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It's official... (Series V spoilers, sort of)
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by The_Tom: [QB] Dear Lord. I never knew I'd live to see the day where the "struggle" against Berman and Braga was compared to the struggle against Nazism. Paramount liked TNG a [i]lot[/i]. It essentially built Paramount's TV arm. It made a hell of a lot of money for them. But TNG wasn't loved because it was science fiction that pulled in the fanboys. It was a high-quality and insightful drama that was popular with a largish segment of the population, that being men and women of most age groups, generally well-educated, and in the hunt for thoughtful and captivating television. Then as Voyager kicked off on UPN, the cheap-black-comedies-and-cheezy-actionfest network, Voyager couldn't take the above demographics and hang onto them. 21 million viewers for the premiere, and 12 months later we were down to a quarter of that. The aforementioned segment of the population felt that Voyager couldn't live up to TNG's ability to be thought -provoking. In the early 90s, there really were no other really good dramas on TV, but by the late 90s we had shows like Law & Order and Homicide and the whole kit and caboodle to compete with Trek for this same group of smart TV watchers who want smart TV. And Voyager's producers were content to keep Voyager as the "lighter" Trek, and so the hordes left it, not for shows like Xena and Babylon 5, which is a common excuse for declining ratings ("There's more scifi on TV than 1987") but to shows like L&O, ER (before it got too derivative and soapish), and today to shows like The West Wing and The Sopranos. Even Buffy taps into this demographic today as much as Voyager does. Simple business sense shows that Trek must be positioned back in such a way as attract these good Trek-watching folks who don't spend their lives on the web bitching and whining about turbolift placement but instead care mainly about creative writing and good acting. And all the comments from Rick Berman so far seem to indicate that both Trek X and Enterprise are doing exactly this. They've conceded that Voyager wasn't the sort of show that was meant to bring in those viewers, but rather than overhaul Voyager they've stuck it out and waited until there's a fresh start to fix things. If the fans who post on TrekWeb's forums made the show, it might keep track of continuity religiously and have entire episodes dedicated to the Klingon forehead, but it would suck absolute nads and get a 2.0 rating. Take your pick. Paramount are willing to pour millions into Berman and Braga's attempts to revitalize Trek. Apparently they think that the two of them can do it. And who are we to second-guess them? It's Paramount's money on the line here, not to mention the reputation of the Trek franchise. If Enterprise tanks, then anything that Paramount slaps the label "Star Trek" on will pretty much be a joke to the general public for years to come. They seem convinced that B & B will produce a show that will give them a far better return on their investment than Voyager did, or else this show wouldn't be made. And I can't see a show of lesser or equal quality to Voyager giving them that return. So, by process of elimination, Paramount is therefore expecting a show of better quality than Voyager. Will it be? I'll wait and see. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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