Those are pretty much my sentiments. Outside of Star Trek and the general sci-fi community, most people remember TOS, TNG, and then "something that came after them...I think."
Do "Voyager" and "Enterprise" Get a Better Press?
- Thread starter TedShatner10
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Those are pretty much my sentiments. Outside of Star Trek and the general sci-fi community, most people remember TOS, TNG, and then "something that came after them...I think."
Voyager was syndicated in areas that did not have a UPN station. Enterprise was not, giving it the smallest distribution of any ST. I could watch Voyager in Kentucky but you never knew if it was going to be on a 1AM on Saturday or Midnight on Sunday or some other strange time. I't like the station was trying to confuse fans and make them give up on finding it. With Enterprise we never had a chance.
Anyway, to me Enterprise has gotten better over the years. I think the cast is easy to connect with and once you do, you are willing to overlook some of the problems with writing. Voyager is the opposite. The cast is so dry it is hard to feel for them.
With hypnotically terrible episodes like "Threshold" in Season Two, Kes being generally so-whattish, the cast not being fleshed out yet, and some of the rather bland, insipid ideas peddled by Jeri Taylor as a writer, I actually think Season Five and Six were better seasons than given credit for in comparison to S2 & 3 which had more than their fair share of boring clunkers in comparison to their gems (like "Distant Origin", "Warlord", "The Chute", and the Seska episodes), but Season One was fairly strong on hindsight as well.
I agree that Season Seven was generally a clunker, but the seventh seasons for TNG and even DS9 weren't very hot either. Voyager lost the majority of viewers in its first three seasons, so I don't think the later seasons were that bad in comparison .
I actually agree that the BBC handled Voyager and Deep Space Nine more competently than the fundamentally broken way American channels air their shows, which was why I watched the vast majority of DS9 and VOY episodes in my formative years. What is the fucking point of syndication when DS9, VOY, and ENT were shown at terrible hours in whole regions of North America?! No wonder American network television and cable (to a lesser extent) has been going down the tubes in latter half of the 00s.
And while having Enterprise shown on Sundays at T4 mixed things up a lot and it was laughed at by T4's "trendy" hosts, Stargate SG-1 (great) and Smallville (shit) both fared well enough for many seasons on T4 and I also watched the majority of SG-1 episodes.
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I teach average high schoolers. Most of them have NO idea what star trek is at all! I think TOS with its 60s karma and "Beam me up," has a place in the culture at large. Middle aged "average" people MIGHT remember there was a sequel (TNG, I mean). After that, they're all been forgotten by the masses.
If it's any consolation, half of students have NO idea about star wars, either. I get into Lucas and Jungian archetypes in SW, when I teach psych. and most kids don't have even the 2nd trilogy as a reference point in their heads. And poor George thought he was telling THE myth for our times. Sic transit gloria mundi.
On Channel Five when they showed Shark relatively recently, the announcer said "Yes, that is Seven of Nine!".
I'm one of the people that was turned off by all the bad mouthing the ENT got, but now that I've been watching the reruns on sci-fi channel, I actually enjoy the show.
I think Voyager is a far more popular and better recieved show amoung the mass public than ENT is. Seven of Nine is a huge icon in pop culture due the heavy promotion surrounding her. Due to that, it allowed more people to know of Voyager over ENT. I think the fact that the mention & image of certain characters from TNG, DS9 & Voy. have appeared on shows from "Buffy" to "the Family Guy" to "Dexter" over those of ENT. has proven they've cemented themselves in mass pop culture.
I agree with Ptrope, most of the press that Voyager and Enterprise was positive, I never read so much as one single letter of criticism by any fan towards either show while I was a subscriber and I cancelled the subscription because to me it was more of a spin machine written to keep Paramount happy rather than an interesting magazine for the consumption by fans.
To answer the last question posed by TedShatner10, I think that over saturation of Trek certainly played its part in eroding the numbers of general sci-fi and mainstream viewers to the point where the majority of the audience were mainly the core of Trek fans. That core certainly helped DS9 and Voyager continue on, but the revisionist nature of Enterprise' premise along with its poor and sloppy writing eroded the core fan base audience participation so much that the show only just scraped into season 4 and into syndication.
I completely disagree and with respect, the Internet was designed for free speech and the phenomenon you described was just a natural reflection of what fans thought of the shows.
Sadly I think much of this is true, I too found myself quite apathetic towards anything relating to Trek due to the creative destruction made to the franchise made in particular by the most recent show.
Personally, I have always believed that no trek is better than bad trek – far better to wait for a great trek show/film to come along rather than a succession of truly awful series/films.
