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Disappointed with "Enterprise" (the prequel show)
chastity1337
Member Posts: 1,608 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Oh man, so I just started watching this on NF, and I am sooooo disappointed. It's like everything that was wrong with Voyager is even worse here.
To start at the beginning, the theme song had me worried. It's tempting to say it sounds like the worst of 1980's AM radio pop, but it's worse than that. More like some incredibly sincere but utterly untalented cover band from the People's Republic of East Wankistan, doing a tribute to 1980's AM radio pop.
The show itself is aggravating and annoying on numerous levels. Archer is, to put it bluntly, an egotistical TRIBBLE. Granted, so was Kirk, but Bill Shatner made the character appealing in spite of it. Whoever plays Archer doesn't have anything like that talent. And his persistently hostile attitude toward T'Pol is just grossly unprofessional. In fact, most of the main characters act more like high school students than commissioned officers. The Engineer in particular is just a wanker.
Oddly enough, T'Pol herself is the one character I find engaging, like the lone adult on the ship, the den mother to a pack of Webelos. And if she does sometimes act like a total TRIBBLE, one can understand her frustrations. It reminds me of that old joke about what's the difference between the US military and the Boy Scouts? The Scouts have adult supervision...
And that's worth remembering, if we're going to be fair. I have, unfortunately, spent far more time around actual RL officers of the USN and USMC than I ever wished to. And many of them (hell, most of them) could be at times just as petty, spiteful, and egotistical as anything shown in Enterprise.
And yet, and yet, for all its faults, I do find myself wondering what happens next, remembering that virtually every Star Trek series started off slowly and improved with time.
To start at the beginning, the theme song had me worried. It's tempting to say it sounds like the worst of 1980's AM radio pop, but it's worse than that. More like some incredibly sincere but utterly untalented cover band from the People's Republic of East Wankistan, doing a tribute to 1980's AM radio pop.
The show itself is aggravating and annoying on numerous levels. Archer is, to put it bluntly, an egotistical TRIBBLE. Granted, so was Kirk, but Bill Shatner made the character appealing in spite of it. Whoever plays Archer doesn't have anything like that talent. And his persistently hostile attitude toward T'Pol is just grossly unprofessional. In fact, most of the main characters act more like high school students than commissioned officers. The Engineer in particular is just a wanker.
Oddly enough, T'Pol herself is the one character I find engaging, like the lone adult on the ship, the den mother to a pack of Webelos. And if she does sometimes act like a total TRIBBLE, one can understand her frustrations. It reminds me of that old joke about what's the difference between the US military and the Boy Scouts? The Scouts have adult supervision...
And that's worth remembering, if we're going to be fair. I have, unfortunately, spent far more time around actual RL officers of the USN and USMC than I ever wished to. And many of them (hell, most of them) could be at times just as petty, spiteful, and egotistical as anything shown in Enterprise.
And yet, and yet, for all its faults, I do find myself wondering what happens next, remembering that virtually every Star Trek series started off slowly and improved with time.
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Comments
Archer's hostility towards T'Pol and Vulcans in general comes from the character's past, and the general Vulcan attitude towards Human nature in that time period. Vulcans were ready to tell Earth to scrap their deep space plans for another 100 years because the Warp 5 Engine wasn't perfect and Humans were too emotional.
While Enterprise wasn't the best at times, seeing the technology we know and love be developed was fun.
We would have gotten the canon Earth-Romulan War if the show wasn't axed after Season 4.
In this case it's Malcolm Reed.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Yep. That's Enterprise, in a nutshell.
B&B weren't creative enough to write themselves a back door to get out of the studio meddling that went on in early seasons. They didn't learn from previous mistakes. They didn't care about continuity (in-show and in-franchise). They didn't care about character development. It took three seasons and two episodes for the show to become what it actually should have been. And, of course, it had the worst finale episode ever.
The thing that I wish folks would understand about canon is that there has to be some flexibility, because cultures change and different writers come and go, and each one may have differing perspectives on general directions. And let's be honest, some writers are better than others and care about the source material, while others are just in it for the paycheck. As such, some ideas in the past were mistakes or poor quality and needed to be tweaked. I think that ST:Enterprise did a good job balancing canon with flexible tweaking.
Also, I did like the characters and still do. I'm a fan of Scott Bakula, especially from his Quantum Leap days. And Connor Trinneer was fantastic in his role as an engineer from the swamps of Florida. Yes, Jolene Blalock owned her role quite nicely, although I did feel that her...ahem...assets were exploited a little too often. When she was allowed to be an intelligent science officer with some vulnerabilities, she was awesome and garnered viewer sympathy. And Jeffrey Combs, well, he just deserves enough accolades and awards to span a large wall.
The final episode was downright atrocious, but I kind of took it as a middle finger that the writers were giving the producers. I think they're all to blame for getting mired in the temporal stuff. If you're just getting started, however, I encourage you to stay with it. There are some great episodes that I love to watch over and over, and you might find some gems in the rough.
{Edited to add: The theme song eventually gets a little bit of much needed love. The faster, acoustic version sounds much better than the slower, soft version. Some folks still prefer the bold symphonic theme for Star Trek, but I liked the song and found myself singing along with it when the show would air.}
Personally, I enjoyed Enterprise. It didn't feel like Trek until season 4, but overall, I thought it did a good job of humanity finding their feet. I personally thought the show vastly improved in season 3 when Coto came onboard as a helper to the show runners, and it starts to show with more links to continuity. Oh what we could have had if he had been in charge from the get go.
