Treading water in season two

[Seven of Five]

I remember season two being hard at times but wow. I'm partway in Precious Cargo (episode 11?) and forgot how stilted the guest actress with Trip was, and how annoying that whole plot was. Earlier today I suffered through A Night in Sickbay, which was an exercise in childish banality. Archer acts like a clown over the welfare of Porthos, and of course there's the whole shame of the the Archer/T'Pol attraction. Meh!

I think aside from Minefield, Dead Stop, The Seventh, and Vanishing Point, we're just coasting along on autopilot.

I already struggled a bit when I started season one, finding the show hard to get back into. I find the ENT characters a little hard to warm to, except for Trip, Phlox and Hoshi, which is probably why that's why I get bored when a story seems overly familiar.

So my mega-Franchise Anniversary rewatch is taking some completing. I've watched them all on Netflix this year, but it's taken some getting back on the bike after the break I took when I finished VOY.

I made it through TOS season three, TNG season one, DS9 season one, VOY seasons two and three, TFF, INS, NEM, and now I'm nearly halfway through the dirge of ENT season two. The good stuff is coming!

So what are your favourite episodes this season? Worst episodes? Just what exactly were the writers smoking this year? Did you ever think to yourself why do I punish myself so much?

 

[Reanok]

I really like Shockwave part 2 and Carbon Creek ,Also The Communicator, Minefield ,Dead Stop, Cease Fire . I also like the episode with the Borg and the finale The Expanse.

 

[Ethros]

I started watching Star Trek in about 1994 with TNG season 7. Caught up with earlier seasons through reruns, started Voyager when that started and then gradually got into DS9 and caught up with that too. ENT s2 was the first time I actually stopped watching new Star Trek.
Marauders, Singularity, just boring as hell episodes you've seen a million times before offering nothing new. Then Vansihing Point was beyond a struggle to get through, yet another rehash of a TNG episode. Then I saw down to watch Precious Cargo and the teaser was simply Trip sat in a room and looking out a window at a ship. Wow. That was meant to hook me in to the episode? I just turned it off, and have still never seen the episode since. Quite good luck as apparently it's the worst episode ever.

I came back for an odd few that season, Future Tense, Regeneration, The Expanse, but it felt strange to no longer be watching Trek on a weekly basis, all those duff episodes just killed it.
Then I came for early Season 3 in the same way, skipped a few of the lamer ones, Extinction, Exile etc, but then tbh I loved the Xindi arc (esp towards the end) and did manage to get back into the show. But man Season 2 is just on the whole lame.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

But...there's Shran.

Any season of Trek with Jeffrey Combs in there somewhere is not a total waste.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Despite coming close to losing interest at the time, I've got to go against the popular opinion here. It's an improvement on Season 1, starts off with a great run of episodes, ends equally good and becomes more hit than mess in-between. A lot of the shows TNG, VOY, even DS9 had done very similar plots to, were still entertaining enough I guess because I quite liked the characters. Even if they weren't as extra-ordinary and standout as having an android, or a shape-shifter, or a Klingon, or a Hologram to easily mine for stories. By the book Malcolm losing his communicator on a war-torn planet, or Hoshi getting even more neurotic about the transporter... no less interesting than some dull storyline from the others. There again, that's not the popular perception I suppose, as I found out flicking through a magazine on the 50 years the other day. A souvenir publication from er, one of the big houses. "Widely regarded as the least popular with bland characters" it said. At which point I put it back on a WH Smith shelf and walked away, deciding to keep my £5...

I often wonder why I became jaded about Trek in the early 00's. It's nothing I specifically blame Enterprise for because, just a couple of years later I was beyond upset they cancelled it in the middle of a great run, coming really close to fulfilling that whole prequel concept. I think Star Trek just needed a few years off really. There was a backlog of Voyager and probably Deep Space Nine episodes running over the airwaves, and I had bought on VHS tape, still largely unfamiliar to millions... such the ubiquitous-ness of space operas with forehead aliens. I was always kind of committed to Trek and rarely strayed towards Earth Final Conflict, or Farscape, or Andromeda. Buffy and Angel weren't my thing. I saw a few Stargate though and it was easy to see why that was huge.

 

[Seven of Five]

I only watched season one of ENT back when it was on. I thought it showed potential, but then moved away to University and didn't have access to it. I heard here that I wasn't missing much, and typically whenever I was home and caught the odd episode, it bored me to death. And so I just didn't watch again until it was out on DVD for the second time, and I saw that large parts of seasons three and four had improved.

But still, back to season two. There have been ok episodes, dull episodes, and two or three bad ones. I watched Dawn and fell asleep. It was ENT's version of The Enemy or even Darmok, yet was nowhere near as interesting as the other two.

However it was Shran to the rescue, and Cease Fire was the first really good episode of the year. I'm surprised we didn't see them sooner, and also only the once. Shran is a wonderful guest character with real presence, and I forgot the also wonderful Suzie Plakson was in it too.

I enjoyed the Tactical Alert moment too - was this the first use of it after the introduction in Singularity? I'm sure Reed half-smiled when Trip called for it.

 

[Anna Yolei]

I found one of those interviews from Berman and Braga who pretty much confirm that they had very few trusted writers since any had been let go or quit, and that they were basically filling in a role that they never should've been in.

They'd even pitched the idea of a year off between VOY and ENT, but Paramount wasn't having it, and if they'd quit, the network would have hired some jackwagon to turn it into teeny bopper Trek.

