Continuity between series helped Enterprise fail?

[horatio83]

ENT did not fail because of continuity but because of risk aversion on the side of the fans and the studio. Trekkers were pissed off that the show dared to deviate from familiar patterns like a piece of classical music during the intro, the studio didn't greenlight Berman's suggestion to set the first season partly on Earth and while B&B did good innovative work the show felt too often like an echo of VOY during its first two years. And in its last year, as good as it was, it felt too much like an echo of TOS.
So yeah, you could claim that ENT failed because nobody wanted to actually do or see something new.

About the Ferengi, there exists nothing but a log entry in the files about one among hundreds of alien races the Enterprise crew met just once. This very file might have very well not survived the Romulan War plus two centuries and if it has it exists in limbo somewhere in Starfleet's databases. It is certainly not something anybody would have actually read, probably not even Data.

 

[Yevetha]

We had seen lots of new stuff like the Temporal Cold War. It still sucked.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

To this day I believe (and always shall) that ENT should have been set after the Romulan Wars, with the Federation newly formed. DS9 dealt with war for two years, VOY was shooting up the DQ, so the new series should have been about building the peace and venturing out into a different universe, whilst the mixed crew have to learn how to get along together onboard the same ships for the first time.

In my mind, it would have made for far more interesting inter-personal relationships, and include characters such as Shran in the main cast from the beginning.

Of course, a new actor to play the Captain, someone who wasn't quite so bland would also go a long way to making for a stronger series.

But that's just me.

 

[Yevetha]

Of course, a new actor to play the Captain, someone who wasn't quite so bland would also go a long way to making for a stronger series.

Mirror Archer and season 3-4 Archer was more well acted.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Mirror Archer was the hammiest, goofiest acting I've seen on Trek since William Shatner was at his Shatniest.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Of course, a new actor to play the Captain, someone who wasn't quite so bland would also go a long way to making for a stronger series.

Mirror Archer and season 3-4 Archer was more well acted.

The series had a stronger direction, the writing got better and the episodes weren't as weak as S1-2, to me it had nothing to do with Bakula's acting ability, but everyone else upping their game.

I just never bought him as a starship Captain.

 

[Skywalker]

Mirror Archer was the hammiest, goofiest acting I've seen on Trek since William Shatner was at his Shatniest.

And it was beautiful.

"The bridge is yooooouuuurrrrrrrs...Captain!"

 

[bbailey861]

Even after finding its stride, I don't think it helped that Enterprise was on UPN.

 

[SFRabid]

While everything you state is true, the fact remains that TNG got supremely lucky by being syndicated instead of being a "network" series. I have my doubts that it would have survived past the second season had it been produced for, say, ABC or NBC. YMMV.

TNG is also lucky that it did not follow DS9. The first two years of TNG were really bad when put up against the last few years and most any of DS9. For some reason DS9 declined in ratings despite having great writing and acting. It makes you wonder if ANYTHING following DS9 would make it.

 

[Yevetha]

For some reason DS9 declined in ratings despite having great writing and acting.

I don't know why that happens to some shows. It happened too Farscape.

 

[MacLeod]

With regards to declining TV ratings, ratings were in decline for the most part across the board.

 

[Dukhat]

TNG is also lucky that it did not follow DS9. The first two years of TNG were really bad when put up against the last few years and most any of DS9. For some reason DS9 declined in ratings despite having great writing and acting. It makes you wonder if ANYTHING following DS9 would make it.

Yet Voyager "followed" DS9, and it was successful in the fact that it ran for its predicted lifespan and wasn't cancelled. And it was on a network as opposed to being syndicated (albeit a shitty network, but a network nonetheless, which considered VOY their flagship show).

And you really can't compare how TNG premiered in 1987 as opposed to how it would fare if produced after another Trek series later. At the time, TNG was the first spinoff of Star Trek ever, it had no other sci-fi show competition, and it was syndicated. Those three factors allowed the show to survive and prosper even after what I'm politely calling two "lackluster" seasons.

As a matter of fact, if TNG had been envisioned and produced just a few years after it actually was, the show would have been entirely different, mainly for the fact that Roddenberry wouldn't have been around to be given creative control.

 

[MacLeod]

You know I really think this thread should have been called "Continuity between series contributed to Enterprise's failure"

As the word "helped" reads as if they wanted it to fail.

Nitpick over.

Back to the thread at hand.

DSN aired at around the time there was an explosion in TV Sci-Fi so it did have quite a bit of competition as well as a similiar show in so far as it was set onboard a space station B5. (BTW I liked both DSN and B5).

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

TFor some reason DS9 declined in ratings despite having great writing and acting.

It bored people, which is why over half of the folks who gave it a chance at the beginning abandoned it.

 

[MacLeod]

I'd still rate S1-2 of DSN as better quality overall than S1-2 of TNG. But coming after S3-5 of TNG, which were more or less TNG at it's best I can see why some people might view DSN's earlier season as weak.

But directly comparing the seasons 1-2, as I said earlier brings DSN out on top. After all we remember the riviting S1-2 of TNG like "The Child", "Code of Honour", "Shades of Grey" etc..

