I must say I'm rather pessimistic about the future of Trek as a whole. The last film failed, the last series failed, the one before didn't really end succesfully. And there is growing unrest and bitterness among the Trekkers themselves.
Let's face it people: there is a lot of competition these days when it comes to good sci-fi. Battlestar Gallactica is back, Stargate has a second show: other shows are rising and ST is going down.
Personnally I don't think it's that simple, just to blame B&B. Maybe ST does need a break. Maybe the creative forces behind the franchise (what a hiddeous word though for the wonder that Star Trek is) need to take a step back and think about what could succesfully translate something which a basically a 20th century concept into the 21st century one.
On the other hand: as I stated before, if you look at all the work that has been produced for Star Trek in general (over 600 45 minute episodes and 10 1,5 hour movies) it must be hard to surprise people. Star Trek is becoming old (40 years is a long time). Maybe it has become oldfashioned in its style, unable to spark interest among the more general public and even sci-fi fans. That is why I'm also not so optimistic about ENT's chances of being picked up by another network (although I'd be glad to be proven wrong on this point).
As much as I enjoyed ENT, I can't say that I was really excited about it, except maybe once at the end of season one and part of season 3. I loved it because it was Trek. I acted like a faithful lover almost. I've only seen ENT through illegal ways (downloading). The network here in Belgium has only begun airing last september, so they are half way season 1. What I've seen from season 4 looked promising, but I stopped downloading as soon as I got word from the DVD-release this year. Too bad there won't be anything else to follow in september, when season 5 would have begun airing. The biggest nightmare of Trek-fans has come true: the fate of Trek is in the hands of business men!!
