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Star Trek: Enterprise Love It or Hate It?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited January 2012 in Ten Forward
The title says it all. Did you love or hate Enterprise, and why?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Not the best forum for this.

    Anyways; neither.

    I thought the writing was horrifically inconsistent, and feel like that's why the reactions to it tend to be strongly polarized.

    You had great episodes, and "oh please. not five more minutes of THIS" episodes.

    That's never healthy for a series.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    neither. i liked it for the most part but there were some weak eps and its not my favourite trek but its ok.

    I never really enjoyed the characters that much. stories were fine, characters did not grab me in the same way as picard, data, odo, quark, paris did etc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    TNG is best trek IMO.
    I disliked Enterprise, it did';t feel like star trek.

    Also, I was F2P for one day and now I have a sub. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I agree with @Jonathan_Kent. Some episodes were awesome, some not so much. I loved the Mirror Universe two-parter.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I actually thought it was one of the strongest shows toward the end. I'd put the last two seasons second only to DS9 on my list.

    Early on it had its moments, but it didn't really shine until the 3rd of 4th season. The last episode was utter TRIBBLE though.

    Frankly, I think the show might have done better had it not had Brandon Braga as a writer early on. I think there are much stronger ST writers than Braga.

    I do think the acting in general was much better than the other shows. TV acting seems to have improved a great deal between the late 80s and the 00s. I mean, the acting in the first season or two of TNG was really quite bad. The characters on Enterprise felt more like real people to me, right from the start.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Enterprise was the best Star Trek series.

    I make this statement understanding that its execution may have suffered in one episode versus another, and the fact that it was being aired by the horribly inconsistent UPN didn't help it either. Enterprise's single biggest flaw was that it advertised itself in the build up to its launch as "a return to the original series", when it was nothing of the sort.

    It was a maturation of Star Trek, in a way. A continuation of the seriousness of Deep Space 9, reapplied to the original concept of exploring the final frontier. In many ways, it was the little touches. Say what you will about certain charatcers -- there will be no argument that characters like Hoshi and Mayweather were one-trick ponies and horribly unused. But where Enterprise shined, it shined extremely brightly.

    I will make the case any day of the week that Archer was the best Captain. The Captain of each show had their own style -- Picard the diplomat, Kirk the adventurer, Janeway the ... lunatic ... but Archer was always first and foremost an explorer. From the Enterprise's launch, he could be entertained endlessly by nothing more than charting a new comet. But even beyond that was his dynamism: he's introduced to the audience as a raving racist: despising the Vulcans and everything they stood for (because in his mind, everything they stood for stood between humanity and its destiny). The course of the series took Archer from such ugly beginnings, shattered his resolve as a peace-loving explorer by forcing him into war and potential genocide, and then built him back up again as the man who knew better than anyone how to set differences aside and unite multiple species into a peaceful Coalition of Planets that would eventually become the Federation. His journey was required so he could ultimately accomplish that, and no other Captain in Star Trek displays such a path of betterment on screen or gives hope for the average viewer to better himself.

    Without Enterprise, Andorians would still have stiff antennaes coming out of the top of their heads and ... god forbid, Andorian women would have 6 TRIBBLE (fandom is a scary thing), Tholians would still be floating crystal heads, there would be no Aenar, the MACO wouldn't be around, and we'd still be wondering what happened to the Klingon's ridges.

    And come on. Everyone has to agree that the fourth season was by far some of the best Star Trek episodes to ever be put on screen!

    Need more Enterprise. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Havraha wrote: »
    Enterprise was the best Star Trek series.

    I make this statement understanding that its execution may have suffered in one episode versus another, and the fact that it was being aired by the horribly inconsistent UPN didn't help it either. Enterprise's single biggest flaw was that it advertised itself in the build up to its launch as "a return to the original series", when it was nothing of the sort.

    It was a maturation of Star Trek, in a way. A continuation of the seriousness of Deep Space 9, reapplied to the original concept of exploring the final frontier. In many ways, it was the little touches. Say what you will about certain charatcers -- there will be no argument that characters like Hoshi and Mayweather were one-trick ponies and horribly unused. But where Enterprise shined, it shined extremely brightly.

