Why was Enterprise received so poorly?

I literally quoted the post that said that.

 

Ah.

 

In many countries one keeps the surnames of their family’s heritage even if one becomes naturalized. You will find the Indian Punjabi surname Sunak in the U.K. despite the family being British, the Italian surname Raimondo in the USA despite the family being American and the French surname Trudeau in Canada despite the family being Canadian. I don’t think taking to the stars would make Boomers create all new last names either. It also, to my mind, would not negate their being Boomers rather than the nationality of wherever their surname came from but that is admittedly only my interpretation of Boomer culture since we were given precious little of it in the show.

 

I've been playing with Microsoft voice to read back pdfs to me, because I am lazy. One voices of the 10 or so available (from Microsoft), is a Pakistani Lady speaking English. I gather there are over a billion people in the world who would be comfortable with that play back.

Hoshi may choose to sound "American" when she really may not at all when she's just being herself... But that seems unlikely considering all the time we saw by herself.

 

That’s cool, but all that aside, if one were to have a guess at what nationality Travis and his family were, they would be hard-pressed to guess anything other than American (or possibly Canadian?) based on the nationalities of the rest of the crew.

 

I chose the word behavior very carefully, I assure you. ^_^ I have no problem believing Hoshi, with her nigh on godlike linguistic skills, can sound however she pleases whenever she pleases. I do, as someone who lived and worked in Japan for a number of years, find her behavior to reflect an American versus a Japanese upbringing. Now, that is entirely open to other explanations! One could argue that traditional Japanese culture was slowly eroded by American culture in the next 150 or so years. One could argue that WWIII obliterated all discrete cultures and brought forth a homogeneous “Earth” culture that just so happened to appear rather American (there would definitely be some rebuttals to this). One could argue that Hoshi, in particular, was exposed to so many languages and, by extension, so many cultures that she lost her own cultural upbringing in the deluge of information and crafted her own personal way of behaving that just happened to seem American. I’m sure there are other possible explanations too. However, whatever explanation one devises, her being Japanese according to her character’s biography does not really add a great feeling of cultural diversity to the cast.

And yes, @Dukhat, Mayweather doesn’t add a feeling of cultural diversity to the cast either. That is somewhat my point though. If varied backgrounds are written for characters but the American upbringing of the majority of the (non-alien?) characters shines through despite this, is that truly a good display of diversity?

 

The paradox of diversity: homogeneity, too, is part of the broader tapestry.

 

Yeah, and it wasn't good that TOS was so U.S.-centric, either.

Agreed.

I strongly suspect that his character was not developed well because he was not played by a white person. If a group of (white) writers chose to give their creative attention almost exclusively to white characters, I don't think that's a coincidence. It may not be intentional -- one of the things about ethnocentric thinking is that often you don't even realize what you're doing consciously -- but it's not a coincidence.

See above.

Oh, I don't think a majority of Trek fans are racist. I don't think a majority of people who don't like DIS are racist. But I do think a significant percentage of DIS haters are. (And queerphobic and misogynistic, I might add.) I've seen too many of them take the mask off to buy that they're not a large percentage even if they're not a majority.

 

Born in Kyoto.

Although my cousin married a yank, and insisted that his wife give birth to their Children, in New Zealand, even though he identifies as a Yugoslavian, a country that does not exist anymore.

Even though she was born before a global transporter network, no money, free transport, free accommodation, any one was allowed to live where ever they wanted, if there was space.

 

I'm afraid I don't agree with that assessment. I don't think any of the characters were developed any more or less than Mayweather was. I mean, what do we know of Reed other than he's British and had a Section 31 contact shoehorned into what little backstory he had? Now if some of those (white) writers had made comments to the effect of "we just didn't know what to do with his character because he was black," then I might be a bit less of a skeptic on that count. But it's pretty clear that that wasn't the case. The writers didn't know what to do with the character because they really had no idea what the show was even supposed to be about, so they just went back to the formulaic storytelling that seemed to be the only thing they knew how to write: Travis was the ship's navigator, so his job was to fly the ship and little else. His race was never a factor in that decision, although an argument can be made that he was the 'token black guy' in the show. But again, I doubt that had anything to do with how his character was written or developed in contrast to the other characters.

 

Coming back to the orginal question: I think a lot of factors come into play, but for me it comes down that especially in seaon 2 the producers/writers ran out of ideas. As an non-American, I don't think it had anything to do with the show beinig too American. It's a show written and produce by Americans, so no wonder their background shines through. So I just shake my head if the writers have Trip talking with Malcolm about a ServianCroat (Serbia and Croatia are two very different countries) or that they have Hoshi claims that they speak Spanish in Brasil (it's Portugese). As for Hoshi, her attitude towards T'Pol and Archer as being in higher rank isn't very Japanese, but I explain it away that Hoshi most have been in so many places, she lost her Japanese background more or less.
What I also see is that in American culture the emphasis is more on individuality, showing your emotions, being outspoken and because Vulcans are group orientated and keeping emotions inward, putting ratio before emotion (something I can relate in my own upbringing), they are shown in a more negative light.

What I do like about the show are the jumpsuits the crew is wearing. They reminded me so much of the astronauts of NASA, the American race to the moon and how mankind went into space. I really like the connection they have made with the human history of space travel. '

In the end, I came to love the characters, including the more American Archer and Trip, because I could relate to them as human beings, I could relate to their experience. It touched my heart and for me that is the biggest compiment you can give a creator.

