posted
Temporal Cold War. i.e. Crichton's search for home ("Farscape); the story arc of B-5; later seasons of DS9; the theme of VOY, Starfleet and Maquis stranded in DQ on way home
This idea I feel is very ambitious and, with the current talent at Star Trek, very implausible to achieve. Why couldn't they simply done one of two things: 1.) hire talent that could do a story arc, which is implied by the first episode or 2.) ignore a story arc and do episodic tv?
quote:Originally posted by targetemployee: Temporal Cold War. i.e. Crichton's search for home ("Farscape); the story arc of B-5; later seasons of DS9; the theme of VOY, Starfleet and Maquis stranded in DQ on way home
Dude. What are you talking about?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
I must say, though, that I assume if they've laid the foundation for a story arc, they probably have an idea of how it's going to play out already. If they do, the stories should work together ok. If they don't, well, they're dumb.
That's where the snags with DS9 came in, IMO. They couldn't decide if Sisko really was the Emissary for awhile. Then when they finally did, they had to go back and fudge a few things to get the whole story arc at the end of the series.
capped
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posted
OK, here goes. By Enterprise's story arc, we are referencing the fact that we are all scratching our heads wondering whats going to become of the so-called 'Temporal Cold War'.. are they going to drag it out 7 seasons, or wait for a cliffhanger, or what?
The problem is that, like DS9 and VGR, they are trying to do episodic television.
One of the rules of TNG writing was that, at the end of the show, everything had to be put back the way you found it. They wanted you to be able to miss any episode and jump back on the week after because you know the set up: Space the final frontier yada yada no one has gone before. If you missed 'The Icarus Factor', you could still understand 'Contagion'.
B5 introduced the serialized episodic to modern sci-fi TV (I know lots have done it before, B5 is just my example) While it wasn't a straight line progression, it was mapped out that the story was progressing towards a preordained ending. Changes to that outcome were made along the way to accomodate production, but if you missed groups of key episodes, you would lose your way in the story. This garnered a lot of fans, because things could suddenly change and were therefore more interesting. You didnt know if the episode would end happily like on TNG. On TNG a writer didnt 'own' anything to do with the character, so there was the assumption that they would always come back unscathed. On B5, people came and went according to the master plan.
DS9 got brave, they decided to abandon some of TNG episodic law. They wanted to make a serial epic. Prophecies, multi-episode story arcs, more recurring characters than regular cast. DS9 quickly began to change the status quo.. character's lives rapidly began changing. Rather than tying each story into a nice little bow and setting a course for the next solar system, they would leave characters and stories unfinished. The only difference between DS9 and a serial was that DS9 had no idea how it would end up. They didnt know that Odo would be a founder, that Worf would join, that the war would begin, etc.. they made it up as they went along. I think they pulled it off admirably, even though they had to rush into an ending. DS9 was the first show that actually made massive changes to the universe that it lived in on a regular basis. Governments rising and falling, switching sides, and all the intrigue that went along with that. But without the master plan, a lot of the story threads didnt get finished. Besides the war getting tedious, I'm still quite impressed.
I have no idea what Vayagr was supposed to be. Since DS9 became the black sheep of Trek, TPTB wanted a safe ship show like TNG. The idea was that Voyager wouldnt have the Trek universe to play with, but could possibly be serialized with the development of its characters with some ongoing story arcs.. The Search For Home, etc.., The Maquis Versus the Federation. The only thing is that Voyager quickly 'forgot' to do those stories. The Maquis and the Federation started to get along by episode two. The long road home became punctuated with too many standard Trek episodes. (There was even one where they took a shuttle to a science conference!?). Writing a starship show gave the writers a block somehow to doing a long standing story. Voyager's strength quickly became its 'oddball' episodes.. the ones that didnt fit into any real 'type' of episode rehash.. the illusory stories, the holodeck, wierd guest stars. But they didnt really carry anything into the next week.
So given that Enterprise is the people who used to do these shows, we have to wonder what kind of story the 'Temporal Cold War' is going to be. If they havent learned from their mistakes its going to be random, spotty, unplanned and rushed into an ending.
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
quote:Originally posted by CaptainMike: So given that Enterprise is the people who used to do these shows, we have to wonder what kind of story the 'Temporal Cold War' is going to be. If they havent learned from their mistakes its going to be random, spotty, unplanned and rushed into an ending.
I don't think there is anything about Berman and Braga that makes them inherently incompetent when it comes to arc-based storytelling. Braga's never tried it (so we don't know) and Berman had just as large a part in Deep Space Nine as he has on Enterprise. If he didn't have a problem then, I can't imagine he'd have a problem now.
Keep in mind that, while Berman and Braga are writing most of the early episodes, after a season or so they'll probably only do a couple here and there, as on Voyager, or Deep Space Nine, or The Next Generation. Major aspects of the Deep Space Nine arc, for instance, were initiated by writers who weren't major players at the onset of production.
posted
My major upset at this point is that they've started something and haven't done anything with it. If there was a temporal cold war and this was an episodic show then we should have found out that all is well in "Broken Bow." If this is a serial show then in "Fight or Flight" we should have come up against another adversary backed by future bad guys--- it doesn't matter if Archer and crew saw it or know about it or if it was only us--- they've simply dropped something and left us hanging.
The adversary in "Fight or Flight" is anonymous, it can go either way still. But does anyone here really think we should be left in the dark so soon? We need stuff to make us want to watch.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
posted
Except the difference between episodic and serial television is not a fine line. There are very much shades of grey between the two. Clearly Enterprise is attempting to fall somewhere in the middle. While Babylon 5 was serial to the point that episodes rarely didn't directly continue on the storyline of the previous episode, Deep Space Nine and The X-Files mixed truly standalone episodes, standalone episodes that were slightly connected to the ongoing saga, and episodes entirely concerned with the ongoing saga. The West Wing works on a slightly different principle, with episodes having A, B, C, D and often E or even F-plots in them. Usually each episode introduces and solves one plot, introduces one plot and leaves it unsolved for future episodes, solves one plot carried over from a previous episode, and then kicks around one or two more that have been ongoing.
[ October 04, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
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quote: My major upset at this point is that they've started something and haven't done anything with it.
Why should they have, at this point? For pity's sake, we've only seen two episodes so far! At least give them time to set the show up and establish the characters. It's a little premature to judge the future of the show with only three hours of aired episodes; if we'd done that with TNG, the show would have been D.O.A. They had some pretty pathetic episodes in the first two seasons, after all; the show didn't hit its stride until the third season. Asking them to lay out the series' entire master plan by the second episode is like buying a book and then immediately flipping to the last chapter to find out how it comes out. I don't know if this series is going to pan out or not, but don't expect everything to be served up at once. It's unrealistic, and, besides, it's a lot less interesting that way.
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
posted
Yeah, just liek they set up the who "Emissary" thing w/ Sisko in the first episode of DS9, but didn't use it in the second episode. We know they never went back to that during the series... *rolls eyes*
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