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Sci-Fi Media Television

Paramount Says Enterprise Cancellation Is Final 583

Kethinov writes "The Save Enterprise campaigns appear to have been for naught. Paramount has declared that they will not be accepting any amount of money from fans to continue to produce Star Trek Enterprise. With the decision final, Star Trek Enterprise will be the first Star Trek show since the original series not to run a full seven seasons." From the letter: "Paramount Network Television and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans' passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show's production." Commentary also available from TrekToday.
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Paramount Says Enterprise Cancellation Is Final

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  • Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:35PM (#12217672) Homepage Journal
    Enterprise never had a chance to grow. The first two seasons of Ent were decent, but still a bit mediocre. The third season was a nice ride, but not the show we really wanted out of the prequel. Manny Coto's 4th season is EXACTLY what the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seasons should have been, but too little too late. I love the show, always will, but TV politics have ruined many a good show. Look at the original Star Trek, or look at Farscape...

    In their place, reality TV dominates. Why watch intelligent TV when we can have Growing Up Gotti?
  • by vivin ( 671928 ) <vivin.paliath@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:41PM (#12217772) Homepage Journal
    Season 3 tried to bring in a good story arc (it was good). Season 4 is pretty good, but it's too little, too late.

    Seasons 3 and 4 are what seasons 1 and 2 should have been like. That Cold War temporal thing when NO WHERE.

    The first seasons didn't have very gripping episodes. You had the same moral dilemmas and tired clichees and the blatant use of T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) as a sex symbol to attract testosterone-pumped young males. This is something she herself didn't like - Blalock wanted T'Pol to have more depth.

    But anyway... Enterprise was interesting at first. It was interesting to see starfleet outmatched against pretty much everyone they met and how they dealt with the situation.

    It is certainly sad, but I guess they had their chance. Blame the Diabolical Duo Berman and Bragga. They have the negative Midas effect. Anything they touch turns to crap. Which is why the first few seasons of DS9 were also not that great. It didn't get interesting until Michael Piller took it over and Berman turned his attention to Voyager. The actors in Enterprise, I think, did a decent job.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:41PM (#12217777) Homepage Journal
    Enterprise never had a chance to grow.

    More along the lines of they've tried everything their limited imagination and accountants (even more limited imagination) would let them do. It's been not just a good run, but a phenominal run. It is time to let it rest and beat to death some other genres until fresh ideas (or the next generation of viewers) come along.

    so long and thanks for all the rubber ears

  • by TechnoGrl ( 322690 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:43PM (#12217799)
    Paramount might be waiting for Berman's and/or Braga's contracts to expire before they relaunch another ST series again?? Perhaps they want a producer that can create something other than crap? Hellooooo... Coto or Joe??

    Maybe they have more neurons then we give them credit for...then again

    Well a girl could hope....
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:45PM (#12217825)
    Just the other night, I was up late and caught and episode of ST:TOS on SciFi. TOS tackled many social issues, like racism for example, and was an innovative series at the time. I must say, Enterprise is none of the things TOS was except maybe living in its fading shadow. I find your comparison rather untrue.
  • They got lazy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bullfish ( 858648 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:46PM (#12217831)
    Frankly, what killed Enterprise in the end was that same thing that made Voyager suck. The writers, producers, et al got lazy and sucked the meat off a franchise which had a loyal following for many years. They indulged themselves in the stories and forgot to work at producing a good quality show that would keep the fans wanting more and that put the fans first. In the past they didn't have that much compting with them, but the new battlestar galactica, farcape, the new doctor who and other shows that put Enterprise to shame. Manny Coto helped, but by then the damage was done.

    When, if, they resurrect the franchise, they best not do so simply because they take the fans for granted and that they feel a suitable period of star trek starvation has passed.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Arathrael ( 742381 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:46PM (#12217837)
    I honestly don't understand why all these get cancelled.

    I mean... is it because they're unprofitable? It's hard to believe they all could be - sure, sci-fi series in general cost a fair bit to make, but all these series (and I'll throw Futurama in as well) certainly seem to have pretty large numbers of dedicated fans.

    And if they're unprofitable... why do they then eventually commission other sci-fi series? What are they hoping for? Actually, how many sci-fi series haven't ended up being cancelled?
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <`nomadicworld' `at' `gmail.com'> on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:46PM (#12217839) Homepage
    What politics? Why can't the writers, actors, and producers ever get blamed for making an inferior product?
  • by Darth_Jon ( 152911 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:46PM (#12217841)
    Obviously someone at Paramount just doesn't like Star Trek.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:49PM (#12217863)
    Enterprise should not have needed a chance to grow.

