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UPN Renews 'Star Trek: Enterprise'
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that 'Enterprise' has been renewed for a fourth season. UPN will make the official announcement on Thursday, but production executives already told the SaveEnterprise.com fan campaign the show will be back, and the show's actors have been ordered back to work. The only snag? It looks like 'Enterprise' might be moved to Fridays next year, and Firefly fans can tell you what a great place that is..."
Please tell me they are leaving that dreadful theme song behind.
.-=Wit is educated insolence=-. -Aristotle
Why do they always try to drop shows when they reach their peak?
I'll be the first to admit that Enterprise doesn't live up to the standards of TNG or DS9 but IMHO Season 3 has been much better than the first 2 seasons.
They should be more worried about being on UPN. Buffy fans can tell Enterprise fans what that's like.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
don't watch it then.
MABASPLOOM!
Wasn't a 'party night' schedule (along with horrid season three scripts) part of what killed the original series? Wow, even sci-fi fans can have lives...
It's the same with the people who wish episodes 1 and 2 (and probably 3, when it comes out) of Star Wars weren't made because they think George Lucas "ruined" the series with them. Or people who wish that any Final Fantasy game past 6 was not made (even though 7 was the second best in the series after 1, you bastards).
Many people (myself not included) would rather have nothing at all than something they don't like when it comes to their favorite TV shows / movies / etc.
Enterprise certainly did stink to high heaven during season one and most of season two, but lately it's really taken off. If it can keep up its momentum and improve the "sci-fi" aspect of the story lines, it could really become one of the best ST spin-offs yet! (Excluding ST:TNG, you can never hope to beat it) What makes the new episodes of Enterprise so great are the continuing, evolving story line. Granted, its no Babylon5, each episode begins where the previous one left off, and they have actually been doing some character development! ST extras that tend to die after 5 minutes of screen time have been replaced with guest characters that last two or three episodes before biting it. Antagonists have risen to the ran of Guest Star, much like Gul Dukat and Gherak did on DS9! Enterprise has really had a huge turn around from its early crap episodes. Give a try, watch a few episodes. You might actually enjoy it.
Damn, I want some free Red Bull and Cheetos with my FNM!
I'm just tired of running into the same bloody Ravager Affinity decks, week after week...
Back on topic, Friday night is a really shitty timeslot. Shows have two kinds of fans: those who watch it because it's decent and they can find time to watch it, and those who watch it no matter what. It really kills your 'casual' audience, who's out having fun, leaving you with only the 'hardcore' audience.
And a bunch of the 'hardcore' audience is at Friday Night Magic. Well, that's probably not accurate. FNM can't seriously dent a show's audience, at least no more than any other Friday night activity (mmm..beer)
This happens all the time with Star Trek for some reason; they never start out well. The first season of TNG was particularly terrible. The most infamous example being "The Naked Now", where the crew (with their standard Star Fleet issue miniskirts) became 'drunk' from an anomaly and Data had sex with Tasha Yar.
Conflicts with the Romulans and the Borg didn't heat up until about season 2 or 3, although Q did have his fair share in the beginning.
DS9 had a more successful start, but didn't get really interesting until Season 3 when The Dominion were introduced.
In every Star Trek series there seems to be a counter-evil they perpetual battle, ie.
Star Trek TOS - Klingons
Star Trek TNG - Romulans
Star Trek DS9 - The Dominion
Star Trek Voyager - The Borg
And with Enterprise it's the Xindi, but you start to feel the redundancy. Trying to out-evil Cardassians or the Borg is going to prove challenging.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion, man.
If you don't like it, don't watch it. There are obviously plenty of people who DO like it, otherwise it wouldn't still be on the air. I, personally, don't care for 'Enterprise', but I don't whine about it - I just don't watch it. If other people do like it then hey, that's grand, they can watch it all they want. Their opinion is no less valid than mine.
