Paramount Says Enterprise Cancellation Is Final

Kethinov writes "The Save Enterprise campaigns appear to have been for naught. Paramount has declared that they will not be accepting any amount of money from fans to continue to produce Star Trek Enterprise. With the decision final, Star Trek Enterprise will be the first Star Trek show since the original series not to run a full seven seasons." From the letter: "Paramount Network Television and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans' passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show's production." Commentary also available from TrekToday.

Comments

Just like TOS

[Kethinov]

Enterprise never had a chance to grow. The first two seasons of Ent were decent, but still a bit mediocre. The third season was a nice ride, but not the show we really wanted out of the prequel. Manny Coto's 4th season is EXACTLY what the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seasons should have been, but too little too late. I love the show, always will, but TV politics have ruined many a good show. Look at the original Star Trek, or look at Farscape...

In their place, reality TV dominates. Why watch intelligent TV when we can have Growing Up Gotti?

Re:Just like TOS

[rocketsled]

Look at the original Star Trek, or look at Farscape... or B5 or Firefly or ...

Re:Just like TOS

[ackthpt]

Enterprise never had a chance to grow.

More along the lines of they've tried everything their limited imagination and accountants (even more limited imagination) would let them do. It's been not just a good run, but a phenominal run. It is time to let it rest and beat to death some other genres until fresh ideas (or the next generation of viewers) come along.

so long and thanks for all the rubber ears

Re:Just like TOS

[bryanp]

B5 isn't really a good example. B5 ran it's full story arc. The sequel series was cancelled, but it really wasn't very good.

Firefly ... now there's a great show struck down before it could get going. As much as I'm enjoying Battlestar Galactica I'd trade it for a new Firefly tv series in a heartbeat.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the other night, I was up late and caught and episode of ST:TOS on SciFi. TOS tackled many social issues, like racism for example, and was an innovative series at the time. I must say, Enterprise is none of the things TOS was except maybe living in its fading shadow. I find your comparison rather untrue.

Re:Just like TOS

[Arathrael]

I honestly don't understand why all these get cancelled.

I mean... is it because they're unprofitable? It's hard to believe they all could be - sure, sci-fi series in general cost a fair bit to make, but all these series (and I'll throw Futurama in as well) certainly seem to have pretty large numbers of dedicated fans.

And if they're unprofitable... why do they then eventually commission other sci-fi series? What are they hoping for? Actually, how many sci-fi series haven't ended up being cancelled?

Re:Just like TOS

[nomadic]

What politics? Why can't the writers, actors, and producers ever get blamed for making an inferior product?

Re:Just like TOS

[TexVex]

Enterprise should not have needed a chance to grow.

After TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, Enterprise should have come sprinting out of the gate. It didn't. Blame those who did the writing and producing for the first two seasons for giving the show a gimp leg and dooming it right from the start. Its potential audience tuned out. And, once that happens, there's no saving it. Those people no longer care, and you're not going to recapture their attention.

Re:Just like TOS

[Abalamahalamatandra]

In the case of Firefly, I can tell you why.

First off, Fox put it in a cruddy timeslot on a cruddy day - Friday night.

They didn't advertise it worth a crap.

They showed it out of order.

They preempted it CONSTANTLY so that it got to the point that, unless you had a really good guide, you didn't even know if it was going to be on or not.

Basically, just about everything a network can do to not encourage a following, they did.

Re:Just like TOS

[Illserve]

Never had a chance to grow through 4 seasons?

As a Firefly fan, I'd like to be the first to tell you to shut your goddamned piehole.

Re:Just like TOS

[larkost]

I agree with you on FireFly, we can just hope that the move that is due out in September (Serenity) will re-ignite the TV series. But the fundamental flaw in FireFly was that the dialog an plots were too thoughtful. There is a chance that the darkness of Battlestar Galactica will allow the networks to give it a second chance though.

Re:Just like TOS

[atriusofbricia]

It seems someone doesn't remember the first season or so of TNG when it was almost painful to watch. Or the first season of Voyager when it WAS painful to watch. Every new trek show needs time to find itself before it doesn't suck balls. Ent was no different.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

It had 4 seasons. That's plenty of time to grow.

Also I really hate reality TV but I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that it's less intelligent than ENT. ENT was cookie cutter sci-fi, alien of the weak, forehead monster, crap. Just about every episode involves a crew member being trapped, or some amazing danger which the crew always overcomes with 2 minutes left, cue happy ending/credits. That's not intelligent TV, it's boring TV.

Re:Just like TOS

[LocoMan]

To be fair, they did give it 3 seasons of time to find itself... maybe it did on season 4 (not much of a ent. fan and season 4 won't be showing here in Venezuela for a while), but I guess it was too little too late.

Re:Just like TOS

[chromatic]

They hire professional writers, actors, directors, lighters, camera operators, assistants, set designers, costumers, makeup artists, and effects workers. Why should it take them all a year to produce something worthwhile? They're professionals. They should already be decent at what they do.

If this were a completely new genre or if they had completely unknown actors, writers, and workers, or if they had no budget, it might be easier to accept a year of low quality. However, Paramount should have some idea of what it's doing with a flagship franchise on its fifth or sixth incarnation.

Re:Just like TOS

[Short Circuit]

For a show where subtlety isn't a big deal, such as slapstick or overdrama? Sure. For a genre that requires character development? Generally not.

The early seasons of any of the latter-day Trek series aren't as good as the seasons developed after the show has matured. Actors and writers need experience working with characters if they're to come up with a product that's believable and interesting.

Typically, this has meant the first couple seasons of Trek series.

Re:Just like TOS

[MrLint]

Crusade never got it's chance either. WB was too busy screwing around with it because their marketing staff wanted to control the show. Part of its death was due to that JMS wouldnt be their cabanaboy.

I got nothing at all from firefly. I just cant accept teh use of slugthrowers on a spacecraft.

Re:Just like TOS

[badboy_tw2002]

Compare the first season of Enterprise to the first run of the new Battlestar Gallactica. It can be done.

Re:Just like TOS

[theWrkncacnter]

Exactly. I remember randomly watching this show on Friday night and thinking "My god, this is a great show, why have I not heard about it?" Later I only caught a few episodes because really, who sits at home every Friday night? I loved Firefly, but you gotta go out for some beers now and again. Same thing happened with Boomtown, not to split off on a tangent, but great show, bad timeslot.

Re:Just like TOS

[RatBastard]

And what about TOS? It was quality out of the gate. Why does it take so long for the new series to get their shit together?

Re:Just like TOS

[badmammajamma]

Imho, Enterprise was doomed the moment they cast Scott Bakula. I mean seriously...Scott Bakula?? I watched one episode and it made me so ill I vowed to never watch it again. He simply has ZERO leadership quality about him. Enterprise captains have always been very strong people...until Bakula. My dog is more of a leader than Bakula could ever hope to be.

Horrible casting will doom any show and that's what happened with Enterprise. Personally, I'm happy to see it go. Maybe there will be a new Star Trek with a real captain again.

Re:Just like TOS

[Dogtanian]

B5 isn't really a good example. B5 ran it's full story arc.

B5 got futzed about by the uncertainty over the fifth season; consequently, the intended end of the arc was moved to series four, and when series 5 got the go-ahead, it was missing the main plot that drove the whole series.

I found it inconsequential and disappointing. Of course, some would argue that the replacement of Michael O'Hare with Bruce Boxleitner was also a major kink in the story arc. Although some criticised O'Hare's acting, it was at least as good as Boxleitner's and his style was way more appropriate (pseudo-gravitas versus Boxleitner's regular-guy character acting). Apparently, Boxleitner was more of a "name" than O'Hare; well, maybe in the US, but I'd never heard of him before that.

Funny how B5 exhibited some of the worst aspects of sci-fantasy (ropey acting and characterisation- e.g. Marcus and various second-league characters-, messing stuff around, cliched sets) as well as the best (genuinely planned long story arc, good characterisation and acting- e.g. London and G'Kar).

Re:Just like TOS

[ucblockhead]

No offense to Firefly...I haven't seen it...but I have to point out that a little show called "The X-Files" ran for two or three years on Friday night.

Re:Just like TOS

[GlassHeart]

The problem with modern corporations is that it isn't enough to be profitable. It has to be maximally profitable. In other words, given the finite 24 hours in a day (and even fewer hours when most people watch TV), if they aren't putting on the most profitable dozen or two of shows, they're "losing money".

Want to save your favorite show? Buy everything that advertises during that timeslot.

Re:Just like TOS

[Rei]

What sort of slashdot geek would be obsessed with Firefly? :)

Re:Just like TOS

[Trifthen]

I don't know... I just never watched it because there is no UPN affiliate in this area. I suppose putting the show on a network that... oh, people actually watch, might have helped the situation.

Re:Just like TOS

[As Seen On TV]

Everybody lauds "Babylon 5's" story arc, and rightly so. But a very important fact sometimes gets lost in the fray:

"Babylon 5" was fundamentally really stupid.

There, I said it. I'm sorry: space aliens, time travel, one deus ex machina after another, huge plot elements that just to make no sense.

If you can swallow all that, "Babylon 5" was a pretty good TV show most of the time. But let's face it. Most people just aren't willing to swallow all that.

It's entirely possible for science fiction stories to be good. It's been done. It's within the realm of possibility. But in order to get there, you have to make as few demands on the audience's bullshit detectors as possible. When it's just one piece of absurdity right after the other, we don't call it drama. We call it comedy.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I blame the lousy time slots. It never played in the same time slot (or sometimes even the same day) in our market. I chased it for awhile, downloaded MPEGs when I missed it, but I got sick of it and lost interest. I don't even have a clue when they play it now - I never stumble across it in my surfing.

Re:Just like TOS

[Etherwalk]

> After TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager,

*coughs pointedly*

Actually, Not to go into the long history, but I've always thought Voyager was largely to blame for the downfall of the franchise. No, no, let me explain (briefly):

TNG - great, largely episodic, we got used to 2-parters, though.

DS9 - great, took a while to really get on its feet. It was competing with B5, which showed us that Yes, Story arcs longer than two episodes can work in sci-fi. It also gained its own momentum, shifting away from a purely episodic series into an ongoing bit of war. The war was the beginning of the end- they did it well enough, but it was responsible for trek getting away from being about ideas, and getting towards being about shooting the funny sci-fi weapons. When Voyager rolled around, this mentality had invaded the minds of the writers, and consistency had gone completely out the window.

Voyager really showed a lack of artistic understanding. They had one or two good actors, and I'll admit that for some of them I don't know if its the actor or the character that was bad- but for the most part, it lacked quality. The show got away from its core demographic and wound up with a much more transitory audience. So when Enterprise came along and actually had some decent writing again, much of the franchise audience was gone, and it had to start from scratch.

The most glaring example of artistic failure in Voy is, of course, the borg. There are others, but the power of the borg as an evil was in their evil, not in their weapons. When the ratings drooped, Voyager brought out the borg. It effectively transformed them from an unknowable menace that was so different from humanity that it was practically pure evil, to a bunch of pansy-ass default bad guys that drove around in blocks and spheres.

Re:Just like TOS

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And when it switched to Friday Night- was when I lost track of it. When it finally went back to Sunday Nights, I had lost the story line to the point that I couldn't follow it. Enterprise was the same way- Wednesday Nights it was ok, it was the only Sci-Fi in it's timeslot (even Sci-Fi channel runs paranormal/horror on Wednesday Nights). If they had left it there, it would have survived.

Re:Just like TOS

[Valiss]

Basically, just about everything a network can do to not encourage a following, they did

Not too unlike what Fox did with Family Guy originally? At least they are bringing that one back...

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the lethal blow to Firefly was that it was a lightly rehased western set in space. Yes the writing was good, but the plots were unoriginal and repetetive.

Re:Just like TOS

[Illserve]

There's a nail driven into that wood. You hit it on the head.

I would also like to criticize B5 dialog as being of grade-school level.

Re:Just like TOS

[IWorkForMorons]

When the ratings drooped, Voyager brought out the borg.

No...when the ratings drooped, they brought out *a* borg. One that happened to dress in skintight uniforms. I've heard stories that Jeri Ryan actually passed out from the suit being too tight. If you're going to blame Voyager's complete loss of credibility on anything, blame it on Berman going for the horny male demographic.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

"""
Enterprise should not have needed a chance to grow.

After TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, Enterprise should have come sprinting out of the gate.
"""

Should have, yes. But after Voyager's pathetic start, are we really too surprised that it didn't?

Really, the only series that I don't remember being awful for the first season was DS9, and that's only because they shamelessly borrowed from the universe that TNG had (finally) successfully put together. That is to say, a franchise instance actually used all of the franchise material available to it. Amazing!

When Voyager botched that, it should've been a clear sign that the high water mark had come and gone. Was anybody surprised that after Six-of-Nine showed up on Voyager that Enterprise started off with Vulcan p0rn?

Really, Star Trek is the most successful franchise to ever repeat so many of its own failings -- it's really amazing that way.

If I were a network exec, I'd have axed Enterprise halfway through season one -- there's no excuse for sucking it up with (and thereby devaluing) franchised material... that's the point of having a franchise in the first place!

Re:Just like TOS

[Dogtanian]

Oh yeah; my apologies. I knew I was missing something from the list of "bads".

Really ******* horrible dialogue.

Re:Just like TOS

[aichpvee]

Yes, because handheld laser guns are looking so plausible at this point.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has fucking Star Trek or Farscape been intelligent TV? They're about on par with Dr Who - cheesy aliens, cheap-n-cheerful FX by the standards of the day and the occasional burst of wildly implausible "automagical" pop-science.

Trashy entertainment, in short.

Star Trek fans insulting reality TV is very much the pot calling the kettle black. They're different means for achieving the same ends - a wasted hour or two.

I'm guessing you think Buffy The Vampire Slayer was "intelligent" too. Including the original movie. One of the great intellectual achievements of western cinema, that one.

Shoot me now.

Re:Just like TOS

[dooglio]

The reason for replacing O'Hare with Boxleitner had more to do with the story arc than with Boxleitner's name, at least, according to J. Micheal "That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It" Strazinsky.

He said his reasons were because he needed a character that was closer to the Shadows to pull off what he would do later. He realized when the first season was finished that Sinclair would be sitting around on his thumbs until season 3. Sheridan was strictly a story decision.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems someone doesn't remember the first season or so of TNG when it was almost painful to watch.

The first TNG season was horrable. In spite of that I went to a party every week to watch it. TNG didn't have to be good.

Re:Just like TOS

[Fizzog]

"because really, who sits at home every Friday night?"

umm...

Re:Just like TOS

[Headcase88]

Look at the original Star Trek, or look at Farscape... or B5 or Firefly or ... Family Guy.

Granted, Family Guy wasn't a sci-fi series, but it had that episode that showed Ireland before they invented alchohol.

I'm so glad it's coming back *sniff*

Re:Just like TOS

[tepp]

Since when has fucking Star Trek or Farscape been intelligent TV? They're about on par with Dr Who

Now, now... don't insult Doctor Who and Farscape by mentioning Star Trek in the same breath.

Re:Just like TOS

[Narchie Troll]

Amusingly enough, that is almost exactly the reason Futurama got shitty ratings as well.

The time slot was terrible, being squarely between baseball and The Simpsons. When a baseball game would run over, they'd push Futurama to 2AM instead of pushing The Simpsons forward.

It started out after The Simpsons, if I recall correctly; they moved it out of the way later in order to hype Malcolm In The Middle, etc.

Re:Just like TOS

[Narchie Troll]

"Or the first seven seasons of Voyager when it WAS painful to watch."

Fixed your typo.

Re:Just like TOS

[mp3phish]

How can you say that? Scott Bakula is the only reason that show had a chance from the begining. Lay off the actors... most of them are pretty decent. and scott bakula definately isn't the reason the show did poor (maybe for you it is.. you probably have something aganst him though)

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll back down on Dr Who but Farscape... I'm not letting that one off either.

Dr Who at least had great theme music and a kickass intro. And genuine, unbridled camp hilarity. Farscape and its people-in-makeup aliens can go to hell though, along with every single series of Star Trek and all of the evil they've spawned (Babylon 5 etc).

At least Dr Who had the decency to make its aliens look like something plausible - like a dustbin with wheels or something.

Re:Just like TOS

[malthusan]

Damnit! If I had mod points today (it's the one day of the week I *don't* have them, apparently), I'd rescue your comment from down-mod hell. sry. Tooo funny.

Re:Just like TOS

[MrLint]

Im not sure what you are getting at here. Firelfly didnt take place in the present.

Besides, based on the context of my previous post, B5 didnt have hand held lasers either.

Re:Just like TOS

[B3ryllium]

I think that his point had something to do with Explosive Decompression, but I happened to like Firefly - even the weapons.

I mean, you just can't get any better than Vera.

Anyway, I'm out - I'll be in my bunk.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense to Firefly...I haven't seen it...but I have to point out that a little show called "The X-Files" ran for two or three years on Friday night.

"little show"?

If you think X-Files is just some ordinary show you're dumber than you think.

Of cousre, admitting that X-Files was special destroys your who stupid point. Friday night is not a good time for a TV show, especially a new one. We all know that.

You know that. Yet you go "X-Files, na na na na na".

No offense, moron.

Re:Just like TOS

[batkiwi]

You're answering the wrong question. The question is "WHY would fox do those things to a show they're bankrolling?"

The answer is very interesting, and doesn't take too much effort to uncover.

Re:Just like TOS

[Urchlay]

I got nothing at all from firefly. I just cant accept teh use of slugthrowers on a spacecraft.

If that's your major reason for not being able to suspend disbelief, I recommend you watch it again and try harder this time.

Lasers and other futuristic weapons exist in Firefly (there's even an episode about a plan to steal the first prototype laser gun from an antiques collector), but they're expensive to buy and maintain, particularly out in the fringes of colonized space where the crew of Serenity spend most of their time.

Of course, you might have other reasons for not liking the show (it's not perfect, nothing is), but you might want to give it another chance anyway...

To stay partially on topic: Enterprise finally got watchable in season 4, true, but nobody can say it never got its chance. They made 3 seasons of (mostly) boring Berman-style pointless fluff, when they could have been making a good Trek prequel instead. I sat through most of the first 3 seasons due to having a roommate who loves anything branded Trek, and I tried to enjoy them... but they just weren't good science fiction, nor were they good space opera, nor even good fluff. About the nicest thing I can say about Enterprise seasons 1-3 is that they're better than Voyager... but so was `Leonard part VI'

Ugh. I usually hate people who rant about TV shows, pardon me for my diatribe.

Re:Just like TOS

[drxray]

Did you ever *watch* Star Trek?

TOS had fit girls in skimpy outifts every other episode! Remember the ship's uniform? Miniskirts on a space ship...

TNG had Marina Sirtis on the bridge where her whole function was to provide clevage.

DS9? Dabo girls! Nana Visitor in that leather outfit in the alternate-universe episodes was probably the sexiest thing on TV that year...

Star Trek was always about hot alien girls. 7 of 9 and that vulcan on Enterprise are completely in line with the rest of the series. You can't blame that on Berman.

Re:Just like TOS

[Sponge Bath]

...captains have always been very strong people...until Bakula.

I hear you bubba!
What Enterprise needed was a swaggering alpha dude like Wil Wheaton.
I'm talking about the rebellious Wheaton who hangs with space Indians
and does astral travel, not the weenie from early episodes.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference being, of course, that Firefly was actually good and thus deserving of a good timeslot. And that when Firefly tries to be funny, it succeeds. Neither of which is true for Family Guy.

Re:Just like TOS

[Urchlay]

Apparently, Boxleitner was more of a "name" than O'Hare

Ah, come on, you'd seen him before at least once. Boxleitner was Tron!

B5 is something I passed by when I randomly saw an episode on network TV. I thought it was a cheap knock-off of Star Trek. Someone convinced me to start watching at the beginning and I got hooked. It's got its flaws (and you do a good job of pointing them out), but it really is like watching an 80-hour-long movie, and at no point does it really `jump the shark'... though season 5 did feel kind of redundant.

(And yes, I'm the kind of person who loves the idea of an 80-hour-long movie... though I can't bring myself to watch the uber-hyper-extended editions of LOTR).

Re:Just like TOS

[Sponge Bath]

...the replacement of Michael O'Hare with Bruce Boxleitner was also a major kink

Both are far superior to Scoggins!
What were they thinking?!?!

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Space aliens? You're complaining that Babylon 5 had space aliens???

Re:Just like TOS

[LucBorg]

I've only seen the first few episodes of enterprise 4, but I must say that the story arc of the augments was just stupid. I dont understand why they had to drag out the story into three parts when two would have been sufficient. The second half of the first episode in the arc and the first half of the second episode seemed to be just padding. The remaining havles should have been merged to make the first episode.

I just saw the third episode today, and I must say it was excellent. The acting was very good from all involved. There was plenty of action, and there was even enough time for exploration of tpol-tucker relationship and the tsun-malik dynamic as well. Well written who ever did it - am I right in assuming it was Cotto?

I think Enterprise's failure lay in the first three seasons. It just was a complete load of rubbish. Although season 3 was better than 1 and 2, it was far too hectic. The whole "wondering what's gonna happen next episode" in 24-style was just inappropriate so early in the series. That could have been done in a season 5 or 6, once a strong and stable following of viewers was established.

The very first episode itself was just too corny. Both seasons 1 and 2 just had no susbstance, nothing seemed to be achieved. And all the time travel was just pointless! How can new viewers be expected to be attracted to the star trek franchise if a large proportion of the story material requires experience from pervious series? And whatever happened to exploration? And why do they use the transporter so much? I thought it had only just been developed. They use it so regularly its just like being with Kirk, and the rest of the captains from him onwards.

Almost anyone on the street knows the terms "Vulcan", synonymous with Spock, and "Klignon". Paramount should have focussed on these two races, and humans in the Enterprise series. If the focus was with human exploration of these races, with meeting other characters from the alpha quadrant, such as the Romulans, more with the Andorians, and also exploration of other planets, the series would have been far stronger and nicer, and more enjoyable. People who have never been interested in science fiction would have been drawn to startrek if they had done this.

Re:Just like TOS

[davidsyes]

As for Michael O'Hare, when I looked at a site about him, my first thought was, "Damn, they could have used HIM to play Archer..."

http://www.teamohare.com/moh/michael.html

Not that it would have made any real difference for Enterprise.

I guess "maximally/maxially profitable" means actors will eventually be digitized away...

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I've heard it explained is due to the fact that Fox isn't just a single mind. There's different little fiefdoms within it, reality TV, sci-fi, ect. all bucking to get their programs the best slots.

Re:Just like TOS

[Various Assortments]

Cite one example.

Just one.

Name one episode of firefly that is a rehashed version of anything else.

Can't?

I thought as much.

Re:Just like TOS

[jonskerr]

I think the point of slugthrowers in a ship is that we know they work, and aside from B5's PPGs, every single space show out there had ray guns of some type. Avoiding cliches is a point of good writing, and slug throwers are cheap, they carry their own energy, and jeez, who says you can shoot through a spaceship hull with a handgun? Come on. Any hull that'll stop meteor impacts will stop bullets, especially hollow points. And this whole "explosive" decompression thing. Too many explosions in current entertainment has got people thinking a little hole in the wall will make the ship blow up. Just put a patch over it adn the vacuum will hold it in place 'til we can get it correctly repaired.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

you're dumb. really dumb.

Re:Just like TOS

[C10H14N2]

Yes, I'm such a nerd that I didn't have television for years and bought one _purely_ because of the new series.

I watched three episodes, then gave the t.v. away.

What makes me more upset than anything is realizing this is probably the death of the whole franchise. Stargate and BSG will take its place.

Blah.

Re:Just like TOS

[Various Assortments]

and futurama

Re:Just like TOS

[eddeye]

In the case of Firefly, I can tell you why...
Basically, just about everything a network can do to not encourage a following, they did.

s/Firefly/Action/
s/Firefly/Family Guy/
s/Firefly/Greg The Bunny/
s/Firefly/Undeclared/

Every season Fox trots out another surprisingly witty show to plug the gap between When Midgets Attack and Close-Up Animals With a Wide-Angle Lens Wearing Hats. Despite critical acclaim, the "filler" shows rarely see a second season and die before their time. Someone at Fox likes taunting us.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, even though I think Bakula is a crappy actor (please stop looking like you are taking a shit), I'd argue a big reason the show failed is that he's too old for the target audience. They should have cast the "Trip" guy as the captain (minus the hick accent). But the writing was so godawful that it probably didn't make a huge difference.

Re:Just like TOS

[atriusofbricia]

One word: Roddenberry

Re:Just like TOS

[atriusofbricia]

I cannot tell you why it is, just that it seems to be true. It should be the way you say.

Re:Just like TOS

[Kethinov]

I don't think so. TOS season one was absolutely dreadful at large. Of course there are gems in there, but you have to wade through a lot to find them. TOS and Enterprise were in the same boat. TNG, DS9, and Voy were awesome in their later seasons. Imagine a 5th, 6th, and 7th season of TOS and Ent; they would have been awesome.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks

Re:Just like TOS

[IWorkForMorons]

No no...

TOS had the miniskirts and Kirk doing alien babes in skimpy outfits. I know this was part of the show. But it being a sci-fi show in the 60's, I can forgive that.

TNG started out with miniskirts and Marina Sirtis' wonderful cleavage, but it wasn't really shoved in your face constantly. And by the third season all that had been taken out. There was the very occasional cleavage, which I was always thankful for, but no more miniskirts. It was finally able to stand on it's stories without resorting to cheap gimmicks.

DS9 NEVER did it as bad as the rest. It was the most respectable of all of them, in that regard. Sure, there were Dabo girls, but they weren't really a part of the story and they were used in the proper context...eye candy to get people in a bar to gamble. And how often did you see Nana Visitor playing her alter ego from the alternate universe? 3, maybe 4 times?

Voyager and Enterprise should have been able to stand without the cheap gimmicks. They had all that history and a good fanbase. They should have had better writing. They should NOT have had to constantly remind people of how long the show had been on the air. Voyager was especially bad for that starting in season 4. How often did you hear "We've been in the Delta Quadrent for 4/5/6/7 years..."? Or "We've been on our mission to explore the galaxy for 2/3/4 years..."? There was no need for any of it. What was needed was to get Bermen out of the picture. Too bad it comes too late...

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Friday really sucks. Look at Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galatica.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to be a commie, you commie.

Re:Just like TOS

[justin12345]

I would imagine the danger would be ricochet, not decompression. Its kinda like how you don't want to fire a automatic weapon on a submarine.

Re:Just like TOS

[Spunk]

First off, Fox
...
just about everything a network can do to not encourage a following, they did

Not FOX! They'd never do something like that!

