Please no. Enough of the Borg. They went from interesting enemy to writer’s crutch way too fast.
Gotta go against the grain here - I like Time Travel. Especially if it’s well-done time travel. Quantum Leap, Back to the Future, Bill and Ted - good stuff. Now, the only time Star Trek’s ever done the ‘back to the Earth of the past’ schtick will was City on the Edge of Forever, and Star Trek IV. I think the Temporal cold War was a good idea, in theory - it just had bad execution.
Don’t forget Voyager. Not only did they go back to Earth, but time travel and Time Cops were a fairly regular staple. Also, DS9 had several time travel shows.
The biggest weakness with time travel shows is the Big Fucking Reset Button™
BFRB can really destroy an otherwise decent episode.
We’re dealing with two different genres of Science Fiction; time travel and space opera.
Back to the Future is about time travel, and they are neat movies.
Trek is about space stuff, and time travel is a device that is sometimes used in the plot, like the alternate universe or the holodeck. Time travel was overused by B&B. When many episodes of a TV show end with the protagonist awakening from a dream for example, it is dumb writing.
You know who would’ve been a neat cameo for Enterprise? Berlinghoff Rasmussen. Ah, well.
The DS9 episode “Children of Time” is one of my favorite Trek time-travel episodes. The two-part “Year Of Hell” episode of VOY was one of the worst I’ve seen. There may be much worse in Trek, but I didn’t see much of ENT until a few weeks ago when everyone here started talking about how good it had become.
Braga uses time travel too often as a shortcut to good plotting and character development. Instead of having the crew of Voyager figure out how to defeat the Borg and get home, for example, he just brought in Future Janeway to tell them how to do it. I feel certain there are other examples of this in Braga’s oeuvre, but that’s the only one that comes right to mind.
Cliffy, you sum up my experience with ST exactly! I am convinced that they don’t have any writers who can plot and absolutely no plotters capable of writing or otherwise. This series looked promising. I could accept the visual updates and adjustments to take advantage of the world of tomorrow we know today. But the horribly boring writing and terrible character development were, in a word, relentless.
I will in some small way miss it, as I have for this entire season, I have never been able to catch it on the repeat night, which is how I always watched it before, and so they have been ulitimately screwed out of my loyalty by screwing the schedule around.
Perhaps it does need a rest. Brannon and Braga have been so afraid of doing anything different, that they have gradually homogenized Trek into a flavorless pablum of non-descript drivel (no, tell us how you really feel). And yet did I watch it, and watch it, and kvetch, and kvetch, and continue to watch it, until they started screwing with what night it was on.
They knew just what they were doing (apart from getting the rear-ends handed to them by the increasingly excellent Smallville) and they had no idea how bad what they were doing was.
But a break of fifteen, ten, or even five years with no fresh Trek of any kind is too long. I’m still pissed beyond words at Leslie Moonves. He couldn’t even wait until February sweeps were over before he issued the death sentence. But…he’d only been biding his time. He’d put on America’s Top Model, Amish in the City and similar crap rather than ENT or anything even remotely sci-fi related. (Jake 2.0, anyone?)
I’m thinking, though, that UPN was the worst possible place for ENT. I’m still clinging to a shred of hope that Paramount can shop the show to Sci Fi or Spike.
In the meantime, ENT is coming out on DVD and it will also be in syndication starting this fall.
Sigh.
Aerospace dudes pledge $3Million :eek: towards saving Enterprise:
http://www.saveenterprise.com/3m_contribution.htm
Brian
Oh, sorry, I thought you said “Aerosmith”. :dubious: 
Yup, it’s 3 million and rising.
If the plan doesn’t work, the contributors can get a refund or ask that the $ go to charity.
That’s the deal.
But viva, Enterprised sucked. I agree that it would be better to have Trek than no Trek, but no Trek is better than crappy Trek.
–Cliffy
I’m glad I don’t feel that way about sex!
I’m the opposite…I’d rather have a modicum of Trek, any Trek, than none.
I’ve enjoyed season 4 much more than the previous ones, and I’ve read that Manny Coto had lots of interesting ideas for season 5. I for one would like to see 'em.
Just as it may be a Good Thing that Firefly died before Serenity, The Musical, we may be lucky that Enterprose died er it dissolved into a puddle of Fan Fic Goo with those…Paperback Writers!
^:dubious:^
Besides, while burning a DVD of United, I note that Archer screams like a girl.
As would I. Sure wish they’d brought Manny on board a lot sooner.
Hmmm…I’ll have to take another look at my backup tape of “United” for the girlie scream. I thought I’d only heard it in “Divergence” but it was more like a strangled cry.
He screams like a French Girl Soccer player in situations where Kirk would mutter, “Get off My Ship!”
But I have important news for the new series:
Star Trek Tripp
Okay, here’s the plan.
We take the three mill from the Rocket Scientists (a.k.a. “Aerospace Dudes”) and make a pilot.
Archer is kidnapped by Klingons because they are still pissed at whatever they were pissed at Archer about.
We invite the above Rocket Scientists to be technical advisors. They’ll love it and gives us more money.
Trip to the rescue, In the ensuing battle with Klingons and Rigelians, Archer, Malcolm and whomever else we don’t like are killed. Tripp slays thousands and is given command of Enterprise. T’Pol becomes his First and Science Officer. Issac Hayes plays Chef. Porthos goes to a good home of two old maiden aunts who feed him whipped cream and caviar.
We remake Forbidden Planet as the rest of the pilot. We’ll have to shift some characters around, maybe wait to kill Malcolm until then.
The startup screen or whatever the hell you call it isn’t Enterprise flying by. Think Frank Frazetta. Tripp wearing a ripped shirt Kirk uniform with the bleeding cut on his chest. He stands atop a pile of dead Klingons and Rigelians. T’Pol kneels on his right in an Orion Slave Girl costume, clutching his thigh and staring up at him adoringly. Hoshi does the same on the left.
Cool.
Dammit, I forgot, He’s leaning on a bloody, notched bat’lith a’la Conan in a Frazetta painting.