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 Post subject: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-21 12:35pm 

I'm young enough that I mostly watched this as a kid, so I'm wondering why it seems to be despised or not spoken of.

I did recently watch the series pilot, Broken Bow, but the worst thing there seemed to be Archer and the Vulcans trading insults, which while annoying doesn't seem to fully justify the attitude people seem to have toward it.

Although, now that I'm older it's glaringly obvious the real reason T'pol was put on the Enterprise...

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-21 04:07pm 

Mainly it's because Berman and Braga's writing was really really bad, and by the end of Voyager we were all sick of them and didn't want them going back and mucking up pre-TOS continuity. All of the worst of Enterprise was their doing.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-21 08:27pm 

I suspect this is nostalgia talking on your part. If you really think that's the worst that episode had to offer...you need to watch something outside of Star Trek for a while. If you want a good summation of the flaws with the show Enterprise, beyond the fact that it never rose to the potential of its premise, then check out some of Chuck Sonnenberg's Opinionated Episode Guide reviews at bliptv under sfdebris.

In a similar vein, I grew up with TNG and went back to watch seasons 1 and 2 again recently. By the sword of Kahless, were they terrible! I'm still surprised that the show wasn't cancelled.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-21 09:04pm 

The deciding factor on whether or not a show persists isn't the quality of the show, but how much people tune in to watch it, and if you think there's a direct correlation between the two, think again. Reality TV. Nuff said.
As for why people around here hate ENT, let's see-
-In the very opening two-parter, they managed to make the Klingon homeworld closer to Earth than any real-world star
-They shat all over established continuity. First contact with the Borg being TNG era? Nah, actually Archer ran into them first. Phasers being a relatively recent development in Pike's time? Um-we've had them since the 2150s, actually, only we dropped the final 'r' from the name. First contact with the Ferengi being TNG? Um-actually, we already ran into them 200 years earlier. Or how about the Akiraprise herself? Curious, no NX-01 in the Big E's ancestor's gallery in The Motionless Picture. ENT was an attempt to cash in on a franchise by doing a prequel while blithely ignoring everything it was allegedly a prequel to.
And that's before we get into the positively atrocious writing.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-21 09:24pm 

I'm one of the few around here who like Enterprise. I'll admit the show has an almost schizophrenic level of quality between episodes at times, but I found season 3 and especially season 4 to be as good as the best of any other Star Trek, and most of Season 1 was quite enjoyable. Season 2 is sort of where Enterprise keeps most of it's fail, and I imagine a lot of people stopped watching there. The producers actually realized this, because they shifted tones for the better over the next two seasons.

While the first two seasons have a few episodes and moments that are just painfully stupid, you really can just skip those episodes and have a positive viewing experience. Thing is, that's normal; even the very best shows have a few shitty episodes, and fans of anything will tell you about moments, episodes or even whole seasons they didn't like (Buffy seasons 4 and 6, for example), and this is especially true with Star Trek, which has always had hit-or-miss writing (Spock's Brain for TOS or the first two seasons of TNG) but for various reasons these episodes are harped on a lot more for Enterprise, especially by nerds raging about their precious canon and disappointment that Enterprise didn't fit into their personal opinions of what the past era of Star Trek should have looked like. When you venture outside Nerdland, you'll find the people who watched it generally liked Enterprise, because they don't get hung up on "oh noes they met the borg too early" and "man that one episode with the evolutions didn't make much sense".

Even knowing that, though, I don't understand how Enterprise gets more shit than Voyager, when Enterprise's shit was mostly confined to single episodes, and Voyager straight-up built it's show on saturated stupid and extended technobabble resolutions to every problem; to me, almost every episode of Voyager is on the level of the episodes of Enterprise I refuse to watch.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 12:12am 

Its been a long time since I saw it and maybe I wouldn't like it now, but I liked this episode. I thought it did a good job of having the Borg in the Enterprise era without contradicting TNG. It actually made sense at the end. I consider it one of the rare bright spots of Enterprise- there's a lot about the show I would bash before this.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 02:59am 

You think? They had a fairly in-depth encounter with the Borg, scans of their tech and drones, they even friggin' HAD Borg tech right there on the Enterprise to examine and the knowledge that they were calling for reinforcements. Yet by TNG's time it's all "Borg? Whozzat?" But hey, it's OK, because the Borg uncharacteristically refused to give their name when they did their whole "Resistance is Futile"-spiel.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 03:04am 

I might be remembering wrong, but my impression was that Starfleet's top brass did know about the Borg, as did some Federation scientists. Seven of Nine's parents, at least, were looking for them before Q Who, weren't they?

