If Enterprise kept running.......

[Mark]

What do you guys suppose they would have screwed up next? Do you think that the Cardassians may have made an appearance? The E-E may have made a trip back in time to visit Archer and crew? I was just thinking of the Cannon they played with when the Borg and Ferengi made an appearance.

What would they have screwed up next?

[Graham Kennedy]

If it had kept running it would have continued under Manny Coto, since he was actually starting to turn it around. If so I think it may have ended up actually doing good things.

Apparently one plan was to go to Berengaria and show the 200 metre long dragons that TOS mentioned. Another idea was to go to Stratos and show the cloud city being built. There was talk of showing construction of the first Starbase, too. All of that would be pretty cool in my book.

I think there would have been temptation to show the Earth-Romulan war. I'm okay with that, but it would be hard to avoid just retreading the same ground the Dominion war covered in DS9.

[Teaos]

My thoughts on the war are well known.

Although I do think it would be very interesting to Earth industry really switch to space flight, after Enterpirse showed it was possible and the benifits of space flight Earth could very well through everything they have at it, massive ship yards and building projects.

[Sionnach Glic]

I think under Coto it could actualy have been fairly decent. He was definitely starting to turn the show around before it got cancelled.

[Mikey]

Yeah, unfortunately Coto's abilities were engaged too late. Sort of like putting duct tape across the hull of the Titanic.

[Teaos]

Which we all now know was sunk by the evil sheet ice.

[Sionnach Glic]

Pack ice, Teaos, get with the program!

[Grundig]

I liked what Manny Coto was doing. There was a wide-open feel to alot of his stories, especially the 3-ep Vulcan arc. Much of the rest of the series was just lacking in depth, though there were enjoyable exceptions. Dr. Phlox and his wife, for example. What was her name again?

Incoming rant!
I feel that Enterprise's problem was inherited from the previous franchise's installments. You start with a big audience who likes TOS and the original movies. Come out with TNG, which is hugely popular and ropes in new watchers, but does alienate a few hardcore fans of the original cast. Next comes DS9, which is pretty friggin' different from both its predecessors, and only half-way through its run does it find an attractive identity. A bunch of classic fans lose interest before the show finds its way, and are unimpressed by Voyager when it makes its debut. Voyager was an attempt to go back to the setting that people liked, but the cast was lackluster, and more fans bailed out. Then, Enterprise happens. By this time, you've had, what, 4 generations to whittle down the broad fanbase by changing various characteristics from show to show. What kind of fans did Enterprise inherit? People who still wanted to watch Star Trek enough to give it a go. But by this time, they're all in disagreement about what was good about the last 30some years of the franchise. So many different things have been tried. My point (and I do have one) is that Enterprise really didn't have strong legs to stand on. Which actually makes Manny Coto's turnaround that much more impressive. I don't know what kinds of stories we would have seen from Enterprise if it had kept going, and that's a sign that it was getting back on track. For me, at least.

:::gets off soapbox::

[Sionnach Glic]

Well said.

What kind of fans did Enterprise inherit?

There were a few different types.
There were the ones, like myself, who watched it at the start out of hope that the writers would realise the massive mistakes they made in VOY and would try to fix them.
Then there were the handful of people who actualy liked VOY.
After that came the people who watched it for the pretty explosions and T'pol's breasts.

Group 1 bailed out after the first season or so. Group 2 was split: some deserted due to lack of interest while others stayed because, like VOY, they thought it was good. Group 3 remained solid fans all the way through.

As you can imagine, that fanbase wasn't enough to keep the show running.

[Nutso]

Group 1. I bailed out on that show after season 1.

[Graham Kennedy]

I think at least some of the people who watched Enterprise did so out of a sort of morbid interest in what it would do next.

About three or four weeks before the show premiered they released good quality pictures of the NX-01. I knew the very instant I saw it that Enterprise was going to fail. I said exactly that, in a little What's New article I wrote. To quote from it...

"I can only guess that they either don't know or don't care about how the ship should have looked, but rather just wanted something that was 'cool' and so did a slightly modified version of a known fan favourite. But why bother doing a retro series only to ignore the retro aspect of it?"

This, to me, was the single most horrible thing about Enterprise. It was allegedly a prequel show, but for the most part - and certainly for the first three seasons - it made virtually no attempt whatsoever to actually BE a prequel. The majority of Enterprise stories and story arcs could be transplanted to TNG or Voyager almost unchanged. They made next to no attempt to establish a primitive feel to the show.

Ack, I could go on about this all day. Point is, it was obvious to anybody with half a brain that Enterprise was screwed before it even started.

And you know what? I always said that there were two premises suggested for Trek that were, by far, more idiotic than any other I ever heard.

One was a prequel series.

The other was a movie based on Starfleet Academy.

[Tsukiyumi]

God, that would've been awful.

You don't suppose Kirk and co. are going to be Academy cadets in the new movie, do you?

[Nutso]

Are Berman and Braga still in charge of Star Trek?

[Tsukiyumi]

Are Berman and Braga still in charge of Star Trek?

Thankfully, no.

[stitch626]

I'd be in group 1, with a little dip into group 2.
I liked Voyager, but only because it was Trek.