What is your honest opinion of Enterprise?

[Saxman1]

Mixed opinions.

When I first watched Enterprise I enjoyed it. But after watching TOS, TNG and especially DS9 over the past couple of years, I find Enterprise to be somewhat... less enjoyable. I still think Enterprise good, just not as good as those series.

Season 4 was the best season for me, followed by season 1. Despite popular opinion here, I wasn't keen on the Xindi war. I just didn't like some of the recurring themes, such as the Trip/T'pol neuropressure scenes and the MACO rivalry.

Biggest gripe for me is the way the show tried to emulate "The Big 3". I'm sorry, but Archer, T'Pol and Trip don't have half as much chemistry as Kirk, Spock and Bones did and after watching the entire series, I just ended up wishing the remaining cast had more to do. I just don't think there's any natural chemistry between them and most of the time they were together, it seemed forced. Enterprise should have been an ensemble show. But despite my gripes, I do think Enterprise deserved a full run of episodes and seasons.

They didn't make T'pol intuitive like Spock.
She was a broken record at times about the time travel issue. and that just goes with the whole vulcan problem in ENT the way they made them so belligerent.

Anytime you decide you're going to go back in time and create familiar things we're used to seeing in a later context, you have the unenviable responsibility of deciding of where to introduce tension that doesn't exist in the later context AND to decide what that tension should look like. It's easier to change the apparent less-advanced technology to make it look simpler or less capable.

It's harder to do that sort of retrofusion in characterization. I'm unsure why you would want T'Pol to be intuitive "like Spock". That removes more of the tension from the character, and makes it less relevant and less necessary. By crafting a Vulcan leadership that was not connected in any real way with the teachings of Surak, it introduced a tension that allowed conflict to exist where none had in the later contexts. And, by later smartly resolving this (by having sort of a Vulcan Reformation with the discovery of the Kir'Shara) later in the series, it made the Vulcans seem more like people and less like caricatures.

So, about T'Pol - to me it seems clear why she was like a broken record, because a lot of her growth was indicative of the growth of the Vulcan leadership (both at the High Command and the Science Directorate/Academy).

As Kirk said to Saavik in TWOK, "Well now you have something new to think about."

Thanks, I never really considered the above before, it actually explains much. Having said that, I do not think Blalock was the world's greatest actress. Her performances seemed to vary between boredom and barely being able to stomach the dialog she was reciting half the time...she seemed extremely uncomfortable and awkward with her line readings, even when her character wasn't suffering from withdrawal...

 

[Saquist]

Guys I used to think that it was just the writing or the directing....
But I say her as Teal'c mate in SG-1 and it was the same African Mahogany Hardwood acting.

My teeth grated on it...

The took a wrong turn with the vulcans in ENT and T'Pol was that turns poster child.

 

[DarKush]

My opinion has changed over time. I like the show better now than I did when it was on.

I thought Broken Bow was excellent. It's my favorite Trek pilot. Ironically, TATV is the finale I liked the least. Symmetry. I thought Season 1 blew for the most part. The characters were poorly defined and written, the hooks at the beginning of the show were dull and I largely skipped the first and second season. Though I did like the Borg episode, have come to like the Judgment episode, and the second two finale.

I really didn't get into ENT until Season 3 and I enjoyed it up until the WTF finale. Season 4 was my favorite. There were some duds, but for the most part it was the season I anticipated the most. I was curious about what Manny Coto was going to do and it felt like the show had a pulse that it didn't have before. Though none of the seasons, including 4 were perfect.

Overall, I thought the show had great production values. It was a pleasure to watch. I also liked the uniforms, many of the other costumes, and alien makeup.

I didn't care for the characters. I thought they were poorly written throughout the series. Trip being the most notable exception. To some extent you saw an arc with him and T'Pol, and Archer finally got some character growth in the last two seasons. But Reed, Travis and Hoshi's was hastily done, if done at all (i.e. Travis) and it didn't seem like Phlox grew much at all.

Bakula's a good actor, but I felt he was too constricted in the role. He always moved so awkwardly and he often looked constipated. I just couldn't get into Archer or believe the hype about how great he was. Part of that was the writing but I also don't think Bakula inhabited the role well. The other actors, notably Trinnear and Blalock did fine with what they were given.

I also thought the program was showing signs of creative fatigue. Relying on the Klingons, etc. was just lazy in my opinion. And the Temporal Cold War was a misfire, especially now that we know that they didn't even know who Future Guy was. The TWC wasn't well thought out, and it wasn't as interesting as exploring the Andorians, Orions, and Tellarites, something ENT seemed to figure out too late.

