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Television Media Sci-Fi

UPN Renews 'Star Trek: Enterprise' 665

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-sure-if-thats-good-news-or-bad dept.
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that 'Enterprise' has been renewed for a fourth season. UPN will make the official announcement on Thursday, but production executives already told the SaveEnterprise.com fan campaign the show will be back, and the show's actors have been ordered back to work. The only snag? It looks like 'Enterprise' might be moved to Fridays next year, and Firefly fans can tell you what a great place that is..."
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UPN Renews 'Star Trek: Enterprise' More

UPN Renews 'Star Trek: Enterprise'

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  • Good news... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jrj102 ( 87650 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:41AM (#9184802) Homepage
    Well, this is good news. Enterprise is not my favorite flavor of Trek, but it's better than nothing. Besides, there have been a couple good episodes this season.

    I'm sure some people would have revelled in an Enterprise cancellation... to them, I'd like to pose a question which always bugged me: if you don't like a show, you don't watch it, right? If you don't watch it why would it matter to you whether or not it is cancelled? It just seems so mean-spirited to wish for a show's cancellation-- over a hundred people lose their jobs as a result, and I'm not talking about high-paid actors, I'm talking about camera men, editors, janitors-- normal people. It's not fun losing a job, folks.

    Anyway... on with the flame fest.

    • Re:Good news... (Score:5, Funny)

      by digitalsushi ( 137809 ) * <slashdot@digitalsushi.com> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:48AM (#9184903) Journal
      To boldly go ... and then stop briefly ... and then boldly go again, where no one has gone before!

      • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dnoyeb ( 547705 )
        Great, but did they cancel Rick Berman?

        ST will continue to sputter along until they replace that ball of ineptitude.

        Should have let his wife do it. Majel has produced some really good sci-fi shows since the departure of Roddenberry. IMHO, Berman can't get it done.
        • We can but hope that Berman gets cancelled. A quote attributed to Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: The Next Generation artist Andrew Probert opines that Berman doesn't know jack about scifi...

          Personally, I think the mooted Friday-night slot is ironic, the final nail in the coffin. Anyone remember where classic Trek was put by the network for its third season before cancellation?
          Yup. Friday night. When its core audience was out doing other things, the sort of things young people, young adults, do... if they'd had demographics back then, the advertisers would've run away in droves. (As it is, they didn't bring in the demographics til much later - and classic Trek proved, in syndication, to be an ideal show for the advertisers to hit certain groups.)

          As an ex-Trekkie, all I can say is... roll on those Friday nights, I'm waiting to see the /. headline: Berman on Enterprise: "It's dead, Jim."

          (Or, admittedly, a clip of Dean Stockwell on the bridge, saying something like, "Uhh, Sam... you're not really a starship captain...") ;-)

    • Re:Good news... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by yndrd ( 529288 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:49AM (#9184938) Homepage
      Because some of us remember when Star Trek wasn't just an excuse to sell toys and keep "camera men, editors, and janitors" in jobs.

      Sure, it's always been a profit thing, but once there seemed to be some soul behind it, and watching the juggernaut limping into entropy is just depressing to those of us who had any emotional connection to previous incarnations of the show.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:54AM (#9185028)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by yndrd ( 529288 )
          And that's just, like, yours.

          Why call for anybody to silence their opinions about anything? I'm not saying the show should be taken off the air by force of arms--I'm just saying I hope it's cancelled soon.

          That opinion is no less valid than yours, "man."

          • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by mrchaotica ( 681592 )
            I'm just saying I hope it's cancelled soon.
            gee, that's pretty pessimistic of you - I hope it improves instead.
            (Of course, your scenario is more likely, but that's beside the point)

          • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by NanoGator ( 522640 )
            "Why call for anybody to silence their opinions about anything? "

            The following is meant in a general sense, as opposed to talking specifically about this particular case:

            - Lots of opinions are from people who either haven't watched the show, or only watched an episode here and there. That, in and of itself, isn't so bad. However, if I were to present the same complaint about a show they really liked, I'd suddenly be the ill-informed jerk.

            - A good chunk of the opinions have been discussed ad-nauseum al

        • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Dr. Evil ( 3501 )

          There are obviously plenty of people who DO like it

          The only people who matter are the advertisers. They're the true customers of T.V.

