1996 - 2005: The Decline of Star Trek’s Golden Age
Vložit
- čas přidán 20. 09. 2023
- Support my work on Subscribe Star: www.subscribestar.com/dave-cu...
Follow me on Bitchute: www.bitchute.com/channel/hybM...
KEEP UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Gab: gab.ai/DaveCullen
Subscribe on Gab TV: tv.gab.com/channel/DaveCullen
Minds.com: www.minds.com/davecullen
Subscribe on Odysee: odysee.com/@TheDaveCullenShow:7 - Zábava
Star Trek once inspired scientists, today's trek inspires no one.
Discovery at least inspired anger and disgust. Whatever else that came afterwards inspired only apathy.
Oh it inspires people. To be more close minded, bigoted and divisive. It inspires women to believe that men are all stupid or evil and stand in the way of them becoming the "girl bosses" they always have been. That misandry is completely acceptable
Today's Trek only inspires Video gamers into creating new and visually stimulating ways of blowing stuff up!
No thought of plot, purpose or character development goes into any of it!
Just market the Brand and make money!
😢
@@randynutt5660 it'd be a great idea if they started developing a game with insane graphics for ps5 (something like star trek online 2) and have that as cash-cow and have tv series to expand the stories presented in the game.
Like the witcher was inspired from the games.
Movies are usually inspired by books but having movies inspired by games could be a cool thing
They won't make a video game about exploring space and seeking out strange new worlds.
Say what you want about Rick Berman. Yes, he made mistakes. But he wasn't trying to destroy Star Trek. Berman had the behaviour of a mature adult, Alex Kurtzman has the behaviour of an immature secondary school pupil.
Berman ran a tight ship. Paramount/CBS understood that Star Trek was a niche product. Put out good stories, throw in an effects heavy episode once in awhile, and keep the budget tight, you'll make money.
This probably comes from the fact that Berman followed Roddenberry's vision (mostly, despite the mistakes you mention). JJ and Kurtzman decided they can do their own, better trek for modern audiences. Fuck those guys.
From what I read, Rick berman took a conservative approach to storytelling
He ran 25 seasons of Star Trek on time and on budget. He also honored Gene, buy demanding the show stay within the Roddenberry Box. Berman had his quirks like when it came to how the shows were scored. I have been doing a TNG re-watch and season 1-2 had some interesting things going on, they at least tried new things, although the first part of season one was derivative of TOS stories. It was also very smart not to constantly reference past Trek like NuTrek tries to do. They made sure TNG had its own voice, same with DS9, Voyager and even Enterprise. They got connected back when the shows finally found their thing.
A professional
If you grew up watching Trek in the 80's and 90's, consider yourself very blessed.
Yes.
I do. But I do that sadly. It would be nice to have Trek of that caliber now. Picard Season 3 being the appreciated exception (thank you, Terry!)
Blessed person walking in, make way, make way \o/ hehehehehe :3
DeForest Kelley also mentioned he got many letters from fans saying he inspired them to become doctors and nurses. Star Trek Discovery probably inspired it’s fans to become Tik Tokers.
thats cause Mccoy was a real character. you knew how invested he was in his job and helping people.
I finnd it hugely appropriate that during the golden years of Star Trek dark barely lit bridge sets were always shorthand for "evil alternate timeline where things have turned to shit."
Honestly, that is quite some heavy forshadowing! And yes, after Star Trek Enterprise, the franchise died.
The mid-nineties were a great time to be a Sci-fi fan. Trek was firing on all cylinders, Star Wars was back with new books, comics, and toys. We got the "special edition" re-releases on the big screen, and the building excitement of new Star Wars films coming. The X-Files. Batman: the Animated series, The X-Men Series, Gargoyles, The Crow. Even the comic book industry was being taken seriously for the first time. I worked at a comic book store back then. The birth of Image comics and "The Death of Superman" were huge. And all of it was being made by people who loved the franchises they were working on. We had NO idea how good we had it.
True That.
I think I found a kindred spirit! I read every SW EU book I could get my hands on. I was so mad when Disney retconned it all. And, my friend... Gargoyles!!! That was without a doubt my favorite cartoon from the 90's (with a ton of Trek actors doing the voice work!). Being in the same time slot as Batman and then Superman really caused some angst though. Finally... I'd like to add to your Sci-Fi list Babylon 5 and Star Gate SG1. They were awesome too :)
Stargate Series, Babylon AD, Dark Angel
Well, the mid-nineties were better in every aspect, not only in entertainment. Those were the times!
Don't forget Babylon 5, Space above and beyond
As an old DS9 fan, that was a show that made me think. Philosophy, morals, ethics, the ramifications of your actions.
That show had some of the best writing I have ever seen.
Agree, 100%
DS9 for me was the first Trek that actually had story arcs, worldbuilding and progressive character development. It showed the consequences of actions from previous episodes and showed that even heroes have flaws. The only shows we've had like this are Babylon 5 and The Expanse.
@@evertonporter7887 Yeah, my first favorite was DS9, recently it has been The Expanse. The Expanse is one of the rare shows where I like every character.
@@athos1974
👍The Expanse !
...
the Foundation ?
@@krixpop The Foundation is good, though I like The Expanse better.
I worked a Sci-fi convention for 25+ years. The room where the actors spoke was always packed up to the end of enterprise. The years that we had guest from nutrek it was half full at best unless there was a guest from the older shows like Brent Spiner and Terry Farrell.
I saw the same thing at GalaxyCon Raleigh, referring to the TNG Cast.
I read nutrek as nut-rek and that seems appropriate.
I do not know how lucky I was to see new Picard actors, Michelle Hurd and Todd Stashwick at the Chicago Fan Expo. I mean, if they are good people who have had better acting performances elsewhere, they should be welcome to show up there, but unless Season 3 of Picard was this big of an improvement over the previous two seasons, why are any Star Trek fans willing to celebrate Star Trek: Picard with them and Lea Thompson?
Hard to believe there were only 4 years between the end of Enterprise and the release of Abrams Trek. Really goes to show how much the world had changed in such a short amount of time, and not in a good way....
There's definitely something about the latter half of the noughties which meant multiple aspects of popular culture began to go right down the crapper.
The whole world seems to have been going down hill since the century turned.
But Enterprise was dull as dishwater.
Interesting what you have with Abrams effect as same thing happened with Star Wars. His creations are like adrenaline in a franchise in that they are very successful at first but quickly lose the effect. They don't age well also. Going back and even looking at the Sequel Trilogy, a lot of the problems and lack of character development started in the Force Awakens but wasn't noticed as well until the Last Jedi.
@@volbound1700 The Force Awakens was okay. But it was too much a redo of the first Star Wars film. And for some reason, the producers didn't want to focus on the further adventures of Luke Skywalker, which is something that many fans clearly wanted and still want. Rian Johnson simply was not interested in the characters he inherited from the previous film. He undercut any hope of character development. Oddly enough, some people really liked The Last Jedi. But by any measure, the studio panicked with the last sequel film, which is just a mess. By contrast, the Star Trek films were not disasters. They just were not very interesting. However, of the first Star Trek films, The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country and First Contact are very good. The rest range from okay to crap.
Almost everything that Hollywood puts out these days is less optimistic. I remember leaving a theater back in the day feeling hopeful now you leave a theater feeling like WTF
The lack of optimism is the worst thing about nu Star Trek. The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 had some dark themes but it always showed some hope and how humans could act with virtue and love for all beings. That's what lacking, not only in entertainment, but in society in general.
DS9 may have been a bit darker but it was still Trek and it felt like it. Voyager is classic trek and Enterprise a breath of fresh air.
DS9 was another low point of Star Trek and hinted at what was to come many years later (serialized format, violence, war, action over thought, bad guys in the Federation, canon violations - with the Ferengi being the most obvious ones). VOY and ENT were significant improvements though.
@@magister.mortranI thought you were wrong until you went completely off your rocker. DS9 defines the canon for the ferrangi, it can't break it. They were an unworkable joke when they were introduced because the first few seasons of the next generation was trying too hard to do politics and be Star Trek the Communist generation.
I’ve long theorised that is was DS9 that began the slow decline because of its move away from Rodenberrys ideas and overly political/religious stories. Voyager was a conscious effort to repair that damage because ratings for DS9’s first 3 seasons weren’t great. The writing in DS9 wasn’t bad, it’s just that it wasn’t ‘Trekking’ enough to be ST and a lot of people didn’t like that.
