So what killed Star Trek?

[Captain Robert April]

Also, high ratings don't necessarily mean that a network thinks a show is doing a good enough job. To give you an example, in the late 1960s, CBS dominated the Nielsen ratings, its shows consistently coming in at number one. So why did it retool its lineup in the fall of 1970? Because the people who were watching were over 40 and not that magic 18-? demographic that they feel has the disposable income to spend on the products their sponsors advertise. So a lot of high-rated shows went by the wayside because CBS felt it was reaching the wrong people. While Enterprise never was a ratings giant, it could be argued that UPN felt that it was drawing the wrong audience.

With the casualties of CBS' mass cancellation including Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and The Beverly Hillbillies, along with Gilligan's Island and The Wild Wild West going a few years earlier and Gunsmoke going a few years later, the running joke back in the day was that CBS cancelled everything that had a tree in it.

 

[RAMA]

Overexposure....also possible the ST "formula" or production pattern did not keep up with modern TV...which may account for ENT particular ratings downturn. Let's not forget that TV has had a general ratings decline...a 12 rating now wins timeslots, while in the 80s it would put you middle of the pack...so the ratings loss is relative.

RAMA

 

[RAMA]

Sorry, you're all wrong. Bad writing is what killed the franchise. Star Trek was almost dead in the early 1980's and then along came TWOK and put it back on the boards.

If your writing is good, they will come.

ENT last season was its strongest, and its ratings went down...so that doesn't explain it.

 

[Mach5]

Sorry, you're all wrong.

God I love it when people come to message boards and actually say this!

 

[Captain Robert April]

By the time of the fourth season, the damage had already been done.

 

[Skywalker]

The damage had already been done before ENT even premiered.

 

[Nerys Myk]

No thanks, its not a kids show.

I'm not so sure about that. A lot of kids watched TOS and I know I got into TNG around about 12/13, so why be so adamant about cutting off an audience with the potential to expand the longevity of Trek. The older fans are dying off and moving on. They need to replenish the ranks.

For a long time I've thought that they needed an animated Trek show. It could really delve into all of the cool aliens and worlds that we rarely see on Trek, due to budgetary constraints. Plus it could provide some cool action and fun and get kids hooked. It would be great to see Trek toys right alongside the Star Wars in the store.

And speaking of Star Wars, can you really say that Clone Wars is a kids show? There is a lot of killing on that show and even discussions of politics and stuff deemed too heavy for kids. I think it's a show that appeals to kids and adults. And that's what a Trek animated show could be.

A show that kids can enjoy is not the same as a kids show. I first watched Star Trek first run when I was seven. I rediscovered it when I was 13 and saw the reruns. As a middle-aged adult I still like it. Most of the shows produced by Disney for Disney don't appeal to me as an adult and would not have appealed to me as teenager. My goddaughter was introduced to Star Trek very young via Enterprise. She's now twelve and still a fan. She didn't need a "Kid Trek" or "Teen Trek" show.

An new animated Trek would be nice. Yes,one that appeals to all ages would be great. Not that big on post OT Star Wars. No idea what Clone Wars is like.

 

[ChristopherPike]

A quick update on the poll over at the Trekmovie.com.

Normally they don't run this long, but it's getting close to a week now and the site's owner must be on his hols.

Did Enterprise Kill Star Trek franchise on TV?

Yes (16%) 492 votes
Maybe (12%) 360 votes
No (71%) 2133 votes

August 25, 2011 @ 22.22 GMT

Total Votes: 2985

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

What killed Star Trek? Colonel Mustard, with the revolver, in the conservatory.


I think the general Star Trek narrative is flawed, the one that starts out with TNG as the milestone and compares every series to it. TNG had something special. It was mainstream and attracted a wider audience than Star Trek would normally attract (same with the movies). In other words, the size of the fanbase in the 1990s was not the audience size of TNG, it was part of the audience of TNG. DS9 & Voyager give a closer sense of the audience size.

There were complaints, mainly from DS9 fans, to have 1 Star Trek series at a time. DS9 fans have middle child complexes and feel ignored, think their series was the most ignored, pissed on, etc, when it was the 2nd highest rated modern Trek and Voyager season by season (3-7/1-5) had only 82-85% of the ratings DS9 had the same season. The advertising issue was due to a network (UPN) vs. syndication at a time when virtually all notable independent stations were gobbled up (i.e. you won't be seeing a Hercules or DS9 promo during a WB or UPN show). Oh, and at any given time (except for the rare instance here or there), DS9 and its reruns were always #1, #2, or #3 in the ratings for first-run syndic. dramas/action (i.e. anything but game/dating/judge shows).

But, these complaints seem weird because the Trek fanbase has been fractuous even back to the '90s. DS9 & VOY seemed to have little overlap (I seem to be one of the few).


