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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.
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.
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 (=