http://trekweb.com/articles/2005/03/01/422527670001c.shtml

and someone donated $3 mil provided season5 is a go.

I won't say I love it, but I think it's pretty good, for Sci Fi. The other series that came before were better, but I'm still not happy about it.

I'm thinkin' next series: "Star Trek: Women's Locker Room 9" (WLR9 for the fans).

That link now says that anonymous fans in the space flight industry have pledged $3M to keep the series on the air...

Is that enough for four more seasons?

It's enough for about one more episode.

And that'll satisfy everyone?

Well ultimately I don't think the point is to fund a whole season, but rather to show that there's enough interest to raise quite a bit of cash. Dollars is the universal language of studio execs.

Something about this whole thing reminds me of the classic Saturday Night Live episode that William Shatner hosted. The fans kept asking him trivial questions about various episodes and he finally snapped and yelled "Get a life!" ;-)

I enjoy Enterprise, much more than STNG or DS9, which both lasted several seasons (Too long!). The effects and makeup are getting much better, as are some of the stories. Enterprise made the mistake of trying to have an epic storyline, which made it like a space soap opera. That is what killed Voyager and DS9, and now, Enterprise.

For years now, many fans have been trying to bring the adventures of Captain Sulu on the Excelsior to life.

enterprise is up and down. when they have good writers such as chris black, mike sussman, coto writing it can be pretty good from season1-3. but when coto started exec. producing season4 he made an awesome choice by harkening back to TOS. he brough onboard true SF writers, but not just SF writers (as DC Fontana, Richard Matheson were to TOS) but STAR TREK SF writers. Judith+Garfield Reeves-Stevens have written Star Trek Federation, Prime Directive, Return of Kirk trilogy, etc. when i read their novels, it was always very cinematic. certain writers just fit like a glove when they start writing for tv/films (just like golden age of cinema). so it's no surprise that my fav eps of enterprise are written by the Reeves-Stevens. they are an absolutely unstoppable hubby+wife team. they really should be commissioned to write the next Star Trek films cause they know the trek-lore, they are excellent cinematic writers, they are great literate authors in general. it's a win-win formula for success... and yet execs@paramount fails to see this money-making opportunity. sure i wouldn't mind giving it a rest but even after the rest they've hired a band of brothers scribe to pen the next star trek film, that is a big ass mistake. they have an excellent core of writers/producers now (minus rick berman and braga) and they're willing to dash that on the cliff rocks. kinda stupid if ya ask me.

re: comparing it to the other series is still quite a joke. TOS is what started the entire Star Trek phenomenon. i never quite get why people diss the phony visual fx. it was the 60s, there was noway in hell to do it better on a tv budget! but in terms of story/dialogue/performance TOS is still waaay up there in TV history. very few shows come close in quality, scope and study of humanity. i think ENT is better than VOY but definitely comes up short (even with Reeves-Stevens) to DS9&TNG.

Enterprise better than the other series? Blasphemy!

Josh,

VOY was terrible, i mean anyone can admit that =^). the acting was the worst of all trek. it's so cardboard and so devoid of life... for SEVEN YEARS STRAIGHT!!! AH!

Yeah aside from the star trek factor, voyager was just poor quality in every way save special effects, making it the exact opposite of the original 60s show. Well, not that the 60s show had great acting, but you get my drift.

I only recently saw the last couple of seasons of DS9 since it was on reruns and I recently got a DVR. I must say I really enoyed those last two seasons - I'd heard they were the worst but I liked them better. I also thought the character development was way beyond any of the others thus far. What I enjoyed about it is that it dealt alot with regular life and human behavior as it may be in the future, not just zipping around in ships and shooting aliens. Go figure, my taste.

I can sort of agree that Enterprise isn't better than TOS, but it is certainly the best since. Voyager is also up there in some ways, as it pits humanity against the dangers of new space. They were truly explorers, much like Kirk was.

One of my favorite episodes was the one where they were stuck in the comet's wake, and found the old Earth capsule that had been lost. Very reminiscent of Bradberry's Trek, before Columbia started to choke it off.

