been dodgy in some repect, espcially the academy one

    Actually, the one a lot of the fans have been calling for would center around the crew of the Excelsior, with Sulu in command. There were rumors (obviously disinformation) flying around that this would succeed Voyager. (Hey, Slashdot people, Taco, Hemos, et al: I submitted this one and it was DECLINED! And now you go and post this? I'm offended :)

    (Hopefully the writers shall be made to watch the Phantom Menace continually- until they get the idea of what not to do!)

    Meesa chief engineeer! Meesa Lt. JarJar Binks!

    :)

    I only care for the doctor really

    Shhhhhhhh! I do NOT want the Zefram Cochrane to turn out to be an opera star!!!!

    Let's hope that they keep certain WWF stars out of this as well... *sigh*

    And to CmdrTaco: Star Trek is NOT a dead horse!!!
    The continuing popularity of the movies and TOS and TNG reruns proves this. And Voyager is still UPNs
    highest rated show.

  • We could make a Star Trek distro of Linux!

    Featuring LCARSWM of course... the touch screen might not be too hard, but the voice recognition stuff is gonna be tough... :)

  • No problem. As witnessed in ST:FC, no transporters existed during the founding of the Federation, and I don't think that the Vulcans had them either. (At least there were no transporters when I was around :)

    I can't really speak for the writers, of course, but I don't think that transporters were there, at least if they want to avoid any YATIs...

  • It was in the DS9 epp Trials and Tribblations, where worf remarked 'It is not something we discuss with outsiders'.

    (This is just a wild stab from memory, so it might not be really accurate. But it's in that general direction.)
  • > If this new series is to succeed Paramount is going to have get back to the basics.

    Actually, their problem is that they keep trying to revive a '60's show. They need to flip some channels and see what everyone else is doing these days. For prime time, it's the Bikini Action Flick genre or nothing. For Saturday afternoons, it's the Hercules Spinoff genre.

    So what they clearly need to do is ditch the old fuddy-duddies, hire a cast of young hunks and babes, show more cleavage and thigh, use lots of stunt men in more fight scenes, and play Hollywood-imitation heavy metal really loud for about 10 minutes per episode, to save on having to come up with dialog.

    And the worst shortcoming is that the ST baddies don't look like punk rockers. Where have the producers been? Every movie or TV show made in the last 20 years has had baddies that look like punk rockers on bad hair days. How can we tell the good guys from the bad if we have to pay close enough attention to see how they behave? I want some baddies that are bad at first sight, and obviously deserve to be thrown around the bridge in the final scene.

    I'm tellin' ya, this is the sure-fire recipe for suxess in the '00's.

    --
  • The best news that comes from this post is that Voyager is coming to an end. About time.
  • I used to be a real Trek junky. I would seldom miss a new or rerun episode and would usually tape them.

    Then I got a DSS system, where Trek wasn't and still isn't available. Thus, I quit watching. While it was a great show, I wasn't about to go out of my way to pay to get it. Their active decision to not allow it on my distribution system of choice is why they lost a viewer.

    Now, I don't have time to watch DSS. Now they would have to get it distributed through the net. There is an important lesson here. If the entertainment industry doesn't quickly adopt new distribution systems (like DSS & Internet) just because they conflict with their legacy systems (like geographic dist), the result will be a loss of viewership, and thus loss of revenue, that makes the potential loss of revenue from piracy totally negligble.

  • They should suspend Star Trek TV series for a while and concentrate on high-quality movies. The next movie could be a 2.5 hour "crossover" type with a 20-minute prologue featuring Sulu's Excelsior (including Grace Lee Whitney and Tim Russ) which hatches the plot. Of course, the climax of the prologue would be accompanied with a heartfelt Takei "OH MY." The plot would continue 80-90 years later with the current Enterprise-E crew, who could team up with the New Frontier novel series' Excalibur crew. Of course, Dylan McDermott or Alec Baldwin should play Capt. Mackenzie Calhoun (based on artists' conceptions on the NF series's covers), and Zak Kebron would be an excellent showcase of CGI technology. A side plot could be Riker receiving command of his own ship.

    When Voyager goes off the air, they could star in a parallel series of movies.

    I think I would find a STmovie every 1-1.5 years to be much more entertaining and engrossing than the relative blandness of 22-26 hour-long episodes per year.
  • Oh, and it would be nice if the core Trek audience - you know, us geeks - could actually admire the captain in the show. Bring back the swashbuckling captain! To h*ll with the prime directive! Punch it to Warp 9, not Warp 6! Diplomacy is when you shoot first, and throw the survivors in the brig!

    Well, if it is about the Birth of the Federation, then there will be no Prime Directive, at least to start. So you may just get your wish. At least, the potential for ass to be kicked will exist.

    Come on! Bring back the spirit of Roddenberry!

    Wait a sec...doesn't this contradict your previous wishes? I though Gene R. was Mr. Ahimsa.

  • Let's hope that they keep certain WWF stars out of this as well... *sigh*

    Are you annoyed that this was the highest-rated episode in quite some time, or just that the r.s.p-w trolls decided to hose the voyager NG?

    And Voyager is still UPNs highest rated show.

    Not by any stretch of the imagination. Ask any UPN exec if they had to decide between ST:V and Smackdown, I can assure that Capt Janeway and crew would be hitching rides back from the other side of the galaxy.

  • Nurse Chappell (give or take a p or l), as I recall. Also, played a doctor secretly working with the resistance on the early episodes of "Earth:Final Conflict"
    Also played a Centauri woman with precognition (Lady Morella????) on an ep of Babylon 5; she tells Londo that he will be emporor - and then tells Vir that he will, too...
  • I remember, when I was like 10, watching old Star Trek episodes with my dad, and being completely and utterly infatuated. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen! I ran around, zaping people with my phazer, and generally had a blast!

    Then Star Trek: TNG was released, and I hoped that it would live up to the standards of "old school" Star Trek.. and on some level, it did! However, I still believe that Spock kicks Data's ass any day of the week.

    Then came Star Trek: DS9, also known as the bane of my existance. I found it (and still DO find it) to be insanely boring. I mean, all they do is sit around on that stupid station, and their problems come to them! Give me a break! This, my friends, is the in-space version of a toll booth! It gets old. Fast.

    Then we get Voyager, complete with a captain who sounds spookily like Sharon Carstairs, leader of the NDP. (New Democratic Party) It is OK, I suppose.. except, once again, they have written themselves into a corner. All the characters do is bitch and complain about never being able to get home. Give it a rest, guys! If you miss your loved ones so much, then just CREATE THEM ON THE HOLIDECK! Or get the doctor to erase their memory from yours. Anything! Just stop whining about so and so! =)

    As you can see, I am fairly opinionated about this sort of thing. I know my Star Trek. And all I can say is, the latest installment had better be GOOD. (No pussyfooting around in the Gamma Quadrant, please.) If it isn't, then I guess I will go back to watching classic Trek on Space.

    All I can say is "Beam Me Up Scotty!"

    ,-----.----...---..--..-....-
    ' CitizenC
    ' WebMaster, PlanetQ3F [q3f.net]
    `-----.----...---..--..-....-
  • yes, they will end the series next year. My biggest complaint is that all of the characters are too similar in that they're all unique. As a whole, Star Trek writers rely far too much on this uniqueness factor and end up whacking you over the head with it - Worf is the ONLY Klingon in Starfleet...Data is the ONLY artificial lifeform, Odo was the ONLY shapeshifter with a conscience, Neelix is the ONLY Talaxian, 7 of 9 is the ONLY deborgified crewmember, Chakotay is the ONLY spiritual person, the holodoctor is the ONLY mobile hologram. Sheesh!

    For end of Voyager, here's what I propose:

    Have the ship return home, post haste.

    Execute the entire crew for being a bunch of Whiners. Better yet, have Q force them to redo the journey all over again....and again....and again.

    Save the Doctor, or replace him with Andy Dick.

    Put 44 of D into a real federation uniform, and have her hook up with Commander Data. Mr. "Fully Functional" meets "assimilated cultures with more variations of the Kama Sutra than you can shake your stick at".

    or, just paint everyone the same color...
  • I would love to see them explore the darker side of the birth of the federation. Surely there were some bad moments. One of the things that always bugged me about all of the other Trek series was that everyone was too pristine and goody-good. I'd like to see some massive mess-ups on the part of the young federation. I wonder if Brannon Braga is writing? That's right up his alley.

  • > I always thought Dax was way sexier than 7 of 9...

    ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww
    Dax was nothing more than a big, intelligent slug, basically, and you find him attractive? ewwwwwww

    Oh wait, you must mean Jadzia, Dax's host ;)

  • Well you can take this for what you will but here's most of my background.
    I started looking at star trek from TNG and thought that Picard did a very decent job with what he did. Star Trek at least tries to cover the fact that the whole idea of FTL travel isn't totally unproven and that at least things can be proven if you don't have a Phd in physics. Most of the stuff I have seen has been well foolish and pathetic.
    Space Above and beyond: well having people get killed because no one really knows a damn thing about creating either a means of deflecting objects or energy beams and the fact that they can't pilot a damn ship or maybe get robots in there to do the work.
    Babylon 5: from what little I saw of it a little silly again evil nasties that no one can really kill at all because of incompetience and lack of application. Silly costumes
    TNG: decent work. People have a nice central government and they follow the rules. When people break the rules the Federation makes them pay. People in general don't get completely screwed. Romulians never get a chance, the Cardassians are a little evil but in general they are bunglers.
    Stargate SG1: absolute crap. Historical inaccuries out the wazoo. Numerous archeological evidence supports the claims that the Egyptians did everything themselves or with slave help. Wormhole technology again is not provable. Conspiracy on a whole is difficult to cover up.
    ST DS9: I don't hate Sysco personally but...oh what the hell. He's a bungler. The very first episode he is ordered by a superior officier basically to "do anything short of breaking the prime directive to get Bajor into the Federation". Well from the get go he manages to compeltely screw that. He gets into feeling sorry for a group of people who didn't even bother to really have much of a military and have a deluded concept of reality. Sysco then decides to take this to a whole new level of foolishness and voulenteer and become some sort of resident God for these people (hmm what about that little old prime directive).
    Then he starts meddling in things that are not Federation business with his motley group of fools and pirates. He discovers a new little toy which everyone and their mother likes because they couldn't build a warp engine to save their life.
    Well to cut a long story and paste in more story he then gets even more deluded into thinking that perhaps because ther are some uberpowerful aliens in the nice little hole in the sky that means he should do anything including allow for a group of nasties to come into their part of the galaxy.
    Now not to point fingers *points accusative finger at Sysco* but you don't risk trillions of lives because some third rate agragian small population wants to have fun and never take care of themselves dosn't mean you have the right to risk lives of people who live and work in the rest of the galaxy.
    In reality a nice thing called a courtmarshal should have occured culminating in a nice public execution or at least a nice place in a supermax facility orbiting some cold dead sun.
    Voyager: Well at least we have more people following some sort of rules. Although now we have the cheasy Maquis. I tell you some people never learn (think hippie radicals in the 60's in the 24th century).
    Also we have the little aspect of Chacotay (gotta love the name) and more Bajorians (this time they get to force us to think their way). They manage to prevent the Maquis from murdering and plundering any way they like and do something useful.
    Yeah the first episodes sucked with the idiot Kazon and everything; not to mention figuring out that their stupid ship needs more power and better internal anti-terrorist devices. The borg were a good touch and rather nice.

    Birth of the Federation: Well I have always wanted to know the gap of time from say WWII to maybe 2020 or so. Something about the eugenics wars or something and some nasty outbreak of WWIII however that starts to leave me rather cold. I like consistent and logical plots that still mean we could actually get off this hunk of shitty rock before I turn to dust.
    One absolute fact: the bad guys will lose and the Federation will almost always win. In various publications about this The Romulians get a serious ass whopping and we (rather stupidly I think in the long run) sign a the Treaty of Algeron which essentially sets up the DMZ called the Neutral Zone and also prevents the federation from developing cloaking technology (meaning we have to do it in secret ala phased cloaking device in TNG with RIker and the admiral or bey it from the romulains/Klingons).
    Unfortuantely we get to see the equivelent of a Cold War with the Klingons/Russians because of a botched first contact attempt and thus the drafting of the Prime Directive and planet observation similar to Insurections.

    What does this mean? I think some better material, more logical, slightly predictable, and more information for the people out there who would rather be living there than here and now.
    Most Sci-fi sucks and just works on crappy social issues and reads almost like a Grimm brothers fairy tale in it's approach. I like a change of pace from forced analysis of all the where s andhowtos that come from some of this stuff.

    The people of slashdot (editors). I think are better suited to writing code and doing tech oriented things. I tried that and found that I might just do something else (woe is me). But what I do know is a lack of creativy can be a damaging thing when analyzing something. There just aren't that many ideas that aren't beating a dead horse or that don't have logicial inconsistiencies (Mission from mars) a mile wide.
    Do you seriously think there is anything that can replace these things? Is ther any proof?
  • The Next Generation is my favorite of the Star Trek shows, but I enjoy DS9 and the Original Series too. Voyager is the weakest by far.

    Now, this new series could have lots of promise, if the cast is set correctly and the writers study the successful episodes of the original series and TNG and determine what makes a good episode, something they seem to have forgotten in most of Voyager.

  • Actually, if this is the episode that I'm thinking of, it wasn't the Doctor, per se. What happened was that Voyager passed through a region of space just as a war started, and one of the sides attacked Voyager and stole a couple of components, including an EMH backup module. So, basically what they found was not the Doctor himself but an archived copy. :)

    Just my $.02...
  • I personally like Dawson's Trek :)
  • there was a reference to that in one of the series. i think it was in DS9, but i couldn't swear to it. basically, Worf said that those particular people without ridges was something that is not discussed except among Klingons.
  • Okay, I don't watch a lot of Voyager, so I probably missed that one but...I don't think your reasoning is exactly a show-stopper.

    First of all, the Maquis that were fighting with Cardassia were all in the Alpha quadrant. That doesn't meant there aren't other battles on other fronts that are being fought by the Maquis. As near as I can understand it, it's patterned after the Bjorn's during The Occupation in that there is no central authority, just a bunch of independant cells. So how could it ever be really killed off? It may go into hiding, but as long as there is some Federation Officer pissed off at the crap he gets handed, there will always be Maquis.

    Second, okay so let's say after the Dominion takeover they wiped out the Maquis. That could be talking about whatever cell it was that Chakotay and B'lana and whoever belongs to. So their friends are sad, boo hoo, all dead but meanwhile back in the Alpha quadrant, there is a growing number of Federations officers who aren't buying this "we give up" attitude the founders are handing them...they are seeing evidence to the contrary but the Federation leaders, anxious to rebuild in peace, refuse to accept/believe it. This causes several to go rebel, renue the Maquis name in the Alpha quadrant and in general raise hell about anything or everything.

    So yes, the Maquis as we know it from DS9 and VOY maybe be dead, but it's not a hard leap to see that any Federation officer of sufficient rank will know about them and their cause and could be pursuaded to defect at any moment. Like that one security guy that Sisko spent years chasing...Mr. Val Jean...and Tom Riker, tho if Voyager said he was dead, it would be a bummer because he is their best bet to "tie in" to the previous series. But really, the producers could take any Star Trek character and find some convincing reason to get him/her to quit and join the Maquis, openly if it was to be permanent or secretly if they wanted to maintain continuity with future TNG/DS9 movies...

    Plus, think how cool AND realistic it would be to have tens even hundreds of small Maquis ships fighting instead of this one big, vulnerable starship. Maquis would work like a swarm (possibly with distributed networks that make their many ships function collectively as a massive ship, if the head gets shot off, another is automatically promoted and fight continues) and be enough of a threat that both sides are working to stop them, Federation through "peaceful" means and the other side (Cardassian, Romulan, etc.) with not-so-peaceful means. And, because the Maquis would be working with hand-me-down scraps, there wouldn't be any of this BS "let's do X to the main deflector and solve everything" since more than likely, even if they could see a solution, they wouldn't have the time/resources to implement it and oh crap they die, time for the show to jump to the next cell and continue the storyline with them angrily vowing to avenge the deaths of the previous cell.

    I truly believe the only way you are going to get people to care about Star Trek is to force them to care about what happens on a show-by-show basis. As it currently stands, you know exactly when characters are going to enter/exit and so I think that it becomes that much harder to suspend disbelief. If the Maquis had no standing cast (just an interwoven series of appearances) and suddenly there is no magic save at the last possible second...characters actually die not just in some heroic "needs of the many outweigh needs of the few" way but just plain die because they were outgunned, outnumbered, tricked and trapped...then I think people would actually find Star Trek to be something they watch and care about. Not just "ho hum, I haven't watched the last X episodes but I know exactly what's going on and what's going to happen anyway."

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • Bravo!

    Best thing I've read in a while.

    I could actually hear that raspy, smoker's voice of Capn' Janeway as I read your log entry.

    +1 Funny +1 Interesting

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • That rocks!
    I'm glad to hear that there will be (yet) another StarTrek, I'm sure it's gonna be good (after the initial 10 episodes or so).
    Only thing I'm concerned about is the look fo the starships - the old one's looked crappy compared to the new slick ones, but they can hardly show stylish starships if this is supposed to be earlier than Next Generation...
    Also, will Seven of Nine appear? Please? I know the story-line would not allow it, but who ever followed the laws of physics and logis in ST anyway. So please, put Seven of Nine in this show as well. :)
  • That's it! Star Trek: H4x0r5...

    We could have all the "enlightened" federation ships running Linux 2100, each with their own customised bridge skins, constantly h4x0ring the Klingon ships which are running P'TACH!! (or however you spell it) 2000, which was designed by a direct descendant of one W. Gates, who defected to the Klingon side in 2017.

