Would these are the voyages been less hated if it was not the last episode?

So i've just finishing rewatching the whole series again, and i'm wondering would the episode have been less hated if it was not the final episode.

Like if it was still the last episode of the season but it was not their final mission.

 

Less hated? Absolutely. It would still be an incredibly crappy nonsensical mess, but it wouldn't be as insulting to the audience and cast.

I think that if Demons/Terra Prime had been the final episode the show would be more fondly remembered. TATV is one hell of a sour note to go out on.

 

Less hated, absolutely. It still would not be very good in it's current form. Needs a strong rewrite.

 

Would it be less hated? Maybe. While it is still a poorly written episode, I find if I watch it on its own merits without taking into account that it's the series finale, it's nowhere near the disaster everyone claims it is.

But yeah, either way the script still needed a lot of work. To begin with, there was no need to sandwich Riker and Deanna's storyline in with The Pegasus where they are clearly eleven years older than they should be. Having it aboard the Enterprise E just before Nemesis, or even on the Titan after Nemesis would have worked a lot better.

 

I recently rewatched this episode I still really dislike it. It doesn't get any better especially the stupid way Trip's character was treated and all the Enterprise characters too.

 

ENT had plenty of lousy episodes ("Precious Cargo" etc), this would have been just another - albeit one establishing a dumb death and nothing changing for ten whole years.

I think it's as a finale to 18 years of TV Trek that makes it hurt the most.

 

I just finished up Enterprise tonight and TATV is disappointing on so many levels. The Terra Prime episodes pretty much made the perfect finale, Archer's speech at the end providing the perfect ending, even if I thought it was prematurely ending as a series.

I almost look at TATV as a coda as opposed to a true finale. I never cared for the holodeck idea and just the randomness of bringing in TNG characters out of the blue just didn't work for me. Riker had long ago dealt with the consequences of the Pegasus incident and I didn't feel any need to revisit it. And it all seemed so out of place. Trip's panicked attempt to 'rescue' Archer made no sense. He always trusted Archer to get them out of those situations. I can see him putting his life on the line for Archer but not before giving Archer at least a chance to get them out of it. And his exaggerated concern about Archer making it for his speech. I can see concern, yes, but he was almost paranoid about it.

And I still can't believe absolutely no mention that a major war had just ended. None whatsoever. You'd think there'd at least be a throwaway line about the Romulan War. Hell, they mentioned the Xindi, why not the Romulans. You'd think that was at least as important, esp. considering it led to the formation of the Federation in the first place. If Manny Coto had written the episode I'm sure he'd have mentioned it (though he probably wouldn't have wrote it as is to begin with).

The only thing I liked was the final scenes of the 3 Enterprises and their respective themes. It was a nice way to tie everything together. And as someone obsessed with canon sometimes I liked that they used 'where no man has gone before'. But that was it.

I was sincerely grateful that the novels retconned this episode (though I guess that's not the right word since they never said Riker and Troi didn't visit this holodeck program....only that history is not as it was written). Martin and Mangels managed to actually make some sense out of TATV because a lot of it didn't make sense.

 

Actually, as an aside, I always thought they should have ended the series with the opening volleys of the Romulan War, soon after Terra Prime. I know it would have been sticking it in the eye of UPN (that is to end on that type of cliffhanger) but so what. Perhaps Paramount would have considered a Romulan War epic in some form--a TV miniseries or something. Doubtful... perhaps, but TATV left them off the hook in a big way. Esp. since it was so disappointing as a finale Paramount felt absolutely no need to revisit it in any format.

 

i wish the novels had picked up immediately after Terra Prime. You could have squeezed a lot of good books in between TP and TATV. I give them an A for effort for trying to fix the unfixable, but I would love to have seen a series of books that felt like a genuine Season 5.

 

I think that if it was just a run-of-the-mill mid-season episode, it wouldn't have been written the same way. Almost certainly Trip wouldn't have died.

 

Actually the relaunch novels do take place soon after Terra Prime. One of the plot devices they used in the novels was that the holodeck version of events was incorrect in it's time placement too. The event's of Trip's 'faked' death as seen in TATV were actually several years earlier, before the Romulan War broke out but a few months after Terra Prime (that was also done to explain why in TATV there was so little difference in the crew and ranks, and many other things since Terra Prime). I think when Jake and Nog were reviewing the actual historical events one of them commented how they always thought it was odd that after 10 years there was so little change with the crew and their ranks in all that time.

