He didn't almost save it, he didn't even come close. Fans may have liked it better but the ratings didn't improve, looking at it objectively the final season wasn't even that great, it was just a lot of pandering and "OMG, references!".
Coto: Trying To Save Star Trek: Enterprise
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No, it doesn't. Maybe the first two but definetly not season 3 (and 4). Season 3 presented some of the best Ent episodes and some things we had never before seen in Trek, like one season long mission, (partial) nudity, a Vulcan on drugs.I'm surprised no one mentioned this:
When Coto arrived for work the first day, he saw Braga in his office. “Brannon (Braga) was in his office, standing at the window, smoking a cigarette and looking desperate, like everything was falling apart,” said Coto. “They were in a hole, script-wise, and I really got the sense that Brannon was kind of at the end of his rope, so to speak, as far as getting scripts. So it was an interesting sense of ‘Wow, desperation, this is either going to work well or it’s going to be a disaster.’ But I’ll never forget Brannon standing at the window, staring out glassy-eyed.”Doesn't that sum up the 1st 3 seasons of Enterprise?
Season 4 continued the excellence begun in 3 and in addition, brought the show back to what it always should have been; a prequel. Oh, did I say "prequel"? I meant to say "fanwank".
You make that sound like such a bad thing...Season 4 continued the excellence begun in 3 and in addition, brought the show back to what it always should have been; a prequel. Oh, did I say "prequel"? I meant to say "fanwank".
I'm surprised no one mentioned this:When Coto arrived for work the first day, he saw Braga in his office. “Brannon (Braga) was in his office, standing at the window, smoking a cigarette and looking desperate, like everything was falling apart,” said Coto. “They were in a hole, script-wise, and I really got the sense that Brannon was kind of at the end of his rope, so to speak, as far as getting scripts. So it was an interesting sense of ‘Wow, desperation, this is either going to work well or it’s going to be a disaster.’ But I’ll never forget Brannon standing at the window, staring out glassy-eyed.”Doesn't that sum up the 1st 3 seasons of Enterprise?
I really appreciate Manny's leadership...he almost saved Trek, but was brought on board too late.
If that's true it says a lot. It's almost as if they had the idea let's do a prequel show, yet they didn't really have an idea of how to do it.
Maybe he was glassy eyed because he had his future guy vision while taking a dump moments before. Spiritual experiences do make one glassy eyed.
Or maybe he was high.
Whatever, it's a weird comment because Coto walks into a room, looks at a Braga looking less than great and writes an epic tale about it. Guess that's why season 3 and 4 were so good
He was not the best captain.
But Enterprise IS underrated
But Enterprise IS underrated
He was not the best captain.
But Enterprise IS underrated
Do I hear a Janeway fan here?
No, he wasn't, but Enterprise's defenders always make me smile.
You make that sound like such a bad thing...Season 4 continued the excellence begun in 3 and in addition, brought the show back to what it always should have been; a prequel. Oh, did I say "prequel"? I meant to say "fanwank".
"Fanwank" seems a little extreme. It presumes that Coto was not really himself a fan, and that his only motive was to get fans to hand over their wallets by appealing to nostalgia. Larry Nemecek has said in interviews that Coto felt the cancellation at the end of the season was almost certain, and that this was his chance to answer lingering questions that he had about the Trek canon. Perhaps we could call season 4 "Coto's Fan Fic."
I guess one would have to define "best".
You make that sound like such a bad thing...Season 4 continued the excellence begun in 3 and in addition, brought the show back to what it always should have been; a prequel. Oh, did I say "prequel"? I meant to say "fanwank".
"Fanwank" seems a little extreme. It presumes that Coto was not really himself a fan, and that his only motive was to get fans to hand over their wallets by appealing to nostalgia. Larry Nemecek has said in interviews that Coto felt the cancellation at the end of the season was almost certain, and that this was his chance to answer lingering questions that he had about the Trek canon. Perhaps we could call season 4 "Coto's Fan Fic."
