Memories of UPN?

[DeepSpaceWine]

I was wondering if anyone remembers UPN beyond Voyager from its original run. What did people think of this minor fifth... or sixth network (depending on which you rank higher)? What did people think of Voyager being on it as opposed to in syndication? Did anyone watch the network besides for Voyager?

And anyone remember if Voyager on UPN in their area then was pre-empted?


A brief recap:
UPN was around from 1995-2006.
In case anyone is drawing a blank, it aired:
Action/Sci-Fi Shows- Nowhere Man, The Sentinel, Legend, The Watcher, Marker, Deadly Games, 7 Days, Special Unit 2, Jake 2.0, Legacy, The Twilight Zone (v3), the last 2 seasons of Buffy & the last season of Roswell. And Enterprise, Veronica Mars.

Sitcoms- Moesha, Malcolm & Eddie, Homeboys from Outer Space, Sparks, Goode Behavior, Girlfriends, The Parkers, One on One, All of Us, Half & Half, Eve, Pig Sty, Platypus Man, Shasta Mcnasty, Hitz (Andrew Dice Clay), and 2 seasons of Clueless and the Dilbert cartoon.

and later reality shows like America's Next Top Model, Amish in the City, and some other crap.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

To keep my own reply separate so the OP isn't a wall of text:

I did actually watch UPN's infamous 1st Monday night lineup (heck, UPN's entire 1st year lineup save Voyager was cancelled). I can see why Pig Sty & Platypus Man were cancelled. I did watch Nowhere Man and liked it alot . Sentinel... only saw it occasionally and only because it was on the same night as Voyager. Didn't watch 7 Days. Deadly Games (video game motif, Christopher Lloyd as a villain) was an ok crappy show, but it had all the looks of a half-season show. Wasn't really a fan of Buffy, though I did see a few eps here and there. And the sitcoms, wasn't really interested in those. Legend had MacGyver & Q in the Wild West but I guess I was watching/doing other things those summer nights.


Overall, it seemed like more of my peers watched WB than UPN, and WB had a stronger lineup of black sitcoms too (WB had names like Jamie Foxx, the Wayan Bros, Steve Harvey, UPN just had Moesha and the oldest boy from The Cosby Show). UPN had a far weaker slate of shows overall compared to WB, heck, even compared to first-run syndication then. And in terms of eye candy, UPN did have Jeri Ryan (and Moesha if people liked her), but WB had Nikki Cox, Jessica Biel, Katie Holmes, the Charmed sisters, and Sarah Michelle Geller or Keri Russell if people were interested in them. WB had someone for almost everyone to over.

It seemed like there was only enough room for 1 other network, and UPN & WB ended up eating into part of the total audience they needed to be around more than 11 years. UPN did become the refuge for black sitcoms after WB got rid of all of theirs and none of the big 4 networks decided to make any more black sitcoms besides Bernie Mac, but most of the rest of their lineup seemed like syndication fare (which was very crowded from 1995-2000).


Voyager wasn't pre-empted in our area because the WB affiliate was the one that showed Cubs & Bulls games.

 

[antiquityscion]

ah yes UPN. Such awesome shows like Moesha,Guys like Us, The Mullets, Platypus man, Love Boat: the Next Wave, Shasta McNasty, AS If, and Amish in the City.

Please, if it wasn't for Star trek Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise carrying that pathetic network for 11 seasons, UPN would have folded after the first year.

UPN is a network best forgotten. There is only two worse in TV history: the WB, and CW!

 

[Jetfire]

I really thought things were gonna turn around once UPN got Buffy The Vampire Slayer...sadly no. In defense of the CW...it carried 3 WB shows into the present times...One Tree Hill, Smallville & Supernatural...Supernatural is still on and the 10th season of Smallville ended in may...OTH sucks now. I actually liked CW shows Life Unexpected and Hellcats...they ended too soon...And The Vampire Diaries...which is still going strong into a 3rd season. I am excited about The Secret Circle & Ringer for The CW. Sadly only 1 UPN show is still around...America's Next Top Model.

[edit] I forgot, UPN had Smackdown! which I watched.

