Even the lows are ratings numbers most shows would kill for nowadays.
Robbed of Seasons 5-7
- Thread starter AdmiralBruno
- Start date
The problem is that Berman mushed Voyager and DS9s budgets together into a super budget, where he allowed for each episode of Enterprise (in season one) to cost 5 million dollars to make.
They needed super good ratings to justify that sort of money.
http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/most-expensive-tv-shows-ever.html/?a=viewall
They needed super good ratings to justify that sort of money.
http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/most-expensive-tv-shows-ever.html/?a=viewall
That's the frustration right there, particularly comparing Enterprise's potential with what Deep Space Nine managed to achieve. An emphasis on Cardassians and Bajoran religious politicking in early seasons.Then growing into the Dominion threat, with a side of Klingon troubles for a bit. All the while not completely betraying those early seasons. Enterprise could have blossomed exactly like that.
As it is, I still think there's a rich seam to mine in this part of Star Trek. But if it were possible to explore it onscreen, it'd have to run on parallel lines to Enterprise to avoid the taint associated with cancellation. Well unless you happen to be some big influential Hollywood producer/director the industry never says No to, with a secret desire to reunite Bakula, Trinneer et all.
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I agree with this DS9 did not have a 'epic' first 2 seasons either and Enterprise was beginning to ramp up quite nicely before it was pulled, I could see them being able to pull off another 3 seasons of Enterprise following the DS9 route with the Romulan War and the formation of the Federation. Plus with the improved CG and Hi-def film they were using at that point I think it could have proved more 'epic' than the Dominion war I mean remember what they accomplished in that episode in Season 3 with the beaten up NX-01.
I would've loved to have seen the William Shatner/Evil Kirk Creating the mirror universe episode. it was an interesting concept.
Maybe something like the reverse of TOS happened here. Fandom killed the series. I was thinking that if I am an example of a large chunk of ST fandom, then a big chunk paid very little attention to Enterprise. The reason for me, at least, was Bakula. He never fit. I watched it a little and was really turned off by Archer. He felt cartoonish in a way that Shatner's smooth hamminess never did for me. I was turned off as well by Avery Brooks, but not nearly as much, I must admit; Bakula is much more aggressivley a poor actor to me, Brooks just ultra-limited, but I had many other characters on DS9 to hold my interest. So where I could use a Brooks scene almost as a fridge break (oh with some exceptions, eg In The Pale Moonlight ending), I didn't feel I could ignore Bakula as much and still enjoy. Can't really call Enterprise rich in character at the beginning, where on DS9 you had Odo/Quark, Kira, Bashir, Dax (boring early on but there). Probably mostly Odo/Quark. 
Enterprise felt like attack of the slim and same people to me. Trip, Malcolm, and T'pol were sort of interchangeable. You know what I mean.
But, anyway, maybe the tv execs paid a disporportionate attention to a diminishing fan audience, and killed it on that basis? I'm suggesting that the opinions of fans like me were overemphasized in their minds, given the reasonably decent ratings.
Enterprise felt like attack of the slim and same people to me. Trip, Malcolm, and T'pol were sort of interchangeable. You know what I mean.But, anyway, maybe the tv execs paid a disporportionate attention to a diminishing fan audience, and killed it on that basis? I'm suggesting that the opinions of fans like me were overemphasized in their minds, given the reasonably decent ratings.
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even if we gotten three more seasons, we would've only seen the first couple of years of the war (unless there was a time jump), as well as the enterprise going under a massive refit. here's the image of it. 
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What's up with the Captain Archer hating? I thought Bakula was a great choice.
You want to talk about annoying characters? I hated Hoshi. She was annoying, and the idea of her being an Empress is laughable. Worst cast member BY FAR
You want to talk about annoying characters? I hated Hoshi. She was annoying, and the idea of her being an Empress is laughable. Worst cast member BY FAR
I think Bakula grew into the role, but it just took too long. By the time he seemed comfortable and the character interesting, the writing was on the wall that the show was going to get cancelled.
Let's be honest here and admit that all of the later Treks had some real stinkers, especially in the first couple of seasons. (I exclude TOS because, well, it was the starter and hence in a category of its own.)
When I look back on ST:NG's first season, there are many cringe-worthy episodes. (Angel One, anyone? How about Justice?) Even the good ones have lines that are headbangers. A friend and I, when watching the show, used to yell "Roddenberry alert! Roddenberry alert!" every time some alien called humans "arrogant" or some similar description. (I suppose you could fashion a pretty good drinking game out of this.)
I think fandom on the whole gave these crappy episodes a pass because there had been no TV Trek for ages, and were delirious at the fact that there was finally Star Trek on television.