I think Coto just wanted to do trek right (which he most certainly did). The network wanted the season long arc, so he was a little constrained there (he was there for most of season 3), but really got to make his mark in Season 4.
Just wish he would have had more time to address the Romulan War. I'm sure his take on it would have been outstanding.
You may have been trying to make a reference to this already, and if so, forgive me for telling you something you already know, but are you aware that William Shatner was "The Chairman" on the short lived Iron Chef USA on UPN back in 2001?Always liked the idea of Shatner as Chef.
Wonder if they could build a show around that?
I think you may have missed the position of the "sarcasm switch" in my reference to fanwank. The point I was making was that MANY Trek fans characterized the show's prequel episodes as "fanwank" rather than giving credit to the show for being what it had originally stated it would be.
No, he wasn't, but Enterprise's defenders always make me smile.
You make that sound like such a bad thing...Season 4 continued the excellence begun in 3 and in addition, brought the show back to what it always should have been; a prequel. Oh, did I say "prequel"? I meant to say "fanwank".
"Fanwank" seems a little extreme. It presumes that Coto was not really himself a fan, and that his only motive was to get fans to hand over their wallets by appealing to nostalgia. Larry Nemecek has said in interviews that Coto felt the cancellation at the end of the season was almost certain, and that this was his chance to answer lingering questions that he had about the Trek canon. Perhaps we could call season 4 "Coto's Fan Fic."
And to answer ChristopherPike, referring to Ent's prequel characteristics as "fanwank" is bad because it trivializes and insults the show for being what it was supposed to be.
"Fanwank", "continuity porn", etc, implies that certain scenes or references in the show were there simply to make the long time fans go ga ga. The reality is that this is a totally unfair criticism and used, I usually assume, when one has run out of or cannot recognize, other legitimate weaknesses. The show was a prequel and as such, needed to explore Trek lore.
When the show didn't do this - ie, created the Xindi and didn't use the Romulans, fans groused about that too. This show had an uphill battle from the start.
I didn't miss it. I also thought it was an interesting issue.
Could part of the issues be peoples expectations.
They are setting the show a decade or so prior to the formation of the Federation. Fans perhaps not without reason are expecting a show about how the various races came together, the events leading up to the Earth-Romulan war etc.. The first couple of seasons didn't really deliver on that expectation
Now of course ST isn't the only show that doesn't deliever on expectations, but perhaps a contributing factor is that to some fans VOY failed to deliever on expectations. So when you have two shows which fail to deliever on expectations it can cause some resentment.
They are setting the show a decade or so prior to the formation of the Federation. Fans perhaps not without reason are expecting a show about how the various races came together, the events leading up to the Earth-Romulan war etc.. The first couple of seasons didn't really deliver on that expectation
Now of course ST isn't the only show that doesn't deliever on expectations, but perhaps a contributing factor is that to some fans VOY failed to deliever on expectations. So when you have two shows which fail to deliever on expectations it can cause some resentment.
He was not the best captain.
But Enterprise IS underrated
Do I hear a Janeway fan here?
Okay.. I'm gonna say it. He was the worst captain.
Now you can make a big deal about how he was supposed to be a terrible captain because it was all new, you know "we are not gazelles". But I don't buy it because he was such a jerk so many times in the beginning, he sucked. They'd been living with aliens for like a century, he should have absorbed a little something. But really you see it in the first episode when he threatens to knock T'Pol on her ass, a woman he's never met before, in front of his superiors! And the Vulcan ambassador! There is no freaking way watching that scene this man comes across as a good diplomatic representative of earth. He does come across as a little manifest destiny addled, you know in defense of how kept down earth was (all the while proving the need for this in his behavior).
He got his shit together in the Xindi war. He made friends with a species he had totally "othered". He learned to respect and desire the respect of non humans. In the end, he was a good captain. And being flawed, it makes him interesting even if the writers didn't write him that way and it's hindsight and fan affection on my part that sees him as deliberately flawed.
