Why didn't DS9 capture a large audience like all the other Treks?

[DWF]

UPN ran a special before Voyager's finale aired because it was their show -- and their first show and probably their most successful drama at that -- whereas DS9 was syndicated.

What special? I don't recall seeing any special for Voyager before their finale.

I'm using a potentially confusing term; I'm referring to the news story. Or was that not on UPN?

It could've been on UPN since they don't have a news division. As far as I know they had no series ending special.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I remember they did promos in the last few days before finale.

After the finale, if I'm not mistaken, they probably devoted a good part of their second half of their broadcast to it.

They interviewed different actors and showed various flashbacks and moments from the show.

Ironically, I remember when they asked Garrett Wang how he felt about the episode, he said he didn't really like it.

Now with DS9, they aired it over the weekend in a two hour slot, but from what I remember not much or any mention on the news that came afterwards.

I agree on the part about Voyager's premise being original, but the excitement never seemed to materialize -like all the great ideas that could have came from it never happened.

And where's the suspense when halfway through the series, they gain two way contact with home?

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

they should have tried to keep patrick stewart on board. maybe have him as an admiral and appear once every few episodes to give sir stewart a break, but keep him as the main figurehead. i know a lot of people on here really disliked sisko's anger driven leadership approach.

 

[T'Girl]

I just think people never really gave it a chance and let the story develop over time,

This is a little unreasonable. You can't expect a audience to just hang in there to see if a series changes into something interesting or develops over time. There are a lot of shows out there. For instance, I hung in there with Stargate Universe for a dozen episode before I kicked it to the curb, it currently could be the best show on TV today and I wouldn't know it (I understand it's not), Flash Forward is another sci-fi show that I simply dropped, from a VERY interesting first couple of shows it disintegrated into goo. With neither of those two examples did I (or too many other people) really give it enough of a chance.

Looking at DS's ratings, lot's of people did try it out.

I know some people who started out watching DS9 but let it go because it was too dark ...

Some fans loved the darkness, they (mistakenly?) think it made the series "realistic." What I saw were people making a series of poor moral choices. James Kirk made hard choices and never lost himself in the process. Ben Sisko gradually lost himself through the years, he never pulled back from his various compromises. Each compromise was reasonabe in of itself, but they built up. I want to be able to look up to the series lead, it got to the point I couldn't do this with Sisko.

TNG, the Federation was at war (hot and cold) with the Cardassians though out the series run, but the show didn't dwell on the war, even though entire episodes were devoted to the war, not entire seasons. The Dominion were the latest evil group. they really had no reasonable point of view. If the Dominion had had a truly legitimate grievance against the Federation, well it would have made the whole war thing less tiresome for many.

And by "many" I mean those who stopped watching.

And what's with all the season 1-2 hate??

Not hate, more objective observation, or personal perspective.

since there was no exploration involved.

This is one of the things (also) that got me about DS9 in general. All the other series engage in some exploration of "the final frontier." In DS9 it made it seem as if the entire Alpha Quad was like twenty first century Europe, nothing but wall to wall governments as far as the eye can see. There was no Magellan, no Lewis and Clarke, no vast oceans, no open territory to explore and encounter new things.

And when they did journeyed into the far distance and mysterious Gamma Quad, what did they discover? Why yes, another big government (the Dominion). But wait. The Dominion didn't encompass the entire Gamma Quad, there was plenty if other area to explore right?

Wrong, we'll be spending (expending) all of our time with the Dominion. And for the most part only with three of the Dominion's races.

 

[trekie015]

For me, DS9 embodied an ethical and moral story. I believe it had a deeper meaning with characters that continually developed. That is what makes it my favorite series.

 

[DWF]

TNG, the Federation was at war (hot and cold) with the Cardassians though out the series run, but the show didn't dwell on the war, even though entire episodes were devoted to the war, not entire seasons.

The Cardassians weren't introduced until the fifth season of TNG, maybe you're thinking of the Borg.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Cardassians weren't introduced until the fifth season of TNG

Make that TNG: The Wounded, season 4.

 

[Nightdiamond]

But the funny thing is, the Dominion War is a popular reference for fans.

One of the most popular scenes, IMO, is the war footage from episodes like SOA and Call to Arms.

I also liked the continuity of the characters and situations.

With TNG at times it seems everyone stayed single, played it safe with words, and seemed as if their lives were defined only by their jobs and roles.

TOS had and even worse short term memory.

DS9 stretched that a bit, people said things differently or more bluntly or normally.

Crew members got married, had children or kept looking for relationships. They quit, got rehired etc.

Still, understandably, you can't force people to like something...

 

[DWF]

The Cardassians weren't introduced until the fifth season of TNG

Make that TNG: The Wounded, season 4.

My fault sorry.

 

[T'Girl]

TNG, the Federation was at war (hot and cold) with the Cardassians though out the series run, but the show didn't dwell on the war, even though entire episodes were devoted to the war, not entire seasons.

The Cardassians weren't introduced until the fifth season of TNG, maybe you're thinking of the Borg.

Make that TNG: The Wounded, season 4.