    After TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, Enterprise should have come sprinting out of the gate. It didn't. Blame those who did the writing and producing for the first two seasons for giving the show a gimp leg and dooming it right from the start. Its potential audience tuned out. And, once that happens, there's no saving it. Those people no longer care, and you're not going to recapture their attention.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Abalamahalamatandra ( 639919 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:52PM (#12217892)
    In the case of Firefly, I can tell you why.

    First off, Fox put it in a cruddy timeslot on a cruddy day - Friday night.

    They didn't advertise it worth a crap.

    They showed it out of order.

    They preempted it CONSTANTLY so that it got to the point that, unless you had a really good guide, you didn't even know if it was going to be on or not.

    Basically, just about everything a network can do to not encourage a following, they did.
  • by redswinglinestapler ( 841060 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:53PM (#12217902)
    TOS: enjoyed it in reruns as a kid. Thought the first season ruled, the second season was mostly good, the third season was headed downhill fast. Lesson: the quality (read: intelligence level) of the show's producer(s) matters. TNG: first seasons wildly uneven. Cheesy opticals (FX), unclear story lines, characters were thin at best. Season 5 was generally good. In the end, okay, but cut out about half the episodes. Lesson: quantity does not equal quality. DS9: A great idea, indifferently executed. The whole Bajoran gods idea could have been a fantastic bit of sci-fi, but in the end they just were used as deus ex machina. The introduction of the war story arc (although probably a response to Babylon 5) rescued it and made me actually want to tune in. Lesson: go somewhere with your big idea by giving the writers a framework. Voyager: Interesting idea (lost, out of touch), horribly executed. Janeway was in need of serious medication, as she was at a minimum bipolar. I wouldn't follow her as a leader for a month, much less years. The producers introduced ideas and at the end of the episode would use the "magic reset button" of time warp, tech change, or the jargon of the week. The ship acquired technology which gave it advantages, then the next episode it would be gone and might as well have never existed, to say nothing of frequently suffering damage which should have required time in dock. Utterly uncompelling and frustrating. Lesson: there's no point in having a show if it's not going anywhere with the characters, story or even the technology. Enterprise: I knew that when I heard who would produce that it would be garbage. When I heard the theme song, after cleaning up the vomit, I knew my worst suspicions were nowhere near what they should have been. The time-machine reset button, the unbelievable screwing with the canon, the notion that a ship could be remote controlled all the way from the Romulan Empire... Just...let...it...die, folks. The idiots who produce it are incapable of doing good work. It's just a money machine to them. Giving them your money is counterproductive. Find someone talented like Joss Whedon or Strasczinsky (sp?) instead. Don't save Enterprise.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:54PM (#12217917)
    Never had a chance to grow through 4 seasons?

    As a Firefly fan, I'd like to be the first to tell you to shut your goddamned piehole.

  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by larkost ( 79011 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:55PM (#12217924)
    I agree with you on FireFly, we can just hope that the move that is due out in September (Serenity [serenitymovie.com]) will re-ignite the TV series. But the fundamental flaw in FireFly was that the dialog an plots were too thoughtful. There is a chance that the darkness of Battlestar Galactica will allow the networks to give it a second chance though.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:2, Insightful)

    by atriusofbricia ( 686672 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:55PM (#12217928) Journal
    It seems someone doesn't remember the first season or so of TNG when it was almost painful to watch. Or the first season of Voyager when it WAS painful to watch. Every new trek show needs time to find itself before it doesn't suck balls. Ent was no different.
  • Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @06:56PM (#12217940) Homepage Journal
    Your comparison is lame, because TOS had a lot of good scripts during the first two seasons. They didn't start to falter until the third and final season, when most of the best writers and producers had left.

    I do get pissed when I see a good TV show cancelled before it has a chance to find an audience. But a proper chance is two or three months, not 3 years.

    Even most Trekkies found the early Enterprise scripts rancid. Stand back from your Trekkieness for a minute and consider that from the network's POV. They spend millions of bucks on a TV show, and it can't even inspire enthusiasm among hard core fans who are supposed to be a lock. Any other show that screwed up that badly wouldn't have lasted a full season, never mind getting renewed twice. Didn't get a chance? Spare me.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:09PM (#12218078)
    When Gene Roddenberry created the original series, he attempted to make the series as inclusive as possible. The TOS included characters such as Uhura (black African, NOT African-American), Sulu (Asian, not Asian-American), Chekov (Russian), and many other diverse characters. In one eposiode of the TOS, when Kirk was going through some kind of court-martial based on video evidence, the Starfleet judges (admirals, actually) included not only a person of Mongoloid descent but also of Asian Caucasian descent (he looked like a South Asian). That is two out of 5 judges which is quite impressive given that the TOS was made during the 1960s when racial equality was just coming of age.

