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Star Trek: Enterprise in Danger of Being Cancelled
jkcity writes "According to Cinscape.com The Star Trek Enterprise set is awash with rumour that it will not be renewed for a 4th season, It was previous told it was safe by UPN but so was Enteprise's lead-out show Jake 2.0 which was just Cancelled. Star Trek: Enterprise has also been reduced to 24 episodes this season by UPN, things don't look good for the Star Trek Television Franchise and after the flop of Star Trek: Nemesis it could be many years before we ever see any new Star Trek outside of books."
Shame, enterprise was the only good one.
Still, too many of them are too 'lets break all the rules, oh and against all the odds it all works out'.
and wtf kind of captain keeps risking his ship and thousands of crew to save one or two people?
plain stupid
Without attracting a troll modifier, I'm glad. The genre is now sufficiently well-established that there are other franchises (Farscape spin-off anyone?) who could do more interesting things with the Network's money.
It's sad letting our favourite things end, but moving on is cool too.
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Crossing my fingers....
Maybe it's time for the franchise to take a rest. I was a fan of the original series. Then with TNG came out, after the first season, I started to get interested (I think the actors didn't really find their characters until mid-second series).
I know a lot of people enjoyed DS9, though I didn't really care for it that much. I personally enjoyed a number of episodes of Voyager.
But maybe it's time to let things rest for a while. Maybe come back to it in 5 or 10 years with some fresh ideas and in the meantime, let people build up their appetite for it again as well. I think they've just really gotten to the point where their grasping for new story ideas and nothing is really drawing people in to the series. Maybe it's just me. I watched a few episodes of Enterprise. It's not bad, but it's not that great either.
People have high expectations of the Star Trek franchise, and if they're not going to be able to meet those expectations, they ought to let it rest until they can. But that's just my opinion.
To be honest I am not suprised one bit. I watched every episode of TNG. But from there the series weren't as good. Each one is a little worse than the one before it. They ahve lost the magic and the method that made it great.
The magic that captured us was that TNG wasn't about space or the technology but about the people. Enterprise always seemed like it didn't make the grade there. It isn't a drama the way it needs to be for success.
Evolution or ID?
It just occurred to me to ask the question of why Enterprise needs to be on every week for each new season? Why not go with a mini-series every year. The hype increases, there is more latitude to do something different and there is less danger of worrying about ratings.
Just a thought....
Jake 2.0 hasn't even started over in the UK yet, and its already cancelled! Another good buy by Sky!
Enterprise is a good series, much grittier than TNG, on a par with DS9. Pity to see it go.
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Whoopses. Sky over here in the UK is heavily plugging Jake 2.0 which is due to start in February.
Nothing like starting to watch a series which has already been canned!
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Good!
Not to knock the entirety of Star Trek, but the recent "Franchises" (do you want fries with that?) have been crap. I could barely watch Star Trek: A Three Hour Tour, and Star Trek: Boobies and Scott Bakula was not even worth the John Tesh opening theme. I'm not saying the age old "Ever since Gene died...blah blah blah", but the corporates at Paramont really have taken over and pissed on the whole deal.
There are better sci-fi shows out there: Bablylon 5, Farscape, Stargate SG-1, to name a few. Some are in threat of being cancelled or already in limbo. Support THOSE! Try to revive the GOOD series!
Let Star Trek die the death it has been begging for since ST:DS9 ended. Don't let it drag on. (Flame on!)
Zodiac Survey
Well, it worked. It also helps that the show is nothing at all like Star Trek. Basic premise of every episode: Let's take a good idea from TOS or TNG, update it with a new cast and new effects, and completely ruing the meaning!
A recent episode had what seemed like interstellar terrorists on it. The theme was a sort-of "with us or against us" thing, as if the episode had come straight out of a propaganda machine. I don't need my Star Trek telling me what to think. I want my Star Trek making me think. That's what Trek was always best at: making people think about things. What if? Why? The settings was incidental. The effects were irrelevant. The story was what mattered. Enterprise ditched that and focused on everything else. The result?
Star Trek Lite: It tastes bland and isn't very filling, but people accept it anyway.
The sad thing is the cast works. I think Backula does a great job, and I loved his role in Quantum Leap. Phlox is pretty entertaining. But these few perks just can't make up for the general disarray of the series.
And don't even get me STARTED on Star Trek timeline continuity. If Trek continuity were a person, it would be time for it to seek rape consoling! The Borg episode... the Romulans? What the hell? Have the writers ever even watched any of the previous Treks?
