So word down the pipeline is that “Enterprise” is canceled.
The immediate question being bandied about is, “Is Star Trek dead?” This doesn’t surprise me. Pundits were announcing that sitcoms were dead…until “Cosby.” TV westerns, once flourishing, were pronounced dead…until “Kung Fu.” Movie westerns were also believed unable to pull in an audience…until “Unforgiven.” Hëll, “Star Trek” was pronounced dead when the original series went off the air…and then it was alive with “ST:TMP,” but that was so poorly received that it was pronounced dead again…until the second feature film. “Star Trek” has died more often than Jean Gray, and yet it rises once more like…well, like a great bird.
I don’t think “Star Trek” is dead. I think that *a* Star Trek series that never fully engaged (no pun intended) the viewership is dead. But if they build a new series, I think viewers will come right back and at least sample it.
PAD
• 
Completely OT, Bobb are you no longer the king?
I saw that sword scene Jonathan 🙂 I went to the official site to do my research and saw a clip of it. 🙂
Unfortunatley the only thing Andromeda can do is remind bitter fans that their show was canned. It never fails.
When Angel was canned I saw some angry Whedon fanboy’s go off about Andromeda still being on the air.
When Firefly was canned, the hate for Andromeda flowed freely.
Now Enterprise is cancelled and this is Andromeda’s final season…..and people are STILL PÍSSÊÐ AT ANDROMEDA.
Very cool things could be done with a series based around an interstellar traveling theatre group, one whose repetoire ranged from Shakespeare to Klingon opera.
You mean something like: He’s a deeply religious gay Klingon trapped in a world he never made. She’s a virginal Ocampa magician’s assistant with the soul of a mighty warrior. They fight crime! ?
In the book on the making of Deep Space Nine, the writers imply that the show might not have been created as a Star Trek show from the beginning. It might have been a science fiction show in its own universe, unconnected to Trek. This was rejected because the Trek name would help to pull in viewers and sell more soap, as the crude view of commercial TV would put it. But now the Trek name is worthless. One cancelled show with dismal ratings. A movie that’s the SF equivalent of Heaven’s Gate, or at least Elektra. And I believe the books and merchandise have been selling poorly too, although PAD would obviously know more about this. So if Paramount wants to make a new SF show, why would they put the Trek name on it, or set it in the Trek universe? Why would doing that sell more soap? I’m putting my money where my mouth is, here. I’ve promised to pay my friend a considerable sum of money (well, $10) if and when I see the pilot of a new Trek show, as long as it was broadcast on American TV.
I’m sorry to see ENTERPRISE getting cancelled now. While last season was 24 in space (they have a mission they must accomplish or destruction will ensue!), this season they’ve actually been exploring, begun the diplomatic maneuvers that would lead to the Federation, and dropped the annoying time-travel Temporal Cold War junk.
I’d like to see a series about the Federation espionage/intelligence side. How do spies operate in a world where tricorders can pick up almost anything? How would Federation agents manage to be as effective as their counterparts while staying true (or close) to the Prime Directive? That would be a side of the Federation we’ve rarely seen.
Enterprise has had about as much in common with Roddenberry’s Star Trek universe as, say, Peter David has in common with Bernadette Peters.
What I’d like to see in the final episode:
Either proof positive that Archer’s universe will become the mirror universe from the original ST,
or else a final shot of a toddler Jimmy Kirk contemplating a snow globe on a snowy Iowa morning (no more derivative an idea than most of the re-hashed plots in Enterprise.
time for calhoun….
The thing is:
A good show either has the strength of concept that it can continue as it is indefinitely (no change, just the illusion of change as Stan might say), or realises the strength of its material and allows natural evolution – allowing us to invest in its characters and how they grow.
A bad show does neither. It falls into the trap of looking at the ratings and if it sees haemoragging (sp?)it grasps for the nearest executive who is told to do ANYTHING to stop that happening: which can be like asking a Doctor of Philospohy to perform heart bypass or pitting a band-aid over a dislocation. Finance is important and many fans overlook the fact that *someone* is investing millions and not unreasonably wanting a return on their investment, but equally it can blind the creative side. It becomes more important to KEEP the show on the air (maybe because losing it would cost more) than HOW its kept on air.
Hence the unsuitable and radical changes to shows such as Sliders (admitedly with cast problems that made something of a mockery of continuity) , Beauty & The Beast etc (“It’s not a fairy-tale anymore…” went that tag-line and lost 90% of its audience who said ‘Well, in that case, I’m outta here!’).
Enterprise for me was kinda guilty of both. Not a truly bad series by any measure, but it (or the studio) never seemed to have the strnegth of conviction it began with. It was trailed as The Right Trek Stuff and yet became generic sci-fi all too quickly . The ‘Voyager’ problem of establishing an idea but junking it all too quickly. Equally, each season seems to require retooling of the concept. Another analogy would be to have a magazine that changed its cover design every two or three months – it indicates you don’t have faith in the product.
There’s too much out there now for ausdiences to be loyal to a show that doesn’t have internal life support. Sadly that means that Firefly (where the studio just didn’t ‘get’ it and therefore offered it little support) and Enterprise (that was too many things to too many executives) both suffered as a result.
Don’t worry. There’ll be another franchise along in a minute.
John Mosby
I see your point, Matt, but I don’t think the success of any such show is solely in the concept; It’s in the execution, and if Peter isn’t there to sheperd the show (which, as aforementioned, he would not), then who’d be in charge of it? The Killer B’s? No thanks. Yeah, you could put Manny Coto in charge, but then, he’s done a great job this season on Enterprise, and despite last night’s excellent episode, it’s still getting cancelled.
