WI Star Trek: Voyager Cancelled?

Fearless Leader

Fearless Leader

Donor
Voyager Cancelled​

Fall 1995- Summer 1996 POD: Despite having premiered to record numbers of viewers, Star Trek: Voyager’s ratings begin to drop during its second season. With the flagship show of Paramount’s UPN network floundering increased pressure is put on the producers to salvage the show and with it the network. With no single direction established for the franchise, the producers’ subsequent attempts to revive the franchise would end up doing more harm than good.

Despite producers’ attempts to create a romantic relationship between Captain Janeway and her first officer Chakotay, and several episodes revolving around a conflict with the Kazon people, including a dramatic two part episode, ratings remain low and continue to diminish throughout the season. With the end of the season nearing, Paramount decides to pull the plug on Star Trek: Voyager. This elicits a harsh reaction from fans who attempt to save the show with a letter writing campaign. However the letters are far too few to save the show. The series runs out it’s last season ending with Voyager’s discovery of a second Caretaker being and managing to be transported back to the Alpha Quadrant.

(The POD is that Paramount execs react more strongly to Voyager’s sagging numbers and demand that the producers do more to “save” the show. As a result the episode order is slightly different, furthermore aware that their show could be potentially on the chopping block, writers save the episode “Cold Fire’s” material for later in the season eventually using it as a series finale).

The failure of Voyager serves as a wakeup call for everyone involved in the franchise and especially those involved with Deep Space Nine now the only show remaining. Replacing Voyager as the flagship show of UPN, Deep Space Nine soon becomes widely publicized in an attempt to re-acquaint viewers with the series and prepare for its’ return to prime-time on UPN. Furthermore writers working with Deep Space 9 resolve to move back towards the Dominion plot arc with the conclusion of Season 4.
Paramount meanwhile struggles to find shows to prop up UPN. As a result the series “Nowhere Man” is given a second season (being UPN’s most critically acclaimed show) as well as the show “Sentinel”. Other shows are investigated however most effort is put on making Deep Space 9’s debut on UPN a success.

Fall 1996 – Summer 1997: Deep Space 9’s fifth season premiers on UPN and receives decent ratings akin to where Voyager left off. Fearing another Voyager disaster, Paramount decides to allow the show to run its course and hope for the best. Their hopes are soon realized as the show takes hold and its ratings begin to increase, equalling numbers seen towards the end of Star Trek The Next Generation. The season itself is a little different from OTL, Voyager’s cancellation having added some urgency.

Thus there are fewer “filler episodes” as the Dominion story-arc is fleshed out more and focused on. Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant is only briefly mentioned, however Robert Beltran will reprise his role as Chakotay in three episodes revolving around the Maquis before sacrificing himself to save what’s left of them from a Cardassian/Dominion attack. Another notable episode is “Trials and Tribble-ations” shot to commemorate Star Trek’s 30th anniversary and featuring a crossover between Deep Space 9 and the original series. The season finale “A Call to Arms” is notable in that it achieves slightly higher ratings than the season premier boding well for the future of the series. Overall, with the focus brought back to the Dominion story arc, the series takes a slightly darker turn, however both fans and critics seemed to enjoy the transformation (despite some reservations from Star Trek’s more utopian-minded viewers).

Yet Deep Space 9’s success does not immediately change UPN’s fortunes. Burdened by some truly awful shows, it’s other mainline dramas (Nowhere Man and Sentinel) are moderately successful but only enough to avoid cancellation. UPN continues to commission new shows in the hopes of changing its fortunes.

The Star Trek franchise also sees its 8th movie, First Contact released to much critical and popular acclaim. The success of both First Contact and Deep Space 9’s fifth season effectively reboot the franchise, leading it out of the dark days of the previous years.

...to be continued...

-------------

So what do you think? Plausible? Should this be continued? Other knock on effects?
 

NCW

Fearless Leader said:
Voyager Cancelled​


Fall 1995- Summer 1996 POD: Despite having premiered to record numbers of viewers, Star Trek: Voyager’s ratings begin to drop during its second season. With the flagship show of Paramount’s UPN network floundering increased pressure is put on the producers to salvage the show and with it the network. With no single direction established for the franchise, the producers’ subsequent attempts to revive the franchise would end up doing more harm than good.

Despite producers’ attempts to create a romantic relationship between Captain Janeway and her first officer Chakotay, and several episodes revolving around a conflict with the Kazon people, including a dramatic two part episode, ratings remain low and continue to diminish throughout the season. With the end of the season nearing, Paramount decides to pull the plug on Star Trek: Voyager. This elicits a harsh reaction from fans who attempt to save the show with a letter writing campaign. However the letters are far too few to save the show. The series runs out it’s last season ending with Voyager’s discovery of a second Caretaker being and managing to be transported back to the Alpha Quadrant.

