Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

That's another reason why I'm a little disappointed that Discovery isn't an anthology series.  I think there's so many cool stories that they could tell in the Star Trek universe, up to and including "What's Wesley up to?"  I think a "different era each season" story (like American Horror Story* for Star Trek) would work, or I think a complete anthology series could be really cool (like Twilight Zone* or Black Mirror*)

* Talking strictly about format.

You probably wouldn't get Avery Brooks to return as Sisko for a whole season of something, but you could get him for an episode.  Same with virtually any of the other actors (Patrick Stewart might be the only guy too big for something this small, but even he might do a cameo or something).  Let's check in on the TNG crew.  Or the people at Deep Space Nine.  How's Riker's first big command going?  What's Jake Sisko doing?  How'd the Voyager crew end up?  What was the adjustment to the first years of the Federation like for the Enterprise crew?

Or go further.  What's life like in the 26th century?  29th?  32nd?

That is why God invented all those comic books and novels that you're too good for. ;-)

**

The situation Wil Wheaton described in his autobiography was circa 2001 or so. He's doing fine now.

Wheaton, in his biography, explains that Rick Berman prevented Wheaton from exercising his option to be absent from THE NEXT GENERATION in order to do a film, telling Wheaton the film's shooting days overlapped with a Wesley-centered episode. Then the shooting days for the Wesley episode came and Wheaton had no scenes whatsoever.

Wheaton was outraged and quit. In the rush of freedom from STAR TREK, he decided to focus on acting lessons, hone his craft, refine his skills and turned down the lead role of PRIMAL FEAR which took Edward Norton to stardom while Wheaton finished his education andwent to work for a computer startup firm that collapsed.

In returning to Hollywood, he couldn't land any roles. He'd been a very cute little boy, but now he was an extremely average looking adult man and the roles he competed for went to more conventionally attractive actors. He used up his money from STAR TREK on his wedding, his stepsons and a series of legal problems caused by his wife's ex-husband. With his savings gone and not much work, Wheaton was under a mountain of debt, borrowing money from his parents and constantly terrified to lose his house. He describes an evening at Hooters where his server asked him, "Didn't you used to be an actor when you were a kid?" and the horrifying realization that he couldn't claim to be an actor now.

In his autobiography, Wheaton describes how leaving STAR TREK was the right move in that moment: a chance to grow up, move forward and not be ruled by Rick Berman's ego. He studied acting more thoroughly. He met his wife. But years later, he was out of work, financially shattered, and he fully grasped the bitter irony that STAR TREK had been driving him to depression and misery, but he was depressed and miserable now and if he'd done his seven years on the show, he could be depressed and miserable and not nearly bankrupt. In shameful desperation, he was auditioning to game shows and trying to trade in on his D-list celebrity standing to support his wife and children, barely winning a spot on THE WEAKEST LINK.

He was called to appear in NEMESIS in a single scene that would take two days to film that was cut from the movie and not even invited to the premiere. Wheaton notes that this was a long line of behaviour from Rick Berman at events where Berman would call up every TNG regular to go onstage and take a bow and be recognized -- but Wheaton would be excluded, left sitting alone in the actors' section, the only person left in that section, seated while his co-workers were onstage.

Wheaton also said, however, that he didn't handle his exit from STAR TREK well. He doesn't go into detail beyond saying he was immature, that it was hard being a child surrounded by adults, he later describes an apology he gave to Patrick Stewart without conveying precisely what it was for which he had to apologize. Wheaton says that Stewart responded simply by saying that Wheaton had been a teenager and that everyone understood. So, I assume that Wheaton was not exactly innocent, although youth excuses many misdeeds.

I'm not clear on Berman's reason for disliking Wheaton, but at one point, Wheaton exclaims that he is sorry and that he was a kid and that it hurt that the DVD set doesn't use any photos of Wesley on the box or the discs. Then, Wheaton relates how he hit a period where conventions were no longer offering him a decent speaking fee, considering him on the same level as performers who played Transporter Chief #7 and sell signed headshots. "I went there expecting to sell hundreds of autographed pictures... hardly anyone was interested. I sat in a cavernous and undecorated area. 'This is what my life has come to,' I thought. 'I am a has-been.'"

A convention organizer for a 15-year anniversary convention flat out told him that while they paid top dollar for STAR TREK captains and good money for the likes of Denise Crosby and Gates McFadden, Wheaton was worthless.

Wheaton blogged about this conversation and the organizer was beset by a deluge of emails, phone calls and faxes by angry TREK fans who were furious at a TNG-actor being treated in this fashion and the convention apologized and booked Wheaton and his comedy troupe.

Wheaton describes the tipping point of his career -- an infomercial where he would peddle 3D glasses for computer games, an infomercial Wheaton describes as the final nail in the coffin holding his aspirations to be a serious actor. Weighing it, he felt that the product was good, that his career was dead anyway, and he might as well take the money, pay off his debts, support his family and transition into writing.

This led to his career renaissance on THE GUILD, THE BIG BANG THEORY and his involvement in the GEEK AND SUNDRY media platform and eventually, Wheaton was able to step into a new career as a geek-personality and web media producer and then a voice acting career. I think, financially, Wheaton is doing fine now. However, I think his career trajectory, during the downward spiral, spoke to a failure to recognize opportunity and a lack of creativity.

I can't judge him for quitting STAR TREK (although I'm sure his accountant does and Wheaton clearly credits this decision with destroying his career), but turning down PRIMAL FEAR was really, really stupid and he says so himself. "I foolishly thought Hollywood would wait for me," he writes. After that, he spent too much time doing only auditions when what he needed to do was start making his own work.

I'm friends with lots of actors (okay, two actresses) and they are perpetually auditioning for roles they don't get. Their attitude is to write their own dream roles and make sure that even if they're tending bar and working shifts in group homes to pay their bills, they have lived out their creative ambitions in the venue of independent stage theatre. Then there's actors like Tom Welling who spent their time as actors treating the set of their show as film school so that afterwards, Tom wasn't just an actor but also a producer and director. Allison Mack was in the same position as Wheaton on SMALLVILLE and stuck it out for nine years before having a mid-life crisis that resulted in her reduced role for Season 10. Why'd she stay? She did it for the money.

In an interview with Robert Floyd, whom I still like even though he voted for Trump, Floyd spoke how of actors should save their money. "You got paid as a guest star," he recalls saying to a bartender. "Don't spend that money, don't live off that money or you will be broke, you will have nothing," advising his employee to instead treat his bar wages as his spending money and his acting wages as savings.

Wheaton says after TREK, he fell in love with the woman who became his wife, fell in love with her children, now his stepsons, and he spent everything he had from TREK and STAND BY ME to set up his new life with his new family. Getting married so young and with kids to support without a stable income was foolhardy, but while Wheaton regrets leaving TREK and rejecting PRIMAL FEAR, his marriage and stepsons are not regrets and never were, not even when he was on the verge of homelessness.

As Wheaton himself confesses, he would've been better off doing Seasons 5- 7 of STAR TREK. But he doesn't need it to help him anymore; he makes his own work now and he's not selling signed action figures to make a minimum payment and hoping DISCOVERY will cast him in order to save him from his creditors.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

PRIMAL FEAR is a good flick, but it would not have been transformative for Wheaton like it was for Norton because Wheaton isn't as good an actor.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Wheaton could be making a steady paycheck at conventions, but he doesn't do many.  In fact, I've read/heard many stories about him being less than friendly, if not plain rude with fans.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I didn't hate Wesley as much as some people when I was younger, probably because I was a kid who liked the idea of a character like that. Then Voyager happened and I couldn't figure out why they set Wesley up to appear on the show, but it never happened.

