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JMS asks for help on a new Star Trek Show

W

wolfranger

Regular
Saw this at the ISN news site this morning www.isnnews.net

STAR TREK - POST FROM J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
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.
Click to expand...

Guess we are not done writing yet
 
I would rather see a new Babylon 5 series come to light than yet another Star Trek tale.This old horse has beaten to death.I 'm sorry JMS no help from this B5 fan.Trek needs a five year long break it has been on for what 20 years non stop people have had no time to "miss it"
 
I was over at jmsnews.com and found this



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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Thanks, Wolf and Shaal. Wow, weirdness in the middle of the night. :LOL:

As much as I'd love to see JMS take on Trek, I really am glad they are giving the series a rest. It really REALLY needs one.

Who is this "Bryce", anyway? :confused:
 
I love how JMS says negotiating a deal on a new series is "fairly straightforward" given his past track records in Television and all the drama that ensued....
 
I love how JMS says negotiating a deal on a new series is "fairly straightforward" given his past track records in Television and all the drama that ensued....
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It could be a Babylon 5 spin off or one of his previous pitches. If there is a customer, willing studio and the money available then the rest of the negotiations are about details.

Series rather than pilot, that is interesting.
 
I'm half temtped to write anyway. A JMS trek would rock.

It was good to see him acting on the spur of the moment and posting a message to fans like that, its obvious how much he cares about the property.
 
Hm, anyone think this might be JMS' way of letting us know that the "save the original cast campaign" is working? Kind of cruel to the Trek fans to do it in that way, but...

It's just odd that the B5 fans have just engaged in a campaign, and he is encouraging a new campaign from fans to get what they want
 
When I first read the posting, I did not look at it that way but now, possibly. The line about having plenty of work through 2007 in TV, Film and Comics I figured, meant that he was not totally unhapply about what was going on with TMOS and still involved.
 
I think it's cute that JMS only exempts TNG from his criticisms of modern Trek. I guess he doesn't have much love for DS9, hmm, I wonder why.
 
I'm half temtped to write anyway. A JMS trek would rock.
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It won't do any harm to write saying that you think a hiatus from Trek is fine by you, but that you would be extremely interested to see a Trek series run by JMS.
 
wrote a series bible/treatment for a return to the roots of Trek. To re-boot the Trek universe.
Click to expand...
Berman and Braga have cameo in first episode. Characters die horrible death in the first act.

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.)
Click to expand...
Let me quote slashdot.org on online polls:
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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And some of those who voted might have treated it as a joke option.
With that out of the way: Yes, I also think this is a message from JMS that fan letter writing campaigns work. Woohoo! :D
 
You didn't backread, did you L6? It seems he has recanted his call for letter writing. They are putting Trek on break for awhile.
 
You didn't backread, did you L6? It seems he has recanted his call for letter writing. They are putting Trek on break for awhile.
Click to expand...
Nope. This was on the Sci-Fi wire today. I suspect whoever posted it there didn't know (or didn't care) that JMS had already recanted.
 
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