Rewatching

[JeffinOakland]

I'm re-watching Enterprise. I'm 60% through the 1st season. The 1st time I watched the series, I had a very negative reaction to the 1st season and didn't really fully warm up to the series until the 3rd season. Now, I'm finding that I thoroughly enjoy it from the very 1st episode. Has anyone else found that this series improves on repeated viewings?

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

I know we're in the minority but who cares. My wife and I really liked the show from the beginning and came to love the continuing evolution of all of the characters. We even liked the damn song!!! Last month, we finished a run through the 4 seasons of the show (fourth time for me) and enjoyed it all again. ENT sits just below TNG as my favorite Trek series and re-watching just cemented its position.

 

[jespah]

... Has anyone else found that this series improves on repeated viewings?

Hi Jeff and welcome!

I keep reading that same thing, that people who didn't like it before are a lot happier with the series now.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd love to read your impressions of the show, if you want to share them.

 

[CommanderEnder]

Oh man, that opening song...

But besides that I ended up thinking the series was pretty great the first time through, so I can only imagine what it'll be the second time! I just finished DS9 for the first time last month and need to decide which series I'm moving to next. ENT might be up again.

 

[JeffinOakland]

The song (and their insistence on keeping it) sucked. I liked the montage. Might have worked better with just an instrumental over the montage. The Retconning really annoyed me the 1st time. Now I just ignore it. It's all make believe, anyway. It's not a great series but it's fun and I think it was unfairly maligned.

 

[BruntFCA]

I think the first two seasons work much better the second time around. The main reason for me is that now that I know and like the characters even the weaker episodes are more enjoyable for the character moments.

 

[tafkats]

I'm rewatching it now for the first time since it aired. I'm enjoying most of it, except for the bits that seem like they were written by horny adolescent boys (Reed snickering about T'Pol having a "nice bum," the gratuitous decon gel scenes, and basically the entirety of "A Night in Sickbay").

 

[JeffinOakland]

Practically every episode features at least one actor showing off his/her finely sculpted body parts. It's obvious and weird....and where's the weight-room on Enterprise? Is it near the pool?

 

[tafkats]

I'm up to the beginning of Season 3. Remember when it leaked that the Xindi would include a sloth-like species and we spent the whole summer riffing on Xindi Sloths?

 

[eyeresist]

I think the first two seasons work much better the second time around. The main reason for me is that now that I know and like the characters even the weaker episodes are more enjoyable for the character moments.

I'm currently on a slow rewatch of season 1, and am happy to find that some episodes I gave a low score to originally have improved in the viewing. Knowing the characters better is indeed a big part of it, but also changing expectations of certain episodes.
E.g. Detained - when originally watching this I was expecting something darker and with more intrigue. It was the Suliban, after all, in a concentration camp setting. But now I enjoy it for the insight into broader Suliban culture, and for the character stuff. Malcolm getting a big kick out of going in disguise is a pleasure (surely he has James Bond fantasies? I can imagine him getting on tremendously with Julian from DS9). The subtle conflict between T'Pol and Trip is also interesting for me. It's a shame elements of this ep weren't followed up in later stories, but they hadn't quite made the leap toward continuity-based drama.
I like Acquisition more now. Coming from DS9, I do enjoy a well-written Ferenghi ep. I just wish the directing had been a bit more dynamic.
Silent Enemy is much better than I remembered. It's still surprisingly low-key, but it develops the characters and the ship nicely (subspace amplifiers; phase cannons FTW!), and the lack of a big finale is a nice realistic touch. Perhaps the weakest point is I just don't buy Malcolm (or anyone) would be so happy to eat a pineapple-flavoured cake.
Cold Front OTOH is weirdly frustrating because the point of it is never clear. We have no idea what Silik or Future Guy are really up to, so it's hard to care. The pilgrimage aspect is nice though, and once again the sheer superiority of SFX makes it more believable than it would have been if made in previous series.

Practically every episode features at least one actor showing off his/her finely sculpted body parts. It's obvious and weird....and where's the weight-room on Enterprise? Is it near the pool?

"And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in the gym." Picard

 

[JeffinOakland]

I'm a little less than halfway through Season 2 and thoroughly enjoying it. It's every bit as good as Seasons 2 for TNG and VOY. It feels like ST in a way a lot of Season 1 didn't. it helps that I've seen enough now (5 1/2 seasons) that I can easily ignore or laugh off things about the series that annoy me.

 

[horatio83]

Has anyone else found that this series improves on repeated viewings?

