AU or Not AU?

[WarpGirl]

OK There's a thread for this... viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1217 So you might bring it back to life. Talas was an awesome character I love AU's where she was alive.

[Silverbullet]

Sheila, Trip's death was completely senseless. I guess that is why so many fans hate the Abomination among other reasons. think that if TnT had gone off into the sunset together it may have saved tthe Abomination. Certainly could not have hurt it.

why was the show cancelled. that is a mystery. it could be acombinatin of things some which we will never know. how much backdoor shenangans were going on. Who might have wanted to kill the series sfor personal rasons. How much money was Paramount and viacom putting inot it and were they making a profit or breaking even of losing csh. Lots of factors. One thing for sure Enterprise started with an audience of 10 million and then nosedived down to barely three million or less. Had it been able to maintain that 10 million level it would have survived. Personaly I belive that poor decisions led to the deline i viewereship. For me it was too much of a one hero series and not a true ensemble series. All of the other Star Trek series were or became Ensemble series. with the exception of TOS which was axed by the ntwork because some executives didn't understand that TOS was a ground breaking series and was developing a hardcore following.

I have often felt that there should have been two threads an A) action thread and a B) romance thread. 90 percent A thread and 10 percent B0 thread. Just enough mix to keep the series interesting. Obviously the B thread Romance woud be TnT (althugh there seems to be some misguieded souls out there who are A/T types.)

[WarpGirl]

OK AU or Not AU? Um AU where the show wasn't cancled...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Season two killed the show. Even if it did improve in season three and four it wasn't enough. Too little too late. The ones who had bailed didn't come back (not a sufficient amount of them anyway) and not enough new ones arrived. But they still made the four seasons necessary for proper syndication deals.

[WarpGirl]

Yeah you're right.

[Aquarius]

and i'm curious what the real reason is for the show to get cancelled...i think had to do with killing him...damn i wish the show could've gone for like another 4 seasons or something.

Unfortunately ratings are the "real" reason the show got canceled. People just quit watching. The decision to cancel was made before they killed Trip; I think they wanted to go out with a bang by killing the most popular character.

[Silverbullet]

Aquarius. I read somewhere that the Abomination was planned to be shown if the show was cancelled after season one. but the show somehow lasted four seasons. (KTR is probably right it was kept so it would have enough episodes to go into syndication in an effort to recover investment.) I understand though that the ratings were not as bad as some shows whch were kept on. I think that there may be more to it than we will know or ever know.

Also believe that like TOS Viacom may now realize they had a better series than they thought bcause Enterprise seems to be more popular now than it was when running fo the first time. Look how TOS has survived, grown and spawned the conventions and Trekkies. the Network shot themselves in the foot there.

[Aquarius]

There are a lot of factors, all of which have been discussed in various threads, but the bottom line is ratings = money, and even if there are shows with comparatively worse ratings, they will still cancel a show if it's showing a continuous downward trend, and take a chance on a newer show that may have worse ratings but perhaps has the potential to do better with a little retooling, especially if it's what the network considers to be a "fresh" idea.

The truth is, we'll never really know the whole truth, unless we pin down every single individual involved and say "Dude, what gives???"

[Silverbullet]

I doubt if you will get an honest answer out of Bragga or that clown who hated SciFi and is now CEO of a network. (Mind is absolute mush today) They are not given to giving answer to Fans that is straight up. the mealy mouthed "Acceptance of responsibility for the Abomination with his Caveat that he still thought it was a "Cool Idea" from Bragga is typical.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

There's also the question about cost in relation to ratings. ENT and Trek are expensive shows to make and if they feel not enough people are watching then they will cancel it. Cheaper shows with less than stellar ratings can survive.

Also, ENT was aired on the Friday night death slot and got pre-empted a lot. Not so samrt if you want to keep a younger audience, but then again networks are notorious for doing this all the time. Frakkin' idjits!

[honeybee]

Let us not forget that the entire UPN network failed and no longer exists. The CW, its replacement, considers 2.5 million viewers good (considerably less than ENT got during its first three years ) and 5.2 million viewers a massive hit. Also, all scripted dramas were losing ratings in the early 2000s. Plus, as Kevin mentioned - UPN preempted Enterprise all the time.

[Alelou]

Yeah, UPN failing miserably probably had a lot to do with it.

I wonder if the fact that the production staff had been around for 20 years meant salaries were really high? I could see the bean counters thinking, "Oh, oh, labor costs ... benefits and retirement ... all those sets ... all those post-production costs, too ... let's cut the cord, this is only going to get worse."

[pdsldl]

Didn't I hear that if they hadn't been canceled they would most likely have gotten to seven seasons and that means costs go up something to do with a change in the production deals on shows after five seasons. That's what I heard happened to Stargate and Showtime sold it to Sci-fi or whatever the deals was there. That's also what happened to Stargate Atlantis. I read an interview where Connor Trinneer asked the casts of Atlantis about the possibility of them being canceled when they hit that mark. Star Trek was expensive enough without adding more production costs. UPN and stations like it lose viewers because there's a large segment of people who can't get cable or can't afford cable or satellite so they have no reception of these stations. I missed the last two seasons of Voyager because it was broadcast on the WB and satellite was my only option and I couldn't afford it and when Enterprise came on same problem with UPN. Had it been on Sci-Fi it might have faired better.

[Silverbullet]

Production costs. If that is the case of costs going up after five years how come TNG lasted 9-10 years. Patrick stewart couldn't come that cheap. with the success of the series I imagine the actors tried to get a bump in salary. TNG had larger and better sets, their battlle scenes were bettter. so, the Costs of TNG should have drawfed Enterprise. In addition Enterprise used "B" grade axctors with no experience as directors of episodes saving money on hiring prefessional Directors. Which reminds me: Connor Trinner had a masters degree in acting AND directing. why was he never given a chance to direct an Episode?

[pdsldl]

It has something to do with a contractual deal to do with the production company. Not sure of the details but if the show is not making enough to begin with its unlikely they'd add more expenses. Patrick Stewart may have costs more but he was also a draw to the show because he was a known actor. Unless I got it wrong I thought TNG did well money wise. Fortunately, Voyager made it past its five years before it lost steam. Had the last two seasons come earlier it might not have made it as long as it did.