The End of Star Trek on TV

[alpha_leonis]

My take: TNG came in as ostensibly an updated version of another show that had become successful a couple of decades before, and was finding its second life in the movies. TOS itself took very few risks because it was a product of its time. It came into its own during a time when (for example) a main character almost never got killed off, and the leading man never had a woman who stuck around for more than one episode. So when the movies came around and they could only tell one story every couple of years, what did they do? They finally killed off a main character, only to have him come back in the next story. They finally gave Kirk a love interest (with a kid!) but made her a past love interest, and the kid was already grown.

Other Sci-Fi shows that started in the 80s and 90s didn't have those 60s roots, so I think they were more free to take more risks. They were less tied to any origins in a different era of storytelling.

 

[sonak]

The show failed to stay fresh. People got tired of seeing lighter and lighter versions of TNG.

Eh? DS9 was surely not a lighter version of TNG.

Did you see the first season? Annoying Space Disease, Wacky Alien Holodeck Antics, Guy Who's In The Opening Credits Is Accused Of Murder!, Q, Troi's Mom, and I'm sorry but it's really too much work to keep watching if it's going to give us more of that.

Season 1 of DS9, whatever its faults, was FAR better than season 1 of TNG, which was one of the worst seasons of Star Trek on television of any of the series. It was also very different from TNG, in that it dealt far more with politics, and actually had characters who didn't get along and weren't in Starfleet.

 

[EnriqueH]

Do you guys think commercialization had something to do with it?
...
But I also remember being routinely pissed off with Rick Berman and company because I percevied the TNG movies as too safe, and I felt maybe too much commercialization was turning fans away?

Could you explain what you mean by commercialisation? It's not like they had Apple computers and a special appearance by Joey from Friends.

Too much merchandising and churning out subpar TV shows and movies.

Commercialization was always a part of Star Trek, don't get me wrong.

Roddenberry was always looking for ways to cash in, since he was never sure what his next job was going to be and Star Trek had not turned a profit. But the quality of the shows was there.

The quality was there with TNG and DS9, but by Voyager, Enterprise, and the TNG movies, it seemed like they were just churning out a brand. And what they were selling just wasn't as good.

Keep in mind, I have not seen Voyager or Enterprise all the way through yet.

I'm forming this post based on a sort of amalgam of what I've heard over the years.

 

[Nebusj]

Eh? DS9 was surely not a lighter version of TNG.

Did you see the first season? Annoying Space Disease, Wacky Alien Holodeck Antics, Guy Who's In The Opening Credits Is Accused Of Murder!, Q, Troi's Mom, and I'm sorry but it's really too much work to keep watching if it's going to give us more of that.

Season 1 of DS9, whatever its faults, was FAR better than season 1 of TNG, which was one of the worst seasons of Star Trek on television of any of the series. It was also very different from TNG, in that it dealt far more with politics, and actually had characters who didn't get along and weren't in Starfleet.

But it was airing against the sixth season of Next Generation, which gave us ... Annoying Space Disease, Wacky Holodeck Antics, Guy Who's In The Opening Credits Is Accused Of Murder!, Q, Troi's Mom ...

 

[Lance]

I've been wondering how a franchise with such a large following could be booted off TV back in 2005.

Do you guys think commercialization had something to do with it?

I can remember as a teenager during the 1990s, I was a huge fan of Star Trek, but I can also remember being turned off by the fact that DS9 was a "non-exploration" show and I remember watching the first season of Voyager and then losing track of it.

I never got into Enterprise, even though I tried watching an epiosde here and there.

But I also remember being routinely pissed off with Rick Berman and company because I percevied the TNG movies as too safe, and I felt maybe too much commercialization was turning fans away?

Is there a consensus on what caused the franchise fatigue?

I still think, generally, it was just due to a lack of fresh faces behind the scenes. Say what some might about TNG seasons one two and three, but the constant 'revolving door' behind the scenes meant there was always a fresh outlook on the franchise going forward. The team 'solidified' after season three, and managed to create some very strong material after that, but moving forward they did gradually begin to run out of steam, and that sense of 'ennui' eventually killed the entire franchise (because the same guys 'at the top' were producing it in 2005 who had been there from at least 1991/92 onwards, and in Rick Berman's case he'd been there since '86).

Nobody does a job for nearly two decades without beginning to let the grass grow under their feet at some point.

