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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."