Voyager on Spike TV
 

Hey!

Good news for the Americans. Spike TV is going to start playing Voyager episodes it looks like. They're having a marathon starting the 18th from 9 to 6 all week! ::Shakes in anticipation:: Wheeeee!

Yikes. Makes you wonder what's to stop you from taping all of them.

Downloading them!

Or if you follow the law, that other thing........what was it.....? Oh! buying them.

Woohoo! I've always said that Voyager will become more popular once the reruns are widely syndicated like TNG -- now we'll see if I'm right.

Hmm... you know, I have a hard time seeing ANY modern sci fi series becoming popular in syndication, regardless of critical/personal perception of quality. It's just a knee-jerk reaction for many viewers flipping through channels to race right through anything with spaceships and rayguns.

Also, I'm not sure syndicated reruns are quite as big an indicator of popularity as they used to be. I think DVD is the new syndication, actually. Where before, people might have wandered upon shows accidentally (particularly when there weren't so many channels to chose from -- a factor in Star Trek's success story, no doubt). Now, people seem a little more aware. DVD sales are a good indicator of the word-of-mouth popularity of a show. And it doesn't hurt that you don't have to wait until a show reaches 100 episodes and a network decides to pick it up anymore. Now you just head down to Best Buy and pick up whatever you hear is good.

Of course, there are other factors at play here, including price. I doubt Voyager could have been a success story no matter what at $100 a season.

If someone is too snobbish to appreciate spaceships and rayguns, then they don't deserve scifi, or Trek for that matter.

I buy all of the "good" Trek tapes as I find them, but there are a LOT, especially when some collections are one episode a tape and some are two.

Nate, you could really stand to develop your appreciation for good marketing.

First, you don't understand how Nintendo's nomenclature decision plays into a much larger plan to make video games less intimidating to people who have never touched a video game in their lives, thus broadening the market and increasing their marketshare this generation in regards to the competition.

And now, you take an elite attitude toward sci fi which doesn't much allow for a cunning producer to reimagine and repackage the sci fi experience into something more mainstream and palatable for the masses.

Like it or not, both industries are indeed popularity contests, and reaching out beyond the population of already indoctrinated geeks and nerds is a perfectly rational business decision. There's a reason shows like Heroes and Lost have more of a popular, mainstream following than any modern incarnation of Star Trek could hope for. And I have a hard time believing Nintendo's simple, easy-to-remember system name is not playing a large part in its rapid word-of-mouth marketing success.

While I agree with the this (mainly the Wii stuff) nate did hit on something that drives me mad. Films. I like Star Trek. I like certain other shows. And while I understand the need to make these big screen outings 'accessible' to the main stream, I can't stand when they ruin it. And they really do seem to do it to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Computer Game Genres. I watched a movie a while ago, called Sin City. It's not my thing at all, but is a very well crafted film in it's own right. I found it to be full of things that you would only know if you read the book. Like they decide to make a film for the fans (I guessed from the look on my friends face as he watched it).
Now I understand that they want to make money, but I wish that sometimes a 'good' faithful film would be made, instead of a million billion pounds in profit!

Okay, here's the kicker: step into your Wayback Machine and go forward in time fifty years. Ask anyone if they've seen Lost. I'll bet you get a negative. Ask if they've seen Star Trek: The Original Series. Positive. No question.

When it comes to the Wii/Nintendo decision, I'm a snob, and you won't convince me otherwise. Who needs an "easy-to-remember" name? If you have and use a console, you say the name a dozen times a day. You could call it the "Nintendo Grypzonigizatorate" and people would remember it. "Hey Bob, have you played Metroid Prime Grypzonigizatorate yet?" :)

There's got to be a name that appeals to a wider demographic that doesn't seem pandering to the old-school gamers. Even Nintendo Gyro would've been an improvement. Nintendo Remote. Nintendo Infrared. Nintendo Wifi. And so on.

Sin City was a good example of a hit that transcended fandom. In my experience with friends who've seen it, most haven't read the original comics. And those who have thought the adaptation was spot on. And the movie was successful enough for a sequel (or sequels, if reports are to be believed). Lord of the Rings is a similar phenomenon, where a film series which catered pretty closely to the geek material gathered enough critical momentum for an academy award (not to mention its box office take). Batman Begins? V for Vendetta? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Spiderman? The list goes on.

