Is Enterprise part of your personal canon?

[I am Surak]

Sorry to offend anyone but I only care about TOS and ENT. The other spinoffs are just bad television with unattractive actors, bad sets and ugly uniforms. Reflective of the rest of the crap the 80s and 90s had to offer.
I tried to get into it but I am just too jaded by the goodness that is TOS and ENT.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I don't understand why would someone building a "personal canon" want to exclude the whole series. Consider parts, story arks or episodes separately. It's much more interesting to see which parts people find unfitting or bad, and why.

There are parts of the original series and The Next Generation that I rather forget about, so there are no different.

What I like:

1. I love the depiction of the growing relationships with our first interstellar friends and foes. The Vulcans, the Andorians, the Tellarites, the Klingons – I think it was pretty well done. I love the establishment of the alliance, I like how things were done before the prime directive, etc.
2. I love the Kir'Shara story ark, the depiction of Vulcan there, and I think it makes a wonderful prequel to the rest of the series. The P'Jem one was also terrific.
3. I love the Terra Prime story ark, it's also a wonderful prequel. It seems quite right to have some xenophobia during our first relationships with aliens. Let's face it, humans suck.
4. I love the Klingons. The best part is that they were less chatty than those in DS9. I loved the augments involvement with them, though I hated the attempt to use the story to explain their TOS look once again.. The Klingon look in TOS is just a perception/depiction issue!
5. I like how part of the first two seasons felt like "a bunch of noobs who went into space (with their pets) for the first time and ran into a lot of surprises".
6. In a Mirror, Darkly... Much better than any mirror episodes in DS9. Brilliant sequel/prequel to the TOS episodes, and beautiful take on First Contact.

I didn't like:

1. There were too many alien species involved, and their designs were better than in the other series. I think the issue is in the other series, not in Enterprise, though. And it's easy to explain by the fact that after we had made our fair share of first contacts with all kinds of species we were more interested in the strange new worlds.
2. The temporal cold war and the Xindi incident seemed a little bit large scale and big for the first series. I understand they aren't as large as they felt, but there is something about them that didn't feel right. I have accepted them, though. Also, it makes sense that temporal villains would prefer to play their games further in the past where the worlds are less developed and don't know about time travel.
3. I hate that there is a captain of the Starfleet starship Enterprise before the first captain of the Starfleet starship Enterprise, and that he isn't mentioned anywhere even though his actions seemed to be more important than all the other the other captains together. This is explainable, but I still wish the series didn't try to be that important. You could say that those events weren't in the original timeline and they are result of the temporal cold war, but I don't like that explanation.
4. Too many later revelations, discoveries, species and technologies were either revisited or introduced before their time. Ferengi, cloaked ships, The Borg (this was quite good, though), the technology (ship sensors, medical equipment, tricorders, etc. were pretty advanced), augments, and numerous others. Not a big issue, but it has bugged me once or twice.

 

[Mysterion]

I accept Enterprise as a valid part of Star Trek lore. Is there a reason I shouldn't?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I accept Enterprise as a valid part of Star Trek lore. Is there a reason I shouldn't?

Porthos

 

[Forbin]

Squinting helps make TOS work as a whole too.

Also winking.

 

[Forbin]

Remus or Romii?

I've convinced myself that map said "Romulus" and "Rom II."
IOW, the mapmaker used a technical or catalog name for the second planet, "Romulus Two."

 

[Forbin]

I accept Enterprise as a valid part of Star Trek lore. Is there a reason I shouldn't?

Yes, it sucked.

 

[Anwar]

I accept Enterprise as a valid part of Star Trek lore. Is there a reason I shouldn't?

Yes, it sucked.

So did 70% of TOS, but that doesn't stop anyone.

 

[RookieBatman]

If 70% of TOS sucked, how did the franchise survive?

 

[Anwar]

The other 30%.

 

[RAMA]

It is not part of mine. lol.

My own view was that they should have taken Trek off TV for a while, after Voyager ended.

And as Paramount is a huge studio, with the resources to boot, they should have conducted a thorough analysis as to why Voyager was not as critically acclaimed as TNG or DS9. DS9 can use the excuse of competition for its poor ratings, even though in terms of acting, writing, etc. it is arguably the best series (IMO on par with TNG).