Still, I enjoy Enterprise, and still rank it higher than Voyager. Because unlike Voyager, which only really had the moral and ethical discussions featuring Seven and the fantastic acting of Robert Picardo to improve the show, Enterprise gets genuinly better.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
a) that it's supposed to be a prequel, yet was written as a sequel - everything we see we know already and nothing is treated like it was the first time we see it. Asorted examples (possible spoilers i you still watching it): We'll develop phasers, casually, while canonical we still had lasers in "The Cage". The ENT crew will meet Borg. Yes. And they will develop phasers Borg can't adapt to, they will cure assimilation and the ship's doctor is even immune to nanites. Yes. We get a horrible plot explaining why Klingons in TOS looked different than in TNG - it is the worst possible setup for a plot you can take. Explaining out of universe stuff with phony in-universe plots that insult every viewer's intelligence.
b) it inherited all of VOYs terrible, terrible writing of characters. Not only does the exposition about the characters in every episode return, the characterization of the cast even varies wildly every time the plot demands it. Also, T'Pol is only there for T&A which was openly admitted by Brannon Braga himself, and it shows. Sadly. Seven had the same premise but Jery Ryan actually could act and did the best with what she was given. Jolene Blalock - in my opinion - can't. Also, at least three quarters of the crew is enitrely superflous and only works they were hamfisted in some episodes.
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It does, however, have one clear advantage over VOY - things carry over from episode to episode, especially after they start heading into the Delphic Expanse. If the ship is nearly blown apart in one episode, they'll still be fixing things in the next, possibly even scrambling to find replacement parts because replicators haven't been invented yet.
Just - just try not to judge the series by the first half-dozen episodes or so. They were still trying to figure out where they were going with the premise, and it shows. And when you get to the end, remember, the true final episode is "Terra Prime". "These Are the Voyages" was just someone's bad fanfic that managed to get put on the air to fill some time the following week.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
On the plus side, Wil Wheaton is thankful for Enterprise, since it made Wesley Crusher less hated than the guy responsible for greenlighting the Enterprise theme song.
Let's be honest...this might be someone but because of how the community is they aren't saying it out loud.
I like some episodes. Shran got me interested in Andorians. It's not a complete waste. I like the look of the ship. I think they have the best uniforms out of all the series.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
It's not this community. It's people who are fans of Star Trek in general. I don't see people joining the Travis Mayweather fanclub. I don't see people rating any season of Enterprise as a defining moment in the Star Trek franchise when everything we thought we knew about Star Trek was changed forever.
I also like some episodes, and yes, Shran was a great character. There were a lot of great characters. But Enterprise has never gotten a cult following in the way DS9, Voyager, TNG, or TOS ever did.
Nobody I have ever seen or met who was a fan of Star Trek became a fan as a result of Enterprise. Those people might exist, but if they exist, I've never seen them.
You think he is irritating now? Wait until you see the Imperial version of him
They actually did have some continuity. If they have someone's ship in the shuttle bay it is still there for them to play with in later episodes. Upgrades handed out get used again later. Damage carried from episode to episode.
Jeffrey Coombs.
The andorians got characterization beyond white bowl cut hair, blue skin, and antenna. They became a race and one that was not simply in lockstep planet of hats. They didn't always agree with each other which was good.
Pilot held some promise in that T'pol and Trip showed that these explorers don't know everything. Weening a child looked like cruelty, till you get what is being done. It had potential there.
Jeffrey Coombs.
Early Klingon hostilities where they had the upper hand.
Vulcan by TNG seemed like pacifists, TOS they were restrained. Here they could see reasons to war. But seemed to be stagnating. Thus the potential for human/Vulcan symbiosis was available.
I can list parts that disappointed from a story or production p.o.v. but that would be a long diatribe. Mostly because it had good potential and missed it.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I wouldn't worry about the spoilers. The TNG episode that it's tenuously linked to was one of the worst of the entire series, in terms of the story setup, including it's lame justification.
Quite frankly, it's a lot more difficult now. It's not the 60's when we were excited about the Space Race, (that is when we weren't absolutely terrified with fear that the Soviets would get to the Moon first and somehow lord it over all of us with a Communist nuclear-armed Moonbase). The promise of the Space Age has fallen as flat as last weeks champagne, and the 21st century shuffled into place not with flying cars that would fold into a briefcase, but a single attack that forever eliminated America's illusions of security from the tensions rocking the rest of the planet.
We have become tired, angry, and simply too cynical to easily buy into a new Trek premise. We may hold on to the old ones out of the desperate need for a security blanket, no matter how old and moth-eaten it has become, but new ones face a much harder challenge today, and are given unreasonable expectations framed by less than fair estimations of the old. The fact that the new shows aren't really breaking new ground outside of some gimmick whose novelty quickly pales, doesn't help matters.
Archer's Enterprise and its crew were simply presented in the wrong time. The show would have been much easier to sell if it had come out during TNG's run, even if the special effects would have been more primitive. And the writing and inspiration would have been considerably more fresh.
Right now, I can not think of a single proposed idea for a new series that has sung to me. And a few such as a Captain Worf series absolutely make me cringe.
CBS's new show will have to shatter my doubts to a degree I can't imagine, for them to get me to subscribe to a new service just to watch anything beyond the pilot.
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Just to second this - it'd be like judging TNG by 'Code of Honor' and 'The Last Outpost'. Things start to shake out and improve.
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
And my opinion is that Jolene Blalock has nice hooters
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.