Is it truly all over or should we have faith of the heart?

Not the impression I got.

I'm scared, personally, and will be joining in the letter-writing campaign as soon as I manage to get myself to the post office to buy some stamps.

In order to avoid cancellation, the show's producers are going to have lure back all of the Trekkers who have fled the show. I think it's a shame that many of the people you would expect would like the show have abandoned it. But can this be done?

For what it's worth, the show has brought me back to sci-fi on television and it would be a shame if it stopped airing. While Enterprise has its faults, it shows a lot of promise and needs seven years to tell the full story of how the Federation came to be.

Honestly, the only reason I'd bemoan the cancellation of Enterprise would be the loss of the Enterprise Boards on TWoP.

However, I'd lay money on Enterprise coming back in the fall.

Unfortunately, UPN isn't doing anything to promote ENT...the show is so much stronger this season, it's a shame the press hasn't noticed.

It's not like TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all immediately brilliant. From my POV, TNG and DS9 didn't really get going until S3 while, for me, Voyager never made it (mostly due to the casting). Ent seems to be going the way of TNG and DS9 - rather dull and hokey until S3 where there's an improvement in scripts and acting. Certainly, Twilight and Proving Ground show that there's life in the old franchise yet. If TPTB don't run scared and cancel, it'll continue to get better and more people will watch.

I stopped watching ENT a while back. I still read the recaps, but I can't stomach watching Bakula. He enrages me. The writing pains me. The dialogue sickens me.

I like Phlox and Trip and Porthos. If they recast the rest of the crew, I'd be intrigued, but we all know that in the world of Trek, there are no transfers, you keep serving with the same seven people until all the actors drop dead.

Why should this show survive when good sci-fi cannot? Just because it's Trek?

Some Trek news sites have mentioned that TPTB are attempting to shop Enterprise around to other networks. Personally, I think I'd be a great lead-in to '24,' but we all know FOX's record when it comes to science fiction.

What's Aaron Sorkin doing these days? Maybe he can write a few eps.

Even Sorkin can't help a wooden performance like Bakula's, Twilight and Proving Ground not withstanding. I'd get JMS instead of Sorkin, cos at least Joe's heard of continuity.

We know he can write a good poker game ep; that would be an interesting conceit.



Because, IMO, it is showing the the signs of becoming good sci-fi, and because it has the capacity to become a good show.

personally, I'm of the "do not care" persuasion, since I can't watch it. it would suck if there wasn't an Enterprise board, though. (and I think DS9 was good starting with S2.)

What rumors?

I think Enterprise has gotten better. Besides, it's so much fun to snark upon. If it were cancelled, I think it'd have the distinction of being the first post-TOS Star Trek series not to fulfill it's tenure.

Most of the first two seasons did nothing (well, very little) for me, but starting with "Congenitor," I got hooked. Now I really love it and would be very upset if it got cancelled. I'm really active in the Enterprise Project, and am just praying that the show gets a fourth season. But I have to admit, with all the articles online about the end being nigh, I'm starting to lose hope.

I feel like the show has gotten better this season. I recall DS9 needed three seasons to blossom, and as much as I complain about this show I don't want it to be cancelled. I need my sci-fi fix. And all the really good stuff gets cancelled. Where will we go? What will we do?

Said rumors really are nothing more than, "Wow, they axed Jake 2.0 in a heartbeat, who knows what they'll do?" Which is a reasonable starting point, but it seems a bit soon to think of it as anything other than rumor-laden speculation.

I'd be very bummed if Enterprise got canceled, especially since, as someone noted above, the other post-TOS series took some time to get "good." I recall that DS9 was referred to as "Deep Six Nine."* And TNG went through some overhauls in the first couple seasons.

I started watching Enterprise after reading a season's worth of recaps. Now, I watch and read. I used to watch TWW and ER, then started reading the recaps as well; now, I just read the recaps - haven't actually watched one of those shows all season.

What Enterprise may have going in its favor is that it is part of an already existing franchise. If they're lucky, they jump to the big screen; if they're just fortunate, they spawn a series of books that themselves have a loyal following.

ETA: and not for smutty minded reasons!

I hope they don't cancel it. I've liked the show from the begining and it has only gotten better. S3 has been very good. I was a Jake 2.0 fan and bummed that UPN cancelled that. However, Star Trek is a Universal money-maker and I think they want to keep it in our consciousness at all times. None of the ST series was always great. TNG had some dull episodes, as did DS9. Voyager just stank, but Enterprise doesn't sink to that level. TOS lives more on nostalgia and originality then the strength of the acting or scripts.