Enterprise, its 1st 2 seasons really alienated people. For being a TOS -100 prequel, it seemed a little too advanced and was shameless in trying to resemble modern Trek- Ferengi, Borg, an effort to get Q, conveniently inventing a forcefield, transporters becoming very commonly used, Vulcans acting weird without the explanation "hey wait, we will show what's going on", same with Klingon foreheads. The writers clearly didn't respect the material. Then the Temporal Cold War had people intrigued, an X-Files level conspiracy, but people realized with "Shockwave, Part II" that they had no clue and, like X-Files, they were making it up as they go along. Season 2 was so bland and boring, I, someone who watched every new episode of Star Trek since 1995 (except that 1 VOY ep I slept through) and saw many TNG episodes from 1993-1994 first-run, had to labor to tune in. The worst part was the late Oct-Nov 2002 eps. It got better after that (like "The Catwalk"), but all thru Feb 2003, the episodes sucked pretty much. It got back to a fine mediocre in April 2003.

The Xindi arc (Season 3) is one of the finest seasons of Star Trek and Season 4 is a bit unbalanced, but seemed necessary to make up for the failed promise that was ENT Seasons 1-2.

People had expected a true prequel and it looked more like the blander side of Voyager & TNG than like TOS and after 1-2 seasons, people saw no signs of starting to edge towards forming a Federation. There were Andorians, which was the best thing about Seasons 1-2, and then there were weird Vulcans who were almost hostile, then there was no Tellarites til 1 episode before the Delphic Expanse quest. It was just spinning its wheels, doing loops in a cornfield or parking lot.

Nemesis added to the sense that Star Trek was directionless and had lost touch with making at least decent efforts. Nemesis was downright insulting, a bad xerox copy of The Wrath of Khan with writing/direction that showed no signs of having watched the tv series. Nemesis seemed to start the narrative of "trek fatigue", which took root inside Paramount, and after somebody retired in 2003, ENT had to fight for renewal in 2004 and barely won that fight.

Of course, what would have been worse, the last Star Trek being "These are the Voyages" with a confused Riker walking around the ENT set or ending with space nazis on a cliffhanger?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Nemesis didn't flop because it sucked. Remember, it lost the opening weekend to the J-Lo romantic comedy "Maid In Manhattan". In show biz parlance, it didn't even open. So there's no way the fans were protesting a lousy movie; they hadn't seen it yet to declare that it sucked. After all, ST V at least set an opening day record before sinking like a rock because it sucked.

I think the audience had already decided they'd had enough well before Nemesis laid its turd at the box office. The fact that it stunk on ice only ensured that the pathetic box office take would only get worse; it it was at least a good movie, it might've recovered.

 

[RAMA]

By the time of the fourth season, the damage had already been done.

True, but his statement is inaccurate.

RAMA

 

[Mach5]

Nemesis didn't flop because it sucked. Remember, it lost the opening weekend to the J-Lo romantic comedy "Maid In Manhattan". In show biz parlance, it didn't even open. So there's no way the fans were protesting a lousy movie; they hadn't seen it yet to declare that it sucked. After all, ST V at least set an opening day record before sinking like a rock because it sucked.

What he said.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The Clone Wars is written so that it can span a wide age range, from kids to grownups. It's heavy on action but there are some surprisingly sophisticated storylines (certainly moreso than the PT, which was allegedly written for grownups) dealing with personal issues, politics and even some pretty out-there metaphysics. You have to keep watching it over time in order to see the plotlines emerge because they're interwoven with the action-oriented stuff.

It's important to remember that the TV biz is all about herd behavior. We get a glut of cop shows and hardly any historical dramas (certainly not pre-1950) because cop shows are successful and there are few examples of successful historical dramas.

The total absence of successful live action space opera series on TV today works against any new live action space opera being made. The sole area where space operas are currently successful are animated shows made for kids, or made for adults and kids both. So that's by far the most likely way a new Star Trek series will be made. It's just the way the TV biz works.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

I'm not going to lie, the Space Nazis at the end of season 3 turned me off so much I never watched season 4 first run.

Same here.

The only Space Nazis I will accept are the Cardassians, and they hardly really qualify (because they went from stereotypical har-har Space Nazis to an awesomely developed species).

The ones in Enterprise were beyond silly. What was is with those guys speaking English with a fake German accent? People, either have them speaking real German with subtitles, or normal English, so we can pretend they're speaking German. Also, when saying something in German, please have native speakers say it, because believe it or not, people notice, and there's a world outside of planet America.

Why would the Nazis all talk to each other in anything but their native language, and use one all of them speak poorly? They wouldn't have done that. It's so stupid it makes me gag.

/Cardassian-sized rant. Again. Sorry.