Re:Just like TOS

[ucblockhead]

Er...sorry, I forgot that slashbots were too clueless to get sarcasm and too stupid to follow logical arguments.

The phrase "little show" was "sarcasm". Please ask your composition teacher what that word means.

For the reading comprehension impared:

"X-Files" + Friday night = High ratings.

Thus Friday night scheduling obviously doesn't kill a popular show.

Therefore, while "Firefly" may well have been good, it wasn't the mere scheduling that killed it.

Q.E.D.

Re:Just like TOS

[Vinnie_333]

Enterprise never had a chance to grow

I'm sick of people saying this. The original series was only on for four years ('66-'69) and it was good from day one.

Re:Just like TOS

[henni16]

One honest question, definitely not meant as a flamebait:

What I think sucks about Captain Archer: his body language, his way of moving..reminds me of George W. Bush.
Maybe because I don't see/hear W. that often as I'm not from the US, but..
Anyone else noticed similarities?

Re:Just like TOS

[DavidTC]

Yes, but on the other hand, on Firefly, almost all firefights were not on the ship.

Granted, some were, but that's not why they had guns...no one was supposed to get on the ship anyway. It's not like you could just stroll in.

In fact, the only person who boarded the ship against their will snuck on there, via shadowing them and an EVA. As far as we know, there is no commonly used 'hostile boarding procedure', and thus carrying guns around to protect against that would be stupid.

So if you're watching it thinking it's Star Trek and random people can beam onto your ship, sure, the guns are stupid. (Although slow slug-throwers aren't that dangerous.)

But on Firefly, worrying about people being on your ship is rather akin to worrying about people breaking into your airplane. It's silly and just going to kill you both if they try.

Re:Just like TOS

[DavidTC]

Taunting?

No, that's not taunting. Taunting would be playing coy, acting like they might pick or sci-fi series or continue them, maybe, maybe not...

Fox is more...a boot stamping on a human face. Forever.

Re:Just like TOS

[DavidTC]

You're saying Farscape had 'people-in-makeup' aliens?

Farscape had some of the most non-human and realistic (Instead of glowing lumps of rock) aliens you'll ever meet on TV.

Yes, 90% of their aliens were clearly people in masks, and that's budget issues, every TV show has that unless they want to spend a billion dollars an episode. (And they saved even more by cleverly making one major species 'human', the Peacekeepers.)

But every episode had, at minimum, Rigel and Pilot, who were, in fact, muppets. And the other major race was the Scarrans, most of whom, while people in costumes, had a protruding face that stuck out a good foot and half.

In fact, the whole damn series was created so the puppeteer people could show off their work. It has more 'non-human actors' screen time than any other live-action TV show ever made. (And, no, I'm not counting the ship.) And not cheesy CGI (For the characters, at least.), but very realistic puppets.

Re:Just like TOS

[BloodAngel_Au]

Mod this guy up, he knows his Fox funnys...

Now if we can only get more comedys like the Industry (from Canada) I'll be happy... That was an evil show, puts Peter Dragon in the nice box

Re:Just like TOS

[ari_j]

Nana Visitor in that leather outfit in the alternate-universe episodes was probably the sexiest thing on TV that year...

Um...not only is that simply not true, but it ignores entirely the fact that the alternate-universe episodes undermined the two purposes of the alternate universe. First, they undermined that the alternate universe was difficult to reach and thus mostly safe from mutual interference with the regular universe. This is important because, without that degree of separation, there is no real difference between the universes anyhow. Second, they undermined the nature of the alternate universe as being, at least for the Federation, essentially evil.

The alternate universe worked in the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror (note that there was only one) and in the TNG novel Dark Mirror because it allowed us to explore the dark side of each character, not just in the way we explored Archer's dark side by seeing him go against his nature as a compassionate being and torture a prisoner to gain a tactical advantage, but in the way that we explore what would happen if the entire impetus for being were reversed in such a way that mankind became known for its cruelty and imperialism rather than the compassion and curious spirit it is known for in the regular universe.

The alternate universe is not a vehicle for exploring individual what-if scenarios. It's a vehicle for exploring the larger, holistic what-if of a universe with motivations reversed.

That, and Nana Visitor was among the least attractive women ever to appear in Trek, and leather did nothing for her that replacement on the cast list would not have done better. Granted, she was perfect for the role of a Bajoran commander who is simultaneously sexy and effective, but that doesn't mean I need to enjoy her in leather.

As to your contention that "Star Trek was always about hot alien girls," I must disagree, but not as thoroughly as I did about the alternate universe (which may not even disagree with your unstated views on the subject) and Ms. Visitor.

My disagreement comes on three fronts. First, Star Trek was originally about teaching us about ourselves without being condescending, pious, or boring. And it did that marvelously. Somewhere along the way, it became solely about entertaining us with the particle of the week as viewed across a substantial cleavage field. And it does that marvelously, except that the purpose itself sucks major ass.

The second point is about the "alien" bit. Originally, most of the hot women were humans. If we don't count half-Betazoid as sufficiently different from full-human to make a difference, then that trend lasted through TNG. DS9 really introduced the regular hot alien chick to the scene, and it did that well (Kira and Dax are both attractive, my "one of the least attractive" comment notwithstanding as I never said the woman is ugly - she is not). But Voyager abused the idea by focusing on it rather than simply providing it as a legitimate part of the scenery. In a way, TNG and DS9 legitimized women as capable of both beauty and excellence in the working world, in multiple (indeed, any) fields. Voyager made great strides in destroying that legitimacy, although it at least delayed the process, by making Seven of Nine essentially a map-reader where no other starship had needed such a position before. Enterprise, we'll ignore because the hot alien babe isn't written as an alien (T'Pol is as Vulcan as my middle finger; I know, because they've exchanged words) but also does not quite fit categorization with either previous group (she's legit and beautiful, but the legitimacy is ruined by the writing of her species).

The third point I want to make on this is not necessarily a disagreement with you, but rather an observation. With the exception of Uhura, every hot chick on TOS was essentially a plaything of some sort, working as an extra. Sure, Yeoman Rand and Nurse Chapel appeared frequently, but they served n

Re:Just like TOS

[TeraCo]

Season 5 was absolutely redundant. It was initially cancelled and all of the plot arc crammed into the end of season 4 (which is why it seems rushed). Then, after it was wildly successful, he was told to do season 5. And behold, it was mainly filler.

I will still buy the season 5 DVD's though. For forgiveness.

Re:Just like TOS

[As Seen On TV]

Yes, I am. What of it?

Re:Just like TOS

[Amanset]

Quite a rare trick that one, claiming that Voyager was awesome in later seasons!

The later seasons that wussified the Borg and introduced the magic reset button.

Re:Just like TOS

[KingPrad]

Wow, thought you were talking about Futurama. Firefly and Futurama...how could Fox screw over such great shows?

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

The same Linux losers who spend their weekends recompiling their fucking OS & programs because they can't get a woman.

Re:Just like TOS

[1u3hr]

I don't think so. TOS season one was absolutely dreadful at large.

Maybe if you watch it now. At the time, it was revolutionary and that gave it a pass on a lot of failings (rickety sets, hammy acting...). One thing especailly: they used a lot of real SF writers. These days most sci-fi TV and moves are written by the same hacks who do every other type of drama; or worse, writers (or even actors!) who know nothing about SF other than what they've seen on TV, who just tell the same stories as they're familiar with by translating ship -- spaceship, foreigner -- alien, magic -- science. And because it's SF, feel even less obligation to make sense than on other types of TV drama.

Re:Just like TOS

[mrchaotica]

In a way, TNG and DS9 legitimized women as capable of both beauty and excellence in the working world, in multiple (indeed, any) fields. Voyager made great strides in destroying that legitimacy, although it at least delayed the process, by making Seven of Nine essentially a map-reader where no other starship had needed such a position before.

You do realize that Janeway, the captain of the ship, was a woman too, right? Granted, she wasn't a sex object (she was even married), but still...

Re:Just like TOS

[Dachannien]

Ah, come on, you'd seen him before at least once. Boxleitner was Tron!

Don't forget that Peter Jurasik, aka Londo Mollari in B5, was also in Tron. He played Crom, the Compound Interest Program that got out of breath when he had to figure out T-bill rates.

In the first season, David Warner (Ed Dillinger / Sark, in Tron) played a guest role on B5. Warner also played a few Star Trek roles - he played the Federation ambassador in ST:V, and did a fantastic job portraying Chancellor Gorkon in ST:VI. He also appeared on TNG as Picard's torturer Gul Madred in the "There... are.... FOUR... lights!" two-part episode.

And if you haven't stopped reading at this point, IMDb indicates that a fellow named Vince Deadrick played "Warrior #2" in Tron, and appeared in two different fifth-season B5 episodes. This is where my post gets back on-topic, because Deadrick appeared in two Enterprise episodes, where he was credited as "Klingon #3" and "Crewman On Fire". ;)

Re:Just like TOS

[Ubergrendle]

As a point of reference, the average Firefly episode cost was about ~$8 million. Enterprise is somewhere round $4 million, I gather they cut it to ~$3m this season.

Firefly was great, but its a HUGE gamble for Fox to continue supporting that show if the inital ratings weren't strong from the start. Its about the money, not the quality for Fox (or any other TV network) unfortunately.

Re:Just like TOS

[NFNNMIDATA]

Same with Futurama (sniff).

Re:Just like TOS

[ElAurian]

If you didn't like Marcus, then you never knew B5 in the first place, so don't go pontificating about it.

(my first instinct here was to go with: "If you don't like Marcus... then you're a fuckhead!" so I think I may be a fanboy. Oh dear.)

Re:Just like TOS

[frankenbox]

Damn strait! I am at the point of killing my tv anyway. Been a trek fan since the beginning. TOS mostly. Even animated series. Must look at the public in general. What is today's youth looking to for inspiration? Limp Bizkits and False Idols.... Might be why in the last ten years there seems to have been an epidemic in male impotancy... Gotta figure with all those enzite and viagra commercials.. Dunno, my momma didn't have no trouble gettin' pergnant. But jes seems to be all tv's gid fer. Sellin us somthing we don't need. Bring back open source sci-fi. Pick up a book. Kill yer tv. I pirate all the videos and shows I want off the net anyway. bring back the monkeys. And gas for .25 cents a gallon. damn opeckers.

Re:Just like TOS

[jmauro]

It's not like they hired Ted McGinley. There are actors that can doom a series, but Scott isn't one of them.

Re:Just like TOS

[frankenbox]

Battlestar Galactica any one?

Re:Just like TOS

[NFNNMIDATA]

I grew to like Voyager eventually, but they made a LOT of mistakes.

[Nerd rant to follow]

My least favorite mistake they made right out of the gate: they missed a perfect opportunity to bring Nick Locarno (Wesley's squad leader at the academy) back for some redemption, Tom Paris was a knock-off of him anyway (the flashy pilot who was disgraced in starfleet). Locarno was an interesting, complex character with some background. But they bring the guy who played him on for a minutely different role instead. Go figure.

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

[...] a bunch of pansy-ass default bad guys that drove around in blocks and spheres.

Bad girl you mean. The give away that they had lost all clues was the queen. That personalised the borg. Originally the borg weren't a military/imperial force, they were something more like a disease. They couldn't be fought just by sending in more and more powerful ships, and they couldn't be negotiated with. That was a real threat.

Re:Just like TOS

[ari_j]

You do realize that Janeway, the captain of the ship, was a woman too, right? Granted, she wasn't a sex object (she was even married), but still...

Dude - my headache had just gone away and you had to remind me that Janeway existed. Do you think I didn't have a damn good reason to blank out that memory? :P

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

Star Trek was originally about teaching us about ourselves without being condescending, pious, or boring.

And green skinned orion slave girls:-).

If you don't think Star Trek was condescending, pious and boring when it tried to do morals, you must have a very high tolerance for being condescended to. Even as a kid I felt I was having my inteligence insulted by things like the people who were half black, half white.

Re:Just like TOS

[geminidomino]

X-Files is pretty much the exception that proves the rule. It was the first show to make a killing on a Friday Night Primetime Slot, and I can't think of another one that's done so well since.

Re:Just like TOS

[ari_j]

I grew up in a much more abusive environment than you did, and that flattered me compared to what I got from my peers. ;-D

Re:Just like TOS

[vitalyb]

Which version of "Battlestar Galactica" are you talking about? The 1973 or the 2003?

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark this as flamebait if you wish, but Firefly's acting was mediore, effects were dull (although I liked the no sound in space thing) and reminded me of a computer game, and the story was just plain boring. I tried to give it a chance and watched a few episodes, but the silly cowboy theme kept putting me off. Apart from Voyager the ST series have had better production quality. And I did enjoy Enterprise for a number of reasons, although it had a lot of weaknesses. Pablo

Re:Just like TOS

[zCyl]

I honestly don't understand why all these get cancelled.

Because the type of people who make TV executives are usually not the same people who make sci-fi fans. So they don't "get it".

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm... there's a certain line that you crossed there. I'm a trek fan, though not a trekkie. But I would have to draw a certain line where you call Star Trek intelligent TV.

It's Sci Fi, it's nothing more than a soap opera focused towards nerds. There are of beliefs that Star Trek tries to stay true to "Popular Science" articles, however it's better to read the magazine instead of seeing a graphics artists take on it.

Enterprise, especially with its focus on time travel being so damn silly is hardly intelligent TV. If anything it tries to pass off several conflicting theories of time travel as one. Enterprise has very little educational value as such.

Enterprise and shows of the type do provide a single benefit. They make people look forward to what maybe could be one day. But still, they focus so far into the future that the reality TV watcher doesn't give a rats ass since it's not in their life time so who cares.

Re:Just like TOS

[TrentC]

B5 got futzed about by the uncertainty over the fifth season; consequently, the intended end of the arc was moved to series four, and when series 5 got the go-ahead, it was missing the main plot that drove the whole series.

No, that's not what happened.

All that happened at the end of S4 was that the end of the Earth Civil War was wrapped up at the end of season four -- it was intended to finish early on in S5 -- and the final episode, "Sleeping in Light", was filmed at the end of S4. (It takes place several years after the events of S4 and S5, so isn't really out of place at the end of either season.)

When B5 got renewed, they replaced "Sleeping in Light" with "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" (filmed first thig in S5) and showed SiL at the end of S5 -- which is why it's the only episode in that season that has Ivanova in it.

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 has numerous posts from JMS about the show, written at the time it was happening (I was a regular reader at the time).

Jay (=

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

TNG also had miniskirts for the first couple of seasons (the only main character to -- temporarily -- wear one was Troi), but they were worn by unknown crewmembers that only appeared briefly in the background.

It was also interesting to note that in TNG, they had women and men wearing miniskirts.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I read somewhere that they wanted to bring Robert Duncan McNeil in as Locarno, but couldn't afford to, because they would've had to pay royalties to the writers of the TNG episode "The First Duty" where he appeared.

Re:Just like TOS

[DigitumDei]

Unfortnately I'd say it is impossible to do 5 season long story archs (at least not detailed ones). Some coke snorting executive who probably never enjoyed a sci fi show in his life will decide half way through that the show needs to be canned.

Re:Just like TOS

[Richard_at_work]

Season 5 wasnt cancelled at all, its confirmation was just left until very late so JMS had to plan for the end of the arc in Season 4. Never was the word 'cancelled' mentioned.

Re:Just like TOS

[TeraCo]

Fair enough, by all means, replace the word cancelled in my story. It still doesn't change the reasoning in any way.

Re:Just like TOS

[Dogtanian]

Ah, come on, you'd seen him before at least once. Boxleitner was Tron!

I omitted that for reasons of length. Specifically; yes, I *had* seen Tron, but I didn't remember him from that. In fact, the Tron characterisation and acting is very weak, and didn't stick in my mind at all; one reason I rate it very highly in terms of effects, but not as an overall movie experience.

In fact, I watched Tron *again* circa 2000, and I didn't recognise Boxleitner for quite some time (his character in the 'real world' had glasses on and he was quite a bit younger). So go figure...!

Re:Just like TOS

[Snaller]

Why watch intelligent TV

Except that Enterprise was very unintelligent, below par, uninventive, badly written junk.

Re:Just like TOS

[Taladar]

X-Files probably didn't have that Slot from the beginning and it wasn't made in a time where series are cancelled before the first season had a chance to show how many people watch it.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Smells like BS. Sinclair had his trader girlfriend (Catherine Sakai rings a bell, but I'm too lazy to look it up on the Lurker's Guide), who was out in places she shouldn't be (like where she found the Walkers). She, instead of Anna Sheridan, would have landed on Z'ha'dum for whatever (highly implausible) reason. My guess is that she'd turn up, Shadow-fied like Anna eventually was, just when Sinclair and Delenn were starting to form a relationship (remember, by this point, it had not been established that Delenn was actually descended from Sinclair, nor had the whole time-travel mess happened. The story may have been radically different, and better).

Re:Just like TOS

[mmeister]

I agree that Voyager was a major stumbling of the ST family.

The most annoying thing for me was that no matter what horrible thing was happening to the crew, it would always be fixed at the end of the episode (TNG had a few of these, but it was a noticeable, regular event in Voyager).

This became more obvious with other Sci-Fi series that changed the rules a big (DS9, B5 both come to mind) with longer story arcs and more long term consequences for actions taken in an episode. The most annoying of these was when they decided to merge Tuvak and Nelix (sp?) together only to figure out how to separate them at the end of the episode. Come on,

As mentioned, the Borg handling became mundane. "Oh No, yet another freakin' borg ship that our little craft will destroy." Apparently the Borg learned NOTHING from their encounter with the Federation (where they were able to destroy dozens if not hundreds of ships much larger than Voyager). The result is that even that it wasn't believable anymore (which is really bad in the Sci-Fi world).

To me, it represented a very near-sighted writing skill, the writers seemed unable to think past the current episode -- and I tuned out from boredom.

Re:Just like TOS

[nickstance]

or perhaps Galactica 1980? btw-the first series was '78 or '79 (remember Lucasfilm sued them for being a copy of Star Wars)

Re:Just like TOS

[Mordaximus]

"The give away that they had lost all clues was the queen."

You can't blame Voyager for that : First Contact introduced the borg queen.

Re:Just like TOS

[nahdude812]

The queen was the Borg's attempt to recognize that there was indeed power in individuality. She was a hybrid of individuality and the collective, and that is why they wanted Seven in that episode, and were willing to trade a slipstream drive for it. (I just watched it like 2 weeks ago on DVD).

By the way, the queen wasn't Voyager's creation, she first appeared in a StarTrek movie (Generations? Never been much of a ST:movie fan). In fact, if you watch the extras from season 5, you discover that the actress who played the borg queen was in fact a different actress who had previously played the queen in the movie.

If you think the queen was a big mistake, don't blame Voyager, blame the movie.

Personally, I think Voyager is the best of all the StarTrek series.

• Original StarTrek first explored diversity, and took us to where only our dreams led: Space. However it had bad writing, bad acting, and bad special effects. That wasn't the point of the show though.
• TNG extended on the original series fundaments of tolerance, but really put forth that exploration of space was a worthy goal by itself. It was basically the original series plus good writing, acting, and special effects. It was probably the single largest leap forward in all the StarTrek series after Original.
• DS9 was really about showing that life in space is exciting just like life exploring space is. It was also the first series to really try to provide an overall story arc, and this is why people who only watched DS9 periodically never liked it: nothing made sense unless you watched every episode in order. DS9 was better than TNG, but not by much.
• Voyager, IMO, has the best mission as a series since the original. Stand by your principles no matter the cost. The human spirit *will* endure, no matter how unlikely the odds. No matter how far from your objectives you are, you should strive for those objectives at all costs, and no matter how unlikely they seem to be met, short of compromising your principles. I think they used too many unlikely plot elements (Amelia Erhart? How many alpha quadrant ships will they bump into anyhow?)

I can't speak much to Enterprise, perhaps there is some subtle point that makes it worthwhile, but I got hung up on the poor writing and poor directing early on, and it frankly affronted what I always understood StarTrek to stand for. Maybe it got better in later episodes, but for me the damage was done right out of the gate. I was willing to be forgiving of a mediocre first season (most series had these, they have too much work to do in setting up the environment and characters, while on a still low budget). The first season wasn't mediocre, it was horrible to the point of painful. Porno has better plots.

This series should have been put down by the end of season 2, and they should have destroyed all the original work, and completely erased it from the history books. Then they need to start a new series, and make sure that they have quality actors, quality writers, and a panel of a few hundred hard core ST geeks who are willing to objectively critique the series' ability to continue the ST tradition. Do you hear me Rick Berman? My resume is available if you want it.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

x-files isnt sci-fi.

Its superstitious garbage.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god man, look at what you just did.
Seriously, you just got so upset that you said:

"As a Firefly fan, I'd like to be the first to tell you to shut your goddamned piehole."

Thank you so much, I'm going to be laughing about this all day. I mean honestly, you might want to consider ending your sad, sad life.

Re:Just like TOS

[baadger]

Yes! Parent should have been modded insightful

Noones saying Scott isn't a good actor he just didn't suit the part from the offset...startrek captains have always been tough and responsibility bearing, with a wiff of wisedom about them..they lead the crew into the bold unknown. With this show all I kept seeing was him in Quantum Leap.

When I first watched Enterprise, I couldn't really relate to it as being a Startrek show at all.

Theme music, misguided choice of leading actor, blatant sex-pot from the offset, coupled with the doubt of a prequal ever working stunted the shows growth until it was easily crushed by the network overlords before it had time to prove itself to the majority.

This of course is 100% opinionated, but everyone I know said roughly the same. I personally believe some fans just forced themselves to like it for the sake of the franchise.

Re:Just like TOS

[mpe]

The most annoying thing for me was that no matter what horrible thing was happening to the crew, it would always be fixed at the end of the episode (TNG had a few of these, but it was a noticeable, regular event in Voyager).

This is most likely an effect of the way US broadcasters like to show series. With a "reset button" it's rather less obvious when episodes are shown in random order.

This became more obvious with other Sci-Fi series that changed the rules a big (DS9, B5 both come to mind) with longer story arcs and more long term consequences for actions taken in an episode.

Some of the consequences included being cancelled.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

You're dead right.

Firefly also has not one but 4 regular hot chicks, but the plot IS there, and funny as hell (Jaynestown, anyone? lol)

It can be done...

(Picardo rulez, btw)

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

all we are going to be left with is LEX

Re:Just like TOS

[mpe]

I think the point of slugthrowers in a ship is that we know they work, and aside from B5's PPGs, every single space show out there had ray guns of some type.

Even B5 used "slugthrowers".

Avoiding cliches is a point of good writing, and slug throwers are cheap, they carry their own energy

They also carry their own energy in a way which is reasonably safe to the operator
A ST Phaser contains enough energy to make a very effective bomb. Not the sort of thing you want to carry on your person

And this whole "explosive" decompression thing. Too many explosions in current entertainment has got people thinking a little hole in the wall will make the ship blow up.

Maybe a few people need to be forced to watch the episode of "Mythbusters" where this is put to the test. All a bullet will do is make a small hole you could plug by putting your in flight magazine over.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

B5 did go on too long, but if only they had given Cluadia the chance to stay for the 5th season it might have been barable.

then end of the 3rd and start of the 4th rocked though!

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't flame. Comments like that ruin the whole experience of reading other peoples opinions.

Re:Just like TOS

[OwnedByTwoCats]

The X Files got its start on Sunday nights. When Chris Carter's Millenium debuted, Millenium got the Sunday night slot, and The X Files moved to Friday nights.

Re:Just like TOS

[Cro Magnon]

The problem is Seasons 1-3 of Enterprise were far WORSE than Season 1 of TNG. After 3 years of that drek, 90% of the audience had left.

Re:Just like TOS

[stlhawkeye]

I mean... is it because they're unprofitable? It's hard to believe they all could be - sure, sci-fi series in general cost a fair bit to make, but all these series (and I'll throw Futurama in as well) certainly seem to have pretty large numbers of dedicated fans.

It's not that they're unprofitable. It's that another show will be far more profitable. Ever notice how all the advertisers on geek TV are penis-enlargement pills and debt relief programs?

Re:Just like TOS

[Cro Magnon]

The queen was from the movie, not Voyager, but I agree that she was the first step in the Borg's downfall. Voyager contributed to their downfall by overusing them as the bad guys. I didn't mind them getting their metal butts kicked by 8472, but they also became ineffective against Voyager. Quite a comedown for the guys who almost wiped out the Federation with only one cube in TNG.

Re:Just like TOS

[gozar]

By the way, the queen wasn't Voyager's creation, she first appeared in a StarTrek movie (Generations? Never been much of a ST:movie fan). In fact, if you watch the extras from season 5, you discover that the actress who played the borg queen was in fact a different actress who had previously played the queen in the movie.

The did get Alice Krige (the actress who played the borg queen in Star Trek: First Contact) to play the borg queen in season 7.

Re:Just like TOS

[Cat_Byte]

Want to save your favorite show? Buy everything that advertises during that timeslot.

Unfortunately I find this humorous on so many levels. Have you paid attention to what they advertise these days? Anti-depression pills, herpes treatment, pills that make you run around on a beach on a horse (wtf does that do anyway?), some $600 air purifier, a bowflex that jerks so bad it hurts, and a bunch of $19.95 revived plastic gimmics from the 60s. That seems to sum up the ads lately.

Lets see...the last thing I remember buying that I saw advertised on TV (not counting food because I eat at those places regardless) was the Battlestar Galactica DVDs (old series and new mini-series). Of course I would have seen those the next trip to the store anyway...

Whatever happened to advertising anyway? There is nothing but crap advertised on tv these days. How about some informative ads of some new DVD technology or something when it comes out?

Re:Just like TOS

[rainman_bc]

Even as a kid I felt I was having my inteligence insulted by things like the people who were half black, half white.

Actually, that was one of the best episodes, and the beauty of TOS. Take it in context. It was an episode about racism, and showing the nature of hate for no reason other than hate.

There was some episodes that made beautiful moral statements, and IMO this episode was the single best example of that.

Re:Just like TOS

[hesiod]

> aybe a few people need to be forced to watch the episode of "Mythbusters" where this is put to the test.

That's high altitude, low pressure. NOT a vacuum. I don't think a magazine is going to help much in space.

Re:Just like TOS

[hesiod]

Most TV programs will get old REALLY fast if there are never any unknown characters arriving.
If you have a ship with a 10-person crew in deep space, and aliens do not exist... What the hell were they doing there to begin with? Exploration of nothing? OK, fine, let's say they are looking for a planet to move Earth's doomed population to. Aside from mechanical failure, psychological disorders, some crazy disease they found on a planet, and neat special effects for the things you'd see in space, what would make up the content of the show?

