Star Trekking & Shark Jumping

I recently had an epiphany regarding the Star Trek franchise, and felt I should share. I have conclusively determined that, despite popular belief, Star Trek: Voyager was actually the most successful Star Trek spinoff series. I know, I know... there are many who would say The Next Generation was the definitive spinoff, and up till recently, I may have agreed. When viewing the various series in the context of precisely where each one "jumped the shark", however, I found quite to my own surprise that Voyager never did!

Historically, the two most conclusive indicators of a TV show "jumping the shark" is when they make a major change to the plot or direction of the show, or when they make a major cast change. Here are my exceptionally unbiased observations:

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Major Cast Change - Swapped out Beverly Crusher for Dr. Pulaski: Such a bad decision they ended up having to bring Gates McFadden back to the show.

Major Cast Change - Sent Wesley off to Starfleet Academy: The best decision they could have made!

Jumped the Shark - Season 7: OMG! They got so desperate for plots they actually had the Enterprise "evolve" into it's own f@!$ing life form! Worst writing... ever.

Conclusion: TNG was going along just fine until Season 7. It's sad, really. They just ran out of good stories to tell, it seems... or the writers started smoking crack. Either one would yield the same lame-ass plots they started coming up with as the series wound down.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Major Cast Change - Adding Worf to the Cast: OK, now I love Worf. Who doesn't?! But let's face it, the only "successful" character move from one series to another was Chief O'Brien from TNG to DS9. And the reason this was successful was because on TNG, he was a supporting character, a recurring role at best, like an Ensign Ro or a Lieutenant Barclay. Then when O'Brien transitioned to DS9, he became a main character on the show. That's why it worked. Worf, on the other hand, was a defining element of The Next Generation. Trying to integrate him as a primary character on DS9 was a recipe for disaster. I don't care how much of a bad-ass you are, you can't define two shows. There's a reason "Frasier" was a success and "Joey" is a piece of crap!

Major Cast Change - Recasting Dax in the last season: I don't know about you, but I had a little thing for Terry Ferrell. The new girl they threw in there at the last minute was cute and all, but didn't have the history of Jadzia. I just couldn't get into it.

Jumped the Shark - Worf and Dax get Married: Oh My God. I had so been rooting for Worf and Deanna Troi! Screw Riker!

Conclusion: Sometime after the Dominion War ended, things took a real turn for the worse in the DS9 shop. Now don't get me wrong; the Dominion war was a pretty sweet idea, and I think it worked well while it lasted, but after it ended, they just didn't have any good follow-on material. The whole Worf thing and Jadzia thing just screwed up the plot too much and, I believe, led to the cancellation of the show.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Premise/Direction Change - The Xindi: OK, I admit I'm a bit disappointed with this. I actually believed the whole Xindi story arc was going to work. They were going along for the first three seasons, pretending to be TOS with older (but oustandingly newer-looking) equipment, and, quite frankly, not doing very well in the ratings department. But when that bad-ass energy beam raked across Florida and boiled the Carribbean in the first moments of the Season 2 finale episode and sent the show spiralling headlong in a completely different direction, not only did I draw a certain amount of personal satisfaction, but I also believed it would be the defining moment of a soon-to-become-successful series. Well, I was wrong. It lasted a season, ... then it all went down the shitter.

Premise/Direction Change - The Name Change: Now this was one of the stupidest things I'd ever seen any TV show do, let alone a Star Trek spinoff series. On episode 3 of Season 3, the writers or producers or some idiot thought it would be a great idea to succumb to media convention and change the name of the f@!$ing series! They'd been going along for 2 seasons being all cute and edgy by dropping the "Star Trek:" prefix and just going by the name "Enterprise" when, all of a sudden, the guys in charge of the franchise watched the opening credits and cried out "Oh my GOD! You left that out?!". Like we weren't going to know it was a Star Trek series or something. I'm sorry, but you're just not allowed to do that! It's like if "Friends" had been on the air for 4 seasons, and then in the middle of the the 5th season, the Rembradts start playing their familiar tune, and BAM! the title of the show has been changed to "Buddies"! Sure, we all know that "Friends" and "Buddies" are essentially the same thing. We know that it's the same show, same cast, same premise, but you can't just go and change the name in the middle of the series. C'mon!

Premise/Direction Change - The "Temporal Cold War": Ouch. This one's alittle tricky, sice the "change" was there from the first episode. I just think the writers went alittle overboard in their desperate attempt to bring an aspect of the future to a "prequel" dealing with events that happened before the original series. While it was an interesting concept, I think it was not very well placed in this particular series, and possibly allowed the writers "too much" flexiblity in just pulling plots out of their asses.

Conclusion: Let's face it - Enterprise had a lot of problems from the get-go. Trust me, I had high hopes, but the series was doomed from the beginning. First off, Scott Bakula just didn't work. And without a good Captain, you can't have a good Star Trek series. Don't get me wrong; I like the idea of trying to resurrect the star of a classic sci-fi show and giving him a new series as much as the next guy, but I think the only time that actually worked was with Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate: SG1 (whose recast I'm still very pissed about, but that's a whole 'nother blog entry!) Alot of people also complained about the whole "prequel" feel of the show. The lack of shields, comfort with transporters, or decent phasers, etc. Personally, I didn't mind this too much and thought setting the show before the original series offered some unique plot opportunities (of which only a precious few were exploited - the Andorians, for one...). But I think there were too many fans and newcomers that just couldn't get over the fact that the writers were trying to fill a gap in Star Trek history, and just wanted to see sweet new technologies (which is undoubtedly cool as well). As it's short, 4-season run attests, this Enterprise was a mere shadow of Star Trek's former self.

Star Trek: Voyager

Major Cast Change - Getting rid of Kes; adding Seven of Nine: OK, I don't know how they did it, but they made this work! I loved Kes and her multiple ear ridges, but somehow they made her departure believable enough, and happened to get a good (pronounced "hot") enough new character to replace her. We'll just forget about the fact that the elimination of the old and addition of the new characters happened on the same day.

Premise/Direction Change - Actually, it's just worth mentioning that Voyager never changed it's premise or direction from Day 1. One of the most successful decisions of the show, I think.

Conclusion: So here we have a show that made no major premise or direction changes, and had only one major cast change, ... which they actually managed to pull off. Their plots never got intolerably ridiculous, and they had a very satisfying series finale. The evidence speaks for itself. Star Trek: Voyager was, in fact, hands down, the most successful Star Trek spinoff series.

Even I can't argue with them apples...