..and has been even before the last series Enterprise aired.
I agree that the "ratings" for the various shows after TNG were much lower, but I think there is a big difference between saying viewership has been declining and saying Trek interest in general has been declining.
I disagree that Star Trek is in a decline, but maybe it also depends on what "part" of Star Trek we are referring to.
As for collecting, I think we have as many if not more toys and memorabilia than even when I was a kid in the 70's.
Lets face it, even the early 80's gave us very little from any of the Trek movies as it wasn't until TNG came on the scene that we finally got a lot of collectibles again thanks to Playmates and a few others. But even with no current Trek right now just look at what we have for memorabilia. Sideshow, Master Replicas, Diamond Select, Hallmark, PEZ, etc are all releasing a lot of Trek collectibles and memorabilia with no signs of them slowing down any time soon. Add the fact that Playmates is now back on the scene and I think things couldn't be better, as far as the collecting end of Trek anyway.
As far as Trek fandom in general being on a steady decline since TNG ended in the mid to late 90's, here is my thoughts on that.
I believe that the majority of the large fandom base is still out there, but the majority of them are quietly enjoying what they have and like and not necessarily being on message boards and e-mail lists as much as we saw earlier on for a time. We may not be hearing from them like we did in years past but I think they are still out there. I believe this is true for two reasons. One, it would explain why so many companies are still making so many Trek toys and collectibles, many of which are pretty expensive even to todays standards. Look at Master Replicas as a great example, with each piece costing in the hundreds of dollars and yet each of their first run pieces easily and quickly sells out. Same for Sideshow and others.
The second reason is that I think we are experiencing in a way what happened originally back in 1969.
As we all know in 1969 Star Trek was canceled and then amazingly went into a transformation as it went into syndication.
Thanks to local stations who aired Star Trek in more viewer friendly time slots, Star Trek slowly began to get it's real following. From 1969 until 1973 Star Trek had no new shows of any kind on the air, and even in 1973 the only new Star Trek we got was the animated series which lasted for only two years and 22 episodes.
It wasn't until 1979 that Star Trek was thrust back into the limelight with an all new live action motion picture. But thanks to it's growing popularity in syndication Paramount first tested the waters with the animated series. Thanks to Star Wars proving that sci-fi could be main stream and popular allowed Star Trek a better chance and in 1979 it got some legs and then a few years later with Wrath of Khan off it went.
And lets not forget Martin Abrams and his Mego toy company who helped Star Trek's popularity immensely with all of those great Trek toys from the 70's that also helped Star Trek live.
But from 1969 and for the next ten years there were no new live action Star Trek of any kind and yet Star Trek survived. Star Trek Lived.
Though I agree that the situation and facts are a bit different today than in 1969, we are still I believe in a similar cycle once again.
Depending on your point of view, we have already gone over 4 years now with out any new Trek, and for those who feel that the "Enterprise" show with Bakula doesn't really qualify as new Trek, then it has been over 8 years now since Voyager ended it's run.
From a collecting point of view it's important to note that Voyager and even DS9 did not have much at all in the way of collectibles as compared to the original series and TNG. From that perspective it has been well over 14 years now as far as a popular Trek show or movie was hot and spawned any specific Trek collectibles.
I think part of the problem with Trek these days is that those die hard fans from those days of original Trek either from when it first aired and/or from syndication are much older now and as we all know things change. I am a fan from just about when it started in syndication and so that gives me a perspective some may not.
Like the majority of the TOS and even the TNG fan base I am also not a kid anymore. I know that TNG did grab a lot of new and younger fans, and the toys reflected that. My oldest son grew up with TNG and had many of the Playmates toys as well as a TNG lunch box and all that just like I had the Mego toys and a TOS lunch box (now worth big bucks) when I was a kid with Star Trek. I think for Star Trek to continue to survive it needs to keep finding a new generation of fans, a much younger generation of fans who can carry on the excitement of Trek in any new shows/movies while us die hard fans from the past series will carry on with our fandom either with just the older stuff and hopefully the newer stuff as well until we are gone.
We are even seeing TNG go through now some of what we went through with the original series. My oldest son has since graduated college and is now moving into the next part of his life. He still enjoys watching his favorite Trek series, that being TNG from time to time when he can, but it is a little piece of his life among many bigger and for the moment more important pieces in his life right now. That doesn't mean that like us he won't embrace in whatever way he can a good Star Trek rebirth of a movie or two and maybe even a new ST TV show at some point. My youngest son Jordan who is still in high school loves all Trek, but some he likes more than others. He actually enjoys Enterprise a lot more than many and is one of his favs, so I am hopeful that that proves that there is hope of a younger generation embracing a new Star Trek and hopefully a good Star Trek starting this coming May '09.
Of course this new movie is set to hopefully renew the Trek franchise and it is these younger people who it needs to please as much if not more than many of us older die hards for Trek to really survive into the future.
Like with the animated series this may be another way that CBS/Paramount is going to test the waters once again and see what happens.
I think Trek fandom and Trek interest is still out there in large numbers, but I think it is waiting for something pretty good on the same or similar scale of the original series or even TNG for the masses to really get around it and properly support it once again.
Yes, Star Trek was "killed" way back in 1969, and yet it still survived and lived on and over the next 5 to 10 years while it grew up from the ashes to become what it did.
It had many toys being produced even while it was "dead" even back then. This is still true now as we have many great Trek collectibles that are still being produced even now while Trek is being considered "dead", so again we see a similar pattern just like we saw back in the early 70's.
I guess with all of the various Trek series now in reruns and with the new movie soon to be released, we will soon get to see first hand what happens this time around over the course of the next 5 to 10 years with Star Trek.
I would like to hear what others on this board think about this as well.
