Star Trek: Enterprise Season 4 Blu-ray review

So we’ve finally come to Season 4 of Enterprise, often considered the best of the series. It is a bittersweet ending, going out on a high note, but it’s sad to think that this is the last TV series of the entire franchise, canceled after only four seasons. What we have in this final season is generally very good, we are treated to excellent multi-part story arcs about the Eugenics Wars, Vulcans, Andorians, Orions, and Klingons (oh my!) plus the mirror universe is revisited one last time. Read on for the review of the excellent Season 4 Blu-ray set.

The Episodes

As the writers reflect in their reunion special, each season was a different experience. Season 4 is quite a bit different from the previous seasons, from the move to digital cameras, the multi-part story arcs, even the way the pre-credits teaser sequences are setup and edited. You can tell there is a different voice (i.e. Manny Coto) this season.

First the season has to clean up the mess of the temporal cold war with a rather egregious Trek trope — “Space Nazis” …once that’s out of the way we get to the real Season 4.

Starting with the excellent “Home” which shows us both T’Pol returning to Vulcan for the first time in years, and how Earth has changed in the wake of the Xindi attack. Seeds are sewn for later episodes including rising xenophobia on Earth and the nearing completion of the NX-02 named (like the second space shuttle) the Columbia.

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Based on the success of the season long arc in Season 3, the powers that be finally allowed (the more modern TV format of) multipart storylines. This was also a way to justify the budget needed to give us locations like Vulcan, Andoria, and the mirror universe.

From “Home” we launch right into a 3-part story that connects the Eugenics Wars with ENT starting with “Borderland”. We get a good turn from Brent Spiner as Arik Soong. In the season documentary we find out that Manny Coto originally wanted the villain to be Colonel Green (as seen in TOS “The Savage Curtain”) until Brent Spiner agreed to come on the show.

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The next 3-part arc finally gives us an explanation about why the Vulcans in ENT have behaved so conservatively and so closed off. Archer plays a pivotal role in uncovering the true teachings of Surak. The seeds for Romulan interference are also laid (also hinting at the unproduced Season 5 which might have been the Earth-Romulan War).

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In the middle of the season are a couple of one shot episodes, the utterly forgettable and odd “Daedalus”, which has nothing to do with the well-known class of starship referenced in previous Trek. “Observer Effect” is a nice try at a prequel to the Organians (from TOS “Errand of Mercy”), but mostly just kind of an odd, eerie episode that feels a bit out of place in Season 4.

Another 3-part arc starts with “Babel One” where we finally start to see the beginnings of an inter-species alliance (finally we get to see what Daniels kept telling Archer about in prior seasons). The Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans, and Humans are starting a very tentative early process for peace talks when a mysterious ship, that can appear to be a ship from another species, starts attacking the various ships to upset the peace process. We get our first look at Andoria and Andorian society and the previously unknown subspecies called the Aenar.

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Next up we get a good try at answering in canon the “Klingon forehead problem”, an issue that I still don’t think is really an issue, but oh well, it’s a fun way to explain the more human TOS look.  Klingons just can’t resist tampering with Augment DNA and they get p0wned by it. It’s up to a kidnapped Phlox to try and sort it all out. We also go back to the story thread of the NX-02 Columbia finally being ready, and we get some very cool scenes of Enterprise and her first sister ship working together side-by-side (and upside down) in “Divergence” the second part of the arc.

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“In a Mirror Darkly” is a really great romp in the mirror universe and a fairly clever way for the producers to tie ENT to TOS via the U.S.S Defiant. We find out where it ended up phasing to after the events of TOS: “The Tholian Web.” The sets and costumes are a labor of love by the production department, and it’s quite something to see the ENT crew regard our beloved 1960’s TOS esthetic and tech as more advanced than their own. Watching evil Archer hold a classic phaser on an alien or go Gorn hunting is a ton of fun. Linda Park might be having the most fun as she owns the mirror universe by playing a very different Hoshi.

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Returning to the prime universe, breaking up the arcs is an Orion focused story, “Bound”, which gives much needed back story to Orion society, the “slave women” of Orion, and despite appearances (to trick alien travelers) who’s really the boss in their society.

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Earth is close to closing the deal on the Coalition of Planets (a clear predecessor to The Federation) when xenophobic mining magnate John Paxton (Peter Weller chewing the scenery in the best way possible – something he’ll do again in 2013’s Into Darkness) interrupts the talks with threats of retaliation if all non-Humans don’t leave Earth, in “Demons” and “Terra Prime.”  At the end of the 2-parter we get a fantastic speech from Archer about the future of Earth and the Coalition of Planets.  In the Season 4 documentary, we find out from Many Coto that since he knew this was his final episode as writer/producer he treated it as such, he says he always knew Berman and Braga intended to write the final episode since ENT was their creation, but this is his final episode.