I do agree that 'the commercial juggernaut' goes hand-in-hand with that to some extent. Star Trek had a peak in popularity around the time TNG ended in 1994/95, and then seen a slow decline through the rest of the decade. Some of that was a natural result, once you get to the top there's nowhere else left to go but down again. But some of it was also no doubt because of there being a lack of a 'fresh outlook' coming from behind the scenes. For me personally, the killer was Enterprise, where from the outset of that series they acknowledged the need to turn their thinking about Star Trek upside down for the good of the franchise, but then utterly failed to actually follow through with that in the material itself. It was an epic fail.

 

[T'Girl]

... the changing television landscape ...

Of the different reasons you mentioned, this I believe is the main one. Over-saturation not so much, otherwise we wouldn't have so many police shows through the years. Failure to adapt to a changing audience is a big obvious, if you're not dishing up what the audience wants to see, you go off the air.

Enterprise did get some things right, most would agree that what was done with the Andorians was excellent, and this showed that new interesting characters could be created. Stripped of the TCW aspects I would have liked to have learned more about the Sulban

Many of the characters in the Enterprise crew were good in isolation, however I felt that they just didn't mesh with each other very well.

That T'Pol was eventually develop a relationship with someone was perhaps inevitably going to happen, I think Trip was a better choice than Archer, but Hoshi would have been a better choice still.

 

[Botany Bay]

I think the downfall in Trek TV ratings post-1993 might have had something to do with it.

Wow. That tells a story. I still have no idea how Rick Berman got away with not getting a tap on the shoulder at some point.

I've been wondering how a franchise with such a large following could be booted off TV back in 2005.

The graph really tells the tale.

The first, say, sixty episodes of each of the series were pretty uneven. They got away with it with TNG because there was twenty years of pent-up demand for Trek. The other shows had no such grace period, and viewers turned off in droves from Day 1, unfortunately.

 

[EnriqueH]

Yeah, I didn't really watch DS9 that first season. I love Emissary now, but at the time I thought of it as "great characters, boring concept".

Now, I think DS9 is just great.

Voyager, I saw the entire 1st Season and then lost track of it. I didn't dislike it, iI actually enjoyed it, but I suppose I have to admit that I didn't exactly have a compelling reason to come back.

TNG was pretty good about the cliffhanger thing overall.

Did the end of Voyager Season 1 have a cliffhanger?

But I definitely believe, and always have believed, that the failure was due to lack of fresh talent behind the scenes.

I'm really curious to get to Enterprise's 3rd and 4th seasons. Like with Voyager, I enjoyed the first season of Enterprise even though I thought it should've been an edgier show, like nuBSG, which took the concept of Star Trek's social commentary and made it alive, dirty, gritty, and dangerous. But I still enjoyed the first season of Enterprise, but I did see it after years of bad Trekker hype, so it was a case of, "Hey, this isn't so bad! I kinda like it actually!"

Still, phase cannons, polarize the hull plating, and shit like that made it also seem like a half-baked idea to do something new.

 

[BK613]

I think the downfall in Trek TV ratings post-1993 might have had something to do with it.

Wow. That tells a story. I still have no idea how Rick Berman got away with not getting a tap on the shoulder at some point.

I've been wondering how a franchise with such a large following could be booted off TV back in 2005.

The graph really tells the tale.

The first, say, sixty episodes of each of the series were pretty uneven. They got away with it with TNG because there was twenty years of pent-up demand for Trek. The other shows had no such grace period, and viewers turned off in droves from Day 1, unfortunately.

TV ratings for the networks had been trending down for years.

 

[Lance]

Voyager didn't do a season ending cliffhanger in year one, but they did in year two.

Somehow they avoided doing one in year four as well (which I understand was the choice of Jeri Taylor, she wanted to end her time on the series with a closed circle so that the rest of the team could pick up the narrative however they wanted to starting with year five).

 

[MacLeod]

I doubt that there is one single reason, rather a combination of reasons.

Viewing habits changed

Franchise fatigue (this would include things like not keeping fresh)

Increasing competition

Different commitments as people grew older

 

[T'Girl]

Different commitments as people grew older

A variation on this would be not making a determined effort to bring in new fans. Not just new viewers, new fans.

I can't remember, did the Enterprise producers even bother go to the San Diego Comic-Con International every year?

