Is the premise of Enterprise "exciting"?

[watermelony2k]

Wait wait, before you yaller out "Enterprise is dull, un-exciting, and the show stinks", here's what I really mean.

Is the PREMISE exciting? Is the idea of a prequel that could tell a tale of the foundations for the future exciting?

 

[Nephandus]

Absolutely the premise is exciting! It brought me back for a full season after I left during Voyager's run. When Enterprise finally uses its premise, I'll probably return to watch it regularly.

 

[MvRojo]

Yeah, but every single premise of Star Trek has sounded exciting, except Insurrection.

Matt

 

[Guest]

Exciting? Mmmmm...doesn't do anything for me, nor does it turn me away. The premise of DS9 was exciting. The premise of Voyager was even more exciting, and I was disappointed it was abandoned.

While the idea of a prequel doesn't thrill me, I always maintained - and still do - that it could be a great show in the right hands. There's untapped potential there.

 

[Raz]

Posted by watermelony2k:
Is the PREMISE exciting? Is the idea of a prequel that could tell a tale of the foundations for the future exciting?

Temporal Cold War? Snore.

Pre-Federation, potential BotF? Bring it on.

 

[C.E. Evans]

ENT's premise is boring as hell.

You already know how it's going to end--the formation of the Federation. All this series is doing is connecting the dots (yawn).

Oh, yes--there's the idea that we don't know what happens to Archer and his crew...but since no one has died yet on NX-01, it's very likely they'll survive and die of old age sometime after the Federation is formed. And even if some of them don't, so what? It won't change how the series ultimately ends.

Just damn boring...

Not to mention that a prequel--in general--is really the sign of a franchise that has lost its steam and is creatively bankrupt...

 

[Stewey]

In the hands of B&B no, but the raw idea of going back to when the federation was formed is certainly interesting enough.

I'm not really inspired by seeing the current stories B&B are churning out, seeing every trek invention being "invented" every week is pretty lame.

Instead of honouring TOS and what came after it, this show has only done the opposite. B&B are undermining what they acheived in the past 15 or so years and also undermining the work Gene Roddenberry did 35 years ago.

 

[PreHensile]

The premise of Voyager excited the hell out of me... the premise of DS9 simply intrigued me, making me curious as to what'd they would do with it... the premise of Enterprise provokes a more DS9-style reaction out of me.

With a prequel concept, it's how the premise is handled and where they take it, what they do with it... those are what make the concept of Enterprise exciting. Granted, not much has really been accomplished with the concept of a prequel highlighting the times before the Federation, but we're starting to get into the swing of things with the season finale, and assuming Enterprise will be around for a while longer (which I can say it almost certainly will), there's plenty of time to dive into the complexity of what the premise has to offer.

 

[cooleddie74]

I think so,but the execution isn't always very gripping or tense. A GREAT idea diluted by inconsistent and uneven producers and writers.

 

[where'sSaavik?]

Posted by PreHensile:
The premise of Voyager excited the hell out of me... the premise of DS9 simply intrigued me, making me curious as to what'd they would do with it... the premise of Enterprise provokes a more DS9-style reaction out of me.

DS9 had the weakest premise out there, but ended up having some of the best execution the franchise ever had. A space station at a wormhole could have become a dull alien of the week thing very easily. Instead it became a complex study in three dimensional characters, their ambitions, their trials, their demons.

VOY had the strongest premise and the weakest execution. Two crews with diametrically opposed philosophies stranded on the far side of the galaxy forced to work together to survive could have seriously rocked. Instead the internal conflict was paid lip service to and we got seven years worth of alien-of-the-week type fare. The ship kept moving forward, but the storytelling never did.

BOTF, as a premise, is pretty weak. And TCW is even more troublesome as a premise. While the founding of the Federation might be an interesting story for a novel, it's not so compelling in a weekly series because we all know how it's going to turn out. And making the "how" of it interesting to an audience is a very tall order. But thus far, we really haven't gotten much actual BOTF stuff. With 90% of the stories on ENT you could change a word here or there and have no trouble plopping it into the middle of TNG or VOY. It's the cookie cutter school of writing.

And while TCW is so amazingly contrived, those are the only episodes that establish a sense of mystery where we're actually intrigued with where things are going. Here the execution has been pretty good. Too bad I can't say that for the series as a whole.

 

[Nephandus]

Posted by C.E. Evans:
ENT's premise is boring as hell.

