Something Simon said in another thread made me think. TNG was popular. Really really popular. Almost to the level of TOS popular, and for many young people much more so. I know several people who will knock Star Trek as being sad and geeky and yet also admit to watching TNG when they were younger and saying it was "quite good". Non fans know who Data is. Non fans know who the Borg are. Non fans went in fairly good numbers to see First Contact.
The question is, why was it so popular? In hindsight, it did have a tendancy to be a bit boring and talky. I have trouble seeing how stuff like, ooh, "The Masterpiece Society" kept the viewers watching. And while I do think that the actors on TNG were really good, compare a dialogue scene between, say, Riker and Geordi to one between O'Brien and Bashir. Somone (possibly Moore) compared writing stuff like that. He said with TNG chats, he often struggled to ge tthe characters to say anything in a realistic way when there wasn't an emergency to talk about, whereas with the DS9 lot he often found himself writing pages and pages without realising it.
And then, obviously, the SFX were a bit naff. The fight at the beginning of "The Wounded" doesn't exactly get the pulse racing.
Even compare the sets. Roddenberry thought that the Ent-D looked like a hotel, other members of staff voiced the opinion that the bridge was far too empty (they wanted the sides to have consols, but couldn't get Paramount to do it as it would cost more in extras without opening up new storytelling opportinities), engineering a tiny place converted out of a corridor set, and as a result looked a bit shit.
Soooooo...despite the dull characters, boring stories, horribly 80s sets, and static SFX, why did everyone love it? Why did I love it? Why (in some ways) did I love it more than the arguably superior Deep Space 9? And what of those elements can be used to make people want to see it in the cinema?
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
The fact that the crew got on so well and were all fun to watch. Well, apart from very early Troi, always stating the painfully obvious, and of course Wesley. They really should've gone with Lesley, the teenage girl. And have her played by Ashley "Robin Lefler" Judd .
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Simply, TNG was the first of its kind. A successful syndicated hour long fantasy/science fiction INTELLIGENT television show, with good writing and believable characters while it still held the spirit of TOS and the movies in it's heart.
Now look at what has littered the Television stations over the last 15 years. All wannabe TNG copy-cats. Lets start a list shall we (and yes even though I adore DS9 it was originally something to end up replacing TNG after it's run had finished).
Please add to this list. (I think there are some good references for such a list - I think "The Continuing Mission" has a nice year-by-year synopsis of what was 'competing' with TNG.
In the beginning there was nothing like it on television. The closest thing that might have been, could have been Battlestar Galactica bat that was the "Star Wars" of the television world.
*TNG* 1987-1994 REALLY a success in 1990 and onwards
Should we put this in some sort of chronological order? At the moment I'm just going to list the shows as the come off my head. And think about this list - I can appear quite varied, but these shows would NOT have gotten past a pitch pre 1987 Hollywood.
Deep Space Nine Voyager SeaQuest DSV Time Trax Space: Above and Beyond The X-Files Babylon 5 Mellennium The Lone Gunmen The Adventures of Hercules Xena Warrior Princess Earth 2 Space Rangers Total Recall 2070 Space Precinct Earth: Final Conflict Andromeda Sliders Starhunter Stargate-SG1 Farscape Crusade Harsh Realm Dark Angel Buffy the Vampire Slayer Charmed Angel Psi Factor Smallville Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers Highlander Highlander: The Raven The Crow: Stairway to Heaven The Visitor The Net American Gothic Dark Skies The Outer Limits (new series) Kindred: The Embraced Enterprise Mutant X Jeremiah The Pretender Roswell
Of course within that list you have "The X-Files" clones. And you have your Movie->TV show clones. And your spinoffs of other shows. But really, none of them could have 'happened' without TNG busting it's way onto TV and being a phenomenon (in Hollywood - a financial success)
All of these shows - yes they weren't all on at the same time, and some didn't get past a handful of episodes show what the TNG influence has been, but also how much the 'market' has been split up by competition. I doubt in 1990 there would have been flame-wars on usenet over which was better TNG or LA Law! ;o)
Imagine pre 1987 and trying to pitch the X-Files or Buffy - to name two successful shows.
It's happened in a few other TV Genres... look at all the Simpson's clones. None are as good as the Simpsons. (No matter how funny Futurama or South Park might be).
Looking at that list too, there are a lot more movies fantasy/sci-fi wise that probably wouldn't be around in the last 10 years if it wasn't for TNG. Yes, TNG and the TOS movies probably wouldn't have been around except for the Success of Star Wars and the creation of ILM. BUT *STAR WARS* wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for Star Trek. Lucas is a Fan, I've read it. Hello "proton torpedoes".
