Internet Star Trek fandom and why it... Grinds My Gears!
By GabrielCKoerner

Thanks to Peter Griffin for the header.

So...

This is why I don't post on message boards much.

Look, Brannon Braga is a friend and has been nothing but gracious to my wife and I. Rick Berman on the few occasions I've met him has been polite and accomodating. On that basis I've nothing bad to say about the personal character of either of them.

Unlike many, many people here who have *never been within a thousand miles* of them who spend their spare time attacking their personal character as people.

I've seen people, and I quote, "wish they would be eaten by cancer."

Don't even get me started on the overabundance of actual human emotion that I've seen people like this 'Scorned' guy devote to bitching about incarnations of Star Trek and their producers. There's a hurricane tearing up the south and soldiers and civilians are dying in Iraq. One can pick something more pressing to be THAT angry about.

Professional criticism is one thing. Were I tasked with running the previous two Star Trek spinoffs, I would have made a fair amount of different choices than they did, out of preference. They are allowed their tastes too. There's work they did that I loved and work they did that wasn't my thing.

So you have a channel changer, an off button, and your original series, TNG, DS9, movie, or whatever incarnation's DVD's that you like. Its just that simple. They are *TV PRODUCERS*, not people who have caused you personal harm.

Part of this franchise's hiatus is because after 18 years in which 25 seasons of television and four feature films were made, an amazing achievment for ANYONE, it becomes harder to make fresh, compelling material. And I think since the latter 90's, despite a lot of creative people's best efforts, there became something of a formulaic vibe to the product being put out.

Films like Insurrection, which were written, designed, lit, and executed like a blown up television episode didn't help.

Again, I respect Brannon very much and I think he is very talented (he wrote some MARVELOUS TNG and some Voyager I like very much), but he once made a comment that he fears Enterprise may have strayed too far off the paradigm, too non 'traditional'.

I disagree, I feel there was not ENOUGH to distinguish Enterprise from its counterparts.

Were I only a casual sci-fi watcher, I would have turned my television set on to Enterprise to see and hear a television series written, designed, lit, scored, and cut nearly stylistically identical to its sibling shows. I would have no way of knowing it was a 'pre Kirk' low tech prequal. I am not as hard on Enterprise as many are, as I grew up with TNG and got used to the look, feel, and sound of Rick Berman-produced Star Trek. I just felt like a greater tonal change and less conservative approach would've helped. There's something to be said for brand identity, but given that Enterprise needed to prove Star Trek's viability, I think a viewer reaction of, "THIS is Star Trek?!" rather than "Oh, this is Star Trek..." would've had more positive impact.

That having been said, people like many of you are ONE of the contributing factors of why we no longer have new product from this franchise. The Internet began to rise in public recognition around 94, 95. A little bit following the end of TNG.

But the folk devoted so fiercely as to post on the internet about Star Trek were, and still are, a fringe minority compared to the rest of Star Trek fandom.

The mainstream media are lazy. The Internet gave them a way of gauging how the fans felt about current Star Trek whenever a piece had to be written, and the perpetually negative opinions of that fringe minority were the easiest source for mainstream entertainment journalists to look up.

So suddenly, the little fringe voice of fans griping about how much Star Trek "sucks" now becomes echoed in a big media loudspeaker to the public, who get their information in paragraphs and soundbites. The seed is now planted by the minority that Star Trek "sucks" and we have it as a stigma. Thanks, Internet fans!

My point of this entire diatribe is this... what Brannon Braga is trying to do here is address that many people didn't care for modern Star Trek's finale.

What people don't undersatand is they were backed into a corner. There was still that slim chance it could have been renewed for season 5, and it had to be written as a contingency well in advance of news of cancellation to make it to air on schedule. Wouldn't YOU be embarassed if you wrote a complete closure finale when suddenly you got picked up for a 5th season? Its a rough spot.

A similar situation happened to J. Michael Straczynski, oddly enough, between the 4th and 5th seasons of Babylon 5. When the 5th seasonw as on the bubble, another episode written that could "act" like a finale but not bring full closure incase they WERE picked up. And yes, I know the separately-filmed 'Sleeping in Light' is the difference between this story and theirs, but the point is that the episode that aired at the end of B5 season 4 was a "contingency finale".

He does not need to go out and address what people feel are flaws in his work. He did so anyway. He really tried to say, "We liked it, we wanted it to be great, many of you did not like it, we're sorry you feel that way." And nothing but hostility is levied to him about something that's not even real.

I'm not angry about a debate about a TV show. I'm angry because people are attacking the fundamental humanity of someone Allison and I have come to know as a good human being.

And jesus, I was in a damn *documentary* about this crap. With a mullet!!! Lighten up guys!!! :)