S5 had a better shot at happening than we thought...

I gotta ask... What vices?

 

I remember at that time there were a lot of rumors flying that Season 4 might not even had happened. Here's a couple of links from those times:

http://www.mania.com/scoop-scared-set-enterprise_article_40630.html

And a follow-up:

http://www.mania.com/scoop-more-enterprise-gossip_article_40707.html

It seems Les Moonves was talking out of both sides of his mouth with ENT and Jake 2.0. With this info, I don't think Season 5 was even close to being a reality.

 

What confuses me is why they couldn't have shopped the show somewhere else??

 

I agree. If you have something to say, say it.

 

Those in control wanted it dead.

Basically, fans should find Les Moonves' house, drag him out of his bed in the middle of the night and beat him with tire irons.

I meant that metaphorically.

I mean, it doesn't have to be tire irons. Baseball bats and two-by-fours would do.

 

From what I remember, it had a lot to do with production costs. The only other network that dabbles in sci-fi is FOX, which is notoriously trigger happy in cancelation (O HI THAR, Family Guy!). Cable networks are a bit safer, but usually don't bring in the revenue to support a show that at it's very cheapest ran 1.2 million bucks an episode.

That, and as the above poster mentioned, Les Moonves was doing his damnedest to kill the show anyway.

 

Something we might have seen -- a Doctor Who crossover:

Eccleston and Bakula chewing scenery together. Could have been interesting...

 

Because they just didn't want to at that time.

Part of the issue was the fact they had pl;enty to license in the Star Trek franchise; and new episodes were expensive to produce and did really add to the bottom line in that they were already making money with 4 shows in syndication (and 5 with ENT once they had close to the 100 episode mark). So, they figured it was a good time to stop.

Let's face it - 4 modern series over 18 years with a total 25 TV seasons of episodes is a darn good run. Nothiong last forever (and while TOS is still number 1 for me; ENT is firmly number 2 and I would have loved to see more seasons of it past the 4th - but I realize how the corporate beam counters look at things too).

 

UPN didn't do enough to promote or support the show. They didn't know what kind of network they wanted to be and Star Trek suffered as a result.

 

I love this post.

 

I didn't care for ENT for a long time. But, as always for me, after it was off the air I got into it. I now wish it had continued, just so we would have more trek. Now that I hear it was most likely becuase one person at CBS didn't like trek, that is...just...crazy.

 

This goes for Voyager as well.

 

I too wish I had gotten into it when it was on air because I would have sent 10,000 letters begging for it to continue.

So sad.

 

No it didn't. ENTERPRISE didn't fail because of lack of PR. The so called base, meaning "us", consists of more than 2 million people. It failed because even the base didn't even watch it; it failed because it just wasn't percieved to be that good by TREK fans AND by the general public. Kind of like that Nemesis failure, which some keep attributing to bad PR or being released so close the last RING movie. No...NEMESIS would have bombed no matter when it had been released; it just wasnt percieved to be that good either..just like Enterprise.

Rob

 

The studio was lucky to get four years out of the series and had no motive to shop it around - nor, at the kinds of audience levels the show was getting for the amount spent on it, would any other outlet have been particularly motivated to pick it up.

Slash the budget to about a third of what it was and the SCIFI Channel might have wanted it.

 

*shiver*

 

You're only half correct. The level of network tampering was obvious. It affected the quality of ENT,VOY, and Twilight Zone. It also affected Jake 2.0 and their lack of focus caused us to lose promising shows like Nowhere Man, Seven Days and Legend for the sake of having the WWF and America's Top Model.

Nemesis is a seperate issue entirely. Spiner and Stewart should have never had as much script control as they did and the plot had a load of problems. I don't think any PR would have helped that. Nemesis was a weak, but not horrible, movie. There were some pretty watchable bits.


ENT failed because:
Creative Burnout.
While the show had writers who had never written for Star Trek, the creative staff had clearly burned out.

Fan Hyperexpectation and dogmatic ideals.
People were expecting a certain design ethic and were hypercritical of attempts to break new ground.

Overexposure of the franchise.
The Star Trek team had repeatedly suggesting that Star Trek should take some time off before starting another series. Don't forget UPN didn't want DS9 and wanted their own shipboard show. And VOY was barely off the air before a new show was in its place.

Network Interference.
As mentioned before TNG and DS9 were syndicated shows and had very little interference from the higher ups as long as the ratings were ok. With the show being on a network, those expectations were different. On VOY their were a lot of dicussions about making the ship and interiors look like a familiar Star Trek show.. They wanted a young crew with sex appeal. Then UPN started shifting their ideas about programming and that seeped into that show.. Remember we had a WWF crossover??
ENT was intended to be more earthbound and UPN insisted on Phasers and Klingons and having the show be sexy. They would insist on episodes being more "Star Trekky."

Lack of Promotion
Beyond the pilot, there was far less TV promotion, although they did do a lot of radio. There were fewer promo ads on other cable outlets like Sci-Fi and Spike. Some people didn't even know the show existed.

Lack of Affiliates.
UPN wasn't available in every market.


Look. I didn't love every episode of ENT, but there were a lot of great episodes and I believe the series as a whole is unfairly judged.

 

Look. I didn't love every episode of ENT, but there were a lot of great episodes and I believe the series as a whole is unfairly judged.[/QUOTE]

That was a really good post. I agree completely.