What is your honest opinion of Enterprise?

[Vincent Law]

I think the primary factor there would be that it is in direct relation to the formation of the Federation. Most Americans don't know about a rebellion in another country because it had nothing to do with the United States or its founding, but the Boston Massacre did. If the Earth-Romulan War was a factor in the founding of the Federation, then yes, it would be significant to the history of the Federation.

 

[T'Girl]

Bermaga could have assigned some unpaid intern to look for a passing mention of a catastrophe involving humans that could have been tied into the Xindi arc

While not a direct reference to the Xindi attack, in the TNG episode The Battle there is mention a Xendi starbase nine, a different spelling was used in the script, but the dialog pronunciation is the same.

Xindi attack: 7 million dead (never mentioned in the future).

The single Xindi attack was followed only a few years later by the (multi-year?) Romulan War, if the death count of that war far exceeded the seven million killed figure, say seventy to a hundred million killed, then the scale of the Xindi attack could pale in comparison.

It just disappeared into history

.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ Pretty much. In retrospect, one isolated attack (could've resulted in a major war, but didn't) vs. full-blown interstellar war between Earth and the Romulan Empire, with Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar siding with Earth, resulting, eventually, with the founding of the United Federation of Planets.

To carry the American history analogy a bit further, that kind of moves the Xindi attack to the status of the Whiskey Rebellion. Or maybe Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

 

[Noname Given]

In the war of 1812 - the U.S. capital was sacked and burned by the british; yet in WWII you still had commentators stating, "The U.S. has never been invaded by a foriegn power." The Xindi incident involved ONE major attack; and honestly one ship sent out to prevent another attack. I was hardly a war, and only the upper Starfleet brass at the time knoew what was happening. The Xindi situation was hardly an "all out war" from the general person's perspective.

The Romulan War was a more open war, with more open battles and alliances (and althiough soft or non-canon depending on a fans interpetation); WAS the final incident the lead to the formal founding and formation of the United Fedreration of Planets.

Hell , Star Trek series have ALWAYS been introducing minutae we didn't hear before; like in TNG's episode Gambit II, there was a reference to "the last Vulcan civil war" (link); yet previously it was assumed the last war on Vulcan occured during Surak's Time,

My point - this type of 'revelation' is nothing new.

 

[Amasov]

I see all your points now.

Maybe I just felt the show strayed too far from its original premise and I didn't feel this was the solution.

 

[Bishop76]

Stick with your opinion - the Xindi "war" or quest or whatever you want to call it was a tacked on POS they used to try to up ratings. It had no place in a prequel series. If there's anything Trek fans love to do, it's mental gymnastics to try to excuse something that was pretty stupid. If they had to do a war to up ratings, it should have been the Romulan war, anyway.

And yes, I know that Paramount wouldn't let them do it, but they still should have.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yeah, 'coz bowl cuts + shoulder pads = ratings.

 

[Bishop76]

Well, there wasn't anything that was going to save the series by season 3 - and yeah, because it was the lack of imagination dream team at the helm at that time, it would have been the bowl cut and shoulder pad Romulans.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Don't forget those Frankenstein brow ridges...

 

[el Chalupacabra]

Personally, I think Enterprise gets an unfair rap. I think B&B correctly pointed out that it was canceled due to Trek fatigue more than anything. I think Enterprise, as a show, gets a solid "B+". True there were some issues with it, but that mostly related to how they handled T'pol's character, for me.

Some complaints people have, as I understand them, are as follows:

1. Well, they didn't call it "Star Trek" in the beginning, and tried to downplay it was part of the Trek universe to gain a bigger audience.
*My response: So what? Only trekkers were going to watch primarily, anyway, and they fixed that by season 3.

2. They had a crappy opening song.
*My response: So what? do you watch the show for the show, or its opening theme?

3. They stepped all over continuity!
* my response: only in the novels preceding it were there serious violations. and they aren't canon, anyway. I defy anyone to point out anything that was "not canon" if you go strictly by the TV shows or movies, that is any worse than previous show canon violations.

4. I don't like how the Vulcans were portrayed or how they held the humans back!
*My response: I thought the way Vulcans were portrayed was absolutely fine. They had to show them with flaws, otherwise if Vulcans were perfect, why wouldn't humans just adopt the Vulcan way? Also, I thought it added to the Vulcans first being the teachers of humans, then finally learning from them and accepting them as peers.

