The network suits pushed it, yep.
20 years ago tonight the Enterprise finale aired. So....what's your opinion two decades on?
- Thread starter cooleddie74
- Start date
So they could have time travel stories featuring Next Generation characters, which would have actually been preferable to what we got here.
From what I understand, UPN didn’t think the 22nd century setting and the premise about the formation of the Federation was ‘futuristic’ or ‘sci-fi’ enough, so they had Berman & Braga come up with some gimmicky crap to appease them. The TCW was B&B’s idea; UPN only wanted a gimmick.
The network was always full of terrible ideas for ENT. The "boy band" concept is the absolute worst.
In context, it’s pretty much the same thing.
It would have been explosive diarrhea made incarnate.
I hated Enterprise when it aired!
Quite frankly, I was too ignorant to watch it back then. All it would have taken was the understanding as to why Tom Paris was on Voyager and not Nick Locarno. Producers will not spend money!
So Trek fan that I was, I had already dove into the expanded universe of Trek Lit and beyond, and had invested in countless versions of Trek history, pre-TOS. I was expecting interpretations of John M Ford's Final Reflection, Diane Duane's the Romulan Way, Margaret Wander Bonnano's Strangers From the Sky, Diane Carey's Final Frontier and so on. Producers weren't going to pay for any of that, so this was all brand new.
And then the studio stuck their oar in, and demanded that it look like the Star Trek that they were familiar with, so out went the plan to set the first season (or the first half) on Earth before the launch. And in came all those things from the 24th Century that we had been watching for the previous 14 years like holograms and replicators and transgenic weapons; if the humans didn't have them, the aliens did. Sticking in the Temporal Cold War was the ultimate mistake
When the pilot aired, I tried to give it a chance. But the nitpicky fan in me got in the way. I did a whoop of joy when they mentioned Neptune and back in 20 minutes, and I checked the Warp Scale in Franz Joseph's Technical Manual and they got it right. Then 30 minutes later, the Klingon homeworld gets put 1 light year away from Earth, with a stopover at Rigel on the way. I wound up hating the show for four years, and I tuned in regularly to hate on it.
And the most frivolous thing of all, I saw Brannon Braga's name, with Seven of T'Pol and NeePhlox in the cast, and expected it to be warmed over Voyager, a show I had fallen out of love with as it progressed.
But the last few years, I've encountered more than a few Enterprise clips on Youtube, and I've quite liked them (usually Trip and T'Pol shippers at work). It got me intrigued enough to buy the series on Blu-ray and finally re-watch it. And I'm enjoying it.
I've put aside my expectations, and can watch it for what it is, and it's really quite good, and in my view, I enjoy it a lot more than Voyager. The studio interference is still an annoyance, and I roll my eyes when the 24th Century makes an appearance. The Ferengi should never have appeared, and the remake of DS9's Shadowplay was egregious. Rather than Risa, they should have used Wrigley's Pleasure Planet or something. I'm 10 episodes into Season 2, and it's getting better though, especially when the episodes are genuinely pre-quelly.
And this time I'm looking forward to watching Season 3. Back then I had post 9-11 issues. I wanted proper escapism, and avoided drama that tackled that issue. It took me 10 years to get around to watching nuBattlestar Galactica, and I'm still reluctant to watch Die Hard 2. I wasn't in a good place for ENT Season 3 the first time around, but I think there's enough distance now to appreciate it.
Quite frankly, I was too ignorant to watch it back then. All it would have taken was the understanding as to why Tom Paris was on Voyager and not Nick Locarno. Producers will not spend money!
So Trek fan that I was, I had already dove into the expanded universe of Trek Lit and beyond, and had invested in countless versions of Trek history, pre-TOS. I was expecting interpretations of John M Ford's Final Reflection, Diane Duane's the Romulan Way, Margaret Wander Bonnano's Strangers From the Sky, Diane Carey's Final Frontier and so on. Producers weren't going to pay for any of that, so this was all brand new.
