Movie/TV cliches

[honeybee]

I think if you read carefully WG, you'll see that I not blaming the network entirely. Just a lot. And as for the fanbase, ENT was a huge hit in many other countries and over and over inspired massive, passionate save the show campaigns. The idea that it lost all the fanbase is false and comes from the people who hated the show. No doubt, there were haters, but there were passionate advocates as well including a campaign to raise money to keep the show on the air.

You've been pretty vocal of your hatred of the show. Just remember that not all the people who hang out on fansites hate the show as much you. In fact, most people who hang out on fansites like the show - even when they are not blind to its flaws.

[Alelou]

Honeybee probably said it better, and certainly beat me to it, but you forget that the rabid fan base included quite a few who were rooting for Enterprise to fail. You can still listen to them babble on malevolently about it on any general Trek board. Just like the movie, some people hated it before they'd even seen it, or tuned in just long enough to pronounce it as bad as they had expected it to be.

I know that I tuned in for the first show, but then just couldn't find it again on the schedule half the time I tried -- which wasn't that often, since I had a baby to feed and put to bed at that time of the evening. And then I lost total access to it when we moved to Albany -- we simply couldn't get it at our house.

[honeybee]

And the notion that the Trek fanbase wasn't polarized and didn't have factions before ENT is also false. TNG had plenty of "Picard is no Kirk" haters and DS9 was hated for being boring, pretentious and the ever popular "they never go anywhere". Voyager has more than a few haters as well.

There was a vitriolic campaign of hate against ENT on the internet before the first episode aired, and as Alelou said, nobody had seen the show yet. I'm a lifelong trekkie and I get bewildered by the nattering on about phase cannons and transporters and when precisely first contact with Klingons. All the shows messed with canon a little bit. Some of it a lot. And the ever popular "Vulcans don't have emotions" - when we all know that's false. Vulcans have emotions, the suppress them. Spock broke into tears in third episode of TOS - but you don't here the vitriolic un-Vulcan criticism against him. And these people usually declare themselves the "real" trekkies.

I don't claim ENT is flawless - but I don't think it's flaws are any worse than some of the other series. Nor do I even think people have to like it. But I do think it got a raw deal.

I only saw the fourth season Episodes at my Mom's house and in reruns because UPN was not carried in the state where I was living. I later found out that ENT aired at 3am in the morning on Friday - but I never knew it did.

[Silverbullet]

I tried Ent the first time around. I am a devoted trekkie, have been since the first episode of TOS, but Ent I could not take. I hated the Uniforms (they looked like Mechanics garb) I hated the one Hero of it. I disliked Bakkula's acting (still consider it some of the most wooden I have ever seen) I hated the fact that tthere was no continuity or that the other characters were not fleshedout. When I saw Conner in the early episodes I kept saying that he should have been the Captain or at least an assigned first Officer rather than the Chief Engineer. His acting ws brilliant in Strange New World. Often every actor on the screen could show more emotion than Bakkula.

It took three tries and the last was the re-runs of Scifi channel before I was able to view all of the episodes. There were clunkers and I thought some wre misunderstood by the viewers. I believe the writers wre trying to get around the producers at times.

Even today there are Episodes that other love that I hate. Probably many that I like others will dislike.

Ent had so much promise that it hurt to see it fail because of inneptness on the part of TPTB

[Rigil Kent]

When the two main characters (played by Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd) finally had sex - the show got its highest ratings ever. Then boom. Viewers lost interest and ratings plummeted. Show canceled.

Actually, that isn't entirely accurate. If you look at the season immediately following the consummation of the before-mentioned relationship, you'll notice one major factor that most TV execs seem to ignore: Maddie (Cybil) was barely in it. The actress went on vacation or something because of her strained relationship with Willis (they didn't get along at all), which led to most of that season revolving around the far less interesting junior characters (the geeky-looking couple) which nobody really wanted to see. Hence, ratings dropped. By the time they reunited Maddie & David, it was already too later and the loss of viewers had already led to cancellation.

That said, it's pretty clear that you are accurate in your assessment that television execs and actors as well constantly refer to the "Moonlighting curse" in their explanation for the various silly reasons they extend the UST between the main Ship characters well beyond its shelf life. It's amusing (and sad) to me that everyone mis-remembers what actually happened in "Moonlighting."

ENT was very very flawed.

