Historien om Star Trek : fra da til nu

Xena and Hercules trounce Trek
by (unknown)
Yes my friends it is oficial, the syndicated fantasy TV shows "Xene: Warrior Princess" and "Hercules, the Legendary Journey's" have both succeeded in doing what no other TV series could, as they toppled the "Star Trek" ratings empire. Over the course of the past two year, both Xena and Hercules have pushed "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" into a distant, pitiful third place as "Best Syndicated, One Hour Drama". A fact that has people in the syndication market getting ready for "Star Trek"s funeral.

For ten long years "Star Trek" had held onto the "Best One Hour Drama" slot, with a percentage of roughly 22% to 18%. No aliens, energy clouds, and least of all another show, could beat the crew of the Enterprise. No drama, no science fiction series, nor even the leggy babes of Baywatch could out rank the power of Trekdom.

Unfortunately, the party has ended. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", which has never been able to take the place of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", lost the crown to Xena and her muscle-bound pal Hercules. Do to non-existent support from "Star Trek" fans, "Star Trek: deep Space Nine" just couldn't hope to fend of the god-like powers of the Greek "Dream Team". A perfect example of this is in the recent list of the "Top Rated Syndicated Shows". "Xena" came in at #10, "Hercules" was #11 and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" did NOT even make it into the top 20. To illustrate how bad this is, WCW Wrestling got into the top 20 syndicated programs, and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" didn't!

What has been peoples reaction to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" losing "Star Trek"s crown to the Warrior Princess? Well, Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi (executive producer of Xena and Hercules), are ecstatic! They could not be happier with themselves, having done what was considered, only two years ago, impossible. As for Paramount... they are fuming mad.

For the better part of a decade, the "Star Trek" franchise seemed to be invinsible. Unfortunately, despite the hype of the last "Star Trek" movie, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" fell further into the ratings basement.

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", arguably the best "Star Trek" series ever produced, has officially failed and the victory of Xena and Hercules seem to have doomed any chances of our favorite space station getting a seventh season. The question is, why did this happen? An even better question is "how" did this happen?

Some people say that Xena and Hercules won, because those are the kind of shows people want to see. Because they are on the cutting edge. But as neither of these shows have ratings greater than 7%, I find this bit of logic to be quite... illogical. Xena and Hercules, which has been called "Power Rangers for adults", has never reached the high ratings of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Unfortunately neither has "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine".

When one looks at the ratings chart, the answer to this question is clear. A person can clearly see that Xena and Hercules didn't win because their ratings went up... they won because "Star Trek: Deep space Nine"s ratings went down... way, WAY down. To those who said ratings didn't matter, and that we at Save Trek were making too big a deal about the problems at "Star Trek"... here is your proof that both ratings, and fans, matter. Because of a loss of fan support, and consequently a drop in ratings, we can all kiss a seventh season good bye.

While Xena and Hercules have seemingly proven that goofy karate stunts, sword play, and non-stop violence is a combination for success... "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" has proven that this same combination is a recipe for failure. All of Rick Berman's attempts to fill "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" with action, adventure and fun, has done nothing more than to make a bad situation worse, for "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine".

I wish I had something more to say. I wish I could give you all some good news, or explain to you all WHY you should watch "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", or that Xena and Hercules' victory means nothing. Unfortunately, I can't. What you are all seeing is symptomatic to the problems at "Star Trek". Lack of creative vision, bad writing, poor fan-staff relations and the list goes on and on. In the end, all of "Star Trek"s problems can be summed up in three words "Braga, Berman, Taylor."



Moments of Transition...
by Cancer Man
It been a number of months since I've last written. I can see that there are till many of you who believe that the situation at "Star Trek" can be turned around. I want to tell you now that it's a farce. The situation in studios of Paramount has degenerated to even lower than even the most vehement anti-Trek person could have ever dreamt of.

There are stories coming out ot he studios that the sitation inside the production of Trek is worse than what most of the general public has been led to believe. I'll give you the information that I can confirm so far. I have a number sources which are reliable and the stories that I have heard are rather amazing in themselves.

1: Jeri Taylor has lost connection with reality. She has gone power mad and turned Voyager into her own little fiefdom. She refuses to listen to any constructive criticism that might improve the show. This fact is apparent because if it is possible the show has gotten even worse than before. A few sources remarked that she's like a 5 year old brat that has refused to let any play with her toys. The show has to be done her way or she'll cry to her daddy (in this case Rick Berman).

2: there are stories coming out that there is important member of the "Star Trek" production staff who has as substance abuse problem. Although, I have indications of who that might be I'm not going to name any names yet. I want to be able to get the solid proof to show who it is.

3: there are additional rumors that Berman, Braga, and Taylor are going to produce a VERY expensive season finale for voyager because the executives at Paramount are finally ready to seriously consider canceling the show. This season cliffhanger is a last ditch attemp to stop the execution of the show. (Although, it is the opinion of this writer is that they should go cancel the show anyway.)

