Star Trek

I actually just finished watching Stand Alone Complex, and the first season does indeed have this clear distinction. The second season on the other hand uses three distinctions, Dividual, Individual and Dual. Allegedly the Dividual episodes are the new stand alone ones, but I've seen episodes that don't 100% match up with that, while Individual and Dual mean they tie-in with the season's main story arc, the Individual Eleven, but then it's not clear what the difference between Dual and Individual mean, because some people say that Dual means those episodes are also doing a second storyline besides the Individual Eleven one, but then there are some Individual episodes that also move that plotline forward, so I really can't make much sense of the whole thing.

But, on the topic of the Serial vs, Stand Alone debate, I think the sweet spot is Deep Space Nine, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, for me anyway.

This. I think that's a good sweet spot, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer model too — episodic with serial elements and thematic seasonal villains. It's a good way to build the world and develop character and character relationships.

Full serialization works well for intense stories with a solid vision towards the end (Succession is a good example of this) but for an ongoing story, I do think episodic with serial arcs is the way to go.

Edited by grimorie121 on Apr 13th 2024 at 8:02:54 AM

Yup.

Don't get me wrong, I love Monster of the Week shows, in fact I enjoyed much more the MOTW episodes of X Files than the Myth Arch episodes and when I re-watch the show again I probably will skip the later. I liked them for the same reason I like antology shows, in the old days is like watching a short movie every week, and depending on the show it could even vary the genre (for example X Files had comedy, horror, scif-fi, fantasy episodes etc).

But that middle point of an overarching plot is also great and enticing like the above mentioned examples. Also serialization indeed works when well done, I liked 3 Body Problem for example (tho I must say I felt the plot never start running until episode 4).

But as with everything can be abused. Many shows (looking at you Marvel) saddly missuse serialization with lots of clear and obvious filler to get to the 50 minutes mark, plots unncesarily extended to have the 10 episodes and sometimes even clumsily finishing the episode when it shouldn't because they need to end everything with a cliffhanger with in some cases gets even ridiculous.

Something that DS9 really perfected was not the whole serialization aspect but juggling character stories that serve as their own Story Arc collectively while sometimes intersecting with the Myth Arc. Actual Dominion-centered episodes were only like 4-5 episodes a season while Bajoran politics, Ferengi culture and Klingon politics were evolved significantly through specific characters. TNG started the idea through character-focused episodes, though things like Lore, Klingon politics, Q and Borg would go sometimes years before a follow-up.

That's something I am not a fan of in modern serial storytelling, as it becomes one central Myth Arc with character drama on the side. The scope and scale of TNG and DS9 were vastly improved because it was looking for different perspectives on the events.

I was watching Renegade Cut's video on Rick Berman, and probably was already cover in this thread but... jeez! what a prick! Is amazing that most shows of the era were good despite of him, no thanks to him.

He was also, IIRC, the first person to float the idea of JJ Abrams as directing a Star Trek movie in an event for Enterprise.

His main writing partner (Brannon Braga) is a lot less objectionable in general, honestly. It's really telling that while Rick Berman has mostly faded out of the limelight, Braga's still hanging around and people seem to actually want to work with him.

There is certainly some horror stories, but it's impossible to say what the TNG era (18 years!) would have been like without him. TNG season three was when the production stabilized with Michael Piller as showrunner and Berman as sole supervising producer. It's been argued that he often played the bad guy in order to shield the writing staff from upper management, and he more or less retired after ENT and doesn't attend conventions so he can't defend himself.

Brannon Braga was different in that he rose through the ranks and proved himself with bringing a unique voice with Mind Screw episodes, also balancing out Ron Moore's fanboy approach. He was only really Berman's equal when it came to ENT and has also been pretty open about mistakes that were made. I got a picture with him at a convention, got his autograph on a First Contact poster and he was quick to mock "Threshold."

Also, listening to Bryan Fuller in podcast interviews (Trekspert Briefing Room) he always points out how Brannon Braga tried to fight Berman about giving Voyager a season of Year of Hell and how fired up the whole writing team was. They had some fantastic ideas going forward.

But when Braga returned to the writer’s room after, Braga’s spirits were crushed. Unfortunately, by the time Ron Moore arrived on Voyager, Braga had bought into Berman’s ways and enforced it on Ron Moore (something Braga said he regretted years later. He just got locked into a mindset).

Anyway, it feels like after Jeri Taylor left Voyager— the Voyager writer’s room always sounded like hell because of how much Berman exerted his influence.

DS 9 was luckier under Ira Stephen Behr because he was already a seasoned writer and he can go toe to toe with Berman, daring Berman to fire him. Berman, of course, never did.

(There was also an issue with Voyager having too many masters because TNG and DS 9 were under syndication they had more freedom. They only had to answer to the studio, meanwhile, Voyager had to answer to Studio, Berman, and UPN).

(Sorry, I know this is old news but it feels new to me).

All this is fascinating to read.

This brings me back to some discussions I participated in during ENT first airing, where "Bermaga" were the ultimate evil responsible of everything wrong in Trek. I'm glad to read it was not that clear cut as I suspected back then (it helped that I always liked Braga's Mind Screw episodes).

He also wrote some really good episodes of the Orville.

And how true is that Robert Beltran and Jeri Ryan disliked each other and were made a couple as a punishment?

Edited by TVGuy on Apr 17th 2024 at 12:23:05 PM

News to me. The big Hostility on the Set reported was Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan, which was more political than personal (network and producers were sidelining everyone in favor of Seven-of-Nine, which Mulgrew fought against).