Flawed as it was, we got the best possible Trek show we could've had under the circumstances. Berman and Braga were basically the Severus Snape of the franchise....except no one will name their child Rick Brannon after two of the bravest men they've ever known.

 

[Seven of Five]

I made it! I'm finally on season three. However there was one last horror to be submitted to before I finished and that was Bounty. Oh my! I'd somehow repressed this one as I totally forgot about the blatant titillation of T'Pol that went on. Oh my indeed.

It's a shame as the last few episodes had been pretty good - Judgment, The Breach, Cogenitor, Regeneration, and First Flight. Cogenitor is easily an ENT top 5 episode.

What are people's thoughts on The Expanse? It's another good episode, but I couldn't help but feel it was heavy-handed. A retooling of the show was definitely needed by this point, but they may as well of just put a caption on the screen saying "Retooling is in progress. Please stand by." The Duras part was unnecessary and should have ended by Bounty, or perhaps not even happened at all.

 

[Vger23]

I will say this-

I never really got into ENT during its initial run. I didn't b!tch and moan about it or spew hatred like a lot of internet warriors did at the time, but I definitely (quietly) turned away.

Reading some of the threads out here reenergized my interest and I'm currently 8 episodes into season 2. Many. Of these episodes I never saw.

My theory: if this series premiered first, before TNG, it would have been beloved. The biggest knock on it is that it is just more of the same. In actuality, if looked at in a vacuum, it was a really good "Star Trek" show, much more in the mold of TOS and not bogged-down with the stiffness and superiority of the 24th century.

I'm enjoying it- and the best is (apparently) still to come.

 

[Seven of Five]

I think ENT's problem (and VOY's for that matter) was that it was following on from 600 episodes of previous Star Trek, and thus no new stories actually exist. On top of that, the creative team had been with the franchise for more than a decade, and so were used to delivering a certain product comfortably. UPN weren't ready to give Berman and Braga the time off for a creative recharge and really plan things better.

Alas, the series is what it is, pretty much like VOY. Mediocrity is there through, but there is also a lot of good. I'm bursting through season three now, and it's an improvement over one and two.

I'm really looking forward to DIS though. A chance for the fresh start that ENT should have been.

 

[Stephen!]

The only episode I didn't like from the first two seasons was "Shuttlepod One". Originally, I didn't really watched Enterprise much, since I didn't have access to Sky One anymore after things fell through with ITV Digital. (Parents were content with just Freeview after that)

I eventually "acquired" copies of the episodes and watched through season 01 and 02 in a few weeks during the summer of 2003. Too much free time on my hands during unemployment.

 

[AnonWeirdo]

For me, Carbon Creek and first flight would both make my list of top 15 best star trek episodes. Carbon Creek would certainly be in my top 10.

 

[Reanok]

When it came to the Season 2 episodes were hit and miss. I've been rewatching some of them. I really like Shockwave part 2 and Carbon Creek and The Communicator. I never cared For a night in Sickbay. Bounty I didn't like the way T'Pol was treated in that episode. Jolene didn't like it either.In one of the interviews on the season 2 dvds she was really unhappy about that show.

 

[Degra1]

One of the absolute worst seasons of trek joining TOS season three and Voyager season three

The plots were thin. The characters weren't that interesting. You can pretty much skip everything but Carbon creek, dead stop, minefield, the catwalk, cease fire, regeneration first flight and the expanse. The rest are either awful or way too boring

 

[2takesfrakes]

The 2nd Season's 'working the bugs out' paved the way for how sensational Season 3 became. It set the table.

 

[Emperor Norton]

Star Trek works on a principle that you get two seasons to work out the bugs, and season 3 should be the make or break. That worked on TNG and DS9. TOS was great since ever. ENT failed in that regard, probably because they set up this major time travel interference arc that was a bad idea. It should not have been a time war which was setting things up. It should have been the Romulans. Time travel gets convoluted, and only allowed ENT to exist in the context of other shows instead of on it's own terms. And season 3 became the whole Xindi arc, which really just screwed the pooch on the good graces of the audience. If season 3 had instead been what season 4 was, that show would have lasted seven years.

 

[donners22]

I rewatched season 2 earlier this year with my partner ( who was watching for the first time).

We'd really liked the first season, but there was an awful patch around Precious Cargo which was about as bad as that horrible run in DS9 season 6. It was like they ran out of ideas, and started delving into tired old Trek tropes. What had been a fresh and interesting series suddenly felt tired and porely executed.

Now my partner has no enthusiasm for season 3, and we're crawling through it at an episode every few weeks.

 

[WebLurker]

I'm one of those people who never really got the ENT hate. I will concede that I've only had a chance to see shows sporadically and that I do think the other Trek TV shows were better overall, but I thought it was on par with the franchise's average.

For good season 2 episodes, I've always been partial to "Future Tense" (the one with the time pod). "Judgement" was pretty good, as I recall. The "Minefield"/"Dead Stop" two parter was fun stuff. I love "Regeneration" (the Borg episode).

 

[DS9forever]

Who thinks DS9 S6 is bad? Someone from the University of Wallamaloo?

 

[JonVP]

I think they really tried to give a sense of freshness to the Trek universe, but they relied too heavily on plots from previous shows. Also again the focus on the Klingons in some episodes, which were introduced to us way too early, was a negative imo.

The final episode of S2 seemed to be some kind of reset button for the show. The moment where they’re really shaking things up and are heading into unknown territory storywise.