Frederik vs the Franchises: To Oldly Go When Many Have Gone Before

When discussing Star Trek, it’s almost become an obligation to affix a bright red asterisk to Gene Roddenberry’s name. Because, you see, the Great Bird of the Galaxy wasn’t so much a cosmic being as he was a prisoner of gravity – and, if you believe his detractors, a marketing construct. The “corrective” portrait that’s emerged in the years since his death – notably through books like Joel Engel’s Gene Roddenberry: the Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek and the documentary Chaos on the Bridge – is sometimes tragic, sometimes hostile, mostly unflattering, and all too human. It’s a tale of his need to control Star Trek, his clash with dissenters, and tendency to take credit for other people’s ideas, which not only resulted in head-on collisions with studios but also alienated his friends and allies. The “real” history of Star Trek’s creation, if we can say there’s such a thing, casts doubt on Roddenberry’s visionary authorship of its mythos and the narrative that Star Trek was a ship of peers guided by a singularly capable captain. In space, it seems, no one can hear a scream. But the sound of an idol being shattered comes through the vacuum loud and clear.

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth is, Roddenberry might have tripped over himself when it came to realizing his vision, but I’d argue that Star Trek is significantly diminished without his influence.

Today’s Star Trek is very much the product of a committee, a patchwork whole shaped by diverse and not necessarily compatible perspectives, creative conflicts, compromises and, yes, cash grabs. While the glut of spinoffs and the prospect of a fourth Kelvin-timeline movie indicate a period of thriving creativity, the symptoms suggest to me a case of franchitis that obscures the fact that, despite polished productions and occasional flashes of brilliance, Star Trek has become a mediocrity whose ambitions were jettisoned along with the Great Bird’s space-borne ashes.

There are two moments that, to my mind, mark Star Trek's decline. The first comes from Deep Space Nine, when showrunner Ira Steven Behr reasoned that the nobility of the Federation was only possible with the support of a ruthless and amoral secret security apparatus. Apparently inspired by a line of dialogue for Commander Benjamin Siskso from DS9 episode "The Maquis" – "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" – Behr mused in the 1999 reference companion to the series, "Why is Earth a paradise in the twenty-fourth century? Well, maybe it's because there's someone watching over it and doing the nasty stuff that no one wants to think about." He expressed an interest of exploring what life was really like for those living the fictional 24th century, saying "Is it this paradise, or are there, as Harold Pinter said, 'Weasels under the coffee table'." With that decision Star Trek’s fundamental outlook shifted from aspirational to cynical. Since then, not only has the malignant Section 31 and the moral calculus used to justify its existence become entrenched in current continuity (both Prime and Kelvin), we’ve also been given a militaristic, realpolitik Federation that seriously contemplates genocide (Discovery Season 1, DS9’s Dominion War seasons) and succumbs to xenophobia and resentment (Star Trek VI, Picard Season 1). And that’s before we even get to discussing how contemporary showrunners repeatedly portray the Federation as inept – scientifically, judicially and defensively – and, all too often, an ideal just outside the characters’ reach. Discovery’s come-to-Gene moment in season 3 was a nice gesture, but rather Pyrrhic given the franchise context.

The second moment comes with the release of Star Trek II: the Wrath of Kahn, which marked a significant course correction for Star Trek movies after The Motion Picture’s lackluster response. Its success established a move toward conventional action movie storytelling rooted in a conflict between heroes and villains typically resolved through violence. Hence: Voyager’s crew fought TNG’s Borg, Enterprise had its temporal cold war, Discovery’s seasonal rotation of villains included Klingons, the Mirror Universe, malevolent AI, and the Orion Syndicate. Picard’s first season also involved hostile AI, and the Kelvin timeline movies each had their own Big Bad for the good guys to fight. Only Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home bucks the trend with its heartfelt environmentalist cautionary tale, delivered with a good humor that’s generally lacking in the newer films and series. The fact that fandom has embraced this course correction is evidenced not only by the box office and television ratings, but through the current crop of games (e.g. Star Trek Fleet Command and Star Trek Timelines) that trumpet the opportunities to engage in space battles.

