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UPN Renews 'Star Trek: Enterprise'

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the not-sure-if-thats-good-news-or-bad dept.

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..."

116 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. Good news... by jrj102 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, this is good news. Enterprise is not my favorite flavor of Trek, but it's better than nothing. Besides, there have been a couple good episodes this season.

    I'm sure some people would have revelled in an Enterprise cancellation... to them, I'd like to pose a question which always bugged me: if you don't like a show, you don't watch it, right? If you don't watch it why would it matter to you whether or not it is cancelled? It just seems so mean-spirited to wish for a show's cancellation-- over a hundred people lose their jobs as a result, and I'm not talking about high-paid actors, I'm talking about camera men, editors, janitors-- normal people. It's not fun losing a job, folks.

    Anyway... on with the flame fest.

    --
    jrjBlog
    1. Re:Good news... by digitalsushi · · Score: 5, Funny

      To boldly go ... and then stop briefly ... and then boldly go again, where no one has gone before!

      --
      slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
    2. Re:Good news... by yndrd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because some of us remember when Star Trek wasn't just an excuse to sell toys and keep "camera men, editors, and janitors" in jobs.

      Sure, it's always been a profit thing, but once there seemed to be some soul behind it, and watching the juggernaut limping into entropy is just depressing to those of us who had any emotional connection to previous incarnations of the show.

    3. Re:Good news... by DrEldarion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Good news... by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Agreed, it's become the thing to do to take pot shots at Enterprise around here. That's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Here's mine: Enterprise is getting better. Traditionally, Trek series hit their prime in season three, and this is no exception.

      As for Friday nights, well, that's what TiVo is for, right?

    5. Re:Good news... by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:Good news... by RatBastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    7. Re:Good news... by Syberghost · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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".

    8. Re:Good news... by LoadStar · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Well, this is good news. Enterprise is not my favorite flavor of Trek, but it's better than nothing. Besides, there have been a couple good episodes this season.

      I'm sure some people would have revelled in an Enterprise cancellation... to them, I'd like to pose a question which always bugged me: if you don't like a show, you don't watch it, right? If you don't watch it why would it matter to you whether or not it is cancelled? It just seems so mean-spirited to wish for a show's cancellation-- over a hundred people lose their jobs as a result, and I'm not talking about high-paid actors, I'm talking about camera men, editors, janitors-- normal people. It's not fun losing a job, folks.

      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*

    9. Re:Good news... by platos_beard · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, it may be worse than nothing, but its better than Voyager.

      --
      What's a sig?
    10. Re:Good news... by wiggles · · Score: 2, Funny

      hey were badly acted (from actors we KNOW can do better!)

      Yeah. And episodes 4-6 weren't "badly acted from actors we know can do better"?

      Do the words, "That's no moon. It's a space station!" mean anything to you?

      We used to play a Star Wars drinking game in college. Every time you heard Luke whine, you drank. Man did we get plowed.

    11. Re:Good news... by jrj102 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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
    12. Re:Good news... by yndrd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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."

    13. Re:Good news... by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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):

      • Measure of a Man (TNG - Individual Rights)
      • Symbiosis (TNG - Drug Addiction)
      • The Drumhead (TNG - Kangaroo Court run amok - scary when you consider what's going on nowadays)
      • Who Watches the Watchers (TNG - Religion)
      • The Hunted (TNG - Veterans Rights)
      • The High Ground (TNG - Terrorism)
      • Devil's Due (TNG - Religion/myth busting again)
      • The Masterpiece Society (TNG - Genetic enhancement/engineering)

      I'd also point out the good storyline based episodes:

      • Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG - Federation at the height of a losing war -- probably the model that DS9 used for the last two years of it's run)
      • Sarek (TNG - Picard has to absorb the emotions of Sarak -- a great acting performance by Stewart)
      • Family (TNG - Followup to Picard's trauma inflicted by the Borg - no reset button like Voyager)
      • The Wounded (TNG - Mission to stop another Federation officer who lost his family from getting revenge)
      • Darmok (TNG - Attempt to communicate with an alien race - probably my favorite episode of Trek ever made)
      • The Inner Light (TNG - Picard lives a lifetime as a member of another race - probably the second best episode of Trek ever)
      • Relics (TNG - Scottie's comeback!)
      • Chain of Command (TNG - Picard is captured and tortured by Cardassians - another fine performance by Stewart)
      • All Good Things (TNG - Humanity's limitless potential is revealed - what better way to end the series?)

      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.
    14. Re:Good news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ok, naming that many episodes of a show long gone "off the top of my head in 5 minutes at the office", you seriously need to get outside more.

    15. Re:Good news... by Oliver+Wendell+Jones · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Darmok (TNG - Attempt to communicate with an alien race - probably my favorite episode of Trek ever made)

      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?

      --
      A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
    16. Re:Good news... by Fizzol · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >Or is part of your opinion that if you don't like it, no one else should watch it either? Some people wrap up too much ego into their opinion. Which comes out as wishing for cancellation of shows they claim they don't watch. I stopped going to the Trek Today boards because of this kind of nonsense. The hatred of Enterprise there was almost pathological.