    After the TOS, successive Star Trek shows became more and more white and American-centric. Anyone who looked Asian in those successive shows could not be mistaken as a person who came directly from Asia as their behavior was too American. Ditto for the "blacks". Travis Mayweather is a prime example of this American-centric nature of the successive Trek shows. Why couldn't they just have named him Emekah Olowokandi or something like that??

    Where the heck were the Africans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Middle Easterns, the Egyptians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, and of course, the Australians in the Trek shows after TOS??

    Only Trek: Deep Space Nine even tried to come close to Roddenberry's ideal. Dr. Julian Bashir was obviously Middle Eastern. But they could have had a Nigerian or a Kenyan as the black commander instead of Benjamin Sisko from Louisiana.

    Unfortunately, Star Trek TOS was and still remains the ONLY Sci-Fi show that attempted to be inclusive of all cultures and individuals around the world. After TOS, nothing came close. Not even Battlestar Galactica.
  • Re:Let it die... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:09PM (#12218079)
    Thanks I needed a good laugh.

    You cannot seriously compare the importance of a gutter crappy shat out star trek show to the serious and grave problems of poverty and disease that exist in the world today which was the actual point. But to look at it from your POV, Star Trek is bad fiction anyway. It is not Shakespear. There is nothing revelatory about it or informative or for most people even entertaining. It's recent endless spin offs are just the usual junk fodder made for a group of fans who can't get on with reality and are upset when it's cancelled.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MrLint ( 519792 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:10PM (#12218087) Journal
    Crusade never got it's chance either. WB was too busy screwing around with it because their marketing staff wanted to control the show. Part of its death was due to that JMS wouldnt be their cabanaboy.

    I got nothing at all from firefly. I just cant accept teh use of slugthrowers on a spacecraft.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:20PM (#12218179) Homepage
    B5 isn't really a good example. B5 ran it's full story arc.

    B5 got futzed about by the uncertainty over the fifth season; consequently, the intended end of the arc was moved to series four, and when series 5 got the go-ahead, it was missing the main plot that drove the whole series.

    I found it inconsequential and disappointing. Of course, some would argue that the replacement of Michael O'Hare with Bruce Boxleitner was also a major kink in the story arc. Although some criticised O'Hare's acting, it was at least as good as Boxleitner's and his style was way more appropriate (pseudo-gravitas versus Boxleitner's regular-guy character acting). Apparently, Boxleitner was more of a "name" than O'Hare; well, maybe in the US, but I'd never heard of him before that.

    Funny how B5 exhibited some of the worst aspects of sci-fantasy (ropey acting and characterisation- e.g. Marcus and various second-league characters-, messing stuff around, cliched sets) as well as the best (genuinely planned long story arc, good characterisation and acting- e.g. London and G'Kar).
  • by jmelloy ( 460671 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:30PM (#12218271) Homepage
    Battlestar Galactica.

    There are tons of romantic subplots, and they all have a point.

    There's not just Riker/Troi ...
    There's the budding relationship between Dee and the Presidential Butt Boy, two people fiercely loyal to their superiors, and their superiors are sometimes at odds.
    There's the Lee/Starbuck/Gaius thing.
    The Starbuck/Zach (Lee's dead brother)
    There's Gaius/any female character. (Go him for getting some while running for Vice President in the bathroom!)
    There's Colonel Tigh and his wife.

    Possibly the most important, the two Boomer bangs, Apollo and the Master Chief

    Or Gaius and the head-chip Cylon.

    All of them have a point. All of them have flaws. All of them have strengths.

    Having a show where the romantic plots are actual plots is much better than having a show where they take two pretty people and have the fans try to care about what they're doing.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Etherwalk ( 681268 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:42PM (#12218408)
    > After TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager,

    *coughs pointedly*

    Actually, Not to go into the long history, but I've always thought Voyager was largely to blame for the downfall of the franchise. No, no, let me explain (briefly):

    TNG - great, largely episodic, we got used to 2-parters, though.

    DS9 - great, took a while to really get on its feet. It was competing with B5, which showed us that Yes, Story arcs longer than two episodes can work in sci-fi. It also gained its own momentum, shifting away from a purely episodic series into an ongoing bit of war. The war was the beginning of the end- they did it well enough, but it was responsible for trek getting away from being about ideas, and getting towards being about shooting the funny sci-fi weapons. When Voyager rolled around, this mentality had invaded the minds of the writers, and consistency had gone completely out the window.

    Voyager really showed a lack of artistic understanding. They had one or two good actors, and I'll admit that for some of them I don't know if its the actor or the character that was bad- but for the most part, it lacked quality. The show got away from its core demographic and wound up with a much more transitory audience. So when Enterprise came along and actually had some decent writing again, much of the franchise audience was gone, and it had to start from scratch.