Underlying these two influences is the successful overturning of Roddenberry’s injunction against interpersonal conflicts between crew members, which further contributes to Star Trek’s devolution into conventional storytelling modes not all that different from Firefly, Dark Matter, or other gritty SF series. Picard exemplifies how UnRoddenberries finally got their wish with a crew of liars, murderers, drug addicts, and PTSD-sufferers, all working for a captain the showrunners present, intentionally or not, as out-of-synch with his peers in a narrative that undermines his values. (For example, the resolution of season 1 doesn’t emerge from moral insight and diplomatic skill, but the wielding of force.)

The thing is, it isn’t hard to discern Roddenberry’s distinct vision for Star Trek, especially considering that he elsewhere conceived alien invasion and space opera series that were posthumously developed in, respectively, Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda. When given the opportunity to revive the original series in the late 1970s, the result – after many development twists and turns – was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a high-concept film obviously inspired by icons like 2001: A Space Odyssey. It apparently wasn’t what critics or fans wanted to see, however, which was more visceral, action-oriented storytelling than TMP’s more cerebral approach. For my part, however much it puts me in the minority, the film’s humanistic design aesthetic, artsy cinematic vision, and rejection of action movie conventions are bold gestures in service of a premise that is actually science fiction – the very reasons why TMP stands out as my favourite Star Trek movie along with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. While we can debate the film’s strengths and shortcomings, TMP clearly lays a defined course for Star Trek that looks beyond reflecting humanity’s 20^th and 21^st century failings to focus instead on the next stage in our civilization’s evolution.

While the movies more or less sidelined Roddenberry as Paramount charted a new course, his efforts in television with The Next Generation provides further evidence of the vision he was striving to realize against a current of opposing, or at least unsympathetic, creative forces. Representing a manifesto of sorts for the series, the first episode credited to D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry, “Encounter at Farpoint,” centers on the Enterprise’s crew solving a diplomatic mystery not with a brawl, but with empathy and science. And in the process, they prove their worthiness as galactic good citizens to the omnipotent and judgmental Q. While we could nitpick at how well the episode juggles its multiple goals of telling an SF story while introducing new characters, a new ship, and updated world-building, the episode nevertheless expresses the very ideals underlying the series that would find further expressions in episodes like “Inner Light,” widely considered one of the series’ best.

Broadly, the shift away from Roddenberry marked a shift in Star Trek’s fundamental genre from high-concept science fiction of the kind you’d find in literary SF to the action thrillers that Hollywood churns out in between outpours of superheroics and horror. The impression to me is of a franchise that not only lacks the skill to deliver on the challenges of science fiction – a particularly difficult genre because it involves both crafting stories with compelling characters and drama as well as the ability to speculate about science rooted in an understanding of actual science – but a lack of interest. How else to explain the relentless repetition of plots centered on the Mirror Universe, Federation corruption, planetary destruction, war, time travel, and the tiresome Borg, who are to Star Trek what the equally one-dimensional Daleks are to Doctor Who? How else to account for the jagged, disjointed history attempting to link together the various series? And forget about embracing the socialist implications of the Federation, because Hollywood’s fealty is to capitalism.

It makes no sense, for example, that the Romulans in Picard would be ghettoized and impoverished in a universe in which material needs can be easily satisfied with the help of technologies such as replicators, clean and plentiful energy generators, robots, and so on. Similarly, it makes no sense for Federation medicine to be unable to repair the defect in Picard’s parietal lobe, and the resulting terminal illness, given nanotechnologies, genetic technologies and the capability to break people down at a subatomic level and reassemble them (transporters). But today’s Star Trek is rarely interested in science fiction as anything other than a mood and aesthetic, and the franchise’s technology is not the concrete foundation on which stories are built but rather malleable devices that are adjusted to serve whatever the writers happen to need for their storytelling goals. So if they need to inflict an uncurable disease on Picard, confine Data’s mind to a box, make Section 31 especially formidable, or portray the Federation as a racist bureaucracy with disparate economic classes, then that’s what we get even if it means sacrificing consistency – and the ambition for speculation – within established sciences and technologies. Worse is how showrunners regularly sacrifice fruitful science fictional plotlines in favor of action thriller story beats. Picard’s Season 1 provides a particularly egregious example of this when it literally kills off all the characters involved in the show’s most intriguing idea: a project to help the victims of Borg assimilation rebuild their mental and physical health so that they might eventually return to their home societies, many of which have themselves not healed from the trauma of Borg attacks. An SF medical drama? Now there’s an idea for a Star Trek series! But as it stands, we have been given over the years generally middling series that, despite occasional displays of inspiration, don’t measure up to their ambitions (e.g. Enterprise, Voyager). Even in light of my reading of it’s Season 2 synopsis, I can’t shake the feeling that Picard is, essentially, oldly going where many have gone before. Or at the least, arriving very, very late.

