Watching ENT despite the continuity flaws.

No Star Trek series has ever been made to fit into the 'continuity' or the 'canon'. They're made to entertain fans. 99% of the viewing audience doesn't notice stuff like warp factors or what directions anomalies face on the full moon of a certain Klingon holiday.

 

I've been watching Trek for decades and I don't notice that stuff!

 

You're assuming a mistake has been made, when I suggest they're deliberately using the faster examples I've cited as their baseline - moving the goal posts back to where they were, so to speak. IMHO everything apart from Voyager fits nicely into this framework - no need to ignore lines like "rim of the galaxy" and "centre of the galaxy"

Each to their own, I guess.

When the whole point of the story is that they're leaving the galaxy or travelling to it's centre, it seems rather silly to pretend they didn't know where they really were.

 

Having watched all Trek series, most of them in their original runs, and now courtesy of Netflix re-watching, I can't say that "Enterprise" suffered any more or any less than the other Trek shows with regards to internal continuity.

Certainly, if omission of previous encounters within the series is a measure of continuity flaws, then TOS has as much as any others. At one point, in Season 3 (I think?) they almost mention the Horta, but in such a ham-handed way, it didn't feel like they were remembering the same adventure.

 

No, TOS never treated the trip from Earth to Vulcan, or the Klingon border, as nigh-instantaneous. TOS was about a starship exploring deep space, far from its home port and never returning there. The modern series' effortless commutes from Earth to everywhere else are a complete abandonment of the original intent of Trek. It's not much of a frontier if you get there faster than you can walk to the corner store.

And as I said, we know for a fact that the filmmakers of ST '09 structured the trip to Vulcan to imply it took longer than shown; Abrams wanted it to flow smoothly for the sake of pacing, but subtly acknowledged the underlying reality that it would realistically have to take more than a few moments. McCoy's change of clothing and Kirk's time spent sedated suggest that a few hours at least have elapsed even though the editing implies a quicker pace. This was entirely intentional, as we know for certain from statements made by the filmmakers. So STID's failure to acknowledge the same passage of time in a trip from the Klingon border to Earth contradicts the intentions of the previous film. And thus, yes, I think I can validly call it a mistake, an oversight on the filmmakers' part -- or, if it was an intentional oversight, still a bad and unnecessary idea.

And I've already proven that that's not true, that VGR is merely following the precedent established in TNG and DS9. I cited DS9's "Battle Lines" as establishing specific travel time, but I forgot that the precedent was actually set far earlier in TNG's "The Price." The Barzan wormhole was said to span 70,000 light years (the same distance as the Bajoran wormhole and nearly the same as Voyager's journey), and Picard said that the travel time at normal warp would be "eighty years or so." There's also "Q Who," in which the ship was thrown 7,000 light-years across space and Data said it would take two years, seven months to reach the nearest starbase. (Not to return to their original position, though, so perhaps that nearest starbase is substantially closer than where they started from.) So it's been consistent throughout TNG, DS9, and VGR that 24th-century warp drive would take years to span thousands of light-years. The specific cited travel times are inconsistent, but all within an order of magnitude of 1000 times the speed of light.

Indeed, the whole concept of DS9 goes out the window if you can get from Earth to Vulcan (canonically 16 light-years) in a couple of minutes, or to the center of the galaxy (c. 27,000 light-years) in less than an hour. At the former speed, Dominion space would be only a few days away, and at the latter it would be only a couple of hours away. In either case, the wormhole would have no value or strategic importance. Obviously the entire series of DS9 depends on that not being the case, on inter-quadrant travel taking decades via conventional warp drive. As do TNG episodes like "Where No One Has Gone Before," "Q Who," "The Price," "The Nth Degree," and "Descent."

So you're absolutely wrong to say that VGR is the only series based on this premise. The same limit on warp velocities applies throughout TNG, DS9, VGR, and obviously ENT where the ships were slower. That's the vast majority of the entire Trek franchise -- 628 episodes/films out of a total 738 to date (counting "The Cage" and both parts of "The Menagerie" separately). That's 85% of canon.

As stated, the galactic center is 27,000 +/- 1000 light-years from Earth. The thin disk of the galaxy has no real definable edge, of course, but it's estimated to be roughly 3300 ly thick, meaning the nearest face would be about 1600 ly away. Although it's irregular enough that there's no way to define that exactly. Of course the whole idea of an "energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy" is complete nonsense.

 

I think whether or not Ent was "stylistically, structurally, and writing-wise", too similar to Voy and TNG is debatable, but even if it is true, just because the shows are set in different centuries in the Trek-verse, it does not necessarily follow that the shows must be structured, written, and stylized in different ways. The differences between the time periods in which the shows are set can be emphisized while using similar writing techniques.

