y42 writes, It might be an undiagnosed case of alzeimher, or he got a bad
batch of the crack, but according to an article on Sci Fi Wire, Berman said in an interview about this
season’s finale for Enterprise that “For the first time on a Star Trek
series, we’re going to be dealing with a mission to save Earth” .
Yeah, we never saw THAT before… I’m not sure if that qualifies him as insane, but it’s certainly indicitive of a nearly-total unfamiliarity with the episodes of the various Treks already out there.
What’s Really Sad…
…is the fact that he’s been around Trek for so long that he has to have seen some of these types of episodes. He is either incredibly stupid or (IMHO) just an arrogant spin-spewing executive who’s in this for the money.
Eventually ratings will drop so far for Enterprise that Paramount will fire his ass. They know the franchise is a cash cow and they’ll want a scapegoat.
Weird
It looks like he just didn’t express himself very well. It sounds like Earth actually gets attacked (as compared to past missions with the Borg etc. on TNG, when Earth just came “real close” to getting attacked), and the crew might actually be heading that way. It certainly seems to me that historically, very little time is spent on or near Earth in Trek.
Re: Weird
Well, the Earth was attacked by the Breen in Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War. Plus, it was technically attacked during Star Trek IV by that probe thing. I wonder what he could mean. He’s clearly not that clueless, so it must mean something…..
Re: Weird
DS9 (circa season six): San Francisco is leveled by the Dominion. ‘Nuff said.
Re: Weird
OK, that’s one episode out of seven years of the series… I think that proves my point more than it does yours.
Brain? What is “brain?”
Remember the insane asylum ep of TOS, and Lord Garth, who had assumed Kirk’s form, screaming, “No! No! No!” while slamming his fists and shoving aside his minions and generally chewing up the set, wildly hystrionic even for Shatner?
In lieu of an articulate comment, insert that clip here.
Translations for the Hard of Hearing….
"For the first time on a Star Trek series, we’re going to be dealing with a mission to save Earth,"
TRANSLATION: The first time this season….
"We’ll be dealing with a different group of aliens, …"
TRANSLATION: Different bumpy foreheads.
"[and] we’re going to be dealing with some new, non-Starfleet people coming on the ship to add a little muscle for the potentially violent situations our crew will be coming up against."
TRANSLATION: Klingons on the ship
"One of our characters is going to lose someone back on Earth during this devastating blow."
TRANSLATION: Merriweather’s senile old auntie wanders away from the home….
" There’s going to be a major change to T’Pol [Jolene Blalock],
TRANSLATION: Bigger cup size
"she’ll join the crew in going into" a Bermuda Triangle-like region of space"
TRANSLATION: This is our last season
"But who the hell cares after all? Those propellor heads suck up any old piece of crap I throw at ’em faster then Braga can sniff up a line. Heck, next season Porthos saves the ship and gets accepted into StarFleet Academy!"
TRANSLATION: none needed.
Um… not to point out the obvious…
But this is the first time in Star Trek history that they’ll have to save the Earth. Can you think of an earlier time?
I think Rick Berman was thinking internally to the star trek world: this is the first time (other than the time-warp borg encounter) when the whole earth has been in danger. It’s a theme that Earth will see many times in the future.
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
"But this is the first time in Star Trek history that they’ll have to save the Earth. Can you think of an earlier time?"
Ohh geez…talk about your technicalities… that plot idea is DEAD Jim.
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
Done before or not, the simple fact is that with Berman at the helm, it’s likely to be handled in a trite, boring fashion. If EVERYONE would stop watching the show, somebody might get the message.
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
Too many people want the show to succeed for them to stop watching. However, convincing people to watch every episode except those written by B&B might send the right message; we’ll watch Star Trek, if those two aren’t involved.
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
And giving the paucity of sci-fi series programming out there, I can imagine that the diehard SF people would find it hard to tear themselves from any series with production values. I was probably just never committed enough. Heck, with a few exceptions, I have little interest in seeing any ST:TNG episodes again and again even though it was a good series (I actually like watching DS9 eps over and over again, probably because I find both the style and characters more interesting).
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
I think that if he spent tens of millions on a movie that showed a Borg time-attack on Earth 150 years before NX-01, that counts. After all, he’s dredging up Borg stragglers from that Earth attack for one of his misguided eps in a few weeks…
Geez. If I EVER find out this guy had ANYTHING to do with UPN passing on Firefly, I’ll…I’ll….oh, it will be bad.