You already know how it's going to end--the formation of the Federation. All this series is doing is connecting the dots (yawn).

If this were true, then Glory, Braveheart, Schindlers List, Patton, Lawrence of Arabia, The Right Stuff and a number of other interesting historical dramas would be boring to watch, and they aren't. So too would be even widely read fictional dramas, like LOTR, or real-life inspired fiction, such as Titanic.

The trick in the depiction of such is to use the setting as a backdrop to add credibility to the human story. You focus on something that was tangentally related to the main action (such as the first black regiment in Glory) with a strong human story.

The thing is, Enterprise's alien of the week format doesn't really do anything with the premise - ignoring any of its distinctive features. If you are going to go there, then you should have some reason why every episode could only occur on Enterprise - something beyond the characters themselves. You have to treat the setting with reverance and do everything you can to support it.

 

[Guest]

I can't say this premise was exactly what I wanted. I was expecting something in the future not something in the past. Even so the premise does allow for some new ideas to take place. Ideas that were missed during the run of TOS. So the premise isn't as exciting as others out there but it's exciting none the less.

 

[reno floyd]

Posted by where'sSaavik?:

Posted by PreHensile:
The premise of Voyager excited the hell out of me... the premise of DS9 simply intrigued me, making me curious as to what'd they would do with it... the premise of Enterprise provokes a more DS9-style reaction out of me.

DS9 had the weakest premise out there, but ended up having some of the best execution the franchise ever had. A space station at a wormhole could have become a dull alien of the week thing very easily. Instead it became a complex study in three dimensional characters, their ambitions, their trials, their demons.

VOY had the strongest premise and the weakest execution. Two crews with diametrically opposed philosophies stranded on the far side of the galaxy forced to work together to survive could have seriously rocked. Instead the internal conflict was paid lip service to and we got seven years worth of alien-of-the-week type fare. The ship kept moving forward, but the storytelling never did.

BOTF, as a premise, is pretty weak. And TCW is even more troublesome as a premise. While the founding of the Federation might be an interesting story for a novel, it's not so compelling in a weekly series because we all know how it's going to turn out. And making the "how" of it interesting to an audience is a very tall order. But thus far, we really haven't gotten much actual BOTF stuff. With 90% of the stories on ENT you could change a word here or there and have no trouble plopping it into the middle of TNG or VOY. It's the cookie cutter school of writing.

And while TCW is so amazingly contrived, those are the only episodes that establish a sense of mystery where we're actually intrigued with where things are going. Here the execution has been pretty good. Too bad I can't say that for the series as a whole.

Agreed.

[off topic] See - this is why you're one of the best Mods out there and why I don't bitch when you issue a warning. Because you have an opinion about Ent, which contrary to expectation is not generally positive, yet there is never a hint of your personal opinion when you issue warnings. It's always straight shooting from you resulting in issue based judgements. Yo should run a class in Modding. [/off topic]

 

[C.E. Evans]

Posted by Nephandus:

Posted by C.E. Evans:
ENT's premise is boring as hell.

You already know how it's going to end--the formation of the Federation. All this series is doing is connecting the dots (yawn).

If this were true, then Glory, Braveheart, Schindlers List, Patton, Lawrence of Arabia, The Right Stuff and a number of other interesting historical dramas would be boring to watch, and they aren't.

That's your opinion, and your welcome to it, but it isn't mine.

The only one of those movies you listed I thought wasn't boring was "Schindler's List" because I wasn't aware of the story. The remaining films you listed bored me to tears as I was already aware of their outcomes...

And all "Titanic" was about was an insipid love story set amid an already known tragedy...please.

Perhaps if ENT was my first Trek experience, I would be "excited". But since it isn't, it's still boring as hell to see a show about connecting the dots to a picture that's already been drawn...

 

[Guest]

Posted by watermelony2k:
Wait wait, before you yaller out "Enterprise is dull, un-exciting, and the show stinks", here's what I really mean.

Is the PREMISE exciting? Is the idea of a prequel that could tell a tale of the foundations for the future exciting?

It's about as exciting as watching grass grow. On second thought...I'd rather watch grass grow.

BTW, I thought Harve Bennett's idea of the Academy years sucked too. Glad they didn't do that...yet.

 

[Guest]

Compared to Voyager and most of DS9 - hell yes!

 

[PreHensile]

Posted by where'sSaavik?:
BOTF, as a premise, is pretty weak. And TCW is even more troublesome as a premise. While the founding of the Federation might be an interesting story for a novel, it's not so compelling in a weekly series because we all know how it's going to turn out.