And then there was Jeri Ryan in spandex... ;)

<<VOY was terrible, i mean anyone can admit that =^). the acting was the worst of all trek.>>

Except for that Vulcan hologram gal in the episode "Blood Fever"--she was good (and hot, to boot). Oh OK, I'll admit it. That was my girlfriend Amy (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/feature/6709.html)...!.

I think all y'all are smokin' the crack. I like voyager a lot, I think DS9 is brilliant, and I think next generation had the best stories.

"I like voyager a lot, I think DS9 is brilliant, and I think next generation had the best stories."

And WHO's been smokin crack? Just kidding... Sorta...

Hey dudes, whatever. I've had unpopular opinions before. I really just don't see where you guys are coming from.

Voyager, at least for a while, had a lot of interesting stories. YEah, I could do without the "Rocket. . .whatever" stuff, and the "Fairhaven" stuff, but all in all, not bad.

Enterprise, while I like it, tends to have story arcs that span many episodes, and aren't that intriguing to begin with, to me. No cool plot twists, no clever setups, etc.

DS9 was like putting the characters in the series under a microscope, in a lot of places, which was kind of different. I liked the last seasons too. My only problem with that shows is that the WHOLE THING is a story arc, and you can't really get into it without knowing the whole backstory.

My two centicles.

The original series was fun; I remember watching the first episode when I was in high school and the quality of the sets and effects blew me away. So just for nostalgia I still enjoy those episodes. The other incarnations are just OK for me, sometimes I'll watch a little of an episode but rarely sit through the whole thing.

I just have a problem with the whole genre anymore. By now they've pretty much exhausted all the permutations of goofy masks they can put on humans who are supposed to be aliens (all of which speak English of course). I guess I just can't suspend my disbelief long enough these days :-)

I have generally enjoyed the Battlestar Galactica remakes however, although the last few episodes weren't nearly as good as the earlier ones.

Only other sci fi series that I've seen that I could stomach was Babylon 5. I think they still make it, but it's not the same show as it once was. I'm talking the older ones, with Bruce Boxlietner (sp?), and that British dude who I thought for a long time was the same actor who played Bashir on DS9. These were from a quite a while ago, like mid-late 90s.

I agree on the alien masks. Unfortunately, when they try to make them not look human, we get unrealistic CG.

I am in total agreement with you on the story arcs, which is the main reason I don't care for Voyager, DS9, and sometimes Enterprise. It gets too soapy, and if you miss a few shows, you're lost. My issues with Next Gen run deeper, but even they had a few great stories.

One of the best sci-fi shows I EVER ENJOYED, was Firefly, which died too soon.

Babylon 5 was also a great show, but the whole show was a continuous story arc, which was cool. But again, if you missed one or two major episodes, you were lost. Then there was the spinoff, Excalibur, that looked promising but didn't cut it.

The new Battlestar series is a really interesting spin on the old show, and more adult in it's presentation. But I'm also worried that they will bring the same silliness in, as did the old show. They already have the kid with the mop cut, and if they bring in the robo dog, I'm outta there!

What is next? Buck Rogers and Tweeky? Oh, the pain... the pain!

Maybe I'm crazy, but I think the smart and subtle ways in which Enterprise is managing to reconcile old Star Trek with newer Star Trek is borderline genius.

I mean, a 3-episode action packed adventure all to explain how come the old Star Trek Klingons didn't have the big nutcracker heads?

And another long series of episodes to intelligently and believably explain the transition of Vulcan culture and politics in a manner that's very relevant to politics and our supposed war on terror today? That's what good sci-fi is about - removing current stigma and analysing a human situation in another world so we can get back our perspective.

I submit to you that Enterprise is great sci-fi. Note - I only got into it for the last 1.5 seasons, so I can't speak for the earlier episodes. I had completely written off Star Trek for the idiocy and the suspended disbelief required to enjoy Voyager, but was very surprised when I tuned into Enterprise.

I guess I like my sci-fi a little more epic and outlandish, then.

