What is your honest opinion of Enterprise?

[Son of Quark]

I always dug Enterprise from the time it first came on until it ended. I was pissed that it was cancelled after Season 4. Enterprise is my second favorite Trek series after Deep Space Nine. The thing I really liked about Enterprise, like Deep Space Nine, Archer was like Sisko in that they had a fuck you type attitude that wasn't stuffy and polished like Next Generation. I also liked that they had the Andorians in there quite a bit and Shran and Archer were fun watching when they were together. The Xindi and Suliban were great alien additions, and T'Pol was HOT!

 

[Admiral_Young]

My honest opinion of Enterprise? Overall that it was a disappointing let down. I was excited when Paramount announced that the next series after "Voyager" would be a prequel series because of the story possibilities that presented. I got even more excited when Scott Bakula signed on to play the Captain. At the time NBC I read was interested in doing a "Quantum Leap" mini-series or tv movie and Bakula was close to signing but the Enterprise deal was more job security for him. The rest of the cast fell into place, no one else that I really was familiar which was fine (that was the case with both DS9 and Voyager for me) then the ship design was revealed and I went ugh.

I have argued in the past that I really feel strongly that Paramount rushed "Enterprise" out when it first announced it because they were desperate to fill that slot after "Voyager" had run it's course. I feel like they were all over the map with the Temporal Cold War (which would have been a really interesting plot had Berman and Braga actually planned it out) the Suliban, etc. The portrayal of the Vulcans was something that bugged me early on. We got rehashed story lines and lame plots out of the shoot, the first season wasn't that great.

Then they tried an arc based story line with the Xini assault on Earth and attempted to build more character dynamic and relationships by introducing us to Trip/T'Pol. I dunno the whole series to me felt...strange, out of place, forced almost. The show did some good things but ultimately I think failed to really capture the imagination and more importantly the attention of Star Trek fans. I have a love/hate relationship with the series. Trip was my favorite character on the series. I liked Archer but felt like he was a plain sort of Captain. Never really got a chance to establish and separate himself from the other Captains. "In The Mirror, Darkly" duology was easily the best episodes the series did in my opinion and Manny Cotto was on the right track during the final season which really makes the show more tragic as it was finding it's stride before it's cancellation. Like most others, can't stand "These Are the Voyages..." don't consider it a "Valentine's Card to the fans" as Berman put it. That quote was a complete joke.

 

[Saxman1]

My honest opinion of Enterprise? Overall that it was a disappointing let down. I was excited when Paramount announced that the next series after "Voyager" would be a prequel series because of the story possibilities that presented. I got even more excited when Scott Bakula signed on to play the Captain. At the time NBC I read was interested in doing a "Quantum Leap" mini-series or tv movie and Bakula was close to signing but the Enterprise deal was more job security for him. The rest of the cast fell into place, no one else that I really was familiar which was fine (that was the case with both DS9 and Voyager for me) then the ship design was revealed and I went ugh.

I have argued in the past that I really feel strongly that Paramount rushed "Enterprise" out when it first announced it because they were desperate to fill that slot after "Voyager" had run it's course. I feel like they were all over the map with the Temporal Cold War (which would have been a really interesting plot had Berman and Braga actually planned it out) the Suliban, etc. The portrayal of the Vulcans was something that bugged me early on. We got rehashed story lines and lame plots out of the shoot, the first season wasn't that great.

Then they tried an arc based story line with the Xini assault on Earth and attempted to build more character dynamic and relationships by introducing us to Trip/T'Pol. I dunno the whole series to me felt...strange, out of place, forced almost. The show did some good things but ultimately I think failed to really capture the imagination and more importantly the attention of Star Trek fans. I have a love/hate relationship with the series. Trip was my favorite character on the series. I liked Archer but felt like he was a plain sort of Captain. Never really got a chance to establish and separate himself from the other Captains. "In The Mirror, Darkly" duology was easily the best episodes the series did in my opinion and Manny Cotto was on the right track during the final season which really makes the show more tragic as it was finding it's stride before it's cancellation. Like most others, can't stand "These Are the Voyages..." don't consider it a "Valentine's Card to the fans" as Berman put it. That quote was a complete joke.

