First let me preface this by saying I’ve been a “Star Trek” fan for almost 40 years, just about the beginning. I first watched “Star Trek” on a 5 inch black-and-white television set when the original series was syndicated in the early 1970s after its three year network run had completed. My intent is not to bash “Star Trek” or any of the individuals involved in its creation, but to look at why the most successful franchise in television history rapidly lost the loyalty of its fans in the 1990s and what it will take to regain that fanbase.
When “Star Trek” premiered in 1966 it was intended as an hour-long drama with action and adventure. But it was also much more. The original series featured many stories where alien worlds and cultures were used as a metaphor for stories which would be too controversial on television. It’s difficult 40+ years later to appreciate just how daring this was.
The episode “A Private Little War” showed two superpowers (the Federation and Klingons) arming rival primitive tribes in a surrogate war, echoing the Soviet Union and United States supporting opposing sides in the Vietnam War. Another show focused on over population and birth control – verboten topics in 1960s television. Remember, this was an era where it was controversial to show a belly button on television and commercials for birth control wouldn’t exist for another generation.
“Star Trek”’s biggest controversy was "Plato’s Stepchildren" where Kirk and Uhura were forced to kiss. It was television’s first interracial kiss. When the series was syndicated many television stations in the Deep South didn’t show the episode, or edited out the controversial scene. In the 1960s an interracial kiss was as controversial as a gay kiss would become in the 1990s. Another 1960s series, “Batman”, nixed a scene where Batman and Catwoman held hands in a fantasy sequence because Catwoman was played by black actress Eartha Kitt in that episode. Kirk and Uhura’s kiss was a significant landmark for television.
The best of the “Star Trek” movies were the ones which concentrated on the characters, and character driven stories. “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” is the record holder with $109 Million in theater sales (in 1986 dollars). With inflation there’s no doubt that the new 2009 movie will exceed that record.
With the success of the “Star Trek” movies in the mid 1980s Paramount studios decided to give a “Star Trek” weekly series another try, but this time as a syndicated show. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” started in 1987 with big shoes to fill. It took about a year before the series settled down with consistently decent stories. Some of the shows had underlying themes or messages but most were just good entertainment.
Creator Gene Roddenberry promised a group of gay “Star Trek” fans that a “Next Generation” story would feature gay characters but it was never produced. Ironically the excuses the producers for the later “Star Trek” series gave for not including gay characters echoed the same reasons other series gave for not including interracial relationships in the 1960s through 1980s. “We didn’t want to alienate our fans”, “It’s best not to be controversial”, “Nobody wants to see it”, “We don’t want to write a storyline just because it’s an interracial/gay couple – it’s got to be a good story which happens to have an interracial/gay couple,” etc. Two half-hearted attempts with sexually ambiguous characters came off as not daring to be anything special. Something as simple as having two men holding hands while walking down a corridor was never shown, although there were plenty of male-female couples in the background.
The original “Star Trek” featured television’s first interracial kiss, but no gay kiss ever happened on “Star Trek.” So “Star Trek” intentionally ignored the opportunity for the first male-male gay kiss on television and that honor went to “Dawson’s Creek” instead.
Actor James Marsters (Spike on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) noted that he was a big fan of the original “Star Trek” series and admired that it was brave enough to have the first interracial kiss even though it did offend many viewers in the 1960s. He added that he was proud to be on a show with the first gay kiss between teenage female characters who were in love with each other (not just experimenting or a ratings stunt).
It wasn’t just not willing to take a risk with a controversial topics which caused “Star Trek”’s decline. With the later “Star Trek” series the focus shifted from people oriented stories toward action oriented stories. Bigger budgets and more sophisticated special effects capabilities made this possible. There were still many people oriented stories but fewer controversial topics. There were far fewer stories where the setting was used as a metaphor to tell a big controversial story. A notable exception was “Deep Space Nine”’s “Far Beyond the Stars” where racism and sexism in the 1950s is examined in an excellent story (and one of the rare cases where the actors playing aliens were seen without their extensive makeup jobs.)
By “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Enterprise” “Star Trek”’s original vision was lost. Action stories of good guys fighting bad guys became more common and as a consequence the bad guys became more two dimensional and less interesting.
In the 1990s there were almost always two new “Star Trek” series in production, with “Deep Space Nine” overlapping “The Next Generation”, “Voyager” overlapping “Deep Space Nine”. But as “Enterprise” started production the writing on the wall became clear – “Star Trek” was slipping in the ratings and the fans were abandoning the new series. Many would try the new “Star Trek” series for a couple of episodes and then stop watching. The fans who continued to watch included more and more who were just watching out of “brand name loyalty.”
While “Star Trek” in the second half of the 1990s was still good science fiction, it wasn’t great science fiction. The viewing public had many choices – “Babylon 5”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Stargate SG-1” and its sequels, etc. And more and more often the new versions of “Star Trek” were not their choices anymore.
“Star Trek: Nemesis” opened in 2002 and “only” made $67 Million, barely breaking even. It was the last of the movies featuring the Next Generation cast. By 2004 the UPN network was ready to cancel “Enterprise”, even though “Enterprise” was one of UPN’s key series when it premiered in 2001. The ratings for “Enterprise” were so bad that UPN had to give its advertisers free commercials. To make this possible the length of episodes were reduced another 30 seconds. In many cases a repeat of an episode which had aired earlier in the season was reedited and a scene removed to accommodate the extra commercial. “Enterprise”’s first season had almost six million viewers but it had lost over half of them in just three years. This was a series that was clearly in trouble.
Paramount desperately wanted a fourth season of “Enterprise.” An additional season would mean additional syndication sales and an additional season of DVDs. In a drastic move Paramount agreed to reduce the price of the show to UPN with the hopes of making the money back through syndication and DVD sales.
Ironically many feel “Enterprise”’s last season featured its best stories. The new producers included ones who were long term “Star Trek” fans and the stories included ones which echoed back to the original series, including the popular Mirror universe. But it was too late and UPN made the decision to pull the plug. It was the first time since the original series that the decision to end a “Star Trek” series was made by the network instead of the producers. May 13, 2005 marked the last time a new “Star Trek” episode aired on television since “Star Trek: The Next Generation” premiered in September 1987.
While Paramount put “Star Trek” on the shelves it didn’t abandon it. The DVDs, books, and licensed products continue to sell well – a billion dollar franchise. Paramount executives made the decision to restart their biggest franchise with a new creative team at the helm and turned to director JJ Abrams. Abrams was well known to television audiences for “Felicity”, “Alias”, and “Lost” and did an excellent job with “Mission Impossible III.” Abrams agreed and the result is 2009’s “Star Trek”, a reboot of the franchise starting from the beginning, with Kirk, Spock, and the other characters meeting for the first time at Starfleet Academy.
The movie is well made and will almost certainly become a summer blockbuster and its success will guarantee at least one and probably two sequels with the same cast. Maybe this is what it will take to invigorate the “Star Trek” franchise. Hopefully the new creators will recognize that besides action and adventure it’s the characters and stories which made “Star Trek” what it was in the first place.
products from Amazon.com.
from Amazon.com.
with the episode “Far Beyond the Stars” from Amazon.com.An excellent history of attempts to include a gay character on “Star Trek”.
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