A Cause for the Decline in the Trek Series

[illfigure]

Hi. I'm new here so go easy on me if this has been discussed before.

TOS and TNG were set apart from the latter series in appearance by the color and lighting inside the ships. Both had brighter colors and lighting that left virtually everything on the screen illuminated. DS9, while having been constructed with darker materials still had a good amount of lighting. But Voyager and Enterprise has interiors so dark, after years of watching I never fully knew what the bridges looked like! I assume the decision to darken the lighting had to do with setting a different tone, but ultimately I feel it took much of the Star Trek feel away from the series. The TNG films also picked up on this theme leaving me with similar sentiments.

Anyone else feel the same?

 

[cwalrus2]

I think I know what you mean especially with ENT. It just doesnt make sense especially with that show since TOS happens after it. Was there a fashion revolution or something that made everything look brighter in the future?


I think they were trying to satisfy fans who were saying that TNG was too bright. DS9 stylistically changed things in terms of design but at least OPS is lit in the same way that the bridge of the Ent D was making it more familiar for fans towards the beginning of the shows run. I think the producers just wanted things to look different in the other series.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I think the Trek series declined because most of the people who watched TNG became bored with "Star Trek" after a decade or so. Period.

 

[illfigure]

Starship Polaris said:
I think the Trek series declined because most of the people who watched TNG became bored with "Star Trek" after a decade or so. Period.

I agree though I think there were many factors. Janeway was horrible. Nothing against a female taking the lead, but Mulgrew's complexion and voice reeked of cocaine abuse and that's not very becoming of a Starfleet officer. The theme song of Enterprise was enough to guarantee failure. The list goes on . . .

 

[JoeZhang]

because it was the same old same old - a man in a chair shouting "shields!" while rocking side to side.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

illfigure said:
Mulgrew's complexion and voice reeked of cocaine abuse

The theme song of Enterprise was enough to guarantee failure.

Believe me, if Enterprise had been really well written from the very beginning, with compelling stories and interesting characters, the theme song wouldn't have mattered one whit.

 

[Mysterion]

IMO, there's been a sense of complacency on the part of the producers of ST. They figured out they can just do "more of the same" for the most part, and have a built in guaranteed audience for the most part. Theory seems to have started to break-down during the runs of YOU and ENT, given the ratings.

Perhaps JJ Abrams new approach to known characters will invigorate things in terms of both the audience, and the creativity of futire ST projects.

 

[cwalrus2]

While agree with some of the sentiments posted here, i think the original poster was trying talk about the way ENT and VOY were dimly lit on the screen as opposed to TNG and DS9 (even though Ds9 deviated alot from the TNG approach).

 

[illfigure]

cwalrus2 said:
While agree with some of the sentiments posted here, i think the original poster was trying talk about the way ENT and VOY were dimly lit on the screen as opposed to TNG and DS9 (even though Ds9 deviated alot from the TNG approach).

Precisely.

 

[misskim86]

What started the decling of Star Trek was its unwillingness to progress in its story telling. When TNG started it became a great hit, mostly weekly shows with an alien of the week and some sort of reset button, but it still had some sort of continuinity with that we cared about the characters and such.

When DS9 came it brought Star Trek several steps forward with its highly serialized concept, what characters did had consequence, they introduced a big war lasting several seasons with incredible character developement and Star Trek development with things like Section 31.

Then Voyager came but instead of going the NEXT step forward or ATLEAST stay in the place where DS9 had put them in, Voyager took steps BACK with aliens of the week and a big fat juicy reset button in the end. Voyager essentially became a copy of TNG, which in 87-93 had been great but this was 95.

Finally Enterprise came and this was what broke the camels back, people were fed up with aliens of the week, new HIGHLY serialized shows started to pop up like Lost, 24, Prison Break, audience developed in their taste while Star Trek didn't in fact they didn't even try to go back to where they had been in 97 with DS9 instead they tried to be YET a copy of TNG, essentially a copy of a copy, but no in 2001 audience had matured, we simply won't go for aliens with a new clay pattern on their forehead every week with NO CONSEQUENCE.

Lightning, theme music, they're all trivial, what started Star Trek's decline was its inability to progress. I wonder if the producers even realize to this day that we're living in 2008 and not 1988. There is almost no high budget show developed today that DOESN'T use a serialized concept, Terminator: TSCC is the latest example.


And I know I will get answers from old timers looking something like: "You're wrong I like the weekly stand alone shows as long as they're good"

Well you know that's great that you do and I'm sure most trekkies(including myself) would tolerate a new show that was just as good as TNG but the general audience has developed beyond that concept and a Trek show today is doomed if it won't capture the attention of the casual viewer.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Great thread. I agree with 99 percent of it. DS9, was I think, not only the best TREK but was the cause of it's decline. Why?

Too much TREK. You can pin point the fall in ratings (which really started during TNG's fifth season, but became more so when DS9 came on) to the doubling-up of series. It did two things. It caused a division among fans as to which show was better (Voyager as well when it came on during DS9) and it also was just to much for the regular public.