Sums up my feelings pretty much, although I never warmed to Trip or got all the love for him. I'm tired of all the Southern stereotypes on TV. Kyra Sedwick started running her mouth with that overdone Southern accent on The Closer (she's a native New Yorker) and I was outta there so fast it would make your head spin.

Don't get me wrong, I have many beloved relatives in Oklahoma and Texas, I'm NOT anti-South, I just don't like stereotype/hackneyed characters.

I like Bakula as an actor, but feel he has a better part on Men of a Certain Age than Enterprise. I always felt B&B were so busy trying to showcase T/T that Archer was somewhat lost in the shuffle/shortchanged. At times it really felt like the T/T show and the rest of the cast could jump off a mountain for all B&B cared.

I never got all the hotness of Blalock and as I've mentioned before, in the catsuit sweepstakes, at least Jeri Ryan can act.

 

[Galileo7]

My honest opinion of Enterprise? Overall that it was a disappointing let down. I was excited when Paramount announced that the next series after "Voyager" would be a prequel series because of the story possibilities that presented.... then the ship design was revealed and I went ugh.
...The show did some good things but ultimately I think failed to really capture the imagination and more importantly the attention of Star Trek fans. ... "In The Mirror, Darkly" duology was easily the best episodes the series did in my opinion and Manny Cotto was on the right track during the final season which really makes the show more tragic as it was finding it's stride before it's cancellation. Like most others, can't stand "These Are the Voyages..." don't consider it a "Valentine's Card to the fans" as Berman put it. That quote was a complete joke.

Admiral Young , you are correct.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I also agree that when Trip and T'Pol became the focus Archer kind of got pushed back in a way. I really liked when they introduced us to Erika Hernandez. I wish we'd got more episodes and interaction with her and Archer. Archer/Trip/T'Pol I think should have been pushed more (not talking about a love triangle either lol) like Kirk/Spock/McCoy. Those three characters are the core of "Enterprise" as far as I'm concerned and at first they seemed like they were going for the same triad dynamic as with the original series but that kind of fell apart in my opinion when they decided to introduce the Trip/T'Pol romance. Archer isolated himself really from the rest of his crew as he chose to shoulder the responsibility of the Xini mission and I felt more like he should have been more interactive with his crew. We should have seen him interact more with Hoshi (I really liked their mentor dynamic and this should have been focused more on), and encourage Travis and share piloting stories and what not with him. I liked his relationship with Phlox. Close as we got to Bones/Kirk. Just a whole lot of potential failed I think.

 

[Angel4576]

Never really warmed to Archer. If I hadn't seen QL then I'd probably put that down to Bakula, but he was brilliant in QL, hence I'm more inclined to say that the character of Archer was largely just poorly written.

To be honest, I had problems with a lot of the cast. Whilst I liked Trip, T'Pol and Phlox, I couldn't really care less about Reed, Mayweather and Hoshi.

 

[Dukhat]

I never got all the hotness of Blalock and as I've mentioned before, in the catsuit sweepstakes, at least Jeri Ryan can act.

Ditto. I remember laughing when Dawn Ostroff kept commenting that they were trying to make the show "sexier," as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex. Star Trek is about starships and aliens and strange new worlds, not about catsuits, buttcracks, and decon-gel lathering.

 

[Hathaway Brown]

^I have to agree with you on that. While decon made sense for the show, the way they did it, it just came across as awkward way to be "sexy" that never really worked. Just came across as creepy.

As for characters, I didn't dislike any of them first time around, but now I'm re-watching I'm finding Reed incredibly annoying. I guess the aim was to be "quintessentially British" but it all seemed forced. If they feel like having a Brit aboard another show, let them just be themselves, please!

