This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future.

[Kage Kazumi]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Regardless of the economy I say it just needs new "spices." Even GR was quoted saying (paraphrasing) 'that he hoped someone would come along and take ST to new levels and to places he even never thought of' (Trek Nation).

I think for a TV series to survive it needs to have an aspect of what the fans love, but at the same time have an edge to bring in new viewers.

 

[xortex]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Regardless of the economy I say it just needs new "spices." Even GR was quoted saying (paraphrasing) 'that he hoped someone would come along and take ST to new levels and to places he even never thought of' (Trek Nation).

I think for a TV series to survive it needs to have an aspect of what the fans love, but at the same time have an edge to bring in new viewers.

Problem with that is that for the most part the people thus far associated with Star Trek have considered it to be about them, and not it to be about them being about Star Trek, ahem, GRR's Star Trek. Who? Yea, that old dinosaur. Therefore, it has only been about personalities, people and mediocre fragile egos who became more and more exclusionary as time went on. You know who I'm talking about. There they are. The writers.

 

[Dukhat]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

But ENT became better when it was cancelled so has it been the right decision to cancel that show from a mere business perspective? I have my doubts.

You lost me. How did ENT become better after it was cancelled?

 

[horatio83]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

As far as I know the cancellation happened during the production of the fourth season.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It was understood before production on season four started that it was the show's last year - the network really didn't want it any more, but the studio made concessions in order to get a minimum number of episodes for effective syndication marketing. The only thing that might have saved the show would have been a radical bump-up in ratings that didn't happen. Cancellation was a formality.

Season four was an improvement only from a narrow, pre-sold fannish point-of-view; it was, as one critic has put it, a big reach-around for the trekkies who'd stuck with the series. It contained little in terms of subject matter that could be expected to attract new viewers to the series, to intrigue someone who wasn't already a trekkie, and it didn't.

 

[xortex]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It became so drab and derivitively cannabalistic that I couldn't take it or the direction Coto was taking the characters. Sexing up T'Pol and Trip, turning Archer into an ogre. It was too swampy and dark and depressing. Berman churned it into the ground. You knew when Braga saw Coto come in and take the reins that it was all over. Like seeing the fat lady in an opera who was also a sadistic clown in a horror movie. It broke him. He also realized going in he didn't have an ounce of power over Berman who started exerting more and more creative influence on the show so what good was his title of executive producer if he couldn't even do anything with it.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It was understood before production on season four started that it was the show's last year - the network really didn't want it any more, but the studio made concessions in order to get a minimum number of episodes for effective syndication marketing. The only thing that might have saved the show would have been a radical bump-up in ratings that didn't happen. Cancellation was a formality.

I can't find anything on this anywhere, but I did find articles both on Wiki and at Memory Alpha that they didn't go into season four on the idea that it would be the last.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Season 5 was under active pre-development when the axe fell. Coto and the Reeves-Stevenses had several story arcs already outlined and some in active pre-production (such as the Kzinti episode).

People couldn't get into Enterprise for a number of reasons in S4 that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the show, such as the shrinking station-base as small local stations started breaking away given UPN's internal problems (which are well-documented).

One critic's cynical "reach around" is another critic's "return to it's roots". S4 is one of the single best seasons of Trek ever produced. Paramount was a fool to not give Coto and the Reeve's-Stevenses the chance to finish the turnaround on a better network.

 

[RandyS]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It was understood before production on season four started that it was the show's last year - the network really didn't want it any more, but the studio made concessions in order to get a minimum number of episodes for effective syndication marketing. The only thing that might have saved the show would have been a radical bump-up in ratings that didn't happen. Cancellation was a formality.

I can't find anything on this anywhere, but I did find articles both on Wiki and at Memory Alpha that they didn't go into season four on the idea that it would be the last.

It was announced on this very site on Febuary 3, 2004. Everybody, including us, knew before season four was even filmed that it would be the final year.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It was understood before production on season four started that it was the show's last year - the network really didn't want it any more, but the studio made concessions in order to get a minimum number of episodes for effective syndication marketing. The only thing that might have saved the show would have been a radical bump-up in ratings that didn't happen. Cancellation was a formality.

