Captain Archer was the Best Captain

[NextGen123]

I have grown to like Archer as the captain because he was the most thoughtful and personable. He loved beagles too; which is also my favorite dog. Does anyone agree or disagree?

I always thought Dean Stockwell would play a larger role in the series. Since he worked with Scott so long in Quantum Leap. It's too bad there wasn't a season five because I'd love to see his return.

 

[T'Girl]

Disagree.

Captain Archer was the most inexperienced of all the Star Trek Captains. Certainly the least trained at the time we met him. No training at the academy, no years of service under various Captains as he worked his way up the latter, zero intersellar adventures and mishaps that made him grow into the wise starship commander.

Admiral One: "Hey, earth has just built it first deep space explorer."
Admiral Two: "I know this test pilot with zero knowledge in leading a crew."
Admiral One: "Perfect choice, where is he now?"
Admiral Two: "Outside, mowing the grass, HEY ... JON, GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!"

 

[BillJ]

Terrible character type and actor for a lead role in a Star Trek series. Why not just hand command to Opie? Would've ended up with the same results.

 

[JiNX-01]

Disagree.

Captain Archer was the most inexperienced of all the Star Trek Captains. Certainly the least trained at the time we met him. No training at the academy, no years of service under various Captains as he worked his way up the latter, zero intersellar adventures and mishaps that made him grow into the wise starship commander.

Would you please cite the references in the show to support this?

And as long as I'm here: I don't believe he could have gotten into SF without any training. Even an Army cook has to undergo basic training, even if he's never going to be sent to the front. And why would SF deny Archer training and the opportunity to acquire experience?

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

I think Archer was a fine captain. Sure, he started out with flaws and prejudices, but we got the opportunity to watch him learn from his mistakes and grow from an idealistic but untested deep-space explorer into the war-toughened, seasoned commander and diplomat he became in Season 4, the guy who built interspecies alliances and would found the Federation. I like how his relationship with T'Pol was a microcosm for the relations between the Vulcans and humans -- wary and mistrustful at first, but evolving into a sturdy partnership of equals, setting up the Vulcan/human dynamic of TOS.

There are those who don't see Archer in a positive light -- which is totally understandable, because the character was written inconsistently and not nurtured by the writers during the first 2 seasons. I saw an interview with Bakula early on, and he clearly had high expectations for the character...but I don't think the writers came through sufficiently to meet Bakula's -- or all the viewers' -- expectations.

I think it was a brave creative decision to start out with a character who needed to learn and grow a lot in order to grow into the man Kirk admired so much. The other Trek captains certainly weren't built this way, but that was the beauty of Archer for me. He was like the astronauts of the Mercury space program, or other trailblazers of history -- they learned as they went, laying the groundwork for those who followed. I think a lot of fans weren't expecting this type of character, and that's why he was such a disappointment to some.

 

[T'Girl]

Disagree.

Captain Archer was the most inexperienced of all the Star Trek Captains. Certainly the least trained at the time we met him. No training at the academy, no years of service under various Captains as he worked his way up the latter, zero interstellar adventures and mishaps that made him grow into the wise starship commander.

Would you please cite the references in the show to support this?

And as long as I'm here: I don't believe he could have gotten into SF without any training. Even an Army cook has to undergo basic training, even if he's never going to be sent to the front. And why would SF deny Archer training and the opportunity to acquire experience?

References?

Okay, No training at the academy was a specific referral to the academy that all the other shows captain went to, that being Starfleet Academy, the one that was established in 2161. Which Archer couldn't have went to prior to taking command of the NX-01, because that educational facility didn't exist.

No years of service under various Captains as he worked his way up the latter, we know that Earth possessed other starships prior to the construction of the NX-01. We never heard even a vague reference to Archer serving in any capacity on any of them. No stories (Archer loved telling stories) of Archer previous Captains, prior ships. Archer - by canon - was never a section chief, never a first officer, never had a ship's commander as a mentor, never had a crew under his leadership. Test pilots do not have "crews."

Zero interstellar adventures and mishaps ..., before assuming command of the NX-01, Archer apparently had never left the solar system.

Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway all were educated at the Acadmey, serve on ships as younger officers, worked their up through the ranks, learned from senior officers.

And why would SF deny Archer training and the opportunity to acquire experience?

The second part is the interesting part, because Archer should have been able to get at least some experience, but again there's no clear indication that he did.

Don't get me wrong, Archer is a likeable guy, more so than Picard or Janeway IMHO, But the question posed by the OP was "Best Captain," and Archer in comparison to the other Hero Captains, just isn't.

 

[sonak]

Is this a humor thread or are we meant to take the question at face value?


Archer was the worst of any of the regular show captains, and probably worse than a lot of one-shot guest star captains too, but that's harder to judge.


his actions often seemed to be screaming "I'm in over my head and trying desperately to hide it!


a man who obviously benefitted from nepotism, he's the "Joe six-pack" of Star Trek Captains, not a particularly good fighter, strategist, or diplomat.

 

[brian577]

Disagree.

Captain Archer was the most inexperienced of all the Star Trek Captains. Certainly the least trained at the time we met him. No training at the academy, no years of service under various Captains as he worked his way up the latter, zero interstellar adventures and mishaps that made him grow into the wise starship commander.

