Don't get me wrong... I loved 'Nemesis.' I thought it was the first movie in the TNG era to really feel like a theatrical epic on the scale of the original crew's films (well, uh, most of them). It's gripping, it's got a great villian, it's got emotion... excepting a couple of continuity issues and some bizarre directorial choices, I think it's a blast.

But look at the numbers. The worst opening for any Trek film. The biggest drop in a second weekend (down 76%) of any movie in years. The critics despise it... indeed, the rather reviled 'Insurrection' got better reviews! It looks likely to finish with about $35 million. Smaller than any Trek film by far... especially if you start adjusting for inflation. It's close to getting merely half the gross of the next-lowest movie on the list.

Yet if you go over to the most popular Trek site on the 'net, TrekWeb, you'll find that most people who've seen it quite like it (check out the poll on the front page, currently with over 3000 votes from distinct indivdiuals). But it doesn't matter.

Couple this with how "Enterprise" is doing. Ratings are down two-thirds from last year's stellar beginning. In fact, the ratings for this season are only one-third the size of Voyager's ratings in its second season, and we all know how far Voyager fell. If Enterprise suffers a similar drop, expect this to be the first Trek series not to last seven seasons in quite some time. And the

What caused all this? Did Enterprise's failure hurt Nemesis? Was Insurrection's poor quality a blow to both? Did the reviews kill it? Was The Two Towers too close to the release of Nemesis, and the intense amount of crossover hurt Trek due to the high anticipation for TTT? Were people pissed by the injection of "new blood" into the franchise, in the form of an "outside" writer and director? Do the fans only want Berman/Braga, despite constantly complaining about them? What DO they want?

Whatever it is, things are grim for this once prosperous franchise.

If you ask me, they should end Enterprise early and take a few years off. Something like 5 to 10 years will help. Paramount will still make money off of the tapes and DVDs they release during that time, and then the demand will be up. Get some new blood, some real Trek fans who have a proven track record of quality television writing and producing to create a new series that takes the concept in a new direction, the way that only DS9 has. And see if you can't get a successful series. If you do, then maybe you can pump out an 11th film after that show ends.

Of course, no one asked me.

Your thoughts?