 

[AuntKate]

The only UPN show I watched was Voyager (didn't get past the first five or six ENT episodes). It was a disaster for Trek because the network wasn't nation-wide. Several major markets never had an affiliate, and, in their awesomeness, UPN refused to let Voyager or Enterprise be carried by independents in those areas. Stoopid. I don't think many people even noticed when it finally disappeared from the airwaves.

 

[froot]

I don't think many people even noticed when it finally disappeared from the airwaves.

I know I didn't.

I watched UPN for new VOY episodes and, later on, for my late-night Trinity of Perfection: Voyager episode, wrestling (Smackdown <3), and Blind Date. Television perfection every night If I was feeling frisky, I'd even watch the infomercials afterward.

It really was a terrible network overall, though.

EDIT: Voyager got freaking preempted every other week here, though. Thanks, KMSP. No one likes you no matter which network you affiliate with.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Yeah, UPN seemed like a weak network once I was a little older and can scrutinize its lineup overall better. WB seemed better because it had more memorable shows, and it seemed to gets its demographic better. UPN seemed more like a crapshoot while WB seemed more organized. Maybe because Warner Bros is more competent than Paramount?

CW sucks probably because it got the chief of programming from UPN... late UPN. CW also sucks because it apparently thinks it can win with the demo of just white females age 12-24 despite competing against the internet for an even more internet-enveloped generation than any of us.

I've heard stories how Voyager fans in the Milwaukee area had to get friends or family in other areas to tape Voyager for them because most of 1998, Milwaukee had no UPN affiliate.


I have to laugh at the tv stations that wanted UPN over WB, and then during that recent realignment, chose MyNetworkTV over CW. If UPN & CW suck, what is MyNetworkTV?

 

[Kadratis]

I hated my UPN affiliate. Nine times out of ten, Voyager was always trumped by local sport games. They would show Voyager at 1-2AM in the morning. I tried campaigning the local CBS affiliate (who ran UPN at the time), to no avail.

 

[PsychoPere]

I will always be grateful to UPN for Veronica Mars.

 

[doubleohfive]

I remember the ads for UPN before it debuted and the irritatingly catchy jingles they had.

"We've put thirty years of television right there on your screen,
Comedy and drama... see what we mean!

Yooooooooooou Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Ennnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!"

They should have just called it "ugh."



EDIT: Christ on a pogo stick, I found it on YouTube! It even has the early promo logo for Voyager!

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGtjvCY9ejE[/yt]

 

[od0_ital]

Only stuff I watched on UPN were VOY, ENT & BtVS, plus the syndicated episodes of TNG (reruns) & DS9 (new).

 

[CoveTom]

^ TNG and DS9 were never on UPN in either original episodes or reruns. Some UPN stations may have carried them, but that was the local station buying the series. The only Trek that UPN ever aired was Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[Skywalker]

I found it telling how, when the CW began, all but one of its strongest shows came from the WB.

 

[tomalak301]

I remember the same week Voyager Premiered, Nowhere Man and Legend also premiered, kind of launching the network. Both shows had potential and I kind of wish they had lasted longer.

 

[od0_ital]

^ TNG and DS9 were never on UPN in either original episodes or reruns. Some UPN stations may have carried them, but that was the local station buying the series. The only Trek that UPN ever aired was Voyager and Enterprise.

KTXA21 out of D/FW was *the* home for Star Trek when I was growin' up. They aired the TOS reruns before TNG premiered, had TNG in syndication, followed by DS9 and became UPN when that network launched.

It was still the same channel, just had new letters in the name, and about all it was good for was Star Trek.

And Buffy, when the WB dropped that show & UPN picked it up.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

I hated my UPN affiliate. Nine times out of ten, Voyager was always trumped by local sport games. They would show Voyager at 1-2AM in the morning. I tried campaigning the local CBS affiliate (who ran UPN at the time), to no avail

I've heard that, many channels being bastards with rescheduling. It was annoying enough that it was disrupted, but to then have the gall to air it in some really odd hours?

Baseball usually pre-empted the syndicated block on what was the WB affiliate, but they were always nice, posting a ticker 1 week in advance mentioning what time next week the episode would be on. They aired up to 4 shows Saturday afternoon. Usually 1 show would air later Saturday afternoon, 1-2 shows would air a few hours earlier, like Saturday at noon or 1, then 1-2 shows would air on Sunday at noon or 1. I actually kept track of pre-emptions as a teen (I should see what % of eps were re-scheduled). It seems like that channel was the anomaly.

