I'm actually just now seeing Season 4 of ENT for the first time. I'd originally skipped it, thinking the series had jumped the shark when I saw the time travel thing at end of the Season 3 finale.
worst sci-fi TV series of post 1964
- Thread starter jefferiestubes8
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The decline in ENT's ratings was just the continuation of the same decline that spanned DS9 and then VOY.
http://www.madmind.de/2009/05/02/all-star-trek-movies-and-episodes-in-two-charts/
http://www.madmind.de/2009/05/02/all-star-trek-movies-and-episodes-in-two-charts/
In regards to "M.A.N.T.I.S.", I'm okay with films and TV series that were done poorly and can be improved, being remade. This show had potential and I still think it does. The show, however, squandered almost all of it.
Don't get me wrong. ENT had its flaws. But it wasn't the first series to waste an entire season on a war with a race of nutjobs so intractable as to make Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, Hitler, and Stalin all look like paragons of sanity (DS9 fans, are you listening?). Nor was it the first time ST gleefully threw continuity to the wind (though, to be fair, at the time FC was made, TAS had not regained its canon status after being deprecated to a status no higher than, say, the Gold Key comic books).
And as to jumping the shark, as far as I'm concerned both of the above cases of "wasting an entire season on a war with nutjobs" were cases of ST series jumping, whereas ENT 4 was more a case of "un-jumping." Hell, maybe DS9 jumped with the first script to mention The Dominion.
But ENT was hardly a "series that successfully buried [its] franchise"; at the time of its debut, we had seen 14 years of first-run Star Trek on the air, much of that time with two distinct flavors in first-run at the same time, and we'd just seen a reactionary and emotionally immature POTUS take the Oath of Office, and had just become the victims of multiple coordinated terrorist atrocities. Star Trek's optimism had gone just a little bit out of style, while dystopianism and violence were coming into vogue.
And as to jumping the shark, as far as I'm concerned both of the above cases of "wasting an entire season on a war with nutjobs" were cases of ST series jumping, whereas ENT 4 was more a case of "un-jumping." Hell, maybe DS9 jumped with the first script to mention The Dominion.
But ENT was hardly a "series that successfully buried [its] franchise"; at the time of its debut, we had seen 14 years of first-run Star Trek on the air, much of that time with two distinct flavors in first-run at the same time, and we'd just seen a reactionary and emotionally immature POTUS take the Oath of Office, and had just become the victims of multiple coordinated terrorist atrocities. Star Trek's optimism had gone just a little bit out of style, while dystopianism and violence were coming into vogue.
He seems to have a few irrational vendettas, ENT being the least of them.....
Exactly so, the pattern was already established and the fact ENT is so popular on rewatch casts doubt on any issues with the show itself being the cause of it's decline. The wider viewing audience lost interest in trek, plain and simple. The hardcore fanbase may have kept watching and complaining, but that's what we do.
I haven't seen the first two seasons of Enterprise (Besides pilot and random things.) because what I did saw was awful. However the last two seasons made the show watchable. I wouldn't call it the worst modern sci-fi show. Hell I feel like Discovery is worse.
At the same time you can't say ratings dropped because that's what happens. I remember the pilot getting massive ratings, then everyone ditched because it was so bad. Yes ratiings drop, but if it were decent it would have stabilized.
At the same time you can't say ratings dropped because that's what happens. I remember the pilot getting massive ratings, then everyone ditched because it was so bad. Yes ratiings drop, but if it were decent it would have stabilized.
The pilot got 12.5 million viewers sure, but the decline in viewing figures over the four seasons was steady and in line with that seen for DS9 and VOY, whereas critical response pretty consistently improved over the last two seasons.
Even if that weren't the case, a correlation between negative reviews and comments with a decline in viewing figures is just that, a correlation, not a causal relationship. On the contrary, ENT is popular enough on rewatches for Netflix to still be a willing platform now.
People stopped watching it at the time but taken out of that context of saturation it's actually proving to be a pretty consistently viable product with a steady audience.
Even if that weren't the case, a correlation between negative reviews and comments with a decline in viewing figures is just that, a correlation, not a causal relationship. On the contrary, ENT is popular enough on rewatches for Netflix to still be a willing platform now.
People stopped watching it at the time but taken out of that context of saturation it's actually proving to be a pretty consistently viable product with a steady audience.
Start with all things visual on the series...the ship..."phase pistols" instead of its future lasers (the TOS pilots), and on and on. Since you've take on on the role of ENT defender, I'm fairly certain you are familiar with all of the criticisms (revisions included) about ENT since it was first run.
The problem with the Stars Wars OT vs Star Trek TOS is that TOS has a much more '60s visual style while the Star Wars OT has much less era specific visual style to it. There was really no way to try to go back from TOS without it seeming unrealistic as a future from 2005. By 2005 we had technology that more advanced than what we saw in TOS.