I can't find anything on this anywhere, but I did find articles both on Wiki and at Memory Alpha that they didn't go into season four on the idea that it would be the last.

It was announced on this very site on Febuary 3, 2004. Everybody, including us, knew before season four was even filmed that it would be the final year.

I couldn't find anything anywhere to support that claim, but I did find several articles on several sites (including the ones I already mentioned) in which they were planning a fifth season. Here's one of them:
http://trekmovie.com/2009/08/10/vegascon09-braga-coto-talk-enterprise-season-5-star-trek-2009-more/

From a 2009 Q&A featuring Braga and Coto:


...And specific highlights on what Season 5 could have brought

• Coto wanted to revisit the Mirror Universe on a regular basis with four or five episodes spread through the season as a "mini-series within a series." Mike Sussman and Coto had discussed places to go with it and it was "big regret" not getting chance
• The two main things they wanted to do with S5 was the "origins of the Federation" and the "begin whispers of the Romulan War", and tying those two together
• No other major villains were planned to be introduced, the Romulans were going to be the big villain, but would have new ones within new ‘mini-arcs’
• Rick and Brannon thought Future Guy was "probably going to be a Romulan" and would tie into the Romulan War with a future Romulan trying to "instigate" things
• They wanted to make Shran a regular character on the bridge of the NX-01 as an "auxiliary or an advisor…get Jeffrey [Combs] Somehow.

Doesn't sound like they were going into season four as the last season.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Doesn't sound like they were going into season four as the last season.

And you still aren't getting it.

The producers giving interviews talking about stuff they'd like to do if the show goes another season has nothing to do with decision-making by the studio or most especially by the network.

Nada, zip, zero.

Of course the producers would like to think they could overcome the odds and keep their show going. They always do. So what?

The network wasn't even going for a fourth season without cost concessions. The studio wanted twenty-odd more episodes for syndication. Everyone knew they were done unless ratings shot up, and no one expected that to happen...and of course, it didn't.

End of story.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It was announced on this very site on Febuary 3, 2004. Everybody, including us, knew before season four was even filmed that it would be the final year.

Not just here, but stories all over the Internet - here's something typical from "scifi411" from July of 2004 shortly after the show was renewed:

The big rumor is that the fourth season will be the show’s last, unless there is a huge ratings boost. The renewal is rumored to have happened so the series could air in syndication... SyFyPortal reports that a Paramount source said that the crew has been told that any story arcs or other story elements need to be wrapped up by the end of the season, and the production team should be prepared to make the fourth season finale a wrap up. If the ratings decline continues, the network is ready to pull the series mid-season, and move unaired episodes to run in the summer.

Everybody saw this coming, really. One reason that the original producers of the show moved back from active production during the fourth year was to work on developing other projects because they knew this one was ending.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

It was announced on this very site on Febuary 3, 2004. Everybody, including us, knew before season four was even filmed that it would be the final year.

Not just here, but stories all over the Internet - here's something typical from "scifi411" from July of 2004 shortly after the show was renewed:

The big rumor is that the fourth season will be the show’s last, unless there is a huge ratings boost. The renewal is rumored to have happened so the series could air in syndication... SyFyPortal reports that a Paramount source said that the crew has been told that any story arcs or other story elements need to be wrapped up by the end of the season, and the production team should be prepared to make the fourth season finale a wrap up. If the ratings decline continues, the network is ready to pull the series mid-season, and move unaired episodes to run in the summer.

Everybody saw this coming, really. One reason that the original producers of the show moved back from active production during the fourth year was to work on developing other projects because they knew this one was ending.

So, basically it was a rumor started on the internet that season four was going to be the last. Wish there was someone other than a message board poster you found named "scifi411" as a source for that. A link would also be nice.

 

[horatio83]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Season 5 was under active pre-development when the axe fell. Coto and the Reeves-Stevenses had several story arcs already outlined and some in active pre-production (such as the Kzinti episode).

People couldn't get into Enterprise for a number of reasons in S4 that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the show, such as the shrinking station-base as small local stations started breaking away given UPN's internal problems (which are well-documented).