If Star Trek’s Powers That Be were genuinely passionate about, and committed to, science fiction in general and Roddenberry’s vision in particular, than the answer to Ira Behr Stevens’ question would be obvious: speculate on a better future through more than just technology, engineering, physics, and medicine. A common blind spot in popular science fiction, sciences such as psychology and sociology, as well as arts, the humanities and political science, are frequently glossed over, if not outright ignored. In a society with the technology to eliminate material needs, what role do psychology and sociology play in promoting harmony? How has humanity’s practice of politics evolved to leverage advances in psychology and sociology to create harmonious social structures? Can ship crews organize themselves better than the traditional military-inspired hierarchies? What would xenoarchaeology look like? There are certainly precedents in literary SF of speculations beyond the conventional disciplines, James Whites' Sector General series being a notable example. Which means there’s a wealth of untapped potential Star Trek showrunners could draw on to support an optimistic vision of the Federation, if they were so inclined. In a sense, it’s almost as the showrunners are afraid of leaning too far into the implied socialism of future Earth and the Federation lest they betray their aim to appeal to the broadest audience possible.

Even Star Trek’s much-vaunted humanistic values are curiously behind the times and conventional by speculative SF standards. As much as I welcome the inclusion of a romantic gay couple in Discovery from the beginning, and trans characters in Season 3, the gesture feels belated and just a bit self-congratulatory. Decades after the Original Series broke ground with an interracial kiss on TV, an admittedly problematic statement given the specifics of the scene, it’s sad to think how long it took the franchise to fulfill its promise of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Better late than never, I suppose, but these gestures might not come across as so contrived if they expressed a well-thought-out universe beyond gadgets.

Perhaps the Star Trek I want and, I believe, Gene Roddenberry wanted, the one that boldly goes where no one has gone before, would have a much more limited appeal. So what? I’d rather have less but higher caliber Star Trek than a buffet that sacrifices its ambitions for low-hanging entertainment. And I don’t buy the argument that there’s a Star Trek for everyone with the various series currently on air and in the works (i.e. from the more comedic Lower Decks to forthcoming fair like a Michelle Yeoh-starring Section 31 series). By definition, a vision that molds itself to whatever people want to buy is a vision that lacks integrity, even after accounting for some creative flexibility. Star Trek should be Star Trek.

So beam me up, Scottie. Let’s see what else is out there.

Frederik vs the Franchises: Introduction

The box office may not show symptoms of fatigue for any given film franchise, but I sure am tired of all those vampires sucking the life out of popular culture (e.g. genre websites devoting so much coverage to Star Wars and the MCU/DCEU you’d swear nothing else exists). Franchises are a common topic in the entertainment press, of course, with sequels the frequent object of pity for failing to recapture the lightning that sparked in their progenitors. Yet franchise sequels we get, as long as the studios make a reasonable return on their investments.

Not all franchises are equal in ambition, however. Some are content to be film series, while others aspire to transmedia sprawl and iconic cultural status. Both levels of ambition are prone to diminishing returns with each sequel or spin-off in my view; the greater the quantity, the greater the chances of mediocrity. Personally, I think we’d be better off if crowdfunding was the dominant business model for filmmaking: rather that studios spending marketing dollars trying to manipulate us into seeing their latest mediocrity, only filmmakers with the visions and skills to persuade audience to give money to their efforts get to see their films realized. But that’s not reality. Given the often-exorbitant upfront costs of movie production for studios and the nature of our economy, it’s impossible to fully sever the profit motive from the artistic drive, so I understand why studios – businesses, fundamentally – reflexively turn to proven commodities such as successful films, best-selling books, classic films from the past, dormant franchises, popular characters from past works, and appeals to nostalgia as fuel to keep the box office fires burning.