(The POD is that Paramount execs react more strongly to Voyager’s sagging numbers and demand that the producers do more to “save” the show. As a result the episode order is slightly different, furthermore aware that their show could be potentially on the chopping block, writers save the episode “Cold Fire’s” material for later in the season eventually using it as a series finale).
Click to expand...

So, you basically have Voyager cancelled at the end of the second season. I must say thatI think that's a bit unlikely. The obvious comparison in OTL is Enterprise, which started out less popular than Voyager in your scenario and still managed to last for four seasons.

Experience with both ST:NG and DS9 showed that it took a couple of seasons for the show to grow a beard. I expect that Voyager would be given at least one more season to prove itself and possibly two.

As for the effects of an earlier cancellation of Voyager, probably the most likely is that DS9 will last a season or two longer than in OTL. And of course, UPN will look for another spin-off from the Star Trek franchise. This will probably be very different from OTL's Enterprise series, although creating a prequel to the original series is still likely to happen. Perhaps one featuring Ensign Kirk being assigned to Capt Pike's Enterprise.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 

xt828

One big and for my money fantastic change would be that the Borg retain their status as terrifyingly powerful, rather than being reduced to monster-of-the-week as happened in Voyager.

In terms of new ST shows - IIRC George Takei was still pushing until quite recently for a show revolving around his captaincy of the Excelsior. I'd like any show set between the end of ST:VI and destruction of the Enterprise-C though, I'm a big fan of those uniforms. Speaking of which, all the crew used in Generations to be the crew of the Enterprise-B are still around, so you could do that.

An interesting effect, though, is going to be having DS9 as the flagship - DS9 had a much darker and more serious tone than either Next Gen or Voyager, and it dealt a lot with issues of the Federation and Star Trek in general not being as shiny and perfect as it was portrayed in the other series. It wasn't grimdark, just more 'realistic' than the very glossy Next Generation.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
xt828 said:
An interesting effect, though, is going to be having DS9 as the flagship - DS9 had a much darker and more serious tone than either Next Gen or Voyager, and it dealt a lot with issues of the Federation and Star Trek in general not being as shiny and perfect as it was portrayed in the other series. It wasn't grimdark, just more 'realistic' than the very glossy Next Generation.
Click to expand...

That was Ronald Moore for you. Well on his way to Battlestar Galactica! :D
 

Orville_third

Banned
Well, perhaps this would bring Babylon 5 to cable or to WB to counterweigh DS9. (This would leave Xena as highest-ranking syndicated show until it tanked in the third season...Long story...)

And, nobody has mentioned the biggest butterflies. Voyager cancelled means no famous Jeri Ryan...which could mean no messy divorce...which could mean a closer 2004 Illinois Senate Election...which could mean someone else is in the White House now!
 

BlackWave

Orville_third said:
Well, perhaps this would bring Babylon 5 to cable or to WB to counterweigh DS9. (This would leave Xena as highest-ranking syndicated show until it tanked in the third season...Long story...)

And, nobody has mentioned the biggest butterflies. Voyager cancelled means no famous Jeri Ryan...which could mean no messy divorce...which could mean a closer 2004 Illinois Senate Election...which could mean someone else is in the White House now!
Click to expand...

Voyager? Actually contributing something meaningful? You're shitting me. :eek:
 

Uxi

Orville_third said:
)

And, nobody has mentioned the biggest butterflies. Voyager cancelled means no famous Jeri Ryan...which could mean no messy divorce...which could mean a closer 2004 Illinois Senate Election...which could mean someone else is in the White House now!
Click to expand...

I was waiting for that. :D
 

wolf_brother

Banned
Idk.. a big assumption of this is that DS9 could become good ;)

In all seriousness though, most likely a new show is aired. Perhaps picking up from ATL DS9's cue we'd see the franchise as a whole moving in a darker, more realistic direction.
 

nien nunb

Wait, so a show that was never much more popular than Voyager is going to suddenly shoot up in popularity despite changing networks halfway through the run of the show?


I give this a big huh? DS9 was less of a novelty than Voyager by '96-'97, and had suffered the exact same ratings decline Voyager had since DS9's pilot "Emissary." "Emissary" had gotten a huge 18.8 rating, but would suffer a huge ratings drop from end of the first/start of second season.


And I agree with the earlier poster that UPN would never have dropped Voyager so quickly.


Voyager gets a lot of crap from Trek fans, but really the problem by the late nineties was oversaturation/franchise fatigue.


If Voyager had been the new Star Trek in '87 instead of TNG it would have done just as well.
 
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