Did Producer Rick Berman Kill TV Star Trek?
Was "Enterprise" a Victim of Bad Writing?
What happened to the television series?
Despite hoopla surrounding the film, Star Trek began on television and is geared to a serialized format. When Gene Roddenberry created spin-off Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, it became a fan and critical favorite, spawning Deep Space Nine, Voyager and finally the black sheep of the family - Enterprise. When Enterprise premiered "Star Trek" was left out of the title. Sure, fans knew what it was, but Paramount felt a name absence would encourage new viewers. Maybe clipping it from the title was a dark portent for things to come.
I was fortunate to write episodes of Next Generation and Deep Space Nine as my first professional writing sales. Naturally I've kept watchful eye over its evolution - especially on producers. Ronald D. Moore, who wrote for Next Gen, DS9 and briefly for Voyager, did well by re-imagining the Glenn Larson space epic Battlestar Galactica. The late Michael Piller helmed, The Dead Zone on USA Network and Ira Steven Behr of DS9 produced The 4400, also on USA. These are dedicated writers who also produce; unfortunately to many there was a producer who sometimes toyed with writing: Executive Producer Rick Berman. Herein lies the reason why Enterprise may have faltered so badly.
Gene Roddenberry supposedly personally selected Rick Berman to assume running Star Trek after he retired. It's curious Roddenberry would approve someone with only documentary work to his credit. Berman had production experience, but creative screenwriting was certainly not on his resume.
Fans of Enterprise, I respect your taste, however it only ran four seasons, while three previous series each ran a successful seven years. Failure theories? Everything from network UPN's disliking it or that fans were saturated by Star Trek. All may be valid, however if you look closely at episode credits, a pattern emerges. Executive Producer Rick Berman, the man behind the scenes and rarely listed in writing credits of Next Gen, DS9 or Voyager is listed as writer on a vast majority of Enterprise scripts.
Here's a breakdown I found in my research:
Berman Penned Trek
TNG: 5 DS9: 3 VOY: 8 ENT: 38
One may blame much for Star Trek's fall on TV. You can point to shows being so ubiquitous they competed with each other. You may blame a saturated recycled feeling in terms of look, the sets, even space battles, etc. Maybe it's even the format - has space opera with noble human explorers seen its last day? Yes, you can blame many things, but my research points to an unalterable fact: Executive Producer Rick Berman wrote a huge number of Enterprise episodes - the show failed. He wrote few episodes of previous Star Trek shows - they succeeded.
You do the math.
Published by Will Stape
Will is an Emmy Award nominated screenwriter. He also writes extensively for magazines and the web. Will penned episodes for the TV shows, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" & "Deep Space Nine." In 2010... View profile
- If You like Star Trek, Your Stupid! This is about Star Trek's Difficult Beginnings
-
Worst Star Trek Ever: The Next Generation Episodes
We all like the best of the bunch. What about the worst? Sometimes it's fun to pick out the turkeys. Here are a few real gobblers from Star Trek.
- Dawn Brown Interview: Watchmen Costume Illustrator & Star Trek Film Set Designer "Watchmen" & "Star Trek" are two of the hottest films people are talking about in production right now. I interviewed Dawn Brown, a costume artist and set designer who worked on both movies.
-
Review of Star Trek: Vanguard - Summon the Thunder
This is a review for Summon the Thunder. This novel is the second in an original novel series from Pocket Books called Star Trek: Vanguard. This series takes place in the tim...
- Star Trek Casting That Almost Happened It's fun to learn what actors might have taken certain roles, but didn't. Here are some of the biggest Hollywood stars who were almost cast in Star Trek.
- Star Trek Movie is Really Just a Two-Hour Episode
- Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry was a Big Hippie
- The Ethics of Star Trek by Judy Barad
- Why Did Star Trek: Enterprise Fail?
- Star Trek Captains / James T. Kirk
- The Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas
- Star Trek to Return for the Eleventh Time
|
|
19 Comments
Post a CommentI think that why Enterprise failed was that story lines were over lengthened and then you have episodes 94 & 95 which tried to interface with the Original, which in my opinion, the Original series are on there own, because much more technical applications are avilable and to try an interface should not be done. Leave the Original on its own.
Rick Berman came on to me during an audition. The fact that I'm also a man should be taken into consideration
I think another show would be a good idea; for example- Captain Riker and the Titan / some kind of follow up on DS9 or Voyager or possibly the two together? How do you get in contact with the producers or who ever is in charge of getting a new show of the ground?
Rick was not a futurist or visionary, he was a mechanic who could produce TV shows. Whenever an unusually creative idea was put across his desk, he would shoot it down.
One of the visual effects creators tried to provide a move for the Enterprise that would show that space is all around us not just in a horizontal plane. He wanted the ship to tilt up and zoom off toward a star that was above the ship. Berman's response was: "No, it would confuse the audience".
Although Rick Berman didnt write many of TNG, DS9 of Voyager episodes, he was the executive producer for them. Enterpise was an excellent concept and I feel the series was good. The latest movie (2009) is to me a sell out on Star Trek. Instead of being Intelligently written, they sold the Star Trek brand out to a 'hey lets blow s**t up' image to entertain the monkeys.
Hey we love star trek in the UK however Enterprise was rough compared to production values of ds9 /voyager and tng, a poor relative. I think they failed to realise that every adventure they had on enterprise must have succeded or everything which happened after would have changed and they couldnt do that. Why not have a new ship with a transwarp drive , built to bodly go to new parts of the galaxy , new aliens and situations , how about the borg attacking the dominion? end possibilities. please make another show !
I think ENTERPRIZE was a good series. The only bad thing about is that rick killed off Tripp at the end of the series. I wonder if there will be another series coming out? If there is going to be, It should take place in the time zone after TNG. Oh yeah, I watch Enterprize everyday on the Sci-Fi channel. It's way kool!!!!!!
The problem with Rick is that he is a Dick!!!
Rick Berman personally ran Star Trek into the ground. All anyone has to do is WATCH an Enterprise episode.
Rick Berman rocks! He was responsible for the second half of TNG, which I loved. He was in charge of VOY and DS9, both of which expanded the Star Trek universe so greatly. I am thankful to him and appreciate everything he had done for the franchise. I never knew TOS, as I started with TNG and later VOY. These shows (and Nemesis)rock are classics!!! Rick Berman is awesome! Michael Piller lives on through VOY and Jery Taylor and Mr. Braga created the greatest shows. Thank you!