MovieChat Forums > Crusade (1999) Discussion > Regarding SF: Why does Hollywood kill th...

Regarding SF: Why does Hollywood kill that which it doesn't understand?


Has anyone else noticed that Hollywood tries, deliberatly or not, to destroy any good SF that crosses it's path.Crusade, Firefly/Serenity, and nearly B5? I don't mention ST:Enterprise because that was killed by B&B. But I think that ST:E reinforces the argument since that pair of bafoons would have been permitted to keep things going for the standard 7 years if it wasn't so transparent that they couldn't tell a good idea if it slapped them in the face. And by that I do mean that ST:E's universe had the potential for good stories. It just wouldn't have worked with the ST franchise.

I wonder if there is some way, other than watching BSG as though it was a religion, of supporting The SciFi Channel. They are the only ones who are close to getting it in my opinion and had Crusade, or Firefly, or even ST:E found their original home on SciFi I think that they would have not only made it but in the case of ST:E I think that Manny Coto would have been on the staff a little earlier to save the show.

Just my $0.02
-- Chris

P.S. I'm here because I got the Crusade Boxed set for Christmas. After watching it again I've got to say that I find the show to have been so compromised as to be close to unwatchable.

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> Has anyone else noticed that Hollywood tries, deliberatly or not,
> to destroy any good SF that crosses it's path. Crusade,
> Firefly/Serenity, and nearly B5?

Networks, not necessarily "Hollywood," destroy just about everything that does not immediately take off as a hit. Hollywood didn't almost destroy Crusade, TNT-***ATLANTA*** did. Were it not for TNT-***ATLANTA***, we would have had a first season of Crusade that had a logical viewing order.

FOX Network did its best to destroy Firefly/Serenity (through mishandling/mismarketing and no faith/quick cancellation), but FOX Network does that with most new shows, not just sci-fi. I haven't watched FOX since Wonderfalls (~4/2004) for that very reason.



> P.S. I'm here because I got the Crusade Boxed set for Christmas.
> After watching it again I've got to say that I find the show to
> have been so compromised as to be close to unwatchable.

Hmm, after watching Crusade many, many times, I find only a few scenes here and there almost unwatchable. Most involve TNT edicts, JMS physics mistakes or JMS awkward dialogue.


KoshN - Brimstone [Stone lights a candle for the dead.] Gina: Who's that for? Ezekiel Stone: Me.

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Besides the obvious truth that Hollywood is run by a gang of Chimps that likely pick their movies by the amount of violence in them, I don't have much advice to offer. That does not mean that I have no advice to offer. Lobbying? The age old method of convincing! If we want these people to not interfere or cancel a gem of an idea in the ash of other series, then we need to directly lobby! Write the studio letters or call them up. That way those very low life forms might not destory the next great idea, like Crusade!!!!

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dont forget Farscape!

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Crusade sucked. Farscape was The Muppet Show in Space. Serenity the TV series I never saw, but the movie is great entertainment.

ST: Enterprise was a huge disappointment. The series began well but ran out of ideas very quickly.

Did I mention that Crusade sucked, utterly and completely? Because it did.

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Ok crusade sucked and I have to say that even if TNT interfered it isnt that which is the problem ...the problem is for one the cast "Gary Cole" as a captain ?? He played Russel Limbaugh for god sake, and the IPX guy was bleak at best.
That and all the guest roles sucked... and some other thing what made B5 exciting for me was the political games etc.
Ok I needed to get this of my chest because I bought the 5 seasons and couldnt be happier and then I came to tis *beep* it was the worst finale ..

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Crusade was only planned as a short series not lasting much more than 10 episodes. I wish they would have gotten around to filming a final episode. How much more would that have actually cost. It would have been nice to see them cure the plague.

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Crusade was planned as a five-year-long show, same as B5. TNT cancelled it before it aired and before the last 3 episodes of the first season were filmed, because Babylon 5 wasn't adding to their core audience (the core audience stopped watching while B5 aired and returned when it stopped, and the B5 fans watched when the show aired and stopped when the show stopped).