JamesLynch: “I’d like to see a series about the Federation espionage/intelligence side. How do spies operate in a world where tricorders can pick up almost anything? How would Federation agents manage to be as effective as their counterparts while staying true (or close) to the Prime Directive? That would be a side of the Federation we’ve rarely seen.”
Star Trek: Section 31
I’d like to see that combined with an idea I had years ago…
Starfleet Special Forces.
My idea was a division of Starfleet Intelligence whose purpose was to covertly uphold the PD (Prime Directive). The twist would be that they would do so against anyone who would interfere with a planets natural development, including Federation allies if need be.
Then Section 31 was introduced on DS9 and they operated alot like I’d envisioned, very “Black Ops.” It was also their jurisdiction to clean up after the likes of Kirk and Picard, who would often throw the PD out the airlock.
The “crew” was going to be a group of Starfleet types that didn’t quite fit the mold. Plus, being attached to Intelligence, they would have access to all manner of nifty items many of which were lifted from advanced technologies discovered in TNG and DS9 or even from the films. I mean it would be kinda cool to know what happened to the technology that spawned the Genesis Project, for example.
And, like Bill Mulligan, I had the idea of a series revolving around a time displaced character. In this case it was a starship captain from Christopher Pike’s era who winds up in the 24th century and, after the inevitable playing of “catch-up”, would be given command of a border patrol ship because Starfleet Command doen’t quite trust him enough to give him what he would call a real assignment. Of couse in due time he would get that dream assignment. The story arc would involve the reason that the Romulans have dropped from sight in the past. It was to be an outfit very much like the UFP that the Romulans had to contend with on the other side of their space. This was going to be a race that looked fairly human with technological implants that would sublty remind us of the Borg. Sort of a first step in becoming as dependant on implants as the Borg are.
Ah, well.
No, Star Trek isn’t dead. I think they just need to suck some of the “Corporate Hollywood” back out of it so that creativity can flow unimpeded.
Mitch Evans pointed out that Section 31 from DEEP SPACE NINE was Star Fleet’s black ops division, a covert organization whos existence Star Fleet would neither confirm nor deny. The problem was,at least on DS9, that Section 31 were exclusively the bad guys. They kidnapped and played mind games with Bashir — the equivalent of torture — to test his loyalty, they developed a virus to kill the Changeling species, and they were willing to let the entire Changeling species die (how’s that for violating the Prime Directive?) to win the war.
I like Mitch Evans’ idea of covertly upholding the Prime Directive. If they did a show like that, I suspect Section 31 would be a rival organization often at odds with the good guys.
JamesLynch: “I like Mitch Evans’ idea of covertly upholding the Prime Directive. If they did a show like that, I suspect Section 31 would be a rival organization often at odds with the good guys.”
You know, James, have Section 31 as a rival organization would be pretty cool. But I wonder how they would reconcile the fact that Section 31 was a part of the original Starfleet charter.
Wait…
Section 31 hasn’t been accountable for roughly 200 years and has very much faded from memory for much of Starfleet (unless your last name is Sisko, Bashir, etc…).
Ok, so this black ops division of Starfleet Intelligence could be a new outfit that only begins to encounter Section 31 near the end of the first season with a three or four part story arc with the standard “To Be Continued” first season finale. Thereafter Section 31 could be a recurring villian like the Maquis, only more interesting. Let’s face it. The Maquis wasn’t all that interesting untill we discovered that Eddinton was their leader. Even then the Maquis story arc was kinda… blah.
Some days I wish I had a marketable name and good collaberator.
what’s sad is that this season has been the most “engaging.”
You know, I’ve been hearing the “this season is much better” argument since the second season of Voyager, only to tune in and find it’s the same crap as before. Berman kept promising to do better every year for ten years now. I don’t buy it anymore.
I hope and pray that Trek is dead, because at this point, it’s just a mercy killing.
I, for one, really do feel that this season has been the best. Not the best of *all* Trek, but definately the best of Enterprise. Last season was strong, too, but this season just feels like their letting loose and doing whatever they can to bring in viewers, which means bigger and better shows. I really enjoyed the Kir’Shara saga and am looking forward to the Afflication story. Anyway–I’m sad to see Enterprise go, but I do agree that Star Trek as a whole needs a few years off. It’s exhausted.
We also may have to face the posibility that Trek may in fact be exhausted for the visual medium. Film and television put a lot of restrictions on a project that print simply doesn’t have. The necessity of a core character group, the construction of sets on a costeffective basis, the lack of ability to explore the inner mind of a character, time constraints…
Pete, Keith, etc have the dubious advantage of being able to add in characters like Pattine in SCE, or a Horta engineer or a brikar, but for now, the current visual medium leaves us for the most part with 2 arms, 2 legs, and a head as long term viable character types…
Regarding JamesLynch’s comment about Section 31’s willingness to allow the Changelings to die as violating the Prime Directive, it isn’t.
As I’ve always understood the Prime Directive, it applies only to pre-warp (or, primitive) societies to avoid any interference with that society’s natural development.
I do agree that Section 31 was presented as being “exclusively the bad guys”, yet we were also shown that even the good guys were occasionally willing to go to lengths that crossed the line (Sisko’s going along with the murder of the Romulan ambassador to bring the Empire into the Alliance).
I see your point, Matt, but I don’t think the success of any such show is solely in the concept; It’s in the execution, and if Peter isn’t there to sheperd the show (which, as aforementioned, he would not), then who’d be in charge of it?
Well, it all starts with a pitch; if they like PAD’s pitch, perhaps they’d want him to write for the show. If not, well, at least he gets the money for the pitch. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know.
