DBWI: Star Trek Enterprise didn't suck.

[DMA]

WI the last Star Trek series, Enterprise, didn't suck & get cancelled leaving the entire Star Trek franchise as a pile of wafting space debris?

Discuss.

[Uber_Amoeba]

I don't think you understand the term 'DBWI'.

[DMA]

Originally Posted by Uber_Amoeba

I don't think you understand the term 'DBWI'.

Well I don't know what definition you use, but I use the AH.Com Wiki one, which states:

Originally Posted by AH.Com Wiki

Double Blind What If

A thread written from the perspective of someone in an ATL posing the question of what if history had gone as it in fact did go in OTL. Example: DBWI: What if the South had lost the Civil War?

Thread participants are expected to act in-character, as if coming from the ATL world. The sense of the thread is revealing the ATL world by discussing how the A-ATL (that is, OTL) might look. Generally it is considered bad form to predict OTL accurately - instead, participants should come up with well argued and reasonable, but totally inaccurate, assertions for what OTL should look like.

The phrase “DBWI” is sometimes used in a wider way to mean any sort of role-playing, including “Future Blind What If” to mean role-playing in a future setting. A contemporary use is expressed in Redem‘s celebrated The Many Nations of North America, aka “How did you live the war?”

So clearly I do understand what the term DBWI means. This begs the question, do you?

[Uber_Amoeba]

I seem to recall a show that had literal alien nazis, got the Vulcan woman naked and sweaty as often as theoretically possible (not to mention making the Vulcans all as illogical as possible), had episodes about radiation turning white settlers into dark-skinned savages, and got cancelled IOTL. So a DBWI would be 'WI Enterprise sucked and got cancelled?'

[DMA]

Originally Posted by Uber_Amoeba

I seem to recall a show that had literal alien nazis, got the Vulcan woman naked and sweaty as often as theoretically possible (not to mention making the Vulcans all as illogical as possible), had episodes about radiation turning white settlers into dark-skinned savages, and got cancelled IOTL. So a DBWI would be 'WI Enterprise sucked and got cancelled?'

You may write the title that way, but I took a different way. Besides all of this is completely irrelevant to the thread at hand. Congratulations, you must now hold the record for derailing a thread with the first post!

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Originally Posted by Uber_Amoeba

I seem to recall a show that had literal alien nazis, got the Vulcan woman naked and sweaty as often as theoretically possible (not to mention making the Vulcans all as illogical as possible), had episodes about radiation turning white settlers into dark-skinned savages, and got cancelled IOTL. So a DBWI would be 'WI Enterprise sucked and got cancelled?'

OOC: No a Double-Blind What If, would be What If Enterprise TOTALLY Rocked its Time-Slot and Bathed us All in its Ultra-Trekky-Goodness!

The Producers' Abject Refusal to Alter Either The Klingons or The Vulcans from their TOS Appearance Certainly Helped ...

Although what Really did it, was Brannon Braga's Oh So Timely Death When his Own Major Intestine, In a Desperate Attempt to Save Humanity, Leapt Straight up Through his Neck and Throttled his Brain; Opening up The Position to Mr. Klingon Language himself, Marc Okrand ...

OOC: Bonus Points for Getting The Reference!

[ColeMercury]

Originally Posted by DMA

WI the last Star Trek series, Enterprise, didn't suck & get cancelled leaving the entire Star Trek franchise as a pile of wafting space debris?

Discuss.

(OOC: Okay, I'm going to make a serious attempt to do this. As it's clear that a lot of people hated Enterprise - I didn't mind it, personally, especially the 3rd & 4th seasons - I'm going to make it a de facto TBWI where ITTL Enterprise was really really disgustingly bad.)

One of the main things they'd have to do is get a different showrunner & different writers. Yes, I know it's been said a thousand times about Berman & Braga but it's true - by the time "Enterprise" came round they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The main problem with "Enterprise" was that it really wasn't a prequel series in the proper sense of the word: the "feel" of it was exactly like the 24th-century spinoffs only with different technology. A setting like "Enterprise" requires the showrunner to be familiar with TOS, and neither one of B&B knew or liked TOS. So, yeah, I'd recommend bringing in a new showrunner & head writer guy for the second season.

