Exactly.
Outspoken Marina Sirtis Interview
- Thread starter HaplessCrewman
- Start date
Exactly.
Not quite. As you said yourself, ENT was expensive to produce for the minimal returns it was getting. But if ENT had been a ratings powerhouse, Moonves would have been its biggest fan.
I'm pretty sure Moonves was completely indifferent to Star Trek in general. All he cared about (which is what any network executive cares about) is money.
Yes, there was fan fatigue. However, Enterprise had some audience around which to build ... until those dreadful season 2 episodes. Arguably, they made Entreprise's decline irreversible. And the only reason seasons 3 and 4 were different was because CBS read Berman and Braga the riot act: do something different or get cancelled. Otherwise, there is no reason to believe that the last year(s) of Enterprise would not have been a continuation of Season 2.
The problem is with her view is that it's contradicted by Berman immediately green-lighting Voyager and pushing it as TNG's legitimate successor. DS9 never got the push from Paramount Voyager did, always being the "understudy" Trek.
I wish I could find the interview with the DS9 producers (IIRC it was either Pillar or Moore or both) where Berman is quoted as saying he would "never allow" DS9 to become the "torchbearer" of the franchise.
Indeed, DS9 is the show he showed the least amount of attention to, which the writers and producers credited with permitting them to push the Trek envelope much further than either TNG or Voyager were allowed to do.
Moonves, like every other TV executive, is a fan of money.
Trek gets higher ratings, it makes more money. The appallingly high budget compared to other shows on the network matters less and you keep the wagon train full of cash going.
If a static shot of a dog taking a poop was the #1 show on CBS he'd be the biggest supporter of it.
Never heard such visceral dislike of "The Chase"! What do you dislike about it? It's always been something of a favourite for me.
It's not as simple as "too much Star Trek", it didn't exist in a vacuum. The explosion of other genre series was, IMO, a far bigger factor.
When TNG took off, it was pretty much the only genre show on TV - I would contest it was successful not just because it was Star Trek, but because it was effectively the only game in town for genre TV, and filled a big gap in the market. As the nineties wore on, and hit the turn of the century, that was no longer the case. Now there were plenty of other shows to split the audience - anything from X-Files, Buffy, Babylon 5, the endless Stargate shows, Quantum Leap, Sliders, Xena, Roswell, Andromeda, Farscape, and more.
Enterprise was just another show in a sea of spaceships, aliens and special effects, and it wasn't distinctive enough or, frankly, good enough to stand out.
Most of those shows ended around the same time as Enterprise, so I think it was a general malaise. There'd been a big sci-fi boom in the nineties, and it was inevitably only going to run for so long. Arguably the superhero franchises was the next big genre thing, and it's still going for now. But it too will run out.
For TV sci-fi and fantasy, the model has changed to shorter, premium cable shows such as Game of Thrones, True Blood, The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, and for a somewhat different audience, the regenerated Doctor Who.
The key is that TNG appealed to a wide spectrum of viewers, not just existing Star Trek or sci-fi fans. By the time Enterprise ended, there was much more choice, and no longer a compelling reason to stick with the creatively exhausted Star Trek franchise.
As I was a kid in the 90's, I didn't really understand then that my favorite thing in the world -- space shows -- was in a temporary boom and wouldn't last forever. As the mid-2000's nuked them all, one by one, I was pretty darn depressed to make that connection.
Here's hoping stuff like new Star Wars movies triggers another comeback. :P
A few factors re ratings and popularity.
1. TNG and DS9 were syndicated, ergo stations could air them whenever they wanted, and typically outside of network prime-time so the shows weren't necessarily competing with Cheers or whatnot which would have diminished their audiences. OTOH both Voyager and Enterprise were on a network and aired during prime-time and head-to head with network shows, As such, there's always going to be a disconnect when comparing ratings between the syndicated shows and the UPN ones.
2. DS9 bored the fuck out of a lot of fans right away (I've spoken to a lot who felt that show was lame in it's first dozen episodes). Since TNG was still on, one could argue there was no compelling reason to give it a try. You rarely get a second chance to make a first impression.
3. It's just possible that DS9's formula simply wasn't as interesting to large audiences as the "these are the voyages" premise.
4. Patrick Stewart.
1. TNG and DS9 were syndicated, ergo stations could air them whenever they wanted, and typically outside of network prime-time so the shows weren't necessarily competing with Cheers or whatnot which would have diminished their audiences. OTOH both Voyager and Enterprise were on a network and aired during prime-time and head-to head with network shows, As such, there's always going to be a disconnect when comparing ratings between the syndicated shows and the UPN ones.
2. DS9 bored the fuck out of a lot of fans right away (I've spoken to a lot who felt that show was lame in it's first dozen episodes). Since TNG was still on, one could argue there was no compelling reason to give it a try. You rarely get a second chance to make a first impression.
3. It's just possible that DS9's formula simply wasn't as interesting to large audiences as the "these are the voyages" premise.
4. Patrick Stewart.
That second part is absolutely valid. Like, damn. Over the years I've brought seven close IRL friends/exes (ha) and at least twice as many online friends into the DS9 fold, and half of them have all started off by telling me they had distant memories of watching it early in its run only to drop it like a hot potato because it was so boring and tedious.
I've been incredibly lucky in that every last one of those folks has come around to it by the point that Niners generally concur it improves significantly, and as a result the number of fellow Niners in my life has increased considerably. Not everyone is going to love DS9, of course -- but all these guys and gals totally have. But none of them felt that way from the start. And like you said, first impressions get one shot and one shot only. Many of the people who were no longer watching in about 1996 onward were not going to be aware that the DS9 of 1996 onward was such a different beast.
