UPN Officially Cancels 'Star Trek: Enterprise'

Tycoon Guy writes "It's official now: UPN has decided to cancel 'Enterprise.' The show's series finale, which may feature Jonathan Frakes (William T. Riker) and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), will air on Friday the 13th of May. The show's fate was probably sealed when last Friday's episode reached only 2.5 million viewers - but even so, the people at EnterpriseFans.com are still trying to raise money for a fan campaign to save the show."

Comments

Bummer

[NanoGator]

I enjoyed the show. But if people weren't watching it, then all I can really say is 'farewell'.

Hmm maybe now we'll get that Star Trek: Titan show that was rumored to be about Captain Riker and the fall of the Federation....

Re:Bummer

[Rick the Red]

I'm still waiting for the series set at Starfleet Academy, with Picard as the Headmaster, and My Favorite Martian as the gardner. Well, OK, he's dead. But still, wouldn't it be cool having a whole academy full of disposible characters (students) to die at the hands of of their fellow classmates in horrible science experiments gone wrong, or fatal navigation errors while on internships, or in illegal flying stunts, or...

Damn them.

[BrookHarty]

While the show started out as poor, its gotten better and it now upto TNG in quality. The problem they have, is some people tuned out, and lost viewers.

Instead of working on it, and keeping the show going, they cancel. Where are the 2 hour specials to bring back viewers? They havnt tried shit, other than canceling. The whole idea of a gritter time is great, thats what made Firefly kick ass.

Really tired of all the networks canceling shows and putting reality crap, or fucking with good content. SciFi at least has Stargate and Atlantis. G4 fucked over TechTV, its a poor shell of the show it once was. B5 had many spinoffs, and possible

Last week episode showed how much the show improved. The plot worked, good inship fighting, little drama, and a few ship battles. Everything you want in a good episode.

So before all the posts "Its Crap, Let it DIE", are wrong, its a good now, now that the time war crap is over. I wish they would shoot the writers who are ruining such a good series.

Is it me, or is becoming popular to buy something and run it into the ground?

Side note, wtf is shows like "Blind Justice" a cop who is blinded on duty goes back to work, and now has super powers? Are we in a time warp going back to 80's crap?

Where are the fucking smart tv producers and network directors, they all quit?

WTF?!?

[Bulln-Bulln]

They aired the crappy Voyager series for 7 (too) long seasons without killing it and now they kill not-so-bad Enterprise?!?
I hope there will be at least some movies based on Enterprise - So the birth of the Federation can happen.

But....

[T-Ranger]

So UPN cancels "Enterprise". UPN isn't the only station that buys Enterprise. In Canada, the Space network show it, as does CityTV. (who, while both are owned by CHUM, may not be paying exactly twice, but paying more then once) Im sure there are both "normal" and speciality networks all over the world buying and showing it.

Besides that, Enterprise is almost gaurenteed to have a long syndication run. STTOS is still being aired; outside of a marathon, when was the last time you saw Leave it to Beaver? Isn't Viacom all but gaurenteed infinite future syndication sales?

I remember one of those "behind the sceens" show on TNG. Each episode cost about as much to make as an average feature film. They had a bunch of production staff working full time, 52 weeks a year. (a 30 minute comedy could likey be shot in <2 days, 8 weeks for the season, not much post-production) So while expensive, I would think it would also be easy to manage at the executive level... Keep a regular, full time, cardre of ST production staff and all but forget about it on the executive level. No toss of the dice every season with new shows. No worrying about getting good writers or crew. ST just churns out stuff like clockwork. Quality is important, but many people will watch it regardless today, and tomorrow.

For that matter, with a full time ST cadre, movies could almost be done for free. Well, thats a streach.. But all your pre and post production stuff can be done here and there by the TV staff (or the opposit, the TV stuff could be done here and there by your movie crew). Farm out major work, and get a special crew to do the principal photography, but all the "glue" stuff could be done inhouse. At the very least, you will maintain a skill set, ST props, ST makup, ST sets and what not that, if you diddnt have full time staff, may or may not carry over from movie to movie.

