Are you telling us that the butterflies have killed off "The Wrath of Khan" but spared "Men Without Hats"?! Oh, the humanity!!!
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Are you telling us that the butterflies have killed off "The Wrath of Khan" but spared "Men Without Hats"?! Oh, the humanity!!!
The refrain "Everything's under control" might seem a bit hubristic too. To be fair TTL's NASA has reason for confidence and optimism! Still...
To be fair I only ever saw the MTV video for Safety Dance just once. As with most pop music from the era I know the Weird Al parody ("Brady Bunch") a lot better.
Most such tunes, I first heard that way. I honestly don't remember if listening to "Brady Bunch" on Weird Al in 3D happened before seeing the video; if I saw the vid first it would be unusual for me.
To be fair I only ever saw the MTV video for Safety Dance just once. As with most pop music from the era I know the Weird Al parody ("Brady Bunch") a lot better.
Most such tunes, I first heard that way.
I honestly don't remember if listening to "Brady Bunch" on Weird Al in 3D happened before seeing the video; if I saw the vid first it would be unusual for me.Well, folks, I have an announcement. As you may have noticed, it's a Friday, but it's not that time again, because I don't have a post for Eyes for you this week. Instead, all I can offer are my apologies...
...for the time it'll take you to get through the nearly 14,000 word guest post that's incoming from the Brainbin, author of the Turtledove-nominated That Wacky Redhead, at the usual time this week. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed working on it--there's a lot there!
...for the time it'll take you to get through the nearly 14,000 word guest post that's incoming from the Brainbin, author of the Turtledove-nominated That Wacky Redhead, at the usual time this week. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed working on it--there's a lot there!
Brainbin? He is going to write the Cultural/TV snippets for this TL, correct?
Part III, Interlude #3: The Quiet Years
Salutations, everyone! I am the Brainbin, and I come to you today with yet another interlude, exploring the popular culture in the world (and beyond!) of Eyes Turned Skywards, this time in those disaffected, cynical, post-modern, ennui-laden years known as the Nineties. I’ve been graciously invited by e of pi and Workable Goblin to continue picking up on some of the plot strands I began weaving in my two previous posts, though I warn you now that this update is just about half again as long as those two combined, and easily the longest thing I’ve ever written for a single posting. Given its length and complexity, I could not have written this largely by myself as I did the two previous posts, and fortunately I didn’t have to - Google Drive is a wonderful tool. Many thanks to e of pi, Workable Goblin, and nixonshead for their very active input. Also, you may note that several plot threads are left hanging; many of these will be picked up in the second guest post I will be writing for Part III. So, without further delay, allow me to present…
Eyes Turned Skyward, Interlude #3: The Quiet Years
The Cold War was finally over, and in a way that no one who had lived through it could possibly have expected: instead of going hot, and very probably nuclear, as everyone had feared, it had ended in a gentle thaw, as the Second World collapsed in upon itself like a house of cards. The Autumn of Nations in 1989, which had resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany, was not put down by the Soviet Union as Hungary had been in 1956, nor as Czechoslovakia was in 1968. The era of two superpowers and opposing blocs was over; the United States was the last one standing. This shockingly abrupt and non-belligerent shift in the geopolitical situation left many combatants of the Cold War feeling alienated, perhaps even disappointed. It was the kind of anti-climax that could only happen in real life; the peace that everyone had said they wanted, but which nobody had honestly expected. The USSR was no more - the ancient enemy of the Western Democracies had not even lasted for 75 years, just barely the length of an average lifetime. The Cold War was even shorter - carrying on for just four decades in total. But it had seemed so much longer. The Presidency of Ronald Reagan, who had ended the era of détente in order to escalate the antagonistic situation with the Soviet Union, had only just ended when the Berlin Wall fell; the military spending initiatives he had pledged during his term in office had included a 600-ship Navy and the Strategic Defense Initiative, which seemed to be all for naught.
That driving force, that carefully steered, steady-as-she-goes direction which had led all of Western culture was gone. Millions were left adrift. Defense budgets were trimmed. Battleships were put back into mothballs. Nuclear arsenals were scaled back. The palpable physical threat of hundreds of missiles with an atomic payload, pointed at all the major cities and installations belonging to the other side, was eliminated; but it made for a poignant metaphor. There was nothing to attack now; nothing to defend against. Humanity always thrived when faced with challenges, with resistance from an opposing force. There was no opposing force either. The veterans returning home from the battlefields of World War II had reported alienation, and difficulty re-acclimating themselves with their peacetime surroundings; the Cold War, which had been far more pervasively a culture war than a military one, counted everyone as its combatants. What they felt was certainly far less traumatic than the veterans had, less physically and emotionally scarring, but it did leave a mark. Everything had changed. The years which immediately followed the Cold War came to be known as “The Quiet Years”. [1] Many critics, particularly cultural conservatives, would instead describe them as disquieting. The 1980s had been an era of warm-and-fuzzy family sitcoms like The Cosby Show and Family Ties. Only at the tail end of this decade did more cynical, topical programming emerge, primarily as a reaction to this complacency, and this would itself become a dominant trend in the early-1990s, the first era in which Generation X, the generation which followed the Baby Boomers, made their cultural influence known.
One of the earliest examples was Seinfeld, which starred observational comedian Jerry Seinfeld (playing a fictionalized version of himself), co-created by him and his former roommate and comedy writer Larry David in 1988. Though it had a direct antecedent in the cable program It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, it would reach a much larger audience from its network berth on NBC. It was oft-described as the “show about nothing” and epitomized television during the Quiet Years; plots were low-concept to the point of mundane. Characters would argue about trivialities, starting with which button was the most important on a shirt, and move nowhere from there. In addition, the core foursome - two of whom were based on Seinfeld and David, the others being based on their friend Kenny Kramer and a composite of their various ex-girlfriends - were unabashedly unsympathetic, both selfish and self-absorbed. [2] From there, they gradually evolved into gleefully amoral - as a direct reaction to the moralistic programming of the 1980s, there would be “no hugging, no learning” on Seinfeld. Seinfeld’s character in particular took a strangely vindictive pleasure in his continuing amorality, and it was telling that the most likeable (and compassionate) character was the stock “wacky neighbour”. Although the characters (and the actors who portrayed them) were late baby-boomers, the show had a more Generation-X mindset: the previous generation had fought for what they had seen as noble ideals, but these characters, to the extent that they fought for anything, sought to vindicate their own self-importance. It was telling of the times that viewers identified with them anyway.
Serving as a distaff counterpart to Seinfeld - in more ways than one - was Murphy Brown, which (like Seinfeld) had technically premiered shortly before the end of the Cold War, in 1988 (but while glasnost and perestroika were in full swing). Unabashedly topical, like the Norman Lear sitcoms of the generation prior, but lacking all of their warmth and sincerity, Murphy Brown was a work-based sitcom set at a television news-magazine, which allowed for political satire and the blending of reality and fiction (as real television journalists and politicos were often mentioned and made frequent appearances). The titular character was another sign of the times: a single, mature career woman, played by veteran actress Candice Bergen. Essentially, Murphy Brown took the sketch-comedy approach to sitcom writing, the show often resembling the “Weekend Update” feature on Saturday Night Live far more than even other work-based sitcoms of the era. The controversy which came to define the show, however, would not emerge until the 1991-92 season, when a pregnancy storyline was written into the show. Bergen, 45 years old at the time, was not herself pregnant, but the decision was made in order to highlight the issue of single motherhood. This attracted the ire of Vice-President Dan Quayle, who felt that her pregnancy - and decision to raise the baby alone (Maude had already handled abortion, after all) - trivialized the importance of fathers and their role in the family. He made this statement during an election year, the day after the episode in which Murphy had delivered her child (a daughter, Kelly), and it attracted instant press attention. [3] Given the reality-meets-fiction tenor of the series, it responded in the two-part season premiere by reacting as if Quayle had condemned the character of Brown herself (which was to say, a real person), as opposed to the show on which her character appeared. It was a smash success and attracted truckloads of critical plaudits, but although the great weight given to this fairly insignificant hullabaloo (Brown had been far from the first single mother on television - Norman Lear had, once again, beat her to the punch with One Day at a Time, for example) seemed almost laughable compared to the world-changing events that had dominated the earliest seasons of the show, ratings had peaked during the two seasons detailing Murphy’s pregnancy and her newfound single-motherhood. It was, however, emblematic of the decline which faced real news and what it chose to cover during this era - a shift from geopolitics to celebrity gossip. People didn’t seem to care so much about events and ideals so much as they did other people.
The aesthetic of the sweeping epics of yesteryear did survive in one curious genre, however: science-fiction. In another event which would come to fruition in 1988, the third instalment of the Odyssey series was published, with Arthur C. Clarke deciding to elaborate on the Vulkan Panic which was predominant earlier in the decade (which had informed the film adaptation of 2010). [4] He sought direct inspiration from the Galileo probe which arrived at Jupiter in September 1987, and the findings which it returned to Earth concerning the moons which shared their namesake with the probe in question. 2020: Odyssey Three was released late the following year, to brisk sales (even by Clarke’s standards). Hollywood was interested, because 2010 had done well at the box-office despite the lack of Stanley Kubrick’s singular, uncompromising vision, and because the success of 2020 had domino effects for science-fiction in other media; bringing the novel to the big screen still seemed unlikely, however, until the ascent of a most improbable champion: Tom Hanks. [5] The all-American everyman actor, primarily known for comedic roles, had gained critical plaudits for his dramatic role in Big, by far the most well-received in a spate of body-swap pictures which were released in the era. Hanks, a longtime fan of Clarke’s work, wanted very much to play the lead role of Commander Graves, the captain of the Discovery Two, and now he finally had the cachet to make it happen. [6] However, by the time 2020 was finally produced and released to theatres, the book itself had set into motion a whole new wave of science-fiction, starting on the small screen.
J. Michael Straczynski, the one-time showrunner for the popular and well-received cartoon adaptation of the smash-hit Ghostbusters film (entitled The Real Ghostbusters), was left unfulfilled by his work on that program, seeing it as a mere stepping-stone toward his dream project, that which he was sure would become his magnum opus. The 1980s had seen dramatic series embracing serialization to unprecedented levels, even beyond soap operas such as Dallas or Dynasty into procedurals like Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law. Straczynski wanted to extend the reach of serialization further into science-fiction television. Star Trek: The New Voyages had experimented with arc-based storytelling, only for the notion to meet widespread resistance among viewers (resulting in writers approaching serialization on a piecemeal basis). Straczynski wanted to bring this half-hearted tendency to full bloom, creating an exemplar the fabled television novel - with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end - in the process. After many years developing and refining the story he believed most worthy of bringing to the small screen, he began pitching it to production companies. The epic scope of his planned story alienated many of them, but Straczynski - whose showrunner experience in an expensive format, animation, gave him some knowledge of how rapidly (and unexpectedly) costs could accumulate, promised that his show could be produced on time and on budget. The amount of control he intended to exercise was singularly ambitious in that virtually all dramatic programming in the United States was written by committee (the “Writers’ Room” being the central nexus of any series) and Straczynski was intending to script most episodes by himself, having already developed most of the running story arcs he had in mind - this was far more in the British tradition.
One key advantage of the setting in terms of keeping costs down was that, unlike Star Trek, Straczynski’s series (which he called Babylon 5) was set on a space station. [7] This would allow for the construction of dedicated sets, with no need to incur costs on building, installing, and then demolishing swing sets. However, given the station’s stated purpose of serving as something of a galactic melting pot, alien races would be depicted, and in large numbers, as humans were but a small fish in a great big sea of interstellar species (a marked contrast to the prominent role played by humans in the United Federation of Planets on Star Trek), with other alien species forming power blocs which regularly threatened the fragile Earth Alliance. In fact, it was a long and bloody war with one of these powers, the Minbari, which had spurred the creation of the Babylon 5 station, in an echo of the diplomatic organizations that had emerged from each World War in the 20th century. Given that Babylon 5 was the fifth such attempt to do so, it was clear that the Babylon program in general owed much more to the failed League of Nations than to the UN.
By this time, Star Trek: The New Voyages had been off the air for four years, and there was a growing demand by science-fiction fans of the era for another small-screen outing in the genre to replace it. [8] None of the networks, not even the nascent FOX, were interested in Babylon 5, however. Straczynski and his production company, Warner Bros., were forced to resort to selling the series into first-run syndication, a market which had supported original programming in substantial numbers in the 1980s. [9] From syndication, individual stations (including network affiliates) could choose to buy the series to air in any of the over 200 markets throughout the country, just as though it were a rerun of an already-aired show. Many stations were understandably nervous at the potential scope of Babylon 5, however, and thus a pilot movie, The Gathering, was aired on Monday, February 6, 1989, in over 150 markets throughout the United States (including all twenty of the largest) in order to test the waters. The lead character was Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, commanding officer of the Babylon 5 station. Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima served as Executive Officer. [10] The two leads were well-received by critics and audiences, as was the telefilm in general, leading Warners to greenlight production on a series proper, which had just enough time to begin preparation for a September premiere in the 1989-90 season. Still, no network was interested, though many individual affiliates were, and so it too would air in syndication - which Straczynski handled as diplomatically as he could. “Going up against Wheel of Fortune can be a double-edged sword,” he would remark, years later; Wheel was the highest-rated program in first-run syndication at the time, and had been for several years. [11]
Many of the visual effects originally created for the miniseries were reused countless times for the series proper. Their design was overseen by Visual Effects Supervisor Steven Begg, including the station itself. Because computer-generated imagery was still in its infancy at the dawn of the 1990s (prior to its proliferation through the ensuing decade), practical effects were primarily used, including extensive model shots, matte paintings, and stop-motion photography. Inspired by the work done at Industrial Light & Magic, the Lucasfilm special effects division, over the previous decade, the work done by Begg and his team was some of the most impressive - and cost-effective - ever made for television. [12] The only Emmy Awards won by Babylon 5 throughout its run were for the visual effects, though it was also nominated in other (mostly technical) categories.
The complexity of Babylon 5 was beyond even the most ambitious shows seen on network television at the time. The overarching storyline entailed constant growth and development of the characters throughout all five seasons. The “Shadow War” served as the backdrop for an in-depth exploration of the astropolitical situation throughout the conflict, which included ties to historical events. The Babylon 5 station, something between a melting pot and a mosaic, and despite the precedent set by the previous four stations, served as something of a touchstone and a constant through the tumult depicted in the series. The scope and focus of the storyline was, occasionally, derided as being an inferior ripoff of The Lord of the Rings, especially given the strong focus on mystical elements (fairly unusual for the technologically-oriented genre of science-fiction). However, the extreme complexity and attention required of the average viewer proved a deterrent and a particular thorn in the side of executives, who constantly challenged Straczynski’s creative control. Ratings were never terribly strong, and the threat of cancellation loomed throughout. However, the show would run for a full five seasons, concluding with a bang in 1994 - which (for this and other reasons) would become known as the “Summer of Space”. [13]
As counterpoint, that franchise which had inspired confidence and optimism for the future of mankind in one of the darkest hours for the United States - the late 1960s - would see a revival in the early 1990s, for the 25th anniversary of Star Trek. Heading this project was the showrunner from the later seasons of The New Voyages in the 1980s, Harve Bennett. Though his entire career up to that point had been in television, he had an understanding of and appreciation for Star Trek which made him ideal for the position, not to mention that it allowed Paramount to pay lip service to “properly shepherding the franchise forward”. Most importantly, Bennett had a reputation for completing projects under budget and on schedule. That sort of prudence was worthy of a promotion to the big screen from the small one, in the opinion of many studio executives. [14] Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, who had been effectively ousted from production of The New Voyages in 1979 and had virtually nothing to do with the franchise since, would have no involvement whatsoever with this film project; Paramount wanted nothing to do with him, and his health was in decline, to the point where he could not actively participate even if he had wanted to (and he had wanted to, though he certainly would never admit it). Bennett had been nursing an idea since the New Voyages days, which he would finally put into practice here: a flashback to Kirk and Spock’s days at Starfleet Academy. [15] Although the resultant film would turn out differently from how he had conceptualized it, the kernel of the plot was good enough to be green-lit for a release in the summer of 1991. The film itself was to be named Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy would star the central character of the franchise, James Tiberius Kirk, along with the man who was still considered runner-up for that position even after seven years of infrequent guest appearances on The New Voyages: Spock. Though the film was called Starfleet Academy, Kirk and Spock (who were contemporaries, having been born in the same year) were actually not undergraduates in the film (the opening scene depicted their graduation ceremony), but rather were invited to become part of a pilot project called the Accelerated Learning Program, in which recent graduates were invited to reinforce and apply their knowledge through teaching it to incoming students. Kirk, as the top student in the Command Division, and Spock, as the top student in the Sciences Division, were naturally considered prime candidates to start “climbing the ALPs” in the autumn; in the meantime, Ensign Kirk accepted a temporary assignment aboard the USS Republic, on the recommendation of one of his favourite instructors, Lt. Ben Finney, with whom he had grown so close that the senior officer had named his daughter “Jamie” in his honour. However, after the Republic was attacked by a pirate ship in the obligatory action prologue scene, Ben Finney was distracted from his engineering duties, neglectfully leaving a key circuit open to the atomic matter piles; the next officer on the shift, Ensign Kirk, fortunately caught this error in the nick of time. In logging it, he doomed his friend and mentor, Finney, to career stagnation; the senior officer was in fact recalled to his teaching position at Starfleet Academy alongside Kirk, as the opening titles of the movie finally began to play after the lengthy prologue.
The newly-promoted Lt. JG Kirk, in recognition of his actions on the Republic and in order to reflect his special status “climbing the ALPs”, immediately got to work teaching command-level classes. Spock, in the meantime, had stayed on Earth over the summer, working in a research facility and making the acquaintance of Janet Wallace, a graduate-level biomedical researcher (perhaps better known as a “little blonde lab technician” by the more lecherous among the male student body). [16] The lab at which Spock had worked was technically a Federation facility, not belonging to Starfleet, making his “assignment” more of an internship. However, he and Wallace remained on cordial terms even as the term began. Kirk, meanwhile, immediately found himself heading a “clique” of students, including the charming and cocksure Cadet Gary Mitchell and the mature student, Dr. Leonard McCoy, who had joined Starfleet to get away from his ex-wife (who had won full custody of his daughter, Joanna) after their messy divorce. [17]
James T. Kirk was played by Kiefer Sutherland who, like William Shatner, was Canadian-born. In fact, Sutherland had strong family connections in the Great White North, being the son of actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, the latter of whom was the daughter of legendary Father of Medicare Tommy Douglas. Sutherland was known for his intensity and bad-boy image in past performances - he had mostly played villains prior to Starfleet Academy - and was chosen largely because producers felt that he had the range and ability as an actor to branch out beyond the “boy-scout” depicted in this movie into more complex portrayals down the line. He did not imitate the notorious vocal patterns used by Shatner, which was widely regarded as the right choice to make. It was the casting of Spock which was considered a risk - and a revelation: Keanu Reeves, up until that point best known as Ted Logan from the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. In fact, a potential sequel to that film was scuttled when Reeves declined the opportunity to appear in it for Starfleet Academy. [18] Audiences knew Reeves as a goofy stoner character - his stoic, reserved, and brilliantly internalized portrayal of Spock [19] won some of the heaviest plaudits of the film - other than those for the actor chosen to play Dr. Leonard McCoy. Gary Sinise was a dead-ringer for DeForest Kelley physically - Kelley famously joked “it’s like looking in a mirror”, when the two posed for photographs together at the film’s premiere in San Francisco - and worked with a dialogue coach, as well as Kelley himself, who of all the original cast was the one who worked most actively in the film’s production, to get the right accent. It helped that Sinise was ten years older than Sutherland and Reeves - the same age difference between Kelley, and Shatner and Nimoy. Gary Mitchell was played by C. Thomas Howell, a finalist for the role of Kirk, who was felt to lack the “presence” that Sutherland brought to the table.