A project, regardless of its medium, can simultaneously cater to fandom and new fans. And the upcoming Trek XI must do precisely this if Paramount expects the franchise to rise again any time in the near future. Its a very lofty task indeed -- think about how much the Trek name has become synonymous with all things uncool for how many people. I don't envy the producers one bit.

The wayback machine can go into the future too? Sweet.

Regardless, it doesn't really matter what people will remember and what people don't. The recognition of the term Star Trek (and let's face it, for most the term means Kirk and Spock and maybe a vague recollection of a bald guy) isn't what matters at the moment. What matters are the associations people make with that name, in conjunction with good marketing and positive word-of-mouth. People may have heard of Star Trek. But how about its latest incarnation specifically? And what do they associate with the term? Great television, or nerds with poor hygene? How has the buzz of Star Trek in the past... let's say five years compared to the buzz of Lost? This is what matters right now to the people who decide what shows to produce and what shows to cancel based on their popularity. And right now, financially speaking, Lost wins. Period. Sorry, that's how the game is played. The Star Trek property has potential, certainly, which is why another film is in the pipeline. But take a look outside of your own perspective for a little while and see what mainstream filmgoers/ television viewers will actually spend time and money on. Because that's where the franchise needs to go.

Nintendo doesn't care that you already have a console and call it by its proper name daily. Nintendo cares about the people who it could potentially sell a system to. They needed a name with a hook that was easy to remember and would hook potential buyers. Notice that they don't even include Nintendo in the official name -- it's just three letters you have to remember, and two are the same. Sure, they could've called it something else. But the name they chose met those criteria (while "Revolution" certainly does not). The name is chosen. It is printed right on the final retail version of the console that is sitting in front of my TV. I'm amazed there's anyone around at this point in the game still clinging to the silly codename. Especially when Nintendo's decision to drop it might very well be playing a critical role in assuring that Nintendo participates in the next generation of video game consoles.

The only problem is, the list is rather long for films that it didn't work on. I'm guessing rather more.
Super Mario Brothers? Resident Evil? The last few Treks?
I'm a fan of Resident Evil. I play it, because I like everything it is about. Everything that happens in it. But the movie tries to become too mainstream. They want to make it simple for non-fans to watch. Now I would think that was a nice thing, if it wasn't for the fact that they are just trying to make as much money as possible.
Yes it did work with, say, First Contact, and I love it to death. And It's not as if I'm saying that I don't agree with what Nintendo are doing. I think it's fantastic. They deserve a flipping medal! But a game console and a movie are too very different things. I just feel sometimes that it would be nice to if the movie makers didn't try to cast such a huge net and focus on the people who allowed them to make the movie instead.

Honest answer? Lost.

How many people have seen Safety Last! with Harold Lloyd? Not me, I know. How many people know the scene with him hanging from a clock-face? I'd wager quite a few.

Or a closer example: How many people have seen Fritz Lang's Metropolis?

Lost is doing reasonably new things in a fairly exciting way. Certainly, the very, *VERY* strung out plot is new - how many shows have simply refused to answer the questions they ask?

Finally, predicting the future is a mug's game. I predict in fifty years, more people will recognise 'Pyramids of Mars' as classic sci-fi horror than will know WTF 'The Parting of the Ways' was. I will in all probability be proven wrong :)

TOS, to be fair, was pretty much just another 'space cowboys' show.

I hope that anyone on this site will confirm that Trek was never "just" anything. That's the point. If Trek was "just" anything, it would've died with TOS.

::raises hand:: I won't say I liked it, but I watched it. Very strange. And the original book by Thea von Haribou was even harder to get through.

Classic Trek's structure may have been "cowboy space opera," but the writing raised it far, far above that.


The difference between appealing to a niche audience and appealing to the masses is that mass appeal fades faster, because you simply can't be all things to all people all the time for very long. Pick one or two things and do them really well, and your audience may not be big, but it will be devoted and long-term. The LOTR movies were able to straddle both mass appeal and geek chic because they were three, finite movies. Done. ENT succeeded in quality when Manny Coto took over and started telling stories for the core audience. The great unwashed of the TV audience doesn't want the same thing the core audience wants, so making a series in a niche franchise and then pitching all the stories to the mass audience is like a guaranteed recipe for failure. The mass audience won't be interested in the premise and the core fans feel bored and betrayed.

