Star Trek: Enterprise

[LessAspin]

It might be considered blasphemy by true Trek fans but Enterprise is my favorite Star Trek series. Prior to Discovery at least.

Scott Bakula believes not being in syndication killed Star Trek: Enterprise

UPN was the home of Star Trek for a decade. From 1995 to 2005. During that time, two network shows aired. The first was the successful Star Trek: Voyager, which lasted seven seasons and was a statement show for the franchise. The second was Star Trek: Enterprise; a prequel series that told the story of how the Federation of Planets came to be. It was also the first Star Trek series to invest big money in the lead, bringing in sci-fi legend Scott Bakula as the main character, Captain Johnathan Archer.

Bakula was easily the biggest name Star Trek had ever brought in to build a show around, and they thought with that, a Rod Stewart written (but not sung) theme song, and the backing of a pretty big network in UPN, that Enterprise was set up to be a hit.

It was supposed to be a hit, and while it lasted just shy of 100 episodes and for four seasons, the show was ultimately canceled due to ratings in 2005. An ending no one wanted, even now 17 years later, and one Bakula believes would’ve gone differently had it not been on UPN.

Bakula spoke with the late Bob Saget on his Here for You podcast (quote via Slashfilm.com), and revealed that had the show been in syndication at the time, the series would’ve gotten a seven-season order from the jump.


All the other [Star Trek shows] … set up their deals with all the little stations all around America for seven years, and they went and made a TV show for seven years. Which we would have done also if we had been syndicated.

Scott Bakula is sort of right about how Star Trek used to do things
Bakula is right, that with the original series, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, each show was in syndication and the production company sold the rights to the show to every market. Yet, by the 90s, most local channels had started to merge and were owned by larger companies. NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox all had their own syndicated networks around the country. Cable was starting to take a lot of viewers away from standard syndicated hours with an ever-expanding catalog of premium networks that allowed shows to do more and get away with more with regards to explicit content...

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2022/03/09/scott-bakula-believes-not-being-in-syndication-killed-star-trek-enterprise/

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I also happen to agree with this...

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[Tetrachloride]

1. Unpopular opinion: Next Generation is my least favorite of the big series

Last edited Sat Apr 16, 2022, 01:17 AM - Edit history (1)

I studied characters in Voyager the most.

Another unpopular opinion: Tom Paris was another unfavorite character—> until the next layers of his personality came through. that is to say, appreciation was delayed.

The most innovation and my favorite Star Trek episode is in Original Series. Second most favorite episode is in Voyager.

Enterprise series was uneven but I appreciated the surprises of a rough universe.

[Miguelito Loveless]

2. Not at all blasphemy

The series got screwed out of a decent ending.

[FarPoint]

3. Enterprise is my favorite of all the series....

The cast was great....they has crummy writers at times but the actors carried if off expeditiously....the series fell to cheap, careless management.... they never embraces the gift it could of been.


I follow this YouTube channel..."Shuttlepod Show" https://www.youtube.com/c/ShuttlepodShow

Description:

Actors Connor Trinneer/ Tripp and Dominic Keating/ Malcolm; set off on an exploration of life on Earth and the series Star Trek: Enterprise. They portrayed Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III and Lieutenant Malcom Reed in the series, and invite special guests to join them every episode to talk about their roles, character arcs, behind-the-scenes stories and more. New episodes every Sunday. Audio-only versions will be available the following Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.

Got questions for Dom and Con? Send them to [e-mail] and they'll try to answer them all on the show. Sign up for news and episode teasers at shuttlepodshow.com. And of course, subscribe and watch here.

[qazplm135]

4. Everyone has their preference...

For me it's;

DS9

Big gap

TNG

Tiny gap

Voyager

Big gap

Everything else. I'm tired of prequels. We have had two now with a third one coming. Picard's first season was awful but I'm reserving opinion on second season, it could jump up to just under Voyager.

I'm not including the two new animated series in here since to me it's apples and oranges, one's comedy and one's for kids, so unfair to compare I think.

[RipVanWinkle]

7. Agree with you mostly

DS9 is the best. The show has the best captain: Benjamin Sisko.

TNG is in 2nd place, though, for me it hasn’t aged well.

ENT is in 3rd place. A few episodes remind of McHale’s Navy.

TOS is in 4th place. It hasn’t aged well either.

VOY is in 5th place. Tom Paris is a jerk.

