Why no love for Archer?

[Gotham Central]

Archer started off both as a daddy's boy and a biased jerk. What I didn't like was how he was never really called out for being biased. The writers pretty much just showed the Vulcans as confirming Archer, and to some extent, Trip's prejudices about them.

What also made the character less appealing to me was how everyone said he was so great, how he was a linchpin to the Federation's creation, and we rarely got to see that. He bumbled his way through much of the series, but through the graces of the writers he was given this wonderful history that he didn't earn, perhaps like the Enterprise NX-01 itself.

I think the writer's didn't quite know what to do with Archer, so he never really gelled as a consistent leader. Similar to Janeway. I never got a real feeling for her or her leadership, because it seemed more storyline-dictated than character-driven, unlike Kirk, Picard, and Sisko.

Well said, DarKush. I whittled down your remarks to what, I feel, is in essence the crux of it. He was simultaneously set up with an expectation to be this great figure, yet was depicted as a very emotionally immature person. Coupled with inconsistent, plot-driven characterization, he was doomed from the get-go.

I also think the writers made a mistake by not taking another chance with the casting. Why not a Latino, Asian, Arab, etc., or hell, a Russian captain for Enterprise? With a Russian, it could've been a nice way to acknowledge their contributions to the space race.

Just demographically speaking, it was almost inexcusable for the crew to not include a Latino as a series regular, if not the Captain. In America, Latinos were and are the fastest-growing ethnic group, and it might have helped to draw in new viewers to include a well-thought-out Latino character - not just a token.

I'd say that the inclusion of a well-thought-out Arab character would have been a welcome one too, quite akin to Chekov's inclusion on TOS at a time when America was in the Cold War with the Soviets. 'Enterprise' premiered on September 26, 2001, just 15 days after the September 11th attack. The producers still managed to slip in references to the Taliban in the form of the Suliban. One might argue that there simply wasn't enough time to cast an Arab actor or create an Arab character, but I would argue that tensions had been building for several years, enough that it should have occurred to someone that such a gesture might have been a clever one.

Couple that with the fact that no Trek series has ever had a Latino or Arab regular, yet did have an Asian and a Russian on TOS. I'm not arguing for tokenism, I'm arguing for the well-balanced type of approach that allows not just for viewers of a particular ethnicity to be able to relate to a character that they feel is similar to them, but also to showing a future of peace and cooperation inspired originally by TOS.

Sorry. Tangent over.

Both Robert Beltran and Roxanne Dawson (who played a character called Torres) were latino. Alexander Siddig is a Sudanese arab (though Bashir was obviously meant to be South Asian...which is itself a break from the norm on Trek). I suspect that TPTB decided that the whole diversity thing had gone too far on both DS9 and Voyager (shocking but DS9 only had one identifiable white male character...and he got kicked around alot)

I'm sure someone decided that the lack of powerful white men was one of the reasons DS9 and Voyager had declining ratings. Thus on the new show, all but one of the men would be white and the two non-white charactes could be ignored.


As for Archer, the character was just badly written and conceived. For starters they don't do a very good job of explaining why Archer is captain. In fact, they give the worst reason imagineable....because his father designed the ship. Archer then includes a member of a alien race into his crew just so that he can ignore her advice and openly berrate her in front of the rest of the crew. His diplomatic skills were abysmal and he was not even very good at being an inspirational leader. In that regard he was the perfect personification of the Bush era. Which is one reason why many fans have an instinctive hate of the character.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Several posters have used this thread as an excuse to air grievances about contemporary real-world politics. It's getting old, people. You've all been here long enough to know that it's not appropriate in this forum. Kindly take it to TNZ.

 

[Mach5]

Several posters have used this thread as an excuse to air grievances about contemporary real-world politics. It's getting old, people. You've all been here long enough to know that it's not appropriate in this forum. Kindly take it to TNZ.

Certain Bush era / September 11 parallels are unavoidable, if you ask me.
And it's not like the discussion is turning ugly or anything.
What I'm saying is, if you're gonna have a serious and in-depth discussion, you're gonna have analogies.

