No Quality TV-writing anymore: are humans getting Stupider as time goes On?

[Navaros]

Lately I've been watching a lot of the only real Trek (with Kirk) and I've come to notice that the caliber or writing that went into almost each Episode of this show is infinitely better than anything to come from later decades. Back in the 50's and 60's, did they teach better writing classes in Universities or something? I find this discrepancy of quality to be mind-boggling.

Compare Trek with TNG. TNG is nothing but boring, contrived, style-less, repetitive nonsense with zero personality or compelling characters. I could literally predict almost ever word on any TNG Episode even before I ever saw that Episode once.

Picard's dialogue is always: "release my ship, we are not conquerors, we only want peace" and "i will defend my ship if need be". No matter what situation he is in, you can be utterly positive that most of the only lines he ever speaks will be derivatives of the above-two statements. Compare this to Kirk: as he is being held captive and the enemy has a stranglehold over the entire Enterprise, the captor says to Kirk: "you are no better than us, you are a barbarian!" Kirk's response is: "yes - that's right, i am; i intend to show you." On the other hand, all Picard, Data or any other TNG character would ever say in this situation is: "I do not wish to be held prisoner here, release me at once!"

Here you can see the vast contrast in quality between the two eras. No characters on TNG ever said anything even remotely interesting. In fact, the template that each character follows is so shallow and boring that I'm surprised any intelligent person would ever be interested in TNG at all. With the Real Trek, you never knew what was coming next. It had a compelling story, rich characterization, and tons of suspense. With TNG, you already know each word and action based before they occur based on the basic TNG "character template":

Picard: "We come in peace, let us communicate and reach a peaceful solution"

Worf: "Destroy them, Captain! "

Troi: "I sense strong feelings Captain, we are in danger, things are not what they seem"

etc. etc.

Not only do these templates make each TNG Episode duller than watching grass grow, but none of the words are ever spoken with the slighest tinge of style or personality. Everything is said at a grade 6-level of communication. To supplement this utter void of any entertainment value in the dialogue or presentation of the dialogue, the writers seemed to have the warped notion that injecting a lot of foul language into the show will help. ::)

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about this thread. The purpose of this thread is not simply to compare different versions of Star Trek. The purpose is to discuss why writing in the 1960's was infinitely better than anything we see now. The syndrome I have demonstrated above is not limited to these two shows, but rather it runs rampant throughout anything made in the different eras. Example: even the recent Children of Dune miniseries had writing equally-horrible with that of TNG and in the same way added large doses of foul language to "make up for it". Yet if that same series was written in the 60's, it would have had all the necessary components to make it great: dynamic writing, suspense, intrigue; everything I've stated above that the Real Trek had.

Another example of series that started out with quality writing and turned into sheer Horse Manure: Hercules: The Legendary Journies, and Xena. In the beginning, these series had the epic quality, they used unpredictable writing and strong characters to compel the viewer. Sadly, a few years in to each of these series, they degenerated into silly, asinine, boring schlock. The writers consciously choose to ruin a great show by adding babyish "sound effects", really disgusting and foul "jokes" (ie: on one Episode of Xena there is a joke about a virgin girl pleasing herself with giant cucumbers and in that same Episode there is another "joke" about a guy having sex with a sheep ::)). It seems that quality television has no place any more. Almost every show on TV these days has the same repugnant qualities of latter-day Herc and Xena.

More shocking, even some of the later Star Trek movies which feature the Kirk character have also fallen victim to this disease. Take the "whales" Trek movie for example: tho it had Kirk, it abandoned the brilliance of Trek in favor of becoming very foul language-laced drivel. The logical reason for why this occurred is because writing in the 60's had style, flare, and class and in more modern times such things are not welcome.

Note: I do not inherently object to foul language, I just make the point the modern writers somehow think that by injecting a terrible Script with lots of foul language and vulgarity, it will make the Script popular among viewers and gloss-over the fact that the Script is in fact dung.

The main question of this thread is: what do you think causes the backwardsness of the human condition on this matter? As you can see, man is actually DEgressing back into pre-historic times. The more time that passes, the worse all the things I've mentioned in this thread becomes. Do you think that the Professors in charge of training writers have somehow been taken over by a "Secret Cabal of Idiots"? Is man just getting vastly stupider by default as a result of all the unnatural chemical crap that is all over our air/in our food supply? Why is this happening, and will it ever end?

