(cont.)
Which are just some of the reasons why
Endgame is almost as bad a finale as TATV. But what makes TATV worse is that it shits all over the show itself and its characters and its fans. It's like "this show is crap anyway, let's talk about TNG instead."
Endgame at least seems to be trying to be the finale of VOY. And in a way, it is a fitting finale, in the sense that it is no different than most of the show itself: full of plotholes and contradictions (the time travel paradox), poor continuity (has nothing to do with the Caretaker, Suspiria, the Pathfinder, or anything that had happened in the previous episodes - we get a last-minute solution instead), a poor use of Borg who seem easy to defeat, a forced plot that comes out of nowhere (the Seven/Chakotay romance, with cheesy scenes that lack any chemistry), failure to use the potential of the premise (we don't see the homecoming, Admiral Paris and Barclay are wasted in their roles), taking the easy way out and letting Janeway and crew have their cake and eat it, instead of presenting a really hard moral choice... Which all pretty much describes the show as a whole.
So villains that remind me of the lizards from Galaxy Quest and the Dominion War is a good thing?
I don't understand the Dominion War reference. As for 1) lizard-like aliens, or 2) silly looking aliens... um, you sure you did watch VOY?
The Hirogen, the dinosaur-descended aliens from
Distant Origin... and as for silly looking, the Kazon, and pretty much
every bumpy headed alien race they met along the way.
Villains that we never heard of before take the center stage in an event that we never heard of before? Villains that make no real connection to the other previous Star Trek shows?
Well, I guess it would be better if they were a race from TNG or DS9... sure, you'd know exactly what happens to them later and there would be no mystery about them at all, but hey, who needs mystery, right?
Why come up with any new races? It's much better to re-use previous villains, say, Borg over and over...
After all, the Federation consists of only 180 worlds, the rest of the galaxy features... how many planets? And how many planets and races from the Alpha Quadrant did we see and learn about in TOS, TNG, and DS9? Then substract who had the first contact with humans only in TOS and TNG... Yes, it is absolutely logical to feature only known races in a prequel set 100 years before.
Yeah, sure. The Xindi were a great idea.
The Xindi themselves were so-so, my least favorite part of the storyline. I didn't like the one-dimensional villainy of Golim and the Xindi-lizards, or that there wasn't more diversity shown within each of the species (though we only saw one or two people from each) and while Degra was a great character, I disliked the fact that it was the more-human like Xindi who were "good" while those who were uglier by human standards and resembled species that humans dislike, like lizards and insects, were the "bad" ones.
But the storyline overall was a great idea, it revitalized the show, brought suspense and urgency and an opportunity for a season-long storyarc that would push the characters to their limits, physically, psychologically and ethically. This is what VOY might and should have done with the Year of Hell. After playing safe for 2 seasons, the show finally took some risks in season 3, which is more than VOY ever did. See
Azati Prime/Damage: we saw the ship get REALLY wrecked, and the main characters at lowest point: T'Pol with her addiction to Trelium-D, and Archer crossing the ethical line more than ever before and becoming what he despised, pirating a ship of explorers who were similar to what he used to be, and despising himself for it. And, amazingly for someone who's watched all of VOY, none of this was forgotten in the very next episode.
It's also funny that there was more conflict and tension between the Starfleet an the MACOs than there ever was between the Starfleet and the Maquis on VOY. And the anomalies that the crew encountered really looked strange and dangerous, and we got to see their effects - it wasn't just "oh look - there's an anomaly, let's see what it is".
The MACOs were fun (when I first seen them). But they quickly lost their glamour in light of a universe that doesn't make any normal sense.
Besides, there was no attempt at tying these MACOs to the other series either.
Why should they tie them to the other series? It happened 100 years before Kirk and 200 years before Picard and the rest.
Any Vulcan related episodes on Enterprise made me dislike the Vulcans.
Who says you have to like them? I'm more interested in conflict than in everyone being nice and getting along. Though I can't think of a show where Vulcans were nice and sweet. They were arrogant and beholden to barbaric old traditions on TOS, almost non-existent on TNG, assholes, murderers and terrorists on their rare appearances on DS9, and represented on VOY by one grumpy sod with suppressed violent urges, and one wuss who tried to force his fellow officer to have sex with him when he had Pon-Farr.
The Andorians were sort of okay in the Andorian Incident. But they didn't seem to offer anything in me enjoying the Andorians any better.
Really? All I can say is that there are many, many people who completely disagree. ENT made Andorians one of my favorite races in Trek.
I like the Borg episodes on Voyager, more so than I did on TNG.
Well, there is no accounting for tastes.
True. And it was one of the worst episodes because it went completely against everything that had happened on ENT before, and wasn't even about ENT... it was a TNG episode.
