Enterprise or Voyager?

[timelord1010]

One of the biggest things to hurt the Enterprise cast is Mayweather. I don't understand how after three Berman/Braga series they couldn't write good stories for the character of Mayweather. I've seen Anthony Montgomery act in other shows/movies and he is pretty good actor. Also in the early Enterprise episodes Archer and Trip always seem to be yelling at whoever they are talking to but this calmed down in seasons 3 and 4.
Overall I like Enterprise and Voyager, but at this time I think Enterprise wins on the merits of it's last two seasons. Voyager had the character of Janeway all over the place. The writers couldn't decide who Janeway was and there were times when I felt bad for Chakotay. Some of Voyagers stories were possibly some of the best Trek ever but the uneven character of Janeway hurt some of these stories. In my opinion.

 

[OmahaStar]

Voyager, by a long shot. I think what people seem to forget is Enterprise was the first series since the original to be canceled, and it was done so for a reason. The show sucked.

That's just about the worst argument against a show I've ever seen. Just take the example of Arrested Development; one of the finest comedy series of all time, it was critically acclaimed and won many awards, but it was cancelled after only two and a half seasons. Cancellation and quality have absolutely no correlation, if they did then 95% of the shows on television would have been cancelled before their 6th episode.


I voted for Enterprise. Voyager had better characters overall, the problem was that very little happened with them, while Enterprise had a less interesting cast but allowed them to grow. Well, some of them, the best debater in the world couldn't make a case for Mayweather.

Oh? Was Arrested Development a spin-off of several earlier series? I wasn't aware of that. Please, list those other series.

Star Trek: TNG - Not canceled
Star Trek: DS9 - Not canceled
Star Trek: Voyager - Not canceled - With seven years per show, that's a total of 21 years without being canceled.

Enterprise - Canceled

Hmmmm, so I guess ...

Series 1 - Not canceled
Series 2 - Not canceled
Series 3 - Not canceled

Arrested Development - Canceled

But what are those previous series? Or did your straw man just crumble?

 

[SFRabid]

Voyager, by a long shot. I think what people seem to forget is Enterprise was the first series since the original to be canceled, and it was done so for a reason. The show sucked.

That's just about the worst argument against a show I've ever seen. Just take the example of Arrested Development; one of the finest comedy series of all time, it was critically acclaimed and won many awards, but it was cancelled after only two and a half seasons. Cancellation and quality have absolutely no correlation, if they did then 95% of the shows on television would have been cancelled before their 6th episode.


I voted for Enterprise. Voyager had better characters overall, the problem was that very little happened with them, while Enterprise had a less interesting cast but allowed them to grow. Well, some of them, the best debater in the world couldn't make a case for Mayweather.

Oh? Was Arrested Development a spin-off of several earlier series? I wasn't aware of that. Please, list those other series.

Why would that matter. It has no bearing in the point he made.

Star Trek: TNG - Not canceled
Star Trek: DS9 - Not canceled
Star Trek: Voyager - Not canceled - With seven years per show, that's a total of 21 years without being canceled.

Enterprise - Canceled

Ummm... no.

TOS: Canceled after 3 seasons.
TAS: Canceled after 1+ seasons.
TNG: Canceled after 7 seasons.
DS9: Canceled after 7 seasons.
VOY: Canceled after 7 seasons.
ENT: Canceled after 4 seasons.

Some people seem to think canceled after 7 is somehow planned, but we all know that the Enterprise cast knew going into season 4 that it would be the last, so maybe that was planned.

Hmmmm, so I guess ...

Series 1 - Not canceled
Series 2 - Not canceled
Series 3 - Not canceled

Arrested Development - Canceled

But what are those previous series? Or did your straw man just crumble?

How can you claim someone's point is a crumbling straw man when you cannot even count the number of ST series when building your own straw house? And why the seeming anger to someone's view that leads you to throw out a "straw man crumbled" comment? It's just a show? Watch it or ignore it.