It's a big web. Would Twin Peaks have made it to TV if there was no TNG? I'm not sure about this one. It's success did - I reckon - lead to the emergence of again, the X-Files but also 'quirky' shows like Northern Exposure and Picket Fences.
The Success of Picket Fences meant more David E. Kelly shows... Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Snoops. etc. (but that's a different tangent).
Andrew
Posted by Nim Pim Pim (Member # 205) on :
GGoddammnniitt, why can't I find a slang dictionary that explains "naff"? Apart from it meaning "bad"?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Because, er, that's what it means.
I'm not convinced here either. Being "the first of its kind" does not automatically = viewers. People didn't watch TNG because it would lead to other genre shows, in the same way that people didn't watch The X-Files because it would lead to other moody conspiracy/monster type shows.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
I grew up with watching TNG and have a lot of happy memories when I look back. I've enjoyed the show from the start.
It had everthing I was looking for: interesting stories, fascinating characters, mystery, suspense, fun, great chemistry between the cast...
And even though the SFX might not have been the best. At the time I thought they were. I still remember well how excited my friends and I got when we saw that scene in "The Defector" with Picard and Tomalak where Picard said "Now Mr Worf!" - and those BOPs decloaked. WOW! That made five! Ships in one screen at a time, a real record at the time for Trek!
(And it's still one of my absolute favorite eps - but not just because of that scene of course )
Posted by CaptainMike: Director's Edition (Member # 709) on :
amazingly, i think TNG is achieving more and more popularity because of its flaws, just like TOS is popular because people loves its quirky sets and effects, for good or bad. the cliches that define both of them have trancended the realities of a weekly production schedule and become legend.
it also helps that TNG was the first TV show i watched that wasnt a cartoon, when i was like 6 or 7 years old. the first thing i ever taped with my first VCR was the second run of 'Conspiracy' in 1988.. the first BASIC program i wrote was an LCARS display, in the same year, when i was 7 years old. its just built into my earliest memories, so watching it is like going home again after being away for a long time. (especially since there isnt much left of my childhood home or family, thanks to a nasty divorce and years of moving me around)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Not to be cynical, but I suspect a large part of TNG's success was that it was the least awful science fiction television show on at the time. Despite the stigma attached to the genre, it's still popular, with lots of people on the fringes who would watch an SF show if they could find one that didn't go out of its way to insult their intelligence.
I mean, consider the competition. You had War of the Worlds, which I actually remember as being kind of good, and rather scary at the time. But it lasted a season before getting "retooled," and then they never showed the retooled version here anyway. You had Hard Time on Planet Earth, of which the less said the better. You had Manimal. And Automan. Good lord. And Starman. These shows weren't at the bottom of the barrel, they were miles beneath it, reachable only by deep sea oiling rigs.
Of course, there is the late 80's Buffy equivalent, Beauty and the Beast, which was quite popular within its demographic (lonely housewives) and lasted for a fair amount of time. Still, not a show that appealed to quite the same audience.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Well TNG did have the influence of the Gene machine. I just read that original 15 page treatment for Star Trek. It's amazing. The sense of wonder. He had no idea it was going to work so well. He didn't know that 30+ years after it got cancelled there would be snooty electronic message boards bickering back and forth with less discerning message boards about the minutiae from the original and all the subsequent series. He just had an idea for a way to tell space stories on national television.
I think that's what TNG had: that kind of pragmatism. Ultimately the ship and the show are a vehicle for telling compelling science-fiction stories. TOS in particular, but TNG too was moving forward, creating the genre as it went. We were exploring new areas of the galaxy while the show was exploring the uncharted terrain of serial science-fiction television. Try as they might, the later series generally had to walk in TNGs shadow. This isn't to say they weren't innovating, but they had a smaller space in which to do it, and the audience now had certain expectations.
I would argue that the most popular episodes are those that did things you just couldn't do on any other show. "Yesterday's Enterprise" couldn't really be told on Cheers. Cybernetically enhanced space-zombies in huge cubes flying around trying to assimilate the universe wouldn't really play out well on Murphy Brown.
In a way I agree with the Captain about people loving TNG for it's flaws. Maybe not for it's flaws, but perhaps because it did have them. They were taking chances. Sometimes you get 'BoBW', sometimes you get 'Skin Of Evil'.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
And even Skin of Evil isn't that bad. It's one of those eps that remind us very much of TOS. And I did find Armus rather scary when I saw the show for the first time. Definitely didn't like him! Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
"Best of Both Worlds" was considered the best Trek episode in that "Ultimate trek" special they aired back in 1999. It's the best episode of the series, I think, but there are other better non-TNG episodes. And there are worse ones, namely "Interface."
