I think it's fair to say that Enterprise is not well remembered by history. Publicy reviled by Trek fans and ignored by pretty much everyone else, it's taken me a long time to get round to watching this.
However, I did hold out some hope for the series, mainly due to the fact that I am a much bigger fan of Brannon Braga's work than most people seem to be. His innate pessimism and skill at producing horror, despair, but also innocence and longing are exactly the kinds of things I look for.
The thing is, his style and Star Trek's style are rarely a happy marriage. Star Trek prides itself on being about optimism and that just isn't him. His stories invariably deal with life's disappointments, the hammering down of the soul in the face of reality.
And give him credit that he knows this - watch his interviews and he is fairly candid that whilst he is mindful of what Trek fans want and what qualities the Trek franchise possesses, he often felt constrained at working within those limits.
There are two ways you can look at this. I think fans of the franchise can (and do) legitimately ask why such a writer was allowed to not only work on the shows, but attain such a lofty position? The other way to look at it (one taken by his fellows writers), is that he is someone of grand vision, unafraid to go to any place he feels a good story or a good idea lies.
But again, his mindset is often fundamentally opposed to what most Trek fans would like to see. Because he focuses so heavily on misery, horror and disappointment. He approves of Good, serious and innocent people, and despises 'flash', cocky characters as people unworthy of cheering for.
And so with that in mind, he arrives to helm Enterprise...
And you get pretty much what you should have expected. Those who have seen Voyager's fifth season (the only season Braga truly feels he got his message across in), particularly should. It's basically a dry run for Enterprise.
With cramped, drab environments, a tiny ready room complete with annoying squeak and a crew that could not really be described as exciting, this was a much more sober and 'what it would really be like' vision.
It's designed to confound, because the idea across the season is to peel away the optimism and sense of adventure and deliver disappointment upon disappointment to the crew, but particularly to Archer. To have his dream sullied, that it 'wasn't supposed to be like this'.
I think it's a great idea and completely in keeping with my own view of the world. It may sound misanthropic and indeed is in many ways. But it does give it far more edge and is a very refreshing antidote to what is at times, a very unrealistic vision of the future.
Now, reading that, I wouldn't be surprised if people were ready to ship me out to the same platform at sea with Braga that they are aiming torpedos at. I would say only that such an attitude does not imply any malice to Star Trek as a franchise, just that some of us need a little more explanation and a little more acceptance of how things really are, how people and life really is, in order to fully enjoy Star Trek.
And I support most of Braga's ideas. I particularly wish the studio had allowed him to omit the Transporter as he wanted to. Making him put it in, forced him to come up with the 'People are scared to use it' excuse. Because the idea was to get away from all that technology. How much time is lost in TNG and VOY episodes, explaining why they can't transport, tractor beam, disable people's escaping ships etc etc?
One area I am sceptical about however is the Vulcans. I like the race and they had been used very little really, up to this point (Tuvok is a very underused character in VOY). But Braga's style depends on deep emotion, rage, fear, despair, longing etc. He's never been much for the Vulcans and has rarely ever written about them.
So it came as little surprise that the Vulcans in Enterprise did show a suspicious level of emotional outburst and just went to show that Braga finds them an unworkable race for the stories and mindsets that he understands and wants to talk about. I can appreciate why fans were outraged and I think he (and the other writers) didn't do enough with this new interpretation to justify the change.
Because that's it, isn't it? One of the principal problems with Enterprise is that many bold risks and new directions were attempted, but with often very unsatisfactory results. And I would have to say that Season One unfortunately has a very poor ratio of good to bad episodes. I loved the atmosphere, the despair that crept into Archer at the hostility and grim reality what was really out there, but still, the actual episodes...
The series often suffers from being 'worthy' rather than exciting. The events make sense to me, the reactions to what is happening were very satisfying (i.e they didn't just keep insanely upbeat views in the face of constant aggression and manipulation), but the lack of anything truly wondrous and uplifting means it all gets a bit much.
The small scale and lack of true visual excitement is a real downer. Supposedly amazing sights like the holodeck in 'Unexpected' and Daniels' time file projector thing etc fail utterly to inspire a true sense of awe and majesty. Without fantastic sights to balance out the misery (think 'Where No-one has gone before' for example), the series takes on a very unappealing, dour look.