Also didn't like the Vulcans being the heavies all the time whenever humans debated them or whatever. I would've liked to have seen a few times when Vulcans were right and humans were wrong.

 

[Captain Robert April]

A part of my work on the update of the Concordance is going through ENT and picking out the ones that have references to TOS, meaning I'm having to go back and rewatch the whole thing, end to end.

Full disclosure, I watched the first two seasons when their aired, did my share of screaming at the screen and firing off testy emails to Brannon Braga (I suspect that I'm part of the reason why he changed his email address at AOL), then boycotted the third season when it aired, because I thought they had finally gone too far with the show and I wanted no part of it. I came back for Season Four, enthused with the news that Manny Coto had been given the reins and things were finally getting, not just on track, but on the track it should've been from the get-go. And then along came TATV, and Braga should be counting his lucky stars that I don't have his current email address.

So, all these years later, I'm back in it, having to pay pretty close attention.

I went through Season Three, and was pleasantly surprised (it helped knowing how that plot arc was resolved). For the record, "E2" looks like a candidate for inclusion, thanks to the discussion about human-Vulcan interbreeding (as always, the final decision is Bjo Trimble's, but it's a reference, so it's on my list, at least).

I'm currently going through Season One, with about five episodes to go.

Overall, I think it's mainly a case of missed opportunities and issues that could have, and should have, been resolved with a minor rewrite or tweak here and there. For instance, the decon chamber scenes could just as easily have been done in some sort of decon shower room, without changing one line of dialogue, and frankly would've been even sexier and made a lot more sense for a decontamination procedure. T'Pol's eyebrows are another thing that took way too long to fix (maybe it can be explained away as a fashion choice to facilitate interaction with humans, but from a production standpoint, it was an obvious mistake). Admittedly, it's a bit nitpicky, but it's the kind of stuff that takes you out of the story. And don't get me started on the stuff that never should've happened, like the Ferengi, Borg, or Romulans with cloaking tech.

The ship's design was a bit irritating at first, but she's grown on me (especially after the warp driven abomination of the JJprise).

In short, the show has aged pretty well, and is actually better than I remember.

 

[F. King Daniel]

T'Pol's eyebrows are another thing that took way too long to fix (maybe it can be explained away as a fashion choice to facilitate interaction with humans, but from a production standpoint, it was an obvious mistake). Admittedly, it's a bit nitpicky, but it's the kind of stuff that takes you out of the story.

Eyebrows? Seriously? Do you think tweezers will have been banned in the next 200 years? You also might want to give Wrath of Khan Saavik a look.

 

[Saquist]

OH So it wasn't just me...I thought there was something wrong with her eyebrows.
What was wrong with this production crew?!!!

 

[Shatnertage]

I'm not being a smartass, but can someone explain what was wrong with her eyebrows? I've watched the whole series and this never jumped out at me. (Unlike a few other things in the catsuit. Just watched "Sleeping Dogs" again, and I've got no idea how Dominic Keating was able to maintain eye contact during their scenes on the Klingon ship.)

 

[Captain Robert April]

They weren't Vulcan eyebrows. By the third season, they finally gave her proper Vulcan eyebrows, but the first two seasons, they were plain old human eyebrows. And yes, Kirstie Alley's human brows, and pinkish human coloring, was annoying, only in that case, it was fixed with the very next movie.

Again, admittedly nitpicky, but also a symptom of a bigger problem that plagued the show from start to finish.

 

[Saquist]

That's one of the reasons I like Robin Curtis better anyway....Alley looked ordinary...
Saavik behaved more like a student of Spock.

 

[George1710]

No comments............

 

[Admiral Shran]

That's one of the reasons I like Robin Curtis better anyway....Alley looked ordinary...
Saavik behaved more like a student of Spock.

We may disagree on ENT, but on this we agree.

Curtis >>>>> Alley

 

[Warped9]

Most anytime I tried to watch an episode of ENT I'd get a headache from rolling my eyes and grinding my teeth so much. I'd see something mildly noteworthy once in awhile, but then in would be lost in a sea of mediocrity and missed opportunity.

Bottom line: arguments over what was and wasn't inconsistent set aside I simply didn't like where they took the series and what they did (or didn't) do with it. I liked it marginally better than VOY (which doesn't say all that much because I've never liked anything about VOY).

 

[Demiurge]

It had potential that was being realized in the 4th season but ultimately was below par. And it had some of the worst Trek episodes ever (see: Marauder).