I believe that any space-based series needs either aliens or an immense crew (like Battlestar Galactica, even though I don't like the show).

On its face, Lost (assuming you've seen it) has a limited set of characters. However, they have introduced at least two other people, and they have left about 30 people completely unseen that can be introduced later. They are also, presumably, on Earth, so bringing in a lot more people is certainly possible. In space, it is not realistic.

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

First Contact introduced the borg queen.

But presumably the same people were making the choices. That they chose to destroy the only truely great concept to come out of post TOS Trek in a big splash in cinemas rather than in an embarassed moment on the small screen just underlines the lack of clue.

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

they also became ineffective against Voyager

Once they became just another interstelar empire that was inevitable. It is a fundamental Trek assumption that the heroic captain and his/her crew can take down the evil empire (or at least knock it back and win the day).

The Borg were the outstanding creation of TNG because they were truely alien. They weren't just a competitor or alternative to the federation, they were a threat to it's nature. For Iain Banks fans, they were an Excession.

It's clear that the writers and producers of later Treks just completely missed the point, to them the borg were just Klingons or Romulans but more powerful. It's as if they started from the conept of a movie about the battle against AIDS in Africa and created a movie where Arnie fights his way up the Congo with guns and grenades to a big fight with the head HIV virus in it's secret base inside a volcano.

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

geek culture colli

Well, we have had computer viruses so long, it was inevitable we'd end up with nerdy bacteria.

Re:Just like TOS

[Wybaar]

Even B5 used "slugthrowers".

I'm not quite sure if a small bolt of plasma actually counts as a slug ... although the Starfuries do have missiles, which I guess you could count as big slugs.

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

The queen was the Borg's attempt to recognize that there was indeed power in individuality.

They had nearly taken out the federation with one ship. Clearly power was not a problem for them.

Besides, the queen reduces the level of individuality in the collective, giving them a single will and so a single point of failure.

The borg as originally concieved were terribly individualistic. Each drone and each little bit of a cube was an individual threat, to deal with even a single cube you have to nail every single little bit to the ground and beat it to death.

What the borg lacked was diversity. You don't increase diversity by creating a centralised control.

Re:Just like TOS

[R.Caley]

It was an episode about racism, and showing the nature of hate for no reason other than hate.

No! You don't say!

Congratulations on manageing to be even more condescending and insulting than even the original writer managed.

Re:Just like TOS

[As Seen On TV]

Aside from mechanical failure, psychological disorders, some crazy disease they found on a planet, and neat special effects for the things you'd see in space, what would make up the content of the show?

How about drama? You know, characters interacting with each other under situations of conflict. Surely you must have heard of it. We've only been telling stories like that for five thousand years.

I believe that any space-based series needs either aliens or an immense crew

Well, thank God you don't tell stories for a living.

Re:Just like TOS

[hesiod]

> How about drama? [...]

I should have said space-based sci-fi, which I usually assume (possibly incorrectly). Sure you can make a love story that happens to be set in space, but that is not sci-fi if the drama of character interaction is the primary focus of the show.

Also, for most successful dramas, there are new characters introduced every once in a while. If it is a space ship, there is no possibility to add characters, just lose them.

> Well, thank God you don't tell stories for a living.

It's not about just stories, it has to make entertaining TV. You can do a lot more with a book than TV sometimes.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not that Sci-fi shows are unprofitable, it is that they are not profitable enough in the short term for the amount they cost.

A typical reality TV show might cost $500k per episode and get $4m per episode in ads. For a typical Sci-fi show those numbers are $5m and $20m.

So if you have $5m a week to spend on new shows, you can get one Sci-fi show (total earnings $20m) or TEN reality tv shows (total earnings $40m). If you only cared about short-term shareholder value, what would you choose?

New shows get commissioned because people look at paramount and say "ST:TOS is still making money decades after it aired. Slut Island has no long term value. Why don't we make the next Star Trek and reap long-term profits that far exceed what reality TV shows offer?" Then those people get slapped down for wasting money.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it means you just don't like the genre (a subset of sci-fi). Which is fine but it's an odd thing to use in a criticism of an individual show. It's like complaining that a show about WW2 has soldiers in it.

Re:Just like TOS

[As Seen On TV]

that is not sci-fi if the drama of character interaction is the primary focus of the show.

If you're wondering, this opinion explains why the vast majority of genre entertainment is just terrible. Friend, character interaction is the primary focus of every story. At least the ones worth telling.

Re:Just like TOS

[Kethinov]

You're obviously flamebaiting to get me to bash Firefly, and I won't. I won't validate all the mindless Star Trek bashing I see on this site by reciprocating.

But I will tell you that every Star Trek show needed a few "buffer" seasons in the beginning to really develop. Season 4 of Enterprise has been fantastic, exactly what the show should be.

Maybe if you had read my original post, you'd have seen that.

Re:Just like TOS

[PCM2]

Original StarTrek first explored diversity, and took us to where only our dreams led: Space. However it had bad writing, bad acting, and bad special effects. That wasn't the point of the show though.

Say what? Bad acting? Maybe, if you're one to jump on the "Shatner is a bad actor" bandwagon. I, for one, am not. I think he's a fine entertainer. His performances are downright iconic, so whether or not you personally like him, he's at least memorable to you. And which others of the actors were so awful?

Second, special effects? What other show of the era was as ambitious about its use of effects as Star Trek and yet maintained that level of quality? And since when do poor effects mean the series is no good ... the Twilight Zone is one of the greatest series ever to air on television, but come on, that monster on the wing of the airplane in Shatner's episode was a guy in a freakin bear suit! (But that was still a great episode.)

And last but not least -- bad writing? Are you out of your freakin mind? The characterizations and relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are classic television. The plots dealt with racism, totalitarianism, and other social issues, not to mention being darn good most of the time. And you had writers like Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad doing scripts for the series.

Really, it's one thing to not like the original series because you're too young to appreciate it or something, but to knock it like you just did is just ridiculous.

Re:Just like TOS

[atriusofbricia]

Perhaps, perhaps not. The first season of TNG was pretty bad and often way over the top. You are right as far as people leaving. I really want the people responsible for the first three seasons, beaten.

Re:Just like TOS

[mpe]

That's high altitude, low pressure. NOT a vacuum. I don't think a magazine is going to help much in space.

A pressurised aircraft is somthing like 8 PSI preassure difference in flight. The most a pressurised spacecraft is going to experience is around 14 PSI. Assuming it is preassurised to sea level.

Re:Just like TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooo, yeah, Galactica 1980, with flying motorcycles and people and spaceships that can turn invisible.
Where the kids can jump up into trees because the gravity on Earth is much weaker than that on the Galactica, but an Earth woman who visits the Galactica isn't crushed and doesn't have her mobility hampered in any way by the increased gravity.
Where the fleet is advised by some kid whose spaceship managed to find the fleet after Starbuck cobbled it together out of parts from a viper and Cylon raider (but he couldn't do it himself earlier to save his own ass), and who isn't even descended from the Colonial humans.
Where the Cylons have evolved to the point that they look human and have greater intelligence than humans, but can't build a simple radio receiver that can detect EM transmissions from Earth.

"Galactica 1980. Our plots have fewer logic holes than Space 1999!"

Yeah, that Galactica 1980.

Re:Just like TOS

[nahdude812]

I think Shatner in the series was a particularly bad actor, excessively dramatic, and poorly pulling off the confident captain by simply being arrogant. I think Spock did a fine job acting, actually. But McCoy? Nah. Not as bad as the Captain, but he wasn't certainly anyone I'd classify as a good actor. Maybe better than I could do, but that dont make it good.

Second, I never said the special effects made the series bad, in fact I never said the show was bad at all. I think the show overall was a good series for the time, but I think the reason that the show itself is important is because of the important social issues they tackled. They made due with the same budget as other shows on TV that didn't have to do special effects, and it showed in the quality of the effects. As I said though, the special effects weren't the point of the series, and they don't make the series bad. If the special effects *were* the point of the series, then most likely the series *would* have been bad, as I'm not a fan of any show/movie that exists to demonstrate special effects.

Finally, let me elaborate on what I meant by bad writing. The stories were *original*, very much so, and so I guess in that sense the writing wasn't bad at all. But it didn't particularly capture subtle human interaction. The relationships between Kirk, Spock and McCoy were weak and predictable. Humorous at times, sure, but not slap your knee funny, and not particularly clever.

I don't dislike the series like you think, because I recognize the importance of the goals which it accomplished. Follow your dreams, and by the way, the color of that guy's skin really doesn't matter, presented in a way that it wasn't smack-you-in-the-face, but just commonly accepted common sense.

Re:Just like TOS

[hesiod]

Wow, really? I had always thought the difference would be much more dramatic. Now I know.

Re:Just like TOS

[slapout]

I always thought that season 5 would be about the psyhic/normal conflict. But it wasn't. And then Crusade was set after it.

Re:Just like TOS

[mink]

I couldnt get into Crusade because it seemed like a rip off of Space Crusier Yamato (AKA Star Blazers)for the most part.

Re:Just like TOS

[mink]

"I guess "maximally/maxially profitable" means actors will eventually be digitized away..."

Watch "Looker" for an 80's take on this concept.

Re:Just like TOS

[mink]

First Contact also is responsable for the alternate timeline that Enterprise takes place in.

Funeral Plans?

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be plenty of room for all 3 fans in my parent's basement

Re:Funeral Plans?

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be plenty of room for all 3 fans in my parent's basement

Provided they haven't been hitting the pizzas and super-sized bottles of Coke too hard.

Oh, and make sure the basement has decent ventilation; I don't want to imagine the BO of those guys in a confined space.

Re:Funeral Plans?

[EverDense]

There should be plenty of room for all 3 fans in my parent's basement

...but, only if you move your bed.

Re:Funeral Plans?

[Accipiter]

Which parent?

Oh no No *NO*!

[Skyshadow]

Jesus, this is horrible news. Seriously, how could something like this happen?

I mean, what could the network possibly be thinking? Don't they understand that they're cancelling the most original, innovative and entertaining Sci Fi show of this generation? How can they cancel a show with such a devoted following? How can they turn their backs on well-developed characters with their flaws and nuances? What about the great staging and the inspired writing? How can they ignore such incredible potential?

What about the tremendous buzz behind the show? What about the devoted legions of fans who are careful to never miss an episode? The ratings on this have to be through the roof -- everyone I know watches it religiously! Christ, I know people who went out and got TiVO just so they could start going out on Friday nights again without chancing setting their cheap VCRs wrong and missing it!

I mean, I'm upset, I'm angry and most of all I'm just plain astonished. I just can't get my head around this. I mean really, it just doesn't compute. I think the SciFi network ought to be ashamed of themselv...

(whispering, pause)

Oh, wait, they cancelled Enterprise?!? Just 100% for sure this time? Pft, well duh! Gee, you really had to be Miss Cleo to see that one coming. All the attention this was getting, I just figured that they must have cancelled Battlestar Galactica! Heh, oh Jesus, don't scare me like that! Heh, my hands are still shaking, man, you freaked me out! Whew...

C'mon, are you serious? You mean there were actually people willing to pay to see more of this crap? Like, real money? C'mon! An online petition with two signatures I might buy, but *pay*? Riiight....

Cancelling Enterprise... Yeah, whatever. Tragedy for all three fans of the series, I'm sure. Heh, pft... "Save Enterprise". Yeah, let me get right on that! What will the galaxy do without the heroics of Captain Archer, inspiration to mildly retarded people everywhere? What about all the memorable characters we know and love, like... er.. You know, hick-sounding white guy! Or british-sounding white guy? Or the chick in with the big boobies? (okay, 100% seriously: I will miss those boobies, but then again there's always the internet). LOL, "Save Enterprise". Ooh! We got to save Enterprise! Because, you know, it's, um, like a TV show with spaceships or something. Heh.

Whew.

Hey, is it July yet? Man, I couldn't believe that cliffhanger -- I tell ya, I haven't been genuinely surprised by a TV show in ages...

Re:Oh no No *NO*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Im glad. It sucked and so do you.

Re:Oh no No *NO*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it a troll or is it funny?

Is it flamebait or an interesting way of communicating an opinion?

Is it offtopic or just an reasonable insight?

Hey, I know that it's all about opinions and that people don't ever have "wrong" opinions because they're opinions! But then again, 3/3 here the mods manage to be wrong again. Good job mods!

Re:Oh no No *NO*!

[falcon5768]

you do realize that for all the hoopla over BSG Enterprise still beats it in the ratings.

Re:Oh no No *NO*!

[Cellshade]

Uhm, no. Enterprise had good ratings for its first two seasons.

In the last season, it averaged 3 points. About equal with Battlestar Galactica, not better than.

But here's the the thing: Enterprise is a network show, BSG is cable.

For a network show, Enterprise isn't so hot.

But for a cable show, BSG is a gigantic success.

If Enterprise was on cable, it probably wouldn't even get a single rating point.

Re:Oh no No *NO*!

[Anonymous Coward]

BSG is ass, its done absolutly nothing creative it just has a bigger loudmouth at the helm. Moore is a hack and has been for a long time and it will only be a matter of time before his one trick pony will be exposed as it is. All BSG has been is a war show set in space with a bigger name cast than space above and beyond had.

At least Space had a original idea, BSG has done nothing but rehash the same old tired bullshit drama we have seen before. but ooooo its BSG. Big deal BSG was a Star Wars rippoff anyway.

And like he said its still not as good ratings wise as Enterprise in its worse, anyone who is smart know UPN is a smaller network and thus has around the same number of affiliates as a cable channel has thus the number CAN be compaired to each other. Ent still leads every night but one of BSG.

Re:Oh no No *NO*!

[Anonymous Coward]

"All BSG has been is a war show set in space with a bigger name cast than space above and beyond had."

THANK YOU! Every time I sit down & watch this show I keep expecting John Wayne to come around the corner with pistols blazing.

BSG is so full of overdrawn stereotypes there would be nothing left if you removed them. Yay, another show about a hot-shot cop/pilot who cant keep his/her mouth shut & is constantly fighting with the chief/C-O.

Wake me up if something interesting happens.

A good idea ...

[foobsr]

... would perhaps be to try to redirect the money to The Internet Movie Project ...

Begin Quote
Our dream is to create a movie with the POV-Ray raytracer,
as a collaborative effort of many people from all over the world,
just for the fun of it, "because it can be done" -
very much like POV-Ray itself is developed.
End Quote

or a similar instance ...

Yes, I am daydreaming.

CC.

Re:A good idea ...

[eobanb]

making a quality feature film with POV-Ray would take about a century, I'm sorry to say.

Re:A good idea ...

[suitepotato]

Such a thing, using POV-Ray would give new meaning to "script".

I love POV-Ray, though rusty, but then again... I mean...

I'm at a loss with that one. Seems as improbable as Enterprise revising Trek cannon successfully. Let's hope it isn't, but not hold our breath either.

The producers of Enterprise OTOH may feel free to hold their breath forever. So I'm a little angry with them. What's the percentage of long time Trek fans who aren't?

Re:A good idea ...

[foobsr]

... or a similar instance.

Maya might fit better, but the platform would not be that crucial, I hate to say the trouble would be more on the side of managing it all.

Besides, LINUX took quite a while to grow in term of man years, see The true costs of Linux development.

CC.

Re:A good idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

making a quality feature film with POV-Ray would take about a century, I'm sorry to say.

That's exactly the point of the project.

And with 200 users donating CPU cycles for processing and talent for authorning it, that works out to about 1/2 a year.

What part of "collaborative effort" do you not understand.

Re:A good idea ...

[LocoMan]

No idea if you're affiliated to them or just promoting the site... but while I wish you good luck there, I've seen these kind of things pop up almost weekly in one or more major 3D forums out there, ranging from entire movies to simple 3D shorts.. and so far I know of only 3 that succeeded. One of them I forgot the name, but I did read that the project leader ended up doing almost everything himself, another one was boids of a feather done with animation:master, which had corporate backing from the company that made the software, and the third one was a spaniard movie that had a couple of 3D characters in a small part, and IIRC they ended up meeting in person to do it or something like that (I'll try to look for the name and more info). In my experience, at least, the biggest problem is lack of progress, people just get bored waiting to do their part and end up moving to something else. Hope that that isn't your (or their) case in the end, though.

Re:A good idea ...

[foobsr]

No idea if you're affiliated to them or just promoting the site...

Nope, I am not affiliated but I in about 1999 when playing with blender (not affiliated to those either) in order to research ads had the idea that it would be nice to come up with a collaboratively rendered version of 2001 at the beginning of the new millenium.

and so far I know of only 3 that succeeded

Would you think along these lines if 3000+ had succeeded?

CC.

Well..

[Nifrith]

Maybe, just maybe, it'll be like TOS. Or maybe, just maybe, we'll all go watch reruns of Farscape.
Either way, I'm good.

Good riddance to bad TV

[Flounder]

One down, reality shows, Friends reruns and 60 Minutes to go.

Re:Good riddance to bad TV

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that Enterprise and all that other stuff was bad TV, but what is wrong with 60 minutes (besides Rooney)?

Re:Good riddance to bad TV

[stendec]

Sorry dude: reality shows come and go, but unfortunately Friends lasts forever.

Re:Good riddance to bad TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Reality shows will outlive us all. Bob Vila was thew star of the oldest 'reality tv' show i ever remember watching (This Old House, PBS) The fad will fade, but reality shows are too cheap to produce, to ever really go away.

Re:Good riddance to bad TV

[Anonymous Coward]

And Ted Danson, anything with Ted Danson in it. Is it still possble to have 15 minutes of a broadcast day with at least one station Dansoning?

Re:Good riddance to bad TV

[slapout]

And you know Bob Vila's got to be mad about it. He started the whole thing and doesn't get any credit for it! :-)

Re:Good riddance to bad TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Not my friends.

It's never worked with my parents either

[rob_squared]

"But I'll pay!"

"I'm sorry son, we'll never allow a hooker in this house, and that's final!"

Re:It's never worked with my parents either

[panaceaa]

Your parents used to pay for hookers to come to your house?

No wonder you chose to live in their basement!

Re:It's never worked with my parents either

[rob_squared]

Apartments don't have basements, at least that's what my downstairs neighbor said when I started cutting through.

Re:It's never worked with my parents either

[WoBIX]

Just call them "tutors" and your parents are none the wiser :)

Re:It's never worked with my parents either

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm sorry son, we'll never allow a hooker in this house, and that's final!"

So where did your sister sleep then?

Finally.

[ackthpt]

Finally it's finally final.

but that's not the final word on the subject...is it ever?

Re:Finally.

[rainman_bc]

Finally it's finally final.

Netcraft confirms it!

=D

OH SNAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaking news: Cancelled show cancelled.

aww...

[ocularDeathRay]

oh poo.

The real reason

[14erCleaner]

...was all the counter-offers of money from fans if they DID cancel the series.

Good riddance, if you ask me.

Re:The real reason

[TheRaven64]

While nothing (well, perhaps the offer of large heaps of money) could induce me to watch Enterprise again, I am somewhat disappointed by the attitude of the studio. They exist to make money, and if there is a market for a product I am disappointed that they are not willing to fulfil it. Perhaps it is not worth air time, but if the production were privately funded then the distribution would be up to the investors.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can't say it really bothers me. And really, who didn't see this coming? However, I think it is unfourtunate that all the effort Enterprise fans put forth was wasted on what was IMO a worthless cause.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, people should never try to acomplish anything, jsut give up at the first opportunity.

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

KAHHHHHHHHHHN!!!!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[lsmeg]

I think it's more like:

CAAAAAAAAAAANNED!!!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[ozric99]

I believe this is what you're looking for ;)

They are not of the body?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cancel Enterprise? Are they not of the body?

I think we should all go find B&B (if you don't know who they are I'm not telling you) and to a recreation from Star Trek II

Slashdoters: So I leave you here, BURIED ALIVE!

how come not this time?

[UlfGabe]

Disclaimer: Not a flame, just an observation that a previous version of ST was saved by fans.

How come the legions of fans didn't save Enterprise from the same fate of Star Trek?

Are the fans just less hard core? Or is all that money they sink into merchandice not affecting the bottom line enough?

Re:how come not this time?

[0racle]

Because this one sucked, so there were no marketing oppertunities. Actually it was probably because the first one was saved by a huge writing campain, the one to save Enterprise was no where near that.

Maybe it was the suckage.

Re:how come not this time?

[IWorkForMorons]

Are the fans just less hard core?

Uh...no. I consider myself a hardcore Trek fan. I've never once gone to a con or even put on rubber ears. I kinda pride myself on that fact. But the shows...I know my Trek. I recently decided to download all the episodes and watch the full series. I hadn't watched any shows before, because of all the bad press other fans had given it. But I wanted to give it a chance before making a final decision.

And my final decision is this: let it die. As much as I hate saying that, I believe it's the right thing to do. It was a good concept, but poorly executed. The first problem I found was that there was too much emphasis on "filling in the gaps." They tried to explain away everything that the other shows introduced. The most glaring offence was the Borg episode. For god's sake...BORG?!? This says that the Enterprise-E crew were stupid enough to leave a whole crapload of future technology laying on Earth, potentially polluting their own timeline. AND that the Temporal Police or whatever they want to call themselves didn't do their jobs. For what? To explain away why the Borg invade the Alpha Quadrent 200 years later? Wasn't that already explained in TNG? The whole episode should have been killed in writing.

Besides that was the over-sexual use of T'Pol. You saw this happen with Voyager when Seven was brought in. They decided to start off with some hot babe in skintight uniforms on this one, killing the show's credibility in the process. Then there was the sterile acting of Reed and Archer in the first 2 season. Most of the cast was guilty of this actually. This I think was more caused by letting nearly every actor in previous shows have a chance to direct on Enterprise. And speaking of previous actors, there was far too many actors from previous shows playing in Enterprise. Part of the joy I got out of watching the show was spotting recycled actors. I've seen the guy who played General Martok on DS9 play at least 3 other characters in other Treks, including playing a Klingon on Enterprise. And they should have NEVER let Ethan Philips play a Ferengi, since he was the easiest to spot from playing one on Voyager. I didn't really like them bringing in Ferengi in the first place, but it sorta fit with the Star Trek Universe laid down by TNG. Storyline-wise, I wasn't impressed with the Temporal Cold War, and it really didn't do anything except introduce even more inconsistances in the Star Trek Universe. But at least they wrapped that up. The fourth season was picking up steam, and I would have liked to see that have been the first season. But it's too late. The damage is done. This is a hardcore Star Trek fan saying: Let It Die...

Re:how come not this time?

[MightyMartian]

ST-TOS had some real merits, even after a lacklustre third season. Enterprise was a pile of crap, an idea that should have been aborted before it was given a budget for even dixie cups.

Re:how come not this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, it was a good enough idea and I like Scott Bakula. However I lost most of my interest the second I heard the words "temporal cold-war". Enough with the damn time travel, it doesn't work.

Nooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I heard the muffled cry of milions of geeks from their mothers basements. I pop on Slashdot and it's confirmed.

Re:Nooooooo

[FLAGGR]

If by million you mean million divided by a half million, then you are indeed correct.

Too little, Too late

[vivin]

Season 3 tried to bring in a good story arc (it was good). Season 4 is pretty good, but it's too little, too late.

Seasons 3 and 4 are what seasons 1 and 2 should have been like. That Cold War temporal thing when NO WHERE.

The first seasons didn't have very gripping episodes. You had the same moral dilemmas and tired clichees and the blatant use of T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) as a sex symbol to attract testosterone-pumped young males. This is something she herself didn't like - Blalock wanted T'Pol to have more depth.

But anyway... Enterprise was interesting at first. It was interesting to see starfleet outmatched against pretty much everyone they met and how they dealt with the situation.

It is certainly sad, but I guess they had their chance. Blame the Diabolical Duo Berman and Bragga. They have the negative Midas effect. Anything they touch turns to crap. Which is why the first few seasons of DS9 were also not that great. It didn't get interesting until Michael Piller took it over and Berman turned his attention to Voyager. The actors in Enterprise, I think, did a decent job.

Re:Too little, Too late

[jamrock]

"...the blatant use of T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) as a sex symbol to attract testosterone-pumped young males. This is something she herself didn't like..."

Really? Then why did she pose for so many cheesecake pictures?

Re:Too little, Too late

[Altima(BoB)]

"You had the same moral dilemmas and tired clichees and the blatant use of T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) as a sex symbol to attract testosterone-pumped young males."

If you ask me, they DID focus too much on T'Pol and that annoys me because it came at the expense of the equally hot Hoshi (Linda Park). She was CRIMINALLY ignored...

I mean... it's one thing to go lowest common denominator and play the sex card, but even then, some of us have more discriminating tastes :)

Re:Too little, Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

...because it came at the expense of the equally hot Hoshi...

Got a bit of the yellow fever, do you?

Re:Too little, Too late

[The One and Only]

Which is why the first few seasons of DS9 were also not that great. It didn't get interesting until Michael Piller took it over and Berman turned his attention to Voyager.

Not to mention Ronald D. Moore (now of Battlestar Galactica).

Re:Too little, Too late

[Fractal Dice]

That Cold War temporal thing when NO WHERE.

I'm sad to say it but in a mere two episodes, the Doctor Who revival has managed to weave a more interesting temporal war story arc into its background than Enterprise managed in four years.

It lacked in something

[digitallife]

I never got into this Star Trek like the others. Even now, I would still rather watch old repeat episodes of TNG than Enterprise. I think that for all its flaws, TNG really hit it on the head. Voyager still had some of that good stuff too, but Enterprise lost it. Maybe they were trying to appeal to a wider audience or something, i don't know.

Suffice to say, I for one will not really miss it. Give me Firefly back tho!

Re:It lacked in something

[MightyMartian]

Well TNG still had the Roddenberry stamp on it. It took a couple of seasons to really work, but there was enough about the cast to like that even some of the truly awful stories couldn't kill it. It was also the fact that it was the first new Trek TV series in two decades. Absense makes the heart grow fonder. I guarantee you, if Paramount puts any new Trek projects on the shelf for a decade or more, they'll have another popular show on their hands. If they puke out another piece of crap like Voyager or Enterprise, then I doubt a hundred years could save the franchise. I suspect, by the sounds Paramount is making that they know this too.

Rephrase

[panaceaa]

"Star Trek Enterprise will be the first Star Trek show since the original series not to run a full seven seasons."

Couldn't this be rephrased in a completely positive way to say: "Star Trek Enterprise is yet another Star Trek show since the original series to run a full six seasons."

??

Why the negative slant?

