Could Enterprise have survived with better writers?

[Vulcanian]

Enterprise showed promise. I am not one of the people who mindlessly hate prequels cliche. The problem was the writing.

It should have had a good writing team and a focus on the prequel idea (Earth-Romulan War and the Founding of the UFP). I did, however, like Regeneration and the fourth season. Just goes to show what it could have been. Hats off to Mike Sussman

Could Enterprise have survived cancellation and still be on today if they had the writers to do it?

 

[startrekwatcher]

Yes it could have. I don't have the hatred for B&B as many do but they really were burnt out in the first two seasons. They wrote or rewrote pretty much every episode.

The plots were bland or rip-offs, the characters lacked spark and the show didn't capitalize on the prequel aspects like it could have.

Season three was a step up from the previous two and B&B developed a storyline that actually was interesting and intriguing. The show was finally injecting some much needed mystery, intrigue, suspense into a series that had none. The plots were infinitely better with nice plot twists, surprises and tension. So much so that even though Earth wouldn't be destroyed, the writers did a good job of convincing me otherwise.

Season Four was good too. It was interesting because it did feel finally like we were witnessing the tumultuous early days in the Alpha Quadrant. The plots were entertaining and the story ideas were appropriate and worth the time.

I thought the Sussman was the show's most consistently good writer, the Reeves-Stevenses showed promise in their brief tenure. I never much cared for Bormanis' writing. Manny Coto demonstrated he was a better idea man than writer as evidenced in the few stories he wrote--Chosen Realm, Demons, Storm Front, Harbinger, Bound--although he did write some strong hours(Similitude, Azati Prime and The Council).

 

[Captain X]

No, it wouldn't have. Better writers would have helped, but some of the decisions (or lack thereof) made by the producers hurt them, and they were further hampered by interference and mandates from the studio. Once the changing of the guard took place, there was a change in attitudes in the studio, and even if Enterprise was pulling in twice as many ratings as wrestling was at the time, it still would have been killed because there was no support for a sci fi there.

 

[gblews]

Captain X said:
No, it wouldn't have. Better writers would have helped, but some of the decisions (or lack thereof) made by the producers hurt them, and they were further hampered by interference and mandates from the studio. Once the changing of the guard took place, there was a change in attitudes in the studio, and even if Enterprise was pulling in twice as many ratings as wrestling was at the time, it still would have been killed because there was no support for a sci fi there.

I agree. There were and are some well written sci-fi shows on that still don't get the ratings ENT did in it's 4th season, which was the most consistently well written and conceptualized of the 4.

The only way the show could have survived under Les Moonves was to consistently win, or come close to winning it's timeslot.

Better writing would have helped, as it would any show, but ENT also carried the burden of a tarnished image among Trek fans because of it's first two seasons. So many had left the show during season 2 that even when the writing did improve dramatically in 3 and 4, it just wasn't enough.

 

[Vulcanian]

^I agree that the show started off quite rocky with B+B.

It should have had a couple of seasons where they could have done what ever they wanted (include Regeneration). Then have the Romulan Wars multi-season and to end it all in the Seventh season with the Founding of the UFP circa 2161.

 

[Noname Given]

No. And contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that overall the writing or produce's decisions had that much of an effect overall because if you look at the series objectively - it was as well or better written then the rest of 'modern' Star Trek.

Hell, writing and decision-wise, TNG was virtually unwatchable and POORLY written to 2 1/2 seasons. Why did it survive to be the one Star Trek series with good ratings who started to GROW its audience in season 4? Because people had been WANTING live action Star Trek back on for 18 years (1969-1987; and I don't include TAS); so they were willing to let the series find its legs; and a new generation of viewier obviously enjoyed what that saw - and MORE of the geneal/casual type viewer caught the show and stuck with it for a time.

TNG was somwhat of a fluke in modern Star Trek. I say this becaause if you look at TV ratings trends; decil in Star Trek viewership overall STARTED with Deep Space Nine (considered by the majority of folks on this BBS to be the 'best written and produced Star Trek series); YET DS9, VOY and ENT ALL had similar decines in viewership (percentage wise) over each of their runs. Kell, at it's lowest viewer points (in season 7); DS9 got only 4.77 million viewers - YET NO ONE questions the overall writing or producer decisions (Hell, there's the 'Is Ron Moore Star Trek's Greatest Writer' thread up in the 'General' forum as I type this - and further, nu BSG, Ron Moore's 'baby' who most everyone still fawns over the writing has ratings so low that some repats of ENT on Sci-Fi have BEATEN it).