 

Star Trek fatigue was one reason.

For me, I thought the series was a waste. I was expecting something different but it felt more of the same. I didn't want to see Vulcans or Klingons again but instead new aliens which I'd never seen before which were the super powers of that timeline. Andorians, Tellarites are menial and are truly far in distance away where we might see them in a season cliffhanger or something. I wanted more of what I saw from "The Cage" than a descendant from ST: First Contact, a movie I loathed, and I wanted a sense of awe and wonder because this would be the pioneering phase of Star Trek. The NX-01 was ugly and wasn't a prototype feel which would lead to the STARSHIP CLASS design, the uniforms were uninspiring and lack the creative imagination done for The Cage and later TOS*.

The title of the show I thought was lazy and uninspiring, the producers made a prequel because it was the trend at the time when Star Wars was making it popular. The characters were bland and I never had much of an investment in them which could've been interesting to kill some them off to show the dangers of pioneer space, but oh well, at least I got "In a Mirror Darkly Part II" where the cast, playing evil counterparts, experienced TOS environments for 1 episode.

*Something STRANGE is sorely lacking as well in costumes and ship designs.

 

I agree, @panyasan. I realize my lengthy rumination on the American feel of Enterprise sounds as if I think that played a significant part in the show’s poor reception but I don’t believe that to be the case. You can certainly find people who, personally, took issue with what they felt to be a celebration of American exceptionalism (especially in light of the times) and though I do not refute their interpretation, I do not think that played a major role altogether in the series’ reception. As I alluded to earlier, all Trek probably seems fairly American due to being produced in America by a largely American cast and crew. It is hardly unique to Enterprise.

From what I have encountered in the past year, I would say the poor reception is based in part on the following: Trek fans were unhappy with the too early introduction of Klingons (and later Ferengi etc.). They balked at the use of technology being used at such an early date that appeared to basically be the same as later technology in all but name thereby negating much of what ought to give the show its unique struggles (conversely many fans were unhappy with the visuals of said technology not appearing similar to TOS visuals). A number of Trek fans were quite taken aback at the antagonistic framing of our good friends the Vulcans. There appears to have been a vocal contingent of fans and casual viewers who found the sexualisation of the characters off putting. While some seemed to like the uniforms being more akin to a present day flight suit as a sort of segue between astronauts and space explorers, others (like STEPhon IT above me ^_^) were not fans and the general look of the show definitely had its fair share of detractors. The theme song is called out with great regularity. Finally, many viewers had grown quite sick of the episodic “ready for syndication” nature that executives demanded of a number of Trek shows.

As I have said elsewhere, I love the characters. I love them enough that nothing overshadows them. I would, however, never stand myself up as a representative for general approval or disapproval of anything Trek. I have freely admitted I am not what one might call a “real” fan of Star Trek. I view the ships as backdrops and while I can comment on the aesthetic appeal of them to a degree, I will never desire to hash out blueprints and tech specifications and the implied advances between one design and the next. I also don’t like action scenes very much and I hate battles. So my take reflects me and me alone.

I, personally, liked the Enterprise uniforms—I’m a big fan of pockets. I have the theme song in my iTunes library. I easily glossed over the logistics of the alien races the crew encountered and even the temporal cold war got little more than a “huh” from me. I found the more antagonistic role of the Vulcans believable, especially when the High Command‘s inner turmoil was later revealed. I like Vulcans though and delighted in seeing more of them and learning more about Vulcan society and history. If placing them in a role of beleaguered nanny gave them more focus, I’d take it and say “Thank you very much.”

 

I also liked the jumpsuits. However, what I didn’t like was the divisional color stripes and the rank pins, which came straight from TOS and TNG, respectively. There’s really no reason why they should have had those colors and pins 100 to 200 years before those other shows.

 

They had to start somewhere. One series arbitrarily starting it is just as fine as any of the others. Why not start it with Enterprise? It's a Starfleet signature from near the beginning, nothing crazy about that.

 

I didn’t say it was crazy. I said I didn’t like it, and gave my reasons why. I also didn’t like the transporter, the phase pistols, the polarized hull plating, and every other rose-by-any-other-name thing that we’d seen before.

 

Well, yes, absolutely agree there. As those affected the stories (dumb how they wrote polarized hull plating identical to shields, with the percentages and everything).

 

I’m not quite sure whether you’re being sarcastic or not, because I’m talking about the world-building aspect (or in this case, the lack of world-building), not the stories. Because the stories would be the same whether they used a phaser or a gun that shoots bullets.

 

Undoubtedly. By the time ENT premiered, the Berman style of ST had burned a long-melted candle at both ends.

Agreed. But one must understand that until the 11th hour "In a Mirror Darkly" gave ST fans something they wanted to see for who knows how long, the premise and intent of ENT was to rewrite ST history in-universe, to the point it would attempt to wash away TOS in terms of story, types of characters, etc., where it would be more of a prequel to TNG than TOS (or its movies). Clearly, that did not work, hence the still-sour feelings some have for ENT.

True. TAS presented ships that were far more believable as older vessels of that universe:


...and yes that even includes the purposely clunky Bonaventure...




...than the monstrosity AKA the NX-01, which would have been at home in The Last Starfighter or Star Wars prequels than a ST series.

..and that main theme? Nothing about that said "Star Trek". It said "we're trying to be something other than Star Trek"--a message received loud and clear.

Agreed. The two-parter was the highlight of the entire series.