Now that I'm older, I have a different take. I've heard stories about Wil (not public, but in sort of a friend-of-a-friend who knew him kind of way) when he was younger that made me understand why people didn't necessarily want him around.

Basically, he was a dick.

So years passed and I saw him popping up online. I read some of his stories about working on the show and it started to seem like he had gotten more mature with age. I was happy for him, and I just figured that he was a kid before, so he shouldn't be held to that reputation anymore.

But Twitter happened. And the more attention Wil got from people, the more he started to act like a dick again. It's not just one post that I can quote or an opinion that I don't like, it is his stupid, arrogant, snide personality and how he carries himself. I just can't stand him, and it seems to me like he was either putting on an act when he seemed to have matured with age, or he has fallen back on old habits once he started to get some recognition again.

Anyway, I can't count myself as a fan. Stand By Me is a great movie, but "Shut up, Wesley" is a line that's been repeated in my head so often over the past few years that I can't feel even a little bad for him when he is left out of Star Trek gatherings. Those actors who appear there aren't owed cheers and loyal fans. They have earned them over many, many years.

Anyway, once I got into DS9, I liked Jake better. Son of the most awesome captain, and a writer on top of that! Plus, Cirroc Lofton never came across as anything but gracious, from what I've seen. I think the other actors on the show, especially Avery Brooks, were positive influences in that regard.


By the way, has anyone seen Avery lately? The last I saw him was in The Captains, or whatever that Shatner documentary was called. He seemed out of it, so I have been wondering about his health ever since. Did he just have to get really high in order to talk to Shatner? smile

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I don't really know what to make of Wesley or Wil.  I found myself feeling very badly for Wil when I read ireactions' summary, but I've also heard a lot about the "dickishness" of Wil both online and in stories. 

The character was fine.  I think there's something to be said about the Wesley/Nog/Harry Kim characters of the world, but I don't think it's really been done properly yet.  If they want these wide-eyed, in over their head, young characters, I think there are ways to make them more interesting.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I am shocked, outraged and very hurt by how Informant, Slider_Quinn21 and Grizzlor would speak of Wil's reportedly bad behaviour at conventions -- without sharing any of these stories! I demand you spill all of them! So that I can perform armchair psychoanalysis upon them.

Wheaton repeatedly says in his book that he's ashamed of his age 16 - 21 behaviour both on the TNG set and at cons and that a lot of it was because he was really unhappy over how people conflated him with Wesley Crusher. At cons, fans expressed their hatred towards him, and he describes a panel where the screenwriters were actively bashing Wheaton as being annoying even though they were the ones scripting his dialogue. He was constantly on edge at cons. Also, as a kid, he saw the TOS cast doing photo-ops while in a drunken stupor and he had this terror that he was looking at his own future.

I think it's fair for Informant to say Wheaton didn't earn the regard that the other actors won because Wheaton gave up on Wesley, leaving after Season 4's ninth episode whereas the other actors never gave up on their characters.

After his time on the show, Wheaton went to cons as an autograph signer who wasn't there for a speaking engagement and was there to sell autographed photos, and this made him both depressed over his career and increasingly desperate over his finances, so that could also be a factor in his con behaviour back then as he was constantly in denial over his career path, describing it as being in "Prove to Everyone that Leaving STAR TREK Wasn't A Mistake" mode.

Wheaton's written a number of Season 1 TNG reviews where he notes that his performance on TNG was well before he'd received five years' worth of professional training. He says that while he likes the sincerity of his Wesley performance and how he delivers his often terrible dialogue well, he dislikes how he "telegraphs" everything he's about to do; he doesn't play off the other actors, he's visibly waiting for his next line, and he talks about how Patrick Stewart adds so much beyond the page and blows young Wheaton off the screen. He notes a specific moment in the first TNG episode where Stewart looks at Wheaton and Stewart plays it as Picard grappling with how Wesley reminds Picard of Wesley's father, Picard's dead friend. Wheaton says looking back, he wishes he could have done something with this moment -- but he just stood there.

Jerry O'Connell also played a whiz-kid on SLIDERS and did a lot better. Jerry had John Rhys-Davies there to read all the scripts and identify all the subtext and opportunities within each scene, so Jerry's performances have a specificity and weight that vanishes once John's not around. Wheaton notes that the Season 1 - 2 writers, in trying to make Wesley unusually intelligent, would write all the other characters as unusually stupid. In contrast, Tracy Tormé wrote Quinn's intelligence as improvisational brilliance whereas Roddenberry wrote Wesley with average ability that the script declared extraordinary or gave Wesley skills like commandeering the Enterprise that the character hadn't earned with any credibility. There's also the fact that Wesley was constantly excused from fault or frailty whereas Quinn is regularly shown to be incompetent and over his head.

Had Wheaton done PRIMAL FEAR, he would have played it with a lot more experience and craft than he showed on TNG.

Anyway. I quite enjoy Wheaton's self-mocking, self-flagellating persona. He's become a less drunk Dan Harmon and Dan Harmon is basically a drunker and more ridiculous Tracy Tormé and Tracy Tormé is essentially a Gene Roddenberry who can actually write dialogue. There was a point to this, but it has temporarily escaped my mind.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

To be clear, the stories I heard were not convention stories or any sort of public events. They were just about his behavior in the real world.

But he was a teenager and as I said, I was hopeful that he had grown up and matured. I liked reading some of his thoughts on early TNG episodes. I think you're over-stating how much his later training would have helped him, since I've seen him in other things and I don't think he has progressed much as an actor. I just don't know that he has the talent for adult roles. That's not a slam. It's just something you see with actors. Some don't have the instinct for it.

I was willing to give him another chance and move on, but I haven't been a fan of how he conducts himself. There's not much more to say.

On another note, I worked with Jonathan Frakes once. I want to say that he gave me some direction personally, but it was a while ago, so I forget the details. What I can tell you is that he did not destroy any of my fanboy expectations. He was not just polite, but funny and a joy to work with. Filming is usually stressful and it can be worse when the actors or director are pissy. Also, it sucks when you like an  actor going into work and then don't like them once you've seen how they behave on set. I was really happy to be able to hold onto the Trek fan expectations.

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128 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2017-07-06 15:29:30)

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Everything I know about Wil Wheaton is anecdotal and third hand.  I've never personally interacted with him, nor have I sought out much of his actual work.  What I've seen has been good.  I've followed him on Twitter a couple of times only to unfollow him shortly thereafter,

At the end of the day, I don't really have an opinion of him.  I just know my original understanding of him was that he was a jerk, but after reading all you say from his book, maybe that's all in the past.  I understand a thing or two about regret, and I'm sure the whole experience was incredibly humbling.  If he came out of that a better person and if he's found success these days, then all the better for him.

