Started watching Enterprise for the first time ever

[Deimos Anomaly]

That's right, I never watched Enterprise before.

I would never have considered myself a die hard or a full-bore "trekkie" but I was a casual fan through my teens (the 90s). Entering into my 20s I kinda fell out of love with ST, because I came to think it was seen as nerdy and cheesy. Yup, I was 20 years old and I was too damn cool for star track. (groan)

So I never bothered getting into Enterprise when it first came out.

The last few years, having now got over myself, I've come back to ST. Recently I downloaded the first season of Enterprise from itunes and began to watch it.

I like it so far. I really like the freewheeling feel of it, the way the humans are going out into the universe and pretty much going here and there and doing as they please, unencumbered by the prime directive and such like things.

It's a little annoying I think, how at almost every turn, they can do practically nothing without T'Pol standing there and saying this is a mistake, this is a bad move etc... anyone who has watched the other ST franchises would know that the Vulcans were somewhat egotistic and holier than thou, but Enterprise takes their up-themselves quotient to a whole new level. Working with the Vulcans would be infuriating for humans...

Another thing I've noticed (so far I've got as far as the episode with the freighter captain who imprisons and beats the Nausican pirate) is that the Enterprise seems a bit wimpy. Every time it gets into a confrontation with anyone it seems to get its arse kicked.

Other minor things... the heavy use of standalone LCD monitors everywhere, giving it a polished and futuristic and yet at the same time kinda rough-and-ready look, as opposed to the earlier (chronologically later in-universe) series where everything was smooth and integrated into the walls and panels. Oddly it looks more futuristic than TOS to an extent.

The heavy reliance on shuttles and reluctance to use the transporter for humans... every time they roll up at a planet, they board a shuttle and it drops out of the ship's underbelly and dives down to the planet. It gives it almost a slight Star Wars vibe, rather than ST. The shuttle's extending wings do nothing to dampen that impression.

Overall I like what I see so far.

Sorry for being 10 years late...

 

[Sindatur]

Many think it takes a bit of a slump in S2, but, stick with it, most believe it steadily improves in S3 and S4 (though some dislike the directions S3 and S4 take).

I only watched about half of it back in the day myself, and jsut recently rewatced it all the way through, and I personally enjoyed all 4 seasons, and S1 and S2 were way more enjoyable for me this time, then they were back in the day, when I watched it with pre-conceived notions about what it should be like.

 

[MacLeod]

Well S2 does have a few good episodes, S3 and S4 is where it picks up, though that isn't to say those later seasons aren't without flaws.

 

[SecretlyMrsKirk]

I've only ever seen one episode. A long time ago without realising for a few years that it was indeed a Star Trek series. I was about ten or eleven at the time and I was just sitting in my bedroom bored outta my mind, channel-surfing. It was the episode with the guy who got pregnant, and it's just one of those things that's always stuck with me. (I am now obsessed with the concept of male pregnancy ) If it kept a channel-surfer hooked until the ending and left such an impact on them, then I say it's got to be a good show or at least it had good writers.

 

[jespah]

Deimos - wait'll ya hit S3 in particular.

 

[BillJ]

If it kept a channel-surfer hooked until the ending and left such an impact on them, then I say it's got to be a good show or at least it had good writers.

Oh how wrong you are.

 

[bbailey861]

Stick with it. There are a lot of hits and misses in S1 and S2, but I really enjoyed the Xindi arc of S3 and loved S4.

 

[E-DUB]

While I felt the Xindi arc unduly exploitative of actual events, it did bring a much-needed focus to the series that earlier seasons would have benefited from.

 

[sojourner]

Just try to ignore the gazelle speech.

 

[BillJ]

Just try to ignore the gazelle speech.

I've been trying to forget it for a decade now, but with no luck.

 

[Deimos Anomaly]

Yikes! I've just hit the first Berman + Braga nauseating preachy episode, and it is a humdinger.

It involves Phlox and Archer agreeing to essentially commit genocide by inaction... genocide of a sentient spacefaring species a little more advanced than 2012 real-life earth, no less.

They were being killed off by a genetic disease, and Phlox found a cure. But there was another less advanced humanoid species on the planet, (like the Neanderthals were to our species). Cue an infuriating preachy bit about letting the advanced spacefaring people go extinct in order to let the other species advance. Of course, other options like relocating the advanced species to another planet so neither of them goes extinct nor hampers the other was not mentioned nor considered. Of course.

Bearing in mind this isn't some weeding or culling type thing with low life forms. They are a full sentient species and had actually sent out high c-fractional ships looking for help, the Enterprise intercepted them nearly a LY from their homeworld, which is how they got involved. They ask for FTL tech to let them search for other people to help them but Archer tells them no. Essentially damning them all.

For some reason this reprehensible action is presented to the viewer as being the "right" or honourable thing to do, somehow. B&B moronitude at its finest.

I really don't like this ep, it's left me with a nasty taste in my mouth, so to speak. I hope there aren't many more as retarded as this one.

 

[nightwind1]

Many think it takes a bit of a slump in S2, but, stick with it, most believe it steadily improves in S3 and S4 (though some dislike the directions S3 and S4 take).

I don't think I've ever personally known anyone who didn't like Season 4. It was pretty much the best season (except for the "finale").

 

[T'Girl]

They ask for FTL tech to let them search for other people to help them but Archer tells them no. Essentially damning them all.

Looking at possibilities, Archer could have offered to transport representatives to various surrounding warp capable planets, so as that the "diseased people" (what were their names?) could plea their case to others. Or contacted the Human boomers to see if they would contact with the diseased people for passage.

The possibility of relocating one of the species to another planet, a population maybe in the billions, wouldn't really seem to be a option. No one had that level of lift capacity.

