The show also got pre-empted a lot in local markets, as many UPN affiliates also carried local sports.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
The show also got pre-empted a lot in local markets, as many UPN affiliates also carried local sports.
The international money wasn't making or breaking the show. It was nice to have, but still didn't make it profitable.
Yeah, more than once ENT was preempted in my area and I had to track down the taped and delayed airing when the local channel decided to air it that week.
Well, since this is the 'controversial opinions' thread... My take is more that ENT was trying to be two incompatible shows simultaneously, and ended up doing a botch job of both. For a show about the transitional period from loosely-acquainted local species coming together to form the UFP, it was dreadful. Continuity breaches left and right, too many people acting like jerks for me to have anyone really to identify with (what I call 'nuBSG Syndrome'). This has only compounded in Trek since. And as for the tech level of the Hero ship. What we saw of its size, enginery, weapons, commander, and activities, this would have been far better just doing a little bit of redress and having this be the early voyages of good old NCC-1701 under Robert April.
For me, now, because there were good shows in Enterprise, I leave out the Temporal Cold War, squint, and imagine buff/drab velour uniforms, dates in the 2240s, and it becomes a better TOS prequel than Disco could ever hope to be. I want to be hopeful about Strange New Worlds, but they've played so fast and loose with continuity (no, Mister Braga, it isn't for wussies), even though I like the principal cast, it's going to be too divergent in tone and look and lore for me to have any faith in TPTB to do it right. On the other hand, Picard is full of arseholes and cringe, and they still managed to deliver a few good moments, so maybe.
But Enterprise, as it exists, is an alternate timeline from the original one (I don't call it 'Prime' -- that's an invention of CBS, applied to their interpretation of previous Trek, rather than the objective reality of the pre-2000 series and films). My preferred fission point is First Contact (the movie). Cochrane's no dummy, and I figure he gleaned more from what the Enterprise crew were using to fix the Phoenix and how they were doing it than they realized (and also that they inadvertently used more advanced components and tools without really realizing it, they were so familiar to them), and as a result, Human FTL tech progressed much more rapidly than it had originally. The Vulcans had concerns when they saw this happening, and were passive-aggressively trying to slow Humanity's technological advancement to what they felt it should naturally be. Maybe they had suspicions. Maybe part of the Temporal Cold War was some faction trying to restore the timeline, Quantum Leap style.
The fact that Enterprise's NX-01 (which, to line up with Voyager, I still maintain should be Dauntless, not Enterprise) is on Admiral Robocop's credenza in Into Darkness lends more credence to Enterprise being a prequel to that setting, rather than TOS. Especially considering that universe's NCC-1701 is of a size and tech level at or beyond the Enterprise-D in TNG. Everything's a hundred years or so too early. It seems silly, to me, to presume massive advancement from the Phoenix to NX-01, then absolute stagnation for a century -- despite now having all these Federation races and their tech to spur things along -- and then steady progress once more from TOS on through TNG and beyond.
Of course, much of this is borked by the fact that I also reject everything after Picard went into the Nexus as his (and, later, with Kirk, shared) Nexus fantasy. It gives you what you want, right? Including the illusion of getting out and saving the (or, at least, a) world? A lot of the 'action hero' vibes of post-series Picard were due to Sir Patrick wanting him to have more to do in that vein. Jean-Luc's midlife crisis? Emotional flailing at the loss of his brother and nephew? At any rate, his subconscious destroyed his "city in space" and gave him a leaner, meaner Enterprise to command. He got to engage in fisticuffs with baddies, he got the girl, he went on a glorious dune buggy chase with Mad Max rejects... I present a defiant middle finger to the producers who felt the Enterprise-D didn't look good on the big screen and mandated its destruction. I'm sticking with a version of the "All Good Things..." future -- with shadows of what happened in the TNG films, realized slightly differently, after Picard's Nexus experiences. But I'm keeping Riker keeping the Enterprise-D in service, with upgrades to keep her relevant. That does still leave me with the matter, though, of how to reconcile First Contact with this conceit. *heh* Working on it.