Enterprise's appeal to an international audience is kind of questionable at the moment. I recall hearing that the German network that carried it cancelled it for low ratings.

Is it popular in other countries?

I don't think all that much has changed since last season that they wouldn't cancel it. The ratings were crappy then, they're crappy now. The show has improved in quality, but only slightly. For every truly good ep like "Twilight" or "Similtude," we've alse been hit with garbage like "Rajin," or "The Shipment."

I think that Trek should die the death it is meant to die. If that means the show gets cancelled after this season, then that's the way it should be. We shouldn't get our knickers in a twist trying to save a show when the creators have proven they can't keep it viable any longer.

If they cancelled it... well, I'm not sure how I'd feel. It wasn't until after Voyager's run that I realized how truly crappy that show was. I might have a similar reaction here.

Apparently the third season has just started in England and Germany and the ratings were very strong. I don't know about Canadian ratings, but I know here in Toronto CityTV runs it on Wednesdays and Space on Saturdays. I would suspect that if the ratings weren't good, CityTV would just run it on Space, as they're all part of the same group of stations, and the overall umbrella organization is probably the one that has the rights.

Also, if you look at the advertisers, there are some pretty heavy hitters advertising: Ford, UPS, IBM, Mitsubishi. And I've worked in advertising so I know -these guys don't randomly choose which show they're going to pour their hard-earned advertising dollars into.

I'm not sure network executives pay attention to international ratings. Maybe since UPN and Paramount are all the same company they'll pay more attention to that stuff, but I just don't know. There are a lot of good points here, reasons why low UPN ratings aren't enough of a reason to cancel the show, but I'm just not sure how much attention UPN pays to that.

I'll bring up a point here I made in the other thread where this started: If they cancel Enterprise now, it may damage the franchise beyond any ability to resurrect it later. I do think they should have taken some time off between Voyager and Enterprise, but they didn't, and now the show has to run its course.

Not to mention the creative direction. I think this is the best season Trek's had since DS9 ended. If it gets canceled, they'll never try anything like this again, and the next series will be as frustratingly dull as Voyager at its worst.

Cancelling the show now will damage the franchise more than a poor-performing movie ever could.

I completely agree. They will never bounce back from this failure (and by "failure," I mean if they pull the series before the traditional seven years are up) and never succeed in launching another series because everyone will just remember that they couldn't handle this one.

On the subject of ratings, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal today about TV viewership. The main point of the article was that people are spending less time watching network TV. Which in turn affects the ratings.

I guess the point is that ratings don't mean much in this day and age. Especially when Nielsen even admitted that it had a pretty big margin of error. The dilemma is how the advertisers and network execs and show producers will change (evolve?) accordingly. So, I would hope that the execs at Paramount ignore some poorer ratings (which may not signify, exactly, a bad show) and keep Enterprise, if only to maintain the image of Trek. Besides the fact that I look forward to cheating and having fast-food on Wednesday nights.

And I second many of the messages posted about giving Enterprise some time to "mature". Even at the end of the run, TNG had some stinkers. It's bound to happen. But, the good ENT eps blow away most of what's on TV today. Plus, I would still rather watch a stinker than any sitcom on TV.

I've never believed that ratings tell the whole story. For example, do they measure viewership during the show, or during the commercial? Because I believe that while shows like Fox's "Outrageous videos" may snare in a lot of channel-flippers, they flip away during the commercials. Compare to those of us that are devoted to our beloved sci-fi shows. We leave the commercials on, because we don't want to miss a moment of the show. As a result, we see more commercials.

If I were an advertiser, I would insist that they measure how many people are watching the commercials during the show.

Anyway, I'm probably mostly preaching to the choir here. While I don't believe that the Nielson system is fundamentally innaccurate, I do believe the ratings don't tell the whole story.

UPN execs may not care about international ratings, but I would think that their bosses at Paramount do. They sell these shows to the international markets and that additional income would certainly be counted when it comes time to decide if the show is profitable or not. If a show is getting good ratings the British, German, Australian and wherever else networks will want to keep airing that show and will continue to pay to air it. I just don't see how that wouldn't be taken into consideration when deciding whether to continue production. I think that even if they technically 'cancel' Enterprise by removing it from UPN, they will continue production as long as there is a market for it in syndication and internationally. This is about business. In business, if a product is selling and is profitable, then you continue to produce it. If it's not then you don't. That's the absolute bottom line.


