How Would You Have Written Enterprise's Final Episode

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Season 3 was some of the worst trek ever made. Season 4 was better, it had good story telling but through no fault of its own it suffered from problems carried through from the other series.

Season 3 was better then all of TNG combined. But ya, the previous series were pretty crappy. Especially TNG. See "intergalactic trading species that the federation never heard of."

[Mikey]

Which species had been established as never having been encountered before, yet there they were in ENT.

As far as wrapping up all those things in a final run of ENT - the horse was already WAY out of the barn.

[katefan]

Season 3 was some of the worst trek ever made. Season 4 was better, it had good story telling but through no fault of its own it suffered from problems carried through from the other series.

Season 3 was better then all of TNG combined. But ya, the previous series were pretty crappy. Especially TNG. See "intergalactic trading species that the federation never heard of."

That is a bold statement and one I am going to have to strongly disagree with. First of all, season three gave us crack whore, Trellium D addicted T'Pol, which made a bad character even worse. It introduced us to time traveling aliens that weren't the least bit interesting as well as the entire Xindi which were even less interesting (and how nice that the most humanoid of the Xindi species were the good guys, as were the sea cow Xindi. And the reptiles and insect Xindi turned out to be the bad guys. Funny how a Lost In Space episode actually did something Enterprise could not in that regard and made the lovely golden alien the villain, the ugly alien misunderstood). It gave us silly reset button episodes like Twilight (silly, I say, because the episode had no impact whatsoever on the series), silly transformation episodes like Extinction, an episode like North Star which reminded me of Voyager episodes like The 38s where humans just happen to run into other humans where other humans should not be. We got silly time travel episodes like Carpenter Street, and the utterly horrible season finale that introduced us to Space Nazis. Then there were episodes like Doctors Orders which completely rip off Voyager plots like One, and...

Hell, I just don't find season three to be much different from the rest of the series. Just a whole new set of problems with the writing.

[Teaos]

Nice run down on the cluster fu*k that is season 3.

[katefan]

Thank you. I read from people before how they thought season three was this wonderful series of episodes and really, what is different? There is an over reliance on time travel, reset buttons and plot devices that have been used repeatedly in other 'Trek series. Heck, Extinction reminded me of Voyager's Threshold and TNG's Genesis, only I kept wondering why Archer and company were acting like retarded children. And Archer keeping the virus was the height of irrationality; let's keep this lethal pathogen in sickbay, because if the ship gets attacked there is no way this stuff might break loose and infect the crew, right?

God, I hate Enterprise so much. I have nothing personal against the likes of Blalock; she deserves to work for a living just like anyone else. But Berman and Braga just phoned it in at that point and were doing nothing new, nothing challenging. You watch shows like Babylon 5, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who and you see writers taking chances, coloring outside the lines, giving us something fun and smart and I look at the oldest, most respected franchise in sci-fi history and how it was just all pissed away.

Albert Walker at The Agony Booth really summed it up wonderfully when he did a review of A Night In Sickbay, I highly recommend to everyone that they read it. Here is some of what he had to say about Enterprise:

#1) Just like Voyager before it, Enterprise ignored its premise. The prequel setting had, and still has, limitless potential. A century before Kirk's time, we should have seen mankind building alliances, making pacts, and encountering new enemies. Instead, the crew of the Enterprise was content to travel aimlessly around the galaxy week after week, stumbling upon various generic alien races, greeting them all with a big hidely-ho, neighbor!

You would think episodes like Terra Nova would have happened first; wouldn't checking up on missing colonists be a primary concern for Starfleet? Although really, if humans lost contact with a colony wouldn't they have asked the Vulcans to take a look?

#2) Everything on Enterprise was about playing it safe. Not one single character-human or alien, friend or foe-died until the third season. Compare this to the original series, which was wiping out Redshirts left and right. I point this out not because of some inner bloodlust, or because I want Star Trek to be a snuff film, but because it's the most obvious example of how Enterprise was all about lowering the stakes. This show was only interested in making life as easy and comfortable for the main characters as possible.

Speaking of comfort, one of the thing that annoyed me about Enterprise was how comfortable that ship was. Even ensigns got their own quarters, and look how spacious they were! It would have been daring to make the ship more crampt, like early submarines. Make the bridge layout different, give us a peek into what starships looked like before the time of Kirk.

#3) Enterprise completely changed the dynamic of human exploration in the Star Trek universe. The writers (unwisely) took their cues from what was established in Star Trek: First Contact: That humans were the new kid on the block, and Vulcans were our babysitters. TOS showed humans and alien races venturing into the unknown as equals, while Enterprise, on the other hand, was less about "where no man has gone before" and more about "where everybody besides mankind has gone before". What's the point of exploring strange new worlds when you can just pull up everything you need to know from a Vulcan database?

Archer and company weren't even the first humans in deep space, you had the Boomers there before them. Instead of Archer being captain a Boomer captain would have made far more sense. The more I watched Bakula in action the more convinced I was his appointment was due more to nepotism.

#4) Despite the prequel setting, Enterprise fell back on telling stories that could have just as easily been told on any of the modern Star Trek shows. Seriously. Take any episode, and swap T'Pol with Seven of Nine, Trip with Tom Paris, Phlox with Neelix, etc., etc., and you'll end up with something completely indistinguishable from an episode of Voyager. The level of technology wasn't noticeably older. The danger (or lack thereof) in space travel was no more serious. Despite taking place before TOS, there were no meaningful differences between this show and the three that came before it.

If you look at the technology everything was the same as before, too; phase pistols did what phasers did. We had warp drive fast enough to get the gang to wherever they needed to go in a relatively quick amount of time. Deflector shields were replaced by polarized hull plating, we had a transporter that malfunctioned about as many times as Voyager's did, deadly diseases were dispatched with the same speed and skill. Heck, Phlox even developed a cure for Borg nano-infection!

#5) Enterprise was a clone of Voyager, which is bad enough. But Voyager itself was already a clone of The Next Generation. So by the time you get to Enterprise, you're watching a copy of a copy of a copy. And much like any Nth-generation VHS dub of a bootleg movie, when everything is said and done, all you're left with is indistinct static.

And I always considered DS9 to be a clone of Babylon 5.

#6) But there's an even bigger problem with being a copy of a copy of a show that premiered in 1987: you end up completely disconnected from everything happening on primetime TV in the 2000s. I'm not saying Enterprise should have made misguided attempts at being "contemporary", with shaky hand-held cameras, or multiple scenes unfolding in split screen, or plot threads lasting for years (though, when the show was circling the drain, they did experiment with a season-long arc). But the simple fact is, the medium constantly evolves, and viewers constantly want something fresh and original. And it's getting harder and harder to do a TNG-style show with self-contained episodes that still feels fresh and original.

Which is why Berman and Braga were the wrong guys to be doing a prequel series. It would have been nice if they could have involved someone else to come in and shake things up just a tiny bit, a fresh perspective to try and come up with ways to make the show look and feel a bit different than series before it. But the Killer Bs apparently have massive egos and figured that any schlock they produced would sell. Which brings us to:

#7) And it's especially hard to be fresh and original when the same people run the show for over a decade. Eventually, Enterprise became welfare for former Star Trek actors. I'm not saying LeVar Burton or Robert Duncan McNeill or Roxann Dawson are bad directors (though they all directed their fair share of bombs), but to turn around the ratings decline, Enterprise had to be new and different. By continuing to employ people who had spent their entire careers within the Star Trek bubble, Berman and Braga pretty much guaranteed that Enterprise was going to be more of the same. You can't reinvigorate the franchise when 99% of the same people are still in charge.

An excellent point.

[Sionnach Glic]

Damn good run down.
When most of us here say that Season 3 was good, we actualy mean "good, relative to the rest of the series". Compared to TOS, TNG and DS9 it remains horrificaly bad.

[Teaos]

I dont think season three is good compared to the first two. I think season three is the worst out of the lot. It highlights everything wrong in the first two seasons and expands on the stupidity of it.

[Aaron]

I gave up halfway or so through Season One, though I saw the odd episode from later ones. And really I stuck it out that long in the hopes it would get better, Trek has a history of the first few seasons being shite (TNG is an excellent example) so I figured I'd wait. But honestly, after the prego Trip episode there was no hope (Red Dwarf did this far better). And a show shouldn't have to take three seasons to improve.

Someone mentioned Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, the first does not have a bad episode in it's fourteen episode run. And Neo-BSG (which I think has fallen to garbage) at least isn't afraid to take risks with a complex plot and a cast that drops like flies.

