Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

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Yukaphile
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Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Yukaphile »

Nuff said.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

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Yukaphile wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:49 amNuff said.
I don't really pay attention to all those letter things at the start of the episode.
Power laces... alright.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Simplicius »

Alex Kurtzman, JJ Abrams and Bryan Fuller.

Nu Trek (yes, I know Fuller is not purely Nu trek) notwithstanding ...

Brannon Braga, hands down.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Yukaphile »

Well, yeah, Fuller never impressed me with his material, even on DS9, now I know what episodes came from him. As for Brannon Braga, I'd think Fuller's material is a lot weaker even than his, and I mean that sincerely. I'd also say Kenneth Biller given the sheer number of crap he pumped out. In the hierarchy, I'd say it goes like this: Brannon Braga > Bryan Fuller > Kenneth Biller.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Simplicius »

Bryan Fuller is someone whose writing I'd call anaemic more than anything else. Lisa Klink is similar but she has "Message In A Bottle". Neither has anything offensively bad (your mileage may vary for "Spirit Folk" - I literally can't remember a thing about it).

Kenneth Biller has some horrific garbage to his credit ("Elogium", "Twisted", "The Q and the Gray") but he's also got "Worst Case Scenario", which I don't think Fuller can top.

Brannon Braga has a long list of worthless crap; "Parallax", "Cathexis", "Non Sequitur", "Threshold", "11:59". I won't put "Scorpion" on that list, despite how much I hate it but "Distant Origin" is his only saving grace in my eyes and even that has his idiocy buried within. Add to that, the way he produced early Enterprise, especially considering that this is about weak continuity ... he was just terrible.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Yukaphile »

"Spirit Folk" is an illogical mess. Easily worse than "Worst Case Scenario," and it's a faulty premise anyway. They should not have a holodeck, period.

You hate "Scorpion?" :shock:
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Durandal_1707 »

Braga gave us Ode to Spot, the cellular peptide cake with mint frosting, the poker games, Vertiform City, the wonderful mashup of past and present that was All Good Things, and a shocking number of the most fun episodes from the TNG seasons he was on. It's not him. Yeah, he got burnt out later on, but let's see you continuously write on essentially the same show for 14 straight years, with a few movies tossed in, and not start flagging after a while.

Anyway, my vote is for the Weddle & Thompson duo. I know they did good work later on in BSG, but in Trek, it was almost always an argh every time their names showed up.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Yukaphile »

He also gave us "Parallels" and "Cause and Effect." Please ignore Voyager. He didn't have good writers to balance him out there, as I think your point made clear. Voyager is just... meh. Plus, he seemed to be the only guy willing to put up with Berman's excesses.

What did they write?
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Simplicius »

If you are burnt out and producing bad stories, you should leave. Braga didn't, in fact he took on more and more responsibility. I thought we were talking about weakness in continuity? Writing some of Star Trek's all time worst episodes and running a veritable continuity-breaking machine in Enterprise.

Weddle & Thompson are anaemic, like Fuller and Klink. Is anything they did egregiously bad? That's a genuine question because I can barely remember a lot of their episodes.
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Re: Which Trek creator (writer, producer, etc) do you think was weakest on continuity world-building?

Post by Yukaphile »

Well, remember, Rick Berman was the one pulling his strings more often than not. True, the argument he should have just left when he got tired is very valid, I don't deny that. But it's equally and in all likelihood more valid to level that at Rick Berman, who held Voyager and in some ways DS9 back, and who burnt out even worse, but still wanted to keep the franchise going out of ego and to make money, and yeah, Braga helped to break the continuity of Voyager. He was nothing new. He was a known quantity. Rick Berman could have brought in outside talent. He did not. He just pandered to audiences, like claiming Shinzon would rival Khan, lol. They just aped Khan to try and draw jaded viewers back. I've looked into the final era of Trek two decades ago, like when it was still new for SF Debris? And when you reach such a degree of audience backlash that they are signing PETITIONS demanding you step aside, that is bad. But Berman stuck to it. He's also homophobic. Garrett Wang flat-out said he's at the top of the list to head to hell. Braga would be worse with the sexual pandering, if anything. It's very demeaning to women, but he was definitely Berman's lackey at the end, until Season 3 of Enterprise, but it was too damned late.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
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