And what of the characters? Well again, they show what Braga wants to see, pretty much. Good, decent people in space, enduring life’s eternal quest to beat them down. Again, ‘worthy’ is the word, rather than exciting. All the characters fit and have a reason for being there, but execution was lacking in many cases.
I think the biggest successes are Archer and Trip. Their friendship and the ‘hero and his loyal right hand man’ thing works about as well as any seen in Star Trek before. Archer is a great captain, one of my favourites, simply because his reactions and attitudes are so believable and relatable.
His despair over how other species constantly either attack them or are fitting them up for something, takes a visible and very rewarding (for the viewer) toll on the character. And I think it’s a real shame that this is all but abandoned in the supposedly best 4th season. The scenes from ‘Hidden Enemy’ and ‘The Expanse’ where Archer gives vent to his frustrations are simply excellent.
So too at times is his relationship with the Vulcans in the early going. I don’t like how it pans out later (particularly with all that Kir Shara nonsense), but I love how he views the Vulcans with a mixture of admiration and anger. On the one hand, he feels they were responsible for denying his father his dreams and have held Humanity back. But on the other, he feels like he has something to prove to such an old, respected species, that he is always seeking the approval of the people who have always represented the ultimate authority figures.
And this comes out nicely in ‘The Andorian Incident’, where having exposed them for using the monastery for military means, he doesn’t sneer triumphantly – he’s disgusted. That people who always seemed above such things could stoop to such levels, it appals him, and is another significant blow to his dream.
Trip also distinguishes himself as someone the writers have engaged with. His combination of regular everyman and someone who is pure of spirit and whose optimism and desire to see right done is undimmed in the face of all but the gravest of encounters, is something Braga often likes to examine (Data, Harry Kim etc).
So long as some characters are taking a realistic view, it’s always nice to have such dreamers. Misanthropic writers like Braga and Chris Carter (from the X-Files) are not opposed to hope; they simply can’t find much of it in modern life and society. But through characters like Kim, Fox Mulder, Trip etc, they show that whatever they may believe and report of society, they do wish it was better.
The other characters however are less successful. As a Brit myself, I find elements of Reed to be very good, giving some classic British scepticism and pessimism in the face of all this American optimism
But too often, he is played as a rather oddball, ludicrously ‘stiff and proper’ character.
The writing for British characters on American TV is frequently cringe-worthy for Brits to watch. Reed’s ‘we are not like that!’ factor is mild in comparison to some shows (Reed is at least somewhat identifiable), but he’s still no classic. He also seems to be a utterly awful shot with the phase pistol, missing constantly unless the enemies are right on top of him!
Phlox is alright I guess. John Billingsley is one of the best actors on the series, and an alien doctor was the next logical choice after humans, holograms, augments etc. I would have preferred a Vulcan doctor however. I particularly would have liked to have seen an edgier, darker doctor (i.e that Vulcans do not have compassion and would have no problem making ethically questionable decisions to save the ship etc).
As it is, Phlox is... like I said, alright. He is sometimes a kind of mentor, but rarely gets much to do. His biggest connection seems to be with Hoshi, but that’s more a case of two underused characters together really...
T’Pol is... another woman in a catsuit (which people blame Braga for, but is far more likely to be Rick Berman). Watch Braga’s episodes (in all the series) and you’ll see that he is far from being an exploitative writer and is in fact vehemently opposed to ‘hunks and babes’ as eye candy etc. He’s more of a ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ outcast kind of writer.
If it seems like I’m avoiding talking about T’Pol... well you got me. I find her a massively dull character and the writers seem little more interested in her than I am. As the ‘babe’ of the show, she is included in many stories, but I never got the feeling that there was as much heart behind the stories as those written for Seven of Nine (whom the Voyager writers did genuinely like as a character, not to mention Jeri Ryan was an excellent actress).
Even in episodes where she is the focus, the writers often can’t resist looking to Archer or Trip because she just doesn’t cut it as a character really. Blalock is also a rather uninspiring actress. T’Pol joins a long list of poorly written Star Trek females for whom the writers simply cannot engage.
Which leaves the ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ Travis and Hoshi. I have a soft spot for both characters (especially Hoshi, who Braga at least likes, even if none of the other writers can think of anything for her to do). Indeed the most significant thing about Hoshi was that they seemed to be testing the waters early on for a relationship between her and T’Pol, which would certainly have been a bold step.
