Star Trek: All of Em

[Anthony W]

So ... keeping with the Trek tradition of "skip the first season" perhaps?

Your enjoyment of this show is going to come down to if you like the Mariner character or not. If you like that character you will like the show. I think she is the Trek version of Poochie* so naturally I loathe the show.

*It's a Simpsons character thats meant to be taken as a warning but one that these writers probably saw and said "That seems cool, let's do that and build the entire show around that character!"

[CosmiComic]

Personally, I liked ENT but I do notice a few problems with it

[C_Miller]

There's been a trend I've noticed on the internet lately where a lot of Trek that has traditionally been considered weaker is being re-evaluated. On Reddit and the Trek BBS (which I don't visit frequently), there are constantly threads praising Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Enterprise, and even Star Trek V. My conspiracy theory is that a lot of it's coming from people who dislike NuTrek and it's their way of drawing the line in the sand between "real" Trek and "fake" Trek.

Personally, I enjoy all Star Trek from all eras to varying degrees. Enterprise is included in that. While I think a lot of the hate it received was due to Trek fatigue and I think it's better than we gave it credit for, but I don't think its great or even in the Top half of Trek shows. I love the production design, I love Jolene Blalock and you'll never hear me say a bad word about Scott Bakula. And of course Shran is great. But, I think a lot of the characters end up falling flat, especially Mayweather, Sato and Reed. They're like if the background Bridge characters of Discovery were supposed to be major characters. The sexualization of T'Pol is really rough when you look back at it and for at least half the show, it was spinning its wheels trying to figure out its identity and at times felt like an amalgamation of all the previous shows. I remember catching an episode that had the exact same twist as a DS9 episode and being really pissed about that. Then of course the anachronistic appearances of the Borg and the Ferengi with very weak hand waves.

All in all, it was a very flawed show that really suffered from existing after 15 years of straight Star Trek on television. Plus it has the worst last episode of any Star Trek and I'm counting the Turnabout Intruder.

[nx01a]

I remember catching an episode that had the exact same twist as a DS9 episode and being really pissed about that.

...and they were (almost) all holograms! Oh, the sweet irony that Rene Auberjonois was in both episodes and realized the similarities.

"The premise of this episode (Oasis) is very similar to DS9: "Shadowplay". Rene Auberjonois saw the similarities (Odo and Jadzia Dax had played the roles played by the Enterprise crew in this episode) and told Scott Bakula that DS9 had done a similar episode. Auberjonois commented, "That was not really a putdown, but when you've done that many years of writing stories, there will be recurring themes.""

[nx01a]

Berman & Co. were running on fumes by 2001, and should have either done a VOY spinoff and stayed in their lane (the 24th century), or turned the reins over to someone else completely.

Which is pretty much what they did by making Manny Coto show runner and executive producer, plus adding Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens as writers and story editors. That's why seasons 3 and especially 4 were so much better than seasons 1 and 2, but not even fresh blood with a genuine love for Trek and a desire to do things differently could save ENT by then.

[CosmiComic]

There's been a trend I've noticed on the internet lately where a lot of Trek that has traditionally been considered weaker is being re-evaluated. On Reddit and the Trek BBS (which I don't visit frequently), there are constantly threads praising Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Enterprise, and even Star Trek V. My conspiracy theory is that a lot of it's coming from people who dislike NuTrek and it's their way of drawing the line in the sand between "real" Trek and "fake" Trek.

Personally, I enjoy all Star Trek from all eras to varying degrees. Enterprise is included in that. While I think a lot of the hate it received was due to Trek fatigue and I think it's better than we gave it credit for, but I don't think its great or even in the Top half of Trek shows. I love the production design, I love Jolene Blalock and you'll never hear me say a bad word about Scott Bakula. And of course Shran is great. But, I think a lot of the characters end up falling flat, especially Mayweather, Sato and Reed. They're like if the background Bridge characters of Discovery were supposed to be major characters. The sexualization of T'Pol is really rough when you look back at it and for at least half the show, it was spinning its wheels trying to figure out its identity and at times felt like an amalgamation of all the previous shows. I remember catching an episode that had the exact same twist as a DS9 episode and being really pissed about that. Then of course the anachronistic appearances of the Borg and the Ferengi with very weak hand waves.

