Why don't the execs see it???

...the real reason for trek massive decline in ratings over the last few years.
I mean, its staring them in the face. Its the decline in quality. Sure their have been other contributory factors (more channels, more sci-fi etc) but when trek was really raking in the cash for Paramount, it was a quality well produced product with a winning concept.

DS9 kept the quality, but lost the idea.
VOY vice versa.

Now we have ENT, and the quality has been just terrible from the word go, with little sign its going to get any better. And yet, TPTB are doing nothing.
I don't imagine they themselves spend that much time watching TV, but you'd think at some point somebody in the upper echelons of that august organization would actually slip a few tapes in the VCR, see the vast differences between TNG and ENT's quality, and make some sort of causil link.
How can people who are paid so much be so clueless???

 

There's an old saying in the military, "Where you sit determines what you see".

 

I can only assume they don't watch it at all and just swallow whatever Berman tells them.

Which is just mind boggling considering how important star trek used to be to both Paramounts balance sheet and popular culture.

 

Yup, this is it exactly. It is all about perspective and why you see things the way you do. For instance, I separate quality into "production vlaues" and "writing" which are very distinct. The caliber of actor, the money per episode, and the effects have kept up and in fact gotten better. The writing side of things has TANKED since the end of DS9.

When you use the world "quality" you have to be careful to explain how you are defining it. I take your tone to mean the "writing" to equal "quality."

I would take issue with the DS9 comment, as the idea was very trek, but just not something we have seen before (i.e. real characters, war, and etc).

As for Voyager, it was a ship and exploration show with a great premise IMHO, but it just wasn't ever put together very well. It characters kept on changing randomly and its writing was just poor really.

Enterprise is suffering from the same illness as V'ger... from where I sit.

IT could stand to dump the TCW, get some real characters, and let the solid actors it has DO something other than play with dogs and take orders from teh 31st century.

 

You mean the same execs who felt the original 'Star Trek: The Next Generation" concept should be about a group of young inexperiened cadets in command of the U.S.S. Enterprise? (Hey, teens is space, yeah.)

 

With you 100%
I often admire ENT and think "thats well lit, that sets way better then anything on TNG or VOY" or "those SFX are the best I've seen on TV"
I can only admire B&B for having got all that side of things so TOTALLY right.
It seems more modern then previous treks yet more retro, a supremely hard thing to achieve.
But as a piece of entertainment....I can't watch it for more then about 10 minutes without drifting off, the dialogue, structure and characterization is just that bad.
And god knows, I dont want it to be, but there it is

 

IMO the writing side of things tanked in DS9 episode 2 onwards. Trek has been barren ever since.

 

ENT is a being of pure logic searching for its creator?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

^^, I agree with you here, the dialogue is really that BORING and predictable... I have never sat down and actually fallen asleep to any Star Trek episodes until Enterprise, as MUCH as I love Star Trek. To all others, i'm not being sarcastic, I'm dead serious... I have fallen Asleep. I was a little baffled after a while, but it seemed like the pacing in many enterprise episooddeeeees gettttts soooo sloooooooooowwww.. and the character dialogue is choppy and sporadic. ... the only other major Star Trek production that put me to sleep was Star Trek Insurrection because I just didn't care about the Sona.
But really, good writing can make or break a series in two, it doesn't matter how much special effects a show has or how many people slather up in the decon chamber, or how many aliens of the week we get to see... and most of the episodes (with the exception of: Silent Enemy, Dead Stop, Stigma, Cease Fire, and Future Tense, and Sleeping Dogs, and Fortunate Son (ok I liked that one ) in my opinon have been filled with terrible writing.

 

The suits don't see it because they've been to business school, which trains them to think of their products as a "brand." It's like Campbell's Soup is a brand. People will buy the cans because of the brand on the can, not because of the soup in the can. As long as you have something that you can pass off as soup - there's carrots, there's chicken, there's little spirals of pasta - it doesn't really matter whether these are good quality or poor, or if you have mainly watery guk with a few random molecules of chicken, because all that people care about is the Campbell's label on the can.