At school, whilst Voyager was at its prime, some friends and I wrote a Voyager episode that we would act out as a play. We recruited loads of the kids in our year to play each role. Myself played Paris, our main writer play Q as a cameo, and so on. I remember it so well and even though we never did finish performing the whole thing, I know damn well it was far better than the tripe that passes for Trek the last 15 years.
Still Love Voyager. Grew up with TNG too. Whenever I snack on dark chocolate, my husband refers to me as Imzadi (Deanna Troi) .
Me and my friend used to renact episodes of Voyager in Kindergarden and Grade 1, growing up in the late 90s/early 00s hit different.
Wow, and back in the day, my friends and I were doing TOS. I was Kirk. All the woods and fields around our homes were the galaxy. I never went beyond Deep Space 9 and a bit of Voyager.
@AshPrimeDCFC - it would have been a blast to have read your script. I was huge Voyager fan as well. I'm tickled that you guys did this back then. Pretty awesome.
Sounds amazing, I would love to participate if I was there :D
They understood the lore. They killed it.
Indeed there was no misunderstanding, it was assassinated
I thought Lore survived?😂
I agree. Go back and look at every beloved franchise and how the entertainment industry has treated each one like they had no clue. NOBODY short of a dementia patient is THAT stupid. It has to be deliberate, especially when you look even wider at how every cherished institution of Western Civilization is being bashed in the head with lies and derision.
For me Star Trek ended after Enterprise at least we got the Orville
I feel the same. Shame I can’t find season 3 of Orville on dvd and unlikely to ever have it happen 😢
I pretty much see television as dead. The internet pretty much killed it for me. I'm fifty years old I stopped watching tv twenty years ago. I don't have shows I don't stream things. I live my life doing things with my time or I play video games. I haven't passively absorbed entertainment in decades and I'm betting I'm not alone.
The Orville is absolutely great (even if the first few episodes of season 1 contained way too much eye-rolling Family Guy like humor). A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that Brannon Braga is one of the show runners.
I have a love hate for Orville, some episodes were great others were dumb and out right over-sexualized. I didn't like the disrespect of the crew toward the leaders of the ship.
Same. I know that Enterprise wasn't standard Star Trek, but it was still Star Trek. The latest nonsense, not so much.
You're right about how star trek inspired people. I grew up watching TNG and Voyager along with TOS on my dad's old VHS tapes. I'm now an archaeologist and looking to go back to graduate school for a degree in cultural anthropology. I spend my life learning about different cultures and traveling the world as much as I can. Thank you star trek for inspiring me to go on adventures and discover new and exciting worlds all here on Earth!
I was 12 when Enterprise was airing on UPN 33. Man, even just the intro was so inspiring. I was looking forward to our future in the stars. I'm still looking forward to it, I guess, but the new stuff just shows that we have a long way to go before then.
Scott Bakula has been criticized for his wooden performance in Enterprise.
There is a small group of fans who can see the nice guy and leadership qualities of the actor shine through in the character.
Like in real life, all captains are not the same. He was no Picard, but then he didn’t shout or cry as often either.
Bakula was okay, but he had only one volume level in his acting: loud.
Not sure who "criticised" Bakula for "wooden performances". His acting was excellent. They must be blind and stupid.
Enterprise was a great star trek to me. Had a feel of the TOS that TNG didn't TNG was almost it's own thing.
It seemed part of StarTrek’s success from 60s-90s was the tandem idealism of space travel. As a youth in the 80s I was excited by the space program, wanted to be an astronaut, even asked my parents about going to SpaceCamp after I saw that movie in ‘86. There was a tangible excitement about humanity traveling to the stars that no doubt helped TOS in ‘66, as this coincided with the transition of NASA’s Mercury to Apollo programs. This continued into the 80s (TNG era) with the SpaceShuttle missions. Who can forget the name of the first shuttle orbiter? I don’t think it was a coincidence that interest and quality in ST waned as interest in space travel waned. As a child living in FL, space shuttle launches were highly anticipated as we would stop class to go outside and see the plume of fire&smoke from shuttle launches 5 hours north at Cape Canaveral.
I still get a little depressed watching the opening credits of ENT as though the creators were reminding us of how we used to be, our optimism and hope for an interstellar future, as if to say, “See the progress of humanity, how far we’ve come, and our true potential as voyagers!” And now look at us- the decline of ST (and pop culture overall) is a mirror of our own decline.
Kudos to Star Trek Enterprise
I also liked ENTERPRISE. There was a real sense of exploration at the edge of technology.
Shame it was just getting good, and they stopped it.
Enterprise was good. I wish they would have been given a few more seasons. We would seen the Romulan war, formation of the Federation and the aftermath of the war on the Crew, and likely the Union of Trip and T'Pol formalized. Trip and T'Pol as a couple didn't seemed forced where Riker/Troy did. Trip and T'Pol seemed like Picard/Crusher, natural. Would have loved a Reece/Hoshi thing post Romulan War as they took had chemistry.
Archer has by far become my second favorite captain. Right after the real James T. Kirk. Third on the list is now Sisko. Jericho replaces Pukehard who was placed with Janeway. And Janeway being promoted to Admiral without it feeling earned? What the hell?!
It was pure gold compared to what came after.
We were spoiled and didn't realize it.
We should have had faith of the heart.
Humanity coming together and solving all our problems, be them racial, financial, environmental... That was what I saw in the 80/90's from StarTrek, and I totally bought it. No racism, everyone on Earth were friends. What a world Roddenberry set up for us. I really thought we'd end up like that. Hell, I wanted to be Wesley Crusher when I was a kid! Picard was the dad everyone needed. What an inspirational show for a teen boy to watch. StarTrek put many engineers and scientists on their career path. A net positive for the world. New Trek? Not inspiring anyone.
Those were decades of optimism and goodwill but they were highly meritocratic, eclipsing the dim and talentless masses who after the mid '90s cultural plateau, rose up in envious revenge to "get theirs" and have been doing so ever since.
@@beingsshepherd Once normies got iPhones it was all over. Before then, the internet needed a base level IQ to use. After, though... Every village idiot could find the others. We thought it was cute at first with 'Flat Earthers' crazies... But now the things people debate over is nightmarish.
This was absolutely spot on. I was was totally hooked in those late TNG/First Contact/DS9 days. But I never felt Voyager really clicked and didn't want a prequel series. You caught the feelings of the time perfectly.
One of the first targets of the Grim Reaper from the meme, Star Trek's decline was a warning for what was to come for all the other mythologies we loved.
I grew up with TNG and was in my early teens when DS9 and Voyager rolled around and loved them both for different reasons, but enterprise never really stuck with me even though yes, the 4th season did find its legs. Picard Season 3 strikes me as a tragic swan song to an era we probably wont get another chapter too and thats just sad. That said, i'd rather no trek than more discovery or the other dregs that wear the star trek skin nowadays.
Keep up the great work, Dave!
Started my first rewatch of ENT since the original airing a few weeks ago and it has been like a breath of fresh air! It's literally "light years" beyond NuTrek in quality and I wish the powers that be could understand this and get them all back again for a continuation. Just coming to the end of S2 now and even those "slower" episodes were totally fine this time round. I know the feeling at the time was that we needed a break from the whole Berman / Braga style - but they certainly nailed these characters and the ship and the set designs. There are plenty of good episodes in S1 and S2 and with no finger on the hard reset button after each episode it all feels joined up even though it is mostly standalone episodes. Looking forward to S3 again...
Enterprise is super underrated. It's got great characters that you can get into, it's an ensemble, and has a lot of noticeable "limits" on what it can do story wise cos it's pre Kirk. Sure you can get all uptight about the consoles being a little more advanced looking than TOS, but the alternative is Strange New Worlds, which is confusingly hideous. It can't decide WTF it is. It's trying to be like TOS but it's mangled and is at times like a goddam soap opera. At least with Enterprise, despite some potentially minor continuity snafus which can be worked around, the cast seem to actually in the Rodenberry Universe and taking it seriously.