I honestly don't understand why people hate the kid actors who do bad movies/shows.  Jake Lloyd was essentially bullied to the point where he hates Star Wars, and I've never understood that.  He was a kid who took, essentially, the coolest job in the world.  It wasn't his fault that the dialogue sucked, and I'm sure he did just about as well with the part as any other kid his age.  Blaming the actor seems like a really bizarre choice to make.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I am so angry right now I am about to explode. Informant and Slider_Quinn21 have officially made an enemy for life today by still refusing to share what they've heard about Wil Wheaton that makes Rick Berman not want him onstage at TREK events.

I have some hope left for Grizzlor.

**

Awhile ago, I heard this (alleged) incident on the set of STAR TREK: THE FINAL FRONTIER where a 17-year-old Wheaton went to the set to meet William Shatner. Wheaton greeted Shatner, said he was a big fan and that perhaps they could have a cup of coffee sometime. Shatner snapped that he had better things to do than hang out with some loser who pressed buttons on the bridge of the Enterprise while the real actors worked. A humiliated Wheaton fled the set. Shatner chased him outside and apologized. Wheaton unleashed a torrent of profanities and insults about Shatner's 70s career of appearances at children's birthday parties, Shatner responded with an onslaught of swear words, James Doohan broke up the fight and dragged Shatner into a trailer to tell him off for how he treated young fans, Wheaton stormed off to the TNG set. Shatner later sent Wheaton a number of gifts in apology, Wheaton coldly ignored them and up to 2002 referred to Shatner as "Old Toupee Head" until they made amends in the green room for THE WEAKEST LINK.

The other version of this story that I've heard is that a busy Shatner barely noticed Wheaton on set except to inquire what his job was on TNG and then remark, "In my day, I'd never let a kid on my bridge," and Wheaton ran away in tears. Shatner has a sense of humour where he likes to insult people and see if they can fling his barbs back at him in which case he'll consider them an equal which gained an acidic edge due to his own humiliation in which, post STAR TREK, he lost all his money in a nasty divorce and spent the 70s as a world famous actor living in the back of his truck, scraping together a living from, as I said, children's birthday parties and the like. It wasn't until Kirk was killed off that Shatner developed the ability to laugh at himself and Shatner and Wheaton, today, have exactly the same sense of self-mocking humour.

Shatner laughing at himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hnBp7x2QAE

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Oh. Sorry. Wheaton has finally divulged the true Shatner/Wheaton meeting and it's more the second version than the first version.

http://www.subspace-comms.net/index.php?topic=1424.0

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

My Intel isn't anything new or exciting. Wil basically treated people like crap because he had a massive ego. It's just that this goes beyond a professional environment and into the normal world as well. It's not a big story or anything like that. I have a family member who has a friend who knew Wil when they were younger.

But lots of teenagers are dicks. If Wil had grown out of it, it wouldn't really matter at this point. My current opinion is based on my observation of him over the past few years. He still seems full of himself, except he's learned the angle from which to get people to give him money. Good for him. I don't hate him or anything like that. I just don't care to follow or support him.

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Thoughts on why Shatner acted as he did:

Shatner at the time was a bundle of neurotic insecurity prone to eruptions of hostility to keep people at bay. The reason, I think: he couldn't live up to the physical image of Captain Kirk. Kirk is youthful, athletic and tall. To play this character, the balding Shatner wore a two piece wig with makeup carefully blending the seam of the hairpiece with the forehead of his skin. He had lifts in his shoes. While in shape at the start of each season of TREK, filming schedules left him no time to exercise and he had to wear a girdle.

None of this was a big deal until the success of STAR TREK meant Shatner had to maintain this appearance in his public life, not just on set. Joan Collins describes how she ran into Shatner off set and didn't recognize this short, portly, balding old man as the young starship captain. Shatner resented this image he couldn't maintain in real life, resented his co-workers knowing he couldn't maintain it and the sight of a young teenager looking at him adoringly made Shatner feel like a fraud under threat.

It's easier for actors these days because nutrition and exercise methods and technology have advanced. Shatner, desperate to get back in shape, would live on lemon juice for weeks, lose weight, then he couldn't sustain his deprivation and binge. Today, a guy like Stephen Amell knows to keep stable blood sugar levels to avoid cravings, sate himself on protein and fat and we now know that starving doesn't work. Also, no one cared that Picard was bald and all the TNG cast wore muscle suits.

133 (edited by Informant 2017-07-07 14:14:59)

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

The TNG crew wore muscle suits?!? I always thought that Michael Dorn was just solidly muscular!

I did read an interview with Marina Sirtis once, where she said that without the added hair and contact lenses, she rarely got recognized on the street. I think that's weird. I'm pretty sure that I'd recognize her... But then, I would probably recognize Michael Dorn too.

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

I am so angry right now I am about to explode. Informant and Slider_Quinn21 have officially made an enemy for life today by still refusing to share what they've heard about Wil Wheaton that makes Rick Berman not want him onstage at TREK events.

Ha, I told you I don't have stories.  Stuff I've collected through the years.  Just like I'm now working on the idea that Jonathan Frakes is a nice guy because he may or may not have given Informant direction.  I'd probably heard something negative about him and that's just the "status quo" opinion I had.

To be fair, the story he wrote about Shatner was really entertaining.  So maybe my default position on Wheaton will be "he's pretty funny"

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Star Trek VI establishes that there was peace between the Klingons and the Federation because of the explosion of Praxis and an ecological disaster on Qo'noS.  It's stated in the film that the planet has about "50 years left" on it.

In TNG, the Klingons and Federation are (for the most part) peaceful, and there's tons of references to the idea that Qo'noS is fine.

Is this ever explained?  Did they evacuate Qo'noS and whatever planet they're talking about in the TNG era is a "New Qo'noS?"  Or did Federation/Klingon scientists find a way to save the planet?

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

To be fair, scientists are always claiming that a planet has about 50 years left. It's usually just a way of securing additional funding. smile

Real answer: I have no idea. I'm going to say that Wesley Crusher figured out a way to save the planet.

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137 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2017-09-15 13:32:56)

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

What's weird is that it happened right in the era where the show and the movies were working together.  In three TNG-era series (all featuring a Klingon in the main cast), they never explained what happened to the Klingon homeworld?

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

If you look at the credits, the films didn't have any real crossover with the writers/producers of the TV shows. They probably didn't even talk. Which is weird.

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Really?  Weird.  Especially considering all the shared sets/actors.  I mean, they put in a Worf extended cameo in Star Trek VI.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Directed by Nicholas Meyer

Produced by:   
Ralph Winter
Steven-Charles Jaffe

Screenplay by:   
Nicholas Meyer
Denny Martin Flinn

Story by:   
Leonard Nimoy
Lawrence Konner
Mark Rosenthal


It is weird. I've always thought that the Worf cameo was awkward, even when I was a kid. smile

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

What's weird is that it happened right in the era where the show and the movies were working together.  In three TNG-era series (all featuring a Klingon in the main cast), they never explained what happened to the Klingon homeworld?

It turned out the explosion deniers were right; there was nothing wrong with the environment.  Ah'lGorr was financially ruined as a result.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Roddenberry was very, very anal about writing things into continuity that made no sense or conflicted with what was done before in major ways.  At the end of the day, it had a lot of plot holes if you will, but it was and still is a fun movie. 

As for Wil, he just appeared at a convention where he prohibited fans from touching him during the photo ops.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Are you normally able to touch the guests? While I don't like Wil Wheaton, I have to admit, that would drive me insane.

