Poll Did You Watch "These Are the Voyages" When It Originally Aired?

[Oddish]

Terra Prime felt like the true series finale anyway.

Not exactly ideal, but better than what came after it.

TATV feels more like an epilogue.

It was supposed to be a "valentine" to the fans. Well, I guess it qualifies... IF your idea of a valentine involves dead flowers, chocolate coated laxatives, and romantic cruises aboard the RMS Titanic.

 

[fireproof78]

It was supposed to be a "valentine" to the fans. Well, I guess it qualifies... IF your idea of a valentine involves dead flowers, chocolate coated laxatives, and romantic cruises aboard the RMS Titanic.

Just goes to show that fans and production teams do not value the same thing.

 

[tomalak301]

Just goes to show that fans and production teams do not value the same thing.

Which is why production teams listening to fans and giving them what they want is a futile exercise. You can respect the material, but bring something new to the table.

 

[Oddish]

Let me be clear, TATV was not so much a horrible episode. It was mostly a decent piece of "let's sneak Jonathan Frakes into another Trek series" fanservice, but it just destroyed multiple characters. Shran was a jewel thief, Trip was unnecessarily bumped off, everyone else stagnated for six years. Why did they think we wanted this?

 

[fireproof78]

Why did they think we wanted this?

Because people just want to see the characters together.

 

[tomalak301]

Let me be clear, TATV was not so much a horrible episode. It was mostly a decent piece of "let's sneak Jonathan Frakes into another Trek series" fanservice, but it just destroyed multiple characters. Shran was a jewel thief, Trip was unnecessarily bumped off, everyone else stagnated for six years. Why did they think we wanted this?

I still say if it had not been the final episode (Like aired in the middle of the season, maybe even after In a Mirror Darkly, the reaction wouldn't have been as bad.

 

[Dukhat]

Why did they think we wanted this?

Because at the time, Berman and Braga truly believed that TATV was a great sendoff for both ENT and Star Trek in general. It was only much later that they realized that too many fans hated it for those fans to be wrong.

 

[Oddish]

Because people just want to see the characters together.

Myself included. I enjoy being reminded that this is a greater universe here.

I still say if it had not been the final episode (Like aired in the middle of the season, maybe even after In a Mirror Darkly, the reaction wouldn't have been as bad.

Make it a midseason episode set in 2155, have Tala be Shran's niece or something, don't randomly kill Trip. The story could still work, and Riker could still pop in. It wouldn't be Trek's best fanservice episode, but it would probably be appreciated for what it was.

Because at the time, Berman and Braga truly believed that TATV was a great sendoff for both ENT and Star Trek in general. It was only much later that they realized that too many fans hated it for those fans to be wrong.

Well, those two believed that the proper response when viewers wrote in about a certain personnel decision on VOY was to not only refuse to accommodate them, but to rub their noses in it.

 

[Anna Yolei]

Because people just want to see the characters together.

Speaking as someone who was new to Trek as a whole and has less than average nostalgia for TNG, my problem with TATV as a finale is the idea that every Trekkie and their dad was dying for more TNG content. The one thing people had on their bucket list was seeing Riker as captain of his own ship and it took another fifteen years before we saw that (coincidentally, from a showrunner who considered ENT his fave Trek series!).

I mean, TNG fans had either largely moved on from the franchise or actively hated ENT, so even this regurgitated retelling of the weirdest episode to use as a framing device wasn't giving them anything new, either.

And while I wish Frakes, Sirtis and/or Spiner had better sense than to agree to do this, the onus was on B&B for putting them in that position in the first place and creating animosity amongst the two casts that never needed to exist.

 

[Dukhat]

Speaking as someone who was new to Trek as a whole and has less than average nostalgia for TNG, my problem with TATV as a finale is the idea that every Trekkie and their dad was dying for more TNG content. The one thing people had on their bucket list was seeing Riker as captain of his own ship and it took another fifteen years before we saw that (coincidentally, from a showrunner who considered ENT his fave Trek series!).

I mean, TNG fans had either largely moved on from the franchise or actively hated ENT, so even this regurgitated retelling of the weirdest episode to use as a framing device wasn't giving them anything new, either.

And while I wish Frakes, Sirtis and/or Spiner had better sense than to agree to do this, the onus was on B&B for putting them in that position in the first place and creating animosity amongst the two casts that never needed to exist.

