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Connor Trinneer as "Trip" Tucker
With several active online fan groups more than four years since its cancellation, Star Trek: Enterprise, which aired 2001-2005 on UPN, lives on in many hearts and minds. The television prequel to the original Star Trek series received critical praise and a loyal following, but languished in the Nielsen ratings, especially after being moved to Friday night in 2004.
Enterprise, which starred Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer and Connor Trinneer as chief engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker, would perhaps not have been back for its fourth and final season without an outpouring of mail from fans demanding the network keep the show alive.Fans like to think so, anyway.
One of these fans, identified on imdb.com as Trombone482, has started a petition to series creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga to bring Enterprise back, either for a final episode or to kick off a miniseries, with the original cast. The petition asks that the new episode be based on the novel The Good That Men Do by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin, an interpretation of the events in Enterprise final episode "These Are the Voyages...". This final episode was widely seen by Enterprise fans as an unsatisfying conclusion that rang false in the context of the rest of the series. The Good That Men Do is characterized by one reviewer on Amazon.com as "damage control" for that disastrous final episode, in which "Trip" Tucker is hastened rather pointlessly to his final reward.
Obviously Berman and Braga would need to be convinced that the petition offers a workable idea, and with only 173 signatures so far it is all to easy to discard the notion. The effort--on the surface--is quixotic. Of course there should be as much Star Trek as possible in the world, and Enterprise should come back and run forever, but if it doesn't make economic sense for producers and a network, it's not going to happen. But the petition is not an act of total naïveté. If, for example, a group could deliver a commitment from a significant sponsor, there might be a different story to tell.
It hardly needs stating here that Star Trek fans can be quite purposeful and single-minded in pursuing goals; this is not the first time a fan base has agitated for something it wants to see. The difference today is that, as the definition of content evolves, direct fan involvement in what gets produced may come closer to reality. A wide variety of Star Trek-themed content might be produced, tailored to specific interests of the full spectrum of fandom, rather in keeping with the "long tail" theory of the marketplace advanced in 2004 by Chris Anderson in Wired. Shows produced, possibly on a much smaller scale, in response to fan demands, are worth considering as one of the possible futures of video content; and if we weren't futurists we wouldn't be here.
Comments
Wow...I think this is the first place I've seen "Enterprise" referred to as "critically praised." The show was a TERRIBLE prequel, messing up the timeline and completely misinterpreting Star Trek canon. I'd say there is little to ZERO chance anyone will continue this failure.
Sorry, but Berman and Braga have NO power regarding Trek at Paramount/CBS. They were pushed aside and have since moved on, especially with the new movie doing so fantastic under JJ Abrams and Co. To me, the final season of 'Enterprise' was terrific but that finale was indeed horrible. I hope Berman stays away forever.
The first two seasons were pretty bad, with some good shows here and there. They really found their way in the 3rd season and the 4th was pretty good, especially when they fixed some of the discrepancies (why Klingons looked different, why the Vulcans were A-holes, though that was started by Enterprise). The show would have been better if they never bothered with the Sulliban etc.
I really liked Enterprise, especially toward the end (but you're right, the finale sucked). I wouldn't mind them taking another stab at it, with the renewed interest. Dump Braga, Star Trek went down the toilet when he got his name in the credits.
I happened to love Enterprise and I think that these fans trying to resurect it would do better petitioning for mind altering technology that would permanently erase the 'final episode' from my memory.
It was such a low blow to fans considering the show was already being canned. Terra Prime was where it ended for me, and that's probably where it should stay.
What what?! A violation of Star Trek canon? Oh wait... Violating canon is a Star Trek tradition... Why do you think time travel is such a recurring Trek theme?
Seriously, the franchise was practically dead until recently... I would think Trek fans would be grateful for anything new. I know I am.
Well, at least they're not pushing to get the Voyager series back. That was by far the more painful of the two to watch even though they both were really bad. Voyager seemed to go from bad to worse because Mulgrew seemed to get a oh-whatever attitude after the firing of the Kes characater. What was her real name again? Sigh. Look, just make all bad shows go away. Don't let them come back another day. Sci-Fi has to remain centered on human interests in order to stay relevant to the majority of fans and their normal everyday real life. And strangely enough, the Trek franchises seem to be forgetting that necessary ingredient (Insurrection, Nemesis, and etc). Ryan in a catsuit was a cop-out to the more venereal and base interests of the more hormonal part of the writing staff--oops, I meant the audience of course. Whatever happened to the writing efforts put forth in the older TNG TV series?
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