I am a Star Trek purist, from watching TOS debute on the BBC through to the end of the Berman Era. Rick became Star Trek's guiding light observing 'the Roddenberry box'. I understand this was a frustration for writers, but it was an important part of the fomula that contributed to the franchise's popularity. Gretchen J Berg, STD producer, stated that they would be doing away with the box. It was too restrictive, or to put it another way, the writing staff lacked the imagination and creativity to work with it. They might have had to do some work. Berman Era Trek had no problem working with it. By basing Deep Space Nine on a space station staffed by a mix of Starfleet and Bajoran crews, the writers worked in parallel with the box. The box didn't apply to non Starfleet characters. They did a similar thing with Voyager, mixing Starfleet and Maquis crews. So with a degree of talent working with the 'Roddenberry box' is possible. Removing the box from the Star Trek formula is like removing the H from H2O, you no longer have water. So Kuntman Trek ended up not being Star Trek. The proof of this is plain to see. I have suffered the first seasons of the live action shows reluctantly. If you are going to criticise it should be done from an informed point of view. However, I had already lost interest in the franchise after the 2009 theatrical outing. I ended up sending a friend a 20 point e-mail about what was wrong with the film.
I celebrated a birthday at Pages bar in Pimlico where TNG episodes were being shown. At one point my sister turned to me and said "there's a message to these stories". My ecstatic response was"at last you get it" to which she replied " you don't have to cry". After watching DSN's Far Beyond The Stars with my friend Suzie and her young son Ben, he turned around to us and asked "what's wrong with being black?" We said "nothing". I was nearly in tears, the little guy got it. You don't get such moments with the abomination that purports to be Trek these days. Ben didn't even need to be targeted by a juvenile cartoon to get Star Trek.
When I watched the first Jar Jar Abrams' Star Trek movie, I thought this isn't Star Trek, this is stupid. It drove me crazy how many people just ate it up. 🙄
The Message your sister saw is different from the message Suzie's young son saw. Race does not exist in TOS/Star Trek. We see exactly that numerous times in TOS. You should've said to the kid, 'It's not about one skin color, it's about treating humans different based upon the dividing concept of race, that being different colored skin, regardless of the skin color.'
I always say to people anything from TOS to Nemesis is real Star Trek. Anything after is just generic rubbish.
Wow, exactly.
One key thing I would say, is most people wouldn't want or be able to watch modern Trek with their young children, a lot of it just isn't suitable viewing. It makes me sad to think about all the parents who would pass on their love of Trek to their offspring by watching together, often taking them to conventions in mini uniforms etc. All lost for a more gritty and 'realistic' tone, and no light switches apparently since we cant see most of the time because of the gloomy lit sets.
I actually think Indiana Jones 4 was the first time I had that feeling that is now commonplace among pop culture. It was the true patient zero, I was genuinely stunned shocked at the time as a 17 year old.
It got darker and darker. Gameboy of thrones threw all into the abyss. High degeneracy worshipped and copied.
At least Indy 4 had some good at it. Indy 5, well...yeah
I remember how disappointed I was walking out of the theater lol
Enterprise should have had a fifth season covering the Romulan War. Grand finale of the series being the founding of the Federation.
I have just finished watching Star Trek: Enterprise in its entirety. And I love it from beginning to end. It's a very underrated and merlined series - a shame it never got to complete its seven-year run.
Agreed 💯!
Agreed, read the relaunch novels, it continues the series in a great way
merlined?? maligned perhaps? Agree completely. It did start out kinda weak, and didn't quite know where to go, but it did gradually get better, and by the time it ends you're like "WHAT!!! NOOOO!!!! Make a season 5!" The direction they were going was terrific, just a d@mn shame it ended there...
agree, I get sad just remembering.
I, too, really enjoyed Star Trek: Enterprise😜
The views of Brannon Braga from the Enterprise blu-rays are very interesting, and while I've been critical of him at times, he advocated back while Voyager was entering it's 7th season that Star Trek needed a break, and Enterprise should be put back a year until September 2002. The studio said no, and insisted it must premier the fall after Voyager finishes, to keep the production streak from 1987 going. He also wanted a decent chunk of season one to be ground based, with a mid-season climax of the ship launching, again overruled by suits. The biggest problem for Star Trek and any other "franchise", is studios won't let them have natural pauses or ends to help preserve them. They keep milking them until they fall over and die from exhaustion, while also people are sick of them, then eventually bring back the corpse a few years later. We've seen it countless times over the years, with DC/Marvel/Star Wars being the most prominent examples right now.
I agree. Star Trek died with Enterprise. It's corpse was reanimated, without the soul and heart for JJ Abrams. Then the zombified Star Trek was mutated into NuTrek.
Real authentic Star Trek is long gone.
IIRC he was also the one that wanted to turn Voyager’s “Year of Hell” into a season long arc. That would’ve been great.
I don't understand this ... the suits refused to fund high calibre trek films, the way ST 5 was gutted is a perfect example. They cancelled TNG with one more season to go to get movies out and then they push garbage and ignore the people who know the IP best. piloting it straight into the ground.
The 90s was the best time to be a Star Trek fan, we were spoiled.
As a 46 year old fan I can back this video up 100%. Voyager seemed out of ideas and it’s reliance on the Borg seemed more related to the success of First Contact than something original or exciting. It just seemed like reheated remains. Enteprise didn’t land on many levels.
Species 8471 was a interesting addition, I'd wanted to see more about them.
I think my problem with Enterprise was that it stopped being Episodic. It seemed to glob on too much to one story line after awhile, and that got tedious. I think they should have gone the way that the Supernatural show did... have an episode about the main plot, then one or two side quests, then back to the main plot.. break up the monotony so the viewer doesn't get burned out. I also love that they put Tpol in a lot of really tight outfits.. I don't think they would do that nowadays, unfortunately.
It's reliance on the Borg was it's desire to get more male fans with 7 of 9.
And it worked.
@@Grabthar191 ds9 managed the main plot thing and side episodes well when the war with the dominion occured
Voyager's final two seasons were great and refreshingly apolitical. You're a gay Gen X man-baby.
I think you’ve nailed it. The only quibble I had was with the characterization that NuTrek is skewed to be more ADULT. Perhaps it thinks it is. What is in fact is JUVENILE in the worst possible way. It aspires to be sophisticated. The Original Trek Continuity is far more sophisticated than ANY Trek that peddles what we’ve been seeing since 2017 as mature storytelling.
Seems like a problem with society in general nowadays.
Rick Berman may have been a demanding, exacting, sometimes cruel showrunner, but still he gave us all what we love. Real Star Trek.
Sometimes it takes a hard man to lead a ship to greatness.
Dave, your points are spot-on. ST: First Contact always felt like a high-water mark. Everything CBS/Kurtzman/Bad Robot have produced is barely story.
Absolutely agree with all of that, the cancellation of Enterprise was at the wrong time, it was growing into a really strong show.
Season 4 of Deep Space Nine was probably my favorite. Starting off real strong with a two part: "The Way of the Warrior". Which plays as a better movie than most of the high budget motion pictures. What a season..
Yep, along with seasons 5 and 6.
Half of my all-time favourite sci-fi episodes come from DS9, and that season was indeed a banger.
My problem with Enterprise was that I wanted it to be the primitive ships described in Balance of Terror. I wanted space itself to be a major threat as the FIRST ship from Earth ventured out. The show started in a damn cornfield so I was hoping it would stay similarly grounded. I wanted that creepy isolation of Where No Man has Gone Before. Unfortunately, it ended up just being Star Trek with jumpsuits and slightly decreased levels of technology. Same old same old.
Halfway into the pilot, Archer literally goes down to a planet and walks into a Star Wars Cantina full of aliens and it’s not even a big deal. Yeesh.
In retrospect, Archer's Enterprise had some serious troubles with budget and production. Had it gotten the time needed, I think we would have seen an overall pretty good show with some true Star Trek spirit.
Even though Enterprise had lower ratings than previous Trek shows (and had its budget cut because of it), millions of people still watched each episode. Even the lowest rated shows had several million people watching. Those are numbers that streaming Trek shows wish they could achieve.
...except that's what we got. A better budget would have just meant improvements on an already great show.
The issue was writing. As Cullen said Enterprises last 2 seasons were good.
@@starcoloneldunadansonoft501 What I meant was that didn't have to end before its time. It really started to shine later on.
