May 13, 2005.
"Terra Prime" airs at 8pm Eastern Standard Time and then, an hour later, "These Are The
Voyages..." decorates our TV screens for the next fifty-odd minutes, ending not only Enterprise as a series but the Star Trek franchise as it had existed for the previous 18 years. The Classic Era of Trek that had begun on NBC on the night of September 8, 1966, and continued through five more live action and animated series, 646 TV episodes and 10 theatrical movies drew to a close as the flyby of the three Enterprises placed a bookend on the franchise as we then knew it and the voices of Patrick Stewart, William Shatner and Scott Bakula eased us into a world that would be Trekless for the next four years, at least when it came to all-new canonical story content.
"TATV..." is an unmitigated disaster as a series finale and an even bigger whipped cream pie to the face of the franchise as a whole, one that went into a four-year slumber after that night and had ended its Legacy run on the most unpopular and bad taste-inducing series farewell of any it had ever produced, and this is a franchise that gave us William Shatner body swapping with a woman and then hammily vamping it up on the Enterprise in ways that would have made even Benny Hill do a double take the camera.
It's not a good episode outside of the closing flyby and the production values, which in ENT were consistently pretty excellent across all four seasons of the series. The actors gave it their best with the shoddy material Berman and Braga gave them, and seeing Jeffrey Combs return for his swan song as Shran was a definite strong point for the finale. Had the "Riker and Troi visit the NX-01 on the holodeck to learn a valuable historical lesson" plot been used for a Sweeps Week episode mid-season to goose the ratings of the series then it might well have actually worked, but as a series finale....yikes. What a creative misfire.
20 years haven't softened the blow all that much, and while it's easier to look back after two decades and see the love that ENT and the Archer Era of Starfleet history have received from not only the writers of streaming Trek but also the Kelvin Timeline movies and revel in the respect and warm feelings that ENT is now (rightfully) receiving after four years as the franchise's redheaded stepchild, "TATV..." is not a good episode. It's one of the lowpoints of small screen Trek during its first forty years and while not morally offensive in any way or a juvenile roll in the mud that would be awkward and goofy even for an episode of a Sid & Marty Krofft series, it's nothing to get excited about.
What are your thoughts as approach 20 years to the moment since Classic Trek transitioned from "the current stuff" to Legacy stories?
"Terra Prime" airs at 8pm Eastern Standard Time and then, an hour later, "These Are The
Voyages..." decorates our TV screens for the next fifty-odd minutes, ending not only Enterprise as a series but the Star Trek franchise as it had existed for the previous 18 years. The Classic Era of Trek that had begun on NBC on the night of September 8, 1966, and continued through five more live action and animated series, 646 TV episodes and 10 theatrical movies drew to a close as the flyby of the three Enterprises placed a bookend on the franchise as we then knew it and the voices of Patrick Stewart, William Shatner and Scott Bakula eased us into a world that would be Trekless for the next four years, at least when it came to all-new canonical story content.
"TATV..." is an unmitigated disaster as a series finale and an even bigger whipped cream pie to the face of the franchise as a whole, one that went into a four-year slumber after that night and had ended its Legacy run on the most unpopular and bad taste-inducing series farewell of any it had ever produced, and this is a franchise that gave us William Shatner body swapping with a woman and then hammily vamping it up on the Enterprise in ways that would have made even Benny Hill do a double take the camera.
It's not a good episode outside of the closing flyby and the production values, which in ENT were consistently pretty excellent across all four seasons of the series. The actors gave it their best with the shoddy material Berman and Braga gave them, and seeing Jeffrey Combs return for his swan song as Shran was a definite strong point for the finale. Had the "Riker and Troi visit the NX-01 on the holodeck to learn a valuable historical lesson" plot been used for a Sweeps Week episode mid-season to goose the ratings of the series then it might well have actually worked, but as a series finale....yikes. What a creative misfire.
20 years haven't softened the blow all that much, and while it's easier to look back after two decades and see the love that ENT and the Archer Era of Starfleet history have received from not only the writers of streaming Trek but also the Kelvin Timeline movies and revel in the respect and warm feelings that ENT is now (rightfully) receiving after four years as the franchise's redheaded stepchild, "TATV..." is not a good episode. It's one of the lowpoints of small screen Trek during its first forty years and while not morally offensive in any way or a juvenile roll in the mud that would be awkward and goofy even for an episode of a Sid & Marty Krofft series, it's nothing to get excited about.
What are your thoughts as approach 20 years to the moment since Classic Trek transitioned from "the current stuff" to Legacy stories?