To be fair, the current business model does produce some excellent films with artistic merit. Nevertheless, I don’t think that’s typical of films produced through a franchise model, and I’d level two general critiques to the franchising impulse.

Franchises inhibit rather than enhance individual artistic visions and authorship.

The reason is rather simple: it isn’t filmmakers who (own the intellectual property rights of their creations, but studios. I’m not only referring to the famous impact of market-driven studio interference on a director’s vision, resulting in critical panning and/or audience rejection (e.g. David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, the DCEU’s Justice League). I’m also referring to how one set of filmmakers on a franchise (including the original creators) are often replaced by others whose visions conflict, or at least don’t align, with their predecessors. Star Wars, Star Trek, the MCU, the DCEU, and Terminator are obvious examples. With so many different visions in play, franchises become saturated by retcons, reboots, and endless variations that serve to undermine the efforts of individual artists. What’s the value in crafting a poignant character arc or proposing an imaginative story concept when their outcomes can be revised, reversed or utterly ignored with subsequent franchise entries?

Franchises can lose their integrity even when they aren’t cobbled together by a multitude of creatives; the original creators themselves can undermine their creations when studios, market conditions, fandom, and/or personal motivations pressure them to revisit their work, especially after a lot of time has passed.

Franchises reduce fans to consumers.

The impact of a franchise isn’t only on the creative professionals who contribute their considerable talents to money-making projects for studios, but on the fans themselves. This may seem paradoxical, in that “successful” franchises clearly have excited fanbases (to varying degrees) who willingly spend money on the latest offerings, cosplay at conferences, and rev the social media buzz engine. That hardly seems like a bad thing, right? But as a certain Admiral might say, it’s a trap.

Broadly, the problem is one of volume: so much material is produced that it’s daunting for fans to keep up and for non-fans to find a way in, resulting in a struggle to savor past offerings while keeping up with the latest product. At some point, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, we end up having to accept mediocrity; “good enough” but disposable entertainment typically consumed once than left behind for the next new product. We also end up boxed in – the more we commit to a franchise as it sprawls out, the harder it becomes to enjoy other franchises or - <gasp> - creative stories that aren’t franchises. There’s only so much time, after all. Good luck to you if you’re a completionist!

The impact on fandom can be more insidious than issues of money and time commitments, however. In an effort to create new material, franchises often resort to two maneuvers: 1) Fill in story gaps, and 2) Overemphasize novelty. The former risks demystifying stories by limiting opportunities for us to use our own imaginations, while the latter risks replacing what we enjoyed in the first place with something less compelling, if not ruinous. When novelty becomes more important than integrity and quantity overshadows quality, franchises end up resorting to the instant gratification of gimmickry in trying to sustain their profits, which can only annoy purists and further reduce fandom to mere consumerism. Worse than that, it may convince fans that their love of a franchise entitles them to be pandered to as co-owners, a perspective that drives fans to get angry when they don’t get what they want, regardless of whether it aligns with the vision of those people actually creating the franchise. In this way, fandom itself becomes antagonistic to authorial vision by demanding a tailored product; fandom becomes less appreciative and more transactional.

A fixation on canonicity doesn’t help. At its simplest, there’s no problem per se with the idea of a canon – all it is a narrative continuity across multiple films or books. The concept can be used to distinguish between a creator’s original work and works by others. For example, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories are the canon, while the countless derivative works that have followed are not regardless of their individual merits. But canonicity in recent years, particularly with the massive success of the MCU, is often just a way for studios/publishers to reassign creative privilege, justify mediocre work, and persuade consumers to spend more money on whatever new product they’re offering In other words, canonicity is code for intellectual property and, therefore, creative control, which ties in to my first general critique. “Canonicity” can also drive efforts to force disparate creative projects into some kind of whole, which comes weird narrative continuity projects as the DCEU demonstrates.