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FWIW: If you listen to the commentary form the CRUSADE box set, JMS says that during the {planned} 5-year run of the show, the plague was actually going to be cured in about 1 1/2 years. Then it was going to be discovered that someone in Earth Gov or Earth Force [I don't remember which] had some ties with the Shadows, and because of that the Exaclibur and it's crew were going to end up as fugitives on the run.

"...It's origin and purpose still a total mystery." -- 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

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Mmmm... yeah.... that's division vice president Bill Lumbergh mmmkay. Did you get the memo? We're putting cover sheets on all the IMDB forum posts. I'm also going to have to ask you to move your desk up against the far wall.

*takes your stapler*

Gary Cole as Bill Lumbergh... apparently also played a character called Bob Russell.

Has nothing to do with Rush Limbaugh.

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Crusade sucked.
[....]
Did I mention that Crusade sucked, utterly and completely? Because it did.

You know, repeating a unsubstantiated bit of juvenile drivel does not give the statement one iota more validity.

KoshN - Brimstone [Stone lights a candle for the dead.] Gina: Who's that for? Ezekiel Stone: Me.

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"Farscape was The Muppet Show in Space"

I would have said the same thing until I watched the whole series a year or 2 ago. Not sure how much you've seen but give it a shot from the beginning, you might like it more than you'd believe.

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The Network was wise to cancel this. It's just bad.

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MY SLEEPER MOVIE REC FOR MAY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia1EYZK-72Y

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If by wise, you mean underhanded and calculating , yes. TNT wanted out of the Crusade deal NOT because of any good/bad determination of Crusade's quality or its ratings, but because science fiction is a bad fit for their core audience. A lot of Crusade's problems arose out of TNT's manipulation, which was really just an effort to get out of paying for Crusade as they had agreed, SO THAT they could use that money for LAW & ORDER reruns, which is what they did. Highly underhanded and rotten, but not illegal. So, they did everything they could to sabotage the show AND make sure it went nowhere else where it might be a success (which would make them look bad.).

That kind of behavior does NOT deserve to be praised or condoned.

KoshN - Brimstone [Stone lights a candle for the dead.] Gina: Who's that for? Ezekiel Stone: Me.

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No, Enterprise was deliberately killed by UPN. B&B aren't to blame for absolutely everything.

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Er.... ST:Enterprise sucked since the first episode. From the odd-ball opening to the cheap T&A scene within the first 30mins.

I found the show to be childish, unoriginal and the usual STANDARD characters types. I think I watched the first 3-4 eps, then about 2-3 eps per season if I was at a friends home. UPN didn't kill Enterprise.

- couldn't they come up with a name that is not the bloody ENTERPRISE? And quickly - they got the teleporter thing working quickly for those "quick" escapes. The characters act like TV-Kiddie shows in regards to social interaction and sex/nudity.

Firefly in comparison was 10x better. More complex characters, more original and actually funny. FOX was completely stupid - I would have prefered 5 years of Firefly than the 13eps + movie we got. (PS: to the poster who only saw the movie; check out the series - too bad you saw the movie first as character development & past stories would have made the movie even better)

Battlestar Galatica (BSG) currently on AIR is HOW you make ADULT, Original and well made Scifi Drama. Characters are complex as real people are (To some people, I am nice, to others I am not for various reasons or situations etc) Special Effects are well done (not enough thou) but damn they've done some great things such as during the revolt in the beginning of Season3 when the ships come in - HOT. BSG is the only Scifi show that is better than Firefly in the past 10 years.

We'll see how the new Star Wars series goes...

PS: my idea for a COOL Star Trek series (which is a cool universe to play in) is more like Outer Limts - but a bit longer to help keep production cost down.
IE: Do short stories of about 2-4 Episodes (Much like the OLD Dr.Who) in which they may or maynot have anything to really do with each other.. or perhaps do.
It can jump from OS, NG to Movies time line. But they are not to have much, if anything to do with characters we already know... maybe in passing. "Oh - hey theres the Enterprise..." as it passes by at a dock.

