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Enterprise Fans Buy Full-Page Ad In LA Times
jangobongo writes "SciFiWire.com reports that fans of Star Trek Enterprise have succeeded in placing a full-page ad in the LA Times. The ad will urge someone to pick up the show for a fifth season. According to the official fan site, a Star Trek Enterprise fan working for the LA Times has arranged a special deal for a discounted ad. Donations collected to date have covered the cost of the ad which will be located in the "A" section of the paper on Feb. 21."
"Let it die already!"
...really; I'm sick of seeing all the "Let it die!" comments. On the other hand I'm sure all those who dislike Enterprise are tired of the "Save Enterprise!" campaigns--in which case I wish they'd just ignore them rather than complain about them.
I wouldn't consider myself a fan at the level of doing anything to save the series, but
Anyway, to the point...is it worth saving? Yes, I think so. I think I can safely say without a doubt that Season 4 gets better as each episode passes (Minus the time-traveling space nazi aliens)
From the preview of upcoming episodes it seems they're finally going to mix things up and add some actual drama to the show rather than psuedo-drama that seems almost forced from Bakula.
I know it's common on Slashdot to think Star Trek should die. Let me tell let you in on a little secret: You don't have to watch it. Seriously. I like it, I want to watch it. How does it harm you if it's on?
For example, I don't care that Stargate plays. Personally, I think I could create a better show based off of the contents of my toilet. Do I constantly complain about it and say that Stargate should die? No. Live and let live.
...have long gone.
Paramount owns Star Trek, and will not let the show continue on anything but UPN, and they've probably already filled Enterprise's time slot with some crud on Friday nights at UPN.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The problem with Enterprise is
The problem with Trek, in two words: Rick Berman.
You can't take the sky from me...
the problem with enterprise isn't the show, its ha da great 3rd and 4th series that tie the episodes together. (unlike TNG where enterprise just flew around the galaxy doing whatever and none of the episodes tied anything together)
Anyway, getting back to my point, the problem is that its shown on UPN. who watches UPN? nobody, look at their ratings on every show. If enterprise was on Fox the ratings would be through the roof. Heck where I live, there is no local UPN station (so I can't get with with my satalite subscriber or on a antenna) so I have to download the copy from usenet the morning after the new episode airs.
but here we do have local fox, abc, cbs, nbc, and wb (bleh) affiliates. for gods sake, show enterprise on anything other then UPN and you'd have great ratings. The problem isn't enterprise, the problem is that nobody watches UPN, no matter what UPN has on tv.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Let's look at this story another way. Enterprise fans (who are among the most rabid bit torrent users, many because of UPN's limited audience) don't believe they're spending enough money on the show through eyeballs (commercials) and uploading. They feel the need to tell the studios that they're willing to pay more, so they took out an ad.
Do we need more evidence that current copyright law is hindering the progress of science and useful arts?
Studios, the Internet is there for more than just commercials served as web pages. We're willing to pay for content. We're ready for you. You will lose money if you stand in the way of progress, just like the US Constitution foretold 200 years ago. You can either help with something like iTunes or sue dead grandmothers until teenagers teach their parents how to take care of this themselves.
We have the technology to allow the market to directly tell you what they want. We want Firefly (just count those DVD sales). We want Family guy. Yet the studios count the millions who watch the Superbowl just for the commercials the same as a rabid fan base who will pay through the nose for a series on commercial free DVD. (Here's a tip, I don't like menus or "special features", I just want to use my DVD player like a CD player hooked up to the TV.)
[karma whore]Wait, this is Slashdot. Nobody likes Enterprise. How much did both Enterprise fans have to contribute for the full page ad?[/karma whore]
(No, not "suck and die") but attract non star trek fans. I know many trek lovers at work. All of them hate Enterprise. Then there's the dedicated non SF crowd, like my wife, who actually likes Enterprise. She likes the characters more. Likes the lower tech "high tech." And she's not alone. The other Enterprise watchers I know didn't really like Trek before Enterprise. Enterprise's downfall? It isn't really working as a gateway drug. I don't know people who have moved off of enterprise onto harder SF. (Unlike firefly, which began soft and smooth, but I know people who live their social lives in the social equivalent of an abandoned building, straining shows like Andromeda through bread to get a SF high). Enterprise hasn't built a following of people who would watch another show from the same series. Contrast TNG, which made so many addicts that they were willing to watch a show about a space station that boldly sat in one place year after year.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
I love the articles here, but any time I venture into the comments section, I wind up irritated and depressed at humanity's future prospects.
Slashdot commentators seem to combine the arrogance and incivility of your average adolescent with the cantankerous anger of a bitter old man. Most of you don't seem to love anything, and if you do stumble across someone expressing appreciation or admiration for anything, you just DUMP ALL OVER IT.