It's not that Lucas "ruined" anything. It's that Episode 1 and 2 were crap! They were badly acted (from actors we KNOW can do better!), badly written, badly directed and badly concieved. The only good thing about Star Trek were the special effects, but SFX are a dime a dozen. Good stories are much harder to find.
And yes, I'd rather not have to wade through pools of drek and offal when I want to indulge my craving for science fiction. I would rather have a few well crafted diamonds than a mountain of coal.
That mountain of coal exists because there are some people, myself NOT included) who will tolerate anything, no matter how badly made, just because it is science fiction.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Honestly, what else have they got? Besides Enterprise, they've cancelled everything else that gave them ratings. At least this is a built in fan base. Oh, and as for the Friday timeslot, that's when Farscape was on, right? I'm sure UPN will replay it on Sundays before primetime.
Renew Enterprise. Cancel Berman and Braga.
Enterprise is not my favorite flavor of Trek, but it's better than nothing.
No, it's not. It's far worse than nothing.
With nothing, they might take the time to rethink things, start hiring actual writers instead of using the same two people over and over again, think of fresh new ideas instead of the same tired old time-travel and deus ex machina tripe, and just generally scrape off the freakin' barnacles and come back later with a good show.
Enterprise is crap, but what's worse is it's crap that's preventing progress.
Besides, there have been a couple good episodes this season.
Read what you wrote again. Two good episodes, in a whole season. There's a term for that. It's "crap".
Is it really better than nothing? The fact is, a bad series can have an impact on the entire franchise. The fact that Enterprise has garnered lackluster ratings - at best - and has had very few really good episodes from a creative aspect makes the chances of more Star Trek (whether it be TV or movie) less attractive to both viewers and Hollywood executives.
To pull the argument that cancelling the series puts people out of work is rather pathetic actually. Does that mean that we should keep trash on the air, just because people worked on the series? Imagine a schedule full of shows like "The Mullets" just because people didn't want to cancel the series because it would put people out of work... *shudder*
The X-Files was also given several years to blossom on Friday nights, and was a signature show for the Fox network -- which didn't (at the time) demand such high ratings for a television show. Friday nights had the ability to produce those kinds of ratings -- not the ones they want now.
Once Fox became a "big" network and started demanding more of X-Files, they moved it to Sunday nights, where it became even more popular than it was on Fridays.
I know everyone thinks friday night tv is some black hole that shows go to when they're ready to die, but this could be good. As it stands right now Enterprise is battling Smallville on Wednesday nights along with American Idol. At least friday's are faily wide open, so this might actually raise the total number of viewiers.
News flash: If Enterprise gets cancelled the money is more likely to be funnelled into "Who wants to marry a one-legged garbage man with a severe flattulence problem" than another sci-fi show.
jrjBlog
And that's just, like, yours.
Why call for anybody to silence their opinions about anything? I'm not saying the show should be taken off the air by force of arms--I'm just saying I hope it's cancelled soon.
That opinion is no less valid than yours, "man."
Friday night is probably about just as bad as any other night on UPN.
Personally I never believed they would cancel it anyway. Lets face it, UPN without Trek would be like Comedy Central without John Stewart. Its their identity (well that and Moesha spin-offs)
I remember when UPN first started braodcasting, they pimped Voyager hard for about 6 months before. I don't remember anything else from that first season lasting more than a year or two. I'm not a trekker by any means but I was watching DS9 at the time and thought it was really cool, so I had some hope for Voyager during the first season, just like I did Enterprise, but eventually you have to admit when something sucks big hairy ones.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
The only good thing about Star Trek were the special effects
I strongly disagree with that statement. I wish I could search my history and find the previous lengthy post I made about TNG (it was a gem) but I let my /. subscription expire.
In any case, how can you say the only good thing was the effects when you had moral issue based episodes like these (off the top of my head in 5 minutes at the office):
I'd also point out the good storyline based episodes:
Those are just the TNG episodes that I can name off the top of my head (yes I'm a Geek -- but I don't know the stardates anymore). DS9 had quite a few standout episodes too -- though I think TNG tackled the moral issues more often.
