Star Trek: Enterprise surprisingly does not completely suck

S

snookie_wookums

CAGiversary!
I just ran out of stuff to watch recently so I started catching Enterprise marathons on Sci-Fi channel. Much to my surprise, it really doesn't suck as much as I remembered, but that theme song is still a dealbreaker for me (Thank GOD for the fast-forward button) and I remain convinced that this song was what killed the show.

Dunno about everyone else who didn't watch this show, but for me it was mostly because the opening song was so offensive that I changed the channel rather than listen to that Diane Warren crap on one of my favorite franchises. Does anyone else have that experience? Why didn't this show succeed when it really did have all the right elements, from actors to hot chicks and great special effects and fairly good writing?

I mean FFS, Manny friggin Coto of "24" fame wrote a lot of the episodes of this show.
 
[quote name='snookie_wookums']I just ran out of stuff to watch recently so I started catching Enterprise marathons on Sci-Fi channel. Much to my surprise, it really doesn't suck as much as I remembered, but that theme song is still a dealbreaker for me (Thank GOD for the fast-forward button) and I remain convinced that this song was what killed the show.

Dunno about everyone else who didn't watch this show, but for me it was mostly because the opening song was so offensive that I changed the channel rather than listen to that Diane Warren crap on one of my favorite franchises. Does anyone else have that experience? Why didn't this show succeed when it really did have all the right elements, from actors to hot chicks and great special effects and fairly good writing?

I mean FFS, Manny friggin Coto of "24" fame wrote a lot of the episodes of this show.[/QUOTE]

We do have a trek thread for this.
 
The time travel crap killed the show. They managed to have some decent stuff before it and some really good stuff after but they never quite recovered from it. Ending the Xindi season/arc with that bizarre alien Nazi cliffhanger was one of the most absurd things I've ever seen.

The last episode was so awful that it was tragic.
 
This is the best thing about Enterprise:
hoshi.jpg
 
The only episodes I really enjoyed from that series was the 2 part Mirror universe episode and the one where they found the remains of the Borg Sphere from ST: First Contact.
 
[quote name='dafoomie']The time travel crap killed the show. They managed to have some decent stuff before it and some really good stuff after but they never quite recovered from it. Ending the Xindi season/arc with that bizarre alien Nazi cliffhanger was one of the most absurd things I've ever seen.

The last episode was so awful that it was tragic.[/QUOTE]

what sucked about that was they was pushing this entire TIME WAR Thing though the whole summer and then when it returned in the fall the entire TIME War was ended in the first show of the new season...

and that chic is hot.
 
Voyager killed it. After that I had no faith left in the Star Trek franchise. Especially since instead of going forward, they went backwards and made a prequel series. Though I agree it isn't completely horrible and somewhat bearable.
 
I personally thought that Voyager was got better when it shed it's Next Generation but far away feeling and started playing around more with the borg and the even more futuristic stuff. I enjoyed it.
 
I actually agree. Seasons 3 and 4 were quite good. Turning season 3 into one long story was a great idea.

I think the biggest problem with the show was that a there weren't many strong characters. Sure, I liked Archer, Trip, T'Pol, and Dr. Phlox, was none of them were all that great. I thought T'pol was the best Vulcan since Spock. I heard a rumor that they were thinking of killing Archer and making Trip captain. That could have been cool.
 
[quote name='Thongsy']Voyager killed it. After that I had no faith left in the Star Trek franchise. Especially since instead of going forward, they went backwards and made a prequel series. Though I agree it isn't completely horrible and somewhat bearable.[/QUOTE]
i would probably be in this boat. I was never a traditional fan of Voyage. Though I have to admit I've watched a lot of it in reruns and it wasn't terrible like it appeared.

Enterprise I agree with the OP was surprisingly good. Especially since I agree that going backwards was a mistake. Scheduling conflicts and life meant I left before the time travel stuff so it never really got soured in my mind. One day I'll get the rest of the series and check it out fully.
 
Erm... uh...

1. People that think Entersuck was good need to check into a mental institute NOW. (The only thing that was good about this show was the opening song... which isn't saying much)

2. Voyager wasn't that bad... (at least it wasn't Entersuck...)

facepalm.jpg

 
The problem with Enterprise is the same problem Voyager had, they had only a handful of really great ideas. There are episodes in both series that are absolutely stellar, but they are so few and far between that it's painful to watch the series as a whole to get to them.

When you watch TNG or DS9 especially seasons 3 on in both, you can pull out pretty much any disk in the DVD sets and find at least one amazing episode and at least 2 good episodes on each disk of 4 episodes. With Enterprise and Voyager, it's more like 1 out of 4 episodes is good or maybe great.
 
