The Trek franchise to get JMS?

It's got to be better than Berman and Braga who have just been going around in the same circles for years. They trapped themselves inside what a Trek series is "supposed" to be, and stagnated while the same genre of TV and movies have moved forwards.

Politics won out over content or the wish to produce good TV.

JMS said:
Over time, Trek was treated like a porsche that's kept in the garage
all the time, for fear of scratching the finish. The stories were, for
the most part, safe, more about technology than what William Faulkner
described as "the human heart in conflict with itself." Yes, there
were always exceptions, but in general that trend became more and more
apparent with the passage of years.

When Enterprise went down, those involved shrugged and wrote it off to
"franchise fatigue," their phrase, not mine.

I don't believe that for a second. Neither does Bryce. There's a
tremendous hunger for Trek out there. It just has to be Trek done
*right*.

Last year, Bryce and I sat down and, on our own, out of a sheer love of
Trek as it was and should be, wrote a series bible/treatment for a
return to the roots of Trek. To re-boot the Trek universe.
Understand: writer/producers in TV just don't do that sort of thing on
their own, everybody always insists on doing it for vast sums of money.
We did it entirely on our own, setting aside other, paying deadlines
out of our passion for the series. We set out a full five-year arc.

But when it came time to bring it to Paramount, despite my track record
and Bryce's enormous and skillful record as a writer/producer, the
effort stalled out because of "political considerations," which was
explained to us as not wishing to offend the powers that be.
 
Speaking of JMS and B5,
I recently went and bought the first 4 series of B5. I thought they were a bargain at ~1/2 the RRP. Of course, now I've found they've just halved in price again. Isn't that just typical?


Anyway, I haven't bought the 5th series - I don't think it aired in the UK. Anyone know if it's as good as the predecessors?
 
Simon F said:
Anyway, I haven't bought the 5th series - I don't think it aired in the UK. Anyone know if it's as good as the predecessors?

IMO, it's not quite as good as Season 4 and 5, but still plenty enjoyable. At 1/4 the RRP, it'd a shame not to watch it (aka as "Das Delta-Günstig-Phänomen").
 
Simon F said:
Speaking of JMS and B5,
I recently went and bought the first 4 series of B5. I thought they were a bargain at ~1/2 the RRP. Of course, now I've found they've just halved in price again. Isn't that just typical?

Where from?

Simon F said:
Anyway, I haven't bought the 5th series - I don't think it aired in the UK. Anyone know if it's as good as the predecessors?

Yes it's pretty good - it did air on Channel 4 and it does nicely round off the whole story arc.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Simon F said:
Speaking of JMS and B5,
I recently went and bought the first 4 series of B5. I thought they were a bargain at ~1/2 the RRP. Of course, now I've found they've just halved in price again. Isn't that just typical?

Where from?
Choices Direct. Well, all bar Series 5 are now £17 (I paid 29 :( ).

Simon F said:
Anyway, I haven't bought the 5th series - I don't think it aired in the UK. Anyone know if it's as good as the predecessors?

Yes it's pretty good - it did air on Channel 4 and it does nicely round off the whole story arc.
Thanks. In that case I'll keep looking for when it drops down in price.
 
Whoah, B5 for £17??? WTF, GIMME! :D:D:D

Anyway, JMS helming trek? Whoah #2 - that'd be awesome. Anyway, Enterprise really shaped up in season 5, shame they're cancelling it. S1 was OK with the alien-of-the-week stuff, when it continued in S2 I was a bit miffed because with the limited range of that ship, how many unknown civilizations could there realistically be near us? We'd heard them long ago if they ever used radio waves to communicate with (which is pretty much a given they'd have to). Which is sort of funny because I believe Epsilon Eridani (home star of the Vulcans) is only 17 lightyears away. :D Ok, they've had space travel for a long time; maybe they switched to subspace exclusively long before Nicola Tesla invented the radio here on Earth...

S3 was sort of the same as S1/2 by the way and S4 was a big waste IMO even though it wasn't really BAD. They did lots of alien-of-the-week stuff and none of it had any real bearing on what happened later as those races had never been seen previously (or is it since, as TNG is set in the future even though it premiered back in '87? :)). Well, there were the Orion Syndicate of course (green babes in skimpy outfits... Hehehe!), but apart from that it was all alien-of-the-week. They completely blew the opportunity they had to do something really cool with the temporal cold war thread they'd against all odds managed to keep going and made it into yet another standard/stupid alien invasion thing... Bah!
 
Simon F said:
Speaking of JMS and B5,
I recently went and bought the first 4 series of B5. I thought they were a bargain at ~1/2 the RRP. Of course, now I've found they've just halved in price again. Isn't that just typical?


Anyway, I haven't bought the 5th series - I don't think it aired in the UK. Anyone know if it's as good as the predecessors?

The last episode, Sleeping in Light, almost justifies the purchase all on its own.