    17. Re:Good news... by The_K4 · · Score: 2, Informative

      And Kirk's Dead son was the drug addict in "Symbiosis" and Dr. Polaski was one of 3 times she was on The Original Enterprise....oh wait, actors some times plany different parts!?!??!

    18. Re:Good news... by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ok, naming that many episodes of a show long gone "off the top of my head in 5 minutes at the office", you seriously need to get outside more.

      I get outside all the time now. I never got outside when TNG was on. To this day I can tell you the episode name with about 10-15 seconds of footage from anywhere within the episode.

      Yes, that's kind of sad but that's how much I loved that show. It was (in my minority opinion I'm sure) the best overall television show ever. I believe that the last episode was the most watched series finale since M.A.S.H. (though I'm sure Friends probably beat it). Anyone have any sites about this? I tried finding a list of the ratings share of finale episodes when Friends went off the air (because I had believed that TNG was the biggest overall after M.A.S.H. -- and they didn't mention either of them) but was unable to do so.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    19. Re:Good news... by Daemonik · · Score: 4, Funny

      Shaaka - When the warp core breached.
      Shaaka - When he soiled himself.

    20. Re:Good news... by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are obviously plenty of people who DO like it

      The only people who matter are the advertisers. They're the true customers of T.V.

      Viewers control T.V. only through a distant and hardly measurable relationship between network's profits from ad-space, which might, just barely, be influenced by viewer's tendencies to purchase corporate brands when they've seen them on T.V.

      So it is entirely possible that nobody likes it, and the advertisers perceive it to be a set of palatable stories to wrap around their corporate messages.

    21. Re:Good news... by hummassa · · Score: 2, Funny

      > How could you teach a course in warp propulsion dynamics, for example?

      Bulinko walked together in the den with Linia.
      The sons of Bukits stared and they went to the house of Mirkos.
      Shizuko - when Tirbuk got Tewerkal in the Sea of Lurkis.

      (translation: when the subspace fields takes the shell shape, and their frequency is 16 millicochranes, then the warp factor will surpass the next integer number and the energy intake will stabilize)

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    22. Re:Good news... by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I'm just saying I hope it's cancelled soon.
      gee, that's pretty pessimistic of you - I hope it improves instead.
      (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

    23. Re:Good news... by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.
    24. Re:Good news... by Kanon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm guessing that people would rather the money spent on a show they didn't like was being spent on something they did like. A good Star Trek show for instance.

    25. Re:Good news... by Otto · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.
    26. Re:Good news... by dnoyeb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    27. Re:Good news... by BLAMM! · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here's one for ya. Mark Lenard, aka Sarek, was the only person (IIRC) to play a Vulcan, a Romulan, *and* a Klingon in TOS. Now there's a guy who gets around. :)

    28. Re:Good news... by Mr.+Neutron · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "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
    29. Re:Good news... by barawn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    30. Re:Good news... by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful


      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.
    31. Re:Good news... by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Why call for anybody to silence their opinions about anything? "

      The following is meant in a general sense, as opposed to talking specifically about this particular case:

      - Lots of opinions are from people who either haven't watched the show, or only watched an episode here and there. That, in and of itself, isn't so bad. However, if I were to present the same complaint about a show they really liked, I'd suddenly be the ill-informed jerk.

      - A good chunk of the opinions have been discussed ad-nauseum already. For example, somebody in this particular story made a comment that they hated the song, and was modded as +5 insightful for it. Uh, right, there's a dead horse that needs to be beaten again.

      - The negative opinions calling for the cancellation of the show aren't helping anybody in any way. What's UPN going to put in Enterprise's place? Farscape? Firefly? Uh, no. They have so many crappy shows on that network that cancelling Enterprise won't make room for some new big yay show. The most likely circumstance is we'll get another Jake 2.0. In the mean time, there is a significant number of people who enjoy the show and have a vested interest in its success, like those of us in the CG industry. (I'm not specifically trying to argue with you here, but if you were to come back with a beneficial reason why it should be cancelled, I'd consider what you said and maybe even withdraw this particular comment.)

      Valid opinions are one thing, but if you imagine that somebody's opinion will suddenly change the show (like the cancellation of it), then the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" philosophy does apply. Why cancel it when you can just not watch it?

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    32. Re:Good news... by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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
    33. Re:Good news... by badasscat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    34. Re:Good news... by dsanfte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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
    35. Re:Good news... by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Kirk would always bend the Federation rules for good moral reasons, the same goes for Picard. It seems like the Archer character will do anything to accomplish his mission, morals be damned.

      What rules? As Enterprise was being planned, the theory was that all those rules haven't been written yet... and the reason they WILL be written is to prevent reoccurences of mistakes Archer will make.

  2. Theme Song by crapnutassneck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please tell me they are leaving that dreadful theme song behind.

