So what killed Star Trek?

[Saquist]

The problem with that chart is that the pink nose-dive for DS9 coincides with the series that was the greatest departure from the post-TOS formula. Sure, the first season was pretty much just the formula, but TNG's ratings maintained a higher average level over the same time, which it shouldn't have, if wearyness over the formula was really to blame.

DS9's ratings kept falling even as it started to veer away from the formula in S2, and the ratings parallel to VOY, which did continue the formula. So that chart actually proves that the content of the series, and how formulaic or original they were, isn't what drove down the ratings. Otherwise, DS9 and VOY's ratings should have diverged instead of being practically superimposed and DS9's S1 should have paralleled TNG's ratings for the same year.

But the formula will never return (thank GOD!) because broadcast TV has changed so that Star Trek will never survive there again. It can only survive on cable, where any kind of lockstep formula is going to be rejected by an audience that is watching cable in order to avoid boring broadcast formula TV. Instead, Spielberg or whoever takes up the mantle will have to figure out what specific approach will work on whatever channel the show is airing on. They may have to do something that is a fairly radical departure - setting the show in the late 21st C for instance.

I have to agree with nearly all of that.
Although I do think it's possible for Trek to live on the Networks if it took a different formula like 24 and Alias...progressive..action...central localized character to identify with instead of Big Seven.

 

[Deckerd]

^They have, it was called Forever Knight, it ran in the mid 90's it's lead character was a Vampire who worked as a Police Detective.

Never heard of it, so it can't have been much good.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Although I do think it's possible for Trek to live on the Networks if it took a different formula like 24 and Alias...progressive..action...central localized character to identify with instead of Big Seven.

Broadcast TV isn't a very healthy place for any kind of sci fi. What few examples are left? Fringe and Chuck, which are both hobbling into their final seasons with near-cancellation-level ratings, plus the CW, which is doing its own young female-centric thing, and even that's mostly supernatural horror, not sci fi.

Fringe and Chuck have the benefit of being real-world, present-day based, and having a heavy law enforcement element. Even with those advantages, they can't break out of a niche audience level.

Everyone keep your eyes on Terra Nova. That's the best test case whether expensive, glitzy sci fi with an exotic backdrop and no cop show formula can survive on broadcast. My quatloos are on cancellation (not necessarily because it's sci fi), but if it's a hit, then a next logical step would be a glitzy, high-concept space opera series.

I could see a series on FOX that's very military-focused, with a grubby pack of space marines battling huge, nasty CGI aliens. Something intense, focused, filled with conflict and danger and eye candy. I guess Star Trek could be wrangled into that format, but if Terra Nova succeeds without a brand name (other than Spielberg), then why would FOX feel the need to pay for CBS' brand name? They'd be smarter to license a video game franchise for the name. For all I know, FOX's parent company already owns video game companies and the whole thing could be kept inside the family.

To Temis: I don't know why someone hasn't done vampire cops before. I've thought for a decade at least that it's the perfect combination.

There have been vampire cop shows before (I do remember Forever Knight, even if I never saw it, and The Dresden Files had vampires in the mix) but what surprises me is that there isn't one on TV right now. I guess there are only so many slots on the CW and SyFy to fill.

But I'm forgetting (maybe for good reason), there is a new vampire-related cop show on TV this fall - Death Valley, a COPS parody on MTV where the cops battle vampires, zombies and werewolves. I watched the premiere - ugh. Considering that it has a premise where the jokes practically write themselves, I was appalled at how unfunny and lazy it was. The writers appear to think that just putting a "vampire hooker" on screen is hi-larious in itself, with no further effort required on their parts. The whole episode went like that - ideas trotted out and never developed into actual comedy, plus copious violence. It must be aimed at the video game/stoned audience.

Good idea, though. Somebody should take another swipe at it and show a bit more ambition.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^They have, it was called Forever Knight, it ran in the mid 90's it's lead character was a Vampire who worked as a Police Detective.