They could actually try and explain a few things that were wrong about the world of "Enterprise": why were the Vulcans a bunch of jerks? Why did the Klingons look like the 24th-century versions? Plus they could actually try & get a handle on that Temporal Cold War story - man, did that go nowhere fast. And they could avoid the whole Xindi thing that was in the OTL final season (what the hell were they thinking?)

Plus there's a couple of things that stuck in my craw from the start which they should never have done. Like the frickin' theme tune. I mean, they'd even written a perfectly good theme tune and then they scrapped it in favour of Faith of the Heart?! And then in the third season replace the kinda-bearable instrumentals with a godawful acoustic thing?! First POD is reverse that stupid decision. And please get rid of the blatant fanservice with T'Pol's ridiculous catsuit. And give Mayweather something to do apart from about three episodes in the entire run!

Then again, even that might not save Enterprise. Les Moonves, the head of CBS & UPN, hated Star Trek (even though it was UPN's second-highest-rating program!) and could have cancelled it anyway.

(OOC: Okay, so in case you didn't get it, Manny Coto never joined the writing team of Enterprise and the show was cancelled after three seasons rather than four. And Enterprise ITTL was UPN's second-highest rater rather than highest.)

[Fearless Leader]

Originally Posted by DMA

WI the last Star Trek series, Enterprise, didn't suck & get cancelled leaving the entire Star Trek franchise as a pile of wafting space debris?

Discuss.

This may be bordering on FH...but whatever

Here's my take...seeing the drop in the final ratings for Star Trek Voyager CBS/UPN is a little more hesitant to "renew" the Star Trek Franchise. "Series V" as it's referred to valiantly tries to get off the ground but in the end it's shut down. Fans cry out at the injustice of not having another Star Trek Series. Meanwhile those in charge of Star Trek turn their focus to "Star Trek X" which quickly becomes Star Trek Nemesis

With the Focus shifting to Nemesis, "Series V" is recast as "Star Trek: Titan" focusing on the adventures of now Captain Riker and his new command. These proposals begin to gain steam up until 2002 when Nemesis is released. Butterflies and increased involvement from those who in OTL were writing Enterprise lead to it being an even worse movie than in OTL. It's abominable box office showing (in the face of such competition like Harry Potter, James Bond, and Lord of the Rings) convince the studio execs that Star Trek is no longer a viable franchise. Attempts to get "Series V" off the ground fail and are abandoned in 2003.

Star Trek Fans cry and bitch about the cancellation of their beloved series throughout 2003. Following the failure of cinema and television the Star Trek Franchise attempts to stay afloat by releasing a series of books continuing the saga of "Star Trek Voyager". These however are only moderately successfull.

Basically, in TTL, the entire Star Trek Franchise turns into a wafting pile of space debris earlier than OTL and due to Star Trek Nemisis instead of Star Trek Enterprise.

In December of 2003, the Sci-Fi Network broadcast a 3 hour mini-series that re-imagined the long dead Battlestar Galactica franchise. This mini-series was so successfull it soon lead to Battlestar Galactica becoming a full blown series and continuing on for 4 seasons, ending in 2008 with the colonial discovery of earth and that they are not all that different from their Cylon enemies...

From the moment the first half of the miniseries finished there were some Star Trek fans who wished for a similiar re-imagining of the Star Trek Franchise. Yet this opinion was far from unanimous and heated debate continued throughout the years of 2003-2008 over whether a "re-imagining" of Star Trek was neccessary.

However the success of Battlestar Galactica, and the failure of the Star Trek Franchise to get Star Trek XI or Series V off the ground would lead many fans into supporting a "re-imagining" in order to see their beloved franchise return to a screen of any size. Still there are many die hards who oppose any such re-imagining of the series.

