Law & Order canon soon to exceed Star Trek canon

I just checked TV.com. The Law & Order franchise currently has 647

Wouter Valentijn...

Several times the official canon policy link has been posted. I think that
one's clear enough.
The Franchise owners call the shots.

videonovels...

So who was it who decided the Animated Trek is "officially" not canon?
Rick Berman? Paramount CEOs?

David Johnston...

Neither. Animation is a different medium from live action. That's
what makes it not canon just as books being a different medium makes
them not live action.

Wouter Valentijn...

The medium itself has nothing to do with it. Some background facts from
'Yesteryear' *are* considered canon.

David Johnston...

Some background facts from Yesteryear were used in canon, making them
part of it.

ANIM8Rfsk...

Of course, it's not canon WHAT part of Yesteryear is canon.

Canon here means: This is official. This is what actually happened within
this franchise universe. This is what is sanctioned. This has the great
stamp of approval by the powers that be.
Of course, as soon as they are replaced, the new powers may decide what is
canon as they please. Such is the nature of power.

Mike Dicenso...

Wouter Valentijn...

Someone at Paramount with the power to do so.

Mike Dicenso...

Actually, according to most accounts from insiders like Mike Okuda, it was
Roddenberry who did not want TAS to be considered canon, except for
Spock's backstory in "Yesteryear".

Wouter Valentijn...

If that's the case than Paramount must have backed him up.

Captain Infinity...

Good God, this "canon" debate has been going on for 30 years. Will it
ever die? And once it does can we cremate it and shoot its ashes into
space? Please?

**
Captain Infinity

-Mike

For all that people say about Berman, he actually stuck to the canon

Captain Infinity...

My point is that "marshmelon" is a classic. <--THE POINT

Get it, nitwit?

Kweeg...

I was agreeing with you.... so that must make you the nit 'cause ya aint no
wit.....

**
Captain Infinity

policy that Roddenberry laid out. Notice that out of the dozen or so TAS
references in modern Trek, all but one is from "Yesteryear".
-Mike

aired episodes. The Star Trek franchise has a little over 700 aired
episodes and 10 movies (okay, V isn't canon).

Wouter Valentijn...

V is canon.

spiritofsupergirl...

No, it isn't.

Captain Infinity...

PURPLE!

**
Captain Infinity

Mark Moore

I hate to say it, but it looks like, next season, the Law & Order canon
will surpass the Star Trek canon.

Wouter Valentijn...

ANIM8Rfsk...

True redemption would have been Riker and Troi catching Barclay playing the
NX holonovel, and asking why he was mucking around with a fictional
Enterprise, and Reg reminding Riker that Riker put in the new rule that you
couldn't recreate real people in the holodecks any more . ..

Wouter Valentijn...

Ouch! ;)

Set on the Enterprise-E no doubt.
I didn't like the E-D cgi.

But seriously imo season four did have good moments.

ANIM8Rfsk...

Yes, but it had terrible ones too. The first part of the Mirror universe ep
was great, and the second was painfully bad. The 3 part Vulcan adventure
started out well, and got worse and worse as it went. The giant gun on Mars
started out promising, but fell apart.

Wouter Valentijn...

But compare that to the first two seasons....
Those had teasers that almost made me fall asleep.

ANIM8Rfsk...

Yep.

After I posted that yesterday, I was flipping stations, and there was
Enterprise, so I decided to give it a chance, and AAAAAAARGH it was the
series finale with Riker. The worst episode of them all. The same day they
also showed the worst DS9 of them all. Maybe they had a 'worst of' marathon

Wouter Valentijn...

What episode was that?
I mean, the average episode of DS9 *TOWERED* over the average Enterprise
episode.

ANIM8Rfsk...

Oh, yes. It was the time travel 21st century one; I turned in right during
the preachy "we're all homeless because government is evil" bit. I almost
stopped watching DS9 when they ran that the first time.

Wouter Valentijn...

I liked that one.
Sisko accidently had to become 'Bell' (I think the name was).
They had these 'sanctuary districts'.

spiritofsupergirl...

I agree. I liked it, too.

