Summary"It's Good to be Home."Star Trek: Enterprise is the latest entry in the Star Trek saga and takes place during the mid-22nd century. Under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer, the crew of the first warp five starship (the Enterprise NX-01) begin to explore the galaxy. As their mission progresses, the crew encounter familiar races like ...
Summary"It's Good to be Home."Star Trek: Enterprise is the latest entry in the Star Trek saga and takes place during the mid-22nd century. Under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer, the crew of the first warp five starship (the Enterprise NX-01) begin to explore the galaxy. As their mission progresses, the crew encounter familiar races like ...
The two-hour pilot is a wonderful show - the best start for a "Star Trek" series in its long and amazing history - and Bakula's instantly likable characterization is no small part of it. [24 Sep 2001]
This is my 3rd fav. series of all Star Trek series. I totally love this crew. It is amazing and I rlly can't remember how often I've been watching the whole series already but I am still enjoying it. Just hate the part with the Xindy.
Out of all the Star Trek series and films, Enterprise is easily the most overlooked, and was the only one since the original to be cancelled. This isn't because it wasn't as good as the rest, but simply the way it was marketed. The show is in fact a prequel to Kirk's Enterprise, and does take place before the Federation, but what the show lacks in technology, is more than made up for with realism and some of the best character development in the Star Trek franchise.
100 years after Zefren Cochrane's warp flight, the human race has had enough of Vulcans holding them back, and have created the first warp five star ship in human history. Over the Vulcan's objections, Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), the son of the engines designer, has been selected to Captain the ship and explore a galaxy that humans know very little about.
This show is extremely important to the franchise and all Trekkies, as it not only shows humanities first trip out of our solar system and first contact with all the races we've come to know over the years, but the show fills in a lot of the gaps from all the other series and films! Enterprise explores the origins of Data's creator, the Eugenic Wars (which created Khan), the development of many protocols and much of the tech we see on future ships, but most important of all the series shows how the foundation for the Federation and the creation of star fleet all came together.
Enterprise was also unique for it's character development and realism, in that it takes place in the not to distant future. We get to know the crew intimately, from their fears to their families, and we see them doing and discussing things never before seen in Star Trek. The Enterprise crew has a classic movie night, watches sports on TV, has pets, and they even talk about sex.
The cast is lead by Scott Bakula, which was another great move by producers. Casting a veteran science fiction actor, whose been in long running series, automatically gives him that air of experience and authority that Picard had. He's also a younger man, so with no federation policies in place yet, Archer can be just as much of a risk taker as Kirk was, even more so.
Star Trek Enterprise was extremely enjoyable, and a series people could relate to more than any other in the Star Trek franchise. The show isn't simply about the future and the Federation, it's about what it means to be human and how that compares to other species. It shows what we need to do in order to get along with and understand other cultures, but most of all it fills in so many holes from previous films and episodes, that it truly was the missing link.
Unfortunately for Star Trek fans, the show barely made a hundred episodes, because it was on a dying network, that folded shortly after the show was cancelled, screwing us trekkies out of three more seasons. As with all the previous series, the story has been continued in books, but in this case, the books were written by the main writers of the series, and do encompass everything that would have happened in seasons five, six, and seven.
It has the usual cheeseball sets and gee-whiz computer graphics, but the quotas of weighty moral lessons and pseudo-scientific incantations seem to have been reduced, though hardly eliminated. [26 Sep 2001]
It's this sense of wonder that sets "Enterprise" apart from the more stodgy Star Trek offerings and injects some much-needed fresh energy into the 35-year-old franchise. [26 Sep 2001]
It goes boldly and unapologetically where dozens of series have gone before.... If that's disappointing, the fifth Trek television series still has more going for it than either Deep Space Nine or Voyager did. And yet, Enterprise isn't going to challenge the supremacy of Next Generation or the beloved status of the original series. [26 Sep 2001]
Definitely the most underrated of any Star Trek series. This show broke the Star Trek mold and set off on its own path. It's not like the other series in the franchise, and that's a good thing. Honestly, it's a breath of fresh air in what can be a very stagnant Trekkie universe.