    --
    .-=Wit is educated insolence=-. -Aristotle
    1. Re:Theme Song by One+Louder · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I still mash down the Mute button on the remote everytime that ridiculous theme song comes on. I have no idea what they thought they were doing - alluding to the use of "Magic Carpet Ride" in one of the STTNG movies perhaps?

      What's more strange is that they knew how much people hated it and not only didn't replace it, but somehow made it even *worse* in season 3 by adding a drum track.

    2. Re:Theme Song by Skater · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm gonna go out on a limb: I think the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series. It captures the mood of the series perfectly. The first time I heard it I didn't like it, but then as I watched the opening sequence again I realized what they were trying to do and how well the song fit.

      All good art is controversial. ;)

      --RJ

    3. Re:Theme Song by Paulrothrock · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It's a valid complaint. TNG, DS9 and Voyager had wonderful symphonic themes, that were themes for the rest of the musical score in the show. Enterprise has horrible music. Rod Stewart has as much to do with Star Trek as Snoop Doggy Dogg.

      Dammit, now Gin and Juice will be the theme for the next series.

      DAMN YOU BERMAN!!!

      --
      I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
    4. Re:Theme Song by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Slashdot: where if enough people agree, your opinion can be wrong.

      --

      I write in my journal
    5. Re:Theme Song by DrEldarion · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dammit, now Gin and Juice will be the theme for the next series.

      These are the voyages of the starship Escalade...

    6. Re:Theme Song by chfriley · · Score: 5, Informative

      >the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series

      I agree it is good, but it wasn't written for the series. ;-)

      It was on the Patch Adams soundtrack in 1998. (They re-recorded it for Enterprise and I like the re-recording better than the Rod Stewart version).

    7. Re:Theme Song by The+Ultimate+Fartkno · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...its five year mission, to style and profile, to seek out new sources of bitches and money, to boldly go where no pimp has gone before. /cue visual FX of "The Star Ship Enterprizzle," newly pimped out by West Coast Customs (drop down LCD screen!), as it slowly cruises past a planet. Snoop blasts from the racks of interstellar subs mounted on the rear decks, and the neon mounted on the underside of the ship casts a funky purple glow across the planet's surface.

    8. Re:Theme Song by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Please tell me they are leaving that dreadful theme song behind."

      There's an FAQ out there for the cartoon series Transformers. If you read the FAQ, there's a question about an acronym (the term of it escapes me at the moment) that defined an argument that would never disappear. There were two characters that were physically very similar, just different colors. (Rumble and ... Frenzy I think? The little tape dude whose arms turned into smashy things...) In the cartoon, the blue one was Rumble, and the black one was the other dude whose name I can't recall. In the comic book, the colors were reversed. The comic book people thought they were right, the cartoon people thought they were right. Result? A never-ending argument that just wound people up for no good reason.

      Every time somebody mentions the Enterprise theme-song, I think of that FAQ. Why? Because the color of that particular Decepticon doesn't mean a damn thing to the show or the comic book. Everybody's right, yet it still goes absolutely nowhere. It's just some point for people to butt heads on.

    9. Re:Theme Song by GrouchoMarx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm gonna go out on a limb: I think the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series. It captures the mood of the series perfectly. The first time I heard it I didn't like it, but then as I watched the opening sequence again I realized what they were trying to do and how well the song fit.

      I'll admit I loathe it less than I did when the show first started. However, it's still a dumb song, and it actually got WORSE with season 3. Not because of the "jazzing up" of the music, but because they changed the premise of the show!

      The musical style doesn't fit Trek. The video sequence, however, fits perfectly. That's good. The first half or so of the lyrics do sort of fit the idea for the first two seasons. (Vulcans won't stop us from getting out in to space like my daddy wanted me to, yee haw! --John Archer) The second half ("faith of the heart" repeated over and over again) is just plain dumb, and also doesn't fit Trek.

      But then Berman decided that exploring and defying the Vulcans by being all exploration-like "wasn't big enough". So instead, let's throw in a terrorist plot (it's the in thing) and then rip off a 1980s computer game (no one will remember it) after wasting a third of season 2 building up the Klingons and doing nothing with it (because it's like, we can say Duras a lot, Trekkies know that name, right?). And then we keep the theme music that no longer is even tangentially related to the overall plot arc of season 3!

      That makes about as much sense as anything else Berman has done. That is to say, none. Fire Berman and his team and hire some REAL writers (DC Fontana, Diane Duane, Diane Carey, Peter David, all old Trek hands who "got it"), and maybe Trek will start not-sucking again.

      --

      --GrouchoMarx
      Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?

    10. Re:Theme Song by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Funny
      that dreadful theme song
      I think the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series. It captures the mood of the series perfectly.