Re:Rephrase

[vivin]

"Star Trek Enterprise is yet another Star Trek show since the original series to run a full six seasons."

Maybe because it's getting cancelled after the fourth season? :)

Re:Rephrase

[Anonymous Coward]

well, its only going to run 4 seasons, the orginal only ran 3, and 7 is the 'normal' run.

thats why you cant rephrase it that way

Re:Rephrase

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause it barely made four seasons.

Re:Rephrase

[The Good Reverend]

Couldn't this be rephrased in a completely positive way to say: "Star Trek Enterprise is yet another Star Trek show since the original series to run a full six seasons.

Because Enterprise only ran 4 seasons, TOS ran 3 seasons, and all the others ran 7 seasons?

Re:Rephrase

[panaceaa]

So it's actually the 2nd show to not run 7 seasons??

Re:Rephrase

[panaceaa]

OH, pardon me. I'm slow today.

I didn't know what your TLA stood for.

Re:Rephrase

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's why the story said:

"Star Trek Enterprise will be the first Star Trek show since the original series not to run a full seven seasons."

Re:Rephrase

[Martin Blank]

Yes, but the first since TOS, meaning in all series which followed TOS.

Why is there such difficulty with this?

Captain its the slashdot effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Captain, the webpages are loading slower and slower, we have to do something. Right Ensign, Scotty we need more power. (damn, wrong series, so hey what's his name, we need more power.... Hmm, I guess that sums up partly why its going off the air, I only saw the pilot)

SaveVoyager

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. Maybe they can redirect the money to help save the Voyager projects.

Re:SaveVoyager

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent idea!

I'm just guessing that......

[TechnoGrl]

Paramount might be waiting for Berman's and/or Braga's contracts to expire before they relaunch another ST series again?? Perhaps they want a producer that can create something other than crap? Hellooooo... Coto or Joe??

Maybe they have more neurons then we give them credit for...then again

Well a girl could hope....

Re:I'm just guessing that......

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have your screenname? :-)

Re:I'm just guessing that......

[The One and Only]

I have a mental image of Paramount executives sitting around watching Battlestar Galactica wailing, "Why did you leave us, Ronald D. Moore? Noooooo!"

Re:I'm just guessing that......

[Anonymous Coward]

Well a girl could hope...

Girl you say?

/straightens bow tie

Re:I'm just guessing that......

[accessdeniednsp]

Hey baby, wanna cyber?

A/S/L?

Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[Tyler Durden]

That's OK. Doctor Who's better than Star Trek anyways.

;)

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[seanyboy]

It only took 16 years for the BBC to bring Dr Who back, so hopefully we should be seeing more star trek in 2021.

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[signalgod]

Ain't that the truth...

and it's Real Sci-fi... not like B5 or trek...

(...there goes what Kharma I had...)

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[Tumbleweed]

And let's not forget the new Battlestar Galactica. SF fans are doin' okay; we don't need no Star Trek stinking up the airwaves, even though it seems they finally got it together at the end. Oh well. I'm still in mourning for Space: Above and Beyond, and Firefly. And Angel got really fantastic in its final season, another one killed just as it was returning to greatness. The puppet episode was one of the funniest things ever on TV, IMO.

Once we all have closure after Star Wars: Ep 3, we can all move on, and out of the parents' basements. :)

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[tepp]

I'm not so happy with the new Dr Who. I've seen the first three episodes so far, and they're okay, but...

1) The stories are too short. 45 minutes for an entire Doctor who story? Most old doctor who stories had 4 or more episodes at 30 mins each - 2 hours. So you don't get a chance to introduce anything other than the bluntest and most direct story, none of the intreague or complexity of the Old Who.

2) Rose is too bland. She's like Ace, but with no nitro-nine or boombox or bat. There's nothing that really defines "her" as a person.

3) The Doctor himself is too hyped on caffine/speed. He lacks the charm and the sheer brilliance of the old Doctors. Everything is so rushed, there's no feeling of thought or design in anything he does. There's no feeling of terror or wonder (a la the 2nd doctor), no vulnerability or confusion (a la doctor #1), or grace and style (doctor #3), or wit and genius (doctor #4)... I could go on. He's just a guy whose on drugs, rushing and running his way blindly through some pre-ordaned set of hoops.

I fear for this new Who. :(

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[As Seen On TV]

1. I think a really solid argument can be made that the old shows were way too long. You want to argue for a happy medium with lots of two-parters, fine. You want to argue for the return of the 200-minute mega-sagas consisting almost entirely of people running around styro-lined sound stages, include me out.

2. She's supposed to be bland. She's supposed to be the everyman, the one character the audience can relate to.

3. Okay, obviously that's a matter of taste. You could have saved a lot of typing by just saying "me no likey."

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[tepp]

#1. There are some very good long stories. For example, listen to the audio tapes of Masterplan of the Daleks (12 episodes, 6 hours total). It has daleks, a horde of other aliens, twists and turns, not one but TWO companion's deaths... lots of fun.

Ok, so War Games, another 12 parter, got dull towards the end. But it has its moments and the overall story is interesting.

However the best stories, IMHO, are 4 parters. Logopolis. The War Machines. The Tomb of the Cybermen. Castrovalva. Remembrance of the Daleks.

45 minutes is just too short to tell a good scifi story.

#2. You're underestimating the abilities of the audience. They related fine to Tegan and her desire to return to Heathrow. They understood Susan and her dependance on her Grandfather. They related to Ace and her tormented childhood, to Leila and her barbaric ways.

The only other "bland" companion I can think of - disregarding Sara and Katarina cause they had only 1 story to express themselves in (well, Katarina had 1 1/2)... was Dodo. And Dodo was so boring that nobody picks her as "favourite companion"... heck, most people don't even remember her at all.

#3. I think this doctor is worse than #6. And that's saying a lot, especially as Colin Baker now resembles a beached whale....

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[Anonymous Coward]

if by "relate" you mean "wanted to fuck", then yes, absolutely. Apart from Tegan.

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[forkazoo]

i like the new Who, but I agree that the long story format was better. 4 eps was just about perfect. I just watched War Games, and it was a ten episode ark! Short enough that I can follow it (B5 was hard to come back to after missing half a season, but you knew Who would reset itself in a few weeks), but long enough to build things up, and have fun with it.

Also, in the new Who, he is the last Time Lord. How does that even make logical sense as an important point in the story? "I am the last, except for all the ones who travelled to the future, and all the ones I can still visit in the past."

Re:Trollin' trollin' trollin'...

[brassman]

Saw ep 1, and was prepared to go all "Who the blazes is this Aussie git?!" until the scene where he takes Rose's hand (no, not THAT one) and goes into the speech about how he can feel the earth move.

They done good. It's the Doctor, back again after all these years.

Thank Gord

[ucblockhead]

Now maybe all this damn whining about a third-rate TV show will stop.

Has Netcraft confirmed it?

[Council]

There is still hope; Netcraft has not confirmed the cancelation!

With all that extra money they raised-

[Tobias.Davis]

The nerds can build a really really big basement to live in. Who needs TV when you can re-enact episode by episode the whole Star Trek timeline!

(Note that I am a fan, but I couldn't help it)

They got lazy

[Bullfish]

Frankly, what killed Enterprise in the end was that same thing that made Voyager suck. The writers, producers, et al got lazy and sucked the meat off a franchise which had a loyal following for many years. They indulged themselves in the stories and forgot to work at producing a good quality show that would keep the fans wanting more and that put the fans first. In the past they didn't have that much compting with them, but the new battlestar galactica, farcape, the new doctor who and other shows that put Enterprise to shame. Manny Coto helped, but by then the damage was done.

When, if, they resurrect the franchise, they best not do so simply because they take the fans for granted and that they feel a suitable period of star trek starvation has passed.

Re:They got lazy

[WebHostingGuy]

I agree. There were actually very few original written episodes. Everything was just a spin-off script from another ST season. If they had different writers with new ideas then it would have taken off. But rehashing the same old holodeck incident, time travel, alternate reality is just the same story, different characters. What makes any television show a blockbuster (or movie) is new ideas written without the tired old hash.

Look at anything which has had a new concept on television and been successful and you will not see any comments like oh, that show is the same as the one which was on years ago.

Re:They got lazy

[oahazmatt]

I thought the reason Voyager sucked was because the ship looked like a garden trowel. What Enterprise really needed was a villain with a big plastic chest!

Re:They got lazy

[Dogtanian]

In the past they didn't have that much compting with them, but the new battlestar galactica, farcape, the new doctor who and other shows that put Enterprise to shame.

(My emphasis) Sorry, the new Doctor Who will *not* appeal to a mainstream American audience.

They tried to do that in 1996; the result was a horribly watered-down version that changed a lot of the stuff around and Americanised it (even set it in the US!) And it *still* flopped.

Although the effects in the new series are massively better than those in the old one, the simple fact is that Doctor Who is too British to appeal to a mass-market US audience. Sure, it had a cult-like fanbase in the US who may well enjoy the new series; but it will never get the sorts of audience that are likely to worry the producers of ST.

Re:They got lazy

[MightyMartian]

Us Canadians sure dig it, eh! Damn glad the CBC is willing to bring in BBC productions like Dr. Who.

Re:They got lazy

[Bullfish]

The ratings for Enterprise were no great shakes my friend. The point was that there is a lot more good science fiction on the air now than ever before. Star Trek has to raise the bar. I could have listed a number of shows, but I take it you get the point.

Re:They got lazy

[Bullfish]

We should get it, the CBC is a co-producer. Though my understanding is that they mainly provided money.

Re:They got lazy

[Bullfish]

Ulitmately, they have to get a new writing staff and production team. Someone who can follow the canon of the franchise but inject some real human drama tied to some engrossing stores that show the depth of the crew. Really, would anyone have cared of Torres, or Paris from Voyager fell down a turbolift shaft to their doom? This carried over to Enterprise which seemed totally devoid of characters that made you care about them.

Obvious

[Renraku]

"Paramount has declared that they will not be accepting *any amount of money* from fans to continue to produce Star Trek Enterprise."

This should tell you something important.

Re:Obvious

[rob_squared]

What? That people who hold the Star Trek trademark don't want to lose it?

Re:Obvious

[aspx]

> "Paramount has declared that they will not be
> accepting *any amount of money* from fans to
> continue to produce Star Trek Enterprise."
>
> This should tell you something important.

It does. Para mount translated from Spanish is "for sex." They want sex, not money.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

This should tell you something important.

Yeah, that it's obviously an untrue statement.

Or do you think they'd turn down a million bajillion dollars, pinky & all?

So, now we need to decode what they are really saying. My guess would be "we don't expect to get an offer that is acceptable to us". The next step would be to find out what they consider to be acceptable.

I'm not speaking as a fan, by the way, I don't particularly care one way or the other if it's cancelled. I just find it frustrating when people say things that are obviously false.

Re:Obvious

[n0tWorthy]

Well, plenty of people seem to download it from Bittorrent. Maybe Paramount could realize that they could charge people $1 per episode for a DRM key and Bittorrent the show around the world. Then they wouldn't need any advertizers.

Oops, that would mean embracing the future and digital delivery (kind of like iTunes) and we know THAT isn't going to happen. The new media will sell us what we want to see without commercials, until then expect to see lots of thrashing and pain. I wonder who the next media giant will be because it certainly won't be any of the current ignorant media congomorates?

Re:Obvious

[Kethinov]

This should tell you something important.

This is what it tells us: Paramount is just as disappointed with the ratings situation as UPN is. Enterprise has a bad reputation for being a "poor quality show" thanks shitty writing in the early seasons and poor marketing in the later seasons when the writing improved. Now the show's got just as much quality as any of the others in its 4th season, but the vast majority of the fanbase has alredy lost interest.

Paramount being in it for money, doesn't feel their profit margins are big enough to continue the show beyond this point. As for the whole "not accepting any amount of money" thing, if the donations amounted to $50 million instead of $3 million I doubt they would have released such a statement.

Paramount is just being realistic about their business investments.

Someone at Paramount doesn't like it

[Darth_Jon]

Obviously someone at Paramount just doesn't like Star Trek.

Re:Someone at Paramount doesn't like it

[wheelbarrow]

They would like 60 minutes of viewing a fish bowl with one fish in it if it sold advertising. This was not the result of anyone's personal grudge. The show did not draw advertisers because the show had low ratings. That is all there is to it.

If you don't like it then why don't you produce your own show that has all of the qualities you loved about Voyager?

Re:Someone at Paramount doesn't like it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like it then why don't you produce your own show that has all of the qualities you loved about Voyager?

That'd be easy, just point a video camera at this for a while ;)

Re:Someone at Paramount doesn't like it

[Darth_Jon]

I hated Voyager, I don't understand how that pile of crap stayed on for all 7 years and the cancel something that is actually good

Re:Someone at Paramount doesn't like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously someone at Paramount just doesn't like Star Trek.

Going off the last few years, that person would be Rick Berman...

Guess you've missed...

[Valiss]

Don't they understand that they're cancelling the most original, innovative and entertaining Sci Fi show of this generation?

Guess you missed Babylon5.

Re:Guess you've missed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess you missed the second half of his post where he reveals he was being sarcastic.

Re:Guess you've missed...

[Skyshadow]

Nope, I sure didn't.

B5 was a reasonably entertaining show, but IMO it was critically flawed because of the extreme "cringe factor" that worked its way in, especially in the later episodes.

C'mon, we're talking about a series where two advanced races spend thousands of years and unimaginable amounts of effort to influence the evolution of the galaxy only to suddenly pack up and leave because, at the denoumont of the entire serious, Bruce Boxleitner yells "Get the hell out of our galaxy!". The cheese was too thick to get past. "As my grandfather used to say, 'cool!'"...

B5 was better than Enterprise and Voyager and, IMO, it was the reason that DS9 was forced to become watchible in its last couple of seasons. But overall (and still, obviously, in my opinion), it was still a flawed show in a way that BSG is not (at least, not yet).

Re:Guess you've missed...

[golgotha007]

no no, he has all the Babylon5 DVD's on his shelf, right next to Days of our Lives and Ryan's Hope.

Re:Guess you've missed...

[JDAustin]

You need to remember though. Babylon 5 set the bar by which sci-fi series are now rated on.

BS:G, SG:SG1, SG:A being better then B5. B5 forcing the last few seasons of DS9 to be respectable. B5 showing just how bad Voyager was.

Babylon 5 isn't the best sci-fi series today, it was the best sci-fi series when it was on. The simple fact that there are better series shows what an impact it had on sci-fi tv.

Re:Guess you've missed...

[As Seen On TV]

Thank you. I'm glad it's not just me. I just got through writing another comment where I opined humbly that, for all it had going for it, "Babylon 5" was incredibly stupid. Hugely, massively stupid.

It's not a problem to like something stupid, but the fact that it's stupid should go a long way toward explaining why the vast majority of people couldn't give a shit about "Babylon 5."

Re:Guess you've missed...

[daVinci1980]

[2] isn't the [highest] [number] today, it was the [highest] [number] when it was [discovered]. The simple fact that there are [higher] [numbers] shows what an impact [2] had on [numbers].

Re:Guess you've missed...

[Dogtanian]

t the denoumont of the entire serious, Bruce Boxleitner yells "Get the hell out of our galaxy!"

I know that Boxleitner replaced O'Hare's character because he was a bigger name, but he was *way* too much of a "regular American guy/soldier" to be convincing in that position. He totally lacked authority and statesmanship. Or was the audience supposed to be able to empathise with the character?

Yuk.

The irony is that, to a very large extent, earth was a metaphor for the USA; and Sheridan's attitude was very American. Yet in that case, earth was a pawn in a war between two greater powers, the tiny country that *wasn't* the USA nor the USSR.

Go figure what you can make of that...

Re:Guess you've missed...

[Anonymous Coward]

I quite agree.

It was mildly diverting at times, but it's not something I'd admit to watching in polite company. Too goddamn silly, and even worse it lands you in the "thinks-he's-too-hardcore-for-star-trek" category. Which is just scary.

Re:Guess you've missed...

[endsley]

Are you sure BSG isn't flawed? I thought BSG was about 12 colonoies of humans looking for the 'lost' 13th colony of Earth. But I think it the other way 'round. Those wall clocks looks suspiciously Earthlike .... I swear I can read "Made in China" during the countdown closeups....

Re:Guess you've missed...

[pokeyburro]

C'mon, we're talking about a series where two advanced races spend thousands of years and unimaginable amounts of effort to influence the evolution of the galaxy only to suddenly pack up and leave because, at the denoumont of the entire serious, Bruce Boxleitner yells "Get the hell out of our galaxy!". The cheese was too thick to get past. "As my grandfather used to say, 'cool!'"...

I dunno. I liked that scene. It conveyed a strong sense to me of what power at that level does to your culture. The Vorlons and the Shadows had reasons behind their evolutionary agendas, and those reasons were finally toppled by years of developments culminating in Sheridan's speech. At that level of power, the story seemed to say, it's possible that a rhetorical argument at the right time and from the right source is enough to make you decide "fuck it" and go home.

It wasn't just his speech I was detecting, either; I was seeing that really old alien's influence, all the other Old Races at the battle, the brouhaha over the telepaths, and millenia of implied sophistry between the Vorlons and Shadows.

Re:Guess you've missed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, they didn't leave because Sherridan told them to leave, they left because the First One and all the other original races showed up and said "grow the fuck up, you morons". And then, suddenly, they did. Or something.

I don't know, though, because by that time, the whole PURE EVIL VERSUS PURE GOOD!!11!111 cheese had already put me off. The Shadows versus the Angels in Spacesuits! How subtle!

Not to mention I'd swear the actors were basically reading the stage directions out loud. "Look at me! I'm a strong female lead!" "Look at me! I'm the heroic leader!" Yes, we got it.

This doesn't change the fact that, at the time it originally aired, it was still the best Sci-Fi show on TV. (At least, in the US.)

Re:Guess you've missed...

[unitron]

Have you noticed how "Earth-like" almost all of the civilian clothing on the new BSG is? Especially the "journalists" who look like they stepped off of a '70s used car lot?

Let it die...

[redswinglinestapler]

And give your Enterprise donation money to Africa or Asia. They need the money much more! People will do ANYTHING to avoid the realities of life and substitute in fictional realities these days, it seems...

Re:Let it die...

[WillAffleckUW]

And give your Enterprise donation money to Africa or Asia. They need the money much more!

True, they do need it more, but make sure it's given to someone that actually does something useful, like provides teachers and books or malaria-preventing tents for girls, not just money that will be waylaid by some warlord.

Or invent something useful to help the world with the money.

Re:Let it die...

[Anonymous Coward]

About 80% of the money donated to charities in Africa are eaten up by corruption, theft, and nepotism. If you're going to do this, make sure it goes to a group that handles everything on its own and doesn't route through the local governments.

Re:Let it die...

[corngrower]

but make sure it's given to someone that actually does something useful, like provides teachers and books or malaria-preventing tents...

Or acts in a Television Sci Fi series.

Re:Let it die...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks I needed a good laugh.

You cannot seriously compare the importance of a gutter crappy shat out star trek show to the serious and grave problems of poverty and disease that exist in the world today which was the actual point. But to look at it from your POV, Star Trek is bad fiction anyway. It is not Shakespear. There is nothing revelatory about it or informative or for most people even entertaining. It's recent endless spin offs are just the usual junk fodder made for a group of fans who can't get on with reality and are upset when it's cancelled.

Re:Let it die...

[WillAffleckUW]

The reason I said make sure the money goes to something useful, was because of this editorial in the International Herald Tribune.

Still, I'll miss it, but am glad we have BG which is way more interesting.

Re:Let it die...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give my money to Africa when they can produce a decent SciFi show that I can enjoy watching. Until then, my entertainment money goes where I want to spend it.

Good riddance

[secolactico]

I'm not sorry to see it go. This series was a waste of talent (some of the actors are *way* underrated) on predictable plots and softcore scenes.

But the franchise really needs to rest for a while. Next Generation was great because it was sort of a revival. Maybe a few years from now somebody will come with a great idea for a Star Trek series that doesn't look like its milking the same tired cow.

Old comics book series have gotten big on the big screen. Battlestar Galactica surpassed my expectations. And for the fans, just because it's on hiatus it doesn't mean the franchise will die.

On the other hand, we need new series. Too bad Firefly wasn't better realized. It had great potential.

Re:Good riddance

[Martin Blank]

I say give it about ten years, then bring in top sci-fi writers to create a background story that uses TOS and maybe TNG/DS9 as the untouched cores. Ignore Voyager and Enterprise, and start showing us the true histories. Look at the models used in TNG to see how the first starship Enterprise looked, and craft it from there. Allow an evolution. Create a smart series, and not one that simply expects Trek fans to blindly follow where every other series has gone before.

Hell, make one about the Romulan War, and let the actors sign per-episode contracts and iron-clad NDAs so that we never know who will survive from one episode to the next. That could eat up a couple of seasons, and would be an interesting experiment.

Re:Good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

If they put some HARDCORE scenes in the next series, I might just give it a shot.

Assuming they leave off the creepy forhead makeup and cyborgs. If I want to see deformed monsters having it off I'll go watch hentai.

Urrgh.

Re:Good riddance

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Star Trek: Klingon Warriors. Set it at or just before when TNG is happening, with a ship of klingon adventurers out to kick ass and take names. And this time, they can speak real klingon again instead of the gibberish that passed for it in Enterprise. It can be filled with intrigue and espionage and so forth.

And there won't even be a human on the series until season 4!

still inconclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

All this confirms about cancellation is that the "show's run on UPN" is over, the only thing new is that they will not accept funds to continue it. It's still true that if they Paramount would shop the damn show, it would be picked up, why they don't want any more money is hard to fathom.

My only question

[murderlegendre]

This may be OT, and mod it so (...) if you wish, but: Why is it that we cannot have a prime-time TV Sci-Fi series that does not contain one or more pointless romantic subplots? This is one of the things that really irked me about Enterprise, and kept me from giving a rat's ass about the show. It's as bad as that whole pathetic Riker/Troi thing in TNG.. the whiny dating the pompous.

Does any real Sci-Fi fan care who is banging whom? Let's just all assume they are banging each other, and get on with the relevant content please.

If I hadn't read this /. article, I'd never even have noticed it was gone.

Re:My only question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does any real Sci-Fi fan care who is banging whom? Let's just all assume they are banging each other, and get on with the relevant content please.

Regardless of whether your personal experience reflects it or not, sex is a fairly common and significant event in people's lives.

Therefore, it stands to reason that well-told stories that revolve around character development would include the characters having sex with each other from time to time. They might smoke, drink, make bad decisions or have massive awesome space battles, too. That's all part of the deal.

Re:My only question

[dougmc]

Why is it that we cannot have a prime-time TV Sci-Fi series that does not contain one or more pointless romantic subplots?

Because life contains one or more pointless romantic subplots (If you're lucky, anyways.)

Real people love, have sex, break up, etc. And while sci-fi is usually supposed to be out there, they want us to identify with the characters, and showing that they're not too different from us is one way to do that.

If I hadn't read this /. article, I'd never even have noticed it was gone.

Star Trek Enterprise, or your own personal pointless romantic subplots?

As for Enterprise, it's not quite gone yet. They haven't shown the last episodes yet.

Re:My only question

[ebonkyre]

> Does any real Sci-Fi fan care who is banging whom?
Lots and lots of FanFic'ers...

> Let's just all assume they are banging each other,
Already been done (see above).

But yeah, most of the "official" romantic subplots don't rise above the level of the "fan"-tasy ones.

Re:My only question

[jmelloy]

Battlestar Galactica.

There are tons of romantic subplots, and they all have a point.

There's not just Riker/Troi ...
There's the budding relationship between Dee and the Presidential Butt Boy, two people fiercely loyal to their superiors, and their superiors are sometimes at odds.
There's the Lee/Starbuck/Gaius thing.
The Starbuck/Zach (Lee's dead brother)
There's Gaius/any female character. (Go him for getting some while running for Vice President in the bathroom!)
There's Colonel Tigh and his wife.

Possibly the most important, the two Boomer bangs, Apollo and the Master Chief

Or Gaius and the head-chip Cylon.

All of them have a point. All of them have flaws. All of them have strengths.

Having a show where the romantic plots are actual plots is much better than having a show where they take two pretty people and have the fans try to care about what they're doing.

Re:My only question

[maxpublic]

Does any real Sci-Fi fan care who is banging whom?

Those of us who like to fuck in real life do. Those of us who are still virgins living with Mom and Dad...probably less so.

Max

Re:My only question

[uberdave]

Because it is not the science part of a sf series that makes a series interesting, it is the character interactions. Sure, it is interesting the first time a new concept comes along, but stretching that concept out as a series basis is doomed to fail. You'll wind up with "particle of the week", or "holodeck malfunction of the week", episodes. Broad story arcs require broad concepts.

Re:My only question

[Anonymous Coward]

It seemed to me that Enterprise had more G rated sex than any other sci fi series I ever watched. When Kirk made it with the green bitch his motives were clear. When Riker donned a tunic to meet with the head of a female dominated society, the sexual overtones were clear.
In Enterprise we need a decon chamber as an excuse to sit around together in underwear, or be captured and handcuffed so Archer has to roll around on the floor with T'Poi to get free.
Real people have relationships and grow together or apart. In Enterprise, it seemed like there were excuses for sexual actions without any relationships. Sort of as long as we can give a 12 year old a boner, mission accomplished.

Quantum Leap Storyline

[Anonymous Coward]

I can just see it now. Sam Beckett going back in time and saving Scott Bakula from making the worst career move of his life (After Major League 3, that is).

Re:Quantum Leap Storyline

[Roskolnikov]

I watched a couple of episodes and couldn't quite figure out why I kept thinking about Ziggy, Farscape and a show called voyagers; just couldn't watch it after that.....

Obligatory

[SpottedKuh]

All they need to do is go back in time and kill the Nazis that cancelled the show! ...Oh wait, that's why they're being cancelled...

