Heard the news? Star Trek: Enterprise will be scuttled in May.
Enterprise was not a favorite. From a promising start it quickly and inexplicably lost direction, running contrived plots with an unbalanced cast. The show came off like a pulp comic book, much more about action and sci-fi esoterica than characterization and familiar faces. Leads were rarely developed, let alone their support — after four years, some actors will have received most of their screen time during the opening credits. Production evened out by the end of the second season, the show's third year offering an interesting serial arc; the fourth (and last) season a succession of very attractive, three-episode story arcs. Not enough.
But Enterprise was better than Star Trek: Voyager, the weakling, third spinoff that wasted seven seasons' worth of a one-hour Wednesday night time slot. And Enterprise appealed to a broader audience than traditional Trek — which is how Star Trek: First Contact took the 1996 box office by storm. Ratings aside, Enterprise is hardly the worst thing the United Paramount Network has to offer. As my buddy Ed asked: what is UPN going to do now, run Veronica Mars twice? Bring that old Sinbad pilot out of cold storage? It's reasonable to quietly cut funding and drop slot priority, and try for a profit from DVD sales. Cancellation be damned, Enterprise's first season should be out by early summer. But to take a successful franchise with three full television series runs in a row — nearly a dozen movies — and let fans and critics alike know just how little you think of it all by cutting off three seasons early?
Paramount's reasons probably have more to do with Voyager and the twin yawns of movies Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis. Still, cancellation is a rash move. The only benefit would be Trek's worn-out producers taking the hint, moving on and handing the reins to somebody who can rediscover Roddenberry's character-based style that so propelled Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Speaking of which, I'm borrowing a library copy of Deep Space Nine's fifth season. The end of Enterprise isn't such a tragedy when there's always Trek to be found.