The success of Starfleet Academy upon release in July 1991, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the wider franchise that September (which proved surprising to many commentators, who did not imagine audiences paying to see what they normally got for free) inspired a rash of other space-focused projects. [20] Development on 2020 continued apace (the film finally being formally green-lit and entering production that autumn) and, in addition, a dramatization of the Apollo 13 incident (based on the Jim Lovell memoir, Lost Moon) was green-lit at the same time, although the studio’s preferred choice for the role of Capt. Lovell, Tom Hanks, declined the part to star in 2020 instead. [21] Lovell’s personal choice for the role, Kevin Costner, then accepted the part. Lovell’s two crewmates, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, were played by Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon, respectively. In contrast to the space opera and technobabble associated with science-fiction, this historical chronicle was intended to be strictly accurate in depicting the events at hand, with the screenwriters interviewing all of the principals and touring NASA facilities extensively, being briefed on the history and development of the Apollo missions. It was during these tours that the mindset of those at mission control - “failure is not an option” - found itself taking on a whole new life in the pages of the draft scripts. When production commenced, the decision was made to compose the film entirely of original footage, not reusing a single sound or image from the extensive chronicles of the actual operation. Taking advantage of the lavish budget available to them, the producers opted to, as best as possible, recreate the conditions of the Apollo 13 mission through practical means: sets were built to the exact specifications of the original Apollo craft, with the exception of having certain parts removable (as with the “segments” of the bridge on the original Star Trek) for ease of filming. Real NASA pilots, including those contemporary to the Apollo era, put the actors through basic training. This included time in zero-g conditions on the high-altitude “Vomit Comet” aircraft, which would later extend to the filming of scenes in zero-g on the same vehicle with the help of specially constructed sets - hundreds of flights were conducted, given that much of the movie took place in zero-g conditions, and that each zero-g period lasted for less than half a minute. NASA technicians were so impressed with the sets that they “requisitioned” them for internal training use once principal photography was completed.
Naturally, and in stark contrast to the strict scientific and historical accuracy aimed for by the makers of Apollo 13, a sequel to Starfleet Academy itself was followed by a direct sequel, Eternal Conflict, released in 1993. Harve Bennett, who as the primary creative force behind the franchise, continued to serve as Executive Producer for the second film, decided to take the opportunity to double down. Had the film continued with a straight take on the early adventures of Kirk and Spock, it would have run into the problem of telling the same stories that had already been seen, or at least far more directly and concretely alluded to than the “backstory blender” that was Starfleet Academy. The centrepiece of this conundrum was “The Cage”, the original pilot of Star Trek, which had been rejected by NBC (who, in so doing, had chosen to commission a second pilot, which was successful). Due to a shortage of scripts in the first season, “The Cage” was repackaged into a framed flashback episode called “The Menagerie”, which described the “Cage”-era footage as being several years in the past. Doing the math, “The Cage” would have been set very shortly after Spock had climbed the ALPs and begun his assignment on the Enterprise under Captain Pike, meaning that the prequel series had already run out of material before it would be forced to repeat the stories that had already been told. But not for nothing was Harve Bennett known for his ability to pull a rabbit out of his hat, taking advantage of a stray plot thread which he could now pull and watch unravel…
“The Cage” had never aired in its original, unaltered form until 1986, having been presumed lost up until then. [22] Just in time for the twentieth anniversary of Star Trek, however, the original negatives were discovered in a Paramount vault, and a special ninety-minute event was broadcast around the footage from the original episode; 63 minutes all told, which would add up to the standard 75 minutes of programming (25 for each half-hour, with the rest devoted to advertising space) when combined with twelve minutes of commentary from some of the principals involved, including Leonard Nimoy, Robert Justman, and - surprisingly - Gene Roddenberry himself. All of the commentary preceded the showing of the uncut episode, though commercial breaks were rather arbitrarily chosen at various points therein. Nevertheless, Bennett - who remained the nominal chief executive of the Star Trek franchise, despite The New Voyages having ended in 1984, but declined to participate in “The Cage” special so as not to seem as though he were trying to retroactively insert himself in the history of Star Trek - took note of a strange phenomenon as he was watching the opening moments of the episode proper. The Enterprise had encountered an unusual disturbance in the midst of space immediately prior to the reception of a distress signal. Though the episode had implied that the two were connected, it struck Bennett as strange that an old-style radio wave would be capable of what appeared to be highly unusual subspace distortions. [23] So he devised an alternative idea: those distortions were instead the doing of some interdimensional phenomenon which was capable of creating “ripples” in spacetime - the source of this anomaly would thus be able to duplicate realities and send them along divergent paths through history. This theoretical being would be present in whichever “reality” he had created most recently; the implication would be that it had left an “original” timeline to create this new “alternate” one. This bizarre phenomenon could also potentially explain the existence of the parallel universe seen in the original series episode “Mirror, Mirror”, and this would in turn would allow for the possibility of infinite dimensions, and for characters to “cross over” between them. Bennett had always exhibited a gift for developing narrative hooks.
The film opened with a prologue depicting the event which was only mentioned in “The Cage” (and “The Menagerie”): the battle fought by the crew of the Enterprise, including Captain Pike, on Rigel VIII. In keeping with the continuity established in that episode, Pike was ambushed by an alien warrior, both Spock and Tyler were injured, and Pike’s personal yeoman was killed, making for a thrilling and harrowing action prologue. After the opening credits, the beginning of “The Cage” was lovingly re-created, only for Spock to detect strange new readings that the Spock from the original episode did not… a prelude to the arrival of the alien phenomenon which would serve as the primary antagonistic force of the film. [24] After bombarding the Enterprise, the phenomenon vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and pursuing it would drive the rest of the story, gradually establishing that it was set in a different reality from the TOV/TAV/TNV continuity. When it was clear that the Enterprise was out of danger, she continued onto the Vega colony, as per her original orders - thus sidestepping the distress signal from Talos IV which spurred the plot of “The Cage”, and irrevocably altering history as fans had known it. From Vega, the Enterprise was ordered to return to the nearest starbase, where Spock would report his findings to the Admiralty, who would then decide on a course of action.
The action then shifted to the USS Farragut, which was the first long-term assignment of Lieutenant James T. Kirk, several days later. Unlike the Enterprise, which was on the outermost fringes of Federation space, the Farragut was well within the interior; this was therefore the cause of some alarm when they too were beset by an anomaly which produced identical readings to the one which had intercepted the Enterprise. However, it disrupted the Farragut with much more force, severely damaging the vessel and killing many on board, including the commanding officer, Captain Garrovick. [25] This plunged Lt. Kirk, his navigator, into a guilt spiral, as he felt that he had not noticed the phenomenon or attempted to counteract its effects rapidly enough - despite receiving praise for his adroit handling of the situation by the First Officer and Acting Captain, Commander Matt Decker (played by Richard Hatch, who had played the same character’s son Will on TNV). [26] This angst would affect Kirk’s character for the rest of the film. Decker, meanwhile, informed Starfleet Command of their encounter before setting the ship on a course to the nearest starbase - where, upon arriving, they encountered the Enterprise. Admiral Morrow, Starfleet Commander, ordered the two ships, both of which had readings on the anomaly and crews familiar with it, to find the source, before another “attack” - perhaps of even greater intensity than before, and even closer to the major systems of the Federation - could take place. [27] The relative positions of the two ships at the time they each encountered the phenomenon allowed for them to triangulate on a position near the galactic core as the origin.
However, the first order of business was to replenish the badly diminished roster of the Farragut, and the new crewmembers, mostly recent graduates from Starfleet Academy, included some familiar faces: Dr. Leonard McCoy on the medical staff, and Ensign Gary Mitchell as the new helmsman, both on Kirk’s recommendation (reuniting most of his “clique” from the previous film). Decker was promoted to Captain and formally assigned command of the Farragut; Kirk was also promoted, to Lieutenant Commander, and Decker offered Kirk his vacated position of First Officer, which he reluctantly accepted (partly at the urgings of McCoy and Mitchell), despite his continuing misgivings about his self-perceived failings as a navigator. Decker, working to build a rapport with his new second-in-command, tried his best to assuage these misgivings with a key piece of advice: “Remember, Jim, these feelings never go away. Everyone has to fight their own doubts and fears in the struggle to become a better person. It’s an eternal conflict.”
The new crewmembers bolstered the Farragut roster in more ways that one, given that - like Kirk - most of the hands which had survived the incident were plagued with fear and doubt, given what awaited them. As assignments were handed out and repairs on the ship were completed, a delegation from the Enterprise made a rendezvous with the command crew of the Farragut to coordinate their mission. This was led by Lt. Spock, as the science officer previously aboard the Farragut had not survived the initial attack, and the stoic Vulcan remarked upon the “disquieting emotionalism” which had swept through the Farragut. Once the preliminary work was completed, the two ships, proceeded in tandem toward the conjectured source of the anomaly. En route, it did indeed return as predicted, but had seemingly anticipated their planned defences, eschewing structural damage of any kind, but somehow deactivating the warp drives of both ships, leaving them centuries away from their destination, which served to further ratchet the tension on the Farragut and even the Enterprise: Captain Pike, who continued to be shaken by his recent experiences on Rigel, finally confided his doubts about continuing with his career as a Starfleet Captain to the ship’s doctor, Boyce (in a conversation largely lifted from “The Cage”). They were forced to retreat to a long-abandoned dilithium cracking outpost, which had become overrun by the savage native life of the planet in the intervening years, necessitating the beam-down of ample security teams, led by the officers Pike, Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Bones, along with Pike’s yeoman, Colt, who was Kirk’s love interest for the film (replacing Dr. Janet Wallace, who had remained on Earth). [28] The planet was dangerous, and the landing parties could not be guaranteed a safe return, which further demoralized the already shaken crews; this helped to recreate the tense “powder keg on a tin can” atmosphere often seen in the previous series. Though the entire security detail [29] was tragically killed in action, all of the named characters miraculously survived, returning to their ships with the necessary cargo to continue their journey at warp speed, closing rapidly on the origin point. Despite continued setbacks, the ships were unyielding in their mission… even if their respective crews sometimes seemed to be hanging by a thread.
The anomaly apparently perceived this precariousness, and thus the final barrage was not in any way physical or targeting the ships, but was instead emotional, targeting their crews, striking them with a quite literal case of what Spock might call “flagrant emotionalism”. Only a few people - not least of all, Spock himself, along with Kirk and Bones - seemed able to resist the effects to any significant degree. Captain Pike on the Enterprise fell into an unshakeable malaise. Dr. Boyce, who was considerably older than McCoy, found himself suffering early onset senility as a result of the anomaly, thus leaving Bones in charge of finding a cure. In the interests of inter-ship unity (especially since both crews combined could barely muster a medical research team), Mr. Spock co-headed the team with him, allowing for some classic Spock-McCoy interaction which rivaled the high points between them in TOV (which was, in turn, sadly absent from TNV, given Spock’s infrequent appearances - and seldom with Bones). Men and women alike were warped into twisted parodies of themselves: Scotty became a grotesque and obnoxious “funny drunk” [30]; Colt succumbed to what was described in “The Cage” as her “unusually strong female drives”; Mitchell became dangerously antisocial, as he had done in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” though (fortunately) without the addition of psychic powers; and Decker became crazed and paranoid, as in “The Doomsday Machine”, forcing McCoy to relieve him of command (which he famously failed to do in the original episode), granting Kirk the status of Acting Captain. Once again, Kirk was highly ambivalent, despite assuming command of the vessel (the place where audiences knew he belonged more than anywhere else). Kirk was not in command of the fleet, as the First Officer of the Enterprise, known only as Number One, remained in control of her faculties and (given her experience; despite also being only a Lieutenant Commander, like Kirk, she had held the rank for much longer) she served as the de facto task force commander, ensuring that the two ships didn’t find themselves in even worse trouble than that which they had already faced (admittedly, a very tall order). [31] Fortunately, although Spock and Bones got along like oil and water (leading Kirk, who monitored them bemusedly, to ask if they, too, hadn’t been affected), they did make a great team and eventually cured the malaise - by concocting a “laughing cure”, as in such TOV episodes as “Wolf in the Fold” and “Day of the Dove”. It was tested on Scotty, who served as their guinea pig; given his condition, it was hard to tell at first that the cure had worked. By the time they were sure it was successful, they had already arrived at the source of the anomalies: a seemingly inconspicuous deep-space outpost marked as GOTHOS STATION, located just outside the gravity well of the supermassive black hole at the galactic centre.
The sole occupant of the station (even though no life signs had been detected by either ship’s sensors) hailed them, and introduced himself as Trelane, the very same entity who had been a one-time opponent of the Enterprise crew from TOV (played by his original performer, William Campbell), and invited them for an audience with him, the “humble stationmaster of Gothos”. Number One chose to remain aboard the Enterprise in order to supervise the administering of the cure to the afflicted crewmembers, including the other medical staff as well as the two Captains, Pike and Decker. In the meantime, Kirk was sent down to represent the task force. Now a young adult, Trelane had fully mastered the ability to travel through time and space, across all dimensions possessed by all members of his species. Though he had previously encountered other incarnations of Kirk in his own subjective past, this one did not know him, exactly. Trelane explained that he had visited many parallel universes, some of which were of his own creation (with the famous “mirror universe” from “Mirror, Mirror” being implied as one of them). However, he was not quite the petulant brat of his youth; he was more an inquisitive (if reckless) college student, conducting “experiments” to better his knowledge of the multiverse. [32] The Enterprise and the Farragut functioned as his own private laboratories, with all the people aboard as his own collection of lab rats. With all the instrumentation at his command, Trelane seemed unstoppable, but eventually, Kirk was able to muster his resolve and appeal to Trelane in a way that had failed even his older, more seasoned and experienced alternate self: reasoning with him, and pointing out that they had overcome every obstacle that he had thrown their way. Trelane - given the pretensions toward intellectualism which he did not possess as a “child” - decided in his benevolence that Kirk and his comrades had “potential” - something he had not yet been “enlightened” enough to see in his previous encounter with Kirk (in “another time, another place, another universe” - firmly establishing that the audience was now observing the adventures of a parallel crew). With that, Kirk was returned to the Farragut, and the outpost disappeared into the black hole, seemingly bound for whole new universes. The task force, armed with this wealth of sensor data, and having finally recovered from their emotional distress, headed back to Federation space, ready for new adventures, come what may; Kirk, for his part, had overcome his demons and found himself one step closer to his legendary Captaincy (with the once-again-lucid Decker remarking that he “wouldn’t be surprised if Admiral Morrow put you up for another promotion”). [33]
The film was set largely on the bridges of the two ships in the task force (which were actually a single set, lightly re-dressed to play either the Enterprise or the Farragut), and this cost-saving innovation would prove an inspiration for future endeavours within the franchise, though not exactly on a cinematic scale. Although a third film in the franchise immediately went into pre-production, a new television series had been on the table as early as 1991, with the success of Starfleet Academy, with the success of Eternal Conflict reinforcing these plans. This time, Paramount would follow through on their plans to create a new network called the Paramount Television Network, or PTN (entertained, but ultimately abandoned, in the mid-1970s) on which the new Star Trek series would serve as the flagship show. The show (and network) were scheduled to premiere in September of 1994, a date which (just as it had been seventeen years before) proved remarkably serendipitous due to the timing of events which took place over the summer - the “Summer of Space”, as it were. [34] PTN would beat a rival “new network” (the success of FOX had inspired many imitators) founded by Warner Bros., which would launch later that season, in early 1995; given that Warner had produced Babylon 5, they green-lit a spinoff program to air as part of the launch schedule on their new network, in direct competition to Star Trek. But before either of those spinoffs of established franchises could come to fruition, a plucky newcomer entered the fray in the form of a summer mini-series called Exodus, which aired in July of 1994 on FOX. [35]
Exodus was far more a symbol of the zeitgeist than the Star Trek revival had been, and indeed it came into being largely as a deconstructive response to that venerable franchise, which was generally regarded as optimistic and idealistic almost to the point of delusion even though the history of mankind in the centuries between the present and the far-future setting in which Star Trek took place had apparently entailed race wars between humans and genetic supermen, nuclear apocalypse, and bloody conflicts with other galactic powers. If the Federation was a relatively peaceful galactic superpower, it had won that status through no little amount of blood, sweat, and tears. Nonetheless, the creator of Exodus, Ira Steven Behr, seemed to have a chip on his shoulder regarding Star Trek - especially the original Roddenberry vision thereof (something which was itself continually evolving, it had to be said). He spoke more highly of the pragmatism exhibited under the Bennett regime, but (like Straczynski before him) believed that it had not gone far enough - so he decided to approach the future of mankind from the opposite direction. It helped that the early-1990s were a period of exceptional environmental hyper-awareness, with many scientists predicting runaway global warming and extinction events unless immediate corrective steps were taken all over the world to create sustainable development. For this reason, Exodus was set within a colony of Martian evacuees, the titular Exodus having taken place in an attempt to flee an apocalyptic asteroidal collision with Earth (a plot point inspired by the predicted - and realized - collision of Comet Galileo with the planet Jupiter in 1994, just in time for the mini-series to air). [36] Behr worked with a talented assemblage of writers, including Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Hans Beimler, and Chris Carter, in crafting the lore of Exodus. Despite the otherwise cynical premise, all of the writers favoured the inclusion of a mythical element (again like Straczynski), which would focus on the colonists discovering mounting evidence that Mars itself was once an Earthlike planet, on which an intelligent civilization had resided. The question of what might have happened to these people became a running plotline, the backdrop against the daily challenges of running this last bastion of humanity (other refugee colonies on other worlds were occasionally mentioned, but left unseen). The Apocalypse, caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth, was clearly allegorical for the man-made habitat destruction protested by environmentalists; a War of the Worlds in reverse. The message of a need for careful stewardship of Earth’s available resources with a focus on sustainability could be read into the artificial maintenance and critical focus on the survival of the colony within the boundaries of the tube with the supplies and technology on hand. However, this remained a more subliminal theme within the context of the show (which focused more on the overarching storyline of the ancient alien species, with the day-to-day survival of the colony fading into the background), though one which was popular in the fandom. In an era when shows with the blatant messaging of Captain Planet were on the air, it was difficult not to seem subtle by comparison.
