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 gorgon wrote:

ST is a little weirder than most franchises just because of the Roddenberry true believers, who think the crew must always get along, the future must be a borderline utopia, etc. That's appealing if you're also a true believer, but otherwise it'd hamstring writers striving for scripts that connect with regular audiences.

I never get this criticism - they like a certain style of show with certain core themes, and would prefer that said show continue to have that style and express those themes. Like everyone else on the planet who likes a thing and wants more of it - you seem to like the BSG reboot a lot, how would you have responded if people came along at the end of season 2 and started arguing "Hey, brah, regular audiences like comedy and crime, nu-BSG should be changed into a prequel show detailing the hilarious crime-solving hijinks of an overly-serious Colonial Navy MP and his wacky robot dog sidekick! All that politics and philosophy and religion stuff is totes boring anyways."?

Besides which, people act as if we're drowning in utopian sci-fi and what we really need is that oh-so-rare style of sci-fi; Grimdark Pseudo-near-future (para)Military Manshooter Show. So where are they all? Where is this tidal wave of optimistic, utopian sci-fi shows that leaves fans of more morally gray or outright dystopian stories so bereft of content? There's Star Trek, obviously, and Stargate...but that was cancelled too...and then....well maybe....no, perhaps...hmm. Odd. There don't appear to be any more. It's been 11 years since the end of Enterprise, which was marginally optimistic and utopian at best, and in that time it's been a parade of drab, depressing, dystopian shows with occasional light, fun-but-only-in-a-cynical-way shows. And hey, a lot of them have been great shows, but dear sweet merciful christ it's become dull. A nice, leisurely, semi-serialised show about people who usually get along with one another while exploring the mysteries of the universe and meeting strange new cultures that might pose questions about our own modern society would be a refreshing change of pace.

I mean jeebus, there has literally never been a better time for "serious" sci-fi - The Expanse was one of the best sci-fi shows I've ever seen, Dark Matter makes a tolerable fist of the whole "distrustful mercenaries thrown together in a dystopian corporate future" thing, Killjoys has the cynical humour angle covered, there's an adaptation of K.S. Robinson's Mars Trilogy coming in the next year or two, fans of growly post-apocalypse and time travel have the 12 Monkeys series which was surprisingly watchable, The Man In The High Castle tickles the alt-history nerve well and is unremittingly serious about itself, and the Netflix Marvel shows cover modern day superhero-based pseudo-sci-fi and fairly well punch you in the face with politics while doing it. Is it really so unreasonable to desire one show, the show that historically pretty much exemplifies the idea, be optimistic and utopian?

Not that I'm optimistic, with Kurtzman involved I'm sure the folk who use "Roddenberry" like an insult will get exactly what they desire.

Amen, Yodhrin.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

ST is a little weirder than most franchises just because of the Roddenberry true believers, who think the crew must always get along, the future must be a borderline utopia, etc. That's appealing if you're also a true believer, but otherwise it'd hamstring writers striving for scripts that connect with regular audiences.

Its still entirely possible to have a near Utopian Federation and have a the crew work together well (as in reality they would anyway as they have a chain of command and are mostly professional military) while still making a far more realistic and modern series. The interesting 'gritty' situations and plot arcs could easily be supplied from outside the Federation.

That approach worked well enough for Iain M Banks' Culture novels. I don't see why it shouldn't work for Star Trek. There's also plenty of scope for conflict with other non-Starfleet Federation agencies (especially if they wound back the idea that Starfleet is the Federation). Hopefully that could be arranged so that the people disagreeing with the main crew aren't obviously idiots, though.

 Yodhrin wrote:
there's an adaptation of K.S. Robinson's Mars Trilogy coming in the next year or two

Aw yeah! I never could finish the third book, as it got so terribly boring, but I'm really excited by the idea of a TV version!

Also, I think that the Star Trek shows definitely show their age nowadays - the frequent filler episodes stands at contrast with the modern taste for arc-narratives, and the props and effects are obviously really old looking - and that there is room in the market for Star Trek style television. As someone who couldn't get into Battlestar Galactica because of how dour and depressing it was, I would be all for some utopian science fiction. My favourite bits of DS9 were the episodes where Sisko had to navigate the moral waters in order to preserve both his values and the utopia that he serves, and I do not believe that society has gotten so grim in the last twenty years that we are not ready to have more of those kinds of stories told.