 

[Praetor]

Couple that with the fact that no Trek series has ever had a Latino or Arab regular, yet did have an Asian and a Russian on TOS.

Both Robert Beltran and Roxanne Dawson (who played a character called Torres) were latino. Alexander Siddig is a Sudanese arab (though Bashir was obviously meant to be South Asian...which is itself a break from the norm on Trek).

Wow. For the record: I. Feel. Like. An. Idiot.

Although I'd like to explain my thoughts, I don't want this thread to degrade into a political one and I shall not mention it again if you wish, HopefulRomantic, and I certainly understand your point. No harm was meant, I promise.

As for Archer, the character was just badly written and conceived. For starters they don't do a very good job of explaining why Archer is captain. In fact, they give the worst reason imaginable....because his father designed the ship.

I think that's why I always had an issue with him. He's mentioned as having had training, but I don't recall any mention of previous command experience. Even with Warp Three ships puttering about space I'd have thought some experience would have been both available and required, yet Archer's qualifications seemed to amount to nepotism, which was a problem for me. Transferring the 'designer father' aspect to Trip would have worked well for me personally, though I say leave the hostility towards Vulcans to a more seasoned Archer who had served relatively close to Earth on lesser ships.

Archer then includes a member of a alien race into his crew just so that he can ignore her advice and openly berate her in front of the rest of the crew. His diplomatic skills were abysmal and he was not even very good at being an inspirational leader.

I actually found Archer's hostility towards Vulcans plausible and it to be one of the more interesting aspects of the character - even if the nature of the reason for it seemed a bit contrived. Again, give the 'father designer' angle to Trip, and let Archer's reason for disliking Vulcans being that he views them as holding Earth back - not literally, but they are 'hand-holding' humanity, and therefore not letting humanity learn for itself. His limited command experience on other low-warp ships could be cited as having had interaction with Vulcan commanders. Berating T'Pol was a bit much, but I think that's because with the Archer we got, it was so personal for him.

In reasoning through this, I've actually come to appreciate him a bit more. I just hate the nepotism angle. When combined with his apparent lack of command experience, it made him seem whiny and spoiled.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Certain Bush era / September 11 parallels are unavoidable, if you ask me.
And it's not like the discussion is turning ugly or anything.
What I'm saying is, if you're gonna have a serious and in-depth discussion, you're gonna have analogies.

Mentioning politics or political philosophy, or a world event, as it directly pertains to a specific Trek storyline or character, is fine. Throwing out a subjective opinion about a hot topic such as contemporary politics, as has been done in this thread, is not appropriate. Hot topics belong in TNZ.

The only reason it hasn't gotten "ugly" is because no one has taken issue with the political opinions or analogies expressed thus far. No matter. Real-world politics are off-topic here.

There is plenty to analyze regarding character development or story structure to have a serious and in-depth discussion about Archer.

 

[Count Zero]

Those are good points, Praetor. I liked the nepotism angle and wish they had made more of it (like other Starfleet personnel complaining about it or saying he only got the job because of his name).
However, even though it wasn't really mentioned on screen, I always assumed Archer had command experience. I can't remember anything contradicting this on screen.

 

[Praetor]

Those are good points, Praetor. I liked the nepotism angle and wish they had made more of it (like other Starfleet personnel complaining about it or saying he only got the job because of his name).
However, even though it wasn't really mentioned on screen, I always assumed Archer had command experience. I can't remember anything contradicting this on screen.

See, that was kind of the issue for me. We didn't hear anyone else making a fuss over it, so it seemed like he would have had to have prior command experience (which to me he needed to have either way) but then prior command experience wasn't referenced either. Even if they maintained the nepotism angle and actually called it out on screen, I would have had much less of a problem with it.

There are numerous little nit-picky things (mostly character related) like this on ENT that I would have had far less problem with had they actually called them out and acknowledged them aloud, at least dealing with them in some way. Maybe some of them they did, and I just didn't pick up on it. But the same could also be said of several other series.

