Wait, are you saying that you actually are a communist?
(BTW, not judging here, just think it's strange, for someone living in US)
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Fans, why did the ratings slide?
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
(BTW, not judging here, just think it's strange, for someone living in US)
There's nothing wrong with you liking ANiS while most others don't. I really liked Precious Cargo and that episode was in TV.com's bottom 10. Twilight is in everyone's top 10 and I refuse to watch it again...go figure. Personal taste. Remember this when it comes to data (and I don't mean Brent Spiner) "figures don't lie, but lairs figure". I do numbers for a living, I can make them tell any story.I would blame Mach5's phantom "rigging of the poll" squad. Vincent Van Gogh wasn't appreciated in his time eitherI still liked it.
Carbon Creek also was nominated for a Hugo. Yup but Carbon Creek was a hell of a lot better than ANIS.
C64. Why are you picking on Portland is it because Portland is below Seattle which is rated the most Liberal city in the U.S. in additon to having the most educated?
Who said Commie bastard. Why Pick on Bastards?
C64. Why are you picking on Portland is it because Portland is below Seattle which is rated the most Liberal city in the U.S. in additon to having the most educated?
Who said Commie bastard. Why Pick on Bastards?
That's really the question of all questions with ENT. We've been debating this for as long as the show was on and I don't think we ever arrived at a satisfying conclusion. And I think we never will. If one could find out by staring at charts long enough, then there wouldn't be so many shows failing and being cancelled, right?The sad truth is that the Nielsen ratings system doesn't provide the data basis to properly analyse why people didn't watch the show. So, while we can list all sorts of reasons we think contributed to the bad ratings we will never know.
It didn't help that ENT wasn't that great a show (in real life all the Trek fans I know who've seen the show didn't like it). On the other hand, quality doesn't equal success.
So, it's really all just speculation. To me, one reason seems to be as good as any other.
Mach5, I'm somewhere in between a socialist and a democrat, depending on the issue. I think big government actually does help, but do think big government isn't always the solution. I was more joking of my leanings because of Stephen Colbert's comments about my city. (See my city's location, it's a US joke.)
1. Bush Sr. dubbed Portland Little Beruit because of the rather colorful protests happening during the first Iraq war (people throwing up red, white and blue). We're a protest city.
2. Stephen Colbert calls Oregon -- Washington's Mexico or California's Canada.
3. Portland prides themselves on being "weird." Our most popular bumper sticker is "Keep Portland Weird."
4. Our largest bookstore, Powell's, gave away free "I Am America and So Are You" books for a signing, and thus Stephen Colbert called our fair city "Communist Portland."
5. Portland has more readers, more large bookstores and the most utilized library system, which means we don't have much to do (it rains a lot) and probably we're cheap. And possibly intellectual.
I think we might also have the most beer per capita. You make of that what you will.
And that ends our travel ad.
Hey, Portland has a large sci-fi community (we always have large watchers for sci-fi), but surprisingly a small coordinated community.
And thus back to our topic and back to HR's point. I doubt many of the Portland sci-fi community are Neilsen rating families. Yet, we are a large audience. Disconnect. For a while they've been thinking of using TiVo and DVR ratings. I'm not sure why they haven't. But more important, I'm surprised they don't target the audience for the media. For example, I betcha all of us have at least one computer in our household and would cry if we had to give up our computer for a year. Why not show Enterprise on the Web?
Oh man, HR will kick my virtual *ss, but ....
1. Bush Sr. dubbed Portland Little Beruit because of the rather colorful protests happening during the first Iraq war (people throwing up red, white and blue). We're a protest city.
2. Stephen Colbert calls Oregon -- Washington's Mexico or California's Canada.
3. Portland prides themselves on being "weird." Our most popular bumper sticker is "Keep Portland Weird."
4. Our largest bookstore, Powell's, gave away free "I Am America and So Are You" books for a signing, and thus Stephen Colbert called our fair city "Communist Portland."
5. Portland has more readers, more large bookstores and the most utilized library system, which means we don't have much to do (it rains a lot) and probably we're cheap. And possibly intellectual.
I think we might also have the most beer per capita. You make of that what you will.And that ends our travel ad.
Hey, Portland has a large sci-fi community (we always have large watchers for sci-fi), but surprisingly a small coordinated community.
And thus back to our topic and back to HR's point. I doubt many of the Portland sci-fi community are Neilsen rating families. Yet, we are a large audience. Disconnect. For a while they've been thinking of using TiVo and DVR ratings. I'm not sure why they haven't. But more important, I'm surprised they don't target the audience for the media. For example, I betcha all of us have at least one computer in our household and would cry if we had to give up our computer for a year. Why not show Enterprise on the Web?
