1. Series burnout, because Star Trek had been on the air constantly for about 20 years at that point.
2. Genre saturation; TNG was the only sci-fi show on TV at that point. When Enterprise came out, there was a whole channel for it.
3. Storyline glut; TOS/TNG had piled on so much history into what had happened that Enterprise became a historical. And quite frankly, few people are into seeing a historical, and Star Trek fans are notoriously "wankish" about details. And those who aren't Star Trek fans don't care and watch it.
4. Tech issues; when TOS came out, there was all sorts of future tech, which was cool. Enterprise, taking place 100 years before TOS needed worse tech. However, when Enterprise came out, our real-life tech was advanced.
5. Also, bad casting issues. Namely, Scott Bakula.
1. It's not that the series had burned out. It's simply that people just got done with Voyager, which wasn't good to begin with. Sure, there were some good episodes in the series, but the bad episodes far outweighed the good, from what I saw of it. Enterprise continued on with that philosophy, from what little I watched of it. I watched the first 5 episodes of Enterprise, and I thought it was boring and badly written, not to mention the first episode having to do with time travel, which can be a recipe for disaster.
2. Um, TNG ended way before Enterprise began. Also, it did not have a whole channel for it.
3. The issue was on the fact that the ship was called Enterprise to began with. Pretty much all historical data specified that Capt. Pike's ship was the first ship to be named Enterprise, especially the TNG episode Relics, in which Scotty asks the computer to show him the bridge of his Enterprise, and the computer tells him that there were 5 ships with that name. If you count the D, C, B, A, and the original, well then that's it. There is a theory that because of the events that took place during the movie Star Trek: First Contact, it altered history and that's why they named the first starship Enterprise. Heh, if you're going to retcon [parasitic bomb], have the decency to tell your fans.
4. Tech wasn't the issue, really. It's just that a good portion of the opening stories weren't very good. If anything, the idea of the first starship's tech was interesting, plus the notion of them inventing shields & phasers could have been appealing. Again, perhaps if they didn't name the ship Enterprise, give the show the awful opening song, and Rick Berman didn't have his hand in it, it could've been better. Hell, it might have been actually. I only watched the first 5 episodes, along with a 2 parter which tells of the origins of the Mirror Universe, which is actually very well done.
5. Actually, Scott Bakula was pretty good. A good portion of the cast were good, save maybe for T'Boobs, the busty Vulcan chick who somehow always found herself in the decontamination chamber. Overall, I think the problem were the stories. I'll explain further...
You see, when TNG first came out, the first season while interesting, did not have some of the best caliber stories as some of the later seasons of TNG. However, cause this was a brand new Star Trek series, after about 20 years of the original being off the air, fans probably didn't notice it as much. Plus, the new characters were very interesting. When Season 2 came around, the stories and writing started to improve, especially the episode where Q introduced them to the Borg. It's one of the best Star Trek episodes ever. Then Season 3 came around with much better effects, even better stories, and a season finale which, for all intents and purposes, is one of the greatest Star Trek & Sci-Fi stories ever told.
So around Season 5 or 6 they came out with DS9, which started off very slowly, probably worse than TNG, in terms of the story department. Berman literally described it, at one point, as a "space soap-opera" which is a horrible tag line to give your newly minted SCIENCE FICTION show. However, TNG for the most part, was still going strong so this could be overlooked. Then TNG finished and all that was left was DS9, which was still struggling a bit. It was getting slightly more interesting, but still not that great. So then Voyager came out. Voyager started off somewhat interestingly, although I'm not a fan of the first episode at all, mainly cause it's pretty boring. However, the premise of Voyager was actually pretty good. Voyager's problem was that the stories weren't very good, and really weren't getting better, while DS9 was starting to produce some of the best Star Trek ever, when they brought in Worf, the threat of the Dominion, and when Sisko transformed into BaldGoatee Sisko.
Then came the TNG movies, which for the most part, are pretty awful, at least in the context of continuity and story telling. Generations needs to not exist, First Contact is entertaining, but stupid, Insurrection is a long episode of the show, and not one of the better episodes, and Nemesis is also enjoyable, but has some interesting and pretty big plot holes. However, since we're still around the Generations-First Contact movie frame, DS9 was the best Star Trek on. Once that ended, all we were left with was Voyager, which started to improve slightly mind you (and I don't mean because of Seven of Tits either). It was still boring at too many times, the bad episodes still outweighed the good, and the ending to Voyager went the TNG route and involved Time Travel, except didn't do it as well. Not even close actually. Of course it might also have to do with the fact that I don't like the idea of the Borg Queen at ALL.
At this point, a lot of fans wanted them to give Star Trek a rest for a bit, or perhaps maybe a TNG-DS9 movie. Plus, around this time you had much better sci-fi shows on television, like Farscape or maybe even Stargate SG1 (if you liked the show). So when they gave us Enterprise, the idea was intriguing, but there were some questions, like why was the ship named Enterprise, when Pike's Enterprise was the first? Why go pre-Kirk or even pre-Pike? But, like a good fan, I watched Enterprise and gave it a shot. After 5 episodes, I was so bored that I just decided to stop. There was much better sci-fi on TV, and I wasn't enough of a Trekkie to force myself to watch anymore. Now, it's possible that the show got better. In fact, some people I've talked to said that the last 2-3 seasons of the show weren't that bad, cept for the ending. So I really don't know much about Enterprise. However I don't really see a reason to ever watch it. I managed to watch the only 2 parter I was curious about, which was the Mirror Universe one, and it was pretty good. Still not good enough to make me watch the series though.
Ono: "No matter what kind of ideas you all might have, we have something WAY better to offer. But I can't say more unless I want my boss Inafune hunt me down with a pitch fork."
A summary of his speech after they showed Marvel 3 at EVO. ^^;
A pitchfork? I figured he's use a Mega Buster!
