It's official...ENT is my favorite Trek series.

[Johnny Rico]

OK, first a little background. Never watched the show during its initial run, and didn't buy the DVD sets as they came out like I did with the other Trek series. The DVD sets came out back in '05, so it's been a while. Anyway, I always wanted to get them, but wasn't willing to spend the absurd amount of money per season Paramount was charging back then...hell, I bought VOY off Ebay at roughly $70/season when they were still going @ $100 off Amazon. Well, in fact, I tried a few times to nab a season of ENT off Ebay, but could never get it for a reasonable price.

So skip forward to the Trek XI marketing hype period of a couple months ago. Amazon was running a sale on all Trek DVDs of nealry 40% off their already discounted price of $59/season. So I checked out their ENT sets. Found out that I could buy the full series set at about $5 less than buying each season individually. So, I went for it and bought the series set.

OK, so over the past month or so, I've been trodding my way through the series. Ironically, I enjoyed Season 1 with the Temporal Cold War arc with the Suliban. Season 2 was OK, but found that it was somewhat inconsistant. Loved Season 3 with the Xindi arc. Best season of Trek ever I think. And now I'm in the back half of Season 4 with about 8 episodes left. I'm in the middle of the Romulan drone ship trilogy.

But the reason why I like this series much more than the others is that it's a bit more real. As in the emotional reactions of the characters to certain situations. Especially Archer's in-your-face "son of a bitch" moments. Somehow I can't see Capt. Picard doing anything like that...other than saying something about how there are only 4 lights.

The other thing that I think is cool is how the crew is discovering and implementing everything we have taken for granted in Trek lore for the first time. Like with the phase cannons in early Season 1, then the photonic torpedoes in late Season 2, IIRC.

I'm betting that once I finish off these last few episodes, that I'll wish that the series continued and we see how the Federation was founded, etc.

So, with that, I wonder what the next Trek TV series will entail. Will it follow the canon of the new film or what?

If so, and although I haven't seen the film yet (waiting for the DVD as I do with all movies) I wouldn't mind a series simply called "Starfleet" or "The Federation" and do a Trek series for once that does not just focus on one ship or station and its crew. Sure the NCC-1701 Enterprise could be a main component of the show, but I want to see what happens on other ships and stations of the Federation. A series that really focuses on the conflicts with the Romulans and Klingons would be something really cool. These events have always been hinted at through-out Trek history, but we have never really gotten to see them played out on screen.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Yay! Somebody else has discovered Enterprise and doesn't think it's crap! I'd give it sometime before declaring it your favourite Star Trek series. I rate this series highly but truthfully, the original with Kirk and Spock does edge it out for sentimental reasons. Revisit the others like DS9, or TNG and compare differences. If you still prefer to come back to ENT, then fair dos... you will have fallen for the 22nd Century bigtime.

I drifted throughout Voyager, always watching new episodes as they came out, but there was no doubt my interest was low. Gone were the days, when I'd want to rewatch it again ASAP. The episodes all blended together such was TNG's formula stretched beyond its sell-by date. Enterprise got off to a great start. A fantastic pilot, nicely realised characters and a return to exploration during that first season. Low tech and a more earthy kind of talk among the crew. Somewhere along the line, the show dropped off the radar for me. Around 02/03 I ended up giving up my then job to care for my terminally ill father and after a while the inevitable happened. I withdrew from my normal life and routine for ages. I came back sometime during Season 3 and discovered the show had drastically changed. Struggling with how bleak and desperate the tone was, I wouldn't fully appreciate that until much later... when I plucked up the courage to rewatch.

While DS9 may well be technically superior, I do think there wouldn't be cigarette paper between them had the show gone on... especially having adopted the serial style it needed all along. Anyhow I valued that ENT tried several different styles, even though it was obvious time wasn't on their side and they were never going to benefit from the kind of good will, that kept earlier Treks in production.

 

[Jbarney]

I think the show has taken a lot of unfair punches....but it is not my favorite Star Trek.

 

[Count Zero]

Glad you like it.
I can never decide what my favourite Trek series is. I like TOS, TNG, DS9 and ENT pretty equally. Like you, I liked ENT foremost for its characters from the first time I saw it. Its visual style is appealing to me, too. This is probably my favourite era of the Trekverse.

 

[Alex1939]

Yay! Somebody else has discovered Enterprise and doesn't think it's crap!

Count me in.

Technically I re-discovered it as I was too busy upon initial airing and probably only caught 1/3 of the episodes.


Have to disagree with op about one thing, I hated the Temporal Cold War. It really really hurt the series in my opinion and to me seems like it could've been avoided.

I barely ever post but believe I've said this a few times before... watching Enterprise on HD-Net (in high definition) made a tremendous difference to me. The effects on this show were great.

