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Angela

Was this the cause of ENT's demise?

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I am a trek and J. Michael Straczinski fan (Creator of Babylon 5) This is a man who knows people in the trek universe, the question piqued my interest , the answer had my mind whiring. Now whilst ENT wasn't the worlds best show, most peolpe will agree there was a change in it in the quality of the stories and the Answer JMS gave this poster made me think. If the powers that be meddled so much in Voyager and made it a sub par (when comparred to DS9 TNG and the original) Could it not have happened with ENT too?

 

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From: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com>

Subject: ST:Voyager

To: CIS

Date: 9/15/1997 2:17:00 PM

 

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(blocked) asks:

> If the studio is holding back the writing on Voyager, why aren't

> they doing the same for DS9?

 

I think Paramount is now more concerned with Voyager than DS9

because DS9 is a syndicated show whereas Voyager is the linchpin of

their network. The more visible you are, the more they want to..."help"

you.

 

jms

 

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that is what the post is sayiing that the higher ups in UPN try to 'help' their flagship shows and considering VOY and ENT were, note were, the lynchpin shows before the 'investment' in reality television, there fore they would try to restrict the writing, make it less interesting. and then because it was weak through their meddling in the script and rthe fans fell away cancelled it.

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I think that theory holds some weight especially with Trek's strongest periods coming in the front-end syndication eras (TNG, DS9).

 

UPN is definitely the primary reason why Enterprise was cancelled. The network is a cinder block. I think Bakula's comment was very true when he said the irony was that Enterprise will still be watched on DVD (or whatever we have) in 20 years while most of UPN's other shows will be forgotten.

 

I'm not going to say that Enterprise was always brilliant because it had bad episodes but every show in the history of television has done bad episodes. But I will never believe that Enterprise's quality was the over-riding factor in its cancellation.

 

I don't care what anyone says. I guarantee if you put the greatest episode of Trek in Enterprise's time slot with next to no promotion and on a sixth rate network, it would do no better.

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I think personally if the writers were given free reign and some REAL compition, then it would have been UPN's ace in the hole. Insetead they killed it but restricting them writing wise, which would lead to an inferior series.

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Care to expand o that because Canon is something to do with plot and storylines of a television show. This is the politics surrounding the show. That is what I am talking baout and debating in a message board about. What are you talking about?

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My theories of ENT's failure.

 

1- Poor boring dull characters.

 

2- Poor actors (except for John Billingsley).

 

3- A lack of quality writing.

 

Even the alleged "improved" final season has failed to demonstrate any improvement to me.

 

4- Poor network. I don't think ENT would have succeeded on any network because of it's own internal weaknesses, but being placed on a weak channel filled with crap for the most part (except WWE) didn't help either.

 

5- Franchise fatigue. After years of worthless Trek like VOY, INS and NEM, people needed a break from Trek. They were interested in the first episode of ENT and indeed the early episodes did attract respectable ratings, but a typical fall in quality soon set in and the became tired of the show and left. I also blame Paramount for oversaturating people with Trek over the last 18 years.

 

6- Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. Like I've said before, Berman is a decent producer but he's not the guy who should be in charge of the creative direction of the franchise, and neither is Braga who is best served as an occasional contributor.

 

7- Most importantly, the loss of the Deep Space Nine team. Losing Ira Behr, Ron Moore, Rene Echevarria and Michael Piller was a massive blow. Under their wise direction, Deep Space Nine took Star Trek to creative heights that I wish we still had today.

 

8- Premature end for TNG. This was the start of the fall. Having this show on the air at the same time as DS9 was also part of the problem. Only ONE Trek show should be produced and aired at a time. But since DS9 and TNG were both world class shows, I can forgive this. But ending TNG in 1994 for the poor decision to move it to movies was a mistake. Of all the TNG movies, only FC was good. Ending TNG and creating VOY was a massive blunder by Paramount.

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In my opinion, it wasn't entirely UPN's fault that the show died. Believe me, their inept marketing and promotion (or lack thereof...) did nothing to help Enterprise. However, a lot of the blame should go directly to Berman & Braga. It was under their stewardship that the show began to suffer. I won't deny that Berman did well with TNG & DS9, but the two of them were not doing anything really creative or ground breaking with Enterprise. It's as if the creative spark left the building and didn't come back until Manny Coto, along with the Stevens, came on board this season. I think if Coto had been on board earlier on, we would not be here talking about the demise of this show. That's my opinion anyway...

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that is what the post is sayiing that the higher ups in UPN try to 'help' their flagship shows and considering VOY and ENT were, note were, the lynchpin shows before the 'investment' in reality television, there fore they would try to restrict the writing, make it less interesting. and then because it was weak through their meddling in the script and rthe fans fell away cancelled it.