This is assuming of course that I understand your meaning of "stylistically, structurally, and writing-wise". But regardless, I'de love to see some examples from both shows that illustrate what you mean by this.

 

Huh. I guess you and I watched two completely different shows, because I got none of that. I was turned off of ENT for the same reason I was turned off of VOY: Because it was the same boring formula of mainly human ships' crew visiting alien/planet of the week that I could care less about. And when it wasn't doing that, it was giving gratuitous displays of decon-gel soft porn, masseuses, and frat-boy mentalities for the nascent spacefaring people of which you speak. And the real nascent spacefaring people, the Boomers (of which Travis was one, and obcenely underutilized), was featured for perhaps one or two episodes. Not to mention that the technology wasn't really all that different from the 23rd or 24th century. Akira-style ship? Check. Shuttlecraft? Check. Starfleet? Check. Transporters? Check. Phasers (aka phase pistols)? Check. Communicators? Check. TNG-style rank pins? Check. Klingons? Check. Token black guy? Asian? Brit? One or two alien crewmembers? All check.

 

I agree with many of those complaints, though, again, the similarity to the preceding series was demanded by the network and not what the creators wanted. But despite the series' flaws and the unfortunate limitations it was saddled with, it still has some intriguing merits. The second season is pretty directionless, but the first season has an arc and attitude I rather enjoy.

 

I LOVED Enterprise and was sad it ended when and how it did. So far as "continuity errors," I hate to break it to other fans, but no Star Trek show, including TOS, was 100% perfect at avoiding such errors. I feel Enterprise did a good job being faithful to canon while still being it's own show all things considered.

 

None were 100% perfect, it is true - they all had some cringeworthy moments. But only the final episode of Enterprise and the episode of Voyager known as "Threshold" ever made me think truly dark thoughts about those responsible for them.

 

And of course TMP gave us a canicol journey time from Earth to Vulcan of 4 days. Or 4 light years per day. Which would put Voyager's journey around the 50 year mark. At those speeds.

But with so many writers over so many years, these kind of details can get lost. Are we more forgiving or continuity errors etc.. when we are being fully entertained, if we aren't being fully entertained do we start to pick apart things more and say that was wrong, and that was wrong etc..

 

Yeah, but that was for a ship that still had barely tested engines and had taken something of a beating -- plus it had only been minutes earlier that Scotty had had the engines counting down to self-destruct, which probably threw off their calibration somewhat. So they would've had good reason to take it slow. A fully intact ship that needed to race from Earth to Vulcan for an emergency situation could've probably gone a great deal faster.

 

Continuity and writing errors are more commonplace than we would think in television and film.

One glaring mistake I noticed tonight at the end of "Zero Hour" was T`Pol as "acting Captain" stating that the date was Feb 14, 2152.

This date had clearly been well surpassed as Season 2 and 3 progressed.

 

^It was supposed to be February 14, 2154. The log entry in the previous episode had been February 13, 2154.

 

Yes, and it seems a glaring mistake to let that piece of dialogue get through without anyone noticing.

 

^Mistakes happen. As I know from writing novels, a work can be scanned for errors dozens of times by many pairs of eyes, but there will almost always be a few mistakes that slip through the cracks nonetheless. There are just so many thousands of details to pay attention to that even intense scrutiny will miss a few.

 

Enterprise's presentation of the 22nd century didn't bother me, but all the 'Make it up as we go along' time travel physics got a little ridiculous.

Really season 4 was what season 1 should have been, because it got away from trying to be another TNG/Voyager style show and embraced its roots with original stories.

And you might have to say TATV is canon, but you don't have to say that Riker's holoprogram was accurate.

 

I've never been bothered too much about the apparent speed and distance differences. I'm watching ENT through again though and the only continuity that bothered me was in Regeneration with the Borg. It was a great episode as far as directing, effects, action, and score. However, the whole time watching it I couldn't get over how big of a role the Borg play in the later series when there should have been a record of them in Starfleet. Despite the fact that they were never named in the episode, it still detracted from my enjoyment of it because they were cyborgs that took over humans. Surely a search by Picard through Starfleet records would have brought up some information, assuming Archer files mission records.

For the most part I dislike the writing in ENT more than any canon issues though. I loved the cast and their acting, for the most part, and visually it was impressive. I also liked the prequel concept, but I think the writing (as in bad dialogue or plot holes) is worse than any canon issues. I'm still working my way through season 3 and don't remember most of season 4, so we'll see if my opinion changes.

 

Regeneration was surprisingly, a good episode. I remember being here, all the way back, when it was announced, and the reaction here was of utter vitriol and hatred from many fans.

The only problem i had with it, is that it makes Picard look incompetent and unthorough. Surely he would have conducted a scan for any debris, from the ship which he destroyed? Other than that, one of ENT's better episodes.