Sci-Fi Universe has recently run articles strongly criticizing what has been going on at "Star Trek". Although, I don't know if my articles have been read by them. It is interesting that the commentary made echoes what I have been saying for a while. However, it has a more hopeful spin that Trek can be saved or is even worth saving. The article "Go Tell It To the Mountain" offers some honest opinions from critic Robert Meyer Burnett. I'll offer some of my own personal opinions on different excerpts from the article.

In the opening paragraph it notes that "...at least, $10 million of the film's entire 40M-plus budget went toward purchasing the involvement of three people." [Well, that explains why the production values were so low and the cost of making the movie so high.] A little further in "Of couse, after the perceived success of First Contact (which actually grossed $15 million more then Generations domestically, despite have a much bigger budget), for their next outing the principals involved can only expect to ask for more money. Of course, this shows that Trek has some pretty big problems coming. Many new Sci-Fi shows are on the horizon and they promise to have better production values. Also, Trek has had a BIG problem breaking the $100 million barrier. Only "Star Trek IV" has been able to do that and also it's an omission on the part to the writer to note that overseas box office receipts dropped over 50%!

A couple of paragraphs later, "So then, what of the future of "Star Trek"? Like the Klingon Empire after the explosion of Praxis, the franchise, at least on televison and the local muliplex, appears to have only a few years of life left to it."

The article has some more comments on the condition of Trek and af few recommendations on how to fix it. My response is let it die. Sometimes many creative stories are stripped mined to the point that creative bankruptcy is reached and exceeded by running what people enjoyed about the particular story., A good example is the Clarke's 2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001 stories. The ideas were innovative and enjoyable at the time, but their time has passed. Let it go people...

Moving on to other subjects and the main reason for the article is to talk about the changing trends in Science Fiction. First, I'll cover the cyber-punk movement. It appears that there is an overdue breakthrough into the mainstream about to come in the field. I expect within the next 5 years we will see at top rated 1 hour drama in that genre soon. It will either happen in syndication or cable most likely. Also, look toward the end of the millennium for cyber-punk subculture to become more a force in Science Fiction in the future.

With luck, we will be able to enjoy more shows like Blade Runner or perhaps a more optimistic but, still cyber-punk type moveis and TV in relative near future. (So no more movies like Johnny Pneumonic or Moronic as like to call it.) Second, the TV novel form pioneered by Babylon 5 will soon become a much more common occurrence in many 1 hour dramas. So expect to see shows like "Murder One", "Wiseguy", and "Babylon 5" to come in future fall line ups. Three, with the combined success of "X-Files", B5, and other Sci-Fi shows look for this genre to gain a greater level of acceptance in the mainstream culture. So don't worry people who are big into Sci-Fi won't be Sci-Fi geeks but just as fans (if your not into wearing uniforms and things like that).

It promises to be an interesting time for this genre. However, it looks very likely that Trek will fade, going into the next millennium. So smile if your a science fiction fan and weep, if you have to, if your just a Trek fan. I'll write again in the next letter if you guys still need to be dissuaded about Trek. How come I'm starting to feel like a shrink who treating a patient on the couch?



How do you destroy the Borg? Simple, put them in Voyager
by (unknown)
As some of you may know, Voyager is in big trouble. I know that this isn't a surprise to most of you, but I'm talking "King Kong" big... I'm talking "Dyson Sphere" big! At the beginning of this year, Voyager's ratings were the worst of any Science Fiction show in history. Today, they have gotten worse, a recent chart putting "Star Trek: Voyager" at 94th lace in the Nielson Ratings. Some independent sources say that "Star Trek: Voyager" is approaching (or has reached), the point where the show costs more money to produce per year, than what the show makes.

Demanding over-night improvement, Jeri Taylor has scrapped Voyager's season finale and has ordered that a new season finale be written. A season finale that will put the Voyger into the midst of a Borg war! The new season finale, writtren by Brannon Braga (the writer of the "Tom Paris breaks warp 10 and becomes a cat-fish" episode), will have the Voyager stumble upon the Borg, as the Borg engage an energy more powerful than the collective. The new aliens use organic technology and can not be assimilated into the Borg collective.

The facts concerning the new evil alien in Voyger are being kept under tight wraps, but apparently the new alien menace will be attacking the Borg with a squid-like organic ship (that is rumored to look very much like the Vorlon ships from Babylon 5), in a battle to destroy our favorite "hive like" race of cybernetic bad guys.

"This is very tight, very last minute, and it's created a real crunch," says Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor, "but we feel we owe it to the fans." Jeri Taylor, who seems to care what fans think for the first time in three years, went on to say how she hopes fans won't feel cheated by this episode, as they did with the dismal Borg episode "Unity" which aired in February.

