UPN Officially Cancels 'Star Trek: Enterprise' 886
Tycoon Guy writes "It's official now: UPN has decided to cancel 'Enterprise.' The show's series finale, which may feature Jonathan Frakes (William T. Riker) and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), will air on Friday the 13th of May. The show's fate was probably sealed when last Friday's episode reached only 2.5 million viewers - but even so, the people at EnterpriseFans.com are still trying to raise money for a fan campaign to save the show."
Bummer (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm maybe now we'll get that Star Trek: Titan show that was rumored to be about Captain Riker and the fall of the Federation....
Goodbye . . . (Score:1, Interesting)
Could Have Been So Good (Score:2, Interesting)
What a waste of potential. I'm not sure how weird of an idea it is, but I would love to see a BBC style 'remake' of the series. Of course throwing out everything except the basic concept.
Re:Bummer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:About time. (Score:1, Interesting)
Damn them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of working on it, and keeping the show going, they cancel. Where are the 2 hour specials to bring back viewers? They havnt tried shit, other than canceling. The whole idea of a gritter time is great, thats what made Firefly kick ass.
Really tired of all the networks canceling shows and putting reality crap, or fucking with good content. SciFi at least has Stargate and Atlantis. G4 fucked over TechTV, its a poor shell of the show it once was. B5 had many spinoffs, and possible
Last week episode showed how much the show improved. The plot worked, good inship fighting, little drama, and a few ship battles. Everything you want in a good episode.
So before all the posts "Its Crap, Let it DIE", are wrong, its a good now, now that the time war crap is over. I wish they would shoot the writers who are ruining such a good series.
Is it me, or is becoming popular to buy something and run it into the ground?
Side note, wtf is shows like "Blind Justice" a cop who is blinded on duty goes back to work, and now has super powers? Are we in a time warp going back to 80's crap?
Where are the fucking smart tv producers and network directors, they all quit?
Oh, Boy! More Old Spacer Shows! (Score:2, Interesting)
Which was a pretty cool show when it first aired, but the same could be said of TOS.
How about _completely_ new series, with no canon to worry about, no old fans to grouse about "how it was better back in the day" etc.
Babylon 5 seemed to do that. What's the big fear about trying likewise again?
upn is scared, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaahhh-nyah
To quote Connery in Indiana Jones 3 (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems like this show is finally starting to gain some momentum. Too bad the never-ending moronic Xindi plot had already killed the show.
I think all the interesting parts of the Xindi story arc honestly could have been compressed into about 3 episodes.
And WTF was up with the "Beauty and the Beast" episode complete with medieval sytle castle? Ugh, what a disaster that was. Probably lost 40% of what was left of their viewership on that episode alone.
Still, once that lame arc finally completed, there have been a few interesting episodes. They're finally getting back to actually exploring the galaxy, rather than hunting "Osma in space". They've had some interesting characters, and getting into dealing with the implications of a lot of "cutting edge" technology happening at that point in the Trek timeline. Some promise there, but nobody's watching anymore. Well, except me, which apparently puts me in the minority of even the geeky slashdot crowd. Scary.
TV has evolved past where Star Trek is. (Score:2, Interesting)
Farscape was what did it for me. It showed me that sci-fi TV coud be smart AND funny AND fast-paced AND well-written AND imaginative AND everything else that Star Trek is not anymore and hasn't been for a long time.
I was complaining to a friend about how all ST shows had gotten so slow. They plod to each commercial break until someone reverses some polarity and makes everything better. He disagreed with me, but karma was on my side. That night, the episode of Enterprise that was on featured some sort of gooey space alien that was in a cargo hold or something, and everybody who went in got caught in it, suspended in gooey tentacles.
Slowest. Monster. Ever. Just like the ST franchise these days.
Re:The winds of change. (Score:2, Interesting)
Listen very carefully I shall say this only once. In the UK a 'season' is refered to as a 'series'. So the UK has finished airing the 'first series' of Battlestar Galactica. So 'Series Finale' translates into American as 'Season Finale'. Is that okay or would you like pictures?
Now! This in no way guarantees a 2nd series but it also in no way suggests there will not be 2nd series.
Re:Rescue (Score:4, Interesting)
erm.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Worse then that he's dead jim dead jim dead.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Prequels never work to well. Star Wars works a little, but even it has the look that the past was more modern then the future problem. Examples in Star Wars is the Naboo Starfighter and Amidala's ship.