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Sadly this isn’t technically the end of the series. Berman and Braga have one final episode to cram in, even though “Terra Prime” was a fantastic ending to the show. “These Are the Voyages…” has good intentions according to its writers, but it does a bunch of disrespectful and annoying things to ENT. It frames it as (potentially, just) a holodeck simulation, bringing into question whether ENT isn’t someone’s work of historical fiction in the TNG-era. Jumped 6-years forward from where we last saw our heroes, they kill off a main character (because why not? the show is dead, right?), and just when we think we’ll finally get to see Archer sign the Charter of the United Federation of Planets (again something they loved to work into exposition in the previous seasons with Daniels), the freakin’ camera cuts over to Riker and Troi and they walk out! Arg!! Oh well… I do like the very end where the Enterprise-D turns to the classic Enterprise, which turns to the NX Enterprise heading off into the distance, bitter-sweetly signifying the end of the Star Trek franchise as we knew it.

Audio and Video Quality

The audio is once again generally excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes. It helps that Enterprise is the most modern of the TV series and so was produced with surround sound in mind.

Season 4 is the season many people are interested to see because of the move to 1080p digital cameras, something that’s now commonplace for TV shows. As such, Season 4 in many ways feels the most contemporary, since it has the very and clean, sharp, HD look that we’ve become accustomed to in the last 5-7 years with prime-time TV.

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The live-action is naturally quite clear and detailed. The slight catch-22 to this is that the CGI (which was done on a strict budget and generally rendered at 720p) shows some softness and some aliasing here and there, it stands out a bit more this season since the live action photography changed quite dramatically. But there are really no complaints, and certainly looks no worse than its contemporary, the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

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Bonus Material

As with the prior season sets, all DVD bonus content is ported over, this includes deleted scenes, commentaries and featurettes.

New audio commentaries – “The Forge” with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Mike & Denise Okuda

“Observer Effect” with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Mike & Denise Okuda

“United” with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and David Livingston

“In a Mirror Darkly, Part I” with James L. Conway, Mike Sussman and Mike & Denise Okuda

“Demons” with Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating

“Terra Prime” with Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating

 

In Conversation: Writing Star Trek Enterprise– 90 mins

The roundtable includes: Brannon Braga, Mike Sussman, André Bormanis, David A. Goodman, Chris Black, Phyllis Strong, and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

Brannon Braga was running late, so there’s a placeholder image of Braga on an iPad that they joke about. David A. Goodman leads off the roundtable.

The group goes around introducing themselves and how and when they came to the ENT.

Bormanis was a science advisor to Trek since 1993 and then was able to write freelance for VOY becoming staff for ENT.

Sussman and Strong were both started with VOY Season 7 and continued on to be part of the first group of writers for ENT.

The Reeves-Stevens’ started talking with Phyllis Strong back towards the end of Season 2, and then got their foot in the door via Mike Sussman for Season 4 when Many Coto became showrunner.

Chris Black was a Trek fan and got his agent to get him a meeting to join ENT late in Season 1.

David A. Goodman wrote for Futurama and wrote “Where No Fan Had Gone Before” and had interviewed for Firefly, Braga wanted a different voice (his comedy background) and was interested in him. He got a meeting with Braga and impressed him with his love for Trek and knowledge of how Braga saw Trek.

Initially Berman and Braga were interested writers who didn’t know Trek, since this was a prequel and supposed to be very different. Berman and Braga had done Trek for so long there is a feeling among the group that they were so used doing TNG-era Trek and their style of story writing and story breaking, etc. that they liked and they ended up wanting (despite saying they wanted it to be different) people who were familiar with prior Trek.

Braga shows up about 20 mins in.

Season 3 was purposefully written as a cliffhanger (despite the studio wanting them to wrap it up) to try and hedge their bets and get the network to renew ENT for a 4th season.

They all agree that each season has a distinct flavor to it and were quite different to write for.

Braga says the best episodes of Season 1 were the ones that stick to the prequel premise, the smaller ship, the universe is bigger, and things took longer to get places.

Chris Black says that at the time the writers didn’t know the pressure and scrutiny being placed up on Berman and Braga, they always saw it begin and end at them. Braga didn’t communicate what was going on with the higher ups. Braga is surprised and apologizes for not doing a better job communicating.

They discuss the boom with broadband internet, and people being widely Internet literate, so there was tons of immediate feedback from fans, which was really hard to take for the writers. David A. Goodman was the first one to start posting under his own real-world name as his screen name and responding to fans, Mike Sussman soon followed.

Eventually we get around to what would be in Season 5, the Reeves-Stevens say Shran would have been a larger character, he’d be on the bridge of Enterprise more. They also say Coto was going to reach out to Sci-Fi authors for Season 5.

They talk about how real life astronauts liked ENT, and would come by the sets, and had DVDs of ENT brought up to the International Space Station.

