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Brannon Braga on a possible Season 5 through Netflix + More...

Dream said:
We will get a new Trek show when CBS thinks they can make money off of it. Not a moment sooner.
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I would amend this and say not just more money off of it, but more money than keeping it a film exclusive franchise gets them.

Right now, for better or worse, they are of the opinion that having a TV and movie series at the same time is too much Star Trek and dilutes the brand, so they have reigned things in. If the box office earnings start dropping a little bit (not significantly which could kill things entirely), they may change their minds and decide to go back to TV, but I'm not going to get my hopes up for anything in the next 5 years.
 
Dream said:
We will get a new Trek show when CBS thinks they can make money off of it. Not a moment sooner.
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Oh CBS knows they could make money on Trek tomorrow. Between "Enterprise" on TV and "ST: Nemesis" stinking up the theaters they realise the franchise was so close to death it had an out-of-body experience. So now they are being cautious. They want to make sure the last Trek film wasn't a fluke. If "Star Trek Into Darkness" hits big and has legs then the genie will be once more uncorked from the bottle.

Rumors of a new animated series and a return to live-action television are already buzzing about.
 
The problem is that the series is at CBS and the movies rights are at Paramount. So CBS is independent from the movies, they can do whatever they like ... But Bob Orci said a few months back that if Into Darkness is a success than CBS might be opened for a new series ...
 
I'm hearing that there's a Facebook page for this? Some comment under Trekmovie's Season 1 Blu ray review seems to indicate so. Doug Drexler's involved, fresh from having worked on new BSG (straight to Blu ray) Blood and Chrome? I'm an infrequent visitor to social networking and all that... yet more login names & passwords I'm utterly hopeless at keeping track of. So easier to just ask a regular. Cheers.
 
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^^ Wow, that page is surprisingly active and 1500 likes so far? Not bad. Even if nothing comes of it, the cast and crew should be pleased that the fans are still here and still loyal to the series.

I wouldn't need an entire season 5 - just a one-off that single handedly wraps up the mistakes of the "finale"... something along the lines of The Good That Men do series, explaining why Trip had to hide himself from history for the greater good.

I have a feeling that this becomes less likely as years pass after a series wraps. When NuBSG wrapped there was this sense that more two hour telefilms would follow. All we got was The Plan.

ChristopherPike said:
I'd like to say there was, as I maybe would put some funds toward it... providing I got them back, if nothing happened. But realistically it's too expensive to produce Star Trek up to the standard expected, unless you're a secret millionare looking to hide some cash in a tax dodge. Veronica Mars, they can basically go shoot that out in the streets and borrow some real building for a few weeks. Starships cost money!

Trouble with the Save Enterprise campaign, which for me at least, carried on until at least May 2006 - when I mailed a printed document containing thousands of petition signatures looking for a Direct-to-DVD continuation of some sort - was it didn't really have any insider help. I stopped mailing homemade postcards not long after and gave it all up.

Then there was this site not connected to that, except through somebody else who used to post at the Trekunited forums. It's not been updated for years and is very much dead from the looks of it.

For a few years, this place I used to hang around at: Save Enterprise and Beyond

Hoping for a second wind thanks to Netflix is the safest way to hope for these things to happen, and I still wouldn't get your hopes up. If CBS wanted to produce a Star Trek show, whether its Enterprise or whatever... they'd just do it already. I dunno... I doubt differentiating streaming figures between this version and that one will determine where they set that new spin-off and what it's about. I bet CBS would look at Netflix's data and lump it all in, as Star Trek. :\

The 22nd Century would need to be the only game in town to get such a spike in interest noticed and that's not going to happen. Sure they could try some crafty tactics, like promoting it harder and displaying the 5 series in chronological rather than production, so Enterprise is always at the beginning of any list. Or the other way around, list the produced seasons with the most recent in 2004-5 at the top.
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Thanks for your post, ChristopherPike! It helps to know I didn't imagine the whole thing! And still glad to see TrekUnited.com still going. If there is even a glimmer of the 2005-2006 enthusiasm for this ST:E revival, it'll do well.
 
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I for one would love a Season 5 of Enterprise to return. Oddly enough, I hadn't sat down and watched a season-after-season viewing of Trek for a while, and when TNG:HD was put on SyFy here in the UK, I found the taste again. When I finished watching that, I thought to myself, "Yeah, I fancy some more Trek", and seeing that Enterprise was being released soon, I thought I should watch that.

By coincidence, it was only then that I found the campaign to get Season 5 on the air/web/whatever, I thought, yeah! Why not?

As I've been going through, I felt that it had a rocky start, but so did every other series! By the time Season 4 rolled around, the series had found its space legs and the show turned pretty good, and it deserved another season!

The only problem that I would have is that if there were to be a Season 5, would be the cost. I remember reading something a few years ago that said that each season cost somewhere in the region of US$32 million to produce - now you would have to figure, that amount today would be in the region of $50-55 million...that's a hell of a lot of capital to raise! Where would that money come from? ( and yes, I'm spitballing here, but for the sake of argument, let us take those figures as written for a moment)...I don't think Netflix would see that as a viable outlay. Even with external investment, I seriously doubt that money could be raised.

Don't get me wrong, I'd kill to get another season up and running - if I were to win big on the lottery, I'd probably be willing to front the series, myself...but let's face it, I doubt that would happen! :)

But I think there has to be one unrefutable truth here, if it were ever to get produced, there would have to be some SIGNIFICANT changes! Quality of stories would have to be greatly improved! There would need to be some fresh blood brought into fold. I wouldn't want Braga and Berman involved in the project. That opening theme would need to be dropped entirely and replaced with a new bold, adventurous theme tune. And to top it all off, These Are The Voyages... would need to have made workable in the context of the series. The episode can still be existent, but something would have to be done to make that episode easier to swallow...a tough task, but I'm sure it can be done.

If you can maintain that balance of high-quality storytelling and repairing some of the faults that led to the downfall of the show in the first place, then I would say you have a winner there!
 
ENT is perhaps my favourite Trek series but even if an additional season or miniseries were possible I would be against any necromancy. After a ten year hiatus anything new would be be made in homage mode. This atmosphere of living classics made the TOS movies so endearing but it wouldn't feel right for ENT.
 
TheOriginalGuru said:
The only problem that I would have is that if there were to be a Season 5, would be the cost. I remember reading something a few years ago that said that each season cost somewhere in the region of US$32 million to produce - now you would have to figure, that amount today would be in the region of $50-55 million...that's a hell of a lot of capital to raise! Where would that money come from? ( and yes, I'm spitballing here, but for the sake of argument, let us take those figures as written for a moment)...I don't think Netflix would see that as a viable outlay. Even with external investment, I seriously doubt that money could be raised.
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I actually think the cost of FX is getting lower, not higher. Also, look at the quality of the fan made Trek shows. The FX is nearly as good as if not better than some of the FX seen in TNG and these guys are not spending anywhere near the numbers you mentioned. I'm also sure Doug Drexler, Mike Okuda, and many others would volunteer to build all new sets for a new season of Enterprise.
 
I'm sure professionals like Okuda and Drexler, despite being fans, would never volunteer for such a production (nor would such a labor practice fly in Hollywood, I would think).

As for fan-made CGI, I have seen some impressive work, but never seen it done on the schedule of a weekly series, which is where the expense comes in.
 
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