      Yes, the dreadfull theme song does indeed capture the mood of the series perfectly ;-)
      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    11. Re:Theme Song by PMuse · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Next poll: Best Space Show Theme Song:

      Babylon 5 - Christopher Franke

      Battlestar Galactica - Stu Phillips

      Buck Rogers - Stu Phillips

      Doctor Who - Ron Grainer

      Farscape - SubVision

      Firefly - Josh Whedon

      Futurama - Danny Elfman

      Red Dwarf - Howard Goodall

      ST:DS9 - Dennis McCarthy

      ST:Enterprise - Diane Warren

      ST:TOS - Alexander Courage

      Stargate - David Arnold & Joel Goldsmith

      I Wanna Be a Cowboy Neal - Boys Don't Cry

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
    12. Re:Theme Song by Torqued · · Score: 2, Funny

      Has anyone else noticed the rather phallic imagery of the Saturn V launch just as Jolene Blalock's name is displayed? :)

    13. Re:Theme Song by jbuilder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They re-recorded it because of dollars.

      Rod Stewart gets paid for each time his version of the song is played. He costs MUCH more than Russell Watson does...

      --
      Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
  3. Friday night? What are they, crazy? by The+I+Shing · · Score: 5, Funny

    We just know how Star Trek fans are all out paintin' the town red on Friday nights.

    What UPN should do is just send small cheap TV sets to every collectible card shop in the country, so fans of the series can watch the show while playing Magic: The Gathering in the back.

    While they're at it, they should send some Red Bull and Cheetos, too.

    --
    You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
    1. Re:Friday night? What are they, crazy? by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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...

    2. Re:Friday night? What are they, crazy? by AviLazar · · Score: 2, Funny

      VCR's man, VCR's (yes I could record my shows on my computer, or download them, but I prefer watching my movies/shows on TV with my nice BOSE surround sound speaker system) :)

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    3. Re:Friday night? What are they, crazy? by sTalking_Goat · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Rofl.

      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...

    4. Re:Friday night? What are they, crazy? by fireduck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  4. why? by untermensch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:why? by yabos · · Score: 2

      Yeah, Voyager took a while to get good and for Janeway to drop the stone wall act(somewhat atleast). Hopefully they won't kill the show off and blam low ratings because they moved it to a bad night.

    2. Re:why? by Geek_3.3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let me preface all this by saying that I've barely watched ANY of Enterprise. Looking back on ALL Trek-related series (heck, any series worth mentioning in general, actually), they all pretty muched sucked UNTIL about 3rd season or so. Look back on TNG--HORRIBLE overacting until the character's got settled.

      Who knows--maybe it's just gonna take Enterprise another season to pull out of the tailspin...

    3. Re:why? by red+floyd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did DS9 have a babe in a skin tight suit?

      Four Words:

      Jadzia Dax
      Kira Nerys

      (or alternatively)

      Terry Farrell
      Nana Visitor

      --
      The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
    4. Re:why? by red+floyd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry to reply to myself, but two more words as well...

      Chase Masterson

      --
      The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
  5. Wonderful! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm sure all 3 fans will be happy

  6. Friday isn't the worst of their troubles by proverbialcow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Friday isn't the worst of their troubles by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Informative

      UPN in part suffers from being related to CBS in the company food chain. All truely good shows go to CBS, UPN has to eat from the leftovers.

  7. Re:Enterprise will be back by neoform · · Score: 2, Insightful

    don't watch it then.

    --
    MABASPLOOM!
  8. Fridays at 10? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is how NBC killed ST:TOS...

  9. UPN has holes on Friday night... by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fridays are definitely a death slot on the UPN network. Many UPN affiliates, even some the network owns, have Friday-heavy packages to air games from the local MLB team. Stations affected include...

    Boston's WSBK "UPN 38" which airs "Friday Night Baseball" Red Sox Games nearly every Friday night in the season.
    Connecticut's WCTX "UPN 8" is part of the Mets broadcast network.
    Seattle's KSTW "UPN 11" is the flagship of the Mariners broadcast network.

    In short, it's hard to get anything to work on UPN Fridays during the start of the TV station because about a quarter of the network just plain falls apart on any given Friday night due to baseball coverage when its in season.

  10. How am I going to program my VCR now by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 2

    If Enterprise, Joan of Arcadia, and Andromeda all share the same time slot?

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  11. In other news... by jht · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thousands of Enterprise fans will, after celebrating, move back into their parents' basements to plot their next letter campaign.

    But first, a celebratory all-night Magic: The Gathering game! Bring on the dancing girls! (oh, wait...)

    --
    -- Josh Turiel
    "2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
  12. Really has become a great show by armentage · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Really has become a great show by Fearless+Freep · · Score: 2, Funny

      So it's become a Soap Opera for lonely geeks?

    2. Re:Really has become a great show by Mad+Marlin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While TNG did have some good episodes, it would be easy to beat it. About half of the episodes were so liberal-preachy that it made me want to puke, and about half of the episodes involved no real plot except some piece of technology breaking (transporter, holodeck, etc.) (yes I know that doesn't leave any room left for good shows in my numbers, there is overlap between those two sets). The main thing about TNG, and even more so with the original Star Trek, is that you had what actually seemed like real interaction among the cast. You got the feeling that Kirk, McCoy and Spock were real people, and were actually friends; the same holds true with the TNG crew. On Enterprise, there really hasn't been any character development at all. I have watched most of the series, but couldn't really tell you anything about any of the characters, and can just barely remember their names. That is its real problem.