 

The documentary covering Season 4 is called “Before Her Time: Decommissioning Enterprise” (broken into four 30-minute sections – Part 1: New Voices, Part 2: Memorable Voyages, Part 3: Final Approach Part 4: End of an Era).

“New Voices”

Manny Coto talks about during Season 3 he was already thinking ahead, that he already had plans to do mini-arcs that connect TOS to ENT for Season 4.

Braga talks about being beaten down by the end of S3 and he had to leave, he says he knew Coto would be the showrunner.

Coto loves “Amok Time” and “Doomsday Machine” watched them religiously in ‘70s syndication.

Coto knew of the Reeves-Stevens’ and their depth of Trek knowledge and wanted them to come to work on Season 4. They came in and wrote “The Forge”.

“Memorable Voyages”

Larry Nemecek talks about S4 and how great it was, but yet the ratings weren’t all that great for network TV. It became clear Season 4 was a “make or break” season.

The Reeves-Stevens’ talk about the signs that they were going to be canceled, one big opportunity for press that UPN passed on was the idea of allowing a recorded message from the International Space Station about the fictional launch of the NX-02 Columbia. The naming of the NX ships was following the real-world naming order of the space shuttles. The astronauts reached out the production team, but when it went up the chain of command to the network, UPN never cared to make the call to NASA to officially arrange it.

Sussman talks about the budget cuts of Season 4, and how it was also a bit of a blessing because if they could amortize the costs of the sets over multiple episodes (the multipart arcs) then they could afford better sets.

Coto wanted to do Col. Green and the eugenics wars (Augments), but then they heard Brent Spiner wanted to do an episode, so they changed him to Dr. Soong. Bakula and Coto praise working with Spiner.

Coto says Berman mentioned that William Shatner might be interested in appear in ENT, Coto of course jumped on the possibility. The Reeves-Stevens’ had an idea about how to do it, that the Tantalus field wasn’t actually a way to kill a person, but to banish a person into the past. So then there is this world where mirror universe people have been deposited, which includes evil Kirk (which they called “Tiberius”), who wants to take Enterprise and get back to his universe. Of course the money involved to get Shatner basically nixed the idea.

The mirror universe idea was kept alive for “In a Mirror Darkly”, Sussman (who wrote it) talks about how it was probably going to be one of his last Trek writing credits, so he wanted to go out on a high note.

The Reeves-Stevens’ talk about how surreal it was to walk the TOS-style sets, and then they got a phone call from Shatner while on the sets.

Linda Park talks about Season 4 brining the fun of TOS back into ENT, and how playing Mirror Hoshi was exciting.

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Connor Trinneer and Jolene Blalock talk about the Trip/T’Pol relationship and how it was left in “Terra Prime”. They wish the-powers-that-be had been bolder about making a real commitment to the characters having a relationship.

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“Final Approach”

Nemecek says that the idea that a Trek show could just die was unheard of at the time, it wasn’t going to go to seven seasons and maybe even movies? UPN wasn’t even seen in all markets, its programming was often preempted, which made it really hard for ENT to succeed.

Braga says he had repeated conflicts with the network, and ENT was the first time that they had gotten notes from a network.

Coto says that their timeslot was moved to Fridays (which is an infamous death timeslot).

Bakula talks about all the politics going on behind the scenes with UPN management, it was starting to negotiate the merger with the WB, and how ENT just squeaked by thanks to Trek supporters in the management.

Braga recounts making compromises to keep the budget low to appease the network, even with the budgetary compromises, one day he got a terse phone call that basically just said “it’s over.” He had already felt by then that UPN really just didn’t care about ENT, the short unapologetic phone call clinched it.

James L. Conway (director) talks about how ENT was a victim of the changing trends in TV show style and in how people watch TV (i.e. DVR recordings).

Nemececk talks about how ENT overlapped with Battlestar Galactica for one season, and how Battlestar Galactica was considered a breakout hit, what was unfair about this is that ENT was judged as a network show, and BSG as a cable show. For cable Battlestar Galactica was good, ironically it still had fewer viewers in raw numbers than Enterprise did in Season 4, but the standards were different.

Coto says “Demons” / “Terra Prime” was his intended end to his tenure on ENT.

Coto and the Reeves-Stevens’ worked on Archer’s speech in “Terra Prime” over and over trying to get it perfect. Lots of staff and friends of the production came to the set to see it filmed.

Coto says Rick and Brannon always wanted to write the last show.

Jolene Blalock says she was very vocal about “These are the Voayages” when she heard it was going to be the actual final episode and that it was framed around TNG, thus not giving ENT its own finale.

Connor Trineer got the script and said “F**k Me” when he saw what happened to Trip. He called Braga and was like “we’re really canceled right? There’s no way we’re coming back…”

Coto says he wanted to do more in the next three years (i.e. making it 7 seasons), the Earth-Romulan War, see Stratos, and more mirror universe.