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A one episode call back is a lot different than the hero ship that we're going to see on a weekly basis.
Enterprise was not solely responsible for the end of Berman era Trek, the drop off of viewers and fans was already starting during Voyager.
I did stop watching ENT, but my issues were not with the overall quality of the show, it was just that at the time it felt like it was to much of the same old, same old TNG/VOY style stories. In terms of the acting, writing, and technical quality the shows was very well done.
I've watched Seasons 3 and 4 on their own a while back, and I started a watching the show from the beginning for the first time since it originally aired few months ago and found myself enjoying the early episodes a lot more than I had in the past.
I'd put Season 4 right up there with some of the best seasons of the entire franchise, and 3 was not at that level, but also really good.
Yeah, I'm not sure it was "revisionism" that chased away the general audience. My big problem with ENT was that it was too much like the previous series. Despite lots of advance hype about it being newer and faster and sexier and rougher around the edges than the previous shows, it was pretty much the same old thing with slightly different window dressing and technobabble. It was well-produced and acted, but was about as fresh and exciting as reheated leftovers.
The average TV viewer doesn't care all that much about "canon." But they will change the channels if they feel like they're watching a xerox of a xerox of a xerox . . . . ..
Honestly, DISCO is the show I wanted ENT to be.
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I actually really liked the ship design when it first came out. The phase pistols look fine to me, and the M.A.C.O. phase rifles are actually pretty cool. The vast, overwhelming majority of the audience probably never even knew about the "future lasers", let alone gave a damn about it. That's not to say I agree with all of the visuals. (For instance, I thought the Andorian ships were kind of uninspired compared to the Vulcan ships.) I'm just saying that there was enough there to keep people happy if everything else had worked.
No kidding. I recall there being a few episodes in the first two seasons that I was utterly convinced were made from rejected DS9 scripts.
The sad part is the feeling of episodes being interchangeable with old TNG was also a huge problem for Voyager all through it's run (despite the odd flash of brilliance.) It had a similar trajectory too, what with the strong and unique premise and setting that was almost entirely ignored the second the pilot episode was over. You'd think they would have learnt their lesson.
For me, the best evidence that the higher-ups never had a clear idea of what the show was supposed to be was the penultimate season where they seemed to just throw everything at the wall to see what stuck. Wasn't until the final season that it started to become what it probably should have been from the get-go. Too little, too late though.
No, I asked about causality, not the criticisms themselves. How can you demonstrate those criticisms actually led to the show's decline? I've cast myself in no role, for the second time this week you've took my asking a question you can't answer as taking a particular stance.
This is much closer to the observed trend in viewing figures, audience fatigue fits the pattern perfectly well and frankly the hardcore fans who would care about "revisionism" simply don't represent a large enough demographic to make all that much of an impact.
By the way, just finished "weight of worlds"
I'm guessing because that would be the watershed between the original Twilight Zone and LiS/Trek.
There's a famous exchange between Scott Bakula and René Auberjonois during the filming of the episode with the ship full of holograms (Oasis I think it was called. I can't remember for sure) where Bakula remarks what a good script it is, and Auberjonois replies that he thought the same thing when they made the same episode on DS9.
It's like BIRDS OF PREY. When that show failed, you had hardcore DC fans insisting that it failed because it had taken liberties with the original comic-book continuity, as if that was all that mattered.
More likely, the show failed because, despite some good casting, it was a mediocre show. If the show had been better executed and more exciting, viewers would have overlooked any discrepancies with the comics.
More likely, the show failed because, despite some good casting, it was a mediocre show. If the show had been better executed and more exciting, viewers would have overlooked any discrepancies with the comics.
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Yeah, I've never bought into the idea that shows like that failed because they strayed too far from the source material. Take Smallville for example: that took *massive* liberties and was downright ashamed of it's source material for the majority of it's run and damn if it didn't go the distance. So there's no denying that it found an audience, regardless of what the established fandom made of it.
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Heck, the Christopher Nolan BATMAN movies take tons of the liberties with the comics, but nobody cares because they're so good. It's only when a bad superhero fails that the internet blames the failure on deviations from the original comics.
If the Halle Berry CATWOMAN had been a great good time, all but purists would have overlooked the "Patience Price" thing.
Ditto STAR TREK. We overlook "canon violations" in, say, WRATH OF KHAN because it's so marvelously entertaining, but would rip it to shreds for the same if it were less fun.
If the Halle Berry CATWOMAN had been a great good time, all but purists would have overlooked the "Patience Price" thing.
Ditto STAR TREK. We overlook "canon violations" in, say, WRATH OF KHAN because it's so marvelously entertaining, but would rip it to shreds for the same if it were less fun.
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