// Regarding JamesLynch’s comment about Section 31’s willingness to allow the Changelings to die as violating the Prime Directive, it isn’t.
As I’ve always understood the Prime Directive, it applies only to pre-warp (or, primitive) societies to avoid any interference with that society’s natural development.
//
That was the way the Prime Directive was protrayed on the old series but on Next Gen the Prime Directive was more absolute, (Picard used it as a reason for not interfering in the Klingon civil war, and the Klingons aren’t pre-warp or primitive). On the old series there were all kinds of exceptions to the PD, it also only applied to developing societys, stagnent societies were exempt, (this is why Kirk was allowed to destroy all those computers and leftover holograms that had enslaved worlds). From Next Gen and on there were less, (if any), exceptions. From a story telling perspective this is a huge difference. John Byrne summed it up perfectly when he pointed out that on the old series the Prime Directive was a problem to be worked around, (“How do we help these people without violating the Prime Directive”), on the next Gen the Prime Directive was very often used to end the episode, (“Sorry, like to help but can’t violate the Prime Directive”).
// I’ve liked what I’ve seen of “Enterprise” this season. It’s been the first time in the whole sereis, that I’ve been nearly able to believe that these guys were going to develop into Kirk’s Federation. (I could always believe that they’d become Picard’s.) //
I stopped watching after the end of the 2nd season and only started again when Brent Spinner did his guest spot. To my surprise I found that the show had gotten better, not great, but watchable. And I would argue that’s part of the problem, lets face it, a show that takes 4 seasons to become watchable is not a very good show, (regardless of whether it’s a Star Trek Spinoff or not). I said, many times, in the first two seasons that if the show had been on any other network, and did not have the Trek brand name attached it would have been canceled before the end of the first season.
I agree with you about this Starfleet evolving into Picards but not Kirk’s. I think that’s because of the all the stuff that’s been retconned in over the years. I found myself thinking about that recently when I was watching the first season of the old series on DVD. The effect was not unlike reading a really early Superman comic and then flashing forward to a modern Superman, (or even a silver age Comic). Sure the basic concept and story is still the same but so much else changed it’s hard to really think of them as the same, or even related. Mind you, I am not blaming these retcons on later series and spin offs. These types of retcons are common in serial fiction and were even happening during the original series, (the Prime Directive itself is kind of a retcon, in the very early episodes it wasn’t mentioned and then suddenly it was there), but over time they did push the franchise futher and futher away from the very pure concept that attracted an audience to begin with. Even Enterprise, which was supposed to be a prequel, and could have, in theory, ignored everything but the very early episodes of the original series, couldn’t get away from all the stuff that had built up over the years. This made the show hard for non fans to get into and only ticked off Trek fans as later Retcons were now retroactivly overwriting old series continuty.
As for Trek being dead, I remember in the 80’s the James Bond franchise was offically pronounced dead, (Bond sexest attitudes didn’t fit in with more PC, aids conscience times, the cold war was ending and it didn’t seem like we would even need spies anymore and besides the last couple of movies really sucked and did poorly at the box office). Five-six years later Goldeneye came out and suddenly the Bond francise was not only alive but bigger then ever. Trek may be dead, or it just may be waiting for it’s own Goldeneye to introduce it to a new generation.
// No, it’s not dead. Just on “life support” for now. Perhaps for the 2006 season they’ll finally do a “Starfleet Acadamy” show. //
I’ve said all along that a “Starfleet Academy” show would be a good idea, as long as it was James T Kirk’s years at the Academy. Kirk is still something the other captains have never been and never will be, an icon. The Original Series and the movies dropped tons of hints and references that could be flushed out to years of potential stories without needing to self-referencal. And just think of the pitch line: “It’s Star Trek meets Smallville”
// In the book on the making of Deep Space Nine, the writers imply that the show might not have been created as a Star Trek show from the beginning. It might have been a science fiction show in its own universe, unconnected to Trek. This was rejected because the Trek name would help to pull in viewers and sell more soap, as the crude view of commercial TV would put it //
Haven’t read that book but this contridicts what was publizied at the time, namly that the then current Trek team were engaged by Paramount specifially to create a spinoff. Of course there was a show that was very much what DS9 would have been if it hadn’t been a Trek Spinoff, it was called Babylon 5.
And I believe the books and merchandise have been selling poorly too
I would have to say that’s a no, atleast for the books, otherwise they wouldn’t have so many spinoff “series” and such, with two new ones coming this year.
as long as it was James T Kirk’s years at the Academy
Hey, let’s throw ideas out there that, like ENT, are so horrible that they’ll just want to make you not watch the show to begin with!
\\ And I believe the books and merchandise have been selling poorly too
I would have to say that’s a no, atleast for the books, otherwise they wouldn’t have so many spinoff “series” and such, with two new ones coming this year. \\
I have no sales figures to quote but at one time Trek novels regularly showed up on the New York Times Bestseller list, I haven’t seen one show up there in a while. So one can conclude that Trek novels are no longer selling what they once did or other books are just selling that much more. However to your point Trek novels and merchendise must still be making a profit, or else one assumes they wouldn’t be making them.
\\ as long as it was James T Kirk’s years at the Academy
Hey, let’s throw ideas out there that, like ENT, are so horrible that they’ll just want to make you not watch the show to begin with! \\
ENT wasn’t a bad idea, it was just a badly excuted idea. There’s a difference.
\\But please, get rid of Rick Berman and Brannon Bragga, two of the most unimaginative producers working in Hollywood today.\\
Pity poor Harv Bennet, he produced three highly sucessful Trek movies, saved the francise from the horrible mistep that was the first movie but was told not to let the door hit him on the way out after one bad movie. Compared to the current caretakers who continued to lose audience on every movie and spinoff they produced and yet, were kept around for years to do more.
