Nope. Look at the actual ratings - Trek was failing on television and Enterprise didn't even hasten its end. Trek ended on TV just about when you'd expect it to, based on the ratings trend beginning with the premiere of DS9:
Jonathan Frakes: "Star Trek won't be coming back to TV."
- Thread starter JTShanks
- Start date
Nope. Look at the actual ratings - Trek was failing on television and Enterprise didn't even hasten its end. Trek ended on TV just about when you'd expect it to, based on the ratings trend beginning with the premiere of DS9:
Who's behind it, what universe it's set in, the quality of the show, these things matter only to the fans. The bottom line is money. The very instant a Star Trek TV series is seen to make a profit, it will be back on TV.
But not until then.
I don't get it. Were these just casual fans that tuned out? How can you watch TNG, claim to be a Trek fan and then drop the rest of the shows?
Maybe I'm just too hard-core a fan to understand.
Of course, I don't read the novels anymore. Haven't for years. Somebody could probably say the same about me.
Maybe.
Star Trek has never been successful on television based on the numbers of hard-core fans. TNG was a mainstream, or nearly a mainstream, success. It dominated first-run syndication for years. The studio saw it as very much a family show, something that people of all ages watched on a weekly basis.
The sequels were just sequels. Rhoda, Phyllis, even Lou Grant never approached the success of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Trapper John, M.D. was not as successful as M*A*S*H, and AfterMASH failed. Most viewers love a particular series and the characters in it, and relatively rarely will they move en masse to a spin-off. Star Trek in the 90s was no exception to that.
SW may have more appeal, but the SW franchise had its own unique problems, starting with Ewoks in 1983, followed by Greedo shirts first and the prequels.
Star Trek should be a higher and be a great example of people unwilling to move on to another show with different characters, I mean look at how many people were less willing to see TNG when it was first announced because it didn't have Kirk and Spock in it!
I don't see how that kind of logic works though; I mean, Trek has it's own problems too but that never stopped any number of new fans interested in the franchise.
^This.
I think the problem might have a bit to do with not having someone viewed as THE Star Trek person - the one that holds the vision of what ST is and should/will be. I had started a tread about who the future standard-bearer could be (not to promote the tread, just reference). There doesn't seem to be that person(s).
Without the vision of the original creator (Roddenberry) or someone that had been with the show in the past and was linked to the creator in some manner, there doesn't seem to be anyone with the credibility and therefore a strong enough voice to push such an initiative through. I don't think Berman and Braga, although previously connected with the show and the creator, would be very popular. Of course Frakes is a fan favorite, but he was unable to convince the folks at CBS.
Not that I'm trying to make Gene Roddenberry out to be some demi-god, but it was his and he did have the vision and the ability to convince people to televise it - even before syndication was popular (thinking of TNG here).
I think DS9 introduced a new kind of Trek premise that didn't appeal to TNG fair weather fans (it may have been smarter to go with Voyager before DS9) plus the first couple of seasons were very poor. Downhill from there
But a prequel show was definitely a final nail in the coffin. Another example of a Trek show being made for Trekkers and not for a wider audience. Why would the average viewer care about how humans first met the Klingons (I'm not even sure I cared that much)
But I still definitely see a future for Trek on TV
Frakes is not exactly the kind of person I'd want to work on another Trek series anyways. I mean don't get me wrong, I like the man, he's a cool dude and I got nothing but respect and admiration for him as he brought to life my favorite TNG character so he's no doubt a good actor, but knowing his track record as a Director/Writer.... he's.... inconsistent in quality, it's difficult to picture the man who directed some decent episode of TNG was also the same man who directed the Thunderbirds movie...
Nope. The viewers that Star Trek needs in order to succeed treat it as just another TV show, just another movie. Always have, always will. Throwing "shoulds" in there won't get another series made or keep it on the air if it is.
Those folks who were initially unwilling to give TNG a chance? Dedicated Star Trek fans. Fortunately for Trek the response of the larger, casual audience was at first enough curiosity to check a highly-promoted new Star Trek series out, and then deciding that they liked it. Probably the fact that most such viewers never compared it, favorably or unfavorably, to TOS helped it succeed.
Paramount hoped to move that large audience on to DS9 - but a lot of those folks obviously did compare the new show with the one they already liked, and dropped away.
What DS9 was, was not TNG. It was a sequel series. The spin-off which equals the success of the parent series is very, very rare.