BTW, a lot of people thought "Starship Mine" was a bad ep. Sure, it's "Die Hard on the Enterprise," but it's a good episode!
There's my input on the good/bad of TNG...
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
"Sense of wonder" does it for me.
I'm old enough to remember TOS live - and TNG (after it got going) captured the same essence - which was somewhat lacking in DS9, absent in Voyager, and yet to be seen on Enterprise.
It was certainly there in a few Trek movies.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I don't think it's been aabsent from Enterprise. Although I've only caught a few episodes, I got the shivers when Enterprise left Spacedock in the first episode, with Cochraine speaking over the top. It was the same sort of shivers I had when the refit Enterprise left spacedock for the first time in TMP, or when the crew first saw the Enterprise-A at the end of TVH. The "Enterprise" shivers, as I have brilliantly named them.
Posted by Proteus (Member # 212) on :
of course you are comparing TNG's visual effects, set design, and so on by todays standards, when the episodes were new.. they were BREATHTAKING. even a few years later. I belive only know some of the later ones are showing age. Actually season 5, 6, and 7 look great still.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, effects, maybe. Watch Encounter at Farpoint sometime and see the introduction of Engineering. Tiny set. Not good at all. They learned how to film it better eventually, but...no.
As for sense of wonder...I don't think that applies. Roddenberry was only interested in science fiction so far as it allowed him to do allegories. But I think you'd be hard pressed to grab a TOS story that started with some amazing concept and went from there. Star Trek, originally and probably still today, was a drama that happened to be set in outer space, not a drama about outer space. We can see this in the way that you almost never had a TOS episode that was about, in a primary way, the show's setting. No episodes about issues in the Federation, for instance. The show was ruthlessly outward looking, almost so much so that the background information was unimportant. We can enjoy lots of early episodes just as much as later ones even though there isn't a Federation present at all. It isn't important.
I'm a bit rushed for time, unfortunately, but I want to say that while it sounds like I'm building up to some sort of Ellison-reading, Heinlein-quoting elitist conclusion, I really, really like Star Trek. A lot. But I don't think its success is due to it being really out-there, weird, totally wowing science fiction.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Um, Amen?
To add, much has been made about how Roddenberry hired giants of science fiction literature to write episodes of TOS versus the fact that Berman doesn't get Greg Bear to do freelance scripts on Andorians is somehow indicative of Trek's slide from "serious sci-fi" to "space drama." I'd submit that TOS's science fiction authors-cum-screenwriters (a) have in several cases probably had their talents overstated thanks to that biblical force known as Trekkie nostalgia; and (b) rarely, if ever, wrote the TOS episodes that actually could be most closely associated with serious science fiction, instead kicking out fun fare like "Shore Leave."
There's also the fact that there really wasn't a general pool of genre screenwriters back then like there is today. It seems like once you start doing genre these days, you pretty much stay there: With the exception of Beimler, every ex-DS9 writer's still doing genre (Echevarria has now jumped to Presidio Med, and Behr did dabble in Bob Patterson, but they both were on the staff of Dark Angel in recent years) Likewise, Fred Dekker, Chris Black and John Shiban came to Enterprise from where? Other genre. Science fiction is just as incestuous as it used to be, it's just now that the pool of writers has grown to the point that it's now split so that now the people who want to do screenplays do screenplays and those who want to do print do print.
[ July 18, 2002, 23:34: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I like Shore Leave...
Also, goofy Trek episode aside, Sturgeon is someone whose fiction is well worth tracking down.
And, of course, let's not forget Ellison. As if he'd let us.
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
TNG also had several more characters than most sci-fi shows. If you didn't like Riker, chances were good that there would be somebody else for you to like.
And Of Course: I've never heard of anybody that didn't like Picard or Data. Any of the other characters might be a mixed bag of reactions...but the Cap and the Android are pure show stealers.
Sometimes that's enough. Most popular shows really don't have much going for them other than charismatic acting.
Though some of the writing from season one is wretched, watching Picard spar Shakespeare quotes with Q is fucking great...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
And Norman Spinrad! (The Doomsday Machine) And Richard Matheson, though I'd never claim him as a favorite of mine, or, you know, all that good and stuff. (The Enemy Within) And David Gerrold, sort of, depending upon how you count such things. Still, The Man Who Folded Himself, eh? Eh?! (The Trouble With Tribbles)
But, uh, anyway, not quite the heart and soul of the show, at any rate.
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by The_Tom: ...much has been made about how Roddenberry hired giants of science fiction literature to write episodes of TOS... (b) rarely, if ever, wrote the TOS episodes that actually could be most closely associated with serious science fiction, instead kicking out silly fare like "Shore Leave."
