February 15, 2005 - Fans of both Star Trek and Babylon 5 almost launched themselves on yet another mission targeted at a studio, thanks to television creator J. Michael Straczynski.  Responding to the results of a recent scifi.com poll that had 48% of those responding preferring a JMS-led Trek series over a hiatus or a continuation of Enterprise, Straczynski posted a message on the Babylon 5 newsgroup that he was willing to take over the franchise.  In the interest of full disclosure, here's the full original post:

I don't normally do this...in fact, I don't think I've ever done this in any group before, because I've always kind of waited to make sure it was worth doing, and that it would make a difference.

I'm sending this to both the B5 folks reading this and any Trek fans looking on.

Bryce Zabel (recently the head of the Television Academy and creator/executive producer of Dark Skies) and I share one thing in common. We are both long-time Trek fans, from the earliest days, who felt that the later iterations were not up to the standards set by the original series. (I'm exempting TNG because that one worked nicely, and was in many ways the truest to the original series because Gene was still around to shepherd its creation and execution.)

Over time, Trek was treated like a Porsche that's kept in the garage all the time, for fear of scratching the finish. The stories were, for the most part, safe, more about technology than what William Faulkner described as "the human heart in conflict with itself." Yes, there were always exceptions, but in general that trend became more and more apparent with the passage of years. Which was why so often I came down on the later stories, which I did openly, because I didn't feel they lined up with what Trek was created to be. I don't apologize for it, because that was what I felt as a fan of Trek. That's why I had Majel [Barett-Roddenberry] appear on B5, to send a message: that I believe in what Gene created.

Because left to its own devices, allowed to go as far as it could, telling the same kind of challenging stories Trek was always known for, it could blow the doors off science fiction television. Think of it for a moment, a series with a forty year solid name, guaranteed markets...can you think of a better time when you take chances and can tell daring, imaginative, challenging stories? Why play it safe?

When Enterprise went down, those involved shrugged and wrote it off to "franchise fatigue," their phrase, not mine.

I don't believe that for a second. Neither does Bryce. There's a tremendous hunger for Trek out there. It just has to be Trek done *right*.

Last year, Bryce and I sat down and, on our own, out of a sheer love of Trek as it was and should be, wrote a series bible/treatment for a return to the roots of Trek. To re-boot the Trek universe.  Understand: writer/producers in TV just don't do that sort of thing on their own, everybody always insists on doing it for vast sums of money. We did it entirely on our own, setting aside other, paying deadlines out of our passion for the series. We set out a full five-year arc.

But when it came time to bring it to Paramount, despite my track record and Bryce's enormous and skillful record as a writer/producer, the effort stalled out because of "political considerations," which was explained to us as not wishing to offend the powers that be.

So on behalf of myself and Bryce, I'm taking the unusual step of going right to the source...right to you guys, fueled in part by a number of recent articles and polls, including one at www.scifi.com/scifiwire in which nearly 18,000 fans voted their preference for a new Trek series, and 48% of that figure called for a JMS take on Trek. (The other choices polled at about 18% or thereabouts.)

See, if somebody doesn't like a story, doesn't want to buy it, that's all well and good, that's terrific, that's the way it's supposed to be. But when "political considerations" are the basis...that just doesn't parse.

So here's the deal, folks. If you want to see a new Trek series that's true to Gene's original creation, helmed by myself and Bryce, with challenging stories, contemporary themes, solid extrapolation, and the infusion of some of our best and brightest SF prose writers, then you need to let the folks at Paramount know that. If the 48% of the 18,000 folks who voted at scifi.com sent those sentiments to Paramount...there'd be a new series in the works tomorrow.

I don't need the work, I have plenty of stuff on my plate through 2007 in TV, film and comics, so that's not an issue. But I'd set it all aside for one shot at doing Trek right, and I know Bryce feels the same.

If you want this to happen...it's up to the Trek and B5 fans to make it so.

The rest I leave to the quiet turning of your considered conscience.

J. Michael Straczynski

Uhmmmm....okay.  Now back to a little planet I like to call Earth.  God knows that I love Babylon 5 and admire a great number of JMS's achievements as much as or more than most people but some of Joe's statements just seem a little off center.  First of all, to exempt Star Trek: the Next Generation from the list of Trek series gone wrong just because "Gene was around to shepherd its creation" is an uncharacteristically naive statement from someone that's been around the television business as long as JMS.  Star Trek: the Next Generation was an incredibly flawed show that survived because of an exceptionally strong cast that people wanted come back to week after week.  The only similarities it had to the original Star Trek was part of the title and the name of the ship. 