To this day, I still have no freaking clue why they chose "The Pegasus" for the framing story. No clue whatsoever. Because in the context of the actual TNG episode, nothing Riker and Troi do in TATV makes any sense. Exactly when in the circumstances of that episode did they both have time to go gallivanting around in the holodeck playing make-believe Chef while the events of "The Pegasus" take place? No to mention that in order for this framing story to work, they had to recreate expensive Enterprise-D sets when they could have reused the Enterprise-E sets and set the framing story aboard the Titan? I know they wanted to do a sort of 'lost TNG episode' thing, but they could have done something far more creative than that. Plus, did they even take into consideration how different Frakes and Sirtis looked from the last time they were on TNG? It's like Berman and Braga came up with this idea while stoned.

 

[Reanok]

The whole TNG Pegasus stuff never made any sense to me .for framing the story and the holodeck nonsense with the Enterprise crew.

 

[Sakonna]

I came back to watch TATV live, after checking out after "Precious Cargo" a few seasons prior. It confirmed I had made the right choice in abandoning the show.

In the years since I watched it all, and I have never connected with the view that "Terra Prime" would have made a better finale. To my mind, ended with Trip & T'Pol crying over their dead baby would have made an even worse ending than TATV did.

To this day, I still have no freaking clue why they chose "The Pegasus" for the framing story.

My theory was always that it was around TNG's final season that was the last time Braga & Berman felt emotionally connected to the work, so when they searched their minds for an emotionally resonant framing sequence, that's what was generated.

 

[JoseNoodles]

In the years since I watched it all, and I have never connected with the view that "Terra Prime" would have made a better finale. To my mind, ended with Trip & T'Pol crying over their dead baby would have made an even worse ending than TATV did.

Them crying over their child is not what would have made it a good finale, rather it's the fact that delegates from different worlds where asking to attend Elisabeth's funeral and continue the work that Paxton was so set on destroying. It's like the inverse of the funeral scene in The Wrath of Khan, life taking shape in the shadow of death.

 

[Dukhat]

In the years since I watched it all, and I have never connected with the view that "Terra Prime" would have made a better finale. To my mind, ended with Trip & T'Pol crying over their dead baby would have made an even worse ending than TATV did.

I also don't feel Terra Prime would have made a good finale. I think many people feel this way simply because TATV was so bad that anything would have been better, and TP was the closest episode production-wise to it.

My theory was always that it was around TNG's final season that was the last time Braga & Berman felt emotionally connected to the work, so when they searched their minds for an emotionally resonant framing sequence, that's what was generated.

I get that, especially with their want to make a 'lost' TNG episode. But there was still no reason to use 'The Pegasus' as a framing story. They could have easily just come up with an original story on their own that was set in TNG's 7th season. Instead they shoehorned it into an ep that logically doesn't work.

 

[fireproof78]

Them crying over their child is not what would have made it a good finale, rather it's the fact that delegates from different worlds where asking to attend Elisabeth's funeral and continue the work that Paxton was so set on destroying. It's like the inverse of the funeral scene in The Wrath of Khan, life taking shape in the shadow of death.

Indeed. I barely watched TATV, and only did because I heard about the Pegasus connection (my favorite TNG episode). Honestly, and I say this rarely, but Terra Prime was so satisfying the way it ended that if the show had ended there I would have been ok with it. It could also have continued. It was just right enough to be satisfactory.

 

[GulBahana]

Yeah. It confused me at the time. I wasn't a huge Enterprise fan then, so it wasn't a big deal. Now that I appreciate Enterprise more, it's messed up.

 

[tomalak301]

In the years since I watched it all, and I have never connected with the view that "Terra Prime" would have made a better finale. To my mind, ended with Trip & T'Pol crying over their dead baby would have made an even worse ending than TATV did.

If they had ended the episode with Archer's speech to the delegates, it would have been an amazing finale.

 

[mattman8907]

yes and i felt gipped. The final episode of Star Trek (after 18 years of being on the air) and it's a fricking holodeck program? God I was angry.

 

[Herbert]

I did not view it at that time because I gave up on ENT during season 1. I think I was feeling some Trek burnout back then and I also remember being very underwhelmed by ENT in general. I only saw the rest of the series in the last couple of years.

 

[Reanok]

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating are trying to get Joathan Frakes on their shuttlepod show and want to ask him about filming the Enterprise Tatv finale.