The characters who fled the Earth found themselves settling in a preexisting geological research colony which was based in a lava tube, akin to the “underground cities” featured in science-fiction and fantasy works since time immemorial. The refugees far, far outnumbered the miniscule population of the base personnel, whose commander, played by Tim Matheson, was already undergoing a midlife crisis (common to many people in the aging Boomer generation) prior to their arrival. After having left behind his life as a career soldier on the Earth to indulge his love for geology and scientific exploration at a quiet base in the peace and tranquility of Mars, his commission was being reactivated, making him the unwilling de facto governor of what had now become a colony of evacuees; the refugees decamped in the tube, given its potential to support a settlement of such sheer size, despite plainly being unable to do so at present. The leader of the new arrivals, played by Nana Tucker [37], was a staunch survivalist, far more self-centred and driven by the needs of the moment than focused on the big picture. Rash, impulsive, and insensitive, her character contrasted - and clashed - with the world-weary Matheson character. As the main focus of the original miniseries was indeed survival, the conflicts that all sides faced drove the plot far more than challenges in the new environment would have done alone. The “settlers” were further balanced against the “natives” (none of whom actually born on Mars) with the inclusion of a scientist character played by Bill Mumy [38], who had failed to detect the asteroid in time to stop the Apocalypse, driving a massive guilt complex (as did constant blame from certain other corners of the mission, including from Tucker’s character, who did not make friends easily). His redemption came with his continued value as a researcher and engineer for the growing colony and, in the series proper which resulted from the miniseries, when he found what he believed to be evidence that Mars had previously been inhabited by a highly advanced alien species in the distant past. This formed the backdrop to the story arcs of the three central characters: Tucker emerging as a competent leader, Mumy being redeemed from his previous mistakes (as “the man who doomed Earth”), and Matheson, the commanding officer, managing to once again find the strength to stand as a leader in spite of his past, his time on Mars having given him new strength and purpose, returning to his original vocation as the commanding officer of the research - or colonial - base. These redemptive character arcs were introduced more formally into the series proper; the mini-series established the characters as less developed or relatable than they became in the program that would follow, without hindering the obvious storytelling potential for them and their relationships.
And finally, after six years of waiting, there was the film version of 2020, also released during the “Summer of Space” in 1994. Given that the novel had helped to launch the present wave of science-fiction, it seemed only fitting that the adaptation was able to reap some of those rewards. Clarke wrote the screenplay himself, as he had done for 2001 (though not 2010), as the producers had sought to take advantage of changes in the geopolitical landscape since 1988 (which, in one fell swoop, had severely dated both 2001 and 2010) while maintaining the legitimacy and gravitas of connecting them to the original author. Clarke agreed to “update” the plot and setting for the post-Cold War environment, while at the same time taking advantage of the continuing discoveries made by the Galileo probe in the several years since it had arrived at Jupiter.
2020 was a story of pure exploration, largely inspired by these Galileo discoveries. In the book, it depicted an American-Soviet joint research mission sent to the newly stellar Jupiter to investigate the “planets” (formerly moons) which were in orbit about the dwarf star. However, the two ships (the Soviet Leonov, which had saved the day in 2010, and the American Discovery II) became only one (Discovery II) when the novel was adapted to film in 1994, partly as one of the many changes made to take the collapse of the Soviet Union into account and partly because Star Trek: Eternal Conflict had starred two ships (the Enterprise and the Farragut). Indeed, a Leonov model was designed and even partially built before it was discarded. In both novel and film, the two crews arrived at Jupiter and explored the outer planets - starting with the outermost, Callisto, which remained frigid and blanketed in ice, a situation which the Russian (in the film, the word “Soviet” was never once mentioned or seen, allowing for a quiet retcon of the USSR’s continued existence, as depicted in 2001 and 2010) observers compared to Siberia in their native homeland. Ganymede, the largest Jovian planet (formerly the largest moon in the Solar system), now had temperatures comparable to those of Earth, and the formerly massive ice deposits were rapidly melting into large freshwater seas when the astronauts surveyed it. The inner moon of Europa, which was shown to have life even before Jupiter became a star, was forbidden by the enigmatic star-children to travel by the Earthlings. The team obeyed the letter of this imposition, but not the spirit, surveying Europa remotely (and as discreetly as possible) noting traces of mostly simple organisms in a primordial soup. The planet enjoyed tropical temperatures, prime for the continuing development of life. This left Io, the innermost of the major planets, which had already been volcanically active. It had seemingly emerged as a hell-world even more frighteningly hostile to human life than Venus, its atmosphere full of noxious gases, its seas comprised of liquid sulfur, and the ground there unstable for even short-term landings. However, the expedition deemed the substantial risk worth it, due to the discovery of a gargantuan diamond “shard” (as tall as a mountain) on one of the innermost planet’s basalt plateaus. [39] It had been ejected from the core of the former planet Jupiter once it had been turned into a star, and though the entire mass could not be retrieved, a “small” sample (on the order of a dozen kilograms) was was successfully harvested by the crew to bring back to Earth before the hazardous environment of Io compelled the landing party back to the Discovery II.
Pre-production was a time-consuming process (though many of the props and set blueprints from the filming of 2010 survived), as was post-production - given the reputation of 2001 as a trailblazer in visual effects, 2020 was expected to continue that tradition, and that involved making use of computer-generated imagery, ludicrously expensive and laborious to produce at the time, which helped to explain why it took so long to make it to theatres; long enough to have direct competition in Apollo 13 (also released during the Summer of Space), which enjoyed the overwhelming support of critics despite being only moderately more popular with audiences than 2020 - although many defenders of the latter film argued that it was a case of the crowd-pleasing, unchallenging Apollo 13 vs. the “cerebral” and “avant-garde” (read: “trippy”) 2020. Apollo 13 was nominated for Best Picture of 1994 at the Academy Awards, whereas 2020 received only token nods in the technical categories. [40] In fact, in what was surely a bitter pill for the 2020 cast and crew to swallow, Apollo 13 won Best Visual Effects and Best Sound, both over 2020 (along with Best Film Editing). [41] However, in a demonstration of one of the other predominant cultural forces of the early-1990s, Pulp Fiction, a curiously pleasing combination of Generation X self-awareness and irony with throwback 1970s exploitation, took the award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. [42]
But at the end of the day, all of these films and particularly all of these series, even those which attempted to reflect the newly-cynical atmosphere of the Quiet Years, were escapist by their very nature. The Quiet Years came after “the end of history” - the conclusion of the Cold War and what by all appearances was the rise of a Pax Americana. But the dawn of the Cold War had coincided with the rise of television as a medium; by 1989, thousands upon thousands of hours had been widely syndicated to American audiences, with series dating back to the 1950s remaining very much a part of the here and now in a way that only a handful of books and films were able to do. For many people, broadcast history was all-encompassing. Lucy Ricardo and Ralph Kramden lived in a world where freedom defined itself in opposition to the Commies - so did Gilligan, Rob and Laura Petrie, and every character on The Twilight Zone. Archie Bunker had railed against “commie pinkos”. It seemed to unite everyone, even on television. It was a medium defined by a single, looming antagonist throughout its history, but times had changed enough to paint a very different picture than the black-and-white of years past.
But such things did not always happen overnight, and it was in the highest echelons of power where change seemed to take effect most gradually. This was likely how the incumbent President, George Bush, who as part of the Reagan administration was a living symbol of the “old guard”, entered the opening stages of his 1992 campaign for re-election seemingly invulnerable; he had shepherded the nation through the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and claimed the first military victory for the United States since World War II; a far cry from where he had been four years ago, as the milquetoast, uninspiring heir apparent. Bush had won what many political commentators described as “Reagan’s third term” (the 22nd Amendment had prevented the Gipper himself from running again) largely because the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, was a horrendous campaigner who could not effectively package his left-wing politics (describing himself as a “proud liberal”) against the onslaught of attacks from Vice-President Bush, who could (quite reasonably, based on the popularity of President Reagan) describe the American electorate as conservative, although Dukakis had been leading in the polls through much of 1988. However, Bush won decisively - performing better in the popular vote than Reagan had done in 1980 - and since then, had presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Autumn of Nations, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and - most importantly - the singular triumph of the Gulf War. Perhaps Bush’s greatest weakness was his running-mate, Vice-President Dan Quayle, the laughably incompetent, blue-blooded nonentity whom Bush had chosen for strategic purposes. Though from solidly Republican Indiana, Quayle’s Midwestern origins were intended to bolster the ticket in the neighbouring swing states of Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, though it is questionable how much impact he personally had in any of them. Nonetheless, despite many Americans - even Republicans - urging President Bush to drop his running-mate from the ticket in 1992, he declined to do so, perhaps reasoning that he could afford an albatross in a cakewalk election, and that dumping him would probably result in far more negative press than keeping him on the ticket.
As a matter of fact, it was President Bush himself who had planted the seeds of his own downfall, in trying to be everything to everyone, promising a “kinder, gentler America” in almost the same breath as his vow not to introduce any new taxes; even Reagan had been forced to do so, and Bush was no Reagan. Sure enough, in came the new taxes, and once the Cold War came to an end and defence spending plummeted, the loss of jobs and the low levels of disposable income resulted in a major recession. Perhaps even more so than in 1980, the 1992 election would hinge on a perceived need for radical new solutions to radical new economic and financial difficulties, akin to the FDR landslide of sixty years before. Enter billionaire H. Ross Perot, a quixotic Texan mogul, whose platform of fiscal responsibility struck an instant chord with much of the American population - particularly those who leaned conservative (though many Democrats also favoured Perot). It was like the 1912 election of eighty years earlier, all over again.
The third component of this new three-way split was Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., better known as simply “Al Gore”, the junior Senator from Tennessee. He had previously served in the House of Representatives before being elected to the upper chamber in 1984. Like so many other prominent lawmakers, and like his opponent President Bush, he was a political scion; his father, Albert Gore, Sr., had represented the other Senate seat in the Volunteer state from 1953 to 1971. Like many Southern Democrats, Gore was moderate-to-conservative within his party on many issues, though there were exceptions: Gore was a technocrat, also known as an “Atari Democrat”. The term came from the dominant video game system in use from the late-1970s until the mid-1980s, at the dawn of personal computing and the information technology industry in earnest. Gore was an advocate of using information technology to facilitate telecommunications, which would be done by opening the ARPANET, then available only to the military and government agencies, to the wider world (which was done through a successor network, known simply as the Internet). His High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, known as the “Gore Bill” during legislative debates, would lay the foundation for the proliferation of the internet for use among the general population, and his later claim of having “taken the initiative in creating the Internet” would forever tie him to this issue in the public imagination long after the term “Atari Democrat” had fallen into disuse.
Gore was also known for his environmentalism, having dated his affiliation with the movement all the way back to the first-wave in the 1960s, after having read the seminal Silent Spring in high school. From the very beginning of his legislative career, he focused on global warming, toxic waste, greenhouse gases, and the ozone layer, coming to strongly oppose fossil-fuel based energy sources, deforestation, and unsustainable industrialization. The early-1990s marked a turning point. The Second World had collapsed, with the carefully planned economy giving way to free-market influences where profit would be the primary concern for any venture capitalists. The Third World, now that it was no longer divided between the two superpowers into cultural or geographical spheres, was also open to investment from all sides, and it more than anywhere else in the world was primed for rapid industrialization. Gore saw that as having major potential for problems. This combination of ideologies, along with otherwise relatively conservative social policies, had served him well in his 1988 run for the Democratic nomination for President, where he had finished third - behind the eventual winner, the liberal Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis, and the first runner-up, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had consolidated the African-American vote behind him, just as in 1984. Gore had secured the endorsement of the 1984 Vice-Presidential candidate, Senator John Glenn, and had finished third overall, winning 15% of the vote in the primaries and more than a half-dozen states.
But the 1992 primaries were not expected to be competitive. All of the A-listers for the party had passed on what was widely expected to be a Bush cakewalk, but Gore (who had won reelection to the Senate in 1990) decided to take a second chance. [43] Gore emerged quickly as the only major Southern and centrist candidate in contention; his only real rival for either title, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, withdrew from the primaries and endorsed Gore, doomed by joint revelations about personal financial malfeasance and marital infidelity. His main competition was the liberal former Governor of California, Jerry Brown, who emerged late in the campaign, winning eight states (including his home state of California) and nearly a quarter of the primary electorate. Gore took 30 states (including the entire Old Confederacy), and about 40% of the vote; enough to clinch the primaries before the convention. After nominating two very liberal candidates for the Presidency, the Democrats chose a moderate (a “raging moderate”, in his own words) for the nomination, more in the vein of Jimmy Carter. However, because Gore was known for his opposition to federal funding for abortion, and for his overall socially conservative record, there was a strong desire to shore up support with female voters and the left-wing base of the party, who were lukewarm about his candidacy.
For that reason, Texas Governor Ann Richards, who had wowed Democratic insiders at her 1988 keynote speech at the DNC (when she was merely State Treasurer), was chosen as his running-mate. [44] Richards was the second Democratic choice for VP from Texas in a row, following Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. Though relatively inexperienced, she had a down-to-earth, folksy southern charm which had completely eluded the wonkish Gore (despite his own Tennessean heritage), while as a self-described “sensible progressive”, Richards (though still a relative moderate, by Democratic standards) was largely to Gore’s left on many key issues, including abortion. Her selection - the first of a woman by either major party in American history - drew international attention, and indeed she was by far the most frequently discussed of all six candidates on the three respective tickets for the White House in late 1992 (Perot was a distant second). “Vote for Richards - and that other guy” was a commonly-seen campaign sign on the stumps, although Richards drew just as much opposition as she did support. Perhaps her most impressive feat was drawing more attention than the legendarily gaffe-prone Dan Quayle, particularly her utter domination of the lone Vice-Presidential debate. [45] This helped to compensate for the relatively lackluster performances by Sen. Gore at the Presidential debates - at the urging of his advisors, he focused as much as possible on the economy and foreign policy despite his singular passion for issues that were more peripheral to the campaign, and this made him more vulnerable to Perot (on the economy) and Bush (on foreign policy). One of his core “pet issues”, the environment, came up largely in the context of discussions about energy policy - Gore favoured renewable sources over fossil fuels. However, he did impress audiences with his emphasis on “the proud tradition of American ingenuity” through the use of technological advances to solve the new problems faced in the United States and around the world. This broad appeal reached many of those who could not have cared any less about “the internet”, and only paid lip service to his environmentalist causes.
In the end, many observers assumed that the three-way race allowed Gore (the most fiscally liberal candidate) to come up the middle between his two more fiscally conservative rivals - that Perot was better at poaching votes from Bush (who, despite his loss, maintained good approval ratings through the end of this term) than from Gore. Perot, for his part, did not receive any electoral votes whatsoever, despite winning nearly 20% of the popular vote, the highest-ever tally for any candidate that won no electoral votes; he came closest in Maine, with over a third of the vote statewide, less than five points behind Gore; as Maine divided its electoral votes by congressional district, Perot lost the chance at a single electoral vote in Maine’s more rural second district by just a few thousand votes (only a point behind Gore, at 36-35). [46] He finished second in three other states: Alaska, Utah, and Idaho, all behind Bush and all with well over one-quarter of the vote. He performed worst in the South, whose voters were more willing to back a favourite son (Gore) or their stronger ideological ally (Bush). Given the three-way-race conditions, the electoral map was rather peculiar in contrast to past races. The Democrats dominated New England, including the longtime Republican stronghold of Vermont (not won by the Democrats since 1964), but the GOP held New Hampshire by a razor-thin margin. Gore also did far worse in the South than Jimmy Carter had done in 1976, losing every state in the Deep South except for Louisiana, despite hailing from Tennessee. Bush won his home state of Texas easily over the Gore/Richards ticket, the second time that a Democratic running mate from the Lone Star State utterly failed to make a dent in the Republican advantage there on the Presidential level (though Richards did have more success influencing down-ballot races). However, the Democrats won every Midwestern state except for Indiana (Vice-President Quayle’s home state, which had not voted for the Democrats since 1964) and, in the closest margin of any state in the Union, Ohio (a classic bellwether without which the Republicans had never managed to take the White House). [47]
When the votes were counted, Gore won about 41% of the popular vote, compared to 39% for Bush - the first time one of the major parties had fallen below two-fifths of the vote since George McGovern in 1972. Indeed, Gore won the electoral vote with the same popular vote that Jimmy Carter had achieved in losing to Reagan in 1980, and little better than Walter Mondale would manage in his landslide defeat four years later. [48] Gore’s famous (and alliterative) pledge in his victory speech early in the morning of November 4, 1992, that he would “put public policy over petty politics” - would effectively foreshadow the tenor of his administration in the years to come. Political strategists for the Gore campaign had tried desperately to polish the “policy wonk” into a slick political operative, but the veneer did not last into his term of office. Gore was saddled with a reputation as (at best) a dull and steady pair of hands and (at worst) a bore. Political cartoonists, satirists, and comedians made “Gore the Bore” into a household name, with mockeries both lighthearted and cruel. Gore pushed Congress for tougher environmental restrictions, which resulted in a far more robust EPA mandate; energy policy was, as ever, a tightrope, since nuclear was both efficient and viable, but was heavily campaigned against by many within the environmentalist movement, so Gore advocated massive investment into solar and wind power (which would not become cost-effective for many more years). The primary social issue which Gore chose to tackle was anti-poverty initiatives; these trumped even gun control and health care, two topics favoured by the Democratic base. Nonetheless, with a friendly House and Senate, most of the Gore-proposed legislation passed during the honeymoon period for his administration - though by its very nature, this idyllic state of affairs would not last forever. Ann Richards, for her part, was proving the polar opposite of her predecessor, Dan Quayle, bringing her far more dynamic and vivacious character than Gore to the famously impotent office of Vice-President and doing much to bolster his policies, especially since the President himself naturally proved a lightning rod of criticism and opposition to his administration, and his “policy over politics” mantra could occasionally backfire in his dealings with the media.
