An article at StarTrek.com takes a look at an imagined 8th season of The Next Generation.
We know you loved season eight of Star Trek: The Next Generation and have been waiting patiently for a detailed guide chronicling each and every episode of that memorable year. Wait. Before you bombard StarTrek.com and/or our Facebook page with comments, go with us on this. Imagine there had been a season eight. What would it have been like? Now imagine that there's a guide, and a satirical /mockumentary-style one at that. Put it all together and you've got Star Trek: The Next Generation - Warped, An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season, written by Mike McMahan and due out on March 3, 2015 as a Gallery Books trade paperback and eBook.
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Star Trek: The Next Generation Series 8
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(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Monday July 07 2014, @03:45AM
Oh, never mind, I'm not involved.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 1) by Preston on Monday July 07 2014, @03:47AM
I just wish we'd see more television and scifi where there isn't constant disaster.
I'd love a Star Trek episode here and there that takes place on earth and shows us the daily life of a paper pusher at starfleet, or a episode that follows the daily routine of a random crewman. Why do TV shows always have to focus on the Captains and brass during times of great triumph and tribulation rather than just the average guys doing average things? There were a few episodes here and there, but I'd love to have seen more. I always like TV episodes that are more first person and switch from person to person through the episode, showing the story as it progresses from unique perspectives. I just wish there wasn't always a story, instead only perspective of the new world the future has brought us.
I guess that's why I liked The Office so much.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday July 07 2014, @03:54AM
There's lots of that, which in the real world also happens to be amusing:
The First Duty [memory-alpha.org] and Measure of a Man, [memory-alpha.org] for starters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @04:42PM
Don't forget "Lower Decks"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday July 07 2014, @04:17AM
You know how Hollywood has a way of nearly always having a happy ending? That's a myth, actually. It's not that a story has to have a happy ending, it's that the story has to be worth your time. That, in and of itself, is the reason most endings are happy. If an ending is sad it has to work harder to make it worth your time. If I told you a story about how Jim Carrey with a chipped tooth and Jeff Daniels broke into a fireworks factory, then said that Jeff Daniels suddenly had a brain hemorrhage and died on the spot, you'd probably wonder why I even bothered mentioning the fireworks factory.
Okay I admit I didn't use a very good example. The point is that you don't want to watch a paper pusher push paper, you want to see the paper pusher fill out forms to requisition the forms he needs to requisition badly needed equipment. The problem is that in an open-ended format like a recurring television series, it's easy to run out of stories like that real fast. I stopped watching the Office 3 or 4 seasons in, when I came in on the last season Dwight... um... owned the building. Maybe that made sense in the context of the show, I don't know, but I'd say it clearly illustrates what I'm talking about. But a starship... not just any starship, but THE starship that when it comes to Earth all the other ships leave because they know trouble is coming (seriously... ever count how many times the Enterprise was the only ship in the quadrant??) , that's the one with the endless series of tales to tell.
Oh and there's another issue you may or may not be aware of. In fact you may hate me for telling you this because it's a spoiler for TV shows haven't even been made yet. Most actors who play main-characters are contracted to do the entire season. With few exceptions, if the actor's name is in the opening credits, he or she WILL survive UNLESS it's a season finale. Now that is all fine and well... but it also means that you won't run into too many episodes that drift too far away from the main characters. In fact you'll run into episodes where it's not entirely clear why they're there in the first place.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @06:30AM
I'll just add an anecdote from the Seinfeld DVD extras, where Jason Alexander ("George Costanza") admits that he was infuriated one time when his character didn't have much of a part in one episode. I'm not going to dig through my DVDs to find the interview, but he basically retells how he went to the powers-that-be and told them "You either use me in every show or I'm outta here."
My point being, ego may be another factor in the who-gets-more-screentime lottery the writers play. More time for George means less time for characters, roughly.
(Score: 1) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 07 2014, @04:25AM
It's not just TV shows, it's all of human history. Everything that a government does is credited to or blamed on the leader to ridiculous levels. The herd instinct magnifies this, makes leaders more powerful. It was true of Roman Emperors and it's still true of US Presidents. It's the same in fiction. Most stories have The Hero. We like the idea that a single person can have the power to change everything. If that person can't be you, it can be someone you identify with. Comic book heroes like Superman are ridiculous, and would never have been a hit if it didn't appeal to this desire most everyone has.
It would be nice to see a show break the mold on this leadership fixation. Star Trek seems a good candidate to try it. But they didn't. Went the opposite direction, with the whole military style hierarchy. Even airline pilots no longer operate that way, thanks to accidents caused by a captain under pressure, unable to heed or choosing to ignore information that turned out to be vital, and making a bad decision.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday July 07 2014, @12:15PM
No its not all of human history, google for "great man theory" like all liberal arts history is subject to occasional fads work great in some scenarios, then get horribly overextended to attempt to apply to everything and then they burn out.
