Trek Bigwigs Talk SF's Future

With the recent cancellation of several genre shows, including Firefly and Farscape, Star Trek producers have offered their thoughts on the future of science fiction.

"I've heard some people say they're more into fantasy now, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings," Enterprise executive producer Brannon Braga told Cinescape Magazine (via his official web site). "I think, when The Matrix sequels come out, they're gonna be the biggest movies of all time, and sci-fi will be back again."

Rick Berman, longtime overlord of the Trek franchise, agreed with his colleague. "I think, to some degree, there's a lot of fantasy now, whether it be Spider-Man or Lord of the Rings, or even films like Solaris," he said. "There are a lot of films that are dealing with fantasy, and it could be that we are in a period where that's taking on a little bit more importance than more traditional science fiction."

Former Star Trek: Deep Space Nine guiding light Ira Steven Behr, now executive producer of UPN's Twilight Zone revival, indicated the fantasy fad could just be a passing phase. "The Lord of the Rings' success will soon spawn a bunch of imitations on television. A lot of pilots at least, and fantasy will rear its head and maybe it will have its day in the sun. Again, that's OK, as long as we do give the viewer an alternative from the big three — cops, lawyers and medical shows.

"I still have faith in the [science fiction] genre," Behr added. "There's still an audience that wants to see it."

The full interview, which also contains comments from John Billingsley (Phlox), Scott Bakula (Jonathan Archer) and Linda Park (Hoshi Sato) on UPN and Enterprise's ratings troubles, can be found in the April issue of Cinescape Magazine. Alternatively, excerpts are available at BrannonBraga.com.

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