Never was much of a Trekkie, although I saw all the theatrical movies (IIRC) and watched the various TV series. Has this particular franchise seen it’s day, or is there life left in it yet? The younger folks really don’t seem to have much of an interest, although some of the older sci-fi buffs maintain some brand loyalty.
They’re still making movies, fans are still making shorts, and I believe there was recently an effort by some fans to get Paramount to do a new series set ~200 years after TNG/DS9/VOY set in the Andromeda galaxy.
So it’s not dead.
Although I do think that the ambitious optimism that allowed the franchise to flourish from the 1970s until the 1990s is largely dead.
Yeah, I agree. It was largely a product of it’s time. It’s a lot like the Twilight Zone, there was really nothing like it before and remakes and films were ok but not quite up to the original.
With the creators of both gone, all we could ever get is another person’s interpretation of the original. There is also the society that accepts and mirrors such ideas.
We will never again see a generation of kids wearing Daniel Boone “coon skin” caps just like Fess Parker no matter who might do a Daniel Boone tv series or movie.
TV has moved away from series in the episodic format based on loose character development and a badguy of the week. Star Trek is great for syndication because of that - besides DS9, you could watch almost any episode of any Star Trek series in any order and not be too lost.
If Star Trek were to return as a TV series, it’d have to be more than just exploring… it needs an overarching story that gets advanced regularly and deep character development. Also, as more and more people are now combat veterans, more realistic combat is appreciated as are darker themes than what’s normally in Star Trek.
Basically, people want more BSG remake and less TNG, and going to more of a DS9-style Star Trek, but even further, isn’t something that fits with the vision of the original Star Trek series.
The writing would be difficult. I agree, in fact I was about to mention the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series. Some things I hated about it because it was so different from the original, but some things were improved.
Sadly I think Blood and Chrome was the best one ever done, but like the original, it was incomplete and left you hanging. Not sure if that’s better than the disappointing conclusion to the 2004 series or not.
I think the problem is there just isn’t the budget for really good sci fi, which is why great shows often end after just one season. There are so many “could have been great” shows I can’t list them all, but despite promise they lacked a real vision, writing and budget for effects.
Star Trek was king, but I knew it was beginning to show its age when Babylon 5 turned out to be just as good, if not better, than the original Star Trek series.
If I’m not mistaken, DS9’s story line starting copying Babylon 5 after a few seasons (with the whole galactic war thing).
The problem is they ran Star Trek into the ground. I actually heard people joking they were going to make a series with the original cast showing their adventures after retirement. I HOPE that was just someone’s idea of humor.
Then the latest stunt was to do a “reset” with the new cast, using some time travel story to completely undo all previous Star Treks in favor of the current “timeline.”
It’s an innovative idea (that will be copied to death), but it signals a desperate attempt to milk the franchise for a new generation of fans who don’t even know who William Shatner is.
Yeah, its really sad. Firefly is the obvious one that everyone points to, but there are others. Stargate Universe was getting really good, and it was cancelled. Being Human was amazing, also cut short. There are a couple of fun shows now, like Killjoys (especially if you like Tavors in spaaaace), Dark Matter, Continuum (which is in its last season), Humans, and Orphan Black, but only the first two are space-based science fiction.
I also enjoyed Blood and Chrome a lot, but it needed like twice the VFX budget. BSG had quite possibly the best season ending in all of TV in season 4, but also had great ones in previous seasons. But then it fell flat in the end.
Babylon 5 was one of the best TV series ever made. The sets, vfx, and props haven’t stood the test of time though, it looks pretty bad by modern standards. But then again, TV shows didn’t have a huge budget back then.
DS9 was created a year after B5 was proposed to paramount. A space sci fi show based on a space station rather than a ship, with an ongoing plot, lots of space religion, lots of space politics, much darker themes, and a huge multi-season war. Even though DS9 was an imitation of B5 in very broad themes, it’s still my favorite ST series.
Interesting to note, the BSG remake is in a way a descendent of B5. Ronald D. Moore got a lot of ideas from B5 when he was one of the main writers for DS9. He made the BSG remake.