          Viewers control T.V. only through a distant and hardly measurable relationship between network's profits from ad-space, which might, just barely, be influenced by viewer's tendencies to purchase corporate brands when they've seen them on T.V.

          So it is entirely possible that nobody likes it, and the advertisers perceive it to be a set of palatable stories to wrap around

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:49AM (#9184944)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Good news... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by RatBastard ( 949 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:54AM (#9185035) Homepage
        It's not that Lucas "ruined" anything. It's that Episode 1 and 2 were crap! They were badly acted (from actors we KNOW can do better!), badly written, badly directed and badly concieved. The only good thing about Star Trek were the special effects, but SFX are a dime a dozen. Good stories are much harder to find.

        And yes, I'd rather not have to wade through pools of drek and offal when I want to indulge my craving for science fiction. I would rather have a few well crafted diamonds than a mountain of coal.

        That mountain of coal exists because there are some people, myself NOT included) who will tolerate anything, no matter how badly made, just because it is science fiction.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:16PM (#9185416)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Ok, naming that many episodes of a show long gone "off the top of my head in 5 minutes at the office", you seriously need to get outside more.

          • Re:Good news... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Oliver Wendell Jones ( 158103 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:33PM (#9185752)
            Darmok (TNG - Attempt to communicate with an alien race - probably my favorite episode of Trek ever made)

            Shaaka - When the walls fell!

            I loved that episode, too, but I always wondered how a civilization with such a specific form of language (i.e., referencing past historical and mythical events) could have ever developed beyond the stone/bronze age?

            How could you teach a course in warp propulsion dynamics, for example?

            • Re:Good news... (Score:5, Funny)

              by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:53PM (#9186033) Homepage
              Shaaka - When the warp core breached.
              Shaaka - When he soiled himself.
            • > How could you teach a course in warp propulsion dynamics, for example?

              Bulinko walked together in the den with Linia.
              The sons of Bukits stared and they went to the house of Mirkos.
              Shizuko - when Tirbuk got Tewerkal in the Sea of Lurkis.

              (translation: when the subspace fields takes the shell shape, and their frequency is 16 millicochranes, then the warp factor will surpass the next integer number and the energy intake will stabilize)

            • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Otto ( 17870 )
              Shaaka - When the walls fell!

              I loved that episode, too, but I always wondered how a civilization with such a specific form of language (i.e., referencing past historical and mythical events) could have ever developed beyond the stone/bronze age?

              How could you teach a course in warp propulsion dynamics, for example?

              Answer: You can't. You can't really even have a language/species that works/thinks that way. It just doesn't stand up to any kind of rational thought beyond the episode.

              But nevertheless, it wa

          • Clay Aiken!!! (Score:3, Funny)

            by simetra ( 155655 )
            Measure of a Man (TNG - Individual Rights)


            I KNEW Clay Aiken was a Trekkie!!!!!!

            That would explain his apparent asexuality and lack of biceps.


            Thanks, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

    • Re:Good news... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:50AM (#9184959) Homepage
      Agreed, it's become the thing to do to take pot shots at Enterprise around here. That's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Here's mine: Enterprise is getting better. Traditionally, Trek series hit their prime in season three, and this is no exception.

      As for Friday nights, well, that's what TiVo is for, right?

    • Re:Good news... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Syberghost ( 10557 )
      Enterprise is not my favorite flavor of Trek, but it's better than nothing.

      No, it's not. It's far worse than nothing.

      With nothing, they might take the time to rethink things, start hiring actual writers instead of using the same two people over and over again, think of fresh new ideas instead of the same tired old time-travel and deus ex machina tripe, and just generally scrape off the freakin' barnacles and come back later with a good show.

      Enterprise is crap, but what's worse is it's crap that's preve

    • Re:Good news... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LoadStar ( 532607 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:01PM (#9185166)
      Well, this is good news. Enterprise is not my favorite flavor of Trek, but it's better than nothing. Besides, there have been a couple good episodes this season.

      I'm sure some people would have revelled in an Enterprise cancellation... to them, I'd like to pose a question which always bugged me: if you don't like a show, you don't watch it, right? If you don't watch it why would it matter to you whether or not it is cancelled? It just seems so mean-spirited to wish for a show's cancellation-- over a hundred people lose their jobs as a result, and I'm not talking about high-paid actors, I'm talking about camera men, editors, janitors-- normal people. It's not fun losing a job, folks.

