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June 25, 2006

The Cruelest Words

"Wagon Train's a really cool show, but have you ever noticed they don't really get anywhere? They just keep on wagon training."

Gordie Lachance, Stand By Me

There is doubtless a rather large debate over the cruelest words in the English language, but I think a leading contender has to be "What if…?" Today's case in point: the news that Joe Straczynski and Bryce Zabel pitched a new Star Trek to Paramount a few years back, but were rebuffed. The proposal is here (PDF), and it strikes me as pretty much pitch-perfect. Zabel has some comments about it on his blog.

In short, they pitched a reboot of the Star Trek universe: take Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the Enterprise, but throw out everything that has gone before and start over. I won't get too deep in the weeds, but it would be similar in concept to what has been done with Battlestar Galactica, taking the basics and then moving in a new direction. It would be controversial; many fans of the original Battlestar are not at all happy with the new direction, and there would be much dispute among Trek fans as well. But it would invigorate the series, and it would allow them to throw out a lot of the dreck that has accumulated in the 40 years Trek has been evolving to create a more streamlined and interesting universe.

I am particularly saddened that the concept didn't go forward because of the deep respect I have for Straczynski. Regular readers are aware of my belief that his first series, Babylon 5, was the best science fiction ever put on the air (TV or movies), and one of the better TV shows of all time as well. This success was no accident, and part of the respect I feel for Straczynski comes from having a chance to see Babylon 5 develop from behind the scenes.

Back in the early 1990s, my then-girlfriend and I had internet access via GEnie, the General Electric Network of Information Exchange. GEnie was nothing like the internet is today; it was insular and sharply limited by today's standards. Graphics were nonexistent, and communication occurred via bulletin boards. On one of those bulletin boards my girlfriend noticed that a guy named Straczynski was pitching an idea for a TV series. He was getting ready to make the pilot, and he was using a bulletin board as a sounding board for some of his ideas. As soon as the pilot aired, my girlfriend and hundreds of others offered constructive criticisms regarding what they thought was good and bad. The pilot was successful enough that Babylon 5 was picked up for a full season.

Straczynski didn't want a full season, though. He needed five, because he had written a complete story arc that, over the course of five seasons, would tell an epic tale unlike anything TV had ever seen before. He was told he was nuts. Nobody was going to wait five years to see the conclusion of this story. Besides, no network would guarantee a show five years. If it bombed, it would be gone. Straczynski didn't care, and he plunged ahead. I won't pretend that the people on the GEnie bulletin board were a huge factor in either the creation of Babylon 5 or in its success, but I suspect that having that core group of supporters was no small thing in the early going of the series. And, against all odds, Babylon 5 completed its five year mission, albeit having cut the major story arc short in four years due to concerns it would not get a fifth season. Straczynski's devotion to the story made it happen, and that kind of devotion dedicated to Star Trek would mean a degree of quality that Star Trek has often sadly lacked.

As much as I love the original Star Trek, my major complaint about it is summed up in the opening quote: Star Trek was purely episodic. I can't recall a single instance of a character referring to something that happened in a previous episode over the entire run of the series. Like many shows at the time (and some still today), each episode was self-contained and did not depend on the events that had gone before. That meant that, while the show could and did tell some great stories (I'll match 'City on the Edge of Forever' up against any dramatic work), there was nothing tying it together but the characters. While the characters were terrific, the lack of any larger plot took something away from the series. I don't think it's an accident that the best of the series was Deep Space Nine, which was wholly serial during the best parts of its run. Straczynski and Zabel's concept would have added that important missing element to the series while returning us to the characters we all know and love so well.

It is not to be. This would have been a massive upheaval in the Trek universe, and it would have generated harsh feelings that would have split the fan base for at least a time. So instead the franchise will lurch forward with whatever new plan the owners have for it, slowly deteriorating like a comet drawing too near the sun, until Paramount finally pulls the plug once and for all. I believe this concept could have breathed life into this moribund franchise, and I would have greatly enjoyed the chance to see what might have been.

Hat tip (who else?): Gary Farber.