I mostly enjoyed the final season. It was going strong right up until "The Aenar," the episode that capped off the Romulan trilogy. After that, it started to go downhill. Klingon foreheads, Orion slave girls, a campy take on the mirror universe? These five episides felt like fanfiction scripts. After this, the show got back on track for its last three episodes. What did you think of this 5-episode window of weirdness?
I would have liked the Klingon Klingon episides better if they focused on Augments and a killer virus and dropped the forehead thing. I liked the MU episides happening exclusively in the MU, that was new and different. What I didn't like was how campy and over the top it all felt.
Riker's episode, as a part of this sequence of offerings, would have fit in nicely. And been a welcome addition. It might have been a deplorable series finale, but would have been satisfactory as a midseason episode. You didn't like these episodes. Many if not most viewers did.
I’ve never been a fan of season 4, it’s my least favorite ENT season because it seemed like one big fanboy fest to me. I get it that the stuff it had was what most of the fandom wanted from the show from the start, but I as a casual Trek watcher (at best) was mercilessly bored by it. I liked season 3 and its new approach with the Xindi weapon. Anyways, the MU episodes in season 4 I do love. Most of the other stuff I could have done without tho, especially that Augments storyline.
Just so we're clear, I enjoyed having a Klingon two-parter and an MU 2-parter. I just wish they'd matched the tone of earlier S4 episodes. Less camp, more grit.
If there's a flaw, it's more than there are too many themes to unpack. Too much left to provide closure for. They're cramming too much into a season they're guessing will be their last. Mind you, the sense of urgency to tie everything in more obviously with the rest of Star Trek provides the fun mostly missing from the first two seasons. Apart from those Andorian appearances and most of the Vulcan episodes that went before.
Like the Future Guy, the Sulliban, the ship Archer stole the warp coil from, the other Enterprise, stuff like that? I would have prefered the final season resolve existing story arcs rather than go hardcore fanfiction pre-Federation. Exactly, they should have just done what 22 episodes would allow for and not cram in too much considering the show was obviously ending. I enjoyed the first two seasons for what they were intended to be: the early days of Starfleet. I feel like fans missed the point of what Enterprise was intended to be. It was not conceived as birth of the Federation, but rather as simply early days of Starfleet. the first Enterprise, the first ship to go fast enough to zip around the galaxy. Season 3 saw the show retooled to the Xindi saga. Season 4 saw the show retooled again, forshadowing the Federation.
I've still never seen Bound, Observer Effect, Daedalus, the Augment trilogy and maybe The Aenar. I know all the plot details from multiple reviews but never got around to seeing them for some reason. I bloody love IAMD as pure comic book craziness. The first time I encountered it was through Mike Sussman's audio commentaries that you could download off startrek.com back in the day. I loved him going over the plot beats and explaining why things were the way they are and behind the scenes stuff. The only thing I have an issue is with the Gorn (just give me a man in a suit!) Love the Tholians and their completed web, seeing the asteroid drydock from way back in "Planet of the Titans" concept art, the ISS Enterprise looks great and I love her cloak, the Defiant kicking ass when she encounters the Rebel fleet, Trip's delta radiation homage to Captain Pike, Jolene in her long hair, Reed and Mayweather as MACOs, Mayweather's Arsenio Hall hair, classic computer voice from TOS voiced by Majel "Working", strangely heroic Captain Forrest, weasel Archer (who I loved that TWOP called EvilLeaper as opposed to regular Archer's Quantum) and Empress Sato. Affliction and Divergence may be a bit of fanwank about the ridges but to me they're worth it for the character of Dr Antaak and his lamentation of this broad Klingon culture of his past being sidetracked by the warrior class, which continues forward of sorts with the warrior culture that we see further onward in TNG and others. They made a big deal at the time of airing about the stunt made by Trip crossing from one ship to the other, and it's probably good. I was really hoping for more scenes with the Columbia in action alongside the Enterprise. Other than the Excelsior and Enterprise in TUC I can't think of any time we saw a couple of starships team up to take down bad guys. Would love to have seen more of Captain Hernandez. Also Klingon Uncle Phil was great
Klingon foreheads never needed explaining but I really enjoyed the episodes. The Mirrorverse 2 parter I never liked, and had zero emotional connection to these versions of the characters. I wish they'd gone wirh the Shatner/Chef/Dave story instead (where random Kirk lookalike Chef Shatner is hired by Daniels to give Kirk's speech at the end of STVI, since the real Kirk is MIA)* *some details may be fan speculation
Klingon Augments was a good story, in the sense that it was a follow up to show that the Augments arc earlier in the season had lingering consequences. Ideally and logically, Klingons would come up with the Augment ideas on their own without human Augment involvement, and the creation of Klingon Augments would have played a significant role in helping the Klingon Empire conquer and expand, but the writers did not have the time to develop such a story. A Klingon Empire version of the Eugenics Wars seems like the kind of idea that could last a few seasons and ENT didn't have a few seasons to spare. As for explaining ridges, even though the answer given in the series makes sense, the Klingons having a large empire and different houses mixing with other species over centuries should have been a logical explanation on its own to explain why some Klingons had ridges and other Klingons did not. That and the Klingons treating their ridges as something sacred unworthy to be seen by outsiders. "Bound" was a campy nod to TOS. ENT could have used more Orions actually, so I’m not opposed to this episode at all. IAMD was just fun to see everything flipped upside down. It was nice to see the underdeveloped characters come out on top in the MU too. If that story was placed as the final episode before the Terra Prime two-parter, and had the appropriate edits, it would have fit perfectly in the season. Considering that the show was expected to go seven seasons, and the show was set ten years before the founding of the Federation, I understand why some fans think that. If the point was a look at early Starfleet, it could have been set 20 – 30 years before the founding of the UFP, away from any expectations to show how the Federation was formed.