I was in High School during Enterprise's first run, the only character that was talked about and was popular was Trip, and many of the viewers that I knew deliberately stop watching the show because of the exclusion of a gay main character.

 

[sonak]

Different commitments as people grew older

A variation on this would be not making a determined effort to bring in new fans. Not just new viewers, new fans.

I can't remember, did the Enterprise producers even bother go to the San Diego Comic-Con International every year?

I was in High School during Enterprise's first run, the only character that was talked about and was popular was Trip, and many of the viewers that I knew deliberately stop watching the show because of the exclusion of a gay main character.

That seems pretty strange. It's not like the producers or writers deliberately excluded a gay main character, and there were only seven of them. Lots of ethnicities, religions, nationalities, etc. by necessity will be excluded. And writing in a character to be gay just for the purpose of having one strikes me as an awkward form of tokenism.

 

[eyeresist]

I was in High School during Enterprise's first run, the only character that was talked about and was popular was Trip, and many of the viewers that I knew deliberately stop watching the show because of the exclusion of a gay main character.

That seems pretty strange.

Yeah, it's not like there were a lot of other programs then (or now) with gay characters. If the producers had promised and hyped that they would include a gay character and then failed to do so, then the attitude's understandable, but they didn't do that.

For me personally, the killer was Enterprise, where from the outset of that series they acknowledged the need to turn their thinking about Star Trek upside down for the good of the franchise, but then utterly failed to actually follow through with that in the material itself. It was an epic fail.

ENT didn't "utterly fail" in its attempt to do something new. While a few episodes were faint copies of old concepts, the show broke new ground by being more naturalistic than previous shows in terms of dialog and acting, and also in set design and the way it was photographed. It also introduced some interesting new aliens, e.g. Suliban and Denobulans, and explored Andorians in unprecedented detail. There was also the unprecedented season 3 arc, and the multiparters of season 4.

The problem with Trek on TV was it just went on too long. TOS and TNG both stood out from the pack when they appeared, and so caught the public imagination. Piling on subsequent series, all with basically the same look and attitude, without a break just bored the general audience. No one who is not a Star Trek fan will continue to watch Star Trek year after year.

 

[The Wormhole]

ENT didn't "utterly fail" in its attempt to do something new. While a few episodes were faint copies of old concepts,

Much more than a few, and more than "faint copies." Many episodes were recycled plots from other Treks, none of them were particularly subtle about it, and at times they got a bit too blatant. Seriously, watch the episode Judgment and tell me you are not reminded of TUC multiple times.

Meanwhile the show was running out of ideas. This is not criticism, this is a confirmed fact. On the DVD commentary for Regeneration it is stated the Borg were brought onto the show because the writers had run out of ideas. When a show runs out of ideas in its second season, it has "utterly failed."

Granted, the show was originally conceived as something different than the final product, which was the result of network interference wanting another "TNG lite" show.

the show broke new ground by being more naturalistic than previous shows in terms of dialog and acting, and also in set design and the way it was photographed.

The characters swore and used contemporary slang more often then the other Treks, big deal. There wasn't anything special about the way it was photographed, aside from being the Trek series to be shot 16x9. And that had more to do with television beginning a transition to that format than it did any attempt to differentiate the show from the other Treks.

It also introduced some interesting new aliens, e.g. Suliban and Denobulans,

And did nothing with them. The Suliban were only part of the TCW storyline, and that was forced on the show by Paramount and UPN since they didn't have any real faith in the prequel concept. And Denobulans are probably the least developed race of a main character in a Trek series.

There was also the unprecedented season 3 arc,

Unprecedented for Star Trek, maybe. But these kind of storylines were becoming quite trendy back in 2003, most notably with 24 already going into its third season. In fact, Enterprise's third season is more a reaction to the more serialized nature TV was now embracing.

 

[Nightdiamond]

A variation on this would be not making a determined effort to bring in new fans. Not just new viewers, new fans.

I can't remember, did the Enterprise producers even bother go to the San Diego Comic-Con International every year?

I was in High School during Enterprise's first run, the only character that was talked about and was popular was Trip, and many of the viewers that I knew deliberately stop watching the show because of the exclusion of a gay main character

That seems pretty strange. It's not like the producers or writers deliberately excluded a gay main character, and there were only seven of them. Lots of ethnicities, religions, nationalities, etc. by necessity will be excluded. And writing in a character to be gay just for the purpose of having one strikes me as an awkward form of tokenism.