For me, now, because there were good shows in Enterprise, I leave out the Temporal Cold War, squint, and imagine buff/drab velour uniforms, dates in the 2240s, and it becomes a better TOS prequel than Disco could ever hope to be. I want to be hopeful about Strange New Worlds, but they've played so fast and loose with continuity (no, Mister Braga, it isn't for wussies), even though I like the principal cast, it's going to be too divergent in tone and look and lore for me to have any faith in TPTB to do it right. On the other hand, Picard is full of arseholes and cringe, and they still managed to deliver a few good moments, so maybe.
But Enterprise, as it exists, is an alternate timeline from the original one (I don't call it 'Prime' -- that's an invention of CBS, applied to their interpretation of previous Trek, rather than the objective reality of the pre-2000 series and films). My preferred fission point is First Contact (the movie). Cochrane's no dummy, and I figure he gleaned more from what the Enterprise crew were using to fix the Phoenix and how they were doing it than they realized (and also that they inadvertently used more advanced components and tools without really realizing it, they were so familiar to them), and as a result, Human FTL tech progressed much more rapidly than it had originally. The Vulcans had concerns when they saw this happening, and were passive-aggressively trying to slow Humanity's technological advancement to what they felt it should naturally be. Maybe they had suspicions. Maybe part of the Temporal Cold War was some faction trying to restore the timeline, Quantum Leap style.
The fact that Enterprise's NX-01 (which, to line up with Voyager, I still maintain should be Dauntless, not Enterprise) is on Admiral Robocop's credenza in Into Darkness lends more credence to Enterprise being a prequel to that setting, rather than TOS. Especially considering that universe's NCC-1701 is of a size and tech level at or beyond the Enterprise-D in TNG. Everything's a hundred years or so too early. It seems silly, to me, to presume massive advancement from the Phoenix to NX-01, then absolute stagnation for a century -- despite now having all these Federation races and their tech to spur things along -- and then steady progress once more from TOS on through TNG and beyond.
Of course, much of this is borked by the fact that I also reject everything after Picard went into the Nexus as his (and, later, with Kirk, shared) Nexus fantasy. It gives you what you want, right? Including the illusion of getting out and saving the (or, at least, a) world? A lot of the 'action hero' vibes of post-series Picard were due to Sir Patrick wanting him to have more to do in that vein. Jean-Luc's midlife crisis? Emotional flailing at the loss of his brother and nephew? At any rate, his subconscious destroyed his "city in space" and gave him a leaner, meaner Enterprise to command. He got to engage in fisticuffs with baddies, he got the girl, he went on a glorious dune buggy chase with Mad Max rejects... I present a defiant middle finger to the producers who felt the Enterprise-D didn't look good on the big screen and mandated its destruction. I'm sticking with a version of the "All Good Things..." future -- with shadows of what happened in the TNG films, realized slightly differently, after Picard's Nexus experiences. But I'm keeping Riker keeping the Enterprise-D in service, with upgrades to keep her relevant. That does still leave me with the matter, though, of how to reconcile First Contact with this conceit. *heh* Working on it.
Enterprise did a brilliant - for Trek - thing: it dramatized why humans were pivotal in forming an alliance between sentient species, when so many of those species had been out in space way ahead of us.
Because we're a room temperature species. We are Terrestrially Mediocre.
This was dramatized with the Vulcans and Andorians, and later with the Tellarites. They were all too different to get along. The Vulcans were completely dispassionate assholes (totally consistent with their traditional portrayal, sorry Vulcan Groupies) and the Andorians are so emotionally driven they're barely tethered to rationality. And here we are, right in the middle. We're the middlemen, we can talk to everybody.
Because we're a room temperature species. We are Terrestrially Mediocre.
This was dramatized with the Vulcans and Andorians, and later with the Tellarites. They were all too different to get along. The Vulcans were completely dispassionate assholes (totally consistent with their traditional portrayal, sorry Vulcan Groupies) and the Andorians are so emotionally driven they're barely tethered to rationality. And here we are, right in the middle. We're the middlemen, we can talk to everybody.