[katefan]

My biggest problem with the new BSG is how the producers and writers played up on how the Cyclons had "a plan" and I don't think we ever discovered what "the plan" was. And I really hate the character of Starbuck. The actress is fine; I liked her on Bionic Woman. But I find Starbuck to be the most uselss, pathetic character on that show and it amazes me how everyone respects and loves her and always gives her second chances despite how many times she has hurt people.

I completely agree with you about Firefly; loved the series, loved the movie, wish there was more. Although maybe it was best it ended when it did, before it began to suck like Buffy.

As for the old "three seasons to get better rule", I could see why with TNG. It was a new series taking place in the TOS universe and there was this attempt to both seem familiar and be different. Roddenberry and company were trying to strike a balance and there were growing pains. But after those pains were done every other 'Trek series after that should not have had that problem. DS9's first seasons were boring as hell. Voyager was TNG lite. And Enterprise...Well, I've made my position clear, I think.

[Teaos]

I'd like to see you do a run down of VOY, I'm one of the few here who enjoyed it.

[katefan]

Not a big fan of Voyager. I did not like 7 of 9 (and no, I'm not gay; Jeri Ryan is very nice to look at, but I don't think any Borg is going to find walking around in five inch heels very efficient), felt most of the characters were bland, and really did not feel as if the ship and crew were in any sort of real distress. I know there are those who have said in the past that Star Trek was/is supposed to have an optimistic tone, but I disagree. Star Trek should have the tone suitable for the premise of the show the producers a selling to us. And if they are giving me a show about a ship trapped 70,000 light years from Earth, with no support structure, no crew replacements, no allies, then the tone should be pretty damn grim.

Every week should be a struggle for supplies, for hope, for discipline. Every week should be about whether or not Janeway compromises her Starfleet ideals to protect her ship and crew, for Chakotay to decide whether or not to stage a mutiny, for Tuvok to decide whether or not to resort to drastic measures to maintain security on his ship, for Paris to decide which side he is on. At least the first couple seasons should have been about that. Do they expend one of their precious photon torpedos to rescue a ship in distress? They have lost another shuttlecraft, where do they get replacements? The bio neural gel packs are dying, time to jury rig something. And the cast as well as the viewers cheer when small victories are attained. Like Firefly, when the crew gets away alive, intact (both physically and morally), and maybe a little bit something extra for their troubles, that is a good day.

Do you realize in the first two seasons the ship got nowhere? They turned around to rescue Chakotay's child. What a crock. (BSG had the same problem, turning right back around to rescue survivors on New Caprica). Every season there should have been a new primary adversarial race as the ship entered new space. Season one the Kazon, season two the Vidiians (imagine a sector of space in a grip of terror of the body snatching aliens. Imagine the Vidiian doctors had found a cure for the Phage decades ago but do not divulge it, because they love the power they wield?), season three the Borg, etc.

Just was not a fan of Voyager at all. So much potential in that pilot when you saw the potential conflicts: Janeway vs. Chakotay, Chakotay vs. Paris and Tuvok, Kim vs. Torres in a friendly rivalry (Kim being everything Torres could have been). How sad it is that the most interesting character of the series was a hologram.

Finally, the show should have had a cast of recurring supporting characters. We should have seen familiar faces popping up all the time. Remember the guy Torres beat to get the CEO job? You did not see him again until season seven. Where the hell was he for six seasons? Remember the crew of the Equinox? They should have been popping up all the time. Imagine the discipline problems for them as they try to fit in with a crew hostile to them for the deaths they caused?

So much potential, just pissed away.

[Teaos]

I agree that they could have used secondary characters a lot more. I was sure that is what they were setting up with the Equinox crew.

[Mikey]

Really, Katefan, try not to be so shy - tell us how you feel.

Honestly, I agree with you 110% (except for the DS9 - B5 thing, on which I am not really qualified to comment.) Coto was exactly what ENT needed, but from the start - by the time he was involved, it was too little, too late.

[Teaos]

I dont know if I could have ever liked ENT even with Coto commanding it from the start. The idea of a prequil is just boring to me.

[Mikey]

I don't t hink it's boring of itself, but it's asking for trouble as far as continuity, etc.