This^ (and the remainder of your post).
There were expectations but all of the cooks in the kitchen had all of their own ideas. And they complained, vociferously, when they didn't get their way.
This is also the era of the insta-pundit and the insta-critic. Used to be, you didn't like a show, you didn't watch it. You might even write a letter to the network, and then wait 6 - 10 weeks for a response that was likely to be a form anyway.
Now, you don't like a show, you take your complaints to Twitter. Or forums. Or Facebook.
A few have given opinions on how Shatner's appearance, as Coto recounted, might have played out and its impact on the precedence given to the actual crew in the episode(s), likely making them even more of background scenery than what is commonly judged as happening in TATV.
I'm wondering what thoughts folks might have about the impact it might plausibly have had on the ratings. Internet buzz not as pronounced in those days. Would Shatner's profile at that particular time been of any relevance? Perhaps only if the calculus in bringing him in, involved some hope of drawing a sizable number of non-Trek fans in the door with him. So, IIRC Boston Legal was ramping up then. I don't know if he was still a regular on the Priceline circuit. Maybe the timeline of his activities is moot, as his showing up on Trek at anytime would have been ubiquitous.
Anyway, a slight bump and short-lived at that? Even a chance of presenting and engaging a disenchanted base with a more assured and robust vision of the show's merits? Or, bottom line just a curiosity saddled to an already dead man walking, at most to be remembered as an outlier years down the road?
I'm wondering what thoughts folks might have about the impact it might plausibly have had on the ratings. Internet buzz not as pronounced in those days. Would Shatner's profile at that particular time been of any relevance? Perhaps only if the calculus in bringing him in, involved some hope of drawing a sizable number of non-Trek fans in the door with him. So, IIRC Boston Legal was ramping up then. I don't know if he was still a regular on the Priceline circuit. Maybe the timeline of his activities is moot, as his showing up on Trek at anytime would have been ubiquitous.
Anyway, a slight bump and short-lived at that? Even a chance of presenting and engaging a disenchanted base with a more assured and robust vision of the show's merits? Or, bottom line just a curiosity saddled to an already dead man walking, at most to be remembered as an outlier years down the road?
It MIGHT have helped early in season 4, and gotten people to stick around and see how much it improved. Maybe season 4 was a wrap from the beginning (why they let Manny Coto have his way)
really, if we could have had season 4 as season 1, it would have best helped Enterprise.
Yes it was.
For what I understand, the "internet" thing and trek on TV really got it's start with Voyager.
It was full fledged by the time Enterprise came around. A huge headache for the series.
Uh, no. When I first got hooked up to the internet in 1993, Trek was one of the major generators of discusson, fan fic, artwork, etc. Back in the early days of AOL, their Trek forum was one of the busiest if not the busiest on their network. Most of the talk back then was of TNG and TOS and the movies, of course. The defacto "mod" in that forum was a guy who called himself DATA1701D. That guy was interviewed on a T.V. news program about Trek on the internet.
Fan fic was practically invented by Trek fans long before Voy came along. Voy was simply the beneficiary (as it were) of what AOL and Usenet started, (as were DS9 and Ent) and the addition of more PC's and Macs connecting to the 'net.
And speaking of Usenet, that serrvice had a thriving Trek presence even bigger and older than AOL and the rest of the WWW. There were newsgroups dedicated to all aspects of Trek from who knows how long ago -- probably the '80's. Those were the original internet discussion forums.
To the o/p, yeah, 'net buzz was humming in Ent's last season. As for what was going on here; you have no idea, bro.
Riker, Troi, and Shat (had he been on the show) were never anything more than ratings stunts calculated to grab as high a share for TaTV as possible (and it did). And I agree with the o/p that Shat's presence would have further obscured the NX-01 crew's farewell.
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