Star Trek under Gene Roddenberry was always about the story. Under Paramount it's about T&A and appealing to the unwashed 16-24 male demographic.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
i agree. there's really nothing wrong with Friday nights, as long as there is consistency. Its when TV shows get moved mid season to a different night that viewership really plummets. (like when Babylon 5 was switched weekly to different nights)
X-Files was on Friday nights for several years and it slowly moved from cult favorite to mainstream hit. If I recall correctly, the reason it was moved to Sunday was to make room for Millenium, and that was 3 or 4 years after X-files debuted.
Roddenberry's vision was a novel, neat idea in the 1960's that worked pretty well.
It worked again in the 1980's with TNG's first few seasons because it had been 20 years since the last time.
However, by the end of TNG and certainly the beginning of DS9, and now with Voyager & Enterprise, Roddenberry's vision is boring. There's only so many times you can rehash the same old morality plays.
Berman suffers from a similar problem. When he and Braga first started writing DS9, they wrote the Dominion storylines to compete with B5, and frankly that's when DS9 became good. The reason it was good was not just because of continuity, but because the characters started to have non-Starfleet and non-Startrek personalities. Sisko was perhaps the best written and acted Starfleet captain of all time, but he doesn't fit in with the utopian view that Roddenberry had.
Now with Voyager and Enterprise, Berman is throwing continuity on to the screen for continuity's sake. And frankly it sucks. I feel as if this year's Enterprise should have had a shot of Berman in the corner saying "SEE I CAN GIVE YOU CONTINUITY!!!!". The only redeeming parts of this season have been when Archer (and others) have turned darker, and hence less like Roddenberry wanted.
What needs to happen is for Star Trek to get some new blood from people who appreciate not just Star Trek for the sake of Trek or continuity for the sake of continuity, but who can actually tell good stories whether they fit in with utopia or not.
I am a fan of StarTrek. I have watched every single episode ever made of the original series, TNG, DSN, Voyager, or Enterprise (and all movies).
That said, after I started to watch StarGate SG-1, and I am watching them on DVD (I am on Season 6 now), I have realized what a terrible terrible series the StarTrek series (any flavor) really is. The writing in SG-1 is miles better than any of the drivel written in StarTrek.
My brothers and I joke around that the writers of StarTrek should be forced to watch the SG-1 series, as a "seminar" for them on how to write good sci-fi scripts.
- Alain
(Of course, your scenario is more likely, but that's beside the point)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There's lots of Trek actors as guests on Enterprise. A number of actors have had major roles on different shows, like Jeffrey Combs who's had a few roles. Try to listen to the voices more.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Shaaka - When the walls fell!
:)
I loved that episode, too, but I always wondered how a civilization with such a specific form of language (i.e., referencing past historical and mythical events) could have ever developed beyond the stone/bronze age?
How could you teach a course in warp propulsion dynamics, for example?
Answer: You can't. You can't really even have a language/species that works/thinks that way. It just doesn't stand up to any kind of rational thought beyond the episode.
But nevertheless, it was a pretty neat idea and made a good story. Unlike some people you see complaining about this sort of thing, I don't expect my sci-fi to make every little bit of sense all the way through. It's supposed to be entertainment, you know.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Great, but did they cancel Rick Berman?
ST will continue to sputter along until they replace that ball of ineptitude.
Should have let his wife do it. Majel has produced some really good sci-fi shows since the departure of Roddenberry. IMHO, Berman can't get it done.
Gosh, I can't believe we made it to season 4! Many didn't think they would make it beyond day 4! Of course, whatelse are you going to watch these days? Yet another season of Survivor? Our the next installment of slutty guy/girls sleeping with each other on national TV pretending to pursue a "real" relationship? With shows like these, STE should do well next year. :)
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"James T. Kirk? 17 separate temporal violations. The biggest file on record. The man was a menace." --Starfleet's Bureau of Temporal Investigation
dinner: it's what's for beer
I have two things to say to that one.