Let it die the death it so richly deserves

[redswinglinestapler]

TOS: enjoyed it in reruns as a kid. Thought the first season ruled, the second season was mostly good, the third season was headed downhill fast. Lesson: the quality (read: intelligence level) of the show's producer(s) matters. TNG: first seasons wildly uneven. Cheesy opticals (FX), unclear story lines, characters were thin at best. Season 5 was generally good. In the end, okay, but cut out about half the episodes. Lesson: quantity does not equal quality. DS9: A great idea, indifferently executed. The whole Bajoran gods idea could have been a fantastic bit of sci-fi, but in the end they just were used as deus ex machina. The introduction of the war story arc (although probably a response to Babylon 5) rescued it and made me actually want to tune in. Lesson: go somewhere with your big idea by giving the writers a framework. Voyager: Interesting idea (lost, out of touch), horribly executed. Janeway was in need of serious medication, as she was at a minimum bipolar. I wouldn't follow her as a leader for a month, much less years. The producers introduced ideas and at the end of the episode would use the "magic reset button" of time warp, tech change, or the jargon of the week. The ship acquired technology which gave it advantages, then the next episode it would be gone and might as well have never existed, to say nothing of frequently suffering damage which should have required time in dock. Utterly uncompelling and frustrating. Lesson: there's no point in having a show if it's not going anywhere with the characters, story or even the technology. Enterprise: I knew that when I heard who would produce that it would be garbage. When I heard the theme song, after cleaning up the vomit, I knew my worst suspicions were nowhere near what they should have been. The time-machine reset button, the unbelievable screwing with the canon, the notion that a ship could be remote controlled all the way from the Romulan Empire... Just...let...it...die, folks. The idiots who produce it are incapable of doing good work. It's just a money machine to them. Giving them your money is counterproductive. Find someone talented like Joss Whedon or Strasczinsky (sp?) instead. Don't save Enterprise.

Kinda Sucks

[duckfan312]

Kinda Sucks for the Fans who actually gave money to the cause they probably won't even get there money back. Star Wars Episode III May 19

Re:Kinda Sucks

[oahazmatt]

Star Wars Episode III May 19

Haven't they suffered enought? :)

-1 old crap everyone (hopefully) already knew

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, can we start instituting mod points for the article itself? Please?

Battlestar: Galactica comment

[redswinglinestapler]

I was immensely against this series before it aired, and most especially because of the changes to Starbuck, which I felt like was akin to rewriting the bible and making Jesus a woman.

I will however be the first to admit I was completely wrong about BS:G.

So far it has been nothing short of brilliant. What has especially impressed me is the overall tone of it. I think it was Ron Moore who said (paraphrasing) that the original series wasn't true to it's own premise... in the original, within a week or so of Caprica being devastated, they were in bars on other planets with other humans, having a blast, generally not acting like the future of the human species hung in the balance. I never thought of it before, but damn it if he wasn't right! I still love the original series, but I do view it in a different light now. The remake has really gotten this right, in the extreme. There is a truly palpabale sense of dread throughout it, and that is fantastic as far as I'm concerned.

But...

This is NOT the best sci-fi show on the air today. It's third, near as I can tell, behind Stargate SG1 and SG:Atlantis. SG1 has been the best for some years now, ever since Babylon 5 went off the air actually. Atlantis has come on unbelievably strong this first season, and I predict here and now we're going to be hailing it's greatness 10 years down the road when it's still chugging along. And it wouldn't surprise me it SG1 was still producing new episodes then too!

And if B5 is still airing in your market, than IT is the best show on TV today.

None of this takes away from how good BS:G has been though. It has completely proved me wrong. Hell, I'm even getting used to the new Starbuck, I think the actress playing her is doing an excellent job in the role. If they can keep this up, it's going to be a fantastic and long ride!

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell? Now /.er dont even read the posts, they just click on things write up a long comment, and hope its somehow related to the actual topic...

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[Tumbleweed]

Ya know, you had me agreeing until you said you thought SG:Atlantis was better than BSG. Yikes.

I'd rank them thusly, for what's currently in production:

1) BSG
2) The 4400
3) Dr Who (only 3 eps to judge by, but it's fine)
4) Stargate SG-1 (this has gone way downhill with the cutback of Anderson's screentime). In it's prime, I would've put this at #2, easily.
5) Regenesis, if you consider this SF, which I do, though many wouldn't.

Stargate: Atlantis is so bad, I can't bring myself to put it on such a list, sadly. But every show has its fans, and I'm glad _someone_ likes it, though I will admit, you're the first I've heard say so.

If Space: Above and Beyond was still on, I'd have it at #1, bumping BSG to #2, (though not by much), and if Babylon 5 was still on, I'd have it at #3. First season of Farscape would be at #4, but boy did it take a quality nosedive once the whole Scorpius/crazy Crichton thing started. Visually, LEXX was stunning, but I could never get into the story.

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[ravenspear]

Visually, LEXX was stunning, but I could never get into the story.

That's because there was none.

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[solios]

Farscape was good stuff, imo- the Scorpius / John bits were a lot of fun, but on a re-watch, the crap part wasn't that aspect of the show, it was all of the filler that leaked in with seasons 2-4. Quite a few one-off throwaway episodes, with the result being something in between Trek and BSG for continuity, leaning much closer to the Trek end of the spectrum.

Farscape compares favorably against the likes of SG:A, Lexx and what I've seen of the current Doctor Who season (wish they'd spent as much effort on the SCRIPT as they have on the PRODUCTION), but the sheer number of fluff/throway eps and the plot pacing leave a bad taste in my mouth. Great characters, for the most part - more than I can say for most television these days.

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[Anonymous Coward]

akin to rewriting the bible and making Jesus a woman.

OMFG, that would be awesome!

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of The 4400 or Regenesis, but I agree with you on the other points - especially Space: Above and Beyond.

LEXX? What's not to get into? Campy fun with lots of jiggles and completely bizarre characters. No plot or character development to speak of...but then who needs it when one is a gorgeous sex-slave/carniverous worm hybrid, another is a sniveling tweaker, a third is both dead and deadly in a Jason/Freddy Cruger kind of way, and the fourth is a love-sick, sociopathic robot-head! But none of that makes it on the list of top five sci-fi. It merely puts it into a sub-genre of sci-fi like Amazon Women on the Moon (and LEXX is much better, IMO).

What I don't get is your criticism of Farscape. For me, Farscape was by far the best sci-fi to come along since...since I don't know. It was unique in that none of the characters were even remotely human, except Crichton - and going crazy was all part of being the lone human amongs so alien of aliens. I saw the Scropius/crazy Crichton thing as one of the shows highpoints, not the start of its decline.

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[drxray]

S:AaB was a great show, but would it have been so well remembered if half the cast hadn't been unexpectedly killed in the final episode? All the depression and death was what really made the series.

Re:Battlestar: Galactica comment

[Tumbleweed]

The 4400 is more of a miniseries, I suppose, but it's coming back for more episodes. It's about 4400 human alien abductees returned to Earth. They're from several different time periods, but none has aged, so some have to deal with very short spans of being gone, some with much longer. Each starts to find out they've been changed, and each now has a particular ability they didn't have before. Very interesting.

Regenesis - seems to be a Canadian show (I get it online, not sure of it's origin), about a group of biohazard response team scientists. Nifty stuff.

re: LEXX

I guess I'm a sucker for a storyline, I just can't get into LEXX.

re: Farscape criticism

I liked that the characters were very obviously alien (except, of course, for the Peacekeepers), and I liked the early tense camaraderie the show had, but eventually they all seemed to dislike each other too much, and distrust each other too much, and I just didn't find it as fun, though it was still well-made.

Sliders was a good concept, but went downhill fast. The idea that those characters would so often be important people in alternate worlds was a bit too much, and the replacement of the entire cast just became way too much for the show to continue. Once you get rid of Sabrina Lloyd, you are DEAD to me as a show. DEAD.

DEAD.

Bullshit

[fm6]

Your comparison is lame, because TOS had a lot of good scripts during the first two seasons. They didn't start to falter until the third and final season, when most of the best writers and producers had left.

I do get pissed when I see a good TV show cancelled before it has a chance to find an audience. But a proper chance is two or three months, not 3 years.

Even most Trekkies found the early Enterprise scripts rancid. Stand back from your Trekkieness for a minute and consider that from the network's POV. They spend millions of bucks on a TV show, and it can't even inspire enthusiasm among hard core fans who are supposed to be a lock. Any other show that screwed up that badly wouldn't have lasted a full season, never mind getting renewed twice. Didn't get a chance? Spare me.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

"They didn't start to falter until the third and final season"

I know exactly when they started to suck - it was the first episode. It was an incredibly lame series, and Captain Quantum was just not right for the role.

Re:Bullshit

[cpt kangarooski]

No, he's talking about the original Star Trek series from the '60s. And he's right -- it started out fairly good, but the third season wasn't all that great, e.g. Abraham Lincoln flying through space.

Re:Bullshit

[solios]

It wasn't just rancid scripts... it was the scrotum-liquifingly HORRIBLE THEME MUSIC.

That was strike one for me. Strikes two and three were reading the words "temporal cold war" in a synopsis of an upcoming episode. After the shitsmear that was First Contact, and after movies like Butterfly Effect and Twelve Monkeys, I'm absolutely finished with Trek time travel.

"Fortunately" Enterprise dropped the ball before I wasted any of my time on it.

Re:Bullshit

[fm6]

That theme is pretty awful isn't it? "I've got faith -- of the heart..."

I too am sick of time travel stories. But I wasn't turned off by Twelve Monkeys (actually one of my favorite movies), or by First Contact (not a great movie, but it had its moments). Or Butterfly Effect (never saw it). It was Voyager, which used time travel over and over and over again to tell stupid little stories with Deus ex machina endings.

Even before Enterprise went on the air, I knew it would be awful. Why? Because it was going to involve a "temporal cold war". A promise that the writers would use cheap gimmicks, not their imaginations.

Re:Bullshit

[mranchovy]

Because so many people here complained about the theme song, I made a point of watching the beginning of the show a few weeks ago (even though I'm a big fan of TOS and TNG--sorta--this was the only time I watched Enterprise)

You wanna know what the theme song reminded me of? Well, I'll tell you anyway--it sounded like the theme from an old TV show from the 70's, The Greatest American Hero. What sci-fi geek would watch a show with such a fluffy, wimpy theme song?

For those of you too young to remember that show, it's available on DVD now--be warned that burning this show onto DVDs is a tragic waste of plastic and computer power

The first two seasons of TOS and many of the TNG shows were science fiction at their best--stories that make a point about humanity and make you think. Doesn't sound like Enterprise was anything like that.

Re:Bullshit

[B3ryllium]

I actually wanted the series to be based on the 29th-century USS Relativity - I mean, imagine if the time travel was the core of the show, and not just a Deus Ex Machina gimmick to pull a retcon out of a hat?

While we're at it, imagine if Rod Stewart hadn't been involved, and if Gene Roddenberry was still alive, and if he kiboshed Enterprise to keep Firefly alive ... maybe the last decade of star trek has all been a dream?

Re:Bullshit

[antiMStroll]

I think you forgot the "in 40 years of hindsight" part. Lincoln in a chair was still a far cry better than contemporary popular television of the time. The decades to follow brought no Petticoat Junction or Family Affair movies, and but a single Beverly Hillbillies yuk-fest.

Re:Bullshit

[DeepHurtn!]

The Spock's Brain episode makes the Lincoln episode look like genius...3rd season classic Trek has some *real* stinkers.

Re:Bullshit

[Snaller]

No, he's talking about the original Star Trek series from the '60s.

No, he isnt: Enterprise never had a chance to grow. The first two seasons of Ent were decent

Re:Bullshit

[Cro Magnon]

You wanna know what the theme song reminded me of? Well, I'll tell you anyway--it sounded like the theme from an old TV show from the 70's, The Greatest American Hero. What sci-fi geek would watch a show with such a fluffy, wimpy theme song?

For those of you too young to remember that show, it's available on DVD now--be warned that burning this show onto DVDs is a tragic waste of plastic and computer power

I liked that show. It wasn't great, and I don't plan to get the DVDs, but if you keep in mind that it was mostly a comedy disguised as a superhero show, it wasn't bad. The theme song was good - for that show. However a song like that wouldn't work for a Trek show, and I see the similarity to the ENT theme.

Re:Bullshit

[cpt kangarooski]

Yeah he is: Your comparison is lame, because TOS had a lot of good scripts during the first two seasons. They didn't start to falter until the third and final season, when most of the best writers and producers had left.

It's especially clear given that he refers to 'the third and final season.' Star Trek only had three seasons, so the third was the final one. Enterprise had four seasons.

Re:Bullshit

[Snaller]

The parent button lead to someone talking about Enterprise. Its not my fault that slashdot is buggy.

Re:Bullshit

[Kethinov]

I don't care what standard you want to measure it by to satisfy your angry "good riddance" sadsack attitude.

Enterprise is a good show in the here and now in its 4th season. Yeah I wish it was better in its earlier seasons too, but DS9 sucked early on too. As did TNG and Voy and TOS. UPN has dropped a show which has shown a consistent improvement in quality over the years because all they care about is Neilsen ratings.

Let's not forget that a vast majority of Enterprise fans don't even have Neilsen boxes, myself included, and that many such fans are international. TV politics got Enterprise canceled. Not the quality of the show.

Re:Bullshit

[Trixter]

I mean, imagine if the time travel was the core of the show, and not just a Deus Ex Machina gimmick to pull a retcon out of a hat?

I think Scott Bakula has had enough of that already.

Re:Bullshit

[B3ryllium]

That just makes it all the more plausible. ;-)

Re:Bullshit

[unitron]

Maybe that's what Enterprise needed, a theme song with that Mike Post sound!

Re:Bullshit

[mink]

The sad thing is that even though UPN isnt available in every market, and many SCI-FI fans dont have boxes it still racked up ratings that are about as good as what the new BSG show gets. If that show is sucessfull because of it's raitings how can Enterprise be a failure because of nearly the same ratings.

I will freely admit that the numbers dropped off over the first season and have stayed at the current level ofr a long time.

Not Exactly Truthful

[Anonymous Coward]

Paramount has declared that they will not be accepting any amount of money from fans to continue to produce Star Trek Enterprise

I think what they meant to say is that not enough money has been raised as of yet to save the series and that you're not even close so stop trying. Paramount needn't put on airs like no amount of money would change their minds because we all know that's not true.

Go get em, mods! Yee-haa!

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll teach anyone to use wit to express an opinion round these parts!

Sniff.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what it sounds like when Doves cry.

Lots of money

[R0UTE]

With the $3.2 million they have raised why don't they just finance a star trek project of their own, it probably wouldnt be enough to finance another season of enterprise but if they are that determined they could finance a nice 1st season of something new I would have thought! If they're that desperate of course

Oh what a tragedy

[Anonymous Coward]

Er. No, wait. It isn't. Now, I've nothing against Scott Bakula, but the scripts he and the other cast members had to "act" to were atrocious (except maybe
for that short series with Brent Spiner... and even that was bloody stupid american-style heavy handed moralising when you got right down to it). And Worst Theme Song Ever didn't help.

Fly on the Wall

[lbmouse]

I would like to have been in on the meeting that decided to alienate their diehard fans.

Re:Fly on the Wall

[StimpyPimp]

They did that by making the show.

It's dead Jim

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed no one has said it (at least up until the time I started typing this post)!

Four seasons is an eternity in television

[tinrobot]

Quite honestly, I've never watched the show, but if you're right and it took four seasons for them to get it "right" then it was three and a half seasons too long.

It has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with ratings and budgets. If the show had been done "right" in season #1 or #2, then maybe it would have had the audience to generate the cash to see it through to season #7.

Bleah

[ucblockhead]

I'm supposed to watch 3 * 26 hours of television just to wait until it starts to get good?

Sorry...there's too little time to waste waiting for crap to stop smelling so bad when there is decent stuff to watch.

Re:Bleah

[blincoln]

I'm supposed to watch 3 * 26 hours of television just to wait until it starts to get good?

No, just skip the first three seasons. I've seen six episodes from 4 and they were all awesome, particularly the "Augments" trilogy.

It's everything that the series should have been from the start - interesting stories, continuity that works with the other Treks*, and characters that aren't black and white.

Also, there is only a minimal story arc that leads into season 4. As far as I can tell it had something to do with the shitty plot device war, but the characters immediately blow it off and move onto the new material.

I liked it so much that I checked out a couple from season 3 and was extremely disappointed. I'd watched the first handful when the series premiered and knew those were awful, but I figured that if 4 was so good than 3 would at least be decent.

* Ship, set, and costume design notwithstanding. Red Dwarf did this too over the years, and I figured it was just the art department equivalent of transitioning from black and white to colour television.

Re:Bleah

[R.Caley]

particularly the "Augments" trilogy.

producer Panic! We're going down the S bend! What can we do? writer Well, I suppose we can pinch some ideas from Wrath of Khan, the fans liked that one, and how about if we throw in one of the actors from the next generation? And half dressed women in bedroom scenes of course. producer Great! We're Saved! That kind of thinking will get us 4 more seasons!

Re:Bleah

[blincoln]

Yes, because as we all know, basing new material off of old things that fans have liked is the last thing that an entertainment company should do =P.

Re:Bleah

[mink]

While season 3 deserves some praise for having an overall plot and several things tying into a main story. I think there were some individual episodes that were well above the rest in quality. Specifically I am thinking episodes liek the one where archer had to choose between jacking some poor research vessle of it's warp components so it's stucks making a LONG journy home through hostile space at sublight speeds or the fate og earth.
YMMV

Toss a drowning man a glass of water...

[suitepotato]

...and someone will try to bring back the bloated corpse to life. This is what Enterprise was about, there's no getting around it, and it deserves to go.

Can we toss Berman out an airlock at the same time?

one season short

[The_Rook]

the one surprise about this is that they didn't let the series go for a full five seasons. common wisdom has it that in order to successfully syndicate a series you have to have at least five seasons (about 130 episodes) of a series for it to be really profitable.

syndicated series are typically stripped - one episode a day five days a week. one season, 26 episodes is enough for just over five weeks. 2 seasons is ten weeks (two and a half months). 4 seasons is five or six months of programming. maybe a little more. it's kind of iffy for a 3 or 4 season series to be successful in syndication. classic trek was exceptionally successful with only 3 seasons. other series aren't always so successful.

perhaps the dynamics of syndication on cable, sales of dvd box sets, and the reduced profitablity of conventional teevee and cable broadcasts are changing how expensive series like 'enterprise' are financed. but i always thought that it was with the fifth season that the accountants could finally throw away the bottle of red ink.

Re:one season short

[rockhome]

Sure, they could have endured a fifth season in order to have something to syndicate, but shows that no one watches in the first run don't generally don't get syndicated for re-runs.

There was probably no market for a syndication deal, otherwise they may have eked out enough for syndication. The most likely scenario is for paramount to release the individual seasons on DVD, thus making it available for people that want it and making a buck in the process.

The other problem with a syndication deal is the profit angle. Enterprise most likely cost more to produce than many other shows, and would have needed to fetch a good price in syndication in order to justify blowing the money for a 5th season no one would watch.

Temporal this, temporal that...

[Infonaut]

That Cold War temporal thing when NO WHERE.

Well put. IMHO the Star Trek franchise has for a long time been suffering from a bad case of Deus Ex Machina Disease. Just when things are getting really hairy, just play the temporal card. It also works as a means of foiling the characters just when things are going their way.

In more capable hands, the concept of temporal confusion might have been handled with much more imagination and in a more believable fashion. I mean, the Crewman Daniels dude who is supposedly from 900 years in the future is utterly incompetent. You'd think humans would have learned a few things by then.

Anyway, I for one am sick and tired of time travel in Star Trek. It's an out for the writers, because they can't consistenly come up with good story ideas, despite the wealth of opportunities in the Trek universe. Let's let Trek rest for a few years, then see if a new team can breathe some life into the old franchise.

Re:Temporal this, temporal that...

[Gilgaron]

I know my Dad and I groan whenever time travel is used in Star Trek. Whether it was the awful Voyager finale or when something as cliche as Nazis showed up...

I suppose with Enterprise gone, Battlestar Galactica will be the staple of father-son-scifi-beer night.

Re:Temporal this, temporal that...

[Altima(BoB)]

Well, there was one great Star Trek that involved time manipulation that I can remember very clearly (except for the title of course.) It was a Next Generation episode involving Picard, Geordi and Data rendez-vousing (is that a word?) with the Enterprise only to find that it and a Romulan Warbird have just exchanged fire and are frozen in time midway through a phaser volley. So the three of them wander through both ships trying to determine just what happened. The only fault in that very clever episode was the fact that to simulate time stopping, they either used manequins or had actors attempt to stand very still. It was all too easy to spot which was which :)

In summation, time travel trek as potential, but when that temporal cold war garbage shows up, it fails because it was NEVER though through. The producers admitted they didn't have a conclusion in mind and threw in a mysterious unseen bad guy with no concept of how they would develop him/it. This may work in some serials, but NOT when there's time travel involved...

Re:Temporal this, temporal that...

[drdink]

Timescape.

Re:Temporal this, temporal that...

[DavidTC]

And there was that other great TNG episode with time travel: Time's Arrow.

Yeah, the Mark Twain stuff was silly, but it's a great episode.

But almost all the other episodes forget the rule: No science in science fiction should ever be used as a solution, unless it is a) easily understandable, b) realistic, or c) has already been introduced, preferably as part of the problem.

Re:Temporal this, temporal that...

[Colonel Cholling]

The only fault in that very clever episode was the fact that to simulate time stopping, they either used manequins or had actors attempt to stand very still.

Yeah, that, and its complete ignorance of all known laws of physics. Case in point: Picard reaches for the bowl of rotten fruit, not knowing that it is inside a bubble of "accelerated time." His fingernails grow like two inches in a matter of seconds. How, if the rest of his body-- including his circulatory system-- is moving at normal time? Shouldn't his fingers have turned black and rotted off instead?

Or how about the fact that they can see the Enterprise frozen in time? Light takes time to get from one place to another. If time itself is stopped, or slowed, the light from the Enterprise would never reach their eyes.

Even if you're willing to ignore all of the scientific problems, there's the simple fact that at the end we find out all these problems were caused by... an alien race who like to lay their eggs in black holes, and mistook the Romulans' engines for one. They actually paid someone to come up with that?

Give the money to Nasa....

[Malluck]

earmarked to keep the voyager probes up and running.

That way you'd be funding real space stuff and it still has Star Trek relevance.

... Sigh ...

[yoho_jones]

Really sad about his. Told my wife and cried in her arms. Only show I tuned into that is not in reruns. Fuck TV sucks. Yoho

Re:... Sigh ...

[reiggin]

that could have been a believable story for a /.'er if you hadn't mentioned "wife."

Re:... Sigh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you claim your blow-up doll "wife" on your taxes, too?

Re:... Sigh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have mod points today but no "-1 Gay" moderation available...

The real message

[Johnboi Waltune]

Paramount Network Television and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans' passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show's production... but please fuck off already, you fucking nerds.

Re:The real message

[elpapacito]

Oh the simplicity and freshness of your vision ! But no,the producer kind of persons don't think like that..they think like this

*Some people with lotta money* and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans' passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show's production...

but please

1. raise a mortage on everything you own and send us the money
2. then sell the mortaged stuff to some idiot and send us the money
3. then arrange an insurance scam, have an accident and send us money
4. before the actual accident, try to syphon every dime you can from friends pretending you have a cancer and send us the money
5. in your living will, make us beneficiaries of the sale of your organs and send us the money
6. you can also first sell the services of your body to a necrophiliac friend of yours and send us the money
7. remeber that your ashes can go in cat food, so sell the remaing ashes and send us the money
8. don't forget to write a book on how you sold your life to studios because we have our hands so much on you your life sux and send us the money (or the rights)

THEN fuck off !

P.s. Studios are nerd-friendly. Hell, any company is friendly as long as you give em money.

Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

When Gene Roddenberry created the original series, he attempted to make the series as inclusive as possible. The TOS included characters such as Uhura (black African, NOT African-American), Sulu (Asian, not Asian-American), Chekov (Russian), and many other diverse characters. In one eposiode of the TOS, when Kirk was going through some kind of court-martial based on video evidence, the Starfleet judges (admirals, actually) included not only a person of Mongoloid descent but also of Asian Caucasian descent (he looked like a South Asian). That is two out of 5 judges which is quite impressive given that the TOS was made during the 1960s when racial equality was just coming of age.

After the TOS, successive Star Trek shows became more and more white and American-centric. Anyone who looked Asian in those successive shows could not be mistaken as a person who came directly from Asia as their behavior was too American. Ditto for the "blacks". Travis Mayweather is a prime example of this American-centric nature of the successive Trek shows. Why couldn't they just have named him Emekah Olowokandi or something like that??

Where the heck were the Africans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Middle Easterns, the Egyptians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, and of course, the Australians in the Trek shows after TOS??

Only Trek: Deep Space Nine even tried to come close to Roddenberry's ideal. Dr. Julian Bashir was obviously Middle Eastern. But they could have had a Nigerian or a Kenyan as the black commander instead of Benjamin Sisko from Louisiana.

Unfortunately, Star Trek TOS was and still remains the ONLY Sci-Fi show that attempted to be inclusive of all cultures and individuals around the world. After TOS, nothing came close. Not even Battlestar Galactica.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that in the Enterprise series, the Andorians called the humans "pink-skins".

That tells you how much white-centric the recent Trek series have become. We all know that not ALL humans are pink-skins.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[MagicDude]

TNG - Geordi was black. In his original character description, they wanted a black character but in the description they sent to casting agencies, they specifically said they didn't want "street types" for the role, and they even would have prefered a slight Jamacian accent. Levar Burton obviously doesn't have that, but it's a slight consession for getting an actor of his caliber. Not to mention that he plays a blind character. There's also Worf, played by a black actor, but even more important was that he was a Klingon. Remember that at the beginning of TNG, all we knew of the Klingons was all the strife Kirk and his crew had with them. Troi (Marina Sirtis) was greek, or medeterrian or something like that. Picard was french, Riker was american, Data was a robot.

DS9 - Sisko was black. Kira was Bajorian, Dax was Trill, Odo was a changling, Bashir was arabic, O'Brien was Irish. The differences are more fictional about people being different aliens, but the spirit is there.

Voy - Janeway was the first female captain in a starring role. Chakotay was a native american (Or a native something or other, I forget). Tuvok was a black vulcan. Doc was a hologram. Kim was chineese. Paris was american. Torres was half Klingon and from her last name, I imagine she was supposed to be hispanic as well.

Compare all the diversity there to what TOS was, Kirk and Bones were American with McCoy being from the south. Spock was vulcan. And then you had a black woman, a japaneese man, a scot, and a russian. I wouldn't say that numberswise it's more diverse than any of the other series. It's just that society has improved itself that was don't consider a ship with a female captain, and native american first officer, a black alien security officer, chinese ops officer, and holographic doctor as shocking as 1960's america would have considered an educated black woman.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember the matrix? More African-Americans broke free of the Matrix then any other type off people. Now THATS inclusive!

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[pla]

Where the heck were the Africans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Middle Easterns, the Egyptians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, and of course, the Australians in the Trek shows after TOS??

At the risk of sounding a tad racist, "Not in the target demographic".

