TV Guide has reported that in order to get a renewal, Paramount reduced the Enterprise budget by more than half: from $1.7M to about $800,000 per episode.
Stock footage ahoy... Mind you, after a previous reported budget cut, the show STILL managed to turn out some seriously FX-heavy episodes, including keeping Enterprise all wrecked up through the latter part of the season. Hm.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Welcome to Enterprise's final season.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Budget slashed, timeslot moved to Friday. It does look like this is the make-it-or-break-it season. Although Season 3 was meant to save the series too...
OTOH, with only half the VFX budget, we'll have plenty of time for quality storytelling*!
*this may be a lie
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Quote double post combo. Minus 100 points for me.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I'm guessing we'll see the appearance of a clip show ala "Shades of Grey" (TNG).
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Featuring some nutjob politico back on Earth, who lost his/her family in the Xindi attack, grilling Archer on how he handled the Xindi crisis. As in, not exterminating the lot of them. Flashbacks ahoy!
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
No...Daniels will tell Archer in the season premiere that he needs to restore the timeline so that Earth was never hit by the Xindi weapon (as was hinted before). So, the rest of the season will be a rerun of the old episodes, in order, and they'll make a new season finale. Now THAT would save costs!
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Put a superscripted "2" at the end of all the titles to denote the fact that it's the second time around. Viola. New episode. They could even CGI a second Archer in, peeking around corridors, playing with consoles, etc. It'd be like "Trials and Tribbilations".
Posted by JC Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
"Captain Jonathan Archer never returned Home."
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Or maybe they'd have the crew sitting around, watching their old episodes a la the "Monkey See, Doggy Two".
Hey, at least it was a different idea for a clip-show.
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
On the plus side, special effects are getting cheaper every yaar..
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
On the other plus side, maybe if they don't have the easy out of spaceship battles every week, maybe they'll do something novel, like develop some of the characters, Such as Ensign Doorstop...I mean, Mayweather.
Posted by JC Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
I totally cried when it had that part on the final episode.
Posted by JC Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
No lie.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Okay.
"Put a superscripted '2' at the end of all the titles to denote the fact that it's the second time around."
Except, then you end up with "E22".
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"Dude, this is totally the episode where they have to save the day with recursion!"
Is what I would say to my elite nerd team. We would be reading GEB and writing those programs which print out their source code.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I think "Doctor Who" once had a story where the day was saved by recursion. Or maybe recursion was the problem in the first place. I've forgotten.
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
We haven’t been told they cut the budget. (Besides, an episode of Enterprise costs more than $1.7M to make anyway. They make up for it on non-UPN sales and will make up for it on syndication.)
TV Guide said that Paramount dropped its selling price to UPN. Paramount (the studio) took a loss so that Enterprise would be more likely to get purchased in second-run syndication (they want around 100 episodes so that they don’t have only two or three months’ worth to sell ). They want to make more money off it once it’s cancelled.
Now, that said, the budget probably will drop, but not as much as the selling price did...
Continue joking...
[ June 16, 2004, 06:01 AM: Message edited by: Elim Garak ]
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Selling price drop. I also concluded this would mean a budget slash. Of course, if they only last a half-season (end in Jan.) then the money could stretch that long
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
On the brighter side, if they want to reach their goal of 100, we could get a "full" [24 ep] season.
I really do have faith in the series, much much moreso than I did for Voyager....despite missing the middle of last season due to UPNs lousy tv reception. (Maybe they could use the money they are skimming out of Enterprise to boost my UPNs station wattage to that of one capible of reaching antennas on tvs that are located outside of their 10mile broadcast radius. Fuckin FOX and UPN are broadcasted from the same building here in town (<10miles from here) and yet I can get FOX in without an antenna but cannot get UPN in with an antenna.)
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Well, $1.7M is a actually a ridiculous amount of money for 40 minutes of television. With that kind of money, you could've made 1.7 million episodes of Blake's 7 Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
1.7 million seems to be enough to make an independent Trek feature film, IMO.
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
Bear in mind that Nemesis went over budget to almost $90M and a Voyager episode was budgeted at almost $2M. "Broken Bow" cost $12M.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
quote:Originally posted by JC Ultra Magnus: "Captain Jonathan Archer never returned Home."
I like this idea. Archer jumps around in time, or "leaps" if you will, arriving on Enterprise at different points during the mission. He replaces different crew members in an attempt to right certain mistaken decisions that lead to the launch of the Xindi probe.