Now, once Nintendo gets folks to buy the Wii, then what? What's the strategy to make them repeat buyers of the next platform, or the more advanced platform? Because the mass audience of video-game players will not have their interests permanently captured with Wii; they're going to go on to the next fad -- iPod phones or dogs with GPS built in or whatever. Nintendo has to turn them into core fans, into more interested gamers, or they will only have a sales blip (however large).

That's a good point. I agree that Wii Sports and the like is fun and mass-marketable, but where's the holding power? There's no evolution of gameplay. Everyone has their level of competance (or incompetance as it may be), and once the ceiling is reached, it's reached. OOT has holding power, almost ten years later. Goldeneye has holding power. Tetris has holding power. And so on.

Okay, is anyone here not a Nintendo fankid? Because the ability to derail a thread into something Nintendo-related these days is astonishing.

The Astonishing Nintendo Fankid! There's a comic book for you. :)

Oh, and you can blame ijdgaf for bringing the Big N into this thread. ;)

It's not just here. I'm noticing that conversations with my coworkers devolve into conversations about the Wii. Sometimes the DS.

Just to completely derail the conversation, I found the Wii vs PS3 spoof of Mac vs PC hilarious.

EDIT: This could conceivably not be totally worksafe, depending on just how strict they are or how paranoid you are.

My point exactly...TBH, I doubt that many people have. Sure, everyone has *heard* of it, but how many know that much about it?
Really? I can't remember that many times when it broke the mould, y'know. Most of the perception-challenging etc came toward the end TNG/DS9, IIRC.
True, but the masses are what make the profit, hence why we get $h!t like 'Torchwood'.
Um, can I just say I hate Nintendo?
*ducks being pelted with rotten tomatoes*

it's kind of like Citizen Kane or the LOTR books -- what was astonishing and groundbreaking then is so commonplace and part of the landscape now that we can hardly imagine what it was like when it first debuted. "Science fiction on TV" was cheeseball stuff like Flash Gordon. You wouldn't expect Flash and Dale to handle interracial kissing (let alone inter-species bootknocking and procreation) or arms escalation. Yes, sure, there were plenty of clunkers (The Gamesters of Triskellion, Spock's Brain) and plotless tripe (That Which Survives), but there was also real heartbreak (City of the Edge of Forever) and contentious issues (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, A Private Little War, the aforementioned interracial kiss). Science fiction was just not the genre used to tackle powerful questions back then. Hell, did TV in general even go there, in any genre?


No argument. Unfortunately.

*raises hand*

I'm not even a gamer.

Sorta difficult to visit sites like this one and remain completely unaware, though.

What about real conflict between characters, some random psychosis, and actual development of the character?
I take your point on the heartbreak and some contentious issues, but they tend to be handled in about as heavy a manner as possible, and you do tend to be fed a single viewpoint as 'right'. Obviously in some, 'Battlefield' being an example, there are clear distinctions. However, in the case of 'A Private Little War', we do get a muddy issue handed to us with a clear 'this is good, this is bad, now believe it' outcome.

Also, these are offset by some real tripe...

Worksafe? Can we actually have people in the room who use the Web for personal use on COMPANY TIME?!?!?!? How shameful!

Has anyone here actually eaten tripe? It looks awful.

No. IMO, it's called 'tripe' for a reason :p

Uh, yeah. Another case of truth in advertising in action. Tripe doesn't pretend to be anything other than tripe. So many people's lives are enriched by the elimination of accidental tripe use.

On the other hand, there's menudo...

Ugh, I did not need to know about that.

fsdgsdgsd.

I watched some more Voyager yesterday. Now that it's rerunning I'm seeing if I can relive the glory days.

Apparently I cannot, for each time I've watched, I've just sort of wanted to throw things at the TV. And throw things at Janeway. DEFINITELY THROW THINGS AT JANEWAY FDSFDSAFGKL.

Funny how quickly one can go from one end of the spectrum to the other.