President Gore and his earnestness was certainly not reflective of the Quiet Years and their unrelenting cynicism, but as would also prove the case with Generation X and their twenty-something disaffectedness, people would soon be forced to reassess their attitudes, just as society would be forced to reflect on whether it truly had arrived at the “End of History”, or if there indeed remained so much more that had yet to be written…
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[1] Although the term “the End of History” is occasionally used for the post-Cold War period IOTL (which lines up very nicely with the cultural 1990s: 1989-2001), “The Quiet Years” is a term original to TTL, and which will become more meaningful once future events are brought to light.
[2] Those of you who have seen the original pilot of Seinfeld may recall a waitress character who was replaced by Elaine on the series proper. ITTL, the waitress (Claire) was retained (because she was played by a different actress) but was given many of Elaine’s personality traits.
[3] Murphy delivered a son IOTL, who was named Avery in memory of his grandmother (played by Colleen Dewhurst, who passed away in 1991). This son was eventually played by Haley Joel Osment, but he was rarely mentioned and seldom seen after the Dan Quayle hullabaloo died down.
[4] Given that the Galileo probe did not arrive at Jupiter until much later IOTL, and that Clarke had deadlines to meet, he went ahead and wrote 2061: Odyssey Three anyway (with a plotline instead inspired by the Halley’s Comet hysteria), and this film was never adapted to the big screen (as, unlike ITTL, the 2010 film was less successful).
[5] Hanks sought to exercise his clout to bring 2061 to the big screen IOTL as well, but it never came to pass.
[6] There is no equivalent to Graves in 2061.
[7] Babylon 5, of course, would not air until 1993-94 IOTL. However, Straczynski had been developing the plot and its characters since at least the 1980s.
[8] As IOTL, Straczynski attempted to sell B5 to Paramount, but to no avail. And ITTL, there are no obvious “shenanigans” with the subsequent development of a suspiciously similar rival series under the Star Trek banner; Star Trek was considered dormant (at least on the small screen) through the 1980s.
[9] Babylon 5 was IOTL part of the Prime Time Entertainment Network, or PTEN, an ad hoc quasi-network that was in essence a glorified syndication package, operated by Warner Bros. PTEN survived for only five years in the mid-1990s, and only two shows lasted for the entirety of its existence: Babylon 5 was one of them (Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, a spinoff of the classic 1970s series,was the other). PTEN never gets off the ground ITTL, leading Warners to devote more of their care, attention, and resources to the launch of the WB network in the mid-1990s.
[10] Takashima, played IOTL by Tamlyn Tomita, lasted only for the pilot movie, The Gathering, before she chose to depart for other opportunities and was replaced by Susan Ivanova, played by Claudia Christian. ITTL, another actress more willing to see the show through for the long haul is cast as Takashima, which has a dramatic effect (or, more accurately, does not have an effect) on Straczynski’s plans for the character.
[11] IOTL, at this time, Star Trek: The Next Generation was the highest-rated show in first-run syndication (though Wheel was still a powerhouse, and has held the title unchallenged ever since Deep Space Nine ended in 1999). That program, obviously, does not exist ITTL.
[12] Babylon 5 pioneered the use of CGI IOTL, using it exclusively for visual effects. This has, unfortunately, resulted in its visuals becoming very dated - contemporary Star Trek productions (which, until the late-1990s, relied largely on model work, compositing, and other practical effects) have aged much better. ITTL, so will Babylon 5.
[13] It wasn’t as near-run a thing as IOTL - Babylon 5 got its fifth season order early enough that not all of the story elements intended for it had to be crammed into the fourth season instead. This gives the later seasons an overall slower pace, which can be a double-edged sword.
[14] By this time IOTL, Bennett had been ousted from the franchise, having been made the scapegoat for the relative failure of The Final Frontier at the box-office (not to mention its negative critical reception).
[15] Bennett had planned a film depicting Kirk and Spock’s time at Starfleet Academy IOTL, for the 25th anniversary of the franchise, prior to his ouster. The basic idea was of course recycled for the reboot film released in 2009.
[16] Janet Wallace appeared in early drafts for the screenplay that eventually became The Wrath of Khan IOTL, which would have eliminated all doubt that she was the “little blonde lab tech” mentioned by Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, before her character was replaced (and thus eclipsed) by Carol Marcus in later drafts.
[17] This background for McCoy’s character had been written as early as the original series, but never appeared onscreen until the reboot film IOTL.
[18] Yes, that means no Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey ITTL. I’m sure you’re all just devastated (well, I know Alex Winter must be, anyway).
[19] I’m describing Reeves as critics of the time (who were enamoured with his… peculiar acting style) often described him; in truth, he is playing Spock largely as he played every role in his career after Ted. Reeves is chosen at least in part for racial consideration: given the absence of Sulu and Uhura from the cast, and the presence of many white characters to replace them, it was felt that someone “ethnic” should play Spock, as Leonard Nimoy looked suitably “ethnic” (he and William Shatner actually have the exact same ancestry: Ukrainian Ashkenazi) that he wouldn’t “have” to be played by a white actor.
[20] September 8, 1991, was quite fortuitously a Sunday, so Paramount pushed the film into a wider release for that weekend and renewed their ad campaigns, encouraging Trekkies to “celebrate” the silver anniversary of the franchise in a packed theatre. It worked: the film returned to #1 at the box-office for that weekend (which is, to be fair, usually a dead-zone for movie releases anyway).
[21] Hanks also declined to star in Forrest Gump at the same time. Costner was indeed Lovell’s first choice to play him (and the two do resemble each other physically, certainly much more than Hanks), and in accepting this role he does not appear in the notorious flop, Waterworld (the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release) - this is likely to extend his A-list status for several more years.
[22] “The Cage” was not discovered by archivists until 1987 IOTL, too late for the twentieth anniversary. It aired in 1988 as part of a two-hour special containing other clips from the series, as well as the films, and The Next Generation, and interviews with numerous individuals whose history with the franchise had no connection to “The Cage”.
[23] The “ripples” first appear at 1:03 in “The Cage”, and at 27:23 in “The Menagerie, Part I” (with an explanation by Spock at 28:41).
[24] The POD is at 1:57 in “The Cage”, immediately before the Communications Officer proclaims “It’s a radio wave, sir”. Everything from that point forward is divergent.
[25] The death of Garrovick echoes the circumstances of his death that were mentioned in the episode “Obsession”, though this attack is a few years ahead of schedule (the events of “The Cage” and the original attack on the Farragut are traditionally dated three years apart).
[26] Hatch is made up to more closely resemble the actor who played his character’s father in “The Doomsday Machine”, William Windom. He was 47 at the time of filming, compared to Windom who was 43 (and playing the character more than ten years older than Hatch does here).
[27] Morrow, of course, appeared IOTL in The Search for Spock, principally written by Harve Bennett.
[28] In “The Cage”, Colt was quite obviously interested in Captain Pike (one of Gene Roddenberry’s directives was a romance between the Captain and his Yeoman, which carried forward into the series proper with the interactions between Kirk and Rand before finally being abandoned). In this film, on the other hand, the decision is made to abandon the Kirk/Wallace relationship in much the same way as it was implied to have ended in “The Deadly Years”.
[29] All of whom wore red, of course. Anachronistic uniforms (they should have matched the beige ones worn in “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before” but instead much more closely resembled those of the series proper due to their far more iconic appearance) allowed for these redshirts to make their valiant but completely anonymous sacrifice to prove that the situation was serious.
[30] Think Dudley Moore from Arthur, only not played for laughs.
[31] Number One, who is given no proper name in the film (just as in “The Cage”), is identified as a Lieutenant Commander and the senior-most officer other than Pike aboard the ship. In “The Cage” she was only a Lieutenant (as was, apparently, every officer aboard other than Pike), but this was deemed unworkable for the film (especially after Kirk was promoted to Lieutenant Commander), so she was made senior (in rank and/or tenure) to every officer in the task force save Pike and Decker. Boyce is also identified as a Lieutenant Commander, and Tyler (whose rank is ambiguous in the episode) is stated to be an Ensign; “Cadet Tyler”, played by a different actor, appeared in Starfleet Academy.
[32] Trelane has a stereotypical “Generation X college student” mentality, essentially, as opposed to the “spoiled Baby Boomer kid” of “The Squire of Gothos”.
[33] Bear in mind that, at the conclusion of this film, Kirk is barely two years out of Starfleet Academy and is already a Lieutenant Commander and the First Officer of a starship. That’s a leg-up on the OTL Prime!Kirk (still a mere Lieutenant as late as 2257) though (notoriously) not the OTL Reboot!Kirk (from Cadet to Captain in one fell swoop).
[34] IOTL, the United Paramount Network, or UPN (jointly owned by Paramount and boat manufacturers Chris-Craft) did not premiere until early 1995, with Star Trek: Voyager as their inaugural broadcast (and their flagship show, through the end of the 20th century).
[35] Exodus has no OTL equivalent, though much of its talent was culled from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and The X-Files.
[36] Quite literally, in fact. Galileo (which, you will recall, was IOTL known as Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9) collided with Jupiter over the course of July 16-22, 1994; Exodus began airing on July 18, 1994 (a Monday). As the date of the impact was known well ahead of time, this was no coincidence, and it paid off in terms of a ready-made audience.
[37] Born Nana Tucker, she achieved professional recognition IOTL under the name Visitor, primarily as the female lead in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
[38] Mumy appears here instead of on Babylon 5 as the character of Lennier.
[39] A prevalent theory at the time was that the core of Jupiter - and the other gas giants - was indeed made of diamond (which is to say, highly pressurized carbon), as can be seen in this contemporary article, and so Clarke could not resist the opportunity to exploit this, IOTL or ITTL. This is also among the biggest changes from the book of 2020, in which the Leonov was irreparably damaged in its attempt to retrieve these “samples”. It’s a near-run thing in the movie version (especially as it’s the climactic action sequence), but the Discovery II (lacking a spare) gets away just in the nick of time.
[40] Apollo 13 takes the slot for the Best Picture nomination held by Forrest Gump, but all other nominees are as IOTL: Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Shawshank Redemption, and Quiz Show.
[41] Apollo 13 won all three of those awards at the following year’s Academy Awards ceremony IOTL.
[42] Forrest Gump won for Picture and Director IOTL; without it, Pulp Fiction takes both awards easily, resulting in a true coronation for Tarantino rather than “mere” veneration by the “in” crowd. Shawshank, for all the plaudits it has received in the years since, is too earnest and straightforward a film to have won the big prize in that climate.
[43] ITTL, the car accident that severely injured his son and led him to drop out of that race was butterflied; his success gave him the platform he needed to try again in 1992.
[44] Funnily enough, Richards wowed the party brass at the very same DNC at which a certain other politician bored audiences to tears… Bill Clinton.
[45] Comparisons to another “upside-down” ticket - the Dukakis-Bentsen tandem of just four years before - abound throughout the campaign, given the perceived dullard leaning on a charismatic Texan for support, and that same Texan steamrolling Quayle in the VP debates.
[46] Although Maine was also Perot’s best state IOTL, he did not come nearly as close to a single electoral vote from that state, ending up over five points behind Clinton in the second congressional district.
[47] Bush won New Hampshire, Ohio, Georgia, Montana, and Nevada in addition to all the states he carried ITTL.
[48] IOTL, Clinton won with 43%, to 37.5% for Bush and 18.9% for Perot. Clinton received 370 electoral votes, carrying 32 states and the District of Columbia, whereas Bush won received 168 electoral votes and carried 18 states.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Interlude #3: The Quiet Years
The Cold War was finally over, and in a way that no one who had lived through it could possibly have expected: instead of going hot, and very probably nuclear, as everyone had feared, it had ended in a gentle thaw, as the Second World collapsed in upon itself like a house of cards. The Autumn of Nations in 1989, which had resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany, was not put down by the Soviet Union as Hungary had been in 1956, nor as Czechoslovakia was in 1968. The era of two superpowers and opposing blocs was over; the United States was the last one standing. This shockingly abrupt and non-belligerent shift in the geopolitical situation left many combatants of the Cold War feeling alienated, perhaps even disappointed. It was the kind of anti-climax that could only happen in real life; the peace that everyone had said they wanted, but which nobody had honestly expected. The USSR was no more - the ancient enemy of the Western Democracies had not even lasted for 75 years, just barely the length of an average lifetime. The Cold War was even shorter - carrying on for just four decades in total. But it had seemed so much longer. The Presidency of Ronald Reagan, who had ended the era of détente in order to escalate the antagonistic situation with the Soviet Union, had only just ended when the Berlin Wall fell; the military spending initiatives he had pledged during his term in office had included a 600-ship Navy and the Strategic Defense Initiative, which seemed to be all for naught.
That driving force, that carefully steered, steady-as-she-goes direction which had led all of Western culture was gone. Millions were left adrift. Defense budgets were trimmed. Battleships were put back into mothballs. Nuclear arsenals were scaled back. The palpable physical threat of hundreds of missiles with an atomic payload, pointed at all the major cities and installations belonging to the other side, was eliminated; but it made for a poignant metaphor. There was nothing to attack now; nothing to defend against. Humanity always thrived when faced with challenges, with resistance from an opposing force. There was no opposing force either. The veterans returning home from the battlefields of World War II had reported alienation, and difficulty re-acclimating themselves with their peacetime surroundings; the Cold War, which had been far more pervasively a culture war than a military one, counted everyone as its combatants. What they felt was certainly far less traumatic than the veterans had, less physically and emotionally scarring, but it did leave a mark. Everything had changed. The years which immediately followed the Cold War came to be known as “The Quiet Years”. [1] Many critics, particularly cultural conservatives, would instead describe them as disquieting. The 1980s had been an era of warm-and-fuzzy family sitcoms like The Cosby Show and Family Ties. Only at the tail end of this decade did more cynical, topical programming emerge, primarily as a reaction to this complacency, and this would itself become a dominant trend in the early-1990s, the first era in which Generation X, the generation which followed the Baby Boomers, made their cultural influence known.
One of the earliest examples was Seinfeld, which starred observational comedian Jerry Seinfeld (playing a fictionalized version of himself), co-created by him and his former roommate and comedy writer Larry David in 1988. Though it had a direct antecedent in the cable program It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, it would reach a much larger audience from its network berth on NBC. It was oft-described as the “show about nothing” and epitomized television during the Quiet Years; plots were low-concept to the point of mundane. Characters would argue about trivialities, starting with which button was the most important on a shirt, and move nowhere from there. In addition, the core foursome - two of whom were based on Seinfeld and David, the others being based on their friend Kenny Kramer and a composite of their various ex-girlfriends - were unabashedly unsympathetic, both selfish and self-absorbed. [2] From there, they gradually evolved into gleefully amoral - as a direct reaction to the moralistic programming of the 1980s, there would be “no hugging, no learning” on Seinfeld. Seinfeld’s character in particular took a strangely vindictive pleasure in his continuing amorality, and it was telling that the most likeable (and compassionate) character was the stock “wacky neighbour”. Although the characters (and the actors who portrayed them) were late baby-boomers, the show had a more Generation-X mindset: the previous generation had fought for what they had seen as noble ideals, but these characters, to the extent that they fought for anything, sought to vindicate their own self-importance. It was telling of the times that viewers identified with them anyway.
Serving as a distaff counterpart to Seinfeld - in more ways than one - was Murphy Brown, which (like Seinfeld) had technically premiered shortly before the end of the Cold War, in 1988 (but while glasnost and perestroika were in full swing). Unabashedly topical, like the Norman Lear sitcoms of the generation prior, but lacking all of their warmth and sincerity, Murphy Brown was a work-based sitcom set at a television news-magazine, which allowed for political satire and the blending of reality and fiction (as real television journalists and politicos were often mentioned and made frequent appearances). The titular character was another sign of the times: a single, mature career woman, played by veteran actress Candice Bergen. Essentially, Murphy Brown took the sketch-comedy approach to sitcom writing, the show often resembling the “Weekend Update” feature on Saturday Night Live far more than even other work-based sitcoms of the era. The controversy which came to define the show, however, would not emerge until the 1991-92 season, when a pregnancy storyline was written into the show. Bergen, 45 years old at the time, was not herself pregnant, but the decision was made in order to highlight the issue of single motherhood. This attracted the ire of Vice-President Dan Quayle, who felt that her pregnancy - and decision to raise the baby alone (Maude had already handled abortion, after all) - trivialized the importance of fathers and their role in the family. He made this statement during an election year, the day after the episode in which Murphy had delivered her child (a daughter, Kelly), and it attracted instant press attention. [3] Given the reality-meets-fiction tenor of the series, it responded in the two-part season premiere by reacting as if Quayle had condemned the character of Brown herself (which was to say, a real person), as opposed to the show on which her character appeared. It was a smash success and attracted truckloads of critical plaudits, but although the great weight given to this fairly insignificant hullabaloo (Brown had been far from the first single mother on television - Norman Lear had, once again, beat her to the punch with One Day at a Time, for example) seemed almost laughable compared to the world-changing events that had dominated the earliest seasons of the show, ratings had peaked during the two seasons detailing Murphy’s pregnancy and her newfound single-motherhood. It was, however, emblematic of the decline which faced real news and what it chose to cover during this era - a shift from geopolitics to celebrity gossip. People didn’t seem to care so much about events and ideals so much as they did other people.
The aesthetic of the sweeping epics of yesteryear did survive in one curious genre, however: science-fiction. In another event which would come to fruition in 1988, the third instalment of the Odyssey series was published, with Arthur C. Clarke deciding to elaborate on the Vulkan Panic which was predominant earlier in the decade (which had informed the film adaptation of 2010). [4] He sought direct inspiration from the Galileo probe which arrived at Jupiter in September 1987, and the findings which it returned to Earth concerning the moons which shared their namesake with the probe in question. 2020: Odyssey Three was released late the following year, to brisk sales (even by Clarke’s standards). Hollywood was interested, because 2010 had done well at the box-office despite the lack of Stanley Kubrick’s singular, uncompromising vision, and because the success of 2020 had domino effects for science-fiction in other media; bringing the novel to the big screen still seemed unlikely, however, until the ascent of a most improbable champion: Tom Hanks. [5] The all-American everyman actor, primarily known for comedic roles, had gained critical plaudits for his dramatic role in Big, by far the most well-received in a spate of body-swap pictures which were released in the era. Hanks, a longtime fan of Clarke’s work, wanted very much to play the lead role of Commander Graves, the captain of the Discovery Two, and now he finally had the cachet to make it happen. [6] However, by the time 2020 was finally produced and released to theatres, the book itself had set into motion a whole new wave of science-fiction, starting on the small screen.
