Day 4 of Star Trek: The Cruise 7 arrived at its first destination with a visit to Curaçao on Sunday. The island is a constituent country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and is known to most people for being a producer of the blue liqueur of the same name (which, incidentally, makes for a great Romulan Ale). The city offered Star Trek Cruise passengers walking tours, snorkeling, and beach fun in perfect weather.
The schedule for Star Trek activity on board gets noticeably lighter while in port, but the Star Trek celebrities are just as eager to get out and explore the island, so passengers are just as likely to bump into them on land as on the ship. Once everyone is back aboard, the Star Trek fun picks up where it left off. A highlight for day 4 was the Enterprise panel but there were other fun events including seeing Beverly, Jack, and Wesley Crusher on stage together.
The Mariner of the Seas arrives in Curaçao
Enterprise panel brings laughter and tears
Shortly before arriving in Curaçao, Lolita Fatjo hosted the Star Trek: Enterprise panel with Connor Trinneer, John Billingsley, Anthony Montgomery, and Dominic Keating. Unsurprisingly, many of the audience questions focused on the series’ short four-season run and sore feelings about the finale. Cast members talked about when they knew that Enterprise would be cancelled, and Connor Trinneer brought up the now-infamous request to add a boy band:
Connor Trinneer: When I heard that one of the VPs at Paramount or UPN in an effort to bolster viewership, had this fantastic idea to put a boy band in mess hall, I just went “What’s that sound?” and it was a death knell. And it never went away.
John Billingsley talks about early signs that Enterprise wasn’t doing well.
John Billingsley saw the end of Enterprise as a symptom of Star Trek burnout on both sides of the screen:
John Billingsley: In fairness to Rick and Brandon, they wanted a year off in between Voyager and Enterprise, and they were told they couldn’t have it. So, they kind of had to rush into production. And although there were some astute choices, mostly in the casting of the doctor, I do think they could have stood to have a little bit more thinking time.
Anthony Montgomery announced many projects he’s been working on, including a new movie (which he can’t talk about yet), plus some music arriving later this year. His memoir will be released on August 1 just in time for the STLV convention.
The Enterprise cast bonds during the panel
Lolita Fatjo, who worked on the DS9 doc What We Left Behind and the upcoming Voyager doc To the Journey, said that an Enterprise documentary could be next on the list. She wouldn’t reveal details beyond “stay tuned,” though Keating chimed in with “I might even put the uniform back on for that.”
The panel ended on a somber note. Early in the morning, news had reached the ship that Kenneth Mitchell had passed away. Mitchell had been an integral part of the Star Trek: The Cruise experience for many years and passengers felt a great deal of love for him. A moment of silence was held at the end of the panel in his honor.
The passing of Kenneth Mitchell set a bittersweet tone for the day
Star Trek Squares returns with Walter Koenig in center
A fan favorite activity, Star Trek Squares, is a modified, Trek-centric version of Hollywood Squares. Cruise passengers compete by listening to actors answer trivia questions and deciding if the actor answered correctly or not, but the real fun is in watching the actors banter about what the answer might be, or should have been.
Star Trek Squares has become one of the signature events of STTC
The Crusher Family Comedy Hour turns up the heat
Anyone who enjoyed the previous evening’s hilarious (and raunchy) take on “Spock’s Brain” would have been advised to attend The Crusher Family Comedy Hour, a series of sketches led by Gates McFadden alongside Ed Speleers, Wil Wheaton, and Todd Stashwick.
Beverly finds out what would happen if her two sons met
All four actors reprised their Star Trek: Picard roles (with Todd Stashwick’s Captain Shaw conveniently no longer dead) and analyzed the strange Crusher family dynamic. The first sketch had Shaw acting as a therapist trying to sort through Beverly’s lack of communication skills.
The family therapist gives both Jack and Wesley dolls of Beverly. Jack’s doll is significantly curvier.
Return to Risa
As the ship prepared for departure from Curaçao, passengers adopted the evening’s theme of “Return to Risa.” People threw on tropical prints, shiny fabrics, and anything that seemed appropriate to wear to a 24th-century pleasure planet. The giant Horga’hn statue stood in front of the pool deck as the band started up the party just as the Mariner of the Seas pulled away from shore at 11 PM.
The ship’s morale officers start off the Risa party by dancing with the band
Keep cruisin’ with TrekMovie
Check out cruise logs for Day 1 , Day 2, and Day 3. TrekMovie is also providing updates on Star Trek: The Cruise VII on Twitter and Threads.
UPN brass was not the reason Enterprise failed. It failed because it was a piss-poor Star Trek show that most fans had abandoned by S4. Moonvies was gracious enough to let them try the Manny Coto (RIP) experiment beyond S3 and approve an undeserving 4th season, but fans kept dropping out at the same rate that they did on the previous seasons — Coto’s Enterprise was viewed then to be just as bad as the earlier seasons.
People can try NOW to rewrite the history all they want, but the truth is spelled out in my paragraph above. It is what it is — a failed series.
TOS was also a failed series. It didn’t mean it was bad.
Like TOS I was very heartbroken when Enterprise was cancelled. I know many people didn’t like it at the time including some of my personal friends but most really started to like it more by the end. But if was obvious it didn’t win over enough people to stay on the air just like TOS at the time.
I had always liked it but understand why others didn’t because most people didn’t want a prequel show. I don’t understand why they keep making them? They made Discovery as another prequel and people hate that show much worse than Enterprise.
Because Bryan Fuller wanted it and no one had a clue what to do with the franchise when they decided to make a new show for All Access.
And even Fuller didn’t truly want a prequel he really wanted an anthology show with a new ship and crew in a new century. It was only supposed to start in that time period first. But they knocked that idea quickly and he just expanded on the Discovery idea. But I do think he was pulled into doing a 23rd century show but I don’t think that’s all he wanted either.
I think Fuller really just wanted to reboot the franchise in his image and why we got the show we got for better or for worse.
Well it was certainly a bad decision because Discovery sucks in any century.
And they should’ve just rebooted the show or put it in another timeline like they are with SNW.
Yes they should have. That should’ve just been the mandate from the start and Discovery could’ve stayed in the 23rd century.
As far as SNW being in another timeline, no one has said officially it is yet. But you have Khan born in two different decades and yet both SNW and TOS are considered canon. One of them either has to be wrong or one is simply living in a different timeline from the other? You can’t have it both ways.
And since nothing about SNW makes any real sense in terms of its connection to TOS even if the baby Khan thing never happened, I’m guessing it’s the latter.
I don’t know how anyone can believe SNW just isn’t in a new timeline? If it wasn’t it would just be overwriting everything in TOS right now, especially the Gorn..The show doesn’t care about TOS canon at all and I really wish they never bothered.
At least with Discovery it can’t do anymore damage although it did quite enough unfortunately.
Because Goldman is trying to have his cake and eat it too..He wants to say history was changed with Khan but he doesn’t want to acknowledge that would decanonize TOS or at least Space Seed and TWOK so he conveniently ignores that which is ridiculous.
This is why I hate prequels. They retcon or explain things few people were asking to change and they have to put their stamp on stuff to justify those changes, the same complaints people made about Enterprise.
If it was up to me, Enterprise, Discovery and SNW would’ve never existed because they all just muddied up the waters more. Just keep TOS as your starting point and just kept pushing forward like the other shows did only going back to it for nostalgia purposes only. But here we are instead.
That’s why I don’t take NuTrek very seriously because it’s so lazy and inconsequential. They don’t take into account how it effects old canon and then the few times they do they just hand wave every thing like the ridiculous idea that Spock has a sister or that spore drives belong in the 23rd century or that they discovered the Mirror universe first although no one told the poor Defiant its fate so they could avoid it in a few years.
What was Discovery answer to all of this? They just classified it all. No real resolutions, just Section 31 it all away. They will probably do that with the Gorn eventually.
Why are these shows have such bad writing? 🙄
It’s not that good writers aren’t out there, they are – a few examples would be Fargo, Peaky Blinders, The Expanse, Severance, True Detective (arguably – I like the last season), For All Mankind…the list goes on and on, way back to the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men. It’s just that imo, Secret Hideout does not hire good writers. I picture a bunch of late 20-somethings sitting around a room, most of them on their phones, saying things like ‘wouldn’t it be cooool if we gave Spock feelings,’ or ‘how funny would it be to just have Captain Pike cooking in an apron most of the season.’ Probably not an accurate description of what it’s really like – I’m sure they work hard – but they’re just not good. Again, just my opinion. Anyway, I agree with you.
Yes so many great shows out there with incredible writers. For All Mankind is one of my favorite shows ever and because it has the fabulous Ronald D. Moore running it who is actually a good writer and cares about silly things like logic, details and consistency. I really miss his time on Star Trek.
Then we get the embarrassing NuTrek where lazy writers and directors can’t even care enough to get Khan’s nationality right while ripping off TWOK because they don’t have any original ideas of their own. Or pretending the Gorn was in conflict with Starfleet years before they showed up in Arena and suddenly everyone has amnesia. Or putting in the Khan girl on the ship but somehow no one immediately recognizes her infamous ansestor just a few years late either.
And then you have sillier shows like Picard and Discovery that couldn’t tell a coherent story if the destruction of the galaxy depended on it. Picard season 3 was the only exception and that is still nowhere close to the golden era but a marked improvement to the crap we been getting in the last 15 years.
This is not the work of consistent and thoughtful writers. Just people who has no real foresight or talent to write any serious stories.
Moore is not the day to day showrunner on FAM. The whole “NuTrek SuCkS” is just a lazy comment. People bitch about Kurtzman and heap praise on Matalas but ignore Kurtzman hired Matalas, ignore Matalas showran seasons they hate, heap praises on plots that originated in series they hate, and for the true rage addicts, heap scorn upon series overwhelmingly loved because whining is like crack to them.