I don't think that simply tossing Star Trek: TNG2 onto the screens would work that well, thanks to how nerd television has progressed, but I do think that something with the same spirit and heart could be made into a really glorious series. Keep the optimism and utopia, add the special effects, wit and arc-narratives of modern shows, and just tell some damn fine stories.

It is interesting to speculate which universe it will be in. The original universe has obviously been left by the wayside for the moment, and does have the problem that kind of a lot of stories were already told in it. Enterprise, as I understand it, struggled to find a place for itself in the same universe as the 25ish series of the other shows, and that led to a lot of its inconsistencies. But on the other hand, the new universe offers the danger of stepping on the toes of the films, and Agents of Shield shows the danger of having to tip-toe around major film plots (I think that AoS is now just going off into its own territory for that exact reason).

 Charles Rampant wrote:

Also, I think that the Star Trek shows definitely show their age nowadays - the frequent filler episodes stands at contrast with the modern taste for arc-narratives, and the props and effects are obviously really old looking - and that there is room in the market for Star Trek style television.

Enterprise tried the large arc narative angle and (YMMV) IMO their efforts hampered the show. There is a point though to be made that it was probably the substance of both large arcs (Season 1 temporal cold war and Season 3 Xindipocalypse) that was the issue and not the premise of the arcs. Earlier than that, DS9 did the same with the Dominion War (which I liked). I think Enterprise would have had a much better run if they just skipped both of those wishy washy timey wimey arcs and just focused on exploration as well as the 2-3 episode mini arcs that were in the fourth and final season. A perfect mix for me would be 2-3 independent episodes followed by a 2-3 episode combined mini-arc that feels like a movie when played back to back.

Back to nuTrek, I won't be signing up for CBS whatever on top of everything else. I'll watch the first episode when it premieres and then catch the rest however I can (red box, amazon, netflix, etc) even if it means waiting a year or two/after the cancellation.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
My favourite bits of DS9 were the episodes where Sisko had to navigate the moral waters in order to preserve both his values and the utopia that he serves, and I do not believe that society has gotten so grim in the last twenty years that we are not ready to have more of those kinds of stories told.

Well, that's really the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's not about being dour, dark and depressing, it's about showing people actually struggling with choices and trying to do the right thing in situations that maybe don't have a clear right or wrong. DS9 and TOS did that a little better than TNG or even Voyager, which IMO too often resolved problems seemingly through the power of their own moral superiority and awesomeness (when they weren't being resolved by Geordi making some adjustment to the main deflector dish).

People understand and relate to the concepts of struggle and difficult decisions because we all experience them in our daily lives. I never thought there was enough of that in TNG in particular. To me, it's far more uplifting and optimistic to see someone genuinely wrestling with these kinds of issues. *shrug*

 gorgon wrote:

 Charles Rampant wrote:
My favourite bits of DS9 were the episodes where Sisko had to navigate the moral waters in order to preserve both his values and the utopia that he serves, and I do not believe that society has gotten so grim in the last twenty years that we are not ready to have more of those kinds of stories told.

Well, that's really the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's not about being dour, dark and depressing, it's about showing people actually struggling with choices and trying to do the right thing in situations that maybe don't have a clear right or wrong. DS9 and TOS did that a little better than TNG or even Voyager, which IMO too often resolved problems seemingly through the power of their own moral superiority and awesomeness (when they weren't being resolved by Geordi making some adjustment to the main deflector dish).

People understand and relate to the concepts of struggle and difficult decisions because we all experience them in our daily lives. I never thought there was enough of that in TNG in particular. To me, it's far more uplifting and optimistic to see someone genuinely wrestling with these kinds of issues. *shrug*

But does that really have to be every show? People often hold up DS9, but for me that's every bit as much a mixed-bag as TNG; In the Pale Moonlight is a fantastic episode, but the Dominion War arc as a whole seemed to be written by people who took great delight in tearing down the Federation; Admiral Dictator and the Super Cadets, the Defiant crew worshipping spent phaser couplings, Nog strutting around like a US Marine, and oh dear merciful god Section 31 Just as TNG sometimes took the moralising a bit too far, DS9 often went too far in the other direction, so eager to find flaws for the characters to angst over that it missed the point; the Federation is supposed to be insufferably perfect by modern standards, because we're not meant to understand and relate to them, we're meant to understand and relate to the greedy thugs, the warmongering barbarians, the duplicitous backstabbers, the prideful bigots etc that they run into each week and show the error of their ways. They are meant to be an ideal version of ourselves, while their adversaries exemplify the flaws we must overcome, individually and collectively, in order to embody that ideal.