You can always tell this by the way, because TV series only rarely have scenes with two women speaking. The thinking is that men (who make up much of the target audience) are not really interested in hearing what women have to say (i.e they treat them as eye candy), so women are usually always put together with men in scenes. When they are together, they are usually identified as married, of very different ages, mother and daughter etc. When they aren’t, it often means the makers are implying a possible relationship.
As we know however, nothing came of this and after appearing together and working on their (professional) relationship quite a bit in S1 and 2, they are rarely seen together at all later on.
The fact that this possibility is one of the most interesting things I can say about Hoshi is very telling. Only Braga seems to have any idea how to use her and he has his hands full juggling all the other characters and plots. ‘Vanishing Point’ has many problems, but its idea of Hoshi feeling like someone people overlook and then literally fading from view is great.
In general though, she falls in the ‘you’re not very funny, you can’t fight (until S4 and even then she gets beaten easily), you don’t like stuff that young men like, we don’t know what to do with you’ category... like most Star Trek women.
And Travis... flies the ship.
So, to sum up then, I like the tone and the general idea of the show, but it simply isn’t all that much fun to watch. A serious tone and bleak approach can be very rewarding when done correctly (Millennium, Homicide: Life on the Streets etc), but Enterprise S1 is simply dull for much of the time, with very few truly great (or even good) episodes.
But here’s my picks of the best:
SEASON ONE – THE A LIST:
Broken Bow pt 1.
Silent Enemy.
Shockwave pt 1.
And the not so best, but alright...
THE B LIST:
Fight or Flight (the ending is just silly though).
Strange New World.
The Andorian Incident.
Fortunate Son (again, the ending is very poor).
Fallen Hero.
Two Days and Two Nights (if only for the ‘To Sickbay!’ moment).
I was really reaching to include some of those episodes, but as I say, I enjoyed the season more than just the sum of the actual episodes. It wasn’t great, but it was still along the lines of the kind of thing I enjoy and agree with.
However, I did hold out some hope for the series, mainly due to the fact that I am a much bigger fan of Brannon Braga's work than most people seem to be. His innate pessimism and skill at producing horror, despair, but also innocence and longing are exactly the kinds of things I look for.
The thing is, his style and Star Trek's style are rarely a happy marriage. Star Trek prides itself on being about optimism and that just isn't him. His stories invariably deal with life's disappointments, the hammering down of the soul in the face of reality.
And give him credit that he knows this - watch his interviews and he is fairly candid that whilst he is mindful of what Trek fans want and what qualities the Trek franchise possesses, he often felt constrained at working within those limits.
There are two ways you can look at this. I think fans of the franchise can (and do) legitimately ask why such a writer was allowed to not only work on the shows, but attain such a lofty position? The other way to look at it (one taken by his fellows writers), is that he is someone of grand vision, unafraid to go to any place he feels a good story or a good idea lies.
But again, his mindset is often fundamentally opposed to what most Trek fans would like to see. Because he focuses so heavily on misery, horror and disappointment. He approves of Good, serious and innocent people, and despises 'flash', cocky characters as people unworthy of cheering for.
And so with that in mind, he arrives to helm Enterprise...
And you get pretty much what you should have expected. Those who have seen Voyager's fifth season (the only season Braga truly feels he got his message across in), particularly should. It's basically a dry run for Enterprise.
With cramped, drab environments, a tiny ready room complete with annoying squeak and a crew that could not really be described as exciting, this was a much more sober and 'what it would really be like' vision.
It's designed to confound, because the idea across the season is to peel away the optimism and sense of adventure and deliver disappointment upon disappointment to the crew, but particularly to Archer. To have his dream sullied, that it 'wasn't supposed to be like this'.
I think it's a great idea and completely in keeping with my own view of the world. It may sound misanthropic and indeed is in many ways. But it does give it far more edge and is a very refreshing antidote to what is at times, a very unrealistic vision of the future.
Now, reading that, I wouldn't be surprised if people were ready to ship me out to the same platform at sea with Braga that they are aiming torpedos at. I would say only that such an attitude does not imply any malice to Star Trek as a franchise, just that some of us need a little more explanation and a little more acceptance of how things really are, how people and life really is, in order to fully enjoy Star Trek.
