Speaking of Voyager (which I was, if you read this in the order I posted it rather than the order it displays), one of the minds behind it made his return to TV tonight. I'm talking about Brannon Braga, who within the span of a single decade went from being the semi-revered writer who brought such great Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes as "Reunion," "Frame of Mind," "Timescape," and "All Good Things..."
...to the totally reviled writer who shaped the direction of Voyager and Enterprise, essentially steering the good ship Star Trek (as captained by Rick Berman) straight into an iceberg.
His new series is Threshold. It's sort of CSI meets The X-Files, in that a team of characters (whose personal lives I suspect will become increasingly unimportant and unreferenced as the show continues) bring their scientific specialties to bear on spooky alien problems.
The Star Trek connection extends to the cast, which includes Brent Spiner. Actually, I can't find much at fault with the acting in the pilot. Carla Gugino of the canceled Karen Sisco series leads an able troop, anchored by Charles S. Dutton in the "thankless leadership role" occupied on other shows by the likes of Assistant Director Skinner or General Hammond. They do fine.
It was the story that bugged me. I didn't find it very intriguing. I found it rather monotonous, really. By about the third appearance of the weird "sort of biohazard, sort of hurricane" symbol, I was sick of it. Unfortunately, I had to see it about 100 more times, each "shocking appearance" actually more predictable than the last.
They pulled the lame "reveal the scary monster/killer/threat by closing-a-door-it's-standing-behind/suddenly-panning-the-camera" gag no less than three times. This is the scare tactic of talentless Hollywood hacks. Anybody can make an audience jump with sudden loud sound effects and a cliche sting from the string section of the orchestra. Genuine creeps... that's where the real skill lies, and they were nowhere to be found in this 2-hour pilot.
I think I've already reached my threshold of Threshold. I should have known... it carries the name of the single worst episode of Star Trek (any of the five series) ever produced.
4 comments:
did the show have salamander babies? I was expecting a spin-off show... we never did find out what happened to those salamander babies.
-the mole
i kinda liked it. I do agree about the scare tactics. They should have done at least one full screen pass of him in a reflection or behind a window (like the pass of wahlberg at the beginning of The Sixth Sense).
The cheap scare tactics is what I hated about Supernatural. Can't directors and writers try something else? Do we need to sudden strings of evil?
Not to mention, it seems to share a major plot-point with Species and tries to pass it off as something new.
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