For me, there has been no good Star Trek since ENT ended, though the newest show, Strange New Worlds shows promise.

[Aristus]

5. Another unpopular opinion: I actually like the theme song.

I'm not saying it isn't a little cheesy, and it's definitely one of my guilty pleasures (I've got it on my iPod). But I thought it was an inspiring musical lead-in to the idea of the formation of the Federation. The idea that war, poverty, and misery make up the bulk of human history, but it's about to get better, and together, we will find a way out of this morass of human failure and frailty, into a future of promise and hope.

Wow. That whole paragraph was cheesy. But, like the perception of the song itself, I don't care. I like it.

[rogue emissary]

6. As a true Trek fan, I enjoyed Enterprise.

It's judge so harshly because everyone thought the show quality wise would instantly be on the same level of TNG, DS9 and Voy.

The reality is all of those shows took two too three seasons to get good.

My expectations for Discovery were way out of whack for it's first season.

The second and third season of Discovery were great and glad I didn't stop watching it in season one.

Which is what I think a lot of Trek fans did with Enterprise.

[LessAspin]

8. Manimal

Simon MacCorkindale (12 February 1952 – 14 October 2010)

In 1983, MacCorkindale starred in the short-lived series Manimal as the lead character, Dr. Jonathan Chase, before taking up the longer-running role of lawyer Greg Reardon in Falcon Crest. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s he directed and produced many stage, TV and film productions through his company Amy International Artists, such as the film Stealing Heaven (1988). Moving to Canada, he starred as Peter Sinclair in the series Counterstrike for three years. He returned to the United Kingdom in 2002 and joined the cast of the BBC medical drama Casualty, appearing in the role of Harry Harper for six years until 2008.

Having rejected an offer to play Captain Jonathan Archer in the American science-fiction TV series Star Trek: Enterprise,[18] MacCorkindale returned to the UK in 2002 and joined the cast of the BBC One medical drama Casualty, in the role of clinical lead consultant Harry Harper.[19] Following his casting, he said in an interview with the Daily Record that he was a long-time fan of the series, commenting that it was "great to be joining an established show with a great bunch of people."[20] In contrast, Neil Bonner of the Liverpool Daily Post quoted him as stating that he had never seen an episode of the show in its then-16-year history...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_MacCorkindale

A couple things about this. I was in the library this weekend looking for season 4 of Enterprise when I saw the Manimal dvd. The only thing I knew of the series was that it was skewered by critics and just seemed like a really stupid premise. Both of which were confirmed by watching it.

Also interesting that he was offered the role of Captain Jonathan Archer. I have recently wondered what someone else in that role could have done with it. Say if Nathan Fillion would have been given that role instead of the role of Captain Mal Reynolds on Firefly? But reading and listening to Scott Bakula on Bob Saget's podcast I'm happy he got the role. Bakula spoke of a real appreciation for Roddenberry's vision.

[Xavier Breath]

9. Ah, the good old days

when one could enjoy Star Trek on over-the-air TV and not have to subscribe to a streaming service. Picard, Discovery, Below Decks and any other shows they decide to stream will just have to do without my patronage. Doubt I'm missing anything, anyway.

[LessAspin]

10. Back-ula

Bakula is back.....

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or not?!?

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John Billingsley, who played the eccentric Denobulan physician Doctor Phlox on all four seasons of the series, threw cold water on the notion of a reunion; he believes that there are simply too many logistical problems to see the cast return to the NX-01. Says Billingsley,

"I doubt very much that Enterprise itself could or would ever come back. I mean, there are just too many issues with it. Scott Bakula has moved on. He's always got a jillion projects in the works. Jolene Blalock married, had three kids, and has, I think, more or less retired from the business. I don't think anybody's in touch with her." However, Billingsley does have a not-entirely-serious pitch for a Phlox spinoff: "Maybe you could just bring me back. And it could just be Old Fat Phlox, which is the show I've also pitched for many years, where I'm just sitting on a rocking chair on the porch going, 'Back in the day when I was having intergalactic adventures...'"

https://collider.com/star-trek-enterprise-reunion-john-billingsley/

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-trek-enterprise-john-billingsley-interview

Although he won't do the new Quantum Leap he did have this reunion on NCIS

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[BootinUp]

11. DS9 is probably my favorite, but it took me awhile to really appreciate it

I hate picking favorites though. I actually love them all.