What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

It's definitely THE worst series finale to date. I honestly like "Turnabout Intruder(TOS)" more than I do it.

That ought to tell you something.

 

that's not really a serious finale as we see it now, is it?

 

Last episode. Close enough for me.

 

.... but it's not a big preplanned event - they just happened to get cancelled

 

I like your “biggest insult” vs “worse episode” distinction. Part of why I greet TATV with a shrug is that I stopped watching ENT in early Season 3 after contracting a serious case Trek burnout compounded by law school. I didn’t have the emotional investment to be insulted and I like watching Jonathan Frakes on screen. (I never said it was good, just that I don’t hate it the way that other fans (who all probably far more invested in ENT) do

 

count me in there - i happened to like enterprise

 

Yeah, ENT got screwed. First by UPN and then by Berman and Braga's awful idea for a "Valentine" to the fans to wrap everything up in a nice bow.

It wasn't intentional but a slap in the face is still a slap in the face.

 

the kind of valentine spats colombo is known for

 

Which is a damn shame because Season 4 turned out to be so good otherwise.

 

I agree that "PRECIOUS CARGO" is an objectively worse episode than "THESE ARE THE VOYAGES...". I would count "Shades Of Gray" and "Sub Rosa" as worse, too... though the former can be excused somewhat because of the budget and strike situation that season 2 faced. (Plus, the idea that your memories can be used to actually fight off a parasite is an interesting premise... just horribly executed.)

But TATV gets my vote as THE worst episode in the franchise because it focused on lead characters from a show that had already been off the air for over 10 YEARS!

At least the bad episodes of other series were about characters from their own show.

(I will concede that TATV might have been a better episode if it was made as anything other than a series finale.)

 

"TATV..." is definitely amongst my Worst Episodes of Trek Ever. And ranks up there in the numbers.

 

"Sub Rosa" is objective hot garbage whose only redeeming quality is the jokes and memes that came from it. It's not my worst Trek episode ever but if there's a Thunderdome throwdown for the Bottom 10 Episodes of Anything Star Trek "Sub Rosa" would suplex several of the others.

 

there's also the small point about killing off trip - i have no problem with killing off regulars but you don't do that in a series finale unless there's a white whale involved

 

Trip died for no good reason. I know what defenders of the script will say. "He saved his friend the Captain so he could go on to make the Federation Charter Speech." He still died for no good reason. Anyone else on Enterprise could have sacrificed themselves to stop the alien intruders looking for Shran and his daughter and even with a crew this small compared to future starships it carried security officers. Trip was sacrificed because Berman and Braga couldn't think of anything better and felt it would grab the viewers' attention.

It did alright, just not in a good way.

 

Yep. No malice. They just had a terrible idea and doubled down on it.

 

I'm genuinely surprised anyone can look at Precious Cargo and think "This is signficantly worse than the six episodes that came before it". It's not my favourite story, but it's not what I'd pick as the nadir of season 2.

 

Certainly this stands as a strong data point (among many) that B&B were past the point of severe creative burnout by the end of ENT.

 

Two counterpoints:

1 Using the term humans have always used to describe just themselves and nothing else as a catch-all for all intelligent life would be just as racist and kind of non-sensical since Humans are far younger/newer to the interstellar scene than most other major species.

2 Using the term Terran to refer specifically to homo sapiens and no other species is racist towards Dolphins and Humpback Whales. Humans (in Star Trek) aren't intended to be the only intelligent lifeform to have evolved on Terra.

 

That bow was made of stale linguine covered in mold.