JJ (or Jose or something else ;-) wrote:
But now that you mention it, the addition of *other* Gene Rodenberry products like "Earth: Final Conflict" and "Andromeda", which boast so openly Rodenberry's by-line may have a lot to do with diminishing the credibility of shows like DS9 and Voyager in the eyes of many GR fans. After all, no other Trek production after TNG boasts a direct relationship to Gene.
Earth:Final Conflict may have started with a direct connection to Gene, but I doubt he would have liked how it turned out in the end. Probably most of the first season would have been ok, but after that, it took a serious left turn. Then a serious right turn. Then a journey through some seriously twisty mountain mountain roads. Not many shows can claim such a revolving door cast and revolving door premise.
Gene might also very well have liked the first season or so of Andromeda, since it's basically a space-based reworking of _Genesis II_, Roddenberry's 1973 film that was originally intended to be the pilot of a new series, and the sequel films, _Planet Earth_ and _Strange New World_, also intended to be series pilots. The main character in the first two movies was named Dylan Hunt, just like in Andromeda.
IIRC, in _Genesis II_ Hunt was originally from not too far in our future, and was put into suspended animation (accidentally, I think) in an underground cave and was revived 150 or 200 years later, after a nuclear holocaust devastated the planet. He finds a group of people who are being oppressed or are in danger of being oppressed, and together they try to overthrow the oppressors (who use a rod-shaped electronic weapon with multiple functions) and put Earth back the way it was before. I think there were even some altered or mutated humans, stronger that us normal types, much like _Andromeda_'s Nietzscheans. The movie also had a "subshuttles," an underground means of going different places all across the world (slipstream drive, anyone?). Some episodes were written but never produced, but I recall reading somewhere that some of them have been cannibalized for episodes of both _Andromeda_ and various versions of ST. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that the network (CBS?) decided to do the "Planet of the Apes" series, and didn't want to do two post-apocalyptic series at the same time.
I don't remember the plot of _Planet Earth_ (which had a different actor as Hunt, as I recall), but I seem to recall that _Strange New World_ had the same actor that played Hunt in _Planet Earth_ playing a different character in this one, a character who had been in suspended animation in a space station because of some impending disaster discovered by Hunt and his people, who wakes up and goes back down to Earth where more badness has occured that requires him to correct it.
Back to our original discussion, _Andromeda_ didn't get started until 1999 or 2000, which is a little later than the timeframe we were originally talking about, middle 1990s, but I can certainly understand it as a factor in the continuation of the decline of Trek, if not an original cause.
As an aside, I think I remember reading somewhere that they were originally going to do a remake of _Genesis II_ as a series to go along with _Andromeda_, which would have been completely redundant.
As another aside, to tie into the Q part of this thread, I don't remember if the three '70s movies had a god-like being, but _Andromeda_ has Trance Gemini who has demonstrated some god-like powers along the way, although not as dramatically as Q or Trelane, and not consistantly. And of course there's Liam Kincaid from the middle three seasons of _Earth: Final Conflict_.
JJ again:
You raise a very interesting point. It could be argued, however, that there was one major flaw in regards of turning DS9 into a spaceship-based exploration tv show: the crew of DS9 was created to function *inside* the space station.[snip]
This crew was not originally intended to be or interact as a starship crew. Therefore, the characters often seem out of their element when they are put inside a starship. To me, they tend to look out of place and awkward.
In it's 3rd season, Babylon 5 added the Whitestar. I wonder if this plan was mentioned in jms' pitch meeting with Paramount, and if the Paramount suits decided from the beginning that they were going to have creative add the Defiant somewhere along the way. Maybe the addition seemed forced because it was being forced on the creative types by the execs, trying once again to beat B5 to the punch.
And I'm not even going into the quality of the performances from the actors. Maybe other actors, better skilled, could've functioned brilliantly under any circumstances. This would have added some serious credibility to their roles.
Personally, I liked the actors. Then again, I also like DS9 better than any other modern Trek, and think that DS9 is as good as TOS (although for very different reasons). In Cisco, we get a conflicted, troubled commanding officer played very conflicted, very troubled, and very commandingly by Avery Brooks. I can't imagine anyone playing Kira or Jadzia other than the people who played them. Dr. Bashir was a little weak IMO, but then the character was also written that way to some extent. Gul Dukat and Garak are two of my all-time favorite ST characters, and brilliantly played. Jake, Quark, Odo (fascinating character despite being based on the villain from the original version of the script for the B5 pilot, who was supposed to be a shapeshifter instead of someone using a changeling net), Miles O'Brian, Keiko, Cassidy Yates, Leeta (another B5 echo in that name), Kai Winn, Morn (basically Norm from Cheers), Vedek Bareil... all of them were well done. The only characters I found really annoying were Nog and Rom, and they were *supposed* to be annoying.
I wrote:
I'm gonna have to rewatch it [ST5] just to stay in this discussion!
JJ:
Please do!!. I want to hear your comments on it. This thread rocks.
Agreed, this thread rocks! However, I told my wife that I thought we should give ST5 another try, and she replied "no It Never Happened YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!" and then threatened to make me build my own doghouse in the backyard to live in :-) I *think* she was kidding, but I'm not certain...
Reggie Bautista Kobayashi Maru
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