    I will make the case any day of the week that Archer was the best Captain. The Captain of each show had their own style -- Picard the diplomat, Kirk the adventurer, Janeway the ... lunatic ... but Archer was always first and foremost an explorer. From the Enterprise's launch, he could be entertained endlessly by nothing more than charting a new comet. But even beyond that was his dynamism: he's introduced to the audience as a raving racist: despising the Vulcans and everything they stood for (because in his mind, everything they stood for stood between humanity and its destiny). The course of the series took Archer from such ugly beginnings, shattered his resolve as a peace-loving explorer by forcing him into war and potential genocide, and then built him back up again as the man who knew better than anyone how to set differences aside and unite multiple species into a peaceful Coalition of Planets that would eventually become the Federation. His journey was required so he could ultimately accomplish that, and no other Captain in Star Trek displays such a path of betterment on screen or gives hope for the average viewer to better himself.

    Without Enterprise, Andorians would still have stiff antennaes coming out of the top of their heads and ... god forbid, Andorian women would have 6 TRIBBLE (fandom is a scary thing), Tholians would still be floating crystal heads, there would be no Aenar, the MACO wouldn't be around, and we'd still be wondering what happened to the Klingon's ridges.

    And come on. Everyone has to agree that the fourth season was by far some of the best Star Trek episodes to ever be put on screen!

    Need more Enterprise. :)

    You said it. I've taken soo much TRIBBLE from people because I feel that Enterprise was the best overall series. It's too bad it was cut so short.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    i thought the concept was excellent, but the execution was lousy.

    I always felt it began the wrong way, got better towards the middle, then dropped off a cliff as they tried to shoehorn the Xindi in.

    It could have been so much better had they used it to explain inconsistencies and contradictions in the canon, instead it was used to bludgeon us over the head with how judgmental and stubborn humans are when faced with other cultures.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Should have focused more on stuff like : Forming the Federation (Andorians, Vulcans), Klingon Conflict, Romulan Conflict
    instead of Temporal Cold War and the whole Xindi Stuff .... thought that was kind of stupid ....
    => the 4th Season was imho the best ...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Barely focused on Romulans, that is all.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I "like" the enterpise but tbh I love the Defiant, the Excelsior, the delta flyer, the Miranda and the Bird Of Prey. Thats about it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I was once asked on Reddit how I would have done Enterprise, I think the response is appropriatte to post here.
    The problems, for me, arose with the season finale of Season two, with the Xindi storyline. I was actually interested in the Temporal cold war, and thought that, if they had continued the episodic nature of the show, holding off on creating new canon, and explaining inconsistencies in the old. For example, it was established in TOS that Earth and the Romulans fought a war using Nuclear Warheads and communicating by radio.

    Why? Why was it just Earth? Why didn't Vulcan assist? Why were Nuclear Weapons used? Why was communication restricted to Subspace Radio?

    The creators of Enterprise decided to ignore the canon, rather than explain it.

    To me, they could have explained everything by merging the Romulan War and Temporal Cold War plots. Have the Romulans operating under the direction of agents (not direct knowing cooperation) from a future iteration of the Romulan Star Empire.

    Weakened by the Dominion War, shattered by an internal strife bordering on Civil War (between the Imperial and the Reunification factions), the Tal Shiar sends three agents through time (via Solar Slingshot time-Warp) to improve Romulan fortunes in the past to rewrite their present.

    Two go back to the mid 2100s, to provoke and, hopefully, eliminate the burgeoning Federation. Specifically, by eliminating their most influential member, Earth.

    Valdore, a future Romulan, infiltrates the Military, and with his advanced future technological knowledge, as well as a personal datapad chock-full of the weakness', policies, and tactics of period enemies of the RSE, he advances quickly through the ranks, heading up the projects that would give rise to Quantum Singularities as power sources and Plasma-Torpedoes, though he discovers that it was overlooked that a necessary material resource would be unattainable by Romulans until the next century.

    Another future Romulan, Drax, infiltrates the Romulan civilian Government. By using historical files detailing the personal failings and family details of period Romulans, he takes control from behind the scenes of the Council.

