So I just finished the series and as a whole I liked it for the most part, but I see that the majority of people hate the Finale with a passion so I was just curious did people hate the finale mostly because of the unwanted presence of Riker and Troi and/or they didn't like that they killed Trip? I actually enjoyed the episode especially the stuff with Shran and Archers emotional moment with Tpol near the end. I guess I'm asking if you could remove Riker and Troi from the equation would this episode still have the universal hate that it does? I'm sure this topic has been beat to death, but I just wanted to see what others thought.
These are the Voyages...spoiler
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My understanding is that it would have been better received by many fans if 1) Trip had not been killed (and killed so needlessly), and 2) if it was not aired as the series finale. Personally, I did not like having Trip killed off, even if there was to be no more ST:E episodes coming. He was my favorite character on the show. It has been a while since I saw this episode, but my recollection was that the plot line felt a bit 'scattered'/unfocused. Not my favorite episode.
I also know that a lot of people did not like the inclusion of the Riker/Troi/Pegasus/TNG framing of the story, but I thought it was a neat concept that tied the two series together. I do not understand the claim by some fans that this 'framing' somehow indicates that the events and characters of "Enterprise" were only a holodeck program, and did not reflect historical (well, Star Trek historical) events. Although, I admit, having Riker & Troi be the final Trek characters shown on the series did feel a little like something had been taken away from the "Enterprise" characters. But we did get a cool final scene with all the Enterprise flybys & Captains' narrations that left us with the NX-01 as the last image on screen.
If it were me, I would have not killed Trip and would have moved TATV back two episodes, allowing "Demons" & "Terra Prime" to end the series.
I also know that a lot of people did not like the inclusion of the Riker/Troi/Pegasus/TNG framing of the story, but I thought it was a neat concept that tied the two series together. I do not understand the claim by some fans that this 'framing' somehow indicates that the events and characters of "Enterprise" were only a holodeck program, and did not reflect historical (well, Star Trek historical) events. Although, I admit, having Riker & Troi be the final Trek characters shown on the series did feel a little like something had been taken away from the "Enterprise" characters. But we did get a cool final scene with all the Enterprise flybys & Captains' narrations that left us with the NX-01 as the last image on screen.
If it were me, I would have not killed Trip and would have moved TATV back two episodes, allowing "Demons" & "Terra Prime" to end the series.
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1. There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea that someone from the future is using the holodeck to recreate events during the ENT era for study. In fact, there was a Babylon 5 episode that did just that, and it worked out very well. Now with that said, the way it was presented here was problematic for two main reasons: it should never have been used as the series finale, and Riker/Troi during the events of "The Pegasus" made very little sense in the context of TATV, and made the focus of the final show of ENT about someone who wasn't even from that show.
2. There is also nothing inherently wrong with killing off a main character, IF the reason for that death had meaning or any kind of dramatic tension or upheaval. But Trip died for no good reason whatsoever, and in the most contrived and ridiculous way imaginable. And the worst part is that nobody else in the episode even seemed to care.
TATV is probably the worst-written episode in all of Star Trek, and the fact that Trek was effectively dead after it for years was quite telling.
Given the framing element of using Riker and Troi, it was in essence a TNG which was telling the events of the NX-01's last mission. Did killing off Trip bother me, no but I can understand it might bother some.
^I assume you are referring to the B5 S4 finalé "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", and I agree it did work. But it was also different in some respects as it showed us what impact B5 would have on the universe for the next 1000 years, and the eventual evolution of the humans into beings of energy. So in some respects it expanded that universe. So perhaps we have two examples of a framing device, one that works and one that doesn't. Would it have worked better in ENT if instead of Riker and Troi we had someone from say the 29th century reviewing the events say for example as an Academy lesson?
^I assume you are referring to the B5 S4 finalé "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", and I agree it did work. But it was also different in some respects as it showed us what impact B5 would have on the universe for the next 1000 years, and the eventual evolution of the humans into beings of energy. So in some respects it expanded that universe. So perhaps we have two examples of a framing device, one that works and one that doesn't. Would it have worked better in ENT if instead of Riker and Troi we had someone from say the 29th century reviewing the events say for example as an Academy lesson?
I liked the principle, but the execution was horrible. They should have made this a two-parter, even a movie, with an original story. The Enterprise-E finds the wreckage of the NX-01, which is completely unknown to them. They reconstruct the ship logs on the holodeck, uncover a huge conspiracy that rewrites big parts of the history they knew, fight the villain with the knowledge gained from the logs, and eventually return the NX-01 home. T'Pol is still alive, but in hiding, and they go find her. The big in universe explanation why the NX-01 had never been seen before, and why suddenly there's a model of it in the Ent-E's conference room. And a much better sendoff for the whole franchise.