From Star Trek and Star Wars to Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and others, I’ll take a look at some of our popular franchises with these two general critiques in mind. So which franchise will stand up to scrutiny and which will fall? Stay tuned!

a sad conclusion about doctor who from series 6

Series 5 of the popular Doctor Who revival, hereafter to be referred to as New Who, ended on a slightly ambivalent note; enthusiasm for Matt Smith’s hyperkinetic embodiment of the 11th doctor, frustration with his companions (i.e. Amy Pond), and an exhilarating feeling of disappointment with Steve Moffat’s vision as showrunner. Exhilarating disappointment  – an oxymoron? Hardly. Watching Series 5 –and, now, Series 6 – is like eating candy and eventually recognizing that it has no nutritional value whatsoever. The sugar rush is a thrill for a while, but eventually must yield the way to more substantive and mature appreciation. Or rejection.

Perpetuating the flaws that have marred New Who since its inception – notably grandiose plotting with delusions of narrative coherence – Series 6 adds in a few of its own, beginning with an amplification of a significant irritation from Series 5: the relationship between Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Thankfully, we have finally moved past Rory’s status, in Amy’s eyes, as side-dish to the Doctor’s main course. Yet after a season in which Amy has the hots for everyone’s favourite Time Lord only to jettison it all in a season-ending marriage to Rory, the coupling still fails to convince. We accept it only because the plot requires us to accept it, and because Arthur Darvill is the series’ unsung star performer in a role that blends the sensible and the vulnerable with hefty doses of bravery and bad-assery.

Far crueler to the Doctor’s companions than the conviction of their marital status is their relationship to the Doctor, namely, as appendages. Although the Doctor cares greatly for them, there is never the sensation of a two-way relationship in quite the same way the David Tennant’s Doctor enjoyed with Donna Noble or Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor with Rose Tyler. Perhaps the most honest acknowledgment comes when – spoilers! – the Doctor leaves Amy and Rory behind with the recognition that he was selfishly feeding off of Amy’s fangirl adoration. Much in the same way New Who feeds off the adoration of its uncritical fanbase.

All that could be dismissed as glitch rather than aggravation provided New Who’s fundamental structure, wobbly at best under Russell Davies’ guidance, had improved with Moffat in charge. Yet despite Moffat’s ability to crank out plots that take advantage of time travel’s convolutions, the plots remain stubbornly prone to magical resolutions and pandering scenarios. Telling stories from the school of plotting that demands escalated stakes, the writers long ago reached the dead end of positing the ultimate stakes – the erasure of reality itself – and repeating the same universe-destroying outcome as the challenge the Doctor must overcome.

More fundamental still is the show’s refusal to embrace its science fiction character, preferring instead to dwell in the arbitrary logic of fairy tales. Result: high concept stories are reduced to mere melodrama or yet another monster-of-the-week scenario, with the concept providing a backbone nobody cares to notice is broken. Consider “The Girl Who Waited,” an episode set on a planet quarantined from a deadly and incurable 24-hour disease. Through a medical facility capable of sustaining co-existing time streams running at different speeds, the dying can stretch their final day to last the lifespan of their loved ones. Into this fascinating idea comes a medical facility incapable of distinguishing human biology from other biologies, and an army of robots ostensibly intended to provide medical care but, in true Who fashion, display a sinister shark’s array of needles in their heads. (The xenophobia that is rampant in Doctor Who, manifested in an endless parade of cool but ultimately malicious entities is an on-going drag for a series that otherwise celebrates adventure and the search for universal wonders.) While the drama inherent in trapping Amy in a different timestream from Rory and the Doctor is compelling, the cavalier treatment of the episode’s core concept underscores how the writers are willing to jettison narrative integrity in favour of manipulating audience emotions. When magic is draped in science-fiction trappings, the cognitive dissonance that results doesn’t lend itself to credible narratives. Concepts are thrown around like wet noodles at a wall, sticking only out of sheer production will power and not because any of it actually makes any sense.

This is on par with the show’s disregard for continuity and consistent worldbuilding, in the sense that each plot idea – each new villain’s assault on Earth – seems to exist without consideration of past episodes. Hence, we have a planet Earth whose core was formed around a malevolent race of half-humanoid half-spider beings, which evolved a race of underground-dwelling reptilian humanoids, and subsequently was subject to an occupation by Silence so hidden that even past incarnations of the Doctor were unaware of it. Add in Torchwood, and we are given a race of ridiculously powerful fairies who also inhabit the Earth. Nevermind the fact that apparently all these beings have never interacted; Doctor Who’s anything-goes approach to worldbuilding, quirky in Classic Who but amplified in New Who, has reached the critical mass of absurdity.