J. Michael Straczynski, the one-time showrunner for the popular and well-received cartoon adaptation of the smash-hit Ghostbusters film (entitled The Real Ghostbusters), was left unfulfilled by his work on that program, seeing it as a mere stepping-stone toward his dream project, that which he was sure would become his magnum opus. The 1980s had seen dramatic series embracing serialization to unprecedented levels, even beyond soap operas such as Dallas or Dynasty into procedurals like Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law. Straczynski wanted to extend the reach of serialization further into science-fiction television. Star Trek: The New Voyages had experimented with arc-based storytelling, only for the notion to meet widespread resistance among viewers (resulting in writers approaching serialization on a piecemeal basis). Straczynski wanted to bring this half-hearted tendency to full bloom, creating an exemplar the fabled television novel - with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end - in the process. After many years developing and refining the story he believed most worthy of bringing to the small screen, he began pitching it to production companies. The epic scope of his planned story alienated many of them, but Straczynski - whose showrunner experience in an expensive format, animation, gave him some knowledge of how rapidly (and unexpectedly) costs could accumulate, promised that his show could be produced on time and on budget. The amount of control he intended to exercise was singularly ambitious in that virtually all dramatic programming in the United States was written by committee (the “Writers’ Room” being the central nexus of any series) and Straczynski was intending to script most episodes by himself, having already developed most of the running story arcs he had in mind - this was far more in the British tradition.
One key advantage of the setting in terms of keeping costs down was that, unlike Star Trek, Straczynski’s series (which he called Babylon 5) was set on a space station. [7] This would allow for the construction of dedicated sets, with no need to incur costs on building, installing, and then demolishing swing sets. However, given the station’s stated purpose of serving as something of a galactic melting pot, alien races would be depicted, and in large numbers, as humans were but a small fish in a great big sea of interstellar species (a marked contrast to the prominent role played by humans in the United Federation of Planets on Star Trek), with other alien species forming power blocs which regularly threatened the fragile Earth Alliance. In fact, it was a long and bloody war with one of these powers, the Minbari, which had spurred the creation of the Babylon 5 station, in an echo of the diplomatic organizations that had emerged from each World War in the 20th century. Given that Babylon 5 was the fifth such attempt to do so, it was clear that the Babylon program in general owed much more to the failed League of Nations than to the UN.
By this time, Star Trek: The New Voyages had been off the air for four years, and there was a growing demand by science-fiction fans of the era for another small-screen outing in the genre to replace it. [8] None of the networks, not even the nascent FOX, were interested in Babylon 5, however. Straczynski and his production company, Warner Bros., were forced to resort to selling the series into first-run syndication, a market which had supported original programming in substantial numbers in the 1980s. [9] From syndication, individual stations (including network affiliates) could choose to buy the series to air in any of the over 200 markets throughout the country, just as though it were a rerun of an already-aired show. Many stations were understandably nervous at the potential scope of Babylon 5, however, and thus a pilot movie, The Gathering, was aired on Monday, February 6, 1989, in over 150 markets throughout the United States (including all twenty of the largest) in order to test the waters. The lead character was Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, commanding officer of the Babylon 5 station. Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima served as Executive Officer. [10] The two leads were well-received by critics and audiences, as was the telefilm in general, leading Warners to greenlight production on a series proper, which had just enough time to begin preparation for a September premiere in the 1989-90 season. Still, no network was interested, though many individual affiliates were, and so it too would air in syndication - which Straczynski handled as diplomatically as he could. “Going up against Wheel of Fortune can be a double-edged sword,” he would remark, years later; Wheel was the highest-rated program in first-run syndication at the time, and had been for several years. [11]
Many of the visual effects originally created for the miniseries were reused countless times for the series proper. Their design was overseen by Visual Effects Supervisor Steven Begg, including the station itself. Because computer-generated imagery was still in its infancy at the dawn of the 1990s (prior to its proliferation through the ensuing decade), practical effects were primarily used, including extensive model shots, matte paintings, and stop-motion photography. Inspired by the work done at Industrial Light & Magic, the Lucasfilm special effects division, over the previous decade, the work done by Begg and his team was some of the most impressive - and cost-effective - ever made for television. [12] The only Emmy Awards won by Babylon 5 throughout its run were for the visual effects, though it was also nominated in other (mostly technical) categories.
The complexity of Babylon 5 was beyond even the most ambitious shows seen on network television at the time. The overarching storyline entailed constant growth and development of the characters throughout all five seasons. The “Shadow War” served as the backdrop for an in-depth exploration of the astropolitical situation throughout the conflict, which included ties to historical events. The Babylon 5 station, something between a melting pot and a mosaic, and despite the precedent set by the previous four stations, served as something of a touchstone and a constant through the tumult depicted in the series. The scope and focus of the storyline was, occasionally, derided as being an inferior ripoff of The Lord of the Rings, especially given the strong focus on mystical elements (fairly unusual for the technologically-oriented genre of science-fiction). However, the extreme complexity and attention required of the average viewer proved a deterrent and a particular thorn in the side of executives, who constantly challenged Straczynski’s creative control. Ratings were never terribly strong, and the threat of cancellation loomed throughout. However, the show would run for a full five seasons, concluding with a bang in 1994 - which (for this and other reasons) would become known as the “Summer of Space”. [13]
As counterpoint, that franchise which had inspired confidence and optimism for the future of mankind in one of the darkest hours for the United States - the late 1960s - would see a revival in the early 1990s, for the 25th anniversary of Star Trek. Heading this project was the showrunner from the later seasons of The New Voyages in the 1980s, Harve Bennett. Though his entire career up to that point had been in television, he had an understanding of and appreciation for Star Trek which made him ideal for the position, not to mention that it allowed Paramount to pay lip service to “properly shepherding the franchise forward”. Most importantly, Bennett had a reputation for completing projects under budget and on schedule. That sort of prudence was worthy of a promotion to the big screen from the small one, in the opinion of many studio executives. [14] Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, who had been effectively ousted from production of The New Voyages in 1979 and had virtually nothing to do with the franchise since, would have no involvement whatsoever with this film project; Paramount wanted nothing to do with him, and his health was in decline, to the point where he could not actively participate even if he had wanted to (and he had wanted to, though he certainly would never admit it). Bennett had been nursing an idea since the New Voyages days, which he would finally put into practice here: a flashback to Kirk and Spock’s days at Starfleet Academy. [15] Although the resultant film would turn out differently from how he had conceptualized it, the kernel of the plot was good enough to be green-lit for a release in the summer of 1991. The film itself was to be named Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy would star the central character of the franchise, James Tiberius Kirk, along with the man who was still considered runner-up for that position even after seven years of infrequent guest appearances on The New Voyages: Spock. Though the film was called Starfleet Academy, Kirk and Spock (who were contemporaries, having been born in the same year) were actually not undergraduates in the film (the opening scene depicted their graduation ceremony), but rather were invited to become part of a pilot project called the Accelerated Learning Program, in which recent graduates were invited to reinforce and apply their knowledge through teaching it to incoming students. Kirk, as the top student in the Command Division, and Spock, as the top student in the Sciences Division, were naturally considered prime candidates to start “climbing the ALPs” in the autumn; in the meantime, Ensign Kirk accepted a temporary assignment aboard the USS Republic, on the recommendation of one of his favourite instructors, Lt. Ben Finney, with whom he had grown so close that the senior officer had named his daughter “Jamie” in his honour. However, after the Republic was attacked by a pirate ship in the obligatory action prologue scene, Ben Finney was distracted from his engineering duties, neglectfully leaving a key circuit open to the atomic matter piles; the next officer on the shift, Ensign Kirk, fortunately caught this error in the nick of time. In logging it, he doomed his friend and mentor, Finney, to career stagnation; the senior officer was in fact recalled to his teaching position at Starfleet Academy alongside Kirk, as the opening titles of the movie finally began to play after the lengthy prologue.
The newly-promoted Lt. JG Kirk, in recognition of his actions on the Republic and in order to reflect his special status “climbing the ALPs”, immediately got to work teaching command-level classes. Spock, in the meantime, had stayed on Earth over the summer, working in a research facility and making the acquaintance of Janet Wallace, a graduate-level biomedical researcher (perhaps better known as a “little blonde lab technician” by the more lecherous among the male student body). [16] The lab at which Spock had worked was technically a Federation facility, not belonging to Starfleet, making his “assignment” more of an internship. However, he and Wallace remained on cordial terms even as the term began. Kirk, meanwhile, immediately found himself heading a “clique” of students, including the charming and cocksure Cadet Gary Mitchell and the mature student, Dr. Leonard McCoy, who had joined Starfleet to get away from his ex-wife (who had won full custody of his daughter, Joanna) after their messy divorce. [17]
James T. Kirk was played by Kiefer Sutherland who, like William Shatner, was Canadian-born. In fact, Sutherland had strong family connections in the Great White North, being the son of actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, the latter of whom was the daughter of legendary Father of Medicare Tommy Douglas. Sutherland was known for his intensity and bad-boy image in past performances - he had mostly played villains prior to Starfleet Academy - and was chosen largely because producers felt that he had the range and ability as an actor to branch out beyond the “boy-scout” depicted in this movie into more complex portrayals down the line. He did not imitate the notorious vocal patterns used by Shatner, which was widely regarded as the right choice to make. It was the casting of Spock which was considered a risk - and a revelation: Keanu Reeves, up until that point best known as Ted Logan from the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. In fact, a potential sequel to that film was scuttled when Reeves declined the opportunity to appear in it for Starfleet Academy. [18] Audiences knew Reeves as a goofy stoner character - his stoic, reserved, and brilliantly internalized portrayal of Spock [19] won some of the heaviest plaudits of the film - other than those for the actor chosen to play Dr. Leonard McCoy. Gary Sinise was a dead-ringer for DeForest Kelley physically - Kelley famously joked “it’s like looking in a mirror”, when the two posed for photographs together at the film’s premiere in San Francisco - and worked with a dialogue coach, as well as Kelley himself, who of all the original cast was the one who worked most actively in the film’s production, to get the right accent. It helped that Sinise was ten years older than Sutherland and Reeves - the same age difference between Kelley, and Shatner and Nimoy. Gary Mitchell was played by C. Thomas Howell, a finalist for the role of Kirk, who was felt to lack the “presence” that Sutherland brought to the table.
The success of Starfleet Academy upon release in July 1991, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the wider franchise that September (which proved surprising to many commentators, who did not imagine audiences paying to see what they normally got for free) inspired a rash of other space-focused projects. [20] Development on 2020 continued apace (the film finally being formally green-lit and entering production that autumn) and, in addition, a dramatization of the Apollo 13 incident (based on the Jim Lovell memoir, Lost Moon) was green-lit at the same time, although the studio’s preferred choice for the role of Capt. Lovell, Tom Hanks, declined the part to star in 2020 instead. [21] Lovell’s personal choice for the role, Kevin Costner, then accepted the part. Lovell’s two crewmates, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, were played by Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon, respectively. In contrast to the space opera and technobabble associated with science-fiction, this historical chronicle was intended to be strictly accurate in depicting the events at hand, with the screenwriters interviewing all of the principals and touring NASA facilities extensively, being briefed on the history and development of the Apollo missions. It was during these tours that the mindset of those at mission control - “failure is not an option” - found itself taking on a whole new life in the pages of the draft scripts. When production commenced, the decision was made to compose the film entirely of original footage, not reusing a single sound or image from the extensive chronicles of the actual operation. Taking advantage of the lavish budget available to them, the producers opted to, as best as possible, recreate the conditions of the Apollo 13 mission through practical means: sets were built to the exact specifications of the original Apollo craft, with the exception of having certain parts removable (as with the “segments” of the bridge on the original Star Trek) for ease of filming. Real NASA pilots, including those contemporary to the Apollo era, put the actors through basic training. This included time in zero-g conditions on the high-altitude “Vomit Comet” aircraft, which would later extend to the filming of scenes in zero-g on the same vehicle with the help of specially constructed sets - hundreds of flights were conducted, given that much of the movie took place in zero-g conditions, and that each zero-g period lasted for less than half a minute. NASA technicians were so impressed with the sets that they “requisitioned” them for internal training use once principal photography was completed.
Naturally, and in stark contrast to the strict scientific and historical accuracy aimed for by the makers of Apollo 13, a sequel to Starfleet Academy itself was followed by a direct sequel, Eternal Conflict, released in 1993. Harve Bennett, who as the primary creative force behind the franchise, continued to serve as Executive Producer for the second film, decided to take the opportunity to double down. Had the film continued with a straight take on the early adventures of Kirk and Spock, it would have run into the problem of telling the same stories that had already been seen, or at least far more directly and concretely alluded to than the “backstory blender” that was Starfleet Academy. The centrepiece of this conundrum was “The Cage”, the original pilot of Star Trek, which had been rejected by NBC (who, in so doing, had chosen to commission a second pilot, which was successful). Due to a shortage of scripts in the first season, “The Cage” was repackaged into a framed flashback episode called “The Menagerie”, which described the “Cage”-era footage as being several years in the past. Doing the math, “The Cage” would have been set very shortly after Spock had climbed the ALPs and begun his assignment on the Enterprise under Captain Pike, meaning that the prequel series had already run out of material before it would be forced to repeat the stories that had already been told. But not for nothing was Harve Bennett known for his ability to pull a rabbit out of his hat, taking advantage of a stray plot thread which he could now pull and watch unravel…
“The Cage” had never aired in its original, unaltered form until 1986, having been presumed lost up until then. [22] Just in time for the twentieth anniversary of Star Trek, however, the original negatives were discovered in a Paramount vault, and a special ninety-minute event was broadcast around the footage from the original episode; 63 minutes all told, which would add up to the standard 75 minutes of programming (25 for each half-hour, with the rest devoted to advertising space) when combined with twelve minutes of commentary from some of the principals involved, including Leonard Nimoy, Robert Justman, and - surprisingly - Gene Roddenberry himself. All of the commentary preceded the showing of the uncut episode, though commercial breaks were rather arbitrarily chosen at various points therein. Nevertheless, Bennett - who remained the nominal chief executive of the Star Trek franchise, despite The New Voyages having ended in 1984, but declined to participate in “The Cage” special so as not to seem as though he were trying to retroactively insert himself in the history of Star Trek - took note of a strange phenomenon as he was watching the opening moments of the episode proper. The Enterprise had encountered an unusual disturbance in the midst of space immediately prior to the reception of a distress signal. Though the episode had implied that the two were connected, it struck Bennett as strange that an old-style radio wave would be capable of what appeared to be highly unusual subspace distortions. [23] So he devised an alternative idea: those distortions were instead the doing of some interdimensional phenomenon which was capable of creating “ripples” in spacetime - the source of this anomaly would thus be able to duplicate realities and send them along divergent paths through history. This theoretical being would be present in whichever “reality” he had created most recently; the implication would be that it had left an “original” timeline to create this new “alternate” one. This bizarre phenomenon could also potentially explain the existence of the parallel universe seen in the original series episode “Mirror, Mirror”, and this would in turn would allow for the possibility of infinite dimensions, and for characters to “cross over” between them. Bennett had always exhibited a gift for developing narrative hooks.
The film opened with a prologue depicting the event which was only mentioned in “The Cage” (and “The Menagerie”): the battle fought by the crew of the Enterprise, including Captain Pike, on Rigel VIII. In keeping with the continuity established in that episode, Pike was ambushed by an alien warrior, both Spock and Tyler were injured, and Pike’s personal yeoman was killed, making for a thrilling and harrowing action prologue. After the opening credits, the beginning of “The Cage” was lovingly re-created, only for Spock to detect strange new readings that the Spock from the original episode did not… a prelude to the arrival of the alien phenomenon which would serve as the primary antagonistic force of the film. [24] After bombarding the Enterprise, the phenomenon vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and pursuing it would drive the rest of the story, gradually establishing that it was set in a different reality from the TOV/TAV/TNV continuity. When it was clear that the Enterprise was out of danger, she continued onto the Vega colony, as per her original orders - thus sidestepping the distress signal from Talos IV which spurred the plot of “The Cage”, and irrevocably altering history as fans had known it. From Vega, the Enterprise was ordered to return to the nearest starbase, where Spock would report his findings to the Admiralty, who would then decide on a course of action.
The action then shifted to the USS Farragut, which was the first long-term assignment of Lieutenant James T. Kirk, several days later. Unlike the Enterprise, which was on the outermost fringes of Federation space, the Farragut was well within the interior; this was therefore the cause of some alarm when they too were beset by an anomaly which produced identical readings to the one which had intercepted the Enterprise. However, it disrupted the Farragut with much more force, severely damaging the vessel and killing many on board, including the commanding officer, Captain Garrovick. [25] This plunged Lt. Kirk, his navigator, into a guilt spiral, as he felt that he had not noticed the phenomenon or attempted to counteract its effects rapidly enough - despite receiving praise for his adroit handling of the situation by the First Officer and Acting Captain, Commander Matt Decker (played by Richard Hatch, who had played the same character’s son Will on TNV). [26] This angst would affect Kirk’s character for the rest of the film. Decker, meanwhile, informed Starfleet Command of their encounter before setting the ship on a course to the nearest starbase - where, upon arriving, they encountered the Enterprise. Admiral Morrow, Starfleet Commander, ordered the two ships, both of which had readings on the anomaly and crews familiar with it, to find the source, before another “attack” - perhaps of even greater intensity than before, and even closer to the major systems of the Federation - could take place. [27] The relative positions of the two ships at the time they each encountered the phenomenon allowed for them to triangulate on a position near the galactic core as the origin.
However, the first order of business was to replenish the badly diminished roster of the Farragut, and the new crewmembers, mostly recent graduates from Starfleet Academy, included some familiar faces: Dr. Leonard McCoy on the medical staff, and Ensign Gary Mitchell as the new helmsman, both on Kirk’s recommendation (reuniting most of his “clique” from the previous film). Decker was promoted to Captain and formally assigned command of the Farragut; Kirk was also promoted, to Lieutenant Commander, and Decker offered Kirk his vacated position of First Officer, which he reluctantly accepted (partly at the urgings of McCoy and Mitchell), despite his continuing misgivings about his self-perceived failings as a navigator. Decker, working to build a rapport with his new second-in-command, tried his best to assuage these misgivings with a key piece of advice: “Remember, Jim, these feelings never go away. Everyone has to fight their own doubts and fears in the struggle to become a better person. It’s an eternal conflict.”