That's cause Voyager didn't get *good* until like the 3rd season. We're still in season 2 reruns. Threshold was on the other day. Oi! lol

My brother claims to actualy like threshold... but i think he just says it to bug me ;)

Or even lizard you. :)

I can see why Trek canon would be better if Threshold never existed, but I gotta admit that it has some cute moments. "Doctor, I need to talk!" "I can see that." :)

If I'm honest...I rather liked that episode. Before I used to go on the net, and hear what other people before. Right back when I first watched it. I like it. Ok, now I can see that it mucks up the 'order of things'... but I really rather like it.
I watched Insurrection tonight, on TV.
God, I want some new Trek. I'd take anything!

Yeah, but what? They announced Trek XI awhile ago, but we should've had a teaser by now, right? What happened?

I think that it'll be a LONG TIME before they try a new series. Seriously long time. I wonder if it'll be another Enterprise series. Here are some ideas off the top of my head:

Another 23rd century show. Another Constitution-class ship. We could do Kirk et al voiceovers as cameos. Revisit some of the old TOS planets. What happened to the gangsters from A Piece of the Action? What about the researchers studying the Guardian of Forever? What's the Gorn culture like? Did they ever discover more Preserver technology, or the reason why so many planets are "just like Earth?"

A Federation colony in the Gamma Quadrant. There's another Founder in residence, maybe a Jem'Hadar officer. The best of both worlds, really. New species, new empires, and all that, but you can still call back home via DS9 for help. Do DS9 cameos, maybe have Nog be a senior officer now.

Now that the Borg have been destroyed, the Federation has sent another starship to the Delta Quadrant. The transwarp conduits are in tatters, but thanks to the technology Voyager found, we can create a sort of transwarp jump gate. A catapult, if you will. Sort of an artificial wormhole, but due to the power source and subspace characteristics of the region, you can only "jump" at certain times. Like the unstable timer on Sliders, it might be five minutes until the next opening or two days. We've admitted many Voyager races as new Federation members. The Talaxians, the Ocampa, and so forth. A new menace has united the Kazon, the Malon, and so forth. Perhaps a race that the Borg rejected for assimilation and now they actually WANT to be Borg, want to be "better" through cybernetics. Too bad the Collective is basically destroyed. These guys are tracking down former drones and dissecting them one by one, looking for the key. The Kazon and Malon have no idea about this, for the Baddies have fed them a line of bull about taking over the Federation for their own purposes. Now our intrepid Starfleet crew is trying to spread the Federation in the Delta Quadrant, making new friends, perfecting the catapult technology so that any ship can hurl itself between quadrants, all while fighting the Baddies.

A small group of Starfleet cadets have proven themselves worthy to be given "extra-curricular" tasks. Send them to Vulcan to help uncover some ancient ruins from before the Romulans split off. A Klingon ship has gotten lost in a nebula; we need to find them. Starfleet has discovered a planet where no one ever matures beyond the early twenties and won't trust "fogies."

I still like it, too. So the story is somewhat implausible, scientifically.

Somewhat.

Meh, big deal. Great performance from RDM. http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s/thumbsup.gif

And he spits out his tongue -- how many times do you see that? Huh? Huh?

I guess the major problem I have with Threshold is the whole "all we need for Warp 10 are uberdilithium crystals." Seriously, "warp fields" and "omnipresence" don't exactly overlap that much. I'd have preferred some sort of chamber that creates a subspace field that accelerates anything inside it to "Warp 10." The object is reconstituted in another Warp 10 transporter pad. It might be across the room or across the quadrant. The ubersensors would just detect and materialize anything travelling at omnipresence speeds.

Well, aren't there some webisodes online somewhere. I think even real Trek actors are in them and everything. I couldn't give you a link atm, but i'm sure if you did a bit of scratching at Google you might find 'em.

http://www.newvoyages.com/ (This one has used a number of former Trek actors -- I think I heard J.G. Hertzler is going to be in an upcoming ep.)

http://www.starshipexeter.com/ (Dennis Bailey is one of the people behind this one.)

There ya go. Thanks Mudshark :D

I knew about New Voyages already, but I've yet to enjoy it, thanks to being in dialup exile.

Oh well that sucks. I feel for you and your kind. ;)