One thing that Enteprise was effected was the ship looked fricken great. LCD's all over the damn place and very sharp looking....NOT SOMETHING THAT WOULD LOOK LIKE IT CAME BEFORE KIRK!
I'd have rather seen more buttons and things like that....the bridge should have looked more like a 80's carrier. MUCH more cramped and not as modern looking. Even that may be slightly more then the old series.
UPN's signal SUCKS in my neighborhood and I never watched it primarily because of that. Also, my UPN affiliate is also a WB affiliate and they do not show it at the same time as the rest of the nation.
I will be picking this up on DVD. Since this one is real short, pricewise, it should be ok for me to get UNLIKE other Trek DVD sets!
WTF?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope there will be at least some movies based on Enterprise - So the birth of the Federation can happen.
This is the result of writing by committee (Score:1, Interesting)
Have you noticed the shows getting progressively worse?
The premise of Enterprise was so deeply flawed that I'm amazed ANYONE could watch it.
I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't stomach it.
Where's the sense of exploration, (you know, Where No Man..I forget the rest.) if all they're doing is wandering around areas ALREADY mapped by the Vulcans?
If you combined the premise of Voyager with the Enterprise cast - THEN you'd have one kickass show!
Oh yeah, and bring back the mini-skirts you silly politically-correct humps!!!
LET IT GO.... (Score:1, Interesting)
I liked quantum leap. I liked the previous versions of star trek (except ds9). I never liked this show.
To those that said it got better as it went on -- community college is where you practice. Network television is not the place to practice/develop a show.
But.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides that, Enterprise is almost gaurenteed to have a long syndication run. STTOS is still being aired; outside of a marathon, when was the last time you saw Leave it to Beaver? Isn't Viacom all but gaurenteed infinite future syndication sales?
I remember one of those "behind the sceens" show on TNG. Each episode cost about as much to make as an average feature film. They had a bunch of production staff working full time, 52 weeks a year. (a 30 minute comedy could likey be shot in <2 days, 8 weeks for the season, not much post-production) So while expensive, I would think it would also be easy to manage at the executive level... Keep a regular, full time, cardre of ST production staff and all but forget about it on the executive level. No toss of the dice every season with new shows. No worrying about getting good writers or crew. ST just churns out stuff like clockwork. Quality is important, but many people will watch it regardless today, and tomorrow.
For that matter, with a full time ST cadre, movies could almost be done for free. Well, thats a streach.. But all your pre and post production stuff can be done here and there by the TV staff (or the opposit, the TV stuff could be done here and there by your movie crew). Farm out major work, and get a special crew to do the principal photography, but all the "glue" stuff could be done inhouse. At the very least, you will maintain a skill set, ST props, ST makup, ST sets and what not that, if you diddnt have full time staff, may or may not carry over from movie to movie.
People are saying that ST needs a break. Writers need a break, fans need a break. Is the opposite not true? Airing new shows keeps the interest up, even in the syndicated series. One might not tune in to watch a TNG episode, but if a TNG episode airs just before or just after Enterprise, the viewers might stick around for both.
Writers, Bad Scripts and the Curse of the Fans (Score:3, Interesting)
For science fiction to succeed away from its own little niche of fans, it needs writers who can develop stories that appeal to a wide audience. After all, a bad science fiction story is, in the end, just another bad story.
The stories Enterprise has been telling since Coto became the showrunner are better, but Season Four is the wrong time to go after the audience the show should have sought in Season One.
The Star Trek franchise also suffers from the curse of its fans, many of whom give the earlier series a degree of respect they often didn't deserve. (Bad scripts and cheesy plots abounded there, too. Each series had wondetful moments of drama that inspired legitimate awe and wonder about humanity's future, but each series was also inconsistent, with frequent recourse to alien/disease of the week.)
But, every fan who insists that Trek scripts maintain continuity with their view of the Trek universe also hamstrings the writers, putting them in increasingly restrictive boxes.
A show like Babylon 5 survived thanks to consistently good scripts and adherence to one individual's vision. The notion that good stories begin with character development was at play there. But, any spinoff series would like have run into the same problems as happened to the Trek series.
So, my advice to Paramount is this: Go have a deep think. Pitch the next Trek series/movie to the general population. Bring in good writers, good actors, a good director. If Trek fandom values adherence to continuity more than good stories, tell them to take a one-way tranporter trip.
