"Without TNG to pave the way, we probably never would have had B5 at all."
Actually...not true. In fact, TNG has *hindered*, not helped, the rise of new SF series.
Here's the biggest reason (and to be fair, this can't really be held as TNG's fault, it's just the Way of the World). The TV industry has had the belief, since the beginning, that the SF audience can only sustain one SF series, and that that is Star Trek. (Or two ST series.) The single biggest battle we fought from day one in trying to sell B5 was studio execs who said, "Look, there's already a science fiction show out there, the market can't handle more than one."
There's also the assumption on the part of many execs that there IS no market for SF series at all...there's a market for Star Trek, period. And look at the reality of it...in 7 years since TNG went on the air, how many successful first-run science fiction series have come out? They have all fallen by the wayside, the few that went out...and they ARE few, extremely few. If ST "paved the way," why did it take 7 years to do so?
And Paramount (a separate discussion from ST) has not exactly been helpful in terms of other SF series which it felt provided possible competition. They've done a *lot* to try and hinder things. Paramount's view of SF is, "Well, *WE* own space."
It took me literally seven years to get a B5 series on the air. I know many, MANY writer/producers who've tried to get other SF series on the air in syndication, and after years of failure against the ST juggernaut, finally gave up. So you'll excuse me just a tad if I take the idea of ST "paving the way" for anything *cum granus salus*.
jms<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>And as for my tastes, I find what I've seen of modern Trek to be mostly either godawful crap or unbearbly boring. Old Trek, I've only seen the movies (minus number 5), and thought they were pretty nice, and would definetivley watch the show if it aired where I live.
(And you might want to do some reading up on Roddenberry. From what I've heard on various forums, he was not a very nice person and prone to grab credit for others work. There were a whole bunch of people responsible for TOS being what it was, like Samuel A. Peeples who wrote the script that sold the show and gave Trek it's well known catchphrase, and ignoring them is just as disrespectfull as you were accusing me of being.)