- Don't have to worry about cast costs going up year by year because they become "popular".

- Keep sets for 2 Tech periods (Original movies and NG/Voyager tech) so they maybe interchangable for the stories. Since they are in uniform - new clothes and ship types don't really need to be made from scratch - even with CGI. We all enjoy seeing the Reliant class in action.

- Because the none of the characters are NOT main cast - for STORY, a ship and crew can be destroyed in the end. (Hey happy times - meet people, they discover something cool - then suddenly Borg appears and ends up blowing up the ship) - You can't do that with a long-term case like Voyager where you KNOW that nothing WILL HAPPEN to the ship or Capt and core crew. Where is the sense of "danger"?

If producers of ST want to give me credit for this, that would be nice ;)

PS: I had an idea for a Voyager type series 5+ years before the series, but it involved the Enterprise D... ;) It was supposed to take a season or so to get back home.



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Regarding SF: Why does Hollywood kill that which it doesn't understand?

The answer is simple. Hollywood is run by a bunch of egotistical, arrogant, and close-minded idiots who wouldn't know artistic quality, integrity, and originality if it ran right into them.

Another reason why I certainly don't care much for the industry.

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Battlestar Galatica (BSG) currently on AIR is HOW you make ADULT, Original and well made Scifi Drama. Characters are complex as real people are (To some people, I am nice, to others I am not for various reasons or situations etc) Special Effects are well done (not enough thou) but damn they've done some great things such as during the revolt in the beginning of Season3 when the ships come in - HOT. BSG is the only Scifi show that is better than Firefly in the past 10 years.



Pleaseeeeee? That remake is the most unoriginal crap piece of garbge on Cable and satellite television today. Its a Babylon 5/Crusade wannabe with its "Newton Laws Of Physics" B5 already used to great effect.

Changing Starbuck into a girl and making the series overly cliched gritty with attempted rape and crappy humanoid Cylons (WTF?) who fill for the original 'tincans' cos they couldn't bother making the Machine Cylons into REAL threats and fleshed out enemies with character. Its a pathetic melodrama soap opera at best with poor trys at doing an adult sci-fi, and i'm sad at the amount of people who watch it and think its good when it clearly isn't. Neither Star Trek or Star Wars would never get remade like that at all, so why a classic series like 1978's Battlestar Galactica.

Pity Bryan Singer's continuation wasn't made instead, cos he would've made a worthwhile Battlestar Galactica that was truly ADULT and continued the original storylines from the classic series. Would you rank a hack like Ronald D Moore over Bryan Singer now? Mad man! One had the attitude of; screw the fans they're collateral damage i'm doing it my way. While the other wanted to continue the franchise with its original fans and tap into the extising fanbases and make all-new ones with an updated version for modern times cos it was a "sleeping giant" as Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto said at the time! Ron Moore has yet to produce anything original of his own instead he remakes existing franchises with unnecessary changes only sheep audiences out there lap up. 1.5 million on cable is still only 1.5 million in ratings so please don't go telling me the Sci-Fi Channel remake of Galactica is adult? if anything its not even excepted by its creator Glen Larson, which that alone speaks of how well excepted it is!

Without its famed science fiction/pseudo fantasy elements, Battlestar Galactica just isn't Battlestar Galactica nuff said!

And far as the crack about the new BSG being better than Firefly? Hah, somebody having a rather sick joke and its not even halfway funny!

Anyways moving on...

Regarding SF: Why does Hollywood kill that which it doesn't understand?

The answer is simple. Hollywood is run by a bunch of egotistical, arrogant, and close-minded idiots who wouldn't know artistic quality, integrity, and originality if it ran right into them.

Another reason why I certainly don't care much for the industry.