As was every other Trek show. TOS had its share of drivel; TNG came at a time when sci-fi was making a major comeback and there wasn't much on - a show that bland, that boring, that milquetoast would not survive in this current television atmosphere. Hell, I doubt it would have gotten through the first half season with how bad that was; DS9 couldn't figure out what it wanted to be in the first couple of seasons and then had to deal with interfering execs throughout; and VOY was of frankly of no better quality than ENT - reverse when they originally aired, and it would be VOY that was canceled after four seasons because it was during this show that Trek ratings began to sharply dip. AFAIK, DS9 was never the ratings powerhouse either.

You also cannot ignore the fact that UPN was on its way out and the show was so often pre-empted for local ball games that a sizable portion of the audience just forgot about it.

First of all there are 3 CSI's all well past season 4 still ratings powerhouses.

I think you have your data incorrect. The three CSIs are far from ratings powerhouses - they consistently struggle in their timeslots, but generally maintain just enough viewership to stay on the air. That recent multi-show crossover was a blatant attempt to increase their ratings, but I don't think they actually accomplished the task they were setting out to do. But to say they're powerhouses is not accurate.

Anyway that show re-cast actors in different rolls and still does, and they've told the same stories over and over again. But they do it so well they're making a new one. These shows are popular because they were done well and right.

Uh ... you do realize that your own argument is eating itself there, right? Law and Order has been bleeding viewers for numerous seasons now (primarily, I think, because the show sucks and is frankly insulting to a large segment of the audience), and if it was still popular, and done well and right, then it wouldn't have just been canceled.

Look at the ratings for ENT and its clear it was way more than people being Trekked out. It was done more badly than good.

The constant refrain that ENT was a failure drives me up the wall. Look at the numbers: it consistently had higher ratings than nuBSG over on Sci-Fi (which also did not last past 4 seasons and had a patently terrible series finale), but for some reasons, BSG is considered some sort of epic success and ENT is a fail. I think at ENT's lowest (during season 2, which was what ultimately killed the show with that string of horrible episodes starting with "A Night in Sickbay"), the ratings were higher than BSG was at its high point (and are about the same as the current run of "V", I believe.) Any show that gets past a full season in this day and age is not a failure. Period. The bleed in Trek viewers began during the final seasons of VOY - yes, a lot of people tuned in for the pilot of ENT and didn't bother tuning back in after the fact, but that wasn't uncommon.

UPN wanted something that none of the Treks (or Buffy, for that matter) could deliver - a genre show that would put them in the same ratings level as ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. They ignored the fact that sci-fi shows are a niche market.

But constantly saying it was a failure in this era when most shows don't get past 13 episodes? That's a flawed argument.

[WarpGirl]

Trust me I'm not trying to make people miserable or just saying I hate the show to cause trouble. Because quite honestly I wouldn't even be here if I didn't see a lot of good in most of the concepts of the show and characters. I mean what would be the point, I'd be a major psycho who needed locked up with super drugs... Not to mention a complete ! And then someone would have to kick me out.

I was merely trying to point out that the death knell wasn't the network. If the show had been even a teeny tiny bit better I'll bet sci-fi would have wanted it for new eps not just re-runs. Look at what they did for Stargate. OK so Universe is not my thing... But that's almost 20 years now, and nobody could find that show for a LONG time.

Rigil L&O Still lasted for 21 years. If it took that long for it to bleed numbers they did something right. BSG Well don't talk to me about that, its like *the_abomination* it does not exist. CSI I totally agree that two of them should be axed, but they are still very, very, popular. And they are not cheap to make. One body alone is expensive, and there is always more than one. So unless the ratings go on to be truly abysmal and I mean Kinght Rider abysmal they're going to stick around.

[Rigil Kent]

^^ No, they wouldn't. It's a simple matter of finance. Sci-Fi was already neck deep in its own issues - they had their own "Star" franchise they were already invested in (getting ratings that were lower than ENT, but with enough success to keep it going), and ENT (like VOY) was already more expensive to produce than Sci-Fi was interested in paying. Plus, they had nuBSG, which was being acclaimed by various entertainment venues as the best thing since sliced bread even though it was pulling in much lower ratings than ENT. Finally, you had the head of Paramount television - whose name eludes me at the moment - who went on record stating a categorical dislike toward sci-fi.

Trekkies are the second most rabid fanbase it history, other than SW's...

Where the heck do you get that? I'm a fan of both franchises and have to saw that the Trekkies are far more rabid.