If you turn the Federation into the thugs, barbarians, backstabbers and bigots you defeat the object, even if it occasionally throws up a good episode.

Except that STOS was not about a perfect utopian society. It was wagon train in space.

STNG was about as interesting as lukewarm oatmeal most of the time. It wasn't that they were in the beginning of a post scarcity society. It was that everyone were two dimensional cardboard cutouts with sticks shoved up their...backs. Watching the episodes now its like watching Victorians in SPAAACE (except how Victorians thought they were, not how they really were).

STNG was what would have happened if the Vulcans took over and turned everyone else into uncool nerdling librarian Vulcans.

And Wesley Crusher. Deep in the bowels of the Catholic there is now an order dedicated to stop the second coming of the Dark One that is Crusher. They have pledged their lives...

 Yodhrin wrote:
... the Federation is supposed to be insufferably perfect by modern standards, because we're not meant to understand and relate to them, we're meant to understand and relate to the greedy thugs, the warmongering barbarians, the duplicitous backstabbers, the prideful bigots etc that they run into each week and show the error of their ways. They are meant to be an ideal version of ourselves, while their adversaries exemplify the flaws we must overcome, individually and collectively, in order to embody that ideal.

If you turn the Federation into the thugs, barbarians, backstabbers and bigots you defeat the object, even if it occasionally throws up a good episode.

Well, the first bit is a good example of why they say different strokes for different folks. In my entertainment, I like protagonists that I can relate to, who don't lecture me based on some kind of inscrutable imaginary futuristic morality.

The second bit...ai yi yi. Do you have a difficult time seeing shades of grey in people and narratives? There are many degrees between perfect paragons and thugs and barbarians.

As Sisko said "it's easy to be a saint in Paradise."

That one phrase I think sums up the whole of DS9, and is what made it so good. It was easy for Picard to talk loftily about Federation philosophy, and for Kirk to tackle moral questions, from their high horses. DS9 took that high horse and subjected it to a healthy dose of reality, while still maintaining the Federation's lofty ambitions and goals. The show was ripe with complex characters juggling not only complex problems but complex motivations. I still consider it the maturation of the Star Trek franchise.

Yeah, that's the thing. DS9 was still an optimistic look at things, it was still star trek at it's core.

What it asked was how to do it, what it takes. They were people, they could do it. I think that was true in the early 90's and I think it's more true today.

In saying that, I think Star Trek, the original, was very much needed in the 60's. Those reminds of, "hey, yeah, you know what, planet Earth, we're actually all the same, really. No matter our colour, or nationality, we can work together to achieve things and end up like the Enterprise crew. We can aspire to that." It's a different question that needed to be addressed from DS9's. Although, depending on how the next year or so goes... We might need more of the original Star Trek's lessons again.

I guess it could be summed up of:

Star Trek and The Next Generation: "What is a Good Man. What do they look like?"

Deep Space 9: "We know what a Good Man looks like, what does it take to become one? How do you live as one in a complex world?"

Maybe it's these sorts of questions and thoughts which were missing from Voyager and Enterprise...

I think that's a great way of looking at it.

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
... the Federation is supposed to be insufferably perfect by modern standards, because we're not meant to understand and relate to them, we're meant to understand and relate to the greedy thugs, the warmongering barbarians, the duplicitous backstabbers, the prideful bigots etc that they run into each week and show the error of their ways. They are meant to be an ideal version of ourselves, while their adversaries exemplify the flaws we must overcome, individually and collectively, in order to embody that ideal.

If you turn the Federation into the thugs, barbarians, backstabbers and bigots you defeat the object, even if it occasionally throws up a good episode.

Well, the first bit is a good example of why they say different strokes for different folks. In my entertainment, I like protagonists that I can relate to, who don't lecture me based on some kind of inscrutable imaginary futuristic morality.

