When I joined ST.com in 2006, I joined to see why Enterprise was canceled. I was floored by all the negativity towards a series that I had just enjoy so much. I because a self anointed "Enterprise DEFENDER", thwarting bashers left and right all while pulling daggers out of my back. I love the series, have watched it 5 or 6 times and will enjoy it soon again. Nice to see so many Enterprise supporters here!
Wow...it's probably a good thing I missed the series on the first go-round! I just got into it about 2 years ago, and it quickly became my favorite Trek series -foibles and all. (And I used to be a TNG fan girl all thru college ) I honor you as an "Enterprise Defender" - fighting the good fight for those that came behind you!
Sorry to reply so late... I have been musing on this topic. That final scene I think should have been the one Daniels showed Archer of the Federation being established. Only it's happening for real and Archer is there on that stage as one of the participants..
I'm currently re-watching S1 and to my suprise: it's not half as bad as I remember. I was disappointed when it first came out (only becoming a fan S3 onwards), but S1 actually had some pretty interesting stories and character development.
I didn't like the series in the 1st two seasons, I tried recently on Netflix--still unwatchable, but the 3rd and 4th seasons were very good and deserved another season.
I liked Enterprise; sectors of it. I preferred early season one where the ship was underpowered and under-gunned, it was refreshing after the uber ships of TNG.
I was driving through the city earlier this afternoon, listening to radio, when "Wherever you will go" by The Calling started playing and suddenly, I felt this huge rush of Enterprise related nostalgia. It's been over a decade since it went off the air... Damn.
Speculation: Who or what were the aliens in "Silent Enemy" which kept attacking the ship and then vanishing all through the episode. We never did find them again in the series and I often wondered what species they were, and why they attacked?
Oh wow OK that makes sense now. And thinking on it yes that's how it would be if and when we meet aliens for the first few times maybe. BTW I couldn't quote your message. Quoting is not working across this forum for me. I wonder where they were going with that plot in season 4 with the Romulan drone ship..
I felt Bakula was miscast in this one and the series struggled because of it. The captain is the glue that brings it all together and if he isn't completely persuasive in the role; there's problems. And then shoving in Nazis and time travel - pulleeeease. Their attempt to create sultry scenes in the decon room was also mishandled. However parts of it was very good too and when I rewatch some of the episodes I do find myself enjoying many of them.
I love Scott Bakula. I would definitely like the series less if he hadn't been cast. The whole reason I got around to watching it again recently, after having given up on it while it was on the air, was because I had very much enjoyed seeing Scott Bakula in the NBC action/comedy series Chuck. I consider the Space Nazis a net positive for the series as well. TOS had Shatner and co running around in Nazi uniforms for an episode too. The mob elements of that Enterprise two-parter also reminded me a lot of "A Piece of the Action", one of my favorite Trek episodes (and its second best comedy, after "The Trouble with Tribbles" of course). I have no problem with campy Trek. I'll take it over full-of-itself preachy Trek.
Throwing Nazis into these things is just so old hat. Nazis in science fiction just has my eyes rolling. Although I did grudgingly like the Voyager effort now that I'm on that thought -- but I didn't find the Enterprise Nazi episodes to be that memorable. I think Bakula is great though as that kind of affable hero struggling through these extraordinary moral dilemmas and difficult crises and coming out the otherside as we saw with Quantum Leap. I think Bakula has great potential as a villain as well. With Bakula's Archer though, I felt that the writers had Kirk on the brain, they felt that Archer had to confirm to a particular type of character and I think that type just eludes his acting range. I'll certainly grant him his good moments but in too many episodes he comes across as quite wooden.
This is exactly how I feel. Too many forced pew-pew action scenes in Season 1 that didn't suit his laid-back personality. And his delivery was sometimes inconsistent. In one scene he could nail it "Patrick Stewart"-style, and in the next he sounded like he was reading from a teleprompter (especially if that scene involved talking to someone on the viewscreen). Overall I enjoyed Enterprise, but TNG/VOY/DS9 are just better. As a prequel to TOS it doesn't quite work. Season 4 tried, but it was too little too late.
Honestly i have a special place for enterprise I marathoned it on dvd when i was in bad, bad depression at the time and it got me through tough times.
Yes, I think part of the reason for rejection of ENT (apart from obvious inconsistency of quality) is the covert TNG-vs-TOS conflict. This being a prequel to TOS, they were obviously trying to bring back some of the more fun elements from that series (including sexiness, though they dropped that pretty quickly), but for some people "fun" is not wanted in Trek. This is exactly what I like about him as captain. Unlike other captains who make it look easy, Archer really agonised about moral dilemmas. Remember the end of Progenitor, where Archer has to chew out his best friend Trip for inadvertently causing an alien to commit suicide. It's obviously a painful situation for him, and I can't imagine any other captain being so emotionally honest. And when he was talking to other species, you had the sense he felt the weight of responsibility, having to be the representative for the whole of the Earth to these strange and potentially dangerous aliens (the idiocy of A Night in Sickbay notwithstanding). I'll admit he wasn't always great. The scenes where he was antagonistic to the Vulcans were his worst, crude and overdone.
So many interviews of writers and cast members say Scott was the glue who held everyone together. Unfortunately (and ironically), that didn't come across on screen. I think it's because they were inconsistent with writing Archer. If I were an actor, I would be uncomfortable too with the mental whiplash. While he overacted the parts where Archer was a jerk, I do give him credit for making me want to slap him when he's a nice guy in real life. Space Nazis were a half-assed way to close off the Temporal Cold War. Yes, the TCW was UPN's idea but the whole story was weirdly dragged out and rushed at the same time, which cut Home down to one part.