    Together, Drax and Valdore conspire to manipulate Romulus into the Earth-Romulan war far sooner than history intended, hoping to catch Earth alone and unaided, before the Federation can be founded.

    The third agent was supposed to be sent to Earth, sometime before Zephram Cochranes warp flight, in order to sabotage the missile he would have used, in such a way that it would explode before Cochrane got to Warp, however, his slingshot calculations were off, and he ended up, not in orbit of earth during WWIII, but in orbit of the Suliban homeworld, 50 years into his future. He's shortly shocked to discover, only a few months after he left, that a disaster annihilated the Romulan Empire (this would be left unexplained and vague, for future developments in the prime storyline, and leaves it open for the ST:XI to remain canon).

    So, rather than giving up, he approaches the Suliban. Promising them a ripe, better future, he arranges for them to cooperate with him to build a Temporal Communicator, to guide and manipulate the 22nd century Suliban, as he believes the other two agents were similarly mis-targeted.

    This is the first conflict in the Temporal Cold War. Daniels is trying to aid and prepare Starfleet for the conflict by guiding events in such a way that the crucial encounters and liaisons are formed earlier than expected and quickly, that's why he manipulated events to lead Archer to P'Jem, to encounter Shran. That's why he arranged, through third parties, the escape of the Augments and the Klingon Augment Virus Incident that let Archer deal with General Krell, which allowed him an "in" with the Empire at a later date.

    During one of the first battles of the Earth-Romulan War, the Columbia is lost after they're forced in battle to scram their Warp reactor, but the crew manages to escape in her escape Pods and Shuttlepods. All but Captain Benteen survive, who rams Columbia into the Romulans shields. The resultant explosion of the Columbias Impulse Engines (fusion powered) reveals to the survivors the Romulan shields weakness against Beta Radiation.

    All of this would lead to the Warp 7 project, and the design of the Daedalus class Explorer, which would serve as the mainline ships during the Earth Romulan War alongside the (now obsolete) NX Class vessels Enterprise, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor.

    Boom, canon preserved, canon explained, and we avoid all that silly Xindi business.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Enterprise. Brilliant concept. It's the story of a teenager (Humans) wresting control of their lives away form their parents (Vulcans).

    The execution, however, lacked something. It seemed every episode was "We'll get in over our heads (again) and run away" for a good stretch of the 1st and 2nd seasons.

    and GDI, will Starfleet ever do a proper "sea trial" and "shakedown cruise" for a new vessel?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Didn't like the temporal cold war or Sulliban or the 3rd season because of the change in canon.
    4rth season was great.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Season 3 was one of the greatest seasons in trek in my op (Season 6 DS9 is the greatest!), however the lack of story and direction in season 1,2,4 killed it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Loved it, such a shame it got cancelled. Would have been great to see what happened immediately after the birth of the federation.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I liked Enterprise for the ideas it brought, seeing early Starfleet technology in action was an interesting concept. No shields, no tractor beam, unstable transporter technology. It was nice.

    As a captain, Archer was very arrogant, but he's nowhere near the Janeway standard of douchebaggery. Yes he made some dumb decisions, but at the end of the day, he was trying to prove to the Vulcans that the Human species has improved over the years.

    Now, where the show failed, like others have pointed out, was that the plot for 80% of the episodes didn't feel like Trek.
    I, for one, dislike the whole Xindi and Temporal Cold War concept, because it dragged on for way, way, way too long (an entire season if I'm not mistaking).
    The main villains, were trans-dimensional beings, who could have been easily stopped by the Q (the guardians of the universe, yeah right), but nope. Let's send the very first Human star cruiser, with ancient technology, to fight against an armada of advanced warships.

    The 29th (?) century Fed did very little to actually help Enterprise.
    "Hey, we know that the fate of our entire past is in your hands, but we can't send a few ships back in time (they have the technology), because of the whole :we can't change the past to save our asses: prime directive.

    What could they have done instead?
    Hey, remember the Vulcan-Andorian war? How about we put more emphasis on that?
    Hey, remember the "explore strange, new worlds" part? Since this is the very first star cruiser, how about we put more emphasis on that?