This is very arguable. As reasoned by a poster above, stories, television, film... it doesn't necessarily matter if you know the ending or not. One of the jobs of the creators is to take you on a ride compelling enough to make you forget what's coming next... this is why films like Apollo 13 are so enjoyable to watch, because as everything starts to fail in the Odyssey, the crew's energy and strength slowly being sapped, the prospect of them returning home becoming dimmer and dimmer -- you actually, for at least a time, unconsciously wonder, "Wait... they... do they survive this?" Tell the story well, and it doesn't matter if you know the ending or not.

Another thing to consider is the characters involved in a story you know the ending to. Sure, we know how the birth of the Federation turns out, but not only are we seeing it through the eyes of these characters, but we've never heard a mention of these characters before in any historical reference ever on Star Trek (I know, I know, because they were created over three decades after everything). Because they have no stake in the references and mentions of any other series (Nemesis not counting, since Archer only had a ship named after him... in the 24th century, it seems everyone has a ship named after him/her), these characters can theoretically go anywhere with their development. We're given a (relatively) clean slate to explore these characters, characters we'll never hear about again and thus free to develop in almost limitless ways, and show how the universe around them as everything starts to change. That right there is enough for a story with the ending already written to be (theoretically) exciting and compelling.

Of course, that's only me.

 

[cooleddie74]

At least ENTERPRISE isn't the shocking,stultifying letdown VOYAGER became. At least with ENT we know the ship can't get more than a few hundred light-years from Earth and most of the species will be ones we're already familiar with or one- or two-shot aliens of the week that will come and go. There isn't a helluva lot in Earth's backyard compared to the entire Delta Quadrant of the galaxy. VGR took a tremendous concept full of wonder and promise and squandered a lot of it.

 

[KT]

I think the premise is great- it drew me in to begin with, so...
I don't have a problem with the way things are now, for the most part, and I'm looking forward to what's on the horizon.

I wasn't able to stick with Voyager, but I feel I'm becoming more open minded in my old age, so I'm going to give it another shot when they start showing it from episode one again. Same goes for DS9, which I couldn't stick with either, although it sounds like it got good after season 3.

Sincerely,
Kel, the eternal optimist

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Is the PREMISE exciting? Is the idea of a prequel that could tell a tale of the foundations for the future exciting?

Yeah, that premise is very exciting (potentially; any premise could be bungled). But that isn't the premise of ENT so far.

The premise of ENT is "watch Archer & co wander around randomly and discover stuff and then fly away." And no, that premise isn't very interesting. Plus, it was done to death on TOS and TNG (which had the added premise of "watch Kirk/Picard patrol and defend the Federation," a much more inherently interesting premise) and it was the defacto premise of VOY, so to say it's been DONE is an understatement.

The 24th C isn't what's been done to death (a time period isn't a premise anyway); the random-exploration premise HAS.

You already know how it's going to end--the formation of the Federation. All this series is doing is connecting the dots (yawn).

Ah, this takes me back to the olden days, months before ENT premiered, before we even had an ENT Forum and we had these debates in Future of Trek instead...that was actually the chief objection to the BOTF premise as I recall...I wondered whatever happened to those folks anyway?

The obvious rebuttal to this idea is that in Gone With the Wind, we know how the Civil War ends; in Band of Brothers, the BEST thing I've ever seen on TV, we know how WWII ends; but knowing how the larger political framework ends up doesn't make it any less interesting to see the smaller, personal stories a few people who live in those fascinating times.

A ficitonal story about the Civil War is never actually about the Civil War; that would be a documentary. The story is about a few people who live during, and are affected by, the Civil War. The fact that the North wins the war tells us nothing about whether Rhett and Scarlett will find happiness, live or die, end up rich or poor, or whatever. So their stories are still interesting (as long as they're interesting, believable people with which we can identify to some extent, and who have something driving them so that they can drive the plot).

But anyone who thinks great movies like Glory and Lawrence of Arabia are "boring" obviously isn't on the same wavelength as me. Or even a not-so-hot but fun, rabble-rousing movie like Braveheart. There are thousnads of historical novels and films, so obviously a whole hell of a lot of people have no objection to stories set against a backdrop where the larger political result is known, but the individual characters' fates are NOT known.

Besides, knowing that the North won the war, how could you know all the soldiers in Glory would die? They're Union soldiers. You couldn't possibly know how the story ends!!!