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
He’s destroying Star Trek, and if he scuttled Firefly – this would be proof-positive that he’s the antichrist for SciFi on TV… Count me in
Re: Um… not to point out the obvious…
No, we’ve only seen this plot in Star Trek I, Star Treck IV, a couple of times on the next generation, and at least one time travel episode in the original series–Which would technically predate Enterprise in the time stream. (I could make a case for at least two of the original episodes.)
Don’t Forget to sign….
The "Oust Rick Berman from Star Trek!" Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/antiBerm/petition.html
Tell your friends!
Re: Don’t Forget to sign….
How about a “Save Enterprise” petition? I love the premise of the show,
really I do. It just needs to be better implemented.
I hope this “new direction” Berman suggests makes the show worth
watching. Meanwhile, I’m working on purchasing DS9 2nd season
DVDs…
You are all missing the point
Berman said that this is the first time for any ‘series’, meaning to exclude the movies. Every one of your posts saying remember Star Trek I/IV, etc are quite wrong.
The closest series episodes to a mission to save Earth itself would be Best of Both Worlds and Guardian on the Edge of Forever. When the Breen attacked Earth in DS9, our beloved crew wasn’t involved in that fight.
Re: You are all missing the point
Yes, Best Of Both Worlds. That was in a series, and the Borg actually sent
a cube all the way to the earth. The deadly Data/Picard team of
righteousness saved the earth, but not before the Borg bitch slapped the
Starfleet defensive armada.
We saw in First Contact what the Borg would do to the earth if it ever got
the chance: destroy its eco system and fill up the space with billions and
billions of drones. I dunno ’bout you, but I would certainly call the
mission to save Picard a mission to save the Earth.
Seeing how Berman was Executive Producer for Best
of Both Worlds and writer for First Contact,
he should know better.
So, alzeimher’s, bad crack or megalomania?
Re: You are all missing the point
A different interpretation of events. One could argue that Best of Both Worlds was a mission to save the entire Federation/Quadrant from the Borg.
Re: You are all missing the point
One could argue that “All Good Things…” was a mission to save the entire Alpha Quadrant from the anti-time anomaly, rather than save humankind from never being, but it just doesn’t have the same ring.
Face it guy, Berman is not being original – Earth has been threatened before, in both the movies and the various series. Just because Enterprise happens before all the other things we’ve seen in Star Trek doesn’t validate it being done again, simply because it’s ‘before’ – that’s just not good enough.
When I first heard about Enterprise I figured the show would revolve around the formation of the Federation – that there would be a lot of first contact situations, minor misunderstandings and skirmishes, and we would see the beginnings of the Klingon and Romulan wars. Out of all the episodes that have been made so far, only the Andorian ones come close to that ideal, and to me, they’ve been the only ones that were original. Berman should be focusing on that, but instead he’s recycling old ideas in a vain attempt to become the name associated with the ‘greatness of Star Trek’ without realizing that he’s slowly choking the ‘greatness’ out of it.
Re: You are all missing the point
Agreed. One of Trek‘s greatest flaws– in all its
incarnations– has been the unwillingness to develop
its alien races. Save for a few– Vulcan, Klingons,
Bajorans et cetera— most are one or two shot
appearances that, when examined at all, prove to be
very human. This is odd, because the developed (well,
by TV SF standards) aliens are the ones that draw fans.
An Enterprise that addressed the early days of
the Federation could go a long way to correct this, and it
would be original. But no– we get all-new forehead
aliens (In the show’s past! Why couldn’t the doc
have been an established but hitherto undeveloped
specie?) and
old retread plots.
Re: You are all missing the point
>The closest series episodes to a mission to save Earth
>itself would be Best of Both Worlds and Guardian on the
>Edge of Forever.
Nope… just off the top of my head …in TOS when Vger was discovered it was on it’s was to steralize the Earth.
Face it…it’s been done – many, many times.
Re: You are all missing the point
That was a movie. Berman’s comment was specifically about the series. I’m just trying to point out that he isn’t as insane as so many want to make him out to be.
And I’d also like to make the point that I’m not defending everything the guy has done with Trek just because I’m trying to take his comment at face value instead of reading into it.
From Firefly Bulletin Board – Ratings Comparison
Current weekly ratings for last three weeks of fresh Enterprise:
Canamar: 2.8 final, 4.5 million viewers
The Crossing: 2.6 final, 3.8 million viewers
Judgement: 2.5 final, 3.7 million viewers
http://mvrojo.tripod.com/entratings.htm
–
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VS.
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Last year’s weekly ratings for Firefly:
*War Stories*: 2.4 final, 3.9 million viewers
*Objects in Space*: 2.6 final, 4.1 million viewers
and *Serenity*: 2.7 final, 4.2 million viewers
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/gofuton.cgi?select=&id=firefly&season=20022003&action=tracker