      Is it really better than nothing? The fact is, a bad series can have an impact on the entire franchise. The fact that Enterprise has garnered lackluster ratings - at best - and has had very few really good episodes from a creative aspect makes the chances of more Star Trek (whether it be TV or movie) less attractive to both viewers and Hollywood executives.

      To pull the argument that cancelling the series puts people out of work is rather pathetic actually. Does that mean that we should keep trash on the air, just because people worked on the series? Imagine a schedule full of shows like "The Mullets" just because people didn't want to cancel the series because it would put people out of work... *shudder*

  • Theme Song (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crapnutassneck ( 243159 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:42AM (#9184808) Homepage
    Please tell me they are leaving that dreadful theme song behind.
    • "Please tell me they are leaving that dreadful theme song behind. "

      Boy do I wish this stupid complaint would finally die.
    • "Thirty-Something in space". awful.

    • Re:Theme Song (Score:3, Insightful)

      by One Louder ( 595430 )
      I still mash down the Mute button on the remote everytime that ridiculous theme song comes on. I have no idea what they thought they were doing - alluding to the use of "Magic Carpet Ride" in one of the STTNG movies perhaps?

      What's more strange is that they knew how much people hated it and not only didn't replace it, but somehow made it even *worse* in season 3 by adding a drum track.

    • Re:Theme Song (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Skater ( 41976 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:50AM (#9184951) Homepage Journal
      I'm gonna go out on a limb: I think the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series. It captures the mood of the series perfectly. The first time I heard it I didn't like it, but then as I watched the opening sequence again I realized what they were trying to do and how well the song fit.

      All good art is controversial. ;)

      --RJ

      • Re:Theme Song (Score:5, Informative)

        by chfriley ( 160627 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:09PM (#9185309) Homepage
        >the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series

        I agree it is good, but it wasn't written for the series. ;-)

        It was on the Patch Adams soundtrack in 1998. (They re-recorded it for Enterprise and I like the re-recording better than the Rod Stewart version).

      • Re:Theme Song (Score:5, Interesting)

        by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:36PM (#9185794) Homepage
        I'm gonna go out on a limb: I think the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series. It captures the mood of the series perfectly. The first time I heard it I didn't like it, but then as I watched the opening sequence again I realized what they were trying to do and how well the song fit.

        I'll admit I loathe it less than I did when the show first started. However, it's still a dumb song, and it actually got WORSE with season 3. Not because of the "jazzing up" of the music, but because they changed the premise of the show!

        The musical style doesn't fit Trek. The video sequence, however, fits perfectly. That's good. The first half or so of the lyrics do sort of fit the idea for the first two seasons. (Vulcans won't stop us from getting out in to space like my daddy wanted me to, yee haw! --John Archer) The second half ("faith of the heart" repeated over and over again) is just plain dumb, and also doesn't fit Trek.

        But then Berman decided that exploring and defying the Vulcans by being all exploration-like "wasn't big enough". So instead, let's throw in a terrorist plot (it's the in thing) and then rip off a 1980s computer game (no one will remember it) after wasting a third of season 2 building up the Klingons and doing nothing with it (because it's like, we can say Duras a lot, Trekkies know that name, right?). And then we keep the theme music that no longer is even tangentially related to the overall plot arc of season 3!

        That makes about as much sense as anything else Berman has done. That is to say, none. Fire Berman and his team and hire some REAL writers (DC Fontana, Diane Duane, Diane Carey, Peter David, all old Trek hands who "got it"), and maybe Trek will start not-sucking again.

      • Re:Theme Song (Score:5, Funny)

        by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:39PM (#9185828) Homepage Journal
        that dreadful theme song
        I think the theme song is the best theme song ever written for any series. It captures the mood of the series perfectly.