The producers, actors and writers of all of the new Trek seasons love Star Trek. Some episodes don’t deliver. Some series aren’t well received and then 30 years later are beloved. I was reading old message boards from the early 2000s and everyone hated Berman era Trek and now everyone hates NuTrek and heaps praise on Berman Trek. Rage addiction is cyclical. Ken Mitchell was in a handful of episodes, barely recognizable, and hundreds of Trek fans are celebrating his life and remembering him be because he’s tied forever to a franchise people love and share with their children to pass it on, as my late father did for me.
There will always be the non fans who hate it and miss every message it’s ever taught.
I won’t disagree with you much. I know many people at the time hated the old shows too. But I think many feel the new shows are simply worst.
It feels similar to the prequels and Disney Star Wars. I originally hated those too but after seeing how bad the sequels turned out I do have a better appreciation of the prequel ms even if I think they are still bad
As for Moore I know that. He has a lot of things going on but the quality control of For All Mankind is still there because he has the right people making it and in lock step with his vision. Kurtzman isn’t running Discovery but he’s still responsible for it and it’s still a mess of a show. He needs to fire the people running it.
The people making Star Trek today may love it as you say but they are doing a poor job honoring it when they don’t bother to put in the effort to make it line up with the older stories. Why couldn’t Khan be Indian? Why do you use the Gorn when it doesn’t align with TOS? Why is T’pring hanging around characters who never even met her until years later? Why do you even need a Khan character on the Enterprise other than forced fan service no one was even asking for?
I understand things get retcon or changed but when it’s at the cost of basic common sense much less canon you lose my respect.
As for Ken Mitchell I didn’t even remember who he played on Discovery. But he seemed like someone who was giving and loved being part of Star Trek. I am very happy to see the outpouring he is getting by the fans. I lost someone close to me who died at a similar age and it’s truly devastating.
And of course I do acknowledge people do really like some of these new shows. Lower Decks for example seems to be very popular. Before it started people were trashing it and now it gets heaps of praise. I never watched it, it doesn’t interest me but I would never take away how much people seem to love it which I’m happy they do
I also know most love SNW which I do watch but I know my feelings are in the minority although others do agree with me. But if others don’t, I don’t expect them too either and very glad they enjoy it.
And I’m going to give Prodigy a chance since a few nice people here have encouraged me to try it and for my love of Janeway. So maybe that show will turn me around haha.
Yeah Lower Decks has certainly created a popular following. Obviously not everyone loves it but I do! I think it’s great.
You know my feelings with SNW, also really like it but with some caveats. But also a popular show in the fanbase.
And so happy you’re going to watch Prodigy! Hopefully this show WON’T suck for you lol.
Unfortunately, that’s all you’ll get out of. This guy is insults and more insults on every Trek series from the last 15 years.
He’s trying to get reactions from us and I decided to pretty much ignore him from now on
For All Mankind is truly an amazing show. I wish Moore could come back to Star Trek too. This was a guy that was writing twice the amount of stories a year these new people are doing and yet manage to write some of the most timeless Trek stories with a fraction of the time and budget.
Now we get h.a.c.k.s like Abrams and Kurtzman who uses magic blood to bring back 25 year old Starfleet Captains and make silly tech like personal transporters that can beam you from Earth to Kronos. Oh and apparently have starships fast enough that can get you to and from said planets jn 10 minutes when it used to take days. Oh and your starship being pulled into Earth’s orbit although your starship is near the moon. That’s not even a made up Star Trek mistake, that’s just basic science they are getting wrong on a profound level. The socalled ‘science fiction ‘ writers. 🙄
This is what happens when you replace real writers with amateurs.
Exactly. You stated it all perfectly. They pretend to really care about Star Trek but don’t take the time to understand it or want to understand it. No one is writing 25 episodes a season any, they have more time to get things right and it’s even worse.
As for STID they spent four years on it and all this PR over how they waited to get it right only to make basic science mistakes you learn in the fifth grade. That movie was so nonsensical. Why doesn’t Marcus just get rid of the torpedoes to cover up his crimes instead of literally just handing them to Kirk? How far can those transporters beam people? To the Delta Quadrant? Why is a starship under water? How is Kirk not drummed out of Starfleet for being an idiot?.
Because the people writing for him are bigger idiots. I thought Nemesis was awful this takes the cake.
Marcus doesn’t just get rid of the evidence because JJ verse is the Mirror universe for stupid people.
Here is a guy that is not only head of Starfleet but part of Section 31. This guy should be at the top of his game.
Instead he does some of the dumbest decisions I seen a mustache twirling villain ever make.
For starters he wakes up a 300 year old man and for some odd reason thinks he can design advance starships better than the top engineers in Starfleet could. He then let the guy outsmart him by somehow secretly putting 80 people in torpedoes which to this day I have no idea how he could do that without so much as a security guard not noticing. But take heed it’s the universe of stupid people so of course he can
So Marcus now knows he unleashed this freak on the Alpha Quadrant and wants to destroy Starfleet for his vengeance. So instead of getting his top Section 31 boys to find and make an example out of him he calls up Starfleet Captains to handle the situation. Like why are these people trying to hunt down a cunning terrorist on Earth? Why not an actual police force then? They still have those in the 23rd century I’m guessing?
Then of course Khan does his thing and conveniently goes to the one place Marcus actually wants to go. And then just hangs out waiting to be captured. If the writing was any lazier it would be asleep.
Now here is where Marcus is a world class idiot. Khan just gave him EVERYTHING he wanted. He just murdered multiple Starfleet officers and then jumped to the planet Marcus wanted to start a war with. Marcus could now claim Khan did that under the command of the Klingons. That he became a double agent and aligned with the them to wipe out Starfleet top brass. On top of that he works for Section 31, so making fake evidence Khan was working with them should be very easy to do.
Maybe they could manufacturer, say, a fake data rod showing Khan meeting with the Klingons at high command, perhaps? Not sure where I got that idea. 😁
Marcus doesn’t even need his convoluted story of the Klingons destroying the Enterprise because Khan already gave him enough justification to attack on his own. Even if the Klingons claim they had nothing to do with it Marcus now has the ‘evidence’ they in fact did. So he got his war because Khan turned out to be an even bigger idiot.
But unfortunately Marcus isn’t anywhere as smart or cunning as someone like Garek is because Garek is is from the universe of intelligent villains.
Marcus is from the universe that gives idiot fratboys their own starships even though they are still students. The one irony in all of this is Kirk is not as stupid as he was hoping to be and why his ridiculous plan fell apart…thanks to Spock. 😉🙄
Haha this was such a delicious read! Thank you!
Maybe they should’ve just hired you to write their movies. But they want stories where people don’t have to think too much. That might stop them from munching on their popcorn and no one wants that.
I honestly remembered watching that movie thinking we were in for a bigger twist somewhere.
The writing for this movie couldn’t be this ridiculous and from the same acclaimed writers who gave us Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? It’s no way Kirk, Khan and Marcus are all seriously this stupid? Clearly one of them must have a real plan and that didn’t happen by circumstance and lazy conveniences.
What I honestly thought was going to be revealed was that Marcus and Khan were actually working together. That either they came up with it together or that Marcus simply forced him to do it in exchange of getting his little Nazis family back. It was all a charade with him blowing up the archive and then attacking the headquarters. So when Khan went and sat his white butt on that planet for an entire day it was just part of the plan and he was waiting for Marcus to arrive. That would at least make more sense, right?
That’s why I thought when Khan was telling Kirk exactly why his engines had stalled and he was in fact in cahoots with Marcus. MUHAHAHAHA!!!!
I thought Marcus was playing some serious 4 D chess and then maybe Khan would show how cunning he can be by turning on Marcus instead. A real cat and mouse game the Enterprise happened to be in the middle of.
Nope, it was all just by happenstance instead. The only reason why anything in this story happened because one guy happened to be a bigger idiot than the other guy while Kirk still being the biggest idiot of them all since he was played by both of them. This is why he needed that extra year in school. 😉
Ok how did I start ranting so much over STID??? Sorry. 😂
Ten years on and this movie still really really bugs me I guess.
To be honest I never gave the movie much thought because I didn’t watch it until it came to cable and I had already knew everything about the story and how divided the movie was. So I didn’t really care just watched because it was a Star Trek movie.
I will admit like with Enterprise I was expecting the worst when I finally saw it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be given the vitriol the movie was getting, but it wasn’t good either. As you said because the characters did so many nonsensical things which was only done to move the plot along and not for any logical reasons. Khan at least had a decent motive but how he went about it was silly. And I couldn’t understand why would he go to Kronos other than gave Marcus a motive to carry out his plan against the Klingons? If Khan went to Bajor instead there would be no movie.
Just so much lazy writing in it.
“JJ verse is the Mirror Universe for stupid people”
OK, I laughed pretty hard at that lol. I also liked your alternative direction and make the characters more proactive. The problem with Khan is he is basically just a plot device. He’s there to get the story moving but then his ‘plan’ is over once he transwarp beams his way to the Klingon homeworld and there is nothing beyond that until Kirk shows up with his buddies.
I never thought about Marcus cutting out the ‘middle man’ and just declare war on the Klingons making Khan as an escape goat. It works even better because Khan actually created the terrorist acts so he already looks guilty anyway AND it’s a way for Marcus to deflect why Khan actually did it and use it to blame the Klingons instead. Pretty clever. :)
I think that could’ve been a more interesting story and Kirk has to find a way to prove who Khan really was and stop a war that is now coming.
But the WOK stuff were still the best idea….sigh.
😂
And to be honest I’ve had this idea in my head two days after the movie came out lol. I used to post it on Trekweb all the time and the JJ apologists would tell me to shut up…the both of them. 😉
But yeah it’s a movie with a lot of stupid characters doing a lot of nonsensical things. I really detest that movie.
Actually I had my own alternate story I thought would make the movie a little better and make Khan more an antagonist and not just another villain in the end.
But he would actually align with Kirk to take down Marcus once he saw that the Federation was ultimately good and they would expose what Marcus was trying to do.There cold even be a moment where Khan was about to kill Marcus but Kirk talks him out of showing that Khan could be a different person and they just arrest Marcus instead. Something with just a little more nuance. And NO WOK references. Leave all that out.
