Can someone please explain to me the hatred that some fans have for Rick Berman and/or Brannon Braga?
Thanks much.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Ah, a lucky guy who hasn't seen "Voyager" yet.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
The short answer? Voyager.
The long answer? The huge plot holes in the stories they pen or greenlight, the inconsistencies of those stories within the Trek framework, the inane technobabble and deus ex machina contrivances that litter them, the lack of character development on the shows they produce, their habit of never venturing beyond safe and recycled material, and their disregard for any and all creative criticism of the way they run things have pretty much alienated a sizable portion of Trek's fanbase from the franchise and left it a stale hollow shell of its former self.
Now, B&B can put out good TV, as some recent ENT episodes have proven. They just don't do it often enough.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
You'll find many examples of this sentiment at the TrekBBS. It's one of the many reasons I don't post there.
The thing is, I don't know Berman or Braga personally. Neither, presumably, does anyone else who posts at these boards. For all I know, Rick Berman is the nicest guy in the world, and Brannon Braga is a fun guy to party with. So personally, I find it hard to justify "hating" them.
And "Voyager" really isn't the answer, either. Believe it or not, neither is Enterprise. It's the Internet. When TNG, DS9, & early Voyager was in production, there wasn't an instantaneous way of showing the world your likes & dislikes about a particular episode. Now you can. And let's face it, the current show has some problems. And those problems will only be multiplied with people on the 'net talking about them ad nauseum.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
To put the answer shortly, the people you're talking about blame B&B for the fact that recent Trek ("Voyager" and "Enterprise") suck compared to their predecessors.
[ January 25, 2004, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: TSN ]
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
And the usual counter argument goes that Rick Berman also had pretty much the same role on TNG (essentially). But fans then say "NONONONONO THAT WAS GENE RODDENBERRY!". And if you make a comment about DS9, then we find out that, actually, Ira Behr did everything on DS9 that was good and Berman didn't touch it.
I don't know. Voyager definitly wasn't good. Was that all Rick Berman's fault? Or Brannon Braga's? Or both? Maybe. I'd tend to blame Braga more, and say that his ego got the best of him. He did used to write some really good Trek.
Essentially though, they can and are blamed for anything wrong with the world that Sept 11 isn't blamed for.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Setting aside everyone's hatred of Voyager as a whole, I dont see B&B ruining Enterprise at all.
If stacked against TNG, episode for episode, I'd rather watch Enterprise for the story any time. Sure, there's lots of stuff we'd like to see on the show and many things that we wish has happened diffrently, but can you really say the character's arent ahuge improvment over Voyager's or even TNG's at this point the the series' development?
We're still in season three so there's breathing room for character development: even Mayweather, the mute helmsman's character is more developed than any of the beloved secondary TOS characters.
I've read several interviews with Berman and he seems to understand many of the fan's gripes about the first two seasons and I see many changes have been made on the show already. But you cant expect B&B to second guess everything they do based on us internet fans can you? The show would have "reset" itself four or five times already if that were the case instead of improving into the very good show it's become.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"You'll find many examples of this sentiment at the TrekBBS."
No, the prevailing sentiment there is actually more along the lines of "B&B SUCK THIER RSEPECTIEV COKCS ADN LIEK TEH BUTTSEXOR!!", whereas people here can still nixpick their work to death intelligently without being mocked or labeled a B&B hater, as far as I know.
But since your grievances seem to be directed at me: I don't hate B&B. Not for who or what they are, and not for their offerings to Trekdom. I don't even hate VOY. I just think that the show as a whole is crap and wasted its potential. But hate? No. Hate is much too strong an emotion for this.
"And those problems will only be multiplied with people on the 'net talking about them ad nauseum."
Or remedied. ENT is warping ahead quality-wise, and I'd like to think fans expressing their "sentiment" had a hand in that.
I don't know, maybe I AM investing too much energy into this, despite the fact that this is my first (well, second) post EVER on the subject. Whatever.
"And the usual counter argument goes that Rick Berman also had pretty much the same role on TNG (essentially)."