    Each show would climax with an illegal operation gag and the Klingon captain always finishes with the line: "I'd have succeeded if it weren't for that pesky Norwegian!"...



  • Either I missed the end, but I thought that the end was backing out of another holographic recreation and the guide saying how that was the beginning of amicable relationships among the two groups or something like that -- nothing about Harry Kim that I remember -- though it was a long time ago.

  • release the source code for their Starships' OS

    Who'd want that? Sure, voice recognition is nice, but the security is as bad as Windows 95. Anyone can just take over someone else's ship, without having to extort so much as a password from them.

  • First impulse is to say, "It's just a show."

    But the current producers have opened themselves up to these kinds of questions by publishing Tech Manuals and leaning more on the technology.

    I believe in Roddenberry's original conception, Star Trek was supposed to be modern mythology -- a program about moral dilemmas. The technology of the ship and the phasers and so forth was literally window dressing.

    Roddenberry didn't care about technical continuity, he cared about MORAL continuity.

    Modern fans threw out the original "spirit" of Trek and substituted it for a Star Wars Action Figure kind of Trek.

    There's really nothing WRONG with this, but we've grafted a technocentric view of entertainment onto a show that was never intended to be realistic.

    Complaining about "unrealistic transporter technology" in Star Trek is just as silly as complaining about "unrealistic character abilities" in Beowulf!

    I'd like to see a new series that started from a realistic tech base and copied Roddenberry's MORALITY.

    (I thought Roddenberry's morality was preachy and naive, but it was good television.)
  • ...is a Star Trek series about the Maquis. IMHO, they are a much cooler aspect because you have that whole "fighting uphill battle against impossible odds" things working for you. (A la Star Wars, rebels versus Empire).


    There was a Voyager episode on a few years back where the Doctor was transported to the Beta Quadrant after Voyager hacked into a communications net.

    Anyway, he was updated on the current Dominion war and other important news. After he cam back, Chakotay had to go around to the various ex-Maquis crew members to tell them that All the Maquis were killed after the Dominion takeover of Cardassia.
  • Should throw something in with computers to interest the geek community more. Open ports on the "Enterprise" Box that lets malichious klingons crack in and turn off the warp drive and poison the replicators. :)

    -Foxxz

  • Re:What it's going to need to be good. (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, 2000 @05:09PM (#1142860)
    Actually please leave the Novel writers to Novel writing. I will take a good sci-fi book over a movie or TV show anyday. I have read Snowcrash and Neuromancer multiple types and they always entertain me. You can imagine the VR in Snowcrash and the console cowboys in Neuromancer so clearly and vividly in your mind (though the Matrix special effects were pretty awesome). Read a book and you won't care if the next Trek lives or dies.

    On a seperate rant, sci fi like Trek is highly annoying. The writers should not try to explain how a highly advanced technology works. As Arthur C Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is virtually indistinguishable from magic." and that is how it should be. This technology does not exist so do not try to explain how it works. Star Trek is highly guilty of this sci fi sin. I prefer the Star Wars or Matrix or most sci fi book take, it just is. The Star Wars movies don't try to explain lightsabers or lightspeed (damn fans do but thats a whole different story), Matrix didn't try to explain why you die in the Matrix (one line...the body cannot live without the line DONE!), as most books do not try to explain how their magic works. If I want to know how something works, I'll take something real like O'Reilly books, Thank you very much!

  • Die voyager DIE (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:50PM (#1142861)
    Observe the Star Trek cycle:

    Original Series. Great concept, low budget, good cast ruined by W. Sh1tners terrible acting. He's a total ashole in real life btw.

    ST: Next Generation. Continued to have great concept, mostly excellent plots, this time the whole cast is excellent because ST is big name now. Also they get cash for special effects bought somewhere besides CVS.

    Deep Space 9. Mostly as good as Next Generation, finally get a Afro-american captain, even change the ship to a space station, but I think they tried to save money this time around, and the scripts werent as strong as ST:TNG's. Better than ST:TOS in general but starting to lose steam.

    Voyager. They put a woman in the command seat, which is all well and good except that Janeway's acting sucks. With a better actress maybe, but since the rest of the show is pretty sucky too, this one never had a chance (eg, the plots suck, the characters are lame, and they whine about the same stupid crap in every episode). It's fairly obvious they cut corners on every most aspects of this show and built the plot around the fact that they were just pumping in a little cash so they could whore the Star Trek name as cheap as possible (Delta quadrant==less extras, Female lead==glass ceiling, and the inside of their ship could fit in my backyard)

    Star Trek really died with Gene Roddenberry, bless his soul. Once the creative fire went out and the bean counters were put in charge, shit like Babylon 5 and Seaquest started to settle in. Thank god they died out.

    Since it looks like Star Wars and Star Trek have both had their blood thoroughly wrung from them for the sake of profit (SW:episode one was cock, admit it if you're over 6 years old, even if it had a couple visualy good scenes) I find myself wishing they would mess around with the V* concept a little more; some of those movies/episodes were really cool, and they haven't smooshed it to pulp yet.

    If the TV networks were really smart they'd realize that Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Niven, and company have been creating stuff that's so entertaining, PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ IT OUT OF BOOKS!

    I know a lot of Steven King has gone from book to video, why not Heinlein or Asimov whose books touch on things that might be important someday instead of just being "scary". Alfred Hitchcock's "the Birds" deserved to be made... "The Langoliers" was total crap. Someone needs to secretly replace the TV execs with Nerds and Geeks so we can get some decent SciFi on television.

    *V: for those who never saw V (pronounced vee) it was about a race of aliens who come to earth and give us medicine, technology, help us build industry etc, but it turns out (of course) that they are really evil reptile people wearing masks, who are farming us like cattle and shipping us back to their other worlds to be their meals. They also eat live birds and mice, and can interbreed with us. Somewhere between Star Trek and Alien Nation in terms of how good it was. I see it on TV every now and then; i think there's like 30 episodes, an hour each? not sure.

    PS the cycle I refered to in the title is, lowbudget_badacting/ highbudget_doitright/ decliningbudget_doitalmostright/ lowbudget_badacting. Hopefully an equilibrium closer to ST:TNG than Voyager will be reached, 'cause you know Star Trek is gonna get whored until our great grandkids are watching the reruns on payperview on Risa.

    Score 387, Insightful as Hell, and contains no sentiments which might in any way be construed as a troll or flamebait. M$ sux! linux rulez! open source forever! BANZAI!!!!

  • Federation security (Score:3)

    by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Monday April 10, 2000 @05:00AM (#1142862) Journal
    Lessse, the ship is taken over what, once a month, on average? And they let them run around with phasers, photon torpedoes, and whaterver else that week's plot needs (planet destroyers??? as a stock item???)

    These folks shouldn't be allowed deflectors, let alone weapons.

    And they've brought security through obscurity to new levels: oooh, an access code. Control any one federation ship, know where to look things up, and you can control them all.

    Kind of takes the fun out of collecting . . .

    And haven't these folks ever heard of an ignition key? No key, no warp drive?

  • Do a five-year arc Excelsior series! (Score:3)

    by Brian Kendig ( 1959 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @03:40PM (#1142863)
    Babylon 5 succeeded in spite of its bad acting and sometimes-cheesy plots. Why? Because it was a serial; it was telling a story from beginning to end. Unlike any of the Trek series, where all of the characters have to end an episode in the same way they began it, Babylon 5 was free to introduce new regular characters, kill off important ones, and change the universe in some really drastic ways. Unlike Voyager, where no one cares what the crew goes through from week to week because the Big Red Reset Button keeps being hit, B5 viewers enthusiastically tuned in every week so that they wouldn't miss anything, and one of the most fun pasttimes was to analyze previous episodes to figure out what would happen in future ones.

    The time period of an Excelsior series is rampant with possibilities. Space is being explored, but there's still a lot unknown out there; the Klingons are now our allies, but it's an uneasy truce at best; a lot of new technology is being developed, but it doesn't always work quite right. There's a lot of room for political intrigue, commando squads, tense standoffs, heroic bravery... the very sorts of things Hollywood loves these days. Throw in some marauders causing tensions between Starfleet and Klingon, add in some more of those high-ranking officials from Star Trek VI who believed the whole thing was doomed to fail, and there's your writers' bible for you.

    The problem with a 'Birth of the Federation' series is that it's going to annoy fans when they inevitably get the details wrong... and who cares about the big clunky starships which had pea-shooter-power phasers, anyway? At the other end of the scale you've got Voyager-era Trek, where people fiddle with time and reality on a regular basis so that nothing's sacred any more. The Excelsior era comes at an exciting time in Trek history, and there's not a lot canon about it yet; I really feel Paramount's making a grave mistake by not listening to its fans here.

  • Re:Pre Trek Technology (Score:3)

    by Erore ( 8382 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:24PM (#1142864)
    Please, oh please, oh please let there be no transporters.

    That is the death of all things good in science fiction. This is the ultimate technology and they have to keep coming up with reasons why it won't work to solve a particular problem in order to have a plausible stories.

    Hostages on the planet? No problem, beam them out.