You assume Television, at its core, involves story-telling. Wrong. Television involves nothing beyond "find a target demographic, figure out what they buy, and sell that to them, oh yeah and provide visual stimulii of what they like to keep control of their eyes". What group forms the vast majority of Trekkies? Young white American males. What do you see on ANY show targetted at young white American males? White American-like males in charge (not always young due to the whole alpha-male thing), with plenty of white scantily-clad female eye-candy (or occasionally non-white females for an "exotic" flavor, but as a quick reality-check, how often do you see non-white females romantically involved with a member of her own ethnic group unless he treats her like crap?).


TOS, while not fitting with what we might consider mainstream American values of its time period, did (perhaps unintentionally) score a bulls-eye on its demographic - Young white American males who, at that time, considered it "cool" to hang out with minorities to boost their apparent open-mindedness (a phenomenon we still have, with "wiggers" - middle-class white kids who flock to their three-out-of-2400 black or hispanic classmates to give themselves more "street cred".


And no, I do not mean one word of this as a troll - You either "get" it, or you don't.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Troi (Marina Sirtis) was greek, or medeterrian or something like that

"Betazoid", which is yet another alien humanoid species. Not from Earth. Half-Betazoid, if you want to be really picky; her father's given names were "Ian Andrew", which sounds a lot more British Isles than Mediterranean to me.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[MagicDude]

I was refering to Marina Sirtis herself, and not so much about Diana Troi. But you raise some good points too.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Levar Burton obviously doesn't have that, but it's a slight consession for getting an actor of his caliber. Not to mention that he plays a blind character."

He doesn't really play a blind character. That's part of the problem: why bother with a blind character who isn't really blind?

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the heck were the Africans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Middle Easterns, the Egyptians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, and of course, the Australians in the Trek shows after TOS??

Africans: Well, Geordi
Indians: Chakotray, if you mean Native American
Chinese: Well... you could say the Vulcans. Or you could go with Japanese, and say that would be Klingons
Brazilians: Um....
Mexicans: Im sure they had a mexican red shirt once
Australians: If you want aussies, watch Farscape. Good show, btw. Too bad they actually FINISHED it.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[brxndxn]

This diversity shit is off-topic and stupid anyway. Just because the show doesn't have one token dude from Lake Titticacca doesn't mean the show doesn't embrace diversity.

There weren't any big fat people in Enterprise and there's a hell of a lot of them. If they were truly embracing diversity, they should have a token fat person.

Don't forget a token mulato lesbian paraplegic, recovering from a crack addiction, who embraced the Church of Scientology. Seriously.. those people are always misrepresented.

You bastards that always count the number of tokens are the ones who are the least diverse... in your thinking.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[pipingguy]

And no Canadians. :(

That's the *real* reason it failed.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[BlackHorse]

Picard the character is French, but Patrick Stewart the actor, is British. Tsk tsk. Minus 3 geek points.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[The One and Only]

Sulu's hometown was San Francisco, and he spoke in an American accent.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[The One and Only]

Because technology has the potential to solve human problems

This is the central message of Star Trek, and an attitude I would expect to see more often on Slashdot.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[MagicDude]

I know that, but he plays a frenchman. Just as how Levar Burton isn't acutually blind, and Michael Dorn isn't actually a Klingon. Walter Koenig wasn't russian either, he just talked with what Americans believe a russian accent is. The diversity comes about from who the characters portray more than who they are in real life.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[deblau]

Troi (Marina Sirtis) was greek, or medeterrian or something like that.

Actually, Troi was born on Betazed, which I'm pretty sure is nowhere near Greece.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[mrchaotica]

Sulu (Asian, not Asian-American)

Wanna bet?

"Ah, San Francisco -- I was born there."

-- Sulu, Star Trek IV

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[hyfe]

I think you're partly missing his point;

There is a large difference between an american-african and an african, between spanish and your hispanics, and between real asians and your asians. The skin color isn't what's important here, it's how they act and what they do.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[tedrlord]

Well, she's only half-Betazoid, plus she's got that weird accent. Her mother doesn't have an accent, none of the other Betazoids have an accent. She must have gotten it from somewhere. I know Ms Sirtis doesn't talk like that normally, so it's part of the character. I guess it's Greek-accented British English, but I can't really be sure.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Afaik Betazeds were mutant humans from an early and very isolated colony. i.e. they were a different race with strange characteristics that developed rapidly in a small community in isolation (kinda like Irish or Japanese people...).

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Farmer Tim]

"And no Canadians."

Isn't Starfleet kind of the intersteller RCMP?

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

After TOS, nothing came close. Not even Battlestar Galactica.

In all fairness, Battlestar Galactica is based in a whole other region of space and has nothing do do with Earth other than it being mentioned as the 13th Colony in their scripture - the people of BSG representing the other 12.

The purpose of TOS was to present to the viewer a view of a future history of Earth. The purpose of BSG was to tell the tail of the struggle of the people of the 13 colonies against the Cylons - millions of light years away from Earth, and having nothing to do with it. As other people have said here, the target demographic dictates how you do your casting unless the storyline dictates otherwise.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Sirtis herself, the accent was cribbed from an Israeli friend when she was up for the part of Tasha Yar, who was meant to be Eastern European or something (looks like Denise Crosby didn't bother about that).

The accent was retained when she played Troi instead. Some lame excuse about the accent coming from her father's side of the family was used to explain her mother (Lxwanalwjlmzxcvbnm)'s American English.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[mmeister]

Yeah - I'm guessing they discover a cure for obesity or something in the future.

And where were the lazy folks. You know, the ones where you tell them to set a course for a starbase and it takes a week for them to get around to it.

And the moron that used dad to get a job but couldn't screw in a light bulb (forcing his coworkers to always cover for him).

Or the administrator that wants a progress report, even though you're in the middle of a conflict because his/her job depends on pushing paper around.

The whole group of series missed some major groups in their representation.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[gfreeman]

I was refering to Marina Sirtis herself

She's English, though her parents were native Greeks, I believe.

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Chibi]

Kim was chineese.

Please note that I am Korean. You'll understand why I am saying this when you read the rest of my post.

Actually, the character of "Harry Kim" was supposed to be Korean (at least going by the character's last name). But he was played by a Chinese person (Well, I'll admit I'm guessing based on the actor's last name - "Wang" - [insert joke here]).

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that lots of Asian people get really annoyed when they use a person of one ethnicity to play a person of another ethnicity. While you could make the argument that these are just actors and that only a racist would think that way, it does make a difference. For instance, some people can tell someone else's ethnicity based purely on physical appearance (that person is Korean, Vietnamese, etc.) So, for some Asians, it almost seems like the casting agents say to themselves, "well, this person has slanty eyes, so he can play the part!"

Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive on this issue, but I know there are quite a few people who feel similarly to me, and I wonder how people from other ethnic groups feel about some of these casting practices?

Re:Star Trek has too many white people.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you! As an ethnic Scot, it really chaps my ass when some yahoo of German or, god forbid, Welsh ancestry who can toss out some kind of brogue gets cast as a Scot. An accent and a sporran don't make you Scottish! I feel your pain!

full seven seasons?

[gl4ss]

what's that?

that would make sense if the shows had been designed from the start to have some story arc or whatever to span 7 seasons, but none of them had that.

Re:full seven seasons?

[StarWreck]

The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager were all planned from the very beginning to be 7 seasons long. I'm assuming the same was true about Enterprise. The Original Star Trek Series was planned to be 5 seasons long but only lasted 3.

Wait your a girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

are you sure your posting on the right site?

Re:Wait your a girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be an asshole.

Re:Wait your a girl...

[Kyrene]

I think you mean "you're" :)

And yes, Virginia, there are girl geeks on /.

-yet another girl geek

Re:Wait your a girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, whether they actually look like girls is another matter.

Re:Wait your a girl...

[Kyrene]

Hey, my Yahoo profile publically displays a photo. Course, you could always argue that I stole the picture from someone else, and I'm really a 65 year old balding male in disguise. ^_^

Then again, you could also be a 13 year old girl in disguise too!

Dude, that show sucked.

[Aqua OS X]

Dude, that show sucked. Talk about beating a dead horse.

Weird aliens that always look like humans, good guys that ALWAYS win at the last possible moment with some crazy technical miracle, magical SciFi gadgets that are backed with ridiculous jargon, doctors with miraculous cures for every insane ailment.... bleh, spare me.

I love SciFi, and there was a point in time when that entertained me, but I need a new story. This one has be rehashed and told too much.

As far as space dramas go, my money is on the new Battlestar Galactica series. No doubt, it's an old title. But at least is has been reworked to avoid tired SciFi cliches.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

Weird aliens that always look like humans, good guys that ALWAYS win at the last possible moment with some crazy technical miracle, magical SciFi gadgets that are backed with ridiculous jargon, doctors with miraculous cures for every insane ailment.... bleh, spare me.

Well now, that criticism is fair, but it describes the whole Trek Franchise, not just Enterprise. And in fact some of us have long since decided that the whole Star Trek idea is worn out, and deserves to be retired.

Hardcore Trekkies will say, "No! Just get rid of Rick Berman and everything will be fine!" Well, RB is a talentless bean-counter. But even if you replaced him with the smartest guy in the world, you'd still be stuck with a vapid 60s premise that almost everybody is sick of. Let's see something fresh and new.

Fat chance. Star Trek has made Parmount too much money to go away any time soon. And almost every TV SF show made recently has imitated Trek's worst cliches. The one attempt to do something really original failed before it even got on the air.

I am sort of intrigued by the new Battlestar Galactica. The fact that it's totally disloyal to the original (a corny Star Wars ripoff) is actually a good thing. Alas, I can't afford cable, and probably wouldn't have it if I could. Have to wait for the DVD.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

If B&B had taken the Star Trek universe, and told a Firefly-style story (a story of actual underdogs, not contrived ones), it would have been somewhat more interesting.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

That's what they tried to do in Deep Space 9. Might have worked, except too many of the stories were lame, and it kept colliding with the glossy premises of the "The Federation".

Joss Whedon did the right thing with Firefly when he threw out all the basic Trekkie ideas and started from scratch. Unfortunately, he didn't do a good job of making his ideas accessible to the audience. Those of us who were already fans of that kind of SF understood what he was trying to do. But everybody else thought he was just making it up as he went along. Unfortunately, "everybody else" included most of the executives at Fox, so the show was dead before it even got on the air.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[antiMStroll]

"Well now, that criticism is fair, but it describes the whole Trek Franchise, not just Enterprise."

Post TOS. The original cast aliens as everything from rocks to gas to fuzzballs. TNG made skin tone and bumpy noses defining marks of extraterrestial intelligence.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

Indeed. I'm eagerly awaiting the movie, and I'm a proud owner of the DVD set.

I bet the whole problem was that people didn't "get" the silent space sequences.

Idiots.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

Actually, that started before TNG with the movies. And TOS mostly had human-looking aliens "because the Enterprise specializes in relations with humanoid species". These aliens only lacked latex noses and funny makeup because it wasn't in the budget.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

It was a lot of stuff. Like the heroes having six-shooters instead of ray guns. The premise was that ray guns existed, but most people couldn't afford them. One big mistake Whedon made was not to explain stuff like that clearly.

I'm not looking forward to the movie. I was a big Joss Whedon fan for a while, but eventually his shortcomings became a little too painful to watch.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

Well, er, you do realize that they didn't show the pilot episode until after the show was canceled, right?

A whole lot of "stuff like that" wasn't explained, because the gorram Fox execs didn't think the show had enough action.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

Even if you saw the pilot first (and a lot of us did, there was a bootleg floating around), it wasn't at all clear why there was there was so much retro technology on the show. It was clear if you read some of the interviews Whedon gave out before the show started, or browsed around the official web site. But even then it helped to have read a lot of "hard" SF, where technological regression is often a theme.

So most people who watched Firefly thought the sixguns were some kind of weird artistic statement. Even most SF fans I've talked to thought so -- except for those who thought the whole show was just dumb.

The sad fact is that Joss Whedon is not very good at getting his ideas across. His best work to date is Buffy -- and to this day, most people just don't get what that show is about.

Network execs always think a TV show doesn't have enough action. I've heard producers complain that they try to turn every pitch for a new show into a cop show, no matter how unlikely the transformation is. Some producers just give in. (That's why there are so many cop shows.) Others know how to game the system to get decent concepts on the air. Unfortunately, Joss Whedon, for all his creativity and intelligence, is not one of them.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

Jerry Bruckheimer seems rather successful at getting the good stuff out ... but currently, I think, medical shows are the new cop show ...

Ah well. It's all a moot point. They won't bring back Firefly. They won't bring back Vengeance Unlimited. They won't bring back Stingray.

If I had a billion dollars floating around ... television would be a tad different. :)

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[R.Caley]

a story of actual underdogs, not contrived ones

Of coure, that was what Enterprise was supposed to be. The first venture of human beings beyond their close neighbourhood where they have been sheltered by the Vulcans, with long established groups like the Klingons and Romulans out there should have resulted in the most under under-dogs imaginable.

It could have been an incredably good premise with them in deep shit every week, no back up from home and no magic technological get-outs for the writers. The first couple of shows where the Klingons were to Earth the kind of threat the borg were for TNG were actually promising. If they could have develped along that line they could have gotten a must-see series.

Of course, that would have involved work for the writers, and so it was much easier to fall back on old lazy habits. Aparently you can disable a Klingon ship by throwing a rope at it.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

Not exactly - they were handed the reigns of a brand-spanking-new NX-01 interstellar spaceship.

Serenity was two decades old, and kept falling apart.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[R.Caley]

Serenity was two decades old, and kept falling apart.

But at least it probably worked originally. I'd rather by flying around in an old but tested ship than an experimental prototype.

Both premises give the writers the opportunity to have things go wrong at the drop of a hat (there is a third, used on Blakes 7, where you are on a ship you don't understand).

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[Grishnakh]

I am sort of intrigued by the new Battlestar Galactica. The fact that it's totally disloyal to the original (a corny Star Wars ripoff) is actually a good thing. Alas, I can't afford cable, and probably wouldn't have it if I could. Have to wait for the DVD.

Or you could just try BitTorrent.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

I've had lousy luck with Bittorrent. I spend days download a torrent, then end up with a corrupted file. I could probably figure out what I'm doing wrong, but I don't watch enough TV to really care.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[fm6]

What would you do with that billion dollars? Buy a TV network? It's maybe enough, but all the networks belong to media conglomerates that want a distribution channel they can control, so none are for sale.

Time was when anybody could syndicate a nation TV show, and didn't even need a billion bucks to do it. Aside from the cost of the show itself, the only expense was satellite time (a few hundred bucks an hour) and the cost of persuading independent TV stations to carry your stuff. Which is why there were so many weird little syndicated TV shows back in the 80s.

No more. Those media conglomerates that couldn't buy existing networks started their own, which is were Fox, WB, and UPN come from. So there are very few independent TV stations left -- almost everybody's committed to showing a network feed.

Cable TV used to have a lot of independent channels. But the same conglomerates have forced cable companies to buy packages that soak up all their channel space.

If you have original programming to distribute, your only real choice is a DVD burner.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

Internet TV, coupled with DVD-based subscription 'serials' (like old westerns or whatnot).

Basically, I'd make my own. And with the right business model, I might even double the billion. :)

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[unitron]

"They won't bring back Firefly. They won't bring back Vengeance Unlimited. They won't bring back Stingray."

I'm assuming that Vengeance Unlimited is one of those shows like 7 Days that ran on networks that weren't available in my market at the time and was replaced by something lame about celebrities by the time that network was available around here, but just to be sure, we're talking about the Stephen Cannell created "guy who drives around in a black '63 vette" Stingray, right?

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

We're not talking about anamatronic Stingray, no. ;-)

Vengeance Unlimited ran on ABC in 97 or 98, it was basically the same as Stingray except with a twist on the rules.

A million dollars - or a favour.

Starring Michael Madsen as Mr Chapel.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[B3ryllium]

Good Stingray.

Bad Stingray.

Better Stingray.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[mink]

WEll season 4 of ENT haing gotten rid of B&B for the most part gave fans what they wanted. I think if we had Mr. Coto from the start of season 1 we would not be having this /. discussion.

Frankly I'd like to see a Trek show focusing on the other races that make up the Federation and related issuess (like dealing with humans).

I could watch a show that had more Shran in it any day. I dont know if it is the actors performance that rocks so well or how the character is written, but the character really has life to it.

Re:Dude, that show sucked.

[mink]

But in the third example they had the ultimate deus-ex in the form of Orac. At least the computers in B7 had attitude.

Oh, please!

[Anonymous Coward]

In their place, reality TV dominates. Why watch intelligent TV when we can have Growing Up Gotti?

Ah, the old "if you don't like what I like, it's because you're too stupid to appreciate it" routine. Never gets old, does it?

You want to know why reality TV is more popular than Enterprise? It's because the people are more believable. Reality TV features real people. Believable people. The crew of Enterprise never struck me as believable. They were horribily unprofessional (the characters I mean, not the actors). If there really was a Starfleet, they would never have people like that running the first starship. The crew is constantly bickering amongst themselves. Archer is a loose cannon. Tripp is a whining jerk. And don't even get me started on T'Pol. A few weeks ago they were showing an episode where T'Pol and Archer get captured by those blue-skinned dudes. Archer starts giving T'Pol a hard time about how vulcans aren't as high and mighty as they pretend to be. Rather than calmly and rationally debating the captain as a real vulcan would, she simply grabs the covers away from him and rolls away like a pouting, petulant little child. Not very vulcan-like.

Enterprise was very poor. That's why it failed. People like watching shows with believable characters. Since so much TV suffers from bad writing an unbelievable characters, is there any wonder why reality TV has become such a hit?

Re:Oh, please!

[Clock Nova]

You can honestly say that you find Paris Hilton believable? Or any of those overdone, made-up singers on American Idol? Please. It may be "reality", but there's not a damn thing real about any of it.

Re:Oh, please!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can honestly say that you find Paris Hilton believable?

Well, I can say that I got pretty aroused watching the Paris Hilton sex tape. Then again, I get aroused watching hentai so perhaps you have a point...

Now if only they would...

[jonwil]

Lower the cost of the DVDs of the thing to a price normal people can afford :)

Let me be the first to say...

[Spy der Mann]

that ST has reached its *Final* frontier.

^^;

Demotivators

[exley]

As one of their posters says...

Quitters never win, winnners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.

Seriously, it's time for these people to hang it up. Insisting that they can still save the show at this point is just pathetic. Look, I appreciate someone who's passionate about something, but enough is enough. Trek is tired, and it needs a rest.

Why can't these fans put this much effort into demanding quality Trek instead of seemingly endless crap like Enterprise?

Re:I'm glad they ended the discussions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well except you are resting that on the assumptions:

a) the broadcasters would place it in a slot higher then its rating value deserves and;

b) there is only one means of TV show distribution (after all if the fans really did manage to cough up enough cash to produce the show for themseleves you could just distribute it on DVD, or even online).Well except you are resting that on the assumptions:

a) the broadcasters would place it in a slot higher then its rating value deserves and;

b) there is only one means of TV show distribution (after all if the fans really did manage to cough up enough cash to produce the show for themselves you could just distribute it on DVD, or even on-line).

finally

[maxpublic]

I never thought anything could be worse than Voyager and remain on the air, and then Enterprise went and surprised me. The only plausible explanation I could come up is that Rick "everything I touch turns to shit" Berman had some really good blackmail material on the execs at the network.

Thank christ that's over with.

Max

Re:finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with that.
I did enjoy some of Voyager, but it seemed too much like Coronation St in space, and the end of the series seemed rushed.
I never made it through an episode of Enterprise. Nothing ever happened.

Maybe they should look at doing one set in war time, on a star-destroyer or something.
Or turn it into a reality show and let the audience vote who gets killed/sent off.

Re:I'm glad they ended the discussions

[Anonymous Coward]

woops sorry for the double posting type thing. I wanted to speel check it first to check I hadn't made some dumb mistake, ctrl-c, click, doh!

Re: The scariest part

[InvalidError]

They already mention that they hope fans will be looking forwards to the next chapter of trek.

Well, unless some sort of miracle happens before this next chapter starts airing, I predict a new tradition of cancelled treks.

If they start another series and quit half-way though again, even the most loyal of trek fans will start turning their backs on Paramount and trek.

My not following through with Enterprise, Paramount has slapped the franchise's fans in the face, which is highly unlikely to help the next series' marketability.

The fan base is Trek's main marketing asset. Killing series will quickly decimate the fan base. Finish Enterprise or quit the Trek business altogether - I feel Trek is unlikely to survive another cancellation. (I mean after Enterprise)

The future

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, ENT is dead and frankly deserved to die. A mostly good third season and a pretty good fourth weren't enough to save the show after the first two, in my opinion the worst ST seasons ever produced (after the first TNG of course).
Now I think the whole ST ship should rest for a while, then start working on really new ideas. The whole prequel thing is a complete crap, though I understand they did it because further technical development on the already nearly perfect starships in a post Voyager series would likely lead to shows too far from the old ST space exploration thing.
ST needs a clean and credible way to start again a new saga. I read somewhere bits about possible future developments: the fall of the Federation, a bunch of survivors escaping from the galaxy to safer places where they can slowly find allies, rebuild a fleet, then after some time (I'd say a couple generations to be credible) returning home (Earth, other ex-Federation's planets, etc) to take back what was once their home.
That would be a fantastic saga, unlike that crappy, character empty, sex-obsessed, badly filmed Battlestar Galactica; and I'd pay big bucks to see a thing like that. Time will tell.

Blasted! And I was just beginning to find out...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the excuse for why the Klingons in the original series looked so cheesy.

It was dead the first time the credits rolled...

[daVinci1980]

...To the first theme song in ST history that wasn't instrumental.

And of all songs... Faith of the Heart? Are you kidding me?

Seriously. Enterprise was stillborn. Let it go.

LEXX

[DonWallace]

Lexx: "Lost in Space" with boobs.

Re:LEXX

[Anonymous Coward]

*exactly*

Comaring LEXX to any sci-fi show is like comparing Benny Hill to Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Sure, they're both "British humor," but...come on, what's not to get?

Re:LEXX

[mink]

The original LEXX shows (before skiffy channel) had some kinf od plot, but I had to watch them on a bad over the air recption from canada while I was in Erie PA (seven or eight years ago).

Why don't they just come out and say it...

[buhatkj]

If babelfish had a translator for PR-speak here is what it would REALLY say:

Dear Trekkies,

F*** You.

Sincerely,
-Paramount

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

My points expired yesterday or I would do it myself.

Re:It was dead the first time the credits rolled..

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I couldn't get past the theme song.

Re:I'm glad they ended the discussions

[Anonymous Coward]

"They would rather schedule a show in that timeslot which would produce usable ad revenue."

Such as....

Come on....it's UPN. I've seen higher quality stuff floating in the toilet at a gas station. Star Trek was the best thing going for UPN. I honestly can't name one single show on the network aside from Star Trek.

ANY amount of money?

[dtfinch]

Certainly there is an amount that would change their mind.

Lets hope that Bill Gates is a really really really big Star Trek fan.

Re:ANY amount of money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not.

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

so there IS a god.

It's not just profits...

[TiggertheMad]

Actually, how many sci-fi series haven't ended up being cancelled?

As opposed to all the tv shows that were never cancelled? Almost all tv shows die the same death, declining ratings and cancellation. I can think of about 3 tv shows ever that were simple ended because the all actors were sick of them, and decided to do other things.

Profitability is based off of viewership. The more people who watch, the more the producers can charge to advertise. Sci-fi just isn't that popular on the whole (compared to say crap like friends or reality tv series dujour). Keep in mind though, that there is an opportunity cost of putting a show on the air. When you put a show on, you lose a timeblock. So, while you might make $250,000 profit each time you show an episode of 'Buck Rogers, space manwhore', you may be losing money because another producer at your station has a show ready to go that might make you $1,000,000 per episode. ('Paris Hilton gets nekkid and acts stupid, yet again!')

Profitable shows with small viewership will always get run over in limited bandwidth situations like this.

Re:It's not just profits...

[Urchlay]

> Actually, how many sci-fi series haven't ended up being cancelled?

As opposed to all the tv shows that were never cancelled?

I can think of one: Doctor Who. It was `on hiatus' for ~15 years, but the BBC never announced that it was permanently cancelled (and the new series seems OK based on the one ep. I've seen...)

The BBC doesn't quite follow the rules of commercial TV as found in the US, though. They're partly state-supported (I'm sure someone from the UK will clarify that, I don't really know the details), so Dr. Who isn't really a counterexample to your point.

Re:It's not just profits...

[SteveAyre]

To legally use a TV in the UK you have to buy a TV license, currently for about £120 a year.

That money all goes to the BBC.
The BBC has no commercial ads. The only adverts you'll see on the BBC channels are for other BBC programmes/channels.
They also make some extra money by selling videos, DVDs, a weekly tv guide magazine etc.

All the other channels get no money from the TV license and have to sell advertising to pay for themselves.

Re:It's not just profits...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

simple ended because the all actors were sick
> of them, and decided to do other things.

Well, Cheers ended when it didn't have to. Same for Friends, and Frasier, and prolly M*A*S*H.

And, believe it or not, Munsters ended because the network wanted all its shows to be the nifty new color ones, and the producers didn't want to do a gothic comedy in color because, well, it was supposed to be black and white. The producers lost the argument, and closed up shop rather than produce it in color.

Re:It's not just profits...

[1u3hr]

I can think of one: Doctor Who. It was `on hiatus' for ~15 years, but the BBC never announced that it was permanently cancelled

The BBC does try to make money, but that's not its main mission. From what I recall, the newly-appointed boss of the BBC at the time hated SF and just killed it. Now they have someone else who has obviously noted that it still has a following, not to mention being dirt cheap -- much less than a costume drama or most cop shows even, and you can change the cast whenever you like so no one can hold you up for a million an episode. (Terry Nation's estate tried to hold them up to use daleks, which he created, so the BBC has said they'll do without.)

Re:It's not just profits...

[The One and Only]

I can think of about 3 tv shows ever that were simple ended

Cheers, Friends, TNG, DS9, Voyager, B5, Seinfeld...

Re:It's not just profits...

[jweatherley]

not to mention being dirt cheap

That was the case for original Doctor Who but the new series has a proper budget - about £1,000,000 per episode - and that's big for any BBC drama.

Re:It's not just profits...

[1u3hr]

That was the case for original Doctor Who but the new series has a proper budget - about £1,000,000 per episode

Wow. I have to feel nervous about that -- they'll have to get big overseas sales to pay for that, and that pressure leads to the almost inevitable loss of any edge. I thought with CGI being cheap and effective now they'd be able to do impressive stuff on a shoestring, instead of having alien planets always resembling the same quarry.