Just curious, why do they run these shows for seven years anyway? Was it just the time TNG ran and they decided to run all future Treks the same number of years or what?

Actually, that was one of the points of the articles. Advertisers are getting a little irritated that no one is seeing their messages and have begun seeking other venues (billboards etc). But the problem that poses for network TV is that advertising is their main revenue. And advertisers are starting to demand lower rates. And, it ripples on downward.

What I really got, was that the whole industry, ad and television, is in a state of flux. Things are changing so fast, what with DVD's, cable/satellite and the Internet.

The problem is, how do you count the casual and loyal viewers? And Nielsen has been feeling the heat about that too.

I should relate this to ENT somehow. I think that they are getting better ratings than are being reported. The problem is verification.

I just saw an interesting point- it's the war on terror that's hurting ratings. For the last year or two, ratings among males 18-35 (the prize demographic for advertisers, people who have money and are easily swayed by ads- their idea, not mine) have dropped considerably for all shows. There were a bunch of explanations- internet, video games, etc.- but none really satisfactory. Now it's been proposed that the answer is that most troops deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on are exactly in this range. And I'd assume that Star Trek viewership is heavy on males in this age range, and perhaps heavy among military men too. Just a thought.

As to considering international ratings- I can't quite put it into words, but it seems to me that the US is weighed more. Perhaps because it's a bigger market, or because all shows have international markets, or because one follows the other. I am surprised, though, that Europe is already up to the third season.

I think the reason that international ratings are not considered as much is because they don't get the same amount of money, especially since some of the channels are state-owned and therefore (relatively) advertiser free. And in that vein, any advertisers pay that station more than Paramount is getting paid from the station.

Unfortunately, the game is money. The more eyeballs the advertisers reach, they think they make more money, though even that is starting to get questioned.

Maybe one solution is a subscription type of service...pay for the shows one likes. But, I'm sure there are whole lotta problems with that harebrained solution.

Why do you think that, keckler? They bounced back from being cancelled in the 60s with an even stronger following. Is it just because all the series since TOS have been 7 years, or are there other factors involved that you see? If the show gets cancelled and then a few years down the road Bermaga are no longer at the helm, the people who "couldn't handle this one" would no longer be a factor. Just wondering.


Well, they certainly got lambasted by me in the little "any comments you'd like to add" section at the back of the tv diary I had during November sweeps. I told them that I don't watch commercials even when I'm watching non-recorded tv, and made many other comments about their outmoded assessment system.


Why is this assumed about this demographic and no others? I'm 18-35 with money to spend, which I do spend, but a female. I'm easily swayed by skin care, restaurant, and movie trailer ads. :)

Gilmel, I just think the novelty has long worn off and people -- including the most loyal of Trekkies -- are fed up with Trek franchise. When it bounced back after TOS, it was one of the only moderately well-done Sci-Fi shows on television and now look -- we've had Roswell, Farscape, X-Files, Andromeda, Stargate, Babylon 5 to name but a precious few. Not to mention an entire cable channel devoted to the genre, so I think if people want Sci-Fi, they will turn to other shows because the general public is all Trekked out.

Ah, okay. That makes sense.

As a loyal Trekkie, I'm not completely fed up but I recall that when I first heard of Enterprise and its premise, there was also something about it being an 'adult' Trek. I thought that meant a bit of sophistication. SFU or Sopranos or early TWW, maybe. Silly me. I forgot the demographic of 18-25 year old males and what I got was a tits and bum juvenalia. It's starting, Trip/T'Pol ship notwithstanding, to come out of that now but whether it can survive it is up to Bermaga (and I suppose the network and from the other shows surrounding Ent, perhaps not?) to actually reach for an adult professional audience who also have money and want to spend.

About the seven years thing...

I once read where a combination of rising costs of production (mainly salaries, though science fiction can be plain expensive even with a repertory cast) combined with syndication packaging, lends itself to series maxing out their profit potential around seven years. The article claimed that such a show would be stripped in two chunks, one of four year and one of three years. Maybe that explains why some stations only run the later years of something.

But it's been a while since I read the article, and there are enough recent prominent counterexamples (X-Files, Drew Carey, Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, ER) that suggest its not that simple these days. Then again, nobody on most science-fiction shows is going to be raking in the dough per episode that Seinfeld did.

Even the golden number of 100 episodes doesn't seem to matter so much. I strongly suspect the economics of syndication are very different than even a few years ago.