 

[I am Surak]

I never got all the hotness of Blalock and as I've mentioned before, in the catsuit sweepstakes, at least Jeri Ryan can act.

Ditto. I remember laughing when Dawn Ostroff kept commenting that they were trying to make the show "sexier," as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex. Star Trek is about starships and aliens and strange new worlds, not about catsuits, buttcracks, and decon-gel lathering.

Who or what gives you the mandate to speak for all star trek fans? I feel sorry for you.

 

[BillJ]

I never got all the hotness of Blalock and as I've mentioned before, in the catsuit sweepstakes, at least Jeri Ryan can act.

Ditto. I remember laughing when Dawn Ostroff kept commenting that they were trying to make the show "sexier," as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex. Star Trek is about starships and aliens and strange new worlds, not about catsuits, buttcracks, and decon-gel lathering.

Who or what gives you the mandate to speak for all star trek fans? I feel sorry for you.

Star Trek is sci-fi action/adventure. If you're watching it for sex... you really need to find something else on TV. There are 500 channels now and internet porn.

 

[Noname Given]

[Ditto. I remember laughing when Dawn Ostroff kept commenting that they were trying to make the show "sexier," as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex. Star Trek is about starships and aliens and strange new worlds, not about catsuits, buttcracks, and decon-gel lathering.

Granted they never had decon scenes in TOS - but I suggest you take a good look at TOS in general before you start claiming:

as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex.

As it was a LARGE and welcome component of the original Star Trek series. That they wanted to try and re-introduce that element, which was too often glaringly absent from the later series was NEVER a bad thing (imo).

 

[I am Surak]

Star Trek is sci-fi action/adventure. If you're watching it for sex... you really need to find something else on TV. There are 500 channels now and internet porn.

What? Porn is on the Internet now? Doesn't matter, I still prefer going to the Pussycat theater.
Seriously, a little sexual tension adds a lot to any scifi action/adventure story line but obviously one needs to be able to differentiate between sexual tension and porn.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I believe that was probably Dawn attempting to try and make the show appeal to a younger audience which is kind of silly. "Enterprise" being on the same network that "Smallville" and "Gilmore Girls" were on after the merger I feel hurt it as well. Sex I suppose has been apart of Trek since the very beginning but not in a concerted overt way.

 

[Horta Burger]

Honest opinion?

That's tough. Sort of like asking for one's brutally frank assessment of vanilla. It's inoffensive, potentially useful, but just kind of there.

Enterprise isn't as bad as everyone says, but it's not as good as it could have been. The biggest problem was not recognizing format fatigue. Voyager had kind of played out the audience for tourists in space, so what did they start the Enterprise crew as --tourists in freakin' space. That lost a lot of buzz and momentum out of the gate. I think they thought they'd do the whole wonder of first space exploration, but instead wound up writing very familiar kinds of stories.

That situation was compounded by the poorly thought out Temporal Cold War. They obviously never knew what to do with it, pivoted to the 9/11 storyline instead, and unceremoniously jettisoned the whole thing with a closeout episode. More buzz and momentum leaking out.

Season 4 finally started to get the idea right. If it had been more like that in the beginning, it might have done better.

 

[Vincent Law]

Gene Roddenberry was rather obsessed with sex, which one can read in some of the "behind the scenes" books which have come out, such as his plans for Phase II. It also tends to show up in his work both in TOS and in early TNG. I'm not saying that I never rolled my eyes at any of it, but there has always been an element of fan service in Star Trek. In TOS it was in the form of miniskirts and costumes that only covered those portions of the female form specifically mentioned in the censorship rules of the time which had to be covered. In TNG there were Spandex uniforms, Troi's costume, Yar's special costume in The Naked Now, and there were even a few naked bodies in that episode if my memory serves me correctly. In DS9 Kira's uniform got tighter and tighter until it too was spandex, and Dax was also given a tighter than normal uniform compared to her male counterparts, even if theoretically by this point they all wore the same uniform. VOY and ENT simply continued this tradition.