Sorry Enterprise, but I can't say I will miss you.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Much has been said about the control that Gene Roddenberry had over the Star Trek franchise & many have criticised the power he had over it.
However, under Roddenberry, we were at least guaranteed a cohesive Star Trek universe.
"Enterprise", I'm told at least, did not fit into the pre-Kirk Trek universe and deliberately did not do so. The lame excuse that Rick Berman/Brannon Braga gave for this was that events in "First Contact" caused the timeline to be changed.
Berman & Braga have made a complete hash of Trek since they got their grubby paws on the franchise that has seen it deteriorate more and more since Roddenberry's passing - TNG was, on the whole, excellent, DS9 had a poorish start but improved as things went on, Voyager had a handful of good stories and Enterprise was a complete waste of time.
I watched the first series, hoping to see an improvement and then gave up with it. Recently, I tuned into a repeat episode (possibly 2nd series) to see a plot stolen straight out of "Enemy Mine" (human and alien stranded together on a planet) & was shocked at how unoriginal the plots had become.
The only good thing about Trek recently is that my lack of enthusiasm for it has caused me to go buy the Babylon 5 DVDs (I missed all but a hndful of episodes when it was shown on TV) and to restore my faith in good, well-made science fiction TV series.
Braga & Berman can go sit on the scrapheap - I'll not lose any sleep over it...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
With each new iteration, Star Trek distorts and dilutes its own mythos. I thought this would be an interesting take on Starfleet's early history, with raw, unpolished versions, or complete absence of, the day to day technologies that the TOS and later crews used and of course modified at the eleventh hour to avert a crisis. The writers wasted no time updating/uprating Enterprises' systems and accoutrements ("phase pistols" anyone?) so now the ship is nearly indistinguishable from its descendants. The exploration oriented format is too similar to the preceding shows. The TOS crew have earned a Campbell-esque place in our pantheon of modern day mythic heroes. Picard may ascend to that pinnacle. Janeway and Cisko never will. Neither will Jonathan Archer. Star Trek is in a decadent stage. A long hiatus with no series and no movies would serve everyone best, giving both the general public and hardcore fans some time to build up some real desire. Hire completlely new writers and give them years, if need be, to come up with a really fresh take. Some ideas for a next Trek: How about a show with a built-in limited lifespan, starting right at the post-Shuttle era, and ending with Archer's Enterprise? Each season would be a complete epoch, showing the development of the technology, and the adaptation of people to long-term life in space. Another idea: breakdown of the Federation. It collapses sometime after Picard's retirement, and a starship crew makes the rounds restoring order to worlds and rebuilding alliances. Once again, a series that's planned out ahead of time to run for a certain number of seasons. See, the open-ended nature of each Star Trek series is the problem. I hope the next writers come up with something great, but most importantly, KEEP FOCUSED!
That repetitive drivel like Enterprise gets to last this long while the ream gems (FireFly, Farscape) pass away tragically.
Those shows had more originality, creativity and quality writing than the Star Trek franchise can hope to match. Not to say that Star Trek wasn't good and original in its day, but that day has passed.
I recently showed Firefly to a housemate for the first time, he was hooked after the pilot. After each episode (we just finished the last one), he sits in stunned amazement, quietly saying "why was this cancelled?". It's sad really.
...just how much a (post-original) Trek show has to suck before they'll pull the plug.
Now that this has been empirically verified, let's never conduct this experiment again please.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Disclaimer: This is not a troll nor flamebait, but a talking point.
Much of the discussion about "how much Trek sucks" usually ends up blaming Rick Berman. How much of this is his fault here? I have no judgement, but I'm tossing this out for discussion's sake.
I think my personal opinion is thus: Create work that is quality, and I will consume it.
I thought that's how the system was supposed to work... but yet, somehow, shows like UPN's planned "reality" show chronicling the wacky misadventures of Amish teens have more marketability than (insert your genre of interest here).
The "Flop of Nemesis"???
*smacks forhead*
How about this: Don't release movie number 10 in a series of niche movies a weekend before one of the most anticipated movies of all time, which had been promoted for several years, comes out.
I didn't have a problem with nemesis. I actually liked it. Did I go see it in a theatre? No, i saved my $15 for Lord of the Rings. Duh.
~Will
sig?