Re:It's not just profits...

[stanmann]

Buffy, Angel, Mash, Frasier

Re:It's not just profits...

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, when they made a Munsters movie, they did it in color.
(I know that they did something in color; I remember seeing a green Herman somewhere.)
At least Mel Brooks had the balls to do the movie "Young Frankenstein" in B&W.

Re:It's not just profits...

[unitron]

"Almost all tv shows die the same death, declining ratings and cancellation."

That's the fate of many but others suffer from not having the 'right' high ratings. CBS was still getting lots of viewers for "Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", etc. but they weren't within the narrow age range (something like 18-25) that would get them ad buys from the 'right' companies, so they just replaced several successful shows one season.

Re:It's not just profits...

[mink]

I would give my left (any bit of anatomy I aint using) for a chance to pay $200 a year for the media offereing of the BBC. All I get is the crappy comercial filled BBC America.

stop buying books, dvd's and other materials

[Anonymous Coward]

You heard them...they think the money is in buying books, dvd's and other materials. There is less to be made from producing a viable television show- it costs too much and they don't get the return.

So join me now and stop buying their books, DVD's of past shows, and other materials. There is no sense being a fan of the star trek show when the 'show' doesn't produce any movies or any series. They need to realize that its not the property that generates the book sales, its the movies and tv series.

Make the pledge- don't buy a single star trek item until there is a series worth supporting. Don't make it a property they want to own...make them sell it off to someone who will restore it to its potential and use it for something other than raw financial gains.

Greed has infested the entertainment business and it needs to be shut down. I'm all for pouring money into the movies and shows we love, but I'm also all for cutting them off when its clear that their motivations come only from greed and not from the passion of making art.

Its time to cut off star trek. Those behind it are driven by greed. Its not enough for them to make some money, they'd rather take that money and use it on something that gives them a better return. Its a bunch of bankers... support independant science fiction instead. Spend your money on productions that aren't driven by huge corporations. Give that 3 million or so to some passionate group who is trying to make a good film or series and put and end to greedy franchises.

What about TAS?

[notthe9]

Last time I checked, The Animated Series is since TOS, and it did not run 7 seasons.

Somebody's Got To Say it!

[TechnoGrl]

It's dead Jim.

What it should say:

[56ksucks]

"Paramount Network Television and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans' passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show's production. Unforunatly we need the time spot for a stupid reality show no one cares about staring Britney Spears acting slutty and retarded with her husband. We know that even though there'd never be a "Save the parkers" campaign or a "Save Girlfriends" campaign these are the shows we are going to continue to air while a show with massive fan support will now be canceled. Thank you for your interest.

The Apocalyse is Nigh!

[bXTr]

First Terri Schiavo, then the Pope, now Star Trek. The trifecta is complete. "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."

TGIF is a bummer

[cheekyboy]

Its getting to the point now where fridays are a pain, because 'everyone' (who has $) goes out, and every bar/cool place is jamm packed to the hilt.

If you do real statstical counting, I bet no more than 10% of the population go out on fridays, the rest DO stay home, and perhaps invite friends over too. Though TV is probably not on the high list of things to do.

Re:TGIF is a bummer

[Anonymous Coward]

No one goes out to bars on Friday, they're too crowded.

Re:TGIF is a bummer

[Taladar]

The point of the OP was that TV is for the days of the week where you have to work the next day and the other evenings (Friday and Saturday) are for different activities, probably requiring you to stay awake longer. That means Friday or Saturday evenings have less people watching TV than other days.

Paramount spits in the fans face, TV is dead

[Ka D'Argo]

I have to be the biggest sci fi geek there is.

I don't dress up, or go to conventions or nitpick the blueprints of every Federation ship, I am just a fan. I fall deeply into the cores of every show there is almost, and their writing style.

I grew up on Star Trek. From TNG, to DS9 to Voyager and now Enterprise. I expanded my sci fi tastes to Farscape (god I miss it, so much), Firefly, Stargate SG1 and Atlantis, Buffy, Angel (more fantasy on those last two), and I even started to get into Battlestar Galatica despite how I don't like it's politic driven stories.

What is left? Sure Stargate SG1 is around but how long can they keep it going? I love Ben Browder being added to the cast but seriously, it's on its last season or two. Atlantis shows promise but I'm gonna say it lasts maybe 4-5 seasons. I'm not a huge BSG fan, it's good but I can't feed my sci fi craving off of just it alone.

Trek is gone. Paramount has basically said "fuck you" to the fans. I mean how much money has been raised here, for more episodes? Once Enterprise is over I will be removing UPN from my digital cable lineup just like I did "G4TV" after they shafted TechTV.

Even the Sci Fi channel learns from its mistakes. Sure they fucked over Farscape after season 4 but at least they had the balls to make a mini series to AT LEAST TRY and give fans closure. Paramount will finish this season but at what cost? It's a sheer slap in the face saying they won't accept money for new episodes. I mean what other show on earth thats cancelled/going to be cancelled could be run simply by fan donations? I'd pay money every week for Trek. Alot of fans would too.

Am I too far gone to be objectional? I think not. The first few seasons of Enterprise had their lows, I mean they really had their lows. But they had some good episodes too. And even more so I love Enterprise cause it's more human. Alot of themes, ideas, and ways of things are still done in the time period of Enterprise. People still wear hats, watch old movies, have more human forms of recreation. It seems silly but it relates more, you can actually imagine 100 years from now some form of space flight similar to warp drive, you can see how the Trek timeline actually fits in. It's doing what a prequel does, tells the backstory and sets up the future series.

Monday through Thursdays I usually watch dvd's to fill the gaps. Ocasionally I'll tune into Smallville on Wednesdays. Fridays are Trek and Stargate for me. Saturdays maybe the new weekly movie on HBO might be entertaining, and Sundays will always be dominated by The Sopranos and Carnivale.

Prime time tv is owned by sad reality tv. We have become a society of lemmings following whatever is popular and being entertained by the lowest common denominator entertainment. Even Picard would order our extinction, out of fucking mercy.

ironically I watched one last night

[cheekyboy]

I watched one last night for the first time in perhaps years. It was the insectoids being born ep.

I noticed how virtually all the good cast was gone, and the new ones were dull, and not very LIVELY and charismatic, "yes sir commander" dull style like SS troopers in germany.

What we need is a blairwitchproject style 'action' in space, "OMG the aliens are attacking"

Or, maybe, the New Voyages project?

[Anonymous Coward]

They maybe on to something...

How quickly they forget

[SirBruce]

>Star Trek Enterprise will be the first Star Trek
>show since the original series not to run a full
>seven seasons

Not so. That honor would go to Star Trek: The Animated Series.

Bruce

Alms for an ex-trekkie

[One Salient Oversigh]

I have seen every episode of TNG, DS9 and Voyager. I would've seen every ep of TOS if they were available on video when I was a Trekkie.

The rot started about half-way through Voyager when 7 of 9 was introduced. Although her character was okay and there were a number of decent episodes, the quality of the show from that point on went downhill.

By going with the "Sexy Borg", the Star Trek people began to appeal to the lowest common denominator. From that moment on, stories seemed to be written to a very precise formula and began to be drab, predictable and uninteresting. Essentially, Star Trek became conservative.

The nadir for me was when Tom Paris and Bellana entered that intergalactic Indy 500 race with that stupid ship of theirs. It was pathetic. When I needed to get up half-way through to go to the bathroom I told my wife not to pause the video.

And the ending to Voyager was insipid and unmemorable. I don't even remember what happened to tell you the truth (whereas I can tell you all the plot-holes in the final episode of TNG).

When Enterprise came on I put off by the sentimentalist crap that passed as a theme song. Then we got Captain Archer and his bunch of Earth people who obviously represented America railing against everyone else for restricting them - obviously the international community. I don't mind allegories but this was very militaristic and indicated a mindset in America that was very amenable to direct military action. Now we had Republicans in space.

Then there was decontamination. That erection convinced me that Trek had died.

My trek books sit on my bookshelf dusty and unread for years. I might throw them in the bin one day. I now hate Star Trek for its mediocrity and its conservativeness. I visit Wil Wheaton Dot Net because I was a closet Wesley hater and realise now that Wil was a victim of the rot which had settled in very early.

Trek couldn've gone out with a bang. Instead it has fizzled out pathetically and embarrassingly for the past 10 years.

Re:Alms for an ex-trekkie

[multipartmixed]

> And the ending to Voyager was insipid and unmemorable. I don't even
> remember what happened to tell you the truth (whereas I can tell you all the
> plot-holes in the final episode of TNG).

I can't believe you forgot something so predictable.

It was classic Trek: A whole show (or series, in this cas) was wrapped in five minutes.

It was classic Voyager: The writers said "Fuck it!" and pulled out the time travel deus ex machina. Again.

Hmm, I should look to see who wrote that episode... and compare it to who wrote the premise for Enterprise..

Why the vitriol?

[hazee]

Blimey, the knives seem to be out for Enterprise now. It's like some sort of anti-fanboy brigade or something. Do people think it's fashionable to knock Enterprise or something?

Yes the series had plenty of problems. Yes, there were plenty of lost opportunities to explore the implications of the absence of things like the universal translator and teleporter.

But compared to some of the utter shit that infests tv, was it really so bad? Worse than soap operas? Or reality tv? Or those pop idol things?

To those people who seem intent on shouting "good riddance" after it, were you strapped to a chair and forced to watch it or something?

Maybe it could have been better, but as one of the few shows to portray the future in a positive light, it provided me with a good few hours of undemanding light entertainment.

I for one will miss it.

Re:Why the vitriol?

[One Salient Oversigh]

Crap is crap. The fact that one form of crap tastes worse than another doesn't mean I have to eat it.

Re:Why the vitriol?

[ryanvanderzanden]

I couldn't agree more. I liked the show, it was one of the few shows I watched. The first few seasons weren't great, but the last one was quite good, and I was looking forward to a few more years of the same when it was dropped.

Given what else is on regular network TV (keep in mind folks, not everybody has cable and can watch Battlestar Galactica or whatever else), it was the best thing out there.

sad to see it go.

-r-

Re:Why the vitriol?

[be-fan]

But compared to some of the utter shit that infests tv, was it really so bad? Worse than soap operas? Or reality tv? Or those pop idol things?

You can't compare those other shows to Enterprise, they're not in the same genre. For people whose tastes run to that sort of thing, "American Idol" is a good show. For people whose tastes run to sci-fi, Enterprise was not a good show (otherwise, people would have watched it).

I think a lot of the vitriol comes from the fact that Enterprise wasn't just a bad show, it was personally offensive to sci-fi fans. Take the time-travel crap. Poorly-done time travel plots are such a staple of bad sci-fi, that they don't just make for a bad show, but actively piss off viewers.

Re:Why the vitriol?

[mink]

Then why are you posting to /. ?

Its about the licensing

[adrianbye]

If the fans could have made a deal which somehow involved pushing more merchandise, then this might have worked. Its all about the licensing - the studios make little money on the actual series with the big money coming from ties to the show. That is evidenced by this comment from the article:

"We believe the franchise is still very vital as evidenced by the fans' demand for books, DVDs and all sorts of related merchandise."

Re:Its about the licensing

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree here, as to their M.O. What's unfortunate, and this is just my opinion, is the current people involved with Enterprise (and the same who canceled Voyager) have ultimately been responsible for the show's demise. I'd love to see a company like SciFi purchase the rights and begin production on their own version. Imagine the possibilities and freedoms. But I doubt that's something we'll see in our lifetime ;-)

WTF?! *Australians*?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimme a fucking break! Australians are white people of mostly British and Irish descent who speak English and share a common culture with the rest of the English-speaking world!

A few quaint words of slang do not differentiate Australians from most of the rest of Western culture.

And most of the Australians I know want nothing more than to be American, and I say that as a non-American myself. This is backed up by Australian movies and television shows (which always include American cast members and/or story elements).

There are MORE than enough Australians playing Americans with truly bad American accents on American television as it is without adding more. But then of course it was your intent to encourage that: you know well that Australinas are in no way ethnically different. You just hope to get more Australains on American shows so that you can tell yourself that Aussies really are Americans downunder.

Yeesh...!

Old letter

[Anonymous Coward]

The letter is from March 15th. The letter states: "the show's run on UPN is final."
And therefore doesn't exclude other networks.

"will not be able to accept funds from viewers"
Around that time Trekunited became a non-profit company. The donation won't be from just a fan, it'll be a transaction from one company to another.

and the money goes... where?

[Anonymous Coward]

Took a look at saveenterprise.com and they had over $3 million in donations. So.... Where's that going?? I poked around for a while and didn't find a "what happens to the $jack$ if they cancel the show anyway" statement..

The odd thing is that there is no mention of this on their forums or on the front page.. The "donate" link is also still there..

If, in fact they did get the letter I would think that the first thing they would do is stop taking donations.

Its a little early to call this a colossal scam, but it seems a little fishy atm.

Re:and the money goes... where?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.trekunited.com/amember/
"Guaranteed refund in case of failure - If no agreement can be found with Paramount/Viacom, the contributed money will be refunded to the fans, minus the transactional fees charged to us."

It used to be in the FAQ, but I think the admins said it grew too big. If you'd read/search the entire forum, I'm sure you'd come across it.

They got the letter. Trekunited became a (non-profit) company to go around the can't-accept-money-from-viewers comment and the letter only said the decision to cancel on UPN was final.

Why I didn't watch

[zymano]

Starts with a bad starting soundtrack to the show. Tried to be different there. Next was the show was way too dark looking, like the sets. There is also too much similarity now to other CGI shows. Maybe it's time to move away from CGI and go back to 'models' which are excellent in detail and realism.

Another small point is that most Star Trek fans could always expect to see beautiful women on the show. But not anymore. They took the hottest chick and turned her into an adrogenous man-woman. If they would have had any sexiness to Jolene Blaylock that would have converted to a couple of 'shares on the nielson ratings'. I would have stopped channel flipping if they costumed her anywhere as hot as her mzxim or stuff layouts.
Jolene Blaylock dressed as a real hot vulcan would dress with disdain for clothing

Good

[Mr_Icon]

If they said they were leaning towards continuing it, I would have started a help kill Enterprise campaign, and I'm sure I would have easily raised billions.

Well, They've Got Your Number

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear dumb fuckers at Save Enterprise/Trek/Mefrommymom'sbasement,

"We believe the franchise is still very vital as evidenced by the fans' demand for books, DVDs and all sorts of related merchandise."

'You'll keep buying our shit whether the show is economically viable or not. No matter how hard you fight, we all know that you pathetic losers with nothing else to do with your time or money will continue to funnel massive amounts of cash into our coffers. Way to go by proving that by offering to pay - - PAY - - us to keep this poor reincarnation of a reincarnation of an interpretation of a cash cow on the air.'

Grow the fuck up, kids. Read a book or something.

Re:Well, They've Got Your Number

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch Doctor Who instead...

Troi was GREEK?!

[multipartmixed]

WTF, have you ever watched the show? Jesus Christ, she's from a completely different fucking planet! BETAZED! It's why she's a goddamned EMPATH! HELLO! She's not from Greece! She's NOT EVEN HUMAN!

Chakoty was of native South or Central American descent. I don't think they ever made this clear. But, he was Americanized (through away all his traditional values in his youth).

Are you sure Kim was Chinese? He sure looks Chinese, but I don't remember them saying for sure. He doesn't look Korean, for sure.

Oh, and Picard was clearly a French impostor. If his english accent isn't enough to give that away, his french one was.

Re:Troi was GREEK?!

[NFNNMIDATA]

I always thought Chakotay was from the same Native American group that Wes Crusher met the traveler with on TNG (his last episode) - the "stain of blood" episode. Maybe not though, I have no proof.

Kim was definitely American, whatever his descent.

Re:Troi was GREEK?!

[JohnHegarty]

he was, but they were Native Americans who left earth....

Re:Troi was GREEK?!

[Colonel Cholling]

WTF, have you ever watched the show? Jesus Christ, she's from a completely different fucking planet! BETAZED! It's why she's a goddamned EMPATH! HELLO! She's not from Greece! She's NOT EVEN HUMAN!

Well, if you had watched the show, you'd know that she's half Betazoid, and half human. That why she's an empath and not a full telepath. And while I don't recall it ever being made explicit that her human father was Greek, I don't see why that would be outside the range of possibility.

Archer was a pussy.

[LibertineR]

Enterprise was doomed the moment they cast Scott Bakula.

Spot on, IMHO.

He was not a strong leader, and the writers actually let the crew argue with him. I dont recall Kirk or Picard having to explain themselves to their crews, or repeat an order to a subordinate. Hell, the almost never even had to raise their voice. The problem might be that Hollywood is now so GAY, they have no idea how a Strong Male Character should act. Maybe they should have been forced to watch Kirk save the planet, punch out the villain and bone the vixen, all within 48 minutes.

If Capt. Archer had a pair, he would have had the Vulcan with the inflatable chest naked on her back by the middle of episode 2.

Doomed From The Beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Enterprise is that it was a "me too" show. "Everybody else" was doing prequels and the Star Trek writers wanted some of the Kool Aid. I for one had no interest in the workings of Starfleet pre-James Kirk and would have much rather supported the rumoured TNG spin-off that would have focused on Riker and Troi's ship.

There is no point in moving backwards or in moving closer to our point in time. The purpose of science fiction is to see a vision of the future. The motto on the bridge plaque of all the 1701's was to "seek out new worlds" and Enterprise was just the same old same old.

That and they massacred the theme song in the process of trying to fix it.

Imagine an Australian Federation Starship

[One Salient Oversigh]

Can you imagine a Federation Starship populated by Australians?

"First streaker in Space maaaaatee!!!"

"I shower in Romulan Ale!"

"Sorry, the captain can't communicate with you Mr Romulan commander, he's watching the State of Origin"

"Spock, what is that person doing in the window of that Australian starship?"
"It appears that his pants have dropped and his buttocks have been glued to the glass Captain"

"Captain, the warp core is nearing criticality!"
"She'll be alright!"

"Starfleet calling USS Drongo! Starfleet calling USS Drongo! We will be engaging the Borg at Wolf 35..."
"Bloody radio! Anyway, me and chas were streaking through engineering..."

(Australian Starfleet officer is confronted with a Klingon weilding a Bat'leth)
"That's not a knife!"

"Why are the Klingon guests so angry sir?"
"They don't like eating Chiko Rolls for lunch - they say they taste terrible!"

"We Romulans demand that you apologise for invading our space!"
"Well... let's just say that we express regret..."

"Attention. This is your captain speaking. We have decided to attack and invade this planet because scans from other ships have revealed that they are armed with weapons of mass intergalactic destruction. Even though our contribution to this invasion goes against Federation law, we must show the galaxy that we can lick arse with the best of them!"

"Sir! If we fire the photon torpedoes now, we'll destroy the USS New Zealand!!"
"Good!"

"Sir, the leader of this planet is a black man who wears a skirt"
"Geez... you getter ask him to take his shoes off in case he has a bomb in them!"

paramound should sell rights to star trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if they don't want it, give it to the fans who can appreciatae it more!!!

I call bullshit.

[jonskerr]

Lightly rehased(?) western set in space?
What's unoriginal about that? What was repetitive about it?
BTW, the original Star Trek was just a lightly rehased(?) cop show set in space. You may not have liked the western themes (and who could like those ridiculous gingham dresses and the humongous sun bonnets?) but the ideas made sense and the plots were great. The lethal blow was Fox's idiocy. The demographics on the show were virtually identical to the demographics for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which was on WB. Different networks, same ratings; one got what, 11 seasons? while the other got 13 episodes. The difference? Idiots in charge. Same thing that fucks up everything.

Re:I call bullshit.

[Taladar]

Buffy had 7 Seasons when it was cancelled and the related Angel Series has another 5 and AFAIK hasn't been cancelled yet.

Re:I call bullshit.

[Snaller]

Not paying much attention, eh? Angel was cancled last year.

Re:I call bullshit.

[unitron]

" Lightly rehased(?) western set in space?...original Star Trek was just a lightly rehased(?) cop show set in space."

Roddenberry pitched the original series as "Wagon Train" in space. You may need to find someone who has been around a half century or more to tell you about Wagon Train.

Oh, it's "re-hashed", as in hashed yet again. Consult picture on can of corned beef hash to grasp concept.

Why give people what they want?

[SeaFox]

Paramount has declared that they will not be accepting any amount of money from fans to continue to produce Star Trek Enterprise.

Because we can't be giving people the idea that, you know, the audience ha anything to do with whether shows stay or get axed. That's for suits in a skyscraper to decide, not the viewing public.

MOD PARENT DOWN, PLAGIARIZED CONTENT

[jschottm]

The actual post

Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just get so sick of the Firefly fandom always popping up to spout all their little reasons and conspiracy theories about why the show got cancelled. First, did you even watch the show when it aired? Or are you yet another fan late to the series on DVD? Because, if you had watched it, you would know that it aired three episodes (9/20,9/27,10/4), was pre-empted once (10/11), and then aired five more episodes (10/18,10/25,11/1,11/8,11/15). Hardly what I would call preempted CONSTANTLY. If so many of the fans wouldn't have been so freaking late to the party, maybe it wouldn't have had Nielsen numbers that went 4.0, 3.6, 3.3, 2.7 for the first four episodes. Notice a trend? You want more 'facts'. Among all fox original shows, Firefly placed 14 of 15, 14 of 16, 12 of 12, 12 of 14, 15 of 15, 19 of 20...etc.

As far as the out of order argument, that's just stupid. What are you, 8? If you couldn't figure out what was going on in the show by watching The Train Job, then I am not entirely convinced you can operate a television in the first place. It's not rocket science, it's TV.

I could go on, but let me just sum this up for all of the Firefly, Dark Angel, Farscape, Enterprise, Roswell, Miracles, Milennium, Invisible Man, etc fans out there. These shows were cancelled because nobody fucking watched. It really is that simple. Get a top 20 rating and the network will trip over their dicks doing things for you. Flounder at the bottom of the list, nice knowing ya chump.

Instead of asking why all these networks keep cancelling all of the sci-fi shows, you should be asking why sci-fi fans cant be bothered to watch the shows in the first place. Why does a show have to be in danger of being cancelled before anyone can be bothered?

I am one of the biggest Firefly fans you will run in to, but I don't blame Fox for cancelling their last place show. I blame the crappy Whedon fans that didn't watch, and didn't tell people to watch. I blame every bastard I have seen post on a message board after seeing the DVD something like "This is a great show, why did it get cancelled?"

Re:Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[shmigget]

For a Firefly fan, you're awfully bitter. We're getting Serenity, so calm down. Now, remember that a Fox exec admitted to mismanaging the show, which he did, so there is a strong case.

And just in case you get to thinking that I'm one of those "crappy" Whedon fans, I watched Firefly from the first airing of "The Train Job" and I've participated in every fan campaign from the Variety ad through all of the letter writing campaigns, etc.

Re:Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I am bitter. Yay, we're getting a two hour movie in lieu of the 50+ episodes of the show that we could have had.

Out of curiosity, how do you think the studio is handling that by the way? Because, from where I sit, it looks like they are giving it the same kind of treatment that you seem to think Fox gave the tv show. And interestingly, the fandom at large is more than happy to regurgitate whatever pablum the almighty joss feeds them. 'Oh, changing the release date is good. And they are too busy making the movie to update the site. Movie sites never have content this early. etc. etc.'

I'll say it again, fans that just drink the kool-aid and never say anything until after the fact are the problem, not networks.

Re:Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[shmigget]

Listen, I don't worship Joss Whedon. I respect a great deal of the writing that the man has made, and I really wish he'd gotten the chance to give us 22 hours of Firefly per year instead of this one movie, but hey, we got something. Many shows never get another chance. Now, what do you expect Whedon to say? "We're getting screwed by the suits again so let's just be pissed off and spread flame in online forums?" You can spew at other fans if you'd like, but I'd rather encourage other people to turn out for Serenity's opening weekend and buy the Series DVDs.

In other words, I'd rather keep flying.

Re:Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[under_clocker]

Whoa now.... FIrst- most of us record our shows and so Im not sure how the neilson thing works but being there live doesnt always work.Tivo lets us come back and watch a show when we are ready. SO I dont know how someone can say its about viewership since most people who watch sci-fi are techs and most work at hours that dont jive with the 9-5 crowd. 2nd people who watch sci-fi are more of a minority than those who watch 'malcome in the middle' and moronic shows like 'friends' with david schwimmer (gag ! makes me ponder becomming lez as I fear that more and more men like him are becomming the predomant type) Lets face it. Programming on tv is aimed primarily at the main stream mass which happens to be the 9-5 robots. The moron crowd who float through life like a lump of crap. They dont look at shows like enterprise. Most of them can barely understand how to use their cell phone. I do tech support for verizon on the night shift. And believe me most of our customer base should have a play school pc so they can surf because they are so dumb!!! I dont think they couldnt find their azz with both hands. And what do they go to the internet for? not for knowledge- Not for important news or anything...No they want to look at porn till their teeth rot out. If you ask any of these morons what star trek is about they will compare it to a bunch of nerds at a trek convention. Not ever thinking they are weird for going to football games and obsessing about them and as a side note I have never heard of riot at a trek convention. Only sports heads. So I dont know - rattings yea maybe, but look at the time slot. and IMHO BAD WRITTING...

Re:Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[cdipierr]

They weren't necessarily preempted, but where I lived, they didn't air at regular times. Many of those episodes aired at times like 1:37 AM, etc. I TiVo'd it, so I didn't care, but I can see why other folks wouldn't watch it.

As for the out of order thing, Fox spent a lot of money and time advertiisng scenes from the Pilot that they then didn't show as the first episode. Yes, we could all figure out what's going on, but for the "general public", advertising something you don't show doesn't help.

Re:Quit Perpetuating The Freaking Lies.

[mink]

Out of order showing really did hurt the show.

Specifically this has to do with the crews interactions. River (due to outo f order episodes) goes from sane and getting better to wildly crazy to strange with no reason or sense. If you watch them in order suddenly, you see she starts our rather unpredictable but over time starts to be more sane.
Same goes for the cres trust of her brother. ONe show he's pretty much a trusted member of the crew, and again because of the screwed up ordering next ep he is not trusted to be alone.

Open Source Trek

[Tablizer]

The borg are Microsoft, the ship runs on Linux, Linus is the captain, and the talking penguin desires to be human someday. Vulcans do not get along with Earthlings because they run BSD. The Romulans are SCO. The engineer wears jeans, a black shirt with a Tux logo, never shaves, and always gets in trouble with the captain for not helping aliens running Windows. The touchy-feely ships counsoler is an Apple fanatic. Just please don't make a Goatse episode (maybe they already did on TOS when Spock looked into that glowing box and freaked out).