    The most glaring example of artistic failure in Voy is, of course, the borg. There are others, but the power of the borg as an evil was in their evil, not in their weapons. When the ratings drooped, Voyager brought out the borg. It effectively transformed them from an unknowable menace that was so different from humanity that it was practically pure evil, to a bunch of pansy-ass default bad guys that drove around in blocks and spheres.
  • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:45PM (#12218427) Journal
    ST-TOS had some real merits, even after a lacklustre third season. Enterprise was a pile of crap, an idea that should have been aborted before it was given a budget for even dixie cups.
  • by uberdave ( 526529 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:02PM (#12218580) Homepage
    Because it is not the science part of a sf series that makes a series interesting, it is the character interactions. Sure, it is interesting the first time a new concept comes along, but stretching that concept out as a series basis is doomed to fail. You'll wind up with "particle of the week", or "holodeck malfunction of the week", episodes. Broad story arcs require broad concepts.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Fizzog ( 600837 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:04PM (#12218602)
    "because really, who sits at home every Friday night?"

    umm...
  • Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:08PM (#12218629) Homepage Journal
    That theme is pretty awful isn't it? "I've got faith -- of the heart..."

    I too am sick of time travel stories. But I wasn't turned off by Twelve Monkeys (actually one of my favorite movies), or by First Contact (not a great movie, but it had its moments). Or Butterfly Effect (never saw it). It was Voyager, which used time travel over and over and over again to tell stupid little stories with Deus ex machina [rutgers.edu] endings.

    Even before Enterprise went on the air, I knew it would be awful. Why? Because it was going to involve a "temporal cold war". A promise that the writers would use cheap gimmicks, not their imaginations.

  • by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:09PM (#12218643) Journal
    Actually, how many sci-fi series haven't ended up being cancelled?

    As opposed to all the tv shows that were never cancelled? Almost all tv shows die the same death, declining ratings and cancellation. I can think of about 3 tv shows ever that were simple ended because the all actors were sick of them, and decided to do other things.

    Profitability is based off of viewership. The more people who watch, the more the producers can charge to advertise. Sci-fi just isn't that popular on the whole (compared to say crap like friends or reality tv series dujour). Keep in mind though, that there is an opportunity cost of putting a show on the air. When you put a show on, you lose a timeblock. So, while you might make $250,000 profit each time you show an episode of 'Buck Rogers, space manwhore', you may be losing money because another producer at your station has a show ready to go that might make you $1,000,000 per episode. ('Paris Hilton gets nekkid and acts stupid, yet again!')

    Profitable shows with small viewership will always get run over in limited bandwidth situations like this.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:10PM (#12218654)
    You heard them...they think the money is in buying books, dvd's and other materials. There is less to be made from producing a viable television show- it costs too much and they don't get the return.

    So join me now and stop buying their books, DVD's of past shows, and other materials. There is no sense being a fan of the star trek show when the 'show' doesn't produce any movies or any series. They need to realize that its not the property that generates the book sales, its the movies and tv series.

    Make the pledge- don't buy a single star trek item until there is a series worth supporting. Don't make it a property they want to own...make them sell it off to someone who will restore it to its potential and use it for something other than raw financial gains.

    Greed has infested the entertainment business and it needs to be shut down. I'm all for pouring money into the movies and shows we love, but I'm also all for cutting them off when its clear that their motivations come only from greed and not from the passion of making art.

    Its time to cut off star trek. Those behind it are driven by greed. Its not enough for them to make some money, they'd rather take that money and use it on something that gives them a better return. Its a bunch of bankers... support independant science fiction instead. Spend your money on productions that aren't driven by huge corporations. Give that 3 million or so to some passionate group who is trying to make a good film or series and put and end to greedy franchises.

  • by pla ( 258480 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:20PM (#12218745) Journal
    Where the heck were the Africans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Middle Easterns, the Egyptians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, and of course, the Australians in the Trek shows after TOS??

    At the risk of sounding a tad racist, "Not in the target demographic".

    You assume Television, at its core, involves story-telling. Wrong. Television involves nothing beyond "find a target demographic, figure out what they buy, and sell that to them, oh yeah and provide visual stimulii of what they like to keep control of their eyes". What group forms the vast majority of Trekkies? Young white American males. What do you see on ANY show targetted at young white American males? White American-like males in charge (not always young due to the whole alpha-male thing), with plenty of white scantily-clad female eye-candy (or occasionally non-white females for an "exotic" flavor, but as a quick reality-check, how often do you see non-white females romantically involved with a member of her own ethnic group unless he treats her like crap?).


    TOS, while not fitting with what we might consider mainstream American values of its time period, did (perhaps unintentionally) score a bulls-eye on its demographic - Young white American males who, at that time, considered it "cool" to hang out with minorities to boost their apparent open-mindedness (a phenomenon we still have, with "wiggers" - middle-class white kids who flock to their three-out-of-2400 black or hispanic classmates to give themselves more "street cred".