Never heard of it, so it can't have been much good.

You have a death wish? Forever Knight fans make Trekkies look downright sedate.

Other shows to try the "vampire/cop" premise, include "Moonlight" and "Angel" (granted, neither main character was technically a cop, they both served essentially the same role).

 

[MrJ]

I can't help but laugh. All these posts make it look like it was a vast UPN/CW conspiracy to get Enterprise cancelled, because it wasn't popular enough with female audiences and too popular with males aged 18 to 45 (the most important, most popular, most sought after demographic there is). Yes CW is a network that is aimed primarily at women, but Enterprise didn't get cancelled because not enough girls didn't watch it, it got cancelled because not enough people in general didn't watch it.
　
People didn't give up on Voyager and Enterprise because sci-fi, space opera shows became less popular, people gave up on them because they just weren't very good shows. As Voyager's popularity was going down, Stargate's was going up. At some point in the early 2000's, when Enterprise was still on, Stargate officially dethroned Star Trek as the king of TV Sci-fi.
　
Then when Enterprise was in it's death throes Battlestar Galactica came on and became a huge, critical, mainstream hit.
　
I know what your going to say, that if Stargate and BSG are so successful then why aren't they on anymore?
　
That's because as BSG went on many people got turned off, for various reasons, like: it was too dark and violent and bleak, or it started off like a good realistic drama that just happened to be set in space and involved realistic(ish) science, but then got too much into supernatural mumbo-jumbo. And then the spinoff Caprica was just too different from BSG, though still a good show, was just too damn slow.
　
As for Stargate after RDA left SG-1 a lot of viewers went with him. SG-1, if it had been handled right, could have gone on as long as The Simpsons, Law and Order or Doctor Who. Instead they ended it after 10 years and left us with Atlantis instead. Which wasn't as good. So they replaced that after 4 years with Stargate Universe, which was the worst of the three shows. After 2 seasons of low ratings they cancelled it and replaced SG-U with TNG reruns which gave SyFy higher ratings than new episodes of SG-U did.
　
I know that SyFy mostly just has a bunch of crappy ghost hunting reality shows and pro wrestling. But the Canadian Space channel’s number one show is Doctor Who.
So it's not like there isn't a demand for Star Trek. Sure it's expensive to make space operas, but if done right they can be successful. The problem is Voyager and Enterprise weren't done right. If Enterprise hadn't been so bad, Star Trek would still be on the air today.

 

[Captain Robert April]

In short, it wasn't "franchise fatigue", it was "Bad Star Trek fatigue."

 

[jerriecan]

In short, it wasn't "franchise fatigue", it was "Bad Star Trek fatigue."

Exactly. The producers wanted one thing, the network another, and what we got was a mess. By the time Enterprise found its voice, it was too late to save it.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I really wouldn't class Enterprise as bad Star Trek, I regularly rewatch it alongside the others - starting from the beginning of each, and ENT comes out well. But to each their own. The show went up and down, like everything TV does. There are a handful I'd consider to be truly awful. On its worst week, quality wise, it pulled in more ratings than BSG. I won't speak to that shows quality because opening mini-series aside, I simply didn't watch it. Caught the opener on DVD out of curiousity, but the rest never went out on a channel I could get and I didn't go feel like going out of my way. And when it had the best times, ENT wasn't where it needed to be in order to survive.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I can't help but laugh. All these posts make it look like it was a vast UPN/CW conspiracy to get Enterprise cancelled, because it wasn't popular enough with female audiences and too popular with males aged 18 to 45 (the most important, most popular, most sought after demographic there is).

It's not a sought after demographic on the CW. Each TV channel has its own unique strategy, and they don't all chase the same demographic. Thinking that way is like thinking that just because a lizard can live in the desert, it can also live in the ocean. Each channel is like an ecosystem with its own rules and demands.

