TrekUnited Campaign Ends

ForteMaster writes "TrekUnited, the controversial campaign to save Enterprise from cancellation, has ended its campaign today. Interestingly enough, the article mentions that "a multiple of the money raised by TrekUnited so far" was being offered, with "further details to be released shortly". A case of counting the chickens before they've hatched, maybe? Here is some commentary from TrekToday on the subject."

Comments

Sad

[elid]

Unfortunately, the article doesn't explain why Paramount turned down the Canada offer. That would seem to make the most sense, as the Trek fan fund itself wouldn't have been able to actually fund a season, while an actual production company would.

Re:Sad

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

It's all here: Trek Report: "Bound"

Paramount is owned by Viacom, whose owner is a bitter rival of Rupert Murdoch, who owns SkyOne, one of the participants in the deal.

Re:Sad

[toolz]

I guess that's an easy one.

If Paramount were to accept the Canada offer, it would have, for the first time, let someone other than Paramount produce a ST product. What if it turned out to be a success? Can you imagine the finger pointing at the current ST overlords?

ST is a valuable Paramount property. No way anyone is going to get his grubby fingers on that! :)

Re:Sad

[squiggleslash]

I suspect it's a ma[tt]er of keeping creative control, though I don't know the full details of the Paramount offer. While Enterprise might be a separate part of the entire series, what happened during it clearly has an impact on later shows. Outsourcing such a key series would constrain the keepers of Star Trek canon.

In some ways, it's sad because it shows Paramount do plan to continue extending the series further and further. It's kind of the equivalent of that Mercury Grand Marquis or Buick Park Avenue you see with the Canadian license plates in the left lane, blinker on, vehicle driving at 5, 10, 20 below the speed limit, annoying just about everyone. You can't fault the drivers, they're clearly too old to know better, but it'll continue doing the wrong thing at the wrong pace until different drivers come along, and, truth be told, at that point you're probably looking at the type of kid who'll do the car up with spinners and under-the-body neon lights.

So you end up feeling, really, that maybe the old people, with their poor eyesight and slow reactions, really are the best people to drive the car, and once they no longer have use for it, that the car should, really, be sent to the dump.

Of course, the other solution is we move to driverless cars. Then this whole business of people going at 75, or even 80, on a highway clearly marked as 70, will be a thing of the past. In the analogy, I guess, this would mean handing over control of the Star Trek series to a computer. With the right AI, this would be in many ways the most fitting solution and the best tribute to what Trek stood for. Technology being used to help mankind, exploring areas never explored before.

To boldly go, indeed, where no man has gone before.

Re:Sad

[FriedTurkey]

Kirk: Bones. What is wrong with this post?

McCoy: He has taken an analogy way to far.

Kirk: Can you fix it?

McCoy: Dammit Jim. I am a doctor not a moderator.

Donations

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do I send money to if I want to make sure Paramount continues to not make Star Trek shows?

Just askin', is all.

Re:Donations

[Aurin Wildfire]

Now they call off the battle and wow, look they are $144,173 richer.

"Our final proposal was knocked down by Paramount. We will not see a season five for Star Trek Enterprise," wrote Jane Braz in a post at the Trek Fans United Forum, speaking on behalf of TrekUnited founder Tim Brazeal. The group said that it would begin refunding donations on Monday or Tuesday."

Berman and Braga

[George Tirebuyer]

These two should have been cancelled. A while back.

It's a shame

[nightsweat]

I was starting to enjoy the series. The last year and a half they got their act together and the show was as good as any of the others.

I'm sure some people here will now question my sanity, but for every Borg in TNG, there was an episode featuring Troy and her mother doing something stupid.

Enterprise was pretty good, heading towards borderline great. It's too bad they killed it. It's going to be tough to bring the franchise back credibly.

Re:It's a shame

[Dionysus]

Well, with Manny Coto (who was responsible for this season) leaving for 24, it was probably a good idea to end it now. Unless you wanted a repeat of the two first seasons of Enterprise. And that's what you would have gotten, with Berman and Bragga in charge. Can you say, Temporal Cold War?

Good!

[decipher_saint]

Any movement that justifies the current state of Trek should fail.

Ok, flamethrower off...

Star Trek is like a burnt out rocker, it's been on the road for years, it's out of creative juice, it's just going through the motions. I say, let Trek rest up a few years, you know, like get some new material and come back stronger than ever!

Re:Good!

[TheStupidOne]

Star Trek is like a burnt out rocker, it's been on the road for years, it's out of creative juice, it's just going through the motions. I say, let Trek rest up a few years, you know, like get some new material and come back stronger than ever!

Metallica did that and we were "rewarded" with St. Anger. Bleh... =P

It's about time

[WD_40]

It's time for Star Trek to die. IMO, the last really good series was TNG, although DS9 got pretty good at the end. The whole thing is way too runout and it all lacks originality.

