Rick Berman Sucks: The Series

"There is something you don't know about me..."

Its something I don't bring up on first dates. Before you ask, no, I wasn't born a man. I am coming out of the closet after holding in my secret for almost fifteen years. I am a Star Trek: The Next Generation fanatic. I'm the type of fanatic who, addicted since age 10, has been to MORE than one Convention, owns a replica Phaser AND Tricorder, has signed cast photos, collector's cards, unofficial 'Nit-picker's guide', the official companion book to the series (with every episode I had seen neatly checked off in pencil marks), blueprint schematics for the bridge, knows more about the NCC-1701-D than she does about her own car, has a replica communicator pin made of titanium, collected the comic books, several books and books on tape, including a Conversational Klingon language tape, has literally all the episodes on DVD, and also is the proud owner of a porcelain commemorative gold-trimmed collector's plate featuring a painting of the ship and the cast, still in box, with certificate. Along the edges, etched in real gold are the words "To Boldy Go Where No One Has Gone Before..."

I think I made my point. However, until recently, all of these memories, memorabilia, and the life-shaping obsession with TNG were packed away in a big box in a closet of the spare bedroom. When my boyfriend came to visit me last month TNG came up in conversation so I got it out to share with him what had been a major part of my life at one time. It was like opening a treasure chest, but it also brought with it some horrible memories of disappointment, sorrow and rage. Almost 14 years have passed since the series came to an end, I forgot how to speak Klingon, and stopped fantasizing about marrying Wesley Crusher years ago, and I figured my wounds had healed sufficiently to re-open this cold case...

I just spent the last week or so going through and watching all seven seasons episode by episode. I can now say I have seen every episode ever made, pretty much all in succession, very few breaks to eat, sleep, work, have a life. Re-experiencing the series from start to finish brought me hours and hours of joy, but as I started getting into the later seasons, the same sense of having my fantasy world anally raped got dredged up. I thought maybe now that I was older and a bit more emotionally removed from the show, I might see what happened in a different light. But that just wasn't true.

Anyone who knows their Trek Trivia knows the ST universe emanated from the imagination of ex Vegas cop/ decorated WWII veteran Gene Roddenberry. Although I was never into the Original Star Trek, I always had respect for it as an ancestor to TNG, (which won 18 Emmy Awards including "Best Dramatic Series"). Roddenberry created a universe that I can only describe as a progressive's wet dream. Hunger, war, violence, poverty, and strife were a thing of the past, Earth had worked out its many problems, unified, and joined a galactic federation of other peaceful planets. Science, exploration, justice, equality and social progress were fundamental values in human civilization and the cultures that comprised the Federation. The original Star Trek and TNG focused on the voyages of the Federation flagship, the Enterprise. It is an epic story set on a scale so vast as to be comparable only to the limitlessness of the human imagination. It opened the psychic forum for debate on questions like how far can we go and how fast? What are we doing now in the present that could prevent us from reaching such an idealistic vision of the future? It addressed social issues like how we discriminate against one another based on race, gender, religion, sexual preference, usually embedded in plots about alien cultures who had yet to overcome these historical evils, meanwhile a set of evolving and revolving characters took the stage. Roddenberry wrote us a beautiful history of the next 300 + years. We should strive to write an equally triumphant one for ourselves. However, Roddenberry ultimately fell prey to his own dark side. Although he was responsible for the genesis of a world that took on a life of its own, he was reportedly guilty at times of self-aggrandizement, greed in the context of other people's intellectual and financial contributions in regard to the Trek Franchise, and allegedly pursued several extra-marital affairs. I would argue that his most damning personal flaw was his choice to appoint of Paramount's Rick Berman to the helm of the Star Trek universe rather than passing it on to his wife Majel Barret-Roddenberry, who responsibly and masterfully produced some of his other ideas such as the TV series Andromeda after her husband's demise. (MBR was also a guest star several times on TNG and the voice of the ship's computer.)


Instead, Gene Roddenberry tapped Berman to come in on the TNG project when it first began in 1987. When Gene died in 1991, suffering from mental and physical instability, he handed over the reigns of the entire empire to Berman, who, as the George W. Bush of Star Trek, bungled the whole thing up and ran it into the ground, infuriating fans worldwide. The first symptom of Bermanitis was when he turned the USS Enterprise into a warp-capable soap opera in space. The show's previous quality of thought-provoking scripts, dotted by moments that showcased the endearing personality facets of the crew aboard, were now recycled stories that weren't so great the first time. Often even these flimsy stories were eclipsed by the interpersonal dramas of characters that began to resemble less and less the people we had come to know and love. The final nail in the Star Trek TNG coffin for me, and many fans came in the form of the film Star Trek: Generations, which premiered 2 years after the (grossly disappointing) final episode of TNG aired.

