Is Star Trek dead?

It'll live on in ancillary markets, but nowhere else. I think the possibility of milking it a few years down the line is a good one, maybe if it's taken on by someone with a bit of power who has an interest (like Bryan Singer and Galactica).

I'm glad it's pretty much over for a while. Berman and co have driven it into the ground.

It's dead, Jim.

"It's dead, Jim.'
It should be given a decent burial, but instead it's such a potential cash cow that the corpse will be displayed in hopes of another hit.
I agree it should be put on a nice long...5 year mainly, hiatus, but that ain't gonna happen. Hell, bad as it was, the Production company will make money off the syndication of "Enterprise".

If they bring it back, they should do a balls to the wall Star Trek action show with a central arc(yeah, I'm big on arcs) featuring all the coolest aspects of the trek ships and weaponry while making sure that all the characters are interesting and well developed. In a few years they can reboot and do something cool that takes place long after the TNG-DS9-VOY era. Lets see the 25th century and a major crisis that threatens the entire federation, lets see Starfleet ships with Transwarp drive, lets see another galaxy, hell, lets have the Kelvans invading from Alpha Centauri, just make it kick ass.

You'll be going outside soon, I take it. Just kidding.

Nah, let it die. Let's get some fresh blood out there, with different ideas and stories.

I think if it's not dead, it's on life support and in need of a miracle. I think if they're really committed to bringing it back, there are two things they need to do:

1. Get a fan to run it/develop it. Not a Trekker off the street, but someone who understands what makes the franchise great and will respect continuity. I think this was many people's problem with Enterprise.

2. Remember what made Trek great. The optimism and the sense of never-ending adventure combined with a real gravitas towards social issues. This was always Roddenberry's intent from the beginning, and it feels like we've gotten away from that in recent years.

Personally, if I were in charge, I'd develop that Starfleet Academy idea they've been kicking around forever, either with younger incarnations of Classic Trek (and really, there's not a lot we know about Kirk, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, etc.) or with a new cast. Done right, it could be The OC: San Francisco. Done incorrectly, and you've got Smallville in Space.

It needs to be laid to rest. Leave it alone for a good five years at the very least and make people hunger for it again.

Think of it this way, Trek has been on continuously since 1987 in some form or another. That's too much trek. As evidenced by that piece of shit Enterprise, the stories had no place to go and the 'lack of danger' has now grown tiresome.

I they do any Trek, they should do an animated mini-series with Kirk and the gang. They are the best cast after all.

Let's hope Berman never touches anything Trek related ever again.

Moment of silence for Star Trek:

...

Thank you. R.I.P.

I remember after Trek V came out Harve Bennett cooked up the idea of the Starfleet Academy.

The older Kirk and Spock thinking back on when they first met and very first adventure. Then it flashed to the younger versions of the classic cast.

If handled right and without any Berman/Braga fucks touching it, it could be interesting.

I think Picard and co's adventures exhausted all the coolest possible storylines. Time for a different location, a different premise, it cant be about a lone ship wandering around space anymore, or a space station like that crappy Deep Space 9, its got to be unique, and yet still retaining the topical and contemporary metaphoric stuff Rath mentioned under point number 2.

Something like Arthur C Clarke's 'Rendezvous With Rama' would be peachy.

First of all John Logan was a Trek fan and Star Trek: Insurrection was a huge turd.

Secondly, a prequel on starfleet academy would be a huge turd and yet another cynical cash-in. ( "Ratings are dropping...Hey, let's bring back the original crew!). I don't want a fucking teen soap set in space.

Finally, the whole "optimism" thing. CRAP. Roddenberry was lucky to release TNG during the New Age craze of the mid-eighties, when yuppies did yoga and went to the shrink en masse to feel better about their hollow experience. The Next Generation is virtually unwatchable now. I mean, seriously, Deanna fucking Troy?

Drama is about conflict. Not about a group of pastel-wearing vegetarian know-it-alls singing Kumbaya.

They never sang kumbaya AND YOU KNOW IT!!!