The new crewmembers bolstered the Farragut roster in more ways that one, given that - like Kirk - most of the hands which had survived the incident were plagued with fear and doubt, given what awaited them. As assignments were handed out and repairs on the ship were completed, a delegation from the Enterprise made a rendezvous with the command crew of the Farragut to coordinate their mission. This was led by Lt. Spock, as the science officer previously aboard the Farragut had not survived the initial attack, and the stoic Vulcan remarked upon the “disquieting emotionalism” which had swept through the Farragut. Once the preliminary work was completed, the two ships, proceeded in tandem toward the conjectured source of the anomaly. En route, it did indeed return as predicted, but had seemingly anticipated their planned defences, eschewing structural damage of any kind, but somehow deactivating the warp drives of both ships, leaving them centuries away from their destination, which served to further ratchet the tension on the Farragut and even the Enterprise: Captain Pike, who continued to be shaken by his recent experiences on Rigel, finally confided his doubts about continuing with his career as a Starfleet Captain to the ship’s doctor, Boyce (in a conversation largely lifted from “The Cage”). They were forced to retreat to a long-abandoned dilithium cracking outpost, which had become overrun by the savage native life of the planet in the intervening years, necessitating the beam-down of ample security teams, led by the officers Pike, Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Bones, along with Pike’s yeoman, Colt, who was Kirk’s love interest for the film (replacing Dr. Janet Wallace, who had remained on Earth). [28] The planet was dangerous, and the landing parties could not be guaranteed a safe return, which further demoralized the already shaken crews; this helped to recreate the tense “powder keg on a tin can” atmosphere often seen in the previous series. Though the entire security detail [29] was tragically killed in action, all of the named characters miraculously survived, returning to their ships with the necessary cargo to continue their journey at warp speed, closing rapidly on the origin point. Despite continued setbacks, the ships were unyielding in their mission… even if their respective crews sometimes seemed to be hanging by a thread.
The anomaly apparently perceived this precariousness, and thus the final barrage was not in any way physical or targeting the ships, but was instead emotional, targeting their crews, striking them with a quite literal case of what Spock might call “flagrant emotionalism”. Only a few people - not least of all, Spock himself, along with Kirk and Bones - seemed able to resist the effects to any significant degree. Captain Pike on the Enterprise fell into an unshakeable malaise. Dr. Boyce, who was considerably older than McCoy, found himself suffering early onset senility as a result of the anomaly, thus leaving Bones in charge of finding a cure. In the interests of inter-ship unity (especially since both crews combined could barely muster a medical research team), Mr. Spock co-headed the team with him, allowing for some classic Spock-McCoy interaction which rivaled the high points between them in TOV (which was, in turn, sadly absent from TNV, given Spock’s infrequent appearances - and seldom with Bones). Men and women alike were warped into twisted parodies of themselves: Scotty became a grotesque and obnoxious “funny drunk” [30]; Colt succumbed to what was described in “The Cage” as her “unusually strong female drives”; Mitchell became dangerously antisocial, as he had done in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” though (fortunately) without the addition of psychic powers; and Decker became crazed and paranoid, as in “The Doomsday Machine”, forcing McCoy to relieve him of command (which he famously failed to do in the original episode), granting Kirk the status of Acting Captain. Once again, Kirk was highly ambivalent, despite assuming command of the vessel (the place where audiences knew he belonged more than anywhere else). Kirk was not in command of the fleet, as the First Officer of the Enterprise, known only as Number One, remained in control of her faculties and (given her experience; despite also being only a Lieutenant Commander, like Kirk, she had held the rank for much longer) she served as the de facto task force commander, ensuring that the two ships didn’t find themselves in even worse trouble than that which they had already faced (admittedly, a very tall order). [31] Fortunately, although Spock and Bones got along like oil and water (leading Kirk, who monitored them bemusedly, to ask if they, too, hadn’t been affected), they did make a great team and eventually cured the malaise - by concocting a “laughing cure”, as in such TOV episodes as “Wolf in the Fold” and “Day of the Dove”. It was tested on Scotty, who served as their guinea pig; given his condition, it was hard to tell at first that the cure had worked. By the time they were sure it was successful, they had already arrived at the source of the anomalies: a seemingly inconspicuous deep-space outpost marked as GOTHOS STATION, located just outside the gravity well of the supermassive black hole at the galactic centre.
The sole occupant of the station (even though no life signs had been detected by either ship’s sensors) hailed them, and introduced himself as Trelane, the very same entity who had been a one-time opponent of the Enterprise crew from TOV (played by his original performer, William Campbell), and invited them for an audience with him, the “humble stationmaster of Gothos”. Number One chose to remain aboard the Enterprise in order to supervise the administering of the cure to the afflicted crewmembers, including the other medical staff as well as the two Captains, Pike and Decker. In the meantime, Kirk was sent down to represent the task force. Now a young adult, Trelane had fully mastered the ability to travel through time and space, across all dimensions possessed by all members of his species. Though he had previously encountered other incarnations of Kirk in his own subjective past, this one did not know him, exactly. Trelane explained that he had visited many parallel universes, some of which were of his own creation (with the famous “mirror universe” from “Mirror, Mirror” being implied as one of them). However, he was not quite the petulant brat of his youth; he was more an inquisitive (if reckless) college student, conducting “experiments” to better his knowledge of the multiverse. [32] The Enterprise and the Farragut functioned as his own private laboratories, with all the people aboard as his own collection of lab rats. With all the instrumentation at his command, Trelane seemed unstoppable, but eventually, Kirk was able to muster his resolve and appeal to Trelane in a way that had failed even his older, more seasoned and experienced alternate self: reasoning with him, and pointing out that they had overcome every obstacle that he had thrown their way. Trelane - given the pretensions toward intellectualism which he did not possess as a “child” - decided in his benevolence that Kirk and his comrades had “potential” - something he had not yet been “enlightened” enough to see in his previous encounter with Kirk (in “another time, another place, another universe” - firmly establishing that the audience was now observing the adventures of a parallel crew). With that, Kirk was returned to the Farragut, and the outpost disappeared into the black hole, seemingly bound for whole new universes. The task force, armed with this wealth of sensor data, and having finally recovered from their emotional distress, headed back to Federation space, ready for new adventures, come what may; Kirk, for his part, had overcome his demons and found himself one step closer to his legendary Captaincy (with the once-again-lucid Decker remarking that he “wouldn’t be surprised if Admiral Morrow put you up for another promotion”). [33]
The film was set largely on the bridges of the two ships in the task force (which were actually a single set, lightly re-dressed to play either the Enterprise or the Farragut), and this cost-saving innovation would prove an inspiration for future endeavours within the franchise, though not exactly on a cinematic scale. Although a third film in the franchise immediately went into pre-production, a new television series had been on the table as early as 1991, with the success of Starfleet Academy, with the success of Eternal Conflict reinforcing these plans. This time, Paramount would follow through on their plans to create a new network called the Paramount Television Network, or PTN (entertained, but ultimately abandoned, in the mid-1970s) on which the new Star Trek series would serve as the flagship show. The show (and network) were scheduled to premiere in September of 1994, a date which (just as it had been seventeen years before) proved remarkably serendipitous due to the timing of events which took place over the summer - the “Summer of Space”, as it were. [34] PTN would beat a rival “new network” (the success of FOX had inspired many imitators) founded by Warner Bros., which would launch later that season, in early 1995; given that Warner had produced Babylon 5, they green-lit a spinoff program to air as part of the launch schedule on their new network, in direct competition to Star Trek. But before either of those spinoffs of established franchises could come to fruition, a plucky newcomer entered the fray in the form of a summer mini-series called Exodus, which aired in July of 1994 on FOX. [35]
Exodus was far more a symbol of the zeitgeist than the Star Trek revival had been, and indeed it came into being largely as a deconstructive response to that venerable franchise, which was generally regarded as optimistic and idealistic almost to the point of delusion even though the history of mankind in the centuries between the present and the far-future setting in which Star Trek took place had apparently entailed race wars between humans and genetic supermen, nuclear apocalypse, and bloody conflicts with other galactic powers. If the Federation was a relatively peaceful galactic superpower, it had won that status through no little amount of blood, sweat, and tears. Nonetheless, the creator of Exodus, Ira Steven Behr, seemed to have a chip on his shoulder regarding Star Trek - especially the original Roddenberry vision thereof (something which was itself continually evolving, it had to be said). He spoke more highly of the pragmatism exhibited under the Bennett regime, but (like Straczynski before him) believed that it had not gone far enough - so he decided to approach the future of mankind from the opposite direction. It helped that the early-1990s were a period of exceptional environmental hyper-awareness, with many scientists predicting runaway global warming and extinction events unless immediate corrective steps were taken all over the world to create sustainable development. For this reason, Exodus was set within a colony of Martian evacuees, the titular Exodus having taken place in an attempt to flee an apocalyptic asteroidal collision with Earth (a plot point inspired by the predicted - and realized - collision of Comet Galileo with the planet Jupiter in 1994, just in time for the mini-series to air). [36] Behr worked with a talented assemblage of writers, including Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Hans Beimler, and Chris Carter, in crafting the lore of Exodus. Despite the otherwise cynical premise, all of the writers favoured the inclusion of a mythical element (again like Straczynski), which would focus on the colonists discovering mounting evidence that Mars itself was once an Earthlike planet, on which an intelligent civilization had resided. The question of what might have happened to these people became a running plotline, the backdrop against the daily challenges of running this last bastion of humanity (other refugee colonies on other worlds were occasionally mentioned, but left unseen). The Apocalypse, caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth, was clearly allegorical for the man-made habitat destruction protested by environmentalists; a War of the Worlds in reverse. The message of a need for careful stewardship of Earth’s available resources with a focus on sustainability could be read into the artificial maintenance and critical focus on the survival of the colony within the boundaries of the tube with the supplies and technology on hand. However, this remained a more subliminal theme within the context of the show (which focused more on the overarching storyline of the ancient alien species, with the day-to-day survival of the colony fading into the background), though one which was popular in the fandom. In an era when shows with the blatant messaging of Captain Planet were on the air, it was difficult not to seem subtle by comparison.
The characters who fled the Earth found themselves settling in a preexisting geological research colony which was based in a lava tube, akin to the “underground cities” featured in science-fiction and fantasy works since time immemorial. The refugees far, far outnumbered the miniscule population of the base personnel, whose commander, played by Tim Matheson, was already undergoing a midlife crisis (common to many people in the aging Boomer generation) prior to their arrival. After having left behind his life as a career soldier on the Earth to indulge his love for geology and scientific exploration at a quiet base in the peace and tranquility of Mars, his commission was being reactivated, making him the unwilling de facto governor of what had now become a colony of evacuees; the refugees decamped in the tube, given its potential to support a settlement of such sheer size, despite plainly being unable to do so at present. The leader of the new arrivals, played by Nana Tucker [37], was a staunch survivalist, far more self-centred and driven by the needs of the moment than focused on the big picture. Rash, impulsive, and insensitive, her character contrasted - and clashed - with the world-weary Matheson character. As the main focus of the original miniseries was indeed survival, the conflicts that all sides faced drove the plot far more than challenges in the new environment would have done alone. The “settlers” were further balanced against the “natives” (none of whom actually born on Mars) with the inclusion of a scientist character played by Bill Mumy [38], who had failed to detect the asteroid in time to stop the Apocalypse, driving a massive guilt complex (as did constant blame from certain other corners of the mission, including from Tucker’s character, who did not make friends easily). His redemption came with his continued value as a researcher and engineer for the growing colony and, in the series proper which resulted from the miniseries, when he found what he believed to be evidence that Mars had previously been inhabited by a highly advanced alien species in the distant past. This formed the backdrop to the story arcs of the three central characters: Tucker emerging as a competent leader, Mumy being redeemed from his previous mistakes (as “the man who doomed Earth”), and Matheson, the commanding officer, managing to once again find the strength to stand as a leader in spite of his past, his time on Mars having given him new strength and purpose, returning to his original vocation as the commanding officer of the research - or colonial - base. These redemptive character arcs were introduced more formally into the series proper; the mini-series established the characters as less developed or relatable than they became in the program that would follow, without hindering the obvious storytelling potential for them and their relationships.
And finally, after six years of waiting, there was the film version of 2020, also released during the “Summer of Space” in 1994. Given that the novel had helped to launch the present wave of science-fiction, it seemed only fitting that the adaptation was able to reap some of those rewards. Clarke wrote the screenplay himself, as he had done for 2001 (though not 2010), as the producers had sought to take advantage of changes in the geopolitical landscape since 1988 (which, in one fell swoop, had severely dated both 2001 and 2010) while maintaining the legitimacy and gravitas of connecting them to the original author. Clarke agreed to “update” the plot and setting for the post-Cold War environment, while at the same time taking advantage of the continuing discoveries made by the Galileo probe in the several years since it had arrived at Jupiter.
2020 was a story of pure exploration, largely inspired by these Galileo discoveries. In the book, it depicted an American-Soviet joint research mission sent to the newly stellar Jupiter to investigate the “planets” (formerly moons) which were in orbit about the dwarf star. However, the two ships (the Soviet Leonov, which had saved the day in 2010, and the American Discovery II) became only one (Discovery II) when the novel was adapted to film in 1994, partly as one of the many changes made to take the collapse of the Soviet Union into account and partly because Star Trek: Eternal Conflict had starred two ships (the Enterprise and the Farragut). Indeed, a Leonov model was designed and even partially built before it was discarded. In both novel and film, the two crews arrived at Jupiter and explored the outer planets - starting with the outermost, Callisto, which remained frigid and blanketed in ice, a situation which the Russian (in the film, the word “Soviet” was never once mentioned or seen, allowing for a quiet retcon of the USSR’s continued existence, as depicted in 2001 and 2010) observers compared to Siberia in their native homeland. Ganymede, the largest Jovian planet (formerly the largest moon in the Solar system), now had temperatures comparable to those of Earth, and the formerly massive ice deposits were rapidly melting into large freshwater seas when the astronauts surveyed it. The inner moon of Europa, which was shown to have life even before Jupiter became a star, was forbidden by the enigmatic star-children to travel by the Earthlings. The team obeyed the letter of this imposition, but not the spirit, surveying Europa remotely (and as discreetly as possible) noting traces of mostly simple organisms in a primordial soup. The planet enjoyed tropical temperatures, prime for the continuing development of life. This left Io, the innermost of the major planets, which had already been volcanically active. It had seemingly emerged as a hell-world even more frighteningly hostile to human life than Venus, its atmosphere full of noxious gases, its seas comprised of liquid sulfur, and the ground there unstable for even short-term landings. However, the expedition deemed the substantial risk worth it, due to the discovery of a gargantuan diamond “shard” (as tall as a mountain) on one of the innermost planet’s basalt plateaus. [39] It had been ejected from the core of the former planet Jupiter once it had been turned into a star, and though the entire mass could not be retrieved, a “small” sample (on the order of a dozen kilograms) was was successfully harvested by the crew to bring back to Earth before the hazardous environment of Io compelled the landing party back to the Discovery II.
Pre-production was a time-consuming process (though many of the props and set blueprints from the filming of 2010 survived), as was post-production - given the reputation of 2001 as a trailblazer in visual effects, 2020 was expected to continue that tradition, and that involved making use of computer-generated imagery, ludicrously expensive and laborious to produce at the time, which helped to explain why it took so long to make it to theatres; long enough to have direct competition in Apollo 13 (also released during the Summer of Space), which enjoyed the overwhelming support of critics despite being only moderately more popular with audiences than 2020 - although many defenders of the latter film argued that it was a case of the crowd-pleasing, unchallenging Apollo 13 vs. the “cerebral” and “avant-garde” (read: “trippy”) 2020. Apollo 13 was nominated for Best Picture of 1994 at the Academy Awards, whereas 2020 received only token nods in the technical categories. [40] In fact, in what was surely a bitter pill for the 2020 cast and crew to swallow, Apollo 13 won Best Visual Effects and Best Sound, both over 2020 (along with Best Film Editing). [41] However, in a demonstration of one of the other predominant cultural forces of the early-1990s, Pulp Fiction, a curiously pleasing combination of Generation X self-awareness and irony with throwback 1970s exploitation, took the award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. [42]
But at the end of the day, all of these films and particularly all of these series, even those which attempted to reflect the newly-cynical atmosphere of the Quiet Years, were escapist by their very nature. The Quiet Years came after “the end of history” - the conclusion of the Cold War and what by all appearances was the rise of a Pax Americana. But the dawn of the Cold War had coincided with the rise of television as a medium; by 1989, thousands upon thousands of hours had been widely syndicated to American audiences, with series dating back to the 1950s remaining very much a part of the here and now in a way that only a handful of books and films were able to do. For many people, broadcast history was all-encompassing. Lucy Ricardo and Ralph Kramden lived in a world where freedom defined itself in opposition to the Commies - so did Gilligan, Rob and Laura Petrie, and every character on The Twilight Zone. Archie Bunker had railed against “commie pinkos”. It seemed to unite everyone, even on television. It was a medium defined by a single, looming antagonist throughout its history, but times had changed enough to paint a very different picture than the black-and-white of years past.
But such things did not always happen overnight, and it was in the highest echelons of power where change seemed to take effect most gradually. This was likely how the incumbent President, George Bush, who as part of the Reagan administration was a living symbol of the “old guard”, entered the opening stages of his 1992 campaign for re-election seemingly invulnerable; he had shepherded the nation through the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and claimed the first military victory for the United States since World War II; a far cry from where he had been four years ago, as the milquetoast, uninspiring heir apparent. Bush had won what many political commentators described as “Reagan’s third term” (the 22nd Amendment had prevented the Gipper himself from running again) largely because the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, was a horrendous campaigner who could not effectively package his left-wing politics (describing himself as a “proud liberal”) against the onslaught of attacks from Vice-President Bush, who could (quite reasonably, based on the popularity of President Reagan) describe the American electorate as conservative, although Dukakis had been leading in the polls through much of 1988. However, Bush won decisively - performing better in the popular vote than Reagan had done in 1980 - and since then, had presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Autumn of Nations, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and - most importantly - the singular triumph of the Gulf War. Perhaps Bush’s greatest weakness was his running-mate, Vice-President Dan Quayle, the laughably incompetent, blue-blooded nonentity whom Bush had chosen for strategic purposes. Though from solidly Republican Indiana, Quayle’s Midwestern origins were intended to bolster the ticket in the neighbouring swing states of Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, though it is questionable how much impact he personally had in any of them. Nonetheless, despite many Americans - even Republicans - urging President Bush to drop his running-mate from the ticket in 1992, he declined to do so, perhaps reasoning that he could afford an albatross in a cakewalk election, and that dumping him would probably result in far more negative press than keeping him on the ticket.
As a matter of fact, it was President Bush himself who had planted the seeds of his own downfall, in trying to be everything to everyone, promising a “kinder, gentler America” in almost the same breath as his vow not to introduce any new taxes; even Reagan had been forced to do so, and Bush was no Reagan. Sure enough, in came the new taxes, and once the Cold War came to an end and defence spending plummeted, the loss of jobs and the low levels of disposable income resulted in a major recession. Perhaps even more so than in 1980, the 1992 election would hinge on a perceived need for radical new solutions to radical new economic and financial difficulties, akin to the FDR landslide of sixty years before. Enter billionaire H. Ross Perot, a quixotic Texan mogul, whose platform of fiscal responsibility struck an instant chord with much of the American population - particularly those who leaned conservative (though many Democrats also favoured Perot). It was like the 1912 election of eighty years earlier, all over again.