@@paulrasmussen8953I feel like a contrarian to post this (though it's not my goal), I like the first two seasons of Enterprise more than the last two. I was one of those people who actually liked it from the start. Despite it's prequel problems and possibly the most misplaced opening song of all time (DS-9's opening is my favorite), I loved the show immediately, I liked watching them have to solve things on the fly. I liked seeing space life before it got clean and streamlined.
The last two seasons would have been better had they not been five seasons of plot mashed into two. It often felt like a series of mini-series placed into a year of production.
I have long felt that First Contact was the high water mark, but perhaps really it was the end of DS9. Or even the end of Voyager (I enjoyed that series despite its flaws). I really wanted to like Enterprise, but I watched it more out of habit and obligation as a fan. Yes, it had greatly improved by season 4, but it never really captured my imagination. Perhaps I had just grown up too much? Idk. But I am grateful for them all.
I think the pinnacle of Trek was the two part episode that ended season 3 and began season 4 of TNG. Don’t get me wrong there was good stuff afterwards. But that was the peak.
@@kenstrumpf909 'The Best of Two Worlds'.
"All Good Things" was the high water mark for TNG. First Contact, yes it made money and had box office appeal, but it had to partially break Picard to do it. You may not recall, Patrick Stewart was "sexiest man of the year" back then, at least in garbage magazines. Hollywood wanted Bruce Willis with a British accent on a starship. IMO, Insurrection was an over-steer attempt at course correction following the loss of soul FC traded off for popcorn and movie tickets. So Insurrection has a sheltered place in my heart because of what it was trying to do, and failed. And then Nemesis was another attempt to re-capture what had already been lost. I didn't hate Nemesis, like a fool I walked out of that theater looking forward to the next film when Data gets his brains back, Riker gets a ship, etc.
IMHO Voyager failed because it was given a great premise, but failed to fully engage with it. If it did we might have gotten something similar to the relaunched BattleStar Galactica kind of show, before it too went down hill. That said it has its strong points, like the character evolution of The Doctor.
@@kenstrumpf909You do realize that is the EXACT point where they first started writing new scripts for Star Trek the next generation instead of recycling Star Trek phase 2 scripts.
If you pay attention to the show up until that point, Picard is playing Kirk and saying kirk's lines. Crusher is actually Gary Mitchell's wife. Kirk's best friend from the pilot. And Wesley is Gary's son. If you understand that all the interactions between those characters make sense.
I'm in my 70's. And I've been enjoying Star Trek since 1966. With the original series still my favorite. Today's Star Trek can't touch those great, original adventures. Guess all the great writers of the past are no more? And the new, younger people just have no idea what kind of classic show Star Trek actually was?
The older writers had actually written some pulp sci-fi, the new writers seem to be TV writers 1st.
Those in charge of Kurtman Trek go out of their way to not have actual fans of Star Trek in any position where they could make Star Trek, Picard season 3 is said to be the closest, but it is still smeared with Nu Trek all over it.
My wife and I are currently rewatching Enterprise and (not nostalgia talking) season one has aged surprisingly well!
You voice my very thoughts. Owning the copies of STNG/DS9/Voyager, they appear to share a common bond. By the end of Season Two and into Season Three, cast/crew/writers finally hit their stride. The journey is akin to being swept up in a good book.
It’s an epic story when all put together
The golden Era of TV is over
Remember in the early 2010's we thought we were living in a golden age of television? Ahh...good times.
At least we had good stuff like The Sopranos then.
I was just saying the other day "Obama killed TV in America", half jokingly but thinking about it more I think there's something to it.
The golden era of everything is over
I watched DS9 during lockdown. I was extremely surprised. They managed to dig deeper into Trek's universe and really tackle some hard social commentary. There was weight behind it rather than just a 44 minute serial that was self encapsulated neatly into one episode. My favorite joke in the 1990s was that Star Trek was a world that never looked lived in. Everything always looked spotless and brand new. DS9 changed the paradigm to a mostly static station and a commander that wasn't all about his directives and neatly pressed uniform.
I agree. I never could see myself walking the pristine corridors on the Enterprise, but I could see myself taking a seat at Quark's bar and ordering food and drink.
DS9 ❤
Today's Star Trek is inspirational.
It inspires me to treasure old Star Trek, and mock the new thoughtless SJW trash.
It inspires me to celebrate both the destruction of Hollywood, and seeing Dem voting writers, aka social engineers, unemployed.
*_and seeing Dem voting writers_*
You do know that Roddenberry was a progressive's wet dream, right? He absolutely loathed conservative ideology. I'm not defending NuTrek, but to attribute NuTrek's failures to "Dem voting writers" is to just be a complete ignoramus; virtually all of the production crew & cast of Trek have been "Dem voting," going back to the 1960s.
@@sixstanger00 Roddenberry was a left-wing liberal in the late 1960s, which means he would probably be a libertarian or moderate conservative today. He would absolutely be appalled at what his creation has mutated into.
Yeah this is by far the weirdest phenomenon among Trek fans. From the beginning in the 1960s Star Trek was one of the most progressive "SJW" shows on TV... Absolutely bizarre to realize in the last few years how many Trek fans apparently never noticed this until recently. "Dem voting writers." Good grief.
Conflating Dems today with those in the 60s is at best a fact-free comparison, and disingenuous if one knows history.
JFK would have been a Republican today.
Dem's once celebrated
free speech,
gun rights,
the Working Class,
a border,
the family (real ones),
and apple pie
....no more.
Some even grudgingly accepted that Economics is real science, and rejected whacky policies that actually work against Economic Laws.
@@sixstanger00
@@kevinsampson8099
*_which means he would probably be a libertarian or moderate conservative today._*
Absolutely not.
Conservatives are anti-abortion, anti-LGTBQ, religious zealots, etc. They are the same regressive-thinking party they were in the 60s.
Roddenberry envisioned what some "conservatives" have described as a "communist hell" because in the Trek universe, capitalism was a thing of the past.
Show me ONE conservative that is anti-capitalism.
Man. As someone who grew up watching TNG, we've come a long way to miss Rick Berman...
The golden age of TV writing and imagination was the 90's not the well acted but earthly "acclaimed" dull dramas of the 00's and 10's.
Especially in the areas of sci-fi and syndicated programming. Since the studio houses were more interested in reaching average TV viewer, the shows were intentionally crafted to an above average mass audience. Another part that helped all of these shows was the larger growth of Fox and the creation UPN (Paramount)and The WB Network, and even PAX. This created more higher quality broadcast options and the ability for production houses to create stuff that could stick with audiences.
I blame the Battlestar Galactica remake for the hard shift to grittier sci-fi and fall-off of the overall more positive tone.
It was a good show but everyone wanted a piece of that pie, regardless of whether it fit for the world they were using it in.
@@UzarranTrue, I preferred the original classic Battlestar Galactica over that reimagined stuff.
@@Uzarranit's funny how I wrote that comment despite the reimagined BSG being my favourite series of all time by a fair margin. It was a very special story, all the elements coming together in the right amounts. I agree with you.
Funny how BSG ends up being more positive than anything nu Trek does, there is a through subtle line in every episode "You're going to keep going, you're going to survive" Moore actually admitted this in a commentary and that he hated the idea of darkness for darkness sake. The situation had to justify the commotion.
One of the actors wanted a mob in the show to kill him in the ending for having seemingly escaped the punishment for what he did years prior in the pilot. Moore and Eick explained "that's not what this series was about or in particular this ending"
The men cared. 😊 They couldn't end on nihilism.
BSG is full of strong archetypes (men and women), almost mythical (literally), it subverts them too, rebuilds them better and deeper and it's very Jungian, J Peterson would have a field day with it.
God yes. Thank Christ I'm not the only one who thinks so. The 90s were glorious and it carried on to about 2004. It all began to collapse after that.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Top Gun Maverick did Star Trek better than some Star Trek does nowadays. Remember the Darkstar sequence? A diverse assortment of technicians, engineers, achieving a technological success pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Heck it even came with a badmiral (bad-admiral) trying to stop them from achieving their goals. I’d like more of that in my Star Trek please.
At this point I'm just happy we got as many episodes of TNG and DS9 as we did! I don't really yearn for more as no one in 'control' of the franchise at the moment wants to write/produce the kind of Trek I like. And if there is an audience for the modern day stuff, good for them. Imma gonna be over here with my DVD box sets!