I've been incredibly lucky in that every last one of those folks has come around to it by the point that Niners generally concur it improves significantly, and as a result the number of fellow Niners in my life has increased considerably. Not everyone is going to love DS9, of course -- but all these guys and gals totally have. But none of them felt that way from the start. And like you said, first impressions get one shot and one shot only. Many of the people who were no longer watching in about 1996 onward were not going to be aware that the DS9 of 1996 onward was such a different beast.
I listened to the podcast now, and I think Sirtis hasn't got a clue about why TNG ended. She thinks it's because they thought axing TNG would mean more people watching DS9, which is a load of rubbish. If that were the case, why was Voyager planned to replace TNG as the tent pole of the new Paramount network? They always intended to have two Trek shows running simultaneously.
The main reason TNG only lasted seven seasons was money. The cast all got a nice raise for signing on to the seventh season, and it would have cost much more to sign them up for an eighth or ninth season. Much cheaper to end on a high, and start a replacement series with a cheaper cast. Paramount had their eyes on the films for TNG. As much as Marina might have wanted it, it was never going to happen.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the interview. A lot of things I'd heard before, some new. Rick Berman again comes across like a bit of a dick. I feel at this stage that the guy deserves right of reply. He should write a book from his perspective. I'd read his take on the inside story of nineties Trek.
The main reason TNG only lasted seven seasons was money. The cast all got a nice raise for signing on to the seventh season, and it would have cost much more to sign them up for an eighth or ninth season. Much cheaper to end on a high, and start a replacement series with a cheaper cast. Paramount had their eyes on the films for TNG. As much as Marina might have wanted it, it was never going to happen.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the interview. A lot of things I'd heard before, some new. Rick Berman again comes across like a bit of a dick. I feel at this stage that the guy deserves right of reply. He should write a book from his perspective. I'd read his take on the inside story of nineties Trek.
Funny you should say that! I think Episode I was the beginning of the end actually. It was so anticipated, and then when it was dreadful, the bubble burst. The next two weren't any better*, and by the time Revenge of the Sith arrived, the sci-fi boom was really coming to an end.
There's a lot riding on the new film, it has Episode I levels of hype. It better not be shit.
*Controversial opinion alert: I watched all three recently, and I think they get successively worse. Yes, I think Episode I is the best of the three; at least it's trying to have fun, and has a certain colourful swagger. Episode III is a truly shockingly inept film. And it's incredibly boring.
Yeah, I can see that, actually! I think VII could really help things out if it isn't shit, and I think there's a good chance it won't be shit. Of course, what is or isn't shit to me isn't necessarily relevant to what the masses perceive, but I'm fairly easygoing about Star Wars (actually, come to think of it, I'm probably pretty easygoing about most of my interests) and I reckon the general public tends to be as well.
That's some food for thought, though. If VII releases poorly, it could mean bad things for space-operatic television. That said, I'm seeing things about The Expanse, and even Red Mars, coming to TV. I think the networks are prepping for the opposite impact, and hoping it catches on again enough so that folks check out their space stuff.
That's some food for thought, though. If VII releases poorly, it could mean bad things for space-operatic television. That said, I'm seeing things about The Expanse, and even Red Mars, coming to TV. I think the networks are prepping for the opposite impact, and hoping it catches on again enough so that folks check out their space stuff.
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Amaris
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I would love to hear Rick Berman's perspective on his time with Star Trek. If that requires buying a book, so be it. Maybe he'll write one.
You can watch his interview for the Academy of Television on YouTube (three parts), although I don't think it will give you the inside scoop you want. Although he has a reputation, he is actually rather reserved when in comes to telling franchise secrets, defending the franchise. Still a good listen.
I'm sure most of those people forgot, or else never knew, what a different beast TNG was in its first two seasons.
Last I heard, he was writing one. Should be interesting, although I'm expecting less of a tell-all book and more of a "we are very pleased" kind of thing.
Star Trek wasn't "creatively exhausted". Rick Berman and Brannon Bragga were creatively exhausted. They kept going to the same, middle of the road, mayo on white well and wouldn't countenance much in the way of risk-taking by the writers and showrunners.
Berman was always the "corporate suit" in the room. David Gerrald's recent interview/article makes that abundantly clear. His "Novocaine" approach to Trek was on full display even early on when he fired composer Ron Jones for actually daring to score the episodes instead of giving him the "sonic wallpaper" that Berman preferred.
DS9 got away with as much as it did because the "Killer B's" as we used to call them were focused first on TNG, then Voyager. Then came Enterprise, which was "more of the same" until Manny Coto and the Reeves-Stevenses were effectively put in charge for S4 of Enterprise, the show started picking up creatively, and they gave us the Prequel show we should have had all along.
But by then it was probably too late, and Les pulled the plug.
Berman was always the "corporate suit" in the room. David Gerrald's recent interview/article makes that abundantly clear. His "Novocaine" approach to Trek was on full display even early on when he fired composer Ron Jones for actually daring to score the episodes instead of giving him the "sonic wallpaper" that Berman preferred.
DS9 got away with as much as it did because the "Killer B's" as we used to call them were focused first on TNG, then Voyager. Then came Enterprise, which was "more of the same" until Manny Coto and the Reeves-Stevenses were effectively put in charge for S4 of Enterprise, the show started picking up creatively, and they gave us the Prequel show we should have had all along.
But by then it was probably too late, and Les pulled the plug.
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I'll check that out, thank you.
I'll still want to read it. I believe Berman was a decent guy who wanted to do right by what Gene had started. Whether that lead to slavish adherence, or greater missteps, I don't know, but I'd like to know more, and what better than from the horse's mouth?
