Jonathan Frakes on any new Trek series

CBS feels it diluted the Star Trek brand throughout the 1990s and early 2000s combined with the poor box office performance of 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis.
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Bull pats. DS9 started weak, but got good when Berman and Piller left and Behr and Moore took over and started telling a good ongoing story. Voyager had a good inspiration in Jeri Taylor's precis, but Berman managed to hobble it right from the get-go. Taylor ended up leaving the series -- and retiring from TV altogether -- in no small part due to her being straitjacketed. Then Braga came in and his solution to the flagging ratings was to introduce 36 of DD. Jeri Ryan is a good actress, and was badly underused in the part. And T&A is no replacement for actual stories of substance. Then on top of that we got the schizophrenic mess that was Enterprise. Lots of good actors and potential wasted on lame stories that finally started getting good right before it was cancelled.

And we all know Nemesis' lackluster box office was due to it sucking massively, not "oversaturation of the market".

--Jonah
 
I guess it's just loose semantics on the part of the article's author, but CBS had nothing to do with Star Trek in the 1990s and early 2000s.
 
Voyager was just a shame it didnt have the right writers. potential of it wasnt even half used.

same for SG U btw.

two series, two ships in space so darn far away from all the other series, and still they have to face to same lame stuff as any other series. they should have asked some of the TOS writers and howto invent new technology and finding stuff humans never heard about.
 
Voyager, especially, had such promise. but we ended up with one-dimensional characters and over a year of Gilligan's Island in space. "We found a way home!" "Aw, it didn't work..." Repeat. The actors tried to make their characters more interesting, but were constantly frustrated. And poor Harry never got promoted past frikkin' Ensign.

--Jonah
 
And don't forget Neelix, he was supposed to be the funny guy, but he ranks second next to Wesley. I never liked that guy… he was sooo annoying. I hated him.
 
Inquisitor Peregrinus said:
Voyager, especially, had such promise. but we ended up with one-dimensional characters and over a year of Gilligan's Island in space. "We found a way home!" "Aw, it didn't work..." Repeat. The actors tried to make their characters more interesting, but were constantly frustrated. And poor Harry never got promoted past frikkin' Ensign.

--Jonah
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I agree, Voyager was huge wasted potential. They really could have explored a lot of different ideas and broken away, somewhat, from the classic Trek mold since it was set in another part of the galaxy. Instead of giving us something new and different we got more of the same but done as well. They really should have shown us more of them having difficulty in keeping the Voyager running in tip top shape, battles should have been something to avoid as much as possible because of the damage that would be hard if not impossible to repair and the potential loss of personnel that they can't replace. Instead we get the occasional mentioning of rationing replicator usage (ooh, how dreadful), and Neelix negotiating for parts that are miraculously compatible with Federation tech., and no apparent serious damage or loss of life despite all of the battles they engaged in.
 
jarroth said:
Voyager was just a shame it didnt have the right writers. potential of it wasnt even half used.

same for SG U btw.

two series, two ships in space so darn far away from all the other series, and still they have to face to same lame stuff as any other series. they should have asked some of the TOS writers and howto invent new technology and finding stuff humans never heard about.
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Quest shows always end badly because they have to keep finding reasons that they can't complete the quest and thus end the show. It gets more and more silly and more and more contrived as time goes on. At some point in time, they have to just say screw it, we're going home but the writers never allow that to happen. That's the show's whole schtick. It's why the castaways could never get off Gilligan's Island and why, even after they did, they kept going back for the reunion movies. They have nothing else to do.
 
voyager shouldnt have ended with earth in sight ready to dock imo. with all the borg and other new technology and discoveries anything would have been possible. transwarp capable delta flyer and a borg with all borg knowledge, who already travel transwarp. shame that got thrown away in 45 minute episode.
 
Cephus said:
Quest shows always end badly because they have to keep finding reasons that they can't complete the quest and thus end the show. It gets more and more silly and more and more contrived as time goes on. At some point in time, they have to just say screw it, we're going home but the writers never allow that to happen. That's the show's whole schtick. It's why the castaways could never get off Gilligan's Island and why, even after they did, they kept going back for the reunion movies. They have nothing else to do.
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Exactly. A show like Voyager or Galactica or any quest-based show needs to be planned out the whole way, preferably with shortcuts in case you get canceled early. Basically, you need to know that you have X number of seasons and then everyone makes it home. If folks want to continue the story after that, that's a different issue, but you end the main story at a fixed point. Otherwise it becomes exactly like Gilligan's Island (which works fine in a comedy, but not in a dramatic series).
 
I just can't understand how just getting back to the roots of TOS and going from there is so difficult
and painfully ignored.
Here goes my broken record again......
Sadly half the fans out there seem to want war war war from Trek.
Go watch Star Wars for wars.
Star Trek should be about a.... trek to the stars say? Crazy talk I know.
Visting planets, exploring, contacting new aliens, encountering the totally unknown, sure hostile and otherwise.
And thus exploring ourselves and thinking in new ways. Sci Fi!
Why is this so freeking hard to get?
No you won't get the JJ Trek audiences to tune in really.
But you WILL get a dedicated audience if you write those stories well! and it will grow.
So many channels now, it can be successful.
 
The reality is that the Suits in charge view all of us old TOS fans as Capt. Dunsills. :unsure
 
Solo4114 said:
Exactly. A show like Voyager or Galactica or any quest-based show needs to be planned out the whole way, preferably with shortcuts in case you get canceled early. Basically, you need to know that you have X number of seasons and then everyone makes it home. If folks want to continue the story after that, that's a different issue, but you end the main story at a fixed point. Otherwise it becomes exactly like Gilligan's Island (which works fine in a comedy, but not in a dramatic series).
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While Babylon 5 wasn't a quest show, quest shows need to be built just like it. A 5-year plan and it ends at the end no matter what the ratings are. That kind of thing just doesn't happen today though. Shows run so long as they can squeeze any money out of it, no matter how awful it is.

- - - Updated - - -

Apollo said:
The reality is that the Suits in charge view all of us old TOS fans as Capt. Dunsills. :unsure
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That's fine with me, they make very little, if any money off of me because of it. I think Star Trek ended after TOS. So long as modern shows suck, and I think all of them have, I just don't give them any of my money.
 
Does CBS own ST now or something? That main big networks aren't exactly where you go for scifi . They just want clones of police, hospital, and law drama shows. If you're show is not one of them it will get canceled.

This is a great quote that was posted on the Blastr site:

Only way to resolve this crappy situation is a CBS and Paramount takeover by Disney, and make Star Trek Cinematic Universe.
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Treadwell said:
Yeah, the "mixed crews" thing had great potential...and all that happened was, basically, the Maquis became Starfleet.

Maybe the surviving ship should've been the Maquis vessel, and the Starfleet folks having to adapt to THEM.
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Jeeze, you know, gave up on Voyager pretty quickly but that...might have kept me around. Just the setting alone is better. It's a much more interesting setting than another boring, sterile Federation ship, and would have provided some dramatic possibilities all on its own of a far-from-spec rebel ship. It then really forces drama between the crews as the stick-up-the-butt Federation officers have to play by the Maquis rules - forcing law-and-order types to find their way in a lawless word is much more interesting than getting rebels to just accept how much happier everyone would be if they all behave and follow the rules.
 
"Diluting the brand" is lame jargon. "Branding" wasn't even a thing when Nemesis came out.

Things that "dilute" the brand are lame tie in video games and only paying lip service to some of the main themes of the original series.

TV probably isn't the best anyway, Hulu (since, CBS), or Netflix would be much better options.
 
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