One thing leads to another and in 2008, as Battlestar Galactica is coming to a close Ronald D. Moore is asked by several studio execs to produce a "re-imagined" Star Trek, much along the lines of what Battlestar Galactica was. With plans for a BSG prequel "Caprica" going nowhere, Moore accepts and begins to re-assemble much of the team from BSG to work on the pilot then simply known as "Star Trek".

From it's inception "Star Trek" is bathed in contraversy. Die-Hard fans of the "Roddenberry-verse" vociferously oppose Moore's "abomination". The miniseries airs on CBS in December of 2009 having been renamed simply "Enterprise".

"Enterprise" is essentially a prequel to the entire franchise. Set mere decades after the first Human Warp Flight, "Enterprise" chronicles the journey of one of humanity's first warp capable vessels as it tests the waters of interstellar space and inadvertantly interferes in the ongoing Vulcan/Andoran War.

Gone was Roddenberry's utopian humanistic vision of the future. Earth is still dealing with the results of a disasterous Third World War, with most of her population living under draconian security laws reminicient of a worse War on Terror. The Enterprise herself is built by "The Alliance" of America and her allies, the victors (not by much) of this brutal conflict and is done so only by re-directing resources away from other areas. Gone are the phasers, photon torpedoes, and sheilds, when the Enterprise get's hit, it shows. When she fires back, it's with missiles and rail guns.

As dark as Moore's re-imagining of the Star Trek Franchise is, "Enterprise" is a huge hit and achieves impressive ratings as it attracts not only Star Trek fans, but fans of Battlestar Galactica as well. The "Enterprise" series also achieves a good deal of critical acclaim due to it's realistic portrayal of humanity and willingness to tackle tough issues.

The success of "Enterprise" leads CBS to authorise the creation of an actual TV Series. "Enterprise" the TV series airs in 2010 and quickly becomes a staple for CBS's Wednesday lineup as millions tune in weekly to follow the adventures of the ship and it's exploration of the star systems surrounding earth.

"Enterprise" would continue for 7 seasons, becoming one of CBS' highest rated shows, and chronicling the Earth/Romulan War and the very beginning of the United Federation of Planets. All the while keeping the focus on realism, refusing to return to the oh-so comfortable Roddenberry-esque utopia. It's success would lead to the creation of a number of spinoff series that would continue until the mid-21st century...

[ColeMercury]

Isn't that cheating?

You know, J Michael Straczynski actually wrote up a proposal for a Star Trek "re-imagining" a la BSG in 2004, and actually pitched it to CBS Corporation after Enterprise's cancellation, but they rejected it. I've read it - it wasn't as dystopian as your proposal, Fearless Leader, but it was rather more realistic than TOS.

I was thinking about what a successful seven-year series of "Enterprise" would mean after the series ended. Connor Trineer & Scott Bakula have said that they were intended to be the focus of new movies post-Nemesis: maybe a Romulan War movie? A duology or trilogy, even?

Thing is, IIRC the Romulan War was supposed to have started in 2156 - i.e. it'd probably be declared in the fifth season finale or sixth season premiere (which could be a cliffhanger thing). So then you have two years of an interstellar war, and an ending to that war which comes three years after that. I think the only way they could hope to have a worthwhile finale set mid-war would be to destroy the Enterprise. It makes sense within the Star Trek universe, too, since Kirk's ship was the first Federation starship Enterprise - ergo Archer's ship can never have been a Federation starship, only an Earth starship.

It could be destroyed in a major strategically important battle - most of the crew (maybe they should kill off a couple of characters - either kill off Travis or expand his character a bit) manages to get to the escape pods before the ship explodes. And here's an idea: in the aftermath of this big battle (which the Earth-Vulcan-Andoria-Tellar coalition wins, of course) the surviving crew of the Enterprise are assigned to separate ships. That way, a rather broader view of the war can be shown through following the story of several ships rather than one. Also, this allows for new characters to be introduced who could become the main cast of a successor series (like how O'Brien & Worf came from TNG to DS9).