That's my general statement. Now about this topic in particular:
I LIKE Enterprise. Yes, it has taken a few years to hit its stride. This seems to be the pattern for these Berman-produced Trek vehicles. They get better as they go along. I thought this one would be particularly challenging for them to pull off, because writing a past history for any established storyline is just hard. You have to work within the strictures of what has already been plotted, not violate any rules already laid down, but still keep things fresh and unpredictable. Furthermore, since they are working in a reality that is lacking quite a few of the standard Star Trek devices (meaning both technology and plot devices), they can't just fall back on old storylines like holodecks (not invented yet), Q continuum (won't meet them for centuries), the Borg (likewise), or even original Trek conventions like the Klingon War or the Romulan Neutral Zone (yet to happen/be established.)
I wasn't wild about the Temporal Cold War plotlines, but there is an ongoing theme, well established during Voyager, that Temporal violations are possible and certain organizations work hard to prevent that from happening. The TCW plots at least establish some of the "history" (slippery word when you're talking about time travel) that led to that sort of management.
And this season, I think they are really getting to the meat of the plots, the establishment of much of what we first came to like about Star Trek: The Federation (and Humans central role in bringing it about), the battles with the Romulans that will lead to the Zone, the roots of the Klingon/Terran conflict, the moral dilemmas that necessitate the Prime Directive, reliable Transporter technology, and so on. Between the First Contact movie and Enterprise, the Zefram Cochrane/Warp Drive/Vulcan first contact plot line has really been fleshed out, and now seems like a genuine part of Trek history.
Those are reasons why I like it. I don't demand that YOU do. But why do so many people around here WANT it to die? This isn't 1975, with just three big TV networks and very limited programming space. It's 2005, there are dozens of networks and hundreds of channels. There's plenty of room for both Trek and Battlestar Galactica, and whatever else. If you don't like Trek, don't watch it. I'll admit that plenty of people have made that choice, and that's why the show is in peril. But ferchrisakes, don't demand that it be taken off just because it doesn't appeal to YOU. And if those of us who do enjoy it make some effort to keep it on, please try not to savage us, or disparage the attempt. I'm much more turned off by apathy than by people earnestly trying to do something, even something a little silly.
Better to tilt at windmills than to just sit home in your underwear and type snide comments at people you haven't (and probably never will) meet.
Unless the geniuses behind this idea can come up with ((($13 * 3MilViewers) + n) * 22) where 'n' is an obscene amount of money equal to the maximum amount UPN can expect to make in advertising for the time slot then there's no chance whatsoever that UPN would re-up the show. Of course, if the fans did come up with the per-show costs + advertising revenue for a full 22 episode season then they'd want a full 60 minutes of show per week (since they paid for the advertising slots). That ups the per show costs and then their lump sum falls short.
Enterprise got cancelled because it can't draw advertising revenue due to its low viewer numbers. UPN can slot something else on Friday nights with a much higher profit margin owed to advertising.
Quark and the rest of the Ferengi provided comic relief and poked fun at capitalism - clearly in the Rodenberry tradition.
Odo and his struggles with individuation vs. his "natural" collectivism.
Dukat and Kira - explorations of nationalism and how personal identity can be bogged down in it.
DS9 had characters that served a purpose, and they were generally better written than the Enterprise characters.
Oh, wait, you sometimes spend your time and money in ways that benefit you and not others? Hypocrite.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Think about it, the three incarnations that have aired as part of a network lineup have either sucked, been cancelled early, or both. The ultimate reason is ratings. Network suits care only about ratings, because they are in a brutal competition to be the first to the bottom of the barrel. The two incarnations that aired in syndication, though, were actually quite good (or at least respectable). Because it's airing as filler for a station (yes it sounds bad, but bear with me) they aren't as worried about ratings, so there's less meddling by suits in order to get a short-term ratings boost.
To illustrate, TOS was simply killed because it wasn't getting enough ratings. NBC had other stuff to work with, so no stupid stunts (and it was the '60s, we were much closer to the top of the barrel). Voyager wasn't too bad, but it was UPN's only show that was worth anything at the time, so they wanted to boost it's ratings (and cross-promote its other shows) any way they could to make the network look good. Unfortunately that led to the travesty of an episode guest starring the Rock and the "hey, CBS is doing a miniseries about an asteroid hitting earth this week, how quickly can we air an asteroid episode too?" insult that was the episode "Rise". Then, with Enterprise, they continued the ratings boost shenanigans from the beginning, alienating fans and leading to a horrible show. This time, because of the WWE deal, UPN can afford to abandon the ST franchise. Anyone else notice that when they put it in the Friday night deathwatch slot, the show got a far sight better?
Enterprise gets some of the hardcore trekkies into a dilemma - they eat and breathe Star Trek, so naturally they must watch everything Trek. They've seen every movie, every TOS episode, every TNG episode, DS9, Voyager - certainly more than once. But they also find Enterprise painful. So do they:
1. Endure watching Enterprise for sake of completeness?
-or-
2. Don't watch Enterprise cause it stinks, but miss out on this corner of the Star Trek universe?
The easiest way to get around this delimma is to have Enterprise canceled. That way they won't have to endure any more episodes if they chose option 1, or if they chose option 2 - they can stop worrying about what they might of missed.
I also must note that a simular problem exists for Star Wars fans, and the upcoming Episode III.