        Yes, the dreadfull theme song does indeed capture the mood of the series perfectly ;-)

      • Re:Theme Song (Score:3, Interesting)

        by PMuse ( 320639 )
        Next poll: Best Space Show Theme Song:

        Babylon 5 - Christopher Franke

        Battlestar Galactica - Stu Phillips

        Buck Rogers - Stu Phillips

        Doctor Who - Ron Grainer

        Farscape - SubVision

        Firefly - Josh Whedon

        Futurama - Danny Elfman

        Red Dwarf - Howard Goodall

        ST:DS9 - Dennis McCarthy

        ST:Enterprise - Diane Warren

        ST:TOS - Alexander Courage

        Stargate - David Arnold & Joel Goldsmith

        I Wanna Be a Cowboy Neal - Boys Don't Cry

    • Re:Theme Song (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:28PM (#9185648)
      "Please tell me they are leaving that dreadful theme song behind."

      There's an FAQ out there for the cartoon series Transformers. If you read the FAQ, there's a question about an acronym (the term of it escapes me at the moment) that defined an argument that would never disappear. There were two characters that were physically very similar, just different colors. (Rumble and ... Frenzy I think? The little tape dude whose arms turned into smashy things...) In the cartoon, the blue one was Rumble, and the black one was the other dude whose name I can't recall. In the comic book, the colors were reversed. The comic book people thought they were right, the cartoon people thought they were right. Result? A never-ending argument that just wound people up for no good reason.

      Every time somebody mentions the Enterprise theme-song, I think of that FAQ. Why? Because the color of that particular Decepticon doesn't mean a damn thing to the show or the comic book. Everybody's right, yet it still goes absolutely nowhere. It's just some point for people to butt heads on.

    • Re:Theme Song (Score:3, Funny)

      by Torqued ( 91619 )
      Has anyone else noticed the rather phallic imagery of the Saturn V launch just as Jolene Blalock's name is displayed? :)

  • Friday night? What are they, crazy? (Score:5, Funny)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:42AM (#9184809) Journal
    We just know how Star Trek fans are all out paintin' the town red on Friday nights.

    What UPN should do is just send small cheap TV sets to every collectible card shop in the country, so fans of the series can watch the show while playing Magic: The Gathering in the back.

    While they're at it, they should send some Red Bull and Cheetos, too.
    • Wasn't a 'party night' schedule (along with horrid season three scripts) part of what killed the original series? Wow, even sci-fi fans can have lives...

    • VCR's man, VCR's (yes I could record my shows on my computer, or download them, but I prefer watching my movies/shows on TV with my nice BOSE surround sound speaker system) :)
    • Rofl.

      Friday night is probably about just as bad as any other night on UPN.

      Personally I never believed they would cancel it anyway. Lets face it, UPN without Trek would be like Comedy Central without John Stewart. Its their identity (well that and Moesha spin-offs)

      I remember when UPN first started braodcasting, they pimped Voyager hard for about 6 months before. I don't remember anything else from that first season lasting more than a year or two. I'm not a trekker by any means but I was watching DS9 at th

    • i agree. there's really nothing wrong with Friday nights, as long as there is consistency. Its when TV shows get moved mid season to a different night that viewership really plummets. (like when Babylon 5 was switched weekly to different nights)

      X-Files was on Friday nights for several years and it slowly moved from cult favorite to mainstream hit. If I recall correctly, the reason it was moved to Sunday was to make room for Millenium, and that was 3 or 4 years after X-files debuted.
  • UPN is one of my favorite channels lately, and definately more so now. Far more interesting that watching "reality" TV. That crap is so fake. Those shows will end up killing the bigger networks.

    --
    New deal processing engine online: http://www.dealsites.net/livedeals.html [dealsites.net]

  • why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by untermensch ( 227534 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:43AM (#9184831)
    Why do they always try to drop shows when they reach their peak?
    I'll be the first to admit that Enterprise doesn't live up to the standards of TNG or DS9 but IMHO Season 3 has been much better than the first 2 seasons.
    • Yeah, Voyager took a while to get good and for Janeway to drop the stone wall act(somewhat atleast). Hopefully they won't kill the show off and blam low ratings because they moved it to a bad night.

    • Re:why? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Geek_3.3 ( 768699 )
      Let me preface all this by saying that I've barely watched ANY of Enterprise. Looking back on ALL Trek-related series (heck, any series worth mentioning in general, actually), they all pretty muched sucked UNTIL about 3rd season or so. Look back on TNG--HORRIBLE overacting until the character's got settled.