How true. you'd go nuts if you counted how many first run shows were cancelled in their first seasons without so much of a chance by the networks and studios.

Crusade was cut short too early in its prime. I'm miffed TNT didn't give it a full 22 episode run it should've gotten like Babylon 5 got from Warners, instead of the unusual 13 episodes it final got. As the main storyarc would've kicked in midway with a guest appearence by former Psi-Cop Alfred Bester, and several unfilmed scripts would've addressed and delved into the rogue Earth Alliance made 'Earth Gov/Shadow Technology' ship referencing elements from B5's Shadow War which would've led to one of several plot twists for the series down the road had the show continued on!


ST4



"He is one, we are three, it is the strength of three that will defeat him...together. General Zod"

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Hollywood kills what it fears won't make money. The suits don't care whether they understand it or not if it's a hit.

When Francis Coppola was trying to make THE GODFATHER, mob movies had tanked at the box office. Some execs at Paramount didn't want to make it; others wanted to update it to the 60s so it could have hippies in it. Coppola had to fight like hell to keep it a period piece (set in the 1940s).

After it was a huge success, then everybody wanted to make mob movies, and we've been deluged with them ever since.

I'll bet hardly anyone expected STAR WARS to make money. Well, we all know how that turned out.

It's the same thing in music and book publishing. People want to make a profit. So they want to play it safe. Every once in a while, somebody takes a chance on something new and different, and when that makes money, everybody jumps on the bandwagon and tries to imitate it.

It's unfortunate that the current marketplace doesn't give a lot of new shows more time to find an audience. STAR TREK almost got cancelled after two seasons --- but they'd aired almost 50 episodes by then.

I thought CRUSADE was very badly done. I tried watching it a couple of times and couldn't get past the wooden acting, the terrible pacing and editing, and limp direction. Maybe it could have been better, given a full season.

FIREFLY, on the other hand, has a legacy of 13 superb episodes (only 10 of which were broadcast), and at least it's developed a fervent following on DVD. In the days of the original STAR TREK, when a show died, it was gone with the wind. No tape, no DVD, nothing. For those who like CRUSADE, at least you have the existing episodes and can watch them as often as you like.



We report, you decide; but we decide what to report.

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Yeah at least Firefly and Crusade can stand by each other with roughly the same amount of episodes and be viewed within the same context as shows that had potential but neither of them were reached by the studios that canned them.

Whats worse is when a exec and studio can a series they know will develop into something much bigger and grander later on but go ahead and decide to cancel it anyways.

Morons.

I think it should be alot harder to cancel a TV series that takes time to develop over something as trival and complexed as TV ratings and deciding who's watching and who isn't etc. And canning a TV show even before its aired should be made out to be illegal somewhat.

Firefly's fate was undecided until the end evn if only 10 out of 14 episodes where shown for that series etc. B5: Crusade has gone down in history as a show that was outright canned even before it aired at all on TV. Fans moral for a petition to save a series that was already dead in the water was heavier than anything i ever saw, i wished and prayed for a second season to be picked up.

Alas no!

Those TNT executives deserve to be shot quite frankly!

ST4


"He is one, we are three, it is the strength of three that will defeat him...together. General Zod"

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Firefly could have been great if it not for Joss 'cheap hack" Wheadon and is masturbatory fantasies of super women.

Cowboys in space? In what world could that ever make any friggan sense?


All media industries, from newspapers to videogames are there to make money. they will go with something that has a higher chance of getting the most viewers/buyers etc. On one hand you could hate them and blame them for the lack of decent programming, but they are doing thier jobs.

Not that I agree with the choices these idiots have a habit of making, Enterprise for example, alienated the core Star Trek fanbase by ignoring much of what had been established with earlier shows and reduced the show to dawsons creek in space, in a weak attempt to open the show to the non-sci fi geeks. Both groups hated it, they were lucky to get 4 seasons out of it.

