More On Shatner's Possible Return To Trek 481
Tycoon Guy writes "Is that the sound of desperation I hear? TrekToday is reporting that, according to a trailer shown at CBS Television City, William Shatner will be appearing on Star Trek: Enterprise for a two-episode guest stint - as James T. Kirk! The most likely writers of his episodes are Trek novelists Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who already resurrected Kirk in their books, and were just hired as story editors for Enterprise's fourth season." We reported a rumor to this effect a couple of months back.
When you can't write a decent story... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just sad.
Lame (Score:3, Insightful)
The lamest thing in Star Trek is the sloppy way they throw time travel in as a weak plot device to jam characters from the campy old 60s show into the modern ones. The TNG episodes with old timey characters: a 400 year old Bones, a Scotty who'd been stuck in a transporter beam for centuries, Spock - a vulcan who lives for centuries, shows up and even though physiologically he shouldnt be that much older, he looks like King Tut's corpse.
I guess it would be too much work to try and make Enterprise a genuinely interesting show. I'm sure the "James T Kirk appears on a very special Enterprise" promos will spike their ratings a point or two for the first half of the episode, then people tune out after realizing that the show just plain stinks.
Maybe Shatner will kill this crappy show. Perhaps Scott Bakula will mysteriously turn up floating face-down in a swimming pool.
Re:COMING SOON! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice, but (Score:3, Insightful)
"Mysteria... profunde... amor!"
I Think I'm Going to be Ill... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong; I think Shatner has entered his period of self-parody very gracefully (the latest Priceline commercials are really cute). But to re-enter the role of Kirk means playing it straight, and I just don't think he can pull that off anymore.
But more importantly, I think it shows just how creatively bankrupt Star Trek has gotten under Berman's watch. I lost interest in DS9 at about season two, watched perhaps half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and saw Enterprise's pilot, but that's about it. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but there's just no sense of wonder there anymore.
Schwab
Re:Uhm?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Wouldn't do that much for the franchise (Score:3, Insightful)
Kirk wasn't the best captain. Piccard was. As a matter of fact, the original show was good not because of Kirk, but because of the chemistry of the crew: Bones (what kind of nickname is that anyway?) was an alcoholic. You can see that from the way his eyes were always watery. Scotty was probably the only one in his family that finished college, and the rest of the crew was great too.
The next generation had horrible, boring and pollitically correct crewmates, and a kickass captain. (Q and borg were good too)
(You'd better believe that when Piccard would say "Fire at Will!" I'd be the first one to unload a clip into that John Tesh-liking bearded wimp.)
Voyager had 7of9, DS9 had a story, and Enterprise has hmm... not sure yet.
So in conclusion, I believe that it's the characters and their chemistry that makes the show, not any one individual or the wacky situations they're put in. A couple of shots of Kirk are too little, too late.
Re:When you can't write a decent story... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I Think I'm Going to be Ill... (Score:5, Insightful)
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But more importantly, I think it shows just how creatively bankrupt Star Trek has gotten under Berman's watch. I lost interest in DS9 at about season two, watched perhaps half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and saw Enterprise's pilot, but that's about it. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but there's just no sense of wonder there anymore.
I agree with you mostly but you might want to check out the 3rd season of Enterprise if you haven't. Having the main storyline continuing through the entire season really made a difference, and it was nice to see things like the ship getting damaged (heavily) and the damage not magically being repaired the next episode. As a matter of fact the ship looks like only the strutural integrity field is holding it together at the end. Things got pretty intense there at the end too. It was far and away the best episodes of the series so far. Maybe they're finally getting back on track a bit.As for the Shatner coming back as Kirk thing, I suspect it will be either 1.) He's not really goign to be Kirk but an ancestor as someone else suggested or 2.) We will get another glimpse of the future through Daniels and that's where Kirk will show up. He'll be in his proper time period so no continuity hijinx.
Re:I Think I'm Going to be Ill... (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen. I made it through Part I of the Enterprise pilot but couldn't stomache watching any more of it. To me the original series is canon. Period. Until Berman either A) realizes it or B) leaves the helm; the entire universe will continue to suffer.