It follows the tradition of TNG, DS9 and Voyager before with a weaker first season. This does not mean it is bad or garbage. It means there are not many excellent and outstanding episodes here. Lets start at the beginning: After Voyager ended a new Star Trek show was green-lighted. They chose the idea of a prequel. It is the story of the first human spaceship that sets out to explore the realm outside of our solar system. It is set 90 years after the first contact with the Vulcans. The Vulcans wanted to protect and guide mankind because they though they were not read for space exploration yet (I think they were at least partly correct). This lead of cause to some animosity. Many things are not invented or established. The pilot episode two parter “Broken Bow” starts with a Klingon crashing on Earth hunted by Suliban pursuers (New species in Star Trek). He is shot and injured by a farmer. Captain Archer convinces his superiors to bring the Klingon to the Klingon home-world with the newest spaceship (prototype) Enterprise. It is the first grand voyage of humans into the realm outside the solar system. I will stop here because of spoilers. It is an excellent start and I wish there were more episode in this category. However like in all previous Star Trek shows the actors must adept to their characters, the interactions, themes and new ideas must be established. It is basically the testing ground of ideas versus what works or gets fan interest and can best be described as world building. The special effects look good and I think there is mostly nothing wrong visually and artistically. The soundtrack is good and the intro theme is praiseworthy. Excellent song and visuals. I think I continue with my recommendations / favorite episodes: “Broken Bow part 1 and 2”. Already described and a really good start that makes you to want to see more. “Unexpected” for the humorous situation. Even Klingons have a good taste for humor;-). “Terra Nova” for the set up, story and conclusion. I must admit that I have a problem with the 70 years and not done anything sooner. Makes no sense and is pretty unlikely. “The Andorian Incident” for the first appearance of Shran and setting up the conflict between Vulcans and Andorians. Bonus for the conclusion. “Dear Doctor” would be undoubtedly a great episode. But the argumentation for the conclusion are unconvincing and leave a bad taste. I think they committed an unforgivable crime here. In short: Great concept and idea that was wasted with weak arguments. “Detained” for the moral dilemma. Great idea and well executed. Worth to discuss because there is no black or white and no easy solution. “Two days and Two nights” for the idea were everyone gets what the others wished for;-). Also a nice change in paste and focus on interactions. The season final “Shockwave part 1” (part 2 is episode 1 in season 2). Great final episode I chose not to spoil more than the cold gets hot. Overall this has some good episodes and many unremarkable ones. I even have forgotten that I watched some of them. It is not terrible but also not remarkable enough to get a higher rating.
A very big disappointment, but not for the reasons I had ignored watching it the first time around.
Enterprise has good actors, and the occasional great performance, especially from my favorite, Jeffrey Coombs who played the Andorian Shran with an occasional recurrent role). The sets I thought were great, along with the costuming for everyone except T'Pol (which this comes into the problems I have).
The problem comes down to the writing. It is the laziest, sexist, unimaginative writing that I have seen in the Star Trek universe, overall more so then even the first season of ST:NG. The number of **** that occurred randomly on the show (mostly using mind-melds as the stand in) were fairly common. They even had T'Pol who seems to be the constant recipient of this do it back to someone else. That bothered me a lot.
Then we get into the sexist treatment of T'Pol in general, constant forcing her into those situations, combined with that stupid body fitting outfit she wore, instead of the normal uniform. The ramrod writing of trying to shoehorn her into scenes such as the decon room where they have her sweating and posing sexually while waiting for the decontamination happens.
I also need to point out that there were very few original ideas in the series as well. Instead of taking this opportunity to maybe do something more gritty (maybe on a Babylon 5 level) they instead reworked a lot of episodes (well sometimes not even reworking) from the original series. They also tended to not tell stories linearly, instead starting from the end and going back which is not their strength (stay in your lane).
In addition there was no actual character progression, any progress in a character that was learned in a story disappeared within two more episodes. Not even counting the fact that the behavior of the characters would sometimes be 180 degrees from what they said in other episodes. I wonder if they even had a plot bible, which is a book or data store that records all the personality traits of each character and things that happen to change them, this way multiple writers have the same base character for each of their stories and it allows them to slowly change a character.
Overall the sad writing is what made this show sink for me. I can't blame the actors at all, they did what they could. It was a chore to finish Season 4.
Pros: The actors worked hard on this and did make it more watchable (especially Jeffrey Coombs).
Cons: The writing was a mess, no permanent progression, no real original ideas, just rehashing old subjects.
Like they say: The 'Writing' is everything. And the writing on this show stinks. Whereas previous editions of Star Trek were usually true Science Fiction this edition show has fallen down to Cowboys and Indians in space. Accompanied by terrible feats of illogical action that just can't be deflected. One can only hope it improves as it goes along, but right now it's very mundane.
Just awful. The characters are moved along only by the plot-device of "We're idiots and never think things through"
Fart jokes, juvenile thoughts on sexually, and they let a genocide happen because "evolution wills it to be so". Archer hides alcohol in the shuttlepod, cares more about his dog than crew mates, gets overwhelmed in almost every close combat situation, and constantly acts like a crazy person, ignoring all reason. This show is the worst star trek .
DS9 is way better.