I have no sales figures to quote but at one time Trek novels regularly showed up on the New York Times Bestseller list, I haven’t seen one show up there in a while.
You’re right, you don’t have sales figures. None of us do.
However, just because a book shows up on the NYT bestsellers list doesn’t mean much of anything.
The Lost Era series did show up, but all the NYT list means is that you sold X books in Y week. It doesn’t say anything about how many books you sold over multiple weeks, months, or years.
So one can conclude that Trek novels are no longer selling what they once did or other books are just selling that much more.
And it would be a poor conclusion, either way.
** I have no sales figures to quote but at one time Trek novels regularly showed up on the New York Times Bestseller list, I haven’t seen one show up there in a while.
You’re right, you don’t have sales figures. None of us do.
However, just because a book shows up on the NYT bestsellers list doesn’t mean much of anything. **
Really, then please explain why booksellers all over the place have special selves for the Bestsellers, usually in the most prominate place in the store. Explain why publishers slap “bestseller” in huge letters on the covers of paperbacks, why authors put the phrase “New York Times Bestselling Author” on thier resumes and in thier bios, (and often slap it under thier names on the covers of thier latest work). If the NYT bestsellers list doesn’t mean much of anything why does everyone make a fuss about it. I’ll tell you why, because it does mean something. It means that in the past week/month/year your book was one of the best selling books in the country. That’s huge. It’s also a good indication of what the nation is into reading. At one time in the late 80’s-early 90’s barly a week went by without a Trek novel being on the bestsellers list. That isn’t true anymore.
>>
It tells what the bestselling books were that week and how long those same books have been on the list and what thier listing was in the previous week. There was a time when a Trek book was almost always on the list, now not so much. It is not so unreasonable to conclude from that bit of information that the novels are not selling what they were in the late 80’s or 90’s. (Or that people are buying more of other books, and in doing so knocking the Trek books off the list). It happens. Many authors and/or book series were once garenteed best sellers but aren’t anymore, even though those same authors and series still sell well.
** So one can conclude that Trek novels are no longer selling what they once did or other books are just selling that much more.
And it would be a poor conclusion, either way. **
No it’s not a poor conclusion. Dismissing a list regularly used by bookseller and publishers as “not meaning much of anything” would be a poor conclusion.
I’ve actually heard the argument before that bestseller lists are fairly arbitrary and have no real meaning – they exist largely to boost sales, so I check out Wikipedia.org’s entry for New York Times bestsellers list:
The New York Times bestseller list is a weekly chart in The New York Times newspaper that keeps track of the “best-selling” books of the week. It appears in the Sunday New York Times in the “Book Review Section”.
Unlike some lists of “best sellers”, The New York Times list is not based upon actual sales figures, but instead upon surveys of a selected pool of booksellers.
The list is divided into a Fiction and a Non-Fiction section, each containing 15 titles. The New York Times has created the image, for some readers, that a successful book is only seen as being truly “successful” in the eyes of the public if it makes an appearance on this list. Other readers consider a “bestseller”, by definition, as a slightly lower form of literature. The New York Times maintains that its bestseller list is merely a list, compiled from sales figures of literally “bestselling” books.
There have been accusations of some books being marketed in a manner that deliberately places them on the bestseller list, so as to boost exposure of the book to a wide audience of potential buyers. Particularly egregious examples include Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.
In 2001, a separate section of the bestseller list was created to track the sale of children’s books. Critics of The New York Times claim that the children’s book list was created especially so that the Harry Potter book series, which dominated the list for over two years, could be moved to a separate section and other titles allowed to appear on the list.
That was the way the Prime Directive was protrayed on the old series but on Next Gen the Prime Directive was more absolute, (Picard used it as a reason for not interfering in the Klingon civil war, and the Klingons aren’t pre-warp or primitive).
Was that the PD?
I could be remembering wrong, but I seem to recall that it was more a matter of, “This is an internal problem of your government’s. I can’t do anything until and unless your government asks mine for help or it becomes a direct threat to the Federation.” Because, remember…the TNG-era Klingon Empire still isn’t a card-carrying member of the Federation…they’re an ally. Well…’cept for when the UFP got on their bad side for a few years during DS9.
Now…the whole Arbiter of Succession thing? Since K’Ehleyr was a liaison between the Federation & the Empire, her stepping in to ask would be “your government asking my government to help.”
\\ 1The New York Times maintains that its bestseller list is merely a list, compiled from sales figures of literally “bestselling” books. \\
Wow, you mean a list referred to as “bestselling list” is “compiled from sales figures of literally “bestselling” books.” Who would have ever thought of that? 🙂
\\ There have been accusations of some books being marketed in a manner that deliberately places them on the bestseller list, so as to boost exposure of the book to a wide audience of potential buyers. Particularly egregious examples include Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. \\
I’m not really getting what the controversy is here. Of course books are marketed so that they get on the list, just as music is marketed so that it reaches the Billboard top 40 and movies are marketed so that they get a big opening weekend box office and TV shows are marketed to get high ratings. That doens’t seem wrong to me, that just seems like marketing.
