Star Trek: Picard.

Una Chin Riley is an Illyrian.

Star Trek Theory: Picard Retconned the Divisive Enterprise Series Finale

Lower Decks will have to settle this!

If Lower Decks doesn't end with Michael Burnham saying "Computer, end program," I'm gonna riot

Eh, wishful thinking from the nerds. I love the fact that that series finale was a big finger to the ENT losers.

A. What is the article talking about that the Enterprise producers "tricked" anyone into greenlighting a fourth season? I hadn't seen anything previously suggesting that.
B. Maybe I'm slow, but how does the notion that the NX-01 got retrofitted after its last mission undo the notion that Trip Tucker went out like a chump? Even if that trip was thought to be its last voyage at the time, the retrofit just simply happened later.

From what I remember, the general consensus at the time was that Les Moonves let it ride for a season 4 so they could get as close to 100 episodes (and thus a syndication package) as possible and stuck it to Friday nights as they moved on to newer shinier things, like Veronica Mars.

No doubt fan response may have been considered but no one was "tricked" into greenlighting the show for S4

The argument seems to be that ending S3 on a cliffhanger was somehow a "trick" because Paramount suits wouldn't dare end the series on a cliffhanger.

Which a) is probably not true and b) the theory is probably confusing cause and effect. I can't see B&B saying "Ha ha, we have a cliffhanger ending to S3, so you HAVE to give us a S4!" and Paramount execs being like, "OOOH, you wascally producers!"

ALF ended on a cliffhanger.
It was still cancelled.

.

And nothing of value was lost.

UPN ended Moesha on a cliffhanger in which her younger brother Miles was kidnapped by her older brother's gangsta buddies and there was a random positive pregnancy test found in the trash, presumably to write in the pregnancy for Kevin Federline's first baby mamma.

I don't think studios care about cliffhangers

In the early 1980s there was a series on NBC called “The Cliffhangers” and each episode was three stories that ended in a cliffhanger. One was about Dracula as a modern college professor, one was a sci-fi Western, and one was about a female private detective. The show was hugely controversial for some reason and was cancelled before two of the storylines wrapped up.

That looks like 1979 television cheese awesomeness!

Sure you can end on a cliffhanger, but can you end on a cliffhanger with Space NAZIS?!!?