First, there are shows which seem to avoid the problem. DS9, for example, was great. It started out ok, got better as it went along, and ended right. It wasn't too early, but it didn't drag on. Farscape was pretty much the same, from what I gather (I stopped watching it regularly around the end of season 2).
Second, since I stopped watching TV, I'm a much happier SF fan. Bad books and movies are much easier to ignore, and much easier to find. Good movies are hard to find, but you can substitute good books until the next Minority Report, or whatever floats your boat, comes along. Neither one has to be, for lack of a better word, subscribed to the way TV shows have to be, so it's a much better experience overall. DS9 and Farscape were good, but the pain of the medium just isn't worth the chance of finding something equally good in the future for me.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Their language supposedly consists of referring to historical events, but you're using standard language symantics to do the referring.
I don't think they were really using standard language semantics - I think that was the Universal Translator recognizing certain language constructs. One can draw a parallel to people with aphasia (... in Wernicke's area? Broca's produces gibberish, wheras Wernicke's produces sentences that have word structure, but no grammatical meaning), with recognizing the form, but not the function.
Their own language semantics would probably have been made highly efficient for describing metaphors (like a suffix for possession, etc.).
If everything is stated in terms of historical reference, then you're recursing infinitely; you have to use a historical reference to say what a wall is, and what the action "to fall" is, and so on.
Not really - what humans do is use functional representation in vocabulary - we create poor representation of thought in words, and use those words to describe things. In other words, we feel the emotion of failure, and create the word "failure" - this isn't a perfect thing, though, because there are an almost uncountable number of variations of the emotion of "failure", and so you'd need an uncountable number of words to represent all of those. Or you just accept that it's a poor representation, to limit it to a finite number. Note that I'm not describing a grammatical structure here - I'm describing a vocabulary.
So, as cultures evolve, their vocabulary grows and grows, far past what's necessary for basic grammatical structure. We use words to expand our vocabulary (English, in particular, has an absolutely huge amount of words that most people never use, but which are very important if you want to express subtle nuances in language) - in that example, they used metaphors. So they still might have some basic grammatical structure, and a very basic language, but the complicated subtleties are expressed metaphorically.
It's not crazy, though some would say that it's unnecessarily complicated, which is probably true. But some could also argue that Kanji - Oriental pictographs - are also unnecessarily complicated compared to an alphabet, but they survived as well.
We can but hope that Berman gets cancelled. A quote attributed to Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: The Next Generation artist Andrew Probert opines that Berman doesn't know jack about scifi...
/. headline: Berman on Enterprise: "It's dead, Jim."
;-)
Personally, I think the mooted Friday-night slot is ironic, the final nail in the coffin. Anyone remember where classic Trek was put by the network for its third season before cancellation?
Yup. Friday night. When its core audience was out doing other things, the sort of things young people, young adults, do... if they'd had demographics back then, the advertisers would've run away in droves. (As it is, they didn't bring in the demographics til much later - and classic Trek proved, in syndication, to be an ideal show for the advertisers to hit certain groups.)
As an ex-Trekkie, all I can say is... roll on those Friday nights, I'm waiting to see the
(Or, admittedly, a clip of Dean Stockwell on the bridge, saying something like, "Uhh, Sam... you're not really a starship captain...")
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
but they all look and talk like us....
Well, they did introduce the "aquatics", which resemble sea mammals. The problem is that really weird aliens eat up the budget so they have to use them sparingly.
I suppose they could bring in Michael Jackson. *duck*
Table-ized A.I.