Picard's conversation with Scotty in Relics and O'Brien's war story in The Wounded made it clear that the hot and cold war with the Cardassians predates the beginning of the TNG series.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Source

Thanks, guys, for this data.

Has there been any study indicating whether these same downward slopes are more widespread among other shows of the same period, even shows outside science fiction?

 

[BillJ]

Nana Visitor.

Seriously, was never able to get past her (came off as whiny). There were weeks I just couldn't get myself to tune in and listen to her. Which is a shame because it was a well written series... but I just wanted to break puppies in half when I heard her voice.

I always wondered if I would have embraced the show more if they had snagged Michelle Forbes to play Ro Laren...

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Visitor is definitely a divisive actress. I see people either falling for her head-over-heels or complaining about her. Left and right, left and right.

I'm in the former camp, though. Favorite actress in Trek.

 

[Kirby]

In my area DS9 used to air right after TNG, but when TNG went off the air DS9 was moved all over the schedule and was more often than not preempted by either basketball or baseball and moved to midnight and sometimes even later. Even then it wouldn't always be on at that time; once I ended up recording back to back episodes of the Dick VanDyke show instead of DS9.
It wasn't until the Denver Nuggets games moved to a different channel and they started showing re-runs did I finally get to see the show on a regular basis. It was probably late season five before the local station got their act together with the new broadcast episodes.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Has there been any study indicating whether these same downward slopes are more widespread among other shows of the same period, even shows outside science fiction?

Those graphs do mirror broadcast TV trends over the past couple of decades, across all genres. Cable was still a minor factor then, and now it's 50% of all TV viewing. Everything is getting smaller ratings nowadays. It's hard for expensive genres like space opera to survive in that climate.

The notion that VOY is famous in pop culture because of Barbie of Borg's breasts doesn't really relate to this topic, which is about the ratings. The breasts apparently didn't help VOY buck the overall trends in TV.

 

[Nightdiamond]

how many iconic characters can we count from Voyager compared to TNG?

I mean as far parodies on other shows or just mentioned in the mainstream outside of Sci fi.

I have seen Seven of Nine Parodied and Janeway, but that's it.

I've seen Quark and Odo parodied once.

With TNG and TOS nearly everyone, but that's understandable.

 

[indranee]

To me, it's still very significant that Emissary had the highest viewership of all Trek premieres. That means there was a LOT of interest in the so-called sequel for TNG. The steepness of the ratings graphics after that is difficult to digest.

A new series is more heavily promoted through advertising and through "free media" - magazine, newspaper and TV interviews, etc - than the studio invests in week-to-week promotion of an ongoing series.

We can safely assume that the first-week viewership of DS9 consisted of virtually every TNG viewer plus millions of folks who were curious based on the publicity.

Just about every series sheds viewers for the first few weeks after its premiere, as the folks who were "sampling" but aren't grabbed by the premiere move on.

This is true for the Trek series following DS9 as well - it's true for just about any TV series. Notice that the premiere viewership for Voyager was higher than the same week viewership for DS9, and that Enterprise premiered quite a bit higher than Voyager left off.

BTW, comparisons of TNG and DS9 ratings with Voyager and Enterprise ratings usually involves a certain apples-and-oranges aspect - reported ratings for first-run syndication shows were generally "gross average audience" (GAA) ratings for several airings during the week while network shows are simply the rating for a single airing (Paramount's syndication contracts for TNG and DS9 with local stations permitted two first-run airings within a seven or eight day window). One can choose to assume that DS9 was watched by more people than Voyager or vice versa, but that's not exactly what the ratings represent.

Dennis, my point was that the graph demonstrates The Emissary being literally "head and shoulders" above the rest of the Trek premieres. My other point was that DS9 bled viewers extra-fast and then pretty much faded into viewer-oblivion once VOY began. I know this as I was watching both shows at the time before I left VOY alone and gave my full attention to DS9. And all the while I watched -- year after year -- how much of a poor relation DS9 became.

I also agree with some of the other posters on this thread that, artistically, this was a boon for DS9 (and for us Niner fans).

 

[indranee]

What competition other than Babylon 5?

Don't quote me on this as I am stating this from personal experience but I was in college during both TNG and then grad school during DS9 etc.. and I really don't remember a lot of competition for TNG. We all watched it in our dorm -- pretty much all of us. Even the Trek haters tuned it to make fun of it but watch it they did. Not so with DS9. Too many other shows were available and being watched at the same time.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The only way the data support the idea that

DS9 ... pretty much faded into viewer-oblivion once VOY began

is if you also believe that VOY faded into viewer-oblivion in lockstep with DS9.

Just to make sure I understand where you are coming from, do you concede that VOY faded into viewer-oblivion in lockstep with DS9?

 

[DWF]

What competition other than Babylon 5?

Don't quote me on this as I am stating this from personal experience but I was in college during both TNG and then grad school during DS9 etc.. and I really don't remember a lot of competition for TNG. We all watched it in our dorm -- pretty much all of us. Even the Trek haters tuned it to make fun of it but watch it they did. Not so with DS9. Too many other shows were available and being watched at the same time.

Jeopardy and Wheel Of Fortune were TNG's main competition and they continued to get high ratings even after TNG left the air.