RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Enterprise's New Direction

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The latest issue of Star Trek Monthly has an interview with Star Trek TV producer Rick Berman about the upcoming season of Enterprise. In it, Berman announces some of directions he and co-producer Brannon Braga are taking the flagging series.

"I think we're going to find ourselves in a whole new place when Season Three begins. And I think that we've set it up properly, with Archer having been given this remarkable and auspicious responsibility, Trip dealing with the death of his Sister and T'Pol having made a commitment to Archer. It's set up a very exciting new direction. And the Delphic Expanse is going to be a very strange and spooky place.

"We've got story changes, new design elements and new characters that we will be introducing, and new costumes that will be added to some of our new characters."

Berman's new direction consists mostly of more multi-episode story arcs and an attempt and creating crises and bonds between crew members. Will it work, or should Star Trek really be looking at the successful formulae that The Original Series and The Next Generation followed? Naturally, most fans have their own grocery list of gripes about the new show, but Berman says he's not too interested, shrugging off the possibility that the show's content is to blame.

"You don't produce a television show by having a committee of fans dictate what you do. You have to do what you think is best. If the ratings slip, if one film is more popular than another, there are a lot of possible reasons other than a reaction to the content..."

Berman also says that he and his staff are interviewing new writers, hoping to inject some fresh talent for the third season of Enterprise.

On the subject of Nemesis, Berman concedes that it has been a disappointment. No plans for a new Star Trek film have been discussed yet.

Excerpts from the interview can be read at Sci-Fi Pulse.
-- Paul Davidson

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On the subject of Nemesis, Berman concedes that it has been a disappointment. No plans for a new Star Trek film have been discussed yet.

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Originally posted by r3x29yz4a:
Hopefully multi-part story arcs and stronger character development will help the show get to DS9-level quality.

We must never have another Voyager

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Originally posted by Matter-eater Man:
I've been watching but there is just not much I can recap. They've encountered the Borg & there are the bad guys from the future popping up here & there. The storylines just are not memorable IMHO. The characters are likable though so if they just have them do something!

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TrekWeb has posted a report from a recent visit to the set of Enterprise which reveals some of the new directions the series will be taking in its third season. According to the site, new standing sets include a brig, a command center and an alien planet of mysterious origin. The site also hinted that prior to the set visit, scenes had been filmed using "black-suited actors who will later be replaced, whole or in part, by interactive computer-generated characters."

Stars Connor Trinner and Scott Bakula were on hand to film scenes for the second episode of the season, entitled Anomaly. The actors had reportedly been up late the night before "shooting a water sequence" in a small chamber on a stage referred to by the cast and crew as "Planet Hell." Other details included "cryptic mentions of floating props [which] suggest that promises of toying with the laws of physics may begin to come true in this second episode."

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Producers and cast of UPN's Enterprise revealed details to SCI FI Wire about the show's coming seachange as it enters its third season, including new cast members, evolution of key characters and a dramatic new story arc. The series' new direction was set in motion in last season's finale, when a new alien threat—the Xindi—revealed themselves, and Enterprise set off into the dangerous Delphic Expanse to confront them.

"What you see are guys that have spent the entire hiatus trying to position the show and new scripts and new ideas, and they're rethinking everything," star Scott Bakula (Capt. Archer) said in an interview at UPN's fall press preview. "I'm saying to them every day, 'Think out of the box.' ... And they're saying, 'Let's do this.' And everybody is doing that. They spent all of their energy creating this new place. And now they're peopling it. And we're discovering it."

Executive producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman and the cast revealed several key changes in interviews and during a press conference on July 22:

• The Enterprise crew will be joined by new characters, members of Military Assault Command Operations, or MACO. "They're kind of semi-recurring and will be used on certain away missions," Braga said. Those characters have yet to be cast.
• Archer will get a little darker, a bit more driven in his mission to stop the Xindi. "The idea of being the peaceful 'We-come-in-friendship' [guy], ... that guy is gone," Bakula said.
• T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) will no longer be under the control of the Vulcan High Command and will begin to explore emotions and humanity. She'll also get a new look: new hair, new costumes. "We've got color, and that's always exciting," Blalock said.
• Trip (Connor Trinneer) will grieve for his sister and struggle to balance a need for revenge with his sense of duty to Starfleet. Seeking help from T'Pol, he may find himself more intimately involved with her than ever before.
• The Temporal Cold War and the Suliban storyline will become an integral part of the Xindi arc later in the season, Berman said.

Enterprise returns to Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, starting Sept. 10.

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Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, the executive producers of UPN's Enterprise and de facto keepers of the Star Trek flame, found themselves on the defensive in a discussion with reporters about the franchise's health. Signs of trouble include the recent box-office failure of the 10th Star Trek movie, Nemesis; the declining ratings of Enterprise; and the recent lawsuit by game publisher Activision against Viacom, claiming that the company and Paramount have allowed the franchise to "stagnate." The future of Trek has been the subject of magazine stories in TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, among others.

So the two producers found themselves defending their work and the new direction Enterprise is slated to take as it begins its third season in the fall. "I don't think the franchise is in trouble," Berman told reporters at UPN's fall press preview in Hollywood. He added, "Viacom and Paramount have been very supportive of what we do, both in terms of the television shows that we produce and the movies that we produce."

As for Enterprise, which is taking a bold new direction, Leslie Moonves—chairman and chief executive of UPN's parent, CBS—denied to reporters that the company was close to a drastic change such as taking it off the air and coming back later with an entirely new Trek series. "I don't think we were close to it," he said. "Everything is talked about. And obviously, we looked at all permutations. And as [UPN president] Dawn [Ostroff] said, we looked at our research, we talked to the producers, we talked to the studio, and we felt this was the best plan."

For his part, Braga told reporters, "I don't think creatively we were doing anything wrong. It can be debated from many different angles whether there are problems with the show. There are many people that love the show. We're very proud of the show, but we did feel that after a couple of seasons, it was time to do something differently." So why did viewers bail last year? "Don't know," Braga said matter-of-factly. "Don't know."

Enterprise returns to Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, starting Sept. 10.

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Originally posted by T5:
Multiparters made DS9 the best series ever (in Star trek that is).
That formula gives us actual developing characters and permanent changes to the Star Trek universe.
I´m all for it.

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Originally posted by Animalman:
I saw this the other day, not sure what to think of it. Some people have too much time on their hands....

http://members.aol.com/darkhrzn91701/Crew/crew.htm

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