Posted on 02/25/2003 11:14:23 AM PST by pabianice
After launching at warp speed in the fall of 2001, Enterprise, the UPN prequel series designed to reenergize the aging Star Trek franchise by attracting younger viewers, is limping along on impulse power. Midway through its second season, ratings are down 24 percent from last year. "What can you say?" executive producer Brannon Braga says. "We're bummed." And in clear violation of the series's prime directive, viewership is actually skewing older.
The news is even worse at the box office. Despite good reviews and generally enthusiastic fan response, Star Trek Nemesis, the most recent — and likely final — adventure to exclusively feature the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast (more about that in a moment), took in just over $40 million, making it the lowest-grossing Trek movie by far (translation: with production costs of $ 113 million, "Nemesis" was a financial disaster).
After five live-action series, 10 feature films, stacks of book titles and Q knows how many mass-produced trinkets, has the multibillion-dollar sci-fi franchise founded by the late Gene Roddenberry lived too long to prosper?
Corporate executives maintain that a warp core breach is far from imminent. Despite its ratings woes, Enterprise is still the top-rated drama on perennially struggling UPN and is in no danger of being canceled, says network president Dawn Ostroff. "Hit shows often take years," she says.
As for Nemesis, Paramount Pictures vice-chairman and chief operating officer Rob Friedman attributes the movie's flameout to tough competition from other holiday films. "I think we probably got 'Lord of the Ring'-ed," he says of the blockbuster Two Towers sequel that opened the following week. "Would we have preferred to have another $20 million at the box office? Sure. But that doesn't foretell any concerns about the future of Trek."
Maybe not. But it doesn't take a positronic brain to recognize that droves of fans have deserted in recent years. Movie ticket sales have declined from about 21 million for First Contact (1996) to 15 million for Insurrection (1998) to less than 8 million for Nemesis. On TV, the Trek audience has been shrinking since Next Generation's peak 11 years ago, when it averaged 17.7 million viewers a week in Season 5. Today, 4.3 million people watch Enterprise.
The series may be going where no man has gone before, but some Trek fans say the producers forgot the "boldly" part — those steamy decontamination-chamber scenes with Archer (Scott Bakula) and T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) notwithstanding.
"Enterprise has potential," says Jamahl Epsicokhan, a 27-year-old Web designer who has posted Trek episode reviews at Star Trek Hypertext Online since 1994. "But it doesn't take risks." Steve Krutzler, editor of TrekWeb.com, an Internet site that gets 150,000 visitors a month, says the series "was being hyped as a radical departure, [yet] everything feels like the same Star Trek we've gotten for 15 years."
Although Braga is not ready to divulge details, he says "epic challenges... that better exploit the sense of awe and danger" are ahead for the crew. "Let's just say there will be a slight revision in our mission, and a slight revision in the part of space that Enterprise is heading into," says executive producer Rick Berman, who has overseen the franchise since Roddenberry's death in 1991.
As to where the movies are headed, Berman is less certain. "I doubt because our box office fell off on Nemesis that it's going to be the end of Star Trek films," the producer says. "I can't imagine numerous other movies won't occur."
Though there have been no discussions as yet, Berman hints at one tempting scenario: combining characters from the various series in one grand adventure. "There are a lot of interesting possibilities," he says.
Berman's remarks suggest Trek is in an adjustment period; some fine-tuning is needed. "I don't think that there's any television franchise that people love to take potshots at as much," Berman says. In fact, he refuses to concede that Trek will ever run its course entirely. "Would anybody have guessed when the original series went off the air in 1969 that 34 years later it would still be part of the American mythos?" Berman says. "It's part of our lexicon."
Adds Braga: "You've got to keep an optimistic viewpoint. It's come this far, and it ain't goin' anywhere."
HOW TO FIX TREK
1. MAKE IT OBVIOUS It's cold and dark in space. Enterprise needs real peril, dread and fear so that characters are tested to within an inch of their lives. Introduce a chilling, powerful, wholly original threat that can't be vanquished in an hour. The Suliban aren't bad, but they're no Borg.
2 MAKE IT MORE REAL Let the crew make grave mistakes. Let them argue and be driven by less-than-moral impulses. Let the phaser beams rip through metal and bone. And let there be dangling emotional threads that weave through the lives of these otherwise bland characters.
3 LET CAPTAIN ARCHER BE HEROIC As written, Scott Bakula has as much commanding presence as Cap'n Crunch. Archer, like his beagle, is benign and a little too cute. He has an annoying tendency to second-guess, which trickles down to the rest of his whiny crew. Either light a fire under this laconic guy or kill him in a blaze of glory that explains why starships, planets and star systems should one day be named Archer. (And while you're at it, take out that annoying Ensign Hoshi with him.)
4 OPEN FIRE AND CLOSE THOSE PIE HOLES Enterprise should expand our belief about what is possible and transport us to realms unimagined with its ideas. But if it can't also be packed with action and adventure, move it to Lifetime. We're weary of the endless Trek babble on the bridge, the shuttlecraft, the crew quarters. Enough!
5 GET US ON THE EDGE OF OUR SEATS You shouldn't be able to figure out what the general direction and ending of any given episode is by the first 12 minutes. "Oh, here's where Hoshi overcomes her fear of failure..." "Well, it looks like Trip and that belligerent alien are going to work together to save both their hides..." Why not try some longer, unpredictable story arcs? Cliff-hangers, big and small, give a series purpose, poignancy and punch. Make us miss you this summer.
And at the movies...
It's no secret why Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the whale tale) was a fan favorite. It had humor, nostalgia and intelligent cast interplay. Why did Nemesis leave us wanting? It zipped through the Riker-Troi wedding, a payoff fans had long awaited. Worse, the film didn't include a farewell scene for Picard and his crush, Beverly. The heart of Trek is heart, and Trek's best films tap into relationships.
Exactly. TOS episodes like Spectre of the Gun and the The Empath had no elaborate sets yet they entertained. Voyager had quite a bit of eye candy, yet I could not force myself to watch it... it was that horrible.
To be fair, the short story "Arena" was written by someone else (Sturgeon?) at least ten years before Gene Roddenberry invented 'Star Trek.'
Or worse, pirate borgs led by Data's evil twin brother, that say "Arr!"
He left Trek after a Trek script of his featuring two gay lovers was refused by Paramount. In fact. Gerrold disappeared, period, about ten years ago after the fourth, disappointing book in his "Matter for Men" series.
Ever had a hot shell casing in your eye? I have. It SUCKS, even if you're shooting blanks.
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