You can put that down to Manny Coto. He came on as a writer in season 3, then moved to showrunner for season 4. The less Bermaga, the better, apparently. Thank God VOY kept them from ruining DS9.
That’s right. That rings a bell. I’d forgotten about that. He really turned it around to the point I was genuinely sad when it got cancelled despite hating season one.
He verged on fan-fic, though. And I loathed his wasting an episode on “why Klingon makeup changed.” :rolleyes:
Holy shit.
Season 1 of Enterprise was nine years ago?!
See, I’m the exact opposite. That’s exactly what I wanted the show to be: filling us in on the backstory of the universe we had grown to love. Otherwise making it a prequel of a well-established set of series makes no sense.
Granted, it would grow from that, but the distinct lack of feeling like we were actually in the past is what hurt the show for me. The only thing that sort of worked was the transporter, and even it was too convenient and worked too well to be treated as if it were somehow something to be wary of.
The only way I was able to finally watch the show was to pretend it was an alternate universe. And, then, towards the end, it started feeling like Star Trek. And Afflicition/Divergence to me epitomized that change.
Showing sealots, sand storms and nictating membranes just to show how cool he was, for example, like someone who writes fan fic in their parent’s basement.
And Surak was such a wimp! I’ve always picture him as Mark Lenard, a big guy who chose peace and logic rather than a wimpy guy who had no choice. 
But yes, generally Enterprise improved quite a bit at the last.
I found it quite amusing that they went to that length. Not as amusing as Worf’s “We don’t talk about it” reaction though …
They should have left it at, “We do not speak of it.”
It’s been a long road… 
I really liked the fan fiction episodes about the klingons, actually all the episodes with old characters were great imo. But theres no accounting for taste after all.
The virus ridge thing just seemed silly to me. I’m glad that you enjoyed it.