As Kirk said, I think it was Kirk, "Too much of a good thing isn't always a good."

So...I pin point it to DS9. It was BERMAN ERA TREK's best, and I think, it's eventual kryptonite.

 

[Good]

Misskim hit the nail on the head. Remember that when Manny Coto started taking over ENT he really pushed the serialized episodes. This led to arguably the best episodes of the series. But there was still resistance from the studio execs who wanted standalone eps that could be easily syndicated without worrying about showing them in order.

The sad thing is that a highly serialized Trek show could probably work in today's market.

 

[USS Excelsior]

And now we have no Trek.

So maybe too little of it is no good either.

Wonder what the long term effects of that on Trek fans overall.

 

[illfigure]

I agree a lot with the last few posts. Too much of the same old. Trek continued to multiply but never evolved.

I compare Voyager with the show Sliders in that the premise had unlimited potential but ultimately the show spun in circles until it dug itself into a hole too steep to climb out.

When Enterprise came out I was ecstatic, being a huge fan of both Trek and Quantum Leap. But Enterprise never had "it." Bakula seemed neutered, the ship was dark as a cave and the bridge looked awkward AND there was nothing NEW about it. Nothing innovative stuck out. Lately I've been considering watching some Enterprise and Voyager to see if I can get anything out of it.

 

[Anwar]

Over-saturation and marginalization, mainly because Paramount came to see it as a general-audience cash-cow when it was really a niche-show that happened to be popular.

Trek has always worked best when it's not driven too hard to appeal to the mass-audience, when its left alone for the writers to do as they wish (as long as they're consistent) and its really made for its niche audience and just happens to also appeal to some more general audiences due to quality storytelling.

This may have started with UPN and their demands of how VOY should be used to gain new audiences, when they really should've just realized that wasn't how Trek worked; TNG's success was just due to quality, not because it appealed to the general audience from the very beginning.

 

[misskim86]

Good said:

The sad thing is that a highly serialized Trek show could probably work in today's market.

I have no doubt that if DS9 and/or B5 would have been done and produced today they would have become an incredible success

 

[startrekwatcher]

I can't speak for others but for me it started with VOY and continued for a few seasons with ENT.

I know many love to say it was due to a lack of arcs but I disagree. It boils down really to interesting characters and entertaining stories whether an hour or spanning several episodes. Both the latter series suffered from inconsistency in episode quality as well. All of this can be traced back to one thing-writing.

Did ENT improve dramatically with the Xindi arc and the trilogies in season four? Yes. Was it absolutely necessary to do arcs to make ENT great? No. If they had produced the kind of fun standalones like Fight or Flight, Shuttlepod One, First Flight, The Catwalk, Regeneration, Future Tense, Minefield. Observer Effect on a regular basis like TOS/TNG then no one would be complaining.

It was the same problem for VOY. The standalones failed a lot of the time because they were silly(Fair Haven, Favorite son. Q2, The Q and the Grey, Virtuoso), incoherent technobabble-laden messes(The Fight, Sacred Ground) or plain uninteresting centering around uninteresting characters(The Darkling, Rise, Nightingale, Vis a Vis, Demon, Unforgettable etc).

 

[Kegek]

Oversaturation of the market, gradual decline in quality, conservative approach to formula, and in the case of VOY and ENT, increased network interference.

That'd be my summation.

 

[WalkinMan]

illfigure said:
Hi. I'm new here so go easy on me if this has been discussed before.

TOS and TNG were set apart from the latter series in appearance by the color and lighting inside the ships. Both had brighter colors and lighting that left virtually everything on the screen illuminated. DS9, while having been constructed with darker materials still had a good amount of lighting. But Voyager and Enterprise has interiors so dark, after years of watching I never fully knew what the bridges looked like! I assume the decision to darken the lighting had to do with setting a different tone, but ultimately I feel it took much of the Star Trek feel away from the series. The TNG films also picked up on this theme leaving me with similar sentiments.

Anyone else feel the same?

I posted a similar thread on this years ago, titled something like "Colors of the Trek series." The color palette employed for TOS emphasized the then-new color TV abilities, and then TNG continued with brightly colored shows. DS9 is a unique exception which was actually quite colorful and dark at the same time. However, DS9/VOY/ENT started down the gray and dark path. When flipping the channels, VOY/ENT had a ship whose insides was less appealing, ENT especially but even VOY was not as nice as TNG.

In the end I think this was a symptom of other issues, but also possibly a cause of some people being turned off by the show. To me, it seems more depressing to be stuck on VOY for years with those gray corridors which seem cold and closed off compared to the warm E-D ones, however VOY itself was at least not too claustrophobic. Still I think the later shows could have benefitted from more color.

I pretty much agree with your sentiments, I would add that the E-E look worked for FC but for the later films seemed out of place.

 

[Tralah]

Totally agree with Kegek. In my opinion, they shouldn't have started Voyager at all while DS9 was on the air. After DS9 ended they should have waited a couple of years and assembled a new team to put together a new series. With some fresh blood, I think it's much more likely that we would have gotten a better Trek series instead of the same old same old.