Cheated out of 3 seasons?

Since 2005, I've been reading how the audience was cheated out of 3 seasons, because the show didn't go 7 seasons like the previous 3 shows. Does anyone share this sentiment?

Personally, I'm just happy we got almost 100 episodes across 4 seasons. A lot of really good sci-fi shows don't last that long. Some say it ended too soon. I say we're lucky we got a 4th season. It almost didn't happen.

 

It's no Firefly...damn that still stings

The studio gave it a chance and didn't screw up the running order, but it was a very safe paint-by-numbers show that would have an inbuilt audience for it.

 

I maintain that if they started out with the energy and direction of season 3, the show would have lasted longer.

ENT is what it is, for better or worse. I tend to enjoy things for what they are rather than lament what they weren't. Seasons 3 and 4 were mostly really good.

 

Because of network politics at the time, ai don't think the show was going to have a long run. UPN was shifting away from scifi to a feminine audience if I remember accurately.

 

Enterprise had a rough start. It was finding its footing in Seasons 3 and 4. T was like a crashing plane: it was recovering, but smashed into the ground before it could do so sufficiently. Season 5, had it happened, was supposed to have Elizabeth live, Shran join the main cast, and the Romulan war. It seems like it would likely have been strong enough to make Seasons 6 and 7 happen as well.

 

Shows get renewed on a year by year basis. It might have been cancelled or ended with year 5, 6, 7, or it could have gone 10 seasons. No way to know. I'm just happy with what we got, WTF finale and all. lol

 

I know. But if S5 was good, viewers would likely have come back. Season 6 would have followed from 5, and S7 from S6. And at that point, Enterprise would likely have followed previous patterns and self-terminated.

 

It got shafted by then Studio Exec Les Moonves and all the internal politics happening around CBS and Viacom carving up Paramount. Too expensive for cable stations like Sci-Fi Channel or Spike to pick up and believe me they tried. Not wanted by CBS at the highest levels. Even Alex Kurtzman recently trotted out the line about Star Trek shows going seven seasons, when talking about mapping out the franchise's future through to 2027. So yeah, pretty much, cheated out of 3 seasons of the show here.

I liked the first couple of steady years and forgave it the odd retread of ideas, preferring the 22nd Century setting to the 24th and how the characters were all flawed, inexperienced etc but more like average modern day people. Then Season 3 was a brave experiment to try and tell one long story all year. It was the final run that hit upon the perfect mix of three parters though, together with two and standalones really becoming the rarity.

They used to talk about Star Trek being like a feature-film every week. But it's really three parters that fully achieved an epic scale. Although admittedly by the time Enterprise found that out, it was more of a cost saving exercise to stay in and around the same setting, such as on Vulcan or aboard a Romulan Drone. Had they gone for that approach right from the start, when they had more money to spend every year...

 

Audience problem. If the people watched it wouldn't have mattered. It hemoraged people and no one came back. And it went to season 4 to get syndecation numbers .

 

When the show started, everyone was expecting it to goes seven seasons. I distinctly remember a TV Guide article on ENT when it was premiering where Dominic Keating was asked if he was ready for seven seasons. So, from the outset, there was a believe that ENT would have the same regular seven seasons that the previous Treks did under Berman.

But the fans were tuning out in droves, resulting in less episodes and a smaller budget, and eventually being moved from Wednesdays to Fridays. By the time ENT really got going from mid-S3 onwards it was too late. And S2 can largely be blamed for this, since the majority of the episodes that season were weak and amounted to pointless filler, and the soundtrack for that season was ridiculously uninspired and dull. Re-watching that season, it was hard to get through. S1 is considered a strong season and S2 just did not live up to the previous season. The fact that ENT was on UPN – a station that many in the US did not receive – did not help matters either from a viewership perspective. And nowadays UPN doesn’t exist anymore; its CW now.