    Hostiles on the ship, no problem beam them into bulk heads.

    Nano technology in the captain, beam out the circuits.

    Pimples, beam them off.

    Get rid of transporters, make it all like Space: Above and Beyond was and you will have a show I want to watch.

  • Re:Star Trek is not Real Sci-Fi (Score:3)

    by Erore ( 8382 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @03:56PM (#1142865)
    MSTK3000 was very funny.

    It was also supposed to be taken as funny, as implausible, etc.

    Star Trek, and other fantasy/sci-fi stories deal with the idea of a willing suspension of disbelief. They want you to accept them as plausible alternate realities. Not just as a show. A soap opera is the same way, they want you to believe.

    What that (willing suspension of disbelief) means is, I am going to show you something fantastic, that is different from the world as you know it. I cannot necessarily explain this fantastic thing and why it can exist, just know that it does. Just accept it. Once you do, everything else will make sense in relationship to that acceptance. Oh yeah, and that fantastic thing will actually make the world different in realistic ways.

    Examples: 1. There are two moons and nighttime is aslit up as a cloudy day. So, there is a thriving nightlife on this world because it is never really night. Construction, shopping, farming, whatever go on at all hours of the day. Society is changed in fundamental ways because of this. It is not ignored.
    2. Gravity on this planet is 1/4 of Earth's gravity. Changes you might see as a result of that in a place that is the equivalent of our 20th century might be hovercrafts instead of rolling cars, architecture that builds up more than out. More orbital traffic as the cost to launch is less. Extreme sports more extreme than we know of.
    3. A planet with two dominant, yet distinctly different species. Imagine a world in which there are humans, and city building lobsters in the oceans. Imagine the conflicts that arise from this about polluting, the hurricanes the lobsters make to turn over their underwater farmlands, a human society that couldn't explore the oceans because they would be killed by lobsters. No coastal cities unless they were heavily armed for defense against the lobsters. Or, if the races get along, imagine the underwater exploration that would be possible for humans, or the special niches on land the lobsters might be able to work. Imagine what the Olympics would be like between the two species?

    The Matrix is a great example of the willing suspension of disbelief. All you really have to accept is that, "You've been living in a dream world Neo." Everything else makes sense in relation to that one fantastic revelation. Everything except that damn kiss from Trinity.

    Space: Above and Beyond is great with the examples of the AI war and the Invitros. The fact that humans fought a war against their own artificial creations will make them leary of automation of too many processes and stay away from technologies that will lead to that. The fact that they made cloned humans led to eventual social, political, and spiritual situations that had to be, or were still being resolved, at the time of the story. Similar to Picard trying to get Data declared a human (or the Bicentennial Man), except you have thousands of clones who need some sort of acceptance and civil rights. Much like the blacks in America. Whether they were slaves at one time, or free people who had law given rights but not the ability to execute those rights, to a society that has nearly removed those barriers but because of the long history of blacks being second class now find it difficult to get the education or motives to move beyond the life that 100+ years of persecution have left them with. Did that sentence make sense?

    Anyway, Star Trek sucks because it rarely moves beyond the scope of the single show. If the crew of the Enterprise discover or invent a new technology, where is the ripple effect as that techonolgy moves throughout all of the Federation? If Geordie's warp engines are more efficient than any other, why don't people come study underneath him? If the Dyson's sphere is discovered, where the heck in the scheme of things will a metal sphere 1AU in diameter fit into the scheme of things?

    Anyway, I enjoy Star Trek. It is fun and entertaining. But if I was writing a novel or a screenplay, it is not the universe I would want to base it in.
  • A couple of months ago, I talked to Lolita Fatjo, and she said at the time that:

    1) They'd have to tell her about 18 months in advance of a new series.

    2) They hadn't told her yet.

    3) If they wanted to do one in fall of 2001 they'd have to start making public noises in a couple of months.

    Now here we are.

    Birth of the Federation was one of the ideas she mentioned as "not having been completely ruled out as too stupid" so I think we've got a pretty good chance that this thing is really gonna get off the ground.

    I think you're going to be disappointed on continuity, though. Remember, they have to basically pretend like all the technology in TOS didn't really look like it did, or this one would have to look REALLY crappy.

    I'd expect movie-era technology in terms of user interface, don't expect it to look even older than TOS.

  • Blake's 7 (Score:3)

    by Cally ( 10873 ) on Monday April 10, 2000 @04:09AM (#1142867) Homepage
    OK posting ridiculously late so no-one's ever going to read or moderate this but anyway --

    Blake's 7 [horizon.org.uk] was always much better than Star Trek, because

    • Permanent state of tension between the crew
    • The Federation (the galactic government) are the baddies. The main characters are outlaw freedom fighter types, and
    • The coolest computers /ever/ in TV or movie SF.

      And finally, 20 years on, they're going to film it [bbc.co.uk] :)



    --

  • Next Trek (Score:3)

    by rlp ( 11898 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:12PM (#1142868)
    Hey Paramount - want a good new ST series - let JMS (B5, Crusade) write / direct.

  • No, it will still suck. (Score:3)

    by mrsam ( 12205 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:59PM (#1142869) Homepage

    Well, here are my credentials: I have all 79 TOS episodes on videotape, and I could probably hold my own in any trek trivia contest. Having said that, I am completely confident that any new trek series will suck just as much as the current one.

    The only way that this new series could possibly not suck would be if all the writers suddenly got a reality check. The key difference between TOS episodes and all the rest of the bunch comes down simply to this concept called "writing", and I have very little hope that any one of the current crop of screenwriters can come any close to cranking out the same quality of stories that Gene Roddenberry, and the rest of the original gang, did back in the 60s.

    Now, taping those 79 original episodes, when they ran on the sci-fi channel, was quite an educational experience. I've seen all of them before, of course, but not recently. Before trek had its sci-fi run, the original episodes haven't been seen in years, and it was quite a perspective to see them again, after a decade, or more, of assorted trek spinoffs.

    The conclusion that I came away with, after seeing the TOS 79 again, was as following. The acting sucked, yes, and I don't think I need to go extrapolate any further. But the reason why TOS became the hit that it was was simply because it was one of the best damn-written TV shows that ever was. Sure, there were occasional fuckups, like "Spock's Brain", but on average, the story lines, the concepts, and the ideas behind each episode were fresh, unique, insightful, and after seeing the credits roll at the end you can't help but ponder, for a few moments, of the message behind each episode.

    Having said that, I've pretty much given up on Hollywood these days. I have very little hope that there's anyone left back there who can come up with anything on the same level again. Look at your average Voyager episode. Voyager is directly the opposite of TOS, in this case. Some episodes are pretty good and insightful, but, on average, the episodes are a complete waste, 40-some odd minutes of technobabble and gobbledygook, with gratuitous close-ups of whatsherface's ample curves. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but frankly I prefer doing the real thing with my g/f.
    --

  • Well now I have to pay up... (Score:3)

    by Pliny ( 12671 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:37PM (#1142870) Homepage
    My bet was that the next Trek series was gonna be Starfleet Academy: 90210...

    On the up side though, I won't have to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon...

    Personally, I think that if they're going to keep churning out Star Trek series, they should map them out more coherently (like a five year plan ala B5).

  • Fix the Fourth Act Problem (Score:3)

    by DHartung ( 13689 ) on Monday April 10, 2000 @06:02AM (#1142871) Homepage
    I've heard all the arguments in this thread before (I used to be a regular on Usenet). Voyager sucks, DS9 sucks, Paramount should let it die, yadda yadda yadda. Look, it's a property. As long as they can make money from it, they'll keep trying new series. Nobody's forcing you to watch.

    The basic problem I have with Star Trek, though, speaking as a loyal fan who thought that the best of TNG (e.g. Yesterday's Enterprise) measured up to the best of TOS, is that DS9 to some extent (which I initially liked very much for its somewhat darker world view) and Voyager much much more had this enormous problem with their fourth acts. They'd set up some wildly original premise, take you through a decent three acts of learning about it, then wrap it all up in lightning fashion, always too neat, always restoring the status quo ante, and bam! the show's over. I eventually stopped watching DS9 because I was tired of the war with the Delta Quadrant, and Voyager because every time I still liked a particular episode by the 45 minute mark, they would pull the rug out from under me and make me hate it in the last fifteen minutes.

    I think it's born of the paint-by-numbers script teams they use. I know writing for television is hard, and I know writing SF that's 100% consistent with 400 pre-existing episodes is a professional impossibility, but building a story formula/framework that's obvious as the scaffold around the Washington Monument isn't the answer. (Well, it made money, so I guess it was at some level.) I appreciate that they insisted that every story was in fact a human story, even if this tended to weaken the SF elements. Really, the stories weren't true SF; the SF elements were always inserted later. They'd use "tech tech tech" in the early drafts before Okuda or someone could insert appropriate polysyllabic words, but especially towards the end you could also see them inserting human emotions the same way. As a bit of a writer myself, I didn't appreciate being able to see the puppeteer's strings so easily.
    ----
  • Slashdot is hardly representative of the science-fiction watching public.

