I just realized that May 13, next Thursday, will mark 5 years since the final episode of Enterprise was broadcast. It doesn't feel like 5 years!
Sadly, most of my memories of that time aren't fond, at least in terms of being a fan of Enterprise and Star Trek in general. The basher vs. gusher wars got worse, the whole Save Enterprise thing was greeted with a mixture of blind enthusiasm and unwavering scorn, and I think 5 years later it's not unreasonable to pronounce These Are the Voyages the most controversial single episode of a science fiction program (and possibly of any genre) in TV history.
I think a lot of the bad blood that was unnecessarily created during the waning days of Enterprise is still out there. I certainly no longer identify myself as a Trekkie because I was then and remain disgusted at the OTT, unreasonable hatred that was spewed towards that show from the day the series was first announced until the last moments of TATV. (There's a line between criticism and hatred, and that line was crossed too many times to count, IMO, especially by certain individuals -- some of whom are still around and others who have faded away -- who seemed to have no life except to bash Enterprise and everyone involved in it.) I think it was also the point where the whole notion of "it's only a TV show" was lost on many, who started to use offensive terms like "blasphemy" when referring to the series, suggesting to me that Trek had dangerously become a religion to some, and then there was that whole Akiraprise nonsense where some people rejected the series based on a special effects shot in one of the TNG movies that lasted a couple of seconds and which simply indicated elements of the NX-01 design was later reused in the TNG era.
And this was also when "fanon" really kicked into high gear. My favorite "gotcha!" moment was when there were people complaining about T'Pol joining Starfleet, with people griping that it violated canon that said Spock was the first in Starfleet. And then someone went through all the TOS episodes and movies and said there was no such reference anywhere on screen.
For me, though, the epitome occurred when the first details of the episode "Regeneration" were revealed and we learned the Borg were going to appear. The episode, as you know, was a sequel to First Contact and unscored some of the timeline changes that had been caused by that film. It also helped to iron out some continuity burps regarding the Borg both in TNG and Voyager -- especially Voyager which established Starfleet was investigating the Borg years before Q gave Picard the preview. Anyway, either on TrekBBS or rec.arts.startrek someone posted that he was so outraged that the Borg were coming to Enterprise that he smashed his TV. Someone asked if he actually did that or was just BS'ing, and he said yes, he did actually do it. To the credit of other participants I believe recommendations of "get professional help" followed. But I sort of saw that as the moment some elements of Trek fandom went past the harmless "let's wear our uniforms to the movie" stage and into the "do I want to be in the same room with these people" stage.
It got so bad to be an Enterprise fan and supporter that I ended up quitting the TrekBBS for about 6 months at one point, and I abandoned rec.arts.startrek completely. I remember the old Moderator Actions board -- back when it was a "bitching board" -- often had people complaining about certain users who kept harping on Enterprise, and then some of the so-called "bashers" turned the tables by lodging complaints against guys like me who actually came up with good arguments in favor. I ended up going away and I didn't come back until some of the more militant "bashers" either gave up or got kicked out. And in fact the number of posts I've made on the Enterprise board here in the last 5 years, including this one, can probably be counted on one hand.
Some of those ripples continued to be felt when JJ Abrams brought Star Trek back, and a few people went back to their old tricks from the Enterprise days (while a few others stole said tricks for their own anti-AbramsTrek agendas) but fortunately unlike Enterprise the movie had the studio support and critical and box office clout that the naysayers were rendered irrelevant.
Still, with 5 years of reflection, I refuse to consider Enterprise a failure. Considering how many SF shows -- good and bad -- have been unable to survive a dozen episodes, never mind 4 seasons, the fact the series managed to survive 4 years is a victory. And the fact it's most likely going to be the first post-TOS series to hit Blu-Ray (owing to the fact TNG, DS9 and VOY have apparently been declared impossible to upconvert unless they redo everything) will probably place it in a good position to be reevaluated by people whose views weren't colored by hatred for Berman, Braga, and the others. 5 years is, after all, an eternity. Were mistakes made? Of course, but the sad part is included in the list of the mistakes were things like "breaking the status quo", "trying something new" -- they'd probably have been better off just doing another 4 years of Voyager.
Fortunately, also, I haven't really seen the same sort of virulent "basher vs. gusher" conflict with other SF shows. There's a bit of that on Doctor Who, as there are factions who are decidedly not in favor of how the revival turned out (but they have also been driven into irrelevance by the critical and public success of the series, which dates back to around the time Enterprise was exiting the airwaves). Certainly I often compare the fan reaction to the first season of Torchwood to how Trek fans responded to Enterprise. And occasionally a single product comes along that fires up people on both sides -- most recently Avatar. But none of this approached the overall unpleasantness of Trek fandom from 2001-2005. I hope we never see a repeat of what happened during the Enterprise era.