All in all, it was a very flawed show that really suffered from existing after 15 years of straight Star Trek on television. Plus it has the worst last episode of any Star Trek and I'm counting the Turnabout Intruder.

The last episode did indeed suck terribly.

It seems a lot of times the older stuff people hated back in the day suddenly is good so they can bash the new stuff. Like Star Wars fans pretending the prequels are good because the sequels aren't.

The temporal cold war was an interesting idea but not especially handled well. And the Borg and ferengi definitely strained continuity. I also didn't like T'Pol being sexualized at all, especially looking back on it now

[Deathstroke]

The last episode did indeed suck terribly.

The last episode was an abomination. The prose novels written that were set AFTER the end of the series essentially retconned most of it though.

[Captain Craig]

Berman & Co. were running on fumes by 2001, and should have either done a VOY spinoff and stayed in their lane (the 24th century), or turned the reins over to someone else completely.

Which is pretty much what they did by making Manny Coto show runner and executive producer, plus adding Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens as writers and story editors. That's why seasons 3 and especially 4 were so much better than seasons 1 and 2, but not even fresh blood with a genuine love for Trek and a desire to do things differently could save ENT by then.

I see the Manny Coto reference got mentioned. I don't know if Coto was available in the beginning but if he was and was passed on till it was "too late" to save the show then all of fandom lost a great opportunity. Coto understood the premise of pre-1701 Enterprise in the 22nd century. Berman and Braga were re-treading the re-treads of planets in peril, spatial anomalies and generic tropes they had done to death in the 24th century shows.

This should've been the show to fully expand on Andorians that DS9 was able to do with Ferengi and Dominion. Instead we got one season of just minor details of this species that helped start the Federation.

[Witchfan]

Enterprise ran 97 episodes. The Original Series only had 80. So it wasn't a total failure.

[SJNeal]

Enterprise ran 97 episodes. The Original Series only had 80. So it wasn't a total failure.

Quality versus quantity

[nx01a]

Quality versus quantity

ENT s1 & 2 vs TOS s3!
FIGHT!!!!

[ChrisIII]

The last episode was an abomination. The prose novels written that were set AFTER the end of the series essentially retconned most of it though.

Would've kind of sucked also if that had been the last of Frakes and Sitris/Riker & Troi (Who weren't very convincing as their season 7 selves).

[nx01a]

The final episode I've been dreaming of for so many years...
Troi and Riker celebrate Federation Day aboard the Titan with their crew, reminiscing about the holovids they watched growing up of the signing of the Federation Charter, cutting back and forth to what the iconic NX-01 crew was doing years after we last saw them plus a bit of classified info about a Romulan plot the crew foiled as their last 'away mission' together at the conference. You'd still have Troi and Riker on the holodeck interacting with the crew but at least it would have made sense. Plus have people move on. Show Archer burdened by all the hero worship and the weight of being a figurehead for the coming alliance, marry off Trip and T'Pol, give Mayweather his own command, have Reed in Starfleet Security dealing with keeping the delegates safe, Hoshi becomes a high level interpreter for the Federation negotiations, show us all of Phlox's wives and their husbands, Shran drinks something blue...

[ChrisIII]

Yeah I think it would've worked better with the TITAN given the ages of the actors instead of the Enterprise D in-between scenes of the Pegasus episode.


Romulan War would've been interesting, although certainly a little tricky since nobody knew what they looked like by TOS (Despite viewscreens being a thing). Even Discovery noted this in season 3, with Michael and Saru surprised that the Romulans were pretty much Vulcans as they left their century before "Balance of Terror".

[CosmiComic]

Romulans could just choose to not turn on the view screens