First we borrowed the name of the most famous starship in "history." Why? In a vain effort to capture lost glory. I can't believe how many threads have been started hotly debating whether or not NCC 1701 was the FIRST ever starship to bear the name Enterprise, what is "canon" and what isn't, whether the NX-01 belongs to a "Earth Starfleet" of a "Federation Starfleet." Give it a rest, people. Everyone, everywhere knows that Kirk's ship was the FIRST STARSHIP ENTERPRISE. The only thing to throw this into question was the mind-bendingly UNORIGINAL decision to re-write trek history in an attempt to get more people to watch Brannon Braga's latest sad effort.
End of story here.

Point two - the NX-01 is nothing more than a kit-bashed Akira. This has been said before, but it is glaringly true. This ship doesn't look even remotely like a predecessor to the Constitution class. Matt Jeffries design of the 1701 is as beautiful and futuristic today as it was thirty years ago. While I wouldn't expect the sets to be as simplistic as those seen in the 60s, the ship's design is a major disappointment. Just a little effort could have produced a craft with a gritty, utilitarian realism that would have been perfectly believable as a starship of the not-too-distant future.

Point three - Who designed the uniforms? Here we go again, borrowing design themes from other Treks because we haven't a glimmering of originality. Gee, a jumpsuit with rank pips, where have we seen that before?

More retreads: A vulcan science officer - whether or not she's in Starfleet, this is a retread of the Kirk/Spock dynamic. Phlox is a Neelix retread - a goofy, good-natured alien. They even look alike.

About the only attempt to be original was the theme music. Here's where they should have stuck with a fanfare but instead decided on a vocal track straight out of Dawson's Creek. (pardon me while I puke...)

Originality and Creativity clearly ooze out of your pores.

[ September 29, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]

Okay. Timelord pretty much dismisses the whole "Is Kirk's the first Enterprise" argument? He shows no place where anyone has firmly said that Kirk's ship was the first Starship Enterprise. At best, he can make the point that Kirk's was the first in the Federation Starfleet. Since we're dealing with the Earth Starfleet, I don't see the conflict.

Now, regarding Enterprise's design ... Timelord should go read The_Tom's "Car Trek" thread. As I've pointed out before ... I drive a Jeep Wrangler. It bears a striking resemblence to the GP Willy built in the 1940's. However, I'm not accusing people of going back in time and ripping off the Wrangler's design. While it's certainly one thing to say that maybe the ship designer was a bit unoriginal in modeling Enterprise on the Akira-Class, it is not un-cannon to assume that the Akira-Class is modelled on the Enterprise style. I mean, aren't the Galaxy-, Excelsior-, and Ambassador- classes all based on design features of Kirk's Enterprise as well?

The uniforms borrow much more from the TOS movies, although the rankpips are taken directly from the 24th Century series. Still, this isn't a major deal. The design of the uniforms is different enough ... and I don't hear Timelord bitching because Voyager uses jumpsuits too. This is the stupidest point he could've made.

A retread of the Kirk/Spock relationship ... let's see ... like Picard/Data? Janeway/Seven? Sisko/Odo? Every Star Trek series has had a character (or several) who represents an alien view to humanity. I suppose you could bitch about her being Vulcan, but, er, did you bitch about Tuvok? And given the timeframe this series is set in, who would be more believable? No one but a Vulcan.

I'm sorry you don't like the music. Here Timelord shows his inconsistency by blasting Enterprise for first being un-original, and then being original to something never done for a Star Trek series before. At least be consistent. Personally, I like the opening credits ... but I'd like a monologue.

"Someone in the forum suggested that the worst thing to happen to Star Trek is Brannon Braga and Rick Berman. I wholeheartedly agree."

Because, as has been said time and time again, Rick Berman was essentially in charge of TNG from the second season, and Brannon Braga has been responsible for some of the most acclaimed Trek episodes ever. If you want to slag off Enterprise, slag it off for what it is, but don't bring in the "Berman & Braga sux!" argument, because that's based on naming everything bad they've ever done, and forgetting everything good they've ever done.

Personally, I won't comment on Enterprise until I've seen it. When are Sky showing it?

Now obviously, this doesn't mean that Braga was continuously being fully rewritten, but when you have Michael Piller as your boss, and a group consisting of Ron D. Moore, Ira Stephen Behr, and all the writers that eventually would go on to DS9, you're bound to think more about the characters than if you're the boss and have your own writing team. Rick Berman wasn't as responsible for the character-orientation of TNG as Michael Piller, and I don't know what's up with Piller nowdays.

The only thing that really struck me as unique about "Enterprise" was its opening sequence. I think the show will be fine if it builds from there, our history. Star Trek has recently become this disconnected idealistic world, and if Enterprise manages to reconnect with the present day, it would be something new. It doesn't even have to be Star Trek, as its name suggest. I'd accept it as a reinterpration of that universe similar to the way in which Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 is not in the same universe as 2001, but a slightly different one.

The current team is not making creative use of its budget. It could hire better writers, reexamine the world today and adjust the show, but the problem is that nowadays, Star Trek is a show mostly concerned with money-making. Period. It's no secret, that's why everybody calls it a franchise.

[ September 30, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]

Michael Piller wrote Insurrection, often considered the worst out of all the TNG movies. Braga co-wrote First Contact, often considered the best.

I don't think that Ira Behr was on the TNG writing staff for more than a season, was he?

You have to look at the facts. When Michael Piller came to TNG, he looked at the show and decided that from the third season on, every episode will have to be about a character. That's the way the writing team worked from that point onwards. As far as many people can see, it's not the way Voyager worked, where the characters usually would take a backseat to spatial anomalies and time travel.

