ENT is one of those things that's better in retrospect. When you binge watch / marathon, you can skip the slow, boring and pointless eps in Seasons 1 and 2, appreciate Season 3's Xindi arc, and see exactly where they were going with Season 4.
It's nicely bingeable because like TOS, there's not as much of it. A rewatch of TNG, DS9, or VOY is a much more substantial commitment. If you skip the bad ENT S1-2 eps, you can get through the series fairly quickly.
It's too bad that Netflix and other streaming options didn't exist in 2004-2005. I think that ENT could've been decent in seasons 5-7. I
really enjoyed the post-ENT novels. It's a shame we didn't see that stuff play out on screen and become canon.
It's also a shame that they didn't use an orchestral version of Archer's theme instead of "Faith of the Heart" for the title credits. I tear up every time:
I think I have a soft spot for ENT because it's closest to our own time. I'm one of those fans who only halfway believes that humanity could ever achieve Roddenberry's vision (I think darker scenarios like the Expanse are closer to our own reality's future -- we missed the boat for something better decades ago), so the plucky, aw shucks we're in space nature of Bakkula's Archer works for me. I wouldn't have believed the character if he were more like Kirk, Janeway, or Picard. There are little kids alive today who still will be around in 2112, Archer's birth year. He and the rest of the regular cast felt plausible to me in ways that the novels filled out well. I just find that I enjoy Trek's 22nd century -- a lot.
Anyway, back to Disco. I really appreciate all the nods Discovery makes to ENT as its direct predecessor, from the Defiant in the Mirrorverse to “This brave team will be the first to visit this inhospitable planet since Captain Archer and the crew of the Enterprise NX-01, nearly 100 years ago" about Qo'nos. It warms the cockles of those of us who think ENT got a hard rap back in the day.