At the end they knew Khan and his crew couldn’t live on Earth due to being augments and trying to take over the world thing lol so Kirk took them to Ceti Alpha 5 to create a new life for themselves. The end.
I think that would’ve been a more satisfying ending and give Khan a different direction instead of just another mustache twirling villain. And maybe if the movies had continued he could show up again but this time more as an ally.
But we got what we got, so…
I straight up hated the show when it premiered. Hated it was a useless prequel when I wanted to keep going forward after Voyager. I stopped watching it halfway through the first season and had no plans to ever watch it again.
When the first JJ verse movie came out that felt like I just watched a live action video game on speed instead of Star Trek I went back to it and really appreciated the stories they were telling for the first time. They were the most Trek stories at their core and I just accepted the 22nd century era
It’s amazing how much a little time can change your perspective on things.
Weird then that in the two decades since Enterprise was cancelled that we never got Enterprise TAS and Enterprise TMP???
So where are the direct follow-ons of this supposedly still successful series that you are claiming like we got with the cancelled TOS???
There actually was talk of an Enterprise revival at one point. Netflix was reportedly very happy with the performance of Voyager and Enterprise on their streaming service and approached CBS/Paramount (whatever it was called then) about relaunching Enterprise as the easiest path to new Trek. This was around 2010-11, so only 5-6 years after Enterprise ended. CBS instead decided to do it themselves, and we got CBS All Access, and eventually a new series (though it still took them years to bring Discovery to life.)
I remember that — it seemed to me like Doug Drexler was pushing that a lot more than Netflix actually considering it.
I really would’ve loved that revival idea on Netflix. I understand why Moonves said no, but we would’ve had a show MUCH sooner then waiting over a decade to finally get another show. 🙄
Eh, no, OS hit the ground running in its 1st season and was still watchable by series end.
It was just that network TV, especially in the 60s, was not the place for ST.
No one is saying the series didn’t fail, but this isn’t anymore objective as to the cause than someone saying UPN was the main problem. You’re projecting just as much as the likes of Bakula because you detest the show so much.
A balanced and correct view would be to say it’s a little of column A and a little of column B, without the pejoratives you always feel you need to twist things with.
Creatively it didn’t excite enough fans in its first two seasons. We were all there, we remember the message board complaints and the falling ratings. I contributed my fair share to the former. They tried something new for seasons 3 and 4 and got more traction with fans by the end, but ratings didn’t stabilize. And while neither of us can claim superiority when it comes to something as subjective as fan reception, I’d say IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes pre-review bombing are a little more reliable for older shows than it they are now, and you have season rating averages of:
Season 2: 7.36
Season 3: 7.32
Season 4: 7.7 (7.81 w/o TATV)
RT Audience scores:
Season 2: 77%
Season 3 & 4: 83%
Franchise fatigue is a thing – it’s harder to convince people to come back to any show after they drift away, regardless of if it has a creative revival, and a heavily serialized war storyline or a new showrunner are not the same kinds of stunts as adding Worf or a Borg babe to your cast.
UPN for its whole existence was making do with whatever it could get for ratings and never hit the high water mark of Voyager’s premiere ever again. After years of carrying the network, by season 5 Voyager was actually protected by being on UPN versus any other big network that had higher ratings bars to clear. When the ratings for season 2 of Enterprise settled at a fairly low ebb, the same was true of it, and anyone saying first run syndication would have saved it isn’t being honest about what that market looked like after 2001.
That said, UPN was a mess from 2001-2005. If Berman Trek was in its last throes, obviously so too was UPN. There was zero flow to the network lineup. Urban sitcoms on Monday. Teen genre shows on Tuesday. Star Trek on Wednesday. Wrestling on Thursday. Movies on Friday. In seven seasons of UPN trying to build new hits off of it, Voyager’s longest lasting lead-out was The Sentinel, hardly a scintillating companion series. Enterprise was stuck with the likes of Special Unit 2, Wolf Lake and an ill-fated Twilight Zone reboot. Does anyone remember them? Of course Enterprise kept getting renewed by comparison – considering how much Les Moonves didn’t care for sci-fi, that’s more than being gracious, it’s an acknowledgment the franchise had value. And no one would say a person could not like The Hughleys, wrestling, Buffy and Star Trek, but… there’s a reason The WB, Fox and CBS had better traction overall – they knew their audience and their lineups were more cohesive.
By the time of season 4 when Enterprise was shunted to Friday night with no companion show at all, the network was focusing on the teen audience. America’s Next Top Model and Veronica Mars were the flavors of the week and they and a couple urban sitcoms and wrestling would be all that made it over to The CW. UPN outlasted Star Trek by a whopping one year. Only the most obtuse person could say their fundamental issues had nothing to do with why Enterprise failed.
Plenty of Enterprise’s problems were creative own goals, but it was the last of an 18 year unbroken stretch of a franchise, on a dying network forever flailing to find an identity and lost in an ever more fragmented TV market. As usual, the reasons for its failure were not all on one factor.
I didn’t even have UPN. It wasn’t available where I lived at the time. I didn’t watch Voyager or Enterprise until the came to DVD. I used to rent them from Blockbuster lol.
When Enterprise aired in syndication on other channels I watched it religiously. It was great for me who grew up with TOS and I loved the vibe of the show. I didn’t love it as much as TOS and TNG but it’s my third favorite show today.
And I’m happy to see how much more popular it is today. I think you have to thank sites like Netflix and Amazon where new people watched it and even people who gave up on it early and gave it another chance.
Enterprise is seen very differently today than when it started.
IMHO that was a HUGE issue for both VOY and ENT. Ironically speaking enough even though those 2 shows were “network” shows and TNG/DS9 were first run syndication the latter two were able to reach a much larger audience across the US. It’s a lot easier for an affiliate to buy into paying for a series or 2 than to commit to handing over their stations to Network big wigs that *might* know what they are doing but probably don’t.
Nevertheless, when Seven was introduced on Voyager, the fans responded, and it stabilized the ratings drop-off by season to a much slower rate which allowed the show to get a full seven seasons in.
By contrast, when Coto was brought in for Enterprise for S3 and S4, there was zero noticeable ratings stabilization — fans at that time did not respond to the supposedly improved version of the Enterprise that today’s revisionists insist was the case.
Ratings wise it may not have stabilised but quality wise I personally think the show vastly improved in its 3rd and 4th seasons. But it was too little too late.
Totally agreed. Enterprise came into it’s own in season 3 and 4 back then and lived up to the other shows. It went from my worst show to one of my favorites. And it puts shows like Discovery to shame that only got worse in its third and fourth seasons.
Putting a Star Trek show on a network was a big risk at the time.
And UPN was just a really bad network. I really wish Enterprise could’ve been in syndication like TNG and DS9 was. It could’ve lasted longer. Maybe not 7 seasons like the others but longer.
Ironically, UPN and the WB were part of the death knell of first run syndication. Independent stations got snatched up and the good timeslots converted to their programming. There really wasn’t a market any more once Xena was cancelled – the scant few dramas that tried to find success after that were short lived gambles. 2001 is almost exactly when there really stopped being a syndicated market anymore for dramas. TNG created space for all sorts of fantastical dramatic shows, and DS9, Hercules, and Xena ruled over the last gasps of that market.
Enterprise IMO would have been better off going to cable (when Sci Fi was still a semblance of a channel with meaningful new programming) or CBS’ own Showtime where even 2 million paying subscribers would make it a hit.
But consider the effort that goes into finding a new home for an expensive show that’s 4 years old (or 18 if you could the franchise it capped off), one they’d always controlled all aspects of distribution for and has already met its syndication threshold. Loyal following or not, it’s still niche sci-fi and the studio seemed to finally listen to the people who said give it a rest for its own good, rather than license it to someone else to make some money off of.
Me and you are agreeing a lot today Ian lol.
But yes that’s exactly what happened. I live in LA and the local channel that ran TNG and others in syndication and where they were premiering these shows in primetime all dried up when UPN started. At the beginning the syndicated shows were still being shown in the week days because UPN wasn’t a full week network at the time and only 8-10 pm like FOX did and to this day even that network never tried to create a third hour of prime time content like the big three.
But as UPN grew and had a full week roster those other first run shows got regulated to the weekends and market just dried up.
The funny thing is once UPN died the channel just started syndicating shows again and air basically reruns to this day. But the first run type of shows never returned. It’s shocking syndication is even a thing at all today with all the streaming and VOD options but I guess there are still people like watching old Seinfeld episodes 5 days a week.
And game shows! Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy will outlive us all.
Yeah totally. Ent might have had a rough start but many don’t seem to remember that TNG and DS9 pre dominion did too. But whereas you might survive that in syndication, it’s never going to happen on Network TV. TBH I don’t think a Trek show could survive on Network TV even today.
No one even knows these new shows even exist accept old fans. My friends watch some of them because they been fans for decades but no one in my family even heard of them because they don’t watch Star Trek.
Star Trek has always been a niche franchise but it feels even more so today.These new shows don’t feel mainstream at all. I don’t think they could last on a network. Didn’t Prodigy get cancelled on Nickelodeon and that only lasted a season. I think all the others would get the same fate.
They don’t feel mainstream because they are on a streaming service most people don’t have or want. If they were on something like Netflix they would get way more exposure and more people outside the base would be talking about them. I’m not saying they would be Stranger Things or anything but at least can get higher views. Prodigy looks like it got way more viewers there but that’s probably due to fans rallying around it after it got cancelled. I even watched it there and I have it on digital lol.
There are still a lot of Trekkies out there that refuses to even get Paramount+ because they don’t think it’s worth it or have too many services. And with so much content today it’s really easy to overlook stuff like Star Trek unless you’re just already in the bubble like we are.
I lived in two different cities in two different states (Colorado and Texas) during the life of UPN. Never had a dedicated UPN station, in both cases Voyager and later Enterprise were broadcast on Sunday at 9pm (Central/Mountain Time) on the Fox affiliate, four days after the rest of the country had seen it. This time slot was atrocious during football season as every other week football ran over its allotted time and delayed the Fox programming that followed it (that also hurt shows like Futurama, which often was simply not aired if the game ran too long.) Which in turn meant that Voyager and later Enterprise were delayed. Even padding a TiVo schedule an extra half-hour sometimes wasn’t good enough to get the whole episode. These bad timeslots on “UPN” were one reason I was so excited when CBS All Access announced new Trek.