 

[horatio83]

The second season of TNG was the last season with a 'lonely out there' atmosphere. Sure, TNG became smoother and more stable in quality in the following seasons but I wouldn't wanna miss episodes like Time Squared, The Royale, Where Silence Has Lease or The Icarus Factor which made the universe fell like a big place full of wonders.

 

[Gagarin]

^"Remember when we were explorers, Number One?"

 

[Deckard]

This is a fascinating discussion. To be honest I haven't posted in this forum for years and the times that I did I was always very, very critical of the show but I never felt that my criticisms were unfair or unjustified, but ENT frustrated me because I wanted it to be better than it was, I wanted it to really explore the premise and the time period it was set in.

I think the main reason for the show's failure (though to be fair four seasons does not constitute a failure to me, as most sci-fi shows then were lucky to get a single full season) was that it spent too long simply coasting in second gear throughout most of its run. Viewers are very fickle people and if they don't like what they see they will simply stop watching. I think ENT's first two seasons suffered from falling into the VOY pattern of telling stories that were designed to be standalones and therefore forgotten.
The third season was sold as being a year long story arc, in the vien of the more popular 24, the only problem was the story arc was never planned out and the whole journey through the Expanse to find the Xindi felt almost directionless. Season 4 was an improvement as it finally started to take the show in a direction that really began to exploit it's premise as a prequel but it shouldn't have taken four years for the show to find its direction.

ENT came at a time where viewers just didn't seem to care about Trek in general anymore and that apathy is going to damage your chances of finding an audience (not to mention keeping them interested). If I recall, the pilot episode "Broken Bow" had a pretty high viewership that simply didn't stick with the show and I think (and I could be wrong given that I haven't watched the show in years) that what may have turned people off was that they were expecting something different, something more accessible and contemporary in tone but after a few episodes of season one the show seemed to simply revert to type following the VOY pattern of "bland" episodes (only "bland" in my opinion of course) of the week and characters that it was hard to root for or invest in because the writers couldn't seem to develop them. You could easily replace Travis at the helm with any random crewman and it would not have had any impact the story being told that week (unless it was about Travis, but that was a very thing anyway).

For me ENT was at it best when it focused on the characters and not the story (the Trip and Malcolm dynamic was always fun to watch) but these moments were few and far between. Of course I'm not saying the show should have become a constant dialogue-athon where nothing happens plot-wise but too often for my liking the episodes had stories that weren't very interesting because too many of them seemed to have been done before on earlier Trek shows and the original stories they were telling just didn't seem that interesting because the execution was too familiar.

Continuity errors aren't going to lose you casual viewers (the execution and tone of the show would have caused that) but when you lose the casuals all you're going to be left with are the dedicated Trek fans and a few new viewers who liked what they saw and stuck with it regardless. The dedicated fans are the ones who are going to baulk at the continuity errors (criticism that I feel was justified in many respects) but the mass audience may simply have felt that for a show touted as a Trek prequel it all came across as being a bit too "samey". ENT never really felt different to the shows that were set in the 24th century (at least not until it's fourth season but by then of course it was obviously too late).

 

[Sindatur]

When I watched in First Run, I had my preconceived notions of what the show should be (IE: What we finally got in S4) and I absolutely hated the Suliban and the Temporal Cold War (Maybe because they were getting in the way of my pre-conceived notions being realized on screen?), plus, Scott Bakula as an actor has always just rubbed me wrong.

I'm currently doing my first rewatch, and I left all my pre-conceived notions behind, and didn't focus on my dislike of Scott Bakula, and I found I quite enjoyed most of S1 and S2 and the Suliban and the Temporal Cold War stuff. There were actually alot of strong relationships developed I didn't even remember (Phlox and Hoshi, Archer and Trip) and Mayweather, though he didn't get as much practical use as a character as most of the others, I did find him more developed then I remembered.

S3, I missed about half of in first run, but, I remember it was far more enjoyable to me, and I am finidng I am really enjoying it this time through (Up to 3.21 right now). Maybe because I missed so much, or maybe because I wasn't actively watching in first run, but, I hadn't realized how much Temporal Cold War stuff was also woven into the Xindi plot, and I'm enjoying seeing that advanced, and I guess I must've missed alot of the end of S3, because nothing I've watched since about ep 3.15 seems at all familiar

So, I've been quite happy with my rewatch and having so much new Trek (or at least seen with new eyes) to watch has been great.

I only saw about half of Voyager overall (most of in the first 2-3 seasons) and I don't have real fond memories of it, so, I'm looking forward to my first rewatch of it since First run, and hoping to be just as pleasantly surprised to have more new Trek to watch. I've Gotta loan my discs to my mom first (She's pretty much house-bound, so I bring her lots of stuff to watch to keep her brain active, She's got Stargate SG-1 now), but, it'll likely be first up when I get them back.

 

[horatio83]

ENT is more enjoyable when you watch it for the second time because only then you start to notice the subtle serialization, i.e. not explicit story arcs but themes, of the show.
When you see the show for the first time you are basically mad about the third season, believing that it should have come later as Romulan War season. But when you watch it for the second time you notice e.g. that Archer wouldn't have tried to unite the bickering species if he hadn't made his experiences with the Xindi.