      --
      Best Slashdot comment ever
  13. It will still be 11:00 Friday for me by AtariAmarok · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This one has always been a struggle to watch. Our local Fox affiliate has a "secondary" affiliate relationship with UPN, which means that they show a few UPN shows at odd times, and the cable company would be fined if they brought in an actual UPN affiliate.

    So it is shown usually at 11:00 pm Friday, but sometimes the Fox station moves it without telling anyone. Not only that, they replace the "next episode" teaser with ads for their own WWE shows. I hope someday that CBS shuts down UPN and moves the couple/few UPN shows worth saving to the regular CBS schedule.

    This Fox affiliate actually showed the UPN show "Dilbert" only at 1:00 AM Sunday morning. I kind of wanted to see that one.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  14. Incredibly common with Star Trek by Killswitch1968 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  15. However, in an attempt to "UPN it up..." by The+Ultimate+Fartkno · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...the ship's comm officer will now be played by Mo'Nique, who will bring her distinctive brand of head-swiveling, big booty jokes, and "You go girl!" onboard to make the Enterprise the funkiest space trip ever! Also joining the cast will be Erik-Michael Estrada of the smash pop group O-Town. The jokes will be 'out of this world' as Erik-Michael asks the captain if they can put hydraulics on the ship or at least get a "La Raza" license plate frame. The new captain of the ship will be played by the whitest man alive - Al Gore. He can't dance and his slang is busted, but he can get them through all the interstellar police stops!

    Come join the cerebral fun on UPN!

    1. Re:However, in an attempt to "UPN it up..." by dr_dank · · Score: 5, Funny

      To boldizzly goizzle wherizzle no mizzle hizzle goizzle befizzle.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    2. Re:However, in an attempt to "UPN it up..." by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, I can think of a scenario involving Seven of Nine arriving on the enterprise.

  16. What choice did UPN have? by digitalamish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  17. The real answer is simple... by Torgo's+Pizza · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Renew Enterprise. Cancel Berman and Braga.

  18. Sci-fi fans in general... by badboy_tw2002 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can never be happy. Stay with me on this one before you hit that mod button :). Basically either you have shows people liked that get cancelled in their prime, thus to be lauded forever as the best show ever if only it had been able to reach its potential...

    OR

    You have them where they go on too long and thus should have been cancelled long ago. Thus you have purists that only recognize seasons 2,3,5, but not 4 where they went to that alternate dimension, what were they thinking!.

    I guess this can be said for most shows, but it seems to apply more to scifi for some reasons. I think really only Babylon 5 went out on the perfect note, mainly because thats when it was supposed to happen.

    1. Re:Sci-fi fans in general... by HeghmoH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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!
  19. Damn by RoderickMcDougall · · Score: 5, Funny

    There goes my hopes for the return of Quantum Leap :)

  20. Re:Conservation of Television by jrj102 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I doubt that's true: I would venture a guess that it takes at least twice as many people (and 5 times as much money, which goes into the economy through special effects shops, etc.) to make an episode of Enterprise than it does to make an episode of "Who Wants to Marry a One-legged Garbage man with a Flattulance problem?"

    It's not quite a zero-sum game. :)

    --
    jrjBlog
  21. Re:What's wrong with Friday? by Uhlek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  22. NOOOOO! by inmodulo · · Score: 2, Funny
    Now I will have to wait till saturday morning to get Enterprise on bittorent. Oh the humanity

    P.S. I think series three is superb ( if a little slow at times) but I still have withdrawel symptoms from lack of my FireFly Fix.

  23. original Star Trek killed by moving to Fridays by peter303 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The original Star Trek series ratings fell when it was moved from Thursday night to Friday night the second year. It lost much of the teenage male crowd.

  24. hey, good timing! by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since both Andromeda & Mutant X have been cancelled, Enterprise can hire those excellent writers to improve the show. Perfect. (I kid! :)

    Oh, plus Enterprise should hire more babes - the babes of those two shows (especially Lexa Doig, the hacker 'Cowgirl' herself!) would certainly improve ratings.

    When the 'new Trek' concept was being worked on, it was apparently down to two concepts - the 'pre-Federation' concept (which we got), and a more military-themed one about a Starfleet strike force of some type, with lots of fighting. Let me tell ya - Enterprise got a lot better right after they added more fighting (and a military team aboard Enterprise, which they've totally wasted so far). It seems obvious that they chose the wrong concept.

    Though I do like what they've been doing with T'Pol, but they've basically eliminated Hoshi and others this season, which is too bad. I certainly like this collection of characters more than those of any of the other Treks, as a whole. DS9 had a _really_ annoying cast of characters. (Okay, I loved Ezri just too damned much!)

  25. Swell by GrouchoMarx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    More opportunity for Rick Berman to urinate on Roddenberry's vision.