The sad conclusion: New Who is no longer skilled fiction, if it ever was, but fan fiction – a comic book soap opera that panders to audiences rather than demonstrate artistic integrity. I’ll keep watching, if only because there remains a certain infectious entertainment value to the show, but I can’t say I have much respect for it. Not when there are other shows, like Merlin, Eureka, Sanctuary…that manage to have excellent characterization, clever show premises, and a solid grasp of narrative storytelling.

quick review - Midsomer Murders

Note: The following review of this British murder mystery series is based on the first four series. I've just started with series 5.

Based on books by Caroline Graham, a typical episode of Midsomer Murders follows the beats of a slasher film, only one that is dressed up in the respectable Sunday clothes veneer of a British murder mystery. Stories almost invariably leave a body count by murderers with a particularly vicious streak. Yet, unlike slashers in the horror genre, episodes don’t dwell on the gruesome anatomy of the murders or on extended sequences of torture, but on the character dramas that underlie them. Coupled with the quintessential whodunit, through the affable Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby (John Nettles) and his uncouth partner Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy (Daniel Casey), the episodes offer compelling, often lurid, but always human mysteries as dissected by the series’ highly likable police protagonists. The David Lynch-like motif of dread underlying the seemingly idyllic, and occasionally comic, county of Midsomer (a piece of fictional geography) is arguably a distinct feature of the series, delivered straight-up without a hint of surrealistic shenanigans. Most of all, this masterful program, hampered only by a tendency for formula, is a contemporary continuation of Agatha Christie’s work.

The BBC’s Sherlock: Thrilling But Not Quite Elementary : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

The happy news is that Sherlock, produced and co-written by Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat along with fellow Whovian Mark Gatiss, is as good a contemporary presentation of the classic detective as one could expect, if not hope for....

The series deserves accolades for its hip, smart efforts even if, it must be said, Jeremy Brett and Edward Burke remain the definitive Holmes and Watson, and the Granada series that housed them remains the definitive screen adaptation of Doyle’s work.

Read the rest of...The BBC’s Sherlock: Thrilling But Not Quite Elementary : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

why I won't watch heroes anymore

Every so often, I'll dip into the vast pool of information that is Wikipedia and bone up on what's going on in the world of comics. Everytime, I'm reminded why I'm not into comics with the exception of Mike Mignola's brilliant Hellboy and the odd stand-alone book like The Long Halloween or something by Alan Moore. For example, check out this summary of DC's current story arc, Final Crisis. Then, follow the links you find to read up on various comic book heroes, villains, and so on. It's all rather dizzying...an array of characters who undergo everything from death, resurrection and possession/manipulation, parallel universes and dimensions, gods, wizards, scientists, aliens. You'll find everything, including the proverbial sink, in play in the DC universe - something that applies to the Marvel universe as well. But how is it that a fictional universe can put non-powered characters like Batman and the Question alongside superheroes like Superhero, sorcerors like Dr. Strange, and even Neil Gaiman's sandman characters? In other words, what kind of fictional universe is it that sees science, magic, the divine, the hellish, and the supernatural co-exist? Answer: a narratively bankrupt universe. When anything can happen in a story's universe, the experiences characters have don't mean all that much.

It's the mad path of anti-climax, with all the drama and emotion sucked out of the story because the writers/creators are unwilling to set down limits that even they, as storytellers, can't cross. This is what happened with Season 2 of Heroes. Tim Kring and the writing staff not only jumped the shark, but catapulted themselves across it by indulging the very soap opera theatrics of mainstream comic book storytelling. Instead of killing Sylar off - he did get rammed through with a sword - they keep him alive, yet depowered, for an inane plot that does not develop his character but instead becomes a time-filler for him to regain his power and resume his wicked brain-eating (!?) ways. Instead of killing Nathan off - a noble sacrifice for his brother - he too is kept alive. But the clincher is Noah Bennett's death and ressurection. Forget that Mohinder was made into a douchebag and that it was probably not a good idea to stage Noah's death; the writers killed him and they should have had the guts to stuck with it. It was, after all, dramatic and filled with the promise of all sorts of interesting dilemmas for Claire. But no. He had to be revived. With Claire's blood. Now all the show's characters have to do is run around with an epipen filled with Claire's blood and jam in their legs whenever they get a big bad boo-boo. And to top it off, the Heroes graphic novels hint strongly that the immortal Adam, whose horrific but strangely poetic live burial created quite an impact, might yet be released from his from his underground prison. So there it is: no death, no permanence, no reason to care what happens because it can all be reversed at a writer's whim. And no reason to watch Heroes anymore.