I was lucky because back then I lived within broadcast/cable distance of New York City so obv UPN had a presence there. Channel 9 IIRC. But ya I can see how in other parts of the country that would have been way harder. It’s too bad because who knows what might have happened if Paramount didn’t fail with UPN and now it looks like P+ too.
DS9 beat (sometimes only just) Voyager in the ratings despite how sh*tty the first run syndicated landscape had become. In my market by season 6 it was being shown Saturday nights after midnight. That was definitely not an isolated incident.
Ya I remember even from back then that on the internet message board so many people were complaining that either they could never get the show or at best POILER ALERT we haven’t seen it yet!
Only way to watch Voyager in my town from fall 1997 onwards was cable. Voyager was syndicated where I lived for the first three seasons. When Seven of Nine came onto the scene I had to press a school friend to tape the show every week for the next couple years until we finally broke down and got cable.
UPN was technically capable of decent ratings, as proved by a good few Voyager episodes and the first handful of Enterprise episodes, but it had very little to publicize besides having Star Trek and could never capitalize on that, so fell into niche programming. Things like losing a bunch of affiliates in 1998 and having to rebuild definitely didn’t help. It was always #5 and always in turmoil and that was a double edged sword for Trek shows.
Back then the only way we could watch Voyager was on cable but it was so expensive I couldn’t justify it to watch just one show. And I was happy enough with DS9. Luckily by the time DS9 had ended Voyager was now syndicated on a local channel and I got to watch it regularly even though I was still a few years behind. But that’s how I watched Voyager.
Enterprise didn’t start airing in syndication until the last year it was cancelled. I had only kept up with it reading about it online. I do remember how much people complained about it in the beginning but I heard it was much better in the final season. So I thought I would hate the first few seasons listening to all the complaints about it.
It was just the opposite. I thought it was a fabulous show out of the gate. I guess my expectations were so low listening to the complaints for so many years. But It felt the closest to TOS and I loved that Archer was the first Captain without a handbook. Picard and Kirk always knew what to do even if it didn’t always go to plan. Archer was always winging it.
Enterprise really spoke to me and I was truly sad when it was cancelled.
Those are great memories to hang onto though. I associate all of Berman Trek with different memories as I grew up. TNG I was always a kid for, DS9 took me through High School. Both I associate with my mother who adored the shows and Picard, Sarek, Data, Q, K’Heylar, Odo, Sisko, Vic, Garak and the Ferengi in particular. I still have vivid memories of us coming out of separate rooms having just watched “What We Leave Behind” and wiping tears from our nerdy faces. Voyager is connected to my teenaged years, and lots of bartering to get my friend to tape it when it stopped being syndicated. And Enterprise lasted for exactly as long as I was in college, so it managed to be a little link to home.
It’s fun to talk about the shows and even to argue about them to a point, but it’s those personal memories that mean the most to me.
I am much older than you and I grew up with TOS watching it for the first time in 1968. But between that time through 2005 had so many great memories for me. I met so many people in the 70s and 80s who loved Star Trek. I had my daughter just before TNG started and she grew up watching all those shows too. We especially watched TNG and DS9 together. She ended up loving Voyager the most but like me like them all equally.
But the 90s were very fun because there was so much Star Trek on and so much to talk about. It really was a fun time to be a fan.
By the time the Abrams movies started, I gotten too old to really enjoy this phase of it and haven’t bothered to watch a lot of it today. It’s clearly made for younger people like Lower Decks and the reboot movies and I respect that. But I have problems with it beyond just their demographics but I digress.
But I still love Star Trek and I respect anyone who loves any and all of it of course. My Trek was done by 2005 and I have plenty of it to watch endlessly so no complaints.
I really don’t think anything will ever top the 30th anniversary celebration. Special episodes of two shows running at the same time, a pompous awards show, a great movie… That was bliss.
That’s when Star Trek was at it’s height of popularity. That was an amazing time for the franchise.
Twenty years later and we’re nowhere close to that anymore. The 50th anniversary which should’ve been twice as big was a joke and all we got was a failed movie that no one cared about and once again killed off the movie franchise. Oh and Discovery a year later…joy.
“Franchise fatigue is a thing – it’s harder to convince people to come back to any show after they drift away, regardless of if it has a creative revival, and a heavily serialized war storyline or a new showrunner are not the same kinds of stunts as adding Worf or a Borg babe to your cast.”
I can only speak for myself but it definitely was for me. I ha d watched every new episode diligently for 15 years straight. But by the time Voyager was ending I was kind of hoping they took a break from doing another show for awhile. There would still be the movies obviously but I felt maybe wait 2-3 years another show.
Now of course I was going to watch it regardless lol but there was no longer excited about the idea of a new Trek show for the first time since TNG. That’s already not a great sign.
And once they announced it was a prequel I just had even less interest in it. A lot of people did. People were torn on the idea of a Trek show going backwards for the first time in the franchise s history. And people hated the idea that would uphend the idea of TOS being the first show. It was one thing to make a prequel but to make one that was before Kirk’s time was blasphemy to a lot of people too. It’s forgotten now but that was an issue.
I got through the first season but didn’t return to the second. I have to always make clear it being a prequel or even fatigue was the main issue. The main issue is I simply thought the show sucked. It just didn’t grab me on it’s own. And I never bothered watching it again until literally 2013.
Now that said I also didn’t think TNG or DS9 was amazing either at the outset but I kept watching regardless. But by Enterprise I was already ready to take a break from Star Trek so once it wasn’t doing it for me it was easier to move on.
And I think that’s what happened with a lot of people. And you’re right I heard the show was getting better. I wasn’t watching it but I would still read what was going on with it and none of it enticed me to come back. Didn’t care about any of it. I was just checked out at that point and was just happy to catch the odd TOS or TNG rerun on TV.
And I think once they moved Enterprise to Friday sealed it’s fate just like what happened with TOS. It was history sadly repeating itself.
When I finally decided to give Enterprise another chance and watched the other seasons I fell in love with it lol. I thought every season got better after the last one. Enterprise wasn’t any worse than how the other spin offs started but people were more cynical and jades back then
But numbers and feedback doesn’t lie. Go to any social media site discussing the show. It’s wildly more popular now. Read any of the comments section of any YouTube video discussing it, people generally say how much they love it now. NOT everyone but most which is surprising.
On RT it’s audience score is 80% at the moment. The only other shows at 80% or above are TOS, TNG and DS9 (although to be fair both VOY and SNW are pretty close to it as well, just 3 or 4 points off). So it has either captured a lot of new fans or old fans like me just saw it with fresh eyes today. It’s probably a little of both.
So the show is definitely more popular for sure. A lot of people like me want a fifth season today. Twenty years ago that was the last thing on my mind lol.
I don’t think it was so much franchise fatigue as it was formula fatigue. Who cares if it was a sequel, it was Archer/Kirk and T’Pol/Spock and trip/McCoy back on the Enterprise doing the same old thing.
I think I have mentioned this here before but I really wanted ENT to be a NASA type show where they were trying to explore the solar system for the first time since Cochran and trying to figure out how not to blow up if they were at Warp 1 for too long.
Site I can agree with that which is funny now considering SNW has went back to that same formula and everyone is loving it again lol.
But like Star Trek itself, everything old is new again I guess.
And of course as you know that’s what Braga wanted to and to have the first season take place on Earth. UPN shut that down fast because that’s not Star Trek to them.
And that was the entire problem, UPN didn’t want want a prequel show. They wanted Star Trek to go to the 26th century and the creatives wanted to scale things back. The show was compromised on day one
Yeah nothing ever works when the suits try to control the creatives. That’s a big reason why (until only recently) the MCU has been so successful.
It’s totally funny about SNW. But if you think about it, DIS and PIC were so far off the beaten path of what Trek was supposed to be that a return to it after all these years felt fresh again.
Now I am not saying that changing things up for those 2 shows was the bad idea, I just think they went about it the wrong way. IIRC Bryan Fuller was trying to go for a full on reboot show of Trek (which is why we got so many inconsistencies and a tone even darker than the Dominion War) and Sir Patrick Stewart wan’t to turn PIC into his Trek version of Logan.
That’s why both DIS and PIC failed at the beginning, they were both just too different and poorly written at that. That’s why Discovery jumped a thousand years into the future to get a soft reboot I’m season 3 and Picard just became more TNG again in season 3.
Picard season 3 actually got really good because it had Terry Matalas who understands Star Trek and got his start working on Enterprise.
But Discovery managed to get even worse because the people running that show has no clue how to tell a good story, reboot or not.
IMHO even jumping DIS to the 32nd didn’t help. Ironically it was done to be able to ignore canon issues but they just doubled down on them. Like, no WARP in the 32nd century? So what? Daniels from ENT was able to cross not just time but light years as easily as the iconians could. Voyager made it home through slipstream. The Enterprise D was experimenting with “warp, without warp drive” in one ep. But 700 something years later they are just ended? That’s like saying if someone were to stop steam engines from working a Tesla is stuck.
Bro the people running Discovery are clueless. The 32nd century relying on warp alone is just ridiculous. They wanted their ridiculous Burn storyline so ignored everything else that would contradict instead of coming up with reasons why they don’t use those other options.
That and the fact spore drives are just not a thing every ship is using that far in the future. It’s all a fail because Discovery is a really bad show.
Agreed. I was actually looking forward to the 32nd century storyline. I basically gave up after how ridiculous it got. Some kid yelling that crippled the galaxy was just inherently awful story telling.
They spent way more time making it look good then trying to write a coherent back story and we get ridiculous conclusions like that.
The Burn started out as a really inventive idea but sadly it was written by h.a.c.k.s who have no clue how to make compelling sci fi.
Season 4 also had potential but fell into more silliness and boredom.