And the usual counter-counter argument goes that Berman had Piller above him at the time (to which of course the counter-counter-counter argument goes that Insurrection was Piller's brainchild and First Contact was Braga's and Berman also did, uh, some much-needed DS9 reimaging, to which the counter-counter-counter-counter argument goes that Braga was the genius/madman behind Threshold, to which the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter argument goes that Braga also wrote gems like Timeless, Year of Hell and Living Witness, to which the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter argument goes that TNG never would have soared like it did if Roddenberry hadn't croaked when he did, to which the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter argument goes that Gene would never have approved of DS9's darker tones that made it leader of the Trek pack, to which the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter argument goes that people should just shut the fuck up unless they are producers themselves, to which the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-COUNTER argument goes that Piller had good episodes and Behr had good episodes and Braga had good episodes and Piller had shit episodes and Behr had shit episodes and Braga had shit episodes and so laying the blame for VOY's demise on B&B alone is wrong and evil but at this point nobody cares anymore which is really too bad because the discussion could have been great FUN!) and was more involved with the creative process than with the production one.
"And if you make a comment about DS9, then we find out that, actually, Ira Behr did everything on DS9 that was good and Berman didn't touch it."
Yes, because Behr had free reign after season two (to which the counter-argument goes that he permitted such excretal extravaganzas as Let He Who Is Without Sin and Profit and Lace to fill the airwaves, to which the counter-counter argument goes that... oh, forget it).
"Essentially though, they can and are blamed for anything wrong with the world that Sept 11 isn't blamed for."
And THAT sentiment is what gets the people who DO have legitimate gripes so infernally pissed.
Anyway, I'm bowing out of this one, lest Mike slap me around with his deceased equine pic again.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
We're all just jealous that Braga was diddling Jeri Ryan. The argument being, 'how can you be a true Star Trek fan with a hottie like that on your arm?'
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
I hate neither Berman nor Braga. I just think they produce more crappy Star Trek now (and did so with Voyager) than what others (or they themselves) did in the past with DS9 and TNG.
I just don't enjoy watching the "newer" series (ENT and VOY). I try to keep at it for more than ten minutes, but I am usually put off by all the BS that I see in that amount of time - and turn off the TV.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Cartman: I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I was referring to you or your post. I wasn't doing that in the least. I was actually just responding to the original post.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
No, my bad. I was a bit snippy.
Posted by Irishman (Member # 1188) on :
I happen to have liked Voyager. It was more entertaining than most of DS9 (up until they got the Defiant, before that they couldn't even go anywhere, except in that FUGLY SUV Runabout! Honest to God, what does it look like if not the 24th century version of an Escalade?)
I mean, where is the "Trek" in DS9? They weren't trekking anywhere, it seems too derivative of B5 for my tastes. The action happened on a station over 1500 meters in diameter, and we saw not much more of it than the Enterprise D! I think the producers of DS9 were afraid that fans wouldn't watch it, that's why they stuck O'Brien on there, to try to get some of the TNG fans onboard.
As for inane technobabble: how does one distinguish from well-done technobabble and that of the inane variety. I happen to like technobabble. If I'm watching a courtroom drama, I expect to hear legalese. If I'm watching a WWII film, I expect to hear period babble. By the same token, if I am watching a futuristic sci-fi movie or show, I expect to hear technobabble. If it's done well, it will explain itself during the course of the show. I never had a problem with Voyager's technobabble.
Cartman, dude, you need to get laid, man, damn. Inconsistencies within the Trek plotline? Hell, we find that within TOS itself. It's not biblical, why expect coherence from it?
I just wanna know on whom I can place blame for all the damn time-travel in Trek. That shit is waaaaaaaaaaaay overdone.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Well, if you want to place blame for time travel in Star Trek, you may as well blame everyone involved in Star Trek period.
However, I'm going out on a limb here & guessing that by "time travel," you're referring to the Temporal Cold War. If that's the case, then it's Brannon Braga you can hate, for all the good it will do.
