Site Columns
By MichelleApril 15, 2005 - 7:45 PM
Hello World!
After a 34-year absence, baseball has returned to Washington, DC...which means that I might not get to see the Enterprise season finale when everyone else does.
Don't get me wrong, I'm reasonably happy to have local baseball...as reasonably happy, anyway, as any average citizen who can maybe afford to go to one game a year could be. I live in Maryland just outside the District of Columbia, so it isn't my tax dollars that are going to build the Nationals a new stadium; my tax dollars, and the money for my children's educational future, was already spent building a football stadium in Baltimore so that the city could steal the Cleveland Browns, rename them the Ravens and let them play a whopping eight games a year at home. I've always been very happy sharing the Orioles with Baltimore - in terms of the traffic it's faster for me to get to Camden Yards than RFK Stadium even though as the crow flies I'm much closer to DC - and I'm biased towards American League teams, having grown up rooting first for the aforementioned Orioles and then for the Chicago White Sox, but I have no objection to an NL team in DC. I'll even root for them, except when the Cubs are in town.
But my local UPN affiliate carries Nationals games, and you know what that means? No Veronica Mars this week. No Enterprise next week. I don't have the schedule for May yet, but it's a good bet that at least one more Friday night will have its scheduling pre-empted for baseball. This will probably help WDCA-20 bring up its ratings, given how low Friday nights on UPN have been this season, but it will probably prevent even fans of Enterprise from catching the last episodes, as figuring out where the pre-empted shows have been moved can be quite difficult, since the station doesn't always tell TV Guide's online TV listings its intentions.
Earlier this week I wrote up an interview with Dawn Ostroff, the president of programming at UPN, in which she said that Enterprise fell victim to UPN's attempts to rebrand itself. The network is now targeting young women; the quality of programming, she insists, has gone up. And I agree with her: Veronica Mars is a terrific show. But what good does that do them if their local affiliates aren't obligated to show it at a time when people can watch it? What chance did Enterprise ever have when it was getting bumped off for basketball and other local sports?
If UPN wants to be a real network, it needs affiliates that show UPN programming, not when it's convenient, but when the shows are scheduled. Most of my family is quite happy to be watching the Nationals rather than Veronica Mars on Tuesday, and they won't cry about missing the Mirror episodes of Enterprise. But when baseball season is over, will anyone be watching anything on UPN? I doubt it.
Trek BBS Today
Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:
-Tell Paramount that you want the Animated Series on DVD!
-Who are your five best-loved science fiction authors?
-What planet are Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon from, and what exactly are the Jedi marriage rules, anyway?
More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!
Trek Two Years Ago
These were some of the major news items from April 2003:
- Berman Promises 'Significant Changes' In Season 3
Series co-creator Rick Berman said that Enterprise's season two finale would set up a new course for the series, calling the episode "not so much a cliffhanger as...a tantalising taste of what next season will bring." Berman said that the upcoming mission would occur over many episodes but would not constitute a serialised story arc:The stakes are the future of planet Earth. They're going to be sent to a part of space they've never been before; a part of space the Vulcans warn is extremely dangerous. It's kind of our quadrant's Bermuda Triangle.
- No Ratings Upswing On The 'Horizon'
Enterprise's ratings continued to decline for the third week in a row as "Horizon" scored a 3.5 overnight rating/5 share, down from early April's "The Crossing" which managed a 3.9/6 and the previous "Canamar" which scored a 4.5/7. - 'Enterprise' Up For Two Hugo Awards
The fifth Star Trek series nabbed two nods in the category of Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, with "Carbon Creek" and "A Night In Sickbay" picking up the nominations from the World Science Fiction Society.
More news can be found in the archives.
Poll Results
Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:
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30.7% - (890
Votes)Please vote in our new poll after you have seen "Bound" and rate this week's episode.
Happy Birthday!
Today, April 15th, is the birthday of Michael Ansara, who appeared as Kang on multiple Star Trek series. And Wednesday, April 20th is the birthday of the original series' Sulu, George Takei.
Today's Television Listings
Tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, UPN will show a new Star Trek: Enterprise episode, "Bound". Here is a synopsis of the episode:
After Archer forges a deal with the Orions, the trader presents the captain with a gift -- three alluring Orion women, who proceed to seduce all the men on board, except Trip for some mysterious reason. Meanwhile, Trip's continued presence on Enterprise begins to grate on new chief engineer Kelby.
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