During a syndicated repeat years ago, Terry Farrell did an introduction
to this episode (I forget if it was Part 1 or Part 2). She said that,
during the time that the episode was produced or aired, an article
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, proposing the same thing. Freaky.

Wouter Valentijn...

Cool!
You think it's a coincidence?

The episode introductions were called The Deep Space Nine Chronicles.
How many of these were done?

Are they available on DVD?

Wouter Valentijn...

Uhuh...
Thanks for the info Bart.

Wouter Valentijn...

I hope so. This or nex year I want to start collecting those.

I know Terry Farrell did the Chronicle for "Rejoined".

Wouter Valentijn...

That was the episode where Dax came in contact again with a former host's
lover.

Mark Moore

Later on I had to think back to this when I watched 'Dark Angel'.

going.

ANIM8Rfsk...

In any event, yes, they gave real world numbers for warp factors, on screen,
in Enterprise, and then immediately proceeded to screw it up. :-)

David Johnston...

Actually they did give the time that Enterprise would take to go from
Earth to, what was it, Neptune? However they never established that
warp speed is a constant so that warp 5 inside the Solar System is the
same speed as warp 5 in interstellar space.

Fozzi...

mind you this is still a fairly uncertain figure, given that there are a
couple of light days distance between its orbital apogee and perogee, it
isnt really a definiable quantity if we dont know the relative orbital
positions of neptune and earth or at least the date (which would mean we
could make a fairly accurate guestimate of those positions)

Fozzi...

replying to myself in the interests of accuracy, that should of course be
*light hours* not *light days*

now where did i put my senility meds again

cheers
fozzi

cheers
fozzi

Anim8rFSK...

You don't need the distances; Archer said how fast they were going, in
real world numbers. They said how fast Enterprise could go, and how
long it took to get to the Klingon homeworld, and it puts the Klingons
.8 light years from us. It's like a couple guys in a car leaving San
Francisco and saying "This baby will hit 120 mph on the freeway, so
we'll be to New York in an hour!"

Fozzi...

actually you missed my point, which is strange considering that the next
post i read after posting mine was your one which specifically answered my
point, oh well i said light days instead of light hours so im not in a
position to criticise to much

cheers
fozzi

RobertVA...

Also, there might be a short period while the warp field "accelerates".
If that were the case a departing ship might be covering less distance
for each of the first several seconds. A ship might not be all the way
to Warp 5 until it is nearly past Neptune's orbit.

videonovels...

Some quick math, including all the series TOS, TAS, TNG, VOY, DS9, and
ENT, shows that Star Trek has ~750 episodes.

spiritofsupergirl...

TAS isn't canon.

And you forgot to include the movies.

L&O has ~650 (you say).

So that's 100 episodes to go, or about 4 seasons worth. Is Law & Order
going to cover *4* seasons on in only one year? Not likely. It needs
to survive until at least 2008 before it will break Star Trek's record.

spiritofsupergirl...

Yes, it can. It's got, like, 4 seasons running simultaneously.

The most that Star Trek ever had was 2.

Mark Moore

.

For the sake of completeness here are all the L&O/Trek franchises:

Star Trek (1966)
Star Trek (animated- 1973)
Star Trek the Next Generation (1987)
Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1993)
Star Trek Voyager (1994)
Star Trek Enterprise (2001)

bartvanhemelen...

Law and Order (1990 - 371 eps by the end of this season)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 - 162 eps by the end of this
season)
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001 - 111 eps by the end of this season)

And there's also: "Law & Order: Trial by Jury" (2005 , 13 eps).

Total: 657 eps by the end of this season.

HOWEVER: one could argue that Conviction (2006) is also an L&O
franchise show, since the lead character, Alexandra Cabot, used to be
on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 2000 to 2003 as an Assistant
District Attorney. So that's another 13 eps, bringing the total to 670.

Fozzi...

Sorry, but if you are going to count a show as part of a franchise simply
because they share a lead actor then you will have to include both 'TJ
Hooker', and 'In search of' in the count for trek, and shatners own recent
legal series for that matter.

John C. Baker...