And I support most of Braga's ideas. I particularly wish the studio had allowed him to omit the Transporter as he wanted to. Making him put it in, forced him to come up with the 'People are scared to use it' excuse. Because the idea was to get away from all that technology. How much time is lost in TNG and VOY episodes, explaining why they can't transport, tractor beam, disable people's escaping ships etc etc?
One area I am sceptical about however is the Vulcans. I like the race and they had been used very little really, up to this point (Tuvok is a very underused character in VOY). But Braga's style depends on deep emotion, rage, fear, despair, longing etc. He's never been much for the Vulcans and has rarely ever written about them.
So it came as little surprise that the Vulcans in Enterprise did show a suspicious level of emotional outburst and just went to show that Braga finds them an unworkable race for the stories and mindsets that he understands and wants to talk about. I can appreciate why fans were outraged and I think he (and the other writers) didn't do enough with this new interpretation to justify the change.
Because that's it, isn't it? One of the principal problems with Enterprise is that many bold risks and new directions were attempted, but with often very unsatisfactory results. And I would have to say that Season One unfortunately has a very poor ratio of good to bad episodes. I loved the atmosphere, the despair that crept into Archer at the hostility and grim reality what was really out there, but still, the actual episodes...
The series often suffers from being 'worthy' rather than exciting. The events make sense to me, the reactions to what is happening were very satisfying (i.e they didn't just keep insanely upbeat views in the face of constant aggression and manipulation), but the lack of anything truly wondrous and uplifting means it all gets a bit much.
The small scale and lack of true visual excitement is a real downer. Supposedly amazing sights like the holodeck in 'Unexpected' and Daniels' time file projector thing etc fail utterly to inspire a true sense of awe and majesty. Without fantastic sights to balance out the misery (think 'Where No-one has gone before' for example), the series takes on a very unappealing, dour look.
And what of the characters? Well again, they show what Braga wants to see, pretty much. Good, decent people in space, enduring life’s eternal quest to beat them down. Again, ‘worthy’ is the word, rather than exciting. All the characters fit and have a reason for being there, but execution was lacking in many cases.
I think the biggest successes are Archer and Trip. Their friendship and the ‘hero and his loyal right hand man’ thing works about as well as any seen in Star Trek before. Archer is a great captain, one of my favourites, simply because his reactions and attitudes are so believable and relatable.
His despair over how other species constantly either attack them or are fitting them up for something, takes a visible and very rewarding (for the viewer) toll on the character. And I think it’s a real shame that this is all but abandoned in the supposedly best 4th season. The scenes from ‘Hidden Enemy’ and ‘The Expanse’ where Archer gives vent to his frustrations are simply excellent.
So too at times is his relationship with the Vulcans in the early going. I don’t like how it pans out later (particularly with all that Kir Shara nonsense), but I love how he views the Vulcans with a mixture of admiration and anger. On the one hand, he feels they were responsible for denying his father his dreams and have held Humanity back. But on the other, he feels like he has something to prove to such an old, respected species, that he is always seeking the approval of the people who have always represented the ultimate authority figures.
And this comes out nicely in ‘The Andorian Incident’, where having exposed them for using the monastery for military means, he doesn’t sneer triumphantly – he’s disgusted. That people who always seemed above such things could stoop to such levels, it appals him, and is another significant blow to his dream.
Trip also distinguishes himself as someone the writers have engaged with. His combination of regular everyman and someone who is pure of spirit and whose optimism and desire to see right done is undimmed in the face of all but the gravest of encounters, is something Braga often likes to examine (Data, Harry Kim etc).
So long as some characters are taking a realistic view, it’s always nice to have such dreamers. Misanthropic writers like Braga and Chris Carter (from the X-Files) are not opposed to hope; they simply can’t find much of it in modern life and society. But through characters like Kim, Fox Mulder, Trip etc, they show that whatever they may believe and report of society, they do wish it was better.
The other characters however are less successful. As a Brit myself, I find elements of Reed to be very good, giving some classic British scepticism and pessimism in the face of all this American optimism
But too often, he is played as a rather oddball, ludicrously ‘stiff and proper’ character. The writing for British characters on American TV is frequently cringe-worthy for Brits to watch. Reed’s ‘we are not like that!’ factor is mild in comparison to some shows (Reed is at least somewhat identifiable), but he’s still no classic. He also seems to be a utterly awful shot with the phase pistol, missing constantly unless the enemies are right on top of him!