Diatribe good!

[jonskerr]

Your points are all excellent AFAIK. I didn't watch hardly any Enterprise, because I can smell a stinker a mile away. Notice how the Trek topic immediately got suborned by people talking about good SF: B5 and Firefly.
The Blalock head above is the wrong icon for this story; it should have the foot! Get a life you trekkie nerds! Quit watching crap and good stuff will have a better chance.
Trek is dead, and should have a good long fallow period.

Re:Diatribe good!

[Mysticalfruit]

Nor did I. I watched the first season and retreated back into the world of Stargate SG1 never to return.

Though you do have to wonder. Some anonymous donor was going to pay to keep enterprise on the air and then fork over all the royalties and ownership to Paramount and they still said no. Now, I'm not sure if that person contributed enough money or not, but for arguments sake, let's say they did.

Hell, Paramount could have put the damn thing on at 1am on a wednesday night and it would still pull viewers (not that show times really matter at this point anymore) Not to mention the money they'd make of DVD sales, etc.

Oh well.

Mod parent up more

[ari_j]

And it's a "Star Trek show," so it counts. Evidently there are no Trek fans working as Slashdot editors, which is probably the whole problem. ;)

New distribution channel?

[BobDroid]

Am I the only one that thinks Enterprise is a perfect candidate for Paramount to try some sort of alternate distribution channel? I didn't care for the series much myself, but with a group of fans loyal enough to pay for production, wouldn't something like a pay-per-download service be a viable option? Enterprise may not nab the ratings UPN wants, but with a good number of fans already offering to pay to see it, I think this would be the ideal prototype for something like that. Anyone agree?

On the Paramount lot

[renimar]

Meanwhile, at the Paramount backlot..

*BLAM!* *ch-chik* *BLAM!*
"Now stay down! Damn zombie shows."

Well, that explains it...

[raehl]

The series was obviously foiled by unflattering uniforms.

Actually, this is a good way to predict of a Star Trek series will be any good. What is the token hot chick wearing?

TOS: Short skirt and knee-high boots: SUCCESS!
Next Generation: Cleavage Top: SUCCESS!
DS9: Jump suits with intermittent out-of-unifrom scenes: Average.
Voyager: High-neck jump suit: FAILURE!
Enterprise: High-neck jump suit: FAILURE!

Clearly, the success of a star trek series rests primarily with the wardrobe department.

Or maybe it is the writers:

Long-haired human female: SUCCESS!
Long-haired empathic human-looking female: SUCCESS!
Long-haired spotted human now-recently-female: Average
Short-haired near-robot: FAILURE!
Short-haired, asexual Vulcan: FAILURE!

Rick Berman is so bad he can even screw up pandering.

... On UPN

[NoodleSlayer]

I'm sorry but am I the only one to notice this line from the FA?

However, the recent decision to conclude the show's run on UPN is final.

That seems too leave it open to be picked up by other networks, the other part of it seemed more along the lines that Paramount did want money from the fans just for the production of a series.

While I certainly am not opposed to them outright cancelling Enterprise, I really wish they had cancelled a Star Trek series much sooner, like around Voyager.

Somethings begin and end at the beginning.

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe, some say ends from the point it starts. As truly from the outermost point, that point is at the edge, and at the edge the oldest things die out. I would say that Star Trek: Enterprise, as far as the time line is concerned makes them exist on the edge of that universe. For me, these are the final voyages of the Enterprise, more notably star trek. My experiences are survived by mpegs and tapes of TOS, TNG, DSN and Enterprise. Voyager almost killed it for me and now Paramount has. I thought good stories where what made a show. Unfortunatly, it seems like its conformatity with stupidity. Its likely that the marketshare for Sci-Fi is deadly for paramount as anything gueeky is downloaded and shows will be killed by Bittorent. Star Trek Enterprise was the first Mpeg ever downloaded on my machine. It was downloaded at a university. Basically the Boob-Tube, will get even more boobier? Anyhow, since trekkers are smart enough to Download a Trek. I pretty much think Paramount is screwed by running anything a Gueek can download. Anyhow, for being a fan for 20 straight years, im 24 btw, I don't believe I will watch StarTrek. If I do, it has been downloaded cause I am rebeling against their pocket book through their advertisments. But, really.. I don't think I will go that far; I just won't watch. I Know that voyager had to have worse ratings then Enterprise, if it didn't god it should have. Everyone I knew that was a trekkie/treker "HATED" voyager but loved "Jerry Ryan". I think everyone I have spoken to that watched the show, loved Enterprise and saw alot within it. Anyhow, to stupidity ..

What's with the BSG Love?

[Belial6]

I don't get it, BSG is one of the cheesiest sci-fi shows to be released in years, and everyone keeps raving about how cool it is. Entertaining...somewhat. Cheesy....definitly.

Lets see...Bad guys that look look everyone else. Duh!!! That is the most uninspired piece of chedder I have ever heard of. Just because there is 'terrorist' whining all over the news, doesn't make calling the 'terrorists' Cylons a good idea. Besides, Stargate has had bad guy aliens that look just like everyone else for eight seasons. Not to mention the movie before the series.

Then there is the Monterey Jack idea of making Starbuck a woman. That way we can have all that sexual tension between Starbuck and Apollo. Woo Hoo. Like that didn't run it's course on Silk Stockings. Oh, and while your at it, make Boomer a woman too, that way you can have one more military romace, or two!

Then we have Pressato girl, Seven on Nine...er...I mean Six. You know the tall hot blond that is kind of human and kind of machine. Come on, if your going to rip off another show, you don't rip off Voyager. Cheese!!!!

We can't forget the Montasio camera work. I know, they thought that they were making it 'gritty' with the crappy shaky camera, but it just comes off as a failed attempt to be 'cool'.

We then have to ask how after 20 years and huge improvements in special effects, you can make ships and cylons that don't look half as cool as the originals.

Then there is the Brie effect caused by trying so hard not to be cheesy. Did they have to change the characters names into 'Call Signs'? If we can have guys named Jesus, and women named Mary in a Christian based culture, what is wrong with Apollo and Starbuck in a spacefaring Greek/Astrology/Egyptian Mythos based culture? The switch was just another failed attempt at trying too hard.

Honestly, while BSG is a reasonably entertaining show, calling it Battle Star Galactica only hurts the original, as it just isn't as good.

Re:What's with the BSG Love?

[The One and Only]

You have my sincerest sympathies that they didn't reunite Dirk Benedict, Richard Hatch, and the corpse of Lorne Greene for "Galactica 2005".

Re:What's with the BSG Love?

[mink]

They could have done a whole "Dark Star" style bit with Lorne Greene as the captian.

New Voyages

[lexus99]

Actually, all these fund raising folks should donate their money to the Star Trek-New Voyages project. If they don't end up getting sued, they are onto something really good!

Lex

Re:Star Trek has too many tsarkon reports

[Anonymous Coward]

Udo Kier

The show is made in America, fuckhead.

Lets see, advertisers don't want to sell shit to stealing niggers who are too stupid to get Sci-Fi, cheap chinks that suck down dried salty squid snacks only they eat, stupid Russians that only want to get drunk and let stinking Muslims eat away at former USSR, and Muslims, the one entity on the earth today that is a dire threat to anything like Star Trek EVER EXISTING!

White people (WASPs / Jews) write the stuff, white people (WASPs and Jews) buy the shit. We make all the shit that could ever make this happen.

White people: (WASP and JEW companies and people)
- Make aircraft
- Make submarines
- Make nuclear weapons and reactors
- Make space vehicles
- Are 90%+ of all the scientists that make companies money, patents and Nobel prize winners
- Make cars

The only other acceptable people are the Japanese. We, the Japanese, Germany, Britain, France, Swiss and the USA SAY:

- Chinks are stupid, eat dogs and cats, cant make any military equipment and use Russian shit because they are fucking stupid losers, they eat seal penises and dried squid and other fucking trash and they are impossible to teach and speak broken English and when partially educated they think they are too fucking good to do any heavy lifting.

- American niggers are grandfathered in because if we don't pay attention to niggers in the USA, Jesse Jackson sues the company.

- African niggers suck because they are AIDS ridden and act like apes without European guidance.

- Muslims are the worst scum and do nothing but prevent advancement.

- Nigger-Indians (Indians from that polluted fuck-hole called India) are thieving lying disgusting scum which are very close to Muslim scum. They lie, lie about education, lie about capability and will lie to sell anything.

- Russians - scummy fucks that will drink themselves into oblivion. These fucking bastards are useful to make rocket motors and titanium aircraft, but all they are really good for in the end is cracking software, stealing shit and making child porn.

So, Star Trek gets better. We need WHITE Vulcans, because nigger Vulcans are dumb. We need White Captain because any other captain would suck more. Travis is the little nigger that drives Miss Daisy. Notice the chink making shit up all the time at the comm station, the nigger in TOS was a lot better. And she probably gave better head, at least niggers arent prudes like stuck up Asian cunt bitches. And the ultimate perfection, Data, a white man positronic brain made by another genius white guy.

We write this stuff because its modeled after reality, not some nigger ridden chink polluted muslim fucked fake fucking rainbow bullshit that doesnt exist.

HAHAHAHAHAH

America, America FUCK YEAH, Freedom from your mediocrity is the only mother fuckin WAY YEAH!

lord tsarkon has spoken

Fine by me

[djinn2020]

I never got hooked on Enterprise, I was always more of a Voyager/DS9 kind of guy

Not to say it was horrible, it just didn't interest me

Re:I'm glad they ended the discussions

[zippthorne]

No matter how bad enterprise is it's still better than "Martin"

Fortunately, the less interesting stuff is available, the less tempeted i will be two watch the stuff. maybe i'll finally be able to ween myself from the "time burglar."

(crap i'm posting on slashdot now.)

Who are these people?

[superultra]

They must be in the same vein as the people cheering Michael Jackson outside the courthouse.

Enterprise wasn't horrible. But Babylon 5, Farscape, and Firefly have raised the bar. Battlestar Galactica is in the process of blowing the bar away. They need to clean house at Paramount Star Trek headquarters, give it a rest, and bring in completely new people.

How can these people be trying to save Enterprise when shows like Battlestar Galactica are clearly doing so well? Isn't that like trying desperately to get back together with an Anna Nicole Smith when a Scarlett Johansonn is calling on the other line for a date?

Give. It. Up.

Re:Who are these people?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you watch shows because everybody else (or at least those who decide ratings) watch the show?
That is what you are saying. "when shows like [BSG] are doing so well"

Personally I haven't seen Battlestar Galactica yet. And I haven't heard of any station in my region (the Netherlands) announcing they will be broadcasting BSG. ST:Enterprise is broadcast.

By the way, you would trade in one beautiful woman for another just like that without considering your feelings for the miss Smith look-a-like?

Re:Who are these people?

[superultra]

So... you watch shows because everybody else (or at least those who decide ratings) watch the show?

Well, don't we all to some degree? I watch it because it's good, but it's a good show that's getting great ratings and has a wave of critical support that supercedes even Farscape or Firefly, and especially Enterprise. As far as not seeing Battlestar, there are other ways of getting it both legally and questionably (the first episode is available on scifi.com).

Re:Who are these people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, don't we all to some degree?
To some degree, yes. When the ratings drop down to 0.00% even I would cancel a show, thereby preventing any non-nielsen (or non-US) family from watching.

great ratings [...] support that supercedes [...] Enterprise
I thought they recently reported that BSG reached 3.1 million viewers. While Enterprise has, since the pilot, dropped down to about 3 million (perhaps lower in the mean time, I don't remember where I saw this, otherwise I would check it).

the first episode is available on scifi.com
I know, I did try to watch it. However mplayer http://mplayerhq.hu/ didn't seem to have much luck with it. Besides, one episode isn't enough and starting with the mini-series would be my preference. Perhaps I should check out if it's available as a rental.

Thank you for replying.

Re:Who are these people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think you might be doing just as well to start with 33 as the mini-series. The episodes are much tighter and, in my opinion, better.

Re:Who are these people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the mini-series is available on DVD.

Gag!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit. I wach it when I can, I can tell you why: these producers have made it so that people would rather watch the O. "the acting and writing are worse than enterprise" C. yet for some inane reason people find mind numblingly dull dribble about who's going to get laid by who better than somewhat mind expanding stuff. Friday night killed it.

Character names...

[David Rolfe]

Are you sure Kim was Chinese? He sure looks Chinese, but I don't remember them saying for sure. He doesn't look Korean, for sure.

This has really irked me about some of the later Treks... why do they have their character profiles so etched in stone that they can't accomodate their actors...

Harry Kim -- an obviously Korean surname, played by an actor of obviously Chinese descent... Would all those scripts have been different if they just changed his character's name to Harry Chang? Or crap, how about not even using an anglo name like Harry...

Hoshi, too -- what they couldn't find a Japanese actor? Well then why on Earth didn't they change the character name when they went with a Korean actress? Too weird to have a Korean lingual prodigy? I guess Hye-Jun would be too far of a strech for the clueless Enterprise writing team. Oh oh, or they could have looked up a Korean reading of the same kanji, like Seong, or spelled the same name in a compatible romanization like Heo-si. Caveat: I liked Enterprise, but was disappointed with many episodes. Sigh.

Anyway, at least George Takei was of Japanese descent. :-D It just seems sometimes like they do it to be 'politically correct', to make some 'quota' and just count on audiences to be too ignorant to notice. /rant :-)

Re:Character names...

[mrchaotica]

Somehow I think the problem is that they themselves don't know the difference between Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. I think they got it right with George Takei because Gene Roddenberry wasn't a moron.

Same demographics for Buffy The Vampire Slayer

[infonography]

They even made a joke of that on BtVS, one of the later season characters had a appearant crush on 'Capt Archer'.

Gee. Hollywood canned a show which. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

during the launch of the fascist American nation, illustrates through fiction, corruption in government, how to weed it out and create a functioning, healthy system of rule by the people?

And the voice box of American propaganda had it chopped?

Color me surprised, cuz I'm certainly not going to look shocked without face paint.

My guess is that Firefly was killed similarly for the Anti-Government message it traded on with every second episode.

Remember: Television was not invented to entertain and inform you. McLuhan was bang-on; "The medium IS the message." --That is, the medium is a flickering box which dilutes family cohesion and lulls people into a hypnotic state where the implanting of selected thought patterns is very easy. Ponder that message!)

-FL

Sulu was born in San Francisco

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe that would still make him Asian-American (at least in a continental sense) in his own time period.

3,144,033.00

[Anonymous Coward]

so some guy's just made $3,144,033?

Re:3,144,033.00

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=145874&thresho ld=0&commentsort=0&tid=214&mode=thread&cid=1221902 5
and
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=145874&thresho ld=0&commentsort=0&tid=214&mode=thread&pid=1221908 0

Re:3,144,033.00

[unitron]

Supposedly the donations will be returned (minus expenses). I'll be curious to see how quickly (or slowly) that happens and how big a bite gets taken out for "expenses", and I hope someone in a position to do so keeps a very close eye on this.

Re:3,144,033.00

[Anonymous Coward]

About 3000 people would be keeping an eye on it, if it happens. http://trekunited.com/contributions.php

"All money used for the cause - TrekUnited allows fans of Star Trek: Enterprise to contribute money to sponsor the production of a fifth season by Paramount/Viacom. [...] All contributed money is used for the cause, minus the transactional fees charged to us by Paypal/the bank (5%; any excess of fees to be donated to American Tsunami relief)."
http://trekunited.com/amember/

It's not over yet. (Read the posts referenced in the other reply to 4,144,033.00 and http://www.trekfansunited.com/forum/index.php?show topic=3543 for some clarifications)

And read this to verify they were aware of the letter (and everyone else could too). Taken from a thread called:
"STAFF CHAT LOG - Mar 22nd, 2005, With Tim, Candice and Chris R."
http://trekfansunited.com/forum/index.php?showtopi c=2533:

"Tim_Brazeal: Love your attitude! I am hoping that we can return all of it but the 3 mil to be honest.. but, we will see.. The fax that we recieved stated that they could not take viewer money and that is fine. We are Trek United Inc, so we are a corporation and not a viewer group any longer.. We are registered with the IRS, the state of Tennessee and are lic to do business in the USA.. As such, we (Andrew) is treated this way."

Read the fine print, people...

[YowzaTheYuzzum]

From the letter: However, the recent decision to conclude the show's run on UPN is final.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the TrekUnited campaign is trying to get the show moved to another network, most likely Spike.

Re:Gee. Hollywood canned a show which. . .

[geminidomino]

during the launch of the fascist American nation, illustrates through fiction, corruption in government, how to weed it out and create a functioning, healthy system of rule by the people?

You must be joking. Maybe the later 'Treks, but this one was W's wet dream. At the point I stopped watching (season 2/3 cliffhanger), an unknown enemy made an unprovoked attack on earth, killing massive numbers of people and Archer & Co. were right up there with the "Kill 'em all", "With us or against us", "Fuck the rules, we have guns now" attitude. Subtle, real subtle.

Re:Another good idea ... (earlier article)

[KlaymenDK]

... put it into space research!

Boycott Paramount

[Jafar00]

If Paramount goes ahead with the cancellation, Enterprise fans should protest by downloading any future paramount films by p2p instead of buying their DVD releases. Hit them in the hip pocket as punishment!

not to mention accents

[FidelCatsro]

The names being bad enough but do you know how often i have ranted about scotti.
Now i lived 17 years of life in Aberbeen and Scotti did not have anything even close to resembeling a Scottish accent let alone a Doric/aberdeenshire accent.
And that eppisode where Dr Crusher goes to her familys planet was so offensive that i nearly threw something at the TV .....

jean luc picard being played by the excelent patric stewart sounds about as French as Sean Connery sounds spanish in Highlander.

O'brian atleast is played by a guy from Irland and is the only authentic accent i can remember in the entire shows history apart from some parts of the USA even then i think these people often sound like they come from difrent states (although i must admit im less familliar with accents from much of the USA).

So they may be representing alot of coutnrys but they are doing in really really bad ways... If your going to pretend to be from another country its alot better if you get your facts straight /Rant...

I also noticed the name thing and i belive im not the only person in the world to find this PC leaning highly offensively half baked... not to mention the lack of overweight people , people with difrent builds of fiqures other than aliens and the total lack of gay people bar some trill but that doesn't even count. oh wait i think my rant continued for a paragraph

If only Season4 had been season1.

[guidryp]

Ok I am a scifi geek. I will watch almost any scifi show. But Enterprise went out to luch basing the whole series on time travel crap. They may as well have written the whole story inside a holodeck, that other device you use when you can't come up with a story.

The current season is exactly what trek fans want, a look at the old races and rivalries, how they got to the point of being in TOS timeline. Mind you they have lost 80% of the audience after 3 seasons of drek.

But since they were killing it maybe it would have been better if season 4 was more of the same drek, because then I could have gleefully danced on its corpse. Now I just say damn this is what they could have did.

Freaking Morons.

Do we really care?

[l*barbs]

And the fuss is??? It wasn't even that good.

I never even watched it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was always waiting to hear about the introduction of a new former playboy centerfold borg character: 6 of 69. The quantum leap guy just never did it for me.

you want good SF video series?

[alizard]

We've got a new situation in the TV world. We now have fan communities big enough to be able to raise the money to actually fund their own TV series... to have the expertise it takes to not only make them, but to make them more cost-effectively than the major studio system can. Not having the amount of parasitic accumulation that's accreted onto the industry for generations should guarantee that.

Distribution? Bittorrent, snailmail video of DVDs, video streams occur to me. There might even be ways to get fan-driven shows onto cable networks.

Studio technology, special effects, etc.? What are you reading this post with?

I'm not being facetious, there are OpenSource video tools... get a bunch of x86 Linux boxes, cameras... and a fan community that's say, 1M + is probably big enough to have somebody capable of writing SETI-style distributed apps, this time used to do rendering... with more access to CPU cycles than was used on LOTR.

The pieces of the puzzle are available, it's just a matter of putting them together. Why offer $3 million plus to a bunch of fuckheads who if they'd gone for the deal, would be pocketing the profits themselves?

Enterprise dead? There's plenty of other SF books that can be turned into series just as good, and the better writers from Enterprise might actually find working on a fan-driven show an interesting change from working for Fox.

If you don't like the news, make some of your own.

Miss Management

[under_clocker]

Its clear to me that they miss managed the show. bad air times for one thing. and another is that they failed to develope some of the ships systems. I think a lot of us were expecting at least a tractor beam by now. WHat they should have done is the same thing they did with voyager- To save the series they should have gotten a blonde bimbo in a skin tight outfit and had her prance around a lot They would have had a lot more of the male foot ball crowd tunning in to get a look at the hoochie mamma trek...OR maybe Scott Backula in a dress. Not an orginal concept as it would not be something he had to get used to. All kinding aside though. I think the show had a bit of bad management. In the end the series will live on in the books so I wont worry.

Bad series, not a bad premise

[Blitzenn]

Enterprise was simply a bad series. Star Trek has historically relied on a very loyal core group to support it's new series. Viewership was never spectacular, yet it was enough to convince studios to continue down the road. Enterprise however was so poor, that it lost more than half of the small loyal audience they had in previous series runs. They had to let it go.

don't get it

[suezz]

these shows are never treated like the others by networks - never see advertisement - they never get a timeslot that is convenient or when people actually have time and sit down to watch a little tv.

where I live these shows were on at 8:00 pm saturday night - don't know about everyone else but I am usually not watching tv on a saturday night.

Now how about tuesday, wednesday at 9:00 pm or 8:00pm
I bet a lot more people would watch it.

You hit the nail right on the head.

[tgd]

Their rating plummetted in the last couple years.

I haven't seen T'Pol decontaminate in several years.

At the risk of being modded up as funny, I doubt the two aren't related. I'm serious. "Informative", moderators, not "Funny".

Thanks.

Translation

[catdevnull]

"...Paramount Network Television and the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise are very flattered and impressed by the fans' passionate outpouring of attention for the show and their efforts to raise funds to continue the show's production...."

Means: "Your pathetic attempt to subvert our decision to find more lucrative programming is laughable. We will be cancelling the show because you don't really matter when we can be making shitloads more money with a show that targets the MTV demographic. Have a nice day, you pathetic geeks."

It's a simple matter of economics--they want to make money selling shitty brainless programming. They're not interested in quality or cult status.

Circle of Life, dude

[solomonrex]

Eventually, everything gets canceled or goes the distance. We have over 40 seasons of Star Treks in the banks. It's a niche product. It's not like crime and law dramas, that seem to multiply like lemmings and occassionally go like energizer bunnies (think CSI, Law and Order).

Sci-Fi can make it work because they have low expectations, and less overhead than the cable stations. But UPN, they've got affiliates.

Star Trek's problem is simple: it's not the only game in town, anymore. And it doesn't have a tradition of disciplined storytelling.

Might as well whine about the X-files, because that show really has no mass-market replacement. But times and tastes change.

Two words: FRANGIBLE BULLETS

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://www.frangiblebullets.com/. These things just go poof when they hit any kind of hard metal. They will also tear a new cavern into any soft flesh they hit. Who says you can't have a slugthrower in space?

Simple, cheap, RELIABLE.

I can't remember the last time the Mr. Fusion(tm) went dead in my Glock...

Paramount ignorant bunch of cunts that know shit

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of tosser, well Paramount I shall personaly be butt fucking you every chance I get, least can do in return.

Actually, no

[Chris Puzak]

I believe you have it exactly backwards. The X-Files started off on Fridays - http://www.chriscarteronline.com/articles/xfiles/1 993/Fridaynightcontact.html It used to air right after The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr., which unfortunately did not survive. I'm pretty sure X-Files moved to Sunday when Millenium started.

sorry u guys ...

[ciupman]

... i think Star Trek was cancelled long ago.. when TOS ended!

Re:Gee. Hollywood canned a show which. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

You must be joking. Maybe the later 'Treks, but this one was W's wet dream. At the point I stopped watching (season 2/3 cliffhanger), an unknown enemy made an unprovoked attack on earth, killing massive numbers of people and Archer & Co. were right up there with the "Kill 'em all", "With us or against us", "Fuck the rules, we have guns now" attitude. Subtle, real subtle.

I hear you loud and clear, but no, I was not joking.

--The show wasn't cancelled during the 'Dark-Enterprise' seasons where torture and hatred were rationalized through a host of idiotic story contrivances. It was cancelled during the pendulum swing where the writing turned back into real Star Trek and the exploration of worthy ideas.

-FL

Vorlon != good

[Tungbo]

Looks like you missed the fact that the Vorlon manipulate many races to see the Vorlon as holy beings via genetic manipulation. This shows that they are far from being purely good.
Their conflict is more between order/chaos than good/evil.

For that matter, what SF show moved furthest away from this old dichotomy?

Blake's 7 ! Seek it out.

Maybe on another network

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it, UPN is not interested in programming for the type of audience who would watch Enterprise. Look at this week's schedule and judge for yourself. The overwhelming majority fall into one of three categories: urban themed comedy, reality based or wrestling.

Forgot to turn on your alarm clock?

[Moekandu]

Ah, yes. The venerable Anonymous Coward. Doesn't know his/her ass from a hole in the ground but is prepared to argue that if it came out of a hole, it must be shit.

I know that it's not a good idea to feed the trolls, but...

The characters in BSG are not stereotypical. They are archetypal. You are stereotyping them. There is a hell of a lot more going on with (taking your example) Starbuck than being "a hot-shot cop/pilot who cant keep his/her mouth shut & is constantly fighting with the chief/C-O". Just watch her face. This girl has issues. Baggage, failures, occasional successes. She's human. I think it interesting that you can't see past the stereotype that you've defined the character with.

All of the characters are "human" in BSG. Including the cylons. They may act odd and have mysterious motivations, and simply be "biological machines" (think about that for a sec), but they are human. But, then again, my personal definition of human is much broader than most.

You keep expecting to see John Wayne? In BSG? WTF? When? At what part of the story did you think that was an appropriate thing to happen within the frame of the plot?

It's time to upgrade your eyes.

Some facts...

[Kethinov]

First of all, Paramount already signed a syndication deal for Enterprise. Second, Star Trek shows traditionaly run seven seasons, not five. :)

Actress playing Buffy quit

[JimmytheGeek]

So it would have been "...the Vampire Slayer"

Nice finale though. I thought the series held up remarkably well over its run.

Re:Gee. Hollywood canned a show which. . .

[geminidomino]

Wow, I stand corrected. My mind couldn't even formulate a theory on how they could have bounced back from the subtle-as-a-train-wreck, "Go U.S." cheerleading.