Notice the original poster said "character," not "actress." The
character is the same one from L&O (not just the actress). Now, if there
had been an ensign Hooker in ENT, you might have a point ...

cheers
fozzi

Also, there's Crime & Punishment: "also known as Law & Order: Crime &
Punishment, [it] was a 2002 reality television spin-off of the Law &
Order franchise. It premiered on NBC on Sunday, June 1, 2002, and ran
through the summers of 2002, 2003, and 2004. The show went inside the
District Attorney's office of San Diego County, California, as they
prepared and tried cases. It involved going behind the scenes with the
prosecutors as they prepared for the trial and provided three-camera
coverage of the courtroom."

That's another 26 eps, so now it's 696.

Now, next season there will be at least 3 running L&O shows: "Law &
Order" , "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Law & Order: Criminal
Intent" -- the fate of "Conviction" is still unclear. So that's at
least another 60 eps. Total by end of 2006-07 season: ~750 episodes.

Law and Order (1990)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001)

I think the difference between Trek and L&O, is that Trek "retires" its
shows. Law & Order just keeps going & going & going. Likewise, the
Next Generation series could have kept going & going & going, thanks to
its rapid fanbase and top 10 ratings, but it was purposefully decided
to RETIRE the show at year 7, rather than continue on indefinitely.

If Law & Order followed the same "retire at year 7" pattern, it would
have a lot fewer episodes.

.

By the way, I've never watched Law & Order (that I recall). Is it any
good? Should I go out and buy the season 1 dvds?

bartvanhemelen...

It's a decent procedural, quite entertaining (if you can stand the
strict format of the show) -- but nowhere as good as Boomtown or

David Johnston...

I doubt it. Fantasy shows like Xena and Medium don't do that.

JEDIDIAH...

OK, so even fantasy writers are better at grounding themselves
in reality than Trek writers.

Homicide: Life On The Streets or Hill Street Blues.

Wouter Valentijn...

Maybe you could include 'The X-Files' as a 'Law and Order' tie in! ;-)

And also check this out:

Wouter Valentijn...

I've never heard about 'Boomtown'...
I agree with HLOTS and HSB.
What about Third Watch?

spiritofsupergirl...

Uh, there's no need for that. 2 or 3 episodes count as 1 film.

Mark Moore

masonReloaded...

and an animated series, 100s of books/comics, audio adventures, more
computer/video games....and on and on...

spiritofsupergirl...

None of which are Star Trek canon.

Mark Moore

lines...

Star Trek has ALWAYS been Barney in Space:"I love you, you love me..."

Brian Thorn...

Never watched Deep Space Nine, I see.

Mike Dicenso...

...Or TOS or ENT, for that matter.

David Johnston...

Well, actually Enterprise was kind of Barney in Space for the most
part.

Mike Dicenso...

Not really, no more so than TOS or DS9 can claim that.
-Mike

Brian Thorn...

ANIM8Rfsk...

Or real Star Trek. Or TAS. Or some of TNG.

Might have watched Enterprise though.

EvilBill...

Probably watched Voyager and thinks that's all there is to it. ;)

Barney Fife, maybe. Or Barney Gumbel. But there was nothing "I love
you, you love me" about "Enterprise". No wonder "Enterprise" was

wdstarr...

"I rub decontamination gel on you, you rub decontamination gel on me..."

Brian Thorn...

I did say Enterprise has its points to complain about, but how exactly

ToolPackinMama...

Yeah, and that's NOT one of them! :)

is that like Barney? :-)

Steve Williams...

This is what you call an example of how Enterprise is like Barney?!

David Johnston...

Sure there was. The humans did a lot of wandering around thinking
that friendliness and good intentions were a good substitute for good
judgement.

Brian Thorn...

Name one.

David Johnston...

Archer wanders up to the secret Vulcan spy outpost and decides to
expose an important secret of his ally to a hostile power putting them
at the brink of war just because he's so nice.

Brian Thorn...

You misremember that episode. Archer was abducted by the Andorians and
beaten to a pulp to tell them where the secret base was. Only then did
Archer find out that the Vulcans had been lying to hiim about P'Jem,
which had been disguised as a monastery.

"I love you, you love me?" Hardly.

TNG and Voyager, yes, that was the shows' modus operandi. Enterprise?
Rarely, if ever. You can fault Enterprise for many things, but this
isn't one of them.

cancelled. If this is any indication, people who thought they were
watching "Enterprise" must have been watching something else.