 

[BillJ]

Yikes! I've just hit the first Berman + Braga nauseating preachy episode, and it is a humdinger.

It involves Phlox and Archer agreeing to essentially commit genocide by inaction... genocide of a sentient spacefaring species a little more advanced than 2012 real-life earth, no less.

They were being killed off by a genetic disease, and Phlox found a cure. But there was another less advanced humanoid species on the planet, (like the Neanderthals were to our species). Cue an infuriating preachy bit about letting the advanced spacefaring people go extinct in order to let the other species advance. Of course, other options like relocating the advanced species to another planet so neither of them goes extinct nor hampers the other was not mentioned nor considered. Of course.

Bearing in mind this isn't some weeding or culling type thing with low life forms. They are a full sentient species and had actually sent out high c-fractional ships looking for help, the Enterprise intercepted them nearly a LY from their homeworld, which is how they got involved. They ask for FTL tech to let them search for other people to help them but Archer tells them no. Essentially damning them all.

For some reason this reprehensible action is presented to the viewer as being the "right" or honourable thing to do, somehow. B&B moronitude at its finest.

I really don't like this ep, it's left me with a nasty taste in my mouth, so to speak. I hope there aren't many more as retarded as this one.

Pretty sick episode. Don't worry though, horatio83 will soon be in to tell you that you're wrong and just don't understand inter-species ethics.

This is a thread that discusses Dear Doctor in painful detail.

 

[Deimos Anomaly]

The thing that pissed me off about it was that Phlox had the cure in his fuckin hand (excuse me, his hand) but they just decided to not let them have it.

It would be equivelant to humanity of today being stricken with a plague that was going to drive us extinct, but a benevolent alien species turns up who can cure us, and begins aiding our doctors etc... but then they discover that, oh, say... bottlenose dolphins or some such will develop sentience, and project that in 10 to 20 thousand years they'll be warp capable spacegoers, but only if humans aren't around - and on that ground decide to allow mankind to go extinct.

Given that it was the ideas being inculculated into mankind by the Vulcans that was in large part responsible for this, and that the Vulcans themselves had probably done the same thing a bunch of other times... when Nero turned up and went on his roaring rampage of revenge, it's kinda hard to feel sorry for them. I won't say they deserved it, since that is a genocidal sentiment in itself, but for centuries they had sowed the wind, and when Nero popped up, they sure did reap the whirlwind.

 

[BillJ]

The thing that pissed me off about it was that Phlox had the cure in his fuckin hand (excuse me, his hand) but they just decided to not let them have it.

It would be equivelant to humanity of today being stricken with a plague that was going to drive us extinct, but a benevolent alien species turns up who can cure us, and begins aiding our doctors etc... but then they discover that, oh, say... bottlenose dolphins or some such will develop sentience, and project that in 10 to 20 thousand years they'll be warp capable spacegoers, but only if humans aren't around - and on that ground decide to allow mankind to go extinct.

Preaching to the choir.

My last post in the thread I linked above:

If we can step out of the universe for a moment and actually look at what may or may not have been intended with the Prime Directive...

Roddenberry has a writing credit on the episode where the Prime Directive originated (The Return of the Archons). He also has a writing credit on the episodes Assignment: Earth and The Paradise Syndrome. In the former he shows an alien species silently guiding Earth, successfully, through the dawn of its nuclear age and the latter has aliens known as the Preservers abducting members of primitive cultures and putting them on other worlds in order to ensure races survive cataclysmic events that may render a single world uninhabitable. Roddenberry also ran TNG when the episode Pen Pals was produced.

SARJENKA [OC]: Data. Data, where are you? Why won't you answer? Are you angry me? Please, please, I'm so afraid. Data, Data, where are you?
PICARD: Wait. Oh, Data. Your whisper from the dark has now become a plea. We cannot turn our backs.

So what do we have the creator of the Prime Directive saying? It seems to this 'intellectually lazy' observer that he is saying that NO law is absolute. The absolutist interpretation comes from after Roddenberry is no longer in control of the series.

SATIE: Would it surprise you to learn that you have violated the Prime Directive a total of nine times since you took command of the Enterprise? I must say, Captain, it surprised the hell out of me.
PICARD: My reports to Starfleet document the circumstances in each of those instances

You really should take a peek, it's rather... entertaining.

 

[jespah]

They ask for FTL tech to let them search for other people to help them but Archer tells them no. Essentially damning them all.

Looking at possibilities, Archer could have offered to transport representatives to various surrounding warp capable planets, so as that the "diseased people" (what were their names?) could plea their case to others. Or contacted the Human boomers to see if they would contact with the diseased people for passage.

The possibility of relocating one of the species to another planet, a population maybe in the billions, wouldn't really seem to be a option. No one had that level of lift capacity.

Valakians -
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Valakian

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I hated three things about ENT.

1. Archer's behavior in the pilot with the "knock you on your ass" threat. Though I did come to terms with it eventually.

2. The Phlox genocide thing. A shameful, disgusting episode (actually it was a fine episode until that decision).

3. The finale.

Otherwise I love the whole thing. Seasons 1 and 2 were more enjoyable the second time around when I knew what was in store for them all. They are somewhat pedestrian but still develop characters, particularly T'Pol. Season 4 contains some of the best Trek ever IMO.

 

[RAMA]

I really enjoyed the advanced astronaut in space feel of early Enterprise.

RAMA

 

[Deimos Anomaly]

Watched an ep where tbey discovered a disabled Klingon ship sinking into the depths of a gas giant, where it was shortly going to implode. They set about saving them (against Tpol's advice needless to say). After being rescued from certain death the klingon captain came on screen and predictably repaid this kindness with bluster and threats. Cue a little moment of awesome, Archer pretty much told him "bring it on b*tch", and the Klingons backed down.