Braga is heavily involved in The Orville and actually wrote Identity part 1. I would welcome his involvement on Star Trek: Picard.
Honestly, they aren't bad writers. They get a lot of grief because they were at the helm for an absolute ton of Star Trek. Basically, they lived long enough to see themselves become the villain.
Yes, a lot of their stuff was very much to the formula. But that was Trek, for a very long time, for better or worse.
Either way, I don't know that it's fair to blame the Worf status quo reset on them. They didn't write Nemesis, although I believe Berman was involved in breaking the story.
Hell, Nemesis, which was a terrible, terrible movie, was actually written by John Logan. A man who wrote both Gladiator (an Oscar winner), and the absolutely criminally underrated Penny Dreadful.
There's a lot more going on with poor choices like the Worf issue than any one person.
I'll politely disagree that VOY and ENT are 'crud'. They both had the problems of coming at the end of so much Trek that they began to recycle plot elements shamelessly as well as not fully utilizing the full scope of their premises: alone in the delta quadrant and first humans in deep space, respectively. ENT's 3rd and 4th seasons were fantastic, esp. the 4th when it lived up to its potential as setting the stage for the formation of the Federation. VOY only rarely felt alone and afraid in uncharted territory, esp. since they were usually the most advanced ship for hundreds of light years. Even so, VOY still delivered some exceptional episodes and character arcs. B&B, thankfully, had other hands that made their work better. Bless Manny Coto for what he did with ENT but it was too late to save the show and that era of Trek.
No Star Trek show has been 'crud'. Even STD shocked me with how good its 2nd season was, and I hope it continues to get better.
Originally Posted by The General, JLA #38
I didn’t watch Enterprise when it aired. The prequel setting, sexed-up detoxification rub-downs, and the theme song all weren’t what I wanted. I recently watched the whole series on Netflix and you’re right... it got so much better. The 4th season was some of the best Trek I’ve seen. What a shame it got cancelled just when, in my opinion, it was getting great. Oh, except for that final episode. Oof.
That said, I watched the first season of Discovery and that I do feel comfortable labeling as crud. I’ll watch season 2 and give it a chance on your recommendation when I resub to CBS’s streaming service for Picard - but it’s Discovery that has me actually worried about Picard. The trailer has alleviated those worries somewhat, but I’d be lying if I said they weren’t still there...
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Pretty much. Just when Enterprise was getting good, people had stopped watching. Of course, it started getting good because Paramount forced Berman to bring in new writing talent. Haven't seen Discovery and since Picard will seemingly be on yet another pay channel, probably won't see it either.
Power with Girl is better.
Yeah, I liked Enterprise pretty much straight through. DS9 is my favorite. Next Generation and 'classic' Trek I grew up with, and love, but they didn't all age well... And then there was Voyager, which was my least favorite. I'd rather rewatch the cartoon than rewatch Voyager, and that's not hyperbole!
So far I've liked Discovery just fine, although the pacing is a bit off for me. I often feel like I've missed an episode somewhere, and go back to find out that, nope, I've seen them all, it just comes off disjointed sometimes.
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It should be noted that while Braga is a writer, Berman's an administrator first and foremost. He'll occasionally get writer/content creator credit (as is common in Hollywood), but Berman was more of a pragmatist and all the things that come from it; in turn, with Braga taking on more leadership duties, he was stretched thin and overworked.
I'll second Braga's high quality of writing outside of Trek. But Berman ran Trek like a micromanager in business (rather than as a showrunner) and often came into conflict with the writers, directors, and the casts because of that adherence to uniformity. But this difference between Braga and Berman is also highlighted by their reaction to Trek after their runs -- Braga has been consistently vocal about both JJTrek and Discovery, whereas Berman's been pretty cold to it because it's not how he would've done it; a writer tends to be more open to other writers' ideas, so naturally Braga would want to see how this all turns out, whereas Berman as an administrator is used to creating and implementing the policies of the organization, and deviation from that is hard, often unwanted.
Braga did deliver some of Trek's most memorable episodes, no doubt. But Berman's reduced role in DS9 to focus on Voyager is not coincidental to DS9 being considered one of the risk takers and among the highest quality of Trek. Likewise, Enterprise Seasons 3 and 4 saw a rise in quality, but also Berman stepping back from the creative process in S3, and then hiring Manny Coto to run S4. Berman is a fine administrator and he has a great track record of hiring the right people for the job, but oftentimes he wouldn't trust those same people to do their jobs without his direct oversight.
Last edited by Cyke; 07-30-2019 at 10:59 AM.
Part of season 4 I think was also some slight damage control over the earlier season's continuity issues-such as explaining why the TOS Klingons had flat foreheads (although Discovery does show them with the ridges again) and also bringing the Vulcans more in line with their traditional portrayal in the other shows. Also cool to see the beginnings of the TOS-style Federation with the Andorians, Vulcans, and Tellarites as well.
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Some damage control, yes, but Season 4 understood what a prequel should be about and why a prequel should even be made in the first place. And even then, imo Season 4 hit a decent balance between fanwanking/nostalgia vs. actually using the source material to great effect, tying both together with good writing.
But Berman didn't understand that, and so TATV was all fanwanking without focusing on the writing, which makes it feel, above all else, exploitative and superficial. As if TATV learned all the wrong lessons from S4.