JMS weighs in on Enterprise cancellation

I'm on a Babylon5 mailing list by J. Michael Strasynski (sp?) the Great Maker of Babylon 5. I got a message today where he weighs in on the cancellation of Enterprise:

I'm trying this via google to see if I can access the groups, since
I've been offline since AOL stopped carrying newsgroups.

I don't normally do this...in fact, I don't think I've ever done this
in any group before, because I've always kind of waited to make sure it
was worth doing, and that it would make a difference.

I'm sending this to both the B5 folks reading this and any Trek fans
looking on.

Bryce Zabel (recently the head of the Television Academy and
creator/executive producer of Dark Skies) and I share one thing in
common. We are both long-time Trek fans, from the earliest days, who
felt that the later iterations were not up to the standards set by the
original series. (I'm exempting TNG because that one worked nicely,
and was in many ways the truest to the original series because Gene was
still around to shepherd its creation and execution.)

Over time, Trek was treated like a porsche that's kept in the garage
all the time, for fear of scratching the finish. The stories were, for
the most part, safe, more about technology than what William Faulkner
described as "the human heart in conflict with itself." Yes, there
were always exceptions, but in general that trend became more and more
apparent with the passage of years. Which was why so often I came down
on the later stories, which I did openly, because I didn't feel they
lined up with what Trek was created to be. I don't apologize for it,
because that was what I felt as a fan of Trek. That's why I had Majel
appear on B5, to send a message: that I believe in what Gene created.

Because left to its own devices, allowed to go as far as it could,
telling the same kind of challenging stories Trek was always known for,
it could blow the doors off science fiction television. Think of it
for a moment, a series with a forty year solid name, guaranteed
markets...can you think of a better time when you take chances and can
tell daring, imaginative, challenging stories? Why play it safe?

When Enterprise went down, those involved shrugged and wrote it off to
"franchise fatigue," their phrase, not mine.

I don't believe that for a second. Neither does Bryce. There's a
tremendous hunger for Trek out there. It just has to be Trek done
*right*.

Last year, Bryce and I sat down and, on our own, out of a sheer love of
Trek as it was and should be, wrote a series bible/treatment for a
return to the roots of Trek. To re-boot the Trek universe.
Understand: writer/producers in TV just don't do that sort of thing on
their own, everybody always insists on doing it for vast sums of money.
We did it entirely on our own, setting aside other, paying deadlines
out of our passion for the series. We set out a full five-year arc.

But when it came time to bring it to Paramount, despite my track record
and Bryce's enormous and skillful record as a writer/producer, the
effort stalled out because of "political considerations," which was
explained to us as not wishing to offend the powers that be.

So on behalf of myself and Bryce, I'm taking the unusual step of going
right to the source...right to you guys, fueled in part by a number of
recent articles and polls, including one at www.scifi.com/scifiwire in
which nearly 18,000 fans voted their preference for a new Trek series,
and 48% of that figure called for a jms take on Trek. (The other
choices polled at about 18% or thereabouts.)

See, if somebody doesn't like a story, doesn't want to buy it, that's
all well and good, that's terrific, that's the way it's supposed to be.
But when "political considerations" are the basis...that just doesn't
parse.

So here's the deal, folks. If you want to see a new Trek series that's
true to Gene's original creation, helmed by myself and Bryce, with
challenging stories, contemporary themes, solid extrapolation, and the
infusion of some of our best and brightest SF prose writers, then you
need to let the folks at Paramount know that. If the 48% of the 18,000
folks who voted at scifi.com sent those sentiments to
Paramount...there'd be a new series in the works tomorrow.

I don't need the work, I have plenty of stuff on my plate through 2007
in TV, film and comics, so that's not an issue. But I'd set it all
aside for one shot at doing Trek right, and I know Bryce feels the
same.

If you want this to happen...it's up to the Trek and B5 fans to make it
so.

The rest I leave to the quiet turning of your considered conscience.

J. Michael Straczynski




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...but I loved it (Michael York as a delusional King Arthur). I'm guessing that Straczynski would do at least a decent job on Trek.

That said, his letter is long on promise, and short on details. What about "Gene's original creation," exactly, does he intend to resurrect and expand on? Philosophical questions? Cool. Human interest? Good, but Roddenberry compromised an awful lot on that element in favor of technobabble.

I hope Straczynski isn't just talking about another starship captained by a ham-fisted egomaniac on a five-year mission--but that could work for me, if he's serious about stories of the human heart. Enterprise gave us a lot of that, IMO. If he doesn't see that, it doesn't necessarily bode well for whatever he's promising.

He doesn't give much in the way of details on any project he's working on until contracts are signed. Could be because he feels Paramount ripped off his Babylon 5 idea and turned it into Deep Space Nine. I'm amazed he's willing to trust them again.

Since he also thinks most of the spin-offs weren't up to snuff. Everyone should realize that large fan base is diverse. We couldn't agree on a best, or worst series.

DS9 was very character driven.

I just saw this on SciFi Wire:

"Straczynski Ends Trek Campaign"



A day after calling for a letter-writing campaign by fans who wanted to see his version of Star Trek produced, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski posted a follow-up message to the same newsgroup retracting his statement. "Belay everything I just said," Straczynski wrote. "In the 24 hours between the time I composed the prior note, and sent it, and it made its way through the moderation software, two things happened."


www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=30399

Oh well. :shrug:

Here's what I just got on the B5 mail list:

Actually...belay everything I just said.

In the 24 hours between the time I composed the prior note, and sent
it, and it made its way through the moderation software, two things
happened:

1) I heard from a trusted source that Paramount is giving the Trek TV
world a rest for maybe one to two years, depending on circumstances, no
matter who would come along to run it. So it's not right to have folks
putting in time doing something that ultimately would be pointless, I
don't think that's a proper use of anybody's time.

2) At the same time as the above, an offer came in to run a new TV
series for fall of '06, and since there's no way anything Trek can
happen in the interim, I've said yes (now we have to negotiate the
deal, but that should be fairly straightforward).

So on two counts, the whole thing is kind of moot.

We can reconvene a year or two down the road to see where this takes
us, but in the interim...my apologies for waking everybody up in the
middle of the night.

As you were.

Thanks and with great chagrinedness --

jms




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End of B5JMS Digest, Vol 23, Issue 5

I'd love to get this kind of stuff in my e-mail.

http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/mailman/listinfo/b5jms

Go to the link and following the instructions. Don't expect a lot of traffic, tho. Used to be I'd get stuff daily (I get the digest version) especially when B5 was still airing but when JMS is busy on a show the posts tend to taper off for awhile.

but that said, I would be very interested in seeing what JMS and Bryce have in mind... As long as JMS lets other people write an episode or two (;-)), I think this could work. Time will tell....

JMS won't get a chance to do a Trek because he would have done an awesome job.

I'm a long time fan of Babylon 5 (I mean look at my handle) and I'll bet he could have done something incredible.

Having said that, I can't wait to see what else he has coming up. He's suppose to be doing a movie version of B5 soon. Hope that hasn't fallen by the wayside.

Have to wait and see.

:eyes: