News Billingsley: Why Star Trek: Enterprise Failed

[DarKush]

Janeway definitely felt as though she'd earned the rank and position.


They could've made him the Boomer (since it was wasted on Mayweather), born and raised in space, so he's got plenty of light-years under his belt and a freer/looser notion of how to get things done--so he could have a more swashbuckling charm to him (something a young Jim Kirk might've looked up at and aspired too decades later).


More focus on the growth of the friendship and his growing to trust Vulcans would've been a far better route to take their story, going from butting heads and disagreeing over how to approach situations, then on to a grudging respect before finally trusting and liking one another. Far more mileage in that rather than Archer just being horny.


A great idea that could've been explored in the 5th season, with all that's happened to him, is he still considered human and what fall out that might have for the ship/Starfleet--could've been a great way to keep Terra Prime in the background as a thorn in their side.


I LOVE Year One!!! A grander scale, jumping across several ships and locations, with a wider array of characters, exploring the beginning of the Federation would've been my pitch for the show.

Archer as a Boomer reminds me of an idea I had when I used to play around with redoing ENT. My take on it though was that Archer was a former military man who is now a Boomer. I would keep Mayweather though, and have both Boomers on the ship.

I wish they had went with a Year One type show because if they didn't want to do the Earth-Romulan War why set up a prequel series that takes place several years before that war? There's very little really that would've needed to be changed with ENT as if if they had just set the series after the founding of the Federation. They might have to change the name of the NX-01, then again, maybe not. The whole it was the Earth starship Enterprise versus the Federation starships Enterprise could still exist. Just make the NX-01 an older ship by the time of the founding, like it turned out to be anyway.

 

[yotsuya]

I think the series needed something. It felt like we jumped back in time, but nothing had changed in story telling or feel. I still have not watched all of it. What I have was good, but not outstanding.

 

[Dryson]

The number one reason why Enterprise was cancelled and had a low viewing audience was due to the attacks on 9.11.01.

On Sept. 26, 2001, 15 days after 9.11.01, the first episode of Enterprise aired. I can remember the ads for the show on T.V. and planned on watching it.

But when the Twin Towers were attacked, the world's focus became the attack on the U.S.

Enterprise rode the storm for as long as she could. Now that the war is over with, the lights should be coming on inside of the Enterprise NX-01.

 

[cooleddie74]

 

[XCV330]

The number one reason why Enterprise was cancelled and had a low viewing audience was due to the attacks on 9.11.01.

On Sept. 26, 2001, 15 days after 9.11.01, the first episode of Enterprise aired. I can remember the ads for the show on T.V. and planned on watching it.

But when the Twin Towers were attacked, the world's focus became the attack on the U.S.

Enterprise rode the storm for as long as she could. Now that the war is over with, the lights should be coming on inside of the Enterprise NX-01.

That's why all shows that were on broadcast tv at that time ended in October and the airwaves have been dead ever since. Seasons 2-4 of Enterprise, are of course a myth caused the UV rays reflected from our food holes to the fillings in our teeth up into our thinking organ that uses light photons against our neurons to think we saw something.

 

[cooleddie74]

Wait.

Les Moonves was connected to international terror?

 

[XCV330]

Wait.

Les Moonves was connected to international terror?

That CBS eye did always seem kind of ominous

 

[cooleddie74]

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[BillJ]

The number one reason why Enterprise was cancelled and had a low viewing audience was due to the attacks on 9.11.01.

On Sept. 26, 2001, 15 days after 9.11.01, the first episode of Enterprise aired. I can remember the ads for the show on T.V. and planned on watching it.

But when the Twin Towers were attacked, the world's focus became the attack on the U.S.

Enterprise rode the storm for as long as she could. Now that the war is over with, the lights should be coming on inside of the Enterprise NX-01.

Thirteen million people watched the premiere on UPN. UPN! No one forgot to watch it after 9/11.

 

[cooleddie74]

Clearly the Temporal Cold War changed the Nielsen ratings. Dammit. Foiled again by Future Guy and his diabolical schemes to destroy us all.

 

[Captain Crow]

The number one reason why Enterprise was cancelled and had a low viewing audience was due to the attacks on 9.11.01.