Yep. I wasn't too fond of some random ENT episodes I saw and I considered Archer to be a jerk whereas after having seen the series in its entirety I considered it to be one of the best Trek shows.
After many discussions with folks who are not into ENT I came to the conclusion that the reason for this is ENT's thematic serialization, e.g. stuff like the slow emergence of trust among the four species, which constitutes the background of the series and cannot be noted or even be appreciated unless you see a large chunk of the show.

 

[tafkats]

I'm almost done with Season 3, and I have to say it holds up very well -- much better than I remembered.

The desperate nature of the situation pushing Archer into morally questionable actions is something Trek really hasn't done well on any show but DS9. The time travel/temporal weirdness aspects of "Twilight" and "E^2" allowed us to explore some really interesting "what if" questions. The internal politics of the Xindi were far more interesting than the Klingon politics some of the other shows kept expecting us to care about.

If you fast-forward past all the Vulcan neuropressure nonsense and the contrived excuses to get T'Pol panting and sweaty and/or into a shower, it's a really pretty strong season.

 

[JeffinOakland]

I think many fans, including myself, were quick to judge and dismiss based on a flawed 1st season. Perhaps it was "fatigue" but we weren't will to give the show the same leeway given to TNG, DS9 and VOY. In any series, there are going to be bad ideas and weak episodes and, hopefully, most of those will be wrinkles ironed out by the 3rd or 4th season. Neither VOY nor TNG had 2nd seasons to be terribly proud of and VOY experienced a complete overhaul after Season 3. I think ENT really found its groove in seasons 3 and 4 and was killed just as it was getting very good.

 

[Horizons96]

The song (and their insistence on keeping it) sucked.

I completely understand what you're saying, I thought that from 2001 until I dared sit down and actually watch the series properly in 2014! It took me until near the end of the first season to be able to even put up with the song, but now I love it!

YES it's cheesy as hell
YES it could of easily been used in an 80s Top Gun type movie as F-14s are coming in to land and American flags are flying in slow motion in the background
BUT... if you can put this to the back of your mind, the meaning of the lyrics and their appropriateness to the content AND era/setting of the show becomes something to be celebrated. Soft-rock cheesiness aside.

 

[JeffinOakland]

The song (and their insistence on keeping it) sucked.

I completely understand what you're saying, I thought that from 2001 until I dared sit down and actually watch the series properly in 2014! It took me until near the end of the first season to be able to even put up with the song, but now I love it!

YES it's cheesy as hell
YES it could of easily been used in an 80s Top Gun type movie as F-14s are coming in to land and American flags are flying in slow motion in the background
BUT... if you can put this to the back of your mind, the meaning of the lyrics and their appropriateness to the content AND era/setting of the show becomes something to be celebrated. Soft-rock cheesiness aside.

Agreed. I like the images and the meaning but the song itself sucked. Why not just some faux-classical music (like the other series) over the same montage and expecting the audience to get the point?

 

[tafkats]

I don't mind the theme -- I think it worked as a way to stylistically make the series feel a little closer to the present era.

 

[eyeresist]

They also had some screaming electric guitar over the closing credits music, which was new AFAIK. I wonder if the producers explain what tone they were going for in the blu-ray extras?

 

[JeffinOakland]

They also had some screaming electric guitar over the closing credits music, which was new AFAIK. I wonder if the producers explain what tone they were going for in the blu-ray extras?

Don't know, don't care. I either skip it or go to my happy place and ignore it. On with the show!

 

[eyeresist]

Just finished rewatching season 2. Some thoughts:

The Communicator was better than I remembered it, still quite low key but gave the characters things to do plus made neat use of the Suliban pod. Also addressed non-interference in an interesting way.
Vanishing Point still has the tone of an after-school special. A shame, as I quite liked the imaginary aliens.
Stigma is still annoying for its illogically prejudiced Vulcans, but Mrs Phlox coming onto Trip is quite funny.
Canamar is alright but kind of pointless. I notice this series sometimes wraps up a story without doing anything particlarly interesting with it, and this is one of those episodes. The annoying alien was so prominent I assume he would get some sort of pay-off, but no...
Cogenitor is painful to watch, putting Trip in an unwinnable position and then having Archer be an ass about it. Kirk would have just punched these aliens in the face!
Regeneration - I like this a lot more than my first viewing. I think then I was thrown off by the first 10 minutes following unfamiliar characters. Now I appreciate the production value, the adventure, and the stuff our various characters get to do.

Now to put myself in the mood for angst and moral ambiguity. Oh, who am I kidding - that's every day for me!