Personally, I prefer Progresso. Years ago, I can remember the massive difference in quality between Campbell's watery guk and Progresso's rich, thick, high-quality soups. So I started buying Progresso. Lots of people did. Campbell's suits wised up quick as they lost market share: shit! It matters what we put in the cans! Who'da thunk it?

Campbells came out with varieties of soup designed to counteract Progresso. Basically, they copied the competition and created high-quality soups and salvaged their brand which otherwise would have gone downhill quickly.

Unfortunately, the Paramount suits don't seem to understand that they have watery guk in their cans marked "STAR TREK." Either that, or they know they have watery guk, but don't understand why it makes any difference to the customer and why they're losing market share fast.

Maybe I should call up the CEO of Campbells (or practically any other corporation that's been through this "quality really does matter, idiots" lesson - Detroit automakers spring to mind) and have them give Paramount a lesson in How to Save Your Business 101.

 

I'm sorry, I don't mean to attack you personally, but I simply have to laugh when people blame Enterprise for their sleeping disorders.

 

LOL that's brill! Nicely done. Couldn't have put it better myself whan it comes to a business POV. Execs in other industries are hiring back thier talent (well, contracting really ) and firing those moronic marketing jerks who came up with the term 'content' in the first place!

It's not 'content' stupid, it's art! It might just be TV art... but good TV is why we watch!

 

Haha, no I don't have a sleeping disorder. Although, as a college student, I definently don't have a regular sleeping cycle... I sleep when the work is done!
I just don't like to be coerced to sleep when a television show is boring.

 

they cant see it

the lenses in their glasses have been replaced by dollar bills.

 

PeeWee's USS Lollipop

While there is no doubt that DS9 started the huge decline (and actually from start to finish lost more viewers and lost a higher percentage of viewers then Voyager). Do I think it had anything to do with quality. Well during the first season yes.

But generally, you do realize that Enterprise or DS9 or Voyager could be the best show on TV and still not get the ratings of TNG and could lose viewers each and every year.

TNG could have been a fad (like so many others that TV goes through) and its cycled could be long over.

While you don't like apparently Voyager or Enterprise I happen to like Enterprise. And while I didn't hate Voyager I was dissappointed that the show didn't impress me as a series. Though they had many episodes taken by themselves that I really liked.

And while I don't think Enterprise is close to the quality of TNG, DS9 or TOS (when those shows were doing really well, and I am not talking ratings) I find that I like Enterprise better then 1 season of TOS, 3 and a half seasons of TNG and 2 and a half seasons of DS9.

And I love the characters, more then I liked any of teh casts at this stage of each series.

I just don't understand how fans (and I know everybody does have different tastes) can watch Enterprise and then watch the other shows of Trek and turn a blind eye at the gut wrenching awful episodes that the other series have produced. I feel like people remember TOS (by remembering the good episodes from seasons 1 and 2. Or remember TNG for seasons 3,4,5, and 6. And DS9 for seasons 2, 4, 5, 6, and half of 7. They seem to forget the terrible episodes. I watch (I would guess about 20 hours of Trek a week and try to balance at least 2 hours from each series. And I do watch the good the bad and the average episodes. And while I have always said that Enterprise hasn't had a perfect episode. It has had (Percentage wise) fewer episodes I have hated then any series of Trek.

 

I agree. This is why I catch flack for turning the criticizing finger towards the fans. I really don't think alot of negative "fans" really know what they're looking for. I think many people either watch episodes looking to be critical, or judge Enterprise for the 101 things it COULD be and not what it is. What it is is an interesting little show. I think this line of thinking is fun for forums, but ultimately Trek suicide.

 

It's amazing you say that because the contrast is so... vast!! Berman says that the ideas behind Trek is getting old, but the TNG DVDs were released this year and I find that I prefer these 8-15 year old stories over the fresh and new ENT stories by a longshot.

 

I think this pretty clearly is the case.

 

^^^

Maybe so.

But with the quality like it is, we'll never be in position to ever know.

 

No one ever knows. If they did, they'd rule the entertainment industry.