If ENT had magically appealed to a female demo, the CW might have thought it was worth reformulating into a series that would fit its lineup. It's highly speculative, but not impossible and it's the only way I can even theoretically envision it having been salvaged.

What you call a "conspiracy" is just plain old fashioned business strategy. Nobody had it in for Star Trek, but nobody was going to go to bat for it either. Why should they? It's just one show and the CW can develop its own shows that are closer to what it wants. Why try to sell hamburgers in a pizza joint? Concentrate on making good pizza instead.

So it's not like there isn't a demand for Star Trek. Sure it's expensive to make space operas, but if done right they can be successful. The problem is Voyager and Enterprise weren't done right. If Enterprise hadn't been so bad, Star Trek would still be on the air today.

Well there's the problem. What "done right" means varies according to which channel you're talking about. Space opera can probably survive on many cable channels (I'm not so sure about broadcast), as long as it can also overcome the problem of needing to be more attractive than whatever could be aired instead (another cop show for instance).

CBS, Showtime and the CW are the most likely places where CBS would develop any show, since they own those channels. They have less incentive to develop shows for competitors.

CBS is out. They don't do sci fi of any kind (Person of Interest, which is "sci fi" only if you are being insanely generous about the definition) is as close as they come to sci fi.

The CW might do a space opera series. They were interested in one called Plymouth Rock a couple years back, which sounded like teenagers in a spaceship, with lots of romantic complications, angst and probably a pair of hot brothers who are chasing the same girl. Eh, could work. Might not be to everyone's tastes around here, though.

Showtime really should be thinking seriously about Star Trek. HBO scored a big hit with Game of Thrones and no doubt attracted a lot of new subscribers (that's what premium cable wants, not just good ratings) because the book series has pre-existing fans who will shell out $20/month to get their favorite franchise on TV. Would Trekkies do any less? The series would have to have sex, violence, complicated serialized plots, "realistic" space politics, gritty characters and all the other stuff you expect from cable, but it could have that and still be recognizably Star Trek. Every time I read that Showtime is developing this or that series, and not Star Trek, it aggravates me. What is their problem???

But the point is, if Star Trek ends up on TV, it will be crafted to fit the place where it's airing. And that might not meet everyone's definition of what "good" Star Trek should be. But if it's crafted well for its audience (the viewers of the channel, not Trekkies) it could be a success. A horrible teen travesty on the CW could be just as successful as a great, kick-ass, "grown-up" Showtime series.

I know what your going to say, that if Stargate and BSG are so successful then why aren't they on anymore?

It's because SyFy has discovered that they can get decent ratings from non-space opera series like Haven and Warehouse 13 by doing shows that are basically like the cutesy shows on USA, but with a sci fi twist. So why spend more money creating a space opera series that won't get better ratings? Especially if you also have cheap ratings-grabbing wrestling and ghost hunting shows. SyFy doesn't do space opera anymore because they don't need to work that hard to get ratings.

I thought Caprica had its problems and SGU was unwatchable junk, but if quality is the issue, why do the other crappy shows that SyFy airs not get cancelled? There are crappy shows all over TV that get decent or even great ratings. Why don't they all get cancelled too?

What Stargate needed, quality-wise, was for the writers and producers to get fired and replaced by people who could capitalize on its potential, which never happened during the franchise's entire existence and obviously was never going to happen until some housecleaning occurred. But this is a separate issue from whether a jolt in quality would have salvaged the ratings.

If Enterprise hadn't been so bad, Star Trek would still be on the air today.

Wrong. If it didn't have enough of the 18-34 female audience the CW wanted to appeal to, the show would have been cancelled. And even if it was good, that's no guarantee the ratings would have been any better. After all, DS9 was great, while VOY sucked, yet their ratings were pretty comparable and showed the same downward trend. That alone proves quality does not correlate to ratings.

