Star Trek: I Don't Get It!

[The Arcane]

No, not the show itself, although in truth i stopped being a fan a long time ago beyond catching an odd episode when i was channel surfing and very bored, but the reason it is struggling to survive.

It's common knowledge that Enterprise was axed this year due to poor ratings and that the last movie, Nemesis, didn't exactly blow the competition out of the water at the box office, but now it appears that the official website StarTrek.com is in grave danger of closing it's doors for good as well.

Now, as i said, my love of Star Trek decreased to the point of total disinterest in the last few years. I was an avid viewer of Deep Space 9 until it ended, i then stuck with Voyager until the end out of a sense of Trek loyalty. I even gave Enterprise a go for the first season but by that point i was really only watching due to habit and the loyalty was all but dead. Largely due to my newfound love of the true science fiction master series, Stargate and Farscape.

But that is only me personally and i happen to know that Star Trek is still massively popular with a continued fanbase that make Browncoats look like a tiny fanclub that meet in a shed once a week to discuss their favourite show. Trek is still relatively huge! Okay, their has been a considerable decrease in the less dedicated, casual fanbase. People such as myself who watched the shows but were by no means Trekkies. Still, the Trekkies exist and number in the millions.

So, with that in mind, how can the franchise possibly die? How can a show as powerful as Trek find itself in such a predicament? It seems incredible to me that this would happen and only goes to show how difficult it really is in the television world today for any new series to be considered successful.

Makes you realise just how difficult it must be for Joss to convince people that revisiting the Buffyverse is a viable project financially.

 

[Wesley's Sylyna]

It think is in how the story lines are written and how the fans react to it. It also has to do with the fact it was moved to the cable networks.

I my self loved The next generation, Deep Space 9 and Voyager.
Though I refussed to follow Voyager to cable, just like Buffy.
From what I saw of Enterprise, i didn't care for it.
The Trek shows needed better writers. Maybe steal some from the popular sci-fi shows may help it get back on track(or Trek in this case).

 

[Anita Blake]

Speaking as a Trekkie, I have to agree with you on some parts TW. Star Trek has one of the biggest fan followings world wide and its hard to imagine that its just gonna fizzle out. But, the last movie was a dud, not because it wasn't good, it just was full of old people. The majority of movie goers are betweent the ages of 15-35, and when the entire cast of the movie is older than that, its kinda hard to get into the spirit of things. And Enterprise, It started out really slow and continued for 4 seasons with a mediocre fan base, and then during the fifth season, it started getting really great, and people who hadn't watched it since the first season we're suddenly tuning in 'cause it was that interesting. Then they take it off the air when people were starting to watch it. They've also had the same people in charge ever since Gene Roddenberry died, so the show wasn't getting any new input until the last season of Enterprise. I'm very sad about this and I hope that the site isn't about to go down the drain.

 

[Faldor]

I think Trek really had been on the decline since the start of deep space nine, but when voyager came along people started to question this use of their time. ok enough with the rhyme !

sorry dudes dunno where that came from 😉

basically DS9 was a great idea (and fantastic show) but in many ways it just wasnt star trek.

Voyager was terrible terrible terrible. this is where the problem really started. Voyager was just bad writing. focusing on technobable and a scitzofrenic captain.

by the time Enterprise rolled around Branon Braga and Rick Berman were pretty tired of doing the same old thing. they had the first two seasons be the same average trek show its been for twenty years, so by the end of the first season most fans had just given up expecting to see anything new in the trek verse.

by season 3 they decided to do a story arc which was a good idea but they didnt really achieve this until episode 10 when they finally had episodes connected rather then having a similar idea. when most people who had been interested had given up again.

season 4 Manny Coto was brought on and really brought the show up to its petential and although it was a brilliant season it was too little too late.

 

[Anita Blake]

I have to say I really disagree with you. I thought that Voyager was the best series of Star Trek. It was different, because 'Hey' no starfleet. They had to try to stick to their ideals, when they weren't being really forced to, and they never gave up on reaching home. I also thought it had the most comedic moments out of the entire series. Plus, Tuvok was more human than Spock or T'Pol could ever hope to be. (Not that they would, but that's besides the point. 😀 ) They had to come up with new species for the Delta Quadrant too, 'cause they weren't at home with the "normal" species. I thought it was brilliant.

 

[The Arcane]

I'd disagree with Faldor on the DS9 stuff, simply because that was the series that really got me into Trek and so by default became the centre of Star Trek, for me.

I thought that the concept of Voyager had so much potential but i also felt it was wasted. DS9 was an epic tale with ongoing continuity and a cast that numbered in the twenties or thirties, when you take into account the likes of Garak, Ducat, Nog, etc. Voyager should have been the equal to that, due to it's confined nature. The entire crew should have been potential regular characters and certainly more than the immediate bridge crew. It seemed like you were seeing new crew members every single week, despite the fact that they started with so few. Relationships should have developed with more of the characters available to them. Storylines should have been connected over entire seasons, as they did with the Kazon at the beginning. Unfortunately, by the end of season two they had found the magic "end of episode reset button" and all thoughts of continuity or character development were forgotten.

It was a shame though because, as i said, Voyager had potential to be great.

 

[Faldor]

Mr. The Watchers i agree entirely. what i meant is Deep Space Nine whilst the best series in the star trek universe has the least qualities of "star trek"

Voyager had the potential to be great. it wasnt. they could of met new aliens but instead they met bumpy forehhead people for years on end. they could have had character growth but instead they had nothing. it was just rehash after rehash. plus they only ever used the Doctor, Janeway and Seven of Nine for the most part. the rest were pretty much ignored. and as for that ending. terrible. just terrible. it could have been good. it could have been not technobable.