    Give me a break.

    Star Trek is about the only show that has consistently kept science fiction programming on mainstream television.

  • Re:Die voyager DIE (Score:3)

    by Shadow Knight ( 18694 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @05:07PM (#1142873) Homepage

    shit like Babylon 5



    This is probably gonna turn into flamebait by the end of it... You are a^H^H^H^H^H have never watched Babylon 5. That's the only conclusion I can draw... you don't otherwise seem like an idiot. Babylon 5 did NOT "die off," it ended, as planned by it's creator from the beginning. Maybe, if you'd only seen a couple episodes here and there, I could understand that you would think it was bad. Maybe. But the fact is that show ranks with anything written by the sci-fi masters. Now, you couldn't really tell that by watching any one episode: you have to see them all. Missing any is exactly like skipping a chapter in a book... of course it's going to be confusing! Anyway, just felt I had to defend the best thing that's ever been on American television (the best thing on television ever anywhere, of course, was/is Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, but that's another matter altogether...)


    Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity

  • Re:Needs a break, and new people (Score:3)

    by Tarnar ( 20289 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @05:09PM (#1142874) Homepage
    We all know what this is going to mean- more weird-ass vortexes, more mindless fights, more anomalies-of-the-week, and probably more women in catsuits. The Baywatch-ization of Star Trek will be complete

    And this is one of the reasons I have so much respect for JMS, the writer of Babylon 5 and Crusade. After the amazing success of the first 4 seasons of B5, another season and eventually a follow up season were created. However, the Powers That Be (TNT, the sponsoring channel) wanted to turn the show into "Baywatch In Space." He said 'fuck that' and chose to end Crusade to maintain his creative vision.

    And what a vision it had been. B5 was one of the most well written series I've ever seen. The character development was there, especially between Mulari and G'Kar. The first 4 seasons all intricately tied together. They even made a prequel movie 'In the Beginning', and it was good.

    The writers of Star Trek could learn a thing or twenty.

  • Re:Hurrah! The least worst solution! (Score:3)

    by Monte ( 48723 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:47PM (#1142875)
    And to CmdrTaco: Star Trek is NOT a dead horse!!!

    Alas, too true. It's an evil undead vampiric corruption zombie hell-horse, that needs a stake through the heart, decapitation with the body quartered and sent to the four corners of the earth, a holy wafer put into the mouth of the head with the lips then sewn shut with black silk thread and then buried at a crossroads during a full moon.

    But that's just my opinion.

    And Voyager is still UPNs highest rated show.

    Talk about damning with faint praise...

  • This is really interesting (Score:3)

    by Markonen ( 56381 ) <markoNO@SPAMkarppinen.fi> on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:35PM (#1142876)
    Really, the birth of the Federation is hands down the most interesting thing in the whole Star Trek universe. It is something we can, and should, take into account when forming the society of the 21st century.

    After all, Paramount will soon reveal how the good people of the Federation erased war, famine, illness, indecency and leisure clothing from the known universe. Isn't that something we should all look forward to?

  • I Like It (Score:3)

    by Super_Frosty ( 82232 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:24PM (#1142877)
    I disagree with you. I think that this promises to be an interesting series - after all, I never knew how the Federation was born.

    I hope they can give it an interesting plot, because some of the series were lacking.

    Original ST - misfits exploring galaxy
    ST:TNG - greater emphasis on politics, technology
    ST:DS9 - overemphasis on politics, boring plot (like a sitcom)
    ST:VOYAGER - absurd plot

  • she can't take it anymoooore! (Score:3)

    by boodhakhan ( 83329 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:33PM (#1142878)
    (thick scottish accent) i've done everything i could captain but she can't take anymore! Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!

  • Oh Joy (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @04:13PM (#1142879) Homepage Journal
    Another few seasons of forehead aliens (I've got lines on my forehead so I'm an alien!) and crappy writing, where all the galaxy's problems can be solved 1) With some modification to the Transporters, 2) With some modification to the Holodeck or 3) Some modification to the warp coils. Usually in the last 5 minutes of the show.

    Star Trek is schlock sci-fi at its worst. A throwback to the 1950s, when the audience lived for the hero to use his rocket pack or his laser pistol. The characters rarely have any depth, the writers feel they have to constantly preach at us and it gets really hard to suspend my disbelief when I'm asked to allow for successful interbreeding between a species with a copper based metabolism and one with an iron based one. Anyone who's been through high school biology would have a tough time swallowing that one.

    You don't have to look too far to find excellent sci-fi these days. Babylon 5 was good and Farscape has some of the best writing I've seen in years. If you're of a surreal mind, Red Dwarf seems to still be running and can be frequently found on PBS. Just let Star Trek die while the franchise still has some semblance of dignity.

  • So who are the viewers? (Score:3)

    by JamesSharman ( 91225 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:29PM (#1142880)
    I've just had flick through some of the earlier posts and it'd obvious that this item is going to be full of 'nobody wants it', 'flogging a dead hours', 'enuf already' etc.. For the most part I agree, yet another startrek series is the last thing I want to see, and I would never go out of my way to watch it. The fact however remains that whilst viewing figures have declined since the height of next-gen but there are still a lot of people watching it.

    So I ask the question who is actually watching it if everybody hates it?

  • The Fate of Voyager (Score:3)

    by kcarnold ( 99900 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:31PM (#1142881)
    You couldn't pay me Bill Gates's wealth to remember the name, but I do remember one Voyager episode in which the Doctor (a hologram, if you never watched Voyager) is found among the Voyager wreckage on some planet, several hundred years after what is probably the end of the series. This confirms that Voyager doesn't make it back home, but if I remember it right, there's nothing saying that her crew did not escape unharmed. Also, I don't think they gave a location for the planet, so it could have been quite close to home.

  • Hurrah! The least worst solution! (Score:3)

    by rm-r ( 115254 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:26PM (#1142882) Homepage
    Well, I have to say that all of the ideas for new Trek episodes have been dodgy in some repect, espcially the academy one (nononononono;) I'm pleased to see that the Birth of the federation shall be covered, I think that all fans will be interested to see stories from this time period (and First Contact is my fave ST film) The only worry I have is if they mess up timelines or have cheesily stupid things like having a young Kirk turn up (Hopefully the writers shall be made to watch the Phantom Menace continually- until they get the idea of what not to do!) I've got to say I'm glad to see that the Voyager turkey is definately to be put to bed, Janeway and co. as crew mostly stink- I only care for the doctor really- and the writers have really got stuck in a rut. Hopefully some new writing talent will get a chance in the new series, Will Riker to direct though hopefully!!!

  • When will they realize...? (Score:3)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:50PM (#1142883) Homepage

    The two most popular of the series were the original (because there was nothing to compare it to) and the Next Generation. Why was TNG good? It had nothing to do with the premise, except that the show's premise left it open to *any* plotline for a show. You tuned in not knowing what the story was going to be about.

    You see, with Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, each episode follows the previous. I don't want to get hooked on another Trek soap opera - I want a series!

    Oh, and it would be nice if the core Trek audience - you know, us geeks - could actually admire the captain in the show. Bring back the swashbuckling captain! To h*ll with the prime directive! Punch it to Warp 9, not Warp 6! Diplomacy is when you shoot first, and throw the survivors in the brig! Come on! Bring back the spirit of Roddenberry! - end_rant

  • Re:No, it will still suck. (Score:3)

    by MrBogus ( 173033 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @04:13PM (#1142884)
    Lets try that again... As for "good writing", I think that might be a little too generic of a solution to really be much of a suggestion. (Ignoring the obvious examples of about 1/3 of DS9 and 3/4 of Voyager episodes.) What made the original show interesting was an almost single-minded focus on a small number of core characters. The characters had to be complex and strongly written. Furthermore, the plots were almost always conflict-driven, which allowed the acting and writing to reflect more extreme emotions. One thing you notice about the original show is that there is almost no focus on the technology. Things like warp drive, transporters, and phasers are treated like totems and never explained (which is odd for science-fiction). Compare this to the modern shows where the engineers will have a 5 minute discussion on how to reverse the polarity of the tacheon beam pulse. Boring. And one way that the "fans" with their endless technical manuals and letters pointing out minor inconsistencies really have made the shows dull. Another 'problem' is plainly demographics. The original show had an audience that was 90% male. The "Star Trek Lives" period of the 70s was 99.9% male. The first couple seasons of Next Generation had a 90% male audience. It was only when Star Trek V found a cross-over female audience did the franchise really stumble on something. Next Gen softened the plots and their audience doubled with a huge influx of female viewers. Voyager has pretty much took this trend to the logical extent a couple years ago, to the point where you almost expected everyone to start talking about their menstrual cramps or something. Sometime ago I saw some interesting graffiti on a subway train: "Less Jaw Jacking and more Butt Kicking on New Star Trek". At this point, that's the only way the can save the franchise -- more action-oriented plots, stronger characters, and more of a play to the hardcore (mostly male) audience. The Soap Opera In Space idea has pretty much run out of gas.