Phlox is alright I guess. John Billingsley is one of the best actors on the series, and an alien doctor was the next logical choice after humans, holograms, augments etc. I would have preferred a Vulcan doctor however. I particularly would have liked to have seen an edgier, darker doctor (i.e that Vulcans do not have compassion and would have no problem making ethically questionable decisions to save the ship etc).
As it is, Phlox is... like I said, alright. He is sometimes a kind of mentor, but rarely gets much to do. His biggest connection seems to be with Hoshi, but that’s more a case of two underused characters together really...
T’Pol is... another woman in a catsuit (which people blame Braga for, but is far more likely to be Rick Berman). Watch Braga’s episodes (in all the series) and you’ll see that he is far from being an exploitative writer and is in fact vehemently opposed to ‘hunks and babes’ as eye candy etc. He’s more of a ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ outcast kind of writer.
If it seems like I’m avoiding talking about T’Pol... well you got me. I find her a massively dull character and the writers seem little more interested in her than I am. As the ‘babe’ of the show, she is included in many stories, but I never got the feeling that there was as much heart behind the stories as those written for Seven of Nine (whom the Voyager writers did genuinely like as a character, not to mention Jeri Ryan was an excellent actress).
Even in episodes where she is the focus, the writers often can’t resist looking to Archer or Trip because she just doesn’t cut it as a character really. Blalock is also a rather uninspiring actress. T’Pol joins a long list of poorly written Star Trek females for whom the writers simply cannot engage.
Which leaves the ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ Travis and Hoshi. I have a soft spot for both characters (especially Hoshi, who Braga at least likes, even if none of the other writers can think of anything for her to do). Indeed the most significant thing about Hoshi was that they seemed to be testing the waters early on for a relationship between her and T’Pol, which would certainly have been a bold step.
You can always tell this by the way, because TV series only rarely have scenes with two women speaking. The thinking is that men (who make up much of the target audience) are not really interested in hearing what women have to say (i.e they treat them as eye candy), so women are usually always put together with men in scenes. When they are together, they are usually identified as married, of very different ages, mother and daughter etc. When they aren’t, it often means the makers are implying a possible relationship.
As we know however, nothing came of this and after appearing together and working on their (professional) relationship quite a bit in S1 and 2, they are rarely seen together at all later on.
The fact that this possibility is one of the most interesting things I can say about Hoshi is very telling. Only Braga seems to have any idea how to use her and he has his hands full juggling all the other characters and plots. ‘Vanishing Point’ has many problems, but its idea of Hoshi feeling like someone people overlook and then literally fading from view is great.
In general though, she falls in the ‘you’re not very funny, you can’t fight (until S4 and even then she gets beaten easily), you don’t like stuff that young men like, we don’t know what to do with you’ category... like most Star Trek women.
And Travis... flies the ship.
So, to sum up then, I like the tone and the general idea of the show, but it simply isn’t all that much fun to watch. A serious tone and bleak approach can be very rewarding when done correctly (Millennium, Homicide: Life on the Streets etc), but Enterprise S1 is simply dull for much of the time, with very few truly great (or even good) episodes.
But here’s my picks of the best:
SEASON ONE – THE A LIST:
Broken Bow pt 1.
Silent Enemy.
Shockwave pt 1.
And the not so best, but alright...
THE B LIST:
Fight or Flight (the ending is just silly though).
Strange New World.
The Andorian Incident.
Fortunate Son (again, the ending is very poor).
Fallen Hero.
Two Days and Two Nights (if only for the ‘To Sickbay!’ moment).
I was really reaching to include some of those episodes, but as I say, I enjoyed the season more than just the sum of the actual episodes. It wasn’t great, but it was still along the lines of the kind of thing I enjoy and agree with.
His scene afterward with Chef would have been far more affecting, IMHO, had we known he was going to have a "good death," rather than a Darwin Award winner. And there was that passing mention of Trip and T'Pol having ended their relationship six years ago...no explaino, nothing. That would mean they called it quits right after that lovely scene of togetherness that closed "Terra Prime," which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The line seemed to be there for no other reason than as a set-up for the shuttlepod scene (which wasn't worth trashing the relationship for, IMHO); it didn't even seem to impact the scene in Trip's quarters later.