The thing is, whether people like it or hate it, Enterprise is the only Star Trek we've got. And once it ends or gets cancelled (especially if it gets cancelled), I'm guessing that there will be no more Trek after that, at least for a very long time. Most of the complainers over at Trekbbs don't seem to understand that.
Posted by Irishman (Member # 1188) on :
Dukhat,
I'm not specifically referring to the TCW. I'm mostly thinking of ST IV, ST: FC, alllllllllllllllll the alternative timelines in TNG, DS9, and Voyager. I've got no interest in seeing the time travel thing. If they want to tell the story of the Cochran flight, then tell it as it happened without feeling the need to shoehorn in the TNG cast. It's pedestrian, predictable and booooooooring. Whom can I blame for that, Dukhat??
Enterprise didn't get off on the right foot with me by bringing up the TCW. However, they've effectively ignored it enough for me to forgive them of late.
If they want to tell a compelling story in the TNG universe, then tell me a story of a rift in Vulcan society, something that could convincingly tie together the "Unification" storylines and perhaps something to do with the emotionalism of Sybock. I want to see the Vulcans fucking losing it. A rift in the Federation that could tear the polite society of Starfleet apart.
Posted by WizArtist (Member # 1095) on :
I think the "hatred" is simply a manifestation of the frustration that many Trek fans feel over the perceived lack of quality / continuity with Voyager and Enterprise. And as any politician knows...always attack the most visible leader.
Politician comes from two words: "Polly" meaning "many", and "Ticks" meaning "blood-sucking leaches".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irishman: I mean, where is the "Trek" in DS9? They weren't trekking anywhere,
You mean compared to the massive amount of "trekking" that the Enterprise-D did, as it went from a starbase to a colony, to a settlement. And occasionally went and looked at a nebula. Woo!
quote:it seems too derivative of B5 for my tastes. The action happened on a station over 1500 meters in diameter, and we saw not much more of it than the Enterprise D!
Well, if we only saw 0.5% of the Enterprise-D, and 0.2% of DS9, that's not much of a difference. Besides, how many different quarters sets do you want to see?
quote:I think the producers of DS9 were afraid that fans wouldn't watch it, that's why they stuck O'Brien on there, to try to get some of the TNG fans onboard.
Well, to paraphrase Shakespear: Duh.
quote:As for inane technobabble: how does one distinguish from well-done technobabble and that of the inane variety. I happen to like technobabble. If I'm watching a courtroom drama, I expect to hear legalese. If I'm watching a WWII film, I expect to hear period babble. By the same token, if I am watching a futuristic sci-fi movie or show, I expect to hear technobabble. If it's done well, it will explain itself during the course of the show. I never had a problem with Voyager's technobabble.
Because it destroys all rules of drama. Problems have to be built up. Solutions have to be forshadowed. Lots of Voyager plots are summerised thusly:
Chakotay: Oh no, there's a big blue thing that will destroy the ship and the universe if we can't stop it, and NOTHING CAN STOP IT!
*everyone runs around for 40 minutes. Neelix makes a bad joke. We stare at Seven's breasts.*
Janeway: Hang on. What about if we reverse route the tetrion field through the warp reactor? That should create a stabilisation beam that will wipe out the big blue thing?
Everyone: Yay!
Narrator: And so, the day is saved, thanks to...confusing technobabble!
Court room dramas aren't a fair equivalent. They are based on real world laws, procedures, precedents. You don't have a murder case that ends with the prosecuting attourney saying:
HeroAttourney: Hang on. I know that this man has looked innocent all along. But, actually, if we look at subsection 3.2 of the milky milky munch law, then we find that he's actually not.
Everyone: Yay!
Narrator: So, once again, the day was saved, thanks to... an obscure law that no-one knew about in advance!
And in summary, Cartman's post actually summed everything up pretty well. Have a cake!
Posted by WizArtist (Member # 1095) on :
Yeah, I thought Tim and Sigourney REALLY hilighted that aspect of DOH!-ex-machina on Galaxy Quest.
