I understand Archers more serious tone. I get that humanities fate is weighing heavy on him. No problem here. Problems: (of course these are just my own observations) I do not see the reason behind the subtle changes to the opening credit music. I prefered the original from the first two seasons. Don't really understand the change. The title change from Enterprise to -Star Trek- Enterprise. To me this is a redundancy unless for some reason CBS thought that placing -Star Trek- in the title was going to boost ratings. The whole writing for the introduction of Tucker and T'Pol's midnight massage encounters is very lame to me. I find the whole T'Pol's quarters, sitting around half naked and rubbing on each other is about as enjoyable as a cat walking on piano keys or fingernails on a chalkboard. I just do not get it. Instead of the Tucker/T'Pol crap I think they should have focused more attention to the new military pressence onboard the Enterprise. I like the introduction of the "Space Marines." I like their uniforms too. In Season 3 Episode 1 "The Xindi" I liked the introduction and use of the Starfleet Stun Baton used in a fight...was very cool to see. In Episode 4 "Rajiin" I must say that I was expecting Archer to shoot and kill Rajiin rather than have her deliver their bio scans. I only thought this due to his new attitude.
Season 3 was one huge 9/11 trauma compensation. Had the attack and the following war not happened, the whole Xindi arc wouldn't even exist. No space marines, no Archer torturing bad guys.
I thought Archer's turnaround was way too sudden, from namby-pamby boy scout to grizzled wartime captain willing to torture and kill for his people. It came across as caricature for the first S3 episode. The Trip/T'Pol stuff was very high school-ish, but I enjoyed it. Her going off the rails under the stress of the mission was quite unexpected to me. And if Chernobyl never happened, there would be no STVI. If the Humpback Whales were never in danger, no STIV. If the Vietnam War never happened, no Prime Directive, no "A Private Little War" and a very different TNG... and so on.
Placing Star Trek in the title was a surrender, an unfortunate admission that there were difficulties selling the show, with its divergence from the other series, to audiences. I don't think that the new arrangement of the title track was meant to support some sort of militaristic attitude. Indeed, the season ends up critiquing such an attitude. It was just a way of putting on a fresh coat of paint. Indeed, I prefer the new arrangement over the old.
Just got finished with Season 3 Episode 10 "Similitude" Never thought a "Tripp" episode could make me cry, but damn now my sinuses are all messed up It really got to me when Sim tells Dr. Phlox he was a good father, and Phlox tells him he was a good son (regardless of how much time had actually passed). Archer's attitude reminded me of Kirk's because Archer states that Earth needs Enterprise to be successful, and Enterprise needs Tripp to be successful...so in this conundrum it remindes me of Kirk saying "I don't like to lose." With this episode I kinda feel Archer is dodging a bullet he dosen't want to face. Kobayashi Maru anyone?
The third season of Enterprise went a bit too far into the dark and grim, with not enough moments of levity to balance it out. The remixed Faith of the Heart is nowhere near as good as the version used for the first and second season. I'm honestly surprised they kept it for the fourth season.
I Loved the changes to the song. Very well done and so enjoyable. I still wish that orchestration was on CD. I also loved the change in T'Pol's makeup. She looked so much better with the lighter hair and traditional Vulcan eyebrows. All around, the series got really good starting that season.
Re: the title change, I don't know the reasoning behind it either, but if it were me I'd have introduced the UFP in the assumptive Season 4 or 5, and changed the title then to reflect that we're finally making our tentative first steps into 'Star Trek' as we know it from TOS-onwards. That'd make sense. Of course, maybe the production team had a heads-up they were on a knife's edge with ENT by the third season, so they played that card early?
Agreed. The same music with a more twangy background beat was really unnecessary. If they wanted to change something, why not just change the entire song? (Which would have been unnecessary as well, since the song itself was just fine IMHO) It's a little more complicated than that. The reason why "Star Trek" wasn't in the title in the first place was that UPN wanted to advertise the show to the casual viewer. They felt that having Star Trek in the title would turn them off, and since they already knew that Trek fans would watch the show anyway, they decided to drop the name and bill the show as "the first series that fans and non-fans can enjoy!" Well, that didn't work out as they thought, so instead they decided to do a total 360: "Not only do we have to pander to the Trek fans in total, we have to devote a whole season to linking this show to TOS!" Hence the return of the name and season 4. Yeah, that was UPN pandering to the lowest common denominator of viewer in a pathetic effort to boost ratings. It was just an extension of those pointless decontamination scenes. There was nothing wrong with having a love interest between the two, but it was handled rather silly at first. But yes, I liked the MACOs too.
So if I remember it right (it has been a long time) I saw most of season 1 and a couple episodes of season 2 when it was first run, and never watched it further. So did I see the worst of Enterprise or were the last couple seasons no better?
I think the consensus is that S3 is an improvement over the earlier seasons and S4 is the best of all, but I'm not a qualified source. In any case, I believe 3-4 are almost always considered better than 1-2. I certainly prefer the latter half.
Funny that you mention the lack of focus on the MACOs...I think that hackneyed outta left field rivalry between Hayes and Reed in that one episode was supposed to be addressing how different they were. Which would have worked if we'd ever SEEN more of how MACO operated versus Starfleet, and if Hayes and Reed had ever interacted with one another before then. Other that spawning more Reed centric slash fic, there was little gained by that crap.
360, Dukhat? That points you back in the direction you were going in the first place. Now, a 180, that's a different story.
And I wish we never got taken out to the holosuite.. but there ya go. Episodic 22+ a season television.
Or, better yet, it could not have happened at all. I never bought into these "what's your favorite/least favorite season of Star Trek?" discussions before, then that worthless Xindi season happened. Most notably, it achieved the impossible. It took Trip, who was an insufferable, unlikable, loud mouthed jackass from day one, and turned him into an insufferable, unlikeable WHINY loud mouthed jackass. But, I understnad some people like the Xindi arc, and I'm fine with that. I just don't.