Battlestar Galactica Creator Praises The Best New Star Trek Show
We have nothing but the highest respect for Ronald D. Moore: he came into Star Trek: The Next Generation as a young writer who immediately improved the show, going on to write dozens of episodes (including the great series finale), two TNG feature films, and dozens more episodes of DS9. And after a very brief tenure writing for Voyager, he went on to create the Battlestar Galactica reboot, one of the best shows in sci-fi history. Due to his serious sci-fi bona fides, we were pleasantly surprised to discover him singling out Strange New Worlds as a show that could be episodic but still have major character arcs.
The Perfect Balance
In a recent interview, he admitted that “I’ve become very enamored of that show” because it’s “able to strike that balance that we were talking about back in the day where you could do episodic structure but still continue character storylines.”
This is exactly what made Deep Space Nine so great: it was possible to enjoy each episode as a distinct story unit, but every scene is heightened by your knowledge of pre-existing character storylines.
Episodic Storytelling
In order to understand why Ronald D. Moore loves Strange New Worlds so much, it’s important to know more about his time writing for Star Trek. When he began working for The Next Generation, a major rule in television was that stories generally needed to be contained inside a singe episode.
There was no such thing as streaming and any episode could be somebody’s first, so it was important to tell stories that didn’t require the audience to have much prior knowledge of earlier adventures with these characters.
Serialized Star Trek
However, after TNG wrapped its final season, Ronald D. Moore became a writer and producer on Deep Space Nine, a show that wasn’t about exploring strange new worlds. It was instead set on a space station, and that show’s two showrunners (first Michael Piller, then Ira Steven Behr) were big fans of telling serialized stories even though infamous producer Rick Berman hated it.
That’s one of the reasons that fans love to stream DS9—unlike other shows from the golden age of Trek (including Voyager, which Moore left after only two episodes), its serial storytelling really rewards binge-watching.
Balancing Old School And NuTrek
In Ronald D. Moore’s eyes (and, honestly, we have to agree), Strange New Worlds is a show that is having its replicated cake and eating it, too. Its individual and self-contained episodes feel like a welcome relief to old-school fans, especially those who are annoyed by NuTrek shows like Discovery and Picard that spend an entire season telling a single story.
At the same time, different character storylines (ranging from Number One’s previous genetic engineering to La’an’s traumatic experience with the Gorn) help deepen different adventures while allowing these characters to grow over time.
The Best Out There
Honestly, we already thought it was the best show in the current era of the franchise, but it’s reassuring to hear Ronald D. Moore single out Strange New Worlds for praise. He remains one of the best writers that this franchise ever had, and when he praises a Star Trek show, we listen.
Or put another way, what Moore says, well…so say we all.
Source: CinemaBlend