“End of an Era”

This portion covers just what the title says, the end of the Berman-era. Rick Berman says he never felt that he was the king of the kingdom after Roddenberry’s passing. He was doing a job, a job that he loved, but he never thought of himself as the bastion fans made him to be.

Nemececk posits that what initially made Berman the perfect person to take over from Roddenberry was eventually a bit of a liability, he thinks that if he had loosened the reins a bit to allow Trek to change and grow beyond circa 1991 (when he officially took over for Roddenberry) things might have been a bit different.

Conway says it was surreal to see how the Paramount lot changed afterward, all the stages, trailers, etc. that had been there since TNG (18-years) were now gone.

Mike Okuda talks about how it was really hard to see things end, much of the production staff had been there since TNG. They had all become close and spent most of their waking days, during those 18-years, on the lot.

Braga reflects that his time on ENT was bittersweet. He can remember the exact day he burned out making ENT. But, he says, with 10-years of distance he finds it much sweeter. He loves his creation and loved working with the talented actors and production crew.

More Season 4 Images

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I would love for a new enterprise series with bakula as the new UFP president, maybe 12 episodes a year HBO style, set after the final enterprise episode. Put manny cotto and Ron Moore in charge.

With today’s production technologies it would be the most epic trek yet.

The saving grace of this entire season was T’Pol donning the slutty TOS outfit.

Whereas the first three seasons of Enterprise underplayed its relationship to TOS history (or, in the case of that dreadful Romulan prequel episode, utterly disregarded it), the fourth year often felt to me like an overcorrection Still, it definitely was the best year of the show.

Wholeheartedly agreed, S4 was the best ENT season!
A pity that there never was a season 5 (and beyond) in the same vein, with more about the Romulans stirring up trouble (which then eventually escalates into a war), and more about Shran, Andorians and the other Federation founding species, ect…

With the possible exception of DS9 season 7, this was the best season of the entire Star Trek franchise. The only bad episode in the season was These are the Voyages (by far the worst episode of Star Trek), and all of the multi-part episodes were excellent, while the rest of the single part episodes weren’t bad. I will never understand why they cancelled Enterprise. Seasons one and two weren’t great, but they were infinitely better than the first two seasons of TNG. All of the Star Trek spin-offs really found their feet around season 3, and Enterprise was no exception.

Enjoyed the synopsis, Matt.

Interesting to factor in the UPN/WB merger in the series’ cancellation. Yet another “what if” to consider.

I’m skeptical of the proposed idea to make the Mirror Universe a regular aspect of the series, and with Shatner reprising his Evil Kirk role, no less. “…Mirror, Darkly” always struck me as a fun romp, as you put it, but using it as a regular depository for characters, having them go back and forth all the time, seems excessively fantastical and a potential shark-jump. The whole Temporal Cold War, Daniels, 31st Century Schizoid Man premise was already getting into shark-jump territory, IMO. You’re already on delicate ground logic-wise when you do a time-trouble episode and they went back to that well too often for me.

Some of the other ideas, though—the Romulan War—do seem like they had a lot of potential.

And I think I might be the only person here who didn’t mind the Space Nazi’s, per se.

It’s too bad Enterprise didn’t get a 5th season–I have always felt that they finally got it right by that 4th season. Like the original Battlestar Galactica, a wasted opportunity.

3. Legate Damar – April 28, 2014

I will never understand why they cancelled Enterprise. Seasons one and two weren’t great, but they were infinitely better than the first two seasons of TNG. All of the Star Trek spin-offs really found their feet around season 3, and Enterprise was no exception.

TNG Season 2 was a mixed bag for me, but I take your point. It’s a good question. One factor might be that post-TNG shows, being essentially spin-offs with built-in audiences, were expected not to have to take as long to find their footing as TNG coming 20 years after TOS. Another factor might’ve been Trek fatigue. By the end of ENT Season 4, there had been a new Trek show (or 2) on the air continually for almost 20 years. Having VOY and DS9 running at the same time was a big mistake. VOY seems to have suffered from lack of attention, and the impact to the entire Trek franchise was overkill setting in. By the time of ENT, coming after 7 years of a disappointing VOY series, fan good-will had diminished and general audiences might have moved on. The corporate situation with the merger of UPN and WB is also something to consider. But, yes, when you put it as you did, ENT does seem to have been short-changed when compared with TNG. Some fellas are lucky, and some ain’t.

#6. Cygnus-X1 – April 28, 2014

I’ve never really bought this “franchise fatigue” nonsense. If there was any “fatigue” it was that of Berman and Braga themselves. If franchise fatigue were a real phenomenon, how do you account for these other TV franchises such as, the LAW AND ORDERs, the CSIs, and the NCISs puttering along just fine?

Lack of creativity, lack of good writing, lack of a coherent vision, these things are the very real franchise killers not this fatigue baloney.

It’s just too bad ENTERPRISE had to bear the brunt of the UPN chaos leading to its merger with the WB.