    And no, I do not mean one word of this as a troll - You either "get" it, or you don't.
  • by Ka D'Argo ( 857749 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:22PM (#12218766) Homepage
    I have to be the biggest sci fi geek there is.

    I don't dress up, or go to conventions or nitpick the blueprints of every Federation ship, I am just a fan. I fall deeply into the cores of every show there is almost, and their writing style.

    I grew up on Star Trek. From TNG, to DS9 to Voyager and now Enterprise. I expanded my sci fi tastes to Farscape (god I miss it, so much), Firefly, Stargate SG1 and Atlantis, Buffy, Angel (more fantasy on those last two), and I even started to get into Battlestar Galatica despite how I don't like it's politic driven stories.

    What is left? Sure Stargate SG1 is around but how long can they keep it going? I love Ben Browder being added to the cast but seriously, it's on its last season or two. Atlantis shows promise but I'm gonna say it lasts maybe 4-5 seasons. I'm not a huge BSG fan, it's good but I can't feed my sci fi craving off of just it alone.

    Trek is gone. Paramount has basically said "fuck you" to the fans. I mean how much money has been raised here, for more episodes? Once Enterprise is over I will be removing UPN from my digital cable lineup just like I did "G4TV" after they shafted TechTV.

    Even the Sci Fi channel learns from its mistakes. Sure they fucked over Farscape after season 4 but at least they had the balls to make a mini series to AT LEAST TRY and give fans closure. Paramount will finish this season but at what cost? It's a sheer slap in the face saying they won't accept money for new episodes. I mean what other show on earth thats cancelled/going to be cancelled could be run simply by fan donations? I'd pay money every week for Trek. Alot of fans would too.

    Am I too far gone to be objectional? I think not. The first few seasons of Enterprise had their lows, I mean they really had their lows. But they had some good episodes too. And even more so I love Enterprise cause it's more human. Alot of themes, ideas, and ways of things are still done in the time period of Enterprise. People still wear hats, watch old movies, have more human forms of recreation. It seems silly but it relates more, you can actually imagine 100 years from now some form of space flight similar to warp drive, you can see how the Trek timeline actually fits in. It's doing what a prequel does, tells the backstory and sets up the future series.

    Monday through Thursdays I usually watch dvd's to fill the gaps. Ocasionally I'll tune into Smallville on Wednesdays. Fridays are Trek and Stargate for me. Saturdays maybe the new weekly movie on HBO might be entertaining, and Sundays will always be dominated by The Sopranos and Carnivale.

    Prime time tv is owned by sad reality tv. We have become a society of lemmings following whatever is popular and being entertained by the lowest common denominator entertainment. Even Picard would order our extinction, out of fucking mercy.

  • by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:33PM (#12218864) Homepage Journal
    Weird aliens that always look like humans, good guys that ALWAYS win at the last possible moment with some crazy technical miracle, magical SciFi gadgets that are backed with ridiculous jargon, doctors with miraculous cures for every insane ailment.... bleh, spare me.
    Well now, that criticism is fair, but it describes the whole Trek Franchise, not just Enterprise. And in fact some of us have long since decided that the whole Star Trek idea is worn out, and deserves to be retired.

    Hardcore Trekkies will say, "No! Just get rid of Rick Berman and everything will be fine!" Well, RB is a talentless bean-counter. But even if you replaced him with the smartest guy in the world, you'd still be stuck with a vapid 60s premise that almost everybody is sick of. Let's see something fresh and new.

    Fat chance. Star Trek has made Parmount too much money to go away any time soon. And almost every TV SF show made recently has imitated Trek's worst cliches. The one attempt [tvtome.com] to do something really original failed before it even got on the air.

    I am sort of intrigued by the new Battlestar Galactica. The fact that it's totally disloyal to the original (a corny Star Wars ripoff) is actually a good thing. Alas, I can't afford cable, and probably wouldn't have it if I could. Have to wait for the DVD.

  • by One Salient Oversigh ( 791476 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:46PM (#12218950) Homepage
    I have seen every episode of TNG, DS9 and Voyager. I would've seen every ep of TOS if they were available on video when I was a Trekkie.

    The rot started about half-way through Voyager when 7 of 9 was introduced. Although her character was okay and there were a number of decent episodes, the quality of the show from that point on went downhill.

    By going with the "Sexy Borg", the Star Trek people began to appeal to the lowest common denominator. From that moment on, stories seemed to be written to a very precise formula and began to be drab, predictable and uninteresting. Essentially, Star Trek became conservative.

    The nadir for me was when Tom Paris and Bellana entered that intergalactic Indy 500 race with that stupid ship of theirs. It was pathetic. When I needed to get up half-way through to go to the bathroom I told my wife not to pause the video.