Yet, again, here we are with yet another thread basically claiming "If only ENT had been written better, it would still be on the air (completing it's seventh season as of last May); and 'Star Trek' in general would be 'going strong'.

Bzzzt! False! What killed ENT early (although I still fail to see how four seasons of ANY series in today's TV landcape can be considered a failure; (and again, I point to the often touted nuBSG - which by many here is considered a 'success'; yet it's ALSO ending at 4 seasons with 78 episodes - ncluding the two hour 'Razor' film); was the inverse of what kept TNG alive back in 1987. Namely, the fact that 'Star Trek' in some form had been on the air for 18 years straight (and produced 25 TV seasons worth of episodes equalling 600+ hours of television); and the general public simply got tired of 'Star Trek'.

Belive it or not - this happens. I honestly cannot believe that some fans think that 'As long as the writing is top noth, people will watch...'

Again, if you look at TV viewing treds - not true.

What killed ENT was the fact that Star trek now had 25 seasons and 18 straight years of episodes; combined with a regime change at BOTH UPN and Paramount/CBS that:

A) Felt Star Trek was not drawing the demographic the (now dead - or combined into the CW with the defunt WB) UPN Network was going for.

B) Felt that with 600+ episodes; the Studio could make MORE money just selling the syndicatio and product marketing rights - WITHOUT continuing to bear the cost of producing new episodes.

I LOVE TOS (in my book the #1 Star Trek series; with ENT a close #2); and can say without a doubt that overall, ENT was fairly well written from day one.

It's first season was MARKEDLY better then the first seasons on TNG, DS9 or VOY; and it's second season - which I agree had a run of some atroscious episodes in the middle of it was still better that TNG's second season; and about on par with DS9 - I stopped watching VOY entirely after it's first season so can't comment there.

ENT's third and fourth seasons were on par with the best from TNG and DS9 - and I would go so far as to say ENT's 4th season was the second best season of Star Trek produced in the 40 year history of the franchise (the best season imo being TOS' stellar first season).

So, given that the fourth season of ENT was delivering very good stuff (again imo); I hink it shows that 'better/sifferent' writers would not have made a difference.

18 years of constant Star Trek and the regime shift at Paramount/CBS did ENT in more than anything else.

Lastly, for those of you who might be asking - "Well, if that's the case; why did Paramount greenlight anothe 'Star Trek' film?"

basically, they didn't per se - they had a development deal with JJ Abrams; who came to them and said "Hey, I've always wanted to do a Star Trek movie and have this idea..."; which Paramount liked and decided to go with. If it wasn't for JJ Abrams, I seriously doubt Paramount would have even considered another Star Trek project this quickly - or doing one that goes back to TOS and revcasts all the major character roles.

But, I've gone off topic a bit here. In the end, to reiterate my answer to the question - given all the above, I'd say the answer is 'no'; and I even find the premise of the question wrong as overall - the writing staff of ENT was about as good, or better than the writing staffs of all previous modern Star Trek series.

 

[Anna Yolei]

I was about to say most of what Noname Given covered, but he did a much better job of it that I could have.

And as Captain X said, ratings would have gotten so far with an executive who's so ready to kill anything that doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator. "Reba" was the highest rated of ANY of CW's comedies (With over 5 million viewers, IIRC) and it got shitcanned for the fact that it didn't fit the image the network wanted.It's the same bullshit politics that got aging dinosaur Seventh Heaven a craptastic 11th season after being officially cancelled eight months before. Without making the post TL;DR, Les Moonves has a long history of arbitrary cancellation/renewal based on his own preference.

This show could have had Ron Moore writing and likely would have met with the same fate. The general public didn't give two shits about Trek anymore. I remember my initial thoughts on Enterprise when I saw the commercial on UPN were "Wow, another one?" I know I wasn't the only one.