A lot better than which I was first watching it on UPN on a standard television.

 

[xman]

I dug Enterprise too. I think the NX class is my favourite design, compact and attractive. I don't think it's my fave, but I like it pretty much as well as TOS or TNG. Like those others, it had its good and bad episodes, but the good ones really were good and season 4 was a great season. they were really exploring the characters and morality as well as developing the interspecies relationships which were leading to the formation of the Federation. It's too bad that they alienated so many viewers with the whole Xindi attack season. So soon after 911. What were they thinking?

 

[Aikiweezie]

Mine, too! And I didn't start REALLY watching it until six months ago on reruns on HDnet. I'm home with my son during the day now so I can do that kind of thing. I'm not sure exactly why I lost interest after a few of the first shows first time around, but I think it had to do with the fact that I was really busy at the time with work and training and then after September 11th I didn't really watch anything but news for a long time.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I should go back and catch more of these in re-runs - I really liked the series when it was first-run.

 

[Gorn Captain]

Guys, I'm trying to like it. I really am. I'm just struggling with the super advanced looking Enterprise that predates the TOS Enterprise by a century. I'm also sentimental enough about TOS that the NX completing a 10 year mission seems like a slap in the face to Kirk's accomplishment of completing the 5. I'm being dumb, I know.

 

[bluedana]

Guys, I'm trying to like it. I really am. I'm just struggling with the super advanced looking Enterprise that predates the TOS Enterprise by a century. I'm also sentimental enough about TOS that the NX completing a 10 year mission seems like a slap in the face to Kirk's accomplishment of completing the 5. I'm being dumb, I know.

Considering that some of the doors had to be opened manually on the NX-01, and even the "automatic" ones were push button, the NX-01 isn't actually advanced at all. Plus, they use blowtorches and stuff to repair the thing, there's no talking know it all computer, and even their food is really low tech. Their most reliable piece of technology? A grappler. The submarine-inspired NX-01 makes the 1701 look like a futuristic luxuryliner.

And NX-01 didn't exactly have a 10-year mission. It had sort of an indefinite time frame and a couple of wars.

 

[clint g]

Guys, I'm trying to like it. I really am. I'm just struggling with the super advanced looking Enterprise that predates the TOS Enterprise by a century. I'm also sentimental enough about TOS that the NX completing a 10 year mission seems like a slap in the face to Kirk's accomplishment of completing the 5. I'm being dumb, I know.

I don't really see how it looks like its so advanced. If anything the rough edges and armored plating makes it look more older to me than the sleek smooth lines of the original ship.

Anyways, its nice to see so many people enjoying the show now. It seemed to me that the show was treated pretty unfairly by the fans back when it was airing and alot of the hate it got was unjustified. Hopefully it continues to build an audience now that is off air

 

[Skywalker]

And remember, NCC-1701 went almost thirty years before being refitted, and went another ten after that. She outlasted NX-01 by a very fair margin.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Guys, I'm trying to like it. I really am. I'm just struggling with the super advanced looking Enterprise that predates the TOS Enterprise by a century. I'm also sentimental enough about TOS that the NX completing a 10 year mission seems like a slap in the face to Kirk's accomplishment of completing the 5. I'm being dumb, I know.

The NX-01 looks less advanced than the USS Kelvin does.

 

[Cyrus]

I'm just struggling with the super advanced looking Enterprise that predates the TOS Enterprise by a century,

I thought NX-01 looked more advanced initially. But that changed after watching the "In a Mirror Darkly" episode. In that episode Defiant looked and felt a lot more advanced than NX-01, both inside and outside of the ship.

 

[Triskelion]

^ They really blended the series well in that epi. The way the Defiant was shot, and designed, it didn't look like dated 60's anachronism at all. It really did look futuristic compared with NX01, and it blended into the series nicely.

 

[TheGodBen]

I really am. I'm just struggling with the super advanced looking Enterprise that predates the TOS Enterprise by a century.

It's really not more advanced it is just more detailed, but as Doug Drexler (the guy who designed the ship) once said, the NX-01 was more like an ironclad ship, the NCC-1701 didn't need all the detail on the outside because it was so advanced all the technology could be kept on the inside. Look at this picture of the two ships together, the NCC-1701 clearly looks more advanced.

You should check out this blog post Drexler wrote about his ideas when designing the NX-01, you can see clearly how the guy loves TOS and tried to stay as true as possible to a TOS prequel ship under the pressure of producers who didn't care much for the original show. Apparently Berman wanted to just reuse the Akira design!

 

[clint g]

That blog was very interesting. Thanks for posting! Looking at it makes me realize just how well designed the NX-01 was and makes me wish we got to see the upgraded modified version that we might have seen if the show hit season 5