That film was the final betrayal that caused me to pack up all my TNG 'stuff' in disgust and bury it in a closet for more than half my life to date along with all my memories and dreams of adventures in the stars. It hurt me, it hurt me bad. Trekking wasn't just a hobby for me. It was my salvation. When my stepmother's cruelty and abuse hit its height, Star Trek TNG came into my life. The Enterprise became my home where I was able to be myself, to grow, learn and imagine, where I was safe and loved, the characters became my family, and the premise presented me with hope for the future of humanity in a dark and cruel world where I felt helpless. Right around the time it went off the air, visitation was finally ended on the grounds of abuse, it had gotten me through some rough years, but I still had a long road of healing ahead of me. I had taken a "direct hit to my starboard hull" when the series was cancelled, and I had waited with great anticipation to see my beloved crew and the ship on the big screen. But when I did, I was horrified.

It was like the characters I had grown so close to had been possessed by evil alien entities, the plot was absurd, too. But worst of all, horror of horrors... they DESTROYED THE ENTERPRISE. Not only did they destroy it in the film, but they actually torched and blew up the set. It was symbolic of Berman's contempt for The Next Generation, his disregard of what the fans thought, and where he was ultimately taking the franchise. That set belonged in a museum! I would make a pilgrimage ANYWHERE to be able to go and stand on it today. That bridge was SACRED. When they showed footage of the set being put to its death in a special about the film... I cried. It was like they were burning down the holy temple of my imagination. He also cut out Wil Wheaton's scenes from the film, so Wesley Crusher did not reappear after his lame exit from the series in an episode titled "Journey's End" in which Crusher abruptly drops out of Star Fleet Academy to "explore other planes of existence". An analogous summary: The over-achieving-boy-wonder and anointed ambassador of the Geek community whose only dream was to join Star Fleet (just like the rest of us), after being disgraced at the Academy in a scandal that cost a classmate's life, starts shrooming, has an out-of body experience, drops out of school and becomes a big useless hippie. WhaAaaAaAa? Wesley Crusher was my role model and my idea of the perfect man. I so wanted to see him reach his dream of graduating from the academy. I wanted to see the boy who was raised by the finest crew in the fleet grow up and take command of his own ship. (Now THAT would have been a KICK ASS spin-off.)

Berman was also responsible for creating the spin-off Deep Space Nine, which I HATED even before I knew he was behind that stinker. If you loved TNG, you probably didn't go for DS9, because of a few factors:
1) DS9 was much darker. The political situation of the Federation and its citizens changed dramatically, presenting a universe of oppressors and victims, forever pursuing one another across time and space. Main characters were deeply flawed rather than being people you could truly love and respect. It also broke the rule set by Gene Roddenberry that Interpersonal conflicts between regular characters were forbidden. "This was at the suggestion of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s writers (many of whom also wrote for DS9) because they felt that the prohibition limited their ability to develop interesting stories." But that did not provide fans like me a safe place to get away from the real-life interpersonal and political conflicts that brought us turmoil, not to mention, I think the stories of TNG were interesting enough without it becoming an inter-galactic soap opera. And the bottom line is, Berman should not have allowed it. Which brings me to my next point:

2) It was a serial. I'm not ANTI-serial. I'm just anti Trek serials. If you want to watch a bunch of BS like that, TiVo The Young And The Restless or something.

3) Many of the characters were gimmicky pap. They were more like Disney cartoons. Highly stylized, relying more on elaborate character make-up than decent dialogue to create loyal fans who followed their trials and tribulations. The first one that comes to mind is the shady ferengi bar-tender Quark, BUT I have to give major props to Armin Shimmerman who in spite of the flimsy character premise added depth of dimension to Quark with his tremendous talent and acting chops. Still, Quark was the kind of Character you could imagine coming up to you at Paramount Studios trying to give the little kids a hug, like a man in a Donald Duck suit would at Disney world.

Okay, are you ready to see where I am going with this?

I propose a new Star Trek series. Rick Berman Sucks: The Continuing Saga

In the pilot ep. Q puts him on trial for crimes against humanity. After the cancellation of TNG, and the subsequent awful movies, a generation of Trekkies had nowhere to turn except to alcohol, drugs and promiscuous sex. A post-trek social apocalypse produces many babies who are really smart but suffer abysmal childhoods because their drunk, whoring, drug addicted parents are so scarred by what happened with Star Trek. These kids grow up and build a time machine. One faction sends an assassin back in time to stalk Berman and prevent him from taking over the franchise. Another faction of people whose parents were a little older when TNG was cancelled, retain a bit more of a moral compass, and send back someone to protect Berman from being murdered, while trying to convince Roddenberry not to leave Star Trek in Berman's hands, and hopefully affecting the time-space continuum as little as possible. This is a rip off of Terminator, obviously.

Ultimately Q sentences Berman to leap from episode to episode, putting right what once went wrong and hoping that the next leap will be the leap home... (Do I really have to clarify that last reference?)

I am accepting contributing writers. Pick up a pen and let justice be served!!!