\\ In 2001, a separate section of the bestseller list was created to track the sale of children’s books. Critics of The New York Times claim that the children’s book list was created especially so that the Harry Potter book series, which dominated the list for over two years, could be moved to a separate section and other titles allowed to appear on the list. \\
Yes, I remember this controversy and I thought then, (and still think now), that it was a load of crap. I can remember seeing a news report with Ed McBain, one of my all time favorate writers, complaining that his last two books didn’t make the bestsellers list because the Potter books had squeezed them out, and how unfair that was to writers of “real” books. Love Ed McBain, love his books but I came real close to not liking him as a person in that interview. My attitude was, (and still is), that the Potter books are selling more then his and they deserve to be on the list. He got bummped off by something that was more popular. It happens. It’s bound to happen to everyone and everything, (very few things stay popular forever), and complaining about it just seems like sour grapes. It makes the people complaining look small and petty. Creating a seperate list, just so the Potter books don’t knock off the “real” books seems like cheating to me. (Especially sour grapes in my mind since the Potter books seem to me to be truly “all ages books”. A hëll of a lot of adults buy and read them too).
\\ That was the way the Prime Directive was protrayed on the old series but on Next Gen the Prime Directive was more absolute, (Picard used it as a reason for not interfering in the Klingon civil war, and the Klingons aren’t pre-warp or primitive).
Was that the PD?
I could be remembering wrong, but I seem to recall that it was more a matter of, “This is an internal problem of your government’s. I can’t do anything until and unless your government asks mine for help or it becomes a direct threat to the Federation.” Because, remember…the TNG-era Klingon Empire still isn’t a card-carrying member of the Federation…they’re an ally. \\
Memory is, of corse, a very fragile thing, so without going back to re watch those episodes, (which I don’t have at hand), I have to say, yes, It’s possible, I could be misremembering. The way I remember it is a fight had broken out on the Klingon homeworld, Riker wanted to get involved and Picard said no because it was an internal matter and getting involved would violate the PD. Even if my memory’s wrong on that bit, the point still remains that on the original Trek the PD had all sorts of exceptions and a was problem to work around, whereas on the Next Gen the PD was almost entirly absolute, with little or no exceptions, and very often served as the end of the episode, (“Sorry, love to help, but Prime Directive you know”).
A question for hardcore trak fan: If Pickard and crew came upon a pre-warp civilization that was undergoing a massive worldwide plague that could be easily cured with some 25th century vaccine, would they just fly on by with a “Tsk, tsk, if only they’d been better engineers.”?
No doubt the writers of the show would have come up with some story taht would justify such actions–one of my least favorite episodes was where Riker got the powers of Q and, of course, learned that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yeah, right. Give ME that power and watch the Golden Age begin.
But TRUE ABSOLUTE power CANNOT corrupt.
If you have literally ABSOLUTE power, then there is no one who can stand against you, you are de facto GOD and you now have the power to dictate right and wrong. If the most power being in existence doesn’t get to set the rules and standards, then he doesn’t have ABSOLUTE power.
(Sorry, but the whole “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” thing is bûllšhìŧ)
It’s the desire for more power than one already has that tends to corrupt absolutely.
…And lo, Bill and Bladestar didst agree on something, and thus began the apocalypse…:)
It means that in the past week/month/year your book was one of the best selling books in the country.
Again, the problem comes down to the fact we never know specifically, except in a rare case like Harry Potter, exactly how many books were printed, much less sold.
You could sell enough books to get on the NYT list for one week, and the book may never sell another copy again. And this is a quantifier of great success?
Do you realize how many books are published in a given week? In a given year?
I would almost bet it’s more than 15-20 years ago. But then, when you look at the NYT list now, you don’t see many sci-fi or fantasy books at all anyways. But that doesn’t mean that these books aren’t successful.
If the latest Tom Clancy book prints 2 million copies, and sells 1 million. Ok.
If the latest Trek novel prints 200k copies, and sells all 200k copies, I’d say that’s pretty successful regardless.
Wow, you mean a list referred to as “bestselling list” is “compiled from sales figures of literally “bestselling” books.” Who would have ever thought of that? 🙂
Yet, is this based on physical copies sold to customers, or to stores?
Does the market work like comic books, with figures being based on sales to stores, where many could end up not selling (or in the case of novels, returned to the publisher)?
For all we know, the print runs of Trek books have remained steady for 20 years now. But you know that a Trek book has never printed millions of copies for a single title like a Harry Potter.
So, with figures like that, it’s just plain impossible to get on the NYT list. But it does not automatically mean that Trek novels are not successful.
I have to agree with those who feel it’s time the “Star Trek” franchise took a rest (at least on TV). Granted, there is something ironic about a TV series which only ran three seasons eventually spawning four successor shows which, excluding re-runs would be on the air continually (and at one point, concurrently) from 1987-2005. Back in the late 70s and early 80s, I doubt any of us would have imagined such a thing.
Unfortunately, the “Star Trek” fanchise has fallen into a rut. Perhaps _because_ it has been on the air continually for all those years.
Now, none of the shows (including the original) were perfect- or even close to it- but I think the franchise began to lose its way with “Voyager”, and I stopped watching, save for the occassional episode re-run at midnight.
“Enterprise” sounded like a breath of fresh air, a return to the type of stories told on the original series, where the main characters would sometime argue and where we saw that they were flawed, imperfect people.
It failed to live up to that potential, and with the exception of the Brent Spiner episodes this year, I stopped watching after the first couple of episodes of season 2.
And I’m speaking as someone who constantly watched re-runs of the original series as a kid and teenager; and as someone who devoured the first 50 Pocket Book novels (then I stopped buying them, figuring I’d start reading the “Next Generation” ones; never did (with a few exceptions, for whatever reason); the James Blish adaptations; the Allan Dean Foster adapations of the animated scripts; and the “Best of Trek” compilations. I also eagarly looked forward to the return of “Star Trek” to TV.
By comparison, today, though I still enjoy “Star Trek” overall, I don’t watch the current TV series, and still have not seen the latest movie. At one time, I would’ve been there on opening day.