    And the ending to Voyager was insipid and unmemorable. I don't even remember what happened to tell you the truth (whereas I can tell you all the plot-holes in the final episode of TNG).

    When Enterprise came on I put off by the sentimentalist crap that passed as a theme song. Then we got Captain Archer and his bunch of Earth people who obviously represented America railing against everyone else for restricting them - obviously the international community. I don't mind allegories but this was very militaristic and indicated a mindset in America that was very amenable to direct military action. Now we had Republicans in space.

    Then there was decontamination. That erection convinced me that Trek had died.

    My trek books sit on my bookshelf dusty and unread for years. I might throw them in the bin one day. I now hate Star Trek for its mediocrity and its conservativeness. I visit Wil Wheaton Dot Net because I was a closet Wesley hater and realise now that Wil was a victim of the rot which had settled in very early.

    Trek couldn've gone out with a bang. Instead it has fizzled out pathetically and embarrassingly for the past 10 years.
  • Why the vitriol? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hazee ( 728152 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:46PM (#12218953)
    Blimey, the knives seem to be out for Enterprise now. It's like some sort of anti-fanboy brigade or something. Do people think it's fashionable to knock Enterprise or something?

    Yes the series had plenty of problems. Yes, there were plenty of lost opportunities to explore the implications of the absence of things like the universal translator and teleporter.

    But compared to some of the utter shit that infests tv, was it really so bad? Worse than soap operas? Or reality tv? Or those pop idol things?

    To those people who seem intent on shouting "good riddance" after it, were you strapped to a chair and forced to watch it or something?

    Maybe it could have been better, but as one of the few shows to portray the future in a positive light, it provided me with a good few hours of undemanding light entertainment.

    I for one will miss it.
  • by adrianbye ( 452416 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:46PM (#12218955)
    If the fans could have made a deal which somehow involved pushing more merchandise, then this might have worked. Its all about the licensing - the studios make little money on the actual series with the big money coming from ties to the show. That is evidenced by this comment from the article:

    "We believe the franchise is still very vital as evidenced by the fans' demand for books, DVDs and all sorts of related merchandise."
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Urchlay ( 518024 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:52PM (#12218997)
    I got nothing at all from firefly. I just cant accept teh use of slugthrowers on a spacecraft.

    If that's your major reason for not being able to suspend disbelief, I recommend you watch it again and try harder this time.

    Lasers and other futuristic weapons exist in Firefly (there's even an episode about a plan to steal the first prototype laser gun from an antiques collector), but they're expensive to buy and maintain, particularly out in the fringes of colonized space where the crew of Serenity spend most of their time.

    Of course, you might have other reasons for not liking the show (it's not perfect, nothing is), but you might want to give it another chance anyway...

    To stay partially on topic: Enterprise finally got watchable in season 4, true, but nobody can say it never got its chance. They made 3 seasons of (mostly) boring Berman-style pointless fluff, when they could have been making a good Trek prequel instead. I sat through most of the first 3 seasons due to having a roommate who loves anything branded Trek, and I tried to enjoy them... but they just weren't good science fiction, nor were they good space opera, nor even good fluff. About the nicest thing I can say about Enterprise seasons 1-3 is that they're better than Voyager... but so was `Leonard part VI'

    Ugh. I usually hate people who rant about TV shows, pardon me for my diatribe.

  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drxray ( 839725 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:57PM (#12219034) Homepage
    Did you ever *watch* Star Trek?

    TOS had fit girls in skimpy outifts every other episode! Remember the ship's uniform? Miniskirts on a space ship...

    TNG had Marina Sirtis on the bridge where her whole function was to provide clevage.

    DS9? Dabo girls! Nana Visitor in that leather outfit in the alternate-universe episodes was probably the sexiest thing on TV that year...

    Star Trek was always about hot alien girls. 7 of 9 and that vulcan on Enterprise are completely in line with the rest of the series. You can't blame that on Berman.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @09:02PM (#12219080)
    Took a look at saveenterprise.com and they had over $3 million in donations. So.... Where's that going?? I poked around for a while and didn't find a "what happens to the $jack$ if they cancel the show anyway" statement..

    The odd thing is that there is no mention of this on their forums or on the front page.. The "donate" link is also still there..

    If, in fact they did get the letter I would think that the first thing they would do is stop taking donations.

    Its a little early to call this a colossal scam, but it seems a little fishy atm.
  • by LibertineR ( 591918 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @09:12PM (#12219181)
    Enterprise was doomed the moment they cast Scott Bakula.

    Spot on, IMHO.

    He was not a strong leader, and the writers actually let the crew argue with him. I dont recall Kirk or Picard having to explain themselves to their crews, or repeat an order to a subordinate. Hell, the almost never even had to raise their voice. The problem might be that Hollywood is now so GAY, they have no idea how a Strong Male Character should act. Maybe they should have been forced to watch Kirk save the planet, punch out the villain and bone the vixen, all within 48 minutes.