Re:BSG's on Fridays, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, how could they expect Enterprise to have a prayer against shows with a decent writing, character development, and all clumped to gether in a "MUST SEE SCIFI TV" type of lineup. Even though SG1 seems to be running out of steam, it is still far and away better than the crap that Enterprise has been.
BSG truely rocks, it feels real, you never know who is going to bite the bullet. The writers are not afraid of character with faults, and for every victory there is usually a price to pay.
Enterprise, if some major character is "killed" it is just a matter of going back in time to save them. Or some other "magic" technology, with little basis in reality, gets jury rigged in 10 minutes to save the day. Where is the dram in that. At the end of the day, or at least the end of the season, everyone will be safe and happy once again.
I mean I used to enjoy Star Trek very much, but after seeing some of the more recent quality sci-fi shows like Firefly, Farscape, BSG and the earlier years of SG1 the whole premise of STarTrek is a lot harder to swallow.
Re:The sad thing is (Score:3, Interesting)
Think of the Xindi as the Taliban, the Federation as America, Florida as the World Trade Center and that stupid weapon as WMDs and it all adds up to Star Trek: Ripped Directly From the Headlines.
What was the end result? A show that was too serious to be taken seriously.
Re:SPOILER (Score:3, Interesting)
Although, I'm just finishing watching the second season so
Re:Bummer (Score:3, Interesting)
This is really sad. (Score:5, Interesting)
Enterprise has been getting more and more interesting this season, and they choose now to can it.
Morons.
Re:Damn them. (Score:2, Interesting)
Now that we have the Internet, the smart viewers spend their free time surfing the web instead of watching TV. TV shows are only going to get worse until we reach some state of true TV/web convergence.
Fundamental problems (Score:5, Interesting)
*Writing*
Pacing: In many of the early episodes, the pacing of the stories was terrible, often slowing to the point of boredom. Remember the episode where the Ferengi were stealing parts of the Enterprise (yawn)? Or how about "A Night in Sickbay" (yawn^2)?
Continuity: Initially, there were problems with continuity with the ST universe. Many episodes only paid lip service to previous ST material by mentioning it, and then went promptly went nowhere. Only when the ratings began to slip did the producers make an intelligent effort to tie into the old school.
Also, it was cool at the beginning of the series when Enterprise didn't have all of the tech that Picard et. al. were supposed to have. I liked the feeling of a small, weak Earth ship that didn't have all the answers. Bit by bit though, the same level of technology has crept back, to where except for the occasional shuttle pod, the tech is equivalent.
*Stories*
How did that temporal war arc get resolved? Did they make it up as they went along? Why did it seem so clumsy and difficult to follow? How about the Xindi/Star Wars/Death Star arc? Why did it take 4 years to start seeing elements of the ST universe we were yearning for from the start?
*Characters*
Viewers relating to Characters: Did the show ever get the viewers to really care about the characters? Maybe you could care about "Trip", but the rest of the cast could get blown out the airlock, and no one would protest.
Erratic Character Development: Why did so many of the episodes have the cast acting out of character? This was a problem with Voyager too, where each week a character would act differently, and negate or forget their development to that point in the series. Viewers watch the show and think "he wouldn't do or say that".
Crummy casting: Why is Scott Bakula so unbelievable and unconvincing in the role of Archer? Why can't he be taken seriously like Patrick Stewart was? This is an anchoring role for a Star Trek series - you can't miss-cast the role, and then expect the series to succeed. Voyager had problems here too, but I could at least stomach Janeway.
Yes it's easy to criticize the series at this point, but these guys have had 4 years, gazillions of dollars, and a lot of fan input to draw from to get the show right. Time to look elsewhere for sci-fi entertainment.
It's been a good ride... (Score:3, Interesting)
Alot of ups and downs and I'm sure there will be a 40th anniversary special for next year commemorating the franchise, as they have been doing something like that since the 20th anniversary first-time airing of the B & W version of "The Cage" in 1986.
Time to warp off into the sunset...
Re:This is really sad. (Score:4, Interesting)
I love it when someone with the nick "CrocketAndTubbs" says something like, "It just goes to show that some people will watch anything no matter how bad it is."
I really laughed my ass off after reading that post.