Picard didn't know about the Borg, either because the events in Enterprise were obscure (just one more strange alien encounter out of hundreds or thousands) or because it was classified.

There, see, no contradiction.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 06:51am 

Nope, the Hansons went on their merry way on the basis of a mere "rumor" they might as well have gotten from wandering El-Aurians. Enterprise was still full of assimilated borg tech, scans of their ship and drones and firsthand knowledge of their resilience and hostility at the end of Regeneration so they had hard evidence. The Borg also demonstrated the ability to turn a mere transporter into a weapon of war on par with Earth's most modern starship so calling that obscure veers into full-blown fanboy rationalization.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 07:13am 

They can upgrade a transport. Big fucking deal. The Federation has dealt with nigh-omnipotent creatures like the Organians, the Q, and Trelaine, with fucking planet destroying superweapons, gigantic alien probes that could casually wipe out a ship far more powerful than the NX Enterprise, and big hostile empires on their borders. Why would they make a huge deal out of this incident? The only notable aspects about it are that they were buried on Earth (and even then, they're not the only group of alien time travellers to turn up on Earth) and as I recall some drunken ramblings about them by Cochrane, which might have been discounted as too vague or unreliable.

In that context, Picard's ignorance is quite believable.

In any case, their are far stupider and more nonsensical things in Star Trek canon (Threshold, various time travel stories, etc.), so focusing on this seems a bit odd. Was it the greatest episode ever? No. But it doesn't deserve the level of hostility you apparently have for it.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 07:55am 

Yeah, buried on Earth and possessing a techbase way beyond that of any known species. The Enterprise struggled to maintain warp 5 and those cyber-zombies managed to upgrade a slower ship to be almost on par with that all by themselves. If Starfleet wasn't run by morons (and written by Beavis and Butthead) they should have been all over that tech and tried to replicate it. As you might have noticed, by then Earth was way beneath all other major starfaring powers in strength, especially the Klingons who were hostile on almost every encounter Enterprise had with them and known as bloodthirsty conquerors to boot (o yeah, and somehow living next door as well).


You can try and keep ignoring that the Enterprise had intact Borg tech on board at the end of the episode, but it won't help you. One scan of the Borg cube at J25 and one look into the databank should have told them that this isn't a "first contact".


Picard's ignorance is unforgivable in fact although that's not just ENT's fault. He was good friends with Guinan and she never told them about the cyber-zombies that blew her homeworld up? Bullshit.


What has the existence of worse Trek episodes to do with the fact that Regeneration was clumsily written? Nothing, that's what.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 10:00am 

As much of a canon headache as it was, Regeneration was still relatively entertaining and well-made compared to most of the rest of the series--it's evident when you notice that Braga and co stayed away from screenplay and direction.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-22 10:11am 

I tried really hard to give Enterprise a fair go, I really did, even though the first few episodes were blindingly mediocre. Then they aired the episode where they tried to dress genocide up as the "moral" choice, and I never tuned in again.

That's what made me despise the show, in any case.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 04:04am 

The opening music killed it for me in all honesty. Then all the time travel crap put the nails in the coffin. Never even got around to seeing who filled the hole.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 05:08am 

To be fair, there was a huge quality boost in season 3, and season 4 is what the show should have been from day one. There was exploration, arc stories, build up to the Earth-Romulan War, the first steps towards a Federation, and as if the show was coming into its own. But, as they say: too little, too late.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 05:31am 

Considering how good people said Season 4 was. I went back and watched it when it was on. It was at best mediocre and I gave up again after the transporter episode, which was so boring I went away in an add break and forget to go back.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 07:54am 

Season four has some real clunkers, but it's still an improvement over the previous ones. The best of season four massively beats the best of other seasons.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 09:04am 

I had the same issue with the music as Havok, and didn't give the show a chance at first.
By the time I had a look, it was up to the Xindi superweapon story arc, which I thought wasn't too bad. I distincly remember noticing the ship being more damaged as each episode went by and thinking 'This is so much better than Voyager'. I was unimpressed by the whole "interdimensional time travelling supervillains" thing.
And that's all I saw of it. The rest of the series could be really shit...
*shrugs, walks away*

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 02:26pm 

For a time, while I watched the re-runs of Voyager on Virgin 1, I thought it was much better than Enterprise. However, after watching Broken Bow and several other ENT episodes, I can honestly say ENT kicks the shit out of Voyager, although it still sucked sweaty things at times. The pacing, scripts and tones just seemed to click with me better, and ENT had the added bonus of not having the excruciating Harry Kim in it. Never could stand him, for some reason. Janeway and Neelix were and still are fine with me though

