Trek Producers Will Provide World A Break

David Crumpton writes "Star Trek Producers have finally agreed that Star Trek fans are oversaturated with the show, and are planning to provide a break. This does not mean they wont bring something new to the screen; they will just wait a few years. They are convinced the ratings dropped due to the show competing against other Trek re-runs."

Comments

Im loving the beginning of the end....

[seanvaandering]

I have to admit though that the show in the last 4 episodes here are keeping me right on the edge of my seat. Even the different opening and "The Alliance" theme was just awesome to watch. yes the "alternate universe and timelines" plot is old, but to see it played out on Enterprise is awesome. Not to mention Jolene looks great in that alliance outfit - NICE!

Or perhaps the ratings dropped...

[techmuse]

Or perhaps the ratings dropped... because they decided to replace strong plots and good character development with gratuitious sexual situations in order to attract UPN's 18-25 year old male target audience. Or perhaps they relied too much on time travel stories, which have become rather cliche in Trek of late. Or perhaps not calling it Star Trek for two years didn't help? Or perhaps the really BAD theme music for Enterprise? Or the tortured script of Nemesis, which was an obvious attempt to combine the elements of the higher rating treks into a new movie? Or Berman and Braga not understanding what Trek audiences really like?

Just a thought...

Re:Or perhaps the ratings dropped...

[mikael]

Or perhaps the ratings dropped...

because they decided to replace strong plots and good character development with gratuitious sexual situations in order to attract UPN's 18-25 year old male target audience.


Definitely.

Or perhaps they relied too much on time travel stories, which have become rather cliche in Trek of late.

More than likely. For a Sci-Fi series to become popular, it has to explore current political issues. Star Trek explored the Cold War through the battle between Earth and the Klingon empire. ST:TNG achieved this by exploring the topics of discussion: can intelligent machines really be considered life, the drugs war/international trade.

Another problem is if you have two series exploring the same topic (Eg. Farscape and ST:Voyager both exploring the topic of a crew finding their way home).

Or perhaps not calling it Star Trek for two years didn't help?

Or perhaps the really BAD theme music for Enterprise?

Audiences don't usually watch a Sci-Fi series just for the introduction sequence or title, but it is a good indicator of the amount of effort put into the program.

Or the tortured script of Nemesis, which was an obvious attempt to combine the elements of the higher rating treks into a new movie?

A movie is really a one off event that you might see once. Whether somebody will make the effort to watch the next episode of a series, is based on the previous two episodes.

Or Berman and Braga not understanding what Trek audiences really like?


Definitely.

It's no use blaming the old reruns for poor ratings. Even for a series based purely on special effects, the special effects are constantly improving from month to month.

As a comparison, UK Gold plays reruns of old Dr. Who episodes. The old series seems slow and clunky compared to the new series.

The only problem now (unrelated to the series) is that the title sequence of every other program now seems to use SFX (eg. Sports programs also do the zoom-in sequence from Earth orbit to country/sky/clouds/city/street/sports field).

Re:There will still be reruns in a few years

[EpsCylonB]

Yeah, but the point is that enterprise is going up against these re runs and *losing*. Cos its a crappy show.

Re:There will still be reruns in a few years

[StarKruzr]

It hasn't been a crappy show for quite a few episodes now. They had a change of writers in this beginning of this season and it got a lot better.

Re:There will still be reruns in a few years

[EpsCylonB]

I don't think they can cancel re runs, the rights to show the different treks are owned by different channels aren't they ?.

Silly

[Evro]

When Voyager came out it had to compete with DS9 new episodes as well as TNG and TOS reruns. But I guess it's foolish to expect them to say "yeah, Enterprise sucked, sorry." The whole premise of the show was stupid. Kirk's crew was supposed to be "the first" and Enterprise ruined all of that backstory time and time again. I remember when they were brainstorming ideas for the new show, one of them was like Star Fleet special ops or something, I felt sure they'd go with that since it really sounded interesting. I even said "Man, they'd never do a show that predated Kirk, the fans would throw a fit," but apparently they aren't that in-touch with their fanbase. Which I guess is logical, since Star Trek isn't that popular, and finding fans must be very difficult.

ST: Nemesis was also a flaming pile of dung, rivalling Star Trek V in the crap department. No need to rehash the reasons that movie sucked. But suffice it to say that while oversaturation probably contributed to people being sick of the show, the quality of the content they're producing has gone down the tubes.

Re-run competition

[The trees]

They are convinced the ratings dropped due to the show competing against other Trek re-runs.

I can attest to this. When the choice became suffer through another episode of Enterprise vs watch a re-run of TNG (both in the same Wednesday timeslot, TNG on SpikeTV), I chose TNG every time. If Enterprise had been even almost as good as TNG, the choice would be different. But when the only advantage it has is that it's new, forget it.

I just saw the "In a mirror, Darkly" eps...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I want to weep now.

That was beyond watchable. it was entertaining.

Screw a break, I want a series based of the Mirror Universe.

Re:They still don't get it

[EpsCylonB]

These recent treks that are all about wars and payback (thinly veiled references to the war on terror etc.) are the complete antithesis of what I felt Star Trek was about.

You fundamentally misunderstand star trek. From the beginning of the 60's show it was supposed to have been a commentary on soceity at the time (cold war, racism, hippy peace and love, etc.).

The best example of this is the 6th star trek movie, its an obvious allegory of the end of the cold war. Starting with a klingon energy moon exploding (meant to reseamble chernoble), following through the diplomacy (including the line "only nixon could go to china"), a new bird of prey that can fire torpedos when cloaked (the US/Russia fighter battles) and ending with a traditional (although IMO overplayed) star trek happy clappy ending.

In fact the secret of great sci fi is that is never really about the future, or another universe, or whatever. It's about present day, after all if you couldn't identify anything in it why would you watch it ?. People watched TOS because they found the idea where man had stopped fighting each other and become harmonised inpspiring.

The enterprise writers shouldn't stray away from social commentary but they should learn how to do it right.

Re:Nope. They Forgot To Tell Good Stories

[nmb3000]

In the end, Enterprise and the last few movies were brought down because they weren't telling good stories. Tell a good story and people will watch.

I sure hope somebody sees this and mods you Insightful because that is _*IT*_. The problem is idiots like Berman are so egotistical and blind to the fans that they figure if the ratings are low it's the fans' fault. Their stories are perfect--who could ask for better?--so it must be for some other reason that the show is dying.

The best thing for Star Trek would be if Berman and Braga simply disappeared.

Just for fun, here's an example of just how stupid (coral cached link) the last Trek film was. Funny, yes, but sadly accurate.