    If Capt. Archer had a pair, he would have had the Vulcan with the inflatable chest naked on her back by the middle of episode 2.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @09:16PM (#12219219)
    Hey, if they don't want it, give it to the fans who can appreciatae it more!!!
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Various Assortments ( 781521 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @09:28PM (#12219305)
    Cite one example.

    Just one.

    Name one episode of firefly that is a rehashed version of anything else.

    Can't?

    I thought as much.
  • Diatribe good! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jonskerr ( 217459 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @09:47PM (#12219437) Homepage
    Your points are all excellent AFAIK. I didn't watch hardly any Enterprise, because I can smell a stinker a mile away. Notice how the Trek topic immediately got suborned by people talking about good SF: B5 and Firefly.
    The Blalock head above is the wrong icon for this story; it should have the foot! Get a life you trekkie nerds! Quit watching crap and good stuff will have a better chance.
    Trek is dead, and should have a good long fallow period.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @11:05PM (#12220013)
    Nana Visitor in that leather outfit in the alternate-universe episodes was probably the sexiest thing on TV that year...

    Um...not only is that simply not true, but it ignores entirely the fact that the alternate-universe episodes undermined the two purposes of the alternate universe. First, they undermined that the alternate universe was difficult to reach and thus mostly safe from mutual interference with the regular universe. This is important because, without that degree of separation, there is no real difference between the universes anyhow. Second, they undermined the nature of the alternate universe as being, at least for the Federation, essentially evil.

    The alternate universe worked in the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror (note that there was only one) and in the TNG novel Dark Mirror because it allowed us to explore the dark side of each character, not just in the way we explored Archer's dark side by seeing him go against his nature as a compassionate being and torture a prisoner to gain a tactical advantage, but in the way that we explore what would happen if the entire impetus for being were reversed in such a way that mankind became known for its cruelty and imperialism rather than the compassion and curious spirit it is known for in the regular universe.

    The alternate universe is not a vehicle for exploring individual what-if scenarios. It's a vehicle for exploring the larger, holistic what-if of a universe with motivations reversed.

    That, and Nana Visitor was among the least attractive women ever to appear in Trek, and leather did nothing for her that replacement on the cast list would not have done better. Granted, she was perfect for the role of a Bajoran commander who is simultaneously sexy and effective, but that doesn't mean I need to enjoy her in leather.

    As to your contention that "Star Trek was always about hot alien girls," I must disagree, but not as thoroughly as I did about the alternate universe (which may not even disagree with your unstated views on the subject) and Ms. Visitor.

    My disagreement comes on three fronts. First, Star Trek was originally about teaching us about ourselves without being condescending, pious, or boring. And it did that marvelously. Somewhere along the way, it became solely about entertaining us with the particle of the week as viewed across a substantial cleavage field. And it does that marvelously, except that the purpose itself sucks major ass.

    The second point is about the "alien" bit. Originally, most of the hot women were humans. If we don't count half-Betazoid as sufficiently different from full-human to make a difference, then that trend lasted through TNG. DS9 really introduced the regular hot alien chick to the scene, and it did that well (Kira and Dax are both attractive, my "one of the least attractive" comment notwithstanding as I never said the woman is ugly - she is not). But Voyager abused the idea by focusing on it rather than simply providing it as a legitimate part of the scenery. In a way, TNG and DS9 legitimized women as capable of both beauty and excellence in the working world, in multiple (indeed, any) fields. Voyager made great strides in destroying that legitimacy, although it at least delayed the process, by making Seven of Nine essentially a map-reader where no other starship had needed such a position before. Enterprise, we'll ignore because the hot alien babe isn't written as an alien (T'Pol is as Vulcan as my middle finger; I know, because they've exchanged words) but also does not quite fit categorization with either previous group (she's legit and beautiful, but the legitimacy is ruined by the writing of her species).

    The third point I want to make on this is not necessarily a disagreement with you, but rather an observation. With the exception of Uhura, every hot chick on TOS was essentially a plaything of some sort, working as an extra. Sure, Yeoman Rand and Nurse Chapel appeared frequently, but they served n
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @12:25AM (#12220476)
    In a way, TNG and DS9 legitimized women as capable of both beauty and excellence in the working world, in multiple (indeed, any) fields. Voyager made great strides in destroying that legitimacy, although it at least delayed the process, by making Seven of Nine essentially a map-reader where no other starship had needed such a position before.
    You do realize that Janeway, the captain of the ship, was a woman too, right? Granted, she wasn't a sex object (she was even married), but still...
  • Because technology has the potential to solve human problems

    This is the central message of Star Trek, and an attitude I would expect to see more often on Slashdot.
  • by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @01:04AM (#12220647)
    I know that, but he plays a frenchman. Just as how Levar Burton isn't acutually blind, and Michael Dorn isn't actually a Klingon. Walter Koenig wasn't russian either, he just talked with what Americans believe a russian accent is. The diversity comes about from who the characters portray more than who they are in real life.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:2, Insightful)

    by NFNNMIDATA ( 449069 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @01:42AM (#12220845) Journal
    I grew to like Voyager eventually, but they made a LOT of mistakes.