Daniels appears to him from the 31st century in the form of a hologram that noone else can see.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Perhaps the show can take the form of a hologram no-one can see. We'd all be a lot happier as a result.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Okay, I'm confused...do you like the show or not? I know you used to hate it, but then you seemed to like season 3. Which is it, foreign-boy?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Oh, go bleach your hair, Britney. Just because I like the show more doesn't mean I'm going to deprive myself of the simple pleasures like slagging it off.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yes, I was linking the sale price to the actual budget. It still most likely translates to a budget slash. More bottle shows, less location filing (though to its credit, I think ENT has made fewer shows on location in S3 and barely enone noticed).
Hm - Trek has suffered a budget slash and move to Friday before... 1968, I believe.
Mark
PS - TSN, look up "Logopolis". It was the problem. Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Of all the Who episodes to forget, that seems a strange one...
And Lee..."Eminem", not "Britney".
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: Hm - Trek has suffered a budget slash and move to Friday before... 1968, I believe.
Too bad they didn't do that last season then.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Y'know, Lee at least sometimes puts actual criticism in amoungst the slagging off.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Thank you, Christina Aguilerra.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I am not dirrty.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Neither are you a Fighter, nor are you Beautiful. The jury is still out as to whether or not you're a Genie in a Bottle.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Seeing as where there's currently no moderator for this forum, I'm going to step in for this once...
I've had enough of your attitude, J. Either you start posting useful comments or actual criticism, or stop posting or even visiting this forum at all. This is a forum for discussing Enterprise, not a venue for expressing your dislike for the show. So you don't like the show, big fucking deal. We all know it. You don't have to bring it up every time. No one makes you watch it, and quite frankly, I don't want to read your bitching anymore.
And as much as it may shock, horrify, and apall you, some people actually like the show, myself included. People want a friendly place to come and discuss a show. If all you want to do is bitch and whine about how much you hate it, go over to TrekBBS. There's no room for it here.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Ya know, there was once a troll calling himself J on several U2 mailing lists that I'm on and he had the same attitude and bitchiness about some of the band's albums. Could it be the same guy here? I would hope not though.
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Oh no... I can't say a bad thing about U2 save that they aren't on the radio enough in this town.
And if you can't stand my criticism of ENT through humor it's not my fault. Facts have proved me right thus far, ENT is dying there are no bones about it.
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
quote:Originally posted by J: Oh no... I can't say a bad thing about U2 save that they aren't on the radio enough in this town.
And if you can't stand my criticism of ENT through humor it's not my fault. Facts have proved me right thus far, ENT is dying there are no bones about it.
He does have a point but, in reality, I came here to HEAR the bitching and eat popcorn. so by all means keep the fucking angst knob set at 11 since if I wanted a real honest to god discussion about ENT, I go talk to my dog... after I cast communion with animals first...and he fails his save...and I find out, all these years, he's being telling ME to fuck off....
something like that...I think?
popcorn, anyone? *MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH*
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I think the problem is that we've finished the 3rd season, and J is still making exactly the same comments that people were making 4 years ago. It's just...boring now.
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Neither are you a Fighter, nor are you Beautiful. The jury is still out as to whether or not you're a Genie in a Bottle.
I am a picker though. And a grinner. A lover too. And, I'll admit, I've been a sinner on occassion. If only it were sunny out, I'd put some music on.
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Yes, I've been saying it for four years, and the proof is in the ratings. They suck almost as much as the show. Watch what happens when the show is moved to Fridays. Anyone who has Sci-fi would be more likely to watch StarGate. Then there are other broadcast shows which are likely to take a bite out of ENT. The fact that it's Friday night doesn't help either, most people go out on Friday nights.
Friday night isn't the greatest TV night. It's been my experience that most networks, when they change a show's time to Friday [not start it there] it's a sign that network execs are ready to watch it die. When a studio cuts a show's budget, it's also a sign that execs are ready to see it die. Both studio and network execs know for a fact that ENT's performance is lackluster at best. Season 3's arc was to lead to higher ratings but the downward tread has continued.
You can like ENT all you want, I can hate it all I want... but the fact is I said 4 years ago that it wouldn't be good, and I'm right... 3 million viewers left immediately after Broken Bow, by the end of the season the average dropped 3 million more. By the end of season two the average dropped 2 million more. Now come the end of season 3, the season of promised return, and it's lost nearly 1 million more viewers. Seems like I'm on the majority here, I'd be willing to bet that the remaining 3.8 million people that watch ENT there is a majority among them that loath the show just like me.
There are about a trillion ways in which they could have turned this show around at any one point and they haven't done it, so it continues to gush viewers like a puking drunk with dysentery.