I have been to a few of the "Trek" sites, and they are acting like they are in a SNL skit about a Star Trek Convention.
What gets to me is how they are screaming that UPN never gave the show a chance.
Considering the low ratings, UPN Stuck with the show a lot longer then most networks would have.
I have no great love for the suits at UPN, but cancelling the show was a no brainer. Low ratings with no sign of improvment.
I agree that a lot of shows are never given a chance and are cancelled too quickly. Don't get me started on "Wonderfalls"(thank god for DVD's so we can now see all 12 episodes). But "Enterprise" was not one of them.
As for Berman and Braga, they need to never be let near a Star Trek project ever again....or anything else.

"Get a fan to run it/develop it. Not a Trekker off the street, but someone who understands what makes the franchise great and will respect continuity."

No, get someone who undestands Science Fiction and has a track record in Televsion or Movies to run it.
A "fan" running it would send it right down the drain. It would end up appealing to no one but hardcore fans. You need someonw with a little more perspective and a more objective way of looking at things than a hardcore fan. Or someone who is a fan but has enough experience in Television to step back and drop the fan blinders.

"First of all John Logan was a Trek fan and Star Trek: Insurrection was a huge turd."
Excellent point. Insurrection is an excellent argument as to why a hardcore fan is NOT the best person to put in charge of a franchise.

It's dead as a television/cinema property.

Very much alive in terms of DVD, DTV specials, video/board games, and other ancillary properties.

If it is dead, maybe that'll get them to finally knock down the damn prices on the DVDs.

And I still think they should have done the Klingon themed show I heard batted around back when folks were speculating what the third series would be after TNG and DS9.

It hasn't helped that Paramount has flooded the market with Trek products since the late 1980s. The occasional book was good, and you have to expect the number of stories to pile up after a few years. But the monstrous volume of novels produced over the last 15 years is simply unforgivable. It stripmined the premise of every good idea, and stunted any sense of organic growth in the series. By the time Enterprise hit the airwaves, what else was left to say?

Factor in games, toys, etc., and you have enough Star Trek merchandise to support a large nation indefinately.


Oh, and the mainstream media is no help. Since the 1970s, "Trekkie" and "Freak" have slowly become synonomous. It's more socially acceptible for a man to wear a dress in public than to wear a Star Trek t-shirt. Since Trek has been on the wane, the media has been shifting its sci-fi freak persecution to Star Wars. (Those 'tards at The Force.Net just make things worse.) Back when Attack of the Clones came out I remember a story on Hard Copy (or some such daytime news magazine bag of shit) about parents that were criminally charged with leaving their children home alone to see a midnight showing of Episode II.

Parents have been neglecting their kids for centuries without the help of George Lucas. They sometimes do even worse things to them.

Sorry about the rant.

I love trek, but If I'm gonna show off my nerdy side its not with a Star Trek Shirt. I'll stick with my SUperhero logo jerseys. Most of them are vague enough to the average person that it goes right over their heads anyway.

As an outsider, all know is about the old crew (Kirk) and Next Generation (Picard). To get the movies up again, you gotta get a new show markete right. UPN isn't the best source of quality programming.

Nothing puts me in my place like a wide-sweeping stereotype. It actually turns me on a little. Whisper this in my ear an I may even put out: "Asian people can't drive."

It needs a real good breather but it will return in some form.

It's certainly not dead. It will come back somewhere down the line. But will it ever be "good" again? That remains to be seen.

I think it should be laid to rest for about 20 - 30 years and wait for, Bragga with his endless boring fucking time travel episodes that hit the reset key at the end of the episode go in to retirement and Berman to be kicked off the Paramount lot.

The thing with Trek is that its incredibly formulaic, and while the writers were eventually working around the formula with TNG and DS9, Voyager and Enterprise have been nothing but rehashed plots and hackneyed elements from better days of Trek, hell they even declawed the Borg through overuse....


At the end of the day Trek needs something fresh, some kind of fresh angle, but currently its so bogged down with its own back story, mythos, rules, regs & technobable "Sir if I remodulate the pan agnostic flanger through the warp field alkaseltza, plink fizz EM band harmonica jelly wizz conduate, then I should be able to create a cackle, raggy, ibuprophen transformer paracetamol aspidistra ray" that constrain the shows drama, meaning that its just not interesting anymore.....

The best idea for taking Trek forward, just playing devils advocate here and suggesting a comeback for the show, would be to take Gene Rodenberrys other show idea which was clearly going to be Trek until he died and someone else got hold of it, which was Andromeda.