 

[Anwar]

Voyager, mainly because I just don't like prequels.

 

[TheGodBen]

Oh? Was Arrested Development a spin-off of several earlier series? I wasn't aware of that. Please, list those other series.

Star Trek: TNG - Not canceled
Star Trek: DS9 - Not canceled
Star Trek: Voyager - Not canceled - With seven years per show, that's a total of 21 years without being canceled.

Enterprise - Canceled

Hmmmm, so I guess ...

Series 1 - Not canceled
Series 2 - Not canceled
Series 3 - Not canceled

Arrested Development - Canceled

But what are those previous series? Or did your straw man just crumble?

You're accusing me of a strawman argument after posting that?!

You're trying to draw a correlation between the quality of a show and its cancellation, I'm pointing out that there is no such correlation. A good show will often fail to find or keep an audience, and a crap show will often find an audience numbering in the tens of millions. I've watched 2 or 3 episodes of Two and a Half Men and as far as I'm concerned it's as funny as a bluebottle flying over a corpse, but for some reason that show is wildly successful. How in the name of the gods can a show like like that run for 7 years while a show like Arrested Development is cancelled because nobody is watching?

There is no correlation between quality and ratings success.


But if you want to keep this argument confined to Trek then okay, which of the modern Trek shows lost the greatest number of viewers over time? Wrong, the correct answer is Deep Space Nine. Then Voyager. Then Enterprise. TNG was the only Trek show to increase its ratings over time, and that's because TNG was made out of some kind of magic.

Look at the graph, by the time that Enterprise began Star Trek's audience was already down to a quarter of what it was in TNG's heyday. Star Trek on TV was already dying before Enterprise even started, and apparently that's because DS9 and Voyager were both rubbish shows.

 

[ALF]

Uh oh... there are links to graphs in play. This will not end well!

 

[Spork111]

Enterprise, because I liked the premise and the characters better.

 

[DevilEyes]

Look at the graph, by the time that Enterprise began Star Trek's audience was already down to a quarter of what it was in TNG's heyday. Star Trek on TV was already dying before Enterprise even started, and apparently that's because DS9 and Voyager were both rubbish shows.

Uh oh... there are links to graphs in play. This will not end well!

And the Internet has apparently realized it and is trying to stop us from seeing those graphs.

You don't have permission to access /wp-content/uploads/2009/05/startreknielsenratingaverage2.jpg on this server.

Anyway, "this show got canceled, therefore it is rubbish" is really one of the worst arguments one can make. Shows get canceled due to a combination of factors: 1) ratings (which are no indication of quality), 2) correlation between ratings and costs, 3) the station it is on, 4) the executives who get to decide whether the show is worth keeping, due to the first two factors - but there's no way that their personal preferences don't get into play. Ratings that are great or respectable for a cable or syndicated show will be seen as disastrous for a network. Sometimes a station will keep a show that doesn't make a lot of profit because it is critically acclaimed and it wants some respectability, sometimes it won't. And increasingly, ratings aren't really indicative of the profits as some shows don't have great ratings but do very well in DVD sales, online watching and downloading, etc.

A lot of excellent shows got canceled, including the original Star Trek - Arrested Development, Carnivale (it was apparently too expensive to make), Jericho (brought back for season 2 only because of a write-in campaign), Firefly, Veronica Mars, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles... Damages - critically acclaimed show that has won a bunch of awards, is getting canceled after the 3rd season. OTOH there are awful shows like Two and a Half Men that go on and on. And don't get me started on reality TV.

 

[TheGodBen]

Uh oh... there are links to graphs in play. This will not end well!

Well, the internet is Serious Business. I have proof in graph form!

 

[M'Sharak]

Look at the graph, by the time that Enterprise began Star Trek's audience was already down to a quarter of what it was in TNG's heyday. Star Trek on TV was already dying before Enterprise even started, and apparently that's because DS9 and Voyager were both rubbish shows.

Uh oh... there are links to graphs in play. This will not end well!