Yeah, silly... Amok Time -- Theodore Sturgeon The Doomsday Machine -- Norman Spinrad The City on the Edge of Forever -- Harlan Ellison
Sure, Shore Leave was goofy, but heavily rewritten by Roddenberry. "City" was also rewritten by the staff, and is much goofier than Ellison's draft. And ok, maybe "The Man Trap" isn't "City" but it's hardly silly. I didn't see George Clayton Johnson writing "spock's Brain".
Catspaw, ok, granted, that's silly.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
I didn't say all. I said many.
The thesis, as it were, was that TOS was never really "hard" science fiction in any way that TNG wasn't. Their reasons for success were similar, as were their target audiences.
The presence of a few notable science fictioney scripts penned by noted science fiction authors (as opposed to many notable science fictioney scripts penned by TV guys like Coon, or many notable not-particularly-science-fictioney scripts penned by noted science fiction authors) is held up too often as evidence of TOS being targeted at a science fiction elite in ways latter trek hasn't been. Baloney. TOS was a populist show, just as all its spinoffs have been. And that populism, as Simon pointed out, arises from the fact that Trek "was a drama that happened to be set in outer space, not a drama about outer space"1.
In part two we will explore the first tenetive moves towards telling stories about the background information, the continued exploration of such themes in TNG, and their ultimate culmination in the Dominion War. Or not. I guess really I have no idea why Star Trek is popular. I think TNG's uniqueness at the time had something to do with it. The general lack of TV dramas that included the occasional firefight or descent into fisticuffs may have helped, though I don't really recall what dramas were big in the late 80's/early 90's.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Dallas?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Soap opera, I'd say, but the lines are hazy and indistinct. At any rate, we can certainly agree that Dallas and Star Trek have little in the way of ideological crossover.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Can we perhaps determine then why DS9 failed (comparitively). Some claim that the arc stuff turned away casual viewers, but the arc stuff didn't happen until season 3 (at least). Was it the moodier setting? Was it the increased competition? Did they just fail to capture the lightening for a third time?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Possibly because, when it started out, people still had TNG to watch, so they ignored DS9. Then, when TNG ended, they could have switched, but, half-a-season later, along comes VOY, which was closer in general premise to TNG then DS9 was.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
On SPACE, they have these little filler things after shows and such and one of them was a little interview with Michael Dorn about Worf on DS9, and he made the comment that DS9 wasn't really Star Trek because it was set on a station rather than a ship. Of course, H.G. Hertzler commented that DS9 was a return to the core ideals of Star Trek.
I might have screwed up those interviews, so Canadian posters who regularly watch SPACE can help me out here... Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, TPTB have stated that the show will return to "the core ideas/themes/haircuts of Trek".
I don't like to think though that the only thing that makes it "Star Trek" is that its set on a starship. Although Dorn was a bit spoilt, in that he actually had character building stuff on TNG. I wonder if McFadden would say the same?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Because, er, that's what it means.
I'm not convinced here either. Being "the first of its kind" does not automatically = viewers. People didn't watch TNG because it would lead to other genre shows, in the same way that people didn't watch The X-Files because it would lead to other moody conspiracy/monster type shows.
No, but it goes a long way to explain why TNG and The X-Files were such phenomenal successes compared to a lot of other 'equally as good' shows - that have come along in the later years.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
No one really knows what turned TNG viewers away from DS9. I do believe that TNG viewers did switch to Voyager, but alot got turned off after seeing a few episodes of it.
IMO DS9 was actually good. What makes the Arc Story not work is that you have to follow the background of the story of that particular episode. Otherwise you get lost, in trying to figure out why the Dominion wants to invade space.
Unless someone interviews a good portion of the old TNG viewers and take a poll why they didn't like DS9, we'll never know but take guesses.
Posted by Edipissed Wrecks (Member # 510) on :
quote:"Yesterday's Enterprise" couldn't really be told on Cheers.
that's going in my signature.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Recks: well I thought it was a funny thought.
TNG may not have been breaking new ground in Science Fiction literature, but for mainstream weekly television that occurs during prime time, it was pretty progressive. It exposed a lot of people who may not have ever heard of Stanislaw Lem or maybe even Asimov to ideas they hadn't really thought about before. It's easy for Ellison and the rest of us to derride it for not pushing too far, but you have to understand that they also need to make a show to which the public at large can relate. That watering down might be irritating to the truly sci-fi nerdy among us (I'm looking at you, Simon) (I'm also looking at me and, well, pretty much everyone who participates in any semi-regular way in an on-line forum for discussing science-fiction), but its what let these shows stay on the air. Star Trek is something of an aberrant success story in the saga of episodic television. Is it ever going to be Paramount's answer to Friends? No. Is it going to let us see some pretty cool ideas in between the cracks of the ever-mounting piles of schlock? Yes.