To be fair I think everyone making Discovery and later Picard just had the mindset that in order for any new shows to succeed today it has to change with the time. And even I thought that at the time because I remember people saying Trek can’t be more TNG again or not in that style. It has to feel like something that would feel more relevant to people watching TV today and closer to shows like GOT, TWD, Breaking Bad, etc.
That’s probably why Fuller was hired because his non Trek shows like Hannibal fit more in that darker and serialized space. The fact he started his career on Star Trek made it more appealing because he can both understand what Trek is but update it to feel totally different than what we got before.
But yeah I think A. Fuller probably just went too far off the reservation and B. they didn’t really understand how strong the old fanbase was and they really wanted a return to the more wholesome and optimistic vibe the old shows gave us. IE more nostalgia and comfort food.
I have always stated if Discovery was the second or third new show the reception may have been better. Or if they made it clear it was simply a reboot but I have said that more than enough.
It was just TOO different…and not very good at that.
Yes same for PIC although I don’t think people were that bothered it was different because it still had enough elements to feel like it was in the TNG universe unlike Discovery and TOS. And no one complained about canon. I think it just wasn’t great after so much buildup that gave it its problems. But yes the torture stuff didn’t help.
Now we got more TOS and TNG and now people are begging for more of it.
What I think happened is that these shows never really got many new fans but just brought in mostly old fans and why DIS failed in it’s original form.
They thought it was going be a lot of young newbies signing up to watch the show but when that didn’t pan out and was just older fans signing up and complaining then they changed course and we got Pike and Spock again the next season.
Yes also agree. Now I’m sure there have been many new fans, some I interacted with on Reddit. And a few who also likes Discovery; but it’s obvious they are not at a mass level either and their involvement isn’t going to make or break a show like the long term fans do.
Again everything they been doing since Discovery basically proves that. They been bending over backwards to keep the old fans happy from changing the Klingons to making a lot of post Nemesis shows while also giving them SNW over Section 31.
I know the new shows still have problems but all I can say for me personally this has been some of the best Trek since the early to mid 90s. I know you disagree but I really do think they are doing more good than bad these days because they ARE listening to their audience.
No one is watching these shows but old fans. If they want to keep their subs up they really have to appeal to the base as much as possible. No one cares about Discovery, Picard or Strange New Worlds except people whose been watching at least since the 90s.
And I definitely agree, thanks to LDS, PRO, SNW and now Picard season 3 has been a complete joy to watch as a fan. I never thought Kurtzman Trek would be good lol. But he finally started hiring the right people, especially McMahan and Matalas who grew up watching TNG and now made great Trek due to it
It is funny how we started with dreary and dark shows like Discovery and Picard but ultimately ended up with light and fun stuff like Lower Decks, Prodigy and Strange New Worlds. Also not a shock how much people fawned over those shows because they went back to optimistic and heartfelt stories again and not just WE MIST SAVE THE GALAXY FROM EVIL Discovery and Picard started off doing.
Yep. Things were being fine tuned listening to feedback from fans and going back more to the tried and true. As I said I did think Discovery was a little too dark and cynical but I applaud them for trying to do something different. After all DS9 was accused of the same thing originally but the difference was they threw in a lot of fun and light episodes as well early on. Again big difference when you have 20+ episodes a year to play around with.
I think now they have found more of a balance between the new shows.
Well said! 👍
Except that RT and IMDB were not rating Enterprise when it was on the air as a first run series, so that’s meaningless not only given that it does not represent opinions back then, but more importantly that fans who like it today are of course going to upvote it on non-scientific, voluntary internet polls where the people who didn’t like it 20 years back are unlikely to care to take the time to downvote it now.
You want data — look at the ratings by year when it actually ran, and then you will see that the viewership drop-off is about the same rate every year. But even then, let’s say you come back at me and bring up the UPN network issues and promotion issues…OK, that’s all well and good, but please then explain to me why THE WEEK-TO-WEEK RATINGS WITHIN SEASON 3 AND SEASON 4 — when the show was on at the same day time, and when Coto was supposedly delivering Trek the fans liked more — explain to me why fans kept dropping off watching the show nearly every week as those two seasons went along? — there was zero of the ratings stabilization for Enterprise during those two Coto seasons that we saw when Seven was brought onto Voyager.
It’s an urban legend that the show was well liked back then; it’s an urban legend that fans back then thought Coto’s seasons were any better than the first two; and it’s an urban legend that Moonvies and the studio wanted to cancel the show — they had no choice, because most of the fans had bailed out on it after they nicely threw good money after bad and let S4 go ahead, when it should have been cancelled after S3. No modern voluntary internet scoring by fans who by and large happen to like the show now can change that reality.
Now if you want to say that a larger percentage of fans like it today versus two decades ago, sure, that’s obvious, but I was never saying that was not the case.
Declaring something as an urban legend because you don’t like it doesn’t actually make it one, you know. There are interviews with people close to the situation that detail Moonves’ distaste for science fiction and Star Trek. Season 4 happened because of budget cuts and a looming syndication deal. Its downfall was a combination of creative issues and UPN’s ineptitude, you would do well to admit that even though it doesn’t adhere strictly to your narrative.
When did IMDb start rating individual episodes of shows? The user ratings system has been in place for decades. You’re also presuming a lot about the motivations of the people who would vote for it.
And saying things like how Manny Coto didn’t stabilize the ratings when you know full well the show was shunted to a graveyard Friday night slot paired with reruns is a bad faith argument.
You also know full well that a show can increase in quality and not get its viewers back. Doctor Who’s ratings dropped precipitously for series 9 and 10, despite ecstatic reviews saying the show had returned to form, including what were even at the time some of its best reviewed episodes ever (one of them IS the best reviewed still). The Good Wife lost viewers every season despite a gripping creative renaissance in season 5. Deep Space Nine lost viewers every season, with its lowest rated episode being “The Dogs of War” of all stories. Most shows lose viewers as they age, it’s just a question of if they erode slowly enough for the network’s taste. To use ratings as empirical evidence of a show’s quality is also a bad faith argument. It’s as much to do with pulling the right stunts and capturing the zeitgeist and having the right promotion as it is being good.
I was fully immersed in the fandom conversations back then, as I assume you were too, and they were a lot more active and populated than they are now. The complaining wained in seasons 3 and 4 and there was absolutely a collective sense of the show righting itself, hence the fan campaign to actually find season 5, which actually raised a few million dollars in donations.
And in the end, it’s a little silly to go so hard to prove a point about people hating a show back then when you’re already arguing that more people like it now. It’s just shouting into the wind, I think.
I agree with this as well. A lot of people liked the show more in season 3 and definitely in season 4. That was very evident back then. But there were definitely still a lot of people on the fence. I was one of them. I didn’t care either way at that point personally.
And every Trek lost viewers, DS9 especially. That’s why they brought in Worf and it worked but it still lost viewers, just less so after he arrived. TNG was the only show to buck that trend.
There were a lot of factors that created Enterprise cancellation, the biggest being the show was just too expensive for the ratings it was getting and the network was moving away from sci fi and wanted a younger and more urban demographic by then. Once a network shutter something off to Fridays then they are just waiting for it to die sadly.
And the reality is the show is more popular today for a reason because it simply improved in people’s eyes. Enterprise has aged VERY well today and a big reason why people want to see those characters back. I’m hoping someday we will see them again.
Enterprise did age well, probably the best out of all of them. But it was also the newest.
I think what bothered people at the show in the beginning is that it didn’t tie things closer to TOS out of the gate. It didn’t really try to be a birth of the Federation show it was marketed as. At the beginning it just felt like a ship going planet to planet and I think people were just sick of that. They needed something more by then. I always thought the show should’ve started with the Romulan war from the start and just build on the Federation idea as it went. But it started with the Temporal Cold War stuff and turned a lot of people off right away.
I agree with all of this. I think Berman was hesitant to tie it to TOS right away and wanted the show to have it’s own identity which I had no issues over.
But I do agree with people who says they didn’t really keep to its premise with the entire birth of the Federation premise and the show felt like it had no real direction. To be fair neither did TOS or TNG. It really was just crisis of the week story telling. And also why people felt Enterprise was just more TNG because it did a lot of similar stories.
TCW was something that made it stand out but it was so vague and loosely told most people didn’t care about it.
I think in hindsight they would do a LOT of things differently. The biggest just make season 4 into season 1. That’s where the show really got its groove and you felt a real mythology happening and obviously tying closer to TOS.
And I think after coming off the hills of something like DS9 and the Dominant War there really needed to be a stronger narrative out of the gate, especially for all the prequel doubters out there at the time.
They did finally turn that tide in season 3 but it was probably too too late to get many people who gave up before then.
Yeah people may rag on some of its 20(!) year old CGI, but for a network show not in its last years paying its stars a million an episode, Enterprise was slick and expensive. For a mini network, doubly so. I know for years Voyager had a very advantageous licensing deal for Paramount that UPN finally was able to renegotiate to get a little more profit out of it. Enterprise switching to digital cameras when it did was as much about cost as it was being forward thinking. But season 3 leaves very little money on the table – it’s got some damned good production values.
I do think Voyager did stunt episodes better than Enterprise or even DS9 (not that they indulged as much). Most of the two parters felt like big event episodes in the run-ups and got good ratings thanks in part to a more robust UPN promotional arm at the time, but they also were just a little more enticing at first glance than Enterprise’s. Like, “Regeneration” isn’t really as glorious a stunt as “Scorpion” or “Dark Frontier,” and “North Star” isn’t as intriguing a gimmick as “The Killing Game.” Voyager really embraced the idea of having PR-friendly high concept episodes UPN was happy to promote, even if they did turn every other promo into a suggestive one about Seven of Nine.
Oh yeah agree about Enterprise and that it had AMAZING production values for its time. You really did see all the money on the screen, especially for such a smaller network like UPN. They would certainly do a few bottle episodes a year to keep costs down but the show never showed it’s downgraded budget throughout its run like say TOS did in season 3 lol.
And I think that’s why it has aged very well. It still looks like a show from it’s time but it doesn’t feel very dated either. Obviously the CGI lacks more today but that’s every show during that time.