 

[The Arcane]

Mr. The Watchers i agree entirely. what i meant is Deep Space Nine whilst the best series in the star trek universe has the least qualities of "star trek"

Oh no, i got what you meant, Faldor. What i was trying to say was, even though DS9 was technically the least Trek of all the Star Treks, because they were based on a space station rather than ship (at least until they got the Defiant anyway), that was the first Trek i really watched and therefore became the default Star Trek to me. The one to which i compare all the others.

 

[Anita Blake]

Mr. The Watchers i agree entirely. what i meant is Deep Space Nine whilst the best series in the star trek universe has the least qualities of "star trek"

Voyager had the potential to be great. it wasnt. they could of met new aliens but instead they met bumpy forehhead people for years on end. they could have had character growth but instead they had nothing. it was just rehash after rehash. plus they only ever used the Doctor, Janeway and Seven of Nine for the most part. the rest were pretty much ignored. and as for that ending. terrible. just terrible. it could have been good. it could have been not technobable.

I disagree. If not Voyager, TNG was the best series.

Ummm, they were in the Delta Quadrant. New aliens galore! Just because some of the species had bumpy foreheads doesn't mean they are the same species. That makes no sense. I think there was plenty of character growth. Janeway finally got to the point where she took advice from her crew and wasn't so aloof. Kes, went from an person who expected to only live for 9 years, to a being of many powers who had to leave because Voyager wasn't safe with her on there. Tuvok lost some of his rigidity. Neelix grew up. Chakotay stopped being so angry. Tom learned how to care about other people and to trust. Harry also grew up, and even learned to be in charge. Seven of Nine, went from a borg drone, to having a romantic relationship with Chakotay. And the Doctor went from a computer program to a holographic human.

How much of the show did you watch? 'Cause if you only watched a few episodes you're not really qualified to say everything was the same.

 

[Caritas]

So in reply to the original post... yes, there are millions of rabbid trekkies, but ratings these days have to astronomical to keep things on the air.

 

[Anita Blake]

Totally! As proved by Firefly. Huge fan base for something taken off air after 11 episodes...

 

[Faldor]

How much of the show did you watch? 'Cause if you only watched a few episodes you're not really qualified to say everything was the same.

i watched til season 7s start regularly

it was bland, all been done before "safe" telly.

deep space nine took risks, not many but it tried. voyager couldnt even comprehend somthing like far beyond the stars.

 

[The Arcane]

I disagree. If not Voyager, TNG was the best series.

Ummm, they were in the Delta Quadrant. New aliens galore! Just because some of the species had bumpy foreheads doesn't mean they are the same species. That makes no sense. I think there was plenty of character growth. Janeway finally got to the point where she took advice from her crew and wasn't so aloof. Kes, went from an person who expected to only live for 9 years, to a being of many powers who had to leave because Voyager wasn't safe with her on there. Tuvok lost some of his rigidity. Neelix grew up. Chakotay stopped being so angry. Tom learned how to care about other people and to trust. Harry also grew up, and even learned to be in charge. Seven of Nine, went from a borg drone, to having a romantic relationship with Chakotay. And the Doctor went from a computer program to a holographic human.

How much of the show did you watch? 'Cause if you only watched a few episodes you're not really qualified to say everything was the same.

I've actually seen every episode from start to finish, in most cases three or four times each, so i think i gave Voyager a fair chance to impress, lol!

One thing i will concede is your point about the Doctor. There was real character growth there and i really enjoyed watching him develop. Other than that i genuinely feel that the development of the series was wasted and what change did occur was superficial at best. Most of the changes you described were minor character points that all television series, even the blandest ones, generally go through. That comes from a long run on the air and the writers getting bored of certain character traits and relationships. The real developments that could have been genuinely exciting (longterm arcs, Voyager crew actually depleting realistically given how many died, the ship being updated with new technology that was used on a regular basis, new characters coming on boards for story arcs then leaving after that story was done) were missed entirely.

 

[Anita Blake]

While I don't disagree with everything you just said, I don't agree with it all either. I think most of the things you suggested, if done, wouldn't have made the show any good. They worried about other things being depleted alot, if the crew was severely depleted, the show wouldn't've been able to go on. I also think, that many of the things you listed wouldn't've been possible because they would've gone against the Prime Directive, which they were ever struggling to uphold. And, if they got too much technology and crew from the delta quadrant, they wouldn't've still been really a federation ship. And that was most important for the plot.

 

[The Arcane]

See, that is my point. The plot was whatever the writers chose to make it and the fact that they didn't choose to make the hard decisions was why things didn't work as well as they could have. The Voyager that returned to Earth at the end of season 7 was barely any different to the one that left the Badlands in the first episode and after seven years of being away from the Federation that was highly unlikely.

The show could have gone on with a severly depleted crew. They could have managed for half a season with a skeleton crew showing episodes that dealt with the ramifications of not having enough people to man the ship. Then Janeway would have been forced to look for additional help from other sources. Maybe taking on new crew members as they went, people who were willing to help, whether that be due to the promise of some kind of payback or simply because they chose to. Maybe being forced to find new ways of running the ship, creating new power sources or even developing additional Holographic crew.

The point being that the premise of the series allowed for the potential for seeing how a Starfleet crew and ship could deal with being away from the comfort of Starfleet and the Federation and yet they didn't press that idea hard enough. Episodes like Year of Hell and Equinox showed developments that were far more realistic than what we saw throughout the series. Just because Janeway initially chose to stick to Starfleet procedure and the Prime Directive does not mean that it should have been made possible for her.

 

[Anita Blake]

I think the show you were looking for would've been way to depressing for me to watch. Sorry. 😀