      Who knows--maybe it's just gonna take Enterprise another season to pull out of the tailspin...

    • Incredibly common with Star Trek (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Killswitch1968 ( 735908 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:53AM (#9185018)
      This happens all the time with Star Trek for some reason; they never start out well. The first season of TNG was particularly terrible. The most infamous example being "The Naked Now", where the crew (with their standard Star Fleet issue miniskirts) became 'drunk' from an anomaly and Data had sex with Tasha Yar.
      Conflicts with the Romulans and the Borg didn't heat up until about season 2 or 3, although Q did have his fair share in the beginning.

      DS9 had a more successful start, but didn't get really interesting until Season 3 when The Dominion were introduced.

      In every Star Trek series there seems to be a counter-evil they perpetual battle, ie.
      Star Trek TOS - Klingons
      Star Trek TNG - Romulans
      Star Trek DS9 - The Dominion
      Star Trek Voyager - The Borg

      And with Enterprise it's the Xindi, but you start to feel the redundancy. Trying to out-evil Cardassians or the Borg is going to prove challenging.

  • Wonderful! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm sure all 3 fans will be happy

  • Friday isn't the worst of their troubles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by proverbialcow ( 177020 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:44AM (#9184840) Journal
    They should be more worried about being on UPN. Buffy fans can tell Enterprise fans what that's like.

  • Fridays at 10? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is how NBC killed ST:TOS...

  • UPN has holes on Friday night... (Score:5, Informative)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:48AM (#9184905)
    Fridays are definitely a death slot on the UPN network. Many UPN affiliates, even some the network owns, have Friday-heavy packages to air games from the local MLB team. Stations affected include...

    Boston's WSBK "UPN 38" which airs "Friday Night Baseball" Red Sox Games nearly every Friday night in the season.
    Connecticut's WCTX "UPN 8" is part of the Mets broadcast network.
    Seattle's KSTW "UPN 11" is the flagship of the Mariners broadcast network.

    In short, it's hard to get anything to work on UPN Fridays during the start of the TV station because about a quarter of the network just plain falls apart on any given Friday night due to baseball coverage when its in season.
  • If Enterprise, Joan of Arcadia, and Andromeda all share the same time slot?

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:49AM (#9184946) Homepage Journal
    Thousands of Enterprise fans will, after celebrating, move back into their parents' basements to plot their next letter campaign.

    But first, a celebratory all-night Magic: The Gathering game! Bring on the dancing girls! (oh, wait...)

  • It will still be 11:00 Friday for me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:51AM (#9184978)
    This one has always been a struggle to watch. Our local Fox affiliate has a "secondary" affiliate relationship with UPN, which means that they show a few UPN shows at odd times, and the cable company would be fined if they brought in an actual UPN affiliate.

    So it is shown usually at 11:00 pm Friday, but sometimes the Fox station moves it without telling anyone. Not only that, they replace the "next episode" teaser with ads for their own WWE shows. I hope someday that CBS shuts down UPN and moves the couple/few UPN shows worth saving to the regular CBS schedule.

    This Fox affiliate actually showed the UPN show "Dilbert" only at 1:00 AM Sunday morning. I kind of wanted to see that one.

  • However, in an attempt to "UPN it up..." (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Ultimate Fartkno ( 756456 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:53AM (#9185023)
    ...the ship's comm officer will now be played by Mo'Nique, who will bring her distinctive brand of head-swiveling, big booty jokes, and "You go girl!" onboard to make the Enterprise the funkiest space trip ever! Also joining the cast will be Erik-Michael Estrada of the smash pop group O-Town. The jokes will be 'out of this world' as Erik-Michael asks the captain if they can put hydraulics on the ship or at least get a "La Raza" license plate frame. The new captain of the ship will be played by the whitest man alive - Al Gore. He can't dance and his slang is busted, but he can get them through all the interstellar police stops!

    Come join the cerebral fun on UPN!

  • What choice did UPN have? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by digitalamish ( 449285 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:55AM (#9185044)
    Honestly, what else have they got? Besides Enterprise, they've cancelled everything else that gave them ratings. At least this is a built in fan base. Oh, and as for the Friday timeslot, that's when Farscape was on, right? I'm sure UPN will replay it on Sundays before primetime.