    Enterprise could have been successful, because it has the basic ideas, but the final product gave you this feeling that the writers tried too much to come up with something different.
    Like it wasn't enough of a difference to see the early Fed technology in action, or the founding of the Federation.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Neither...

    I found it somewhat interesting but the explanation that it was just a holodeck program takes care of the fact that it has some serious continuity errors that make ZERO sense whatsoever.

    I would say it was an OK Star Trek... Slightly better than DS9 but possibly not quite as good as Voyager and of course it holds no candle to TOS or TNG.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I rather liked Enterprise. after all, Star Trek had to start somewhere, so why not in that era, from before the Federation even came into being. fave ep was In a Mirror Darkly
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Staran wrote: »
    or the 3rd season because of the change in canon.

    Just because it wasn't mentioned in the other series does not mean that it didn't / shouldn't have happened. Season 3 didn't change any canon. It helped influence Earth's desire and need to be part of a larger community.

    I loved Enterprise. It was my series. Unlike the other series, I was able to watch it on TV from the start until the end. It really is a shame that the show didn't continue past season 4 as it would have only continued to get better. I love the characters... I love Tellarites! Loved getting a few episodes with them in it! Archer is definitely my favourite Captain out of all of the series. Sisko and Kirk follow closely behind. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Like Voyager it had an interesting premise and like Voyager it got ruined by mediocre writing with only rare moments of creativity. But overall taking the safe and boring road on most everything, typical Brannon/Braga style.

    The temporal war and Xindi arc are best summarized like this.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I'd have to say ENT was my favorite of the saga, though I have yet to get done with DS9... on Season 2 ATM.

    JPJappic wrote: »
    Just because it wasn't mentioned in the other series does not mean that it didn't / shouldn't have happened. Season 3 didn't change any canon. It helped influence Earth's desire and need to be part of a larger community.

    I loved Enterprise. It was my series. Unlike the other series, I was able to watch it on TV from the start until the end. It really is a shame that the show didn't continue past season 4 as it would have only continued to get better. I love the characters... I love Tellarites! Loved getting a few episodes with them in it! Archer is definitely my favourite Captain out of all of the series. Sisko and Kirk follow closely behind. :D

    As for you, did you know that it was intended to end after Season 3? According to what I've heard (I forget where, now), the only reason it made it to season 4 was because the fans nearly rioted, and wrote tens of thousands of letters, or more.

    I wish it would have gone 7, like the other modern day ones.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    The first two season of Enterprise were so-so. Once it hit the third season though, it really picked up. It was cancelled right when it was finally finding its groove.



    I'd have to say ENT was my favorite of the saga, though I have yet to get done with DS9... on Season 2 ATM.




    Just wait. Once you hit the Dominion War, DS9 will get really good.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I have a few episodes of Enterprise that i use when i'm suffering from insomnia.........within 10 mins of a episode starting i'm quickly heading for the land of nod.;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Season 4 was great, the rest forgettable.
    First two seasons inherited all of Voyager's problems (bad writing overall, stale characters, rehashed plots).
    Season 3 was too much "24 in space".
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I loved Enterprise for one word: Shran. Shran was awesome and the enlightenment on the Andorians was excellent.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I like the story, like Scott´s work, and i love t´pol... i love it all from this show... the vulcan story, the p´jem chapters... all the aliens , vulcans, andorian, klingon... the spheres... the xindi... the federation´s beginning... the red alert instauration...the startrek tecnology gettin started...EVERYTHING... of course i saw it in spanish, maybe in english its not so good...

    Sorry english is not my mother language.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I really would like to see a movie of the enterprise crew...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    What Katic said. IMO, ENT was at its best when it explored and built up the foundations of canon and continuity. On the other hand, it was at its worst when it just tried to make random **** up and cram it into Trek universe.

    Borg in ENT? GMAMFB. Caitians that would have appeared in the next season (if the series had gotten another season)? Oh my yes.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Anyone else ever realize that in DS9, the long faced alien who always hangs at Quark's has a disproportional head? His head makes me think that his body should be much bigger.
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