Trials and Tribulations was one of DS9s best episodes. I still can't believe how well they worked the characters into it.
 
I think DS9 may have better stand-alone episodes than TNG. Some of the episodes where they question the utopia of the Federation (who can forget the attempt to turn the Romulans) are just incredible.

I always liked those episodes anyway, one of my favorite episodes of TNG (which I rewatched last night) was The Drumhead where the witch hunt onboard ends up with Picard on the stand and some killer scenes with Worf and Picard aruging about security vs freedoms. To me, that's really the stuff that makes Trek shine (and is so relevant to today).

But I don't think I can argue against the family/love/friendship episodes like The Visitor and even the episode in Voyager where the Doctor gets a family as being the best.
 
[quote name='Thongsy']Voyager killed it. After that I had no faith left in the Star Trek franchise. Especially since instead of going forward, they went backwards and made a prequel series. Though I agree it isn't completely horrible and somewhat bearable.[/QUOTE]

My wife is a big Star Trek nerd but really only watched Voyager and the Star Trek films. I finally sat down and watched the whole thing straight through three years ago and thought it was great. It actually got me into Star Trek. I had previously met 50% of the ensemble cast at conventions my wife dragged me to and regretted not knowing who these people were at the time. Except for Robert Picardo. I always wondered if he ended up having sex with that transvestite/sexual? gremlin at the end of Gremlins 2.

I had to take a detour and watch me some Babylon 5 and wait for Battlestar Galactica to finish, so now that it's over I'm into the original Star Trek series. Holy Shatner!
 
One of my favorite TNG episodes was the one where they question whether data is alive. Can't remember the episode name. The two part episode of DS9 where Sisko and Bashir go back in time was cool, you don't usuallyg et to see much of the time between our present and the future.

That episode where they try to trick the romulans was good too, having Sisko re-tell it was a nice touch too.
 
Ah ya, The Measure of a Man, very awesome.

Ya, I like that episode as well, it was great that they made it clear that things got a lot worse before they got better.
 
The best explanation I can give for Deep Space Nine is a quote between Sisko and Worf once he joined:

Worf: "When I served aboard the Enterprise, I always knew who were my allies and who were my enemies."
Sisko: "Let's just say DS9 has more shades of gray. And Quark definitely is a shade of gray. He has his own set of rules, and he follows them diligently. I'd say that's true of everyone here. You'll fit in, commander. Give it time."

The whole series basically questioned whether the Federations ideals were the right thing for everyone (in this case Bajor) and questioned whether the Federation could follow its almighty principles eventually when it goes to war or if it has to bend/break the rules to survive.
 
Ya like it, eh? I liked the Chief Engineer "Tucker" I think, a lot. Other then that though... ughh. You keep on watchin that sucker though if it's cool for ya =)
 
I actually liked Malcolm quite a bit., Later on when the MACOs came aboard, the conflict between Malcolm and them was interesting
 
[quote name='VipFREAK']DS9 was a complete waste of time too.[/QUOTE]

You're a fucking moron.

DS9 was easily the best Star Trek series. Please do not post in this thread anymore.
 
I am a huge fan of Star Trek. IMO, Star Trek Enterprise was the best Star Trek ever (Season 4 is IMO the best season of Star Trek). I like the whole concept of the series, and I like how they portray the Vulcans. Voyager made the Federation seem invincible (doing damage to the borg, taking on several civilizations of the Delta Quadrant, etc). Enterprise made the humans seem weak which I thought was interesting.
 
[quote name='ananag112']I am a huge fan of Star Trek. IMO, Star Trek Enterprise was the best Star Trek ever (Season 4 is IMO the best season of Star Trek). I like the whole concept of the series, and I like how they portray the Vulcans. Voyager made the Federation seem invincible (doing damage to the borg, taking on several civilizations of the Delta Quadrant, etc). Enterprise made the humans seem weak which I thought was interesting.[/QUOTE]Haha, the Enterprise take on the Vulcans was definitely one of the hilights of the series. They were still super-smart, but instead of being wise and sage-like they just had a tendency to be dicks.
 
It seemed like the best the show had to offer would've been in the seasons ahead. Romulan War, founding of the Federation, etc.
 
[quote name='dafoomie']It seemed like the best the show had to offer would've been in the seasons ahead. Romulan War, founding of the Federation, etc.[/QUOTE]

The Romulan War would have made a great multi-episode arc.
 
At least they left enough storyline trails that they could conceivably go back and make a movie. Anyone in for Star Trek Enterprise: The Search For Tucker?
 