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Bass : I guess I like my sci-fi a little more epic and outlandish, then. -->>>

Such as...? I've been hooked on sci-fi since I was a toddler watching TOS, and have watched a lot... even some of the worst tripe to be called sci-fi.

Heh, right now I'm watching the 1955 George Pal Epic The Conquest of Space (http://imdb.com/title/tt0047947/). They just don't get much more epic than this! Lots of fun - what a classic. Nice anamorphic transfer too, part of the Paramount Widescreen Collection.

i suppose i must say that my reactions to ds9+voy comes mainly out of other people's reactions. although i've seen ds9+voy, i missed nearly all of the episodes. i've seen nearly every single one of TOS, TNG and VOY. haven't had time to make up for it yet =(... one of these days...

re: charles, that's awesome! did amy get any signatures/photos with any of the cast/crew?

josh, i think you're referring to technobabble, which braga+berman excels @.

as for really, really outlandish (well to you folx) SF, i highly recommend flash gordon (1939), buck rogers space solder (1937), buck rogers trip to mars (1938) and buck rogers conquers the universe (1940). the 4 DVDs are film serials of the late 30s and early 40s that inspired lucas's star wars main title. in fact if you've seen it, you'll have realized why lucas made starwars episode 1-6 the way they are. it's a bit of a secret. as far as i know that's the earliest known series of works (epic-size enough) in the SF genre unless you wanna start counting melies's trip to the moon in 1903.

Ok, for instance:

Enterprise crew dealing with some virus that makes Klingons look human = snorefest

DS9 dudes dealing with a shapeshifting race that thinks they own the universe, and some other dude trying to resurrect evil gods = woo hoo!

Enterprise crew dealing with genetically augented humans (for three episodes,might I add), eventually explaining the whole Data thing in TNG = not quite a snorefest, but not real mindblowing either

Voyager crew dealing with another Voyager crew who were all really clones from some planet that developed life when the real crew visited there previously, but thought they were the real crew = woohoo (this is one of the best episodes I remember)

I likes me the time travel, and the silliness, and all the crazy scifi stuff, rather than the more "human" "harder" more Asimov-like stuff.

By the way, have you read the stuff by this Alistair Reynolds guy? Me likey. Robert J. Sawyer, too, but in a different way.

God I'm a nerd.

By the way, one thing that Voyager and Next Gen did (not so much DS9 -- kinda uneven in that some episodes were very studious of one or two characters, while others were very epic in scope) was to make each episode a mystery. Something would happen, and you'd think it was one thing, but then it would turn around and be another. I don't really get that from Enterprise. Little bitty plot twists, maybe, sometimes, but not biggies.

Oh, and the blatant exploitation of poor, hot, Jolene Blalock bugs me a bit. Yeah, I know Jeri Ryan went through the same, but she wasn't always showering or giving backrubs.

I almost feel bad, because I enjoyed Jolene and Jeri, but not JUST because they were hot... but it didn't hurt ;) But that isn't anything new, because Capt. Kirk kept his cuties in barely broadcastable uniforms and outfits too. Oh, that Yeoman Rand!

Enterprise is (was) doing a decent job of tying together all of the stories in Trek history. Stuff like the Klingon brows, which was hinted at in DS9's greatest episode... Trials and Tribbleations.

One of DS9's best points, was the way they filled out Worf, Obrien, and Vashir's characters. There really was a great chemistry amongst all of it's characters, which I will admit, sets it above the rest.

Ah hell ya. All my DS9 peeps in the hizzie, yo.

There's a rumour Spike TV might pick up another season:

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=71459

I'd have to say that my fav. trek (besides Charles hologram girlfeidn) must be in this order:

1. Deep Space 9
2. The Next Generation / Voyager

TNG because I grew up with that, but it's starting to look "old"
(which is why I could never watch TOS). For some reason I seem
to enjoy voy better than most, although don't get me started on
the ending. That was just plain wrong, absurd and insane.

Why? Didn't it end happy for everyone? Isn't that what we all wanted? Or did you want everyone to die? You sadist! I don't remember it now. . .something to do with time travel? Was that the one where Harry and Chakotay were "old", and everyone else was dead, and they had to fix it?

the best series finale was TNG hands down. TOS didn't really have one since each episode pretty much stood alone.

