Sfdebris.net

So yeah, I am a big fan of Star Trek Enterprise and one thing I have heard even from fans of the show is they complain a lot about the Temporal Cold War. I don't get it, I don't remember it being that bad, but it seems to get a lot of bad press. Why?

Because it was badly thought out, and it was very poorly integrated into the show as a whole. And Time Travel plots were pretty played out at that point too.

They had no idea where it was going, they never went anywhere with it, and it's linked with the Storm Front episode, which is just plain ridiculous (in more ways than having the same name as a Nazi forum).

I found myself digging it. I'm starting to think it was mostly just a bunch of backflips to correlate what was going on at the time with the US at the time.

That being said, I liked hearing out where Chuck was going with his idea.

Scififan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:21 am So yeah, I am a big fan of Star Trek Enterprise and one thing I have heard even from fans of the show is they complain a lot about the Temporal Cold War. I don't get it, I don't remember it being that bad, but it seems to get a lot of bad press. Why?

They could have done so much with it.

My hope watching the pilot was that it would be revealed that Future Guy was from the TOS era trying to mess with the formation of the Federation, which judging from his rough appearance, would be the Romulans up to no good.

They could have avoided the Sphere-Builders and just had Future Guy's people be behind it rather than making him an afterthought.

Again, so much to play with and they had no idea and then concluded it.... that way.

Scififan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:21 am So yeah, I am a big fan of Star Trek Enterprise and one thing I have heard even from fans of the show is they complain a lot about the Temporal Cold War. I don't get it, I don't remember it being that bad, but it seems to get a lot of bad press. Why?

Memory serves Chuck commented on the pilot for the show that the concept was season one gathering the crew as the Enterprise is built. Get to know everyone before the space adventure begins. Season two would get them out the door. Executive meddling both nixed that idea and insisted on time travel as a major theme. They want the ship now and time travel because time travel episodes do well so a whole series with it should be a gold mine.
As Chuck pointed out a time travel story needs more finessing than a regular story due to the skipping either forward or backward. With a shift in story both from get off the ground and do time travel. I think entire scripts ended up in the bin and they scrambled to do something.
Toss in Scott Bakula wanting to lose fights. (A break from knowing martial arts in Quantum Leap) And you get a hashed script that rubs people the wrong way.

In many ways they had to assassinate other species to fit the shifts. I was not as against Archer when it came to the Vulcans. The Vulcans came off as overlords or bad parents and teachers. There is no word on the Vulcans actually helping humanity cleanup after the war. To pick humanity up. They were there. Okay so they stood there in the doorway while we cleaned our rooms? They were not educating on how and why with warp drive. They just said 'no do it again'. I had that in education, you don't learn anything but to hate the supposed teacher. Nothing explained, just wrong do it again. Heck even T'Pol's job on the Enterprise was a backhanded punch to Spock's role. Spock was the head of sciences. He gathered the information, did scans and analysis and looked items up in the library computer. T'pol? She reads the vulcan database because it has a humans keep out tag on it. What?
All this I think is because they rushed things to shoe horn in the temporal cold war.

Scififan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:21 am So yeah, I am a big fan of Star Trek Enterprise and one thing I have heard even from fans of the show is they complain a lot about the Temporal Cold War. I don't get it, I don't remember it being that bad, but it seems to get a lot of bad press. Why?

There's multiple reasons but the short-short version.

1. The realization the Temporal Cold War is something the writers had no plan for, interest in, or ideas to do anything with.
2. The utter half-assedness of its resolution.
3. All the build-up and mystery that was still there to disguise 1.

I actually thought the Temporal Cold War was going to be used to explain why Enterprise was happening and the differences in technology as well as other things.

Nope!

Nealithi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:06 pm

Scififan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:21 am So yeah, I am a big fan of Star Trek Enterprise and one thing I have heard even from fans of the show is they complain a lot about the Temporal Cold War. I don't get it, I don't remember it being that bad, but it seems to get a lot of bad press. Why?

Memory serves Chuck commented on the pilot for the show that the concept was season one gathering the crew as the Enterprise is built.

I think by pilot they meant s4 premiere.

Nealithi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:06 pmIn many ways they had to assassinate other species to fit the shifts. I was not as against Archer when it came to the Vulcans. The Vulcans came off as overlords or bad parents and teachers. There is no word on the Vulcans actually helping humanity cleanup after the war. To pick humanity up. They were there. Okay so they stood there in the doorway while we cleaned our rooms? They were not educating on how and why with warp drive. They just said 'no do it again'. I had that in education, you don't learn anything but to hate the supposed teacher. Nothing explained, just wrong do it again. Heck even T'Pol's job on the Enterprise was a backhanded punch to Spock's role. Spock was the head of sciences. He gathered the information, did scans and analysis and looked items up in the library computer. T'pol? She reads the vulcan database because it has a humans keep out tag on it. What?
All this I think is because they rushed things to shoe horn in the temporal cold war.

Try again ;P


youtu.be/8-pSg1PbPa8

I think part of the problem is that the show is suppose to be about teh first ship to carry the name enterprise and time travel doesn't really belong there.

It feels like every series has a hard time not having some off-the-cuff issue regarding time travel. It's like Janeway remarked about how she swore to herself at the academy or something that she'd never find herself in the middle of some temporal prime directive condition.