11 July 2005

The Man who can save Star Trek -Part 2

So who could perhaps, return Star Trek to some of the glory days, the halcyon years of TNG and DS9? With Piller off doing The Dead Zone on USA Network along with Wildfire on ABC Family, he seems the least available. Plus, while Star Trek: Insurrection had some good ideas, the story never gelled into what one would expect a big screen adventure to be. Like Generations, Insurrection was a great two-part TV episode, but not an appropriate follow up to the action based, character growing Nemesis.
Ron Moore, who is credited for making the Klingons one of the most interesting races Star Trek has ever produced, is a great choice. He understands Michael Piller’s thought process on what makes a good story. But he too, is unavailable, as he has a huge success with the Sci Fi Channels reimaging of the 1970's series Battlestar Glactica. As a matter of fact, executives at Paramount should be watching this new BG to get ideas on how to revive Star Trek.
Perhaps, though, the best person for the job, one who’s ideals go with Piller and Moore is Ira Steven Behr. For if it was not with his leadership, DS9 never would’ve maintained its status as a worthy follow-up to TOS and TNG.
And like its sister show, DS9 had a wobbly first two seasons, but by the end of its first year -especially the final three shows - the series began see its darker, more bleaker version of the Federation come forward. Religion and politics would become its bread and butter, even while maintaining a quota of action shows. Also, Behr, like what Moore did with the Klingons, was able to take the Ferengi -who was touted in the early days of TNG as the new Big Bad - from silly, money loving, misogynous aliens to well-rounded, albeit still having cavemen mentality about women, species who could comment on the human condition (with one the best made by Quark in The Jem’Hadar).
But by far, what made DS9 the best -even surpassing TNG at times, was Behr’s ideals that they could bend some of Roddenberry’s ideals with out ever chucking them out completely. DS9's uniqueness -as ambassadors of Federation dogma on an alien built station, and out numbered by many non-humans - created the drama that sometimes escaped TNG. Then, with the introduction of the Dominion -an abrasive race who controlled the Gamma Quadrant where the Bajoran wornhole ended at - the series would loose much of its episodic roots and take up a story line that would thread its way through to the end.
Behr fought for most of this time with Berman, like never telling Rick fully that it would take 6 episodes of season six for Sisko and his crew to retake DS9 after the Dominion siege at the end of season five. DS9 took risks and enhanced the characters, giving them flaws and doubts. And ultimately, you would learn more about the recurring characters (which the series excelled at) and the villains (like Dukat and Weyoun) than even Captain Sisko.

If Paramount wants to revive the franchise, whether it be next year or 5, it seriously needs to look at Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller and Ronald D. Moore. These three writers along with René Echevarria, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Bryan Fuller and Hans Beimler were best Trek has ever seen. Give them the scope and the freedom to work a script worthy of the big screen, something that gives in both action and character development, and Trek could be reborn yet again.
Hail, Ira Steven Behr.

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