BEFORE AND AFTER:
Why [Star Trek Voyager] was conceived and why it ended when it did

By its fourth season [TNG] had come into its own as popularity surged. Paramount knew it had a hit series but they ended it at the end of its seventh season, when it was the highest-rated syndicated dramatic television series of all time. In late 1993, rumours of the impending cancellation shocked viewers and surprised some in the production company. To have a series cancelled due to poor ratings would have been different (Star Trek fans had wrestled with that one years before in order to ensure a third season for [TOS]). However, cancellation at the peak was inevitable - the three reasons below also explain why [Star Trek Voyager] was conceived and why, like [TNG], it was ended at the peak of its popularity.

Want to check which Star Trek series ran when, and which seasons coincided with those from another series? See FEDERATION & STARFLEET: Starfleet Uniforms: Chronology.

1. Cast fatigue.
   This condition tends to afflict cast members of long-running shows. They become physically and mentally exhausted. They start to crave financial independence. They do not wish to be typecast in a particular role.
   
    
2. There is also the motion picture market. A series has to end to facilitate the transfer of the cast from small screen to big screen, aiming for a series of feature films. Practicality and logistics of production preclude both small screen and big screen filming at the same time.
   The success of the Star Trek movies, built around the [TOS] cast, convinced Paramount they could indeed have their cake and eat it too. They decided that the [TNG] cast would end the small screen tv series and move to the big screen. An added incentive was that box-office revenues were falling from movies featuring [TOS] cast and the [TOS] actors were reaching an age when people wondered how much longer they would be willing, or able, to continue playing the roles.

   [TOS]:
   

   some of the posters for films featuring [TOS]-cast members;
   ultimately there would be seven in all

   With [Star Trek Voyager] in mind, several years ago, a senior [Star Trek Voyager] or Paramount executive (I forget whom, possibly Rick Berman; it was in an interview in TOSTW, I think) said that there would be a [Star Trek Voyager] movie, but it would be several years into the future and after the [TNG] cast had finished a run of Star Trek films, and then also it would probably, in being someone else's turn, be the turn of the [DS9] cast. It is possible that Paramount/Star Trek policy has changed since that interview. The precedent of the [TOS] and [TNG] movie successes also, at the time of that interview at least, influenced Paramount's strategy i.e. keep the revenue ball rolling while viewer interest is high.

   
    
3. The main factor is cost. In episodic television costs rise at a terrific rate year upon year - every aspect of production gets more expensive. It is especially true for a Star Trek series, which is already inherently expensive to begin with. A large portion is salaries and wages. When costs get too high, the casualty is the series itself.
   During [TNG]'s seventh and final season the 'pattern budget' for each episode was about $1.3 million, according to Tom Mazza, Executive Vice-President, Current Programs and Strategic Planning. (He and his boss Kerry McCluggage are Star Trek's ultimate bosses at Paramount Pictures.) By comparison, eighteen months later, Mazza said, [Star Trek Voyager]'s first season pattern budget per episode would be $1.8 million. Every effort would be made to maintain that budget during [Star Trek Voyager]'s second and subsequent seasons, but it was doomed from the beginning to be a losing battle. Built-in increases guarantee that year after year the per episode costs will escalate, regardless of budget planning to allow for such increases. Advancing technologies and higher vendor costs form a large portion of the increased expenses.

   But salaries and wages form a hefty chunk: some are contractual raises, others are "negotiated salary increases". Producers (from executive producers to associate producers) and certain other personnel outside of a labor union also work under contract. These contracts may initially spell out compensation for a certain period of time (e.g. two or three years) but in practice are re-negotiated well before expiry expires. This is true of contracts with actors, but is far from limited to them. Adding to the cost escalation is the periodic re-negotiation of guild/labor union contracts, meaning further wage increases. The biggest component of increased production costs over a length of time is ensemble cast salaries. For the cast of a highly rated series like [TNG] and [Star Trek Voyager], first-season salaries can be a pale shadow of later season salaries, unless the actors' contracts have built into them specific clauses designed to avoid precipitous annual salary escalations. The more popular and successful the show, as [Star Trek Voyager] undoubtedly is, the larger is the compensation people tend to expect, and that in turn drives the pattern budget higher and higher. As costs cannot readily be contained, the Star Trek strategy, born of experience from [TNG], is to run a series for a specific time and to plan early on for the next series. The 'Seinfeld' cast members demanded $1,000,000 each per week; ultimately something had to give - the series itself; although the 'Friends' cast demanded the same salary, got it and finished on a high after ten seasons. Escalating cost and its effect on a long-running tv show is not news to anyone in episodic television production - it has been that way for decades and is unlikely to change.