 

[Gary7]

The trend was already on a steady downward slide, on average. Did Enterprise kill the franchise? No, I don't think so. There are a lot of "borderline" fans out there, ones who will watch good Star Trek when it is available, but will abandon it if it's not interesting. The franchise was becoming tired. Predictable.

TNG was an exception to the rule, because it was the first revisit of Star Trek. There was a lot of pent up anticipation and interest. And when it recovered from a faltering start in season 3, it really took off. It was becoming tired by Season 6 and everybody knew it, so the production staff worked hard to try finishing it off with reasonable success. And they sure did. DS9 was too slow, too "soap opera in space" like in the beginning, that it lost a lot of TNG viewers. It did make great strides to recover, but by then the damage was already done--not possible to pull back the lost viewers.

Voyager had a lot potential, but squandered it. Some pathetic writing in the first two seasons. It really picked up nicely in season 3, but the steady decline was too much for it to pull up. And by the time Enterprise started, I think a lot of people were becoming tired of the franchise, and the predictable story formulas.

I agree that Enterprise was far too modern for what it should have been. They could have made it grittier and rough around the edges, with more of an early TOS feeling to it. If it infused some good strong drama, it might have done pretty well, relative to Voyager. But it wouldn't have been restore the franchise back to glory. I don't even think it could have garnered the viewer numbers from early Voyager.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The Clone Wars is written so that it can span a wide age range, from kids to grownups. It's heavy on action but there are some surprisingly sophisticated storylines (certainly moreso than the PT, which was allegedly written for grownups) dealing with personal issues, politics and even some pretty out-there metaphysics. You have to keep watching it over time in order to see the plotlines emerge because they're interwoven with the action-oriented stuff.

It's important to remember that the TV biz is all about herd behavior. We get a glut of cop shows and hardly any historical dramas (certainly not pre-1950) because cop shows are successful and there are few examples of successful historical dramas.

The total absence of successful live action space opera series on TV today works against any new live action space opera being made. The sole area where space operas are currently successful are animated shows made for kids, or made for adults and kids both. So that's by far the most likely way a new Star Trek series will be made. It's just the way the TV biz works.

Plus making it animated means it's cheaper to make really cool looking aliens and planets.

 

[Dream]

TNG was an exception to the rule, because it was the first revisit of Star Trek. There was a lot of pent up anticipation and interest. And when it recovered from a faltering start in season 3, it really took off. It was becoming tired by Season 6 and everybody knew it, so the production staff worked hard to try finishing it off with reasonable success. And they sure did. DS9 was too slow, too "soap opera in space" like in the beginning, that it lost a lot of TNG viewers. It did make great strides to recover, but by then the damage was already done--not possible to pull back the lost viewers.

I think a big reason for TNG's success was that it a show that was popular with families. DS9 was a great drama, but it got really dark and depressing at times which probably turned off some viewers.

By the time VOY came on most of the audience that had watched TNG were already gone.

 

[Greystone_06]

And then in Season Three, when the show took a darker turn, they sped up the song and made it sound more upbeat.

Yeah, that always bothered me. One of the most ridiculous creative choices in modern television history.

I guess they sped it up because the original version felt way too long (even if it were a mere minute and a half or whatever).

To answer the original question, It was DS9 that gave Trek "cancer", because it simply wasn't something most people wanted to watch. Personally, I loved the hell out of it, it was darker, grittier, more character driven... Actually, of all the Trek incarnations, DS9's characters felt like the "real people" the most. You could really relate to these guys.

Then the cancer metastasized into Voyager. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it when I first saw it (at age 12!), but compared to the rest of Trek, VOY is nothing more than "fake TNG", and it really doesn't age well.

I caught some reruns on Croatian TV a few years ago, and those earlier seasons looked simply awful, borderline unwatchable. If a show like that premiered in 2011, it wouldn't even get a full season, I think.

Did ENT kill Trek? HELL NO! Its only sin is not being the cure for the cancer that killed it.

I think I see where you are going with that. DS9 became my favourite Trek series, but it took three long seasons to reach that point. I can watch the earlier episodes now and enjoy them but at the time I thought they were naff.

Voyager things got a bit too sentimental, 'This ship, this crew...' whatever... bit cringe making it found its feet during the Borg episodes and ended well, but perhaps it became a touch to indulgent and the quality of the writing fluctuated too much for me.

Enterprise wasn't bad but I found it a bit limited in concept after what had just gone. Trek should have been rested after Voyager and the period ENT dealt with would have been much better just read about rather than depicted.

The answer is probably over exposure, The formula, so strong up to the end of DS9, was stretched too far.

 

[Satyrquaze]

This is just me, but I tend to blame Voyager.

 

[Greyson]

What killed Enterprise is a lack of support from the Network, executives, and fans who thought they should dictate the direction of Star Trek.