May 4th, 2006
Trek 2.0 — Aaagh!
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
You may recall my story from last month about the upcoming Star Trek movie. I was concerned that since it was going to be a movie about Kirk and Spock that the powers-that-be might rewrite canon and replace it with fiction. G4TV, which, to my mind, has gone seriously downhill since the merger of G4 and TechTV, is trying to … er … ruin an already campy show, the original Star Trek, with what it calls Star Trek 2.0.
The show itself is shrunk down on the screen to fit the extra info. At the top of the screen you get a banner of Trek trivia. Of course, the trivia is the kind everyone knows … such as a red shirt being a “dead man walking”, etc.
On the right is the Spock Market … you can see it here, by the way. Currently NCC is the top rated stock. Apparently it’s some kind of game, and based on the forums people … seem to like it.
Then there’s the chat room stuff, that I’ve seen on other channels … mostly on kid’s channels though … a ticker at the bottom of the screen.
Then on the left are Trek stats. How many times Spock says “logical”, Bones saying “he’s dead, Jim”, etc., etc.
We Say: Can we just get back to watching the show? Granted, I find TOS (The Original Series) too campy to watch anyway, but still. I haven’t really watched this station since it showed the anime series Last Exile. Now that was a show I really enjoyed. It seems to be more of a SpikeTV wannabe than anything else, nowadays.
Kevin K. says:
I haven’t watched this station since they ruined The Screensavers and trashed all the decent shows that used to be on ZDTV! I think it started when ZDTV became TechTV and they began to deviate from a more seasoned, intelligent, and mature tech audience and decided their demographic was 14 year olds.
It’s now a waste of basic cable bandwidth! It’s bad enough that every friggin’ station out there has their friggin’ logo on it so you know what channel you are watching (HELLO! I have been watching TV for over 40 years and KNOW what I am doing!) and thus ruin your viewing experience but here’s one that does MSNBC and CNN five steps farther by filling up the screen with useless garbage.
Uh, I think we want to view the SHOW, not the excess garbage.
Bah!
May 4th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Jimmy says:
Ya, it’s crap, watched it for about five minutes one night. NEXT!
May 4th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Gord says:
“rewrite canon and replace it with fiction” ?????
It’s already fiction! Get a clue!
May 4th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
smarter than you says:
Must be tough to comment on other peoples efforts.
Must be tough making $35K as a “contributing writer” for Realtechnews.com (there’s a career path to be jealous of).
Ironic that you are a “tech” writer and give no credit for the attempt to innovative vs. just doing it the same way as it’s always been done. If not for the innovators taking chances…you’d have nothing to write about (there goes your $35K a year income).
Ironic that you’re smart enough to string a sentence together but not smart enough to see that Trek is on in it’s regular fashion for five hours every Saturday.
Oh, and by the way, regarding G4 going down hill since merger:
- fastest growing network on all of TV for 2006
- Ratings up +145% vs. last year this time
Get your facts straight and maybe you can elevate your career to write for, say, Highlights magazine…that would be a huge move for you, Michael.
May 5th, 2006 at 8:50 am
D.David says:
I first experienced Tech TV while in the Phillipines of all places and you can imagine my horror when I came back to the US to find that it had morphed into a Spike TV wannabee. I think if more parents watched some of the shows that are on G4 there would be a public outcry. You have young presenters encouraging kids to drink and promiscuity is almost mandatory. Despite the poster above’s comments about increased ratings that is just an indicator of the channel pandering to the market.
There has got to be a market for real tech tv type of approach, since Screen Savers and the like were visually interesting and you could actually see screen shots of the tips presenters were
giving you.
G4 is just garbage period.
May 6th, 2006 at 5:06 am
Mark says:
One more reason to not waste your money on cable.
May 6th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
getreal says:
D. David, G4 may be “pandering to the market”…but that seems to be working for them…it’s a business after all. Tech TV could not make it work…which is why THEY threw in the towel and unloaded the network…truth is…cost of TV production and distribution requires for mass appeal…micro appeal, for now, seems to be only served by the internet and site like this…it’s the reality of the situation…Im not sure I blame G4…Im sure that they would stick with tech and shows like screen savers if they felt there was a large enough audiance for it…which, based on facts already discussed…there doesnt appear to be…
May 7th, 2006 at 8:22 am