Former
Star Trek-writer and executive producer of
Voyager and then
Enterprise, Brannon Braga is kind of a lightning rod of controversy when it comes to his tenure on
Star Trek. Some say he did a good job, others firmly place the blame of the (apparent) failure of
Enterprise and the moth-balling of the
Trek franchise at his doorstep.
Braga came under a lot of fire for this series finale for Enterprise, "These Are The Voyages..." A lot of fans (this one included) felt the send off wasn't exactly all it could or should have been, esp. given that Enterprise had turned a corner in season four and was actually delivering on the promise and premise established in season one.
In a story on TrekToday, Braga made some comments about the final episode and the controversial decision to kill off Commander "Trip" Tucker. (A decision the books have since ret-conned and spun in a new and more interesting way).
Asked if he had any regrets, Braga replied, "I honestly have to say that creatively probably nothing" but admitted that he wasn't happy with "These Are the Voyages..." after it aired. "The final episode was very controversial," he observed. "What we were trying to do was send a valentine to all the Star Trek shows. Enterprise just happened to be the show on at the time...I don’t know if it fully delivered and it really pissed off the cast."
Braga said that he was not sorry that he killed off Trip Tucker, whom he claimed "was always my favorite character" on Enterprise. "I just wanted to kill him," he said. "We wanted to do something that had emotional impact and had consequences which is something we were never allowed to do." He believes that if Manny Coto had been a producer from the beginning, the show might have been better.
Interesting comments to hear from Braga now. If you watch
Trek and follow his evolution as a writer, he did have some good ideas in the beginning. He wrote a lot of episodes with Ron Moore, including the series finale of
Next Gen and the first two
Next Gen movies. He then went on to hack off Ron Moore when Moore went to work on
Voyager, leading to Moore's leaving the writing staff after writing only one episode.
And I think one thing that Braga did get right here--if
Enterprise had been run by Manny Coto from the beginning it would have been better. Coto came in and brought in some new energy and ideas to the show, as well as a genuine affection and respect for the history of the
Trek universe--esp. the original series.
An entire E
nterprise run run by Coto....I wonder how that might have gone...
Labels: Star Trek
posted by Michael Hickerson at 8/16/2007 10:03:00 AM |
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