 

[Count Zero]

I think most people even in this subforum would agree that ENT could have been a much better show. The potential was certainly there. After the all-too-perfect Captain Janeway I thought it was refreshing to have a flawed Captain, but I think they didn't make enough of it. Well, at least they handled the anti-Vulcan sentiment quite well.

 

[commodore64]

^ I mostly agree as an ENT fan. ENT could've been a much better show and sure had potential. I thought Archer was successfully flawed. I also thought his transformation into a competent captain was excellent, and a good bit of writing.

 

[Amasov]

Did you ever notice that Archer never sat in his command chair for more than a few seconds? He was all over the place when he was on that bridge.

He would sit down. Travis would say something like, "They're right behind us, sir!" Archer would bolt out of the chair, hover over Travis and say, "Take us to warp!"

Then as he would make his way back to his chair, T'Pol would say something, which, again, would send Archer flying over to her, then after he rolls his eyes at her, Malcolm chimes in and Archer would run over to him.

After that, Archer would sit down. The alien ship outside would fire on Enterprise sending Archer flying out of his chair.

Sit down, Johnny! That's what your chair is for!

 

[SFRabid]

...
As for Archer, the character was just badly written and conceived. For starters they don't do a very good job of explaining why Archer is captain. In fact, they give the worst reason imagineable....because his father designed the ship. Archer then includes a member of a alien race into his crew just so that he can ignore her advice and openly berrate her in front of the rest of the crew. His diplomatic skills were abysmal and he was not even very good at being an inspirational leader. In that regard he was the perfect personification of the Bush era. Which is one reason why many fans have an instinctive hate of the character.

That paragraph makes me wonder if you only watched a couple of random episodes of Enterprise. I thought they did a good job of explaining how he got the job in First Flight. Being second choice erased any thoughts of nepotism from my mind. Also, the early episodes showed how someone can overcome their own prejudices. And you might also note that those hard feelings towards Vulcans were not the result of superior feelings or fear of those who are different, it is the result of oppression. Over time a target of that mistrust because his most trusted.

 

[commodore64]

Did you ever notice that Archer never sat in his command chair for more than a few seconds? He was all over the place when he was on that bridge.

He would sit down. Travis would say something like, "They're right behind us, sir!" Archer would bolt out of the chair, hover over Travis and say, "Take us to warp!"

Then as he would make his way back to his chair, T'Pol would say something, which, again, would send Archer flying over to her, then after he rolls his eyes at her, Malcolm chimes in and Archer would run over to him.

After that, Archer would sit down. The alien ship outside would fire on Enterprise sending Archer flying out of his chair.

Sit down, Johnny! That's what your chair is for!

I think that's either bad direction or bad acting, or a combination. I don't think that can be chalked up to writing.

I liked that he introduced action on the bridge. Otherwise, it's a bunch of dialogue without anything happening. I got to admit, sometimes that was an annoying bit on TNG.

 

[Count Zero]

And they eventually explained it in "Singularity". Apparently, the chair wasn't very comfortable and Trip's changes didn't really resolve that.

 

[Hoshi's sis]

I did like the character in Season One, but Season Two put me off him in how they write him to be a complete dick.
Season Three and Four seemed to be worse because he was transformed from a wimp into a superhuman, and it just came across as ridiculous.
Bakula was also terrible at expressing anger to the point where he looked constipated half the time.
Compared to Picard, Sisko or even Janeway, he just didn't have the command presence to me. The writers constantly told us how super and great this guy was, but they never showed it.

 

[trj]

...
As for Archer, the character was just badly written and conceived. For starters they don't do a very good job of explaining why Archer is captain. In fact, they give the worst reason imagineable....because his father designed the ship. Archer then includes a member of a alien race into his crew just so that he can ignore her advice and openly berrate her in front of the rest of the crew. His diplomatic skills were abysmal and he was not even very good at being an inspirational leader. In that regard he was the perfect personification of the Bush era. Which is one reason why many fans have an instinctive hate of the character.