 

[Vulcanian]

You have a point with all the shows in a row. Keep in mind that the fans rejected it, that's the reason.

It lacked the whole prequel element to begin with.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I doubt I can add much more than what's already been said, mainly because I'm an ENT addict. I wouldn't say it lacked that prequel feeling. It didn't fit fandom's assumptions about that earlier period for sure. There were also a huge number who simply didn't give a shit what happened before Kirk and Spock. The series didn't make matters better by refusing to suck up to TOS and appearing to tread on some pretty legendary toes. You name it. Having Cochrane originate the "Where No Man..." speech. Refusing to have bland portrayals of Vulcans. Daring to suggest there were elements of Trek history which fans knew nothing about. Overall, I was happy with large sections of ENT's first season. The exploration element felt completely opposite to Voyager's approach of blinding the audience with science. Reading forums like this, I'm beginning to feel it might just have been me. Although it's my favourite, beginning with Season 4 would've been an even greater turn off for a first time audience.

Sadly, I don't think anything could've helped ENT last for six or seven years... critically acclaimed writing or not. CBS were beginning to exert their influence on what Paramount did for television. It's something I think I'll always resent them for.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Sadly, I don't think anything could've helped ENT last for six or seven years... critically acclaimed writing or not. CBS were beginning to exert their influence on what Paramount did for television. It's something I think I'll always resent them for.

What if Bakula played Captain April commanding a boxy little ship which had dirty clunky technology that looked similar enough to the Nebakaneza from the Matrix or a WWII submarine, and Conner Triner played Security Officer George Kirk, and Linda Park played the plucky helmswomen who was romantically interested with an emotionally detatched April, and Jolelene was instead a Klingon Officer and double agent April had a thing on the side with when their ships weren't trying to kill each other half way through a big bloody war resulting from the disastrous first Contact MCCOY was talking about which happened 50 years before Day of the Dove, whose outcome looked dang bleak for the Federation that their children wouldn't have to begin learning Klingoneese quick.

O, and since it would be mostly a conscripted malitia swelling the wranks of "Starfleet" to fight this war, and well before replicators... No one has clean clothes or an complete uniform which hasn't been ripped stitched or accessorized with something which isn't thread borne, just like the poor bastards in the trenchs with no resources during all the classical wars or the second episode of Voy Year of Hell.

All the show needed was Drunk'n'disorderly sex, and drunk'n'disorderly violence... Especially from the Klingons. And they'd like to sing while they drink booze made form the blood of humans while flying their Starships into battle. I think it was pathetic about how sober the klingons were all the way through Enterprise.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

I'm a huge ENT fan, I loved the premise and the characters and much of the storyline (particularly seasons 3&4). I've often stated that the show's chief problem was mediocre writing in the first and (especially) second seasons.

BUT ... as much as I hate to admit it, Noname is right - even if the show had great writing from Day 1, the odds were heavily stacked against it. There just wasn't much public appetite for a new Trek show at the time, and you had the added problems with the network. So it was probably destined for less than 7 seasons regardless.

And I'll also agree with the point that 4 seasons is far from a failure - for most shows today that would be considered a great success. And yet some still refer to ENT as "the failed show" that was "cut short" etc.

 

[MattJC]

Maybe not a failed show, but it WAS cut short.

 

[Pensive]

It ran 1 more season than TOS... if 4 seasons is a failure, then what's 3?

 

[REDWOLF28386]

I don't think the writing was all that bad (TNG had some bad writing). The only episode of Enterprise I didn't like was the last one with the cross-over Riker and Troi from the universe of chunkie! The last episode would have been so much better with out the " holodeck history" sub plot. Now that was bad writing!(and so was R and T's ACTING!)
I actually liked it better than DS-9, and the first 2 seasons of TNG. I thought that the biggest problem with Enterprise was that the characters were too perfect and that the show should have dealt more with the Human/Vuclan relations and the Romulan/Earth war.

 

[Anna Yolei]

CaptJimboJones said:
And I'll also agree with the point that 4 seasons is far from a failure - for most shows today that would be considered a great success. And yet some still refer to ENT as "the failed show" that was "cut short" etc.

