Written by James Fohl
April 28th, 2005

If you have been paying attention to the media in the past month, then you have probably heard something about the latest Star Trek television series, and its abrupt cancellation. Star Trek Enterprise is shown every Friday night at 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, and every Friday it finds itself in the very last position on the viewing rating scale.

Why Has So Much Attention Been Given To The Cancellation Of A Mediocre Show?

For a show that has already had four seasons, many people are wondering exactly why there has been so much attention devoted to the cancellation of a show that, for the most part, should have been cancelled a few years ago. After all, the ratings for the show are absolutely terrible, and most people that watch the show ask why the show is even still on.

The reason the show is still on the air is due to the work of the die hard fans of Star Trek, known as trekkies. Last year around this time, several organizations started popping up all over the internet with the goal of saving the show for another season. While organizations such as SaveEnterprise.org had managed to get a fourth season of their show, the extreme efforts of the organizations failed to secure a fifth season.

If you asked any die hard fan of the series if the fourth season has been any good, they will immediately reply with comments such as "Of course!" and "Best season ever!". This is primarily due to the fact that after last season's fiasco, Paramount hired a new team of writers in high hopes that they would be able to turn the show around.

New Story-lines, New Writers, New Everything Can't Save A Show When Nobody Is Watching

And they did just that; write explosive new story-lines that really actually made the show watchable. The only problem that still remained was the fact that the show had a very small audience. UPN also refused to really spend much money advertising Enterprise, and thus Enterprise's fourth season pretty much declared itself as the last season.

Still despite the official statement of cancellation from Paramount and UPN, die hard fans still continued with their organizational efforts to save the show. The fans quickly mounted protests in front of the offices of Paramount and UPN but gained nothing. Then some fans came up with an idea to collect money from the fans and pay for a fifth season; something that has never happened before with a television show.

Although Paramount quickly told the money collectors that the decision to cancel Enterprise was final, the die hard fans continued to press on. Eventually however fans stopped donating money, and the SaveEnterprise campaign officially ended their stance.

Four seasons of a mediocre show are enough, especially when the show comes in last place of the ratings almost every single week (and the weeks it did not come in last, it came in next to last). The producers of the show have realized this, and it is time for the fans of the show to realize this. Perhaps after a few years of hiatus, Star Trek will come back, but until then the die hard Trekkies are just going to have to accept that Star Trek Enterprise is not coming back, and they are going to have to find a new activity for their Friday nights.