5.) Archer - I liked him from the beginning. I loved how he was a much more flawed character than any of the other captains. A lot of people complain about that, but I say "what did you expect?" Earth was just starting out in interstellar affairs and it's not fair to judge the man who goes first against men and women who come after him and can learn from his mistakes. Even the antics of A Night in Sickbay were understandable for me - he's new to this, he's completely unprepared for the realities he has to face.
I've seen two analyses of Archer that I thought were good descriptions of him....
I.) Kirk is the "action hero." He's the one who gets in fights and has a lot of physicality. Picard is the "thinking hero." He's the one who uses his mind to win at any challenge. Sisko is the "emotional hero." He's the kind of person who will let his emotions control him, for better or worse. Janeway is the "anti-hero." She's the kind of person who is willing to break the rules and do some very, very questionable things, but we forgive her anyway because we *almost* always agree with her decisions. Archer is the "tragic hero." He's a man who is unable to rise to the challenges he faces, try as he might and has to rely on others to help him (notably Trip and T'Pol, but to a lesser extent the rest of his crew.)
II.) He's sort of like the American Founding Fathers. Let's take probably the best known Founding Father for comparison - George Washington. Washington is today revered as the man who won the American Revolution. However, if you look at the actual historical facts, he wasn't that much of a military commander. His first military command, in the British Army, was such a resounding failure that it helped start the French and Indian War. During the Revolution, he only won three battles over the course of years and years (one of which he only won because of the element of surprise and another only because the French navy helped him tremendously). He was constantly outmatched, outperformed and outmaneuvered. Yet, his legend has grown ever since the end of the Revolution.
That's similar to what they were trying to do with Archer, in my opinion. They wanted to show that he was a Founding Father of the Federation, but that he wasn't a god among men - he was flawed, deeply, as both a military commander and as a diplomat. That makes a lot of sense to me and I greatly appreciate it. After all, I greatly respect many of the American Founding Fathers, even though they were also deeply flawed men - most of the ones I admire owned slaves, for crying out loud!