  • The real answer is simple... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:55AM (#9185053) Homepage Journal
    Renew Enterprise. Cancel Berman and Braga.

  • Sci-fi fans in general... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by badboy_tw2002 ( 524611 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:57AM (#9185095)
    Can never be happy. Stay with me on this one before you hit that mod button :). Basically either you have shows people liked that get cancelled in their prime, thus to be lauded forever as the best show ever if only it had been able to reach its potential...

    OR

    You have them where they go on too long and thus should have been cancelled long ago. Thus you have purists that only recognize seasons 2,3,5, but not 4 where they went to that alternate dimension, what were they thinking!.

    I guess this can be said for most shows, but it seems to apply more to scifi for some reasons. I think really only Babylon 5 went out on the perfect note, mainly because thats when it was supposed to happen.

    • Re:Sci-fi fans in general... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @01:30PM (#9186628) Homepage Journal
      I have two things to say to that one.

      First, there are shows which seem to avoid the problem. DS9, for example, was great. It started out ok, got better as it went along, and ended right. It wasn't too early, but it didn't drag on. Farscape was pretty much the same, from what I gather (I stopped watching it regularly around the end of season 2).

      Second, since I stopped watching TV, I'm a much happier SF fan. Bad books and movies are much easier to ignore, and much easier to find. Good movies are hard to find, but you can substitute good books until the next Minority Report, or whatever floats your boat, comes along. Neither one has to be, for lack of a better word, subscribed to the way TV shows have to be, so it's a much better experience overall. DS9 and Farscape were good, but the pain of the medium just isn't worth the chance of finding something equally good in the future for me.

  • Damn (Score:5, Funny)

    by RoderickMcDougall ( 661783 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:00PM (#9185135) Journal
    There goes my hopes for the return of Quantum Leap :)

  • original Star Trek killed by moving to Fridays (Score:3, Informative)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:04PM (#9185224)
    The original Star Trek series ratings fell when it was moved from Thursday night to Friday night the second year. It lost much of the teenage male crowd.

  • hey, good timing! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:05PM (#9185241)
    Since both Andromeda & Mutant X have been cancelled, Enterprise can hire those excellent writers to improve the show. Perfect. (I kid! :)

    Oh, plus Enterprise should hire more babes - the babes of those two shows (especially Lexa Doig, the hacker 'Cowgirl' herself!) would certainly improve ratings.

    When the 'new Trek' concept was being worked on, it was apparently down to two concepts - the 'pre-Federation' concept (which we got), and a more military-themed one about a Starfleet strike force of some type, with lots of fighting. Let me tell ya - Enterprise got a lot better right after they added more fighting (and a military team aboard Enterprise, which they've totally wasted so far). It seems obvious that they chose the wrong concept.

    Though I do like what they've been doing with T'Pol, but they've basically eliminated Hoshi and others this season, which is too bad. I certainly like this collection of characters more than those of any of the other Treks, as a whole. DS9 had a _really_ annoying cast of characters. (Okay, I loved Ezri just too damned much!)

  • Swell (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:09PM (#9185289) Homepage
    More opportunity for Rick Berman to urinate on Roddenberry's vision.

    I know it's cool to knock Enterprise, but I've been knocking Berman since long before it was cool. :-) The man just doesn't understand what Roddenberry created, and now he's trying to compete head on with other Sci Fi or with the memory of Babylon 5. Is it any wonder Star Trek has been in a downward spiral for the past 10 years?

    Enterprise's ratings weren't good enough "just exploring" (and as they were doing a poor job of it I'm not surprised), so instead they spent a third of season 2 building up a relationship with the Klingons only to drop it at the last second to run off on a blatant 9/11-inspired warmed over mini-epic. (And stolen from a 1980s Star Trek computer game for the Commodore 64 called "Star Trek: Rebel Universe".) Everything about it is predictable, from the plot right down to the characters involved. And of course there's no tension, because we all know (since it's a prequel) that Earth isn't going to be destroyed.

    Of course, Berman isn't pitching to people who know Star Trek, he's pitching to 20-somethings that the beancounters like to pitch to. Of course, those people don't watch Star Trek BECAUSE it's Star Trek. Don't alienate your existing fan base to go after a new one that doesn't want you.

