03-02-2005 18:31									#61
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quote: Originally posted by Cruddy Hooray! It was PANTS...

You had someting better to watch on BBC2 on a tuesday? I bet you're loving 'Ready, Steady. Cook'

	03-02-2005 18:33									#62
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove Personally I think that DS-9 was the best of the Star Trek series. It had the best plot line and the best characters. Particularily unique for the Star Trek genre was the fact that the "bad guys" were named individuals: Dukat, Kai Gwynn, Wayune the Horta, and the Founder he served. They appeared frequently enough that they were able to develop characters instead of being virtually nameless space monsters. Here's a trekkie question for you: If you were going to have one person devote his or her life to you like you were a god who would it be: the unflinching toady Wayune or the relentlessly ruthless Kai Wynne?

Vorta. Weyun is a Vorta. Hortas are silicon based life that live underground.

As for the question, though I do love toadies, I like my followers with a touch of steel in them. I'd let Kai Wynn bow down any day.

	03-02-2005 18:37									#63
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SciFi shows on broadcast TV will continue to struggle for many reasons. And Enterprise was no exception.

First, there is a limited audience. Even if the show is a hit, they still can't generate the large audience numbers like an ER or even a Survivor can.

Second, we are all spoiled by the special effects available to us in movies, and TV shows just don't have the budget to keep it up episode after episode. While a full length feature film can spend millions for a two to three hour epic, to do so for an hour (48 minutes) each week is just cost prohibative.

A good example of this was Fox's Firefly. While it was considered a good show by many, it was too expensive to produce for the limited audience numbers it generated. However, they feel it will be viable in Movie format. Only time will tell, but I wouldn't be surprised if they produce more than one movie, because the economic model for movies is different than TV.

Third, UPN is one of the lesser networks, and can't use cross promotion as effectively as the major networks.

The SciFi channel gets away with it by spreading the cost out more. Each original program they have is broadcast multiple times, providing larger potential audiences and more advertising dollars. In addition, they usually negotiate for the rebroadcast rights (like they did for Andromada) so that they can fill in their schedule with reruns.

The networks have repeatedly tried to launch SciFi shows, and have failed miserably. It's actually a surprise that Enterprise lasted as long as it did. It was losing money from the start, and the only reason they kept trying to make it work was because it was their flagship product to launch the network in the first place.

It will take a real good SciFi show to make it on the networks. And just from reading this thread, it's tough to please everybody.

	03-02-2005 19:02									#64
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Which is why all the good shows inevitbly get canceled while all the crap shows stay on.

	03-02-2005 20:07									#65
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Crap makes money.

I was under the impression, that ENT was UPN's highest rated series...
Even after they moved it to one of the "deathbed" timeslots, it gained ratings. Then again, the rest of UPN is "pro" wrestling and "reality"...
Seasons 1 and 2 were fine, watchable, but 3 and 4 really got me glued to the tv set... Welll, monitor.

And I'm gonna miss T'Pol.

	03-02-2005 20:14									#66
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Highest rated on UPN doesn't mean a lot

And it still comes down to money. It was an expensive show to keep on the air. Especially when with each passing year, the cost of talent increases as well. At first, only Scott Bakula could demand the big bucks. The rest were no names... now they aren't

While the numbers were good at first for a UPN show(but declined over the years) they were never what had been expected. It should have been cancelled after last season.

	03-02-2005 20:42									#67
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Historically, it has taken Paramount two years for each series of Star Trek to come into its own and start producing quality scripts. Last season wasn't great, but it was okay. This season is turning out to be really good, which kinda makes me made that I stopped watching it at the beginning of the season and only picked up again in January.

Another part of the problem is they thumbed their noses at their fan base, almost deliberately insulting them. This coulda been a great series, but they didn't want it to be, it seems.

	03-02-2005 21:13									#68
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I was hoping we'd get to see the Earth-Romulan war before it left.

	03-02-2005 21:15									#69
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Earth would lose. They only have two war ships.

	03-02-2005 21:19									#70
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What were all those ships they sent against the Xindi as they approached Earth?

	03-02-2005 21:21									#71
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I didn't recall seeing any ships. I do remember them saying the other starship wasn't finished, and that's why Enterprise had to go into the Expanse.

	03-02-2005 21:45									#72
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quote: Originally posted by Kamrat X In all fairness, Enterprise has the best first season of any of the ST series. DS 9 is a close runner-up.