To answer the last question posed by TedShatner10, I think that over saturation of Trek certainly played its part in eroding the numbers of general sci-fi and mainstream viewers to the point where the majority of the audience were mainly the core of Trek fans. That core certainly helped DS9 and Voyager continue on, but the revisionist nature of Enterprise' premise along with its poor and sloppy writing eroded the core fan base audience participation so much that the show only just scraped into season 4 and into syndication.
I completely disagree and with respect, the Internet was designed for free speech and the phenomenon you described was just a natural reflection of what fans thought of the shows.
Sadly I think much of this is true, I too found myself quite apathetic towards anything relating to Trek due to the creative destruction made to the franchise made in particular by the most recent show.
Personally, I have always believed that no trek is better than bad trek – far better to wait for a great trek show/film to come along rather than a succession of truly awful series/films.
Very interesting info; we have teenage nephews and nieces, and their idea of a classic movie was "Bill and Ted..." -- which came out the year the oldest was born.
High school teachers
I agree, it's kinda funny how little long term loyalty my high schoolers have for any band, movie, or TV show that is currently not being hyped by the media. Well, except Nirvana maybe. I saw two different kids wearing Nirvana shirts today. Maybe the world isn't totally doomed. They've already stopped giving a shit about Twilight and won't get hyped up again till the next movie. Star Trek and Star Wars is just the lame nonsense their parents used to watch. While I don't think anything has a claim to being THE myth for our times (probably an impossibility anyway) Star Wars definitely isn't it. Lost might come close. I'm genuinely shocked at how many of my friends really passionately want to know the secret behind the freaking smoke monster. Lost will be every bit as irrelevant to our kids as Star Trek is now, of course.
To everything there is a season.
Someone above posted that 7 of 9 is a huge icon of pop culture!! I guarantee you I could survey 100 people at random in my community and MAYbe 3 would have ANY idea what I was talking about re. "7 of 9." Elvis, yes. Star Wars, yes. "7 of 9"? uh, no. Wake up, folks.
Someone above posted that 7 of 9 is a huge icon of pop culture!! I guarantee you I could survey 100 people at random in my community and MAYbe 3 would have ANY idea what I was talking about re. "7 of 9." Elvis, yes. Star Wars, yes. "7 of 9"? uh, no. Wake up, folks.
Depends what on your definition of what "pretty well known is." I still disagree and stand by my 3% claim, but I would grant you "pretty well known" in comparison to, say, Kierkegaard or Slatkin (Felix or Leonard). No, as I think about it, I just can't give you "pretty well known" for Jeri Ryan. Shatner, yes. He's huge.
Not that she should care what I think.
And, by the way, on my second watching of Voyager, her acting and character are much better. Rather, I am able to see their value better. I was too ticked off at Paramount when Depends on your definition of what "pretty well known is." I still disagree and stand by my 3% claim, but I would grant you "pretty well known" in comparison to, say, Kierkegaard or Slatkin (Felix or Leonard). No, as I think about it, I just can't give you "pretty well known" for Jeri Ryan. Shatner, yes.
Not that she should care what I think.
And, by the way, on my second watching of Voyager, her acting and character are much better. Rather, I am able to see their value better. I was too ticked off at Paramount when VOY originally aired, for cheaply putting in a busty, eye-candy babe-in-a-catsuit. Time mellows, I guess. Be well. originally aired, for cheaply putting in a busty, eye-candy babe-in-a-catsuit. Time mellows, I guess. Be well.
They don't normally interview the spouses of the chefs on Iron Chef America, but they interviewed her when her husband competed on that show. This was within the last year, too. Part of the reason might be because she is part-owner of the restaurant, and no doubt part of the reason is that she's still really beautiful, but I think it's an indication that she is at least somewhat known outside of Trekdom.
Unfortunately it goes further than that. If you look over the official ST forum you will see that a few users have made a career out of berating people that go to the Enterprise forum and express a positive opinion. It goes beyond expressing a negative opinion. They don't need 20,000 posts to do that. Some people need to hurt and harm, to force their opinions on others, and to drove anyone away that has a different belief. The internet is a safe, ananymous place to act that way without suffering reprisal. That is why negative opinions on the internet are usually overemphasized. For proof, go browse the ST Enterprise forum and you will see the same few people trolling over and over and over. It must be a sad life for people that need to spend their days spreading negativity instead of hanging around a forum for a show they like but unmoderated forums like that drawn them like flies.
^ ^ Boston Public did not make the mention on the Bride's ad -- only her current show at the time and "Star Trek Voyager," the show that gave her notoriety.
JustKate, of all the chefs in the world, I doubt Christophe would have made it onto the show without people knowing his spouse.
JustKate, of all the chefs in the world, I doubt Christophe would have made it onto the show without people knowing his spouse.
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