And I didn't say that "everything good Braga wrote was due to Moore helping...". I believe Braga can write characters if someone asks him to do that, but that it's not his favorite part of writing. Braga has been credited with introducing a faster pace and a feature-quality to Voyager, and that's good, but it rarely became more than that.

Of course it's hip to dislike "Enterprise" -- with all the budget it has, why can't it be more like B5? Or X-Files? Or Sopranos? Or the Simpsons? All these shows are very well written, with great characters and stories. Every great writer, from JMS to Harlan Ellison says the same thing about today's Trek.

People are crazy about the Sopranos nowdays -- I haven't seen anything like it in America, though I question the morals of making a show about a mafia family. Everybody was crazy about X-Files for a while, too, though it's science fiction. And Buffy. And the Simpsons, which is a cartoon, something usually thought of as kid stuff! I just went to get the new Simpsons DVD boxed set, and it was sold out! In both stores I looked at. I only managed to get the last copy.

Let's see this happening with Enterprise.

[ September 30, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]

quote:

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Of course it's hip to dislike "Enterprise" -- with all the budget it has, why can't it be more like B5? Or X-Files? Or Sopranos? Or the Simpsons? All these shows are very well written, with great characters and stories.

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Not to open the age-old can of worms, but putting B5's writing in the same sentence as The Sopranos and The Simpsons is as patently disgraceful as putting a Steven King paperback and a Joyce hardcover on the same bookshelf.

quote:

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Michael Piller wrote "The Best of Both Worlds", both parts, by himself. You can't pick his worst effort and judge him by that, because I could just as well pick one of his best.

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Indeed. But doesn't that just prove there's a double-standard, no? The congreagation of the First Church of Braga Disembowelment love to talk about "Threshold" until they're blue in the face, when to be quite blunt Piller, the very guy who didn't stand up and say "Hey, Brannon, I think this one about Salamanders is going a bit too far... how about you make Tom Paris eat himself instead?" deserves blame, too. Piller was very much the controlling creative influence in season two who perhaps put the nail in Voyager's coffin by throwing in the towel after that season turned ugly rather than attempting to make changes and fix things.

If we want to judge writers by their best works, then let's look at the fact that the admittedly unscientific episode ratings at SOS shows that the every single one of the top 10-ranked Voyager episodes were either written by Braga or went through the creative process while he was the head of the writing staff:

1)Timeless - 9.2/10 - Written & XP'ed by Braga
2)Scorpion I - 9.1/10 - Written by Braga
3)Message in a Bottle - 9.0/10 - [pseudo]XP'ed by Braga*
4)Living Witness - 8.9/10 - Written & [pseudo]XP'ed by Braga*
5)Drone - 8.8/10 - Written & XP'ed by Braga
6)Year of Hell I - 8.8/10 - Written & [pseudo]XP'ed by Braga*
7)Prey - 8.7/10 - Written & [pseudo]XP'ed by Braga*
8)Counterpoint - 8.7/10 - XP'ed by Braga
9)Someone to Watch Over Me - 8.6/10 - Written & XP'ed by Braga
10)Latent Image - 8.5/10 - Written & XP'ed by Braga

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* = Jeri Taylor was semi-retired throughout season 4 and Braga very much led the writing staff as an XP in everything but name. Strangely, Braga-haters tend to claim simultaneously he was singlehandedly responsible for Jeri Ryan's shrinkwrapped outfit in season 4 and yet didn't become the lead creative force until seasons 5 and 6. Puh-leeze.

Now, we must keep in mind Clemens' famous quote about lies, damn lies and such, but the evidence strikes me as pretty strong that Braga was hardly one who turned everything he touched into horse turd.

Likewise, there seems to be a widespread feeling that Braga's work on TNG was better than his work on Voyager.

I don't recall suggesting that ENTERPRISE stunk on ice, only that the premise and production was, IN MY OPINION, unoriginal. I was really hoping for the best before viewing the pilot. I will watch the next few episodes, but I am not optimistic.

Phelps points out quite rightly that Star Trek is about making money, period. It is a cash cow. My criticsm is that there is an ever-diminishing level of artistry being put into the production of Trek these days. No thought was ever given to shelving the new series until it could be developed into something really unique. No, it was waiting the the wings, ready to take over just as the last installment was getting tired out. Unfortunately, Berman and Braga can look forward to many years at the helm of the Trek francise due to the fact that millions will gleefully and uncritically accept ANYTHING with the name STAR TREK on it.

Right now, most critics of ENTERPRISE are complaining about problems with continuity. It can be fun thinking up explanations to make everything "fit." Yes, the akira design could be based on the NX-01. This is a very clever explanation. However, from the standpoint of creating a television series, these arguments are pure sophistry. The NX-01 IS an unoriginal rip-off of the akira design. The Archer/T'Pol dynamic (Human Captain and Vulcan XO don't like each other but eventually learn to respect one another) HAS been done before. NCC-1701 WAS the first starship Enterprise (The Motion Picture and TNG both displayed the Enterprise legacy, in photos and bas relief. There was the aircraft carrier, then the space shuttle, and then NCC-1701. Pretty conclusive to me, unless to don't regard either the movies or TNG as "canon".

I love Star Trek. I just don't like the direction it has been going in. I was in college in the late 60's and wrote letters to Paramount along with millions of other people to save the series from cancellation. I wouldn't trouble myself today. (I did for B5 though, the last best hope for intelligent sci-fi.)