Season Five won't thrill you like three and four did but it has a warmth and humor that every fan will appreciate.

Season Five ("Wheel of Fire")

03/08/08 89 502 No Compromises
03/08/11 90 503 The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari
03/08/12 91 504 The Paragon of Animals
03/08/13 92 505 A View from the Gallery
03/08/14 93 506 Learning Curve
03/08/15 94 507 Strange Relations
03/08/18 95 508 Secrets of the Soul
03/08/19 97 509 In the Kingdom of the Blind
03/08/20 98 510 A Tragedy of Telepaths
03/08/21 99 512 Phoenix Rising
03/08/22 96 511 Day of the Dead
03/08/25 100 513 The Ragged Edge
03/08/26 101 514 The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father
03/08/27 102 515 Meditations on the Abyss
03/08/28 103 516 Darkness Ascending
03/08/29 104 517 And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder
03/09/01 105 518 Movements of Fire and Shadow
03/09/02 106 519 The Fall of Centauri Prime
03/09/03 107 520 Wheel of Fire
03/09/04 108 521 Objects in Motion
03/09/05 109 522 Objects at Rest
03/09/08 110 523 Sleeping in Light


A lot of great stuff there imo.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/eplist.html
 
Simon F said:
Speaking of JMS and B5,
Anyway, I haven't bought the 5th series - I don't think it aired in the UK. Anyone know if it's as good as the predecessors?

It isn't as good. It is largely a last minute filler year with one episode shifted from the end of year four to the end of year five.

It was such a shame he got rushed for time and had to do such a massive time-crush wrap up of the series in year four. It undersold what the Shadow/Vorlon war was about and condensed the Earth civil war too much as well.

Personally I'll be collecting season four and no further.
 
banksie said:
and condensed the Earth civil war too much as well.
Not to mention the Minbari civil war... Eeek! Season four was simply one kickass episode after the other, there wasn't a single dull moment. Incredible, sci-fi has never been better. The only flaw with B5 is the abysmal sets they had to shoot the series in and the overly obvious computer graphics effects, imagine if they had had sets and effects the quality of Enterprise, OMG! The DVD release fixed the effects to some extent, but the sets will always be a bit dull and sub-standard.
 
Considering the very low budget of B5, I think they did an exceptional job with sets and effects, though I do think the earlier seasons pulled off the atmosphere better than the later - not to mention the constant recycling of Chris Franke's music from one episode to the next. Music was always fresh from episode to episode in the first two seasons.

Season five was very poor. Joe burned himself out trying to do too much - it just became stagnant. Personally, after the cop out of Into the Fire, I lost a lot of interest in B5. Some episodes later in the season like No Surrender, No Retreat weren't too bad, but Racing Mars??? WTF was that about??? At the time Joe thought the show wasn't going to be renewed yet he still pushed out what was essentially filler episodes - instead of spending more time with making Into the Fire a two parter as originally planned.

Enough venting for now! I just felt so dissapointed with how the series rounded out - and it can all be laid down to Joe's ego. Then again, the series would've never hit the screens without it...
 
Guden Oden said:
Trawler said:
and it can all be laid down to Joe's ego.
It can? How about blaming Warner Bros instead, huh?

? I was talking about Joe's insistance about writing pretty much every single episode from Season 3 onwards. IMO the quality of the show went downhill as he burnt himself out.
 
IMO the quality remained tip-top all through S4, S5 took a tumble, but I think that's more because he'd already used many of the ideas that were meant for S5. And Claudia Christian leaving was a bummer too.
 
Guden Oden said:
IMO the quality remained tip-top all through S4, S5 took a tumble, but I think that's more because he'd already used many of the ideas that were meant for S5. And Claudia Christian leaving was a bummer too.

I was let down in S4 by the shadow war resolution, and everything felt rushed (even though JMS still stuck in a few filler episodes - still annoyed by that). Dramatic tension never hit the peak it did in earlier shows for me, like Point of No Return.

I'm a lot more critical than most. I had very high expectations from the earlier stuff and was very dissapointed with how it turned out. I ought to look at the bright side, it never hit Phantom Menance quality!

I never much liked Sheridan either, preferred Sinclair's darker character. I'm sure if JMS didn't decide/was pressured into changing leads the final episode of the series would've been something like War Without End Part 2. Now that would've been a hell of a way to end a series!
 
Guden Oden said:
IMO the quality remained tip-top all through S4, S5 took a tumble, but I think that's more because he'd already used many of the ideas that were meant for S5. And Claudia Christian leaving was a bummer too.

Off Topic but check out Star Hyke.

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-27134/

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/Links/linkid=22328

http://www.starhykefans.co.uk/

http://www.starhykefans.co.uk/media/images/manual/castcrewbin/castcrew003_m.jpg

CC's website is cool too. Don't miss her image gallery and links to more mature pic's.

http://www.claudiachristian.net/
 
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