posted
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?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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
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
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
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.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
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 )
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
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)
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
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.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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'.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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posted
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!
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
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"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!
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.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
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.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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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.
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
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.
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