Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 06:46:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Drew Bittner <drewbitt at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Orson Scott Card takes a flamethrower to Trek
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

--- "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> wrote:
> The first two seasons were definitely just
> entertainment.  The third
> season, perhaps in an attempt to kill the series
> (successfully apparently,
> at least for a while) tried to include a lot of
> "social relevance" stuff.
> Racism, war, political differences, etc..

The socially relevant stuff is what fans tend to shove
in the faces of anyone who suggests Star Trek is not
the ultimate achievement of the television medium.
Like Twilight Zone, Star Trek's writers had a chance
to speak up (through their proxies) about issues that
were "of the moment." That they did so was entirely
respectable-- and something that later incarnations
managed more ham-handedly and with deplorable
timidity.

> As for the "every show stands alone" thing, that was
> true for the original
> series, but most of the rest, made decades later
> after network rules had
> changed, didn't have that.
> TNG, Voyager, DS9 and Enterprise all had
> frequent references to prior shows in the series,
> with the later three
> having very definite "through-lines" of plot that
> lasted whole seasons, or
> even for the whole series (getting home for Voyager,
> with smaller
> multi-show lines about Ocampa, Borg Queen, etc...)
[snip]

TNG's allusions to previous episodes were usually
fleeting and easily missed. Voyager's premise was a
meta-plot, as you note, but one that I thought was
weak to begin with. The religion, war and politics
themes in DS9 were ripped off from B5 (which was
originally a Star Trek spinoff pitch to Paramount,
according to JMS). And Enterprise's "Expanse" season
is arguably what killed the show, with lackluster
storytelling and a ridiculous ending.

Drew

__________________________________________________