The reason I asked is that the official word from Berman on the next series has been vague and misleading. And I am attempting to understand him. So the question.

quote:

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But even if Enterprise will be bending the rules a little, Berman promised that the show would still preserve Roddenberry's optimistic vision of the future. "The Roddenberry perfection of humanity is in the process of happening but will be not completed when the series begins. That will enable us to do a show within the general umbrella of Star Trek, but eliminate some of the stumbling blocks."

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Or perhaps not.

My interpretation is, Roddenberry's last take on Star Trek was very much the utopian, idealised view of humanity you see in early TNG. His successors have been working to bend or completely ignore those rules ever since (ie in DS9, Voyager and the films), for various reasons including (but not limited to): it's boring, with no scope for realistic "human" interaction or conflict; they don't agree with his views of what humanity can become; or, they're just lazy and prefer to turn out the same old human dramas that incorporate the majority of network TV, only set in space.

It's those sorts of stumbling blocks I think he's referring to. Now, they can show a greedy, less enlightened, more fractious, suspicious, paranoid, divided humanity - in other words, business as usual as far as US network TV goes.

What this could actually spell is the final death of how Roddenberry saw his creation (at least in his idealistic later years, the spirit in which he created TNG) - just another American TV show but one in which people warp about, raise shields, beam down, and shoot each other with phasers.

I'm not interested in the 22nd century show, and I will hate the lacking continuity, but maybe, and despite all possible attempts to adapt it to the taste of the general public, at least the idea may survive.