Now bare with me, because straight off the bat I know Andromeda is utter crap, but look at the concept and see if you couldnt apply that to Trek.

The Commonwealth is clearly the Federation in all but name, then due to the Commonwealths closest ally to the humans, the Niezchians, who you could say are either Khan style genetic superhumans or in the case of co founders of the Commonwealth, the Vulcans perform a coup. During this coup, one commonwealth ship survives the war by accidentally sitting it out due to time dilation caused by a black hole. Some x amount of years later the ship is freed and the crew come to terms with the fact that the universe is very different now and the Commonwealth has been dead for years.

Now as I say take that and stick it in to the Trek universe, with no Federation, no prime directive, no everyone is happy clappy, in touch with their feelings, always understanding crew members, they'd have to adjust to the collapse of everything they upheld... Then just add a writer with the balls to run with the concept and just pick and choose elements that worked with Trek, the ensemble dynamic, the exploration, the relevent issue of the day built in to the plot and weave in some darkness and dramatic conflict which almost all the series lack....

On May 13th 2005, at 9:01 PM EST, it will be officially comatosed.

What happens after that is beyond all of us.

But, hey, it couldn't be any worse than what we've been seeing already, right?

<silence>

Oh crap.

A "fallen Federation" series would be GOLD.

I've been down on the recent Trek output as much as anyone (and never cared for Enterprise), but I've been watching DS9 reruns on Spike TV, and that several-season stretch starting with the introduction of the Dominion is as good a chunk of Star Trek or even any basic cable genre TV show as I have ever seen.

They need to look to that sort of scenario (A desperate Federation in war with a nigh unstoppable foe, spot-on characterization of the entire crew - not just the leads, badassed large scale instellar combat sequences) to rekindle interest in this brand.

Except Babylon 5 of course which influenced most of the last few seasons of DS9 IMHO including the ending

See the fall of the federation would be better than another unstopable foe, because after The Borg, Trek kind of maxed out on "super races" The Borg, The Dominion, The Xindi, Species 8472... each time defeating them at the last moment with some convincing arguement to the leader of the rival race, or a big space battle with a technobollocks "just press this button and boom" style ending...

See to make Trek interesting you have to take away that super confidence the characters have thanks to the knowlege that they have the Federation behind them and have faced countless aliens on countless worlds and know how to deal with everything. If you took the Andromeda / Fall of the federation route, not only would that safety net be removed but you would also have a ship that is out of date, no up to date database of aliens and so on...

One thing I do agree with you though is the use of extra characters than just the bridge staff. One of the best moves that later season TNG did was to give over episodes to minor characters and in the case of the episode Lower Decks, created new junior staff for an episode and viewed the bridge staff from a new angle.

As long as Rick Berman is involved, STAR TREK is dead...and worse, it's the victim of his brutal and wanton creative necrophilia. I've never seen someone ruin a franchise so thoroughly, running it into the ground, decapitating it, pissing on its corpse, playing rugby with its head, fisting its...okay, you get the idea. Not even George Lucas has been this bad! I'm sure Berman sits in his tub everyday, dreaming up ways to launch LAW AND ORDER: STARFLEET SECURITY UNIT, or CSI: ROMULUS, or EVERYBODY LOVES WORF: "Do you like those ideas, Rubber Ducky? You do? Me too. I love you, Rubber Ducky."

I agree that a fan-run show would be disasterous. A truly terrible idea. And any cashing-in on the original crew in prequel form would only cheapen those characters and further damage the franchise. I've heard talk of a potential anthology series (the whole TALES OF THE FEDERATION thing) and although that might be interesting for die-hard Trekkers, I doubt its constantly rotating main characters and story arcs would keep a mainstream audience hooked in for very long.

I also agree that TREK needs some serious time off. At least five years, if not more. And once it does come back, with different (better) management, I think it needs to distinguish itself from all of the other sci-fi franchises currently glutting the marketplace. I think a big problem with the Berman Era is that TREK seemed to suffer from serious STAR WARS envy. Gone was the mystery and wonder of "strange new worlds" and in its place was more phaser battles, more goofy-looking aliens, more meaningless space battles.