Another thing that pisses me off is the pussified political correctness. In the old days they didn't "target the weapons array", they freakin' took care of business.

It's time for Star Trek to die for awhile and hopefully come back in a decade or two a reborn entity that is worth watching.

www.m-w.com

[AnonymousKev]

"TrekUnited, the controversial campaign to save Enterprise from cancellation, ...

Was it really controversial? Unconventional, maybe, but not controversial.

Save Enterprise? No.

[dbolger]

Well, I watched the first episode of the new season of Enterprise, "Storm Front" last night. I'm sorry, guys, but I can't keep this up any more. Let me set out my stall, before I begin. I have devoted large amounts of time, energy, and interest to Star Trek over the years. In school, it was probably one of the things that people used to define me - hell, it was my number one interest, so there was undoubtedly a good reason for that. I have, as long as I can remember, been a Trekkie. As soon as I saw "Encounter at Farpoint", I was hooked. I went on to watch every single episode of The Next Generation, and with very few exceptions, I loved it all. I went out of my way to find and watch every episode of the original series, being honestly excited when the pilot, "The Cage" was aired on BBC, and I couldn't believe how deep and powerful the stories were. I owned, in one format or another, all the films up to "The Undiscovered Country", and stuck with Deep Space Nine through what I considered a bad start, to the very end where it became the best Star Trek I'd seen. I bought action figures. I bought t-shirts. I bought numerous books. I bought the "Star Trek Factfiles" until Eason's stopped stocking them. Even when it came to Voyager, where I saw more bad episodes than good, I stuck with it. I watched. I hoped. I've seen all the new films, even though I've seen their quality slide since "Generations". I am not a "fairweather fan".

When I first heard about "Enterprise", I was really looking forward to it. A show set before the original series? Fantastic! We would see wars with the Klingons and Romulans! We would see how Earth and Vulcan came together, and the birth of the Federation! Surely it would be amazing! I looked at the crew they were giving us, and was impressed. There was so much potential. I thought that this would be the series that brought Star Trek back from the ridiculous "time travel saves the day" plots of Voyager, and returned it to its roots. But I was wrong. From the outset, my hopes were trampled on. From the very first episode, "Broken Bow", I saw time travel, the "temporal cold war", the complete ignoring of even the most basic points of the Star Trek timeline - poor and insulting plots which must be seen cliché by even the most blinkered science fiction fan. And yet still, I kept watching. Deep Space Nine, I reasoned, was weak to begin with too - it took a few seasons to get into its strike, but turned out to be amazing. So after two seasons, I found myself still sitting in front of my television, hoping against hope and reason that Enterprise would be redeemed, but I was, once again, disappointed. No redemption came. Season three came to a close with the plot still tied up with the Xindi and the temporal cold war - threads which began in the very first episode, and if the producers had any sense, would have been cut there and then. There has been no real development, no dealing with serious social issues, nothing at all of what made Star Trek great. The season ended, and I was left feeling cold and unemotive.

From America, then, I heard that a fourth season had been promised, and soon afterwards, I read that Enterprise had been cancelled and would not receive a fifth. Quite frankly, I was relieved. Not only was this series not good Star Trek, it was bad to such a level that it was tainting the other series' which bore the name. Of course, then there came the protests. Obsessive fans - not of Enterprise, I believe, but of Star Trek, protesting against the cancellation, and fundraising to have Paramount produce another season. Why did they do this? I do not believe these people love Enterprise. Hell, if they did, then they wouldn't be obsessive Star Trek fans, because to love Enterprise is to love the complete antithesis of what Trek should be. I believe these people were protesting because they were afraid - afraid of not having a Star Trek on television with which to centre their lives, afraid of being forced to think for themselves, and made to find a new focus that wasn't based aroun

Re:Save Enterprise? No.

[barawn]

Well, I watched the first episode of the new season of Enterprise, "Storm Front" last night.

The guy in charge of the fourth season of Enterprise (Manny Coto) was asked "Why Nazis?" regarding Storm Front. His response (bitterly)? "You'd have to ask Berman and Braga." Storm Front is the last vestige of the crap that Berman and Braga have been spewing for the first three years.

Watch the second episode of Storm Front, and you'll see what I mean. Suddenly, all the annoying characters and stupid plotlines that Berman and Braga put forward just vanish in one episode. That was the whole point. Coto had to have the Nazis in there. So he did as little with them as he could - two episodes, and they're gone, and all the crap gone with them.

The fourth season of Enterprise is much better than the previous seasons. Unfortunately, Paramount (and Berman) had no intention of letting Enterprise run for more seasons anyway, because it was under someone else's control. There's simply no way that Enterprise, on UPN, could've drawn enough viewers to make Paramount realize Berman was an idiot - which, of course, was the point. Berman hands over reigns, says "okay, if you can do a better job, go ahead." ... and then promptly sets the show up to fail miserably.