The third component of this new three-way split was Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., better known as simply “Al Gore”, the junior Senator from Tennessee. He had previously served in the House of Representatives before being elected to the upper chamber in 1984. Like so many other prominent lawmakers, and like his opponent President Bush, he was a political scion; his father, Albert Gore, Sr., had represented the other Senate seat in the Volunteer state from 1953 to 1971. Like many Southern Democrats, Gore was moderate-to-conservative within his party on many issues, though there were exceptions: Gore was a technocrat, also known as an “Atari Democrat”. The term came from the dominant video game system in use from the late-1970s until the mid-1980s, at the dawn of personal computing and the information technology industry in earnest. Gore was an advocate of using information technology to facilitate telecommunications, which would be done by opening the ARPANET, then available only to the military and government agencies, to the wider world (which was done through a successor network, known simply as the Internet). His High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, known as the “Gore Bill” during legislative debates, would lay the foundation for the proliferation of the internet for use among the general population, and his later claim of having “taken the initiative in creating the Internet” would forever tie him to this issue in the public imagination long after the term “Atari Democrat” had fallen into disuse.
Gore was also known for his environmentalism, having dated his affiliation with the movement all the way back to the first-wave in the 1960s, after having read the seminal Silent Spring in high school. From the very beginning of his legislative career, he focused on global warming, toxic waste, greenhouse gases, and the ozone layer, coming to strongly oppose fossil-fuel based energy sources, deforestation, and unsustainable industrialization. The early-1990s marked a turning point. The Second World had collapsed, with the carefully planned economy giving way to free-market influences where profit would be the primary concern for any venture capitalists. The Third World, now that it was no longer divided between the two superpowers into cultural or geographical spheres, was also open to investment from all sides, and it more than anywhere else in the world was primed for rapid industrialization. Gore saw that as having major potential for problems. This combination of ideologies, along with otherwise relatively conservative social policies, had served him well in his 1988 run for the Democratic nomination for President, where he had finished third - behind the eventual winner, the liberal Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis, and the first runner-up, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had consolidated the African-American vote behind him, just as in 1984. Gore had secured the endorsement of the 1984 Vice-Presidential candidate, Senator John Glenn, and had finished third overall, winning 15% of the vote in the primaries and more than a half-dozen states.
But the 1992 primaries were not expected to be competitive. All of the A-listers for the party had passed on what was widely expected to be a Bush cakewalk, but Gore (who had won reelection to the Senate in 1990) decided to take a second chance. [43] Gore emerged quickly as the only major Southern and centrist candidate in contention; his only real rival for either title, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, withdrew from the primaries and endorsed Gore, doomed by joint revelations about personal financial malfeasance and marital infidelity. His main competition was the liberal former Governor of California, Jerry Brown, who emerged late in the campaign, winning eight states (including his home state of California) and nearly a quarter of the primary electorate. Gore took 30 states (including the entire Old Confederacy), and about 40% of the vote; enough to clinch the primaries before the convention. After nominating two very liberal candidates for the Presidency, the Democrats chose a moderate (a “raging moderate”, in his own words) for the nomination, more in the vein of Jimmy Carter. However, because Gore was known for his opposition to federal funding for abortion, and for his overall socially conservative record, there was a strong desire to shore up support with female voters and the left-wing base of the party, who were lukewarm about his candidacy.
For that reason, Texas Governor Ann Richards, who had wowed Democratic insiders at her 1988 keynote speech at the DNC (when she was merely State Treasurer), was chosen as his running-mate. [44] Richards was the second Democratic choice for VP from Texas in a row, following Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. Though relatively inexperienced, she had a down-to-earth, folksy southern charm which had completely eluded the wonkish Gore (despite his own Tennessean heritage), while as a self-described “sensible progressive”, Richards (though still a relative moderate, by Democratic standards) was largely to Gore’s left on many key issues, including abortion. Her selection - the first of a woman by either major party in American history - drew international attention, and indeed she was by far the most frequently discussed of all six candidates on the three respective tickets for the White House in late 1992 (Perot was a distant second). “Vote for Richards - and that other guy” was a commonly-seen campaign sign on the stumps, although Richards drew just as much opposition as she did support. Perhaps her most impressive feat was drawing more attention than the legendarily gaffe-prone Dan Quayle, particularly her utter domination of the lone Vice-Presidential debate. [45] This helped to compensate for the relatively lackluster performances by Sen. Gore at the Presidential debates - at the urging of his advisors, he focused as much as possible on the economy and foreign policy despite his singular passion for issues that were more peripheral to the campaign, and this made him more vulnerable to Perot (on the economy) and Bush (on foreign policy). One of his core “pet issues”, the environment, came up largely in the context of discussions about energy policy - Gore favoured renewable sources over fossil fuels. However, he did impress audiences with his emphasis on “the proud tradition of American ingenuity” through the use of technological advances to solve the new problems faced in the United States and around the world. This broad appeal reached many of those who could not have cared any less about “the internet”, and only paid lip service to his environmentalist causes.
In the end, many observers assumed that the three-way race allowed Gore (the most fiscally liberal candidate) to come up the middle between his two more fiscally conservative rivals - that Perot was better at poaching votes from Bush (who, despite his loss, maintained good approval ratings through the end of this term) than from Gore. Perot, for his part, did not receive any electoral votes whatsoever, despite winning nearly 20% of the popular vote, the highest-ever tally for any candidate that won no electoral votes; he came closest in Maine, with over a third of the vote statewide, less than five points behind Gore; as Maine divided its electoral votes by congressional district, Perot lost the chance at a single electoral vote in Maine’s more rural second district by just a few thousand votes (only a point behind Gore, at 36-35). [46] He finished second in three other states: Alaska, Utah, and Idaho, all behind Bush and all with well over one-quarter of the vote. He performed worst in the South, whose voters were more willing to back a favourite son (Gore) or their stronger ideological ally (Bush). Given the three-way-race conditions, the electoral map was rather peculiar in contrast to past races. The Democrats dominated New England, including the longtime Republican stronghold of Vermont (not won by the Democrats since 1964), but the GOP held New Hampshire by a razor-thin margin. Gore also did far worse in the South than Jimmy Carter had done in 1976, losing every state in the Deep South except for Louisiana, despite hailing from Tennessee. Bush won his home state of Texas easily over the Gore/Richards ticket, the second time that a Democratic running mate from the Lone Star State utterly failed to make a dent in the Republican advantage there on the Presidential level (though Richards did have more success influencing down-ballot races). However, the Democrats won every Midwestern state except for Indiana (Vice-President Quayle’s home state, which had not voted for the Democrats since 1964) and, in the closest margin of any state in the Union, Ohio (a classic bellwether without which the Republicans had never managed to take the White House). [47]
When the votes were counted, Gore won about 41% of the popular vote, compared to 39% for Bush - the first time one of the major parties had fallen below two-fifths of the vote since George McGovern in 1972. Indeed, Gore won the electoral vote with the same popular vote that Jimmy Carter had achieved in losing to Reagan in 1980, and little better than Walter Mondale would manage in his landslide defeat four years later. [48] Gore’s famous (and alliterative) pledge in his victory speech early in the morning of November 4, 1992, that he would “put public policy over petty politics” - would effectively foreshadow the tenor of his administration in the years to come. Political strategists for the Gore campaign had tried desperately to polish the “policy wonk” into a slick political operative, but the veneer did not last into his term of office. Gore was saddled with a reputation as (at best) a dull and steady pair of hands and (at worst) a bore. Political cartoonists, satirists, and comedians made “Gore the Bore” into a household name, with mockeries both lighthearted and cruel. Gore pushed Congress for tougher environmental restrictions, which resulted in a far more robust EPA mandate; energy policy was, as ever, a tightrope, since nuclear was both efficient and viable, but was heavily campaigned against by many within the environmentalist movement, so Gore advocated massive investment into solar and wind power (which would not become cost-effective for many more years). The primary social issue which Gore chose to tackle was anti-poverty initiatives; these trumped even gun control and health care, two topics favoured by the Democratic base. Nonetheless, with a friendly House and Senate, most of the Gore-proposed legislation passed during the honeymoon period for his administration - though by its very nature, this idyllic state of affairs would not last forever. Ann Richards, for her part, was proving the polar opposite of her predecessor, Dan Quayle, bringing her far more dynamic and vivacious character than Gore to the famously impotent office of Vice-President and doing much to bolster his policies, especially since the President himself naturally proved a lightning rod of criticism and opposition to his administration, and his “policy over politics” mantra could occasionally backfire in his dealings with the media.
President Gore and his earnestness was certainly not reflective of the Quiet Years and their unrelenting cynicism, but as would also prove the case with Generation X and their twenty-something disaffectedness, people would soon be forced to reassess their attitudes, just as society would be forced to reflect on whether it truly had arrived at the “End of History”, or if there indeed remained so much more that had yet to be written…
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[1] Although the term “the End of History” is occasionally used for the post-Cold War period IOTL (which lines up very nicely with the cultural 1990s: 1989-2001), “The Quiet Years” is a term original to TTL, and which will become more meaningful once future events are brought to light.
[2] Those of you who have seen the original pilot of Seinfeld may recall a waitress character who was replaced by Elaine on the series proper. ITTL, the waitress (Claire) was retained (because she was played by a different actress) but was given many of Elaine’s personality traits.
[3] Murphy delivered a son IOTL, who was named Avery in memory of his grandmother (played by Colleen Dewhurst, who passed away in 1991). This son was eventually played by Haley Joel Osment, but he was rarely mentioned and seldom seen after the Dan Quayle hullabaloo died down.
[4] Given that the Galileo probe did not arrive at Jupiter until much later IOTL, and that Clarke had deadlines to meet, he went ahead and wrote 2061: Odyssey Three anyway (with a plotline instead inspired by the Halley’s Comet hysteria), and this film was never adapted to the big screen (as, unlike ITTL, the 2010 film was less successful).
[5] Hanks sought to exercise his clout to bring 2061 to the big screen IOTL as well, but it never came to pass.
[6] There is no equivalent to Graves in 2061.
[7] Babylon 5, of course, would not air until 1993-94 IOTL. However, Straczynski had been developing the plot and its characters since at least the 1980s.
[8] As IOTL, Straczynski attempted to sell B5 to Paramount, but to no avail. And ITTL, there are no obvious “shenanigans” with the subsequent development of a suspiciously similar rival series under the Star Trek banner; Star Trek was considered dormant (at least on the small screen) through the 1980s.
[9] Babylon 5 was IOTL part of the Prime Time Entertainment Network, or PTEN, an ad hoc quasi-network that was in essence a glorified syndication package, operated by Warner Bros. PTEN survived for only five years in the mid-1990s, and only two shows lasted for the entirety of its existence: Babylon 5 was one of them (Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, a spinoff of the classic 1970s series,was the other). PTEN never gets off the ground ITTL, leading Warners to devote more of their care, attention, and resources to the launch of the WB network in the mid-1990s.
[10] Takashima, played IOTL by Tamlyn Tomita, lasted only for the pilot movie, The Gathering, before she chose to depart for other opportunities and was replaced by Susan Ivanova, played by Claudia Christian. ITTL, another actress more willing to see the show through for the long haul is cast as Takashima, which has a dramatic effect (or, more accurately, does not have an effect) on Straczynski’s plans for the character.
[11] IOTL, at this time, Star Trek: The Next Generation was the highest-rated show in first-run syndication (though Wheel was still a powerhouse, and has held the title unchallenged ever since Deep Space Nine ended in 1999). That program, obviously, does not exist ITTL.
[12] Babylon 5 pioneered the use of CGI IOTL, using it exclusively for visual effects. This has, unfortunately, resulted in its visuals becoming very dated - contemporary Star Trek productions (which, until the late-1990s, relied largely on model work, compositing, and other practical effects) have aged much better. ITTL, so will Babylon 5.
[13] It wasn’t as near-run a thing as IOTL - Babylon 5 got its fifth season order early enough that not all of the story elements intended for it had to be crammed into the fourth season instead. This gives the later seasons an overall slower pace, which can be a double-edged sword.
[14] By this time IOTL, Bennett had been ousted from the franchise, having been made the scapegoat for the relative failure of The Final Frontier at the box-office (not to mention its negative critical reception).
[15] Bennett had planned a film depicting Kirk and Spock’s time at Starfleet Academy IOTL, for the 25th anniversary of the franchise, prior to his ouster. The basic idea was of course recycled for the reboot film released in 2009.
[16] Janet Wallace appeared in early drafts for the screenplay that eventually became The Wrath of Khan IOTL, which would have eliminated all doubt that she was the “little blonde lab tech” mentioned by Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, before her character was replaced (and thus eclipsed) by Carol Marcus in later drafts.
[17] This background for McCoy’s character had been written as early as the original series, but never appeared onscreen until the reboot film IOTL.
[18] Yes, that means no Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey ITTL. I’m sure you’re all just devastated (well, I know Alex Winter must be, anyway).
[19] I’m describing Reeves as critics of the time (who were enamoured with his… peculiar acting style) often described him; in truth, he is playing Spock largely as he played every role in his career after Ted. Reeves is chosen at least in part for racial consideration: given the absence of Sulu and Uhura from the cast, and the presence of many white characters to replace them, it was felt that someone “ethnic” should play Spock, as Leonard Nimoy looked suitably “ethnic” (he and William Shatner actually have the exact same ancestry: Ukrainian Ashkenazi) that he wouldn’t “have” to be played by a white actor.
[20] September 8, 1991, was quite fortuitously a Sunday, so Paramount pushed the film into a wider release for that weekend and renewed their ad campaigns, encouraging Trekkies to “celebrate” the silver anniversary of the franchise in a packed theatre. It worked: the film returned to #1 at the box-office for that weekend (which is, to be fair, usually a dead-zone for movie releases anyway).
[21] Hanks also declined to star in Forrest Gump at the same time. Costner was indeed Lovell’s first choice to play him (and the two do resemble each other physically, certainly much more than Hanks), and in accepting this role he does not appear in the notorious flop, Waterworld (the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release) - this is likely to extend his A-list status for several more years.
[22] “The Cage” was not discovered by archivists until 1987 IOTL, too late for the twentieth anniversary. It aired in 1988 as part of a two-hour special containing other clips from the series, as well as the films, and The Next Generation, and interviews with numerous individuals whose history with the franchise had no connection to “The Cage”.
[23] The “ripples” first appear at 1:03 in “The Cage”, and at 27:23 in “The Menagerie, Part I” (with an explanation by Spock at 28:41).
[24] The POD is at 1:57 in “The Cage”, immediately before the Communications Officer proclaims “It’s a radio wave, sir”. Everything from that point forward is divergent.
[25] The death of Garrovick echoes the circumstances of his death that were mentioned in the episode “Obsession”, though this attack is a few years ahead of schedule (the events of “The Cage” and the original attack on the Farragut are traditionally dated three years apart).
[26] Hatch is made up to more closely resemble the actor who played his character’s father in “The Doomsday Machine”, William Windom. He was 47 at the time of filming, compared to Windom who was 43 (and playing the character more than ten years older than Hatch does here).
[27] Morrow, of course, appeared IOTL in The Search for Spock, principally written by Harve Bennett.
[28] In “The Cage”, Colt was quite obviously interested in Captain Pike (one of Gene Roddenberry’s directives was a romance between the Captain and his Yeoman, which carried forward into the series proper with the interactions between Kirk and Rand before finally being abandoned). In this film, on the other hand, the decision is made to abandon the Kirk/Wallace relationship in much the same way as it was implied to have ended in “The Deadly Years”.
[29] All of whom wore red, of course. Anachronistic uniforms (they should have matched the beige ones worn in “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before” but instead much more closely resembled those of the series proper due to their far more iconic appearance) allowed for these redshirts to make their valiant but completely anonymous sacrifice to prove that the situation was serious.
[30] Think Dudley Moore from Arthur, only not played for laughs.
[31] Number One, who is given no proper name in the film (just as in “The Cage”), is identified as a Lieutenant Commander and the senior-most officer other than Pike aboard the ship. In “The Cage” she was only a Lieutenant (as was, apparently, every officer aboard other than Pike), but this was deemed unworkable for the film (especially after Kirk was promoted to Lieutenant Commander), so she was made senior (in rank and/or tenure) to every officer in the task force save Pike and Decker. Boyce is also identified as a Lieutenant Commander, and Tyler (whose rank is ambiguous in the episode) is stated to be an Ensign; “Cadet Tyler”, played by a different actor, appeared in Starfleet Academy.
[32] Trelane has a stereotypical “Generation X college student” mentality, essentially, as opposed to the “spoiled Baby Boomer kid” of “The Squire of Gothos”.
[33] Bear in mind that, at the conclusion of this film, Kirk is barely two years out of Starfleet Academy and is already a Lieutenant Commander and the First Officer of a starship. That’s a leg-up on the OTL Prime!Kirk (still a mere Lieutenant as late as 2257) though (notoriously) not the OTL Reboot!Kirk (from Cadet to Captain in one fell swoop).
[34] IOTL, the United Paramount Network, or UPN (jointly owned by Paramount and boat manufacturers Chris-Craft) did not premiere until early 1995, with Star Trek: Voyager as their inaugural broadcast (and their flagship show, through the end of the 20th century).
[35] Exodus has no OTL equivalent, though much of its talent was culled from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and The X-Files.
[36] Quite literally, in fact. Galileo (which, you will recall, was IOTL known as Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9) collided with Jupiter over the course of July 16-22, 1994; Exodus began airing on July 18, 1994 (a Monday). As the date of the impact was known well ahead of time, this was no coincidence, and it paid off in terms of a ready-made audience.
[37] Born Nana Tucker, she achieved professional recognition IOTL under the name Visitor, primarily as the female lead in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
[38] Mumy appears here instead of on Babylon 5 as the character of Lennier.
[39] A prevalent theory at the time was that the core of Jupiter - and the other gas giants - was indeed made of diamond (which is to say, highly pressurized carbon), as can be seen in this contemporary article, and so Clarke could not resist the opportunity to exploit this, IOTL or ITTL. This is also among the biggest changes from the book of 2020, in which the Leonov was irreparably damaged in its attempt to retrieve these “samples”. It’s a near-run thing in the movie version (especially as it’s the climactic action sequence), but the Discovery II (lacking a spare) gets away just in the nick of time.
[40] Apollo 13 takes the slot for the Best Picture nomination held by Forrest Gump, but all other nominees are as IOTL: Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Shawshank Redemption, and Quiz Show.
[41] Apollo 13 won all three of those awards at the following year’s Academy Awards ceremony IOTL.