welcome back, mr. braga

Brannon Braga got seriously beaten up when running Enterprise. The Trek masses bandied about pitchforks and torches. To some extent, the ignominious end to the Star Trek franchise was a result of the artistic decisions made by Braga and Rick Berman. But I think the problem began long before Enterprise aired, with Deep Space Nine. Veering away from the vision of the future presented in classic Trek and The Next Generation, DS9 went into full-on battle mode, complete with the shady Starfleet organization Section 31. While there is apparently some disagreement as to whether or not Gene Roddenberry himself would have like DS9’s turn, I didn’t recognize Star Trek in the war stories and the ruthless, unethical actions of Section 31. And like many, I distinctly saw in DS9 the shadow of Babylon 5, a vastly superior series in many ways.

Then came Voyager, which had really interesting characters, very good actors, and a willingness to shake things up a bit. Unfortunately, the series overall represented a missed opportunity. There were some great episodes, but after the misfire that was the Kazons and, later, the over-reliance on the Borg, Voyager ended up rehashing familiar material instead of truly embracing the concept of exploring unknown space.

The off-kilter vision of the universe presented by DS9 combined with a Voyager’s play-it-safe approach were, in my view, the two factors that kept Enterprise from reaching it’s potential. And it did have potential, despite the problem posed by setting the series earlier than classic Trek. Manny Coto’s involvement in the last season teased at what could have given Enterprise stronger leg muscles from the get-go: a stronger tie-in to the familiar Star Trek universe and plots that go beyond the usual “conflict-with-enemy-X” formula.

Naturally, the deteriorating quality of the movies didn’t help either. Nemesis’ re-working of Wrath of Khan, complete with Data’s death and possible “resurrection” in the body of Beta, cemented the view that Star Trek was getting a bit tired. I don’t think it was the fans who suffered from franchise fatigue: it was the franchise itself that was fatigued.

Back to Braga: there’s no doubt that he shoulders some responsibility for some of that fatigue. In all fairness, however, it’s rather harsh to condemn him as the villain who killed Star Trek. For one thing, he was behind some of the best storytelling in Trek – TNG’s “All Good Things,” for example, which he co-wrote with Ronald D. Moore And with a monolith as big as Star Trek, with oversized fan expectations to match, it’s worth remembering that Braga did not work alone, but in a hugely political environment chock-full of competing visions.

To his credit, Braga is remarkably self-aware about the whole situation. In an interview with The Fandom, he avoids arrogance and defensiveness and candidly accepts the bad with the good. In regards to the Enterprise finale, he acknowledges the mistakes that were made and expresses understanding with dissatisfied fans. That’s hardly the mark of a villain; I think it speaks highly of him – and reflects poorly on his most vicious critics.

It’s regrettable that Threshold, the series he started with Paul S. Goyer, also failed. (Regrettable, but not entirely surprising for a variety of reasons that don’t really involve Braga.) I suspect that along with the burnout that came with Star Trek’s end, he either lost his cachet in TV land, chose to recharge his batteries, or both. However, after a few years out of sight, it would seem that he’s become a staff writer for seasons 7 of 24. Welcome back, Mr. Braga.

about new amsterdam and a mea culpa

Okay, okay. I haven't posted in a long time. My excuse is I've been writing, working, with a dash of surgery thrown in for good measure. But I should be back in a reasonable state of sanity, which means more blogety goodness. Pending my wrapping up that discussion on From Hell, here's a quick question regarding the new TV series New Amsterdam.

What on earth made the show's creators think it's a good idea to have the main character's immortality be caused by a Native American blessing/curse, breakable only by finding that one true love? It's just a silly thing to do in an otherwise well-conceived show. The drama inherent in an immortal character who is not a vampire is very compelling, and the production values are unimpeachable. But the magic fluff is just undignified.