Oh, and to stay on topic, I agree with the grandparent. Just like every "new" Star Trek show, it started out slow and cheesy. Once the characters were well defined and the show found it's legs, it's really improved. This season Enterprise has started to come into its own with good writing, relatable characters, and good acting. If TNG, DS9, and Voyager showed us anything, it was that the next two or three seasons of Enterprise would have been some really good "living room" SciFi.
Too bad Paramount can't stand by one of their own shows.
Maybe they'll put Miami Vice in Enterprise's time slot. lol
Re:One Word (Score:3, Interesting)
With a series premise like that, if you can't hold onto a geek's attention for more than 10 minutes, you suck. That show is honestly so damn boring now, they've completely killed it.
Of course I really like Enterprise, but I think the four seasons they've had have been good. It isn't like it's getting cancelled after only one season. To me, however, this season has been pretty weak.
Oh yeah, I liked the season with the time-travelling alien nazi's. Every episode kept us watching throughout the entire season. "Us" includes both me and my wife (that's a helluva feat considering that sci-fi bores the crap out of her), our 12 year-old boy, 5 year-old boy, and even the 3 year-old boy.
Re:Somewhere along the line.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or maybe if they had a bookshelf's worth of commercially available reference books containing detailed information on virtually every aspect of their story universe... that would make it so much easier.
Or... maybe they could recruit an elite force of fanboys who, for the sheer bragging rights alone, would be tasked with consistency checking any new story idea or script with the rest of the Star Trek universe.
Oh well... *sigh*
Re:The winds of change. (Score:3, Interesting)
If it wasn't for Ben and Claudia I would be on the side of the camp calling for and end to SG-1 while it is good, I don't think I can go through another downward slid that was the X Files (God DAMN was that show horrible once they moved the production to LA, damn you David Dacovney DAMN YOU!!!) But seeing that I like Ben and Claudia from Farscape, as long as MGM doesn't hire Farscape writers, the series should be kept from turing itn 'Fargate'...
My ranking (Score:2, Interesting)
A) get interesting characters, develop those
+) Sisko, Archer, Picard, Seven, Phlox, Quark, T'Pol, Worf, Tom Paris, Jadzia Dax, T'Pol, Trip, Data,
-) Neelix, Beverly Crusher, Katherine Pulaski, Lwaxana Troi,
B) get a thrilling and CONSISTENT(!!!) storyline
DON'T USE
- time travel
- it's just a dream
- parallel universe
because it tells me "uh uh - we messed up the plot and need to rewind" - those episodes simply suck
Ranking:
#1) DS9 - no questions asked - my #1
- interesting characters and good character development
- storyline is interesting an mostly consistent
- nice "side stories"
- the "tribbles" episode was a soo funny (though it violated rule B)
#2) Enterprise (first 3 seasons - hoping for more to ait here soon)
- characters are good and promise more fun and development
- storyline has promising ideas, but lacks a strong idea and continuty. constantly violating rule 2 ( time travel sucks
#3) TNG
- weak storyline - with exception of the "Borg" episodes
- strong and weak characters
#4) Voyager
- "we need to get home" is no storyline, sorry
- some nice side stories
- not enough strong and interesting characters
#5) Star Trek
Just too old to remember
The Dying Gasp of 90's Paramount? (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, there seems to have been a large marketing of failure at Paramount. Tie series to UPN, whose affliates share with Fox or pre-empt for sports events? Put movies out in December to compete with "big events," instead of waiting a month when it'd be #1? When you advertise an episode of Trek, make it about sex most of the time, even when it has nothing to do with the story? Where's the sci-fi in their sci-fi?
What we are seeing is a revamp of Paramount, and they consider Trek a part of the problem, not the solution. It should be the other way around: however, it is the last vestige of an experiment, and probably should be put to rest while they clean house. Let us hope there is more Trek one of these days, and preferably syndicated, if not on Sci-Fi or some other network.
sad :-( (Score:4, Interesting)
sniff sniff...
Why don't they just do it syndicated, or offer it to the Sci Fi network?
I'm sure some one is willing to put money behind a Star Trek franchise.