    [Nerd rant to follow]

    My least favorite mistake they made right out of the gate: they missed a perfect opportunity to bring Nick Locarno (Wesley's squad leader at the academy) back for some redemption, Tom Paris was a knock-off of him anyway (the flashy pilot who was disgraced in starfleet). Locarno was an interesting, complex character with some background. But they bring the guy who played him on for a minutely different role instead. Go figure.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by R.Caley ( 126968 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @01:58AM (#12220925)
    [...] a bunch of pansy-ass default bad guys that drove around in blocks and spheres.

    Bad girl you mean. The give away that they had lost all clues was the queen. That personalised the borg. Originally the borg weren't a military/imperial force, they were something more like a disease. They couldn't be fought just by sending in more and more powerful ships, and they couldn't be negotiated with. That was a real threat.

  • 3,144,033.00 (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @02:55AM (#12221119)
    so some guy's just made $3,144,033?

  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @07:33AM (#12221980)
    Smells like BS. Sinclair had his trader girlfriend (Catherine Sakai rings a bell, but I'm too lazy to look it up on the Lurker's Guide), who was out in places she shouldn't be (like where she found the Walkers). She, instead of Anna Sheridan, would have landed on Z'ha'dum for whatever (highly implausible) reason. My guess is that she'd turn up, Shadow-fied like Anna eventually was, just when Sinclair and Delenn were starting to form a relationship (remember, by this point, it had not been established that Delenn was actually descended from Sinclair, nor had the whole time-travel mess happened. The story may have been radically different, and better).
  • by under_clocker ( 827643 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @08:08AM (#12222134) Journal
    Whoa now.... FIrst- most of us record our shows and so Im not sure how the neilson thing works but being there live doesnt always work.Tivo lets us come back and watch a show when we are ready. SO I dont know how someone can say its about viewership since most people who watch sci-fi are techs and most work at hours that dont jive with the 9-5 crowd. 2nd people who watch sci-fi are more of a minority than those who watch 'malcome in the middle' and moronic shows like 'friends' with david schwimmer (gag ! makes me ponder becomming lez as I fear that more and more men like him are becomming the predomant type) Lets face it. Programming on tv is aimed primarily at the main stream mass which happens to be the 9-5 robots. The moron crowd who float through life like a lump of crap. They dont look at shows like enterprise. Most of them can barely understand how to use their cell phone. I do tech support for verizon on the night shift. And believe me most of our customer base should have a play school pc so they can surf because they are so dumb!!! I dont think they couldnt find their azz with both hands. And what do they go to the internet for? not for knowledge- Not for important news or anything...No they want to look at porn till their teeth rot out. If you ask any of these morons what star trek is about they will compare it to a bunch of nerds at a trek convention. Not ever thinking they are weird for going to football games and obsessing about them and as a side note I have never heard of riot at a trek convention. Only sports heads. So I dont know - rattings yea maybe, but look at the time slot. and IMHO BAD WRITTING...
  • by pokeyburro ( 472024 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @12:23PM (#12224155) Homepage
    C'mon, we're talking about a series where two advanced races spend thousands of years and unimaginable amounts of effort to influence the evolution of the galaxy only to suddenly pack up and leave because, at the denoumont of the entire serious, Bruce Boxleitner yells "Get the hell out of our galaxy!". The cheese was too thick to get past. "As my grandfather used to say, 'cool!'"...

    I dunno. I liked that scene. It conveyed a strong sense to me of what power at that level does to your culture. The Vorlons and the Shadows had reasons behind their evolutionary agendas, and those reasons were finally toppled by years of developments culminating in Sheridan's speech. At that level of power, the story seemed to say, it's possible that a rhetorical argument at the right time and from the right source is enough to make you decide "fuck it" and go home.

    It wasn't just his speech I was detecting, either; I was seeing that really old alien's influence, all the other Old Races at the battle, the brouhaha over the telepaths, and millenia of implied sophistry between the Vorlons and Shadows.
  • Re:Just like TOS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by R.Caley ( 126968 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @12:37PM (#12224279)
    First Contact introduced the borg queen.

    But presumably the same people were making the choices. That they chose to destroy the only truely great concept to come out of post TOS Trek in a big splash in cinemas rather than in an embarassed moment on the small screen just underlines the lack of clue.

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