The original series, imperfect as it was, was a milestone in many ways; and the fact that it led to this phenomenon is also remarkable. But it’s time to take a break. Time to let the “Star Trek” universe on TV rest a bit. Then, maybe a few years from now, people will embrace a new TV series.
But please, let’s not rehash the same formula. As others have suggested above, there are different directions the franchise could take.
Rick
In terms of Absolute Power, it *can* very easily corrupt. We’re told that the Q are omnipotent — we’ve seen that they have control over time, space, even death — and yet they don’t simply make all humans obey/worship them. In fact, I’m told they fear humans because of what we could become, and that’s why Q tried to seduce Riker with absolute power. Having true absolute power could let you remake everything in your image — but you’d be stripping free will, choice, progress, and evolution from those changed.
And there was an episode of ENTERPRISE where a planet had two pre-Warp species. The dominant/more intelligent one was dying of a genetic disease, while the subservient/developing one wasn’t. Doctor Phlox came up with a cure, but argued that in order for the subservient species to evolve and grow, nature had to take its course. Archer ultimately agreed (in a move that helped develop the Prime Directive).
The idea behind not interfering with pre-warp societies is to allow them to develop at their own rate. If a race would have more survival with advanced medicines, or beter protection with advanced weaponry, it’s not the Federation roll to play God or Santa Claus and dole out advanced items to species that haven’t come close to developing them yet.
(Man, do I ever feel like a geek!)
Even if my memory’s wrong on that bit, the point still remains that on the original Trek the PD had all sorts of exceptions and a was problem to work around, whereas on the Next Gen the PD was almost entirly absolute, with little or no exceptions, and very often served as the end of the episode, (“Sorry, love to help, but Prime Directive you know”).
I can kinda see that. To me, it boils down to little more than just a different show structure, in that TOS, for all intents and purposes, really only focused on three characters – Kirk, Spock & McCoy. On TOS, whenever the PD was mentioned, you just knew it was because Kirk was about to break it. (Or, roughly as PAD put it in “The Trial of James T. Kirk,” “ignore, broadly interpret, circumvent…but never break.”) That was Kirk’s bull-in-a-china-shop, cowboy diplomacy style. TNG was, from the start, a bit more of an ensemble show, and their approach to PD issues tended to have different members of the senior staff voicing different takes on how to handle the situation, within PD terms or without. If they stuck to it more, percentage-wise, I’d wager it was in a conscious attempt by the writers/producers to avoid the TOS cliche of invoking it only when it was about to be broken…ultimately leading to a TNG cliche that was a complete 180 from the one they were trying to avoid.
‘Course, maybe it says something that the only real TNG PD examples I remember are the ones in which it was “ignored, broadly interpreted or circumvented.” Although why Picard had to go and break it when Wesley walked on the grass and was going to be executed…I’ll never know. 😉
More “Star Trek” thoughts.
One of the things I find really disappointing about the “Star Trek” franchise overall is how there’s never any follow up to certain plot points. A few cases in point: LaForge is brainwashed, and programmed to assassinate a Romulan official. He fails, and at the end of the episode, we see him beginning a counseling session with Troi.
Never mentioned again. Never the slightest hint.
O’Brien is convicted of a crime, and in the course of a few hours lives out in his mind, and entire lifetime in prison. It had a profound effect on him in that episode. But…
Never mentioned again. Never the slightest hint.
In “The Visitor”, one of the best episodes made in all five series (and on TV SF in general), an elderly Jake Sisko commits suicide to snap the link between his father and himself that has Ben Sisko trapped in a type of hyperspace, so Ben will be returned to the moment the initial accident occurred, and avoid it.
Ben clearly remembers what he’d experienced, and his son’s sacrifice, and Jake’s earlier success as a writer; yet, we _never once_ see a subsequent episode where Ben provides Jake with any additional encouragement in his writing, or any other sort of increased father/son bond beyond what had already been established.
That makes no sense to me. Sure, you don’t want to continually re-hash the plot of “The Visitor”, because it would only confuse new viewers, but a stronger father/son bond would not. People who saw “The Visitor” would understand; people who didn’t would simply see a strong father/son bond.
Yes, most all TV shows, until relatively recently, had a sort of “re-set” button where things would return to normal by the end of the episode, and, for the most part, episodes were entirely self-contained. The original “Star Trek” did the same. Both Edith Keeler and Marimanee were never mentioned again, for example. But even so, we should have seen at least subtle indications that the incidents cited above continued to affect the characters involved.
Then there’s “Voyager”, which pretty much failed to reach its true potential almost from the get-go. I often use the following analogy when describing what “Voyager” should and could have been:
Imagine that during a battle in the American Civil War the Monitor and the Virginia (later to be re-named the Merrimac), the respective iron-clad ships of the Union and Confederacy, are somehow transported to the coast of Fiji. One ship is damaged beyond repair and surviors are taken aboard the other, which while also damaged, is still sea-worthy. What does this mixed group of Union and Confedrate sailors do? It would take them months, if not years, to get home. Assuming they even know _where_ they are; and I doubt anyone in Fiji cared about a war on the other side of the planet.
The survivors of the destroyed ship could try to take control, but what would be the point? The trip is going to take just as long. So, it comes down to four probable outcomes: They all stay in Fiji, leaving the war behind; whichever crew ultimately gains the upper hand leaves the other crew behind; the defeated crew is kept prisoner for the voyage back; or both crews agree to work together for mutual survival.