1996 was truly the high water mark for Trek. First Contact, Star Trek‘s 30th birthday and DS9‘s Trial and Tribbelations episode happened in that same year. But for me the decline began in ‘99 with Insurrection . Somehow I had the feeling that Trek wasn’t ready for the new millennium. I think everyone was exhausted because Paramount wanted even more! The quote from Ru‘afo in Insurrection is quite remarkable in terms of Treks decline: „Federation support. Federation procedures. Federation rules. Look in the mirror, Admiral. The Federation is old. In the past 24 months, they've been challenged by every major power in the quadrant: the Borg, the Cardassians, the Dominion. They all smell the scent of death on the Federation.“ That’s where I noticed that it went downhill although I loved Enterprise
They needed to let TNG end, let DS9 have a solo run to completion, and then take a few years off. In interviews with Berman, you can tell he knew it was a mistake to keep churning out new series. Had they waited and come out with a new series in 2002 set further into the future, they would have been better off.
Enterprise did get better in seasons 3 and 4. It was still a mistake to do a prequel.
Enterprise was a prequel that refused to be a prequel.
The moment I realized it was just the same show again was the line: "Hullplating offline."
The mistake wasn't making ENT a prequel it was not getting into prequel topics that people were interested in like the Romulan war and the formation of the Federation quickly enough. They really should've had early alliances between factions formed by season 3 at the latest with Shran being a member of the crew but that was planned for season 5.
Prequel idea fine execution all wrong till they had a new show runner
Agree with you about the Xendi storyline. That's when Enterprise changed for the better. It was an amazing ride.
I'm 54 years old. I grew up on reruns of TOS. I jumped out of bed at 6:30 am on Saturday mornings to watch TAS. I remember to this day seeing my first ad for Star Trek: The Motion Picture on the back cover of an issue of Detective Comics in late 1978. TNG came out right when I was starting college. Suffice it to say, Trek was a massive part of my life for my formative years and I do credit it for inspiring me to pursue a career in engineering. But... I do agree that the era between 1996 and 2005 was not quite as stellar as what came before. At the time, I thought Trek was starting to feel... tired, for lack of a better term. By 1996-1998, we had Trek on TV every season for roughly a decade, and two shows at a time for much of that. After a while, it got to be a bit much. I was never sure how much of my feelings on that matter were an actual decline in Trek, and how much of it was my forced disengagement from Trek during those years, which is when I was much more focused on the early stages of my career and starting a family. When Insurrection came out in 1998, I almost missed it in theaters because I was so busy with my new young daughter (I did enjoy Insurrection, though). I never disengaged from Trek completely but I'm sorry to say I didn't follow it as religiously as I did as a kid. When Nemesis tanked and Enterprise was cancelled early, I honestly thought that was basically the end of Trek. Well, that turned out to be incorrect. I'm not sure whether or not to be happy about that.
It was the end of Trek. Also, unfortunately, the exhumation of zombie Trek.
The Star Trek show that won me over was Voyager. I don't know if I was watching the episodes new or if they were reruns, but when I was in middle/high school, I'd developed this fun routine where I'd seclude myself away in my Dad's old camper and watch episodes of Voyager on this little, portable, black and white television. I loved it, I was hooked on it, and I think one of the things I really liked was just how intelligent so many of the characters were. And really, that goes for most of older Trek. I eventually caught all of TNG, DS9, and ENT, and I caught maybe about half of the Original Series.
I've seen all of TNG I'm not sure how many times. What really struck me as a teenager and young adult, was just how advanced and intelligent people were. It felt far-fetched, when compared to society, but something to strive for. lol Looking at what passes for "Trek" today, it's disappointing to see that society seems to be getting dumber, not smarter.
DS9 was, initially, a hard watch for me because it had a different feel, but after about the second season, I was hooked. To this day, I consider DS9 the best writing that came out of Trek's revival period, even if it started off as a really slow burn. (not really sure what to call the 80's-00s era)
Voyager still holds as my favorite, even with some of it's weaker episodes, because by that point in the Federation, it felt like many things were becoming too easy for the characters. Technology was so far advanced and the Federation was so well established, the characters needed more of a challenge. Because of that, I liked the idea of taking a Star Fleet ship and isolating it far away from contact with Federation space. The isolation added a seriousness to many of their dilemmas because they could seldom ever just call for backup or go to a shipyard for repairs. I liked watching the crew be forced to be more creative, inventive, and to have to push their limits.
I think I like Enterprise for similar reasons I liked Voyager. Everything isn't easy for Captain Archer and his crew and it feels like they're being forced to work with a handicap. They're forced to deal with problems without the super advanced Tech that the other shows had, like in Voyager, they can't always just reach out for help. I'm also a big fan of those early awkward scenes of different species just starting to really work together.
As for the new stuff....I won't watch the new stuff. It's so dumbed down and clearly written by people who lack passion for the series. I hear Picard Season 3 is good but I refuse to watch it, mainly because I don't want to reward them with my view when I know what an atrocity they made the first two seasons.
As for why I'm doing all this rambling...I'm just trying to help boost whatever responsive numbers CZcams uses with Dave's channel.
Star Trek was created by visionaries(storytellers with the awareness as well as respect for their audience) and it was a creation that dived into a lot of subject matters that were barely spoken of during their show runs for it was a story ahead of its time and now all we have Alex Kurtzman along with JJ Abrams that have the imagination of a plant and the creative level of a rock.
Excellent observations, as always. I remember the fatigue and frustration being leveled at Trek back then; late-stage Voyager, Insurrection, Nemesis, Enterprise S1 and S2 (and S3 a bit, too, with that finale "twist" that led into the cold war resolution in S4). Just like the Star Wars sequel trilogy has made a lot of people look more fondly on the prequels, modern Trek definitely casts a darker shadow that makes those last Berman years seem much brighter and better than we thought at the time. At the end of the day, even the worst of those episodes or films made narrative sense. They had setup and payoff and logical, internal motivations and rules. They were, at the very least, coherent, watchable stories about adults doing adult things that made sense and were consistent with how we expected Starfleet professionals to behave. With modern Trek, we're lucky if it even follows the most basic tenets of storytelling. The narratives are an incoherent mess full of "and then" storytelling that has no build-up, plot "arcs" that go nowhere, flat, bland, characters who are often really just avatars of the insecure writers themselves, and magical thinking that drives what passes for plot forward. And since they can't even get those basic things right, they certainly can't weave a complex story with intelligence and layers that examine moral issues about the human condition through a thoughtful lens that doesn't beat you over the head with a pre-determined "correct" conclusion. It's like watching children play make-believe and pretend they are working at grown-up jobs. You just smile and laugh and think, well maybe someday they'll learn. But after so many years of this, I don't think they will.
This is absolutely spot on. Nu Trek like Nu Who is exactly the same kind of Teletubbies level shit. It's just insulting. I do not want to hear people in the Trek Universe talk like people do today. Picard was so utterly cringe it was off the charts....Discovery is just utterly terrible. Why are they still going on about racism? FFS, keep your own personal shit out of it. The fact is that these so called "writers" have no idea how to construct a decent story or even what the sophistication of what Trek means. It sounds like a bunch of kids that have discovered that "bad stuff happens in the world!" and have to tell us about it. There's literally nothing approaching the Epic Levels of Awesome as something like Pyramids on Mars, featuring a villain so fucking terrifying that you are seriously concerned if the Doctor can defeat him. All played by a guy that almost never gets off the chair, hidden behind a mask. HE HAS NOTHING TO WORK WITH BUT HIS VOICE, and he still fucking kicks almost every villains ass ever. Sutekh is terrifying. Because of how is written and how his performed. And no one tries to inject modern issues into it. It's just a story well done. On a budget of nothing. In 1976. Writing and Acting.
Couldn't agree more with this! I always say and I will still maintain that Enterprises 4th season was some of the best Trek ever made!
Commenting off the title alone is risky but Star Trek peaked between 1995 & 1999 with seasons 4 through 7 of DS9. Dying on this hill.
Everything that Kurtzman’s destructive touch has done to Trek is because of Deep Space 9. Section 31 should never have happened. The war where the writers made the Federation compromise itself all led Kurtzman to the same end.
Agreed.
Good choice 👌.
@Slitheringpeanut Yes but Berman didn’t take it far. Was just to make you think.