I guess my point is that what might have made sense doesn't right now, which isn't exactly earth-shattering.

If Enterprise gets canceled, especially now as it is just getting good, maybe it will go down as one of those "martyr" shows that fans reminisce fondly about, like My So-Called Life, Firefly, Freaks and Geeks, or even The Original Series. I know, it's funny to think a show with that Princess Prissypants episode could go down as "classic", but nostalgia tends to cloud the bad things.

I would hate for it to go, though. I can see they are doing interesting things with the Andorians slowly coming around. I want to see this crazy "federation of planets" idea of Quantum's take life. And I agree that it takes at least 2 or 3 seasons for a show to get its "sea legs," so to speak. Almost any show, not just Trek.

I don't know about the rest of those, but I'd seriously dispute The Kevin Sorbo Weird-Shit Hour--er, I mean, Andromeda. Even at its worst, Enterprise is still better than almost any episode of that crapfest. If Enterprise is cancelled while Andromeda stays on the air, there is no justice on TV.

I understand the sentiment but I know a lot of people like that show a lot and, well, it doesn't matter how good it is, I was only trying to point out some of the variety of sci-fi.

Maybe the best way Enterprise can honor the memory of the original series is to go down in three seasons ;)

With everything that's happened with Star Trek (and this goes beyond Enterprise, to consider the movie franchise as well which has completely tanked under the current regime), I would personally rather see Star Trek go away for awhile. Berman/Braga have shown how little respect they have for the long-time fans of the show. I watch Enterprise with moderate frequency, but I'm not engrossed. It's really not because it's a bad show. As science fiction goes, it's pretty good. But it isn't Star Trek. When you look at the creative staff behind the series, there's no one who felt any sort of allegiance to the original impetus behind the show in the sixties.

Now I'll admit that some of the people who worked on the spin-offs (Wolfe and Moore come to mind) might have been a little TOO attached to the original, but it was important to have people who recognized where Star Trek came from and didn't see that as a liability, as the current team does. I guess it's become fashionable to blast Harve Bennett after the whole Starfleet Academy idea, but he made a real effort to soak in the original show and try to capture that spirit and I believe that shows in the series of movies he made. I know Roddenberry was upset that Bennett didn't allow him the sort of control he desired, but I think Paramount would have been better served insisting that Bennet be one of the producers on Next Generation, rather than allowing Roddenberry to hand-pick Berman. Berman was a good choice from Roddenberry's perspective because he thought he'd found a suit he could control. Obviously things turned around.

I wonder if part of Moonves's plan here is to fire a "warning shot" across Enterprise's bow, a way of saying to Berman and Braga that they need to continue to take the fan's critcisms to heart, that they won't get a free pass just because it's Star Trek. But I don't know if it will deal with the fundamental issue that Braga (and Berman to some degree) find the hardcore fans to be a problem that should be eliminated, rather than a core audience that should be respected and cultivated. Some of it comes from Braga's desire to "make his mark", but he should have tried to get out of Star Trek a long time ago. Star Trek is not the place to go in order to "change television". Star Trek is a formula and it works because of that. That's not to say it isn't original, but there's a structure that you work with that makes it Star Trek. It's like joining the priesthood; celibacy, dogma, and service are part of the job.

At this point, I think the only real way to "fix" Star Trek would be to wipe the slate clean and start new. Get a whole new group of people running the show. And who knows? Maybe Paramount would do that. Clean house and bring back some of the people who worked on Next Generation and made it the great series it became (they're all still working together, spawning projects here and there). While Andromeda has clearly devolved, the early seasons held up pretty well as a possible extension of the Star Trek universe after Voyager, if the Federation were to have fallen. And I don't believe Robert Hewitt Wolfe's currently running a series.

I don't believe during the seven seasons that Voyager lasted they ever ended a season worrying about their jobs. Enterprise is only on season three and this is the second year the cast has been sweating. Things don't look good from the inside. I say time's up.

But this is just an opinion and I'll happily recant if the series hits a home run with the Xindi arc and UPN gives it a big thumbs up.

Where have Braga and Berman said that hardcore fans are a problem? I'd be interested in reading your source.

I've heard that argument before, from a lontime Trek fan who refused to watch this show from about the second episode. I've tried to convince him that even though it may not adhere strictly to the Trek dogma, it is still a pretty darn good show. But then again, I always liked Trek not because of what RichardCranium calls the original spirit, but because it is what I would call quality television. Meaning, it is an intelligent show and it assumes its audience is intelligent as well. (Though, lately some of the ENT eps didn't quite achieve that).

