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Noooooo!!!!! 22nd Century confirmed for Series V.
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by The_Tom: [QB] First off, crobato, calm down. I'm not flaming you, Jeff isn't, but you're taking this far too personally. We simply take issue with your attitude towards the apparent "sanctity" of a television show, a feeling that is held to some extent held by very few other people on the net that is stirring up an embarressingly ignorant storm of protest against a show that nobody has seen a still shot of, let alone a second of footage. Point the first: Star Trek has always had excessive sexuality. Gene was a horny little man. He wanted Troi to have four breasts, for crying out loud, until DC Fontana talked him down just a few days before TNG began filming. Ms. Blalock could wear a big purple smock that is as sexual as Barbara Walters' underwear for all we know. Plenty of attractive female actresses who are quite competent dramatists have posed in Maxim. To hijack a cliche, "don't hate her because she's beautiful." Furthermore, you're delusional if you don't accept the cold hard fact that the sexuality of 90% of actresses under 35 is pumped up on film and television. Every show does this, both Trek and otherwise, and this has always been true. Actresses are used to it. It's a reality of their work they accept. Kira wore fairly heavy makeup and high heels; Troi a scoop-necked dress etc. etc. While personally I thought Seven of Nine went a bit too far, if Ms. Blalock is easy on the eyes as well as dramatically compelling, who's complaining? Now, if she sits on the bridge in a thong bikini and can't act worth a damn, then let their be complaint. But second-guessing the casting people and assuming the producers are attempting to gain viewers through similar techniques as the WWF is a form of unfounded paranoia. Point the second: I must take issue with being labelled a Berman apologist. Nazis have apologists. The Khmer Rouge has apologists. Don't you dare assume I'm standing up for the producers because I loved every single minute of Voyager to death, or that I'll stand up for the producers because that's just what I do. I form opinions on an issue by issue basis, and right now I am of the opinion that valuing continuity to the point where it strangles a writer's ability to tell a good story is unfounded. Unlike you, I'd like to believe I have something of a grasp of the challenges these guys face in creating original television when so many hours have already been done. Berman and Braga have made more than there share of the mistakes, but they've also put together a good chunk of the absolute best Star Trek ever put on screen. You or I or any of the people you define as "true fans" are not shareholders in the franchise of Trek. THEY DON'T OWE US ANYTHING. All they are reposible for is putting together 26 hours of television a year that will entertain enough people to pay the advertisers. Long ago Star Trek could have turned into space battles and fisticuffs and copious sex in an effort to get every viewer and their dog watching the show. But they've done, in my opinion at least, a reasonable job of sticking to Roddenberry's vision through thick and thin. I think Deep Space Nine was an excellent show and I'm a little irritated that it didn't hang onto a broader audience than it did. Voyager clearly didn't hang on to a broad audience because it was substandard in places and the fact that three quarters of the audience left the show is testament to that. The suits know that and producers know that. In an interview last week Braga conceded that Voyager failed to live up to TNG's expectations and he was sorry that happened, but nevertheless Berman and he and Biller nursed the show along and it completed its run as a sort of Star Trek Lite. Being in the industry, they know better than anyone that the fanbase the show lost was not hyperchondriac fanboys like yourself who got tired of seeing episodes like "Future's End" not taking place in the burnt-out-rubble of the Eugenics Wars and therefore went off to see "quality" sci-fi like Herc, Xena, B5, Farscape ad shittium. They know that most of the 75% drop was people who got sick of boring writing and technobabble and predictable endings and went off to watch Law and Order and The West Wing. And they want them back. And the network wants them back. So, believe it or not, there have been several attempts to make Enterprise more mainstream: [*]Moving the series into a timeframe where technobabble is less prevalent and the characters are more likely to react in a more present-day way [*]Switching the timeslot so it no longer lines up against The West Wing, which is exactly the sort of show that's holding down a lot of ex-TNG fans. [*]Launching a heavy marketing campaign directed specifically at getting the word out to the lost fans. If, as you assert, the 4 of the 5 fans who stopped watching the show did so because of continuity inconsistencies, then we must live in a very scary world. If there are 16 million people out there who hold continuity with religious ferverence as you do, I don't think I want to step outside. Point the third: You speak at great length that accidental or intentional compromisations of TOS's continuity are a slap in the face of Roddenberry. I don't think this is quite so. Firstly, Roddenberry himself was no angel when it came to keeping his own work consistent. He certainly never made any great statements about the importance of continuity, or at least I've never read of any. What is certain, however, is that Roddenberry desperately wanted Star Trek to be original, exciting, and a worthy forum for expressing viewpoints to the masses. I think Gene would care more about creating an original, exciting series that returns to using science fiction as an effective medium of invoking thought about important issues and bringing such thought to willing viewers everywhere. You're flogging a rather decomposed horse if you adhere to the old "Berman is making Roddenberry spin in his grave" (urn, actually) and use continuity errors to back this up. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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