Monday, July 18, 2005
Battlestar Vs. Trek
TrekWeb posted an article on why Star Trek isn't doing well... Apparently it isn't enough like Battlestar Galactica. Now, I am a fan of both, and I agree on one hand. I do think Star Trek lost its way, and nobody cared about the storylines on the new series until they actually incorporated human drama and civil war, like the 4th season of Enterprise.
The backbones of TOS, TNG, and DS9 were human problems (racism, morality, revenge, etc.) that exist today and were rewritten in a scifi setting. Voyager and Enterprise left all that behind and asked "will they survive?!" every week, which you knew they obviously would, so it wasn't at all interesting. Voyager was like a liberalism fantasy... We can all live in harmony if we just talk about it! Problem is, nobody in their heart of hearts believes that the world can ever truly exist that way. It only works in an artificial construct, and it's too forced to be interesting. Enterprise was just boring and badly written.
I don't think Trek should be grittier, but it should address human problems. BSG does that, although it is pretty dark in comparison to Trek. I wouldn't let a child watch it like I did growing up on Trek--It's for mature scifi fans. For the creators of Trek to imply that the lack of grittiness is why Trek failed is a terrible excuse... it could never be gritty by its nature. That's just how BSG chose to address it, because its imagined future is much, much darker and less hopeful than the one Roddenberry imagined. He felt that humanity was essentially good and that its creations would alleviate poverty and disease and everyone would grow to be equals. BSG takes the Terminator route, in that its creations destroy its makers and the survivors are left with the least common denominators of being human - rage, revenge, love, escapism, civil war, etc.
It isn't a matter of time or exposure either. After all, the original SciFi series Stargate SG:1 is running on its 9th season and has spawned a more-or-less interesting second series, Atlantis. BSG has been around in one form or another since the 70s. But, their creators are intensely aware of their fans and the storylines we're looking for to keep us interested. The characters rarely stray from their original sketch and the technobabble is kept to a minimum. As implausible as the future they create is, it's never out of reach, because in the end it's just about the people on the show.
I'd recommend that Trek go back to its original storylines to save itself, but I just don't trust them anymore. Instead, I'm going to turn on the SciFi channel, which actually values its fans opinions rather than considering them a bother. Please, Paramount: Put the Star Trek down, and nobody gets hurt.
The backbones of TOS, TNG, and DS9 were human problems (racism, morality, revenge, etc.) that exist today and were rewritten in a scifi setting. Voyager and Enterprise left all that behind and asked "will they survive?!" every week, which you knew they obviously would, so it wasn't at all interesting. Voyager was like a liberalism fantasy... We can all live in harmony if we just talk about it! Problem is, nobody in their heart of hearts believes that the world can ever truly exist that way. It only works in an artificial construct, and it's too forced to be interesting. Enterprise was just boring and badly written.
I don't think Trek should be grittier, but it should address human problems. BSG does that, although it is pretty dark in comparison to Trek. I wouldn't let a child watch it like I did growing up on Trek--It's for mature scifi fans. For the creators of Trek to imply that the lack of grittiness is why Trek failed is a terrible excuse... it could never be gritty by its nature. That's just how BSG chose to address it, because its imagined future is much, much darker and less hopeful than the one Roddenberry imagined. He felt that humanity was essentially good and that its creations would alleviate poverty and disease and everyone would grow to be equals. BSG takes the Terminator route, in that its creations destroy its makers and the survivors are left with the least common denominators of being human - rage, revenge, love, escapism, civil war, etc.
It isn't a matter of time or exposure either. After all, the original SciFi series Stargate SG:1 is running on its 9th season and has spawned a more-or-less interesting second series, Atlantis. BSG has been around in one form or another since the 70s. But, their creators are intensely aware of their fans and the storylines we're looking for to keep us interested. The characters rarely stray from their original sketch and the technobabble is kept to a minimum. As implausible as the future they create is, it's never out of reach, because in the end it's just about the people on the show.
I'd recommend that Trek go back to its original storylines to save itself, but I just don't trust them anymore. Instead, I'm going to turn on the SciFi channel, which actually values its fans opinions rather than considering them a bother. Please, Paramount: Put the Star Trek down, and nobody gets hurt.
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