I remember the same week Voyager Premiered, Nowhere Man and Legend also premiered, kind of launching the network. Both shows had potential and I kind of wish they had lasted longer.

You need to reexamine your memory, because those 3 shows all launched on different days. Voyager Monday 1/16/95, Legend Tuesday 4/18/95, Nowhere Man Monday 8/28/95.


UPN didn't air TNG or DS9, but some UPN affiliates did. TNG in my area aired on the channel that became UPN and it aired TNG reruns before it was UPN and during the time it was UPN (to 1996 I think).

And yes, though CW was officially a merger of WB & UPN, it was clear that was PR to not hurt UPN's feelings. CBS owned UPN since 2000 or 01. CW just got from UPN Everybody Hates Chris (the only hit), Veronica Mars (dropped after 1 season), All of Us (dropped after 1 season), Girlfriends (dropped after 1.5 seasons)... and America's Next Top Model + WWE SmackDown (dropped after 2 seasons). They then got some of the 'wonderful' staff that ran UPN (into the ground, not that it was ever lofty before then though). I remember even at the time thinking CW was going to purge itself of many of those UPN shows. CW looked and sounded like a repackaged WB.

 

[tomalak301]

Well, in my defense it was 16 years ago. Give me a break.

Ok, so they launched at different times of the year, but I do associate those two shows along with Voyager when UPN was launched. Also, I thought Nowhere Man launched earlier, but maybe I'm thinking about the same week that Voyager premiered Season 2.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

I actually kept track of pre-emptions as a teen (I should see what % of eps were re-scheduled). It seems like that channel was the anomaly.

I checked. I was too young for DS9 Seasons 1-3 to have the notes, Season 4 had no episode premieres pre-empted, but Seasons 5-7 had 11 pre-emptions. 2 in Season 5, 4 in Season 6, 5 in Season 7. The final arc was really disrupted. Seems like Steroid Sosa really fueled those pre-emptions. If they were going to pre-empt new episodes, they should've done it for the White Sox. At least their slugger (Frank Thomas) was clean.

And they didn't air DS9 as a 2 hour event in primetime, like TNG had, yet Xena''s finale 2 years later was shown in primetime.

Well, in my defense it was 16 years ago. Give me a break.

Give you a break? Only if you break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.

And Nowhere Man did premiere the same night as Voyager Season 2. It also, quite unusually, had a 90 minute episode. Networks did that every now and then, more common in the '00s, though I know 2 Rockford Files episodes were 90 min ('70s), but for minor networks, that's unusual. SG1 "Threads" aired once at 90 min but all reruns and in syndication it was 60 min.

Voyager's companion shows were:
S1- Pig Sty & Platypus Man
(I think one guy from Pig Sty is on 30 Rock)
S2- Nowhere Man
(loved this pairing)
S3-4- The Sentinel
S5-7- 7 Days (Special Unit 2 replaced it in Apr-May 2001)

 

[m.lp.ql.m]

I only think 2 things:

1) UPN was such a stupid name for a network. It really sounded like one of those fake network names they'd make up for some movie so they wouldn't disparage/infringe on a real network. I mean, really: "IPN a urinal, sometimes a toilet-- what do UPN?"

2) They were the people responsible for forcing VOY to accommodate the lowest common denominator-- the big reset button, no continuity, no story arcs, etc...

 

[CoveTom]

KTXA21 out of D/FW was *the* home for Star Trek when I was growin' up. They aired the TOS reruns before TNG premiered, had TNG in syndication, followed by DS9 and became UPN when that network launched.

It was still the same channel, just had new letters in the name, and about all it was good for was Star Trek.

And Buffy, when the WB dropped that show & UPN picked it up.

Your local UPN station may have aired those Trek shows, but UPN the network never did. Any TOS, TNG, and DS9 you saw on that station was syndicated and that stations, individually, had purchased the rights to air those episodes from Paramount. UPN, the network, never aired any Trek but Voyager and Enterprise.