    I know it's cool to knock Enterprise, but I've been knocking Berman since long before it was cool. :-) The man just doesn't understand what Roddenberry created, and now he's trying to compete head on with other Sci Fi or with the memory of Babylon 5. Is it any wonder Star Trek has been in a downward spiral for the past 10 years?

    Enterprise's ratings weren't good enough "just exploring" (and as they were doing a poor job of it I'm not surprised), so instead they spent a third of season 2 building up a relationship with the Klingons only to drop it at the last second to run off on a blatant 9/11-inspired warmed over mini-epic. (And stolen from a 1980s Star Trek computer game for the Commodore 64 called "Star Trek: Rebel Universe".) Everything about it is predictable, from the plot right down to the characters involved. And of course there's no tension, because we all know (since it's a prequel) that Earth isn't going to be destroyed.

    Of course, Berman isn't pitching to people who know Star Trek, he's pitching to 20-somethings that the beancounters like to pitch to. Of course, those people don't watch Star Trek BECAUSE it's Star Trek. Don't alienate your existing fan base to go after a new one that doesn't want you.

    Of course, after this season's finale, then what? Go back to exploring? Yeah, that will help ratings now that they've said that exploring "isn't big enough". Throw in another huge season-long pseudo-epic plot thread to further destroy the timeline? I don't know what they're going to do.

    On the one hand, it's Trek, yay, there will be more. On the other, this isn't the Trek I grew up on (TNG and reruns of TOS), and I wouldn't greatly miss it.

    Although moving the show to Friday night means that it won't be lasting much longer. That is how NBC killed the original series, after all.

    --

    --GrouchoMarx
    Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?

    1. Re:Swell by cdipierr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  26. Try merge the storyline with the TOS timeline. by wongqc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What I would love to see next season, is more on the Klingons, the Romulans....the Vulcans. How the war between the humans and the Klingons came about....The formation of the federation, Invention of tractor beams, shields....

    In short, try to channel the story to the TOS timeline.

  27. Friday Might be good by Stubtify · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  28. Not just Firefly fans by Our+Man+In+Redmond · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Those of us who were around for Star Trek: The Original Series remember that, after NBC was forced to renew ST:TOS thanks to the massive letter-writing campaign, they moved the show from its original 8:30 time slot (Thursdays the first season, Fridays the second) to Fridays at 10 PM, thereby ensuring that the show would never make it to a fourth season because that time slot was a ratings graveyard.

    Today with VCRs and TiVos abounding fans of the show will probably be able to catch it no matter when it airs, but still, couldn't they have found a better time slot? Seems to me it's sort of like being in a half-empty movie theater and choosing to sit in the worst seat possible.

    --
    Someone you trust is one of us.
  29. My solution to Fridays... by CokoBWare · · Score: 2, Funny

    I have one word that can save the Friday timeslot...

    PVR

    Actually, that's three words... but seriously, it's the only way I get to watch Enterprise as it is...

  30. Not a big problem by sleeperservice · · Score: 2, Informative

    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..."

    Doesn't every self-respecting 'Enterprise' fan just TIVO it anyway?

  31. Why do stations try to cancel good shows? by stealth.c · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Enterprise never appealed that much to me, but apparently there are some very intense fans and there must be a good reason for that.

    Firefly didn't float my boat either, but I seem to recall it getting good reviews.

    Farscape was constantly gaining new fans for its four year run. And I paid really close attention to the events surrounding Farscape. It was the show that pulled SCIFI out of relative obscurity among cable stations, their most popular show, yet they tried like hell to get it canceled. They jerked its time slot around when they stopped liking it, surrounded it with lackluster programming (Invisible Man being an exception), and as far as advertising goes, did their best to pretend it didn't exist.

    Looks like the same thing is happening with Enterprise. The devoted fans (basically a captive audience for advertisers, read: A GOOD THING) saved the show it appears, and yet the network is screwing up its time slot to drive its popularity down. If you don't want to air the show, just fsckin' say so and send it to another network.

    Is there a petition out there to bring back the NextGen crew for another few movies? ST:TNG was some of the best Trek ever.

  32. renewal by WP+Mayhew · · Score: 4, Interesting


    I for one am glad that Enterprise will be renewed. I've never owned any ST merchandise much less been to a convention, but I have watched all the Star Trek series and I liked having them around.

    I agree that Enterprise is not perfect, but show me a Star Trek series that was?

    TOS had more than a few god-awful episodes (e.g. And the Children shall lead, Miri, Charlie X (title?).

    TNG started out very shakily IMHO as the actors/writers settled into the characters (e.g. Picard wasn't quite yet his reserved and commanding self, and Worf just snarled at everything); and for the length of the series you had many fans screaming about any episode which Troi or Wesley starred in.

    DS9 was pretty good, though I think the situation is somewhat comparable with Enterprise in that the show, IMHO, has a stronger and more interesting supporting cast than the 'starring' captain.

    Voyager had a lot of well-known problems.

    Perfect shows are rare - enjoy your favorite parts of this one and hope the other parts get better.

