Old-timer Trek fans are useless: A response to Hunter
By The Flashlight

It's been obvious for quite a while now that Paramount has been chasing two different audiences with regards to Trek:

1. The "mainstream" audience.
2. The 18-49, young person, Spiderman 2 demographic.

Let us look at each one:

1. The mainstream audience - Trek is never going to appeal to a wide audience the way traditional dramas can because it will never completely shed it's stigma of being entertainment for overweight, acne-ridden 35-y/o virginal losers living in their parent's basement. People who don't already like science fiction & fantasy aren't going to just suddenly decide one day to start watching Trek, no matter how many cool explosions, decon chamber rub-downs and brief glimpses of T'Pol's buttcrack Bermaga throw at the screen. Dumbing Trek down by stripping the show of it's social messages and higher-concept sci-fi ideas in favor of standard action-adventure fare, essentially turning it into Andromeda Lite, isn't going to bring in a new audience. All it will do is alienate the old audience, which are the only ones keeping Trek alive. If I wanted to watch cheesy genre crap I'd tune in for the aforementioned Andromeda or Stargate. Trek is supposed to be something more meaty, more substantial.

2. The younger audience - this is no longer the 60's. Trek is no longer cutting edge (funny to think of TOS in terms of being cutting edge, but it was back then). Space flight is no longer science fiction, but a reality that has become so commonplace that a space shuttle launch no longer merits news coverage. Today's kids grow up in an age of home video game consoles, digital television, movies with CG effects undreampt of just 10 years ago, computer games of every conceivable sort, and of course the internet with it's neverending supply of porn. What is there about Trek in 2004 that is supposed to be compelling to the average 15 year old? T'Pol's boob? They can see that any day of the week by logging on and surfing the net. Explosions? Been there, done that.

Add to that the aforementioned stigma of un-cool nerdiness that has always surrounded Trek, and it's no wonder kids not only don't watch, they no longer even know what Trek is.

Starfleet Academy will bring in younger viewers? What makes you think so? That 15 y/o can tune in to see the OC for his weekly dose of trashy soap opera, and he'll get more exposed skin, naughty behavior and soft-core hijinks than Trek could possibly provide.

LOL! Isn't it amazing in light of the taudry exploitation of T'Pol that the fans once complained about Seven? Seven now seems downright demure by comparison, and her character Shakespearean in retrospect. As I've said in the past, let's give Jeri Ryan some credit for taking a juvenile exercise in female body part oogling and creating a half-way decent character that actually had some development over the years.