Mark said:
More like "Some people are going to say that they think the show sucks no matter what we do, so we're going to make them say it before they see the show and have to rescind what they have said after viewing it. This will change the minds of some of the loudest, long-term negative fans and make the rest of the loudest, long-term naysayers look like they don't really know what they're talking about..."
I disagree. It's only a bad impression to some of the old guard, really. I don't think the promos are bothering completely new viewers at all. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they gain viewers using a ploy like that. Besides, claiming someone is going to die always translate to higher ratings...regardless of the show and regardless of whether they actually do die (by trick or in truth). It's a ploy to get people to tune in and once they have, then you have to impress them or distract them from how you got them there.
Well, if it
is their strategy, it isn't working. Ratings for last week's episode were some of the lowest of the season (source
TrekWeb).
There's a segment of the old guard that loves nothing more than to have something about which to complain (not round here, of course
). When folks have made up their minds in advance about a show (and many had before the pilot episode) the only way to change their minds is to constantly challenge their position no matter if it is based on fact or assumption. The more they can get people to say they thought they were going to hate it but didn't, the less often those same people are saying they hoped they were going to like it but didn't. The promo ploy (purposeful or not) is turning a negative spin into a positive spin which translates to better buzz and higher ratings.
I agree about the "old guard" factor, which I've found is true of most any community you'll find.
However, I disagree on the rest of it. The optimum for any show is to be gaining viewers as time passes. Realistically this barely ever happens except on a small scale - over the length of the individual shows. Even then, it's not frequent. Keeping viewers is only one side of the equation, which amounts to nothing more than holding steady in ratings. The reason focusing on this doesn't work is because almost universally all shows lose viewers as a season and entire run progresses.
The more important part of doing this is attracting new viewers, which you address below and I'll likewise comment on below.
The biggest obstacle to gaining completely new viewers is the ST long time fan base (myself included, mind you). There's a general perception about what a "Trekkie" and/or "Trekker" is. One facet of that perception is that the fanbase is inflexible and opinionated, and that perception is affirmed in some minds each and every week. If the current leadership of the franchise can get the ST fanbase to mellow out, no matter how, it can mean more new fans will come to the show...and with an open, untainted mind.
Well, as nice as that is to say, I think that it's much more complicated than that.
For one, you have the social stigma on science fiction in general. Sure, you have your
Star Wars, and your
Matrix, and so on, but those are the exception rather than the rule.
For another, it's unrealistic to expect Star Trek fans to mellow out, any more than it is to expect Yankees fans to mellow out. Fans are fans, and part of that is being inflexible and opinionated, no matter what you're talking about.
And again on another level, you have a social prejudice against intelligence. Now, I'm not saying all ST fans are intelligent - far from it. But science-fiction has always been a genre associated with a certain degree of intelligence, and very unfortunately as a society we just do not strive for that. I would say more, but that would be getting quasi-political.
Finally, you have a general level of cynicism in the Star Trek fanbase. A lot of this can be attributed to TPTB over there are Paramount. There are a fair degree of fans not satisfied with
DS9 (myself not included), a large number not satisfied with
Voyager, and then a good number that aren't too happy with
Enterprise either. There's a sour taste in the fans' mouths - perhaps because they aren't getting what they want. I would like to think what they want would be solid stories and solid writing, and a level of sophistication and intelligence that I at least feel have been lacking.
There's a lot more I could say on the topic, had I the time and motivation. Suffice to say that simply saying the fan base needs to mellow out is a gross over-simplification of the factors which lead to the difficulty of
Enterprise to pick up new viewers. I think there's a
lot more to it than that - some under their control, and some not.
To end this little tirade, obviously I am one of the ST fan base too, otherwise I wouldn't be discussing this with any care what-so-ever.
I too am holding out some hope for tomorrow's episode. At least for me though, it's reached the point where I expect the worst, and when I get something decent, that's great. Which is a really sad outlook for anyone to have about anything - settling for decent when you should expect and demand the best.