 

[Mage]

People are buying dvd's, reading the novels, novels are being written very regularly, new movie came out 2 years ago, new movie being made, godknowshowmany fans talking on this forum about Star Trek.....


yes, I can see how Trek is dead........

 

[MacLeod]

With regards to ratings, haven't there been a generally downward trend in ratings across the board. (naturally there are some shows which buck the trend)

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Yes, broadcast has gone way down generally. The audience is now 50/50 broadcast vs cable. And because there are a lot more cable channels, each one splits the audience more than broadcast. But on basic cable, they get some subscription revenues, and premium cable gets a lot of subscription revenues.

So on broadcast each viewer is worth just a little. They're worth more on basic cable and most of all on premium cable. As the value of each viewer goes up, their tastes are more particularly catered to, because they can belong to a smaller group with similar tastes and still be providing enough money to get a show made for them.

And that's why I want Star Trek on premium cable. I don't even subscribe to any premium cable channels, but I can wait for the DVDs on Netflix. The bigger issue for me is knowing that the premium cable taste group is going to be the closest to my taste.

Anyway, some assumptions about space opera on broadcast are about to be tested, starting Sept 26, when Terra Nova debuts.

Terra Nova: most expensive TV series in history.

The pilot for Steven Spielberg's time-travel epic reportedly cost a record of nearly $20 million. The big question, though, is whether the show can overcome viewers' longtime skepticism toward science-fiction series.

The reason FOX is taking this gamble is because broadcast is caught in a trap. By making the same sorts of predictable mass-taste shows, they keep chasing viewers away to cable. But the more they chase viewers away, the less they can afford to make shows for anything but a mass taste.

Jeff Zucker at NBC (since fired) experimented by trying to go the cheapo route with Leno five nights a week, but just accellerated the flight from NBC - which if he at all understood what was going on, he should have predicted. That's gotta be one of the all-time boneheaded corporate moves in history.

But even if that didn't work, the problem persists. This fall, ABC, NBC and FOX are launching more intelligent experiments to see if there's a way out of this death trap with cable-ish shows like Pan Am, Playboy Club, Once Upon a Time, and especially Terra Nova.

It's interesting that CBS and the CW are not doing anything very innovative. CBS is complacent because they're in the least desperate straits and the CW has their formula locked down. If ABC, NBC or FOX's experiments succeed, then CBS and the CW can copy them, so I guess they're being smart to lie low.

If Terra Nova show succeeds, that destroys the argument against space opera on broadcast. You don't need to avoid the niche shows, you just need to make sure the eye candy is good enough to be a draw. Wild-looking aliens could be a draw just like dinos.

I cannot WAIT to see what happens with the ratings. And also the show, I guess. That might be interesting too.

 

[MacLeod]

I know exact comparissons can't be drawn but DW does fine on the BBC in a prime Time slot on Saturday evenings, if you take out major sporting events/certain reality shows and the soaps. DW is about the highest rated drama show in the UK.

Bear in mind the BBC at times(over the years) has had the perception it is not a fan of Sci-Fi based shows.

 

[SFRabid]

Disney has been trying to dump ABC for over a year and cannot find a buyer. Network is fading fast. With so much available on internet now I am seriouslly thinking about dropping satalite. With the money I save I could buy quite a few DVD sets each year. I also have streaming from Amazon which works quite well. Oh, and I get plenty of ballgames from ESPN online.

 

[Captain Robert April]

CBS doing a Star Trek show wouldn't exactly be seen as "cutting edge" television, especially not after the resurrection of Hawaii Five-O and the attempted redo of The Defenders (prompting Letterman to wonder if the programming geniuses at CBS were doing things by looking at a TV Guide from 1967).

 

[Harvey]

CBS has been culling the back catalog for new television shows, but they've been relying on the staple genres of television, not venturing into space opera, a genre that isn't represented on TV at all right now! The two examples you list are a cop show and a lawyer show, after all.