Posted by Irishman (Member # 1188) on :
Rules of drama? And you think Berman and Braga are formulaic? It's called trying to surprise you. I suppose you hated the end of "The Usual Suspects" too, as who knew Kevin Spacey was Kaiser Sozce?
Arthur Clarke said once that any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic. I suppose the same might be said for "deus ex machina".
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
That's Keyser Soze! Philistine.
Formulaic? What does that mean anyway? I guess some Trek spisodes are formulaic in that they often go over ground that's been done before. Looks in the "You Have Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me" thread for one such example.
If I have one complaint about current Trek it's that it's nowhere near edgy enough and doesn't take any risks. I like a bit of shock value in my entertainment. I've often cited shows such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under in that regard, but also more conventional network shows like Nip/Tuck and Without A Trace are doing stuff that we're just not seeing in Trek. There's no ooomph. I'm a recent convert to Enterprise, in that I'm actually watching it now, but it remains little more than a mildly diverting 43 minutes.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
So you really want Trek to follow in the vapid footsteps of current pop culture TV? I'll pass on Star Trek: Survivor, thanks.
I think Archer putting bad guys in the airlock is plenty edgy enough wihout his completely throwing out the "advanced morality" that humans are supposed to have developed by the time of Trek.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
If I'm watching a courtroom drama, I expect to hear legalese. If I'm watching a WWII film, I expect to hear period babble. By the same token, if I am watching a futuristic sci-fi movie or show, I expect to hear technobabble.
Do you also expect it to solve the characters' dilemmas every other episode? Technobabble may sound futuristic, but if it completely replaces the human condition, then what story is there left to tell?
It's not biblical, why expect coherence from it?
Well, gee, maybe because a little coherency here and there (like the ship sustaining damage or a character being traumatized or anything with medium to long-term effects that aren't neglected or ignored the very next episode) goes a long way towards making a show believable?
It's called trying to surprise you.
People are surprised by clever plot twists and strong character pieces, not by particles of the week or deflector functions or subspace anomalies or whatever.
[ January 27, 2004, 12:57 PM: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
You mean like all the follow-up they did with Kirk after Edith Keeler's death? Or Geordi's follow-up after being tortured and brainwashed by Romulans? Worf's follow-up after being paralyzed and having to learn to walk again?
Need I go on, really?
Enterprise's follow up has actually been much tighter than that on previous series.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"Need I go on, really?"
No, because I never said TOS and TNG weren't just as episodic as VOY in many respects.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I point out the others to show that Enterprise is, in many ways, an improvment over what was done before....right down to Portho's ongoing "cheese eating problem".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irishman: Rules of drama? And you think Berman and Braga are formulaic? It's called trying to surprise you. I suppose you hated the end of "The Usual Suspects" too, as who knew Kevin Spacey was Kaiser Sozce?
Well, if anyone hasn't seen that you've really pissed them off.
But no, that doesn't count, because it was forshadowed from the (warning, oncoming capitals) VERY FIRST SCENE. The Voyager's horrendous use of technobabble would have to have Keyser Soze be a random person off the street.
Okay, look, let's take the Big Deflector Dish weapon in BOBW. That wasn't a Deus Ex Machina, or pointless technobabble, for a few reasons:
1/ It was quite clearly explained near the beginning of the show.
2/ It was mentioned that it would have "bad side effects", so it wasn't something they could use more than once.
3/ It didn't work.
And going to the end of the show, the whole "interconnectivity being their weekness" thing also wasn't technobabble, because it made sense within the character of the Borg as it had been presented to us. Using Picard as a mole on the inside also made sense.
A bad ending would have been to have Geordi say "Hang on, I can get the big deflector weapon working again, and I've increased it's power by adding a supspace teacup pattern over it's internal matrix doowack". And have that blow up the Borg.
If you really want to use Voyager as an example, the ending of The Year of Hell wasn't "stupid technobabble" at all. A reset button, yes, but also one that made perfect sense. All the ship's problems had been causes by this time-ship changing things. The time-ship lives out of time. Blow it up, and it never existed. Problems go away.