I honestly believe that what made TREK interesting was that it was a journey into uncharted territory. It was about a group of likeable characters being challenged by the universe, encountering "new life and new civilizations." All of this revisionist Kirk-esque ass-kicking and shoot-outs contributed to TREK getting lost in the shuffle because that's what so many other post-STAR WARS franchises felt the need to do.

I'm not a huge STAR TREK IV fan but I find it interesting that the most financially-successful TREK movie ever had no villain, no phaser battles, no Klingon armadas, no Borg infested planets, no high angle fist fights with stunt doubles...NONE of the "exciting" elements that Berman (and Braga) kept trumpeting about every time they faced fan concern about the direction they were leading the franchise in.

I'm not saying I want a New Age, touchy-feely, action-free STAR TREK. But I do want a more intelligent one that says something about our place in the universe, and the challenges that real life throws at us every day. In retrospect, I now appreciate STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE a whole lot more. It's a flawed misfire (in ANY version) but at least it was aimed in the right direction: Out there... Thataway!

The groundwork for the collaspe of the Fedaration was laid in Insurection F Murray Abrahams alien Dude (i have no idea of his name) mentions that the Fearation is dying. Simply play on that and have a show where its stuggling to survive. Have your main charater as a maervick Admiral (Riker anyone?) trying despiratly to rally against outside influnces and internal conflict. Give him a fleet of 3 or four ships each and you have a tv show.

They should let it die, and just try to start a new franchise that doesn't have the stigma that Star Trek does.

No the best premise is this .......

A Tv executive wakes from a deep slumber and goes for a long hot shower , whilst in there we are treated to flashes of episodes of Star Trek ........all incarnations.

We quickly relalise it is a TV Show and that the past 30 odd years have been an abhoorent dream of the tv exec..

We cut to his desk and see on the top of it a script for a show called Star Trek ( subtitled Wagons in Space)

Start all over again...........




I am a Trekkie and proud of it , but there has been much better sci-fi / scripted shows than Trek for a number of years now, B5 , BG, Serentity.....to name a few.

Actually ive often thought it might be fun to take the premise at start over again - ala Battle Star Galatica.
Makes you wonder what exactly they could come up with.

So you think they'll finally reveal who Future Guy (James Horan) is? What other loose ends need to be tied up?

I totally agree. DS9 was on, for the most part, when I was in late high school/college and didn't watch TV, however, rewatchign S1 & 2 I remember some episodes. I missed out on the Dominion thing but I'm excited to see it - and from what I've read, DS9 is one of the strongest Trek arcs in a while. (i.e., I'm in the process of watching them).


Also, am I the only person to NEVER like data?

yeah I lay money they try something really naff like it being a TNG crew member or Spock or some crap like that trying to put everything back to the way it was by destroying that particular future to set the federation back on track....

I've maintained from the start that the over reliance of Enterprise, on Brannon "Time warp story per day" Bragga meant that should they ever pull the plug the series would end with some Time travel story that would show that if the enterprise stayed at home like the Vulcans had said in the first episode, the federation would form and so they end up stopping their own launch and none of the last X seasons would have happened.

Anyway I have to say I'm past caring with Enterprise so what they end up doing is neither here or there to me ....

Well, it isn't entirely deceased just yet. The franchise is still apparently thriving in the publishing market. Those original novels Pocket Books put out every month are still selling and I expect another comic book run will pop up real soon now. Books and comic books was how Star Trek survived during the time between the first TV series and beginning of the movies, and that's how it will remain during this period away I suppose.

I think the only Trekkies left are The Beastie Boys. Seriously, you go to a Star Trek convention and it's just Adam Yauch sitting in an empty auditorium listening to George Takei speak.

I had an idea for one that was set about a decade post-NEMESIS, with the Federation reeling from a Borg war and about to launch a new Enterprise that was essentially a warship, like a gigantic version of the Defiant, which Picard A: was apprehensive of and B: wasn't given command of, because of the same kind of stuff in FC where they said about 'someone who once faced the Borg' etc. It also had a Federation getting pretty corrupt in the face of annihilation. Like the Dominion war, but much less stock footage.

So yeah... if you're out there Rick, give me a call.

Give us Wesleytrek!

Wesley flits about the galaxy with his alien life-partner, visiting alient races that all speak english with funny noses and foreheads and in long, boring, overly talky episode after episode imposes human values on them through the sheer force of his own self-righeousness!

