Some interesting news today. First up, though it's not particularly DVD related it's good news for Paramount's Star Trek franchise. UPN, at their upfronts press conference this morning in New York, officially announced that Star Trek: Enterprise will be renewed for a fourth season and will appear on Friday night this fall. UPN programming executive Dawn Ostroff told the audience of television and advertising executives at UPN's upfront presentation that Enterprise is an established franchise with a loyal audience and that the level of mail seeking renewal gives her every reason to believe that the audience will follow Enterprise to the new time and night. Here's the except from UPN's press release:
"STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE (Friday, 9:00-10:00 PM), the latest in the “Star Trek” franchise, is now entering its fourth season. A prequel to the original “Star Trek” series, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE takes place during the early pioneering days of deep space exploration when interstellar travel is in its infancy and 100 years before Capt. James T. Kirk takes the helm of the famous starship. As the season opened, a mysterious and deadly race of aliens called the Xindi had attacked Earth, killing millions of people. Having discovered that their next planned attack will completely destroy Earth, Capt. Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the crew set out on a gripping new mission to track down and put an end to these enemy aliens. With the fate of the planet in their hands, the crew faced strange new life forms, dangerous unexplored regions of space and difficult moral questions. In addition to being more action packed with spectacular special effects, this new season will take STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE into further uncharted territory, while advancing last season's critically acclaimed storylines, including Vulcan Sub Commander T'Pol's (Jolene Blalock) blossoming relationship with Chief Engineer Charles “Trip” Tucker III (Connor Trinneer) and mysterious twists in the familiar timeline. The series also stars John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox, Dominic Keating as Lt. Malcolm Reed, Anthony Montgomery as Ensign Travis Mayweather and Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi Sato. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are creators/executive producers. STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE is a production of Paramount Network Television."
You can read more over at former Bits-er Brian Ford Sullivan's The Futon Critic. Thanks to all of you who worked so hard to get word to UPN that we want this show back for another year! Well done!
Wow, they're going to let it sputter out on a friday instead of just giving it the axe. Gotta grab every last dollar out of the dying corpse.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
And this is why you don't watch anything produced by Ronald D. Moore after he had his brain surgically removed and replaced with a bag of elephant semen.-Gramzamber, on why Caprica sucks
It's going to be such a bloody slaughter that I almost can't bare to watch............Almost
And this is why you don't watch anything produced by Ronald D. Moore after he had his brain surgically removed and replaced with a bag of elephant semen.-Gramzamber, on why Caprica sucks
Wow, what idiot in scheduling thought ENT could go up against SG-1, although, SG-1 looks like its about to go the way of Battlestar Galactica and go all kiddy, anyone else seen the uniforms for SG-1 Atlantis. They remind me of the uniforms in Galaxy Quest.
I could see doing so if the series were more deserving of such, but since it more frequently regarded as a final rusty nail being haphazardly driven into a rotting coffin rather than as a shining return to grace, I doubt that such reverence would be shared by many others...
I believe in a sign of Zeta.
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Darksider wrote:That puts it on at the same time as SG-1.
Goodbye Enterprise, we hardly knew yee
As well as up against another Paramount show too, JAG Do any of these silly sods even think at all before making decisions, or just throw darts blindfolded ?
"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."
Honestly, guys, they're probably trying to kill it without pissing off its three fans. My guess is that they know damn well that it's not going to be able to stand up to SG-1, and so by changing the schedule they're almost guaranteeing that they won't need to pay the high-production costs of a potential fifth season, and they may even be able to pull the plug midway through the season. I can't figure out any other reason why the big-shots at Paramount would do this, or even why they're keeping the series alive to this point.
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Stofsk wrote:But why bother with a 4th season then? Why not cancel it if they've lost faith in the show?
Perhaps they fear a recurrence of the unpleasantness when they cancelled TOS?
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
Stofsk wrote:But why bother with a 4th season then? Why not cancel it if they've lost faith in the show?
Perhaps they fear a recurrence of the unpleasantness when they cancelled TOS?
I don't think ENT is worth that much to the hearts and minds of all trekkies. I also don't think they give a shit what the fanbase feels about ENT and so on.
Stofsk wrote:But why bother with a 4th season then? Why not cancel it if they've lost faith in the show?
Perhaps they fear a recurrence of the unpleasantness when they cancelled TOS?
I don't think ENT is worth that much to the hearts and minds of all trekkies. I also don't think they give a shit what the fanbase feels about ENT and so on.
But do they know how many really don't care?
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
It won't really be competing with SG1 for long since SG1 airs mainly during the off-season in the summer and then around December-January where Ent usually takes a break, competition with SG1 will come down to a few weeks at best. I think it also worth considering that Ent was competing against Smallville and that is far stiffer competition than SG1.
Stofsk wrote:But why bother with a 4th season then? Why not cancel it if they've lost faith in the show?
They've still got faith.
*starts singing*
They've got faith of the heart
They're going where their heart will...
*is stabbed burtally multiple times by all listeners*
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"These deadly rays will be your death!"
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- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
Plus, if they let it die out rather than pull the plug on it early, they can conclusively say "Enterprise died of natural causes, not because of network bias or misreading of the ratings", therefore avoiding a lot of "It was still doing alright!" bullshit from the fans and giving them an excuse not to pay for some big series finale or a feature film.
Perhaps they fear a recurrence of the unpleasantness when they cancelled TOS?
Berman and Braga probably don't even know about the fanatics that rallied around Trek way back when.
While I'm not a trekkie, I must say that I think that ST:Enterprise is much better than that awful TNG piece of crap and I would like to see some resolution to the series (the Earth-Romulan war and the forming of the UFP) although the series have messed up continuity. Swedish television have only shown the first season and recently started on the second, so I can't pass judgment on the Xindi storyline. However, I must say that I'm glad much of that socialist propaganda from TNG is gone. Two more redeeming factors are Jolene Blalock and, especially, Linda Parks , but the future of Trek seems to be in the balance.
Last edited by Mange on 2004-05-21 12:08pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mange the Swede wrote:While I'm not a trekkie (I hate them, they're like animals and I... well let's not take it any further than that )
What did we do?
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
Actually Enterprise has developed quite a cult following, and Enterprise season 3 I'll stack up against any series in Trek history as far as quality goes.
Instructions on how to find and download ENT episodes deleted. Read the announcements. ~RI
Mange the Swede wrote:While I'm not a trekkie (I hate them, they're like animals and I... well let's not take it any further than that
Your a fucking idiot. Do that again and your posts will be HOSed.
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"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
, but the future of Trek seems to be in the balance.
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