In that last scenario, there would still be a great deal of tension. They would not become one big happy crew (at least not so quickly). Yet, that’s exactly what happened on “Voyager.” Now, I could see that happening gradually, over the course of years, but not almost right away. Without that internal, “Federation Vs. Maqui” conflict, “Voyager” became just another show about a starship crew. The central point of conflict was gone almost immediately.
Finally, speaking of Marimanee, a question about the episode “the Paradise Syndrome.” The James Blish adaptation has a bit of dialogue in the scene where Marimanee tells “Kirok” it’s time to go into the temple, where he admits to her that he’s not a god. That bit of dialogue is not in the TV episode (at least I’ve never seen it in re-runs, or in the videotape). Yet, there is a clear cut, just before the tribal chief comes in. Does anyone know if “Kirok’s” admission that he wasn’t a god was once in the episode; or was that cut just poorly done?
Rick
Rick, I agree with you 100% regarding Trek’s lack of adherence to continuity. You forgot to mention the TNG episode in which Picard lives the equivalent of a lifetime on another planet, growing old and having grandchildren. Again, one of the better episodes, but no long-term consequences at all. Perhaps the Federation just has incredible counsellors.
Regarding Voyager, one small bit of continuity I would have loved to have seen is ship damage that carries over from episode to episode. The series would have taken a small step towards redemption if it had come out of that transwarp conduit in the finale with several gaping holes in the hull, and random borg technology sticking out elsewhere. Granted, that was the least of that show’s problems, but it sure would have helped.
Also regarding Voyager, I seem to remember reading something that said if you take the distance from earth they are quoted as being sent in the pilot, and then add together all the “shortcuts” they took throughout the series, they actually should have arrived home in season 5 or something like that. Can anyone confirm this?
//I can kinda see that. To me, it boils down to little more than just a different show structure, in that TOS, for all intents and purposes, really only focused on three characters – Kirk, Spock & McCoy. On TOS, whenever the PD was mentioned, you just knew it was because Kirk was about to break it. (Or, roughly as PAD put it in “The Trial of James T. Kirk,” “ignore, broadly interpret, circumvent…but never break.”) That was Kirk’s bull-in-a-china-shop, cowboy diplomacy style. TNG was, from the start, a bit more of an ensemble show, and their approach to PD issues tended to have different members of the senior staff voicing different takes on how to handle the situation, within PD terms or without. If they stuck to it more, percentage-wise, I’d wager it was in a conscious attempt by the writers/producers to avoid the TOS cliche of invoking it only when it was about to be broken…ultimately leading to a TNG cliche that was a complete 180 from the one they were trying to avoid.//
There’s truth to your argument. I often feel that if the writers knew what an annoyance the PD would have been they would have never created it to begin with, (It was in itself a kind of a retcon, it came in about halfway though season one, by that time Kirk and company had already done things that questionaly bent it but since it wasn’t invented yet no cared, but of course once it was invented it had always existed retroactively) a lot of what Next Gen was in the begining seemed to be fixing the cliches of the old series. Not always a good thing, The more rigid interpretation of the PD was one example of that, the captain stays on the ship bit was another. (And that was a bad one, made it hard to like Picard at first and by season 3 they had pretty much thrown it out the window).
Seriously Bill?
I always wanted to be part of the apocalypse!
Maybe this time the earth will get intelligent life right…
🙂
And actually, in later seasons and the TNG movies, it was the Picard and Data show. Everyone else was window dressing for the most part. Even the episodes that focused on fols like Worf, Riker, Crusher, etc, Picard and/or Data seemed to always take center stage….
Posted by DarrenJHudak:
“That was the way the Prime Directive was protrayed on the old series but on Next Gen the Prime Directive was more absolute, (Picard used it as a reason for not interfering in the Klingon civil war, and the Klingons aren’t pre-warp or primitive). On the old series there were all kinds of exceptions to the PD, it also only applied to developing societys, stagnent societies were exempt, (this is why Kirk was allowed to destroy all those computers and leftover holograms that had enslaved worlds). From Next Gen and on there were less, (if any), exceptions.”
Well, in fairness, the Klingon Civil War was, quite technically, none of Starfleet’s business. The UFP definitely had a stake in the war’s outcome, but they weren’t under any direct obligation to take part in that society’s war. The UFP and the Klingon Empire were, essentially, under a mutual assistance treaty (typically, this doesn’t require either party to become involved in the other party’s internal affairs in real life). But, when Picard DID support Federation involvement, it was largely due to hints that another external party (the Romulans, in this instance) were providing aid to one faction, and that Picard’s decision was to prove the Romulan involvement which wasn’t known to the majority of Klingons fighting against Gowron; also, the fact that Gowron approached Picard, rather than proper UFP channels, suggested that Gowron wanted Picard’s ship, not the whole of the UFP and Starfleet at that time.
Since Picard DID eventually bring the Federation into the Klingon Civil War, one could take that as suggesting that he didn’t feel the Prime Directive was applicable any longer (though, Starfleet did not authorize any aggressive participation; Picard’s fleet was only allowed to set up the tachyon web blockade against the Romulans).
The Dominion was in a state of open hostilities against the Federation (even before the formal declaration of war–the Dominion had destroyed a number of Federation vessels in the Gamma Quadrant prior to the War). As such, it’s only reasonable that Federation officials would have developed plans against an enemy, of whom very little was fully understood. (Let’s recall the Federation began planning for a confrontation with the Borg almost as soon as Picard reported his first encounter with them–Shelby was introduced just a year after the first encounter with the Borg, and even then, she was regarded as Starfleet’s expert on the Borg, if I recall correctly.)
