The Evil that is Brannon Braga
02.27.04

For those of you who aren’t Star Trek fans, this article won’t make a lot of sense. Fair warning. There was a time that those that hold the rights to the Star Trek franchise allowed creative suggestion to story lines. Those days are gone. Gene even used more than three writers during the original series back in the ‘60s and today we get to deal with creative hogs that will undoubtedly run the franchise into the ground. If we make it to 7 seasons in Star Trek: Enterprise, I’ll be greatly surprised. TOS ran for three seasons and I don’t think it was a lack of interest of the fans but of the network. When The Next Generation was released, it was publicly known, “Send us your ideas!” and ‘poof’ the success of TNG flourished. Hundreds of stories came out of the woodwork and spawned four more movies for us to cut school/work for on opening day. Since Nemesis and Enterprise, it all boils down to this: Good ideas, Bad planning.

Star Trek is a very tricky series to write for, I’ll give them that, but they MUST try. It’s their own fault for making Star Trek so detailed and attracting the fan base that they did. Sci-Fi fans that are hopeful for the future AND intelligent need continuity because they memorize as they go. Mistakes are made and we let them go a little bit more each time, but ever since Braga took over, he has thrown in little tid-bits to allow story line manipulation. We don’t appreciate it, Brannon. I personally am getting tired of the excuse, “Well, ever since First Contact…” Save it, and play towards your audience. We are the ones that keep the franchise on the air, we attend your promotional conventions, and we purchase your merchandise. DON’T slap us in the face. You were handed a monumental responsibility when it came to writing and producing Star Trek.

Brannon’s Temporal Cold War has left him with many avenues to explore. The trouble with the Xindi has been a great idea for a story line, but both subjects could have been resolved in 3-4 episodes at most. I think it was this week’s episode, Hatchery, which finally made me start wrapping on the keys here. It was a direct contradiction to the human nature and basic fundamentals that would soon give way to the Prime Directive. The episode was almost like it had been filmed and then had its ending replaced due to some argument that couldn’t be resolved over the writer’s debating table. The biggest problem is that Archer was on the right track with trying to save the hatchery, and for those fans who are still with me here; do any of you remember an episode called Yesterday’s Enterprise? The 1701-C and all of her crew were lost and in exchange averted many years of war with the Klingons. I see a very similar situation here and instead they fouled it up with a lame excuse that Archer was suffering from a neurotoxin. So, are we to believe that he really is that stubborn like Trip? Trip’s character is exactly what it needs to be. What’s Archer’s excuse? And how IN THE WORLD did T’Pol not see the big picture and claimed that what the captain was doing was illogical? Didn’t Spock once tell us, “Logic dictates, the needs of the many out way the needs of the few”? Hmmmm…..

Damn it, Brannon, get with the program, no pun intended.

AMMENDMENT 03.04.04 –
Last nights episode was definitely better, but only because sweeps are over. Like I was complaining about, the story line needs to either close or give us more and that’s what it did. Why did it take so many episodes to do that? Oh well, looking forward to the next new one anyway. I’m a slave to Starfleet and the 24th century.