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Roddenberry had no creative input into STAR TREK VI whatsoever beyond raging about how much he hated it. That's it. That's all. (He was annoyed at Starfleet's conspiracy, the Enterprise crew's racism and the militaristic tone. Not a frame was altered to suit him and he died shortly after seeing the film. It seems he hated VI so much it killed him.)

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY's dialogue says that the Klingon homeworld has been severely damaged and that in order to repair it, the Empire will have to divert their resources away from the military and towards environmental repair -- which is why they initiated peace talks with the Federation. As those talks were successful, we can take it from TNG that the repair to their planet was successful.

STAR TREK VI was made between Seasons 4 - 5 of TNG and most of the film was shot on redressed TNG sets, so they knew full well that the Klingon homeworld had been shown to be a fixture of TNG and that the Federation and the Empire had made peace. The film established the origins of that peace and Colonel Worf, Worf's grandfather, was a little nod to TNG as well as the transition of "where no man has gone before" to "where no one has gone before" at the end of the film.

That said, much of VI makes more sense as an allegory for US/Russia relations than it does in the literal reality of STAR TREK, but I love it anyway.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Informant wrote:

Are you normally able to touch the guests? While I don't like Wil Wheaton, I have to admit, that would drive me insane.

Guest usually sets the tone.  Matt Smith doesn't like people touching him, but he's a shy, awkward guy (very nice, though).  David Tennant and Billie Piper on the other hand just grab right into you.

The only group Ive seen told not to touch the guest was with Stan Lee; and to be honest, I think that was more because they were thinking he might die.  Stan was pretty much just propped up in a chair and didn't move or say anything.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

Roddenberry had no creative input into STAR TREK VI whatsoever beyond raging about how much he hated it. That's it. That's all. (He was annoyed at Starfleet's conspiracy, the Enterprise crew's racism and the militaristic tone. Not a frame was altered to suit him and he died shortly after seeing the film. It seems he hated VI so much it killed him.)

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY's dialogue says that the Klingon homeworld has been severely damaged and that in order to repair it, the Empire will have to divert their resources away from the military and towards environmental repair -- which is why they initiated peace talks with the Federation. As those talks were successful, we can take it from TNG that the repair to their planet was successful.

STAR TREK VI was made between Seasons 4 - 5 of TNG and most of the film was shot on redressed TNG sets, so they knew full well that the Klingon homeworld had been shown to be a fixture of TNG and that the Federation and the Empire had made peace. The film established the origins of that peace and Colonel Worf, Worf's grandfather, was a little nod to TNG as well as the transition of "where no man has gone before" to "where no one has gone before" at the end of the film.

That said, much of VI makes more sense as an allegory for US/Russia relations than it does in the literal reality of STAR TREK, but I love it anyway.

I was hoping you'd answer, and you didn't disappoint!  Much better than any of the research I was able to uncover at Memory Alpha!

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Did anyone watch Discovery?

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Just finished the first episode. It's good. Basically the FRINGE (Season 1) creative team doing STAR TREK, not worrying too much about continuity and bringing the TV concept into 2017.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I'm holding out for spring, for the free binge watch. I've heard opinions on both sides though.

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Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

After watching the first ep on CBS, I went ahead and subscribed to All Access.  Overall, I enjoyed it.  For me, it had a DS9 feel - a different tone from what I consider Star Trek, but enough to connect it.  I'll keep watching.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I thought DISCOVERY was good, but the show is still a work in progress because the first two episodes are more about establishing the lead character's conflicts rather than establishing what the show will be.

DISCOVERY really captured the two sides of STAR TREK: the militaristic situations of threat and danger and the exploratory sense of adventure. The image of the Starfleet logo written in sand through a series of footprints is beautiful. Michael Burnham's delight at flying through space in an EVA suit to see what's out there is magnificently presented and it's right alongside situations of threat and danger where Starfleet's ideals of peace and discourse come up against a culture that sees strength through dominance and destruction.

Visually, the show's costuming and ship designs find an interesting middle ground between ENTERPRISE and STAR TREK: the uniforms are reminiscent of the NX-01 flight suits but with some of the decorations found in STAR TREK's tunics.

From a technological standpoint, however, DISCOVERY's tech seems far more advanced than all the shows taking place after DISCOVERY. Holographic communications were presented as startlingly new in DS9, so to see it here is jarring. The transporter works faster on DISCOVERY than in the original series. The force field technology holding back the vacuum of space when the ship's structure is smashed open was absent in the other shows.

The rebootquels had an in-universe explanation for why the 23rd century looked different from the 1960s show: the attack on the Kelvin caused Starfleet to amp up its military research and development to be able to fight off any such future attacks. The only real explanation DISCOVERY can offer, given that the producers say it's set in the original timeline, is that STAR TREK is a fictional creation and each series is an interpretation of a conjectural mythology rather than a documentary of an actual reality.

That's the only reason I can find for the Klingons being redesigned, an aesthetic move that dismisses ENTERPRISE's Augment virus explanation for why the Original Series Klingons looked human.

For the technology, there are any number of in-universe explanations. Holographic tech may have proven to be insecure, the slower transporter may have included more safety measures, the force field tech became obsolete with advancements in artificial gravity. The average viewer who may not have seen the 60s show won't be troubled. I wondered if newcomers might be confused at how Michael putting her hand between her captain's neck and shoulder somehow knocked her unconscious, but I think it's fair to say that Spock's iconic status means the Vulcan nerve pinch is known by all.

It's interesting -- for the longest time, I couldn't really accept ENTERPRISE as a prequel to the original series. In terms of writing and design, it was really a prequel to TNG. DISCOVERY feels like a prequel to the 2009 rebootquel.

There is a novel, STAR TREK: DESPERATE HOURS which has the DISCOVERY characters meeting the characters of "The Cage" and the writer, David Mack, will have to find some way to reconcile two very disparate visions of the twenty-third century.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

How much of that is spoilery? Should I read it?

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Informant wrote:

How much of that is spoilery? Should I read it?

I watched it last night, and it's not really spoilery.  A couple minor plot points are spoiled, but that's it.  To be 100% safe, you shouldn't read it.  But it's more technical than plot-based.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Ireactions, my friend and I watched it last night, and we had a similar discussion.  And I'm wondering if there's necessarily a reason why this is set when it's set....if it's not, I think they should've set it in the 26th century.  There are things that they could've done to easily set this in a time period we're unfamiliar with and make it feel new and exciting.

New technology is the easiest to write off....there's no explanation needed.  Technology is better because time has passed....things are newer and sleeker.  New uniforms are new because Starfleet is always changing uniforms.  There's even stuff like Saru and the droid (?) on the bridge....these are species that joined the Federation since the TNG era (it's always weird when we get new species on prequel series because I sorta assume they died off or something).

The Klingon stuff is tricky because of the redesign.  But it could be another race of Klingons (like the Remans).  It'd be interesting if they said that the Klingons, after the Dominion War, became isolationist for 100 years.  And now they're back and ready to make their presence known again.

Outside of (character) showing up, there wasn't anything in the Pilot episode that showed that this needs to be a prequel.  The new movies are capitalizing on the reboot phenomenon, and Enterprise was showing a period of Starfleet's history that wasn't covered.  If there isn't a particular reason to show a time that we've semi-seen before, I'd like to see something new.