5. The Xindi arc was not needed! i wanted the Earth Romulan war!
* my response: can't argue with that too much. I agreed with that, to an extent. But I liked how well the Xindi arc flows. It is the best arc Trek had, since DS9. Enterprise was trying to develop its own unique "enemy", I think. Also, from the standpoint of showing humanity is still in the transition of "old world" thinking and the later "enlightened UFP way of thinking (IE Prime Directive), and humanity was still attempting to mature. In the end, Archer and humanity use diplomacy more than anything to end the Xindi threat. not to mention, we surely would have seen the Earth-Romulan war, had Enterprise not been canceled.

6. The temporal cold\Suliban war idea was dumb!
*My response: Well, they had to do something so that the outcome of the show was in question. But I agree, it could have been written a little better.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ The temporal cold war was forced on them by the network; for some unknown reason a starship in the 22nd Century didn't seem "futuristic" enough.

 

[Alienesse]

1. Well, they didn't call it "Star Trek" in the beginning, and tried to downplay it was part of the Trek universe to gain a bigger audience.

I don't understand that. Why downplay the fact that your show is part of a bigger franchise that has proven successful over the years? It's like saying you're not that proud of your past and you want to sweep it under a rug. And that kind of attitude is uncalled for, in my opinion. I mean, it's Star Trek, one of the biggest TV hits in history.

2. They had a crappy opening song.
*My response: So what? do you watch the show for the show, or its opening theme?

Well, I don't really think that's the right approach. Of course we're watching the show for the show and not for the opening theme, but the opening theme is an integral part of the show and therefore holds a certain amount of importance. I usually find pleasure in watching the opening sequences of the other Trek series because the music is very nice and appropriate. It helps set that special Trek mood and serves as a transition to the universe you're about to enter. I can't do that with Enterprise and it bothers me. There really is no fun in having to skip the opening for a great Trek episode like "Twilight", for example, because the song is annoying. It's an unwanted interruption in the flow of the episode.

 

[BlobVanDam]

I have a feeling I'm the only person to like the intro theme to ENT. It's not classic Trek, and the first time I heard it I thought it was ridiculous, but in the context of the show being a prequel, and being more based in earlier space exploration, I think the song works perfectly for the montage idea they used for the intro. I like the S3/4 version of the song too, but it doesn't fit anywhere near as well with the intro sequence. Heck, I'd take it over the DS9 music anyday.

 

[Alienesse]

^ I'm sure you're not the only one. After all, liking a piece of music is a subjective matter. There just seem to be more people who dislike it than people who like it.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Well I certainly won't debate against anyone who dislikes it, because I understand full well why people don't like it, and that's perfectly fine. I don't expect many will like having some recycled 90s soft rock power ballad as a Trek theme, but it's grown on me. Like a bacteria. But a moderately acceptable bacteria, like yogurt. (actually, I dislike yogurt, but that's not the point).

 

[Alienesse]

I don't expect many will like having some recycled 90s soft rock power ballad as a Trek theme, but it's grown on me. Like a bacteria. But a moderately acceptable bacteria, like yogurt. (actually, I dislike yogurt, but that's not the point).

That certainly is an interesting way of describing the Enterprise opening song. Thanks, BlobVanDam, I actually needed a laugh.

 

[Noname Given]

I don't understand that. Why downplay the fact that your show is part of a bigger franchise that has proven successful over the years?

Because in reallity, the Franchise wasn't that successful at the time. In fact EVERY series since TNG (yes even DS9) bled viewers and never got viewership beyond (or even close) to what it was for the pilot episode of a new Star Trek series.

The thought was causual viewers were put off by the fact that there was a 35 year (at the time) history, and just didn't want to deal with that. With Enterprise they tried to play up the fact that, "Hey, this takes place before all of them, thus, there IS no 35 years of history to deal with in watching these episodes."

 

[Vincent Law]

B&B are wrong about "franchise fatigue." The only thing that was fatigued was their own creativity, which is why they showed such a lack of it. If the show had actually been better instead of essentially a continuation of Voyager, I'm sure it would have done much better. It also didn't help that the network was taken over by a man who hated sci-fi and wanted to turn the channel into the next BET.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I really don't think they were wrong about "franchise fatigue"; perhaps they use it to cover up too many of their own personal mistakes, sure, but the ratings decline over the course of the decade always speaks volumes to me.

As for the UPN changing of the guard, that's definitely detrimental.

 

[Vincent Law]

The ratings decline speaks volumes of the lack of quality in the episodes, not "franchise fatigue." If that was the case, it would have taken more than five years to go away.