-Mike

nlu...

Hmmm, perhaps a series of "Law & Order: Borg"?

WE ARE THE BORG. YOU WILL BE CONVICTED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

Captain Infinity...

Will there be a warning sound when it's time to panic, or was that it?

**
Captain Infinity

ANIM8Rfsk...

The warning sound was the horrible horrible theme to ENTERPRISE

It's been a loooooong time
Since any Trek sucked this baaad

spiritofsupergirl...

How easily you forgot Voyager.

Mark Moore

Ken from Chicago...

Btw, "canon"?

spiritofsupergirl...

Look it up.

Mark Moore

Ken from Chicago...

What overarching underlying storyline is there to L&O? The series are
episodic, almost anthological, where each episode not only stands on its
own, but can almost be shown in any order.

fruitbat...

That's not what canon is. There doesn't have to be an underlying
storyline, though, with L&O, there is most *certainly* continuity.
Early characters are referenced and occasionally even show up in later
episodes. All of the stories exist in an entirely consistent and
realistic world where nothing that I can think of has ever really
violated something that happened in a previous episode. What more do
you want??

"Canon" is just an accepted body of *related* works (M-W:
"sanctioned"), the exact contents of which depends on who's doing the
accepting/sanctioning (cf. the Roman-Catholic canon vs the Protestant
canon)... The official Trek canon, of course, is determined by
whoever's in charge of the franchise. The canon in my own little world
doesn't include Voyager or Enterprise, however (and since Janeway shows
up in "Nemesis", that's not canon either! My world is a much more
pleasant place sometimes...)

That's majorly different from TOS, well not TOS, but TOS & TNG or DS9 where
each season built on the previous and actions had consequences unlike the
other Trek series where they tended to simply fly off to another planet.

fruitbat...

DS9 was much more serialized, but TNG episodes generally had little to
do with each other. Except for the occasional character coming or going
or the select few episodes that dealt with major events (the Borg, the
Klingon conflict, etc), what would stop most TNG episodes from being
shown out of order? Usually, they *are* shown out of order. L&O and TNG
are really pretty similar with respect to continuity.

Ken from Chicago...

VOY was light years ahead of ENT. There were numerous episodes of VOY that
still hold up as good as TNG or even as good as DS9--which underscored the

spiritofsupergirl...

Whatever you're smoking, I don't want any.

Mark Moore

disappointment at the squandered potential.

Captain Infinity...

You could not be more wrong.

Well actually you could, but you'd have to type more stuff like that.

**
Captain Infinity

It's been a looonnnng time
Since Star Trek fans were so saaaaad

Ken from Chicago...

I've lost, I've lost, I've lost, faith
Faith from the staaaaaart!

spiritofsupergirl...

I like ST:E's theme song just fine. However, I'll gladly accept one of
your towels to clean the blood from my ears that's a result of YOUR
horrible singing.

Mark Moore

Ken from Chicago...

Sure it's easy to overlook the few flowers in a field of manure but they
were there. Of course that didn't stop me from quitting VOY after S3 only to
try again when they brought in Jeri Ryan only to quit again after it was
clear it was becoming the Janeway & Seven show. But at least it was good

Wouter Valentijn...

Maybe I'll check it out if it is broadcast over here.

enough to make it seven years. ENT didn't make it half as far.

Wouter Valentijn...

Indeed!
And the Kelvan's themselves claimed three hundred years.
And wasn't that also the number mentioned in 'Where No One Has Gone Before'?
Or was that another galaxy?

spiritofsupergirl...

It most certainly did.

And the reason that ENT didn't last as long is because the audience was
burned by bad Trek for 7 years during VGR.

If they had skipped VGR and gone straight from DS9 to ENT, ENT would
have reached 7 years.

spiritofsupergirl...

The opening credits were just fine - as was the montage.

It's the song that some people have an issue with. I'm not one of them,
except that they should have gotten Scott Bakula to sing it.

BTW, did they ever do that music video on the ENT set that Russell
Watson mentioned?

Mark Moore

Ken from Chicago...

You're just JEALOUS of my musical talent:

Mark Moore