The same is true of Deep Space Nine. Although I consider it to be one of the richest and deeply layered of the Treks (possibly due to the fact that Ron Moore & Co. were in charge), and although I think that The Emissary is one of the best TV pilots I have ever seen (the best was for the original American Gothic -- "Someone's at the door") the first season was hard slogging. There were a lot of episodes that just didn't gel for me.
As for Voyager ... it is my policy not to rain on someone's parade. I didn't like it. I watched it for 6 episodes and gave up, and every time I tuned it to see if it had improved, I would get something like the Salamander Love episode. *shudder* So I can't make any comments on that count.
But poor old Enterprise suffered from being aired hard on the heels of both DS9 and Voyager. Fans were sated and more inclined to pick nits. If Enterprise were to air today, exactly as it was then, I would almost guarantee that fans would give it more leeway.
And I have to note this about fans which might annoy some people although this is not my intent: fans say they want something new but really they don't. They want the same old, over and over. Witness the complaints about DS9 because it wasn't a starship. Surely the Trek universe is big and varied enough to accommodate something different? Apparently not.
And another note which may not go over well: Rarely have I seen such utter poison and vitriol washed across various forums as I did from Enterprise haters, combined with a naivety that was breath-taking in its lack of understanding of the real world.
The upshot of these posts tended to be that Enterprise was crap and the sooner it was cancelled, the sooner we, the fans, could expect to get a "real" Trek series. Of course, Hollywood and TV does not work that way, as history has proved; when Enterprise was gone, so was new Trek on TV.
But if network and studio execs were reading the forums (and I have no doubt they did, or had an intern or some such do so) they probably concluded that all the fans hated Enterprise (so vocal and persistent were the haters) and pulling the plug wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Add the fact that UPN was being run by idiots (I'm being kind) and the upper-ups at CBS had no use for SF and you have a recipe for cancellation.
A final thought concerning ratings: I was reminded that in many areas Enterprise was often preempted for sports events. People would try and catch it on later airings, but those viewings did not count towards the ratings. Neither were PVR views. So considering all the obstacles: poor network support; minimal advertising; scattershot scheduling and so forth, their ratings were actually fabulous!
Sorry for the long-winded post -- I start typing and I just can't stop myself...
When I look back on ST:NG's first season, there are many cringe-worthy episodes. (Angel One, anyone? How about Justice?) Even the good ones have lines that are headbangers. A friend and I, when watching the show, used to yell "Roddenberry alert! Roddenberry alert!" every time some alien called humans "arrogant" or some similar description. (I suppose you could fashion a pretty good drinking game out of this.)
I think fandom on the whole gave these crappy episodes a pass because there had been no TV Trek for ages, and were delirious at the fact that there was finally Star Trek on television.
The same is true of Deep Space Nine. Although I consider it to be one of the richest and deeply layered of the Treks (possibly due to the fact that Ron Moore & Co. were in charge), and although I think that The Emissary is one of the best TV pilots I have ever seen (the best was for the original American Gothic -- "Someone's at the door") the first season was hard slogging. There were a lot of episodes that just didn't gel for me.
As for Voyager ... it is my policy not to rain on someone's parade. I didn't like it. I watched it for 6 episodes and gave up, and every time I tuned it to see if it had improved, I would get something like the Salamander Love episode. *shudder* So I can't make any comments on that count.
But poor old Enterprise suffered from being aired hard on the heels of both DS9 and Voyager. Fans were sated and more inclined to pick nits. If Enterprise were to air today, exactly as it was then, I would almost guarantee that fans would give it more leeway.
And I have to note this about fans which might annoy some people although this is not my intent: fans say they want something new but really they don't. They want the same old, over and over. Witness the complaints about DS9 because it wasn't a starship. Surely the Trek universe is big and varied enough to accommodate something different? Apparently not.
And another note which may not go over well: Rarely have I seen such utter poison and vitriol washed across various forums as I did from Enterprise haters, combined with a naivety that was breath-taking in its lack of understanding of the real world.
The upshot of these posts tended to be that Enterprise was crap and the sooner it was cancelled, the sooner we, the fans, could expect to get a "real" Trek series. Of course, Hollywood and TV does not work that way, as history has proved; when Enterprise was gone, so was new Trek on TV.
But if network and studio execs were reading the forums (and I have no doubt they did, or had an intern or some such do so) they probably concluded that all the fans hated Enterprise (so vocal and persistent were the haters) and pulling the plug wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Add the fact that UPN was being run by idiots (I'm being kind) and the upper-ups at CBS had no use for SF and you have a recipe for cancellation.
