Enterprise's prospects for next season | Report this post to moderator
By: Akita1999 (Odo's file, contact) @ 10:38:27 on Jun 16, 2004

After reading the actual "TV Guide" article, I became more encouraged about Enterprise and its future prospects.

First, there must be linkage between the license fee and budget for the series. But I don't think it is clear whether it is a dollar-for-dollar relationshipe or merely an indication that the budget per episode will need to be reduced.

Second, there are other financial considerations that led to Enterprise's renewal, including syndication rights, merchandising revenues, and an attempt to satisfy and keep intact a loyal fan base.

Third, the financial cutbacks and scheduling move to Friday might be helpful for Enterprise's creativity. These changes might force the writers to place greater emphasis on the quality of the story and on drawing upon the actors' considerable talents to propel the storylines, rather than FX.

Fourth, Enterprise might surprise us on Friday nights with sufficient ratings to survive and thrive in the time slot. After all, a move to Friday may simply take the pressure off everyone involved. I have no idea what UPN considers to be a successful performance for a Friday night program. But certainly Enterprise ought to do better than the crap UPN has been running on Friday nights. Thus, if the economics are right, Enterprise may be considered a ratings success on Friday night.

Fifth, it appears to me that Paramount and UPN worked hard to keep Enterprise on the air, despites its ratings slump and expensive budget. I think that is a good sign for the future. What UPN and Paramount have done reminds me of what ABC last season with "The Practice." ABC slashed the licensing fee, David Kelly made changes to the series, and last season was one the best seasons of "The Practice" in the last few years. Moreover, the ratings for the series went up from the prior season, not down. It was a success story that led to a spinoff series premiering this fall.

Rejoice one more year of Enterprise is better than nothing.

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Budget!!! | Report this post to moderator
By: razor (Odo's file, contact) @ 02:56:59 on Jun 16, 2004

It's not the size of the budget that matters it's how they use it.

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What do the networks pay for other dramas? | Report this post to moderator
By: who1 (Odo's file, contact) @ 02:01:30 on Jun 16, 2004

Regardless of whether or not this affects the production budget (I would assume it would, at least a little bit - the show must cost at least $3 million per episode, and IMO season 3 spoiled us with all those new sets, explosions and epic FX, right through to the finale), it's still a very humbling turn of events I expect Paramount never wanted anyone to find out about, even if it is true. Does anyone have any data on licensing fees for other dramas? $800,000 seems pretty low to me.

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It's amazing... | Report this post to moderator
By: CMBat (Odo's file, contact) @ 01:40:03 on Jun 16, 2004

how people misread stuff. Someone correctly pointed out that UPN was only willing to PAY $800,000 per episode. Nothing in there suggests that the budgets per episode are going to be scaled back as such. I've been saying this all along. Paramount knows several things. It knows that if there is no Star Trek on TV, then the sell less games, action figures, and movie DVDs of Star Trek (not to mention lawsuits about not "promoting" the name enough). It knows that the more shows Enterprise has in the long run (particularly over 100 episodes), the more they can sell the series for in syndication. AND, they know that eventually, they need another movie in some format with some crew or combination of crews. While they think about this, they are better with a show on the air. So while uPn might only have Paramount in the middle and a lot of Viacom in between, this announcement should shock no one, just like the announcement to renew Enterprise was not a shock. It was built-in ALL year. They'll make plenty of money, and I'm actually getting ready to say that Enterprise will run at least six years. Just dare me.

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Star Trek is about both FX and plot | Report this post to moderator
By: Terminator (Odo's file, contact) @ 20:34:55 on Jun 15, 2004 | (2)

I have been watching Trek since the first season of TNG. Star trek is a seamless blend of high production values and cutting edge sci-fi. There should be no dearth or excess of either. I dont want trek to become a space opera which neither TNG nor especially DS9 was.
They should have let enterprise get cancelled rather than force it to either reduce its production values or try to compensate with sub-standard Andromeda style production values. They are just letting enterprise die a slow painful death. The orginal production staff is slowly abondaning ship, with this significant budget cut I think enterprise S4 would be the last one. It pretty obvious now with this reduced budget and move to a pretty bad friday time-slot 'The Powers To Be' have lost their intrest in Enteprise. They just want to have enterprise on enough life-support to reach the magic figure of 100 episodes for syndication(i know 100 episodes is not set in stone for syndication but its a pretty good round number).
I would have prefered Enterprise to go out with style in S3 rather than chug along as discarded step-child of once a proud and profound star trek family. I would be very surprised if they do come-back for a S5.