[Corbell Mark IV]

Originally Posted by Uber_Amoeba

..., got the Vulcan woman naked and sweaty as often as theoretically possible (not to mention making the Vulcans all as illogical as possible),...

Point of order; THat should read "the hot sexy Vulcan woman naked and sweaty".

[the_lyniezian]

Originally Posted by Uber_Amoeba

I don't think you understand the term 'DBWI'.

Originally Posted by DMA

Well I don't know what definition you use, but I use the AH.Com Wiki one, which states:





So clearly I do understand what the term DBWI means. This begs the question, do you?

OOC: One presumes he means, that the question works without it being a DBWI... i.e. from the perspective of OTL.

Didn't think it was that bad myself, tho' only saw series 1.

[gtrof]

Originally Posted by Fearless Leader

This may be bordering on FH...but whatever

Here's my take...seeing the drop in the final ratings for Star Trek Voyager CBS/UPN is a little more hesitant to "renew" the Star Trek Franchise. "Series V" as it's referred to valiantly tries to get off the ground but in the end it's shut down. Fans cry out at the injustice of not having another Star Trek Series. Meanwhile those in charge of Star Trek turn their focus to "Star Trek X" which quickly becomes Star Trek Nemesis

With the Focus shifting to Nemesis, "Series V" is recast as "Star Trek: Titan" focusing on the adventures of now Captain Riker and his new command. These proposals begin to gain steam up until 2002 when Nemesis is released. Butterflies and increased involvement from those who in OTL were writing Enterprise lead to it being an even worse movie than in OTL. It's abominable box office showing (in the face of such competition like Harry Potter, James Bond, and Lord of the Rings) convince the studio execs that Star Trek is no longer a viable franchise. Attempts to get "Series V" off the ground fail and are abandoned in 2003.

Star Trek Fans cry and bitch about the cancellation of their beloved series throughout 2003. Following the failure of cinema and television the Star Trek Franchise attempts to stay afloat by releasing a series of books continuing the saga of "Star Trek Voyager". These however are only moderately successfull.

Basically, in TTL, the entire Star Trek Franchise turns into a wafting pile of space debris earlier than OTL and due to Star Trek Nemisis instead of Star Trek Enterprise.

In December of 2003, the Sci-Fi Network broadcast a 3 hour mini-series that re-imagined the long dead Battlestar Galactica franchise. This mini-series was so successfull it soon lead to Battlestar Galactica becoming a full blown series and continuing on for 4 seasons, ending in 2008 with the colonial discovery of earth and that they are not all that different from their Cylon enemies...

From the moment the first half of the miniseries finished there were some Star Trek fans who wished for a similiar re-imagining of the Star Trek Franchise. Yet this opinion was far from unanimous and heated debate continued throughout the years of 2003-2008 over whether a "re-imagining" of Star Trek was neccessary.

However the success of Battlestar Galactica, and the failure of the Star Trek Franchise to get Star Trek XI or Series V off the ground would lead many fans into supporting a "re-imagining" in order to see their beloved franchise return to a screen of any size. Still there are many die hards who oppose any such re-imagining of the series.

One thing leads to another and in 2008, as Battlestar Galactica is coming to a close Ronald D. Moore is asked by several studio execs to produce a "re-imagined" Star Trek, much along the lines of what Battlestar Galactica was. With plans for a BSG prequel "Caprica" going nowhere, Moore accepts and begins to re-assemble much of the team from BSG to work on the pilot then simply known as "Star Trek".

From it's inception "Star Trek" is bathed in contraversy. Die-Hard fans of the "Roddenberry-verse" vociferously oppose Moore's "abomination". The miniseries airs on CBS in December of 2009 having been renamed simply "Enterprise".

"Enterprise" is essentially a prequel to the entire franchise. Set mere decades after the first Human Warp Flight, "Enterprise" chronicles the journey of one of humanity's first warp capable vessels as it tests the waters of interstellar space and inadvertantly interferes in the ongoing Vulcan/Andoran War.

Gone was Roddenberry's utopian humanistic vision of the future. Earth is still dealing with the results of a disasterous Third World War, with most of her population living under draconian security laws reminicient of a worse War on Terror. The Enterprise herself is built by "The Alliance" of America and her allies, the victors (not by much) of this brutal conflict and is done so only by re-directing resources away from other areas. Gone are the phasers, photon torpedoes, and sheilds, when the Enterprise get's hit, it shows. When she fires back, it's with missiles and rail guns.

As dark as Moore's re-imagining of the Star Trek Franchise is, "Enterprise" is a huge hit and achieves impressive ratings as it attracts not only Star Trek fans, but fans of Battlestar Galactica as well. The "Enterprise" series also achieves a good deal of critical acclaim due to it's realistic portrayal of humanity and willingness to tackle tough issues.

The success of "Enterprise" leads CBS to authorise the creation of an actual TV Series. "Enterprise" the TV series airs in 2010 and quickly becomes a staple for CBS's Wednesday lineup as millions tune in weekly to follow the adventures of the ship and it's exploration of the star systems surrounding earth.

"Enterprise" would continue for 7 seasons, becoming one of CBS' highest rated shows, and chronicling the Earth/Romulan War and the very beginning of the United Federation of Planets. All the while keeping the focus on realism, refusing to return to the oh-so comfortable Roddenberry-esque utopia. It's success would lead to the creation of a number of spinoff series that would continue until the mid-21st century...

Now that is a show I'd watch.

I really do think ST needs a reimagining. Take away some of the fansaty and Deus ex Machinea and go for a serious scifi show which asks questions. Like during the Earth Romulan War (I consider Enterprise's biggest sin for not exploring it screw the Xinidi ) does hummanity sink into some of its nastier ways, how do you avoid becoming like your enemy etc.

Star Trek needs some fresh air.

[bard32]

Originally Posted by DMA

WI the last Star Trek series, Enterprise, didn't suck & get cancelled leaving the entire Star Trek franchise as a pile of wafting space debris?

Discuss.

I didn't think it sucked. Its last time slot, Fridays at eight, sucked.

[Will Lucky]

Originally Posted by LorienTheYounger

Isn't that cheating?


I was thinking about what a successful seven-year series of "Enterprise" would mean after the series ended. Connor Trineer & Scott Bakula have said that they were intended to be the focus of new movies post-Nemesis: maybe a Romulan War movie? A duology or trilogy, even?

If I remember correctly in an interview with Coto the original plan after Season 4 was to have season 5 have more TOS backstory in it such as an episode that detailed why the Klingons looked the way they did in TOS. and 6&7 were supposed to be related to the Romulan War. If a movie was ever done I would assume they would be done in a storyline that led to the setting up of the Federation.

Of course if they went ahead with the Romulan War plot I have a feeling it would have felt very similar to DS9 unless a completely different approach was taken.

[Slowpoke]

The story was, sadly, all over the place (it had pretty much no continuity, except maybe for the Klingon thing with Dr. Soong and the genetic experiments, which, however, would have taken place much later) and the setting was all wrong, with technology that shouldn't have been available yet in the timeline (although whether this was because of poor writing, or of 'real life overtaking imagination' is still debatable).
Had B&B presented Enterprise as a sort of 'reboot' rather than a prequel, it might have had a bit more success. Oh, and the timeslot was utter s#!te.

[pompejus]

OOC: Enterprise should have been placed either 50-75 years earlier. Not too far from first contact, so they could truly show how the firts steps into space exploration were made, including first contact with the Andorians, Betazoids, klingons, Romulans, Tellarites, etc. Or they should have placed it a couple of years later, so they could make an arc spanning the romulan war and the founding of the federation. In that age Earth should already be familiar with the andorians, Betazoid etc.
Another thing is that they should get rid of the temperal cold war, because it didn't make any sense at all. I suspect they only included it so they could have some crossovers with the other series.
Also the Vulcans in enterprise were the most emotional Vulcans I have ever seen. Where were the stoic vulcans from the old series, next generation or even voyager?

[Slowpoke]

Oh, yeah, I forgot to add OOC to my previous post (can't edit it now).

