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Enterprise was a lot better than Voyager, thanks to Coto and series 3 and 4. If it hadn't been for the vast improvement, particularly in series 4, then I'd have agreed that it was far worse.

Coto's handiwork was better than VOY; the series taken as a whole was not. There are a lot of in-universe trifles about VOY that bother, but as a Star Trek TV entertainment franchise I have to put it over ENT when looked at in toto.

Coto's best was on par with the best of TNG and DS9, and demonstrated a consistent upward trend through seasons 3 and 4. Voyager started off mediocre, was absolutely abyssmal in season 2, got better during seasons 4 and 5, and then got worse again. Other than the slight peak around 4 and 5, it was consistent dross, whereas Enterprise at least deomnstrated improvement.

It did. But I think there was a larger percentage of the eraly series that was garbage in ENT; and for better or worse it's not a question of "was one part of ENT better."

Mikey wrote:It did. But I think there was a larger percentage of the eraly series that was garbage in ENT

True

and for better or worse it's not a question of "was one part of ENT better."

No, but I'd say that "started bad but eventually got better" is an improvement on "started bad and stayed bad".

Captain Seafort wrote:Coto's best was on par with the best of TNG and DS9, and demonstrated a consistent upward trend through seasons 3 and 4. Voyager started off mediocre, was absolutely abyssmal in season 2, got better during seasons 4 and 5, and then got worse again. Other than the slight peak around 4 and 5, it was consistent dross, whereas Enterprise at least deomnstrated improvement.

One season can't save a show, however good. Voyager however nitpicked or however bland the writing might have been for stretches, was on the whole a decent, true-to-Trek show. Enterprise floundered for two and a half or three seasons trying to be some pseudo-sexy original sci fi (and failing) and focused more on getting relatively well known B list actors to fill every role of historical note, and then tried to slap some emergency fixes too little too late.

Did Voyager use cheap tricks, like trying to ramp sex appeal with Seven of Nine and all that? Yeah, but it still stayed within the realm and feel of Trek. I can't say the same for Enterprise, at all, and what's worse is that I don't even think they were bothering to try to make it feel like a Trek until they were threatened with total collapse. The breaks in continuity in Voyager, which people frequently denounce it for, were marbles next to Enterprise which had Sovereign-size Vulcan ships flying around, substitutes for every future technology, important powerful races which were not recorded in Trek history for some reason, and a rearranging of important events to make cheap tie-in's with later series or movies which often didn't make sense.

I have a hard time understanding how you can say one "improved" season of Enterprise makes it better than seven years of Voyager, even if some of those years you didn't care for. I always thought the Voyager hate around here is at the level of "vapid" and it seriously blows my mind if Enterprise, a show which SOUGHT to go out and urinate on Trek, would be rated as a better overall show.

Actually, two great seasons of ENT and two seasons of 'meh/average'. I really like the show, but even I'll admit the first two seasons could be improved.

But those two last season? Gold-plated latinum. Just like TNG and DSN, itr needed time. And it not getting that time is a damned shame.

Voyager isn't just bland or nitpicked - a lot of the concepts are either utterly stupid (cracks in event horizons, people "evolving" into giant salamandas, species only producing one child per female) or make the characters look either stupid (blowing up the route home, charging into every nebula they see, running headlong into obvious traps, saving their most dangerous enemy) or pyschotic (pissing off half the DQ, attempting to torture people to death, micromanaging every damn department on the ship).

Captain Seafort wrote:Voyager isn't just bland or nitpicked - a lot of the concepts are either utterly stupid (cracks in event horizons, people "evolving" into giant salamandas, species only producing one child per female) or make the characters look either stupid (blowing up the route home, charging into every nebula they see, running headlong into obvious traps, saving their most dangerous enemy) or pyschotic (pissing off half the DQ, attempting to torture people to death, micromanaging every damn department on the ship).

I agree. And I could name just as many stupid ideas (Spock's brain?! Male pregnancy?!) in TOS and Enterprise.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:Actually, two great seasons of ENT and two seasons of 'meh/average'. I really like the show, but even I'll admit the first two seasons could be improved.

But those two last season? Gold-plated latinum. Just like TNG and DSN, itr needed time. And it not getting that time is a damned shame.

I'd describe it more as two seasons of irredemeable shit, one mediocre, but improving season, and one pretty damn good season, but the principle's the same.

Captain Seafort wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:Actually, two great seasons of ENT and two seasons of 'meh/average'. I really like the show, but even I'll admit the first two seasons could be improved.

But those two last season? Gold-plated latinum. Just like TNG and DSN, itr needed time. And it not getting that time is a damned shame.

I'd describe it more as two seasons of irredemeable shit, one mediocre, but improving season, and one pretty damn good season, but the principle's the same.

And I vehemently disagree with you on that. But... all the same, there. I won't back down. You won't back down. And at least they gaves us MACOs.

Duskofdead wrote:I agree. And I could name just as many stupid ideas (Spock's brain?! Male pregnancy?!) in TOS and Enterprise.

The first couple of seasons of Enterprise were easily as bad, if not worse, than Voyager. I'm not disputing that.

TOS likewise had some real howlers, but the lack of Janeway and Neelix, and the presence of dozens of good episodes and a good few truly great episodes makes up for that. Voyager's good and great episodes could be counted on one hand.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Duskofdead wrote:I agree. And I could name just as many stupid ideas (Spock's brain?! Male pregnancy?!) in TOS and Enterprise.

The first couple of seasons of Enterprise were easily as bad, if not worse, than Voyager. I'm not disputing that.

TOS likewise had some real howlers, but the lack of Janeway and Neelix, and the presence of dozens of good episodes and a good few truly great episodes makes up for that. Voyager's good and great episodes could be counted on one hand.

I think that's the point. Even if you don't think Voyager had enough decent episodes to rank the series above bottom, a lot of Trek viewers still watched it. I watched like half the first season of Enterprise and stopped seeing the point in watching anymore. Oh in re-runs here and there I've probably caught something like half or two-thirds of the show overall, but I always feel like why the hell am I watching this, it's a prequel that is just making crap up. Everytime I hear someone use the word "suliban" or "xindi" I want to scream, no way should races so important that they fought some huge "temporal proxy war" with Earth could have fallen into the mists of history and never been mentioned again. The show should have been about colonization mostly, some exploration, but running into other races should have been much rarer, and most if not all of the early interaction would have been with future Fed members and the Romulans. Instead we got "Trek as it is on any other occasion" but supposedly watching the "history of it", with all these strange never-before-seen races floating around what should be the Federation's version of "Old Town."

I knew one person who bothered watching past the first season.... and he actually didn't like any of the rest of Trek, so it kind of made sense he liked Enterprise.

As I said, the first two seasons were abysmal, and the Temporal Cold War and the Suliban were a significant reason for that. Likewise, the Xindi are the reason season 3 counts as mediocre rather than good.

Ssason 4, however, has the Vulcan arc, the Romulan drone arc, the augments arc, the Klingon forehead arc, and the Terra Prime arc. These arcs are what makes Enterprise better than Voyager - the effort to pay attention to established canon, and repair some of the damage done earlier on.

The Romulan and TP ones are particularly good for doing what should have been done from the start - display Earth as a young planet in galactic politics, its population fearful of the influence of other species, but nonetheless acting as the catalyst to lead the other local races in confronting the Romulan threat and establishing the United Federation of Planets.

I don't have much of a problem with Suliban or Xindi not showing up in the latter shows. It's a big Federation, after all.