And the main reason DS9 did not suceed was that it was set on a space station (as the right honorable Mr. Topher pointed out). It was worth a shot, and hey that hoopy Joe Straczynski had a great idea well worth ripping off. Even though we were often treated to exotic locales every other Ep, we never had a starship visiting strange and bizarre new star-systems every week. That's why they needed the Defiant. By then to was too late. People saw soap-opera. People saw Kira's loyalties tested every episode. People saw that guy from Benson as an extremely unimaginative shapeshifter. People saw Avery Brooks not playing a cool character until later seasons.
So I was pretty excited about Voyager initially. We were going to be exploring new places with new aliens and new technologies with zero possibility of contact with the familiar settings of UFP proper. Alas, Kate Mulgrew kind of grated on the nerves sometimes (she did grow on me), but I think they lost a lot of people right there. They tried to develop the wrong characters and didn't explore the right ones nearly enough. I'm one of the fan-boys who liked Seven,(Have you guys ever noticed that Bebe is so cool and funny?), but the resurrection of the spectre of Borg always seemed a desperation move to me. 'Equinox' was really really good, but people tuning in for the first time probably might not get that.
I think Enterprise has a lot of potential, but so far I've been pretty unimpressed. I haven't seen them forging ahead into unexplored territory. I haven't seen characterization that pushes the limits. I haven't even seen visuals to rival the Dominion War stuff from DS9. But it's still the first season. I'm sure I'll probably watch the whole thing. I just don't know that it's ever going to attain the popular success of TNG.
[ July 20, 2002, 14:02: Message edited by: Balaam Xumucane ]
Posted by Edipissed Wrecks (Member # 510) on :
personally i loved DS9 from the first episode that i saw. however, TNG will always be number one in my heart, mostly for the reasons already said. i remember getting a Picard action figure, and that die cast Entperprise D toy (which promptly broke and had to be exchanged for another one almost immediately) at the mall right before the series started. TOS is one of my first memories, and TNG is one of my first really lucid memories. to me, the show will always be a classic. sure some of the episodes are crappy. sure some of the sets are crappy. sure some of the SFX are crappy. but the show is not crappy. the show is great.
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Considering that the first time I watched TNG was when I was 9 years old, it looked facinating from my perspective. Even though I wasn't able to understand most of the morals behind the stories, it was fun for me to watch. There was othing like seeing a bald captain racing around space with a big ship with big guns and the guy from Reading Rainbow as the ship's engineer.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
TNG started the year before I went in to the Army, so I missed the 87 to 90 seasons, I was leary about watching it, I didn't think that it could hold up to TOS. I missed the 87 season for being leary of it....
After I got out of the army a friend of mine got me in to video games and scifi again... The asshole warped my mind.... Now I am here....
It had that certain something that people of all ages could relate too, I guess.... Shit I don't know... Why ask???
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ritten: Shit I don't know... Why ask???
Er, because it might create an interesting conversation about something more subjective than how many torpedo tubes the Akira-Class has?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, TPTB have stated that the show will return to "the core ideas/themes/haircuts of Trek".
Well guess what, they have!
I could NOT put my hands on the articles right now, or in a few days, it'd take a while of going back through countless interviews in lots of Magazines, but I do remember Just before DS9 started Berman and Piller or one or the other said that DS9 would return to the feel/spirit of the Original series. (And even though it's on a Space Station - I think it is more TOS than TNG)
Then I remember reading Berman (I don't think it was Piller or Jeri Taylor) saying that Voyager would return 'us' to the spirit/feel of the Original Series! This stuck in my mind because I remembered it from DS9. He/she said 'because they are out there really exploring strange new worlds, new quadrant etc.
They don't get it - it's not about new characters/places/situations (infact Enterprise and Voyager both start out with this 'premise' but both revert to 'safe' and 'recognisable' races and situations.
Yes, I think I remember reading recently (and I wouldn't have this in hard copy because of the Internet) that Berman and Braga said that Enterprise would return us to the 'feel' and 'spirit' of the Original Series. Infact I remember posting here, or at one of the newsgroups before Enterprise had really started, that B or B would say this. That Enterprise would return us to the spirit and/or feel of the Original Series. Ugh. 3x they've said this. TNG didn't say it they wanted to make their OWN show. They had to prove that they weren't just a TOS clone, while at the same time acknowledging that they were linked together as one generation to the next.
Andrew
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Actually, wasn't all the promotional hype surrounding TNG of the "Star Trek as Gene intended it!" variety, which seems to me as being very much in the vein of "In the spirit of TOS"?