316935[/snapback]

 

I think UPN is the reason Enterprise isn't doing well ratings-wise however I don't think they did anything to "help" Enterprise because they never considered it a flagship series. Voyager was basically the only series UPN had when it first started and they promoted it heavily. It didn't do well in the ratings because UPN had very few affiliates. Enterprise is not considered to be the "right" demographics for UPN so they have done their best to bury it.

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I blame UPN and the bashers who never really gave the show a chance. No matter how good the show is (and it was a good show) THEY CONTINUED TO BASH IT.!!

now we will have to wait a long time before we get any kind of new Trek, as sad as that is I am one who believes Trek needs a long break for a few years before trying anything new.

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I blame UPN and the bashers who never really gave the show a chance. No matter how good the show is (and it was a good show) THEY CONTINUED TO BASH IT.!!

 

And many people (like me) gave the show many chances, but it simply did not deliver a satisfactory level of excellence. I've even given this fourth season a chance but the five episodes I've seen so far have been poor. I personally don't think it was a good show.

 

now we will have to wait a long time before we get any kind of new Trek, as sad as that is I am one who believes Trek needs a long break for a few years before trying anything new. 

 

I agree. :lol:

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hmm...i think ENT's demise because it was so boring.......

 

there were like, two good episodes, though.

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now we will have to wait a long time before we get any kind of new Trek, as sad as that is I am one who believes Trek needs a long break for a few years before trying anything new.

317438[/snapback]

 

Who needs new Trek when you can watch GREAT Trek 24/7 by purchasing the TNG, DS9, TOS episodes on DVD? Yes, they are expensive, but for the price of one pizza per week for one month, you can buy an entire season of any of the series on DVD. In seven months, you've got the entire run. Then start on the next series. DVD is the only way to fly.

 

Personally, unless they get their TRULY creative and talented crew back on board (ahem, that being Behr, Pillar, Moore & company), I doubt we'd bother to tune in to a new series beyond the first couple of episodes.

 

A long break is definitely what the franchise needs. That will give "Trek" fans an opportunity to watch and rewatch every episode of every series until they just can't stand it anymore and a new era of Trek will begin. (Just ask those poor folks who watched and waited after the cancellation of the original series ... those are the dudes to feel sorry for, not us who've enjoyed two decades of Trek non-stop.)

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A long break is definitely what the franchise needs.  That will give "Trek" fans an opportunity to watch and rewatch every episode of every series until they just can't stand it anymore and a new era of Trek will begin.  (Just ask those poor folks who watched and waited after the cancellation of the original series ... those are the dudes to feel sorry for, not us who've enjoyed two decades of Trek non-stop.)

318014[/snapback]

 

I am one of those folks who was there at the cancellation of TOS. But I have to correct you. We really never expected the series to come back. We just watched and memorized every TOS episode. In fact, one of the fun games at the early cons was to recite entire TOS episodes from memory....lol. Anticipation of any new Trek never really began until the success of Star Wars. Until then, there really wasn't any successful sci-fi movies being made. After Star Wars, the talk began about new Trek. When TMP came along and it did so well, thats when we really started feeling hopeful for a new series.

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Those years between Star Trek and TMP were the hardest years of my life; I don't look forward to reliving them.

 

Yes it's true we own all DVDs and we will be re-watching them but I am bummed for my daughter; new episodes of ENT were "hers"; they were the Treks of her generation and she is sad they're gone, she is now living the horror of cancellation as I had to. It is for her we're buying the DVDs.

 

IMO UPN had it in for ENT from the start; I attribute ALL its problems to them.

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I blame UPN and the bashers who never really gave the show a chance. No matter how good the show is (and it was a good show) THEY CONTINUED TO BASH IT.!!

now we will have to wait a long time before we get any kind of new Trek, as sad as that is I am one who believes Trek needs a long break for a few years before trying anything new.

317438[/snapback]

 

KM, I don' think TPTB cared if people "bashed" it or complained - as long as they watched it. People could have complained all they wanted if they continued to watch it. That is the only statistic that mattered - it wasn't popular with UPN's target demographic. :wow:

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UPN's target demographic should be everyone. You would think with how low they are they would go for anything they could get. And the moving of te show added to the end(which I still think can be stopped). Wedensday at 9 was great for VOY and it would have worked for ENT... first it went against Smallville then Stargate... it was stupid to to that. Now they want to kick WWE, but I just think that the big wiges have lost it fully.

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Well, luckilly our gap for new Trek won't be ten years, with Star Trek XI scheduled to be released in 2007. I know people are saying it will bomb despite the fact it hasn't even been written yet.

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I've thought more about this and I think that Enterprise's time slot definitely worked against it at least in our home. 8 p.m. is horrible, horrible on any night. If UPN had pushed that back to 9 p.m., we would have watched.