I can forgive the consistent molestation of the established time line, and the rather frequent moments of sheer stupidity, as I know VOY had many, many more of them. Stupid moments, that is, I have to commend Voyager for at least sticking to the continuity, as far as I know.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 07:03pm 

The opening music and the Temporal Cold War crap killed it for me.
I tried to watch a few episodes from each season but usually never managed more than one per season before walking away in disbelief.
As far as I'm concerned this is nothing more than a really bad fanfic and has no connection at all to the canon Trekverse of TOS, TNG & DS9.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-23 08:16pm 

I haven't seen any episode of Enterprise (and, to be honest, nor Voyager and DS-9), but from what I've readen on Memory-Alpha and here, I've a similar feeling. Of course, I'm not saying it sucks; the plot of some episodes I saw on Star Trek wiki looked interesting or even good.
To have an Enterprise that does not appear on Enterprise's lineage (obviously "forgotten" by Kirk and Picard, but of course that's unavoidable) and that looks like the TNG Akira is a bad starting. Perhaps the show takes place in an alternate timeline as well as the last ST movie.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-24 02:21am 

Eh, I didn't really have much of a problem with the music. Sure, it wasn't an original composition, but I didn't think it was bad. It even kind of went with the themes in the pilot and (presumably, never watched the whole thing a second time) the first season.

Also, while I may just be remembering it through the rosy shades of nostalgia, I don't think the temporal cold war thing was bad, either. The idea seems kind of interesting. My biggest problem is believing the "other side" wouldn't just win by virtue of having the initiative.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-24 07:43am 

God yes, the transporter episode 'Daedalus' was god awful. It was probably the only episode in the fourth season that was worse than 'These are the Voyages'. Still, I enjoyed the rest of the season rather well with all the two and three parters. Daedalus was meant as a bottle episode, and boy did it show.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-24 09:24am 

I saw the very ending of 'These are the Voyages' on Youtube and I liked very much to see the TNG and TOS Enterprises along the famous "Space the final frontier (etc)". Of course that was just a very little part of the entire episode.

 Post subject: Re: A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

Posted: 2011-06-24 10:23pm 

Probably because it felt less like Star Trek and more like Red Dwarf. Our intrepid heroes: an officer afraid of heights, flying, tight spaces, teleportation, and literally everything else one is likely to encounter on a space voyage. Oh, and she gets motion sickness. An engineer who spends most of the show being openly xenophobic, first to vulcans then to Xindi, and cannot do sventh grade math. Permit me to repeat that, the goddamned engineer cannot perform sventh grade algebra, where did he get his degree from a crackerjack box? The captain who can barely conceal his contempt for his allies, and cannot understand why anyone would be offended by his dog pissing on their holy sites. The Doctor actually uses leeches on his patients, and less savory critters as well. Reed and Mayweather get a by for rarely displaying gross incompetence and not having enough personality for me to mock. But T'pol my god, T'pol is the only person on the damn ship smart enough to check for viability before popping a hatch open on an alien world, if only she didn't feel the need to be such a bitch about it. From day one, in the face of all logic, she does everything in her power to alienate her crewmates. It's one thing to be unable to cope with the smell of your new alien shipmates, it's another thing to bring that fact up in front of them every other episode. Plus, she reguarly completly dismisses all human culture, history, and achievements, usually right before telling them that they need to respect other people's cultures more! These are the best and brightest Earth has to offer?

It was a cool concept to go back and show the early days, the beginning. When and how the Federation was built, when all the devices we took for granted like shields and tractor beams and transporters were created. It's just that the execution sucked.

I once read a short paper on the literary concept of a "power trio," three men representing the Freudian states of id, ego, and superego. One man to be logical, one man to be passionate, and one man who reconcile these views with each other and inject the element of morality. The archetypical example of course, would be Spock, McCoy, and Kirk. I believe they tried to recreate this concept with T'pol, Tucker, and Archer. It's just that none of them could consistently perform their roles.

The real cincher for me was "Dear Doctor" where Archer, the only captain not bound by the Prime Directive, chooses to stand back and let an ancient alien culture die out for... no real reason. There's some vague bullshit about how a second semi-sentient race on that world might someday develop sentience, but not as long as the first group of aliens is around, but in a way that's worse because they decide to let these people all die because there exists a chance that someday, something maybe good might come of it. That was just about the last thing I ever expected in a "this is why we have a Prime Directive" episode. I was expecting them to make first contact with a race that all commits mass suicide, or give advanced technology to a race that uses it to self-destruct. You know, to have them intervene with the best of intentions only for it all to go horribly wrong, as oppossed to being assholes for the sake of being assholes.