Many of the actors were greatly annoyed at how the show turned out but were contractually obligated to continue filming.

And don't think for a minute that you should rally toward the Sci-Fi channel. They are there because they see what could be described as a niche market. Every sci-fi fan prolly has or continues to watch programs on sc-fi. Most of their consist of re-runs and cheap filler shows and even cheaper tv movies. Very little innovative stuff.

New Galactica could have been great and very nearly was, this latest season has just let so many people down. If your definition of adult sci-fi is some awkward sex scenes that serve little to progress the story, then sure Galactica is how its done.

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And don't think for a minute that you should rally toward the Sci-Fi channel. They are there because they see what could be described as a niche market. Every sci-fi fan prolly has or continues to watch programs on sc-fi. Most of their consist of re-runs and cheap filler shows and even cheaper tv movies. Very little innovative stuff.
This statement has proven more true than you may have expected.

Executives at the SciFi Channel have decided that the "science fiction" niche market they're part of is too "restrictive." Effective July, they are renaming the network "Sy Fy" - and expanding their lineup to include more wrestling, fake "ghost hunting" shows, and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" episodes since they apparently believe that the 'nasty evil rapist' episodes are enough to past muster as science fiction/fantasy/horror.

Oh well.

Their heyday was somewhere around 1996-1998, when they showed good science fiction movies and repeated good science fiction shows.


I had already lost most of their respect as a network in 1999 when they outright refused to pick up the series - instead banking on a lineup of shows that they canceled because no one watched them and then canned MST3k because it was "too expensive" and filled up a 2 hour block of time on Saturday mornings (oh the horror!). Whatever shred of respect I had for the network 10 years later is completely gone.

"You've shown your quality sir. The very highest."

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I agree with you about the heyday of SFC, Theoden. I miss the days when one could turn on the tv every day at either noon or 1 and watch a "Rare" shortlived (17 eps or less) series. I miss the days when V, Alien Nation, both of the original Battlestar Gallactica series and Outer Limits, among others, were fixtures. They would show restored, nearly uncut animation and "B-films". Yes, there was filler, but still. And then, around 98 or 99, things stopped working. "The budget for the year is up". Um, how about they try to FIND the budget for a "short" season? I think that if JMS had been told by SFC execs that they would pick up the series and give it 8 or 9 episodes, essentially giving him a chance to conclude the first season, then he would have jumped at the chance. I believe that had we gotten a full first season, we wouldn't be talking about an anomaly in SF history, but rather one of two things. Either one of the best spinoffs/sequels in SF history, or one of the very best FULL single season series of all time. But things are what they are. I liked Crusade and it kills me that this happened to it. Damn TNT for medling and DAMN those at SFC for not trying hard enough. And no, I'm not sure I thank them for Legend of the Rangers, whose #'s were not as bad across the board as they claimed. I just don't think SFC wanted to make an extra effort. Cheap reality series and rehashed dreck means more to them and their bottom line then establishing a legacy of quality which could, in fact, lead to a higher yield in the end.

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Executives at the SciFi Channel have decided that the "science fiction" niche market they're part of is too "restrictive." Effective July, they are renaming the network "Sy Fy" - and expanding their lineup to include more wrestling, fake "ghost hunting" shows, and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" episodes since they apparently believe that the 'nasty evil rapist' episodes are enough to past muster as science fiction/fantasy/horror.


Actually, it's "Syfy". The new logo was pictured in the TV Week article. I'd put the direct/actual link here if links were allowed (They're not.).

Hmmm, lets see if I can fudge it and you can figure out how to reconstruct it.

(the usual stuff)DOTtvweekDOTcomUPSLASHnewsUPSLASH2009UPSLASH03UPSLASHsci_fi_channel_aims_to_shed_geDOTphp

UPSLASH is an ascending slash.



KoshN - Brimstone [Stone lights a candle for the dead.] Gina: Who's that for? Ezekiel Stone: Me.