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Clearly... | Report this post to moderator
By: Deslok 2 (Odo's file, contact) @ 20:13:50 on Jun 15, 2004

Clearly, ENT can run the full seven years now, and the quality could improve to an incredible degree.

This bodes well for ENT.

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Dear Santa:



Please give B+B new jobs OUTSIDE of the STAR TREK franchise.



Your freind,

Deslok

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FX are cheap, sets and costumes aren't | Report this post to moderator
By: Goodman (Odo's file, contact) @ 12:09:13 on Jun 15, 2004

Hard to believe this won't effect the budget of the show at all. Keep in mind though, JMS mentioned a few years back that the computer generated exterior FX scenes on Babylon 5 actually cost less than the live action footage. I imagine that's true on Enterprise today as well. So if there ARE cuts to the budget of the series, it would most likely mean less guest actors, less sets, less costumes, less elaborate makeup and abbreviated shooting schedules. You'll still get lots of shots of spaceships and such.

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That was important news, thanks. | Report this post to moderator
By: Hbasm (Odo's file, contact) @ 04:04:49 on Jun 15, 2004

Assuming this means a cut on the budget as well ( probably not by half) I don't think that is necessarely a bad thing. Less effects and more story - would you mind? Effects are cool but the story is far more important. Obviously, only a fraction of the cost for a complete episode goes into story writing. But if they can nolonger compete on effects due to a lowered budget, they will have no choice but to compete on the stories.

In the long run, however, I don't think Star Trek can survive on good stories. The franchine needs to grow, and not maintain a status quo. If we say, the stories on ENTERPRISE are all going to be great and deep, well, it could be as good as DS9 ... but even DS9 kept loosing audience.

Star Trek needs to be slightly more "aggressive" rather than defensive, in order to grow. With "agressive" I mean, finding new ways to get a foot inside peoples door. That is difficult, of course. It needs to "capture" people and it probably means some technological investments... What about a 3D movie? Panorama? These could be shown at planetaries and get some publicity beyond the ususal movie reviews.

I don't have other ideas for the moment, but if you have, share them with us! Star Trek needs a kick forwards, that it never had before.

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Fees, Syndication and Effects | Report this post to moderator
By: HotStove (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 20:50:19 on Jun 14, 2004

A couple of thoughts...

1) Viacom owns Paramount. Paramount produces STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE. It then sells the show to UPN for a fee. Then it ends up syndicating the show (in many areas) to UPN affiliates. DVDs are produced by a Viacom-owned company and sold for a price. Then exclusive rights are sold after a few years to SpikeTV, which is owned by Viacom, which owns Paramount. Is it just me or do I find it hard to cry for Viacom's poverty in this situation?

2) The article mentioned that we'll probably see less "award-winning effects" this season. Now, I love special effects as much as the next person, but I think back to some of my favorite Trek episodes, and shows like "Inner Light", "The Visitor" and "In The Pale Moonlight" come to mind, among others. These are shows that were very character-driven and not dependent on effects. Remember "Balance of Terror" from TOS? A lot of tension was built up from what you didn't see as much as from what you did. GR used to say that he had to write shows that made the viewer use their imagination because he couldn't afford to create everything on the screen. My bottom line here is that it is possible that a cut budget might, just might, spur creativity.


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"Dammit, I'm a doctor, not a... oh, yeah, right..."
--Phil Hartman as McCoy, Saturday Night Live

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Fees... | Report this post to moderator
By: Jadzia-Dax (Odo's file, contact) @ 19:34:06 on Jun 14, 2004

Just as a point of reference, note an example of the Licence Fees for other shows over the years (including the other Treks - source thefutoncritic). This is how much Paramount would charge UPN per episode.

And also note that income from the license fees is not the same as the ad rates (source also thefutoncritic) that get charged per 30 seconds of commercials that would run during the show. Ie., I expect that ENT might be able to charge ad fees for the upcoming 2004 - 2005 season, either the same or a little less just based on its ratings from ENT "Zero Hour". Just the commercial fees alone (and with ENT down to about 41 - 42 minutes, that's 18 - 19 minutes worth of commercials, minus network ads, etc) and UPN was pretty much breaking even or had a slight profit.

But the key point of all of the above? UPN = United Paramount Network = Paramount and ALL belong to Viacom. So its the same money going around and around on different books. Parmount uses the fees for the show as their "advertisement" for the franchise itself and UPN can show a little profit. But it all goes into Viacom's coiffers (and Viacom can use this to show that they are and will continue to make efforts to "promote the franchise" in answer to the Activision lawsuit - which has not gone away). All smoke and mirrors at the Viacom level - especially since the presence of a Trek helps to bolster their Simon and Shuster/Pocketbooks holding that publishes the Trek books.