Posted by JC Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Of course, there are only two ways to judge the quality of a show: how many people watch it, and how long it lasts. Just look at crapbombs like "Farscape" or "Firefly". Or the bastion of thoughtful, provocative storytelling that was "Star Trek: Voyager". And, of course, what show can possibly outstrip the awesome quality inherent in "Temptation Island" and "The Swan"?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I would totally watch Star Trek: Made, though. Or, shit, Star Trek: Room Raiders. No lie.
(I am older and can now swear with impunity. Seriously, though, Room Raiders = butter.)
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
It might help, too, if they actually were in every market like their competition is...and those stations that have UPN shows contracted out to them air them Friday nights anyway. There is also the fact that the 2 stations I can watch Enterprise on rerun the show on Saturday and Sunday, do they take those viewings into account for the ratings as well? I doubt it. It really doesn't seem Enterprise can truely get the fair ratings it may or maynot have when its not aired on a "real" station like TNG and DS9 used to be...
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by Futurama Guy: It might help, too, if they actually were in every market like their competition is...and those stations that have UPN shows contracted out to them air them Friday nights anyway. There is also the fact that the 2 stations I can watch Enterprise on rerun the show on Saturday and Sunday, do they take those viewings into account for the ratings as well? I doubt it. It really doesn't seem Enterprise can truely get the fair ratings it may or maynot have when its not aired on a "real" station like TNG and DS9 used to be...
The ratings aren't for how watched the show is, they're for determining how many viewers are watching in a given hour and thus how far the sponsor's advertising buck is going.
If 1.5 million people watch on Wednesday and .5 million people watch on Sunday, that's still just 1.5 million for that hour the show is on the air Wednesday. The goal is to get the most people watching a given hour so you can raise your ad rates. The rating for the repeat broadcast on another night are judged entirely on the rating for that hour versus what the competition is showing during the same hour.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I just saw an innane little blurb on the corner of TV Guide (while waiting to pay for groceries). It read: "Enterprise: back from the brink." as though the show was as good as dead or some crap.
Yet, they laud such reality TV shows as The Batchelor.
Idiots.
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrNeutron:
quote:Originally posted by Futurama Guy: It might help, too, if they actually were in every market like their competition is...and those stations that have UPN shows contracted out to them air them Friday nights anyway. There is also the fact that the 2 stations I can watch Enterprise on rerun the show on Saturday and Sunday, do they take those viewings into account for the ratings as well? I doubt it. It really doesn't seem Enterprise can truely get the fair ratings it may or maynot have when its not aired on a "real" station like TNG and DS9 used to be...
The ratings aren't for how watched the show is, they're for determining how many viewers are watching in a given hour and thus how far the sponsor's advertising buck is going.
If 1.5 million people watch on Wednesday and .5 million people watch on Sunday, that's still just 1.5 million for that hour the show is on the air Wednesday. The goal is to get the most people watching a given hour so you can raise your ad rates. The rating for the repeat broadcast on another night are judged entirely on the rating for that hour versus what the competition is showing during the same hour.
In which case, wouldnt the show be doing better if it was aired more consistantly on only one network at one time like everything else they are competing against that is run in all of the other markets consistantly?
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
I don't know what would happen to the ratings on for the show's main broadcast if rebroadcasts. If they though it would boost their ratings, I bet they'd have done that.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Maybe a lower budget and the removal of Brannon Braga from writing duties will mean they begin to focus on more character driven episodes - a la season 3 and DS9 and less on the T&A&Action of Voyager/Enterprise Season 1?
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrNeutron: I don't know what would happen to the ratings on for the show's main broadcast if rebroadcasts. If they though it would boost their ratings, I bet they'd have done that.
That's weird...part of what I wrote didn't make it into that post. It was supposed to read:
I don't know what would happen to the ratings for the show's main broadcast if rebroadcasts were discontinued. If they though it would boost their ratings, I bet they'd have done it, or at least discouraged it.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
quote:Hm - Trek has suffered a budget slash and move to Friday before... 1968, I believe.
Actually, it was 1967. The 1968-1969 season was the last for TOS.
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
quote:Originally posted by J: Season 3's arc was to lead to higher ratings but the downward tread has continued.
quote:Originally posted by J: Now come the end of season 3, the season of promised return, and it's lost nearly 1 million more viewers.
I'm confused. We are talking about Enterprise, right? From the last episode of Season 2 to the first of Season 3, viewership went up (not a lot, but it did!).