[quote name='JolietJake']Trials and Tribulations was one of DS9s best episodes. I still can't believe how well they worked the characters into it.[/QUOTE]

YES! That was probably my favorite episode! Both technically and story-wise it was incredible. Of course, it helps that The Trouble with Tribbles was always one of my favorite TOS episodes as a kid.
 
I watched maybe half the first season of Enterprise before giving up on it, it was just so boring. Scott Bakula was doing a really flat performance at the time, did he ever improve and stop acting like a robot?
 
[quote name='coolsteel']I watched maybe half the first season of Enterprise before giving up on it, it was just so boring. Scott Bakula was doing a really flat performance at the time, did he ever improve and stop acting like a robot?[/QUOTE]
The first two seasons were mostly bad imo. The third season (Nazi time-traveling conclusion notwithstanding) was amazing. The fourth season, despite a couple of stinkers, was really good too.
 
[quote name='JolietJake']Trials and Tribulations was one of DS9s best episodes. I still can't believe how well they worked the characters into it.[/QUOTE]

I have a soft spot for that one because I was pressganged into helping make some props for the episode. They needed a bunch of stuff for the sets and items like phasers and such, all of which had long ago been destroyed, stolen, or sold off. Some stuff could be found in the collectible replica market but others, like the intercom panels, weren't readily available to purchase. So Proper Effects was contracted to make a bunch of these items for the episode.

At the same time I was helping a friend put together his design for that year's Hugo award. The Hugo is always some sort of rocket ship but everything else about it varies quite a bit. Mike's design had a cinematic theme, with a film reel as the base and a Chesley Bonestell (http://www.bonestell.org/) style lunar mountain range running along the rim. The film reel has stills from well known SF&F movies that I captured using a Play Snappy, a stack of VHS tapes, and a lot of patience. JMS won one of these and it can be seen in Sheridan's quarters in a third (IIRC) season episode of Babylon 5.

We made the lunar mountains at Proper Effects out of Silpak, which was also the primary material for the Trek props they were making. Since we had a long wait ahead of us after we poured the molds, we were recruited to help do the same on some of the Trek stuff and do painting on some of the finished items.

That is the closest I've come to working on a Trek show. I did some IT work for the art department at Babylonian Productions while B5 was in production and that was a pretty interesting day, too. Especially when an actress on the short side had to step into a prop designed for a actor on the tall side.
 
[quote name='JolietJake']Seems that all Treks series take a few seasons to really find their groove.[/QUOTE]

The unfortunate fix for TNG was pushing Rodenberry out. He had become like Stan Lee. Good ideas but no ability to execute them well for the modern audience. Part of this was due to frustration at not being allowed to structure the show as originally intended. The phrase used in the original pre-production bible for the show was 'Hill Street Blues in space.' This referred to the strong continuity on HSB in which plot thread spanned multiple episodes with some defining the whole season.

This got shot down early on because Paramount was terrified they would not get enough uptake on the syndication. TV stations running old series liked to play the most popular episodes and rarely, if ever, showing the less loved episodes. This is why you can see some episodes of a show like Trek a hundred times and still never see a particular episode you know exists. Deep storylines aren't very compatible with this practice, so Paramount demanded a minimum of plot arcs that didn't wrap within the same episode. It wasn't until a decade later, on shows like Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the constraints were lifted. As a result TV has become a far more writer friendly medium.

The same thing has happened in some way or another on most of the Trek shows. The creative leads get sent elsewhere and better writers emerge. DS9 got really good because Voyager started off so bad. The guys who had been mediocre on DS9 were the ones who left to run Voyager when it launched.
 
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[quote name='JolietJake']Seems that all Treks series take a few seasons to really find their groove.[/QUOTE]

Yes, but with Enterprise I feel like it started off so badly for so many reasons (whole new species we'd never heard about in the much later Treks for no apparent reason, for example), that the epic stumbles made it unrecoverable by the time the show got good.

Along with some here, I happened to like the whole time travel storyline. That was one tidbit that made later Trek rules more relevant. Does anyone here remember that a major rule that the Federation had was to never ever time travel?

That's why it was supposed to be such a big deal when Kirk did it in Star Trek 4: The Quest for Blue Whales. And also in like 4 episodes of TOS and 10 episodes of TNG, and I think like 3 in DS9 and maybe like 5 in Voyager.
 
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I'll say this...both series ended abruptly. Does this even need spoilers...The Voyager makes it back to Earth, and cut to black, the series is over. And Enterprise ending is nothing but the Next Gen folks getting a history lesson. That was terrible. Ugh!!!
 
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