I think you got the link wrong. It should have linked to here Instead. Yes, it is all Rick Berman's fault. Every ST movie that has royally sucked was his fault. Every episode that royally sucked was his fault. It's his genius idea to NOT write (or even allow) star trek episodes that reference any part of the star trek mythology.
Seriously, when the FIRST episode of Enterprise didn't fit in the continuity (Klingons, huh?). I knew it was dead, despite the amazing amount of potential a pissed captain has. Right now they just took the events of 9/11 and turned into into a third season of ST:Enterprise.
I have to disagree about DS9. The first few seasons, yes, it was very weak. But, Berman and crew went to go concentrate on Voyager and pretty much abandoned DS9 around the 4th season, and let them do whatever they wanted. From that point on, the show went to new hights. Some fantastic writing, a serial storyline, and some great acting took DS9 to places that Trek hadn't been before. I'd say that the last 3 seasons of DS9 were some of the best sci-fi on TV, except no one was watching anymore.
Sci-fi fans have higher expectations from series these days. We just don't like episodic television. Lost in space was over 30 years ago.
Events from one episode have to influence future ones. Babylon 5 did this. So did Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Star Trek franchise managed to learn this in the end with DS9, but now they've totally forgotten. Season 3 has had a couple of references to the Xindi backstory, but really we need more than that. We never get the feeling anything has happened after an episode has finished.
Paramount doesn't even seem to want to try. There were clear signs of a subversive effort to change this in Voyager, with Janeway slowly losing it in Equinox, but then the franchise backed away. At the end of that episode all was forgiven and forgotten. Chakotay decided that going on the Ahab revenge thing and locking him in the brig was only a minor misunderstanding, and they could still be friends.
A review at the beginning of the season in USA Today brought up some very good points on the lack of focus in Enterprise. Although Paramount wants you to think they took the show for a dramatic twist this season, nothing really has changed. They are still exploring the unknown, which is what they have been doing the first two seasons. Nothing to see here, move along.
To fix Enterprise they need to:
Be a little more subtle with public commentary. Compare Similitude with TOS's Let That Be Your Last Battleground
More friction among the crew.
Lose the T'Pol-Tucker story line
Slow DOWN THE TRANSPORTER!!!! It's faster than The Original Series'!
There have been a couple good episodes:
Shockwave
Chosen Realm
And a lot of duds:
A remake of Data's Day: Dear Doctor
An A-Team episode: Marauders
And just a really lame episode: Extinction
What, me worry?
Personally after being lost in the delta quadrant for years on voyager, I thought trek would get back to some basic Treking. Klingon's (Bad ones, nasty ones, Enterprise's Klingons are more like TNG's, which in my opinion ought not to be the case). Bad Ass Romulans, and the discovery of thier link with the vulcans (this was touched on Briefly, very Briefly, and really ought to get more attention as well. They really need to round up the writers and directorys that made some of the DS9, TNG episodes that really stick out as Classics. Best of Both Worlds, the Bell Riots, The entire Bajorian Religious Arc at the end of DS9 (the final season was one of the best seasons of Trek ever). I also feel like Enterprise has quickly degenerated into the Captain Archer Show, which some Trip and T'Pol thrown in here and there. They need to open up the cast more let us get into the other characters heads, and perhaps even give us a few more characters. It looked like they were headed that way they had that ensign (Cartright? maybe?) who seemed to get some focus in a couple episodes (on an away mission in the episode with the slave race, and the episode where she has a crush on Flox)...ah well I hope they work something out and we get a season 4 and perhaps they can strighgten this out...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I do enjoy the whole Star Trek universe, but it's hard to deny that Enterprise has largely been unoriginal. This hairbrained season-long plot hasn't worked out well, and I find that the only episodes I most like heavily feature Phlox.
.02 $US.
If the series had instead of going with this "temporal cold war" idea gone with a simple "explore nearby space and meet new races" type idea, I heavily suspect that things would have been better. I mean, hell; TNG and TOS were great; DS9 was alright, but Voyager was a step in the WRONG DIRECTION.
Just my
I thought they were on a roll, managing to get two scenes with the female characters half undressed, and a tacticless space ship fight into almost every episode.
When I first heard the premise for this new series, I was actually quite interested. A primitive Entreprise, first real deep sapce ship from Earth, presumably out gunned by almost everyone they meet, and maybe having to do some interesting things to win through.