The second bit...ai yi yi. Do you have a difficult time seeing shades of grey in people and narratives? There are many degrees between perfect paragons and thugs and barbarians.

Do you have a difficult time having a polite discussion with someone you disagree with or do you always resort to implied insult?

Seriously, have you read my posts? At all? Because I would find it hard to read someone stating outright that The Expanse was one of the best shows they've ever seen and then try to cast them as being incapable of appreciating fiction with shadowy moralities at play. Whatever, I don't know why I'm arguing, with Kurtzman involved you're bound to get what you want; enjoy your morally grey spy procedural about Section 31 teaching those silly Starfleet optimists that what you REALLY need to survive in the future is an itchy trigger finger and a post-9/11 attitude to interrogation techniques, or whatever tonally similar drek they end up producing.

 Frazzled wrote:
Except that STOS was not about a perfect utopian society. It was wagon train in space. .

TOS fans always pull that one, while conveniently ignoring that it was "wagon train to the stars" because of the network execs the creatives were trying to get approval for funding from, not the creatives themselves, who wanted to tell stories about race, war, politics etc featuring a crew with a black female officer, an Asian American officer, a Russian officer, and a biracial first officer on US television in the 1960's. If the new Trek series was as progressive in tone relative to modern sensibilities as TOS was relative to the sensibilities of the 1960's, it would make TNG look like a bloody Heinlein novel.

There isnt much left to be progressive about in such crude terms though.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
There isnt much left to be progressive about in such crude terms though.

I believe Star Trek has yet to have an open homosexual relationship. "The Host" from next generation had Crusher turn down an alien and in "The Outcast" they considered casting a man as Riker's asexual, alien love interest but went with a woman.

However to get as progressive as the original series is difficult if not impossible.

DS9 had an episode where a Lesbian relationship was considered but rejected - due to weird alien rules, not because of the gender of the participants. Nice episode, though like a lot of Trek episodes kind of too slow for its own good.

Yeah, Dax was obviously a bisexual, but it would be good for the new series to have a human LGBT character.

So, we have some potentially good news regarding this new Star Trek series. Nicholas Meyer has signed up to join the writing team. For those of you who don't know who that is, he directed and co-wrote Wrath of Khan.

http://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2016/02/27/nicholas-meyer-joins-new-star-trek-show/

Nicholas Meyer Joins New Star Trek Show



Star Trek writer and director Nicholas Meyer is joining CBS’ new Star Trek show!

Nicholas Meyer is a Star Trek legend beloved by all true trekkies. Meyer directed and co-wrote Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, as well as c0-writing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan of course is thought of by many as the greatest Star Trek movie ever made.

First we get Bryan Fuller as our showrunner, then there are rumors of Tony Todd being involved, now we have Nicholas Meyer joining the new Star Trek show as a writer and possibly a director? It’s obvious that CBS is doing this show right.

Here’s what Bryan Fuller had to say about Meyer joining the new show:

“Nicholas Meyer chased Kirk and Khan ’round the Mutara Nebula and ’round Genesis’ flames, he saved the whales with the Enterprise and its crew, and waged war and peace between Klingons and the Federation. We are thrilled to announce that one of Star Trek’s greatest storytellers will be boldly returning as Nicholas Meyer beams aboard the new Trek writing staff,” said Executive Producer, Bryan Fuller.

There’s always a danger getting your expectations up too high for a show, but it’s getting hard not to be excited about CBS new Star Trek.

And, if that isn't enough good news, it looks like Tony Todd might be joining the cast. This one hasn't been carved into stone yet but I'm feeling a lot less worried about this series today.

Interesting... thanks for the update. IIRC, Tony Todd dropped out and started (mildly) bashing the Axanar fan film not long before the Paramount lawsuit so his possible involvement in the official new series could explain why he publicly suddenly distanced himself from the fan film project that he previously participated in. Remember, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia!

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/04/13/the-new-star-trek-tv-show-will-be-set-before-the-next-generation

I have heard some intriguing rumors about the new Star Trek TV show that will be coming to CBS All Access next year under the stewardship of Bryan Fuller: it won't be set in the JJ Abrams reboot universe. The new show will be set in the original, classic continuity.

But when? Will it be a prequel, like Enterprise? Or will it be the next generation for The Next Generation? Neither, I've heard. The show will be set some time after the events of Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, so between the original series and The Next Generation.