As regards [TNG], Paramount did not want a void in the television market when [TNG] ended. With such great viewer interest in Star Trek, the natural solution was to create a third Star Trek series, ideally before the last few seasons of [TNG] came to an end. That would allow the "old" to comfortably overlap the first season or two of the "new" and give the best chance that viewers would spread their affections to the new series and then shift them entirely when the old series ended. Because this worked so well with [TNG] and the third Star Trek series [DS9], Paramount decided it could work again....with [Star Trek Voyager].

[TNG]:

Likewise, as [Star Trek Voyager]'s end came in sight, and this time fans and production company knew from early on that the seventh season would be its last, Paramount wanted to take advantage of viewer interest. [Star Trek Voyager] ended in late May 2001 (in the USA) and [Enterprise] launched a few months later, in September. As [Enterprise] was to be a ship-based show, and also publicised as something radically different in Star Trek, it was not run concurrently, the way that [DS9] and [Star Trek Voyager] partly were with [TNG] and [DS9] respectively. Many fans and commentators felt that a longer hiatus after [Star Trek Voyager] was advisable, to prevent what I can only call "Star Trek fatigue", but Paramount decided not to wait. [Enterprise] fans in the USA are glad they did not.

(In the UK and elsewhere in the world, fans got (or suffered) a longer hiatus, because the gap between [Star Trek Voyager] ending and [Enterprise] starting was far longer than for USA fans. For it should be remembered that Star Trek airs first in the USA, with many weeks or months passing before being aired elsewhere. Apart from giving USA viewers the privilege of being able to watch episodes first (it is a USA show!), it is also a clever marketing ploy by Paramount as it extends the time over which interest in Star Trek is maintained, thereby also extending the window of opportunity for merchandising, and one should not forget the fact that Star Trek is repeated on various networks in the USA after its first airing which also extends its life. If I recall correctly, after [Star Trek Voyager] Season 5 had aired in the UK and elsewhere, I was still receiving e-mail from countries where only Season 1 was being aired. A longer merchandising opportunity brings a greater variety of merchandise onto the market, which is good for Paramount and fans alike.)

Unlike [TNG], everyone knew well in advance that [Star Trek Voyager] would have seven seasons only. The early announcement was probably to pre-empt the disappointment likely with a late announcement, but mainly it came to be felt, judging from [TNG]'s seven seasons, and then [DS9]'s seven seasons, that seven was the lucky number - long enough to keep the show and cast fresh and maintain viewer interest, with the feeling (amongst the writers at least, as expressed by ?Kenneth Biller, who had lead control over the writing for Season Seven) that it is best to go out 'on a high' and keep the fans wanting more. Hence seven seasons for [Star Trek Voyager] was the ideal number considered at the outset, and likewise for [Enterprise]. [TNG]'s, [Star Trek Voyager]'s and [Enterprise]'s ratings struggle in their early seasons is another issue, but I would like to note at least that it seems to take writers and fans about two to three seasons to "settle into" a show fully, perhaps due to initial "teething" with the creation of characters and the setting. I hope that those who have the power to cancel [Enterprise] would consider that.

The 'bottom line' for Paramount is the generation of revenue, but of course it is well aware that it is the millions of loyal fans who provide the revenue. Rather than simply produce a show for fans to "take it or leave it", Paramount's research department conducted focus groups around the USA. This is an ongoing activity, designed to continually monitor the pulse of the USA viewer. The resulting data helps the Studio understand viewer response to any number of questions and issues, from cast-member popularity to more philosophical concepts. Paramount wanted to know, among other things, how USA viewers would respond to a fourth new Star Trek series which might then run simultaneously with [DS9].

[DS9]:

By mid-1993 the Studio had decided that the answer was "yes", there was indeed enough room in the hearts and minds of USA viewers for just such a fourth Star Trek series.

The name of the new series was later announced as [Star Trek: Voyager].