I still think the prequel concept was (and still is) the way to go. So much back story in the Trek universe to explore and it was largely crapped on the first three seasons of Enterprise. Though season 3 was great SF television it at times didn’t really feel Trek to me.
They got it right – finally – for season 4 (despite Space Nazi’s and that steaming pile of fecal matter called a finale). Oh the possibilities had this show been done right from the beginning.

I thought the entire series was great but Season 4 did top them all and even a few the other series episodes. It just needed more time to have season 5 and that would have done it. It was the fault of UPN…. they lacked vision.

9. Disinvited – April 28, 2014

I’ve never really bought this “franchise fatigue” nonsense. If there was any “fatigue” it was that of Berman and Braga themselves. If franchise fatigue were a real phenomenon, how do you account for these other TV franchises such as, the LAW AND ORDERs, the CSIs, and the NCISs puttering along just fine?

I’m not sure. Maybe there’s an inherently larger and more persistent appetite for cop dramas than for Trek-style sci-fi.

Lack of creativity, lack of good writing, lack of a coherent vision, these things are the very real franchise killers not this fatigue baloney.

Or, maybe any real Trek fatigue could have been overcome with a fresh, new leader running the franchise. Maybe it was more Berman fatigue than Trek fatigue.

As a deliberate, relaxed-paced, gradually developing serial with seasonal story-arcs, DS9 was clearly an attempt at something new that hadn’t been done in Trek before, and I have to respect that attempt. For me, DS9 was always substantially less compelling than TNG, and all too often it was insufferably boring, but I know that many people loved that show.

VOY, however, clearly suffered from lack of creativity, vision and good writing, as you mentioned. I don’t know much about what was going on behind the scenes with that show, but the product seemed like the kid brother of DS9 that didn’t get as much attention. Going back and watching VOY now, I see that there were some compelling premises during the second half of the series, but these ideas would always end up half-baked. It’s as if the writers just decided to call it a day 75% into the episode and resolve it with a Trek-style technobabble deus-ex-machina.

So, speaking for myself, by the time of ENT, my patience with Berman-Trek was nearing an end. What I’d seen was a marked and steady decline in quality since Season 6 of TNG (and Season 6 was a bit of a drop from Season 5, but I can’t fault them too much for that since Season 5 was so great), and when ENT wasn’t satisfying by mid-Season 2, I tuned out. I only discovered how good Season 3 and 4 are when the series came to Netflix.

So, while I’m aware that GR was sick and out of commission prior to Season 5, there does seem to be a rough correlation with his passing and the beginning of the decline of Trek. Maybe it ran on auto-pilot for 2-3 seasons until Berman decided to impose his own way on things. I really don’t know. Maybe it was all due to Michael Piller leaving to do DS9, but for my money DS9 was already a substantial drop-off from TNG. I find this all a bit of a mystery, but as a fan looking at the credits all those years, I associated the name “Rick Berman” with the decline of Trek.

Maybe it’s easier if you think of instances where they “polarise the hull plating” instead of raising the shields or “fire torpedoes” instead of phasers. It’s the same thing except they can’t come up with something new so they change the terminology and hope you don’t mind.

As a definition of “franchise fatigue” I mean.

Small note, but I’ve been recently annoyed that when they slap the old SD bonus features on these Blu-Ray discs, they don’t bother to upconvert it to 1080p. On so many players these SD features play and look like dirty stinky caca poo.

A simple upconvert with off-the-shelf software would’ve made a decent improvement a smoother playing experience.

This season is one of the most brilliant in all of Star Trek.

The show had just hit its stride when it was cancelled. A Tragedy.

If/when Star Trek returns to TV, Manny Coto should be in charge. He understands it in a way that no one from camp JJ does.

I just did a bit of research to find out where the magic in TNG was coming from, and it was indeed a credit to Michael Piller. He was put in charge of managing the show’s writing staff and it was his vision of the show that shifted it to a more character-driven form. Piller also wrote 13 TNG episodes, nearly all of them great. I’m not sure exactly what Piller’s role on DS9 was, beyond co-creating it with Berman. Since Ira Steven-Behr is credited as showrunner and writer for 50 episodes of DS9, I am left with the impression that Piller’s involvement as executive producer was minimally creative. Piller then co-created VOY and was executive producer for that series for the first few seasons.

Berman wrote 2 TNG episodes, both of them great, and then later 18 episodes of ENT of relatively good caliber and he’s credited with the story ideas of 21 additional episodes of ENT. Berman’s 4 TNG movies, as far as I’m concerned, were all sub-par and suffered terribly from poor plot construction, ST:FC being generally recognized as the best of these.

Ira Steven-Behr wrote 3 TNG episodes, two of them great, and served as producer during Season 3 of TNG, before being promoted to showrunner of DS9.

Brannon Braga wrote about 20 episodes of TNG, all of them good or great. He then went on to be co-showrunner of VOY with Jeri Taylor, and finally showrunner of ENT prior to Manny Coto taking over.