If I were the Paramount CEO in 2001 (or otherwise in top management there) I would have ceased Trek production for a few years, and with an analysis of what went wrong in Voyager come back in 2005/2006 with a new series, either a post-Dominion War story, or set in a new era (25th century) with new scenarios, aliens and enemies.

There is no personal canon, only opinion. As far as canon is concerned Enterpise is more a part of modern ST canon than TOS is!!

I recently re-watched some of Enterprise, and have been ranking it in my new database...and I was shocked to see how closely it ranks to TOS when I rate them. Its really not that bad of a show. Season 4 ranks THIRD in ALL the seasons of ST on my list.

RAMA

 

[Guardian Bob]

Enterprise did a lot for canon, and build a lot of federation and starfleet lore. Way more than say, Voyager; whos 7 years away did absolutely nothing for the rest of the universe.

 

[Destructor]

Well, Voyager told us a lot about the Delta Quadrant. Which, I must repeat, has nothing to do with the word 'canon'. Voyager is part of the accepted works of Star Trek. It's canon. Not liking it, judgments on it's quality, what it portrayed, what you think of it, has no bearing on whether this is a fact or not. It IS canon. There is no such thing as personal canon. There is just canon and not canon. Voyager is canon, Enterprise is canon. There's nothing you can do about it. If you choose not to accept any Trek shows as not having occurred in your own personal imaginings of the Trek universe, that is cool and fine and lovely. But it is in a completely different Venn diagram to what is canon and what is not. It's on a whole different page of the book. Please stop saying canon when referring to anything other than the officially accepted works. It's annoying and inaccurate. Thanks!

 

[Forbin]

f you choose not to accept any Trek shows as not having occurred in your own personal imaginings of the Trek universe, that is cool and fine and lovely.

And that is the definiton of "personal canon" in the we've been using it on this board lately. Just think of it as an informal term and your head will hurt less. .

 

[Kemaiku]

As for the whole Romulus and Romii thing. Look at the map in TOS, which is recreated on the floor of the Senate chamber in Nemesis complete with Romii, and you'll see that at that scale Romii is lightyears away. Remus is in a tigh co-habitual orbit with Romulus and both would be depicted as a single map point, Romii is most likely another significant planet in another system.

 

[RookieBatman]

f you choose not to accept any Trek shows as not having occurred in your own personal imaginings of the Trek universe, that is cool and fine and lovely.

And that is the definiton of "personal canon" in the we've been using it on this board lately. Just think of it as an informal term and your head will hurt less. .

But the words "personal" and "canon" are, by definition, mutually exclusive. It's not much different from saying "the temperature is hot and cold."

What's so difficult about just saying "personal continuity," which has the same usage but doesn't ignore the definitions of words?

 

[Vanyel]

I really can't believe this debate is still going on.

Wait, this a forum for Star Trek fans.

I really can't believe this debate hasn't grown more heated.

 

[StarryEyed]

I can't believe this either. This idea that a person is not allowed to have a personal fantasy that includes some of Star Trek but not all of it is irrational in the extreme.

Every last fan who enjoys Star Trek so much that they post hundreds or even thousands of messages about it on a BBS are indulging in fantasy. Nothing wrong with that. A hobby is a hobby. But when you think your fantasy is more valid than someone else's fantasy, you have serious issues.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Wait, this a forum for Star Trek fans.

I really can't believe this debate hasn't grown more heated.

Indeed, there could be bannings.

I, too, am struggling to understand exactly what all the fuss is all about. People seem so worked up that I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing here.

I'm starting to think that there's not.

You're not missing anything, believe me.

A lot of Enterprise was more entertaining - and smarter - than most of the third season of TOS. So the assertion that it may not be as consistent as some fans would like is not a terribly interesting one.

 

[RAMA]

Wait, this a forum for Star Trek fans.

I really can't believe this debate hasn't grown more heated.

Indeed, there could be bannings.

I, too, am struggling to understand exactly what all the fuss is all about. People seem so worked up that I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing here.

I'm starting to think that there's not.

You're not missing anything, believe me.

A lot of Enterprise was more entertaining - and smarter - than most of the third season of TOS. So the assertion that it may not be as consistent as some fans would like is not a terribly interesting one.

I guess we could quibble that ENT didnt do more about the Rom-Earth war or the start of the Federation before its time ran out..but the proto-UFP stuff we DID see..."Home", "Babel" trilogy, etc in the 4th season was great!