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| Lost in Space? `Star Trek' was supposed to be nearly dead. But in saving Earth, `Enterprise' saved itself. By Maureen Ryan Tribune staff reporter The problem with the "Star Trek" death notices that have appeared in the press recently is that "Trek," to quote an old Monty Python joke, is not dead yet. Contrary to what you may have read, the 38-year-old sci-fi franchise still has a television show on the air. "Star Trek: Enterprise" barely escaped cancellation last spring, but it's still alive and kicking. And while some media outlets -- including The New York Times, USA Today and Entertainment Weekly -- were busy writing about "Trek's" impending demise, "Enterprise" got good last season. Really good. The show was kick-started into high gear at the close of season 2, when a race called the Xindi attacked Earth and killed 7 million people. The crew of "Enterprise," which is set 100 years before James T. Kirk and his cohorts take to the stars, spent most of season 3 involved in a complicated and dramatically charged race to stop the Xindi from finishing off Earth once and for all. Given how hard they worked to improve "Enterprise" last season, it's no wonder that the men who run the "Trek" universe sound as mad as cornered Klingons. "I'm really tired of seeing these `Whither "Star Trek"?' pieces," says Manny Coto, the new executive producer of "Enterprise," which debuts its fourth season on UPN on Friday. "I think the same article has been written 45 times in the last two years." "There's this attitude that `Star Trek' has worn out its welcome," sighs "Enterprise" executive producer Brannon Braga, who, with Rick Berman, heads up all things "Trek" for Paramount, which owns the outer space franchise. If Braga seems exasperated, Scott Bakula sounds downright ticked off. Bakula, who plays Capt. Jonathan Archer on "Enterprise," says he'd put season 3 of his show up against the very best of "Trek" -- or any other show out there. And he says he's sick of the "Trek" bashing, especially the slamming of Berman and Braga that has pervaded many "Trek" online message boards in the last few years. "[Berman and Braga] are the architects of season 3 and if someone says, `I hated season 3,' [I'd say], `Why are you spending energy and time on `Enterprise'? Move on to other shows,'" Bakula said from the set of the program, where he was filming a trio of episodes with "Next Generation" alumni Brent Spiner. On the defensive As Bakula's comments suggest, the "Trek" brain trust has been put on the defensive not only by the media, but also by fans, who have laid into any "Enterprise" missteps with uncommon vigor. "Haven't they beaten this horse long enough?" goes one typical comment on TrekWeb.com. "I do think they fell into a trap in the development of a series," says Steve Krutzler, editor of TrekWeb.com. "They hyped themselves up as being a large departure from previous `Star Treks,' and really what it was was just another `Star Trek.' It was another spaceship. It even had the same name, it had the same seven characters -- the doctor, the helmsman, the first officer, the engineer. "Although I would argue that there are still infinite stories to tell in that format," Krutzler continues, "they fell into that trap of doing the exact same thing [with those stock characters]. And then of course, Rick [Berman] and Brannon [Braga] aren't as interested, I suppose, in the mythology as the fans may be. They're just trying to tell their own stories, and I just think over the years, doing so much of it, it's difficult to come up with original material." Coto, while proud of the three previous seasons of "Enterprise," actually understands some of the fan reaction. "Prequels are tough," he notes. "Even the `Star Wars' prequels. I'm a `Star Wars' fan as well, and when I saw `The Phantom Menace' and [George] Lucas told us the Force was caused by [a substance in the body] . . . . People just don't like things messed with that they love." Still, Braga defends the choice to go into the past with the latest "Trek" series. "I would never go back and change that because it was so obviously a good idea," he says. "Would I have changed some of the ways we executed the prequel? Yes. But the basic concept I think is still a good one. For instance, last season you could not have really done as effectively in a show that was set in the 24th Century." "We could have put [the series] further in the future," he adds, "but then, what, are the spandex uniforms tighter?" Maybe hard-core fans were predisposed to give "Enterprise" a hard time over "Trek" trivia (don't get them started on the show's treatment of Vulcans), but that wasn't the series' only problem. "Enterprise" didn't do itself any favors in its first couple of seasons by giving its stock characters little depth and by telling meandering stories