J. Michael Straczynski On Star Trek

Starting tomorrow, the Sci-Fi Channel will be airing daily showings of the 'Babylon 5' television series, in a special widescreen version. In order to celebrate this event, SciFi.com recently organised a live chat with creator J. Michael Straczynski, in which he was also asked for his opinion on Star Trek. Take a look:

Moderator: Many, many people in the room seem to want to know what you think of Star Trek in its various guises?

J. Michael Straczynski: In its various GUISES? What, it's been seen wearing a trenchcoat and funny glasses? Okay...here's the skinny....

Original Star Trek: it doesn't get much better than that, folks.

Next Generation: A lot of good stuff balanced against the problem that they began to decide that what ST was...was technobabble and solving problems by inverting the phase warp generator...

DS9...they had a nice arc to the story...too bad it was ours....

Voyager: a good premise with lots of potential conflict softened and with all the corners knocked off. It could've been so much more....

Here's what it comes down to for me, in relation to ST: If I had a show in which I *knew* it would be renewed each season, that had a name going in that guaranteed an audience, that had a huge empire behind it, I'd take every opportunity to USE that venue to push stories to the wall, to do experimental stories, controversial stories, stories with teeth and claws and passion because in most situations. They say, "Oh, you can't risk that, you'll lose the audience." But the ST audience is a loyal one, and the Empire will make money off it regardless, so why not take it to the wall? If you have this terrific fast car, why keep it in the garage? To me, it's a catalog of missed opportunities. But that's just my subjective POV, your mileage may vary.

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