"We were concerned that maybe that [Unity] wasn't a big enough dose for the viewers so we dropped the two-partner we had planned and decided to write an all-out, slam-bang, Borg-as-villain adventure. And thus we see that Jeri Taylor intends to make the same mistakes that were made on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", and use the promise of violence and things going "boom" to help prop Voyager up, before Paramount executives drop the ax on the fourth "Star Trek" spin-off.

When asked about the new story, Brannon Braga said, "We wanted to deliver like we did in 'First Contact' - only bigger! Whereas there was only one Borg cube in the movie, one of the action sequences in 'Scorpion' [title of the new season finale] has 15 of them. We've got four episodes worth of special effects rolled into one [episode] here."

Also in this new season cliff-hanger, Captain Janeway will be getting a new Holo-Deck pal, in the way of Leonardo Da Vince, played by John Rhys-Davies (Sliders/Indiana Jones). A new, lavish, 16th century set was built for the new episode, with Paramount sparing no expense to try and resuscitate Voyager before is succeeds in destroying the entire "Star Trek" franchise.

The idea of bringing in the new Holo-Deck character was the brain-child of Kate (Janeway) Mulgrew, who wanted Janeway to pal-about with someone from the past. Turning Janeway into a want-to-be painter leaves a perfect opening for the Da Vinci Holo-Deck character, which will be featured prominently from here on in.

Jeri Taylor also said that the ever cautious Janeway will be willing to strike a bargain with the Borg, trading information about the new Squid-Aliens bio-computers (which will conveniently fall into Janeway's hands), for Trans-Warp technology. Via this new found willingness of Janeway's to violate everything she says she stands for, Chakotay will take a stand against Janeway, to stop her from making a "deal with the devil".

When one looks over Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga's track record, this sounds EXACTLY like what we heard at the beginning of this year. "More action, more adventure, more fun", and like every time before this, I have the sinking feeling that this will once again be more 'illusion' than 'truth'. One only needs to look at the credits where it says "written by Brannon Braga" to know that something distasteful is about to hit our TV screens. Unfortunately for Voyager, our TV screens have been hitting back, a point illustrated exquisitely by Voyager's paper-thin ratings.

In the end Braga said, "You'll see more Borg than ever before. We don't want to overdo them, but it's my belief that they are Voyager's very own Klingons." And as a brief shudder runs down my spine, I think to what was done to the Klingons over in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Will the Borg being on Voyager, destroy the Borg as a viable antagonist? Most likely yes. In the end I am left to say only one thing about this "new" direction Taylor and Braga plan on taking Voyager, and what it means for the "Star Trek" franchise: "Be afraid... be very afraid."



SAVE TREK Spot-Light: Gates McFadden!
by Joan Ging
Since a child, Gates McFaddden had her eyes set on performing. Whatever got her in the spotlight and out of her life was an accomplishment. Her childhood was not a bad one, but a dreary one, and dramatics and dancing were one of her most cherished escapes.

Though Gates had an outstanding career on stage, both Broadway and off-Broadway, her television career took off with her work on "Star Trek: The Next Generation". It was her longest job, certainly, and one of her favorites.

Of her constributions to TNG, getting better parts for women was one of her better ones. Gene Roddenberry had already leapt beyond his time in putting people of other races and other genders on his show in the 60's. However, he met with opposition once again when both Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis worked with him to gain more pivotal roles for their characters. Berman believed that giving the women too strong an ege would turn viewers off of the baby show. However, Gates refused to let up.

fter the first season of TNG, Gates was carefully told that her character was not working out with the rest of the show and was fired. Suspecting she was being shorted out for her fiery attitude towards a better part, she met privately with Gene, who admitted there was little to support the claim that her character was flopping. Roddenberry promised her that he would do everything in his power to sway the "powers that be" back in her direction.

No less than a month later, Berman was on the telephone trying to convince her to come back. Gates refused, having gotten back into theater in L.A. and opening her own drama school. She no longer had the time. Nevertheless, Berman continued to call and she finally consented six months later to join the show in it's third season. From that point on, she held considerably more control over her contract, having the power to demand at least three feature episodes for her character per season.

After Gene Roddenberry's death, Gates teamed up with Gene's wife Majel to extract some of the rights to Roddenberry's unpublished show ideas. They failed miserably, having to wait until the rights expired in order to regain them. By that time, Berman had worked hard to make sure the ideas stayed within Paramount, and had succeeded. However, Gates met with Berman in September of 1993 with an army of angry Roddenberry supporters, but were again denied, Berman claiming that keeping Roddenberry's ideas within the show would keep viewers.

Gates has been a constant supporter of Gene's "Star Trek" and of everything that TNG has stood for. She has campaigned for her own morals and for his. She continues to do so in rumors of the new "Star Trek" movie containing a revised version of a movie script of Roddenberry's that was tossed several years ago. She has tried to make sure that the revisions are completely accurate to Roddenberry's version.