That’s actually a good point and Enterprise never did the big spectacle two parters like Voyager did. It really had some of the best (although DS9 had a few solid ones too). But I also think this was another example of how things slowly changed at that network in relation to Star Trek. When UPN started obviously Voyager was the biggest show there and Rick Berman said a lot of people running it were the same people who was part of Trek since TNG started and so they always pushed to highlight the show any way they could.
By the time Enterprise showed up, so many things changed internally including the old regime running the network. So all those special promotions of big event two part episodes went away. Enterprise never got the same treatment. But of course since ratings fell much faster so the executives probably didn’t see the need anymore. And as you been talking about the programming overall was changing focus in general, so Enterprise was no longer the anchor as Voyager was.
But all that said they still threw a lot of money at the show, but sadly no longer the priority like it was originally. We’re starting to see that happening with Paramount+ and the modern shows now but that’s a different thread lol.
Voyager had some of the best two parters in the franchise. Scorpion is the first episode I watched of Star Trek ever and still love it to this day.
I really miss those days. 😥
Oh man that was such a good time to be watching Trek. We had that big bold season finale with the Borg, and then DS9 paid off its long game with Call to Arms a couple weeks later. Plus a wonderful summer of speculating and learning what was coming next after such big successful creative swings. I think the only other time two concurrent Trek shows really nailed their finales was 1994 with All Good Things… and The Jem’Hadar.
Yeah that was such a great time. I was so excited to see both the Borg back on Voyager and the Dominion war heating up on DS9. So much fun. That’s when Trek felt so much bigger as well.
Hmm? I was significantly involved in fandom and conventions back then, and I did not perceive that fans thought the series was improving. I mean, look at Tiger2’s comments — that was the norm of fans checking out…and OK, if you want to hypothetical say that if fans who had already checked out would have come back and liked the series again if they had given it a chance, well I can’t prove that, but it sure sounds like wishful thinking.
And saying things like how Manny Coto didn’t stabilize the ratings when you know full well the show was shunted to a graveyard Friday night slot paired with reruns is a bad faith argument.
This is where you missed a key point that is backed up by data. Yes, the series was in a Friday night slot, but it was in that slot for a full season — but THE WEEK-TO-WEEK RATINGS WITHIN THA SEASON 3 DROPPED EVERY WEEK THROUGHOUT THE SEASON. How do you explain that??? I mean, you start the season with a set of fans willing to watch the graveyard shift on Friday nights when the weather is still nice and fall sport and activities are going strong, and then winter comes but yet numbers of your keep bailing out at the same rate every week — yet the Star Trek Coto is providing you every week is supposedly improved? THIS MAKES ZERO SENSE
I fully stand by my point that if there was a Coto quality effect, that at the very least the ratings curve downturn within those last two seasons would have showed less of a steep curve then the previous seasons — there should have been at least a minor ratings stabilization in the downward trend.
correction: “SEASON 4”
Again, your argument flies in the face of conventional wisdom that shows do not increase their ratings over the course of a season, regardless of quality. And back then, they ALL dropped mid-season barring some big stunt or artificial lead-in boost, especially in between unpredictable rerun stretches. On the Bubble shows would bet the house on a May sweeps surge which sometimes would come but rare is the show that ends a season on an higher note than it began in the ratings.
And you’re not correct about season 4’s numbers. Its lowest rated episode was in January (“Babel One,”) but in February it was getting higher ratings than in the first three weeks it premiered. It’s not a steep curve at all, but rather the most stable ratings the show ever had.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise_(season_4)
Thanks for keeping logic and basic facts on this thread dude lol. It’s been a fun read.
Enterprise became an amazing show in seasons 3 and 4.. or the total opposite of Discovery. 😂🙄
It’s exhausting. It’s like… fun because there’s passion, but also frustrating when it’s not engaging with a good faith argument in kind.
Pretty sure if I was in Congress I’d be one of those Senators who compromises a few times but then quits after making a big speech about how no one wants to work together anymore.
My mother always said I should be a lawyer because I “like to argue,” but it takes too much of a toll. I really do prefer to just be nice, and while it can feel like I’m in the zone writing a treatise on something, it usually feels pretty gross after any arguments I have if they get heated.
“It’s exhausting. It’s like… fun because there’s passion, but also frustrating when it’s not engaging with a good faith argument in kind.*
This quote is exactly why so many stopped putting up with the guy. But as this entire thread has proven no one here is buying what he’s even selling and he’s been trying to sell it for nearly 20 years now lol. I’ll never get it either.
This quote is exactly why so many stopped putting up with the guy. But as this entire thread has proven no one here is buying what he’s even selling and he’s been trying to sell it for nearly 20 years now lol. I’ll never get it either.
Lol, dude, you can’t stop talking about me today, and you could not stop talking about me last week either. It’s just so lame that you need to take these potshots at me through others like this, but then pretend you aren’t interested. LOL, so juvenile.
No, first, in the first half of season 4, E had 9 out of 11 eps above a 3 rating, while in the second half there were only 5 eps above a 3 rating…and if you exclude the final 3 eps which were the series close-out eps and heavily marketed, E went on a dismal run from Eps 16-19 of never cracking a 3 rating.
Secondly, you miss my point again on the lack of a “Coto quality effect” in the ratings. Look at Voyager’s ratings stabilization effect by what happened when Seven was introduced in S4 — my point was that both between seasons and within seasons of E, we see absolutely no trend improvement during E in the final two seasons when Coto supposedly improved the product like we saw with VOY when Seven was brought it — in VOY, we can see clearly see the effect of Seven’s entry in that the ratings curve downtown was minimized from that point on — there is zero evidence on that happening with Coto’s eps on E.
When Seven was introduced in VOY the ratings downturn stabilized — fans responded it. When Coto came in on Enterprise and tried to improve the series that ratings showed zero effect — the fans didn’t respond to it at all.
“ THE WEEK-TO-WEEK RATINGS WITHIN THA SEASON 3 DROPPED EVERY WEEK THROUGHOUT THE SEASON. How do you explain that???”
Calmly, with facts. You can change your goalposts again if you like, but the fact of the matter is that season 4’s ratings were *not* a steady week to week decline as you first opined, and it ended up gaining viewers many times over its season premiere. If you want to do the math to work out the percentage declines of each season, go right ahead.
The ratings drop you are pointing to happened to lots of the shows. Would you like data about when in each season of Voyager it set its record lows? It matches up pretty well with being around episodes 16-19. This is what happens to all shows regardless of quality, and theres no point in looking for validation in the Nielsen ratings to prove that Manny Coto didn’t improve the show. It’s also an academic argument as Enterprise was officially cancelled well before episode 16 – it happened the week “Daedalus” aired.
As for Seven of Nine, she did boost the year to year ratings of Voyager. Hell, she boosted the year to year performance of UPN for a little while. But the ratings lift was about 2 months. By December of 1997, the show was back to year to year decreases and setting new record lows every few weeks. The positive fan response to her was strong, no one would deny she was a great creative addition. But she was also wrapped in a costume designed to attract attention, and it helped that UPN had an angle they thought they could market (often with suggestive ads promoting that next week she was going to be nude/r*ped/lusted after by everyone from Kim to Jason Alexander).
Voyager was still surrounded by an incoherent lineup on an inept network that did little to bolster Star Trek – it was actually the other way around, until it finally wasn’t. Not all of Enterprise’s downfall was because of that (and they certainly tried some of the same tricks to get attention like decon chambers, catsuits, and showing off the sculpted physiques of the entire cast. And John Billingsley), but it’s okay to admit UPN was also making matters worse by the end.
That’s the thing tho. The thing that is bad about Friday and Saturday nights isn’t just because it competed against other shows, it competed against people going out and having lives on the weekend. A week after week drop? Sure, I can buy that as a quality thing. But I can also buy it as people checking the show out in September and then as time passed they had other things to do whereas a weekday night time slot is like “whatever, I have to go to bed in 2 hours anyways”.
I am not saying this is the case, but ratings for those 2 nights have never been nearly as solid as the other 5.
I don’t disagree with that. I am just saying that we did not see the ratings stabilization with Coto’s seasons on E like we saw with Seven’s intro on VOY — I think the stats bear that out, but like Ian won’t even acknowledge that?
Well, you’re exaggerating the long term ratings effect of Seven of Nine, while trying to equate the effect of the casting of a beautiful woman in a sexualized catsuit with *the promotion of a writer*, you don’t admit that UPN contributed to Enterprise’s ratings problems, you engage in spin when presented with data that Enterprise season 4 ratings didn’t fall week to week the way you asserted, and you fail to acknowledge that Nielsen ratings aren’t even an indicator of actual quality.
But yes, I’m the one being unreasonable. 😂
Exactly. But it’s fun to see literally everyone pushing back on this silly narrative everyone hated Enterprise regardless. It’s been hilarious to read.
Meanwhile back in delusional land, Discovery is the most beloved show since TNG! Hell maybe ever! 😂🙄
And here I thought that for once TG-blabberpuss was out of pocket for a day and we might avoid your awkward indirect personal attack drivel on me just for one freaking article.
Oh, well, there is always next week’s article…lol
PS: Can you please let me know what week you are planning to go on vacation this year, because I will look forward more than usual to discussions here that week?
Not reading nor responding.
Classic emmy winners like ‘hill street blues’ and ‘homicide’ stayed on the air despite ratings falls.
And the reason for that is the first three words of your sentence.
Even if ENT had been a runaway hit it would have died with Season 5. When the WB (the more successful network) merged with UPN, very little UPN programming came over to the newly-formed CW.
Also true. UPN died a year later and the CW was a much smaller start up than UPN was, it couldn’t afford a show like Enterprise even if they wanted it
If it had been a runaway hit, Moonvies would have simply moved it to syndication if he could not work out a deal with WB. But I have a hard time believing that if it had been a runaway hit, that P and WB wouldn’t have worked out a deal for it to be on WB — money talks.
Again, consider that you said “runaway hit.”