All in all, I enjoyed it and will be watching the rest of the season.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I'll hold off reading this stuff for now smile

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I'm about 2/3 through STAR TREK: DISCOVERY - "Desperate Hours." The story has the Shenzou and the Enterprise (captained by Christopher Pike) teaming up to fight an alien menace. At one point, Spock beams over to the Shenzou to meet Michael, his adoptive sister, and notes that because they weren't raised together at the same time, they barely know each other. He also observes that the Shenzou was built before the Enterprise. The explanation for why DISCOVERY doesn't look like "The Cage" and why the uniforms and ships and tech look different: the Enterprise was the first of a new generation of starships built primarily for diplomacy with all the uniforms and design elements meant to encourage peaceful discourse.

The Shenzou (and most of Starfleet's ships right now) have a more militaristic edge because they were built for battle as the Federation is still haunted by the Romulan War. The Enterprise is essentially a pilot project for a new vision of Starfleet dedicated to peacekeeping rather than military force, hence the different look and uniforms and technology. At this point in the timeline, no one's sure how that's going to turn out.

Personally, I always liked this video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCPdmOuzYrM -- which suggests what the original STAR TREK might've looked like had they used modern design materials.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

That's why I like the idea of always going forward.  There doesn't need to be an explanation in that case.  The technology is better because that's how technology works.  The tech was bad in the 60s because....World War 3 put us back?  I think TNG did it right with the big jump.

The problem is that today we're all about seeing rebootquels.  We want to see characters we're familiar with.  If TNG would've been made today, it would've just been a reboot like Hawaii Five-O or MacGuyver.

That being said, I sorta like the idea that the Enterprise is an experiment that eventually wins out.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I'll wait until the season's over to have an opinion on the time period. But for now, I do wonder why they went the prequel route too. Maybe there's a reason.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I liked the second episode, and I'm intrigued.  This looks like it's going to be a very different vision of Trek from what we're used to.  I definitely see how this could've potentially been an anthology series, but I think the Michael character could absolutely carry a series.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

So I haven't seen the 3rd episode yet, but I was thinking more about the anthology aspect.  Was this a really cool idea that someone had for a first season of an anthology series (secret human daughter of Sarek raised as a Vulcan) that the series is just stuck with?  Because, again, nothing from this series necessarily requires a prequel setting.  Using Sarek is cool, but it could've been any human raised as a Vulcan.

If the plan was to create an anthology series, getting people in via a familiar setting with familiar characters is, potentially, the way to go.  Then you have a series set on a Maquis ship or a timeship or a season on the USS Titan (starring Jonathan Frakes) or a new adventure in the 26th century or a Vulcan ship or whatever.

Just speculating for fun.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Home sick today, so I saw the third episode earlier than expected. I can sort of see why they might have gone the prequel route: the Discovery is captained by Gabriel Lorca who seems more like a Section 31 agent than a Federation starship captain. Seth MacFarlane remarked once that NEXT GEN seemed staffed by the most professional people ever; rarely was anyone bad-tempered, irritable, holding a grudge -- to the point where Captain Picard was shocked when Barclay received a poor performance, he had a senior staff meeting as though it was a galactic crisis and ordered Geordi to become Barclay's "best friend."

Captain Lorca is out to destroy the enemy and he barely seems to have any concern for the people who are presumably on his side. An entire starship crew is killed due to an experiment he's leading; his response is to destroy the evidence and the corpses. He bullies his staff into taking Michael into their ranks, he houses homicidal monsters on his ship in secret -- even Captain Kirk at his most aggressive when fighting Klingons or the Gorn, made it clear that he was out to protect people whereas Lorca's goal is victory through destruction. When he describes a new means of interstellar travel, he conveys no joy or wonder -- only interest in how he might use the new tech to fight a war.

And while Michael might step for the moral high ground, as a convicted felon of no official rank and living out a life imprisonment sentence, she finds herself forced to stand next to him.

So, in that sense, I can see why they wanted a prequel to explore how the Federation faced a wartime situation that brought out the worst of them -- because by the time we get to the Original Series, few Starfleet officers are anything like that, to the point where the writers had to create a dark conspiracy to find Lorca's type in the STAR TREK universe. To do DISCOVERY as a sequel would be saying that humanity's best didn't persevere in the end.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Interesting.  I'm enjoying the series so whether it's a prequel or a sequel doesn't really matter to me.  It's just an interesting decision.  I can see them not wanting to ruin humanity's 24th century perfect record, but I think if they established that post-Dominion War, the Federation was in some sort of long-lasting crisis, it could throw humanity out of their good standing....and the series could be about humanity reclaiming what they'd lost.

But I also really like the idea of Starfleet moving from a military operation to an exploratory one.  If we're supposed to see TOS and beyond as a human utopia, then the road to that (especially now, when we're seeing the worst of humanity) is very interesting television fodder.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Now I'm going to argue against myself.

Within the individual shows, STAR TREK is not clear on whether humanity has really achieved utopia or if they merely present themselves as one. The classic series during the Gene L. Coon episodes (Season 1, first half of Season 2) routinely criticizes Starfleet and the Federation. "Errand of Mercy" presents Kirk and Starfleet as warmongers gunning for conflict with Klingons. "Arena" showed the Federation (accidentally) encroaching on another species' territory and thought of as invaders. "Amok Time" has Starfleet wanting the Enterprise to put on a show of force for a recently brokered truce between two warring worlds.

There's the especially troubling episode, "A Taste of Armageddon," in which Starfleet is established to have General Order 24 where a starship captain can order that the population of an entire planet be extinguished if given sufficient cause.

Throughout the show, Kirk is routinely shown to be more humane and moral than the organization that employs him and the Federation is shown to be humanitarian in posture and PR, but no less imperialist as than the Klingons.

However, after Coon left the series in the middle of Season 2, latter writers took a more simplistic route, presenting Starfleet as interplanetary do-gooders and anyone against the Federation is simply evil. TNG took this latter approach. DS9 took the view that while within the Federation, it's easy to be a saint, it's not so easy in the Gamma Quadrant or on Bajor or for the Maquis and then had Section 31 bring back the original skepticism of the old show.

"Errand of Mercy" is a standout in its skepticism: Kirk meets what he perceives to be an underdeveloped world and offers them the Federation's help in turning their world into a paradise, to show them how to feed millions where they once fed hundreds, to give them scientific and engineering knowledge that will allow them to remake their planet, to educate every child and give health and knowledge to every inhabitant. But the script underscores how the offer is made because the Federation wants this world as a key strategic point against the Klingons, and Kirk is shown to be, in many ways, just as flawed as his enemies in this episode.

And yet, ENTERPRISE took the view that the Federation is benign, particularly with the Andorian/Tellarite three-parter in which both races set aside their differences thanks to Captain Archer's diplomacy and respect for both cultures. It's one of those cases where latter writers adopted the original writers' words but may have missed the meaning behind them. There's also, of course, the fact that the individual writers within STAR TREK's 60s run weren't on the same page either.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Watched the third episode.  If this is where the show is going, it's definitely intriguing.  Although it got me thinking...it's very bizarre that there are two Treks going on at the same time: Discovery and Fox's The Orville.  What's even more bizarre is that the Orville, while seen through a Seth MacFarlane lens, is *light years* more Trek-like than Discovery is (in both structure and the fact that one is on conventional television and the other online-only).  It's not a knock on either show, but it's very strange. 