See, Voyager got it right occasionally.
On the other hand, something like the ending to "Parallels" really was technobabble. "Oh no, Worf is jumping between universes, but if we do this, this and this, it will be fixed". However, that wasn't really a problem, since the point of that episode wasn't "Worf is trapped, and is trying to get home", but "let's have some fun showing how the show COULD have ended up after 7 years if things had happened differently". And also, there was development in the Troi/Worf thing (however silly that was to begin with), so it holds together.
Posted by WizArtist (Member # 1095) on :
What I kept wondering was during the episode where Geordi and Ro are in phase.
They could run through walls but their boots kept hitting deck and allowing them to simply walk around. And then Data does some little 30 second trick and POOF they're back!
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
BOBW's deflector weapon was not technobable, but the First Contact Borg not having their impenetratable subspace field was bullshit.
Or Starfleet made an upgrade to the Deflector weapon that was used prior to Enterprise's arrival that destroyed said field. Could explain the three deflectors of the Elkins or the secondary deflector system built into many of the new starship designs, I guess. OTOH, Voyager was able to destroy anything Borg related within a few minutes, so I guess the Borg just got dumb or something...
Posted by WizArtist (Member # 1095) on :
To paraphrase Jessica Rabbit:
"I'm not dumb, I'm just written that way"
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I'm just going to stick my two cents in.
I think that as a series, Enterprise is overall much better than The Next Generation, which really had a fairly awful first season, and didn't do that much better in the second. The problem and resentment with Enterprise, I think, stems from an audience which is to a large degree "Trekked-out." If Enterprise had been delayed until several years after Voyager had left the air, I think the audience (in general) would have been much more receptive.
I admit, I haven't watched Enterprise much. My schedule doesn't allow me the same days off on a week-to-week basis (and my VCR doesn't work), but when I do watch Enterprise, I see arc-based story-telling, and a concious effort to make the show (story-wise, at least) a closer cousin to Deep Space Nine than to any of the other ship-based shows we've seen. I don't think the show is done as well as Deep Space Nine was, but I do think that Berman & Braga have to the degree they've been able to, tried to combine the success of TNG with the success of DS9, and I think in that aspect, they're doing a good job.
Where I think they've already failed is that the Trek audience has been alienated by Voyager or other percieved slights. I think a lot of Trek fans are just bored by the franchise now, which does seem to favor many "retold" stories. On the other hand, if you had never seen any Trek, and you watched Enterprise first, followed by TNG, the "recycled plots" would probably be a reason listed for a dislike of TNG. I don't think the problem is as much with Enterprise as a series as it is with when the series is being watched, and with a PTB trying to inject creativity into a staff of writers and producers without realizing that maybe, just maybe, it's the PTB themselves which may be inhibiting such a lack of creativity based on their own previous Trek experiences.
I don't know if that made a bunch of sense, but I do think that the arc-based stories like we've seen this current season have helped improve the show, I think that Enterprise standing on its own merits (and not judged by any other series) has been consistently good, and I also think that Berman and Braga are creatively stunted in so far as Star Trek is concerned, and that it would only help the franchise if they move on after Enterprise ends its run.
Now, I'm not saying I hate them. I hate Voyager, certainly, but Berman has to a large degree shaped The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine (even if so by his lack of interest in it), and certainly he's got a claim to what I perceive as the success of "Enterprise." I just think that Berman and Braga incapable of thinking "outside of the box" to the degree needed to inject interest again in a new Trek ship-based series, and that after Enterprise's run, the franchise should be put away for a few years - even a decade or two, and brought back with a new approach, and better yet, a new NCC-1701- ... K? Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: BOBW's deflector weapon was not technobable, but the First Contact Borg not having their impenetratable subspace field was bullshit.
Hmm. I might agree with you on it not being technobabble. It did boil down to "we'll put all the power we have from everything into one massive burst that will leave us crippled". So yeah, it wasn't overly bad. But it would have been a rubbish way to destroy the Borg.