What syndication? The market was all but gone by then. The WB and its successor The CW were largely female-centric shows (i.e., Gilmore Girls) and Star Trek definitely didn’t fit in their market focus. UPN’s Veronica Mars was much closer to The CW’s brand, and so lasted one more year after the merger/buyout. The CW resembled The WB far, far more than it resembled UPN.
Don’t shoot the messenger — iMike said if Enterprise was a RUNAWAY HIT. Runway hit to most of us would mean at perennial Top 5 TV show like CSI or SVU.
In that rare case where let’s say it was extremely popular, it would have been viable for the 7 PM hour once a week when you always get syndicated repeat shows like Big Bang Theory, Seinfeld, as well as Judge Judy and game shows.
Let me make myself perfectly clear — it was never going to a runaway hit, in fact, I don’t think I would call any Trek series in history a runaway it. That is all iMike’s hypothetical comment — I am not saying this at all.
Besides, with iMike’s hypothetical “runaway hit” scenario, WB would have kept it, and hell, CW would have kept it as well if it was a “runaway hit” as iMike imagines — so the syndication option here is a moot point anyway.
Syndication was no longer an option even in this hypothetical RUNAWAY HIT scenario. Far more likely, I think would have been a move to cable, probably TNT or Spike (at the time). Or possibly even to the CBS mothership. There are a few cases of formerly non-network shows moving to network TV, the most famous probably being Mr. Ed.
Or possibly even to the CBS mothership.
OK, I agree, if it was a runaway hit, bring it into CBS. Again, this is iMike’s hypothetical — at a high level I am just saying that if you have a Top 5 runaway hit TV series without a home, you as the network will figure it out.
I do not think Moonves would have moved it to syndication to save it. The syndication market for new shows was dying at that point. And no, the WB couldn’t afford it anyway. The two heaviest special effects shows that transferred to the CW were Smallville and Supernatural.
Again, the syndication market in 2005 was shattered. There were no first run dramas of note in syndication anymore – the market was already starting to crater as DS9 ended, and didn’t survive once Hercules and Xena were cancelled. Syndication went back to being for daytime shows, game shows, and a few cheap reruns.
And take one look at The CW’s inaugural lineup and tell me where a Star Trek show fits in cosily. It would be as ostracized as it was on UPN.
Dude, and I explained this to Thorny — take up your issues on this with iMike — he poised a hypothetical that if Enterprise were a runaway television hit (think SVU, CSI).
I am not defending this hypothetical! But obviously if it were a Top 5 show in viewership, CBS would have made a deal to have it one some network or syndicated agreement — I mean, if it was a runaway hit, they would just move it onto CBS anyway, am I right?
But again, THIS IS NOT MY HYPOTHETICAL — take it up with iMike.
And your hypothetical solution hinged on a faulty premise – that a hit show would do well in a market that didn’t even exist, or in a CW lineup with limited space where it would be a pariah again. You made no mention of any other network. And no, being a top 5 show on UPN would never have meant a bump up to CBS. Even DS9 and Voyager would have been cancelled had they needed to meet the bar for renewals at that network.
So you are telling me with a straight face, that if (again, iMike’s, not my hypothetical) Enterprise on UPN was somehow had ratings that made it a Top 5 rated, runaway hit TV series, that when UPN folded they would not either bring this Top 5 runaway hit onto the mother CBS network or find another network to make a deal with — you’re saying that they would simply cancel a Top 5 TV series, runaway hit and be done with it?
Are you effing serious??? :-)
This is so pedantic.The narrow confines of your post I was replying to were about syndication and the CW.
Do you mean a top 5 show, period? Because if we are talking about a top 5 ON UPN show like I was, then no, that was no guarantee that an expensive series they never were able to build on would make it to the CW. The CW was basically The WB plus WWE Smackdown!
If it had managed over 4 million viewers on Friday nights then perhaps it would have gotten a season 5, obviously we have no idea.
Well said!
iMike said a runaway hit. That was his hypothetical that we’re talking about.
Why do you keep debating me by challenging iMike’s hypothetical? Please take it up with him if you have an issue with it?
All I’m saying is if you go with that hypothetical of course CBS would have found a way to continue the series either on the mothership or on another network.
Can you please not respond to me yet again with trying to attack the hypothetical — that’s between you and I Mike if you have issues with it. i’m getting rather fatigued trying to explain how if-then conditional statement logic works to you?
Moonvies has been on the record many times stating how he didn’t like SCIENCE FICTION – PERIOD! First chance he got, he canceled ENTERPRISE – change of power structure at CBS, Paramount and Viacom have him the chance (along with a particular VP leaving the studio who was protecting the series.) Truth is, it wouldn’t have gotten a 6th year – it wouldn’t have survived the UPN/WB merger, so all we really lost was 22 episodes.
The anti-SF bias and particularly anti-space bias has often been a factor impacting TREK. Barry Diller was huge at Paramount in the 70s and he always hated the idea of doing anything in that vein, even though if Par had coughed out any kind of TREK movie in 76 it would have redefined the expression ‘cleaned up’ by tapping into the demand for more TOS that STAR WARS wound up cashing in on so well. When he was able to, decades later, cancel FARSCAPE w/o much cause, Diller did so immediately, which I recall as being an utter jerk move with a show I had only just discovered. Now why a SF hater like Diller was even in a position to run the SciFiChannel staggers me, but then again, we had a guy at ILM who said he hated the look of the Enterprise model who was responsible for the VFX on most TOS movies.
Was he the moron who changed the name to SyFy from SciFi?
That’s about as dumb as rebranding Buy.com to Rakuten.
They couldn’t trademark SciFi, which was an established term in publishing and film. So they changed it to something they could trademark: SyFy.
Well, I boycotted that network for several years after that made that change – as a science fiction fan, I took it as an insult.
But then again, I have a lot of vitriol as we all know. ;-)
Yes you do. Constantly. All day, every day.
It must be exhausting knowing you in real life. Certainly makes me spend less time on this site.
Moonvies didn’t personally like sf, but he liked successful shows and franchises. He’s the one, who against his better judgement, gave Coto and Enterprise one more season than it deserved. He’s also the one who not only approved and greenlighted DSC and the new Trek franchise, but stepped in and got things reorganized after the Brian Fuller moron mucked things up during DSC’s development.
He liked cheap shows. Veronica Mars was no more successful than Enterprise. Both were largely kept alive by cult followings. But Veronica Mars was cheap and Enterprise was expensive, hence Veronica Mars was retained and Enterprise was canceled. See also extremely cheap shows like America’s Next Top Model and whatever the Wrestling show was called. We see that even more today, with the sea of cheap “reality” shows having supplanted scripted shows all over the TV landscape.
That simply doesn’t compute with him bankrolling DSC and all the CSI shows. CBS was also the prestige broadcast network for years and many of the series were not “cheap”.
This sounds more like a fan excuse to explain away an uncomfortable cancellation.
Did he really bankroll DSC, or was that the influence of the Netflix partnership? Note that when Netflix support ended, DSC didn’t last much longer. Anyway, didn’t the entire CBS All Access Star Trek originals concept begin when Netflix approached CBS about restarting Enterprise production for them around 2011?
CSIs and NCISs are dirt cheap compared to Star Trek.
I think it was more the positive reaction and decent $ on the Trek 2009 movie than that highly doubtful report of Netflix looking at Enterprise — that seemed more like a wish and prayer thing that Doug Drexler fabricated.
Also, season costs of CSI Miami and DSC are roughly the same.
The only reason why Discovery wasn’t cancelled sooner was due to it’s partnership with Netflix. Netflix gave them a lot of money to run it. Once that ended it got cancelled the very next season.
Discovery is not a popular show. I bet more people watched Enterprise than that show.
And I would agree with that too. I think the Netflix deal really had a much bigger impact on that show overall.
And once it left Netflix the viewing abroad probably drindled to low numbers and P+ hasn’t exactly been wowing the world abroad with huge subscriptions.
Sadly there are probably more people outside of America just pirating the show now who was once paying for it legally through Netflix.
The vitriol in your posts is just so unnecessary. Why do you do it? It comes out of nowhere.
He seems to be someone who just likes arguing with people. He’s arguing about something that happened nearly 20 years ago.
There is really no point.
Please leave me alone.
I wasn’t talking to you. 🙄
Please leave me alone.
I was weirdo.
I’m going to save you the trouble now. Don’t go down that hole lol.
You guys had your exchange, just move on now.
Yes you’re correct. Moving on now.
I wish there were more people like you here to talk to. 😊
I am easy to talk to… until someone pisses me off! 😉
These boards just need an ignore button. I know plenty would ignore me lol.
I’m sure me as well! 😁
I know you think I’m joking but I used to be very outspoken about my issues with Discovery during the first season. And there were a group of people who used to tell me weekly in a round about way to STFU already!
As you can see that worked wonders. And most of them either bailed or been banned since and it’s now just the same 27 people lol. It’s a lot more laid back these days and everyone is nice. :)
Haha funny! 😂
I’m very direct with what I say but I usually only talk to people who agrees with me like this thread. I don’t go out of my to disagree with others or tell people they are wrong. I don’t like silly arguments I’m not going to care about two minutes after I had it. So I just respond to either like minded people or people like you who is very open minded and like to have a real conversation. Less angry people I think haha.
Yeah we’re Star Trek fans, we are going to be very passionate over it. But as long as people are civil and can just disagree with others without making it personal then I have no issues with anyone.
And while this board has a ‘reputation’ most people are actually very friendly or civil compared to the old days. This thread for example has been fine and fun to debate in. If this conversation was ten years ago the moderators would’ve threatened a dozen people of being banned by now lol.
Same. I usually just enjoy talking to like minded people. I don’t mind talking to people who disagree with me of course just as long as they are not obsessed lunatics who gets triggered when someone says something they don’t like. I won’t go any farther than that. 😂
Please leave me alone
Please leave me alone.
Moonvies didn’t personally like sf, but he liked successful shows and franchises. He’s the one, who against his better judgement, gave Coto and Enterprise one more season than it deserved. He’s also the one who not only approved and greenlighted DSC and the new Trek franchise, but stepped in and got things reorganized after the Brian Fuller moron mucked things up during DSC’s development.