You either have to get new blood which ENT did not attept to do at all. Or get back your rabid fanbase, which ENT could not do. To blame UPN for everything makes no sense.

Nobody is blaming UPN for everything. It was a perfect storm, as Honeybee pointed out. The showrunners at the time - Berman and Braga - were tired and suffering from franchise fatigue (which explains why they so often did a half-assed job), the general audience was getting tired of being insulted by dumb plots (as the VOY slide shows), and the network wanted something that the show could never deliver. Hence, the cancellation after four seasons. That is not a failure. The original series didn't even make it past three.

Yes, the ratings for VOY took a hit the last two seasons, but when ENT premiered it was an explosion.

Because people thought it was new and different, but then they tuned in and saw that Berman and Braga were trying to replicated TNG and VOY but in an earlier time. And then the sloppy writing came into play, or the network's insistence they have the time travel plot.

But it takes more to kill a show.

And it did.

I get complaining about the show - I do that myself occasionally - but constantly repeating the same arguments over and over has to get a little tiresome, doesn't it? Debating the point to death is kind of irrelevant now that the show is long gone.

Rigil L&O Still lasted for 21 years.

And it has been bleeding viewers for the last ten. It has been struggling with ratings for so long that people have wondered when it would be canceled for a while now. The only reason it wasn't is because it was making just enough to succeed - it's ratings are consistently below ENT's low point.

BSG Well don't talk to me about that, its like *the_abomination* it does not exist.

Whatever. I thought BSG was fine until season 3 when the showrunners started drinking their own Kool-Aid and believing they could do no wrong.

CSI I totally agree that two of them should be axed, but they are still very, very, popular.

No, they aren't. All three of them have been struggling to maintain their ratings for a while now; there was recently talk about Miami getting axed, but they managed to pull in just enough old fans to keep it alive for a while longer.

And they are not cheap to make.

Compared to a sci-fi show that uses extensive amounts of CG, they're pretty cheap.

So unless the ratings go on to be truly abysmal and I mean Kinght Rider abysmal they're going to stick around.

And that is exactly my point. These shows have consistently hovered around the 2 range in ratings ... which is where ENT was on UPN ... yet they're still around. So repeating the "ENT was a failure" doesn't track. If it had been canceled 6 episodes into the first season (cough*firefly*cough), then a valid argument could be made saying it was a failure. But four seasons? Nope.

[pdsldl]

I didn't get UPN where I lived either when Enterprise was on but downloaded the avi files and watched them on my computer. And I still watch it there even though I burned the entire series to DVD. All the trek shows had detractors and very vocals ones but they all had a solid fan base. Enterprise got jerked around the schedule and often wasn't even on at a convenient time for a large segment of the viewers to see the episodes on their first run. UPN was struggling which was a serious problem since they no longer exist. You can't increase your viewership for one or two shows if the overall lineup is seen bad. Look at NBC. I tend to not take their new shows to seriously because in the last few years they've canceled most of them quickly or they leave them on too long and change the main actors constantly and I lose interest and get bored with them. They started to slide in the ratings and something happened and I find that I don't like most of their lineup anymore. If UPN had had a strong and stable lineup then Enterprise might have been able to draw more viewers back during season 3 and made it longer. Then you have TPTB at the show and CBS that were old and tired or not interested to begin with along with a struggling network and what chance would any show have?

Enterprise had flaws but most shows, even very good ones, do. I've been a Star Trek fan since TOS and I really liked Enterprise, even loved certain parts of it or else I wouldn't be hanging around here and other fanfic sites reading, writing and discussing the show and characters.

[Silverbullet]

Rigel, I believe the TOS was cancelled because the Suits didn't know what they had. It took the conventions and seeing people dressed like trek characters that allowed Roddenbury to try TNG. It staggered at first but lasted 10 eassons. That had to say something about the Trek World

I still think that Berman and Bragga were trying to redo TOS. They had one Hero, A Vulcan first Officer and Science Officer, an Oriental, a Black on the Bridge. A Chief Engineer who was supposed to be a supporting character, a doctor who was a supporting character. Just like TOS. The only reason that TOS became more of an ensemble series after the first Season was that Nimmoy made Spock so Strong that kirk had to be moved over to make room for the Spock character to be co-hero. That allowed in the doctor and Scotty. In sseasons two and trhee of TOS, Kirk was still the main character and Hero but the others especially Spock had larger roles and complete episodes without the Hero being brought in at the end to take Credit for whaever as in Ent. I believ that if Conner had been allowed (he certainly was a good enough Actor) to really do for Trip what Nimoy did for Spock. Trip would have been a co-hero and Archer would have been moved over a bit. I believe that might have gave a boost to the Ratings.