  • Star Trek:TNG (Score:4)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:48PM (#1142885)
    First, I just wanna say that I'd rather see re-runs of Dr. Who on my local stations again. They used to be on PBS/OPB in Portland until about six years ago. Seems like it's only in a few markets these days. Ten times better than any of the StarTrek series, in my opinion.

    Anyway . . .

    I'm not a big StarTrek fan to begin with. I'll watch an episode every few months, but I don't even turn on the tube on a weekly basis, let alone to watch any of the various Star Trek versions.

    The only StarTrek I really ever got into was The Next Generation. This seems to be a rather unpopular choice, but something about the characters and the interaction and the in-depth characters (but not too deep) made it compelling enough that I'll even watch an occasional re-run of it if it happens to be on late at night.

    A lot of the success of each version of spin-off appears to sit with the cast of characters. It's a hit or miss operation and I don't think there's any way to really pre-define it. Everything since TNG has catered to a corny mix of some type of alien guy, some type of hot-but-not-human-female, some unemotional (or incapable of emotion, but attempting) form of life (such as Spock, Data, Otto), at least one minority (only a complaint because they seem to so painfully cater to the need for a minority character instead of really allowing them a full, rich, robust character of whatever race with a true purpose and utility to the show), a woman in power, a Klingon, a Vulcan and an overly intelligent kid.

    I think the Federation idea is an interesting one. I've sort of grown tired of the tedious "ship out in space finding stuff" plot-lines and wouldn't mind seeing something sort of like "The West Wing" done StarTrek style.

    By the way, you have to love 'The Doctor's pitches for potential series ideas in the end of the article.

    All in all, you know that half of the known world is going to tune into the first episode, no matter what. Half of that will return for the next episode. Half of that will probably hang around for a year or two. And maybe, if the show is extremely well done, half of those people will stick around through the series.

    I'll probably be one of the guys who catches a few episodes and then forgets what night the show is even on.

    Heh. I like the Linux idea though. "Captain Tux, I have the Cardassian ship on hailing frequencies."
    ---
    icq:2057699
    seumas.com

  • Star Trek is not Real Sci-Fi (Score:4)

    by Erore ( 8382 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:51PM (#1142886)
    If Star Trek is science fiction, I can only say that it is bad science fiction. Entertaining yes, but still bad science fiction.

    It has no consitency what so ever. In fact, there are books and websites about the blunders in Star Trek and how it contradicts itself.

    Why don't ground troops have personal shields on them to stop them from being killed?

    Why aren't transporters used in a million imaginative ways instead of merely moving people from place to place? At the very least I can think of a few episodes in which bad guys should have been beamed into the nearest boulder to get rid of them.

    Why are all the star ships a single vessel and that's it? What happened to carrier groups, convoys, and escorts? Sure would make them a lot more powerful force to deal with.

    Going into battle I better have about 30 Defiant style vessels around my Galaxy class star ship for offensive bang. At the very least, 30 shuttle craft with phasers. Think of the Argo from Starblazers.

    Why do the vessels take so few hits to be destroyed? Hit one, shields to 60%, hit 2 down to 20%, hit three phasers out torpedo bays jammed, my multizillion dollar ship is now useless. Where is my convoy/escort/defiant ship to save me?

    Why does every single freakin circuit have triple redundancy? Do you know how expensive that is? Not just in materials, but time, design, labor, maintenance, space, etc.

    How can Geordi know everything about engineering? I mean, we have specialists now who are brilliant but only have the time to specialize. They can't know things about other fields. The world is only going to get more technologically complex. Geordi will know even less outside his area, and his area will be even more narror. Like warp coils for only a Galaxy class ship. That's it.

    Yes, just a general rant about Star Trek and how implausible it is. I still enjoyed the heck out of it. Reason, because I enjoy seeing the human underdogs finding a way to win.

    Best science fiction I've seen in years was Space: Above and Beyond. So much better because it had real military, real politics, real characters with real relationships and problems, and an actual background that made sense. The AI wars, the Invitros, etc. Very interesting stuff.

    Babylon 5, from my understanding, was similar. I could never catch enough episodes of it to get it make sense to me.

    The Matrix was great. There is a lot of depth there if you care to see it.

  • Space Above and Beyond -- no, Twilight Zone! (Score:4)

    by orpheus ( 14534 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @06:05PM (#1142887)
    "Get rid of transporters, make it all like Space: Above and Beyond was and you will have a show I want to watch."

    You raise a very interesting point. Pre-Federation implies pre-"Pax Galaxia". The Earth-allied and -opposed forces would probably be dealing on parallel military/"UN-type" lines. I'd like to see realistic portrayal of the military -- and the rest of society (a very weak point in all the previous series, where non-Federation life was sketchy at best!)

    Since the founding of the Federation would be imminent, Earth and the known civilizations would probably be in a postwar or post cold-war state not dissimilar to the current world situation.

    I believe that a strong reality-based comparison to current politics could be compelling (well, by ST standards, anyway). They would have their Balkan situation, their third world issues, their period of rapidly exploding technilogy, new open trade frontiers, etc. Among the good points of TOS was how it addressed the sentiments of the era. (I was a very precocious pre-schooler when the original series aired, and loved it. by the time I was 11-12, I thought it was boing geek-fodder. I liked SF, and this wasn't it! It was nicely mainstream "speculative" fiction in its original timeframe, and only the 'big issue' episodes retained their real appeal beyond the 60's)

    Change #1: Centralize the Red Shirt
    The unfamiliar face on the Bridge used to die by the opening credits. I hope the new series has the brains to make the Red Shirt the central character of many episodes, so they can explore the new world (and by reflection, our own) from many vantage points. Episodes might open with an unfamiliar face who was a political refugee, a restauranteur struggling against 'the new Mafia' after the demise of an authoritarian regime, a new-tech entrepreneur, etc.

    I'd even go so far as to make the ensemble peripheral, so the show resembled Twilight Zone (to cite an example contemporary to TOS) more than the closed universe of TOS.

    No, they'll never do it. It's too big a break from the original franchise. But I sure think that this could be a genuinely interesting show. I'd be surprised and pleased if they even went as far as JAG, Law and Order, or ER. (all of which I very much enjoy, but are admittedly rather insular)

    I guess there is a tremendous appeal to the strong ensemble cast, and it might be a real risk to fight it, but I think even the myopic ST writers have been feeling the contraints of the "strong ensemble" since TOS. That's why they were so many 'breakaway' episodes (sometimes called showcase episodes) following one or two characters away from the 'main base' for the entire show.

    If any ST:BoF writers are reading: don't showcase existing characters when you need a change of pace. The fact that you need to change is a sign that perhaps you've gone too far in the wrong direction. 'Showcases' have been among the weakest episodes.

    Imagine you had to introduce a new 'major character' think of what you could say and do -- you'd never need a change of pace. The Federation is a very Big Place. Now subtract the 'excuse' -- the new character doesn't have to become a permanent character (semi-recurring might be a nice touch for continuity)

    You promised us a universe. Show it to us. Follow a black marketeer, a young person oppressed by a regime (Taliban, Red Chinese, politics of your choice) that they don't hate (or didn't until now) and which is part of a culture they love, a corrupt official who is human not evil, a subsistence farmer looking for help with an irrigation project (or trying to get last century's flood-plain destroying eco-disaster of a mega-dam removed, so the land can return to its original cycles of renewal)

    Show us real soldiers, real civilians. Steal from the best episodes in all of television history. there *were* some good points) but do it in a framework that is loose enough that it doesn't require gimmicks to justify the plot. No holodecks -- just thye multiplicity of life in a big universe where the pre-Federation is just the government, not the raison d'etre

    Show us characters that are sincere enough to make us think, even if we decide they are wrong.

    __________

  • What I wanna see... (Score:4)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:08PM (#1142888)
    ...is a Star Trek series about the Maquis. IMHO, they are a much cooler aspect because you have that whole "fighting uphill battle against impossible odds" things working for you. (A la Star Wars, rebels versus Empire).

    Plus, it would be a snap to enter major characters from previous Treks by having them either confront or join the Maquis. In fact, IIRC, the second Riker (Tom Riker or whatever his name way...the transporter clone) was already a member of the Maquis and stole a ship for them in the Deep Space 9 series. Riker would definitely be a big enough name to launch a series and it would be completely plausible (if you can overlook the whole cloning thing to begin with...heheheh).

    Plus, having poorly equipt, poorly funded rebels fighting some big, big enemy would mean lots of ppl die in battle, so unpopular characters could die and popular characters could get promoted to the "behind the scenes" work back in the safety of the home bases.

    The only question is who they would fight? Dominion would have been my first pick, maybe Maquis has evidence they lied at the end of DS9 and are fighting to prove they are planning a massive strike? Or the Federation is anxious to make friends with the Romulans, but the Maquis can't forgive past attrocities? It would be really cool if the Borg could come back and utterly wipe out the Federation, then all that would be left is the Maquis...but after the crap that Voyager has been handing us (Children of the Borg my f'ing ass) I don't know if I could stomach anything besides the kick-ass 99% unstoppable TNG-era Borg.