If it was a TNG episode, then it failed as a TNG episode, too.
However, in reality it is actually an ENT episode. It says so right on the DVD.
Yes, as a TNG episode it is bad. But as an ENT episode it is horrible. It doesn't even make sense as a TNG episode as it contradicts
The Pegasus. But while it is technically an ENT episode, it doesn't make sense if you look at it that way. If it's an ENT episode, who are those two strangely dressed people, and why am I watching a lengthy scene of the two of them discussing some problem of theirs that has never been mentioned in this show? As someone who's watched TNG, of course I know who Riker and Troi are (and I know that their conversation doesn't make sense in the context of season 7 TNG, though it's trying to tie to it), but why should one assume that every ENT viewer should know Riker and Troi, or care about them? And even if they do, this is not what ENT finale should be about. If I want to watch Riker and Troi and their issues, I'll watch TNG or the TNG movies.
But they made the entire ENT finale a holodeck diversion of Riker and Troi, and while they may say it was an homage to Trek in general, it wasn't. It was an homage to TNG through and through - with lines like "All good things...", "Here's to the next generation..." Now that could work as an episode in the middle of the season, but as a finale?
And what we saw happen with the ENT crew just didn't make sense, Trip's death was stupid and made him and the crew look stupid, the plot with Shran and his daughter and some random aliens out of nowhere wasn't a story for the finale, and worst of all - the characterization was awful, it was as if B&B were determined to 1) negate any development the characters had gotten previously, and 2) prove that there isn't and shouldn't be any such thing as character development. We're to believe that 6 years had passed, but nobody has even gotten a promotion? Nobody's progressed in any way since
Terra Prime, and T'Pol seems to have even regressed, being as confused, sad and out of touch with her emotions like she was halfway through the show; and we learn that Trip and T'Pol's relationship had ended 6 years ago - so does that mean that the last scene in
Terra Prime was the end of their relationship? It seemed the opposite.
Terra Prime should have been the finale of ENT. It featured a good villain and a real threat that the crew had to deal with - and appropriately, the final threat came from humans, who embodied the xenophobia that the main characters were guilty of at the beginning of the show. The stage was set for the future birth of the Federation - contrary to what B&B seemed to have thought, it wasn't even necessary to actually see it come to pass a few years later - Archer showed that he has finally learned to give good speeches
and the last scene implied the hope that Trip and T'Pol could overcome their issues and differences, and could try to start anew.
Enterprise had a cast of characters that I actually had a genuine interest in. Voyager had a cast a characters I didn't give a spit about.
Well, I guess we should just agree to disagree then. It looks like we found yet again another issue that we don't see eye to eye on.
Some of the VOY characters were entertaining enough (except for Chakotay and Kim, who were just dull), but I didn't relate to them or feel that emotionally attached to any of them as I did to at least some of the characters on other Trek shows.
I can see why some people don't like ENT characters. There are no larger-than-life characters on ENT. There are no androids who want to become human, or sentient holograms, or people from a proud warrior race, none of the archetypes that may be iconic to an SF audience. The humans on the show are not the enlightened, perfect 24th century humans. The captain is more flawed and human and fallible and without the presence of the other lead Trek captains. The resident Vulcan is more low-key than Spock or other outsider characters like Data or Odo, and even the doctor, who at first glance seems to fill the role of the wacky comic alien, is actually very down-to-earth, and believable as someone who would actually serve as a doctor on a starship. By contrast, The Doctor from VOY is a great character, but he is so flamboyant and OTT that he seems like a sitcom character. (A great sitcom character, though. Like someone from
Frasier. The others on VOY are more like characters from average or bad sitcoms.) The ENT crew are all more 'ordinary', more flawed and human and more like people you might meet in real life, and the acting is more realistic. This may be why I care about them. In comparison, the VOY crew seem like sitcom characters, there's the OTT main comedian in the Doctor, there's Neelix as a comic relief whose role on VOY is completely unbelievable (why is he on away missions? why is he in senior staff meetings?), there's the captain whose only consistent character trait is that she's, like, totally badass, there's the "spiritual Indian" stereotype, there's the good-natured jock who always has a ready cool one-liner and hangs out with a nerd who's unlucky in love...
All in all, both shows had lots of flaws, but ENT took some risks, and ended up with really good seasons 3 and 4, before being canceled and not getting a chance to show what its next seasons would have been like, while VOY always played it safe and was mediocre throughout its 7 seasons.
smiley 
The only thing there that is a little more specific and hasn't been featured on 95% of TV shows out there is the catsuit - and it's blatantly obvious that they had nothing to do with the characterization and didn't make any sense for either of the characters in-universe; the catsuits were there just because of B&B's penchant for them. 
Paradox!!! 
