More rewatchability: Voyager or Enterprise?

[eschaton]

Same. I find even the "good" seasons of Enterprise to be awful. (Two words: Klingon. Foreheads.) And I hate all of the characters. Every single one, barring maybe Phlox. Sometimes.

Voyager, for all its flaws, at least made plenty of fun, adventureful episodes with characters I didn't hate. Also, no overtones of destiny and fate to ruin the experience, which was something I didn't realize Berman-era Trek tended to fall into until eschaton pointed it out.

Voyager hit higher highs than Enterprise. I mean, Enterprise doesn't have a single episode as good as Living Witness or Barge of the Dead.

At the same time, it was just relentlessly bland in a way that Enterprise wasn't. This makes it a chore to rewatch, at least for me.

 

[Discofan]

Voyager hit higher highs than Enterprise. I mean, Enterprise doesn't have a single episode as good as Living Witness or Barge of the Dead.

At the same time, it was just relentlessly bland in a way that Enterprise wasn't. This makes it a chore to rewatch, at least for me.

"Living Witness" was Voyager's Mirror Universe episode, in the sense that had they made a mirror universe episode it would have looked a lot like this.

 

[KimMH]

Can’t be arsed to tally the results myself because am lazy but throwing my hat into the Voyager ring. I loved Enterprise too and am still mad we only got four seasons.

 

[eschaton]

"Living Witness" was Voyager's Mirror Universe episode, in the sense that had they made a mirror universe episode it would have looked a lot like this.

I actually don't like that aspect of the episode much. What I love is the episode is all about history, and mulls whether it's more important for history to accurately depict the past, or if comforting lies are sometimes better.

 

[Saul]

1. I thought the real Harry Kim died.

Who cares which one it was. It was only Harry Kim. They were both equally annoying.

 

[KimMH]

"Living Witness" was Voyager's Mirror Universe episode, in the sense that had they made a mirror universe episode it would have looked a lot like this.

Just saw this epi recently and it does hold up pretty well and gave me a a lot to think about for a while. The angle of it being an MU like story is pretty interesting.

 

[sekundant]

Definitely ENT. As I written more than once, I discovered ENT for me for only ca. two years. And I watched again and again and I am still doing it regularly and enjoying. I think, if ENT aired today, except some CGI it could be still called a good show.

VOY is my least favorite ST show of all times, while two main reasons: as a female I did not like the first female captain must be a psycho with Mickey Mouse voice, and as an engineer I did not like their endless resources and self-repairing ship, it made whole show unbelievable. I say "did not like" while, "hate" is reserved for the real life issues like murders, rapes etc. Until VOY, every single ST show (TOS, TNG, DS9) was the bench mark for sci-fi shows of their times: they are all something new for their eras and they have a message, if you like it or not. VOY does not fulfill both criteria. All characters (except 7 and the doctor and even they are not always more dimensional) sooo boring, cliche and shallow for me. Each time when we get the short trailer of next week, I could tell how the characters react, what kind of decision makes Janeway. Mostly I got right, no surprise, no mystery, nothing sophisticated, nothing I could learn/realize for the first time about humanity or myself. No constantly character development, kind of schizophrenia is a common character specification of whole crew. As a young person, I watched the VOY, since we always watched the ST, kind of casual act, nothing with passion.
ENT is a -so to say- kind of avant la lettre for the sci-fi shows. They did it before prequels became a mode. Probably, I like it too much, while I did not watch it as they aired and I was not handicapped and tired from the old shows.

Last year we made a ST rally, since we thought it would be appropriate for getting warm before I visit first time a Trek Con. I have to say TAS made me not easy, but VOY was really really torment. Maybe, if I did not watch whole the series in two weeks, I would have never realized that they are so bad. If I could use the energy of my fidgeting right leg, I could produce enough electricity for a year. So I need at least a decade to try it again with VOY.

 

[ialfan]

It depends on what kind of mood I'm in. If I'm just wanting to watch a single episode (possibly as background) I'll usually go for Voyager as it's pretty good generic Star Trek. If I'm wanting to watch several episodes or more I'll usually go with Enterprise as it's the better series (imo) and especially in seasons 3-4 is a lot more serialized.

 

[Gary7]

Voyager would take priority for me. It was a much more "complete" series. I didn't care for Janeway in the beginning, but Mulgrew develops her well over the years. Sure, it's not perfect, but there's so many splendid performances. ROBERT PICARDO! He ultimately made the show. ENTERPRISE just gets going in Season 3 and then... Season 4 ends it. PAINFUL. I still feel it was such a terrible mistake that they didn't invest in a 5th season. I think viewership would have picked up and given it enough momentum for a 6th season.

At least it's not as bad as Stargate SGU. That show DEFINITELY needed more seasons. What a terrible tragedy it was cut short with just 2!

 

[Discofan]

What I like about Mulgrew is that she's word perfect. She always says her lines as if they made complete sense to her, even when they are total gibberish. She once said in an interview that learning ST lingo was harder than Shakespeare's.