    Just my wishes...who am I kidding? I'll end up watching it just the same. I just hope that they haven't yet invented holodeck techonology because if I see one more F'ing "Fairhaven" or "Dixon Hill" episode I'll hunt down Rick Berman and "deck" him myself.
    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-

  • Hurts to admit this, but... (Score:4)

    by grarg ( 94486 ) <grarg AT lesinge DOT org> on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:39PM (#1142889) Homepage
    ...it's rare enough that I've seen any Trek episode that I didn't find some way entertaining or at even had to resist the urge the urge to flip onto something else. The plots have varied over time between bland and phenomenal, but Trek at its best can be no less riveting than the X-Files, First Wave, Millenium or whatever. For the most part, the plots teeter on the bland edge but it's never bad TV and you don't feel your IQ going down the toilet as you watch it.

    Granted, each of the latter series have their characters you just want to strangle (Wesley Crusher, Jake Sisko, Neelix...) but, by and large, there's a lot worse shit out there that I could be watching (This is beginning to sound very half-hearted ;-] ).

    Having said all that, a fifth Trek might be pushing it. DS9's last episode was aired on this side of the Atlantic last Monday by Sky, and it left a huge hole open for the almost inevitable DS9 movie. Movies I could just about take; the series, no. Sorry lads...



  • Just let it die (Score:4)

    by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:26PM (#1142890) Journal
    I wish they'd just admit that the Star Trek series is pretty much obsolete, and release the source code for their Starships' OS.

  • What it's going to need to be good. (Score:4)

    by Paul Maud'Dib ( 135044 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:45PM (#1142891) Homepage
    Star Trek has been in a steady decline ever since the end of TNG. Deep Space Nine, while entertaining, just didn't live up to the Star Trek legend. The thing I always loved most about Star Trek was that it was real science fiction. It wasn't the ray gun popsci that Star Wars, nor the '2 hour long music video' that The Matrix was. Instead, Star Trek chose to concentrate much more on the philosophical and human implications of a highly advanced future. Episodes like 'The City on the Edge of Forever' will never leave me. After all these years 'The Wrath of Kahn' still sends chills down my spine...

    And here is the problem which Paramount is only exacerbating in a desperate attempt to save the franchise. DS9 was dying: solution throw in a huge war story arc and Ezri Dax. Voyager's always had problems, mostly because of poor beginning charachter development. Solution: Seven of Nine. Did Either of these solve the basic problem? My resounding answer is NO! They only upped ratings a bit, they did not attempt to fix the inherrent flaws.

    If this new series is to succeed Paramount is going to have get back to the basics. They need to plan it well from the beginning to avoid the poor charachters which have plagued Voyager. And, most importantly, bring in some good writers. They need to search the sci-fi genre and pay good money to good writers. If they could bring together a group of some of the best writers of today (David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Neal Stephenson to name a few) to just start the series and get some good original ideas it would be much more likely to succeed. It might be too late, but Star Trek seems to be the only way to get good Sci-Fi into mainstream television these days.

  • 60's Style Outfits or better? (Score:4)

    by Hates ( 168348 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:20PM (#1142892) Homepage
    Does this mean a return of the kewl origianl 60's style clothing? Or are we talking about earlier styles? Seem weird if we go from flash looking suits of "pre" federation outfits to the kookie outfits of the original Star Trek... Well anyways... my first post ever and my $2

  • How to a milk a brand name 101 (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:30PM (#1142893)
    Look, if they want milk a popular brandname like nobody's business (till the cows come home?), they should call the new series:

    Star Trek: Linux

  • Alternate Series Ideas (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:55PM (#1142894)
    A number of Possibilitis for a new Star Trek Series have been mentioned over time over at http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com [aint-it-cool-news.com] (Search for "star trek" in quotes)

    My personal favorite, one that paramount apparently did not follow up on is as follows:

    [ This was apparently pitched to paramount, who turned it down (I guess it had too much potential)]

    The basic premise is a show based in the Star Trek Universe, set in the time period AFTER the fall of the Federation. And Everything has gone to HELL. (let your imagination run wild)

    Enter one Star Ship, which has some how been a stasis for up to 500 to 1000 years - so that the Star Trek federation is a faint memory at best.

    the goal is to rebuild what was lost, and which everyone now believes to be a fairy tale.

    They do have superior technology, but they are all ALONE. If they blow it, that is it.

    We as the audience, know what was lost, along with the Star ship crew. but no one else does.

    This has potential. Too bad paramount threw it away.

  • Aww, no more Voyager (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:11PM (#1142895)
    Let me guess...

    Captains Log, Stardate May 2001: Following seven years of dim-witted new age sentimentality, our crew is exhausted. The power crystals have run out, the incense is getting stale, and the spirit guides seem to be out of whack [memo to Chakotay, run a level 3 diagnostic on the spirit guides]. Torres can't keep the bullshit compensators running for more than five minutes at a time, and Paris' smarmy "I love the 20th century" schtick is wearing thin with even the dullest executives at Paramount.

    There also seems to be a curious shortage of wormholes, Borg pods, energy readings, warp fields, or anything else interesting enough to merit further episodes. After seven years in the Delta quadrant, we can confirm our worst fears: Space is really fucking boring.

    Neelix finally died from his own food poisoning, and we ejected him out the photon torpedo tubes into a primitive planet. The inhabitants are now suing us for flagrant violation of the Prime Directive, reckless endangerment, illegal dumping, and unlicensed disposal of toxic waste. Tuvok is heading up our defense, though we may have to plea bargain it down. There's no denying that Neelix, dead or alive, was toxic waste.

    Seven of Nine has received several offers from other ships in the area. Apparently our "Borgorific" crewman was all that saved our ship from premature self-destruction, although I'd like to think that the mature, articulate and charming captain had something to do with it...

    [Memo to self: put that buxom bitch in the brig. New standing order: no one with bigger tits than me is allowed on this ship!]

    One of our crew, I believe his name is Harry Kim, though I admit I can barely remember him. Some officers are so... forgettable. Anyway, this guy Harry said that we might be able to extend the mission by dropping a "monkey wrench" [memo to self: Throw that bastard Paris and his damn 20th century idioms in the brig with the Borg] into the main deflector. He thinks that the disaster and suspense would be good for a few more episodes, at least. Frankly, I don't see how any monkey could save us now, unless we get a few more of them typing out our scripts. Sooner or later, they're bound to come up with a "Hamlet"- or at least a "Welcome Back Kotter"-quality episode. If only we had sixty-three more years before getting back to the Alpha-quadrant. Goddamn that Quantum Slipstream Drive. Goddamn it to hell....

    The Delta Flyer is in the repair shop, and "Joe," an eight-legged slug beast (and mechanic) said, "Whoever put these stupid dials and switches in your 24th century space hot rod was an idiot. This'll take at least two weeks to set right." Briefly, we on the Voyager hoped this would grant a repreive from the producers' axe, but alas, the Delta Flyer, like so many other Voyager props, proved to be entirely disposable.

    [memo to Tuvok: don't pay that alien anything. Goddamn invertebrate labor. Memo to self: next time find a humanoid repairman. There's plenty of them here in the Delta quadrant, 70 years at maximum warp from Earth. Plenty of humanoids...]

    We've committed ourselves to running at maximum warp for as long as possible. The end of Voyager may be inevitable, but those producers aren't nearly as intelligent as those sentient smart bombs we outwitted. Hell, they put us on the air, didn't they? It seems that no matter how hard we try, we can't just push a little button and make the ending a happy one. Our situation is desperate, we must think of a way... any way... to survive...

    On a lighter note, the EMH is up and running, and is giving the crew liberal doses of methamphetamines, to cheer them up after wasting seven years of their careers talking about verterons, antineutrinos, and species 8472.

    [memo to Chakotay: that lizard spirit thingy is talking to me again, what's up with that? memo the the EMH: Screw the methamphetamines. Scoth, on the rocks. Make it a double....]

    End of log.

  • What I learned from watching Star Trek (Score:5)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @06:02PM (#1142896)
    Space is a very dangerous place:
    • The galaxy is so full of space-time anomalies that you cannot really describe them as anomalous.
    • The galaxy is full of beings that are somehow exempt from the laws of physics.
    • The galaxy is full of beings that have evolved to eat starships. (One wonders what their ancestors ate.)
    • The galaxy is full of beings that have evolved to seduce starship captains.
    • The galaxy is full of intelligent species that are just like humans, except for strange growths on their heads and one dimensional personalities.
    • The galaxy is full of bad fashion designers.
    • The galaxy is remarkably devoid of life forms not mentioned above, such as plants and (especially) non-intelligent animals.
    But Star Fleet is ready to take it on:
    • Star Fleet is full of captains eager to take on tasks best left for Assault Marines.
    • Star Fleet is full of captains who regularly do things that ought to get them court marshalled, but who are never called to account if they manage to save their hides by sheer luck.
    • Star Fleet is extraordinarily lax about things like ship security and quarantine.
    • Star Fleet uses crews of 400 when only 10 are needed, because 390 can be expected to be eaten by monsters or otherwise lost due to their captains' carelessness during a four year voyage.
    • Star Fleet uses an odd computer technology that spews smoke and sparks rather than giving the customary sort of error messages.
    • Star Fleet has a remarkably short attention span. Space-time anomalies, habitable planets, new intelligent species, godlike beings, you name it - they all go dutifully down in the log book, but otherwise draw shockingly little interest from the crew or even the scientists (other than as yet another trap to escape).
    • Star Fleets military and exploratory vessels have accomodations that would be the envy of luxury liners. And corridors wide enough to march down eight abreast.