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Not only SF. They kileld many great shows. For example jericho. It seems that there are too little people with our kind of taste in movies (altrough it wouldnt seems so as Jericho fans decided to send peanuts (mentioned last episode of season 1) to its creators, and they ended up having to rent two warehouses to store it in til lthey gave up and let thme make 12 more episodes). The person that decided to stop firefly should be shot in my opinion.

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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

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The person that decided to stop firefly should be shot in my opinion.


So should the people who decided to stop:

Strange Luck (FOX, 1995-1996) February 1996, 17 episodes.
Brimstone (FOX, 1998-1999) February 1999, 13 episodes.
Crusade (TNT, 1999) September 1999, 13 episodes.
The Tick (FOX, 2001-2002) January 2002, 9 episodes, 1 unaired.
Special Unit 2 (UPN, 2001-2002) February 2002, 19 episodes.
Titus (FOX, 2000-2002), August 2002, 54 episodes.
John Doe (FOX, 2002-2003) April 2003, 21 episodes.
The Agency (CBS, 2001-2003) May 2003, 44 episodes.
Keen Eddie (FOX, 2003) July 2003, 13 episodes, 6 unaired by FOX.
Peacemakers (USA, 2003) October 2003, 10 episodes.
Boomtown (NBC, 2002-2003) October 2003, 24 episodes (S1: 18, S2: 6)
Wonderfalls (FOX, 2004) April 2004, 13 episodes, 9 unaired by FOX.
The Class (CBS, 2006-2007) March 2007, 19 episodes. People's Choice Award Winner.
The Dresden Files (SCI-FI, 2007) April 2007, 12 episodes
Reaper (The CW, 2007-2009), May 2009, 31 episodes (S1: 18, S2: 13).

The ones responsible for stopping the ones in Bold should be shot twice.

KoshN - Brimstone [Stone lights a candle for the dead.]
Gina: Who's that for?
Ezekiel Stone: Me.

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notice how FOX dominate the list.....

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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

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notice how FOX dominate the list.....


Oh yeah! Noticed that long ago. FOX is the worst offender, and I didn't even include:

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (FOX, 1993-1994), May 1994, 27 episodes.
Firefly (FOX, 2002) December 2002, 15 episodes, 3 unaired. (because I was adding on to your post.)
Back to You (FOX, 2007-2008), May 2008, 17 episodes, 3 unaired. Watched in 2009 via Netflix DVDs.

Also, after Wonderfalls went down in 2004, I swore off of freshman series on FOX, and didn't watch any until Human Target, which just started on Jan. 17th, 2010. I expect Human Target to get cancelled in less than 13 episodes, probably in 2 or 3. However, because I expect that going in, I won't be disappointed when it happens. I watch each episode expecting it to be cancelled the next day. <shrug>

KoshN - Brimstone [Stone lights a candle for the dead.] Gina: Who's that for? Ezekiel Stone: Me.

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Enterprise was the best Star Trek series after the original. Enterprise, Firefly and Crusade did not deserve to be canceled. Season 5 of Enterprise would have gone into the Romulan war and made Shran a Enterprise crew member.


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I couldn't agree more. This thread has several folks maligning Enterprise and yes, the did go for some cheap T&A but once it got going it was a great show. It departed from the old ST ways, so it alienated some of the die hard Roddenberry types and I guess it was too optimistic and thus killed the folks who like dystopian stuff like BSG. I really enjoyed it and unlike so much other Sci Fi the sexual tension was hot and not weird. I'm an adult and I like a little T&A. Compared to cable it's quite tame. Oh and Shran is one of my favorite characters in Television, what a loss not to develop that character more.

That said, it really is sad that Sci Fi in the form of the space opera appears to be dead...for now anyway. It's my favorite genre and since the end of Enterprise, Farscape, BSG, Firefly and the various B5 installments I can't think of any. I think there is an audience for it and the web, Netflix and such provide a market for it. If you can have an Orange is the New Black, you can have a new space opera series.

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