But no. They turn out to be able to beat crap out of almost everyone. The only way to get a plot is to have something blow up on board, or mysterious `gravimetric bullshiterons' hold them while the inferior aliens attack, so that 10 minutes later they can beat crap out of those same aliens without breaking sweat... scene of vulcan underwear giving engineer a hand job... end of episode.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
It seems like every sci-fi show, good or bad, popular amongst us geeks or not, gets cancelled.
Instead, we have these mind-numbing 'reality' tv shows, vapid sit-coms, and corny teenage melodramas.
I watch Enterprise. It's not that I think it's that great, it's just better than most of the other rubbish on TV. At least it's mildly entertaining, and I need something to watch while I exercise.
Does anybody REALLY want another Joe Millionaire/Survivor 14/Bachlor(ette) clone to replace it?
I might shoot plot holes though Enterprise all day, but at least my brain functions while doing it.
Yes, it is all Rick Berman's fault. Every ST movie that has royally sucked was his fault.
umm how do you explain Star Trek 1? Vger? come on take the cosmic dust off for gods sake. worst movie of them all. 2 was best. i know it had holes but i was never a fan of TOS so i thought it was great and continue to repeatly watch it. 3 ok. 4 wacky humor. 5 is where we start seeing a down turn until after generations.
Star Trek:
Western in space. Kinda campy but did have its moments. Very memorable characters. Fanbase: Big enough to get a few movies going after its cancelation. Noteworthy: The fans loved the show and movies enough to get an entire freakin' space shuttle renamed. Nae bad.
Star Trek: The Next Generation:
Pretty deep plots. Much deeper than much of what is shown on TV, which really doesn't say much. Very memorable characters. Very powerful episodes. (Remember the one where the crew find a probe and Picard spends a lifetime on a dieing planet?) Had many people who aren't fans of scifi watching. Noteworthy: Roddenbery died during this series.
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Very deep storyline spanning many seasons. Characters not as memorable as those on TNG, but memorable none the less.
Star Trek: Voyager:
Unmemorable characters, superficial plots, enough gaps in the plot to make Spock have a stroke. The previously immortal and near unbeatable borg were made to look like a bunch of pussies in this. Time travel became more cliche than it previously was. It's crap, Jim.
Star Trek: Enterprise
New 'hip' series that shits on the pre-federation history laid out by the previous series and movies. Superficial. Unmemorable characters. Plots so shallow not even an infant could drown in them. Superficial. Tries to grab your attention with random semi-nudity. Predictable. Superficial. Theme song sucks. Superficial.
As somebody who used to be a HUGE Trek fan 10 years ago - good. The horse is laying in the middle of the field, four broken legs, broken ribs, and is oozing blood out of its ears. Just shoot it and get it over with. I hate seeing my childhood fave raped for ratings.
Berman and Braga can kiss the fattest part of my ass.
Truism:
Odd numbered star treks suck.
No way around it, they just do.
5, incidentally, is so bad that most of us write it off as not having existed in the first place. I think one trekkie described it best when he said "Kirk and god compare egos, god loses."
1 can't even compare to that.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I actually like Enterprise and am disappointed that it may get cancelled. I absolutely agree that the plots have been done to death and that the aliens are sadly predictable in appearance but I more or less like this crew.
I think Bakula makes a good captain and his play with the Vulcan Sub-Commander is good. That can't carry the show however as much of the other crew hasn't been allowed to breath (except for Hoshi in the Psychic/Alien episode which isn't saying much).
But there is a lot of untested material in the Star Trek universe. There should be more Andorran plots and it would be really nice if the writers remembered the Gorn Empire or the Tholians. The universe was unstable back then (as opposed to TNG Federation/Romulan/Klingon triumvirate) and that instability could make for some good shows.
This season's "Expanse" theme is interesting and I personally like it. However, it can't go on forever, for the very fact that none of it was ever mentioned in any past series.
The show needs to get back to its beginnings. USE the tried plot but lets not forget that space is a new and exciting and unknown place. Everything that the crew seems to encounter has already been encountered before. The original series used that unknown as the backbone of plot. TNG really built up a crew centric aspect. The other two kind of let me down. Enterprise has the potential to do a lot but isn't going anywhere.
They should really let the fans be the writers. Set up a contest or something on the website to submit an episode. Star Trek is a good and proven concept but there needs to be more trekking and more weird discoveries.
What do you think of the possibility that Star Trek: Enterprise may be cancelled?
- "Who cares? Kirk rules!"
- "Who cares? Picard rules!"
- "Berman sux. I expected it any day."