  33. End of this Season... by caldroun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have to say that towards the end of this season it has kept my interest. I was starting to tire of the whole story arc with the xindi, but the story has picked up steam. I am glad it is staying.

    I liked that in some aspects that Archer was willing to set his P.C. outlook on some things to get stuff done.

    BTW:I don't care what night it is on, that is why I have Tivo.

    --
    "If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
  34. Good by gfxguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I like the show, although I am annoyed that they've already resorted to time travel. I thought they'd already figured out that that's when the other shows started going down hill.

    I'd also like them to take a more X-Files approach, where you mix the continuing storyline with single standalone episodes. I think they've concentrated too much on the Xindi (?). If you don't like that storyline, the whole season's been a wash, and while I like the storyline, it's just been going on too long.

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  35. Temporal Cold War? by tbmaddux · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone remember that? The Suliban and all that? What happened to it?

    --
    Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
  36. ObFamilyGuyQuote by UdoKeir · · Score: 2, Funny

    Chris Griffin: Where do you think you go when you die?
    Southern boy: I learned from church that if you're good you go to heaven but if you're bad, you go to a place where the dead believe they're still living and they pray for death but death won't come.
    Chris Griffin: UPN?

  37. Re:Forget Andromeda... it's gone now by weslocke · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, it seems to have been saved (although they haven't released who did it or how yet)

    Taken from www.andromedatv.com (The official site)

    Kevin Sorbo Excited About
    Andromeda's Fifth Season

    Kevin Sorbo expressed his enthusiasm for the fifth season of Gene Roddenbery's Andromeda Wednesday, saying that he is looking forward to working once again with the program's tremendously talented cast, and fleshing out new adventures as Capt. Dylan Hunt.

    "I think the show is going in a great direction, and that the fans will find it interesting to see how Dylan handles the next round of challenges that come his way. It's great to be back with a cast that's so professional and fun to work with."

    Tribune Entertainment Vice President of Programming Bill Hamm says it will be a season that no sci-fi fan should miss.

    "It's going to be a thrilling and exciting new adventure -- one that I'm sure will keep fans of Dylan and the crew glued to the screen."

    Be sure to catch Season Five of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, every Friday on the Sci-Fi Channel at 8:00pm starting Sept. 24. Fans can also catch year five of the Andromeda's adventures in syndication beginning the week of Sept. 27 -- check local listings.

    and from the (soon to be closed) official forums

    Sorbonut broke the news first, but Ashley Edward Miller over at Ex Isle confirmed it: S5 starts production this month. And a bonus: he and Zack Stentz have sold a freelance script for S5 (possibly the fourth episode of the season). So if nothing else, we've got one goodie coming... :)

    --

    'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
  38. Re:Good news... man... by beanluc · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Dude abides...

    the Dude abides.

    Don't take it personally. It's not like DrEldarion or the Enterprise producers peed on your rug.

    I'd be upset if Enterprise were cancelled... for me, JoJo Bla-Lo really ties the room together

    Anyway, nobody told you to silence your opinion. We just have an OPINION about how awesome it is ... not.

    --
    Say it right: "Nuc-le-ah Powah".
  39. StarGate SG-1 puts any StarTrek to complete shame by alain · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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

  40. The ST series I want to see. by soldeed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Personally, I find the usual format of star trek (one captain/crew/ship) limiting. After all there is supposed to be an entire FLEET of ships zooming around the galaxy, but it seems there is ever only ONE ship having interesting adventures. I would like to see a anthology ST series, sort of like the old Police stories series where you feature a different ship/crew every week (or two). You could use the premise of history lessons at starfleet academy to set up each episode and tie the series together. It could be called 'Star fleet chronicles' or some such. Of course, whatever type of series they make, they need better, more imaginative scripts, that aren't retreads of the same old tired themes. (time travel, alien possesion, ect.) That and I wish they paid more attention to continuity. I don't read Star Trek novels, because they have nothing to do with series or movie cannon.

  41. Geeks everywhere in shock by AwesomeJT · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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. :)

    --
    SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
  42. Ironic news, more like... by Chalybeous · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

    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 /. headline: Berman on Enterprise: "It's dead, Jim."

    (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

  43. Lack of fan interest by AtariAmarok · · Score: 3, Informative
    "Indeed, i too wondered what happend with the Suliban."

    I think it was lack of fan interest. The Tal..er Suliban did not impress anyone the way they had hoped, so they were pulled. The same thing happend with the Ferengi in ST:TNG. Roddenberry expected them to be the major adversaries of the entire series, but once these snarling barely-sentient Perot's saw the light of day no-one was impressed and they too were pretty much phased out until they were re-tooled for DS9.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  44. My gripe with Enterprise by leereyno · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:My gripe with Enterprise by wwest4 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > My gripe with this show is that it seems to be little more than a vehicle for
      > leftist propaganda.

      The two examples you cite aren't left-right issues. Interventionism vs. isolationism is usually polarizing, but liberals and conservatives alternate positions regarding this issue depending on the circumstances. You need only to compare the circumstances surrounding the first world wars and the current nid for expansion of the Pax Americana. In that sense, maybe Enterprise writers are just isolationists, and not necessarily liberals.