DS9 was setting up the enormous galactic war thing in their second season - which aired at about the same time as the first season of Babylon 5. It further seems unlikely that while Babylon 5’s big war kicked off in May of '96 and DS9’s didn’t kick off until June of '97, that the one had much or anything to do with the other. Particularly given that hostilities were ramping up pretty severely in DS9 in May of '95.
Well, the original Star Trek suffered the same fate. The effects are often laughable by today’s standards. In “The Doomsday Machine” the model makers actually used the commercially available plastic model kit of the Enterprise to simulate the destroyed USS Constellation. Medical instruments were actually fancy salt-and-pepper shakers and whatnot. It was sci fi on a shoestring but it worked in 1967. Ditto B5: for the mid-1990’s CGI was new and innovative. Not so much now.
DS9 was created a year after B5 was proposed to paramount. A space sci fi show based on a space station rather than a ship, with an ongoing plot, lots of space religion, lots of space politics, much darker themes, and a huge multi-season war. Even though DS9 was an imitation of B5 in very broad themes, it’s still my favorite ST series.
Mine too.
If I’m not mistaken, though. DS9 started out as episodic like any other Star Trek, and didn’t start the continuing story arc until after B5 started it.
Star Trek TNG holds its own for being relevant. Someone once described Star Wars as a Western in Space and Star Trek as trully science fiction- in that it was a commentary on current culture and trends.
There is a TNG episode where some brings on board that personal entertainment system almost like Google Glasses and it makes everyone walk around in a self induced fog cut off from reality. I watch people on their iPhones and tablets and think that is way too close to reality today.
I think that DS9 was the only Star Trek to have a continuing storyline, though.
TNG had Q and VOY had trying to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, but neither really played that much with anything outside of S1E1: Start at A; S7E26: End at B. Even with DS9, most of the time you could skip many episodes and still just jump right in with any given episode in any given season. I know I did: I missed more than a few episodes of DS9 but never had a problem getting back into them, even during the Dominion War.
“Star Trek: The Next Generation” had a good run, but some have criticized it for being a bit sterile and preachy. And it set up the whole “Kirk vs Picard” thing.
Kirk was a swashbuckler (or a gunfighter if you prefer a western metaphor). Picard was a diplomat. People have their preference, but it comes down to Kirk not being afraid to punch out an alien that desperately deserved it, while Picard probably would think of the consequences first.
So…what’s everybody’s favorite Star Trek episode (include the movies if you want).
Mine is probably “The Doomsday Machine” from the original series. It was one of the few times the series kept you on the edge of your seat with such a tense cliffhanger. Kirk MUST be transported off the Constellation NOW before it explodes…one last-minute repair to the transporter that keeps shorting out…Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard…just a few seconds left…the transporter shorts out again…did they get him back to the Enterprise?..the Constellation explodes destroying the doomsday machine from the inside out…did Kirk’s molecules survive?
You’ll have to watch it to find out.
Most writers would not have added the cliffhanger to the cliffhanger (in other words the transporter would have shorted out one more time…but not again after they fixed it).
The episode to this day has that exciting ending. I don’t think any other episode pushed the tension right to the last second and beyond.
Two of the more popular episodes from ST:TNG were “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “The Pegasus”. Interestingly, both episodes center around ships instead of interpersonal conflicts/relationships.
Too easy…
Second most fun had to be Patterns of Force. Keep in mind both Kirk and Spock were Jewish, irony abounds.
TNG is my all time favorite TV show. Sure, the production of modern programs has mutated into a raging, hormonal adrenaline rush but, as someone mentioned, TNG has held up well. I have enjoyed quite a few newer shows but how can you compare with something that so carefully and creatively crafted the lives of ten or so top characters for 178 episodes?
In the pale moonlight.
In a related vein, “Battlestar Galactica” has managed to survive since 1978. The spinoff “Galactica 1980” is viewed by many as a total flop, and (in the words of one reviewer) “destroyed sci-fi on network TV for years afterwards”.
I dunno - I kind of liked those Cylon “Raider” fighters from the original series.