It was certainly part of your point, as you were implying that ENT showed dangerous situations at the expense of anomaly/political/diplomatic themes
1. No I didn't. I merely stated that ENT relied too heavily on overt violence.
But you said
They didn't need to show 'dangers' every episode. TNG got by with many interesting anomaly of the week episodes, political episodes, diplomatic episodes.
and
ENT could have done a far better job of instilling the wonder of exploring the final frontier, the nebulas, the anomalies, space creatures etc instead of every new moon/planet harbouring another group of bad guys.
You were definitely suggesting a dichotomy: one thing at the expense of the other. And I'm saying you can have both.
No. I'm saying the other Trek's did a better job of having more episodes that completely ignored violent themes or [at least] were not so overt with them.
Action and physical danger in Trek are bad, right?
This whole silly rant is very clarifying: I think you are arguing with yourself here. I love ENT [have it on Blu-ray and DVD etc] so you are just creating...things...to rant about. That "determined to hate" part is bizarre. [I suspect you aren't really reading my posts and I'm wasting my time here. I explicitly stated S3&4 were excellent.]
But you despise seasons 1 and 2. I'm saying they actually have many good things, you are saying they don't, or if they do they are utterly cancelled out by the presence of violent themes.
Which is a monotone thing to show. The show didn't need to be that way. Relying on random hostile aliens and portraying space as the wild west is simple and easy writing. I would have had a greater appreciation if there was more actual exploration, more races who were friendly. This whole "pre-Federation everything was wild" is just painfully simplistic, boringly formulaic and not very realistic. There SHOULD have been treaties, there should have been relations established long before the humans ventured into space. It all has a colonial-era, "we will tame the savages" vibe to it that wasn't necessary.
Again I reiterate: if during the time of ENT everything was la-la-la and holding hands, what exactly was the point of the Federation?
The colonialist accusation doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. It was the later-set series that were about imposing Federation ideals on unreformed aliens. ENT was simply about trying to form positive diplomatic relations.
All that said, there were a number of relatively friendly alien encounters: socialising with aliens in Broken Bow, The Seventh, Two days two nights; having essentially friendly encounters with new aliens in Fight or Flight, Unexpected, Civilization, Cold Front, Dear Doctor, Rogue Planet, Oasis, Detained (meeting the good Suliban), Vox Sola, Carbon Creek. A night in sickbay, Marauders, Dawn, Cease Fire (our heroes stop a war), Canamar (apart from the whole false imprisonment thing), Judgment (meeting a good Klingon), Cogenitor (until Trip screws it up).
Now let's look at the "excellent" seasons 3 and 4:
3 was almost entirely about war and conflict - evil Xindi threatening genocide and stabbing each other in the back, plus our heroes turning to piracy and torture.
In season 4 we saw:
Storm Front 1 & 2, which our heroes fight aliens who have allied with Nazis;
Home, in which Phlox is physically threatened by humans who hate aliens; the
Augments arc, which is full of shooting, punching and threats of death, the
Vulcan arc, which includes all that plus kicks off with a deadly bomb explosion and includes a prolonged scene of an Andorian torturing a Vulcan,
Observer Effect, in which "enlightened" aliens impassively watch the Enterprise succumb to a deadly infection; the
Andorian arc, in which the Romulans are killing people in an effort to start a war, while Andorians, Tellarites and humans are at each other's throat for most of the arc (including a duel to the death between Archer and Shran); the
Klingon arc, in which Phlox is kidnapped by Klingons, followed by near-constant fighting between humans and Klingons;
Bound, in which devious aliens seize control of Enterprise;
In A Mirror Darkly, obviously full of violence and conflict; the
Terra Prime arc, in which alien-hating humans seize a weapon of mass destruction;
TATV, in which alien criminals invade the ship.
Why do you focus only on the action and conflict in seasons 1 and 2, but ignore it in seasons 3 and 4?