Just MHO

[Rigil Kent]

Rigel, I believe the TOS was cancelled because the Suits didn't know what they had.

Actually, I believe it was canceled because the ratings kind of stunk.

TNG. It staggered at first but lasted 10 eassons.

TNG lasted 7 seasons, not 10. And that wasn't my point. My point was that if you produced a series of such low quality as season 1 or 2 TNG today, it wouldn't make it past episode 5 before it got canceled.

[panyasan]

Enterprise had flaws but most shows, even very good ones, do. I've been a Star Trek fan since TOS and I really liked Enterprise, even loved certain parts of it or else I wouldn't be hanging around here and other fanfic sites reading, writing and discussing the show and characters.

I agree totally. I get a little bit tired (and annoyed) of people claiming the other Trek was better. Maybe it was, but for no other Trek show or any television show I spend hours and hours reading fan fic and lurking on a forum and struggled for hours to write a fic. I like Enterprise, I like especially Trip and T'Pol. It's like with the people I love: I know their flaws, but I still love them.

[crystalswolf]

...So repeating the "ENT was a failure" doesn't track. If it had been canceled 6 episodes into the first season (cough*firefly*cough), then a valid argument could be made saying it was a failure. But four seasons? Nope.

Everything you stated I agree with except this. Even early cancellation may not be a valid indicator. A lot of times perfect storms happen early in a show. In the case of Firefly, (BTW, I think it was 13 or 14 eps which is standard for a tryout) I don't think Firefly's cancellation had anything to do with its quality but the strange feud it had with Farscape fans (the idea of a ragtag bunch surviving in space was too close for comfort I suppose). As stated, sci-fi is a niche market along with the feud splitting the viewership that was fueled by Farscape's precarious situation on the Sci-Fi channel, Firefly was doomed from the start.

At least that's how I remember it at the time.

[Rigil Kent]

Hey, I love Firefly. I own the boxed set and the super-duper edition of Serenity, but even I can admit that it was a failure when it came to the show's actual ratings. From what I understand, it was more the clowns at FOX Entertainment responsible than the Farscape fans (of which I'm certainly one - got that entire series on DVD and you know what? Nobody eats pizza with margarita shooters! ) Pretty much all of my friends are fans of both series with one or two minor exception.

Hell, I didn't even see Firefly when it first aired 'cause FOX dicked around with the scheduling. It was there and gone before I was even aware of it, and I only discovered it on DVD after the fact.

[Alelou]

I'd never even HEARD of Firefly until JustTrip'n went on about it. Then I got it out of the library and watched it with great pleasure.

I can remember Castle being rumored as cancelled at the end of its first season, and now in its second it's one of their top shows. I'm glad ABC stuck with it. (Probably helps that it follows a popular show and presumably also doesn't cost a fortune to make.)

Anyway, as we approach the season finale Monday they're having the SAME debate about the relationship, which is far more central to this show than TnT ever were to Enterprise. Male lead Fillion says if they get together, the show dies. Female lead Stanik (sp?) says she thinks that's underestimating what television can do. It's deja vu all over again...

Anyone who wants spoilers ... this is good site for 'em. Heck, between this and the official site I think I've seen half the episode already. http://castlespoilers.blogspot.com/sear ... dly%20game. And this time I can actually watch it on TV because I don't have to get up at 5am the next morning, yippee!

Much as I enjoy Castle, I don't feel any compulsion to watch an episode more than once and I can't imagine writing fanfic for it either. And if the two lead characters never get together, that's fine.

[WarpGirl]

I'm afraid I made people very upset again... So I am sorry. I just wanted to say that I never said ENT was a failed Trek, not my favorite, but not a failed Trek. I'm also a fan of both SW's and ST I just find that if I get introuble with the SW's fans they're more likely to be verbally abusive, (at least where I hang out) and they tend to get more press coverage for their fanatic tendencies. Hence more rabid. Now I will go crawl into a hole.

PS. Firefly and Sarah Conner Chronicals were both amazing shows. I miss them both.