Actually, if one absolutely HAD to have Riker and Troi on the show, then it would have worked better post-Nemesis. After the events of that movie, Riker and the Titan were assigned to help Romulus after Shinzon's coup. They could have written a finale something similar to what Jarod mentioned, that they find the NX-01 wreckage on Romulus and start doing research about how it got there.
But honestly I didn't want to see them at all. The only reason why they and the Ent-D were there was because B&B were reliving the good old days of Trek. The episode had zero to do with the ENT cast, so much so that even Archer's great speech was cut short by Riker ending the program, so we didn't even see that.
Again, the concept of someone from the future looking back on past events is fine. But it shouldn't have been used for a series finale, and it shouldn't have been Riker and Troi during the events of "The Pegasus."
Haha I never knew there are die hard fans of Riker, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
I agree with most of what you said but can we give the writers a pass given that the show was canceled in the middle of the season and they came up with a conclusion on short notice? I'm not saying it was a good episode but I do believe it tried to wrap up the series and the whole franchise as best they could given the time they had. I don't think B and B went in trying to screw over the fans like many have claimed; I believe they really thought that was a clever send off to Enterprise and the whole Trek franchise. In reality Terra Prime was the "real" finale for Enterprise anyway while TTAV was supposed to be more about the whole franchise it just didn't work out that well.
The whole idea that a finale of a show centers around two characters of ANOTHER show is pretty ridiculous to begin with. It might have turned out to be a good mid-season episode, but never a good finale.
What could be comparable... let's say the finale of CSI New York was about the Las Vegas team investigating how the entire New York team got murdered. Holy shit.
What could be comparable... let's say the finale of CSI New York was about the Las Vegas team investigating how the entire New York team got murdered. Holy shit.
Agreed, but this wasn't just the series finale of Enterprise it was the last Star Trek show ever so I do feel the writers were compelled to write something "special" it just didn't work that well at all. Again, I don't think they went in thinking it was gonna get the hate that it did.
No, they don't get a pass. The only obstacle they had was that UPN only allowed them a one-hour finale instead of a two-hour finale. Which actually makes no sense, as the penultimate episode was a two-hour two-parter. I'm not sure why they didn't just go to UPN and say, "hey, we already did this two-part episode...why don't we just make that the finale, make TATV just a regular episode (without the idiocy of Trip dying), and then switch the broadcast order so that TATV shows first and Terra Prime shows second?" But they didn't do that. They went ahead and penned this ridiculous POS story that for some ungodly reason they thought was good. I could have come up with a better story in a single day. Plus, they knew well ahead of time what ENT's future was. The only reason why they even got a fourth season was so that UPN would have enough episodes of the show to sell it to syndication markets, and they all knew this. They could have started planning a good sendoff for a while.
Yes they did believe that TATV was a good sendoff. Berman even went on record far after the fact to state that while he thought he was doing good with TATV, there were too many fans who hated it for them to be wrong.
Well, no, "in reality," TATV was the finale. In all of ENT's fans' personal canon, Terra Prime was the finale.
But their thinking makes no sense. If they wanted to acknowledge all of Star Trek in this one episode, where's TOS, DS9 and VOY? Why pick "The Pegasus" as the framing story, when most people watching ENT probably never saw it in the first place? Why Riker and Troi, the most boring characters ever? Even the last scene with the Enterprises only show the TOS Enterprise, the TNG Enterprise, and the ENT Enterprise. Where's the B, C, and E?
This finale came out looking like an episode of TNG, only with a fatter Riker and Troi.
TATV reduced the Enterprise crew to curiosities- the show's plot was uninteresting and the crew ending their voyage with the founding of the Federation became a footnote.
The only positive thing I can say is the multiple ship ending was a nice send off.
The only positive thing I can say is the multiple ship ending was a nice send off.
I wouldn't give them a pass myself, the previoulsy mentioned episode of B5 which ended S4, no doubt had to be written pretty quickly to replace the already filmed show finalé after B5 had a very late renewel for S5.
I've heard-tell that Jonathan Frakes did not enjoy himself, making this particular episode. Whatever politics or problems were happening behind the scenes, and despite many fans hating so passionately on this episode, I am still glad that Frakes and Marina were tasked to button-up this series. Both of them were too old to retroactively play their characters from the point of time in this actual story, but none of that matters. It is always a pleasure seeing these two onscreen and in STAR TREK and I, for one, am a fan of this episode. I did not dig Trip getting killed, nor did I like how he and T'Pol never got together, because it would've been sweet. Outside of that, this espisode, on its own, is entertaining popcorn fare, which I've enjoyed ... and I was grateful to Riker for ending the program, before Archer delivered yet another boring speech!
I will prepare the bonfire!
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