Until DS9, we’d never actually seen the Federation itself embroiled in a full-out, long-term “hot” war although several had been hinted at in a number of episodes; however, remember that Starfleet authorized the use of a virus designed to wipe out the Borg several years before the Bajoran wormhole played a role in the Trek universe, and Picard was berated for failing to use “Hugh” as a trojan horse to infect the Borg.
Star Trek is most definitely NOT dead. Such a notion is silly when regarding a franchise, that by it’s very nature, has infinite possibilities.
It’s the WRITING, stupid.
Some shows of “Voyager” and “Enterprise” were downright painful to watch.
After being burned by “Voyager”, I decided to see what could possibly be an interesting prequel series. Between the stiff acting and banal scripts, and having stuff that didn’t make any sense in a prequel,I decided to break my “addiction”. I refused to get together with people to get together and watch a series, who would then inevitably bìŧçh about EVERYTHING about the show, Berman, etc. I finally was like, if you hate it that much, why do you watch it.
To which, the response always was: ‘Because it’s Statr Trek!’
It is that kind of ridiculous loyalty to a name that had Berman and Braga traeting the fans with contempt.
Why show respect for the fans and/or the franchise if they will continue to watch it no matter what you put on the air?
I have heard and read about many examples of Berman’s arrogance, including the story of a best-selling Trek novelist who was continually getting his scripts rejected using his real name. So he sent in an exact copy of a script of his that had been rejected under a different name and it was accepted.
Also, the time, at the junket for “Nemesis”, I asked Berman, point blank, that if he was looking for “new writers” like John Logan to reinvigorate the movies, why not look to popular Trek novelists “like Peter David” for fresh ideas. Berman simply rolled his eyes, and then said he was quite happy with the writers they had chosen.
Enterprise was a good concept poorly executed (no news there). The way it should have been…
Space exploration is a political hot potato and is used as a pawn in political games. Archer was slated to be the captain, but through an effort to sabotage it, Captain Robert April, played by Treat Williams, is given the underfunded, undersupported ship. April, the devil-may-care, logically-illogical and completely playful captain is so ill suited to exploring the bad old universe and dealing with Vulcans… and yet still pulls Terran fat out of the fire time after time… that you never know what to expect next. His personal mission is to pull the stick out of the universe’s @$$ and make a Vulcan laugh. People the ship with uptight navy men, make Archer the frustrated Admiral and let the good times roll. The ship never works right from underfunding and political intrigue, with an engineer off the sea who hates space. Conflict, laughs, and a reason for the ‘backward’ tech that would evolve into the original series. 🙂
Okay…I’m gonna get on that soapbox…Back in 1995, after seeing the lukewarm reception that DS9 was given following the success of TNG, Paramount should have gone for what, IMHO, would have been a slam-dunk success…THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN SULU. Coulda even had Ferris Bueller’s buddy give up the Enterprise-B and put Sulu on as Captain with his daughter at the helm!! Yeah, I know the idea has been tossed around at cons before. Well, they now have their chance to sit back, think, and not rush a half-baked TV show into production. Hmmm…I can just hear the opening…Space…The New Frontier…
“OTOH, the lesson I take from the show’s run is that the next Trek series should NOT be yet another try at the “starship exploration” template used by every Trek series except DS9″
Except the problem with this is that Trek fans don’t seem to want that. One of the ongoing complaints about DS9, while it was on, was that it was set on a Space Station instead of on a Starship.
IMHO, it was the best of the “modern” Trek shows, but it was also the lowest rated (until Enterprise, I guess…)
One of the guys at the comic shop almost screamed out when I told him STE was cancelled: “Omg, what will I do for Star Trek now?!” I said, jeez, what did I do from ’69 to ’79? I read the books, the fanzines, watched the old shows in syndication (when possible) and later when the videos came out and I survived. Matter o’fact, since I am an original fan, I kind of liked it better especially before TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise screwed up a bunch of my fave story lines. Like the “Mirror, Mirror” Universe, thanks DS9, no evil Picard, no Empire Enterprise-D and you had to make it centralizied to the stupid Bajarians and DS9, you untalented gimps! Oh well, hopefully the next undertaking will be without the people that let the TV shows go down to “not with a bang but with a whimper” ending…
I had another thought about the fate of Star Trek.
DS9 dealt largly with the Gamma Quadrant, Voyager the Delta Quadrant and, if I remember correctly, Federation space is about half-and-half in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. In a way that leaves nothing new to explore.
I know, not every parsec of space was explored in these areas. My point is that the Final Frontier sounds like it’s all used up and that less creative execs might see it that way. They might see it as nothing left to explore but new galaxies. Which would be a bit much, I think.
I think they just need to develope a core concept that ins’t a retrospective that can pull it’s weight. Or rather that they ALLOW to pull it’s own weight. Learn from the mistakes made with Voyager and Enterprise and the Star Trek franchise will be a going concern again. It seems obvious that the fans are not ready to jump ship. The execs just need to respect the established history, the fans, and the franchise itself.
There are several fairly easy fixes for Star Trek Enterprise. (1) Scott Backula did not catch on as a Captain in this series and the captaincy is critical to a Star Trek success. I think Trip would make a much better Captain.(2) I don’t believe the mission was ever clearly defined – give us the mission statement. (3)Star Trek has always tackled hard socieital issues – can we get story lines that deal with prisoner abuse, right to life, invasions, education, nuclear (or whatever) proliferation, etc.(4)Romance is also a staple of the Trek series – really like Trip and T’Pol. How about a wedding with other crew? (5)A little more character depth for the bridge officers would also add to viewership. (6) Phlox is a new species on Enterprise – give us more who have conflicts with the rules and methods of response. and lastly (7)Make them the very best they can be in their field – make us want to join. Thanks for listening.