 

[trekkerguy]

Loved it, just another great chapter of the Trek saga.
Though TNG is my favorite Trek, I'd probably end up buying ENT on DVD first.

 

[starfox]

Hmmm. Let me rank the various series according to the number of main characters in each that I like:

TOS: 3 (Spock, Scott, Saavik (Kirstie Alley))
TNG: 3 (Picard, Data, Ro)
DS9: 2 (Jadzia Dax, Julian Bashir)
Voyager: 0.5 (Naomi Wildman)
Ent: 1 (Sato)

I guess Enterprise just barely ranks higher than Voyager.

 

[Dukhat]

I never got all the hotness of Blalock and as I've mentioned before, in the catsuit sweepstakes, at least Jeri Ryan can act.

Ditto. I remember laughing when Dawn Ostroff kept commenting that they were trying to make the show "sexier," as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex. Star Trek is about starships and aliens and strange new worlds, not about catsuits, buttcracks, and decon-gel lathering.

Who or what gives you the mandate to speak for all star trek fans? I feel sorry for you.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I had to spoon-feed you, Surak, the fact that my post was my opinion. And don't feel sorry for me, I have a great life.

As for the sex quotient also being in TOS (thanks mostly to Theiss's blatant outfits), yes, I understand that, but it never interfered with the main characterizations. Mostly it was some dumb bimbo wearing some silly outfit in one episode. Compare that to T'Pol, who is a main character and supposed to be a member of the Vulcan military, who dresses in catsuits and becomes a masseuse for an entire season. Huh? I doubt that, even in the third failing season of TOS, the execs were yelling, "You know what this show needs to survive another season? MORE SEX!!!"

Believe me, I like sex as much as the next guy. But I'm really not interested in seeing it in Trek if all it's going to be is gratuitous. To me, T'pol's buttcrack was one of the prime examples of the show catering to the lowest common denominator in a pitiful effort to attract better ratings.

 

[Horta Burger]

Ditto. I remember laughing when Dawn Ostroff kept commenting that they were trying to make the show "sexier," as if a Star Trek fan gives a crap about sex. Star Trek is about starships and aliens and strange new worlds, not about catsuits, buttcracks, and decon-gel lathering.

Who or what gives you the mandate to speak for all star trek fans? I feel sorry for you.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I had to spoon-feed you, Surak, the fact that my post was my opinion. And don't feel sorry for me, I have a great life.

As for the sex quotient also being in TOS (thanks mostly to Theiss's blatant outfits), yes, I understand that, but it never interfered with the main characterizations. Mostly it was some dumb bimbo wearing some silly outfit in one episode. Compare that to T'Pol, who is a main character and supposed to be a member of the Vulcan military, who dresses in catsuits and becomes a masseuse for an entire season. Huh? I doubt that, even in the third failing season of TOS, the execs were yelling, "You know what this show needs to survive another season? MORE SEX!!!"

Believe me, I like sex as much as the next guy. But I'm really not interested in seeing it in Trek if all it's going to be is gratuitous. To me, T'pol's buttcrack was one of the prime examples of the show catering to the lowest common denominator in a pitiful effort to attract better ratings.

I always thought they did Blalock a disservice with the cat suit. It just seemed disrespectful for the character she was given to play.

On a note unrelated to Enterprise, I also think the body suit for Deanna Troi was weak. I never realized how much so until Jellicoe put her in an actual uniform. She looked professional and attractive in that.

 

[Vincent Law]

Of course in TNG the female uniform, even in the later seasons, tended to be noticeably tighter. They were basically catsuits which were colored the same as the male versions.

I also felt that T'Pol should have had a more reasonable uniform. While I have no problem with fan service, certainly the pajamas in her "off" hours would have filled that quotient.