Abrams and Kurtzman took the bait and chose to go down the rabbit hole. They never understood that Star Trek was a hopeful and optimistic show at its core.
@@Slitheringpeanut Just no, the whole point of Section 31 was to show how far the Federation/Starfleet were willing to keep paradise. If you paid attention Quark and Garek many times mentioned how thin the veneer of Federation really was, Quark even dressed down Nog about how humans without their replicators and holosuites were worse than the most bloodthirsty Klingon. Blaming DS9 for Kurtzman's lack of anything close to nuanced story telling is hilarious since he's never created anything remotely original.
I think the thought that sums it up for me is that during TNG. DS9. VOY and even Enterprise. I enjoyed spending time with the characters. Even if the Ep was poor. The characters were great to spend time with. That’s not the case with Trek now. The characters are unpleasant, horrible people. I can’t spend any time with them. Even if the story was great I don’t want to experience it with these horrible people. I don’t care if they’re threatened, I don’t care if they die. They’re all horrible!
My favorite was the prequel of enterprise. Like the more human touch to the ship and mentality. They had soldiers on board the ship because...its bloody dangerous out there. Felt closer to wmhow we actualy would act in that era vs the idealistic utopian mentality the show overall had.
We had three awesome Trek shows on at the same time in VOY, DS9, and TNG. What a time to be alive!
3 parts of one truly epic story
I've capped my personal commercial ST timeline at 2005. There are come interesting fan productions. ST Continues and Star Trek New Voyages are definitely worthy.
I totally agree. I did a recent rewatch of voyager and enterprise and yeah, after the 4th season of voyager I started skipping episodes. Almost an entire season. Enterprise however I don't mind, there is a charm to its roughness that adds to the fact they are the first crew. They don't know what they are doing, adds something to me rather than takes away.
Voyager did not have memorable episodes; most of the episodes were average and there was no tension between the Maquis crew and Starfleet officers. That was a huge mistake for the series. Voyager was the beginning of the end for ST.
@@anthonylogiudice9215it
I couldn’t agree more, the writers had the opportunity to explore the Maquis/Starfleet dynamic but just threw it away, the Maquis were all in Starfleet uniforms by the end of the pilot. They had the opportunity to crank up the tension in the season one finale, Learning Curve. A Maquis crew member tells Tuvok to shove Starfleet regulations, but instead of developing this plot line, they drop it, Tuvok has them running a marathon and orders one Maquis to clean the transporter with a toothbrush. Why? It’s so utterly pointless. The thing is, in the first episode of season two, The 37s, they have an opportunity to develop this plot line, Voyager lands on a planet and discovers a human colony who offer to take anyone who wants to make a new life. The final scene in which Janeway and Chakote enter the cargo bay, and its empty. The writers just didn’t have have it in them to take any risks.
Without a doubt 1996 was the height of the franchise. I cannot state enough what a buzz "First Contact" generated. I remember watching the trailer for it during the premiere of "Independence Day" and the whole theater erupted in excitement, we were finally going to see the Borg on the silver screen! "First Contact" made Star Trek cool again, it crossed over into the mainstream. Back in middle school, my entire school was talking about "First Contact", it was the must see movie that winter. I remember all the merchandise and tie-ins that were being done. My local Blockbuster Video was selling Star Trek videos, toys, you name it! After '96, the franchise started a slow decline. Star Trek will never have another storied year like 1996 again. I'm glad that Star Trek was able to celebrate its 30th anniversary with much fanfare and pomp. So sad to see what it's become nowadays.
Isn't it comical that the movie that created all the buzz in 96 is the basis for the bad storyline of the alternate universe?
Absolutely agree. I hated Enterprise, when it aired but since then I rewatched...and rewatched and liked it more and more. I would love to see a sequel to NX 01 - perhaps 10 years later.
Only if the old writing crew were to return. I have trouble with these current people touching classic Trek. After all of the hype simmered, even Picard season three left much to be desired.
No Dave, Star Trek's formulae hadn't become stale, it's writing had, this was the mistake the producers made. The reason Insurrection failed was because it was trying to straddle two stools. First Contact was imo a great movie but it wasn't Star Trek and many purists complained about that. So the studio tried to balance normie cinema goers with the Trek faithful and the movie ended up satisfying neither camp. The TOS movies worked because TOS was an action show, TNG was not.
Star Trek faced two problems after Deep Space Nine, and Voyager was where the decline began. Both Voyager's writing, and it's cast of actors were inferior to TNG and Deep Space Nine's. Add to that Janeway who was divisive in the extreme (the first captain to murder a crew member) and a ship that was trapped 75 years from home but in pristine condition every week. ENT was actually a return to form, and Seasons 1 and 2 are viewed unfairly, because they were the last time (2003) Star Trek was about exploration of the galaxy. After that it became bad guy of the week. DS9s final season's criticisms are mainly centered around Dukat who was turned into a cartoon villain.
DS9 is what really killed Trek. The first of the series to stray far from Roddenberry's vision, and the experiments and risks taken both birthed the Voyager series as well as killed its potential. Voyager was supposed to be the first serialized ST series with season long arcs on top of the series long main arc of getting home, but instead that idea of serialization got put into the later seasons of DS9. The popularity of DS9 also meant that more attention and funding went to that project than Voyager. All of the flaws present in the series coming after DS9 are first seen in DS9 itself, however some of these things actually worked for DS9, they just didn't work for other series which attempted these things later. Voyager suffered both directly and indirectly from DS9, even before it made it to screen.
It is not that hard to keep a starship is top condition, since it is a military organization, first and foremost. After all, attention to detail.
@@Eidolon1andOnly Well you're welcome to your opinion but I 100% disagree because DS9 is my favourite Trek show of them all. DS9 was Star Trek come of age, taking the story telling of TNG to the next level. Where TNG would tell, DS9 would show. Rather than O'Brian swapping war stories with his former Captain, we have Nog's personal journey from plucky cadet to an amputee veteran suffering from PTSD. World's apart in story telling. The problem for Star Trek and why the decline began is because even to this day we have never seen writing on that level. Star Trek didn't need a hiatus, Star Trek needed a return to form. We're still waiting.
I agree with most everything you said OP. Imo, it wasn't just Dukat that was ruined, it was the entire Sisko/Prophets/Bajor arc that became so boring and cliched. The Dominion War was the real meat and potatoes of DS9 and all the Sisko/Prophet stuff just brought everything to a narrative and thematic grinding halt. I would have found some way to wrap that storyline up earlier in the series and maybe just had the prophets make a surprise appearance at the end to help defeat the Dominion or something.
The Dukat/Sisko showdown in the last episode was comical in all the wrong ways.
Was there perhaps too much Star Trek in that golden age for its own good, long term? You did see the same basic plots turning up during each series, retooled for that series yes, but recognisably the same to anyone paying attention.
I totally agree with your assessment. But there are people who say they like the new Trek. That’s why it may continue longer than the rest of us would like. There will always be those who are satisfied with Twinkies over fine pastries.
Great review, and I agree completely with you. Thanks for all the good content you put out. Your work and thoughtfulness are appreciated.
The number one reason I love voyager and enterprise was the fact that both shows were them really exploring and not having all the answers or help right at hand
I remember me and my dad sent in letters for the writing campaign to give us season 4 of enterprise
I seriously doubt Star Trek Discovery is inspiring any kids to study engineering like the original Trek shows did.
I can only imagine what Enterprise Season 5 would've looked like if they gave Manny Coto more time and backing
I read that Sela was originally going to be in Nemesis.
Appadently in the original script, Tasha Yar was the reason why the romulans cloned picard
That would have been cool. Nemeis boggest problem was dorector and newbie would didn't study
Sela should have been the real villain of Nemesis, and not the clone and Remans nonsense.
DS9 season finale was pretty good. The problem for season 7 was that the writers killed off Jadzia Dax and incorporated Frank Sinatra like singer, VIc Fontaine. Too many episodes were focused on Vic Fontaine.
Some of those episodes worked in terms of narration
They shouldn't recast Dax and Vic was annoying.
Rick Berman is the reason Terry Farrell left. He was a pig.