 

[Squiggy]

Y'know, with the CBS audience skewing older, a Star Trek show on CBS could possibly work...

CBS would never devote a hour a week to Trek when they have the 5 highest rated drama and top 2 comedies.

When they can slap random cop-jibberish on air with some random acronym and those repeats regularly beat new episodes on other networks...they'd be fools to mess with it.

For better or worse, what they have works. Trek will not work well enough for one of the big 4 to air. They want instant results and Star Trek hasn't performed well enough to warrant the gamble.


That being said...here's this:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUx2C7Pn7ZE&feature=player_embedded#![/yt]

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I know exact comparissons can't be drawn but DW does fine on the BBC in a prime Time slot on Saturday evenings, if you take out major sporting events/certain reality shows and the soaps. DW is about the highest rated drama show in the UK.

Bear in mind the BBC at times(over the years) has had the perception it is not a fan of Sci-Fi based shows.

The BBC has no parallel in America. There's no channel that is supported by significant tax revenues - PBS certainly doesn't count, the way it's deliberately starved. And I don't know if TV in Britain has the same competitive landscape, where people have hundreds of channels all competing for their attention.

In America, even the biggest hit shows get well under 10% of the total population as an audience. In a sense, there are no mass market shows at all anymore, only different levels of niche shows, because the audience simply has too many competing entertainment options to choose from, and they've dispersed into smaller and smaller niche tastes.

So the name of the game for everyone is to match niche content with an audience and a business model that can support it. This results in a wide range of content and quality, but so far, nobody seems to be able to crack the code for space opera. Which actually makes it an outlier - there are successful models for other nichey genres like high fantasy (Game of Thrones) and history (The Borgias, The Tudors, Spartacus, Boardwalk Empire). Supernatural horror and Westerns seem to be making a comeback this fall. Poor space opera, why is everyone ignoring it?

I doubt there is any way to make a Star Trek series that would get survival-level ratings on a broadcast network, but if Terra Nova succeeds and doesn't have a big fall-off in ratings when people start to get bored of the dinos, that may point to one solution: make sure every episode has some crazy space monster of the sort we're used to seeing only in movies. If Terra Nova is also aimed at being family-friendly (it sounds like it is), that might be another successful strategy, a show with movie-level qualities that everyone can watch together.

CBS doing a Star Trek show wouldn't exactly be seen as "cutting edge" television, especially not after the resurrection of Hawaii Five-O and the attempted redo of The Defenders (prompting Letterman to wonder if the programming geniuses at CBS were doing things by looking at a TV Guide from 1967).

Star Trek would be a gamble because there are no other space operas on TV. Cop shows and remakes are common and to be expected from even a conservative network.

PS, bravo Squiggy - that's the best Star Trek video I've seen yet.

Especially the part about the Klingons...

 

[MacLeod]

The UK has 4 main terrestial comapnies. BBC, ITV, CH4 and Five. The next biggest one would be satelite broadcaster Sky.

With freeview you get several dozen channels though that does include timeshift channels. With Satelite or cable subscription that can increase to hundreds of channels. Once again that does include ondemand movies etc..

Yes the BBC is paid for by a license fee, but it once cancelled DW due to ratings so ratings do have an impact on whether a show stays on air or not.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I just can't envision Star Trek working on any of the broadcast networks. So whatever is true of Britain, that factor doesn't exist in America.

It would be nice to think Star Trek could get, say, 20M on CBS but if space opera or any sort of sci fi -cop show in disguise, or otherwise - would get numbers like that, somebody would have tried it. Instead, we get a situation where even the alleged sci fi channel is dropping space opera as a genre, in favor of - you guessed it - cop shows with sci fi window dressing.

There might be some magical unknown factor that nobody has stumbled across yet that will allow Star Trek to exist on broadcast. The notion of giving people the kind of eye candy they're used to seeing only in movies seems like a plausible candidate for that magical factor.