The Orville, while not taking place in the Trek universe, is a mostly-unserialized show set on a starship that is seeking out new life and new civilizations.  It's crude and is full of pop culture references that these people probably shouldn't be spouting, but it takes itself way more seriously than I assumed it was going to based on the promos I saw.  What I assumed was going to be Galaxy Quest ended up being a bit more like an updated TNG.  They've already gone for a couple of "moral high ground" episodes early, and there's a lot more awe in it than I was expecting.  I don't know if I love it, but I feel like it's in the same vein as a Trek series.

Discovery, however, *is* set in the Trek universe, but it's so much different than what we're used to expecting.  It's refreshing to have something new in the same universe, but it also feels very alien. 

I do wonder if some Trekkies are going to go the easy route and watch the (free) Trek-lite that MacFarlane is offering.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Long time Trekkie (prefer the term Trekker though) here and I will not be watching Discovery.  Not only because it is not free, but it is also just too dark for my taste.  It was hard for me to accept that the universe they showed me is the same one Kirk, Spock, Picard, etc... will live in.  Sorry, but listening to the Klingons talk was simply irritating.

The Orville, on the other hand, I am finding very intriguing.  There is much more substance to the stories than I was expecting and it did not take long to connect with some of the characters.  I thought they would simply lampoon ST and it would be come off really silly, but the humor does not overwhelm the show.  They get quite serious at times and have tackled some pretty interesting topics so far.

I really feel that Seth MacFarland is genuinely trying to make a long lasting quality ST tribute show with Trekkies in mind.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

hallge73 wrote:

I really feel that Seth MacFarland is genuinely trying to make a long lasting quality ST tribute show with Trekkies in mind.

I'm assuming MacFarlane was never able to pitch to CBS because of his association/longterm relationship with Fox, but I wonder if he ever thought about it.  He probably wouldn't have been able to do as much humor as he's doing, but he's made it seem like this was a passion project for as long as he can remember.  If that's the case, it probably would've been a dream to put on an actual Starfleet uniform.

And pairing Discovery with something like Star Trek: Orville might've been enough to bring more people to CBS All Access.  One of the problems (mentioned here too) is that, for Trekkies, they're really only paying for one show.  If CBS had made two Star Trek shows (one dark and new, one more traditional) and a handful of other genre shows, it could've been something a lot of people would pay for and stick with.

Now CBS doesn't really care about that.  And they're doubling down on their idea by splitting their season up in two pieces.  So instead of the people who buy HBO for 3 months a year for Game of Thrones and then cancel, you're going to have to either pay for a November/December without Discovery or cancel and then re-upp a couple months later.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Caught up on Discovery, and the more I watch, the more I think the series just seems a little confused on its identity.  There will be a hint of Star Trek; and then a hint of Battlestar Galactica; and then a hint of Farscape.  I don't know.  I am enjoying it, but it's just not Trek to me.

That said, if this is set 10 years before Kirk, I don't see how the unique technology of Discovery can co-exist with the rest of Trek.  I suppose they could try to claim it's a highly classified thing that survives as part of Section 13, but it would be easier to have Discovery lost taking its secrets with it.  I'm getting a Rogue One vibe which brings us to yet another possible facet of the identity crisis with this series.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Even if everyone on the ship is killed, are we supposed to believe that no one else in the galaxy had the idea ever again?  Even if it's immoral, we've seen desperate species or ships use immoral technology for their own advancement (the USS Equinox, for example).

This is a little like the "across the galaxy warp" thing that Star Trek (09) invented.  It's a technology that seems relatively safe, is an absolute game-changer, and something that no one ever uses again centuries later.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

***Spoilers for Sunday's episode***

TemporalFlux wrote:

That said, if this is set 10 years before Kirk, I don't see how the unique technology of Discovery can co-exist with the rest of Trek.  I suppose they could try to claim it's a highly classified thing that survives as part of Section 13, but it would be easier to have Discovery lost taking its secrets with it.

The most recent episode doesn't seem to imply this.  It sounds like the Discovery isn't really an off-the-books project - it's a key part of Starfleet's war effort.  And while it's beginning to become apparent why Starfleet might not use this technology in the future (it seems to do irreparable harm to the "navigator"), I'm still unsure of why this would scare away other, more immoral species.  The Borg, for example, wouldn't have any issue with using it.

I wonder if the endgame is that the spore network itself is somehow destroyed so that no one can use it in the future.  Even then, you'd think there'd be a permanent Starfleet research department trying to figure out how to reactivate it.  Just like I assume, if the network isn't destroyed, that Starfleet would work tirelessly to researching Stamets' "AI Ripper"

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I think Slider_Quinn21's probably right about the end of the spore network.

**

The DISCOVERY novel "Desperate Hours" explains that the holographic communications seen on the Shenzhou were older technology that the newer Constitution-class ships, like the Enterprise, didn't incorporate because holograms were bandwidth hogs and had, over time, become insecure and easily hacked and hijacked.

That said -- the truth is that no STAR TREK series can ever be fully reconciled with its sibling productions. STAR TREK was filmed in the 60s; even the 80s-era MOTION PICTURE is near-impossible to reconcile on a technological level with the TV show from which it came. The perfect humans of TNG are not the flawed heroes of DS9; the goofy Zefram Cochrane of FIRST CONTACT is not the troubled relic of the 60s "Metamorphosis" and even within the individual shows, they're not consistent. That's just the nature of ongoing continuity and TV production.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Yeah, but I like that people make so much effort to make the shows click.  I watched a video on YouTube recently that speculated why Starfleet switches uniforms so often.  The idea was that it's a directive from timeships in the future.

The thought behind it is that it's essential that timeships / time agents blend in spotlessly to whatever time period they're in.  And if an agent was accidentally displaced in an unfamiliar time period, the uniforms would be an immediate visual shortcut to a 5-10 year era that the agent had appeared in.  That way, they could more-easily blend in.

I don't know if I buy it, but it's a fun theory.  And maybe one day, like the Klingon Augment Virus, someone will like the theory enough that it'll become canon.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

To quote TREK novelist Christopher Bennett:

Fans have always had to squint and gloss over the differences of interpretation in order to pretend that these works of fiction created by different people with different ideas could represent a consistent reality. If you want to be that obsessively nitpicky, then you'll have to admit that 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' is set in an alternate universe where Kirk has a different middle name, 'Mudd's Women' is set an alternate universe where they use lithium instead of dilithium, most of TNG's first season is set in an alternate universe where Data used contractions and showed emotion, etc.

STAR TREK has never, ever, EVER been an actually consistent reality. We only choose to pretend it is by ignoring or rationalizing the hundreds and hundreds of contradictions it already contains. So either you're willing to suspend disbelief and play along with the pretense that there's a single universe, or you're not and you have to admit that there are countless mutually contradictory versions of Trek already.

To claim that previous TREK is completely reconcilable but the newest thing is completely irreconcilable is a self-contradiction.

Roddenberry's take: TOS was an imperfect dramatization of the crew's adventures and that later TREK productions were able to come closer to getting it right. It wasn't the TREK universe that was changing, just the way in which it was dramatically recreated for 20th-century television viewers.