      On the other hand, things like "righteous" violence, pre-emptive strikes, and torture are routinely used and even glorified on current Trek episodes. I'd say pacifism, opposition to institutional violence and abhorrence of first-strike policies are fundamentally liberal, and Trek tramples on these ideas regularly in favor of a more bloodlusty rhetoric.

      The AIDS analog was clearly pro-secularist, but again that doesn't necessarily make it liberal propaganda. Even conservative champ Bill O'Reilly, when talking about his stance as an independent, talks about secularism and liberalism as separate (evil) causes, and I think he's essentially correct regarding their separation. Take Turkey - they have a secularist government that is also pretty conservative (right-wing) on the authoritarian axis.

    2. Re:My gripe with Enterprise by leereyno · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why was the US attacked on September 11th instead of say, Italy, Belgium or Germany? The reasons are simple.

      First of all, we matter when it comes to what goes on in the world. Europe is stuck in this fantasy of their own continued relevance much the same way that many in Britian didn't understand that their empire was gone after WW-II. Europe believes in limp-wristed diplomacy because they live in an artificial bubble created by US military power. the same could be said of much of the first world. If anyone went after Japan the US seventh fleet would give them an "edjumacation." If anyone picked on Canada we'd probably bomb them into the stone age because some of us remember that Canada was right there with us on D-day. The same goes for Australia for that matter. So many citizens of first world nations forget that the reason they haven't had to worry about being invaded and conquered by a foreign aggressor, like say the Soviet Union, is because the US has been there to back them up. This lapse in memory and judgement has persisted for so long that some have even fallen prey to the fantasy that military power isn't relevant anymore. History has a name for such people, it calls them victims.

      The second reason why we were attacked is that we back Israel. From what I understand Israel is hated in Europe, which may be more a case of anti-semitism than anything else, it is hard to say. In any case the islamic terrorists are smart enough to know that Europe doesn't like Israel much more than they do.

      Third, and this is most important, the islamic terrorists were not afraid of us. Why? Because for 8 years the Clinton administration didn't do a damned thing about them. Terrorists, led by an Iraqi intelligence officer, attempted to topple the world trade center in '93. What did we do? We pretended it was a criminal justice issue. Our embassy was bombed and what did we do? Nothing really. The Cole had a big hole blown into it and what did we do? Wringed our hands and pretended that we were working with Yemen to find the people responsible. In short we did the very thing I found fault with Archer's character for, we showed weakness. The surest way to encourage an aggressor is to show weakness. I remember after the 9/11 attacks there were all these dizzy idiots asking why the terrorists hated us so much. The truth is that while it doesn't matter, the reason they hate us because we represent everything they are not and will likely never be. Trying to win the love of a people who resent us is both futile and foolish. First because it won't work, and second because it doesn't matter if they like us or not. The only thing that matters is whether they fear us or not. Fear is a more constant emotion than love. Love waxes and wanes with mood and the seaons. Fear, especially if it is reinforced periodically by reminding them of why they should fear us, is a wonderfully effective tool for peace. Had the islamic world been scared shitless of us we never would have been attacked. It was Clinton's foreign policy failures that led to 9/11, not anything we "neo-con USian cowboys" did.

      Lee

      --
      Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
  45. Yes. by hummassa · · Score: 2, Funny

    That is why only one other person knows what means "toteo sabetendo unforgiven never shines as the sun butt but I can shine as the bright white on black leather and blue velvet in the kitchen of the house of the Rose Lords that keeps Kathleen Turner, Cybill Shepard, Gillian Anderson, Natalie Portman, Jessica Alba and Jolene Blalock in my bed tonight".

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  46. Clay Aiken!!! by simetra · · Score: 2, Funny
    Measure of a Man (TNG - Individual Rights)


    I KNEW Clay Aiken was a Trekkie!!!!!!

    That would explain his apparent asexuality and lack of biceps.


    Thanks, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
  47. Backin on UP! by Lotharjade · · Score: 2, Interesting

    BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!!
    Don't forget backing up to the kiss of death fridays.

    I think that wouldn't be so bad if they used an airing system like ADULTSWIM on cartoon network. They run a show three times a night and their timing lets them catch all the night owls. If UPN replayed the show say at 1am and 3am they would catch everyone coming in from a night of fun. Drunks like scifi too!

    --
    Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
  48. Two things UPN needs to do now... by TheABomb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    to no longer be the "Unwatchable Programmes Network":

    1. Let (read: force) LeVar Burton direct as many episodes as his schedule will allow, and

    2. Get Wil Wheaton to guest-star.

    --
    MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
  49. Time/date is irrelevant. by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  50. Berman and Braga, Berman and Braga by unsigned+integer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I see this over and over, again and again in these posts.

    Can anyone provide some factual, documented, examples of why these two are the BANE of the ST universe?

  51. From a UK perspective... by DuncMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.