We've given answers to most of these questions above. Why don't we read them?
In general:
Enterprise is the next series in a 30--plus year old franchise that has become a part of pop-culture world wide. It has spawned four series, an animated TV show, nine feature films and innumerable books, comic books, action figures, scholarly articles lunch boxes and parodies.
Grandmothers who have never watched an episode of any SF TV series have a rough idea of who Kirk and Spock are, and when Jay Leno makes a Klingon joke in his monologue, they get it. Millions of
Trek fans around the world buy almost anything with a Starfleet symbol on it, and the newstand sales of most major magazines jump whenever they do a feature article or cover story on
Trek
Rangers is TV movie based on a TV series that most
science fiction fans have barely heard of, and which barely managed to last five seasons, narrowly missing cancellation each and every year. The previous spin-off lasted 13 episodes. Nobody ever sold a lot of extra magazines because they had a
B5 story inside.
Enterprise is a confirmed series with a completed pilot and several episodes already in the can. It was in pre-production months ago. It is now mid-July. The show debuts in September, less than two months from now.
Rangers is a single TV movie. The CGI effects have just been completed. They weren't even available for the promo that Sci-Fi put together to air during the debut of
The Chronicle, they had to use old shots of the
Victory and
Excalibur from
A Call to Arms.. It is now mid July.
Rangers doesn't air until January. It is a little early to crank up the hype machine.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>We've seen reviews of the Enterprise's sets. Why not the new Rangers' ship?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Because the
Enterprise sets are still standing and being used, so that reporters can tour them when the show isn't shooting.
Rangers finished shooting a month ago. Odds are the sets were struck and put in storage so that the next production can use the soundstages.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>We've seen interviews with the Enterprise's new captain. Why not the Rangers captain?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The Captain of the new
Enterprise is an established American television star with not one, but two popular and critically well-received series under his belt. He has a two hour introductory episode and several other episodes to tell amusing "war stories" about, and has enough "material" that he can do several interviews without exactly the same quotes appearing in all of them.
The Captain of
Liandra is a relative unknown to U.S. audiences. He has one two hour movie to discuss, and will quickly start repeating himself if the interviews focus solely on
Rangers.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>We've seen interviews with Enterprise directors. Why not rangers?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Because there has only
been one
Rangers director and nobody wants to interview him five months before the picture airs.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>We've actually seen the new-old Enterprise as a stunt to maintain interest. What about the new Ranger ship?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Five months until we see the pilot. Eleven months before the series can possibly get on the air. Don't you think they might want to keep a few things to hype the show
with, instead of putting all their cards on the table now?
I must say, Sci-Fi fans are the whiniest, most suspicious bunch of people I know. If a network doesn't do
exactly what the fans think they ought to be doing - whether or not that is realistic in terms of production, promotion, marketing or anything else involved in the real world of making television - it immediately becomes a deep dark plot by the network to kill the project.
Like The Sci-Fi Channel just spent the better part of $4 million dollars making
Rangers, devoted a sizeable chunk of its face time with the TV critics in L.A. last week to the movie and is running teaser promos now as part of its major push for the rest of the 2001/2002 season because deep down they
really don't want to do it at all. Frankly, I blame this sort of thing on
The X-Files.
Everything has to be a conspiracy.
------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
[This message has been edited by Joseph DeMartino (edited July 17, 2001).]