Steve
I agree that the "ratings" for the various shows after TNG were much lower, but I think there is a big difference between saying viewership has been declining and saying Trek interest in general has been declining.
I disagree that Star Trek is in a decline, but maybe it also depends on what "part" of Star Trek we are referring to.
As for collecting, I think we have as many if not more toys and memorabilia than even when I was a kid in the 70's.
Lets face it, even the early 80's gave us very little from any of the Trek movies as it wasn't until TNG came on the scene that we finally got a lot of collectibles again thanks to Playmates and a few others. But even with no current Trek right now just look at what we have for memorabilia. Sideshow, Master Replicas, Diamond Select, Hallmark, PEZ, etc are all releasing a lot of Trek collectibles and memorabilia with no signs of them slowing down any time soon. Add the fact that Playmates is now back on the scene and I think things couldn't be better, as far as the collecting end of Trek anyway.
As far as Trek fandom in general being on a steady decline since TNG ended in the mid to late 90's, here is my thoughts on that.
I believe that the majority of the large fandom base is still out there, but the majority of them are quietly enjoying what they have and like and not necessarily being on message boards and e-mail lists as much as we saw earlier on for a time. We may not be hearing from them like we did in years past but I think they are still out there. I believe this is true for two reasons. One, it would explain why so many companies are still making so many Trek toys and collectibles, many of which are pretty expensive even to todays standards. Look at Master Replicas as a great example, with each piece costing in the hundreds of dollars and yet each of their first run pieces easily and quickly sells out. Same for Sideshow and others.
The second reason is that I think we are experiencing in a way what happened originally back in 1969.
As we all know in 1969 Star Trek was canceled and then amazingly went into a transformation as it went into syndication.
Thanks to local stations who aired Star Trek in more viewer friendly time slots, Star Trek slowly began to get it's real following. From 1969 until 1973 Star Trek had no new shows of any kind on the air, and even in 1973 the only new Star Trek we got was the animated series which lasted for only two years and 22 episodes.
It wasn't until 1979 that Star Trek was thrust back into the limelight with an all new live action motion picture. But thanks to it's growing popularity in syndication Paramount first tested the waters with the animated series. Thanks to Star Wars proving that sci-fi could be main stream and popular allowed Star Trek a better chance and in 1979 it got some legs and then a few years later with Wrath of Khan off it went.
And lets not forget Martin Abrams and his Mego toy company who helped Star Trek's popularity immensely with all of those great Trek toys from the 70's that also helped Star Trek live.
But from 1969 and for the next ten years there were no new live action Star Trek of any kind and yet Star Trek survived. Star Trek Lived.
Though I agree that the situation and facts are a bit different today than in 1969, we are still I believe in a similar cycle once again.
Depending on your point of view, we have already gone over 4 years now with out any new Trek, and for those who feel that the "Enterprise" show with Bakula doesn't really qualify as new Trek, then it has been over 8 years now since Voyager ended it's run.
From a collecting point of view it's important to note that Voyager and even DS9 did not have much at all in the way of collectibles as compared to the original series and TNG. From that perspective it has been well over 14 years now as far as a popular Trek show or movie was hot and spawned any specific Trek collectibles.
I think part of the problem with Trek these days is that those die hard fans from those days of original Trek either from when it first aired and/or from syndication are much older now and as we all know things change. I am a fan from just about when it started in syndication and so that gives me a perspective some may not.
Like the majority of the TOS and even the TNG fan base I am also not a kid anymore. I know that TNG did grab a lot of new and younger fans, and the toys reflected that. My oldest son grew up with TNG and had many of the Playmates toys as well as a TNG lunch box and all that just like I had the Mego toys and a TOS lunch box (now worth big bucks) when I was a kid with Star Trek. I think for Star Trek to continue to survive it needs to keep finding a new generation of fans, a much younger generation of fans who can carry on the excitement of Trek in any new shows/movies while us die hard fans from the past series will carry on with our fandom either with just the older stuff and hopefully the newer stuff as well until we are gone.
We are even seeing TNG go through now some of what we went through with the original series. My oldest son has since graduated college and is now moving into the next part of his life. He still enjoys watching his favorite Trek series, that being TNG from time to time when he can, but it is a little piece of his life among many bigger and for the moment more important pieces in his life right now. That doesn't mean that like us he won't embrace in whatever way he can a good Star Trek rebirth of a movie or two and maybe even a new ST TV show at some point. My youngest son Jordan who is still in high school loves all Trek, but some he likes more than others. He actually enjoys Enterprise a lot more than many and is one of his favs, so I am hopeful that that proves that there is hope of a younger generation embracing a new Star Trek and hopefully a good Star Trek starting this coming May '09.
Of course this new movie is set to hopefully renew the Trek franchise and it is these younger people who it needs to please as much if not more than many of us older die hards for Trek to really survive into the future.
Like with the animated series this may be another way that CBS/Paramount is going to test the waters once again and see what happens.
I think Trek fandom and Trek interest is still out there in large numbers, but I think it is waiting for something pretty good on the same or similar scale of the original series or even TNG for the masses to really get around it and properly support it once again.
Yes, Star Trek was "killed" way back in 1969, and yet it still survived and lived on and over the next 5 to 10 years while it grew up from the ashes to become what it did.
It had many toys being produced even while it was "dead" even back then. This is still true now as we have many great Trek collectibles that are still being produced even now while Trek is being considered "dead", so again we see a similar pattern just like we saw back in the early 70's.
I guess with all of the various Trek series now in reruns and with the new movie soon to be released, we will soon get to see first hand what happens this time around over the course of the next 5 to 10 years with Star Trek.
I would like to hear what others on this board think about this as well.
Steve
Last edited:
