Why Star Trek went downhill

[Giantevilhead]

I have to be honest, I didn't think to use one either. Are all Federation ships equipped with these "time bombs"?

Photon torpedoes

[waywardsage]

Star Trek never went downhill.

Viewers just got too conceited, and smug. Nothing was ever good enough for them.

So as a whole they got what they deserved. It got cancelled. Now they're all whining.

While people like me, who loved every minute of every Trek that was out there for the taking, have to suffer without it because a bunch of holier than though people thought they were too good for Trek.

This guy has a point. I too watched every show and never gave up hope. I loved star trek. I was just giving ideas to bring back the show to its roots to make it popular again.

[waywardsage]

I totally agree with everything except the bolded bit.

TOS had a real sense of cameraderie. The crew seemed relatively small, and exploring strange new worlds as they constantly were doing, they seemed pretty close-knit. TNG suffered a bit (IMO) from the total lack of any input from The Rest Of The Crew; all we got was Barclay, O'Brien, Ro and the Redshirts - out of a thousand souls. But the main characters all had their spot in the focus, and all contributed to each others' spots in the focus, so it was still good.

Voyager and Enterprise were poor for a number of reasons, but the ones you've given are biggies. I happenned to like Seven, although she wasn't quite good enough to carry four entire seasons like they tried to make her do. And when the Doctor was a background character he was great, but the more he was onscreen the less I liked him. He's one of about seven or eight characters on various US and UK shows who were Favourites of mine when they had three lines per week, but who I liked less when they got upgraded. I happen to think excellent background characters are a sign of a really good show - "look, we're such a fab show we can afford to have marvellous characters who only say twelve words per ep!" - and while I understand that other people liked them enough to warrant their upgrading I do think it's a shame when it's necessary to do that.

Speaking of excellent background characters brings me to DS9. I suppose ultimately you're right that the crew were friends, although as I started typing I was set to disagree with you. Possibly because although by the end with all the things they'd been through together there was a strong bond, few of them really started out on a particularly good footing.

Julian and O'Brien spent a long time as friends by default, with one hanging around like a puppy and the other tolerating him, just. It was a couple of years or so before O'Brien respected Julian. Kira and Odo were at times downright antagonistic towards their new commander, and again it took years for them to learn to trust his judgement. Quark was out for himself. Sisko didn't really want to be there for the first two years or more. Only Dax seemed to be on more-or-less permanently good terms with most of her colleagues.

They all ended up trusting, respecting and liking each other, but it wasn't a given, like in TNG where there was virtually no conflict between the regulars at all. And yet even when they weren't being pally, they interacted - they met at the bar or played squash or whatever. Not like Voyager or Enterprise. I don't need the characters all to be friends. Interesting antagonistic relationships can be just as watchable, especially if there is an undercurrent of loyalty that will make these characters take risks and go out on a limb for the people they regularly argue with. But I do need it to feel realistic, and Too Few Speaking Characters is something that can really affect my suspension of disbelief.

DS9 had the feeling of realism you got from having a large supporting cast of Really Good Minor Characters - Leeta, Opaka, Garak, Dukat and Weyoun and the like. Enterprise had a few recurring crewmembers, but Voyager had... wait for it... That Little Girl, her mum, and, er, no one else. Stuck out in space alone for seven years, and the seven main characters each speak only to the other six??? Giver over!

You are absolutely right. This is a post that should be printed out and mailed to Paramount. Interesting background characters are a halmark of a good show. And i never thought about how few reoccuring background characters there are in TNG.. Hell, I think Firefly had more reocuring background charactes than TNG and it only had 13 eps!

DS9 was amazing for its sense of a believeable world. I mean think about it, in the real world you meet interesting characters ever day who only say a few words at a time and you ask yourself in your mind, "I wonder what his story is?" Its that sense of mystery and characterization that creates a deep wellspring of characters, story and plots. Voyager, and Enterprise dried up because they didnt' develope the rest of their main crew let alone background characters! They just stuck to 3 main characters.

But remember, Voyager and Enterprise were following the templay of TOS. TOS pretty much stuck with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Everyone elses story was left by the wayside! I never thought about it till now, but everyone else is just there. No background history.

[waywardsage]

basically what I was saying that everyone was like "waahh waaahh Enterprise sucks."

so they didn't watch it. Instead of looking for the good things about it, and maybe, just maybe, trying to enjoy it anyway because it is Star Trek, and we love Star Trek,...no, they complain and then don't watch, and then it gets cancelled.

And I still maintain that if ENT wasn't on such a crappy network flanked by shows that aren't in the same target demographic, it would have survived, just like the rest did.

I watched virtually every ep of Enterprise. I was working at a UPN affiliate during the 3rd season and a cowork of mine and I had 2 hr. complaining sessions about Enterprise. We just felt that it missed the mark of what it SHOLD have been; and ended up being in the fourth season. A prequel show. Whats the point of a prequel if you don't explain events in the future.

One of the major problems with Enterprise was that it tried to creat a new race and a new "temporal cold war" when it wasn't necessary. Who really cared about that? The sulliban weren't big later on, so that isn't as dynamic as exploring and explaining our first contact with andorians, tellarites, tholians, klingons, romulans..etc. Show us how Star Trek became to be.

I completely agree with you on the UPN thing. Star Trek should be SYNDICATED so any network in any market can buy it ala carte. That was a major part of TNG's success. I'll explore this topic in a new thread.

[Lokii]

Trek went down hill with me with Voyager. The show just never felt right to me. While it had some interesting aspects to it, but not enough to keep me watching. I also did not appreciate some of the shots that Janeway took at Kirk. Maybe I am sensitive on that topic, but I think it was a bad call to take shots at the original series.

With Voyager they really started moving away from what made Star Trek the franchise it was. Could this be due to Roddenberry not being around? You could make that argument. While DS9 was the first ST series to be made with out him, they stayed consistent with the themes of the past for the most part.

Now Enterprise bothered me from the time I heard the concept. First off the ship resembles an Akira class starship, not a pre constitution class ship. Did they actually think we would not notice? The interior looked nothing like a predecessor vessel would have looked IMO. Granted this series was made 30 plus years after the original, but to me it looked like they did not even try. Pre-Federation… WHY? That made little sense to me. I could go on and on, but the answer to the above is simple. The people in charge of the series wanted to make it their own and very almost completely ignorant of the history of the franchise. Granted it got better, but too late. They had already alienated the fan base.

[walterIsTheMan]

I agree with Morbo, that to an extent it was the viewers, not the franchise, that went downhill.

Enjoying a television show is similiar to an addiction in that the more you get the more you need to satisfy yourself. A drug addict starts out satisfied with just one pill a day, then as time passes he gets used to that level and needs two to get the same original satisfaction. Then he needs three, and four, and so on.

The same is true for television. We start out enjoying a show (or in this case, an entire franchise) but eventuall the initial "excellence" just becomes "average" from our point of view because we're so used to it. So we need ever-increasing levels of excellence to meet the original quality, and it's unrealistic to think that TPTB can continue to increase quality indefinitely to meet our infinite wants. The same thing is happening with SG I think. I don't think the current seasons of SG are any worse than Seasons 1 or 2 of SG1, but we got used to increasing quality so now these don't cut it for us.

However I can't put the entire blame on the viewers. During Enterprise's run TPTB made some poor choicess, such as turning a high-potential ship between T'Pol and Trip into a sex-based attention-grab (the neuro pressure, as well as the decon sessions).

Overall the blame goes all around. But I don't think Trek has gone completely downhill, it just took some dips. Hopefully the next movie (and if it happens, the next series) will show some improvements.

[SG-1ssm]

If the next series happens, when do you think it will be?