I'd say the peak of great man theory was about two centuries ago, and the peak of talking about the great man theory was about 150 years ago. Its not cool anymore, or at least its not seen as the ultimate / only physics-style theory of everything for history.
The faddishness is you start with something that works pretty well with great man theory like Plutarchs "Lives" then start failing when you attempt to ram it into something like Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
As you'd expect in ye olden daze the phase angle between disciplines is pretty large. The historians were laughing and ridiculing the theory in the late 1800s by the time the continental philosophers first heard of it and decided it was brilliant. So, the peak of talking about great man theory outside of historians was probably only just a century ago.
Then as with all fads we've gone thru a couple oscillations of "its totally utterly useless and the inquisition should burn the books" as a low and some new highs "well maybe that was an awesome idea after all, lets drag this dead horse out and beat it some more"
This fits in with American mythology for political control of the population. You control the population by convincing the population they're selecting a great man by having those in charge select two guys who will do the same thing with different PR campaigns, and then whipping the population into a frenzy of thinking they have any choice in what happens to them by selecting from two PR campaigns, hopefully not noticing they'll both do the same things. A core part of this control scheme is convincing the population that the great man theory is the only way to look at the government. So it's kind of anti-american / un-patriotic to question the great man theory in public, which is why you don't see much of it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday July 08 2014, @01:12AM
Star Trek seems a good candidate to try it. But they didn't. Went the opposite direction, with the whole military style hierarchy.
Oh please. If you have a FTL starship visiting alien worlds on a weekly basis and encountering all kinds of unknown lifeforms and phenomenon, how the hell do you think a democratic style leadership system would work? "We're being hailed by the Klingons! They want us to surrender! What should we do?" "Let's have a meeting to discuss it."
Corporations don't have democratic leadership structures, they have a single guy at the top with executive power, because anything else won't work. Obviously he delegates a lot of power, just like our President does, but the final responsibility is with him.
Even airline pilots no longer operate that way
Citation needed, as I'm calling bullshit. The captain of an airplane has the final authority; you can't call a meeting and discuss things when you have seconds to react.
(Score: 1) by bzipitidoo on Saturday July 12 2014, @02:15AM
Here are your cites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockpit_Resource_Management [wikipedia.org]
Cockpit Resource Management or Crew Resource Management began with the crash of United Airlines flight 173 in 1978. A quote from this article, http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/10-airplane-crashes-that-changed-aviation#slide-2 [popularmechanics.com] :
'Abandoning the traditional "the captain is god" airline hierarchy, CRM emphasized teamwork and communication among the crew, and has since become the industry standard'
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday July 12 2014, @06:55PM
I don't see anything there that says the captain doesn't have final authority, as I said before. This is just a technique for better communicating things between crew members, bringing things to the captain's attention, and an attempt to change the thinking a bit (e.g., instead of "the captain is god and shall not be questioned", it's "here's how subordinates can communicate with him"). It doesn't make the cockpit a voting committee. This is nothing more than a sensible approach to dealing with organizations where there's a strong single leader, so that he'll listen to his subordinates more.
(Score: 1) by gznork26 on Monday July 07 2014, @05:10AM
I've used a similar approach to show the reader more of the complete arc of events in my short story series than any one character knows about. After all, why does a single individual have to be involved in everything that happens?
For example, the 7-part series I just finished (my blog is linked at my bio here) starts off with the focus on Alphon Quince, a guy who's just trying to find out the truth behind a claimed terrorist attack. But in each subsequent story in the series, the focus changes to another person. Sometimes Quince is a secondary character in the story, and sometimes he's only mentioned as background, because we're in the midst of an event cascade that he set in motion. I've even made a shout-out to Soylent News, as the essential news source it might turn into by the end of the century.
Yeah, yeah, I know. What's the difference between that and a story that jumps around among different characters? Well, since each of the parts of the series in a short story on its own, each one has its own protagonist.
Give it a read, you might like it.
Khipu were Turing complete.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 07 2014, @05:28AM
A significant portion of the audience wants to see big important stuff all the time and cares little for minutiae. If you want to keep them watching you show them battles and explosions.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday July 07 2014, @06:07AM
... and boobies. Don't forget boobies.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday July 07 2014, @11:08AM
... and the Spanish Inquisition: I know I never expect them....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @08:01AM
I believe Babylon 5 had an episode about this, sort of. There was constant disaster and fighting but you got to see it from the point of view of two maintenance "ordinary Joes". Some of the dialogue was a little hammy but otherwise it was a refreshing change to the show.