As for FC, the counter-argument would have been "Picard could work his way through it due to his Borg-related insights". Which stops it being deus ex machina babble.
Posted by WizArtist (Member # 1095) on :
Or, they will prolly do a re-imagining like Galactica.....
NCC-1701XXX The Starship Innerthighs.
Captain Jason Abbadon commanding Obligatory Vulcan PsyLiam Engineering officer Cartman Security officer Omega
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: QUOTE]Hmm. I might agree with you on it not being technobabble. It did boil down to "we'll put all the power we have from everything into one massive burst that will leave us crippled". So yeah, it wasn't overly bad. But it would have been a rubbish way to destroy the Borg.
As for FC, the counter-argument would have been "Picard could work his way through it due to his Borg-related insights". Which stops it being deus ex machina babble.
Yeah, Picard had the "in" on the Borg but I was referring to the damage the fleet caused to the cube prior to Enterprise E's arrival (28%?) being bullshit due to a lack of any explanation of the loss of the subspace field either in FC or during Voyager's run. Was the BOBW cube something special that it had such a potent defense and the other collective ships dont?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Possibly the fleet had a lot of Really Cool New Weapons that Voyager and the BOBW fleet lacked. After all, the Enterprise herself managed to damange a good quarter of the Borg cube in "Q Who".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: after Enterprise's run, the franchise should be put away for a few years - even a decade or two, and brought back with a new approach, and better yet, a new NCC-1701- ... K?
And this is the big problem I have every single time the fans bring up this point. It breaks down thusly:
"Berman and Braga no longer have original ideas. They never do anything new. The franchise needs a rest, and then it will come back in a new better form. Something ground breaking and original like...setting the show on a ship a century on from the last series".
I can see arguments for and against the whole "hiatus" thing, but it's really not helped when the same fans complaining about a lack of originality then demand that we should get "Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Next Generation".
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Possibly the fleet had a lot of Really Cool New Weapons that Voyager and the BOBW fleet lacked. After all, the Enterprise herself managed to damange a good quarter of the Borg cube in "Q Who".
THe Enterprise only managed to damage the cube before they were analyzed by the borg intruders. After that, nothing had any affect at all.
I was actually thinking that the fleet might have used new sensors to determine where the cube was emitting the subspace field from and used up all their quantum torpedos to disable it (resulting the the 28% damage). It would at least explain why the Defiant didint fire Quantums and why the supposedly baddass Akira was only firing photons as well.
Doesnt explain what happened on Voyager, but then again, what does?
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Also, how long did Data say it was going to take to reach Earth? There was probably a running firefight all the way from the Typhon sector, and all the nifty new weapons from Starfleet R&D that Our Heroes were talking about in BoBW, Part 1, got used to smack them down to 72% intact before they reached Earth and the Enterprise showed up.
Additionally, I don't want to see the next iteration of Star Trek set another generation further on. By the end of Voyager, the tech is already getting too boring. One of the things I think worked best about TOS (and Voyager, with the non-crap scripts) was the sense of the galaxy still being frikkin' huge, and Starfleet HQ was waaaay far away. With Earth a week's travel away from Bajor with regular warp drive, and the quantum slipstream, coaxial warp drives, and the various forms of transwarp thrown into the mix, it's making the galaxy too small. I think the best premise for a new Trek series is to take the set-up offered by the DS9 Mission: Gamma novels. The Defiant did a brief recon to see if there were worlds or regions worth exploring in the non-Dominion direction from the wormhole -- and there are.
--Jonah
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: Also, how long did Data say it was going to take to reach Earth?
--Jonah
A little over three hours....plenty of time for deflector based weapons to have been enployed and many many Federation starships to have been lost. It burns my ass that there was no mention of it though: A simple line from Data: "Sir, the Borg's subspace field is down and the cube has sustained 23% damage and a few minor paper cuts." would have been great. THe subspace field was just completely overlooked by the Voyager writers as the Federtion light cruiser easily kicks the BOrg's ass week after week after week...