That paragraph makes me wonder if you only watched a couple of random episodes of Enterprise. I thought they did a good job of explaining how he got the job in First Flight. Being second choice erased any thoughts of nepotism from my mind. Also, the early episodes showed how someone can overcome their own prejudices. And you might also note that those hard feelings towards Vulcans were not the result of superior feelings or fear of those who are different, it is the result of oppression. Over time a target of that mistrust because his most trusted.

the fact that starfleet was grooming test pilots to be capt. of nx-01 doesnt make much sense,why not the captain or xo of a warp 3 ship?someone with actual command experience.

 

[SFRabid]

I never paid much attention to how much he moves around. Now that I think about it, after watching Archer it makes Picard comes across as being on valume.

 

[Ptrope]

Without reading through the rest of the posts, so I'm sorry if I restate someone else's points:

Archer was just not captain material. Whether we think a "perfect" captain is undesirable or not, and whether we think the Beebs were trying to make him more interesting by giving him "flaws," Archer went way beyond flawed - he called the entire concept of the show and 22nd-century Earth into question. Whether Archer was the first deep-space captain or not, and the first to really push the boundaries of alien contact, he was horrifically underqualified, making not just him implausible, but the entire selection process that put him there. He had no diplomatic skills, was heavily prejudiced against Vulcans and, it often seemed, aliens - how did any of this seem like a reasonable framework for a character whose purpose was to "seek out new life and new civilizations?" How powerful should we presume his family or friends to be that he, of all the candidates, should be picked to represent Earth amongst the stars? One would hope that Starfleet would have some sort of screening process to weed out candidates with such deep-rooted psychological issues as Archer wore on his sleeve. As a captain, he should already have demonstrable leadership, diplomatic and analytical skills, as well as a great deal of mental flexibility and comprehension, in order to deal with the unexpected. His job was to deal with the unexpected, but we were supposed to believe that they would pick an 'explorer' who wanted everything to fit into his preconceptions, and who would get petulant or angry when they didn't. Bakula forced out every word of his dialogue, no matter what the situation was, as if he were constantly constiipated or being lightly sanded on his bum. and the only way we were to believe he had any skills at anything was because the characters around him explicitly stated their admiration and respect for those skills - he rarely demonstrated any of them.

As a character, Archer represented the most superficial and thoughtless development that I've ever seen in fiction - his place in that position made absolutely no sense under any rational examination.

Added to that, as much as I liked Bakula in Quantum Leap, he was just completely wrong for Archer - mostly because it seemed he was still playing Sam Beckett. It was okay for him to be befuddled and blindly seeking his way through the characters he played every week on QL, but as Archer, he couldn't be constantly befuddled and blind. He never seemed at ease - his brow had a permanent Furrow, with a capital "F," and he delivered his lines as if he were questioning the meaning of every word he spoke. I'm reminded of the president in Buckaroo Banzai - "Buckaroo, I don't know what to say. Lectroids? Planet 10? Nuclear extortion? A girl named 'John?'"

Any current-day navy captain would have been more competent and more believable, and we don't think of them as 'perfect.' At the very least, Archer should've fit right in on J.A.G.. For all his flaws and his prejudices, Archer would've been far more plausible - and the show probably a great deal more interesting - if he had been an ensign, and still the lead character, That would've been a new take on Trek, and we could've seen Earth's new push into deep space through eyes more similar to our own, which seemed to be the Beebs' 'concept.' Sorry, but I know I shouldn't be in command of a starship - why would I want the captain to be no more competent than I?

 

[bluedana]

Archer's constant motion is not just when he is on the bridge; he's pretty much a ball of energy all the time. It's one of the three or four physical characteristics that stay pretty consistent throughout all four seasons.

 

[Praetor]

...
As for Archer, the character was just badly written and conceived. For starters they don't do a very good job of explaining why Archer is captain. In fact, they give the worst reason imagineable....because his father designed the ship. Archer then includes a member of a alien race into his crew just so that he can ignore her advice and openly berrate her in front of the rest of the crew. His diplomatic skills were abysmal and he was not even very good at being an inspirational leader. In that regard he was the perfect personification of the Bush era. Which is one reason why many fans have an instinctive hate of the character.