Do you really want me to kick your ass? Do you pine to have a new infraction on your record? Do you spend every day dreaming up new and creative ways to put a bull's-eye on your butt?
You know better than this, commie. RL political talk, even disguised as a travelogue, is for Misc or TNZ. And if someone asks you something that doesn't belong in an ENT thread, the PM button is your friend.
Shape up, please. And next time you find yourself typing "Oh dear, I'm breaking a rule, but..." hit the DELETE key.
I'm a lefty myself, so we're obviously not complete opposites (and this is the last time I mention politics, I swear).
Aren't Nielsen families carefully chosen to form a representative sample? I've read somewhere that Nielsen's margin of error is -/+ 4% so I doubt Portland would have made real difference.
Technically, the right key would be BACKSPACE, I believe.HopefulRomantic said:
I highlight and Delete, personally. If you prefer backspacing, I highly recommend you put it into practice yourself, the next time you type up a comment regarding a subject that does not belong in this forum (see above). Refraining from posting inappropriate material, after a moderator has already cautioned against it, lessens the credibility of a tacked-on pledge that you won't do it anymore reallyhonestIswear.I'm a lefty myself, so we're obviously not complete opposites (and this is the last time I mention politics, I swear).
Technically, the right key would be BACKSPACE, I believe.HopefulRomantic said:
To repeat: RL politics belongs in Misc., TNZ, or a PM. Not here.
They are. But I think the difference is that these representative samples aren't necessarily Star Trek watchers. They may watch your average comedies, but ... Technology-wise, I would assume the vast majority of Trek watchers are advanced. I guess it's kinda why I indicated it seems Paramount should market to the channel that makes the most sense.
My answer to this is going to be similar to my answer for this question regarding VGR: the show promised something different, yet actually delivered more of the same type of stuff dressed up slightly, as the writers seemed to be getting worse at it, delivering good and bad episodes with an increasing disparity.
For me, personally, the potential for greatness here was even larger than it was on VGR, because the premise of this show was so different and offered such a potentially rewarding format for storytelling. Yet, for the first two seasons, we got more boring crap and deus ex machina technobabble.
For me, personally, the potential for greatness here was even larger than it was on VGR, because the premise of this show was so different and offered such a potentially rewarding format for storytelling. Yet, for the first two seasons, we got more boring crap and deus ex machina technobabble.
anis got nominated with only 33 nominations.. one of the lowest ever.
it also came in behind carbon creek in the vote totals.
This.
33 isn't that bad considering many Trek episodes got 0 (as in no nomination at all). I think the people who gave it a nom thought it was humorous. It was.
I completely agree. The problem with the show was that it was apparent that the series was warmed over Voyager, which was itself reheated TNG.
What's interesting about spike post Dead Stop is that it was a continunity episode. I distinctly remember that fans were shocked that the ship took severe damage in the previous episode and still had that damage in the following ep. Hell it even reference the scratch from the pilot. That shocked ALOT of people and caused long time fans like myself to say "maybe there is hope for this after all. There was actual buzz about Enterprise around here after those two episodes. To have that excitement followed by ANiS was devastating. It proved that those two episodes were more of an anomaly than a new direction.
As much as people like to talk about the changing landscape of TV ratings during Enterprise's run...what typically gets overlooked is the fact that Enterprise began its run using a dated storytelling format. The creative landscape on TV changed right along with the expansion of TV options. Enterprise began its run with completely stand alone stories and no new direction. That sort of storytelling was no longer popular by 2000. What's odd is that it had become problematic for Voyager as it limped across the finish line. The fact is that creatively, Enterprise was stale and somewhat dated.
A good way of looking at it is by comparing it to nuBSG. NuBSG was never quite a ratings hit (though it was for Skiffy). What made the difference was that BSG earned MASSIVE critical acclaim. For the first time ever Skiffy had a show that was being called much watch TV by the intelligencia. It was being called the best show on TV despite being on a notoriously crappy channel stuck in the armpit of the cable universe.
Enterprise had none of that. Indeed it was contributing to the degrading of Star Trek's image even amongst scifi fans. Truth be told, if Enterprise had had stellar writing from the get go it would have found an audience and received some of the acclaim. Its just further evidence that the writing and plotting on the show was substandard from the word go. More importantly, unlike BSG, but exactly like Voyager, Enterprise took no chances and played it completely safe.
Oh God yes. Minefield and Dead Stop remain two of my favorite ENT episodes. Following it with ANiS felt like some cruel practical joke. Of course it wasn't, but it did convince me that the producers hadn't a clue how to tell the good stories from the bad ones.
It's still amazing to me that they didn't make bolder changes, sooner. The ratings slide wasn't exactly a secret, what more did you need to realize, "we need to do something radically different here?" It wasn't just mediocre from a creative standpoint, it was bad business.
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