Good Stuff:

The way they handled the Vulcans and Andorians
Seeing classic Trek races such as the Gorn and Tholians
Phlox, and to a lesser degree Trip
Great fight scenes
Handling the development of nascent Starfleet and how it had to find its technological and moral compass
The Suliban I thought were good bad guys
Lots of the 4th season, including the Augment/Klingon Arc, the Mirror universe, Babel One

Stuff that had potential that didn't work:
The Temporal Cold War - great idea in this context (the prequel timeperiod), horribly executed (what do you mean you didn't even know who Future Guy was!??!?!?)
Captain Archer - never quite found his way as Captain, though was better by the end
Hoshi - definitely could have made more of her
The Xindi War

Stuff that was just plain bad
Lots of awful stories, too numerous to list, but spotty writing obviously hurried from a production standpoint
These are the Voyages - I didn't want a send off to Bermaga Trek, I wanted a good story and send off for THIS show
No need to include Ferengi and Borg (though Regeneration wasn't handled badly)
The new Enterprise - the design lineage seemed off, as most fans agree
The cast just didn't have the chemistry that made TOS and TNG special

Overall several eps worth watching, but not a show I miss.

 

[Saquist]

That's one of the reasons I like Robin Curtis better anyway....Alley looked ordinary...
Saavik behaved more like a student of Spock.

We may disagree on ENT, but on this we agree.

Curtis >>>>> Alley

That's surprising I've noticed that there is a good number of people that like Alley for some reason...They said something about Curtis having a bronx look or something...but me being a Texan we get all manner of people around and I don't mind. People have to come from some where in Curtis looked almost Romulan in features.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Kirstie acted the part better, Robin looked the part better.

If they hadn't try to lowball Kirstie for TSFS, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

[BillJ]

Kirstie acted the part better, Robin looked the part better.

If they hadn't try to lowball Kirstie for TSFS, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Way I've always figured it, Kirstie's agent(s) overvalued her importance to Star Trek. She was a minor actress that had a minor part in a movie that was a moderate hit. Alley was just fortunate Paramount didn't hold it against her when they were looking for a replacement for Shelley Long on Cheers.

 

[Unicron]

I think the prequel concept was fine, and there were some good eps, but I also think the show really suffered from executive meddling and poor direction at other times. There was a lot of good potential that was lost or underutilized because they kept borrowing gimmicks that had already appeared on one of the other spinoffs.

 

[Admiral Shran]

That's one of the reasons I like Robin Curtis better anyway....Alley looked ordinary...
Saavik behaved more like a student of Spock.

We may disagree on ENT, but on this we agree.

Curtis >>>>> Alley

That's surprising I've noticed that there is a good number of people that like Alley for some reason...They said something about Curtis having a bronx look or something...but me being a Texan we get all manner of people around and I don't mind. People have to come from some where in Curtis looked almost Romulan in features.

I think a lot of people prefer Alley because she played the part first and so supposedly set the tone for what the character was supposed to be. IMO, however, Alley both looked very un-Vulcan and played the the part very un-Vulcan.

Now I don't hold that against her as actress because I know that she was told to play it that way since the character was going to be half-Romulan. But when the Romulan aspect was edited out, it became a valid criticism of the character.

Curtis both looked and played the part of a traditional Vulcan much better.

 

[Airwolf]

When Enterprise first aired, I got a little miffed when I saw that Klang (I think that's his name) had forehead ridges. I figured since this was supposed to be pre-TOS, it had to look like it in some respect, right? Little did I know that'd be explained in the Klingon Augment arc in Season 4. I didn't give the series much of a chance after Season 2 and didn't flinch when I saw on the CNN news ticker that it was being cancelled back in May of 2005.

Since there wasn't necessarily anything new in the Trek world a few years ago, I figured I'd give it another chance. I watched it start to finish a couple years ago and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed the season-long Xindi arc in Season 3 and felt they were really finding their mark with Season 4.

OT, but watching Enterprise prompted me to check out Quantum Leap.

 

[star]

When Enterprise first aired, I got a little miffed when I saw that Klang (I think that's his name) had forehead ridges. I figured since this was supposed to be pre-TOS, it had to look like it in some respect, right? Little did I know that'd be explained in the Klingon Augment arc in Season 4. I didn't give the series much of a chance after Season 2 and didn't flinch when I saw on the CNN news ticker that it was being cancelled back in May of 2005.

Since there wasn't necessarily anything new in the Trek world a few years ago, I figured I'd give it another chance. I watched it start to finish a couple years ago and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed the season-long Xindi arc in Season 3 and felt they were really finding their mark with Season 4.

I felt the same kind of apathy when it first aired as well (thought I quit watching in the first season). I picked it up in the end of the third season, then got the dvds and caught up as the 4th season aired. Definitely was glad that I went back.

It's actually the reason that I've decided to give DS9 a full run (quit watching that one sometime in the second season).