[42] Forrest Gump won for Picture and Director IOTL; without it, Pulp Fiction takes both awards easily, resulting in a true coronation for Tarantino rather than “mere” veneration by the “in” crowd. Shawshank, for all the plaudits it has received in the years since, is too earnest and straightforward a film to have won the big prize in that climate.
[43] ITTL, the car accident that severely injured his son and led him to drop out of that race was butterflied; his success gave him the platform he needed to try again in 1992.
[44] Funnily enough, Richards wowed the party brass at the very same DNC at which a certain other politician bored audiences to tears… Bill Clinton.
[45] Comparisons to another “upside-down” ticket - the Dukakis-Bentsen tandem of just four years before - abound throughout the campaign, given the perceived dullard leaning on a charismatic Texan for support, and that same Texan steamrolling Quayle in the VP debates.
[46] Although Maine was also Perot’s best state IOTL, he did not come nearly as close to a single electoral vote from that state, ending up over five points behind Clinton in the second congressional district.
[47] Bush won New Hampshire, Ohio, Georgia, Montana, and Nevada in addition to all the states he carried ITTL.
[48] IOTL, Clinton won with 43%, to 37.5% for Bush and 18.9% for Perot. Clinton received 370 electoral votes, carrying 32 states and the District of Columbia, whereas Bush won received 168 electoral votes and carried 18 states.
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What for a post, Brainbin
Very good!
You have something in mind on BBC, Special Doctor WHO ?
Very good!
You have something in mind on BBC, Special Doctor WHO ?
Well this has been an interesting - and excruciatingly long-winded - update.
I'll focus on Babylon 5 since that's the Sci-Fi series that I'm most familiar with - having all five seasons and all but one of the TV movies.
The 1989-1994 Series run would be very fortunate if you opted to retain Michael O'Hare in the lead role, given his "issues" IOTL that forced his departure through no real fault of his own. And to actually be able to run the full five seasons largely as planned is something of a plus for me.
IIRC, the first fate of Laurel Takashima - what was planned IOTL - was in part driven by Tamlyn Tomita's desire to pursue a Movie Career and factored in by setting a proper means for her to leave, which got derailed by the 12+ Month gap between the Pilot and Series start. If you have sources suggesting otherwise, I'd like to know about them.
I'll hazard a guess here and say that you're depicting Babylon 5 ITTL as being far more like what JMS had envisioned in the earlier days, which IIRC was very much in-line with the Babylon Theory of Order vs. Chaos yet both are needed for existence.
Onto the other point. Apollo 13. AFAIK, it was The Postman and not Waterworld that finished off Costner as an A-List Actor - the two coming back-to-back. And I recall Dave Scott - or NASA Management - asking them if they could have some of the footage for their own vaults, specifically that of the Saturn V Launch Sequence - despite getting the Stage II and Stage IV-B exhaust flame colour wrong, it's supposed to be dark blue IMHO.
And I do have to ask this, did you keep Lovell's cameo in TTL's Apollo 13? I certainly hope so.
I'll focus on Babylon 5 since that's the Sci-Fi series that I'm most familiar with - having all five seasons and all but one of the TV movies.
The 1989-1994 Series run would be very fortunate if you opted to retain Michael O'Hare in the lead role, given his "issues" IOTL that forced his departure through no real fault of his own. And to actually be able to run the full five seasons largely as planned is something of a plus for me.
IIRC, the first fate of Laurel Takashima - what was planned IOTL - was in part driven by Tamlyn Tomita's desire to pursue a Movie Career and factored in by setting a proper means for her to leave, which got derailed by the 12+ Month gap between the Pilot and Series start. If you have sources suggesting otherwise, I'd like to know about them.
I'll hazard a guess here and say that you're depicting Babylon 5 ITTL as being far more like what JMS had envisioned in the earlier days, which IIRC was very much in-line with the Babylon Theory of Order vs. Chaos yet both are needed for existence.
Onto the other point. Apollo 13. AFAIK, it was The Postman and not Waterworld that finished off Costner as an A-List Actor - the two coming back-to-back. And I recall Dave Scott - or NASA Management - asking them if they could have some of the footage for their own vaults, specifically that of the Saturn V Launch Sequence - despite getting the Stage II and Stage IV-B exhaust flame colour wrong, it's supposed to be dark blue IMHO.
And I do have to ask this, did you keep Lovell's cameo in TTL's Apollo 13? I certainly hope so.
I'd imagine that the earlier casting would mean different actors for most of the roles, though if O'Hare were cast presumably his underlying condition and the pressures of the show (and that character in particular) that aggravated it would still exist. Sinclair's character would presumably still move on at some point, given the way in which his destiny is realised, but I guess that could have come as the series finale after 5 full years.
Again, I'd assume a different actor is cast, but JMS designed 'trap doors' for all of the major characters to allow for their departure in case the actors wanted to move on or were otherwise unavailable. As I understand it, her major plot role was transferred to the character of Garibaldi's assistant Jack. As dramatic as his plot twist was IOTL, I would love to see a TTL version where Takashima, a much more important and trusted character, is the one in the spotlight!
As I understand it, Takashima's major plot role was split between Jack and then-Lt Cmdr Susan Ivanova. And then Ivanova's Trap Door was transferred to Talia Winters when her actress wanted to leave. In fact, looking at it, I have to say that a few of Ivanova's planned Downer Enders were negated for one reason or another - specifically with Season 2 and the "revised" Season 5.
But I agree with wanting to see a TTL version where Takashima's role was far more prominent. I recall there being a few hints in the OTL Pilot that would make a Savvy Viewer take note of the fact early on.
BTW Brainbin, an excellent update! I particularly enjoyed the idea of 2020, and it'd be interesting to see a re-cast Trek crew so much earlier than IOTL. I do wonder though what that implies for any future Trek spin-offs, since ITTL all Trek has featured the same characters. Given the resistance there was to a new crew IOTL for TNG, I can only imagine the Trekkie reaction ITTL if someone were to suggest it here!
Also fascinating to see a Gore victory, and at a very different point than the standard PoD for such scenarios!
Looking forward to the next interlude!
Also fascinating to see a Gore victory, and at a very different point than the standard PoD for such scenarios!
Looking forward to the next interlude!
Which raises a question I have, was Al Gore warmer to NASA than Clinton? Since IOTL, NASA funding tanked during the 1990's and a lot of things had to be cut out of the budget, though how much of that was due to Congress is something I'm not all that sure about.
Interesting fact: This is the first time that a Major Shift in the US Political Scene - in terms of Office - has occurred ITTL.
X-33 was Gore's baby. You can take that as you will...
Also, once you subtract the Endeavour bump, funding was actually pretty flat during the '90s. Congress and Clinton weren't raising budgets, but they weren't cutting them, either. If NASA was getting squeezed, it was because it was operating Shuttle and building Station...and note that the astronomical and, especially, planetary programs were much more active than during the '80s.
Just took a quick look here. And Based on Endeavour's Bump, I track a 1994-2000 year-on-year decline in Real-Term NASA Funding - to the tune of ~11.16% - it only looks somewhat flat in Nominal Dollars that don't take inflation into account. Looks like a pretty notable drop in funding to me, and given the effective increase in workload and projects being undertaken, I have to wonder how many corners were cut - besides the Obvious One.
By flat I meant flat in nominal dollars, yes. I thought the mention of how they weren't raising budgets indicated that. No cuts is really about the best you can hope for in the 1990s.
Trust me, we've thought about the impacts of not having the money spigots NASA had ITTL '80s. And remember, ITTL they start the '90s from a higher base budget than IOTL.
ITTL 1989B5 may not work as you'd think..
INTRODUCTION
Starting Babylon 5 in 1989 and expecting it to work is like starting Star Wars in 1971: the techniques and the showrunners haven't yet evolved to sustain it.
Before Babylon 5, televised science fiction was self-contained episodes, with space battles involving two or three spacecraft, reaching a mainstream audience. After Babylon 5, televised science fiction was arc-heavy, with space battles involving hundreds of spacecraft, reaching a niche audience. So Babylon 5 had 4 USPs
* The years-long arc plots
* The CGI
* The niche programming
* JMS
The structures you need to sustain these USPs haven't yet evolved in 1989. Let's look at each one.
CGI
In 1988 CGI is beyond the reach of even ILM: the "water tentacle" in "The Abyss" is still a year in the future, and the networked desktop hardware and affordable software that enabled OTL 1993B5 to work doesn't exist, period. Space battles in ITTL 1989B5 will be two spaceships facing each other at short distance, not hundreds of spacecraft with fast intercut action. That qualitatively changes the show: no longer able to depict action, it will have to be described, and that makes it even more talky.
JMS
To start a ITTL 1989B5 you will have to butterfly away 87-88's "Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future", where JMS eventually became showrunner/head writer. JMS's "Captain Power" stint enabled him to develop his ideas and skills, providing a dry-run for IOTL 1993B5. So ITTL, JMS doesn't have the experience, confidence and resume to propose, sell, run and damn-nearly write a IOTL 1993B5-sized program
ARC PLOTS AND NICHE PROGRAMMING
I'll have to run these two together since they feed off each other. In the 80's, mainstream television successes were episodic with limited character development. Programs with more intense development did exist (they're called "soaps"... but there are still reset buttons. But in the present day, radical character development is more accepted (cf "Breaking Bad"). The reason for the change is wider choice in consumption options: now you can watch box-sets, blu-rays, via the internet, on demand, wherever. Back in the 80's you still had (3?) main networks and your consumption options are more limited. So successes had to appeal to a wider audience
CONCLUSION
IOTL 1993B5 exploited a gap: the wider diversity and fragmentation of networks (eg the creation of FOX) enabled niche programming to become viable. Arc plots are niche almost by definition (you have to pay attention!) so there's a nice fit there (but even IOTL the IOTL 1993B5 was very nearly cancelled after season 5). It has an experienced showrunner in JMS and a (metaphorically) lean and hungry effects supervisor in IOTL Ron Thornton. IOTL 1993B5 is viable and (held together by good reviews) scrapes past low audience figures to reach the finishing line.
But ITTL 1989B5 still has the monolithic networks. JMS is inexperienced. Effects supervisor ITTL Steven Begg is experienced in the British tradition of special effects (all physical effects in real time, model work, minaturised explosions, filmed at high-speed then replayed at normal speed) which lends a charm but it's a sloooooow process and he won't be able to produce all the effects shots required for a IOTL storyline. Space battles are scaled back, plot is changed, it becomes an (even more) verbal show where action is described rather than depicted, the viewing figures are even lower. ITTL 1989B5 won't make it to season 5, and might not even make OTL season 3 or 4.
INTRODUCTION
Starting Babylon 5 in 1989 and expecting it to work is like starting Star Wars in 1971: the techniques and the showrunners haven't yet evolved to sustain it.
Before Babylon 5, televised science fiction was self-contained episodes, with space battles involving two or three spacecraft, reaching a mainstream audience. After Babylon 5, televised science fiction was arc-heavy, with space battles involving hundreds of spacecraft, reaching a niche audience. So Babylon 5 had 4 USPs
* The years-long arc plots
* The CGI
* The niche programming
* JMS
The structures you need to sustain these USPs haven't yet evolved in 1989. Let's look at each one.
CGI
In 1988 CGI is beyond the reach of even ILM: the "water tentacle" in "The Abyss" is still a year in the future, and the networked desktop hardware and affordable software that enabled OTL 1993B5 to work doesn't exist, period. Space battles in ITTL 1989B5 will be two spaceships facing each other at short distance, not hundreds of spacecraft with fast intercut action. That qualitatively changes the show: no longer able to depict action, it will have to be described, and that makes it even more talky.
JMS
To start a ITTL 1989B5 you will have to butterfly away 87-88's "Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future", where JMS eventually became showrunner/head writer. JMS's "Captain Power" stint enabled him to develop his ideas and skills, providing a dry-run for IOTL 1993B5. So ITTL, JMS doesn't have the experience, confidence and resume to propose, sell, run and damn-nearly write a IOTL 1993B5-sized program
ARC PLOTS AND NICHE PROGRAMMING
I'll have to run these two together since they feed off each other. In the 80's, mainstream television successes were episodic with limited character development. Programs with more intense development did exist (they're called "soaps"...
but there are still reset buttons. But in the present day, radical character development is more accepted (cf "Breaking Bad"). The reason for the change is wider choice in consumption options: now you can watch box-sets, blu-rays, via the internet, on demand, wherever. Back in the 80's you still had (3?) main networks and your consumption options are more limited. So successes had to appeal to a wider audienceCONCLUSION
IOTL 1993B5 exploited a gap: the wider diversity and fragmentation of networks (eg the creation of FOX) enabled niche programming to become viable. Arc plots are niche almost by definition (you have to pay attention!) so there's a nice fit there (but even IOTL the IOTL 1993B5 was very nearly cancelled after season 5). It has an experienced showrunner in JMS and a (metaphorically) lean and hungry effects supervisor in IOTL Ron Thornton. IOTL 1993B5 is viable and (held together by good reviews) scrapes past low audience figures to reach the finishing line.
But ITTL 1989B5 still has the monolithic networks. JMS is inexperienced. Effects supervisor ITTL Steven Begg is experienced in the British tradition of special effects (all physical effects in real time, model work, minaturised explosions, filmed at high-speed then replayed at normal speed) which lends a charm but it's a sloooooow process and he won't be able to produce all the effects shots required for a IOTL storyline. Space battles are scaled back, plot is changed, it becomes an (even more) verbal show where action is described rather than depicted, the viewing figures are even lower. ITTL 1989B5 won't make it to season 5, and might not even make OTL season 3 or 4.
Hi viewcode, a very interesting and considered post! I helped out Brainbin and e of pi a bit with some ideas for B5 ITTL, so perhaps I can respond to some of the issues you've raised.
In fact TTL's B5 doesn't use CGI for exactly the reasons you state. IOTL, the original plan was to use traditional models, until Ron Thornton got a look at Video Toaster around the end of 1991. ITTL, an earlier start means Video Toaster doesn't exist yet and CGI is not an option. So B5 ITTL will have quite a different look and feel than IOTL, though the basic themes and plotlines remain very similar.
IOTL JMS came up with B5 at the end of 1986 and had written the pilot movie script in 1987, so B5 actually pre-dates Captain Power. The stint on Captain Power gave him more contacts (including Ron Thornton) and a more impressive CV, but he was already trying to sell B5 whilst it was ongoing. His writing skills may be a bit rougher ITTL as a result of the earlier start, but he already had a lot of experience in writing (for comics too, IIRC). ITTL we took the assumption that the lack of competition for space sci-fi shows (in particular, no TNG) means that there's an opening in the market that means B5 gets picked up after 2 years shopping it around instead of the 6 it took IOTL.
Again, this as the concept JMS was selling from 1986 onwards. Certainly DVD box-sets, etc, had no impact on green;lighting B5 IOTL or ITTL. In either timeline it's a ground-breaking innovation (though perhaps slightly less ITTL given TNV's use of ongoing arcs for it's Doomsday War season in the early '80s.
Don't forget though that IOTL B5 had a massive handicap in Not Being Trek, and especially in competition with DS9 (I had friends at the time who refused to watch B5 becasue it wasn't Trek, and I donn't think this was an isolated incident). ITTL B5 starts with the space sci-fi audience to itself, and that would probably mean slightly higher ratings.
I'm no expert on the studio structures in the late 80s/early 90s, so I can't comment on that (though having been awed by Brainbin's depth and breadth of knowledge of the entertainment industry, I'm sure he would be able to respond better). For the model effects, I agree it will almost certainly means scaled back space battles and more use of stock footage, etc, compared to B5 IOTL. However, as mentioned above, I'd see a key factor being the lack of competition (as well as the inherent good plotting and characterisation) letting B5 gain and retain a larger audience from the start.
Of course, other opinions on the validity of these assumptions are available! But they were certainly things that were thought about for TTL.
In fact TTL's B5 doesn't use CGI for exactly the reasons you state. IOTL, the original plan was to use traditional models, until Ron Thornton got a look at Video Toaster around the end of 1991. ITTL, an earlier start means Video Toaster doesn't exist yet and CGI is not an option. So B5 ITTL will have quite a different look and feel than IOTL, though the basic themes and plotlines remain very similar.
IOTL JMS came up with B5 at the end of 1986 and had written the pilot movie script in 1987, so B5 actually pre-dates Captain Power. The stint on Captain Power gave him more contacts (including Ron Thornton) and a more impressive CV, but he was already trying to sell B5 whilst it was ongoing. His writing skills may be a bit rougher ITTL as a result of the earlier start, but he already had a lot of experience in writing (for comics too, IIRC). ITTL we took the assumption that the lack of competition for space sci-fi shows (in particular, no TNG) means that there's an opening in the market that means B5 gets picked up after 2 years shopping it around instead of the 6 it took IOTL.
ARC PLOTS AND NICHE PROGRAMMING
I'll have to run these two together since they feed off each other. In the 80's, mainstream television successes were episodic with limited character development. Programs with more intense development did exist (they're called "soaps"...
Again, this as the concept JMS was selling from 1986 onwards. Certainly DVD box-sets, etc, had no impact on green;lighting B5 IOTL or ITTL. In either timeline it's a ground-breaking innovation (though perhaps slightly less ITTL given TNV's use of ongoing arcs for it's Doomsday War season in the early '80s.
Don't forget though that IOTL B5 had a massive handicap in Not Being Trek, and especially in competition with DS9 (I had friends at the time who refused to watch B5 becasue it wasn't Trek, and I donn't think this was an isolated incident). ITTL B5 starts with the space sci-fi audience to itself, and that would probably mean slightly higher ratings.
I'm no expert on the studio structures in the late 80s/early 90s, so I can't comment on that (though having been awed by Brainbin's depth and breadth of knowledge of the entertainment industry, I'm sure he would be able to respond better). For the model effects, I agree it will almost certainly means scaled back space battles and more use of stock footage, etc, compared to B5 IOTL. However, as mentioned above, I'd see a key factor being the lack of competition (as well as the inherent good plotting and characterisation) letting B5 gain and retain a larger audience from the start.
Of course, other opinions on the validity of these assumptions are available!
But they were certainly things that were thought about for TTL.This is something even I know something about, despite B5 being the only major Sci-Fi Series I've watched beginning to end!
The biggest problem Babylon 5 suffered from IMHO was that Star Trek DS9 had started its seasons shortly before B5 began theirs - although the B5 Pilot had been broadcast the year before - leading to assumptions that B5 had basically stolen DS9's idea(s).
While JMS was searching for someone to pick up his ideas in the mid-late 80's, one of the companies he approached would be the one that made DS9. So my honest opinion is that DS9 took some creative liberties from B5.
But the story and character growth/development were what really made it stand out for me. So I really want it to be the same in this critical regard ITTL.