Berman was utterly faithful to Roddenberry's ideals for Star Trek to a fault. Go read some of Ira Steve Behr's or Ron Moore's comments about Berman and his interaction with DS9 if you think otherwise.
Hmm...sounds like TOS when Kirk comes down to a planet, basically says "You are wrong" and goes about completely changing their society.
Hmm...sounds like TOS when Kirk comes down to a planet, basically says "You are wrong" and goes about completely changing their society.
Well, let's just say all the shows were on occasion unsuccessful at avoiding those implications.
Archer = "I'm morally rightous, you're not, and so I shoot you, or get my dog to pee on your trees"
Kirk= "I'm morally rightous, you're not, and so I rearrange your entire society on my whim"
Picard= "I'm morally rightous, you're not, and so I shame you with a long-winded speech that leaves you hanging your head at your failure to match my ideals"
Sisko = "I'm morally rightous, you're not....hang on...well, maybe we're both a little shady...shall we just shoot each other?"
Janeway= "I'm morally rightous, you're not, and so I am disappointed in you and may become a hardass or may just perse my lips and go away"
No, it isn't the most consistent. It was a wildly uneven season with a lot of boring filler episodes like Extinction, Chosen Realm, North Star, Hatchery, E2.
), but I do think Season Three went a long way towards kind of salvaging ENT's reputation and legacy amongst Trek fans. While it's still derided by many as being the worst of the franchise, I think that stance would have a lot more supporters without Season Three and what it did for the show and characters.
Very rarely did Enterprise ever feel like a prequel series to me. It may as well have been Voyager. I think they should have gone out of their way to make every thing look even more basic starting with the ship itself. That ship wouldn't look out of place in a fleet fighting the Dominion.
For me, the skipped episode is Extinction. Or at least fast forwarded through. But Hatchery to me is really underrated. It's really the point where the crew begins to buy into the "We're not just out here to kill these people; there may be a better way." I think Trip really gets it when Archer explains to him why they have to save those Xindi children. It sets the stage for episodes like The Forgotten and The Council. I like how even in hindsight, it's hard to tell whether Archer took that stance because he was under alien influence, or because that's what he would have done anyway.
I think this is part of the reason Season 3 is my favorite overall season. It hooked me and sucked me in for the long haul. I was really compelled by the character development, the way the crew was tested over and over and revealed more of themselves in crisis. Even the standalones were satisfying for me to watch, because there was always the Xindi threat and the mission as underlying currents, pushing the arc forward, giving it momentum, building toward the crescendo of the last half-dozen episodes.
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