No years of service under various Captains as he worked his way up the latter, we know that Earth possessed other starships prior to the construction of the NX-01. We never heard even a vague reference to Archer serving in any capacity on any of them. No stories (Archer loved telling stories) of Archer previous Captains, prior ships. Archer - by canon - was never a section chief, never a first officer, never had a ship's commander as a mentor, never had a crew under his leadership. Test pilots do not have "crews."

He did mention serving on a Vulcan starship. He could do worse for experience.

 

[sonak]

he probably spent that time ranting about how "unfair" the Vulcans were being. I forgot to point out that he's kind of prejudiced in addition to his other flaws

 

[Admiral Shran]

I wouldn't say he was the best captain, but I really liked what they tried to do with him. Showing him to be thoroughly in over his head and inexperienced was a brilliant idea.

But, as HopefulRomantic said, the two things that really sunk the character in a lot of people's eyes were that he simply wasn't what people were expecting and the writers didn't do the idea of a captain learning on the job justice for two seasons.

However, the character did undeniably grow over the course of the last two seasons into someone I could see someone like Kirk admiring.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think it was a brave creative decision to start out with a character who needed to learn and grow a lot in order to grow into the man Kirk admired so much. The other Trek captains certainly weren't built this way, but that was the beauty of Archer for me. He was like the astronauts of the Mercury space program, or other trailblazers of history -- they learned as they went, laying the groundwork for those who followed. I think a lot of fans weren't expecting this type of character, and that's why he was such a disappointment to some.

My problem with it was we never saw him learning something hard, other than in Damage. What we saw him learning was dumbass stuff like.. other species have different values to us. It's not just a gazillion other seasons of Trek which allows the viewer to already know this, it's the experience of living on the earth with diverse cultures. Archer has even more experience as he lives on an earth with Vulcans, with information and tales about other species a part of every day life. Even if the Vulcans had their lips and databases locked down on the diversity topic there would have been plenty to read and hear about from freighter crew. And yet Archer comes across incredibly dense over what should be common sense.

I feel like the writing forced him to continually revisit the "green captain" role to his detriment. If you can't come up with a script with a learning curve that is believable and challenging then just tell a story and don't make the poor captain look thick doing so.

 

[jerriecan]

Honestly, I didn't like the way Archer came across - he wasn't a military man, he wasn't experienced with space, he seemed to be built just on his anger toward the Vulcans and his father's name. Over the course of the series, he never seemed to grow - he just got angrier. Everything seemed forced coming from him, like he wasn't comfortable with the job.

And that's a shame, because I like Scott Bakula as an actor. I really liked his work in Quantum Leap, and he's always likable in his roles. I just don't think that he fit Captain Archer as written - and that Captain Archer could have been better thought-out by the writers to play to Bakula's strengths.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think I like Archer best in the MU as far as the acting and Bakula appearing comfortable in the part. Twilight was also a good showcase of Bakula.

It's funny, I love ENT but I've never cared for Archer. I do think that the character works though, he comes across as bit of a butt pain guy for whom a breakthrough means looking outside his assumptions. I don't like this kind of person, I wouldn't like Archer if knew him in real life, but the character is believable in his own way, and fairly nuanced. So I think they gave us a jerky captain with some good qualities and plenty of people are like that. Not caring for Archer hasn't detracted from the show for me at all.

 

[jerriecan]

I agree with the MU Archer - I loved how Bakula chewed the scenery, and how much fun he was clearly having. But ask most actors, and they'll say that they'd rather play villains because they can go so over the top, where the good guys have to be on the straight and narrow. That's why I think the mirror universe caught on with viewers - it's an excuse for our favorite characters to go bad.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Of course Reed was exactly the same person in both universes

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I really disliked Archer as Captain. He didn't seem to have much experience when it came to interspecies relations (the fact that he held such racist views towards Vulcans kinda proves this) and diplomacy (constantly getting into fights are rarely--if ever--talking his way out of it), strategy and combat (he is constantly getting into fights and gets his/the ship's ass whooped).

I disagree that he doesn't have any training, as that makes no sense, he is an officer after all, and he does mention serving under a few CO's, but even then didn't seem to have much experience of life in deep space. He may be a more 'personable' Captain, but when you're looking for someone to lead a ship into the unknown, meet new races, and defend civilisation from hostile aliens, you need to respect and trust them, not necessarily like them.

Had Archer been the series "Boomer" having lived his life in space before going into Starfleet, it would have made more sense for the character.

But all that's just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Archer - by canon - was never [...]

Nope. Absence of evidence is not evidence.

It just means they never fleshed out his backstory beyond the nepotism in "Broken Bow"

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Well, Archer was meant to be an inexperienced captain.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Well, Archer was meant to be an inexperienced captain.

I dunno. He did see a gazelle being born.

 

[The Badger]

Loath as I am to make any reference to 'A Night In Sickbay', Phlox makes a very clear statement that Archer has trained as a diplomat. This is somewhat compromised by Archer's own dickish behaviour in that episode, but it is evidence of some sort of training.