The Nielsen ratings for DS9 (6%) averaged just over half of the average TNG ratings (11%). VOY had an average ratings share of 5% and judging by the following graph, ENT appears to have averaged around 4.5% over its 4-Season run: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Star_Trek_Enterprise_ratings_chart.png

It’s nonplussing to see how the improving quality of ENT in Seasons 3 and especially 4 appears to have had little or no impact on that show’s viewership. To me, this would seem to be a sign of Trek fatigue exacerbated by a steady decline in quality over the course of a decade: A string of disappointing TNG movies ending with NEMESIS, one of the all-time worst Trek movies; a disappointing previous series, VOY; ratings having steadily declined since the glory days of TNG…it would seem that viewer patience and interest by the time of ENT were in an irretrievable death spiral and not enough viewers were willing to stick it out to Season 4, wherein most fans today seem to agree that the series had gotten quite good.

The steadily declining ratings (and quality, in my opinion) of Trek since TNG Season 6 appears, in my admittedly cursory autopsy here, to have been at least partly due to the TNG dream-team, so to speak, being spread too thinly beginning with the advent of DS9, where Piller left TNG to develop the new series. But, Piller’s involvement in DS9 does not appear to have been the same as it was with TNG. Ira Steven-Behr was promoted to showrunner of DS9 and Piller would seem to have been only minimally involved with that show’s creative direction.

Next we got Brannon Braga promoted to co-showrunner of VOY, again with apparently minimal creative direction from Piller, and finally Braga was promoted to showrunner of ENT until being replaced by Manny Coto in Season 4.

Michael Piller, Ron Moore and Brannon Braga, all of whom have demonstrated great talent for writing, somehow managed to turn out 4 sub-par Trek scripts, two of them abysmal, under the leadership of Rick Berman.

One thing is indisputable: Trek saw its highest ratings, by far, during the time that Berman, Piller, Braga and Behr were working on TNG (Braga and Behr at different times). After that team got split up to rule over the Trek Empire split into Western and Eastern halves, if you will, both halves suffered. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the ratings for DS9 fell to almost half of the TNG ratings. It would appear that by running two Trek series concurrently, Paramount managed to split the Trek audience roughly in half, with DS9 getting a 6% share and VOY getting a 5% share to replace the former TNG’s 11% share.

Come on folks lets get on the netflix campaign, get Season 5 up and running!
https://www.facebook.com/StarTrekEnterpriseSeason5NetflixCampaign

The tough truth is that Enterprise just wasn’t very good. Bakula was stiff and unconvincing, surprising really as in Quantum Leap, his acting was very natural and not at all stilted.

The breakout stars were Trip and T’Pol for my money.

#15. ST:EXP – April 28, 2014

What is it that you expect that their pre-upconverting it for you would do better than your own system’s upconverting? Or is it you are confusing the term with rescanning the source film negatives at of the extras at a higher resolution?

#17. Cygnus-X1 – April 29, 2014

Seems to me you are describing keeping the same number of workers but increasing their individual workloads. That sounds more like franchise dilution than “fatigue.”

As for ENTERPRISE’s ratings did any UPN show have rising ratings upto UPN disbanding?

Enterprise should have been the best series. I fear that not only did ENT essentially kill of Trek on TV, it also killed the concept which was never explored to anywhere near it’s real potential until the 4th season.

Immediately out of the gate, the creative ahem geniuses had problems with the too-new technology, too odd Vulkans, disreagrding canon whenever they could, re-set button, and their strange desire to solve all the issues a prequel show should have created – for example not having transporters.

Season 4 was so good. and then it got cancelled. Damn, it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings so bad if they had cancelled it 1 season earlier. Then it would have deserved it for being a crappy show.
But ending after that improvement is really tragic.

“for example not having transporters.”

Exactly. THe transporter pissed me of right from the beginning. It was just created to cut costs on the 60s effects shots, so having to rely on shuttles or landing procedures shouldn’t been such a problem in the CGI-age.

JJ’s Star Wars movie is cast…Ford is back

This show was such a major conceptual misfire. First, one of the worlds biggest SNAG’s (sensitive, new-age guy) for Captain, an earlier Enterprise that looks more advanced than the TSO Enterprise (and a total rip-off of the Akira), a super-emotional hot Vulcan, humans hating Vulcans, and on and on and on.

They killed off the best character in the pathetic show-ending that was a ‘frak you’ to fans of the show.

‘Enterprise’ the show that killed Star Trek on TV. I like Scott Bakula, but he’s just not Captain material. Maybe if he’d had some better scripts.

Such a lost opportunity here. Could have been great if they had actually done a PREQUEL.

21. Disinvited – April 29, 2014

Seems to me you are describing keeping the same number of workers but increasing their individual workloads. That sounds more like franchise dilution than “fatigue.”