That paragraph makes me wonder if you only watched a couple of random episodes of Enterprise. I thought they did a good job of explaining how he got the job in First Flight. Being second choice erased any thoughts of nepotism from my mind. Also, the early episodes showed how someone can overcome their own prejudices. And you might also note that those hard feelings towards Vulcans were not the result of superior feelings or fear of those who are different, it is the result of oppression. Over time a target of that mistrust because his most trusted.

Personally, 'First Flight' seemed to only provide qualifications for Archer to be pilot or engineer, not Captain. And being second choice didn't erase any thoughts of nepotism from my mind.

the fact that starfleet was grooming test pilots to be capt. of nx-01 doesnt make much sense,why not the captain or xo of a warp 3 ship?someone with actual command experience.

That's what I've been saying!

Without reading through the rest of the posts, so I'm sorry if I restate someone else's points:

Archer was just not captain material. Whether we think a "perfect" captain is undesirable or not, and whether we think the Beebs were trying to make him more interesting by giving him "flaws," Archer went way beyond flawed - he called the entire concept of the show and 22nd-century Earth into question. Whether Archer was the first deep-space captain or not, and the first to really push the boundaries of alien contact, he was horrifically underqualified, making not just him implausible, but the entire selection process that put him there. He had no diplomatic skills, was heavily prejudiced against Vulcans and, it often seemed, aliens - how did any of this seem like a reasonable framework for a character whose purpose was to "seek out new life and new civilizations?" How powerful should we presume his family or friends to be that he, of all the candidates, should be picked to represent Earth amongst the stars? One would hope that Starfleet would have some sort of screening process to weed out candidates with such deep-rooted psychological issues as Archer wore on his sleeve. As a captain, he should already have demonstrable leadership, diplomatic and analytical skills, as well as a great deal of mental flexibility and comprehension, in order to deal with the unexpected. His job was to deal with the unexpected, but we were supposed to believe that they would pick an 'explorer' who wanted everything to fit into his preconceptions, and who would get petulant or angry when they didn't. Bakula forced out every word of his dialogue, no matter what the situation was, as if he were constantly constiipated or being lightly sanded on his bum. and the only way we were to believe he had any skills at anything was because the characters around him explicitly stated their admiration and respect for those skills - he rarely demonstrated any of them.

As a character, Archer represented the most superficial and thoughtless development that I've ever seen in fiction - his place in that position made absolutely no sense under any rational examination.

Added to that, as much as I liked Bakula in Quantum Leap, he was just completely wrong for Archer - mostly because it seemed he was still playing Sam Beckett. It was okay for him to be befuddled and blindly seeking his way through the characters he played every week on QL, but as Archer, he couldn't be constantly befuddled and blind. He never seemed at ease - his brow had a permanent Furrow, with a capital "F," and he delivered his lines as if he were questioning the meaning of every word he spoke. I'm reminded of the president in Buckaroo Banzai - "Buckaroo, I don't know what to say. Lectroids? Planet 10? Nuclear extortion? A girl named 'John?'"

Any current-day navy captain would have been more competent and more believable, and we don't think of them as 'perfect.' At the very least, Archer should've fit right in on J.A.G.. For all his flaws and his prejudices, Archer would've been far more plausible - and the show probably a great deal more interesting - if he had been an ensign, and still the lead character, That would've been a new take on Trek, and we could've seen Earth's new push into deep space through eyes more similar to our own, which seemed to be the Beebs' 'concept.' Sorry, but I know I shouldn't be in command of a starship - why would I want the captain to be no more competent than I?

Holy crap, Ptrope. I find myself agreeing almost 100%.

 

[JiNX-01]

I never paid much attention to how much he moves around. Now that I think about it, after watching Archer it makes Picard comes across as being on valume.

Really? Because Archer's pacing DROVE.ME.NUTS. Especially when he would be talking to someone. It was so darn rude for him not to look at people he was addressing.