    Of course, after this season's finale, then what? Go back to exploring? Yeah, that will help ratings now that they've said that exploring "isn't big enough". Throw in another huge season-long pseudo-epic plot thread to further destroy the timeline? I don't know what they're going to do.

    On the one hand, it's Trek, yay, there will be more. On the other, this isn't the Trek I grew up on (TNG and reruns of TOS), and I wouldn't greatly miss it.

    Although moving the show to Friday night means that it won't be lasting much longer. That is how NBC killed the original series, after all.

    • Re:Swell (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cdipierr ( 4045 )
      Roddenberry's vision was a novel, neat idea in the 1960's that worked pretty well.

      It worked again in the 1980's with TNG's first few seasons because it had been 20 years since the last time.

      However, by the end of TNG and certainly the beginning of DS9, and now with Voyager & Enterprise, Roddenberry's vision is boring. There's only so many times you can rehash the same old morality plays.

      Berman suffers from a similar problem. When he and Braga first started writing DS9, they wrote the Dominion storyli

  • Try merge the storyline with the TOS timeline. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wongqc ( 555152 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:10PM (#9185326)
    What I would love to see next season, is more on the Klingons, the Romulans....the Vulcans. How the war between the humans and the Klingons came about....The formation of the federation, Invention of tractor beams, shields....

    In short, try to channel the story to the TOS timeline.

  • Friday Might be good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stubtify ( 610318 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:12PM (#9185352)
    I know everyone thinks friday night tv is some black hole that shows go to when they're ready to die, but this could be good. As it stands right now Enterprise is battling Smallville on Wednesday nights along with American Idol. At least friday's are faily wide open, so this might actually raise the total number of viewiers.

  • Not just Firefly fans (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Our Man In Redmond ( 63094 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:13PM (#9185366)
    Those of us who were around for Star Trek: The Original Series remember that, after NBC was forced to renew ST:TOS thanks to the massive letter-writing campaign, they moved the show from its original 8:30 time slot (Thursdays the first season, Fridays the second) to Fridays at 10 PM, thereby ensuring that the show would never make it to a fourth season because that time slot was a ratings graveyard.

    Today with VCRs and TiVos abounding fans of the show will probably be able to catch it no matter when it airs, but still, couldn't they have found a better time slot? Seems to me it's sort of like being in a half-empty movie theater and choosing to sit in the worst seat possible.

  • My solution to Fridays... (Score:3, Funny)

    by CokoBWare ( 584686 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:14PM (#9185373)
    I have one word that can save the Friday timeslot...

    PVR

    Actually, that's three words... but seriously, it's the only way I get to watch Enterprise as it is...

  • Not a big problem (Score:3, Informative)

    by sleeperservice ( 62645 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:14PM (#9185374)
    The only snag? It looks like 'Enterprise' might be moved to Fridays next year, and Firefly fans can tell you what a great place that is..."

    Doesn't every self-respecting 'Enterprise' fan just TIVO it anyway?

  • Why do stations try to cancel good shows? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stealth.c ( 724419 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:16PM (#9185417)
    Enterprise never appealed that much to me, but apparently there are some very intense fans and there must be a good reason for that.

    Firefly didn't float my boat either, but I seem to recall it getting good reviews.

    Farscape was constantly gaining new fans for its four year run. And I paid really close attention to the events surrounding Farscape. It was the show that pulled SCIFI out of relative obscurity among cable stations, their most popular show, yet they tried like hell to get it canceled. They jerked its time slot around when they stopped liking it, surrounded it with lackluster programming (Invisible Man being an exception), and as far as advertising goes, did their best to pretend it didn't exist.

    Looks like the same thing is happening with Enterprise. The devoted fans (basically a captive audience for advertisers, read: A GOOD THING) saved the show it appears, and yet the network is screwing up its time slot to drive its popularity down. If you don't want to air the show, just fsckin' say so and send it to another network.

    Is there a petition out there to bring back the NextGen crew for another few movies? ST:TNG was some of the best Trek ever.

  • renewal (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WP Mayhew ( 153814 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:20PM (#9185482)

    I for one am glad that Enterprise will be renewed. I've never owned any ST merchandise much less been to a convention, but I have watched all the Star Trek series and I liked having them around.