My gripe with this show is that it seems to be little more than a vehicle for leftist propaganda. It only makes a half-hearted attempt at being subtle in this regard. I was greatly concerned the first time I saw captain Archer whine at the Klingons. Playing the pussy diplomat may be consistent with modern euro-centric left-wing political ideology, but it just doesn't work in the real world, unless of course you're trying to get someone to attack you. The episode about AIDS, disguised as a vulcan mind disease, was particularly insulting. I don't know about you, but I've been fully aware of the AIDS epidemic for about 20 years now. I really don't need a TV show to preach to me about it.
What Enterprise needs to do is hire some of the writers from Farscape and wrest control away from the ideologues who think the show is there so they can propagandize.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I'm just saying I hope it's cancelled soon.
Then you shouldn't be offended when people call that mean spirited. You are wishing for something to be done that will not help you at all, but will hurt others. And if you are really wanting it to be canceled so that another, better Star Trek show replaces it, keep in mind that the worse this one does, the lower the chances there will be another (and the longer before it comes out). Instead, if you want another Star Trek, you should hope this one takes off and they will do the CSI/Law and Order thing and have them running multiple concurrent versions of the show.
Learn to love Alaska
I think it's well written, well casted, and I wouldn't mind seeing more of it.
It's improving. It's no longer the unmitigated disaster it once was. The episode a few weeks back where T'Pol was wrestling with her addiction was really nicely done, and it was the first one I ever thought that about. (The episodes since have been pretty good as well, for the most part.) I have to say, Jolene Blalock is sure nice to look at, but she's also really excellent as a vulcan, and specifically as a tormented vulcan, which has always seemed really tough to pull off. Even Leonard Nimoy, the original, seemed to force it whenever he was given the task of showing emotion.
I'm still not very into this whole Xindi plotline and I hope they'll do something more recognizable on the Trek timeline next season. But it does seem like the writers have finally started hitting their stride within the framework they've been given so far, the actors are fine (and in some cases excellent), I've gotten used to the show's "look", etc.
I guess I'm saying I'm happy it's coming back, which I wouldn't have been after last season. I just hope they create a plot arc next year that's a bit more Trek-like.
DS9 was the best series, hands down. Sisko, the main character, confessed to cold-blooded murder, and says to the camera that he'd do it again. Where else in trek have you seen that without some kind of sickening remorse trailer at the end with a huggy-huggy moral lesson?
You're attracted by the flashy graphics and dime-a-dozen half naked chicks. Fine. Some of us want that, and a decent storyline too. The fact that people like you are in the majority are the main factor contributing to the suckiness of trek today.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
I've got Tivo and so should everyone else.
They could run it at 4am Monday morning and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me. I wish more networks would figure that out. Heck, Hallmark is showing Magnum PI at 1 and 2am. Fine with me. In fact, that's better than a prime time slot because it doesn't interfere with anything else I may want to watch.
In my humble opinion, this is terrific news (if true). I love the show. I'm relieved that they haven't betrayed an interesting concept (like Voyager did after, oh, 5 episodes or so), but this self-contained Xindi/ Expanse season has allowed them to be more daring with tighter stories. And there's been some real character development and plausible ethical dilemmas.
And no, it hasn't contradicted Star Trek continuity- not that that really matters much.
I don't have any viewing figures to quote but I suspect that Enterprise is pretty popular here in the UK. Sky (satellite TV) shows it on Monday evenings at 8:00pm, repeated on Saturday at 3:00pm and Sunday at 7:00pm. Channel 4 (terrestrial TV) shows seasons several months later on Sunday afternoons as part of a string of programmes targetting teenagers, repeated (uncut) very late on a weeknight (TiVo!). Those sound like good time slots to me.
So, there may be vocal people in the USA who dislike Enterprise and it may be losing in ratings to reality TV and sitcoms (who would have thought that the Lowest Common Denominator would be so low and so common?), but that's not even close to the whole story.
We're lucky to have Enterprise on TV. If you want schedules to consist solely of Queer Eye For The World's Wackiest Survivor Idol Friends then carry on ignoring and/ or criticising Enterprise.