The one major flaw of DS9 was Vic. All respect to the choices and chances taken by Ira Steven Behr on this show, but a 1960s Vegas lounge lizard had no regular place on a sci-fi show set in the 24th century.I didn't mind the way Dax was recast but Ezri was annoying reading her lines like Holly in The Land of the Lost.
@@bluntguy9532 Ezri was abysmal. A huge downturn from the acting and grace of Farrell. The new host of Dax should've been a a big burly guy just to piss of Worf and add some homophobic tension to the show. Imagine Worf reacting to the new Dax being a guy. He could barely handle Ezri Dax.
You are absolutely right about all of this.
Next Generation is probably my favorite TV show ever, and it exhibits the qualities that made Trek popular: dedication to duty, friendship, knowledge, understanding, and morality. They were respectful of other cultures despite differences in customs and beliefs. Captain Picard always analyzed every side and possibility, and tried to find the most moral solution, even if that solution was not in his own best interests. NuTrek is just another generic series of mindless space battles and little intelligence.
This is what happens when a niche becomes mainstream. It's a rule with no exceptions. The moment your favorite show/game/ip starts to cater to the normies, it's already dead.
This comment says it all.
It's why I walk away when they start milking a franchise they don't understand.
The best Star Trek series right now is The Orville. Fingers crossed for season 4!
Always agreed with all you points about nu trek, and at the same time it's a stab to the heart. And yes, even Nemesis Is Shakespeare compared to the crap we got lately
The 2009 film got me into Star Trek and I’ll forever be thankful for that. I went on to watch and love TNG and Deep Space Nine.
When you mentioned it now being 2023 I actually found myself suddenly shocked at just how long ago we're talking about here with the Golden Age you mention. Star Trek Generations and First Contact really brought me in as a fan. Generations because I have a fond memory of seeing that in the Savoy cinema in Dublin with my late mum and all my brothers. It was the first time I experienced people applauding a film. But if that didn't get me watching the TV shows religiously then First Contact certainly did. Previously I used to catch Trek episodes if we happened to have them on at dinner but it was First Contact that made me specifically tune in for DS9 and Voyager as they were airing. And I can't believe that was a quarter of a century ago.
I’m turning 50 in a few days, and I look back at some of Star Trek debates I’ve had. I was definitely encouraged to go into science based education because of Star Trek. I’m old enough to have seen ST:TOS or ST:TAS when they were first released; however, I did watch them on Saturday’s as a child. I’ll never forget watching ST:TNG premier on CBS when I was 13. ST:DS9 is as dark as Star Trek should ever get. I believe Razorfist pointed out that ST:Online is a direct continuation of ST:DS9. Wokeness has destroyed both Star Wars and Star Trek. At least we got Battlestar Galactica before the mind virus crushed creativity!
Woke is Star Trek you dweeb. If you think otherwise you really weren't listening. Besides, if it was super woke, maybe it would do better. Barbie and Taylor Swift set records.
Berman may have preferred to take things slow, and was cautious when it came to taking risks with Trek lore (Berman was hesitant about approving the Dominion War story). But at least Berman WAS cautious and considerate with storytelling. He was aware of risky stories.
Not a single person on Modern Trek asks themselves if what they are doing is a good idea. Modern Trek writers just go "full steam ahead", and make series like Star Trek Discovery and the first 2 seasons of Picard. Absolute disasters of Trek TV shows.
And to be honest, the 3rd Season of Picard (while entertaining) relied heavily on TNG era actors to carry it.
And they can't even keepntheirnown lore consistent. Discovery goes way into the future to find wardrive non existent because no dilithium crystals. Yest in Prodigy they intoduce a new style of drive that does not require it so why aren't they using it in the 32nd century. Then in prodigy you have an ai virus take other any starfleet ship that hails an infected ship firing on each and mere years later they invent the Fleet Manuver program. Its like did you forget that virus!?
All Star Trek series are a reflection of their time. Most Trek obsessed viewers watch little else but that genre or comic book hero movies/shows, so they don't realize it.
TOS was very much a product of US TV 1965 to 1969. It had adventure formulas from Bonanza, Daniel Boone and Big Valley. It had the military mission motif from 12 OClock High (Gen Savage and Cpt Kirk are quite similar as are Mingo and Spock). Miniskirts, sheer tights, go go boots....golf shirts and beatle boots on the men.
TNG was so incredibly 80s it fit right in. It clicked all the character profile buttons. The dialog on the ship could often just be picked up from 30 Something or any Lawyers in Love show.
DS9 was a triad with B5 and SG1. They were quite similar shows. As to B5 and DS9 we know why they were similar. However professional dramas of that era were quite the same.
Voyager which started great, drug on in a Gilligans Island style of how to they mess up this time.
Enterprise seemed fresh but quickly became Quantum Trek. If they had the hologram doctor instead of Trip and TPol, it would have been the same. Trip and T'Pol was pretty much Single Female Lawyer.
So that brings us to JJ Trek. Which is like every Fast and Furious movie...easy.
Kurtzman Trek is mostly copied from BAD streaming fan films (Picard 1 was Renegades), Discovery is ST Video game sessions by college freshmen in gender studies and Tartigrades. All of them are last chances for directors of failed Lost style TV fantasy series that got canceled mid plot after a year or 1.5 seasons.
SNW and Trek and Morty copied parody characters from Other Space (Yahoo Streaming) and the Cracked parody of lower decks...both about a decade ago so Kurtzman hopes you don't recall.
Everything is parody on TV now.
We need a Star Trek episode called, "You Don't Know What You've Got Until It's Gone." Enterprise may have had its faults, but Gawd what we wouldn't give to have more of it now.
I wouldn't necessarily call Nu Ttek 'more adult', more peurile maybe, more obtuse, more gratuitous.
Deep Space 9 was the end. The moment they went full war and had the Federation compromise it’s belief system, including creating Kurtzman’s dream wank ‘Section 31’, that was it. Star Trek was irrevocably changed.
Agreed. Sure, Starfleet Intelligence has it's flaws and it had to be reigned in a few times, but these days it's all just 'Section 31', as if there aren't enough stories possible with plain old Starfleet Intelligence.
Besides, wouldn't it be much more suspenseful to see an intelligence branch doing what is necessary without breaking the principles of the Federation?
@@Dreamfox-df6bg I agree. But even that decline was still better than what we got post-2005, I want to stress that like the video above, as much as I’m not keen on how DS9 changed Trek, it was still much better written.
@@Dreamfox-df6bg No because that wasn't the point it was to show how an existential threat to paradise that was the mid to late 24th century Federation caused them to act the way they did. It was brilliant character study and development and oh by the way Brashir is that character you are looking for who didn't compromise the Federation principles.
@@lcd2426 While they couldn't see it coming back then, it opened the floodgates for writers that think that subtilty is using a sledge hammer on a champagne glass. Writers that have no idea how to deal with intelligence services.
And while I admit, that the stories were ok, I don't agree with the premise. If there are situations where you break your principles, your principles weren't worth anything to begin with. Individuals can go wrong, but in a Utopia like the Federation entire organizations don't.
Unrealistic? Of course, but realism was never the point of Star Trek, wasn't it?
I recently rewatched TNG and even though I remembered Wesley's character was completely destroyed I'd forgotten about Einstein Roe who had managed to prove herself to be a good Starfleet officer only to go on a mission during the final season where she had to be under cover then once again let her hatred of the Cardassians make her turn her back on her friends and mission completely ruining the character progress. By turning Wesley into a god the same thing happened there, the difference with him was his character had already begun to deteriorate in the previous season.
Great video. I agree with you for the most part on Enterprise. The first two seasons were passable with some nice moments, but played it way too safe. Seasons 3 and 4 were so much better because they upped the ante while still developing the characters and did the serialized world building that show should have done from the beginning. Why did they wait so long to this though? My answer is DS9. While it's my favorite, I also recognize that it wasn't ratings hit. The serialized arcs were radical for their day and not what Berman et al wanted for syndication. This brings us to Voyager that had the most incredible yet unrealized premise. The producers were told to play it safe and be more TNG like (light?), with little or no continuing plotlines. Voyager could have been BSG before BSG with the right approach. Why was the ship never damaged, why did they almost have no power issues, why did they outsmart the Borg every week in later years and I could go on. Playing it safe or just being weird (Looking at you Brannon Braga) in era where things were evolving towards more complex storytelling ruined the end of the Berman years. Yes, at the end we had Manny Coto (RIP) but the damage was done. What might have been especially with Enterprise.
