I agree - I meant that 2001 comment only in regards to Reid avoiding what rapidly became a cliché in film and TV.
Enterprise did grow on me, but in its first run. It was not that I was not a fan from the start, although I may not have been, I probably watched out of momentum from the rest of Trek, anger, and desperation to see more good Trek. Finally things turned from tragically boring to interesting in season 3, and finally turned not just good but amazing in season 4. Something I could finally love. There is a lot I see as wrong in the series which I wish never happened, and some of that is due to the station they were forced on, some due to the producers. It wasn't until everyone up top gave up that the show could finally be what it should have been. It was too late though. I am just glad it ended on a high note, except for "These Are the Voyages." So it was a high point as a season.
I think a lot of it is due to preconceptions and first impressions. Wooden: T'Pol doesn't have Spock's sense of humour, so there's less eyebrow waggling. There's also less of the warm emotional moments of the TOS movies, though of course by that time those characters had known each other a lot longer. Emotional: There are episodes where T'Pol is definitely required to emote: eps The Seventh, Fusion, and Impulse, plus her space-drugs arc. These may have created a negative impression, particularly as they tended to show T'Pol behaving emotionally, but only provided the explanation later (many episodes later, in the case of the space-drugs). At other times she was quite subtle in her emotions: I'm thinking in particular of the season 4 eps Home, Terra Prime, and TATV
Michelle Erica Green's reviews and a lot of people on the Triaxian Silk forum (which isn't so active these days) have the opinion that T'Pol is too emotional but Jolene is a good actress. I have yet to see something similar here. I hate to generalize but I think people on these forums tend to conflate the actress with the character.
Well I think that Enterprise specifically wanted to show Vulcans in a different light than we were used to and I believe that many of the Vulcans that appeared on enterprise appeared to show more emotion than the likes of Tuvok and even spock (considering he was only half Vulcan). Personally I prefered seeing that different slant on a culture we had seen before. Plus I saw comments somewhere stating that it was most likely that she was more emotional than a normal Vulcan and that was the reason that she lasted so long on a ship full of humans it suited her nature better than a vulcan posting.
I kinda think that the whole "Vulcans are dicks" idea wasn't as unique to Enterprise as people tend to think. The only Vulcans we see in the other series regularly are those who have already "softened" to emotions. The one off Vulcans in other series seem to match Enterprise's rendition fairly well. Outside of Spock who is half human, Sarak, who married a human, had a half human son, and lived among humans, Savik (who I still see as half Romulan) , and Tuvok who, again, has been living with Humans in Starfleet for 100 years, the other Vulcans we see are xenophobic and look down n other species. They tend to only serve on vessels with all Vulcan crews (TOS, DS9) and act superior to other species (DS9 baseball game, for example).
To be fair, ENT Vulcans aren't that different from the ones we see in TOS, especially Sarek and T'Pau. Sure, they emphasized anti-human racism but that's to be expected going backwards in time. Some people don't get that it's completely normal for cultures to evolve. T'Pol's mother said she always had trouble suppressing her emotions. So it's highly likely that she was bullied as a child for that. At the very least, she probably had imposter syndrome throughout most of her career. So it must have been a weird experience for humans to tell her she was too emotional when she was assigned to Enterprise. Personally, I like have a main character who is an unusually emotional Vulcan. It would be boring to see one who always had it together.
Frankly, my viewing of most the modern Treks fell into a catchup pattern. I lost interest in TNG in the second season and picked it back up in the fourth. I made it through a season of DS9, but didn't really fall in love until I did a binge watch of the dvds after it ended its run. I watched the first episode of Voyager and ... well, I caught up on dvd later. Still kinda meh on it. Similar with Enterprise, which I love. I watched a couple of episodes, was a little turned off that the design didn't look retro enough, and then it kind of got lost. As I recall, it was on a crappy night for me. But fell in love via DVD.
It never grew on me. There's a few entertaining episodes, but I find Archer and Malcolm bland, T'Pol and Phlox irritating and to this day there's huge chunks I can't bear to watch. And I'll never forgive them for the Klingon ridges episode.
I was a fan of Enterprise from the beginning I enjoyed watching most of the shows except for a few I really Dislike Bounty and Tatv.
Enterprise probably had the strongest pilot of the Trek shows, then the writing level proceeded to be Voyager season 8-9 which I think doomed it to the point where seasons 3-4 couldn't save it. I wasn't blown away by the show but I enjoyed it for what it was. Definitely cared more about the cast than I did with Voyager, the only Trek show I gave up watching midway through.
Cloned Trip? CLONED TRIP FOR BRAIN MATTER?! Jesus Enterprise, I thought season 3 was when you were supposed to be good! #%÷&ing Enterprise...
Ent pisses me off. It was great and awful at the same time. One of my worst and favorite. They had a great premise, a great cast but boy did they have some crap episodes. Temporal cold war...yawn....Xindi....yawn..... and Season 2 I don't even remember it. Alien of the week? I mean WTF? They were exploring "local" space, there should of been more follow up. But when they did the stuff that involved the founding steps of the federation and the interactions between the founding members it was awesome. I mean why the hell did they bother with Xindi when romulans were such a key player at the beguiling? If Ent had started off at season 4 it would of been so much better.
I would agree. That's why I call it "B&B fatigue" vice "franchise fatigue". Coto showed up and it really took off. Too bad all the trek fans that complained Enterprise wasn't giving them what they wanted didn't flock back when it did. While I wasn't all too keen on the Xindi, it was an exciting season and much better than Season two. Enterprise season 8&9 should have been the RW with season 10 forming the Federation.
I'm about halfway through season 2 in my rewatch at the moment and it is so dull, just dullsville through and through. I like the Temporal Cold War storyline but we haven't even had any of that. Good grief but it's dull.
I didn't like the TCW but how was the Xindi story boring? It was also a nice setup for the xenophobia in season 4. And more importantly, a warmup for Archer as founding father of the Federation. He did convince some of his enemies to come to his side.
The Xindi could've been considered boring in the sense that the CGI races really looked like shit and their contributions to the fun of that arc were pitiful. The Aquatics just sat there in their aquariums projecting underwater thoughts, occasionally. The insectoids were poorly rendered and did not integrate well, with the real cast, or environ. Their feet never quite touched the ground and they looked like paintings. That Humanoid Xindi who was sequestered in that mock-up, until he rendered his secrets took up too much screen time and wasn't that fun to watch. The Reptilians offered the greatest entertainment value, but even then, there was just that blustery General who preferred pages of dialogue to action beats. I very much liked the idea of a multiple-species alien race, but in practice, their sphere was more entertaining than they were ...
Boring probably the wrong choice of words. It didn't fit is what got to me. The defining enemy at the time was meant to be the Romulans. Xindi kill millions and a whole series devoted to them. But why? They wers never mentioned in previous series. Ok nothing wrong with creating new races, but to create one out of nowwre that had such a huge impact on earth and starfleet? Its like in 2 centuries time forgoing ww1 ever happened even though it defined The modern age. There was so much better premises they could of explored.