 

[Discofan]

.....

At least it's not as bad as Stargate SGU. That show DEFINITELY needed more seasons. What a terrible tragedy it was cut short with just 2!

I agree, they stopped it when it was starting to really be interesting.

 

[Gary7]

I agree, they stopped it when it was starting to really be interesting.

Oh man, those damned F'ing SG1 fan wankers... they were MERCILESS to SGU. They wanted the Richard Dean Anderson sarcasm, and the usual dose of earthlings fighting aliens. SGU was "too dark" for their popcorn bubblegum souls. I think they would have eventually wised up had SGU gotten at least another season. Like you said, it was just starting to get really interesting! I would've liked to see them finally figure out how to reprogram the drones so that they'd be done for good.

Anyway... rumor has it that there will be another Stargate Series coming...

 

[Discofan]

Oh man, those damned F'ing SG1 fan wankers... they were MERCILESS to SGU. They wanted the Richard Dean Anderson sarcasm, and the usual dose of earthlings fighting aliens. SGU was "too dark" for their popcorn bubblegum souls. I think they would have eventually wised up had SGU gotten at least another season. Like you said, it was just starting to get really interesting! I would've liked to see them finally figure out how to reprogram the drones so that they'd be done for good.

I agree. That series had great potential.

Anyway... rumor has it that there will be another Stargate Series coming...

I'd like that.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

I love all ST shows. ENT has a special place in my heart, though. That's neither here nor there, though, as far as the thread's premise is concerned. I think that as far as social commentary goes, ENT has aged really well.

 

[Discofan]

I love all ST shows. ENT has a special place in my heart, though. That's neither here nor there, though, as far as the thread's premise is concerned. I think that as far as social commentary goes, ENT has aged really well.

I think they killed it when it was getting better and better. As often in these cases, the decision of the brass suffers a time-lag vis a vis reality.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Shouldn't this be a poll?

VOY for me. Still can't get through ENT.

 

[UnknownSample]

I have not had a chance to rewatch Enterprise, which I would try doing. But I stuck with it through all of it, the first time, and it was very hard. The visuals could be interesting, but the writers were just worn out. It became mere action/adventure set in space, as opposed to science fiction drama with adventure as an element in the mix, as TOS had been.
-----------
On the other hand, now that I have the chance to see Voyager on a great, big screen... it's much better. It seems more adult, more contemplative, less "cranked out" to meet deadlines.

 

[Mage]

Definetly Enterprise for me. It's not my favorite Star Trek, but it does beat Voyager for me. As flawed as both shows could be, Enterprise has a higher fun factor for me.

 

[Mathieu]

I like both shows but I honestly think Enterprise is the better one. That said, both are far from perfect but they "failed" for different reasons.

Voyager failed because of its risk aversion. It knew exactly what it wanted to be: it was the series designed to please Star Trek fans who didn't warm up to DS9 or saw it as a treason to the franchise. It provided fans with something familiar, in the wake of TOS and TNG, instead of breaking new ground like DS9.
It was purposefully bland, conservative and unchallenging, which is a shame because on paper Voyager had all it took to become a great show. Striving to survive in an uncharted region of space, light years away from home, two antagonistic crews forced to work together...
With some of those same elements, Ron Moore managed to create something completely fresh and innovative with the vastly superior BSG.

Enterprise failed because it didn't know what it wanted to be.
The first two seasons relied heavily on space exploration, in the most uninspired way possible, so we got a tired rehash of TOS, TNG and Voyager. But unlike Voyager, which had 7 seasons to improve but never did, Enterprise took chances and it worked.
The series started to become really solid from season 3 onwards, which made its cancellation extremely frustrating (just imagine what it could have become with Shran as a regular crew member...).
Season 3 reinvented Enterprise as a sort of DS9-meets-Voyager: DS9 because of its serialization and its war thematics, Voyager because of the scene being set far from home, in the Delphic Expanse, which, like the Delta Quadrant, had its own local species.
And then season 4 lived up to Enterprise's initial promise, that is to be a pre-TOS.
Consequently, watching Enterprise is like watching three totally different series rolled into one, which is probably why it never succeeded to find its audience.

I also disagree that Voyager had higher highs. In my opinion, Enterprise had some stellar episodes that are every bit as good as Voyager's best: Carbon Creek, Cogenitor, Similitude, Twilight, Home, the prophetic Terra Prime...

I love making episode-watching lists for my Trek rewatchs.
For Voyager, I kept 87 out of 172 episodes (50,58%) and I included some episodes that I consider painful to watch (i.e. The Phage) just for the sake of continuity.
For Enterprise, I kept 65 out of 98 episodes (66,33%).
So yeah, Enterprise definitely has more rewatch value for me.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

ENT, being shorter with a solid third season. That said, as of now I’d only rewatch VGR if it were remastered, and ENT if HDR were applied (with optional upsampling to 4K). One quality viewing is more than enough for either show.