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
Kind of, but it also had to do with the fact that most Trekkies at the time knew that Gene had little to no input in the films, so having a series in which he was creator, writer, and executive producer was a big deal, at least to the existing fanbase. Unfortunately, "Star Trek as Gene intended it" turned out to be a little cheesy and somewhat dull, hence the whole third season "blossoming" and Gene's eventual passing of the torch to Rick Berman.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Yes, it has been an interesting read....
I must stop babbling on, in real life I can carry on for hours, without saying anything... Now it is catching up to me here....
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well if they said that - they've got 4 for 4. The TNG reference though, yes would be to do with Gene retaking the Trek helm, not just new series trying to re-capture lost audiences.
I think also it was, as you mentioned, probably not the best way to go. When TNG got their own 'feel' it took it and ran with it by season 3.
DS9 too had to relinquish the TNG shadow. Voyager just never found it's own original feet. (I dont' think) There might have been a glimmer of hope at the start of some seasons, 4 5 and 6 - but they again reverted to old stories and lost their pace again to change the 'premise' again by the beginning of the next season. I think this stems from not establishing a set 'universe' for themselves in season 1/2. I.e. the characters weren't explored enough, instead they decided to fall back to (sometimes) hokey stories (including action, T&A, effects, "cool ideas" etc) to make an episode. A Series without good characters makes not a good series. That is why TNG was a success and DS9 a fan-success (never forget though DS9 did REALLY respectable in the ratings - not TNG stratosphere types - but considering what it was up against (including ANOTHER Trek show - during it's life-time - it certainly had good ratings).
Andrew
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Well, I know that TNG will always be my favorite - and I don't care for whatever reason! The fact is just that it is like that.
But what I do notice is that the more often I watch DS9, the better I like it - and not just seasons 3 through 7.
That is something that hasn't happened with VOY for me. Sure, there are a handful of eps I really enjoy (Timescape, Relativity, Equinox, Message in a Bottle, as well as a few others), but as for the rest - no matter how often I watch them, I just don't get the feeling I could ever get attached to those hideously dull characters the way I could with TNG...or even DS9 now.
The only exception to me is the Doc. He is the only one who reminds me a little of what was so special about Picard and company.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Timescape? As in the second from last episode of TNG season 6, and therefore not a Voyager episode?
quote:Originally posted by Austin Powers: Well, I know that TNG will always be my favorite - and I don't care for whatever reason! The fact is just that it is like that.
While that's fair enough, I think that TPTB at Paramount are more likely to be saying "Why was TNG so much more popular than DS9 and Voyager, and how can we make Enterprise as successful?" Because they want to make money.
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
We've moved past this part of the discussion, but to reiterate, Gene didn't hire 'classic' sf writers for TOS because of any overriding sense of mission/quality per se.
He did it for the same reason you hire a plumber to work on your sink. These were people who: 1) knew the story field (future/space. 2) needed the work.
That we got 'City on the Edge of Forever' and other exceptional (for television) episodes was serendipitous. Gene loved quality, but he had a show which needed a new episode aired each week so he could sell soap and pantyhose.
And I still say it can be rendered down to "sense of wonder".
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Examples?
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
Examples of what?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Examples of "sense of wonder" in TOS. My contention is that they are few and far between, and that the success of the show has not been dependant upon them.
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
- Kirk's voiceover in the opening credits - Being surprised and touched with Spock's relationship with Jill Ireland's character - and the bitter-sweet resolution of same. - Amok Time - Journey to Babel - (what felt like dozens of alien races - for a make-up budget of less than my house's list price). - McCoy injecting Spock to take his place in "The Empath" - the whole concept of deep friendship of this type - and sacrifice - in the late 60's between hetero men. - Kirk's last orders in "The Tholian Web". - "Court Martial" - M5 - and the controversies it sparked. - "The Conscience of the King" - my first exposure to Shakespeare at age 8.
What? Few of these require a sf setting - could have been done in a cop or western genre? Well, they wouldn't have been. It took a far-out setting to get these things out there. And to get me to watch.
I've been watching Trek since 1966 (I was 6). I've never felt about another series the way I do about TOS. Some episodes of later shows have indeed touched me with that sense of wonder: - The introduction of the Borg - Sisko meeting the prophets - Janeway bringing her crew home But for consistent 'sense of wonder' - TOS had them all beat.
Posted by Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
I've never felt the same way about another gaming system than the way I did about my Atari 2600. Because I was young. It had a mystique.
Surely the PC games out now are just lacking, as compared to say, classics like Night Driver.
Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed just doesn't make me feel the same way.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
We had a CBS colecovision! . Funly enough yesterday for some reason I was walking around the kitchen making the noises from the game Q*Bert! *boink* *boink* *boink* *nerrderp* (the coiled purple snake) *nerrderp* *boink* *nerrderp* *boink* *boink* *gluupgluupgluupgluupgluupgluup* (colourful disc) *nerrderp* *boink* *boink* *boink *boi-neernerneererneenernerr* (jumped off the edge!) *doodoodo!*
LOL!
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
okay, and back to the sense of wonder....
People also could have liked that idea that even though we are living in a hum-drum world, there maybe hope that things will get more interesting... too bad we won't be alive for it...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'm not going to talk about all of those, but a few:
quote:Kirk's voiceover in the opening credits
Granted. But you aren't seriously suggesting that Star Trek became popular because people liked the credits?
quote:Being surprised and touched with Spock's relationship with Jill Ireland's character - and the bitter-sweet resolution of same.
Good episode. Great character. Not sense of wonder. Nothing science fictional.
quote:Amok Time
I would quibble a bit with this, but it would just be a quibble.
quote:Journey to Babel - (what felt like dozens of alien races - for a make-up budget of less than my house's list price).
I'd actually agree that Journey to Babel was one episode which took advantage of the show's science fictional setting, but there was nothing in the costuming that wasn't being done on Lost in Space.
quote:McCoy injecting Spock to take his place in "The Empath" - the whole concept of deep friendship of this type - and sacrifice - in the late 60's between hetero men.
This is the sort of thing you'd see in lots of good (and lots of bad) WWII films. Far from new to the '60s.
quote:M5 - and the controversies it sparked.
Granted. Though your average viewer needed no extra prompting to be afraid of technology, there weren't any serious dramas about it that I know of on television.
quote:"The Conscience of the King" - my first exposure to Shakespeare at age 8.
Again, an example of a good episode (well, mostly good), and an appeal to the "literateness" of the show. And Shakespeare seems to translate well to science fiction. But it doesn't seem to me to be at all exclusive to it. For instance...
quote:What? Few of these require a sf setting - could have been done in a cop or western genre? Well, they wouldn't have been.
I totally disagree. Partners with deep friendships and absolutely no conscious homoerotic overtones are at the heart of your typical western or cop show. Strong characters are not unique to science fiction.
I feel we're arguing at cross-purposes here. I certainly don't deny that TOS is a fine show, one of my favorites. But it is a fine show because it succeeds at the sorts of things other fine shows were doing, if that makes any sense. I see no real difference between the average story Star Trek told and the average story Gunsmoke told. (Gene certainly didn't!) I also won't deny that the show being science fiction was a large part of its success. But I don't think it was at the heart of it.
Now, to prove I am not a bad guy, let's note that the episodes usually considered to be Trek's finest DO contain some central SFnal idea. (Time travel, say.)
Posted by CaptainMike: Director's Edition (Member # 709) on :
when i hear the end score of first season Trek episodes, the first half of which featured an eerie howling music type thing, it reminds me of when i used to be sitting there watching it in the dark when i was seven, and knowing that it was 11:55 and i was about to either be subjected to a) the american flag and signal stoppage that would leave me completely in the dark and scared or b) my parents shutting off the TV and shooing me into my scary room where i would have insomnia thinknig about how scary it wouldbe to havea monster try to suck the salt out of me... i know it haslittle to do with the actualquality of the production, but iwill never shake that feeling...
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
It would be intesting to compare my feelings towards TNG to those of the generation that got TOS at a similar age. It would shock me if at least a majority of our love for the various series wasn't rooted in some form of nostalgia.
I mean, that's the same reason people still talk about Transformers and He-Man? Right? Right?
Posted by CaptainMike: Director's Edition (Member # 709) on :
/pop culture whore.
if i saw it before i was 10 years old, its invaluable to me now. Star trek TOS and TNG, He-Man, Transformers, GIJoe, the crappy Batman show, and even Go-Bots, Rom Spaceknight and Planet Terry comics still populate my dreams.
maybe i should grow up, but im getting up early at sunday to go buy toys at the flea market. i gotta be me...
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I notice that Simon conveniently left "Court Martial" off of that list. Which is a good thing indeed.
People do talk about nostalgic things, but the trick is to see if they are still watchable now. A lot of us here are likely to have seen TNG before we saw TOS, and yet we can still watch it, like it, admire it's good points, and so on. You watch He-Man now though and the only thought that comes into mind is "Was this writen by a bunch of retarded monkeys?"
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
That sums up certain episodes of Voyager for me.
I enjoy TOS for a completely different reason than TNG: TOS is really ginchy. I can't think of another American show that was quite as bizarre as Star Trek.