One problem is, I don't think anyone can even imagine a gay character on Trek anymore, because for all those years the Trek universe created a rigid, cookie cutter environment where people seem 2 dimensional.

I mean the way people talk, dress, what they talk about, eat--everyday habits. You just never really hear that stuff in Trek. They played it really safe, except for maybe DS9.

I'm beginning to think that's what caused some of the fan's fatigue.

Yeah, it's not like there were a lot of other programs then (or now) with gay characters. If the producers had promised and hyped that they would include a gay character and then failed to do so, then the attitude's understandable, but they didn't do that.


ENT didn't "utterly fail" in its attempt to do something new. While a few episodes were faint copies of old concepts, the show broke new ground by being more naturalistic than previous shows in terms of dialog and acting, and also in set design and the way it was photographed. It also introduced some interesting new aliens, e.g. Suliban and Denobulans, and explored Andorians in unprecedented detail. There was also the unprecedented season 3 arc, and the multiparters of season 4.

As popular and loved as TNG was, I notice quite a few people who think it's re watch-ability is pretty bad. It seems dated and the characters, 2 dimensional in certain ways.

Enterprise did seem to try to break the mold a little--a little cursing, a little nudity. The opening credits had some adult contemporary song, instead the usual instrumental. I think they had the right idea.

But it just wasn't interesting and it still fell right back into the format that was already failing.

 

[Lance]

For me personally, the killer was Enterprise, where from the outset of that series they acknowledged the need to turn their thinking about Star Trek upside down for the good of the franchise, but then utterly failed to actually follow through with that in the material itself. It was an epic fail.

ENT didn't "utterly fail" in its attempt to do something new. While a few episodes were faint copies of old concepts, the show broke new ground by being more naturalistic than previous shows in terms of dialog and acting, and also in set design and the way it was photographed. It also introduced some interesting new aliens, e.g. Suliban and Denobulans, and explored Andorians in unprecedented detail. There was also the unprecedented season 3 arc, and the multiparters of season 4.

The problem with Trek on TV was it just went on too long. TOS and TNG both stood out from the pack when they appeared, and so caught the public imagination. Piling on subsequent series, all with basically the same look and attitude, without a break just bored the general audience. No one who is not a Star Trek fan will continue to watch Star Trek year after year.

I don't actually disagree with you at all. Nevertheless, the problem of a franchise running too long, with the same people behind the scenes for nearly all of that time, means that ultimately they're going to run on empty as far as new ideas are concerned. It's going to harm the franchise overall. ENT's renaissance came from an eleventh hour change of showrunner, injecting different ideas into the mix.

 

[eyeresist]

ENT didn't "utterly fail" in its attempt to do something new. While a few episodes were faint copies of old concepts,

Much more than a few, and more than "faint copies." Many episodes were recycled plots from other Treks, none of them were particularly subtle about it, and at times they got a bit too blatant. Seriously, watch the episode Judgment and tell me you are not reminded of TUC multiple times.

That wasn't a copy, that was an overt homage.

Meanwhile the show was running out of ideas. This is not criticism, this is a confirmed fact. On the DVD commentary for Regeneration it is stated the Borg were brought onto the show because the writers had run out of ideas.

Not true, they didn't say that.

the show broke new ground by being more naturalistic than previous shows in terms of dialog and acting, and also in set design and the way it was photographed.

The characters swore and used contemporary slang more often then the other Treks, big deal. There wasn't anything special about the way it was photographed, aside from being the Trek series to be shot 16x9. And that had more to do with television beginning a transition to that format than it did any attempt to differentiate the show from the other Treks.

Not true. The lighting was much more cinematic than previous shows' flat, unrealistic lighting. For instance, there was much bolder use of extreme shadows and single light sources. The naturalistic dialog was important for making the characters both more relatable and more psychologically realistic.

It also introduced some interesting new aliens, e.g. Suliban and Denobulans,

And did nothing with them. The Suliban were only part of the TCW storyline, and that was forced on the show by Paramount and UPN since they didn't have any real faith in the prequel concept. And Denobulans are probably the least developed race of a main character in a Trek series.