Re:Save Enterprise? No.

[gowen]

The term "undiscovered country" comes from a Shakespeare play (Henry the V I think)

Hamlet. It's from the soliloquy that starts "To Be, or Not To Be".

"the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Health care? Domestic violence?

[EvilCabbage]

Look, it's a shame the show was canned, but does it bother anybody else how many people were prepared to dig very deeply to keep a television show running, when there are some issues out there they could actually put their money to and do some good?

...and it didn't matter...

[maxzilla]

something tells me that paramount really didn't take the money because all the actors probably had new contracts with other shows. when Enterpize announced this would be the last season I'm sure the actors already had new projects to work on. i'm sure another Star Trek series will kick off eventually, and then people will forget about Enterprize. either that or that $3 mil that they collected could be put towards starting a new series from scratch. either way I dont really care.

Look at Doctor Who

[Marillion]

If the success of the Doctor Who revival is any indication, sometimes a long running series needs to take a few years off.

Bring it back when you can assemble a fresh creative team that hasn't burned out from years of doing the same thing over and over.

Show Quality Is Often Irrelevent

[justanyone]

The quality of a TV show is often irrelevent to its cancellation. As best I can tell (based on experience with many beloved shows) it depends on:

* Buffy, MASH, etc.: Great shows, cancelled because producers and/or actors felt the show had 'run its course'.
* Wonderfalls, Firefly, Space:Above and Beyond (and HUGE numbers of others): F$*&^$'ing FOX had a political axe to grind and decided that progressive shows (with a Democratic leaning) should be killed and the rights to restart them never released;
* (Almost Buffy): production costs due to special effects were so high that it almost didn't balance the quite significant Advertising revenue;
* Ellen: Advertiser pullout due to a controversial actor;
* 1970's Space:1999: Bad writing, including implausible, inconsistent plotlines, characters that just 'show up', stilted language, etc., will kill a show through bad ratings - people recognize quality, to some degree.
* Sonny and Cher: Some shows deserve to be killed (grin); Seriously, this was a good show for its time but the TV 'Variety Show' went away with cable because the variety was available on different channels instead of all in the same show.

Just my 5 cents.
- Kevin

Re:Show Quality Is Often Irrelevent

[BenjyD]

IMHO, Buffy should have been cancelled two seasons before it was: quality was seriously down.

Re:Show Quality Is Often Irrelevent

[Otter]

I know, I know, it's pointless to argue with a conspiracy theorist but -- why exactly would Fox put on HUGE numbers of leftist shows* and immediately cancel them for ideological reasons? Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to not put them on in the first place? Isn't it, perhaps, more plausible that they canceled the shows because no one was watching them but you?

* Never mind whether anything you mentioned is "Democratic leaning", anyway...

Re:Show Quality Is Often Irrelevent

[Reignking]

Way to make things up! Ellen was canceled, like many shows, because the ratings sucked.

Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said the cancellation was a disappointment but not a surprise. "We're all disappointed ABC made a decision based on ratings. We really wish that they had seriously considered the impact of Ellen's work and looked at it from a broader perspective," she said.

Re:Show Quality Is Often Irrelevent

[TigerTale]

Firefly...progressive shows (with a Democratic leaning)

If, by "Democratic leaning" you mean the sort of Democrat who wore a grey uniform and fought the Union in the War of Northern Aggression, then sure, Firefly leans Democratic. Otherwise, I don't see how you categorize a pro-gun, anti-government, Western-in-space as either progressive or "Democratic leaning." Libertarian, sure--but just throwing a professional hooker into the mix doesn't make a program "Democratic."

Idea For Next Show

[DanielMarkham]

"Vulcan Bay Watch" You heard it here first.

Let others run with Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at the various fan films being made on the web, like:

www.newvoyages.com
hiddenfrontier.com
www.star shipexeter.com

These prove that Trek can still work. All it needs is people with PASSION behind it, making it GOOD. True, the fan films aren't perfect, but they are far more enjoyable than what Paramount puts out.

If Paramount insists on hiring the "it's just a gig" crowd, like they have been, they will continue to turn out mediocre shows. The "it's just a gig" crowd can't be bothered to make plots work, develop characters, or keep continuity.

Personally, I have wondered why fans don't just get together and make their own ORIGINAL series which has nothing to do with Trek. Flying around the universe in spaceships is nothing patented or copyrighted by Paramount. It's a genre, and it's not owned by anyone. Think of the wonderful freedom which comes with making your own universe.

Shatner School of Punctuation?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think, this poster, went, to the Shatner, school, of, punctuation. ;-)