It performed exactly as one would expect based on the performance of all previous series. Clearly the studio hoped that by doing another soft reboot of Trek - going back to the TOS formula a third time, hoping to recapture some of the success of the 1987 TNG reboot of the thing - they could shake the trend.
Didn't happen. The only difference that doing a prequel series instead of "going forward" made was...none at all. Unfortunately.
There is absolutely no reason to follow the Star Wars model, especially because Disney wants to make money, and make it relatively soon.
CBS, in contrast, has no reason to risk money on Star Trek with no guarantee of return. Unlike Disney, they already own Star Trek, and don't need to make any money because of a large investment.
The Star Wars model is not a perfect model for every franchise.
This is probably more the case for a spinoff of a spinoff. Sure, there are lots of stinker spinoffs out there, ones that most people don't even remember or know about. But there are still a reasonable amount of successful spinoffs out there, the latest one probably being Better Call Saul.
The way all the Trek series went was that they were spinning off from each other instead of TOS. TNG set up the Bajorans/Cardassians for DS9 and had O'Brien/Worf, and DS9 set up the Maquis for Voyager. Voyager didn't do a lot to set up Enterprise really though. But in reality, I think most who were even aware of it couldn't really see it as more than a spinoff of Voyager. In so many ways it was very similar. So part of it was that they were just multiplying the odds of spinoff success. A franchise that beat the odds there was probably Law & Order. Yeah, they had a couple stinkers there too, but they had two very successful spinoffs. It's not unreasonable to expect a spinoff to work.
When "Star Wars" came out in '77, Paramount reacted by turning to it's "Star Trek" property to get some of that "Star Wars" money.
Maybe "Star Wars" will save "Star Trek" again.
The problem is this dang JJ-Trek movie coming out next year. It will benefit most from the "Star Wars" hype. If it's a hit- we're stuck with this series. If it bombs- CBS will say, "Star Trek" is dead.
I think CBS is doing the right thing for now- NO new Star Trek TV series. They should follow the BBC's path with "Doctor Who"--let it sleep until the time is right.
Right now, tv is so awful. Coarse, violent, etc. Let this era pass because "Trek" would not fit in this environment. "Trek" WILL return to tv one day.
They really did go too far with "Voyager", "Enterprise", "Insurrection" & "Nemesis". TNG did not get the chance to enjoy syndicated rerun popularity like TOS. That was a big mistake in the long run
Maybe "Star Wars" will save "Star Trek" again.
The problem is this dang JJ-Trek movie coming out next year. It will benefit most from the "Star Wars" hype. If it's a hit- we're stuck with this series. If it bombs- CBS will say, "Star Trek" is dead.
I think CBS is doing the right thing for now- NO new Star Trek TV series. They should follow the BBC's path with "Doctor Who"--let it sleep until the time is right.
Right now, tv is so awful. Coarse, violent, etc. Let this era pass because "Trek" would not fit in this environment. "Trek" WILL return to tv one day.
They really did go too far with "Voyager", "Enterprise", "Insurrection" & "Nemesis". TNG did not get the chance to enjoy syndicated rerun popularity like TOS. That was a big mistake in the long run
Er, no. ENT did not fail because it was a prequel. Series V could have picked up right where VOY left off and it still would have been cancelled.
Starborn Dragon
Captain
I really don't want over saturation with Star Trek shows, thank you very much.
Over saturation is all about quantity, not about quality.
I want Quality Star Trek that does stick to continuity,
Over saturation is all about quantity, not about quality.
I want Quality Star Trek that does stick to continuity,
I was about to ask why that would be a bad thing?
I know there is an opinion out there that no Star Trek is better than JJ's Trek but I disagree. Even when I wasn't a fan of DS9 or VOY I still appreciated the fact that there was Star Trek out there, and all the different fun that that fact brought.
JJ's Trek may not be for everyone, but I at least can appreciate the fact that there is Trek out there, which means more more money, which means the potential for more Trek.
Really, if the next film is a success what is lost?
I guess in this case, if what Frakes says is true, what would be lost is a TV series. I can understand the desire to have a TV series. I've always liked the shows more than the movies. Although I think I'm content with movies anyways. It's preferable to nothing, and there's no guarantee that if there weren't movies that there would be TV.
http://www.trekbbs.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
Similar threads