Alex
Sadly, most of my memories of that time aren't fond, at least in terms of being a fan of Enterprise and Star Trek in general. The basher vs. gusher wars got worse, the whole Save Enterprise thing was greeted with a mixture of blind enthusiasm and unwavering scorn, and I think 5 years later it's not unreasonable to pronounce These Are the Voyages the most controversial single episode of a science fiction program (and possibly of any genre) in TV history.
I think a lot of the bad blood that was unnecessarily created during the waning days of Enterprise is still out there. I certainly no longer identify myself as a Trekkie because I was then and remain disgusted at the OTT, unreasonable hatred that was spewed towards that show from the day the series was first announced until the last moments of TATV. (There's a line between criticism and hatred, and that line was crossed too many times to count, IMO, especially by certain individuals -- some of whom are still around and others who have faded away -- who seemed to have no life except to bash Enterprise and everyone involved in it.) I think it was also the point where the whole notion of "it's only a TV show" was lost on many, who started to use offensive terms like "blasphemy" when referring to the series, suggesting to me that Trek had dangerously become a religion to some, and then there was that whole Akiraprise nonsense where some people rejected the series based on a special effects shot in one of the TNG movies that lasted a couple of seconds and which simply indicated elements of the NX-01 design was later reused in the TNG era.
And this was also when "fanon" really kicked into high gear. My favorite "gotcha!" moment was when there were people complaining about T'Pol joining Starfleet, with people griping that it violated canon that said Spock was the first in Starfleet. And then someone went through all the TOS episodes and movies and said there was no such reference anywhere on screen.
For me, though, the epitome occurred when the first details of the episode "Regeneration" were revealed and we learned the Borg were going to appear. The episode, as you know, was a sequel to First Contact and unscored some of the timeline changes that had been caused by that film. It also helped to iron out some continuity burps regarding the Borg both in TNG and Voyager -- especially Voyager which established Starfleet was investigating the Borg years before Q gave Picard the preview. Anyway, either on TrekBBS or rec.arts.startrek someone posted that he was so outraged that the Borg were coming to Enterprise that he smashed his TV. Someone asked if he actually did that or was just BS'ing, and he said yes, he did actually do it. To the credit of other participants I believe recommendations of "get professional help" followed. But I sort of saw that as the moment some elements of Trek fandom went past the harmless "let's wear our uniforms to the movie" stage and into the "do I want to be in the same room with these people" stage.
It got so bad to be an Enterprise fan and supporter that I ended up quitting the TrekBBS for about 6 months at one point, and I abandoned rec.arts.startrek completely. I remember the old Moderator Actions board -- back when it was a "bitching board" -- often had people complaining about certain users who kept harping on Enterprise, and then some of the so-called "bashers" turned the tables by lodging complaints against guys like me who actually came up with good arguments in favor. I ended up going away and I didn't come back until some of the more militant "bashers" either gave up or got kicked out. And in fact the number of posts I've made on the Enterprise board here in the last 5 years, including this one, can probably be counted on one hand.
Some of those ripples continued to be felt when JJ Abrams brought Star Trek back, and a few people went back to their old tricks from the Enterprise days (while a few others stole said tricks for their own anti-AbramsTrek agendas) but fortunately unlike Enterprise the movie had the studio support and critical and box office clout that the naysayers were rendered irrelevant.
Still, with 5 years of reflection, I refuse to consider Enterprise a failure. Considering how many SF shows -- good and bad -- have been unable to survive a dozen episodes, never mind 4 seasons, the fact the series managed to survive 4 years is a victory. And the fact it's most likely going to be the first post-TOS series to hit Blu-Ray (owing to the fact TNG, DS9 and VOY have apparently been declared impossible to upconvert unless they redo everything) will probably place it in a good position to be reevaluated by people whose views weren't colored by hatred for Berman, Braga, and the others. 5 years is, after all, an eternity. Were mistakes made? Of course, but the sad part is included in the list of the mistakes were things like "breaking the status quo", "trying something new" -- they'd probably have been better off just doing another 4 years of Voyager.
Fortunately, also, I haven't really seen the same sort of virulent "basher vs. gusher" conflict with other SF shows. There's a bit of that on Doctor Who, as there are factions who are decidedly not in favor of how the revival turned out (but they have also been driven into irrelevance by the critical and public success of the series, which dates back to around the time Enterprise was exiting the airwaves). Certainly I often compare the fan reaction to the first season of Torchwood to how Trek fans responded to Enterprise. And occasionally a single product comes along that fires up people on both sides -- most recently Avatar. But none of this approached the overall unpleasantness of Trek fandom from 2001-2005. I hope we never see a repeat of what happened during the Enterprise era.
Alex
-- I just mean in the sense that Star Trek really began to gather a following after it went into syndication. Happily, ENT did the same when it was released on DVD -- Thank you, Netflix! -- and at last turned up on SciFi.