The Star Trek universe was amazingly constructed by Roddenberry. It allowed for the exploration of countless topics through the lens of thousands of alien worlds. Rodenberry did more in three years with far smaller resources than Berman has managed to do with FOUR different series now! That's what's so frustrating. Watching a vast powerful creative universe be strangled by an obnoxious ego.
Re:COMING SOON! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly, this joke will probably make more sense and be more interesting that whatever the real writers come up with for the show...
Re:Here's the reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sounds cool to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Would be simpler to use a digitally produced Ki (Score:3, Insightful)
I went through this process myself with a few still images from Final Flight of the Osiris, and I realize that video is a completely different field that can't be directly compared to images in terms of realism, but it won't be too long before this situation is no longer entirely hypothetical.
Re:Straight up... (Score:5, Insightful)
But when I saw that Nazi alien in the season-ender, I had this feeling.... "Is that Captain Sam Beckett on a motorcycle? In the air? Is that a shark in a tank underneath him? Is he mutting 'Oh, boy'?"
I don't see how they can bring James T. Kirk back with anything resembling any sense. If they didn't jump the shark already, this likely will do it.
Would that there was some way to rewind back to the beginning of the series and start over from scratch, and add two absolute, inflexible, never-to-be-violated Commandments:
I: Thou Shalt Not Time Travel. Never. Ever. There is no such thing. It does not exist. It shall never be mentioned as a possibility.
II: Thou Shalt Not Ride The Transporter. Ideally, the transporter should not have been invented yet. Possibly, it exists as only a cargo-transport device, people are scared of it, and *no one* is willing to ride it. McCoy had an old-fashioned dislike of the transporter; maybe here we could see the fashionable thinking that became old in Kirk's time: The transporter destroys you utterly and makes a copy elsewhere. This is a Bad Thing.
Re:Lame--due to pretty-face episodic ensembles (Score:3, Insightful)
In a real navy (well, at least in the USN, surface ships), crew members rotate. In SOME billets, personnel might remain at a command (as specific ship or base, not referring to being "in command") for up to 3 years. Ship drivers (ship captains and officers near the level of captain) might be rotated afer 24-28 month, mainly due to "ticket-punching" and professional development, or for fleet requirements. Trek rarely took advantage of any of this, relying on the "deep space assignment" crutch. Transporter, time machines, and quantum slipstreams in speed advances could have eliminated this. (Yes, I can see the submarine/deep space analogy... But, on Earth, people can see you rotate/change commands.) And, no, rotating walk-ons to sit in a bridge chair for a few minutes of quick-pan, no-lens dwell time doesn't cut it.
Episodic series too heavily rely upon familiar, pretty, expensive faces. I guess pretty boys and pretty girls and their agents won't get rich on the usual sequel treadmill.
What Trek might need is a revival of Voyager. I wish Harry Kim WAS a captain, not just some shoe-in to an alternate timeline that **suggested** (End Game) he **could** be a captain. After all, Paramount could conveniently find Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Aeon to aerate Kim and have Endgame just as (scriptwise) conveniently succeed with the demise of the Borg...
And, probably ALL same-face ensemble-based shows could stand to freshen up their actors/actresses and yield to changing values a bit more frequently, rather than forcing upon gullible or swayed audiences a constant face or actor.
David Syes
Er:Hu ho... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sounds cool to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sigh. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
You can get away with comparing it with TOS (even comparing it favorably). but thats about it.
Re:Enterpise: Greatest Hits Vol II: Wrath of Berma (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember watching the first-run of the Best of Both Worlds episodes with my non-Trekkie roommates and even THEY couldn't wait for the cliff-hanger conclusion 3 months away! Now *THAT* was scary Borgness! We didn't know much about them and they could kick ass while being impervious to our pea shooters. How will Humanity survive them??!
Now we throw a few quantum torpedos at them, raise our multiphasic shields, and press on undeterred. Big deal. The mystery has been solved, no puttin the genie back into the bottle, even via timeline manipulation.
Maybe Shatner would look good as a Borg drone? Or could the costume department even come up with enough piping and leather to cover his fat ass?
Re:oh god please no (Score:2, Insightful)
Given some of the garbage they've had on Enterprise, a shirtless Shatner fighting a guy in a rubber suit would be an improvement.