    I agree that Enterprise is not perfect, but show me a Star Trek series that was?

    TOS had more than a few god-awful episodes (e.g. And the Children shall lead, Miri, Charlie X (title?).

    TNG started out very shakily IMHO as the actors/writers settled into the characters (e.g. Picard wasn't quite yet his reserved and commanding self, and Worf just snarled at everything); and for the length of the series you had many fans screaming about any episode which Troi or Wesley starred in.

    DS9 was pretty good, though I think the situation is somewhat comparable with Enterprise in that the show, IMHO, has a stronger and more interesting supporting cast than the 'starring' captain.

    Voyager had a lot of well-known problems.

    Perfect shows are rare - enjoy your favorite parts of this one and hope the other parts get better.

  • Good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gfxguy ( 98788 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:26PM (#9185618)
    I like the show, although I am annoyed that they've already resorted to time travel. I thought they'd already figured out that that's when the other shows started going down hill.

    I'd also like them to take a more X-Files approach, where you mix the continuing storyline with single standalone episodes. I think they've concentrated too much on the Xindi (?). If you don't like that storyline, the whole season's been a wash, and while I like the storyline, it's just been going on too long.

  • Temporal Cold War? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tbmaddux ( 145207 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @12:36PM (#9185785) Homepage Journal
    Anyone remember that? The Suliban and all that? What happened to it?

  • The ST series I want to see. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by soldeed ( 765559 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @01:01PM (#9186191)
    Personally, I find the usual format of star trek (one captain/crew/ship) limiting. After all there is supposed to be an entire FLEET of ships zooming around the galaxy, but it seems there is ever only ONE ship having interesting adventures. I would like to see a anthology ST series, sort of like the old Police stories series where you feature a different ship/crew every week (or two). You could use the premise of history lessons at starfleet academy to set up each episode and tie the series together. It could be called 'Star fleet chronicles' or some such. Of course, whatever type of series they make, they need better, more imaginative scripts, that aren't retreads of the same old tired themes. (time travel, alien possesion, ect.) That and I wish they paid more attention to continuity. I don't read Star Trek novels, because they have nothing to do with series or movie cannon.

  • My gripe with Enterprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by leereyno ( 32197 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @02:11PM (#9187187) Homepage Journal
    My gripe with this show is that it seems to be little more than a vehicle for leftist propaganda. It only makes a half-hearted attempt at being subtle in this regard. I was greatly concerned the first time I saw captain Archer whine at the Klingons. Playing the pussy diplomat may be consistent with modern euro-centric left-wing political ideology, but it just doesn't work in the real world, unless of course you're trying to get someone to attack you. The episode about AIDS, disguised as a vulcan mind disease, was particularly insulting. I don't know about you, but I've been fully aware of the AIDS epidemic for about 20 years now. I really don't need a TV show to preach to me about it.

    What Enterprise needs to do is hire some of the writers from Farscape and wrest control away from the ideologues who think the show is there so they can propagandize.

    • Re:My gripe with Enterprise (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wwest4 ( 183559 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @02:59PM (#9187880)
      > My gripe with this show is that it seems to be little more than a vehicle for
      > leftist propaganda.

      The two examples you cite aren't left-right issues. Interventionism vs. isolationism is usually polarizing, but liberals and conservatives alternate positions regarding this issue depending on the circumstances. You need only to compare the circumstances surrounding the first world wars and the current nid for expansion of the Pax Americana. In that sense, maybe Enterprise writers are just isolationists, and not necessarily liberals.

      On the other hand, things like "righteous" violence, pre-emptive strikes, and torture are routinely used and even glorified on current Trek episodes. I'd say pacifism, opposition to institutional violence and abhorrence of first-strike policies are fundamentally liberal, and Trek tramples on these ideas regularly in favor of a more bloodlusty rhetoric.

      The AIDS analog was clearly pro-secularist, but again that doesn't necessarily make it liberal propaganda. Even conservative champ Bill O'Reilly, when talking about his stance as an independent, talks about secularism and liberalism as separate (evil) causes, and I think he's essentially correct regarding their separation. Take Turkey - they have a secularist government that is also pretty conservative (right-wing) on the authoritarian axis.

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