"Franchise fatigue" and it's causes.

I have been reading a lot about Berman, his choices and his outlook over recent years so I don't think I am really jumping on the internet bandwagon on this, I also don't think he was the one who carries all the blame for Voyager or Enterprise.

If anything, I think Jeri Taylor was probably the bigger reason why Voyager failed with Braga coming in at a close second. That being said, Berman enabled them and put a lot of support behind them even when it was clear that they simply were not delivering meaningful results with the ratings.

Berman was called a "bean counter" by fans before the Voyager thing kicked off and I think that title fits pretty accurately, he is a businessman and probably a pretty good one but when you listen to and read interviews of the cast, you get the impression that he had a very narrow view creatively. He would stick to a idea even when it was clearly hurting the show.

DS9 suffered because it was probably a bit ahead of it's time. TV was still not at the place where long arcs were a good idea so it did make DS9 a bit difficult for non-regular viewers. Still, I do think it could have done better had Paramount put it's marketing weight behind it a bit more. It was never pushed as hard as TNG was initially pushed.

There have been some rumors that Berman was never really crazy about DS9, Perhaps it was because it had a team that was so entrenched that he could not really fit himself into it creatively. This is also why I think DS9 was able to creatively flourish while Voyager suffered. Berman had all his attention on Voyager because he was in a better position to influence it to his liking.

It is for all of the above that I consider Enterprise a great tragedy. We saw what it could have been with the last two seasons. If Enterprise had been run by Coto from the beginning, I think that show would have been much more popular simply because it would have been different enough from Voyager to excite people again.

There is a three hour interview with Berman on youtube and he gets pretty in-depth but it is easy to see all the things he is not saying. You can see that he simply was not great at recognizing talent and letting it develop on it's own. He had to control all aspects of it and in the process, he stifled it. This was seen with the Voyager cast and even in the first two seasons on Enterprise.

To put it simply, Berman blames franchise fatigue because he did not really see that his results were not very good. Had they been good, I think we would not be having this discussion and we would be watching a new series.

/r/DaystromInstitute Thread Parent