Last edited:
Not the old "Continuity" canard. It's sins in that area is no greater or less than the other shows.
The characters being jerks is a new one though. I found them likable, myself.
The tech complaint is an oldie.. It's Star Trek the tech is always the same. You just slap "quantum" (or some other prefix) in front of a word and pretend it makes a difference. It's still a raygun, an FTL drive and a torpedo.
You don't actually get a vote.
ENT fits into the "original," Prime Timeline. Any efforts to prove otherwise fall flat for the same reasons arguments that DSC isn't a prequel to TOS fall flat.
Some might make sense on the surface but once you dig they don't hold any water or so very little they can be discounted.
Some might make sense on the surface but once you dig they don't hold any water or so very little they can be discounted.
I think 30 and 50 years difference between the various shows is more than enough for me to treat them as separate entities independent of each other. The social and technical changes just don’t make them compatible in my book. Then we get into the idea of all three shows have different creative teams.
I don’t treat all the various Sherlock Holmes films and TV series as one continuous narrative, and see no reason for Trek to be either.
And mind you, I'm on record for having some serious issues with the visual aesthetic of DSC. Big hangups both petty and - I think - valid. That said I can fit DSC into the ENT-to-PIC timeline more or less without any serious fidgeting and head canon having to be applied.
Except the reimagined scaling. That's just pure evil.
Except the reimagined scaling. That's just pure evil.
You mean Scottish?
And mind you, I'm on record for having some serious issues with the visual aesthetic of DSC. Big hangups both petty and - I think - valid. That said I can fit DSC into the ENT-to-PIC timeline more or less without any serious fidgeting and head canon having to be applied.
Except the reimagined scaling. That's just pure evil.
I have... difficulties fitting it together. But have no issue with folks that can.
It's not easy but since it gets most of the historical datapoints right and in the right timeframes I can just pretend all this leads to TOS. They get some things very right and other things abysmally wrong but for the moment...it can be worked out.
Scotland was in Britain, last time I checked
I think they heard the complaints about the humans in 90s Trek (especially Voyager) being too bland and "perfect" and instead of making nuanced characters like in Ds9 they went too far into the other direction and made the characters come off as a bunch of dumb jerks who had the people skills of a toaster in order to make them "flawed"(tm)
I also think they might have tried to make humans the "scrappy, resourceful underdogs" of the early Star Trek verse and instead made them come over as entitled and whiny.
I mean if you watch a lot of Archer's adventures, especially early own, it almost gives you the idea that the Vulcans were right about humanity not being ready.
Which is slightly more important than visuals in my book.
I think they were trying make them more like TOS. People who bicker and kid around.
Yeah, there are seven years or more between the season finale of DSC and "Where No Man Has Gone Before(TOS)." Plenty of time to revamp the Enterprise. Bridges are modular and corridors can be tweaked. And the uniforms? Hell, Starfleet changes uniforms every couple of years anyways.
I have no love for TOS but even McCoy with his racist remarks about Spock wasn't as much of a dumb-ass as Archer and Tripp were.
They were going for the same dynamic as Kirk/Spock/McCoy with Archer/T'Pol/Trip. Being a "dumb-ass" drives a lot of Trek plots.
I think Ben Robinson's book on the 1701(complete with pretty illustrations) kinda puts any kibosh on it being one continuous timeline for me...
2254 - We have Pike's Enterprise, as seen in "The Cage".
2257/58 - We have Pike's Enterprise as seen in Discovery season two.
2260's - We have Kirk's Enterprise, as seen in "Where No Man..." and TOS proper.
The Enterprise as seen in Discovery is a structurally different ship than the one we got in TOS (and "The Cage"), and it just isn't a matter of swapping a few parts. In universe, it is non-sensical that they would tear down one version, then tear it down to return to the original version.
Of course, it is a mileage may vary situation.
Similar threads
- Locked
