Say It Ain't So, Captain
First, if you haven't checked out the caption contest, give it a look. It's even bi-partisan!
Now, while researching something for an upcoming piece, I ran across some bad news. Star Trek: Enterprise has been cancelled.
Fans will recall the show barely escaped cancellation at the end of the third season through an 11th hour appeal to UPN execs. The show has always suffered from poor ratings and a casual disregard of story continuity. Which is a Damn Shame. When it premiered, I thought the show had some great potential. It was set up as a conflict between two philosophical factions...the Vulcans who thought things should remain static, and those upstart Humans who yearned to push back boundaries on their potential. To me it spoke to the conflicts against Islamofascism. There was literally loads of room to explore this in the context of the show. And besides, we got Jolene Blalock in a bodysuit. What wasn't to like?
Turns out quite a bit. Instead of looking at compelling themes, we got vapid melodrama. That would be bad enough, but it was vapid melodrama that chucked aside established points of the franchise whenever they became inconvenient.
So I'm kind of sorry to see it go. But only kind of. While the story I link quotes Rick Berman (Producer) as blaming it on "Franchise Fatigue," I think that's only part of it. Most of it is in seeing Berman and his golden boy Brannon Braga run the franchise down over the years. Frankly, if there's franchise fatigue, it's on the part of the production staff, not the viewers.
Posted by John Tant at February 3, 2005 09:53 AM
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Comments
| # March 7th, 2005 6:48 PM Converted_Comment | |
a big TOS and TNG fan, i was never able to 'get in' to enterprise. i think i just had a problem w/ scott bakula as captain - i think of him as just "that quantum leap guy." however, it's possible that my inability to get hooked was due more to a poor timeslot, much like in the case of "the family guy," than it was to mr bakula's failing as el capitan. of course, enterprise was also on a joke of a channel, so that it had that going against it s well. TOS was cancelled after only a couple of seasons, too, and look how that worked out; who knows what will happen with enterprise. now that ive joined the tivo world, i'll probably start checking out reruns. |
| # March 7th, 2005 6:48 PM Converted_Comment | |
I too thought "Enterprise" had great potential. I liked the sexual tension between T'Pol and Trip when it was just tension, and thought Trip and the uptight Brit had potential as a Buddy team. I don't think the creators had "francise fatigue," but "I don't give a darn" fatigue when it came to character development and plot continuity. I stopped watching midway through the third season. Franchise's biggest disapointment. |
| # March 7th, 2005 6:48 PM Converted_Comment | |
"Enterprise" right after "Voyager" -- two series which were looking more and more like cynical execs milking the fan base and not crediting us with enough neurons to figure out that hey! the writing sucks! Here's another obit for "Enterprise" that's entitled -- appropriately enough for Trek fans everywhere -- "He's Dead, Jim": http://jeffreyjchiu.blogspot.com/2005/02/hes-dead-jim-star-trek-enterprise-is.html My brother, by the way, has suggested that true Trek fans consider the entirety of "Enterprise" the series as apocryphal in terms of true Trek mythos. |