If the original Trek was a product of social changes and turmoil of the late 1960's then ST:TNG was definitely a product of the Ronald Reagan / George Bush terms as President.  It was the kinder, gentler Star Trek with all of the edges filed down to nice, soft curves that wouldn't risk cutting anyone.  Every Trek series since the original has had some good science fiction stories along the way, the law of averages would dictate that over seven years of a series you're bound to hit one out of the park every now and then but none of the series, TNG included, could really say they were holding up their end of the deal as far as being true to the original concept was concerned.  Roddenberry's involvement with the day to day production was minimal at best, a figurehead that Paramount could use to help promote the series.  As one friend who worked on the series told me at the time, "Gene would pop in from time to time to screw up everything we were working on then leave again for a few months."  

In all fairness, Roddenberry had been in failing health prior to the startup of TNG and a lot of the ideas used during the first season came from work that Roddenberry had done for the failed Star Trek II series Paramount had hoped to use to launch a fourth television network in the 1970's.  Paramount would later use the same strategy when the studio launched UPN (United Paramount Network) with the two hour premiere of Star Trek: Voyager.  A look back at the writer's guide and the scripts actually written for that series show's the direction Roddenberry wanted to take.  The original series was as much a collaborative effort as it was an original creation of Gene Roddenberry.  No, from the time he walked through the front door, the man running the show was Rick Berman.

Berman has never been interested in producing a Star Trek series.  As he would tell people working on the series, their only job was to make sure they could get the audience to stick around for the next commercial break.  Sure, that's the job of any television series but the original Trek managed it in such a way that you would not only sit through the ads, you couldn't wait until next week's episode.  Until the last four seasons or so of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there wasn't a Trek series that could make that boast.  And there has yet to be another one, partially because the target market has changed.  The original Trek was unique; the later incarnations have had to try to not only live up to the original but to every other SF series since. 

Which brings us to the author of the above usenet post, J. Michael Straczynski.  Straczynski's Babylon 5 was one of the most original and groundbreaking television series since the original Trek and he deserves every accolade he's been given for his work on that series.  His work adapting to post-apocalypse comic, Jeremiah was some very entertaining television.  But the post trying to whip the Babylon 5 and Star Trek fans up to stage a campaign against the studio to somehow install himself as the new benign dictator of the Trek franchise smacks not only of arrogance but seems to indicate an even larger problem, that of a leader of a cult of personality. 

Considering the talent involved, I have no doubt that Straczynski and Zabel's Trek pitch would be some entertaining television.  Considering the combined disasters of Crusade and Legend of the Rangers, JMS would be better off getting Zabel's help fixing the Babylon 5 universe before trying to put their stamp on someone else's franchise.

Unlike almost any other genre, science fiction television and movies seem to breed this kind of cult-like admiration for talent.  Like Gene Roddenberry, Straczynski has his share of blind followers that will praise his every success and excuse his every failure.  Having an audience like that surrounding you is kind of like Elvis being surrounded by his Memphis Mafia; no one is going to tell him no, constantly praise his every idea and he'll honestly believe that he has the ability launch the kind of campaign that would get a major studio to consider putting him in charge of the most successful television franchise in history.  Considering the problem with the person currently in charge, it would be just this side of insanity to hire someone like Straczynski after a campaign like this.  At that point it wouldn't matter if JMS and Zabel had come up with most incredible take on the Trek franchise since Roddenberry shot The Cage, that kind of baggage and headache you just don't need.

Worse yet, once he started getting the faithful ready to drink the special kool-aide and get to work sending everything from emails to virgin sacrifices, he decided to call the whole thing off.  Around 12 hours later, JMS posted a second message to tell the troops to stand down:

Actually...belay everything I just said.

In the 24 hours between the time I composed the prior note, and sent it, and it made its way through the moderation software, two things happened:

1) I heard from a trusted source that Paramount is giving the Trek TV world a rest for maybe one to two years, depending on circumstances, no matter who would come along to run it. So it's not right to have folks putting in time doing something that ultimately would be pointless, I don't think that's a proper use of anybody's time.

2) At the same time as the above, an offer came in to run a new TV series for fall of '06, and since there's no way anything Trek can happen in the interim, I've said yes (now we have to negotiate the deal, but that should be fairly straightforward).

So on two counts, the whole thing is kind of moot.

We can reconvene a year or two down the road to see where this takes us, but in the interim...my apologies for waking everybody up in the middle of the night.

As you were.

Thanks and with great chagrinedness --

JMS

Oh, man..... and we already drank the kool-aid........  On the bright side, there should be several pairs of lightly worn sneakers available by this time tomorrow.