Reggie Bautista wrote: > I can understand that, and can sympathize to some extent. I'm a big fan of > Babylon 5, but if someone tried to do a show in the B5 universe without > approval of jms, the Roddenberry of B5, I probably wouldn't be interested > and I'm *certain* jms would be very unhappy and would not consider it > canonical within the B5 universe. For some reason, I never really > considered that issue with DS9, and I'm not really sure why.
Well, JMS wrote probably 80% (or more!) of the B5 episodes, and the rest were written to conform to his story arc, whereas I'm not sure Roddenberry wrote any ST episodes, and he certainly never had/wanted any kind of overall story arc. ST was his show, but he didn't control/guide the stories in the same way JMS did. At least to me, that's why the Roddenberry-less DS9 wasn't equivalent to a JMS-less B5. > I wonder if some of that decline in popularity might have something to do > with market saturation. I don't think any other story universes had more > than one show on at a time back when DS9 first started (now there are > several). And DS9 *was* a pretty big departure from previous Trek > incarnations, so a lot of people who thought that you can't have Trek > without the Enterprise probably felt that Trek was moving away from their > interests, so they decided to move away from Trek. Did you see any talk of > that in the fanclub? Also, by the time Worf and the Dominion War both got > added to the mix, Babylon 5 was up and running full steam, so suddenly Trek > wasn't the only space-oriented science fiction choice available on > television, so people had something else to get excited about. That might > have let some of the air out of the Trek fandom bubble in the early to > middle 1990s. I would add that DS9 was a bit more cerebral than TNG was, and featured mostly new, unfamiliar characters, settings and sadversaries, versus the already beloved TNG cast and the familiar Klingons and Romulans. Further, all the cliches that were getting tired at the end of TNG (ie: holodeck adventure/accident, stranded on a planet due to a shuttle crash, etc) were getting recycled by the writers on DS9 (and again later, on Voyager...) > That familiarity may be why so many people stuck with Voyager through some > really dreadful bouts of writing (and I tend to have a higher opinion than > most concerning Voyager, which had some really great stories mixed in the > bad). That also may be why people have stayed with Enterprise through it's > ups and downs so far. We care about the Federation and we want to know more > about it, and so are willing to tolerate weaker stories as long as they are > comfortable. Even though I wasn't enjoying it very much, I watched Voyager out of force of (ST-watching) habit up until the (second season?) episode "Threshold", which was the worst, most god-awful piece of rediculous crud I'd ever seen come out of the ST franchise. Far worse than "Spock's Brain", IMHO. After watching it, I posted a writeup mocking it on R.A.ST, got a few laughs, and then realized that I was getting more annoyance than entertainment, and sadly gave up. I think this was around the same time Tim Lynch (probably the most widely read ST episode reviewer on USENET) also gave up on Voyager. > I'm certainly not the first to say this, but maybe the network execs at > Paramount know that ST fans like that familiarity, and are therefore > unwilling to rock the boat with controversial or cutting edge stories, and > maybe *that* is why ST popularity has been declining. IMHO, the network execs think ST fans are stupid and couldn't handle/appreciate anything too complex/controversial/cutting edge/new. When DS9 ended, Ron Moore moved on to Voyager, and he tried to make some changes and add new ideas, so they booted him. I think those are the reasons why the ST franchise is dying. As you can see, I'm a little bitter about the Star Trek franchise. It had/has the potential to be *so* good, and yet I've been so constantly disappointed, that I've mostly given up. > >True, Voyager did start being a lot like "Lost In Space". But, according > >to legend, "Lost In Space" was inspired by Gene's pitch to CBS, so in a way > >it came full-circle after all, right? :) > > And to turn the circle into a Moebius strip... DS9 might have been inspired > by jms' pitch to Paramount as you probably already knew or had read in a > previous thread -- or was that earlier in this thread? Or did you in fact > post that info? It all blurs together after a while :-) > That was me that posted that. I noted the irony that CBS milked Roddenberry for his ideas when they made Lost In Space, while Paramount milked JMS for ideas when they made DS9. -bry _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