And (more fairly) "Zero Hour" had more people watching than "The Expanse". And (even more fairly), "Zero Hour" and "The Xindi" had nearly identical ratings. How exactly did they lose a million viewers over Season 3, then?
Sure, the show "bled" viewers early on, but this season, they seemed to bleed and get transfusions too. In the end, they were no worse off than a year ago. The ratings have stabilised. They are lower than their respective episodes last year, but the Season 3 average is no lower than the episodes near the end of Season 2. There has been no "downward trend" for the last 24+ episodes. http://moviescorecard.com/tv/Enterprise/ratings-graph.htm Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Season average in 2nd season was a 4.4 million, 3rd was 3.8. The beginning of season two had more viewers than the end of season three by 1 million. Pay attention to the numbers... they said season three would bring back lost viewers, it didn't they lost more compared with season 1 and the beginning of 2.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I'm still confused by your "ratings = show goodness". When was this magical point in time where DS9 was the most watched show on television?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
In my experience, people who watch DS9 for eps like "Duet" and "ItPM" also read Playboy for the articles. . . 8P
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
I don't think I said anything about ratings = goodness... I think I said that ratings were promised and that didn't happen. But at the same time, I also believe that if the show was worth anything it would have better ratings because it wouldn't have lost 75% of it's original viewership.
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
Season average in 2nd season was a 4.4 million, 3rd was 3.8. The beginning of season two had more viewers than the end of season three by 1 million. Pay attention to the numbers... they said season three would bring back lost viewers, it didn't they lost more compared with season 1 and the beginning of 2.
Uh... call me silly if you want, but I'd say the averages are useless here. In order to see how good a season was, I'd expect to see instead how many viewers were there at the beginning of a season and how many were there at the end. That way, you see that:
Season 1 plummeted from an original 12,5 million viewers to ~5,3 million.
Season 2 had a slow start with a little less than the end of the previous season (~4,9 million), quickly recovered, but in the end had gone down to ~3,9 million.
Season 3 started with more viewers than there were at the end of the previous one (4 million) and with some small ups and downs remained almost stable reaching ~3,9 million by the end of the season.
So, Season 3 indeed managed to recover a bit of the audience lost along the way during the previous seasons and also managed to more or less stabilize it. Overall, it's clear it's better because it hasn't lost so much audience as the previous did. Now, if Season 4 manages to actually *increase* its audience by the end...
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
Fact is, even if the ratings did go up slightly from season 2, other shows get better ratings or they believe will get better ratings, and THAT is the reason it's been booted from it's Wednesday slot.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...other shows get better ratings..."
On UPN? That sounds questionable.
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
quote:Originally posted by J: Season average in 2nd season was a 4.4 million, 3rd was 3.8. The beginning of season two had more viewers than the end of season three by 1 million. Pay attention to the numbers... they said season three would bring back lost viewers, it didn't they lost more compared with season 1 and the beginning of 2.
I feel half rude and half like an idiot for saying this, but... You can't just look at the average if you're going to say "the downward trend continued in Season 3." A single point is not a trend.
Like machf and I pointed out: From the end of Season 2 to the start (and end) of Season 3, the ratings went up, marginally. Therefore, the ratings did go up and they got back a small fraction of viewers. They haven’t "lost nearly 1 million more viewers" (your words) in Season 3. That happened in Season 2. Season 3 showed no further bleeding. Your own numbers show this is not in dispute.
If you're going to try to "regain viewers," you are obviously referring to increasing the number of viewers you have at the time -- not the number you had year, two years, ten years ago. Nor even the average of what you have at the time and what you had a year ago. At least I've never heard anyone talk like that.
But even assuming your method is valid... even going by averages (which is a very unscientific method), they dropped from 4.4M to 3.8M. Math: 4.4M - 3.8M = 0.6M = "nearly 1 million"? Eh? A 67% round-up? That's a little tricky.
quote:Originally posted by J: Pay attention to the numbers... they said season three would bring back lost viewers, it didn't they lost more compared with season 1 and the beginning of 2.
But nobody said anything about the beginning of Season 2. We have a dispute with this "Season 3 downward trend" philosophy of yours, which is unsupported by all numbers. Season 3 showed either (a) a stabilising or (b) a slight increase over end-of-Season-2 ratings.
[ June 22, 2004, 05:17 AM: Message edited by: Elim Garak ]
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN:
"...other shows get better ratings..."
On UPN? That sounds questionable.
I believe he is referring to the other shows on other networks offering much stiffer competition...i.e. American Idol.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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). They want to make more money off it once it’s cancelled.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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