Season four was fun, but I liked the first season best. A lot of the stuff they did in the last year was what one online commentator aptly described as "a reach-around for the hard core fans who'd stuck with the show" and that also suggests why there was no real hope of a viewership uptick based on the new direction - going back and mining the past of the Franchise as they did does not mean that shows like the Vulcan's Forge arc offered a lot to someone who might be coming new to the show in 2004/2005. That kind of thing virtually demanded that you know and give a damn about characters like Surak and the history of the Vulcan/Romulan thing before you turn on the TV.