How many times did an alien recreate some kind of surreal enviroment based on Earth history for the crew of the Enterprise? You had an alien Napoleon trying to outwit Kirk, which is quite a bit unlike Wagon Train.
And so on.
Really, the whole thing reminds me of the ramblings of Timothy Leary, minus the intensive drug references.
TNG initially got me because I like the characters. Reviewing the first season I find that I still like them--although they're all a little too perfect.
Wesley Crusher being such a 50's space cadet has actually made me laugh out loud..."Gee! That power converter is really swell, Geordi!"
It's the touch of Gene that made TNG quirky, and likable. It's optimistic stuff, there, and though you can see the sap running thick, it somehow doesn't get on your nerves.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thoughtchopper: I enjoy TOS for a completely different reason than TNG: TOS is really ginchy. I can't think of another American show that was quite as bizarre as Star Trek.
So the gaint carrots on Lost in Space were an everyday sort of occurenec in 60s America? And what about the Twilight Zone?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
OK becoming all superficial here. I want to know, for those who grew up in the 1960's with Star Trek - what were the effects like then. We now-a-days have been spoiled with the relatively brilliant effects compared to TOS days. The only time I think I might have come close to being back in the sixities and watching something like Trek for the first time, was the TOS Season 1 (and then later season 2) marathons they had here on PayTV last year and a few months ago. I sat and watched (at night) episode after episode after episode. I even rewatched ones I had seen before and came to episodes I couldn't sit through easily before, where I sat and lapped them right up - because after about the first 3 episodes in a row, The 'effects', the sixties-ness, the colour scheme, the hair-cuts, the filmgrain etc. etc. etc. all fell away - and I was left with pure Trek. It was wonderful. BUT I want to know what were TOS's effects like when it first aired... were they ground breaking? Did you sit there and go "WOAH" matrix-style? I know there aren't that many on these boards who actually watched TOS when it first aired in 1966-68.
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
I've never seen Lost in Space. It's a cultural gaff, I know. Someday I'll get a big bag of crack and dive into it, but right now it's not something I know much about.
The Twilight Zone was a collection of self-contained stories about people or towns that had wandered into, well, The Twilight Zone. Some of it was Strange, but it was never Ginchy.
Ginchy is green go-go girls trying to make it with the Captian of a starship that looks like an upside down Electolux.
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
We did discuss the effects - but only that they were cool (watch an old Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, or The Invaders episode for comparison).
Our discussion groups (which evolved into the old Star Trek clubs - one of which, here in Vancouver, is still going strong after 30+ years), centered around the stories, what had happened, what it said about the characters, what we could infer about the Federation, Starfleet, and alien races, etc. This kept us actively meeting (no internet) every week - still does.
The allure it still holds can't be nostalgia - I also watched the other shows I've mentioned, and except for a few Twilight Zone eps ('To Serve Man') - I have no interest in seeing any of them. Nor did we gather to discuss them at length.
But we did gather in droves for TOS - so much so that TPTB saw fit to reanimate the show in the form of movies and sequel series. We were there, and Thoughtchopper's analysis is flawed: Nostalgia isn't it. Nor is it great writing. It was that so-far indefinable 'sense of wonder'.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Incidently, I watched reruns of Star Trek (on in the afternoons coupled with Buck Rogers!) when I was a very young boy, before TNG started. We even had The Wrath of Khan recorded. On Beta. Mmm...
Anyway, just sayin' is all.
Posted by Thoughtchopper (Member # 480) on :
Sorry dude. My level one analysis indicated that the subject was Ginchy. Ginchy does not equal nostalgia.
Now, I'm not exactly sure what Ginchy does mean, but I know it doesn't mean feeling good about the past. Eh?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I have also never heard the word before now. Explain it to my satifaction, scum.
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
According to the �Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, A-G� by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1994:
GINCH, n. (origin unkn.) 1. A young woman or women, esp. considered as sources of sexual gratification; copulation with a woman. 1936 �American Speech� (Oct.) 280 Ginch Any girl� 2. the vulva or vagina��
GINCHY adj. Student., Esp. West Coast. 1. Wonderfully good or attractive. 1959 I. Taylor �Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb� (pop. song): You�re the ginchiest!�1990 �Mystery Science Theatre� (Comedy Central TV): Aw, she�s the ginchiest�2. (perhaps of independent origin) anxious; jumpy; Antsy. 1970 C. Harrison �No Score� 53 I got very ginchy about being left alone with Aileen, very hopeful and very anxious both at once.�
If that helps.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Wonderfully so, in some way. Possibly.
Posted by Red Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
The Original Series is so vulva-y.
Hm.
Posted by Red Ultra ThoughtPym (Member # 480) on :
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