Please point out my vitriol here that you were responding to?
Direct and hard hitting? Well, sure. Vitriolic? I just don’t see it?
What did Bryan Fuller do to you to deserve being called a stupid person with low IQ? Of all the ways you could have thought to bring him into the conversation, you decided the best way would be to call him a moron, and by way of propping up the disgraced Les Moonves of all people.
It’s hardly the first time. Based on nothing but a publicity photo, you labeled a cast member of the Wrath of Khan stage musical a bozo. What’s the point?
How direct, how hard-hitting.
Based on his actions and decisions during the development of DSC, watching the awful product and also hearing what went down on American Gods, then having issues and being booted off of The Vampire Chronicles, I think he’s vastly overated, and so I find his project work and actions as a professional showrunner since Pushing Daisies to be rather moronic.
And that dude in the Wrath of Khan stage musical looked more like a circus clown than Khan…I mean, that’s how the dude looked.
I guess I could be nicer and not use those words, but these are my honest opinions, and I would say this to their faces at a convention with a smile on may face, and they would be free to call me a spoiled a-hole fan, and then perhaps we’d all have a drink, with you possibly watching from a distance, all uptight and shocked. ;-)
PS: Moonvies is an a-hole misogynistic abuser of women in the workplace who deserved to get sacked — much worse than a moron or a bozo. But he’s not responsible for Enterprise being cancelled, and he greenlighted DSC and cleaned up Fuller’s mess.
Yes, I can really see Bryan Fuller of all people inviting you to a drink after you call him a moron. Rudeness excused as honesty is not my thing. If you think that makes me uptight, I won’t lose any sleep over it.
We get that you dislike ENT … Les Moonves was on record as disliking science fiction. Calling him gracious (even at this point, given what we know about him) is a stretch
He liked successful TV shows and franchises because they made money, increased shareholder value and increased the size of his TV empire — regardless of what his personal tastes were
How is that any different than many other people in business these days? I’m guessing there are some Execs at CBS and Fox who don’t enjoy watching NFL games…like, so what?
And the dude saved Discovery and I would argue was the single most important exec at CBS in founding this new franchise.
Of course he was a bad person and deserved to get sacked — don’t get me wrong on that account. But that’s a different discussion and topic
Except S4 of Enterprise is probably the best Season in the whole franchise since TOS season 1. How is a show with so many great episodes a “failure”??
It certainly was for me. NuTrek is just a bad imitation of Star Trek today. I don’t speak on the cartoons since I never seen them but The live action shows have been mostly bad.
Is anyone going to be talking about Discovery 20 years from now like people talk about Enterprise? I just don’t think so. But maybe I will be proven wrong.
A lot of NuTrek is certainly bad but I do think is improving. Will it ever be as good as the Berman era though? I doubt it but it’s OK in its own right for me at least.
I love the enthusiasm, even though I could not disagree more.
As hard as I am on Enterprise, I don’t begrudge anyone loving it at all.
Well some people simply disagree with that notion. I love Enterprise but I still think Prodigy is better and SNW is a tie basically for me. Also really enjoyed Picard season 3.
Ent improved greatly when Cotto joined in s3 and it became the show it should have been by s4
I believe it failed 100% because of the theme song. That was an indication right from the jump that things were going to be off
A little bit of advice – you may not want to book one of these cruises. Seven days of you running around screaming “YOU SUCK” at various cast and fans of shows you detest will likely get you thrown overboard.
The second I saw how many people responded to this thread I knew this was going to be a fun read and I wasn’t disappointed. 😂
That’s funny. I could have sworn Phil was specifically addressing me? Dude, I honestly feel embarrassed for you because you’re too scared to address me directly and so you need to do it through others.
HEY PHIL,
apparently you were addressing BOTH TG1701 and me! Who knew? Lol
Not reading nor responding.
The funny thing is, I have had many conversations like this at conventions with fans and even some of the actors — answer two-way street because I’ve been told I’ve been full of shit and we have a laugh about it.
Maybe it’s because online some fans are so freaking sensitive and cry baby like?
Speaking of death knell, Connor Trinneer just put a statement out to say hes quit the Shuttlepod show and it wont continue in its current iteration
Wait really? That’s sad! I wonder what happened. Hope he is OK. I’m on DS9 with Delta Flyers myself currently.
That follows closely on the heels of Dominic Keating leaving the show. I wonder what’s going on. Seemed like they were ramping up with all sorts of new plans.
I wonder if its down to creative differences with that producer Mark who to be honest is a bit full of himself and I hate how competitive he gets for the quiz. At the moment they are setting up a new studio for the show
Certainly plausible. It was weird how the show didn’t officially announce Dominic leaving. And if the show isn’t really continuing (who would watch without Dom and Connor?), that studio will be a waste.
Hopefully they open up and discuss whats happened.
Like Dom, Connor will not be doing the live event that Shuttlepod was going to do in April
Season 5! 😂
Wow really?? I watch them all the time. I had no idea of any problems with it. We will probably hear more soon but very sad.
Just seen on Shuttlepods instagram they maybe rebranding as the chairty event in April is no longer called Shuttlepod Live but now called Treks and Trekkers Live
Oh thank you for the information. It’s disappointing but maybe they will come back in another show. But I don’t understand why they left the other one since they are basically the show. I guess that will be answered soon.
Did someone really thought of putting boy bands on Enterprise? 🙄
I never heard this before. How asinine can you be? Was JJ Abrams running UPN at the time or something?
I always loved the show and had the pleasure of meeting Conor Trinneer, Scott Bakula and John Billingsly. All wonderful and very giving people. I can’t say enough about Bakula.
I really wish Enterprise could’ve continued but a lot of people didn’t like it including a lot of my friends. It wasn’t perfect but it was the last great Star Trek until we got the superficial and melodrama schlock today with bad stories and one note characters. Now a lot of those same people like the show today and think the newer shows are even worse.
I think some took for granted what we had back then. But of course others thought those were bad too but I have no idea how this new stuff is considered better? Discovery and Picard are awful. SNW is a little bi but all it’s doing is copying what the old stuff did and usually for the worse.
Oops I meant SNW is a little better, not bi lol.
I believe the idea was that whatever hot band was making waves would play on a stage in the mess hall. Like the little venue Olivia Wilde’s character ran on The OC that somehow attracted the likes of The Killers to play their dinky town.
Shows you what the execs’ mindset was and the demographics they were gunning for. Also shows they didn’t really pay much attention to what the show was like or did, they were starting to write it off the more it didn’t fit into their lineup.
I remember one of the reasons Chekhov was created for TOS was because executives and Roddenberry wanted to appeal to younger people like me at the time and bands like Beetles and the Monkees were the rage then so they found an actor that resembled that look and even gave him a wig.
You really can’t make this stuff up lol. I’m sure everyone here knows this story so it’s not a new idea, TV and movie people come up with all kinds of ways to attract certain demographics.
But that was at least a reasonable way to do it and Chekhov became a popular character.
What they were proposing for Enterprise were just completely clueless executives who had no idea what Star Trek was as you said.It works on the OC for obvious reasons, the biggest that’s what that show was already geared to.
No wonder that network folded.
They so weren’t paying attention. They replaced Enterprise with a Britney Spear reality TV show that got cancelled like after a week.
To be fair, they are the same people that put the Rock on Voyager and that was OK.
A lot of eyes rolled about that, too.
Mine did too. But it didn’t take me out of the story. The story just was bad lol.
I didn’t really enjoy that episode though but it was OK. I agree.
The best they could manage for Enterprise was a guest star from “Girlfriends” in season 4.
I think he was there at the time cause both Voyager and WWE or WWF or whatever were on UPN at the time and it was a promotional stunt.
He was, and it created a ratings bump. But it does go to show how limited the crossover potential was for Star Trek and the rest of UPN’s hodgepodge lineup at any time.
It stands to reason that a decade of not finding any hits that dovetailed with the core Trek demographics would contribute to the decline of Voyager and then Enterprise. UPN was impatient, desperate, mismanaged (passing on “Malcolm in the Middle” but greenlighting crap like “Homeboys from Outer Space” and “Shasta McNasty,”) and kept changing its demographic focus every season, always either ignoring or failing to take advantage of the audience that was tuning into Voyager reliably. By the time Enterprise came around, it was basically abandoned.
I’m assuming you didn’t watch the ENT Blu-Ray docs when those seasons were released on Blu-Ray? It’s talked about. That and so much more were talked about.
I watched some of the blu ray clips and interviews on YouTube but don’t remember that at all.
Yes as others said it’s certainly true. And to this day I’m very curious what the execution would’ve been like? Were they going to just be some 22nd century boy band with real artists and playing more ‘classical music ‘? Or were they going to be more creative and have famous artists creating new music that would align the show and time period?
I’m guessing it would’ve been the former like Vic Fontaine on DS9 and just play contemporary songs.
Yeah it sounded like it would’ve been a disaster lol.
And while I agree with others the executives were clueless but end of the day their job is to keep the shows on the air. The ratings for the show was cratering and they were coming up with ideas to save it, as left field as it was. They didn’t want the show to get cancelled and they clearly knew how important a Star Trek show was, but it was clearly foreign to them.
And of course every show and movie gets these bizarre notes all the time. It just depends on the project and how much clout who is running it and can push back on it. And Berman had a lot of clout to just overrule certain things. And my guess is that was never a serious idea, just something an executive threw out as a suggestion and it was dropped once they said no.
Clueless executives at the time sadly. Enterprise didn’t have a hope in hell with the people running that network.
Okay I seriously hope there is video of The Crusher Family Comedy Hour. Gates McFadden is theatrical and hilarious, and I can only imagine what Wil Wheaton, Ed Speleers, and Todd Stashwick added to that. Please someone release video of this and the Spock’s Brain skit
Seconded. I’m so mad I couldn’t be there!
Yeah, we gotta see the Spock’s Brain skit!
Totally. It’s my new “NYE resolution” to make it to this next year!
Oh yeah that would be so much fun to see! I really hope it gets posted.