Not true. ENT showed how Suliban hive settlements worked, how they related to Future Guy, and also explored how the Suliban homeworld was no more, causing a diaspora, with many Suliban settling peacefully on other worlds. Denobulans were explored in the ep where Phlox met a race-enemy, and where his wife came on board. We also learned about their sleep cycles and natural defensive capabilities.

There was also the unprecedented season 3 arc,

Unprecedented for Star Trek, maybe. But these kind of storylines were becoming quite trendy back in 2003, most notably with 24 already going into its third season. In fact, Enterprise's third season is more a reaction to the more serialized nature TV was now embracing.

"Unprecedented for Star Trek" is still that, unprecedented for Star Trek. DS9 had attempted an ongoing arc story (mostly sporadic episodes over a number of seasons), but this was the first time a sustained, foreplanned arc had been attempted in Trek. The existence of 24 doesn't nullify that.

 

[The Wormhole]

ENT didn't "utterly fail" in its attempt to do something new. While a few episodes were faint copies of old concepts,

Much more than a few, and more than "faint copies." Many episodes were recycled plots from other Treks, none of them were particularly subtle about it, and at times they got a bit too blatant. Seriously, watch the episode Judgment and tell me you are not reminded of TUC multiple times.

That wasn't a copy, that was an overt homage.

There was too much copied for it to be a homage. It essentially is TUC redone on a TV budget. Plus, coming among the second season, which at that point was already under heavy criticism for reusing plots from other Treks or other sci-fi movies or shows in general. Hell, the episode Dawn was under heavy fire for being a near carbon-copy of the movie Enemy Mine, with several plot points which were already used many times in previous Treks. And then a month after that, they transplant the TARDIS from Doctor Who.

Not true, they didn't say that.

The audio commentary has the following paraphrased bit in it: "This episode came about one day when we had no ideas in the writer's room and Brannon just asked for anything, no matter how off the wall. I had this idea involving the Borg which I was holding in reserve for just such an occasion."

Not true. The lighting was much more cinematic than previous shows' flat, unrealistic lighting. For instance, there was much bolder use of extreme shadows and single light sources.

Honestly, I don't think too much on such matters anyway. I just remember when the cancellation was announced, Ron Moore going on about the show being filmed in the exact same manner as all the other Treks since TNG began.

Not true. ENT showed how Suliban hive settlements worked, how they related to Future Guy, and also explored how the Suliban homeworld was no more, causing a diaspora, with many Suliban settling peacefully on other worlds.

The Suliban were featured in 10 out of 98 episodes. Considering they were introduced in the pilot as the main protagonist, that's a pretty weak showing. Hell, in the end it seemed the mysterious Future Guy's plan was just to prepare Archer for the Xindi, and indeed once that's done the Suliban were essentially written out of the show, save for the Alien Nazi affair in season 4. Hell, even though Voyager abandoned the Kazon after the second season, they still did more with the Kazon than Enterprise did with the Xindi.

Denobulans were explored in the ep where Phlox met a race-enemy, and where his wife came on board. We also learned about their sleep cycles and natural defensive capabilities.

Thing is, there are only three times we see other Denobulans than Phlox in all Enterprise. Sure, we hear various details about Denobulan lifestyle, but compared to what we've learned over the years about Vulcans, Klingons, Betazoids, Bajorans, Trill, Founders, Talaxians and Ocampa we get practically nothing. Hell, out of all these races, Talaxians and Denobulans are the only ones we've never visited the homeworlds of. But at least we have the excuse of Talaxia being destroyed. Why didn't we ever see Denobula?

 

[eyeresist]

ENT showed how Suliban hive settlements worked, how they related to Future Guy, and also explored how the Suliban homeworld was no more, causing a diaspora, with many Suliban settling peacefully on other worlds.

The Suliban were featured in 10 out of 98 episodes. Considering they were introduced in the pilot as the main protagonist, that's a pretty weak showing. Hell, in the end it seemed the mysterious Future Guy's plan was just to prepare Archer for the Xindi, and indeed once that's done the Suliban were essentially written out of the show, save for the Alien Nazi affair in season 4.

There's no denying the producers misfired by not having a plan in advance for the TCW. However, 10 Suliban episodes (and good episodes, too), mostly in the first two seasons, isn't bad considering TNG introduced the iconic Borg (the greatest threat to civilisation in the galaxy!) and only used them 6 times over 7 years.

Regarding Betazoids, surely even one Lwaxana episode was one too many? (There were six.)