And then the studio stuck their oar in, and demanded that it look like the Star Trek that they were familiar with, so out went the plan to set the first season (or the first half) on Earth before the launch. And in came all those things from the 24th Century that we had been watching for the previous 14 years like holograms and replicators and transgenic weapons; if the humans didn't have them, the aliens did. Sticking in the Temporal Cold War was the ultimate mistake
When the pilot aired, I tried to give it a chance. But the nitpicky fan in me got in the way. I did a whoop of joy when they mentioned Neptune and back in 20 minutes, and I checked the Warp Scale in Franz Joseph's Technical Manual and they got it right. Then 30 minutes later, the Klingon homeworld gets put 1 light year away from Earth, with a stopover at Rigel on the way. I wound up hating the show for four years, and I tuned in regularly to hate on it.
And the most frivolous thing of all, I saw Brannon Braga's name, with Seven of T'Pol and NeePhlox in the cast, and expected it to be warmed over Voyager, a show I had fallen out of love with as it progressed.
But the last few years, I've encountered more than a few Enterprise clips on Youtube, and I've quite liked them (usually Trip and T'Pol shippers at work). It got me intrigued enough to buy the series on Blu-ray and finally re-watch it. And I'm enjoying it.
I've put aside my expectations, and can watch it for what it is, and it's really quite good, and in my view, I enjoy it a lot more than Voyager. The studio interference is still an annoyance, and I roll my eyes when the 24th Century makes an appearance. The Ferengi should never have appeared, and the remake of DS9's Shadowplay was egregious. Rather than Risa, they should have used Wrigley's Pleasure Planet or something. I'm 10 episodes into Season 2, and it's getting better though, especially when the episodes are genuinely pre-quelly.
And this time I'm looking forward to watching Season 3. Back then I had post 9-11 issues. I wanted proper escapism, and avoided drama that tackled that issue. It took me 10 years to get around to watching nuBattlestar Galactica, and I'm still reluctant to watch Die Hard 2. I wasn't in a good place for ENT Season 3 the first time around, but I think there's enough distance now to appreciate it.
A couple of days, a few more thoughts.
I don't care about These Are The Voyages. The episode premise renders it moot for me. The whole episode is a holodeck presentation of history that Riker has created. One, it's 200 years after the fact, two, it's interactive fiction that Riker is 'playing', and three, my head canon is that it's as accurate a representation of history as Mel Gibson's Braveheart. In other words, it never happened.
I just realised that there is one thing about Enterprise that I still hate, and it's the music; and not the theme song, which I'm indifferent about. The original Star Trek had the Alexander Courage theme and the quirky incidental music, which to date is still memeworthy.
Come The Next Generation, we got music that built and expanded on Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Motion Picture, all orchestral, a whole lot of brass, and for some reason, the same note repeated three times in short order as a musical characteristic. It became an identity for TNG, and subsequently, with DS9 and Voyager, a soundscape for the 24th Century.
But come Enterprise, set 200 years before hand, they used the same kind of incidental music again, and this, even more than the tech and the babble, ties the 22nd Century show to the 24th Century. After this much time, I wish that they had thrown the music out, gotten new composers in and started again, creating a separate soundscape for the 22nd Century.
I don't care about These Are The Voyages. The episode premise renders it moot for me. The whole episode is a holodeck presentation of history that Riker has created. One, it's 200 years after the fact, two, it's interactive fiction that Riker is 'playing', and three, my head canon is that it's as accurate a representation of history as Mel Gibson's Braveheart. In other words, it never happened.
I just realised that there is one thing about Enterprise that I still hate, and it's the music; and not the theme song, which I'm indifferent about. The original Star Trek had the Alexander Courage theme and the quirky incidental music, which to date is still memeworthy.
Come The Next Generation, we got music that built and expanded on Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Motion Picture, all orchestral, a whole lot of brass, and for some reason, the same note repeated three times in short order as a musical characteristic. It became an identity for TNG, and subsequently, with DS9 and Voyager, a soundscape for the 24th Century.
But come Enterprise, set 200 years before hand, they used the same kind of incidental music again, and this, even more than the tech and the babble, ties the 22nd Century show to the 24th Century. After this much time, I wish that they had thrown the music out, gotten new composers in and started again, creating a separate soundscape for the 22nd Century.
Oh gosh 20 years already?! Oh well, it was wonderful fun while it lasted, wasn't it, Eddie? I miss those days so much.
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