Re:Another triumph for the forces of darkness (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not like they're not out there... (Score:3, Interesting)
For all the yakking that goes on about how the FCC is really sticking it to TV with censorship, there's been virtually no measurable change. I suppose it's just because republicans are in charge that people THINK there's some sort of big change happening and that the bible belt is taking charge of the airwaves. The truth, of course, is that there's way too much money there for BOTH parties for the FCC to do anything really drastic. Again, except on radio where apparently saying the word "asshole" would cause children all over the country to turn to lives of sin.
repeditive plots aren't story arcs (Score:2, Interesting)
As another poster said, try B5. JMS had the whole arcs planned out from the beginning. The last few seasons of DS9 seemed to fall into the same hole that the Spider-Man clone debacle that Marvel had a few years back. For those of you who didn't read Spider-Man at the time, the reader's digest version basically went like this:
Five years ago, Marvel time, somebody made a clone of Spider-Man. Said clone was dumped down a chimney, and thought to be destroyed. However, the clone shows up all of a sudden, wearing a different costume, and sales go up. The editors decided they had a good thing on their hands, and dragged out the story AS LONG AS THEY COULD. This, combined with the fact that you had to buy 4 books a month to keep up with the story, killed sales, made the whole clone deal a legendary bad story, and drove the charachter into the ground into such an extent that it's still recovering today.
The same situation seemed to happen on DS9. Berman seemed to think he had a good thing with the Dominion and he did - so he drug the same basic arc out 2 seasons past its prime. They would have a big battle on the show about every three weeks, but nothing would change, nothing would be resolved. And the charachter relations more and more seemed to resemble a soap opera (Odo and Kira, anyone?).
DS9 sucked the first two seasons, got its footing in season 3, and seasons 4 and 5 rocked. But after that the show returned to suckiness, unfortunatly. As I was discussion with another poster, they should hire JMS of B5 fame and Joss Weadon of Buffy, two guys who know how to do plots, story arcs and charachters.
Bit Torrent Killed Enterprise (Score:2, Interesting)
Bit Torrent kills ANY shows ratings. I got turned off by the Xindi arc...because it reminded me too much of 9/11 and crap.
So my friend downloaded all the episodes...lo and behold I watched the entire arc in a couple sittings.
Since the show arcs kinda sucked...I did not watch on broadcast television...I watched at my own pace when I was bored...and I started liking the show.
Bit torrent killed the ratings. Suprnova always had about 2500 seeds (I was told) and thousands of peers downloading the show.
Ratings were not really ever a problem...UPN is just looking at the wrong sources...get with the times and realize fans paying $5.00 per episode will generate enough money (iTunes...) to keep the show running forever.
I'm rambling...but I have a good points. Discuss.
- - -
this is a repost from a comment that is in another thread, but I believe it needs discussion. Nobody EVER talks about torrents and their effect on shows.
Re:SPOILER (Score:2, Interesting)
It's one of the great art crimes of the past 30 years that The Prisoner was never properly finished in book or any format. Something they really have to change.
I have heard it said that "Whoever wrote the final episode to The Prisoner should be given a though spanking".
My two cents...
MOD UP THE PARENT! (Score:2, Interesting)
Or maybe they're from the parallel universe? Laser beams visible in space, FTL with preservation of causality and general relativity, completely naive view of human psychology, most aliens are humanoid...
If you're into science-fiction, better check "Culture" series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture [wikipedia.org] by Iain M. Banks. or for real hard sci-fi, Orion's Arm http://orionsarm.com/ [orionsarm.com]
Star Trek belongs to the techno-fantasy genre, not sci-fi.
Re:Another triumph for the forces of darkness (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the changelings (in the form of O'Brian) taunted Sisko saying that the "solids" were going to defeat themselves.
There was also great commentary on how the Dominion had already won if earth was going to live under martial law.
Given our (USA) current perpetual War on Terror, this resonated with me more than it did the first time I saw it.
Re: Somewhere along the line.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Look through issues of Analog or Asimov's or Interzone, or books by some of their authors. You'll find that although it's mostly billed as science fiction, and its writers are known for that genre, it often doesn't deal with technology, aliens, &c. It's my opinion that what connects the better SF stories is that they're concerned with big ideas, however obliquely they deal with them.
Of course, this doesn't often make the transfer to 'science fiction' as seen in the movies or TV... But then, judging science fiction by what you see on screen is as misleading as judging classical music from what you hear on mobile phones...
BTW, Encarta's definition goes on to say "More precisely, science fiction deals with events that did not happen or have not yet happened; it considers these events rationally in terms both of explanation and of consequences; and it is concerned with the impact of change on people, often with its consequences for the human race." which captures it pretty well I think.