Well, TNG and VOY's first seasons both stunk (but then all of VOY stunk IMO) so they're no competition. But ENT-1 better than TOS-1 or DS9-1? Not from my seat. I couldn't even get through all of ENT-1 before giving up on the show outright -- it put me to sleep something like three weeks in a row ("Rogue Planet" was the last straw). TOS-1 is simply superb ("Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Balance of Terror", "Tomorrow is Yesterday" "Space Seed", "A Taste of Armageddon", "The Devil in the Dark", "Errand of Mercy", and last but not least "The City on the Edge of Forever") , and DS9-1 was a solid start to that series, though DS9 really didn't get a full head of steam until season three.

ENT got two more seasons than it deserved. Hopefully we've seen the last of Rick Berman/Brannon Braga-style Star Trek, abomination that it is.

	03-02-2005 21:49									#73
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Star Wars is better. although the vulcan chick in Enterprise........well her thing with Captain quantum leap was fun
We had the first two series on non-sky/cable tv here a year or so ago. I liked it as it sort of reminded me of the origonal series, fist fight diplomacy etc.

	03-02-2005 21:49									#74
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If this had been the first or second season of Enterprise and there never had been any "temporal cold war/xindi/alien Nazi" crap I would be disappointed. Now I am only going to miss nitpicking the show.

	03-02-2005 21:59									#75
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara I didn't recall seeing any ships. I do remember them saying the other starship wasn't finished, and that's why Enterprise had to go into the Expanse.

Ya but didn't they spend months in there.

Plus while Enterprise may be their flagship, they could possibly have all sorts of smaller or lesser ships. heck they could have a few ships not capable of long range space travel butwhich could be available for planet defense.

I'm just thinking that something like the Xindi attack would focus earth on the need for ships and fast.

I'm thinking a little here of the naval efforts of the allies in WW2. While some major warships were involved, a lot of the construction went into tiny corvettes, PT boat, minesweepers and in providing merchantmen with some capabilities.

So I am assuming earth would step up their "battlecruiser" construction but that would still be the work of years. That does not mean that they would not have a substantial fleet with some armaments in short order.

	03-02-2005 22:02									#76
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I'm kinda sorry to see Enterprise go. I didn't watch it all that regularly, but I thought it was decent. While I may draw some fire for this, I have to admit that I hated the original. Still can't stand to watch it. But I liked TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise. Only rarely watched DS9, so I can't say.

The cancellation that really got me a couple of years ago, though, was Farscape. It's not UPN or ST, but it was, in my opinion, the best sci-fi series ever. Period. The SciFi channel cancelled Farscape, but kept such gems as Tremors and Knight Rider . . . Go figure.

	03-02-2005 22:08									#77
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Farscape was cancelled because it was way too expensive to produce and had abysmal ratings. I blame the channel for the horrible time slot, but a lot of blame has to go to audiences afraid of intelligent, complex, well-written scifi just because it's an "unknown" name.

Fortunately, BSG is shaping up to take over Farscape's mantle for well-written scifi. It's enjoying better ratings as of now, and has the advantage of being a well-known name. We will see!

	03-02-2005 22:09									#78
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quote: Originally posted by Garth Vader If this had been the first or second season of Enterprise and there never had been any "temporal cold war/xindi/alien Nazi" crap I would be disappointed. Now I am only going to miss nitpicking the show.

I also wasn't fond to the temporal war/nazi crap. I missed a few episodes around then. But this season I really enjoyed the augments and the return of the interspecies rivalry-- The Andorians and Tellerites are fun and I think you could do a lot with the Vulcans and Romulans as well. They are all somewhat familiar yet never deeply explored. The possible storylines are incredible.

I remember a TOS novel I read about 20 years ago, told from the perspective of a female starfleet officer who was rescued/captured by a Klingon officer (maybe Kang ??) after a natural disaster on Sherman's Planet and taken into servitude by him ( as was their custom if somone saved your life. She travelled to several Klingon planets that were experiencing famine due to a blight on their predominant grain and experienced a diversity of cultures. It was a book I thoroughly enjoyed and I wished the TV show could have done more of that

	03-02-2005 22:22									#79
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Farscape was cancelled because it was way too expensive to produce and had abysmal ratings.

I know. Still sucks.

quote: I blame the channel for the horrible time slot, but a lot of blame has to go to audiences afraid of intelligent, complex, well-written scifi just because it's an "unknown" name.

For a while, Farscape had a 7 or 8 o'clock, Friday night slot. But I do seem to remember them moving it from that slot at some point.

quote: Fortunately, BSG is shaping up to take over Farscape's mantle for well-written scifi. It's enjoying better ratings as of now, and has the advantage of being a well-known name. We will see!

I assume that BSG is Battlestar Galactica. I watched the opening miniseries and was not impressed. However, I'm sure I'll give it another look. I don't hold tremendously high hopes, however.