And the Internet has apparently realized it and is trying to stop us from seeing those graphs.

Copy/pasting the URL into the address bar did the trick, but you can look at this copy instead.

 

[ALF]

Thanks, M'Sharak.

^^ According to that graph, DS9's first two seasons are to blame for the decline.

But I'm certainly not blaming DS9 for Enterprise ending prematurely.

Or am I?

[closes door behind him quietly, tiptoes away]

 

[Saquist]

I can't believe Voyager took the lead after starting off against it 2 to 1

 

[6079SmithW]

Enterprise. To me, Voyager seemed too much like TNG in the Delta Quadrant while Enterprise was more in line with the TOS premise.

 

[euphorik]

enterprise.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Enterprise.

Thanks, M'Sharak.

^^ According to that graph, DS9's first two seasons are to blame for the decline.

But I'm certainly not blaming DS9 for Enterprise ending prematurely.

Or am I?

[closes door behind him quietly, tiptoes away]

What's more evident than DS9 being "blamed" is that the decline of the popularity of Trek followed a pretty consistent curve regardless of which post-TNG series you look at. Each new one starts off with a bump upward and then falls back onto that curve, which flattens out toward the end. It's not so much that DS9 or Voyager or Enterprise were more or less popular than one another on their own merits as that Trek's popularity waned at a predictable rate from 1992 onward.

People other than the hard core just plain got tired of Star Trek.

 

[Vasquez Rocks]

I like Voyager more because of the characters. Enterprise's cast didn't interest me as much and I only really enjoyed the fourth season of that show.

 

[I am not Spock]

Looks like, by the end, only the hardcore Trekkies were still watching. According to that graph, ENT dropped below two million viewers!

 

[I am not Spock]

A lot of excellent shows got canceled, including the original Star Trek - Arrested Development, Carnivale (it was apparently too expensive to make), Jericho (brought back for season 2 only because of a write-in campaign), Firefly, Veronica Mars, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles... Damages - critically acclaimed show that has won a bunch of awards, is getting canceled after the 3rd season. OTOH there are awful shows like Two and a Half Men that go on and on. And don't get me started on reality TV.

This. The list of brilliant shows that got cancelled goes on and on. Ratings has nothing to do with quality.
All that 'twenty million people watched Idol' proves is that 20 million people are content to watch rubbish.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Voyager Wins Hands Down!

1. Better cast or performances
2. Better ship that was unique looking
3. Better characters that were likable (I actually cared if they lived)
4. Didn't break major canon & start an online Trekkie Civil War
5. Believable universe or settings
6. Lasted seven seasons
7. Better Finale
8. The series had a goal from day one and stuck to it
9. Theme song was not painful to listen to
10. Seven of Nine was sexier and more believable than T'Pol

 

[Admiral Shran]

Voyager Wins Hands Down!

1. Better cast or performances
2. Better ship that was unique looking
3. Better characters that were likable (I actually cared if they lived)
4. Didn't break major canon & start an online Trekkie Civil War
5. Believable universe or settings
6. Lasted seven seasons
7. Better Finale
8. The series had a goal from day one and stuck to it
9. Theme song was not painful to listen to
10. Seven of Nine was sexier and more believable than T'Pol

1.) Both shows had an equally good cast/performances.
2.) I liked both ships.
3.) I know I'm in the minority, but I tend to like ENT's characters better.
4.) While ENT broke major fanon multiple times, it didn't break major canon any more than TNG, DS9, and VOY did.
5.) What wasn't believeable as opposed to VOY?
6.) Like so many here have already said, what difference does ENT only lasting four seasons make?
7.) Ok, I'll agree with you there 1000%.
8.) That did bother me about ENT, but not enough to like it less than VOY. And, VOY changed its premise at least once (though not as majorly as ENT) when they switched the Kazon for the Borg.
9.) It's certainly not my favorite theme, but I've never understood all the hate for ENT's theme song.
10.) I'll disagree there. T'Pol > Seven.