Enterprise Cancellation?

Rumors have been flying lately (check here and here) that Star Trek: Enterprise is going to be cancelled at the end of this season. It's the lack of clear support from both the CBS and UPN presidents that's telling.

It wouldn't bother me to see ST go. I've blogged on this before. I think Paramount has this enormous cash cow going and can't afford to stop it, no matter how weak the foundation. Better, from their point of view, to have something on, and generating income, than to have nothing at all. I love Star Trek, but sometimes you just have to let go.

Of course, from a fan point of view it's better to have nothing than to have substandard or bad ST. Opinions vary on the five ST series, but there seems a clear concensus that Enterprise is the weakest series of all, though the new Xindi arc has breathed some life into it. Ratings for ENT are the lowest of any series; fan buzz is also low. Many fans, in fact, are angry with the producers of ENT for violating the already-established history of ST many, many times in their stories. Sure, earlier Trek series took time to find their compass, but they overhauled their show after only two seasons. (TNG took four seasons; DS9, three; VOY, never quite did but the addition of Seven of Nine in season four helped.) You get the sense that the producers are floundering and flailing, trying anything that they think will work, changing ideas monthly. ENT just doesn't feel as grounded as previous series.

One common request I see is for a new series that goes farther into the future of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I think that's a bad idea. ST is already at the point of "super-science" -- that is, technology that can solve any problem you can think up. It's already hard for them to write stories that don't conflict with the technology they already have! (It's one reason I've suggested letting in modern SF writers, especially hard-SF writers, who can present some pretty fascinating premises and problems that evade the solutions ST tech has.) Going forward only presents bad, serious problems for the kind of series writers television gets these days. The producers tried to get around that by "going back" with Enterprise, but clearly hat hasn't worked.

Something I also see a lot of, though not usually as a formal series idea, is for a "total war" Star Trek. Lots of fan sites and fan-written stories and series posit huge warships and large armies fighting the gone-bad Klingons, the Romulans, a revived Dominion, etc. There are just a whole lot of people who like war and war stories, it seems, and they want to turn Star Trek down that path. It would make for a killer movie (Star Trek: Galactic War!), but it's also a rebuke to the entire premise of Star Trek.

I still think the "movie of the month" idea -- a new movie every month with different stories, characters, writers, directors, actors, etc., free to explore any time, place or person in Trek history -- is the way to go. I've also heard of the "mini-series" idea, to approach ST the way the British do by making a self-contained, short series of episodes that are a comprehensive whole. (Think "Touching Evil" or "Prime Suspect" or many of the other Mystery! programs on PBS.) Both ideas raise the "event" level of Star Trek and free the producers from being locked down to any one concept.

I doubt that'll happen. CBS/UPN may well cancel Enterprise, and Star Trek may go away for a while, but it'll return in some form. There's too much money involved. There are also a few careers (Berman, Piller, Braga, et al) that depend, vampire-like, on the carcass of Star Trek. These guys don't see themselves as evil, but their actions tend to wreak evil nonetheless. Get rid of those folks, let ST lie fallow for a while, wait to see who can present a new, fresh idea, then restart Star Trek. That's the best way, I think.

But I doubt it will happen. Money changes everything, as someone once said. What I fear is that someone will revive Harve Bennet's Starfleet Academy, where we see young students at the Federation's school for Starfleet. The potential for a WB-style, Dawson's Creek-y, beautiful people in trouble every week show is too high. Someone could make the idea work, but not the present bunch. But I worry they'll try.