One critic's cynical "reach around" is another critic's "return to it's roots". S4 is one of the single best seasons of Trek ever produced. Paramount was a fool to not give Coto and the Reeve's-Stevenses the chance to finish the turnaround on a better network.

Indeed, it was outstanding.
I do think though that there was one problem, nearly all stories were of a 'there and back again' again style, there was no deep-space exploring going on. Basically ENT ended like it should have started, with hanging around in Earth's neighbourhood.

 

[horatio83]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Doesn't sound like they were going into season four as the last season.

Precisely. Given the popularity of the last season and the increasing importance of DVD sales it is safe to claim that this kind of rating-focused short-run thinking instead of a quality-focused long-run thinking is the undoing of a lot of good TV. Trek is not some crappy stuff that you can sell for a few years but for decades.
It is hardly a coincidence that the publicly financed British TV is miles ahead of private American TV.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

From the time of renewal for the fourth season, the studio knew that it was almost certainly the end. So did Berman and Braga. It wasn't even a secret on the Internet.

Paramount was a fool[sic] to not give Coto and the Reeve's-Stevenses the chance to finish the turnaround on a better network.

Ignoring for a moment that an entire studio can't be "a fool," the executives at Paramount get paid to make responsible business decisions to the best of their abilities, not to ignite big wads of cash in the parking lot in order to placate dwindling numbers of trekkies. There was no "better network" or other venue willing to pony up the kind of money the studio required to make a Star Trek series work - especially not one that had spent a season catering to hard-core fans without building any new audience whatever. End of story.

Well, at least ending oldTrek gave them the opportunity to recreate the Franchise along lines that work for the movie-going public today.

 

[horatio83]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Business people are not some kind of infallible semi-gods. They are, due to imperfect incentive contracts, often focused too much on the short-run. Take the cancellation of TOS, as the product is still sold fourty years later and even invested into (TOS-R) the decision was obviously a mistake (on the other hand and unlike ENT TOS became worse in its last year which was only partly due to the self-fulfilling prophecy nature of the smaller budget). Or take Firefly, clearly a good series. If the folks who made the decision had watched the stuff themselves instead of relying merely on ratings they might have noticed that they have gold in their hands. Nowadays there are plenty of ways to distribute your stuff not immediately but later, e.g. via DVDs, streaming and so on.
Furthermore your notion that only something that a lot of people wanna see is a good movie or TV series is pretty dubious. I usually judge something based on whether I like it, not on whether everybody else likes it.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

From the time of renewal for the fourth season, the studio knew that it was almost certainly the end. So did Berman and Braga. It wasn't even a secret on the Internet.

Can you provide anything that has official proof of this? So far it seems to have been only internet speculation (if not outright gossip) by Trek fans.

 

[Sindatur]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Business people are not some kind of infallible semi-gods. They are, due to imperfect incentive contracts, often focused too much on the short-run. Take the cancellation of TOS, as the product is still sold fourty years later and even invested into (TOS-R) the decision was obviously a mistake (on the other hand and unlike ENT TOS became worse in its last year which was only partly due to the self-fulfilling prophecy nature of the smaller budget). Or take Firefly, clearly a good series. If the folks who made the decision had watched the stuff themselves instead of relying merely on ratings they might have noticed that they have gold in their hands. Nowadays there are plenty of ways to distribute your stuff not immediately but later, e.g. via DVDs, streaming and so on.
Furthermore your notion that only something that a lot of people wanna see is a good movie or TV series is pretty dubious. I usually judge something based on whether I like it, not on whether everybody else likes it.

Ah...but...if the rug hadn't been pulled out from under TOS, if it had run another year or two and conitnued declining in quality, who's to say the fanbase swell that resulted in the decades of Syndication and the Theatrical movies would've occurred? Maybe by cancelling TOS when they did, Paramount set light to the Fanbase cries for continuation, maybe that wouldn't have happened 2 years later, so maybe cancelling TOS was exactly the thing the created a marketplace for it 40+ years later

 

[horatio83]

Re: This is why there will be no new TV Trek for the forseeable future

Indeed, there is a bit of 'die early if you wanna become a legend' to TOS. If it had run for another year it might have never been resurrected.