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 AduroT wrote:
I loved the Dragon Riders of Pern books. Would definitely check out a show based on those.

From what it sounds like, be glad that it didn't get made. From Wikipedia:

In 2002, Warner Brothers Network and writer Ronald D. Moore had completed sets and casting for a pilot episode, and were within a few days of filming. Moore had sent the pilot episode to Warners for final approval. It was returned with so many changes to the basic structure of Pern – making it more like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess – that it no longer much resembled the world created by Anne McCaffrey. As a fan of the Dragonriders of Pern series, Moore refused to continue. Filming was canceled, and rights ownership remained with Zyntopo Teoranta's assign, Kua Media Corporation (Canada).

Regarding Space aab, it already has a dozen or so main characters. While having them be experts in everything May stretch believability, I think it lets the series tell a much wider range of stories, and allow for a better set of character development without the viewer needing to remember another dozen or so characters. If they had split between aerospace and ground, then it would have been restrictive on the storylines. Amd they are the heroes. Why shouldn’t they be good at everything

 Flinty wrote:
Regarding Space aab, it already has a dozen or so main characters. While having them be experts in everything May stretch believability, I think it lets the series tell a much wider range of stories, and allow for a better set of character development without the viewer needing to remember another dozen or so characters. If they had split between aerospace and ground, then it would have been restrictive on the storylines. Amd they are the heroes. Why shouldn’t they be good at everything

That's usually why this happens in TV. It may not be entirely realistic that they send Starbuck out to lead a bunch of Marines assaulting a prison ship, for example, but the audience needs a character to invest in, so adding some random new guy just for that purpose doesn't have the same impact. It's also cheaper. You've already paid the actor, so might as well use them. I think it only becomes really egregious when it's always the same character who seems to acquire extra skills as the plot demands.

“But I’ve always been able to play the piano while balancing a pile of books on my head and hack into the bad guy’s database that uses a different basis of programming than everything humanity uses… anyway, it’s well known that everyone in the galaxy uses unix”

 Captain Joystick wrote:

I have not seen S:AAB beyond a couple of episodes I may have caught as a kid while channel surfing, but this is something BSG and Star Trek also did which doesn't make sense to me. Pilots are a massive training investment, and even assuming that training somehow also makes you a good ground-pounder (something most operators would highly contest, I think), any one of them is going to do more for the ground war effort by transporting troops to the field or providing close air support than they can ever realistically provide on the ground.

But if the command deck didn't go and investigate the cave the episode would be them trying to apply the extra long screwdriver of command over the comm link with occasional screams to break the micromanagement! And... Biggles!

Forever War handled it quite well. We can send (at the start) a ship. It can carry X people. So here that is the constraint, not training efficiency. So get the brightest, train them to do everything well enough, and hope whatever happens they are somewhat prepared for and can adapt to.

But come on, Biggles!

One of the things I loved about BSG was that they did have a lot of background characters in the deck crew, etc. that they brought back in at times when they needed them. The Master Sergeant was one, Socinus, etc. Plus they had some ascended extras like Callie. I only really realised this when I rewatched the pilot and there were a bunch of people who I remember popping up two, three, four series later.

I don't remember the exact specifics of what was ad-libbed and what wasn't, but I seem to recall the commentary track for the mini series saying that Chief Tyrol was originally slated to die but Aaron Douglas' delivery of "Let's get the old girl ready to roll and kick some cylon ass!... This better be for real." bumped him up to series regular.

 AduroT wrote:
I loved the Dragon Riders of Pern books. Would definitely check out a show based on those.

Oh wow, that brought back memories. Yeah I read the crap outta those back in 6th grade or so.

I should probably go back and revisit more of the Anne McCaffery books again. I read The Ship Who Sang not too long ago and enjoyed it.

Ghaz wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I loved the Dragon Riders of Pern books. Would definitely check out a show based on those.

From what it sounds like, be glad that it didn't get made.

Insectum7 wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I loved the Dragon Riders of Pern books. Would definitely check out a show based on those.

Oh wow, that brought back memories. Yeah I read the crap outta those back in 6th grade or so.

Yeah, speaking as an Earthsea fan, you guys dodged a bullet.

Earthsea, wheel of time, Shannara, Sword of Truth… the list goes on…

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Yeah, speaking as an Earthsea fan, you guys dodged a bullet.

I had to look it up. I am sorry.

Books, yo. Books are great. Everyone should just read more books.

 LordofHats wrote:
2 Problems stand out with Voyager;

-The writers couldn't stick to the concept a lot of the time.

I think that's it in a nutshell. The premise was interesting but they ignored a lot of it once they got past the pilot. And if you're just going to do episodic, standard Trek plots and scenarios and not something a little more desperate and bold...the quadrant setting eliminated any of those Starfleet plots that the other series could bank on. So it kinda ended up with the worst of both worlds.

But IIRC some of Ron Moore's frustration with Voyager helped spawn Battlestar Galactica, which is a good result.

Odd man out, here again.

I *loathe* the new BSG, and even moreso Craprica. And it's because of Starbuck.

The show was full of people who couldn't make the right decision (except Cmmdr Adama - and even he started having issues), if it was handed to them on a silver platter.

I get and would like a story about a rag-tag fleet and their struggles to escape an enemy and find a new world. The constant bad decisions I could have done without.