    --

  • Needs a break, and new people (Score:5)

    by MatriXOracle ( 33400 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:24PM (#1142897) Homepage
    Star Trek is in serious trouble. Paramount knows this, and they are desperate to fix it and see it riding high once again. The only problem is, they don't know how to do this, and the people they are relying on to save this franchise are the same people who dug it into its current hole in the first place, namely Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

    Right now, Star Trek is at pretty much its lowest point since the 70s, when there was no series at all. The last movie was a disappointment, both critically and commercially, Voyager ratings are a pale shadow of what they were in early seasons (they're stable compared to last year, but that's only because they really can't go down very much more). Hell, today came the news [trekweb.com] that Kate Mulgrew's fan club has shut down. Granted this seems to be for personal reasons on the part of the founders, but the symbolism is profound. The fan club of the actress who plays the captain on a Star Trek show- noted for the dedication of its fans- is no longer. Pathetic.

    Birth of the Federation sounds to me like an unbelievably stupid idea. Anybody who knows about Star Trek already has a pretty good idea of what happened back then. And frankly, we don't really care. Brannon Braga has never been noted for his dedication to consistency within the Star Trek universe, so now he's going to bring in a time-travel guy so he can fuck things up. We all know what this is going to mean- more weird-ass vortexes, more mindless fights, more anomalies-of-the-week, and probably more women in catsuits. The Baywatch-ization of Star Trek will be complete. But hell, even if they want more of an action focus, the Special Forces concept would be cooler than this.

    I think it's time for Paramount to realize what alot of other people already have: the time has long since come for Braga and Berman to move on. The franchise needs a break. Finish Voyager, then just let it sit for a bit. Then call in some fresh blood, or some veteran blood that knows what it's doing. Ronald D. Moore's recent articles [fandom.com] on Fandom show that he is a man who understands the franchise's problems and he has a pretty good idea how to fix them. He is one of the key people responsible for one of Star Trek's few recent successes, the final season of Deep Space Nine, which was brilliantly done. Moore would be the perfect candidate to resurrect Star Trek.

    Obviously I haven't seen Birth of the Federation so I can't make any final judgments. But I'm definitely not optimistic. Having a Star Trek series cancelled in its first season would be a huge embarrasment and the biggest insult yet to a franchise that's already been largely stripped of its dignity. But having it die might be the only way to save it in the long run.

  • Interesting reading different people's comments. I especially love the ones that start: "They broke what made Star Trek great. What I really loved was..." The basic flaw in that line of reasoning is: a) most of you have no idea what it was about Star Trek that made it work for you, or you'd be writing your own series and b) what made it work for you is almost certainly the one thing that someone else hated.

    Personally, I think it just doesn't matter. The basic problem that Star Trek has isn't acting or writing or special effects or evil execs. It's us.

    The fans are really quite blood-thirsty at times, and that has to be difficult to deal with. Not in terms of ego, or hurt feelings, but in terms of audience. When the most vocal part of your audience decries everything you do, you can't assess what you should do.

    This is why the series that succede in the fans eyes are always the new upstarts. They have no expectations, so the fans judge them, pretty much, at face value (as examples: Babylon 5, Farscape, X-Files). What Star Trek needs is to back off and wait a few years, but the franchise can't afford that, so they'll plow forward with what the focus groups tell them is hated least, and we'll get the blandest possible thing with a lot of things blowing up, and just enough skin to keep the football-aint-on-yet, channel-surfing, what-the-hell-is-this-shit-with-the-fucked-up-fore heads crowd happy.

    They could try being truely daring, and do something that will piss off half of the fans and galvenize the rest into advocates who will pull in the next generation of fans, but that won't fly with the shareholders.

    In the end, Trek is dead because fans and studios can't work together. It's both of us that did it, but we'll keep pointing fingers until the last show spits up blood. Of course, then we'll just say: look what you did....

  • Live from the premier! (Score:5)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <{ajs} {at} {ajs.com}> on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:17PM (#1142899) Homepage Journal
    UPN's Entertainment President Tom Noonan made the announcement during a meeting with advertisers. He promised a "surprising conclusion" and a "smashing finale" to the show, which is UPN's longest-running series.


    Jenette: Yes, that was the press release from six months ago when it was first annonced that Star Trek: Voyager was comming to an end. Who could have predicted the fan reaction, and outpouring of support. As yet, Paramount has not changed its mind on ending the series, but here at Multi-Mega Theater in Burbank California, a public simulcast of the finale has just finished airing, and folks are just starting to get out. Let's go chat with a few.

    [pause while she manuevers over to a teenager with reddish hair poking out from under his Klingon skull-cap]

    Jenette: Well young man, what did you think of the conclusion of Star Trek: Voyager?

    [The boy looks a bit dazed as he slowly realizes that he's been asked a question]

    Kid#1: Uh... woah. I really didn't expect the 328 product placements for modern products in a futuristic series.

    Jenette: You counted?

    Kid#1: [Starting to get his bearrings] Oh yeah, I got it all here on my padd [waves Palm VII] Some of the highlights were: Bill Gates making a personal appeal to the public to block the breakup of Microsoft (they snuck that in with Data's cameo when he's doing research on historical precidents for the Drakh Plague, er Borg Virus); 22 different sodas and 32 beers lined up in a long, slow pan during the holodeck sequence; 15 ...

    Jenette: Thanks, son. And you, miss? What did you think?

    [A late teens, college girl walks up, wiping away a tear]

    Girl#1: I... I can't believe it. I always knew that the captain and Chakotay had a thing going on, but I didn't think you could hide being pregnant that well. And, wow, for the little guy to be accepted into Star Fleet as soon as they returned, that was just... like... wow.

    Jenette: [Looking a bit perplexed] Ok... thanks. Um, you sir! What did... Oh! Mr Nimoy, I didn't even know you were here. What did you think of the final episode of the third Star Trek series?

    Nimoy: Actually, it's either the fourth or the fifth, depending on whether or not you count the animated series, but either way, I just want to say that any remaining chance that I would be willing to reprise my, now famous role as Mr. Spock, was just jettisoned with Voyager's trash.

    Jenette: You mean you didn't like it?

    Nimoy: No, my contract as director of Star Trek IV: Whales in Space restricts me from saying that, but I can say that Vulcans, as I understand them, have never had a propensity for walking around noting how everything has this or that historical connection to a 21st century web-site. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Gene had never envisioned a Vulcan easing the tension of Pan-Far by visiting www.hot-nekkid-chicks.com

    Jenette: Well, there you have it. Mixed reviews, but clearly a Star Trek episode that will be talked about for years to come. Back to you, Harve.

  • Re:YES YES YES (Score:5)

    by peengers ( 140033 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @02:30PM (#1142900)
    Indeed. As much as I liked seeing the resident Borgess bounce around in her skin tight uniform, I'd have to say that It's About Time for the crew of the U.S.S. Politically Correct to get permanent shore leave. I'm not opposed to a series about the beginnings of the federation. I'm just curious if the guy in the off-color uniform will die and the ship's captain will wear a girdle. Just for christs sake don't make the captain a gay black female shaman.

  • OOG NO NEED STAR TREK SPINOFFS!!! (Score:5)

    by OOG_THE_CAVEMAN ( 165540 ) on Sunday April 09, 2000 @01:19PM (#1142901)
    OOG NEVER LIKE STAR TREK, BUT IF OOG DID LIKE IT AT ONE POINT HE COULDNT TELL ANYMORE!!! STUPID COMPANIES KEEP TRY MILK STAR TREK FOR ALL IT WORTH, WITHOUT FOCUSING ON QUALITY OR WHAT MADE IT POPULAR AND GREAT!!! NEXT GENERATION WAS TOLERABLE, BUT CRAP LIKE DEEP SPACE NINE AND VOYAGER WASTE OF TIME!!! ALL THOSE SHOWS RUIN ANY NAME STAR TREK HAD AND JUST SIMPLY TO MAKE QUICK BUCK WITHOUT ANYTHING ORIGINAL!!! ORIGINAL SERIES WAS BEST, JUST WATCH OLD EPISODES INSTEAD OF WASTING TIME WITH THIS!!! STAR TREK SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DIE WITH DIGNITY, NOT LIVE ON IN BASTARDIZED FORM!!! OOG BREAK HEAD!!!

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