Some of my favourite inconsistencies:

The original series took almost half a season to pin down the 23rd century era, with the time period referred to as the 21st or 28th century. Kirk at one point says he works for the United Earth Space Probe Agency before it became Starfleet and Earth became the Federation. Spock is emotional in the early episodes and made a rape joke. Kirk's initial in the first episode produced is "R." Spock refers to his parents in the past tense, but they guest-star later on. McCoy says that the "Vulcanians" were conquered by Earth.

From a production standpoint, the Starfleet arrowhead was meant to be for all starship crews, but for a number of TOS episodes, costumers misunderstood "Charlie X" in which the crew of the Antares had their own insignia (as merchant marines) and took that to mean each ship had its own individual badge when designing costumes. DISCOVERY uses the triangular symbol as intended rather than as it was onscreen.

With TNG's early seasons, Picard was a cruel leader prone to putting his people in difficult situations just to screw with them, Data was emotional, Troi experienced other people's emotions rather than being aware of them, Worf was animalistically feral, Starfleet regularly vacationed on pre-warp planets, holodeck matter existed outside the simulator, the Borg ignored organic life -- none of which was retained as Picard became gentle to the point of babying Barclay, Data became emotionless, Troi's powers dialed down, Worf became smart, the Prime Directive became much stricter and the Borg started assimilating people.

The mannered and bizarre Ferengi of TNG's Season 1 are not the capitalist caricatures of DS9, the makeup for Trills in TNG was ignored in DS9, Voyager travelled back to the 1990s where the Eugenics Wars, established in TOS, are not present or mentioned.

FIRST CONTACT and ENTERPRISE have warp drive in the 22nd century, but TOS' "Balance of Terror" established that the Earth-Romulan War unfolded at sublight speeds. TNG had Wesley depart Starfleet to ascend to higher planes of existence with the Traveler; DS9 had Worf become a Klingon ambassador by the finale "Nemesis" has him -- yet NEMESIS shows both back in Starfleet.

In "Operation: Annihilate!," Kirk's brother, Sam, is killed. Yet, in STAR TREK V, Kirk remarks, "I once lost a brother. I was lucky to get him back," referring to Spock and suggesting that Kirk has forgotten he had a sibling who died with his wife and left behind an orphaned nephew.

STAR TREK has never been a documentary. But if you must have an in-universe blanket explanation, the simplest route is that Data's trip to 19th century Earth in "Time's Arrow" and the time travel of FIRST CONTACT along with the Temporal Cold War of ENTERPRISE have caused some details of TOS to shift and some of the contradictions are due to the time travel ripples taking effect.

The novels and comic books, however, tend to offer rationalizations via new stories that weren't aired on TV or shown in theatres. The comic book adaptation for STAR TREK V amended Kirk's line about his brother to say that Kirk lost "two brothers" and was lucky to get "one back." My personal explanation for the error: Sam Kirk was probably, in an untelevised story, resurrected due to some VOYAGER-esque time travel rewind that retroactively erased his death.

And maybe there are many variants of Ferengi and Trills, we were seeing Picard during periods of indigestion during Season 1, Troi mastered her psi-powers, Data was experimenting with simulated emotion, the Earth-Romulan War unfolded in areas of space where warp drive couldn't be used, Worf got counselling, etc..

There's some stuff that's best ignored, however. It's grossly out of character for Spock as he took shape to joke that a woman who was sexually assaulted by an evil double of Captain Kirk enjoyed the experience. It is outrageous to claim, as TOS did, that no woman has ever captained a starship.

I prefer to simply think that these events didn't happen, much like Quinn shrugging off Wade being in a rape camp or spending a season finding coordinates to Kromagg Prime and a way to bypass the Slidecage only to blow both off in "Revelations."

And I don't think we need to restrict STAR TREK to technology that was feasible to render on TV in the 1960s; the show should reflect a future based on the world we have today. And on the level of TV production, there is really insufficient time to worry about it at all.

In a podcast, "Desperate Hours" author David Mack said that he read the TV scripts, passed along any contradictions he didn't think could be reconciled and some were amended and some weren't. He added that he offered the TV producers three paths for "Desperate Hours": he could describe the 60s Enterprise as being visually in line with 2017 DISCOVERY ships with holograms and jacketed uniforms and metallic surfaces. He could describe the 2017 DISCOVERY ships as being visually in line with the 60s STAR TREK with switches and dials and pastel colours.

Or he could describe both the 60s and 2017 ships exactly as they appeared onscreen -- and declare with a straight face that the 60s ships are in fact more advanced than the 2017 ships and have the characters consider the 60s style to be more futuristic than the DISCOVERY ships.

They asked him to take the third option. That said, a lot of this could be side-stepped if DISCOVERY were set in the 25th century and DISCOVERY has, for now, given no real reason why it's set in the 23rd aside from Michael Burnham being Sarek's adopted daughter.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

That said, a lot of this could be side-stepped if DISCOVERY were set in the 25th century and DISCOVERY has, for now, given no real reason why it's set in the 23rd aside from Michael Burnham being Sarek's adopted daughter.

And now an appearance from Harry Mudd.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Discovery continues to be a really interesting and gripping show.  Michael Burnham and Gabriel Lorca are two of the more compelling characters in Star Trek history, and I'm genuinely intrigued on where certain plotlines are going to go.

However, some of the creative decisions are just distracting to me.  I don't know a ton about Sarek, but making Sarek (a character that has been a vital part of Trek since its inception) so "emotionally" connected to someone we've never heard of until now seems...disrespectful to me.  Maybe it isn't, but it's definitely odd to me.

I know we've beaten the whole "era they chose" thing to death, but it's just distracting when I try and think about the show in any sort of context.  They wanted to do the TOS era, but they also don't seem attached to *anything* related to the era.  They changed the uniforms, they changed the Klingons, and they changed just about everything about the technology.

In fact, if they simply changed the "Klingons" to "Quinnians", Sarek to any other high-ranking Klingon, Harry Mudd to any other con artist, and any other dialogue to reference the 25th century instead of the 23rd, the show works just fine. 

The whole thing is just bizarre to me.  The recent movies were prequels because they seemed to have a reverence for the TOS era and wanted to replicate everything about the aesthetic that they could.  Discovery seems to want to do entirely their own thing and just have an attachment to certain characters (Sarek, Harry Mudd, etc) that they wanted to include.

Again, I love the show.  All the side stuff is just distracting me, and it's only distracting me when the show is over and I have time to digest.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I haven't seen this week's episode yet. So this is just rambling about continuity:

Most fans, I find, think of STAR TREK continuity the way they see the continuity of a cop drama or a teen soap. ELEMENTARY, DAWSON'S CREEK, EVERWOOD and such. But because of the huge timespan of STAR TREK, I think it's probably better to see it like the Marvel Universe where all events are in a broad continuity subject to the interpretation of the individual author and re-interpreted in terms of the present day. Both STAR TREK and the Marvel Universe function as representations of present day concerns and anxieties, after all.

The most interesting Marvel characters, to me, from a continuity standpoint are Iron Man and Captain America. Iron Man's origin story is continually updated in flashbacks: the Vietnam era incident that caused Tony Stark's heart to be lodged with shrapnel and necessitate an Iron Man suit has been continually updated to the Gulf War, to Afghanistan -- and the surroundings and soldiers and technology are also altered with each new version. It's a floating timeline and it's necessary to move Tony Stark into the present so that Iron Man's technology can represent the future.

