Essay on the Deterioration of Star Trek

Essay on the Deterioration of Star Trek

A/N: I do not own Star Trek.  This is intended as a more academic piece than really a piece of fan-fiction.  As with all essays, I'm basically using the evidence available to prove my own opinion.  The full title, which will not fit in the title line is, "Essay On The Deterioration Of Star Trek Within The Science Fiction Genre"

 I want you, the reader, to understand something.  I am a Star Trek fan, and have been since I was nine years old.  A lot of the movers and shakers in the science fiction genre will give you a similar age for when they became Trek fans as well.  The difference is, for most of them it was the mid-seventies, for me it was the mid-nineties.  I'm only readily familiar with the first season of The Original Series, which many would argue was the show's best, and I don't have any real affection for it.  I'm truly one of the Next Generation of Trekkies.  But as much as I love Star Trek in its recent permutations, I understand why Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled after only four seasons.  Star Trek deteriorated and decayed as a franchise within the science fiction genre due to their unwillingness to change.

Let us begin at the beginning, or the second beginning anyway.  When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in syndication, nobody was shouting in jubilation.  Some Original Series fans were downright pissed.  They thought this bunch of strangers were trying to take the place of their beloved Kirk and Spock.  And, let's be honest, the first couple of seasons are just not that good.  Some episodes are even cringe-worthy, "The Naked Now" being the foremost example in my mind.

But then came Michael Piller, Next Generation's messiah in a University of North Carolina ball cap.  His first episode, "Evolution" is one of my favorite episodes of The Next Generation.  While it mostly focuses on one character, it's still a well-rounded ensemble piece.  He also had the task of reintegrating Gates McFadden back into the cast after a year-long absence, which he did seamlessly without ignoring it all together.  It was just good character work built on an old-fashioned science fiction premise.

The Great Bird of the Galaxy knew his time was short, and Gene Roddenberry chose Rick Berman as his successor to take over the, now extremely, successful Star Trek franchise.  Berman and Piller took The Next Generation to the next level and garnered an Emmy nomination in the process.  They also co-created the next two Star Trek series: Deep Space Nine and Voyager along with Jeri Taylor.

United Paramount Network would forever change the face of Star Trek.  Star Trek, including The Original Series, found its home in syndication, but this series would be the first, since the original's first run, to be shown on a network, and therefore be subject to the rigors of network production.  The producers would have to deal with the nework as well as the studio, and they would have to deal with sweeps weeks.  In later seasons, I could always tell when sweeps were coming up because that was the only time UPN would air four episodes without interruption.

Overall, Voyager was an excellent show whose popularity kept UPN alive longer than it would have been otherwise.  According to Imdb.com, Voyager was almost cancelled before the addition of Jeri Ryan in the fourth season.  Supposedly, her sex appeal upped the ratings.  Mostly, they only mildly exaggerated her sexiness while building up an interesting character.  One of her best episodes, "Survival Instinct" was written by DS9 scribe Ronald D. Moore.  There were, however, too many episodes where Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan's character, for those who don't know) single-handedly saved the ship.  This is either the result of a lack of creativity in the writer's room, or because Ryan was involved romantically with the show's executive producer, Brannon Braga.  I would also like to note that that relationship ended not long after the series finished production. 

Another problem with Voyager was the fact that they tended to make their characters 'one-trick ponies'; Harry couldn't find a decent girl, Chakotay was an American Indian, etc.  It's okay to have ongoing character traits, but they would often play these out to a nauseating extreme.  This particualar problem would follow Berman and Braga to Star Trek: Enterprise.

Sometimes, I just feel sorry for Enterprise.  They didn't get a very good set-up.  The series finale of Voyager, while exciting at times, just ended on a very anti-climactic note that left many fans, myself included, wanting.  And then the poor show had to premier in the shadow of 9/11.  The universe was conspiring against them.

The success of The Lord of the Rings, I believe, also contributed to Star Trek's downfall.  Science fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy, and fantasy, as a genre, stopped looking forward and started looking back.  Instead of a starship looking for a brighter future, it was elves and goblins bludgeoning each other with swords.  The lackluster response to Star Trek: Nemesis didn't help either.