- "Ahh... I just watched it for the hot Vulcan chick anyways."
- "I just wait for the Trek movies."
- "That's horrible, I just decided that Crusher was cool because he runs Linux, now this!"
- "It's all the fault of CowboyNeal and his Nielsen-connected TiVo!"
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Enterprise has been well in line with Sturgeon's law: 90% of the episodes have been crap. Instead of buying decent scripts, they (hmmm) "borrowed" and rehashed old, hoary plots, substituted random nudity in favor of developing characters you could care about, and have saved so many impossible situations with the deus ex machina time-travel garbage that, well...
I just want to see the puppy save the ship. Once. I'll Tivo episodes and fast-forward 'til I see that.
One thing *could* save the show: Solicit scripts from old heavies. I know it's painful, but buy some writing from the likes of Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold and other people with reasonable horsepower. Doesn't even have to be their best work; I'm sure they've got something stashed away that could be adapted quickly. Heavily publicize the eps. Watch the ratings spike.
Until some good writing happens, Enterprise will be good riddance as far as I'm concerned. Bring back Firefly. Jesus, what a business.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
After Nemesis and Enterprise, Star Trek needs to die. Brannon Braga and Rick Berman are a bunch of greedy fuckwits, dumbing down and morally sterilizing the franchise (God, I hate Janeway) to attract Mr. and Mrs. MTV lobotomized American, and should be killed as horribly and painfully as possible.
Okay, a little far. But Star Trek needs some serious time off, after which it should be handed over to someone who might actually care about the franchise, and hire proven, good writers who aren't afraid to take a chance. Berman, the franchise's current head, was Roddenberry's money guy, and Braga, the main writer, is a wannabe Jerry Bruckheimer hack, and he's not even very good at that. Someone like Joss Whedon (not sure if he even likes Star Trek, but he'd still do well), Ira Steven Behr, or even fucking Jonathan Frakes. I'm sure there are other, better candidates, but I haven't done my research.
The best idea I've heard, I'd even go so far as to say the only idea that might salvage our beloved Trek, is to do "Star Trek Adventures" (lame name, but I'm not in fucking marketing). Essentially, a series of short miniseries set in various times and places throughout the mythology. Like 3 gritty episodes following a Klingon strike team in the Dominion War, then a few following Q around, having fun. You could jump to way the fuck in the future and watch the crew of the Enterprise-Q make first (well, second) contact with the Andromeda galaxy, spend an episode following the successful assimilation of a civilization from the people's point of view, then another, from the Borgs', and then spend a few weeks chronicling Khan's rise to power in the 21st century. You could take any genre, jam it into a Star Trek setting, and have a go. It's unlimited! They could even pander to a few episodes of CSI: Ferenginar, or a stupid sitcom set on Bolius Prime. Hell, after a hiatus, you might even enjoy dropping in on the NX-01 for a while.
The current producers need to go, they need to get the fuck off UPN, and they possibly even need to ditch the whole lone ship of exploration thing. TOS and TNG were mostly original, DS9 went somewhere entirely different, and did damn well at it (mostly because Berman and Braga ignored it, and left it to his subordinates), Voyager was utterly derivative of TOS and TNG, with a quarter the enthusiasm and passion, and Enterprise started out as the third iteration of the law of diminishing returns on the whole lone ship in an increasingly sickeningly PC unexplored space. Something like "Star Trek Adventures", without Berman and Braga, is the only way to save Star Trek.
Have you even seen an episode of Star Trek: TNG from its heyday?
TNG was about making statements on humanity and exploring social issues, using the backdrop of a sci-fi space drama.
They keep showing the episode on Spike TV where the young recruit goes on the undercover mission with the terrorist organization, grows fond of them, and eventually defects. The last shot of the episode is Picard sitting in his room in defeat, lost in thought, wondering if he pushed her too hard...
That was good writing.
Dude, the captain is the best. You just have to bang your remote from time to time and say "Al?" and the show gets a lot better. I like to mute the TV during the opening credits and sing "Love Touch" or "Maggie", to get me stoked. You're right though, the vulcan chick is hot. I can't wait for it to get cancelled so she can do some more mainstream work.
Put Wil Wheaton on the next week (maybe let Kirk kill Wesley Crusher? ahh, the visuals), that's another additional 200,000 viewers above normal.
Dude.
I would totally kick his ass, using the patented "pull the toupee over his eyes" maneuver, perfected (but never used) by Kahn.