For most shows that don't have a 600 episode history preceeding it, it would be a good run. Comparatively speaking, not so much.

That being said, any other show with Enterprise's level of writing would have been axed mid-way through season one.

 

[Vulcanian]

REDWOLF28386 said:
I thought that the biggest problem with Enterprise was that the characters were too perfect

^ Actually I thought the characters were Enterprise's strong points. What do you mean perfect? That's what made them great! Look at Hoshi and T'Pol, they weren't perfect but awesome characters. Fans usually complain that characters are too perfect but ENT broke the mold.

 

[3D Master]

Vulcanian said:
Enterprise showed promise. I am not one of the people who mindlessly hate prequels cliche. The problem was the writing.

It should have had a good writing team and a focus on the prequel idea (Earth-Romulan War and the Founding of the UFP). I did, however, like Regeneration and the fourth season. Just goes to show what it could have been. Hats off to Mike Sussman

Could Enterprise have survived cancellation and still be on today if they had the writers to do it?

No.

Writers don't matter much to the whole deal. They already had good writers. The problem was the suits not allowing them to do a real prequel, just produce a carbon copy of TNG and VOY. B&B going, "Yes, sir, studio boss, sir!" of course didn't help matters at all. The result being, that the writers had to write more of exactly the same - which results in bad writing - but not because they were bad writers.

 

[CaptainHawk1]

The problem with the discussion that I see is that there is a tendency to combine two different issues. The first being why ENY failed and the second being what were the problems with ENT. The problem is that fans think that they are intertwined and this is not the case.

There is no way that ENT could have survived regardless of writing because it was on UPN and frankly the format was old. It's not even necessarily that the writing was bad (which it really wasn't for the first two seasons, it was just mediocre) but it comes down to the format of every episode being exactly the way TNG was in 1987 and every other Trek that followed.

It's not that the audience was tired of Trek it's that the format was tired. For a series to succeed it needs to change with its audience. A prime example of this is Law and Order. Current L/O is nothing like it was in 1990 or evn the mid to late 90's and this is by design. By the same token, the 2 spinoffs have completely different formats than the original L/O and each other.

Trek doesn't like change and another issue that they have is that in the age of 300 cable channels, they are seriously niche programming. Trek is not major network friendly anymore period and syndication for science fiction is increasingly questionable. For Trek to succeed in the future on TV it's going to need to find a home on a niche channel like SciFi and its sucess will need to be measured on those terms where getting 3 million viewers a week is considered a success so they'll need to tighten their collective belts regarding budgets.

So, I don't think ENT's success had anything to do with the quality of the writing because if that were the case CSI would have been cancelled years ago. Trek's just tired and a generation behind.

-Shawn

 

[CaptainHawk1]

Pensive said:
It ran 1 more season than TOS... if 4 seasons is a failure, then what's 3?

Bad argument because TOS spawned the franchise and was responsible for earning more than $1 billion gross for its movies alone.

You're not going to see those kind of results from ENT... ever.

Success is subjective and the number of seasons that a show is on shouldn't necessarily be an indicator of success to a franchise.

I'm a firm believer that the success of a series really is measured in how much it furthers the franchise and makes it grow. ENT not only didn't further the series but it was the final nail in the coffin for Trek.

Now, I'm not blaming ENT for Trek's demise, it just happened to be the last Trek series and culmination of limited successes that began really right after First Contact.

-Shawn

 

[Anna Yolei]

Vulcanian said:

REDWOLF28386 said:
I thought that the biggest problem with Enterprise was that the characters were too perfect

^ Actually I thought the characters were Enterprise's strong points. What do you mean perfect? That's what made them great! Look at Hoshi and T'Pol, they weren't perfect but awesome characters. Fans usually complain that characters are too perfect but ENT broke the mold.

...Hoshi who?

You've got a point that TPTB did at least attempt to make characters that weren't perfect and never fought with each other. Some were a bit more successful with the fans than others *Looks in Archer's direction*

Unfortunately, many of them were never utilized. Hoshi's bad-girl past came from one episode, way in season four, where the show was on it's last legs. It was...interesting to see this, but in the large picture, it accounts for jack shit. Given everything else we knew of her, it stuck out quite a bit to me after the second viewing of this episode.