DS9 Season 7 is awesome lol. I love Dumar rebellion arc.
Deep Space Nine was the peak of Star Trek. After they were cancelled the overall decline was pretty evident before long.
DS9 wasn't cancelled. It concluded.
Ugh..I'll never get YOU PEOPLE...Deep Truck Stop 9..lame.
@@projektkobra2247lol! Never thought of it as a truck stop before...
Never liked the Star Trek mall show but I like voyager,🤷♂️
@Peterski I say cancelled because we never got a movie. The story was continued in the books but a DS9 feature film on the big screen would have been NICE to see.
Yes!
I was there Dave, at the same time as you.
I'm an Aussie and I remember our world-wide Trek joy and fandom.
Yet there always existed a tad of complaining about Trek's direction, choices and quality always bubbling along in the background amongst fandom.
Headish days; God YES!! The internet was brand new and we Trekkies, from ALL AROUND the WORLD spoke to each other in real time, everyday about Star Trek.
We'd become, overnight, a mini intergalactic civilisation because of the Web!
"A Space Station instead of being on a Starship? Are they idiots?" we'd ask and argue! We're a fickle bunch, us Trekkies! Though, to be fair we never imagined how low Trek would fall. Under the Abram's / Kurtzman stewardship.
Minimally, Trek requires top notch creative writers, the likes found in nearly every other modern quality Science Fiction series made in current times.
Currently, no true imaginative, educated, well read, visionary writer or producer is in charge of any Trek.
Paramount f.f.s. get a real talented creative to take over the entire franchise and let them bring about a Star Trek renaissance.
Wake Up!!!
Your final Statement about all new Series speaks from my Heart!!
I love Insurrection for the character interactions ... a bit like why I also enjoy The Final Frontier - for the banter between old friends.
But why they thought a story like that could follow on from First Contact is a complete mystery ... FC was a big, epic, intense 'final' confrontation with TNG's biggest enemies ... then you jump to some plastic surgery and Picard getting horny.
It was an attempt to duplicate the Voyage Home with a lighter, humorous episode. They missed the point that The Voyage Home did not have an antagonist or enemy.
@@chrislutz416Voyage Home DID have an antagonist. It wasn't an antagonist like Khan or Dukat, but it was the driving force for the events of the movie.
I consider myself a huge Star Trek fan who checked out after Enterprise season 2 (although I did watch the 3 recent feature films). I really disliked how they ret-conned too many things and changed the lore in early Enterprise, which is why it's usually a mistake to make a prequel. I really appreciated the Berman era, because they did such an amazing job building the world, to the point where fans are able to create detailed CGI models of the insides of the ships. That's what I feel makes you a true fan, the creators made the world and fan knows the details of that world, and a mutual respect comes out of that. When you have new writers come along who don't care about cannon it really pisses me off. There can be exceptions, like the "Borg Queen": kind of ruined the brilliant concept of the unfeeling, unstoppable technological hive mind behind the Borg, but she was an interesting enough character to somewhat get a pass and was used well in Voyager. I was willing to give the "Kelvin timeline" a pass at first, but when they didn't do much with it I now see it as a lazy device to ignore the cannon.
I put kelvin above STD because at least they admitted being a new timeline. They flat out lied to us with STD
Agree. Two major dislikes of Kelvin Timeline: Destruction of Vulcan (not sure why but just bothered me. Also the comment about Vulcans being endangered race was silly, did they not settle on other planets?). Second is the Romulan Supernova story arc. I mean, you can see a Supernova coming Centuries or even Millenia before it happens. Neither ideas made sense to me. I did like the depiction of the original crew with the new actors.
@@volbound1700As said by another noted You Tuber: "Consume product" without thinking about it.
Being 51 yrs old and a long-time Trek watcher, I absolutely agree with you. I was hooked by TNG in high school and loved most of the movies in the 90s as well. Well stated.
Voyager was when it started to take a nose dive.
Brannon Braga has done some really good interviews on Inglorious Treksperts talking about the end of Voyager and going into Enterprise. There was a lot of network interference and the original premise was destroyed. Voyager was okay but you could tell the production team was running out of steam, and Voyager was actually good when it was not trying to be TNG Lite. I was one of those older fans at the time who hated the idea of Enterprise, I gave it a shot and bailed after season 1. I dipped back in to check out Season 3 and bailed on that too, it was so dumb. I hated the entire concept of the temporal war that ran through the show. Season 4 it seemed to get its legs. I went back a few years later and watched the series on blue-ray. It wasn't all awful, and the set was worth the price just for the documentary in the set that basically ties up the TNG Era of Star Trek. The TNG films were awful, it was just the degree of their awfulness. Since TNG was just coming off the series, their films had no hook like the TOS Films where we got to see the characters at a different time of their lives. The TNG films just felt like two part episodes and not even as good as the series when it was on fire between season 3-5. Nemesis is the only Trek film I never saw in a movie theater at the time of its release. NuTrek is crap, I tried STD, but bailed. SNW is just a clown show. The heart of Star Trek is actually on board The Orville these days. They know how to tell Star Trek stories. I wish the franchise was in the hands of people who cared about it and not just trying to syphon money off the legacy.
Problem with Voyager and ENT was that Braga was involved. There's another post here where the poster correctly stated that all the worst writers of TNG went to VOY to produce the show and write the stories. Jeri Taylor was on board too and she was the showrunner for a mediocre TNG season 7. None of the DS9 writers were hired by VOY show except the talented Ronald Moore who Braga fired.
The annoying thing about it is that this all began with The Wrath of Khan. The Motion Picture was probably the best movie for showing what Trek is all about, but they went too far with how cold and detached it was which resulted in the knee jerk reaction of making all subsequent movies more basic action adventures for the normies to enjoy. That was kinda understandable as they needed to entice normies to buy cinema tickets, but at least we always had the TV shows that were "proper" Trek (ethical, moral, deep, meaningful). Unfortunately when Kurtzman started his reign he went for that normie pleasig template to appeal to the widest possible demographic. Hence why we have mindless shit that is all about action/feelings, and is no different from any other sappy soap opera, just with spaceships and phasers.
i disagree. Search for Spock and Undiscovered Country are far better movies than Wrath of Khan.
Still not nearly as good as The Motion Picture. @@JezOnYT88
What's worse is that Kurtzman (as he stated) uses the Star Trek franchise as a platform for pushing the message.
@@JezOnYT88 Blasphemy! Wrath is still my favorite, but to each their own. After Wrath I rate Undiscovered Country as my number two followed by Search for Spock. The worst of the TOS movies was Final Frontier, or Voyage Home. I can't determine which one I found more irritating.
they also have STD people speak in a 21st century modern twitter (X) slangs and use profanity. Which by normal cannon the Star Trek universe doesn't really use other than maybe "damn". (This was explained between Kirk and Spock in Voyage Home where Spock inquires about the use of "colorful metaphors" in the 20th century)
The Battle in the Bassen Rift: USS Enterprise-E, assisted by two Valdore-type warbirds of the Romulan Star Empire, against the Reman warbird Scimitar, is still one of my most favorite Star Trek battles today. Its the main reason why i love rewatching ST: Nemesis.
It peaked at DS9, Voyager was beyond the peak but still a lot closer than the rest that followed.
I’ve watched First Contact again recently, and the signs of decline were already there.
Turning the Borg into Zombies as a creative decision wasn’t the best idea.
And in all the years since the end of DS9, where has there been a direct sequel to that, instead of TNG?
I agree with AncestirEmpireGaming in 1000% ... I am happy to see that someone see First Contact the same way i see it - is first sing of decline !
@@rpra6435 I’ve seen through the lies of the Nostalgia Council
Now it's just a coin flip if we get mediocrity or some atrocious gen Z/sjw stuff
I also agree with @AncestorEmpireGaming, First Contact was a good S-Trek and Voyager was indeed watchable (Seven of Nine "Giggetty Giggetty Goo") Everything after that- - - Meh! 🐀
@@rudysmith1552 welcome to the world of modern art.
You can meme a trash product and review it for some views.
Mediocre is worse, ironically.
I’ll use the little mermaid as an example. It’s just so mediocre that it sucks more than walking through the streets of Chicago without using Matrix cheat codes.