I’m moments away from starting my run-through of Star Trek: Enterprise. Having never seen a single episode of the series and knowing absolutely nothing about the show or its premise I’m going into it completely fresh. I’m aware that it was largely considered a failure but I’m not entirely sure why (I can guess). A comment in my Star Trek: Voyager thread implied that its writing turned to shit in later seasons (I don’t know how many seasons there are) and I’m about to find out for myself how true that is.
More the other way around, really. Enterprise was pretty much boring mush from the get-go; it takes until the last season (when a different showrunner took over) for it to get interesting.
I don’t know if you are looking for spoilers or want to discover for yourself. I’ll assume the latter.
The beginning had some references to ST history I found fun, technology that was new, rather than simply taken for granted as in later Treks, and so on. I enjoyed most of the series, but maybe I’m just easy to please.
slight spoiler ahead:
There was a drawn out arc based on time travel I found could get tedious at times
I enjoyed it, although it certainly had some clunker episodes.
They had the handicap of trying to look *less *technologically sophisticated than The Original Series, while still looking futuristic to modern audiences, which is a very tiny needle to thread. Especially when real life was already more advanced that much of Kirk and Spock’s world.
I didn’t know this was a prequel until now, but I like that we’re seeing a politically weak Earth that hasn’t even made contact with the klingons yet.
Reed’s fear of the transporter. I’m hoping beaming is a limited technology in the series.
Damn that T’Pol is fine. I liked hearing about her culture (vegetarian, refusal to touch food with her hands, etc) and seeing her eat the breadstick with a knife and fork (ultimately successfully doing so). I like what an asshole she is and how she and her people see humans as children. I’m expecting lots of Obligatory Sexual Tension™.
I like Captain Archer and the rest of his overwhelmingly human crew, especially Hoshi (her borderline panic attack during the klingon’s initial interrogation; Gesturing to the warp core, “Are you sure it’s safe to stand so close to that?”).
The copious fanservice directed at me (butterfly-eating alien strippers; T’Pol having to rub, uh, decontamination gel all over herself).
-The mother weaning her kid off of whateveroxide.
“I can’t isolate human bio-signs. They could be anywhere in the complex!” “Try Vulcan bio-signs.” T’Pol bangs on the window. “I found her!”
“You might think about recommending seat belts when we get home.”
“How difficult can it be? Up, down, forward, reverse, I’ll figure it out.”
“You tell 'em, big guy.”
“This mission would have failed without your help.” “I won’t dispute that.”
Things I didn’t like:
The CGI at the end of the cornfield sequence. Maybe it looked good for its time but CGI is something that doesn’t age well. I’d rather see good practical effects and camera trickery (at least obscure the effect: The scene where the intruders are scurrying along the walls while the lights are out early in the episode was done well) than poor CGI.
I really, really hate the title sequence. I think Faith of the Heart was a horrible choice. During my Voyager series-viewing I almost never skipped the title sequence because I thought its song was so good. I have a feeling I’ll be skipping this one every time.
Time travel stuff already? It’s only the pilot episode! Do the writers really think people love time travel plots?
The copious fanservice directed at women (Tucker having to rub, uh, decontamination gel all over himself; Captain Archer in his banana hammock).
Overall I think the show’s off to a good start. It entertained me and left me wanting to see more which makes it a pretty good pilot episode.
Jolene Blalock turns out to be a much better actress than I expected, and having her wandering around in a cat suit tended to help me overlook most of the shortcomings of the series. Linda Park helped on that account as well, although she didn’t get a cat suit, more’s the pity.
ooh! I forgot about the decontamination gel! They get contaminated a lot…
In my opinion, there are a lot of Star Trek fans that were dissapointed with this series because they expected it to be something other than what they got.
I think the impression was that this was going to be a show where we get see the gap between the 20th century and Kirk’s 22nd century gets filled in a little bit better. For example, the birth of the United Federation of Planets. The evolving relationship between the human and alien (especially Vulcan) cultures. Maybe some background on things that we see referenced in the Original series, like the Earth-Romulan war.
Unfortunately, what those fans got wasn’t quite what they were expecting, and I guess that was a huge let down for them.
The trouble for me with Enterprise was that it, even more than Voyager, forgot its main premise.
Enterprise promised the look at the time between now and Kirk. The ‘universe’ was smaller. You couldn’t have stories about Romulans, because we hadn’t met them face to face yet (*Balance of Terror *was way in the future.) No one had heard of Talosians, Ferengi, Q, Khan, The Borg, so you couldn’t write stories about them.
So what would the show be about? It was ‘supposed’ to be about how the Federation came together. About how a botched First Contact led to generations of hostilities with the Klingons, and how that led to the Prime Directive (somehow…). About the backstories behind the universe we already knew. The ‘birth pangs’ of the ST civilization as we know it. There should have been hints and foreshadowing of episodes from TOS or TNG. But with original drama and storytelling that could still stand on its own. The ship would have to get by without the reliance of shields or the transporter to rescue them when they got in trouble. Stories that acknowledged canon without becoming a slave to it.
So what did we get? “Hull plating” that had the same ‘plot power’ as shields, getting weaker as the story demanded. Stories about the Romulans, the Borg, Ferengi, and Khan’s people.
And we got original stories that conflicted with known canon. And stories that created what should have been future-memorable events (carving a crevasse across Florida) that no one ever heard about. Plus, nazis.
Maybe I’m the wrong age, or something, but “fan service” stuff like catsuited alien babes and decontamination gel are more embarrassing than exciting. I want good Star Trek, not “Skinemax” lite.
Just asking questions you have a point, but I’m not too sure about the problem with Khan’s people. I don’t remember the episode you are refering to mind you.
The time traveling messed up the timeline, you can think of it as being in in an alternate timeline, similar to the recent (shudder) Star Trek movies.
Episodes two and three were good, better than the pilot imo. I’m only three episodes in but I feel like the crew of the Enterprise is already better developed than many of the Voyager characters. My favorites so far are T’Pol, Hoshi, and Doctor Phlox (who should be a rapper - Doc Phlox would be a perfect name).
As to the complaints about plot armor/shields and the like, from what I remember of TNG that stuff has been there all along. I doubt I’ll notice continuity errors that exist between Enterprise and TNG/TOS because I don’t remember most of TNG (though I’ve seen what I imagine is close to every episode) and I’ve never seen TOS.
I do think Captain Archer is a bit too unprofessional.
T’Pol: “I recommend we conduct a survey of this planet so that we know as much about it as possible before exposing our crew to risk.”
Archer: “Nah, fuck it, let’s go down there now.”
Also, the value of fanservice catsuits and decontamination procedures cannot be overstated. I like my Star Trek like I like my women: In a catsuit and freshly decontaminated.
The timeline was messed up from episode 1, because Zefram Cochrane saw Picard’s Enterprise in First Contact, and when he designed more stuff to use on starships, he included viewscreens and padds, so they were already off into the “we’ll show whatever we want to show, regardless of canon” blue yonder.
That was the whole arc with the ‘auguments’ (season 4). Data’s great grandfather (or whatever) helped create Khan and the super humans. This research also led to ridge-less Klingons (“We do not discuss it with outsiders.”).
Depending on how one interprets the final episode, maybe nothing in the series can be considered to have actually happened.
Remember, Enterprise was running concurrent with the SDMB (as opposed to now :p) and so there were threads discussing (almost) every episode as they ran back in the day - for example, Enterprise Vanishing Point.
So, if you want to see the then current doper’s opinions on various episodes as they occured, advance search the forum for Enterprise and the episode’s name.
WARNING - some Enterprise thread comments may be snarky…