WIL WHEATON NEEDS WORK!!!

Or just let it cough out it's last and we can all get on with our lives.

How dare you. The man-child recently wrote a delightful book and was in Stand By Me. he doesn't need anything.

DEAD as a DOOR Nail

Star Trek was a good show especially "the next generation" which was exceptional However the current producers of the show - who think they have it all figured out - have sold out the franchise to large breasted vulcans and boring as hell story lines. And these same producers will never give it up because it makes them tons of money - and they will WRING it dry - Gene roddenberry should have found someone else to leave it all to. or stopped it all when he died - its interesting - they say star trek movies are better "every other one" thats because - after a bad one jerk-off know it alls - lose interest and the creative people can make a good movie - then after a good one ie: first contact, wrath of kahn, the morons step back in with their "ideas". In any case - after the current series "enterprise" dies - maybe the real creatives can make something interesting for a change. - Its playd out and beaten down.

I say that it's dead or will be for a long time.

In the past two years, ST has failed in two different mediums (the only two that really matter for it). Nemesis made $43 million in the U.S. on a $70 million budget. That's a full-fledged flop, not a disappointment (unless it was a huge smash overseas and on video) and now Enterprise is cancelled. The first Star Trek series to be cancelled by the network since the original (not including the animated version) so couple that with the only Star Trek movie to truly fail at the box office (even five, though doing disappointing business, still made quite a bit) and it spells death.

Hollywood doesn't want to have the pressure of having to make an exceptional product. They want (especially with their franchises) to know that they can be mediocre and still make money. Sure they might intend to or even want to make something with a lot of quality, but they don't want to HAVE to. With Star Trek, they've learned that they can't be mediocre and still make money anymore. If they want Star Trek to continue, then they'll have to make it exceptional and that's not something they want to have the pressure to have to do.

Maybe in a significant while they'll revive it, maybe the way they did Mission: Impossible or Charlie Angels: Star Trek as a star vehicle (star + brand name = $) but I don't see them doing another movie or TV show. If you were a Hollywood producer or investor, would you put your money or your job on the line for another ST show or movie?

I thought he was a political reporter now.......

Yeah, its dead alright. I think sci-fi has just moved past the trappings of Trek. We've had way to much history as a country, and so much of a richer culture, for mid-60s era Trek to be anything but laughably naive.

If they were to revive it, I'd like to see a broken federation, interplanetary anarchy, and a smaller, covert Federation team trying to just keep things from turning into all out war and chaos. And this would all have to be done without the current team in charge. Everything about Trek is recycled. Its like watching a copy of a copy of a copy.

Priceless.

Sounds like my old college chemistry class.

I think the franchise needs to stay dead and buried until somebody come along who actually has something interesting to say about the human condition using the mythology of Trek as the backdrop. This is when and only when its ever been remotely interesting.

After all, TOS was a liberal Western, delving into the issues of the 1960's. TNG reflected Roddenberry's radical humanism, both good and bad. DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise have all suffered to varying degrees of being a series without a vision or a mission statement and relying on Trek tropes (the body switch, the alien love interest, the new threat, etc...) without ever trying anything creatively interesting. The same number of ensemble players. The over-reliance on techno-babble, etc... Story arcs or no story arcs, it doesn't really matter if they're not willing to make a statement about the us in the present day.

Personally, I like to see the Federation played as the United States of the 21st Century. A large powerful military constantly involving themselves in the affairs of other much poorer planets, while the populace remains constantly in a state of fear despite the almost infintesimal threat to their own well being.

Trek definitely needs a break -- perhaps for a decade. And until then, as far as I'm concerned, it's dead.


Should it be resurrected?

Yes.

Should it center on Earth?

No (And whoever thinks it should, should immediately turn in their Trekker badge because they've forgotten what the point of Trek was in the first place-- "to seek out new life and new civilizations, to go boldly where no one has gone before")

Should it explore the 22nd century?

No.

Should it explore the 23rd century?

No.

Should it explore the 24th century?

No.

Should it explore the 25th century?

Yes.

I hope so.

Who cares? As long as Battlestar Galactica is on I know I dont, I am VERY forgivable with ST and the last series and Movie have just been bad.