“Hope — I always thought that was a human failing, Mr. Spock?” - Dr. McCoy
File this one under “Grasping at Straws”…
According to Thomas Gill over at TrekWeb.com, during “Grand Slam XIII: The Sci-Fi Summit” convention over this past weekend, Manny Coto tossed out an interesting little comment:
“We’ve heard these rumors about cancellation, but don’t believe anything until September.”
Now of course this could just be fodder for the internet rumour mill, or to fan the flames of fan support for the show, but I have a feeling that just maybe the suits over at Paramount are actually paying attention to what’s been going on this season both on and off the show.
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Among the items worth paying attention to are:
- The writing on the show this season has improved dramatically, with the characters getting more fleshed out in this one season than they have in the prior three seasons combined.
- Related to the above item, Enterprise is finally being written like a prequel to TOS (The Original Show). As I’ve commented here previously, things that were only touched on in the original series have been detailed this season, and we’re seeing more “formation of the Federation” type stuff going on.
- Ratings have been much stronger this season, averaging 3.1 million viewers per week. Although that’s way down from the first season, it’s up considerably from last season. As a comparison, Stargate SG-1 averages 2 million viewers per week. (I don’t understand how SG-1 can be profitable while Enterprise cannot… the production values on SG-1 seem as high, if not higher than on Enterprise.)
- There’s been a lot of buzz going on about how the show has improved and the fan campaign to renew it has made it into major news outlets. The $3 million contributed by two anonymous donors to TrekUnited certainly helped in that regard.
So we’ll just have to see. I’m pretty sure it’s dead, but you never know. Remember, Spock managed to come back from the dead…
4 Comments
In terms of Stargate being more profitable than Enterprise, I think that it has a few advantages in that 1) it is shot in Vancouver (where the dollar is rather strong due to exchange rates); 2) it probably has dual showings (in Canada and the US); and 3) has a little bit more marketing oomph.
Although I’m glad to see some renewed support for Enterprise, I think it’s time that “the franchise” (does that sound cynical or what?) be put to rest. Give it some time to be missed, and then consider reviving it.
Give it a rest? No way.
I think the initial core concept behind Enterprise was a good one… they just went off in the wrong direction with it and also it suffered from some “Voyager-itis” as far as the first starship running so smoothly, brandy-new transporter technology beaming you up faster than that of Kirk’s era, tricorders smaller than that of classic Trek, and a ship design that was too streamlined.
I look at the “Prometheus” of Stargate SG-1 with it’s big, blocky shapes and I think that’s what Enterprise should have looked like 100 years pre-Kirk.
Vic
Hey Vic, thanks for the Trek United shout-out.
We haven’t gone anywhere since the $3 million dollar story. Right now we have several campaigns designed to draw attention to the cause:
1| Local Ad Campaign, fans are taking out small ads to attract attention from those who haven’t been drawn in by our internet efforts
2| An association with the fan created New Voyages episodes, because we believe that everything that is good for Trek, is good for us.
3| A new Blog, to help us keep the world informed of our activities and continued existence
4| An effort to nurture a relationship between Star Trek and Space related industries.
5| An email effort to convince google to make a holiday doodle to commerate the fans of Star Trek on May 13th
6| Regular letter writing campaigns continue unabated: Paramount, Viacom, UPN, Spike TV, the SciFi channel. Also our celebrity out-reach recently got a big boost with a supportive response from Stephen Hawking
7| Pod-casting: TU has teamed up with Dragon Page for “Slice of SciFi” podcast
8| So much more…
So we’ll just have to see. I’m pretty sure it’s dead, but you never know. Remember, Spock managed to come back from the dead…
I definately remember. The reports of Enterprise’s demise, in short, have been greatly exaggerated.
Visit the sites, and if you have questions, feel free to email the communications team: info@trekunited.com
As an aside, I found you by following a link from your November write-up of Season 4 and Manny Coto’s efforts.
Since that was mid-season, I’d love to see an update about you think of more recent episodes!
Thanks