But, unfortunately, as many have pointed out, the purists have certainly dropped off and ENT has not been successful at attracting newcomers to the show. But I don't know if the answer is removing Bermaga. They've brought in some new talent, in writers etc, and it seems to be helping. I just hope they have a chance.

I think another issue that should be addressed is how big is the viewership to begin with.

The thing about TNG and DS9 is both of those shows had syndicated distribution. Meaning just about any TV station in any city in the U.S. could buy the rights to air the show.

The problem with UPN is they are limited to only the cities that have a station with which they have a contract to carry their programing. Because of this, they are not reaching nearly as many people as they would if Enterprise were syndicated. Hell, the abysmal Andromeda which is syndicated, has a larger viewing audience than Enterprise!

Another thing is some stations in larger markets that are UPN affiliates, also have contracts with some of the local sports franchises to carry some of their week night games. Where I live in Dallas, the local UPN affiliate also shows Dallas Maverick games. And if they have to show a game on Wednesday night, the whole UPN schedule gets bumped to the weekend, or is shown later in the night, where ratings tend to take a real nose dive.

Heck, they'll even bump WWE Smackdown off the schedule to show a Mavericks game. And Smackdown is UPN's highest rated show!

I find myself conflicted. I agree that cancelling Enterprise will probably kill any possiblity of more Star Trek anytime in the next 20 years or so. But if Battlestar Galatica can come back, I doubt Star Trek will stay dead. And, I've grown up with Trek always on, TNG premiered when I was 8. It'd be sad to see such an institution die.

But while Enterprise is improving, I'm still fairly unsatisfied with it. My dislike of Archer long ago surpassed my dislike of Janeway, and the Xindi arc is still not quite passing muster. Also, I'm sick of Bermaga and willing to sacrifice Enterprise to give them a well-deserved ass-kicking.

Zerowing, I believe Enterprise is syndicated in places with no UPN. I know Voyager was.

As to the fans, many of them irrationally never gave the show a chance. Remember how heated some got about NX-01 bearing a superficial resemblence to the little-known Akira class? Whole webpages were based on that. There are fanboys out there who, peversely, seem to want to hate Trek. Paging Dr. Freud...

In the Ron Moore interview that made the rounds here a couple months ago (it's at IGN Filmforce, I believe), he claimed that the two biggest TOS Trekkies on the TNG staff were him and Braga. So I would argue that Braga does feel allegience to that. But it's also apparent that he gets overruled by Berman all the time.


I don't think Braga's said anything that I haven't said in that regard. There are a number of hardcore fans that just don't give the show a chance (as nelamm already observed above). Some have called him "out of touch" for thinking the show is better than it is, but all I've ever seen is a guy who's trying to make a good show, and who sometimes overlooks the bad in an effort to highlight the good.

Enterprise is syndicated, even in places with UPN (all the times you catch that second airing on the weekend, for example. It may be on your UPN affiliate, but it's not the network doing that). Those numbers, I'm fairly certain, don't get counted when we look at the network ratings. Thankfully, this is one area where I believe the suits do look at those numbers.

TV networks are really starting to get on my nerves. It seems that every show I like is constantly on the edge of being cancelled. All the Exec's keep saying that they are going to support series style television, but then when their new series don't get hyped up ratings like the reality show junk, they cancel them or threaten to!

I really like Enterprise because it is different than most of the other shows out there. I also watch The OC, Alias and The West Wing, because I like variety, if they get rid of every sci-fi show there is how are we supposed to have any choices - oh except of course the choice to watch another Law and Order or Trading Spaces spinoff. Frankly, I will just stop watching TV.

I have to respond to the idea that Enterprise is so far away from the tone/spirit of TOS. I've been a serious Trekker since 1973. Enterprise is FAR MORE reminiscent of TOS than any of the other series ever were.

To add fuel to the fire: Enterprise is being moved to an hour later. To go against Angel, West Wing and OC.

What is exactly is Star Trek? Does anyone even know any more?



I think they fired that 'warning shot' last year when they came close to being cancelled. I also don't know if Moonves really cares too much about the fans criticisms.



I also think he 'made his mark' a long time ago in TNG. I don't know if that's really what he's trying to do here.



Huh? As far as I remember, that's exactly what Star Trek was from the beginning in TOS. In fact many would argue that's the core of Star Trek, changing television.

I think that's a big part of the problem. If you ask 10 fans, you'll get 43 different answers.