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, how many times did Voyager outright engage the Borg anyway? The only times I remember were "Dark Frontier" and "Endgame". The first they were up against a very small ship, and the second they were equipped with uber-tech. Am I missing some?
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Unimatrix Zero. Voyager vs. UberCube, and all that.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
But they had help there. And it self-destructed anyway.
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I think people who really have hatred for B&B urgently need to get a life. Or understand real life. B&B are just doing their jobs. Nothing more and nothing less. And in this respect we can complain about Star Trek like about any product whenever we think they're bad at their jobs.
But what I don't like at all is when fans fail to distinguish the two points of view. As if a show with different or, more precisely, with their personal ideas would naturally stir up more interest. That's just as naive as B&B's attempts to lure adolescent viewers with boobs and explosions.
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
Mmmm, boobs and explosions. ~
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Well said, Bernd.
There was a thread over at the TrekBBS that expounded on a rumor that Berman might be losing his job as exec of ENT. There were about twenty replies stating that "this is good news" or "the show really needed this." If I ever posted there (which I will never do, but if I did), I would have told them all to go to hell. How in the world is the possibility of someone losing their job & livelihood considered "good news"? In my work experience, I've been fired from jobs and have had to fire people from their jobs. It was not "good news" to me in the least.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I think the show has a fair chance of being better with someone else running it. And since I want the show to get better, I consider it good news that they may be bringing in someone else to run it. My concern is not that Berman may lose his job, but rather that another individual who can make better production decisions will get it. In order for someone new to come in, someone old needs to be fired first. I personally am glad to hear that this may happen.
-MMoM Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Of course, there's every chance that he could be replaced by someone who knows less about Trek, doesn't care at all about what Gene Roddenberry created, and ends up taking everything good from Enterprise and replacing it with everything bad from Andromeda and Baywatch Hawaii?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Naturally. But it could also be someone like Mike Sussman or Phyllis Strong, who do care about Trek and are familiar with its history and details, and have been responsible for penning some of the best episodes of the series thus far.
Like Kirk said, "Risk is part of the game if you want to sit in that chair." "Risk is our business."
-MMoM Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
There's a fairly huge difference between being a writer and being the executive producer.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
No doubt. But they are both already Co-Producers.
-MMoM Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Doesn't mean much. Almost the entire writing staff of every show ended up with at least a Co-Producer credit. I'm pretty sure all you had to do was open the door to one of the Paramount Bigwigs and they gave you a co-producers credit on the show of your choice.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Well, look at DS9. Once Berman and Piller left, it was two ex-writers -- Ron Moore and Ira Behr -- who exec produced the show.
--Jonah
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Berman didn't leave - he was always exec producer.
And Moore was never an executive producer. For series 7 (and possibly 6 and 5) he was a co-executive producer, which isn't the same thing.
The only exec producers of DS9 were Berman, Piller and Behr. And the writing team all seemed to be either co-producers, supervising producers, or co-supervising producers. As to what the difference is...that will forever be a mystery.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Well, I have never understood the need for so many types of producers anyway. I mean where does it end? Everyone involved in the production could be called some kind of producer.
How about the set producer, the make-up producer, the paint producer, the light producer... Hell, even the actors could become "scene producers". Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I just want to (re)produce with the actresses from DS9.
Nothing wrong with that.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
You want to do a coproduction with Louise Fletcher?
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by Austin Powers: Well, I have never understood the need for so many types of producers anyway. I mean where does it end? Everyone involved in the production could be called some kind of producer.
How about the set producer, the make-up producer, the paint producer, the light producer... Hell, even the actors could become "scene producers".
It's done because it's a cheap way to give someone an on paper promotion that doesn't cost you much. Ooooh, I'm a producer!
It's the same problem that corporations have where they now have so many presidents and vice presidents that the titles don't mean anything any more.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cartman: You want to do a coproduction with Louise Fletcher?
If thats what it takes to bang Chase Masterson... sure.
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