Anyway, it looks like the topic has shifted, and I'd say we should shift with it.

@pompejus: from what I could understand of the (shattered) storyline, the reason why Vulcans were so strange was due to the underlying religious conflict/civil war (which was a pretty recent development). The humans precipitated a showdown of sorts, and, after things were settled, the Vulcans returned to their contemplative natures.

Or something.

[NCW]

Perhaps they should have made some more of the "prequel" episodes and come up with some way of explaining why the vulcans in the Enterprise series were so different from those shown in the original series. I mean, that in the original Star Trek, vulcans and humans were shown as being equal citizens while in Enterprise, the vulcans were obviously subjects/slaves of the Terran Empire.

I also didn't think much of the Xindi sequence. What was the point of devoting a whole series to showing the empire waging a genocidal war against the peaceful Xindi. It seemed to be done purely for the special effects of destroying the Xindi homeworld.

Mind you, I did enjoy the mirror universe episode. There we got to see how the more peaceful, idealistic Earth started to build the Federation first shown in the original series show "Mirror, Mirror" and in a couple of episodes of Star Trek: Terok Nor.

[guildofblades]

The show itself began with fair rating in the first season. Those, of course, dropped a bit in the end of the first season and beginning of the second.

One has to remember, perhaps with the exception of TOS, every Star Trek show more or less sucked for its first two seasons. TNG, DS9 and Voyager all too time for the writers to find a grove that actually worked for those shows. Tail end of the 3rd season and most of the 4th season for Enterprise, I thought, we darn good. And a lot of others I know that love Trek thought so as well.

Enterprise, more than anything else, was the victim of internal transitions by its corporate owners. Tail end of its second season the UPN network has just got a new woman head and she was specifically put in place to continue to develop the struggling network into a direction that had begun to work for the network: targeting female audiences. In that role, they could find no valuable spot where Star Trek could enable that transition. Hence the time slot change for Enterprise, which more or less killed it.

After the show's demise, Viacom, the owner of both CBS and Paramount, was looking at a large host of older TV properties for which Paramount owned the rights to but as a movie production studio was ill equipped to do much with, spun those properties off into a new company called CBS Paramount. They were trying to take all those older Paramount TV properties and put them under the command of some folks experienced with the TV side from CBS. Of those properties, Trek was considered the crown jewel, as it remains one of the most successful licensing franchises in history (I think still 5 or 6 best for highest gross licensing income). They assigned a head of licensing with the task with coming up with a plan to revive the Star Trek property.

CBS Paramount, owning no current revenue generating properties and tasked with the revival of Trek and other older properties, of course, suffered from a fiscal black whole that would have required more time to turn into a positive profit making operating unit than any corporate beast as Viacom or CBS could tolerate, axed the whole thing after a year and a half. I know, because we were in licensing negotiations with their director of marketing during that time, with the intent to get board game publishing rights and the rights for the MMO online computer game adaption of the board games. It was a slow process because, as we understood it, his plan included linning up a lot of licensors, large and small, to formulate a media blitz of support for Trek in the build up towards the new movie.

But mid stream Viacom axed CBS Paramount as an independent operating unit and dumped the licensing of Trek and the other Paramount tv properties back into CBS's consumer products licensing group. Where no one there was tasked with Trek's revival nor is there any such plan for a revival that I am aware of. Our licensing proposal there fell on deaf ears as a niche market license for niche market board games just wasn't worth their time compared to what primary market licenses go for on alive and kicking properties that CBS has. A pitty, really.

Short some miracle that the up coming Trek film does blockbuster numbers, I don't foresee a Trek revival having any chance for a least another decade. From what I have seen the folks at CBS could care less.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

[marty92559]

ok

Enterprise was not great but

1. How sweaty Vulcan chick well thats a good thing
2. They did a 3 or 4 episode arc of the alternate universe star trek with the cute asian girl taking over and killing the capt. That was a lot of fun

Hopefully the new movie will be decent and we can get another trek going in a few years