I was describing both. The writer/producers, who together had contributed to such a great product in TNG, were sent off to different halves of the empire and promoted to different job responsibilities. It seems they were better suited to their jobs on TNG than to their post-TNG jobs, especially Michael Piller. If I was Rick Berman, the first thing I’d have done with DS9 and/or VOY would have been to ask Michael Piller to reprise his job on TNG of managing the writing staff and providing creative direction. So, yes, that’s the franchise dilution.

The franchise fatigue came after a decade of steadily declining quality and ratings across 3 post-TNG Trek series and 4 TNG movies.

As for ENTERPRISE’s ratings did any UPN show have rising ratings upto UPN disbanding?

Don’t know. Good question. A failure of the network to competently promote the show is what first occurred to me as well. If you’ve got a show that’s clearly improving, especially one with a new showrunner in Manny Coto, it would seem to me that you should do something to let the public know that you’ve changed the direction of the show. Seems like something people might wanna know, especially Trek fans. But, I don’t recall any such rehabilitation campaign at the time. I guess the network execs just couldn’t be bothered too much with salvaging ENT with the WB merger in the works.

Pardon me if this is a re-post, but something funny happened during the upload when I tried to post this previously.

21. Disinvited – April 29, 2014

Seems to me you are describing keeping the same number of workers but increasing their individual workloads. That sounds more like franchise dilution than “fatigue.”

I was describing both. The writer/producers, who together had contributed to such a great product in TNG, were sent off to different halves of the empire and promoted to different job responsibilities. It seems they were better suited to their jobs on TNG than to their post-TNG jobs, especially Michael Piller. If I was Rick Berman, the first thing I’d have done with DS9 and/or VOY would have been to ask Michael Piller to reprise his job on TNG of managing the writing staff and providing creative direction. So, yes, that’s the franchise dilution.

The franchise fatigue came after a decade of steadily declining quality and ratings across 3 post-TNG Trek series and 4 TNG movies.

As for ENTERPRISE’s ratings did any UPN show have rising ratings upto UPN disbanding?

Don’t know. Good question. A failure of the network to competently promote the show is what first occurred to me as well. If you’ve got a show that’s clearly improving, especially one with a new showrunner in Manny Coto, it would seem to me that you should do something to let the public know that you’ve changed the direction of the show. Seems like something people might wanna know, especially Trek fans. But, I don’t recall any such rehabilitation campaign at the time. I guess the network execs just couldn’t be bothered too much with salvaging ENT with the WB merger in the works.

“These are the Voyages (by far the worst episode of Star Trek)”

Utterly ridiculous. Yes, it sucked… but the worst episode of Star Trek? No way. Not when Spock’s Brain, Threshold, Justice, Move Along Home, Code of Honor, The Alternative Factor, Meridian, Shades of Gray, And the Children Shall Lead, Precious Cargo, Fair Haven, Spirit Folk, Profit and Lace, Star Trek V, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Way to Eden, Symbiosis, Skin of Evil, Where Silence Has Lease, Night Terrors, Sub Rosa, Genesis, The Muse, Valiant, Let He Who Is Without Sin, Parallax, The Thaw, Warlord, Tsunkatse, The Fight and The Magicks of Megas-Tu exist!

#28. Cygnus-X1 – April 29, 2014

I see your point.

But I think it’s important to distinguish the “fatigue” wasn’t inherent in the fact that they had expanded the franchise but rather Paramount’s constant theme of short changing (shortsheeting?) it yet again by not hiring enough new fresh faces to have an adequate workforce for the jobs they were creating. Another case of faulty executive decisions being scapegoated out to prevent blowback.

I love The Alternative Factor even though it is a mess.

#31. Dunsel Report – April 29, 2014

Me, too. And it introduced the whole alternate universe concept that the current movies embrace.

30. Disinvited – April 29, 2014

In other words, maintaining a high level of quality—TNG caliber—throughout the subsequent series and movies could have obviated Trek fatigue.

It’s possible. There are long-running TV series and people still want to see them.

Nicely written, Matt.

I always thought franchise fatigue described the staff as well as fans: the same people had been doing the same stuff for 15+ years by that point. Bringing in Coto helped, but…

#33. Cygnus-X1 – April 29, 2014

Exactly.

Regarding the CSI comparison, both CSI Miami and CSI NY were canceled recently, and the original is kind of running on fumes.

^Although both ran for pretty long runs.

Enterprise was a great Series. Most people did not give this series enough credit.

I imagine a Star Trek Enterprise with a two-hour pilot that had its first hour set on Earth. The launch of the first Warp 5 ship is a HUGE deal for Earth; there’s press and dozens of other ships, Earth Starfleet, Vulcan, and private vessels, all gathered to watch Enterprise’s launch.

Hour two is basically “The Andorian Incident.” We meet these guys in the first episode and establish with them that space is dangerous, that not everyone is polite and want to be pals. The Vulcans are also not the tremendous assholes they were at the beginning of the show.