(Score: 1) by islisis on Monday July 07 2014, @08:40AM
If you watch anime Planetes is one SF series that imagines the everyday life
http://www.anime-planet.com/reviews/a361.html [anime-planet.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 07 2014, @12:04PM
"I'd love a Star Trek episode here and there that takes place on earth and shows us the daily life of a paper pusher at starfleet, or a episode that follows the daily routine of a random crewman."
If you're willing to travel off earth (and in the star fleet era, why not?) and can tolerate the occasional disaster, I think you'd like DS9.
Specifically in DS9 if you're not racist (LOL) and willing to tolerate nonhumans there is a certain Cardassian tailor who is interesting to watch, oh wait scratch that I'm not going to talk about spoilers but he turns out to be a bit more than a tailor. He arguably has some of the best one-liners in all of trek.
"I just wish there wasn't always a story, instead only perspective of the new world the future has brought us."
TV is of, by, and for extroverts, so only an ultra smooshy soft sci fi perspective is permissible on TV. You can get hard sci fi in some books.
"Autobiography of some star fleet dude" might make an interesting hard sci fi book.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 07 2014, @01:15PM
Because what you are describing is the Star trek equivalent of Seinfeld and I don't think the world is ready for an hour episode about nothing....IN SPAAAACE! Hell I'd argue they already did that....it was called ST:Voyager or as many of us called it "the good ship reset button". You bitch about all the action but at least something happened on TNG and DS9, with VOY no matter what happened the USS Status Quo would be right back to the same old same when it was all said and done, thus making the hour nothing but a time sink.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday July 07 2014, @01:35PM
It does seem like Star Trek can be a little too episodic. DS9 and Enterprise are probably the best with season long story arcs.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday July 08 2014, @01:07AM
No one wants to watch some boring show about paper pushers or random crewmen. There's no drama there. People watch TV for escapism and drama.
Star Trek (at least the ship-based shows) works because they're in outer space, going to new planets in every episode, meeting alien lifeforms, and other things in the unknown. Their whole mission is to seek out new life, it says so right in the opening sequence, and if you have a galaxy full of life (including, somehow, no shortage of "class M" planets that humans can breathe on) and a ship capable of traveling between star systems within a few days, it stands to reason there's going to be a lot of adventures and drama. Of course, you might think that it's a bit of a stretch that they encounter so much drama, but this is easily explained: they have multi-year missions, so the episodes are only showing you the incidents they deal with which have the most drama. Boring, routine missions where nothing dramatic happens simply aren't shown. Once in a while you'll catch this when watching Star Trek; they'll mention something a few episodes back, but say that this was something that happened a few months ago. They haven't bothered to show you all the routine and boring things that happened in between.
The main problem with Star Trek is that it's too optimistic. I still like it because I like to imagine our future looks like that. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that it doesn't. Our future really looks like either Blade Runner at best, or more likely Mad Max in The Road Warrior.
(Score: 1) by Lazarus on Monday July 07 2014, @01:50PM
I watched a few episodes of the surprisingly high-quality Star Trek Continues yesterday, which continues the original 5-year mission. Their Scotty is James Doohan's son, and their Kirk has a very Kirk look. One episode featured a green Lou Ferrigno as an Orion slaver, and another was set in the Mirror Mirror universe immediately following the events of the TOS episode. I've never seen a fan film look this professional.
(Score: 1) by len_harms on Monday July 07 2014, @07:06PM
Phase II was starting to get decent but apparently the web site is gone only youtube left. The first one was fairly ordinary fan fic. The last 3 though were like watching original episodes. They had quite a decent amount of the original actors and writers involved.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertMfromLI/videos [youtube.com]
Havent watch this one yet which is directed by Tim Russ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Of_Gods_and_Men [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Monday July 07 2014, @01:51PM
https://twitter.com/TNG_S8 [twitter.com]
(I mostly hope not.)
(Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Monday July 07 2014, @02:20PM
The article specifically links to that. I took one quick look and immediately moved on. If I wanted my beloved Trek lampooned, I'd do it myself thanks.
Yes, we all know that it eventually became the Geordi/Data show, and Yes, it's Trek, so many plots were repeated or just plain stupid - but hey it's our Trek, so please don't take the piss Mr @TNG_08.
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07 2014, @02:23PM
Maybe it's interesting to someone:
sci-fi fan here. stargate, star wars, star trek, babylon 5, seaquest, etc... all good. even anime!
from star trek i prefer "enterprise" to "tng". it is not a fair comparison, since
the former is "newer" (better CGI).
but still "TNG" is "alot of talk" and "enterprise" is more "down to earth"
and ... uhm ... ahhh realistic.
also "archer" is just a better starship captain actor then "picard" .. sry.
also there are no vulcans in "tng"? what's with that?