On Sept. 26, 2001, 15 days after 9.11.01, the first episode of Enterprise aired. I can remember the ads for the show on T.V. and planned on watching it.

But when the Twin Towers were attacked, the world's focus became the attack on the U.S.

Enterprise rode the storm for as long as she could. Now that the war is over with, the lights should be coming on inside of the Enterprise NX-01.

 

[Dryson]

Yes, I am correct. After 9.11.01 viewing not only for Enterprise, but other shows fell off in ratings due to more people watching the news to understand why, by whom and what the U.S. was going to do in response.

Franchise fatigue didn't help either. Not to mention Y2K had been used to scare a lot of people away from technologically progressive or shows that support computers over human operations of machines.

https://www-syfy-com.cdn.ampproject...w.syfy.com/syfywire/star_trek_producer_reveal

 

[1001001]

Hard to fight against 9/11 AND Y2K.

Poor ENT never stood a chance...

 

[BillJ]

Yes, I am correct. After 9.11.01 viewing not only for Enterprise, but other shows fell off in ratings due to more people watching the news to understand why, by whom and what the U.S. was going to do in response.

Franchise fatigue didn't help either. Not to mention Y2K had been used to scare a lot of people away from technologically progressive or shows that support computers over human operations of machines.

https://www-syfy-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.syfy.com/syfywire/star_trek_producer_reveal?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&amp&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA==#aoh=16137352483185&referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star_trek_producer_reveal

Thirteen million people watched "Broken Bow" in the US.

 

[Captain Crow]

Yes, I am correct.

You're peddling scapegoat nonsense.

Neither 9/11 or Y2K had anything to do with the show's failure.

 

[cooleddie74]

When Mike Nelson tells you you're wrong it's time to concede and slink off.

 

[STEPhon IT]

ENT had its work cut out for it because it had to carry the baggage already developed many times over from previous Treks. It would've been better if the series had a clean slate by leaving the established aliens out but the producers made the dumb decision by making "First Contact" it's ground zero to start the series. That paved the way of bringing in the Borg and Section 31 and other needless things instead of rooting itself to a transition to TOS. ENT failed because it refused to be it's own thing but just another tired spinoff.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Don't discount that the show was on a puny little slip of a network wannabe that limited what the producers wanted to do, so hampered them creatively from the get-go. (And if you've read my posts, you know I am not a fan of the Beebs.)

Plus the demographics of like every other show the puny networklet had was nothing near what ENT could credibly attract, so the ratings were not what the show could have garnered if it had also been syndicated, rather than trapped on this piffle network baby that had a terrible lack of coverage in major markets.

And remember the show got pre-empted quite often by sporting events and whatever, so if you didn't know where the show's replacement slot was, you couldn't find it to watch it. I remember it showing up in the middle of the night on weekends. First-run episodes. No way to build an audience if they couldn't even find the show.

And the network hardly promoted it. Print advertising was really sparse also, from what I saw. And I live in a major metropolitan TV market.

AND DVR viewing didn't start counting toward a show's ratings until after ENT was canned. I remember reading that their DVR numbers were pretty respectable, because people were recording those shows that were preempted to Sunday morning at 2am, or wherever. (Sorry that I do not have citations, this was back in 2004.)

It was small consolation to see the piffle network die a year after it killed ENT. But all things considered, I would prefer to put up with sad little UPN and have 3 more seasons. Or better, 7 years in syndication, with more creative control.

p.s. I love how Billingsley swore like a stevedore! He's been in show biz for long enough to know his stuff about what makes a show go. The network interfered, the show didn't find its own identity till S3 or S4 (which happens a lot, see TNG) but wasn't allowed to continue after that, and that's unfair and tragic, considering that it really improved just as the piffle network was giving up on it and CBS's Grand Poobah couldn't wait to unload it.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Star Trek: The Next Generation had its own identity on day 1, and continued it's identity for Seven seasons; ENT never had no identity. It desperately tried to emulate the episodes' ending acts like the rest of those Berman shows and tried to bring in a flavor of war and hostilities which was on DS9. ENT never knew what it wanted to be and it hurt them, and the old "Studio interference" excuse is weak, as if studio heads don't have any part in a series' success.

 

[dahj]

Star Trek: The Next Generation had its own identity on day 1

And on Day 2 they did a remake of a TOS episode.