I also imagine a show with an NX-01 that is, in fact, the Conestoga design (from Terra Nova) but with the same interiors. There are no weapons outside of the EM weapons we see in the pilot, and the Enterprise herself uses missiles. Tech like phase weapons and anti-matter warheads will come from future Federation cooperation, as will the saucer design for the primary hull.

That’s just the beginning…by the end of Season One, there’s a tentative peace with Shran at the very least, but there’s still the Tellarites to deal with.

The Romulan War could have been the sixth season, with a time jump between six and seven. Seven gives us the birth of the Federation, the eventual separation of the Enterprise crew as they go on to new lives, and finally, the birth of the UFP.

A good storyline would have been promoting Archer (since the character/actor wasnt working) and made Trip Captain. The actor was better at conveying emotion and it would have created more depth to the character stories.

But really, the entire first season should have been “on Earth”. Not every episode, but the development of the ship should have been the story. You could certainly go into space (in small, cramped ships), show us the Deadelus, discuss the Vallient etc etc.

ENT needed a grittier feel. It needed the people behind DS9…

IIRC, Braga and Coto went from “Star Trek Enterprise” to “24”. In one episode they produced, the President (Cherry Jones) drops the names of “Rick Berman” and “Bob Justman”. That was obviously a bone thrown to the “Trek” fans in the “24” audience.
And to be fair, I liked “Spirit Folk”. I was going through a very stressful time, and it was the break I needed at the time.

The best actor on that show was the beagle

@Matt Wright – Why has the comments section of the thread dated 22 April, “…Orci lobbying to direct Trek 3” been closed?

What I have observed is that the comments section of a thread tend to be closed after a month, which means the threads that came well before this thread should be closed around about now, but so far, they have not been, despite the fact that few, if any, comments are being posted on or about those threads anymore.

It is a bit disconcerting to type a comment only to find that it has gone because the comments section has been closed off, especially when past experience seems to dictate that this open thread has another two weeks to go before being closed.

BTW, I do agree with your moderating of threads as you appear to have done, ie allowing a month for people to post whatever before closing them off. It does make sense and must make your job easier.

“First the season has to clean up the mess of the temporal cold war with a rather egregious Trek trope – “Space Nazis” …”

I need to get Season 4 from my son today, so that I can the stories about the space Nazis – it has titillated my imagination. I have just watched the entire third season of Enterprise all the way through for the first time and now I am ready for Season 4.

I must say that the stories have been good and I can see where much of the BR Star Trek has inherited some of its look and feel, eg the grey uniforms of BR Star Trek etc. The two latest films do not share quite the same optimism or *innocence* of the original 60’s series – too much war or fear of war and other bad stuff happening both in the Trek world and in the real world since those hazy days of the late 1960’s, early 1970’s…:( This has *poisoned*, to some extent, the mood overall – unfortunately, in both worlds.

Unfortunately, most present days younger producers/writers/directors have been born with that dark cloud and don’t know much different, while studio executive cynically count how much dosh they can make from fulfilling and perhaps even cultivating many ordinary people’s sense of confusion and depression.

#44. Keachick (Rose) – May 1, 2014

I suspect because the temperature kept rising over the bannable offense

I can’t speak for him but I imagine Matt wisely implemented a cooling off period and will open it up again after sufficiently putting an end to the cycle of hate/outrage?

Making Trip captain would have made no sense. He was an engineer and happiest in that capacity.

Come on now Matt, Space Nazis are not exclusive to Trek, even the grandmaster of science fiction himself Robert Heinlein used Space Nazis.

In Heinlein’s novel “Rocket Ship Galileo” the main characters find and ultimately destroy a post-WWII Nazi stronghold on the moon.

Marvel Comics has done Space Nazis, and it is likely that Marvel Studios will as well since anyone paying attention in Captain America: The First Avenger knows that the Red Skull is not dead but was transported to another planet, and I for one am sure he will re-appear.

Point being, its not just a Trek trope.

44. Keachick (Rose) – May 1, 2014

@Matt Wright – Why has the comments section of the thread dated 22 April, “…Orci lobbying to direct Trek 3″ been closed?

I was wondering that, myself. Usually they’re open for a month. The Orci thread was just over one week old and still very active. Looks like I’ll have to respond to Disinvited over in the chat thread.

Re the comment from the just closed thread about Chekov’s statement about Cinderella being Russian (from Star Trek VI?) –

It seems that Chekov may not have been so wrong but not so right either. The Cinderella character appears to be one of the oldest tales told and has variations throughout the world, including places like Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia as well as a version from indigenous North American culture, that can go back centuries.

“The Aarne–Thompson system classifies Cinderella as “the persecuted heroine”. The story of Rhodopis about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt is considered the earliest known variant of the “Cinderella” story and many variants are known throughout the world” – Wikipedia.