I love this. For my money the original series movie uniforms are just the best uniforms, and I would love a TV series with that look. I think there's a rich vein of stories to be mined between the years of the swashbuckling OG crew and the more reserved TNG crew. The only bummer is that we won't be able to have cameos from some of the original crew, as most of them are dead (and Captain Kirk will have already disappeared into the Nexus by the time this show is set, no matter when it's set - he fell into the Nexus the same year as the events of The Undiscovered Country!).

I've also heard the show, which will be heavily serialized, will not be set on an Enterprise, although that feels like a no-brainer. One last rumble I heard, which I could not get second sourced at this time, so consider this a wild rumor: while the Khitomer Conference will have paved the way for Klingons and humans to find peace, Fuller has a plan as to how he can still feature villainous Klingons, something we haven't seen in decades!

This show is shaping up to be awesome, and I'll happily plunk down a subscription fee for it.

UPDATE! A trusted source has chimed in and told me that it looks like the show will be a seasonal anthology, which means the first season will be set post-Undiscovered Country. After that the entire Star Trek universe is potentially open. So those of you hoping for a post-Dominion War show... don't give up hope. That could come some day.

Interesting. I heard that MTV, when adapting the Shannara books to TV, decided to remove the generational aspect, as it reportedly leads to lower viewership in general. For Star Trek to take a generational approach would be a bold move, and potentially indicates a much more Netflix-mini-series style approach, than the traditional 26 episodes a season.

The period between TOS and TNG does seem quite fertile - Star Trek allows for an endless series of new races to be introduced, and certainly the political aspects (how do you deal with a new and fragile alliance) are interesting.

*sigh* Someday, I just want the Romulan war. Enterprise really squandered an opportunity there.

 Janthkin wrote:
*sigh* Someday, I just want the Romulan war. Enterprise really squandered an opportunity there.

I actually like how it was just a biline in STOS. They were about to it up in enterprise.
The concept of a Romulan war with nukes and rocket ships is interesting and BSGesque. The concept of a Romulan War with Enterprise Lite is not.

But.....how will we get Admiral Janeway if it is a prequel?

 Janthkin wrote:
*sigh* Someday, I just want the Romulan war. Enterprise really squandered an opportunity there.

I was hoping for the start of the Klingon War.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But.....how will we get Admiral Janeway if it is a prequel?

Well, you have alternatives. You could take some plain white paint, brush it onto a plain white wall, and then pull up a chair and watch it dry.

That's pretty much the Janeway ExperienceTM.

Voyager gave us 37D of Nine, though. I'll always have that mammary memory.

 gorgon wrote:

Well, you have alternatives. You could take some plain white paint, brush it onto a plain white wall, and then pull up a chair and watch it dry.

That's pretty much the Janeway ExperienceTM.

Not quite, the paint would need to randomly change colour for no reason although the overall effect remains the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
I'll always have that mammary memory.

Just one? They usually come in pairs....

 Janthkin wrote:
*sigh* Someday, I just want the Romulan war. Enterprise really squandered an opportunity there.

I disagree that the show squandered it. They were building up to it but abruptly cancelled before really getting the chance to explore it over the full seven seasons typically allowed for a Star Trek show of that era. CBS/Paramount (I think that was pre-split) squandered it, not the show "Enterprise". While the final episode was indeed stupid, I'd rather not have then cram a useless ending to a long arc hurriedly into the final episode ala the B5 season series "finale" which then became the season 4 finale after it was picked up after the ending.

 warboss wrote:
I disagree that the show squandered it. They were building up to it but abruptly cancelled before really getting the chance to explore it over the full seven seasons typically allowed for a Star Trek show of that era. CBS/Paramount (I think that was pre-split) squandered it, not the show "Enterprise". While the final episode was indeed stupid, I'd rather not have then cram a useless ending to a long arc hurriedly into the final episode ala the B5 season series "finale" which then became the season 4 finale after it was picked up after the ending.

If they'd spent less time on the bizarre temporal cold war & space terrorism plots (and perhaps less time oiling up Vulcans...), they may have had the time to explore some of these canonical elements from the early days of the post-Warp human presence in space.

That the show got canceled before it could really dig into what I wanted to see does not excuse how they spent they time they did have. Hence, squandered.