	03-02-2005 23:33									#80
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enterprise

voyager was tolerable, at best. it did have some potential... but they squandered it with:
1. The neverending supply of shuttles.
2. Pekka the SUPERSHUTTLE!
3. Barbie of Nine.
4. Giving the Borg a personality.
5. Making Q not so much a bastard.
6. Bad writing.

Enterprise... Honestly, I just never was able to warm up to it as a Star Trek series. I personally think that had they divorced it entirely, I might have given it more of a chance... but the way it was set up, I didn't like its entire feel. You have the Vulcan sexpot, which I didn't like; you've got the ship looking too "new"~ ( in TNG and what not, old federation ships had spherical fronts... as well as this ship having all sorts of flat panels, looking like a post-DS9 Akira-class starship ); you have Vulcans being asswipes ( yeah, yeah, that Suranite bullshit... ); a few continuity issues ( Ferengis, Borg... ).

The few times I did watch it after that disasterous first season, I wasn't impressed. Didn't like psycho-Soong, with his stupid "OMFG genes are good, NO WAIT, CYBERNETICS!!!!! ^__^ kekekeke" arc; thought space-nazis were better left to B-movie schlock, not Star Trek.

I can deal with them turning Star Trek away from drama and more into action. I followed them doing that with DS9. What I don't like is them turning it into some fscking soap opera with gratuitous gel-rubbing scenes on a "voluptuous" woman who's supposed to be an "ice-cold alien *****". Again, combination of "ice-cold alien *****" + "voluptuous" is better left to B-movie schlock like Species.

I'm glad its dead. Like Penny Arcade said...

Last edited by Q Cubed on 03-02-2005 at 23:39

	04-02-2005 00:00									#81
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One of the things I liked about Voyager was that it got back to the basic principles of the original show: exploration. The original show had very little to do with politics of the Federation vs. Klingon Empire or the Romulans. Similarly, Voyager had nothing to do with such politics, being in the Delta quadrant. What Voyager did run into, though, were politics in the Delta quadrant, which was very interesting at times.

I think the next series ought to return to the roots of the original show, with a starship on a "Five-year mission seek out ..., and go, where no man has gone before."

	04-02-2005 00:10									#82
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that's what Enterprise was supposed to be. They screwed it up.

	04-02-2005 00:13									#83
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Let it rest for about a decade. Then remake it from scratch, like, say, Batman.

And make it more violent. What noticeable about some of the movies (KHAN!!!) is that people actually bleed in them, instead of getting bloodless injuries - 'plasma burns' and so on.

	04-02-2005 00:15									#84
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or they could make a show about a Klingon ship. I think that would be cool. Though it would have to be unrealistic and have them speak English. I'd get tired of hearing Klingon on all the time. A very harsh sounding language.

And the show couldn't be a goody two shoes show either (though I'm sure the crappy writers will find a way to turn it into one.). These are Klingons. They are supposed to be imperialistic and ruthless.

	04-02-2005 00:18									#85
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Yes. Don't the Romulans and Klingons have slave races that do all their dirty work? How come we never see them?

	04-02-2005 00:19									#86
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Yeah, a star trek show from an alien perspective could ber eally cool.

	04-02-2005 00:38									#87
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Temporal Cold War.

Enough said.

Gatekeeper

P.S. Although to be fair, I did think ENT improved in S3 with the Xindi plot and had shown even more promise with current S4 episodes. Too little, too late.

	04-02-2005 01:08									#88
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident or they could make a show about a Klingon ship. I think that would be cool. Though it would have to be unrealistic and have them speak English. I'd get tired of hearing Klingon on all the time. A very harsh sounding language. And the show couldn't be a goody two shoes show either (though I'm sure the crappy writers will find a way to turn it into one.). These are Klingons. They are supposed to be imperialistic and ruthless.

A cool thing would be if they patched in clips from the original series to show the Klingons continually thwarted by that Federation war criminal Capt. Kirk.

	04-02-2005 01:34									#89
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Please no show from a Klingon POV. I'm fed up with all those stupid Klingon rituals. First it was a good idea to have them their own cultural identity, but they overdid it IMO....

	04-02-2005 01:36									#90
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quote: Originally posted by General Ludd Yeah, a star trek show from an alien perspective could ber eally cool.

It would be nice as a gimmick for a few episodes or a TV movie, but I highly doubt it would survive as a full-blown show. Viewers need to be able to identify with the characters to continue to tune in every week, something which is very hard to achieve if they're completely alien to them. The only way to make it work is to really tone down and 'humanise' the characters (basically make them humans with pointed ears, a la pre-S4 T'Pol), but that would just nullify the whole concept.

I'd still love to see it though, but with Andorians: those antennae are teh coolest