I have to agree with Mr. Xindi - I think as beautiful as the FX have been on ENT, those effects can't continue to be used as a crutch and filler for the show.

People today laugh at TOS's effects and shoe-string budget. Yet TOS won awards for its stories and to this day, its characters are known world-wide. Right now, if you watch "Quantum Leap", the effects were even cheesier and that was a more "modern" show, running against the effects of a TNG at the time. Yet QL managed to focus on the characters instead and has gained an increased following of fans, not unlike what happened with TOS.

I think the article is correct in saying that whatever is currently running (and in this case, ENT), is the advertisement for maintaining the multimillion dollar yearly income of the Trek franchise (a franchise which is worth almost a billion dollars or 1/20th of Viacom's holdings). It's interesting how long it took for some of these god-level PTB at Viacom to finally manage to figure that out and get it across to their underlings at UPN.

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"I think the show talked to people through the characters. They're stories that speak to the heart. They talk about love, they talk about friendship, they talk about loyalty, they talk about patriotism, exploration, curiosity, reaching out... And I think all those things still touch people. Even when you look at a 30-year old show, it still has something to say." - D.C. Fontana, Sci Fi Channel Special Edition TOS 1998


----


Outer Space. The last frontier.


These are the trips of the Star Trek Enterprise.


Its 5-year plan...


Calls for us to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations.


To boldly fly where no man has gone in space.




Patrick Stewart on SNL 2/5/94

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huh? | Report this post to moderator
By: Beckett (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 19:02:05 on Jun 14, 2004

What does it matter? It all goes into and comes out of the same pot?! Like one Government Dept fining another?!

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Nemesis had all the right buttons there waiting to be pressed, but like Data on a Reman keypad Paramount seem to have pushed the wrong ones. :/

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Cut BUDGET or Licensing Fee? | Report this post to moderator
By: covetom (Odo's file, contact) @ 18:00:15 on Jun 14, 2004

My understanding was that the TV Guide article says that Paramount has cut the licensing fee it charges to UPN to buy the show to $800,000 per episode, not that it has cut the actual production budget of the show to that. In other words, Paramount may still shell out $1.7 million or whatever an episode for its production, but then sell it at a loss to UPN so that they will get the episodes they want for syndication. If that's true, it would have no effect on the actual production of the show.

Are you sure it's the budget that's been cut?

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=Tom=

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Less Than Half!!!! | Report this post to moderator
By: Mr. Xindi (Odo's file, contact) @ 17:51:07 on Jun 14, 2004

Maybe with a smaller budget, it will force the writters, lead by Many Coto, to come up with more creative stories, rather than SFX.

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Faxanadu: You're a lier.

Mr. Xindi: I tend not to lie as I'm not good at it.

---------------------

22 new episodes of STAR TREK left!

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History repeats itself | Report this post to moderator
By: dave (Odo's file, contact) @ 17:49:28 on Jun 14, 2004

This is exactly what they did when they moved the Original Series to Friday night at 10 in the 60's. Just goes to show the confidence the powers that be have in Enterprise.

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That clinches it | Report this post to moderator
By: Ensign Ro-Your-Boat (Odo's file, contact) @ 17:44:12 on Jun 14, 2004

1) ENT has been moved to the worst timeslot on network television.

2) ENT's Executive Producers/Creators have essentially walked away from it.

3) ENT's budget has been drasticlly reduced.

Remind anyone else of what went on behind the scenes before the final season of TOS aired? Do the math -- season 4 will be ENT's last.

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"My hours are slumberless. Dearest the shadows I live with are numberless. Little white flowers will never awaken you, not where the black coaches sorrow has taken you."

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This is ridiculous. Time for war against UPN! | Report this post to moderator
By: Garak11 (Odo's file, contact) @ 17:39:24 on Jun 14, 2004

Geez...that's low.

Unless Paramount productions is willing to eat some cost to make the show does well in syndication, forget about this show going beyond the fourth season.

After you pay for salary and set cost, there's not much left with a $800K budget.

They should have just cancelled the show. I won't speak for anyone else, but I'm angry about this. A cut to $1.2-3 million wouldn't have crushed the show, but this is ridiculous.

If anyone wants to do something about this, let me know. I'm in politics and know where all the red buttons are to push.

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Battling evil and the right wing since 1964

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