People are saying that ST needs a break. Writers need a break, fans need a break. Is the opposite not true? Airing new shows keeps the interest up, even in the syndicated series. One might not tune in to watch a TNG episode, but if a TNG episode airs just before or just after Enterprise, the viewers might stick around for both.

This is really sad.

[StarKruzr]

This just goes to show you that when television gets better, less people watch it.

Enterprise has been getting more and more interesting this season, and they choose now to can it.

Morons.

Fundamental problems

[almaden]

In general, why did Enterprise fail?

*Writing*
Pacing: In many of the early episodes, the pacing of the stories was terrible, often slowing to the point of boredom. Remember the episode where the Ferengi were stealing parts of the Enterprise (yawn)? Or how about "A Night in Sickbay" (yawn^2)?

Continuity: Initially, there were problems with continuity with the ST universe. Many episodes only paid lip service to previous ST material by mentioning it, and then went promptly went nowhere. Only when the ratings began to slip did the producers make an intelligent effort to tie into the old school.

Also, it was cool at the beginning of the series when Enterprise didn't have all of the tech that Picard et. al. were supposed to have. I liked the feeling of a small, weak Earth ship that didn't have all the answers. Bit by bit though, the same level of technology has crept back, to where except for the occasional shuttle pod, the tech is equivalent.

*Stories*
How did that temporal war arc get resolved? Did they make it up as they went along? Why did it seem so clumsy and difficult to follow? How about the Xindi/Star Wars/Death Star arc? Why did it take 4 years to start seeing elements of the ST universe we were yearning for from the start?

*Characters*
Viewers relating to Characters: Did the show ever get the viewers to really care about the characters? Maybe you could care about "Trip", but the rest of the cast could get blown out the airlock, and no one would protest.

Erratic Character Development: Why did so many of the episodes have the cast acting out of character? This was a problem with Voyager too, where each week a character would act differently, and negate or forget their development to that point in the series. Viewers watch the show and think "he wouldn't do or say that".

Crummy casting: Why is Scott Bakula so unbelievable and unconvincing in the role of Archer? Why can't he be taken seriously like Patrick Stewart was? This is an anchoring role for a Star Trek series - you can't miss-cast the role, and then expect the series to succeed. Voyager had problems here too, but I could at least stomach Janeway.

Yes it's easy to criticize the series at this point, but these guys have had 4 years, gazillions of dollars, and a lot of fan input to draw from to get the show right. Time to look elsewhere for sci-fi entertainment.

Re:Somewhere along the line..

[JamieF]

If only the Star Trek story universe had the benefit of a... huge library of novels that they could just pick and choose tidbits from, that'd make it so easy to maintain continuity. All they'd have to do is look at them, and extract an hour-long screenplay.

Or maybe if they had a bookshelf's worth of commercially available reference books containing detailed information on virtually every aspect of their story universe... that would make it so much easier.

Or... maybe they could recruit an elite force of fanboys who, for the sheer bragging rights alone, would be tasked with consistency checking any new story idea or script with the rest of the Star Trek universe.

Oh well... *sigh*

The Dying Gasp of 90's Paramount?

[cwolfsheep]

Here's some food for thought: can anyone name a "good" Paramount film or series in recent years? What happened to syndicated TNG? What happened to the old Trek films, or Beverly Hills Cop, or even Beavis & Butthead (remember, "Picard" liked it too)? Why did Nemesis bomb, when it really wasn't as bad as Trek V? I haven't seen "Deep Impact," but saw "The Core:" did anyone see both?

Basically, there seems to have been a large marketing of failure at Paramount. Tie series to UPN, whose affliates share with Fox or pre-empt for sports events? Put movies out in December to compete with "big events," instead of waiting a month when it'd be #1? When you advertise an episode of Trek, make it about sex most of the time, even when it has nothing to do with the story? Where's the sci-fi in their sci-fi?

What we are seeing is a revamp of Paramount, and they consider Trek a part of the problem, not the solution. It should be the other way around: however, it is the last vestige of an experiment, and probably should be put to rest while they clean house. Let us hope there is more Trek one of these days, and preferably syndicated, if not on Sci-Fi or some other network.