Beltran to my understanding was a decent sport to the cast but was vocal in other complaints about the show and producers. The Chakotay/Seven pairing was famously last minute, which surprised the actors too because previous episodes they had questions if their interactions were suppose to have romantic undertones, but were told no.

The impression I got was that the pairing happened because Beltran was complaining about having nothing to do for years on end and the writers were like "fine, here, you don't like getting the shitty roles, have this romance thing, now shut up and stop whining". All the stuff from Jeri Ryan points to her just not really getting to know Beltran that well, because she showed up after he'd basically given up and he wasn't bothering to do much beyond the bare minimum. He wasn't rude to anyone, as far as I can tell, but just wasn't really that interested in going above and beyond.

Once the writers figured out that Chakotay's weird incoherent fake-native bullshit (thanks to hiring a con artist as their advisor) was not resonating with audiences at all, his character just gradually devolves into a yes-man who has whatever hobby the episode needs and it was apparently incredibly boring. Which explains a lot about his acting.

Kim had a similar issue, but it sounds like while Garret Wang was kinda checked out, he at least got why it was so valuable to be on such a long running show and tried to put effort in when he had a substantial part. But there's some episodes in the back half of the show where he's clearly super zoned out because he has like four lines and then stands around the rest of it.

Beltran has a bunch of episodes where he doesn't even put minimum effort in despite having a major role.

Edited by Zendervai on Apr 17th 2024 at 4:34:38 AM

Beltran was pissed off from the start as the story goes; he'd signed up to work with Geneviève Bujold, who promptly left (was fired?) very early on because she wasn't used to a TV schedule.

I'm trying to think, did anyone from Voyager or any Star Trek go to do lots of other things? I know some of them became TV directors in the genre. Some of them minor roles in other things. Ryan and Mulgrew and Picado from Voyager, Meany and Siddig from DS 9 I've seen regular but a lot of others weren't so lucky?

You mean aside from Patrick Stewart?

Tim Russ pops up in a lot of places, and yeah, a lot of Star Trek people became pretty major TV directors.

Kind of related, but have you noticed that a lot of Trek actors later go on to do some degree of voice acting? I know it started with Gargoyles, but even after that I can name several Trek actors who have done other work in voice acting, probably the most prolific of them all is Micheal Dorn, possibly just because for a voice acting role he doesn't have to sit in a chair for four hours of make-up every day.

Obviously Stewart, lol but he was big before Star Trek. I may just be watching the wrong things but you don't see a lot of them starting on Star Trek and making big after? At least not as live action actors. I may be entirely off base here.

Robert Beltrane hated the racism he encountered regarding the Native American elements of Chakotay's character and was disappointed when Genevieve Bujold didn't proceed with it. However, he softened in later years — mostly due to the fact that he Springtime for Hitler-ed himself by asking for an absurd amount of money to get out of his contract...which they gladly gave him.

He's also said his annoyance with the show has been subject to Flanderization.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 17th 2024 at 5:32:07 AM

Michael Dorn has had a pretty extensive career as a voice actor. Johnathan Frakes got to do a lot of behind the scene stuff as a director and producer for films and TV. Marina Sirtis has also had a spattering of cameos and voice acting roles over the years.

Terry Ferrel spent 4 years on a show called Becker after leaving DS 9.

Nana Visitor was a regular on Wildfire and a recurring guest star in Dark Angel and played in the musical version of Chicago for a few years.

Nicole De Boer would be one of the leads on The Dead Zone.

René Auberjonois of course was already a bit of a legend before doing DS 9 so he's been in a ton of stuff both live action and voice acting before and after. Armin Shimmerman similarly was a mainstay of 90s and 2000s TV, with Buffy and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy in particular being two of his most memorable highlights. Both of them probably have the most extensive career of anyone on DS 9 it'd take forever to cover it.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 17th 2024 at 1:17:02 PM

It's a large enough franchise that you'll get a very wide answer to that kind of question.

There are issues with a popularity curse, actors are involved with something that is a pop culture juggernaut and anything they do afterward is compared to that. Michael Keaton is a brilliant actor with a highly varied career, but his apex will always be Batman. Not everyone is as lucky, but even the lower cast members also tend to get paid pretty well so there is that trade off. Those who had notable, though more modest, careers before Star Trek tended to have more longevity afterwards, such as Kate Mulgrew. Then you have actors like Scott Bakula, Doug Jones and Rebecca Romijn where Star Trek is almost a side-hobby.

Plus the proliferation of Trek actors taking on directing roles is specifically because they wanted to parlay the opportunities they had into a secondary career.

Also at least from mid TNG through to Enterprise it was something that they seemed to be actively cultivating.

Unless you were Garrett Wang in which case you were told Star Trek isn't a directing school. (I think Berman strikes again?)

Well, this episode of Discovery was an interesting trip down memory lane.

It was weird seeing post Mutiny Burnam again. It really hits you just how far she's come. I'd actually forgotten.

So, the Kremim from "Year of Hell," fought in the Temporal War? It's actually funny, on the channel that airs Discovery, the TNG episode "The Chase" aired right before last week's episode, and this week, the Voyager two-parter "Year of Hell" aired the with first part right before this episode and the second part immediately after. Actually, when was the Temporal War? At least, the part in the future that Enterprise dealt with.

Edited by WillKeaton on Apr 18th 2024 at 8:27:12 AM