Theory About Why Most Don't Care for Enterprise as Much...

[C.E. Evans]

A secondary reason is the Temporal Cold War. People seemed intrigued by it, supported it, but that all changed in Season 2. People seemed to realize B&B were making it up on the fly and didn't have anything plotted out for it.

There was a reason for B&B's attitude toward the TCW--they didn't really want to do it. They were asked to come up with something "post-VOY" (in a TOS prequel?), but if it had been left to them, the TCW wouldn't have happened.

 

[Neutral Zone]

I've watched through the series a few times now. It's one of those you have to warm to. When it was first aired I thought that it was terrible and should not have been a Trek thing at all. But after a few views via DVD and its re-run I've gotten to like it. But ... as I have mentioned in previous posts, a real long time ago as I've not posted in ages, the problem ii my opinion was that there was too much temporal stuff. Kirk in TOS had only discovered at that point about the possibility of time travel.

We also met new species which were not seen in later various series, and the inovations of such things such as holodecks were barely mentioned. Did they actually exist in the time of TOS? I can't remember. Then we come to the choice of Captain, should Scott Bakula have been choosen, he's a great actor but not sure he was Star Trek captaincy quality.

These are just a few things, apart from too much time travel most of the stories and action was good. Pity it failed as it was great idea.

 

[R. Star]

^
Yeah.. I agree. When Enterprise first aired, I quit watching halfway through season 2 in disgust. It wasn't until years later when I just happened to see the SyFy channel airing the Augments arc in season 4 that I thought hey this is pretty cool and gave it another chance. Which years of non-Trek had softened me to it.

There really was no over all plan... a Temporal Cold War, leaving alone how overused and cliched time travel is in Trek, needs careful planning. It could have been cool if done right. But there was no plan except to say, let's screw with the timeline whenever. I can't take a cliffhanger about rewritten history seriously since... we know it won't amount to anything. Then you just have Ferengi, Borg and Romulan episodes thrown in there for no other reason that... he we can and it'll be neat! Right... Archer must be the most boneheaded record keeper ever... which is quite possible being how they blundered around on those scientific missions. It would be like Neil Armstrong saying... "Hey, Houston, we crashed on the Moon. What do you want us to do now?" Ugh.. just never could get sold on the characters, and by the time most of them finally found themselves... the damage was done.

 

[T'Girl]

Then we come to the choice of Captain, should Scott Bakula have been choosen, he's a great actor but not sure he was Star Trek captaincy quality.

While a different actor might have been a better choice, Bakula likely could have played Archer different if Archer had been created and written as a more professional officer. Highly trained, experienced, resolute. Someone who had previously commanded a "lesser" starship, and not have been simply a test pilot.

It was never made clear why Archer was selected to command the Enterprise.

I think there were far too many unknown races being encountered in close space, making people feel this was several hundreds of ly away from Earth, not within 100, 200, etc ly of Earth.

Within 200 ly of Earth there are (real world) well over 116,000 stars, If anything too much time was spent interacting with previously well established alien species like the Klingons and Romulans (they could have largely dispensed with the Romulans completely as far as I'm concerned).

or were ripoffs ... "Doctor's Orders"

I liked Doctor's Orders, while it is like the Voyager episode in some ways, there are enough differences. Phlox is a more appealing character than Seven was in isolation. The two crews face a similar problem and employed a similar solution.

if they felt Seasons 1-2 had a direction

One of the biggest objections I had with the first couple of season was that Archer didn't seem to have a structured mission, he (and the Enterprise) were just wondering around.

and could see steps being taken towards the founding of the Federation

One of the thing that killed the fourth season (for me) was the endless boring references to the "Coalition of Planets." The final episode where the formation of the Federation was featured is commonly reviled. The Federation is best kept far in the background.

 

[Isolinear]

I'm obviously in the minority, because I liked the Temporal Cold War stuff. I was bitterly disappointed how it was "wrapped up" in Storm Front. A missed opportunity.

That said, most of the episodes in Season 1 and 2 were boring. And it didn't feel like a true prequel, except for the occasional "fear" of transporters.

It was almost like the writers were like: yeah yeah, prequel prequel, but after 6 episodes that phaser-cannon better be online, because we wanna do Voyager again! (now with Vulcans!!!).

Season 3 was very good, and while season 4 had lots of cool TOS-nods, the multi-episode mini-arcs resulted in sometimes slow-moving stories in my opinion.

 

[Isolinear]

the problem ii my opinion was that there was too much temporal stuff. Kirk in TOS had only discovered at that point about the possibility of time travel.

We also met new species which were not seen in later various series, and the inovations of such things such as holodecks were barely mentioned. Did they actually exist in the time of TOS? I can't remember.

Could all have been avoided with a PROPER wrap-up of the TCW.

Then we come to the choice of Captain, should Scott Bakula have been choosen, he's a great actor but not sure he was Star Trek captaincy quality.

I think you're right. He's great as a "normal guy", but I never saw him as a strong captain.

 

[Yanks]

In short, they were on a failing network that didn't have access to 40% of the market that TNG & DS9 had.

They missed out on a lot of folks that could have "cared" about Enterprise.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

In short, they were on a failing network that didn't have access to 40% of the market that TNG & DS9 had.

They missed out on a lot of folks that could have "cared" about Enterprise.

Totally sad

Though I am very happy with what we got. I used to find it depressing that it was cancelled, I'd watch a really great ep or pretty much all of season 4 and it would be this shadow of sadness on the whole thing. But now I'm just like, HEY GREAT TREK!

They could have cancelled it after season 1 and that would have been

 

[bbailey861]

In short, they were on a failing network that didn't have access to 40% of the market that TNG & DS9 had.

They missed out on a lot of folks that could have "cared" about Enterprise.

That was something I could never understand, either. In Canada, in order to be able to watch it, you had to subscribe to a higher tier of programming. This alone shut out many potential viewers. Although it does appear to be more common now, I just didn't know anybody back then who would subscribe to a higher cable package to get one show.

 

[Yanks]

In short, they were on a failing network that didn't have access to 40% of the market that TNG & DS9 had.

They missed out on a lot of folks that could have "cared" about Enterprise.

That was something I could never understand, either. In Canada, in order to be able to watch it, you had to subscribe to a higher tier of programming. This alone shut out many potential viewers. Although it does appear to be more common now, I just didn't know anybody back then who would subscribe to a higher cable package to get one show.

Exactly.

To quote John Billingsley:

"We weren't a failure, we lasted 4 year on a shitty network that didn't want us!"

 

[R. Star]

That's a rather dubious measure of success.