TNG's finale was grand because it made think all the way back to encounter @farpoint. plus it really ryhmes with having Q as the book end of the entire TNG series, and that by the end, he's STILL watching.

DS9's ending was good but it was really stemming from season3 on when the war started. it did refer to the first episode a little bit (making sisko an "EMISSARY" in a true spiritual sense). i wish they brought back picard and TNG crew for the finale to wrap things up as a nice bookend.

VOY ending was terrible. everytime they need some rating help they bring out the borg. it's tired and pretty much a whore-like behaviour. i enjoyed VOY's pilot in that they had an element of mystery behind the caretakers. i wish the caretakers could return and throw them back to alpha quadrant and then finally explain why they did it in the first place, who the caretakers were in the universe. it'd've been a nice bookend (it's all about bookends baby).

with ENT, there is a rumour going around that the series will end on a holodeck and that ALL of ENT was simply a simulation on what *might* have happened, therefore voids ENT as a whole. so ENT was one big holodeck episode dreamed up by B&B. lol =(.

Wait, Enterprise wasn't SUPPOSED to end early, so would they even have the ending ready? I figure it'd just peter out, and that'd be it.

The cancellation was announced before they had finished filming all the episodes, so they can re-write the last couple to make a wrap up for the series.

Whoa buddy. . .wait now, that's IF the fans don't magically save the series from extinction. :-)

unlikely this time. it worked last year... but not this year... unless spikeTV picks them. but does spike even have $30mil to produce an original SF series? what have they produced themselves? i mean honestly, invasion iowa is hardly a real idea...

only 30 mil? What are there, like 22 episodes a season, and the Treks have normally run for seven seasons each? So we got four more seasons, at 22 episodes, x 3 mil for each episode. . .

I get $264 mil.

Unless maybe they further cut costs and shoot everything on a DVX100 (not the A, cause that would cost more) :-)

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Bass : Why? Didn't it end happy for everyone? Isn't that what we all wanted? Or did you want everyone to die? You sadist! I don't remember it now. . .something to do with time travel? Was that the one where Harry and Chakotay were "old", and everyone else was dead, and they had to fix it? -->>>

I wasn't happy for the following reason:

1. it really felt rushed (the last couple of eps), to get it out (they where perhaps hoping for anothor season?)

2. they really didn't do it themselves, but with the help of the borg (which I didn't like, as someone else pointed out, the borg had been overused and too easy on voyager)

3. it involved (yet again) a form of time travel, I'm sick of that on Star Trek

4. you really didn't get a sense of what it was like to come home (the alternate future doesn't really count) after searching for that for seven years!

I just thought it was a major let down. I did like the new hull
armour though <g>

There is some form of "time travel" in all of the TNG movies as well (not cool):

- Generations: real time travel by the way of the Nexus
- First Contact: real time travel when they pursue the borg
- Insurrection: time travel in the form of slowing down aging
- Nemesis: a form of bending time with the clone and yet another Data (who can be upgraded to good old data, which kinda bends time, not to mention cheating death)

The last two are a bit of stretch, but it is all so unoriginal. Like the
ending of Voyager. It could've been so much better....

Oh well, I still enjoyed most of it (except Nemesis) on at least a
"popcorn" level.

Ah one thing that's always reliable amongst all of us who watch even one Trek episode. We're all pretty much as opinionated as we can get!

And nerdy.

oops, Josh you're right, i was never good@math =). i can see why paramount wouldn't wanna sponsor a 5th season. heck, they can make a handful of EVENT films at that BUDGET! i would even take lesser quantity of episodes provided each episode had higher quality writing. case in point are shows on HBO. they're merely 10-13 but each episode is quality stuff.

rob, i agree wholeheartedly. the biggest thing about voyager finale was the blatant rip off of TNG's finale (also passage of time differential), only what fits TNG does NOT fit voyager. as i noted before the mystery of the caretaker and array should've been explored more cause they started that thread in the pilot episode... but never went back. the beginning and the end should flow as one coherent whole instead of a zig-zagging nonsense, which voyager became as time went on.

i also agree on the whole time travel ordeal, it is sordid and tiring.

the thing about all of the feature films is that i never felt like i was watching an epic film (motion picture comes close, but no cigars). even as great as 2 and 6 is it still comes off like just an episode of TOS or TNG. i dunno why but films are never as epic as lord of the rings emotionally nor intellectually as big as the matrix trilogy. based on the films alone they can never supercede even the star wars prequels in scope and scale.