A final thought concerning ratings: I was reminded that in many areas Enterprise was often preempted for sports events. People would try and catch it on later airings, but those viewings did not count towards the ratings. Neither were PVR views. So considering all the obstacles: poor network support; minimal advertising; scattershot scheduling and so forth, their ratings were actually fabulous!
Sorry for the long-winded post -- I start typing and I just can't stop myself...
Just to set the record straight, Ira Steven Behr was the Executive Producer and "in charge" of the show.
Ron Moore seems to get a lot more credit than he deserves for Deep Space Nine.
l stand corrected.
Actually this was rather perfect for me that he grew in the role I felt it actually reflected the character. Prior to the pilot Archer was a test pilot who suddenly became captain (I am sure that his father being the engine designer also played a factor) so in my opinion Archer was not captain material to begin with. As you said Bakula eventually got their but just as I would expect Archer to get their eventually to and actually become captain material.
It also did not help that the show was completely the opposite of what Paramount actually wanted so stuff got forced on to them, the TCW was the shows way to satisfy the futuristic trek that the network wanted, I also feel that's why we got phase pistols, transporters and EM shields so early as the network did not want something that retro.
Plus the network had no idea about a ST show, so there was no way they were going to satisfy the core audience when the network wanted stuff that did not fit.
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I think Enterprise was a good show at the wrong time. At that point shows needed massive ratings to survive and if they didn't then they were canned. These days shows can stream quite happily with what the early noughties would consider low viewing figures and be considered a success. I'm sure I read Daredevil on Netflix got an average 4 million viewers which, I think, was on a par with the average Enterprise rating. Shame.
Enterprise and Daredevil use different revenue models.
Enterprise needed to trick 12 million people of specific samplings of genders and backgrounds to watch 20 minutes of advertising, for those advertisers to give the networks 5 to 10 million dollars.
Netflix wants their subscriptions renewed every month. Every month they examine which shows have been watched the least and the most, the least watched gets cut. Globally all the regional Netflix outposts are not completely connected.
Daredevil is constantly at work, Netflix is thinking of a number of unique subscribers that have to binge on Davredevil every month or it's cut, and put on the shelf for a couple months to a year. Lets say that 50 thousand subscribers in the US have to watch a little Daredevil during the course of a month always, until the end of time, or there's no point is leaving it in their library for communal access.
Enterprise needed to trick 12 million people of specific samplings of genders and backgrounds to watch 20 minutes of advertising, for those advertisers to give the networks 5 to 10 million dollars.
Netflix wants their subscriptions renewed every month. Every month they examine which shows have been watched the least and the most, the least watched gets cut. Globally all the regional Netflix outposts are not completely connected.
Daredevil is constantly at work, Netflix is thinking of a number of unique subscribers that have to binge on Davredevil every month or it's cut, and put on the shelf for a couple months to a year. Lets say that 50 thousand subscribers in the US have to watch a little Daredevil during the course of a month always, until the end of time, or there's no point is leaving it in their library for communal access.
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Nope. I love Odo and Quark, but the rest of the DS9 cast was inconsistent. And let's not even talk about the variable quality of the TNG and VOY casts. Trip, Reed, T'Pol - and Phlox - were all very strong characters who are loved by tru fans. What you may not like is that the characterisations in ENT tended toward modern-day naturalism, rather than being grandiloquent robots.Can't really call Enterprise rich in character at the beginning, where on DS9 you had Odo/Quark, Kira, Bashir, Dax (boring early on but there). Probably mostly Odo/Quark.
To me Enterprise was the crew that grew on me the quickest, I had a hard time following TNG as all the characters had this 'prefect' air about them that made them un-relatable (at least it was to me), I also had that same feeling with the Voyager crew, which then push 3 of my least favourites into the spot light which made the series a complete turn off.
DS9 was a better mix for me as they felt more human to me than the any of the prior trek shows yet it took 3-4 seasons for me to warm up to most of them.
With Enterprise it happened a little quicker, I mean it was already set prior to TOS which meant that they should be at least the closest to what humanity currently is making them relateable to me but they also all had many flaws too which made them relatable:-
Archer - A bumbling captain who did not know what he was doing and having to make everything up as he went along, he was also resentful to Vulcans, I would not go as far as Racist as he was fine with many of the other cultures he met on Enterprise Travels.
Hoshi - Someone who was not originally confident with herself and was also quite jumpy.
Reed - Someone who I can relate to quite a lot as he has difficulty opening up to people (like me) he also stood out in as much as he was a military man who joined star fleet (a vessel who's main aim was discovery)
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