 

Enterprise was just not that great, but then again IMO neither was Voyager. The difference is that Voyager was on prior to our having children and we had all the time in the world to watch television and waste time on mediocrity ... now our viewing time is at a premium and Enterprise just didn't fall into a good time slot. And quite frankly, it just wasn't DS9. Just as I wonder why folks bother making movies anymore after LotR, I also wonder why anyone bothers making Trek after DS9. An impossible act to follow IMO IMO IMO.

 

(Don't kill the messenger.)

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UPN is a second class network.

The people who do programing there have no clue.

 

Who's to blame

 

UPN 60%

Paramount 40%

 

Gave paramount the lesser only for one reason they made it. did a crappy job on promotion but they made it.

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What was the cause of ENT's demise?

 

UPN

316916[/snapback]

 

Agreed. Enterprise would of faired much better on Sci Fi Channel. Instead of competing with Sci Fi Channed's lineup. I am sure being on the same time as Stargate did not help Enterprise much.

Edited by Data

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Myself I think that the biggest problems were the time slot and the lack of promotion. I have been a huge fan of ENT from day one, but with the time slot that it was in I had to buy a TiVo just so that I could see it as in my current living situation my roommate has young children and that made it nearly impossible to watch it on Friday nights in its normal slot due to trying to help get them their dinner, get them calmed down and in bed after we all get home from working all day on Friday's.

 

I find it very sad that UPN is now doing more promotion AFTER they made the announcement that the series is to end. If it had been promoted as much during the full run as we are seeing these "These are the final voyages." advertisements I think that it would have done much better.

 

Also, I think that the bashers also deserve some of the blame. I would never venture to state that they are any less of a Trek fan for not liking ENT but I feel that many did not give the show a chance from day one as there were many that started bashing it after the first episode for items such as makeup choices and other items that were obviously an act of actively trying to find things wrong with the series instead of looking past those production items that were a result of the show being made in a time when the studio had more available to them to make the show's look better than what they had available when TOS was being produced.

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Also, I think that the bashers also deserve some of the blame.  I would never venture to state that they are any less of a Trek fan for not liking ENT but I feel that many did not give the show a chance from day one as there were many that started bashing it after the first episode for items such as makeup choices and other items that were obviously an act of actively trying to find things wrong with the series instead of looking past those production items that were a result of the show being made in a time when the studio had more available to them to make the show's look better than what they had available when TOS was being produced.

319594[/snapback]

 

WELL SAID! I couldn't agree more about the bashers. I recall that when TNG first came out, the bashers were out in force as well. TNG never really hit its stride until the 4th season but at least in its case it was given a chance to mature and get good. Unfortunately, Enterprise never got that chance.

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I found this excerpt of an interview with Manny Coto at TrekToday. I've added the bolding. It just confirms what we always knew and UPN denied.

 

The handwriting was kind of on the wall," Coto told Cinefantastique magazine (via TrekWeb). "I went into this season knowing we were moved to Fridays and the budget had been reduced and there was no promotion.

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Also, I think that the bashers also deserve some of the blame.  I would never venture to state that they are any less of a Trek fan for not liking ENT but I feel that many did not give the show a chance from day one as there were many that started bashing it after the first episode for items such as makeup choices and other items that were obviously an act of actively trying to find things wrong with the series instead of looking past those production items that were a result of the show being made in a time when the studio had more available to them to make the show's look better than what they had available when TOS was being produced.

319594[/snapback]

 

WELL SAID! I couldn't agree more about the bashers. I recall that when TNG first came out, the bashers were out in force as well. TNG never really hit its stride until the 4th season but at least in its case it was given a chance to mature and get good. Unfortunately, Enterprise never got that chance.

319595[/snapback]

 

 

I also totally agree with you.

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Exactly how many poor episodes of ENT did you expect "the bashers" to endure before they had to wait for a half decent one to arrive?

 

If the writers of ENT could not hold onto the large number of viewers they had for the first few episodes, then the blame for ENT's demise cannot be placed on the viewers who abandoned the show, but rather on the writers who couldn't produce a satisfactory standard of quality to keep the viewers interested and watching the show.

 

Many "bashers" (which is just a derogatory word for someone who rightly criticised ENT) gave the show many many chances to improve, but it didn't improve. ENT has been consistantly poor since the first episode. I believe THAT accounts for the loss of so many millions of viewers.

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I'm looking forward to seeing what the ratings are for Enterprise when it starts it second run syndication in the fall. I bet the ratings will be much higher than what they are on UPN because more people will have access to watching the series in syndication.

 

There is a difference between bashing and critisizing, King. If a person wants to critisize Enterprise or say they don't like it, that's fine - it's their opinion and they are entitled to it. Bashers nitpick an episode to death and/or do their best to belittle people who do enjoy it.

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