that felt recycled from previous "Trek" incarnations. Rocky seasons Then again, even the most rabid fans readily admit that even "Star Trek: The Next Generation" -- and the rest of the later "Trek" series -- had a lot of rocky moments in their first couple of seasons. "You could say, looking back, some of our early shows were a little bit -- I don't want to use a negative word like lackadaisical, but there was a sense that we were exploring the galaxy but there was no real urgency to it," Coto says. "It was . . . kind of light. `We're out here exploring strange new worlds and there's nothing at stake.'" The propulsive Xindi story line changed all that. And though there won't be one big story arc in season 4, Coto promises several intriguing "mini-arcs," one involving a Vulcan civil war, one with a new character played by "Next Generation's" Spiner, and one story arc that may star William Shatner himself. Brad Wright, a longtime "Trek" fan and the executive producer of SciFi's "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis," gives the "Trek" hierarchy top marks for making Coto the day-to-day creative leader on "Enterprise." "I saw a couple of his episodes last year and sensed immediately that he could turn the show around," says Wright, who worked with Coto on "The Outer Limits." "His stories had heart and depth. I think new blood is just what the series needs." So creatively, the show is back on track. But financially, is "Trek" even necessary to the vast Viacom empire, which owns Paramount? As Braga puts it, "We have a hard-core group of fans. The question is, is that enough to keep a show on the air financially?" There were serious doubts about that, which almost led to "Enterprise's" demise last spring. After drawing an average of 2.4 million viewers in its third season -- a 40 percent drop from its first season -- "Enterprise" was renewed, but shifted to a Friday slot, and the fee that Paramount charges UPN for the show was slashed, a move that affects "Enterprise's" budget. Still, despite "Trek's" declining ratings, UPN president Dawn Ostroff says the network wanted to hang on to the show. "In the case of `Enterprise,' we've got a brand that's been very important for the network," Ostroff notes. "The audience for `Enterprise' is very loyal and a very hard-to-reach audience of men 18-49 [years old], very upscale. So there are many pluses connected with the show on this network. We weren't ready to give up." Though Ostroff says overall revenue from the "Trek" franchise didn't play a role in UPN's decision to bring the show back, "Trek" observers think that income from spinoffs and peripheral products must have played a role in the show's rescue. "I think the truth is they don't make money in first-run [`Trek' episodes] anyway, they make money in merchandising, books, toys, games and in syndication," Krutzler says. "There was a push to get one more season so that they have a nice solid number [of 100 episodes] to sell in syndication, where they expect to make their money back." Strong DVD sales Paramount was the first studio to put TV on DVD, with the 1999 release of a single DVD holding two original "Star Trek" episodes. Since then, the studio has enjoyed consistently strong sales of "Trek" boxed sets of "The Next Generation, "Voyager" and "Deep Space Nine." And a new, retro-styled boxed set of the first season of the original "Star Trek" is flying off the shelves; the second and third season original-series boxed sets will be released in time for the holidays. Martin Blythe, vice president of publicity for Paramount Home Entertainment, attributes strong sales of the new Kirk-and-Scotty "Star Trek" set to "nostalgia." "In the case of the original series, there's a sense in which the original generation are passing on," he notes. "The other reason for the boxed-set phenomenon is that there's no question that fans are into completeness," Blythe says. "We live in an age of collecting, and both these factors have translated into excellent sales" for "Star Trek" sets. As if the DVDs, toys, books and other gear weren't enough, Viacom recently announced that an elaborate multiplayer game including all the characters from every "Trek" series is being developed for 2006. In the meantime, fans can enjoy a resurgent "Trek" on TV. "I've been doing the site for eight years, and this has been the most positively hyped season" in terms of fan interest, Krutzler says. But Braga says plans for future "Trek" incarnations -- whether on the big or small screen -- are on hold until a new regime settles in at Paramount, where there has been an executive shakeup in recent months. And contrary to Internet rumors, though he and Berman are working on new TV projects, Braga says none of them "are in any way associated with `Star Trek.'" "Will `Star Trek' perish? The answer is, probably not at the moment," Braga says. |