 

Yeah. The first 2 seasons were uneven. But then TNG and DS9 also were uneven in their first 2 seasons also. The Xindi year started to show some improvement and I give them credit for getting outside the box a bit more. The 4th season finally found its legs for me and I wished we had more, esp. considering the Romulan War was on the horizon. Whenever I watch the Aenar episodes it always disappoints me that we were on the cusp of finally seeing a foundational event in Star Trek history and it got cancelled before we were able to get to that point. I was happy S&S decided to finally depict the story of the Romulan War (even in a disappointingly abbreviated format) BUT....it should have been depicted on screen, not relegated to print.

And TATV remains a huge disappointment. I'll take Berman and Braga at their word that they intended it as a 'valentine' to fans. But it just failed on so many levels. Enterprise finally found it's legs and it just felt like they cut their legs out from under them. I'm not a Berman hater. I loved a lot of the Star Trek he was involved with. I sometimes think he is unfairly maligned. But this was a bad call, and a sad way for his tenure with Star Trek to end.

 

TATV was one of the most aweful episodes I've ever watched, Up there with Shades of Gray, or Skin of Evil.. I watched it once, original airing.. haven't rewatched it since..
I'm supremely glad the books retconed Trips death.. that was horrible..
If it wasn't a series finale? It might have hurt less, but still wouldn't watch it again.. I'm not saying that every death in a series has to be "grand" but a purpose would be nice. Trips had less purpose than Tasha's.. atleast she wanted to get out, and was handled like a red shirt death, showing that the pool of goo was a menace..

 

The episode was clearly rushed and weird, but to the team they were ending their tenure of Trek so I can see why they tried to tie it in with TNG and the show not the movies. Killing Trip was stupid. Having the same crew 10 years later was also stupid. I don't know the details, how much time did they have to write and film this after the axe was dropped?

 

These are the Voyages is not without merit. On its own, I can watch this episode and enjoy it (to a certain extent) despite its faults...and as a lot of people already pointed out, it's got a lot of faults. And when you add the fact that it's the finale, it does go out on a sour note especially after how much I enjoyed the 4th season. I think, "Seriously, this is the best they could do?" I wish they could have done a 5th season so the disappointment of TATV as a finale isn't etched in our collective consciousness.

 

As a relatively new fan, I am trying to read /watch everything whatever I can find about ENT. Now, I am reading all the fanfic stories at HouseofTucker as HopefulRomantic suggested. Some authors try, so to say work up trauma of canceling the show and TATV. At comments, people discussed very contrarily, if the TATV is canon or not. And I realized, I never thought about it, for me it was clear, TATV is not canon for me. What they had done with Shran, Trip, TnT, Romulan War.. Even Archer's speech was skipped. What we get for our Valentine? An obese Riker flirting with T'Pol, Counselor Jar Jar Troi Binks swinging her wigs and most believable crew ever is degrading to holofigures.

One of the interesting post-TATV Fanfic, The Ring of Truth, its first chapter is uploaded at August 20, 2005, tells a story about faking death of Trip to send him a secret mission, which is known and supported by Archer, Malcolm and
Dr. Phlox. T'Pol realizes that he is still alive through the bond. The fanfic has some significant similarities with The Good That Men Do (published at March 2007). I don't want to speculate/imply anything, I just only want to say, the fans are more passionate than all those people who own all the ST properties. Trekkie people need only creative freedom.
After TATV, I was so deeply disappointed and ordered all ENT novels and after reading all of them I was more disappointed and frustrated. Romulan War and all the main characters are soo messed up. At least after Mr. Bennett, we have good/interesting sci-fi, but all the characters became for my taste implausible, unbelievable and unlikable individuals.

So for the people like me, I can warmly recommend: forget TATV, read the fanfics. You will read too many foolish, childish stories with bad construction and many canon violations, nevertheless you feel the love of authors to ENT, to ST. And you will find far more better stories with brilliant details and characterization than show and novels. You will read some of them breathless and even sacrifice your sleep/ lunch break/whatsoever and you will know it is worth it. You will enjoy the ride and have fun!

 

I personally consider "Terra Prime" the last episode and ignore that other thing whenever I watch the series. I've only viewed it once, when it first aired, and never again. I think we should call for a wide-spread fan "shunning" of that episode that shall not be named.
It's like "The Star Wars Holiday Special" for Trek people.

 

This is some of the first content I've read about this episode that has criticisms that I can agree with. I never hated TATV the way that the internet reviewers would have you believe it should be hated.

Typically though, the best argument these people put forward is that they've somehow concluded that TATV diminishes the entire series down to something that happens on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D, rendering it all obsolete. Which of course is a ridiculous, obtuse and inaccurate observation of the episode and it's content - where blanket statements like that come from is beyond me.

I have never read an ENT era novel, although I know that some of them tackled the Romulan War, which should've been shown in a season 5 of the show. And the truth is that I never felt that having TNG cast on the final episode diminished anything for the ENT cast at all. But some of the stuff you've mentioned here? Ya, sure absolutely good points about the episode.