I think discussions on potential ideas and episodes for S5 and beyond (and even better finales) has shown how much potential ENT had a series. Unfortunately, it was not reflected creatively in its original run, and that could be attributed to those above the writers. The vision that the powers that be wanted from ENT (remove Star Trek from the title, appeal to younger viewers, more action to get more ratings, premiere mere months after VOY ended and was still fresh in the audience’s minds) went against what the writers wanted (a show that was more primitive compared to TOS, at least a year long delay for the premiere – a necessity since this was a prequel and needed to fit in continuity), and hamstrung the series from the get go. That the powers that be didn’t even bother to give ENT a January premiere like VOY and DS9 before them, and then increase the episode order afterwards – instead choosing to give ENT a large episode order in the beginning and then cut the episode order as the series progressed – really says it all.

Add in BSG airing around the same time period and taking the risks that ENT should have from the beginning, and basically why should anyone tune in to watch ENT at all?

Considering the parallels ENT has with TOS in regards to cancellation, its surprising that ENT never received its own animated series like TOS or movies series or ENT: Phase II, to properly wrap up the series. We got the TOS reboot movies and new Trek series under Kurtzman – a nice parallel to the TOS movies and tv series under Berman – but there seemed to be a preference to make an animated series set in the 24th century with Lower Decks instead of with the ENT cast. Not even talks of rebooting ENT has come up at all. Passing references in DSC & the Kelvinverse is all that era gets now.

TPTB should have been professional enough to give ENT its fifth season as well as an advanced warning that S5 would be the last one. Considering it was still one of the most popular shows on the network at the time of its cancellation.

 

It all comes down to viewership and most every show lives on a season-to-season basis, Enterprise is no different. Season four was mostly solid and better to go out being remembered fondly than lingering two or three seasons too long like the other Berman-era series.

 

You may have a point. But I'd still have taken a Season 5 just to have Shran on the show every week.

 

Enterprise had poor ratings.

I stopped watching it early in season 3 because, at that point, the show was terrible. It got good in late season 3 and season 4. But everyone had stopped watching at that point.

 

ENT is the show that taught me a very valuable lesson: simply because it's Trek doesn't mean I have to like it or bring myself to watch it, if a TV show is weak then its ok not to like it and move on.

 

I don't feel cheated out of Enterprise. It could be pretty good a lot of time over it's four seasons but there have been plenty of shows that I loved much more that only ever got 13 episodes.

 

What do you mean, 'cheated'? The show simply didn't do well enough (though I think judging by what it became by S4, it certainly could have continued). Even though the seven season format had become something of a standard after TNG, DS9 and VOY, it's not as if viewers were robbed of their rights of seven seasons of an Enterprise series ....

 

I'm sure the cast felt cheated, but I'm guessing that at best, the audience was split: Half of them were happy ENT got cancelled, and the other half were hoping for more.

 

I'm not even sure there should have been a seven season standard. With the brain drain of talent moving from TNG to other Trek productions made its sixth/seventh seasons weaker, I think TNG would have been fine ending after six seasons. The end of DS9 feels rushed, so it could have gone eight. VOY also probably could have ended after six as well.

Also, stopping some series earlier would have probably kept Berman Trek feeling fresh longer, which would have benefited ENT.

 

The 7 year thing started with TNG, and for some reason the producers felt that that was the gold standard for Trek shows. As for DS9, I don't think it would have been as rushed had Terry Farrell not been replaced with Nicole deBoer in the last season, which necessitated several pointless episodes specifically to build her character when they could have been used to push the overall story arc forward. As for VOY, I simply think that UPN just didn't care about the show by the end and didn't bother to make an in-depth multi-episode ending like they did with DS9.

But yeah, 7 years is far too long for a show to run, especially if the seasons are 26 episodes long and mostly filler.

 

Either way, as long as they're doing 5,312 different Star Trek series, I'd be up for an Enterprise sequel. Maybe a mini-series or something jumping ahead to/past the birth of the Federation. Out of the Berman-era shows, it's probably the one that would be most worth revisiting with a proper sequel IMO. (And I say that despite Enterprise being my least-favorite of those series.)