Does the temporal cold war make sense? (Temporal Prime Directive)

[SFRabid]

I liked the complexity of the TCW. Daniels vs. Future Guy. Both having to back the humans when the sphere builders tried to convert the galaxy. Daniels travesl to the past. Future guy can only communicate with the past. Sphere builders see possible futures and only travel between demensions. Then a fourth party coming in at the end of season three that believed in using time travel to chang history to increase their power base. I just wish it had played out better than space nazies.

Thinking back, none of the TCW episodes are in my bottom 10. I'll also note that none of them are in my top 10.

 

[number6]

I wish they had done more with it. That was a weak idea to carry through four seasons with so little development.

I would have preferred to see it vanish as part of the end of the Xindi arc. Then we wouldn't have been subjected to the Trek Nazis episodes that wasted precious time in the truncated fourth season.

We might even have gotten a decent homecoming arc at the opening of season 4.

Those were badass space Nazis!!

We got a great homecoming episode third episode in!!

 

[YellowSubmarine]

The Nazis at ending of the Xindi arc was the most ridiculous thing ever. I love episodes taking us back into the past, and I love the idea that people fighting for racial purity would join forces with aliens but... it wasn't the right time, the aliens were ugly, and instead of cunningly pulling everyone's strings while keeping low profile they were everywhere, the whole thing lost any appeal to me, and it didn't feel believable.

 

[AMQ]

I liked the Nazis. It seems I am the only one that enjoyed those two episodes. But they were really misplaced at the beginning of the season 4 when we only wanted to see them finally coming home.
Similar thing happened IMO with North Star, it wasn't bad but definitely out of place with all the Xindi story going on.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Space Nazis were really cheesy, but it was kind of a good cheesy. I would have loved to see Archer kick Hitler's ass. That would have been a fantastic Trek whoopin'

(and have Hitler escape into the time vortex at the end and end up...Future Guy!!)

 

[Gaith]

The TCW was a steaming pile of crap pushed by the suits for all the wrong reasons. It was unnecessarily and overly future-based, it badly overshadowed the "infancy of the Federation" theme, and it encouraged the writers to make crap up as they went along. It may have made for some fun episodes and "whoah" moments, but they weren't worth the overall damage to continuity and credibility.

In retrospect, if the suits wouldn't stand for a comparatively modest mostly Earth-based, more talky/political than action show - closer to a 22nd-century West Wing than a 22nd-century Voyager - then ENT should probably have been an alternate timeline show anyway, which would have freed them up to do the sort of drastic stuff XI did. Or if they did stick with the original timeline, maybe ENT should have superseded Nemesis as a new movie series; only having to do a few stories could have lessened the pressure to introduce epic plots such as the TCW/Xindi arc.

But forcing both a Voyager-level action/exploration quotient on such a comparatively primitive ship and dumping the TCW on the show from the very first ep practically ensured that the show would be feel familiar as well as disrupt canon integrity.

So, does the TCW make sense? Not in any sense.

 

[arch101]

I realize now that with a Trek prequel, time travel is almost necessary. We, the viewers, have seen so much of "the future" already, that it makes almost any storyline seem almost inconsequential. We already know how it all turns out.
The TCW, on the other hand, put the very "future" we all know and love in jeopardy. Maybe things WON'T turn out as they should, unless our intrepid crew out-wits their time-traveling adversaries. It was way cool when Archer was playing Daniels' holo-recorder and WE knew what all those ships were but Archer didn't. Loved the idea of the sphere-builders manipulating the Xindi from the future, throwing the Xindi advanced technology that tilted the odds against our heroes. The occasional appearance of far-out tech like the TARDIS capsule was pretty cool, too. Seasons 1-2 were basically Voyager rehash EXCEPT for the TCW eps. They kept the show interesting until things finally took off in Year 3.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

The idea might have been nice but it didn't work so well, and was full of holes. Also it wasn't a nuTrek-type of prequel where we go into an alternative timeline. My assumption from the beginning was that we were viewing recorded history. As seen by the people in the timeline(s) shown in previous Trek series.

 

[Alex1939]

It did not make sense and was the worst part of Enterprise (imo of course).

What's worse, if you care at all about continuity, it kind of kills any new series because you know "the federation will prevail and be strong in the future" and they've established a precedent where high school kids can build a time travel device Macguyver style. Tough to write good sci-fi if you have to follow that.


I'm sure with the Abrams reboot all that stuff will basically be ignored, which is what I tend to do about TCW anyway.

 

[I am Surak]

The Vulcan Science Council has determined that Time Travel is impossible.

 

[Gaith]

Boy, they really dropped the ball on that one, didn't they. All you need to do is zoom around a star real fast...

 

[I am Surak]

Boy, they really dropped the ball on that one, didn't they. All you need to do is zoom around a star real fast...

And be extra careful when riding a hoofed quadriped.

 

[Jax]

All you need to do is zoom around a star real fast...

Oh god don't mention that please, I mean I love TVH due to its comedic value but god the whole star/time travel thing makes me .