Will Enterprise last the obligatory seven seasons?

[Tabitha]

What do you reckon?

I think it will, but I think by the end it will be getting slated worse than Voyager was, just think about all those potential continuity mess-ups we can look forward to in six more years.
I am watching it and enjoying it, but less so than Voyager.

I think a more interesting question might be "Is there any way Enterprise WON'T last the seven years?"
How bad would things have to get before Paramount would cancel the show?

 

[Dave]

You can tell me more about this than I know, but isn't there a certain number of episodes of a series required to make syndication possible? I believe that it equates to about 3 seasons, so we can definately look forward to another season after the second.

Scott Bakula keeps emphasizing in interviews how he is not looking to seven years, just trying to make each episode the best that it can be, but I don't think he really believes that himself. (Interesting to note that Quantum Leap didn't make seven years though)

Scott Bakula
I never count on anything... Somebody asked me the other day: they said, 'Well how do you deal with that, not knowing when you're going to have a show, or how long something is going to run?' I don't take it for granted, and I'm not at all skeptical. But after what's happened this last year [twin towers attack 9/11] .... it doesn't make sense to.

The rest of the cast do seem to be looking forward to seven years, and are much less recitant.

Anthony Montgomery
If what they say is true, I plan on being this way [excited about being an ensign on the bridge] seven years down the line.... It makes fun knowing that you're coming back to work, but just the fact that I can take a vacation makes it more fun, the fact that that I can actually sit on this phone and tell you, 'I'm going to the Caribbean.'

Tabitha
....by the end it will be getting slated worse than Voyager was, just think about all those potential continuity mess-ups we can look forward to in six more years.

Lets wait and see, none of my worries have yet come true, and read my posts from last year, I was the biggest pessimist of all. Yet it has really grown on me, I personally like it far more than 'Voyager', so lets just wait and see

 

[ray gower]

Think comparing Enterprise to Voyager is a little unfair.

Voyager was (or should have been) a serial. Enterprise is a series. Which makes it much closer in style to the stalwarts TNG and TOS and neither of those lasted seven years, but are remembered fondly, perhaps because of that.

Enterprise episodes are largely independent of each other and apart from the occaisional vivid recollection of the first episode, amnesia hits the crew at the end of each show. So now the need for real continuity has been dispensed with, along with the ludicrous two weeks timescale between adventures. It is much easier to just sit back and enjoy.

The result being that Enterprise is far more 'watchable'. I do not mind if they reuse old plots. Provided they always manage to present it differently, even better if there is a different outcome!
If they can do that, then I see no reason why it should not manage a full seven years. If not then it will grind to a halt by the end of season 5, just like TNG

Voyager was slammed originally because the plots were tired, the aliens were anything but alien and it was trying to do the same disjointed track as the older shows, when the circumstances almost totally preclude such a thing.

After a while there was a start of a hint of continuity.
They remembered what a Kazon looked like, even if they didn't remember what they ate for lunch. Needless to observe that Voyager always looked as if it had just come out of a three month refit and all done in a week! The production crew appeared incapable of comprehending its strict continuity needs over an ordinary series like TNG.

Its drubbing for the introduction of totty in the shape of Seven of Nine, may or may not have been warranted. But it did herald, with the required lift in ratings to keep it going, the much needed shot in the arm for plot, despite some of the tacky ways they were presented.

 

[skoon]

I think Enterprise just had a little bit of a slow start, it seems to be pickig up & becoming interesting in S2 again. Sure, it can go for 7, I'm on board...

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by skoon
I think Enterprise just had a little bit of a slow start, it seems to be pickig up & becoming interesting in S2 again. Sure, it can go for 7, I'm on board...

Strange, I think that the 1st season was better, but it still had a few rotten apples. I watch every episode, like a true fan, but few of them grab me and have me saying, "Wow! That was good!" 'Firefly' did that, TNG and DS9 used to do that, some of 'Odyssey 5' has done that, and 'Stargate SG-1' used to do that.

I'm not alone either, viewing figures are down and B & B are obviously worried, as this TV guide article is going to candidly show:

from Trek Today

The March 1 issue of TV Guide will examine the state of the Star Trek franchise, with frank comments from Enterprise co-creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

In the article, Braga is candid about the lacklustre ratings for Enterprise's sophomore season. "What can you say?" he told the magazine. "We're bummed."

But this doesn't mean the end of the NX-01's adventures, according to UPN entertainment president Dawn Ostroff, who said Enterprise is not going anywhere. "Hit shows often take years."

Enterprise's guiding lights promised there will be plenty to keep viewers hooked in future outings. According to Braga, Archer and company will face "epic challenges...that better exploit the sense of awe and danger," while Berman said the show has undergone a minor change in direction. "Let's just say there will be a slight revision in our mission, and a slight revision in the part of space that Enterprise is heading into."

TV Guide's complete article includes suggestions from the editors about how to breathe life into Enterprise and the feature franchise. Popular Trek reviewer Jamahl Epsicokhan of Star Trek: Hypertext was among those asked for their thoughts on Enterprise for the story. Readers can also have their say on "how to fix the Star Trek franchise" from next week at TV Guide's Trek section.

Some of John Shibans skills have been evident, but I still believe that they need a larger writing staff, or some way to get some new ideas for stories. It seems to me that Star Trek began going downhill after they stopped accepting scripts from writers without an agent. I understand their reasons why, but I also think that to re-intoduce "awe and danger" and "epic challenges" they will need fresh talent to achieve it.

 

[ray gower]

To show how desperate B&B are getting with Enterprise already, Berman in an interview with the TV Guide claims that they are considering an episode that brings the characters from previous shows together.

:dead: :dead:

Can there be a bigger admission of failure?

 

[Tabitha]

Wow!

Am I right in thinking that there was at some point, a flat denial from TPTB that there would never be any guest appearances by characters from the other shows?

If so, then yes, I couldn't agree more - an admission of failure.

 

[Dave]

Hindsight!

'Enterprise' was cancelled last week after only four Seasons. The first Trek TV show not to have run for Seven Season since the original season was cancelled in the sixties. They tried to cancel it last year but it got a reprieve (which they deny was anything to do with getting the 100 episodes necssary for Syndication - something I alluded to in a post above.)

TPTB (powers that be) tried to cancel the original series after two years, gave it a reprieve, then cancelled it after three. But there I think the similarity ends; 'Star Trek: Enterprise' is not 'Star Trek' (TOS), not even in the same league.

It is great that we have this thread here. I just reread it and we identified the problem with 'Enterprise' very early on in the series. TPTB had plenty of time to try to fix it and get it right, yet the retro-trek idea is too much of a minefield for continuity, too restrictive in the aliens and technology it can introduce, and the stories themselves have been too repetitive and recycled.

I'm not sure if TPTB ever gave a denial about guest stars, that would seem unlikely. But they became increasing desperate over time to get ratings at any cost, changing 'Enterprise' to 'Star Trek: Enterprise' (something Rick Berman publically denied), adding more sex and violence (the MACOs, T'Pol & Trip, Orion slave girls), more battles & conflict (the Expanse.)

I'm still waiting to see Season 4, and it sounds like the best Season yet (apart from the alien nazis, the guest stars from the future, the reconning of trek history, and the huge reset button that was anything that happened in Season 3.)

Of course, the 'Enterprise' fans hope that their mail campaign will help save 'Enterprise', in the same way that 'Farscape' fans and 'Firefly' fans, and fans of the original series got some joy (though none of them actually got a new Season.) But as I said, 'Enterprise' is just not the same product as the original series.

And I might add that many better quality series have not got renewed even with huge fan outcries.