Captain America also has an interesting continuity oddity: the year in which he reawakened from decades-long cryogenic suspension moves forward. He originally defrosted in the 60s; today, it's the 2000s. With each year, Cap emerges into a world farther and farther from World War II. Naturally, the stories in which he engaged with current events -- Nixon, the War on Drugs, Bill Clinton being at his funeral, the inauguration of George W. Bush and 9/11 -- have to quietly fade away from reference. A hilarious continuity issue: Cap's long-time girlfriend, Sharon, was written to be the younger sister of his WWII girlfriend, Peggy. As WWII grows distant, Sharon has been altered into Peggy's grand-niece. I think, at some point, Sharon will become Peggy's great-grand niece.

I think STAR TREK has to be treated the same way -- a floating timeline perpetually drifting ahead of our present rather than a locked, strictly defined set of stories.

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When writing SLIDERS REBORN, I had the opportunity to explain a lot of the show's peculiar continuity: the Season 1 episodes being aired in the wrong order, the Season 2 guest-stars who vanished between episodes, Season 3 monsters, the Season 4 backstory, the Season 5 production being isolated to backlots.

I was using the idea that there were two timelines in SLIDERS: an original timeline in which the original sliders had four years of wonderful adventures, and a corrupted timeline created by Dr. Geiger's Combine experiment that ripped all Quinns out of all realities and created a warped, damaged timeline that aired on TV. This blanket explanation served as a catch-all rationale for every continuity error and the Season 3 monsters and I singled out each one in the explanation.

But there was one continuity oddity I decided to leave alone -- Quinn Mallory's childhood.

The SLIDERS pilot shows Jerry O'Connell in a photograph with his father, Michael. "The Guardian," however, shows Quinn as a 10-year-old mourning the death of his father. The Pilot puts Michael's death in Quinn's teens and it's not a source of trauma as Quinn and Amanda joke about Amanda conversing with Michael's photograph. "The Guardian" declares that the death of Quinn's father at a young age caused Quinn to become socially isolated and racked with guilt over how his final words to his dad were spoken in anger.

I think you could conceivably find a way to rationalize the continuity here. You could say that Quinn has, over time, found ways to obscure his grief. You could say that Quinn had a growth spurt on his home Earth that his "Guardian" double would experience later in life. You could say that Jerry isn't playing Quinn in the photograph; he is playing one of Quinn's cousins and Quinn keeps the photo as an indication of how it might have looked had his father lived longer.

But the rationalizations obscure the purpose of the "Guardian" retcon -- which was to find some way to explore the strange contradiction in Quinn Mallory being an awkward, socially isolated nerd played by the athletic, attractive and charismatic Jerry O'Connell.

Tracy Torme, who wrote both episodes, clearly made the decision to revise the Pilot backstory for Quinn. I think: he didn't expect Quinn to be as attractive as Jerry made him and he wanted to reconcile the discrepancy between character and actor. His solution was to repurpose the death of Quinn's father from being one point of Quinn's backstory to a life-defining trauma that left Quinn fundamentally broken.

And as someone who was moving SLIDERS continuity around to get everything in order, this is something I decided I wouldn't touch because the retcon was part of Tracy Torme getting to grips with Quinn Mallory. It was part of the process of merging what was intended and what was onscreen into a unified whole, and if I tugged at the improvised and spontaneously formed threads that make Quinn who he is, I would unravel him.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

I think STAR TREK has to be treated the same way -- a floating timeline perpetually drifting ahead of our present rather than a locked, strictly defined set of stories.

I 100% agree, but I think Trek also has a perfect out in the sense that the timeline is expandable.  It's our timeline but stretched out.  The 23rd century that Kirk lived in is the 60s.  It has "advanced" technology and apparel and ideas that represent the 60s.  The TNG era represents the 80s-90s.

As the shows move forward, technology moves forward.  Time moves forward.

Discovery could've taken the next leap.  Move forward 100-200 years.  Now they have even better technology.  Their ideals now match our own.

Like Marvel, instead of worrying about making the past make sense, they just shift it to the present.  Trek wants to try and make TOS make sense in a modern context, but it's never going to work.  The Eugenics Wars and World War III might've pushed humanity back, but the technology onboard the technology is just laughably behind the Enterprise herself.  Data, once boasted, that his processor worked at a speed that would be considered unacceptably slow by today's standards.

In my opinion, Trek shouldn't go back.  It should always be moving forward.  Maybe the everyday viewer would be unable to connect with the year 2500, but I doubt it.

But, yeah, in the heat of the moment while I'm watching, I just accept that it's the 23rd century.  The show is good enough where I'm not that worried about it at the time.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

I think STAR TREK has to be treated the same way -- a floating timeline perpetually drifting ahead of our present rather than a locked, strictly defined set of stories.

It really doesn't. They could continue the story further in the future and not have to deal with obvious continuity gaffes. They could choose to progress the story and strive to move past the familiar. But they chose not to, instead picking a time where familiar names can be referenced and onscreen Okudagrams can slyly wink at the audience and let them know how clever they are for knowing what planet that is.

ireactions wrote:

The Pilot puts Michael's death in Quinn's teens and it's not a source of trauma as Quinn and Amanda joke about Amanda conversing with Michael's photograph. "The Guardian" declares that the death of Quinn's father at a young age caused Quinn to become socially isolated and racked with guilt over how his final words to his dad were spoken in anger.

The pilot takes place a full decade after the death of Mike Mallory. I would hope Quinn and his mom would have had the distance to look bad at him and have fond, almost goofy memories of the times they had together. It means they moved on with life and healed.

Now, let's keep talking about this 50 year old franchise and 22 year old show!

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

But then why is Quinn played by Jerry in the family photo if the Pilot meant for Quinn to be 10 when his father died?

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I get the sense that the prequel-to-TOS situation is an awkward artifact of the creative troubles behind the series.

Bryan Fuller pitched DISCOVERY as an anthology show with each season to be set in a different time period. As it was an anthology, it makes sense that Fuller wanted the first season to be set close to the most iconic, culturally defining era of the franchise by making it 10 years before the original series. Later seasons would move forward.

The original intention was to render the 60s era STAR TREK with modern materials and technology the way the rebootquel movies have done it. The uniforms were to resemble those in "The Cage." Fuller posted photos of gold, scarlet and blue turtlenecks on Twitter.

But Fuller left, the people who took over have stuck with Fuller's plot and time period but are executing it with their own production aesthetic instead and they changed the uniforms to look more like ENTERPRISE.

The new producers have decided to render the 23rd century as they see fit and then sort out the discrepancies later. The current producers have said in interviews that the contradictions will be explained. http://www.cbr.com/star-trek-discovery- … y-changes/ It does leave me wondering why they would create supposed errors in the first place.

Anyway. I'll finish Season 1 before I give an opinion. I don't think there's anything wrong with one season as a TOS-prequel, but doing an entire show like this astounds me for all the reasons Slider_Quinn21 expresses.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

But then why is Quinn played by Jerry in the family photo if the Pilot meant for Quinn to be 10 when his father died?

Because Phillip Van Dyke got drunk before he was supposed be on set and couldn't remember his lines, so JOC stood in!

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™