[Acriku]

I completely agree, and I think it is because of the societal shift to lessen the focus on creativity and originality and more on gaining a financial foundation. I think the fault also partly falls on the people that go to the movies or watch the television. They keep going to such mindless drivel and not really giving the producers incentive to make the movies better, or the television shows better.

There are some good things that come out lately, like Jurassic Park. But the inevitable follows, and the sequels of it are horrible.

[Vanguard3000]

I agree. You can actually see the Star Trek series' getting progressively worse then it's predecessor.

For example:

Rick Berman: Hmm... now that Roddenberry's dead, let's make a Star Trek that takes place before anyone enforced the "no sex with aliens" rule! I bet we could re-use the Seven of Nine catsuit, too!

Corporate RedShirt: But sir, why would an officer wear skin-tight clothes and high heels on duty?

Rick Berman: You're fired.

And thus, Enterprise was born.

Sadly though, this is what the people want. Hell, look at reality TV. Everybody seems to be compalining about it all the time, yet this garbage is always on the tube. Obviously, some of those people muct be Closet-Survivors or something.

I'm with you, Arohk. I look forward to the day when TV is once again interesting, and corporate crap-slinging leeches like Rick Berman are gone.

What I've noticed that's really bizarre is that it's always the low-budget shows that are the best, because they can't afford to rely on computer graphics. Instead, they have to portray a decent storyline. Cases in point:

-Star Trek: TOS

-The Irwin Allen shows (Lost in Space; Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; Time Tunnel)

-StarHunter (a good example of a newer low budget show)

[Andrew]

Writing is degrading, you could say the same for games are not coming up with original ideas..they have all been used.

As for tv, there is more sex appeal in shows as thats what "people" want, back in the 60's I beleive they were still in an era of dont show too much skin (well leaving that era)

TNG was good, and then the other shows fell quickly.

hehe

TOS - was unpredictable, except that kirk would always wind up with a woman that was an alien.

[Avrillian_Sard01]

Basically, most of the stuff I watch on Philippine local TV is utter BS... Sometimes they will also go to the extent that they abandon all sense of decency, morality and integrity just to get higher ratings...especially on certain shows...

And also, I think these S.O.B.'s deliberately make our (Philippine) TV shows utter crap so they can persuade people to buy their cable TV.

There is a monopoly on one of our local cable companies. Thats because the corporation/company (or whatever) owning a certain channel also owns the only cable company in the Philippines, w/ competitors absorbed by it...

Another thing (no offense to any Mexicians or Latin Americans in this forum...) I had enough of their friggin telenovelas...they create a huge glut on our TV screens. *Hurls*

[Terror]

Lalala, well i disagree. I prefer TNG over all other Star Trek series. I only havn't seen Enterprise yet.

[Avrillian_Sard01]

I was referring to TV shows in general... :P

[Terror]

Well, if we're talking about cartoon network, i agree.

God in the past we had all that cool stuff like dungeons and dragons supermutt and captain planet.... (euuh anyone?..) and now? Two stupid dogs, and a lot of other rubbish. The only ones i still find watchable are Dexters laboratory, Johnny Bravo (heheh) and I am weasel!

Don't get me wrong, i'm 19 years old and don't watch cartoons anymore, but when i go to the students room of a friend of mine, he watches that crap all the time :)

[Anathema]

I haven't watched many shows from the 60ties other then Star Trek, but TOS is sure as hell better then any of the new series. I haven't seen Enterprise yet, but from what I hear of it I'm not sure if I want to.

There appears to be a pattern for this sort of thing, we've also seen this with Star Wars. Initially there's a guy with a good idea and a shitty budget but who manages to throw down a good product anyway. Then swarms of idiots flock in who devote their lives to it, dress up in stupid costumes, completely oblivious to their own stupidity. Now that there are a lot of potential customers corporate leeches start releasing tons of merchandise and video games of wich 90 % of them completely suck, but nevertheless it keeps being made because there are always idiots who buy it. Then they release a million sequels (or prequels) unworthy of bearing the names of the original product, resulting in atrocities like Episode 1 and Voyager.

A more recent example of corporate rape of an initially good product are the prequels to Dune- I've just started reading Butlerian Jihad, and though it certainly doesn't compare to the lack of quality in Episode 1 or Voyager it doesn't appear to be a worthy addition to Dune so far.

[Cyborg]

Dexters laboratory, Johnny Bravo (heheh) and I am weasel!

Yep, those are the best. (I am weasel is the best one, though)

I also agree with you, Arohk

[nemafakei]

Wherever profit is the sole object, it is most likely that companies will cater for the lowest, most common denominator.