<<<-- the thing about all of the feature films is that i never felt like i was watching an epic film (motion picture comes close, but no cigars). even as great as 2 and 6 is it still comes off like just an episode of TOS or TNG. i dunno why but films are never as epic as lord of the rings emotionally nor intellectually as big as the matrix trilogy. based on the films alone they can never supercede even the star wars prequels in scope and scale. -->>>

That's almost entirely Paramount's fault. Except for the first one (the one that comes the closest to looking EPIC) Paramount never wanted to spend much money on Star Trek films. Just enough to get them on screens because there's a pre-built audience that they can wring for every dollar. I think no. 2 cost something like $18 million. Even in 1982 that won't buy you a whole lot of movie. Generations cost (and when I say cost, I mean was given, because that's how it works in Hollwood. They give you so much money and that's all you've got to make your movie with, there is no more) $40 million. That's just not enough money to make an epic space adventure movie.

The best thing to come out of Voyager was Species 8472. I wish they could have explored that more.

As much as Voyager lagged compared to TNG and DS9, it was great to see the Borg get dropped kicked into the end zone.

As for Enterprise, I dropped off about 6 episodes into the 1st season, I really wanted to like it. But let's face, Scott Bakula was so much more interesting in Quantum Leap. Heck I still watch those re-runs.

i think for the next iteration of star trek on film to succeed it would have to take the form of someone like peter jackson who is passionate about LOTR. it'd have to a director who can direct but also loves the star trek material. and i'd really like to see rick berman get out of the business in general. it's terrible what he's doing the franchise.

i mean can you imagine a LOTR-like thing with star trek? i'd so watch it. i'd also like to see a proper send off with TNG cast. nemesis was as terrible "send off". it's still not too late, none of the current cast has died yet =).

"But let's face, Scott Bakula was so much more interesting in Quantum Leap"

I have a harder time, trying to buy Quantum Leaps time travel, than any of Star Treks. I could just never buy him leaping into another person, anymore than I could buy Voyagers "Year in Hell", which never happened. I was quite the opposite, as I couldn't see him as a Starfleet captain, but ended up liking his character, sort of like Michael Keaton doing Batman...

As far as the movies go, I pretty much agree, that they were nothing but a half-assed attempt. The only motivation they had, was to milk any extra cash out of faithful fans, and it really shows. Even the old animated shows were better written.

Time for Paramount to roll over, and let REAL Trek folks take the reigns. And for the record, my oldest son is named James Tiberius, and my youngest son is named Benjamin Sisco, but only because the wife wouldn't go for M. Scott ;)

Hell yeah!

Star Trek: Ship Interns!

No, wait, follow me. . .

an entire episode about a young intern's journey as he discovers how to coil warp nacelle cable. . .and he discovers he's in love with the girl his best friend's dating.

It's sort of an OC/Dawson's Creek etc. meets Star Trek. No, really, it'll work. It'll have to go to the WB, of course. You'll all hate it. So will I.

I think Keith just won the award for the most devoted Trek fan on this board. Bar none.

Hey - how about a Project Greenlight where they do a Star Trek episode? They're doing a horror film this time around - why not sci-fi the next time! And then we can laugh at and ridicule the poor shlep they sucker into doing it and we can all laugh together like mini Qs, reveling in the frailty of the puny humans trying to make their silly corporeal film.

Keith . . .biggest fan?

But I met Data! For real!

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Bass : Keith . . .biggest fan?

But I met Data! For real! -->>>

But Keith might BE Data!