Lower Decks Season 3

[hammerofglass]

I don't know. Maybe 20 years. Ten years didn't really change much for ENT or Voyager even when we had Abrams Trek.

I think that ENT and Voyager got reevaluated when people started hating on DISCO instead.

I think it's going to be closer to the Star Wars prequels, not a reevaluation so much as the people who always liked it will get louder over time even as the people who hate it get tired of talking about it.

[Riedquat]

I don't know. Maybe 20 years. Ten years didn't really change much for ENT or Voyager even when we had Abrams Trek.

I think that ENT and Voyager got reevaluated when people started hating on DISCO instead.

I think it's going to be closer to the Star Wars prequels, not a reevaluation so much as the people who always liked it will get louder over time even as the people who hate it get tired of talking about it.

I always got the impression that the apparent change in opinion about the SW prequels was simply down to "blimey, we thought those were bad, now look!" when the sequels came along. And more precisely when the second and third sequels came along, I don't recall TFA getting too much hate at the time, "OK but far too derivative" being the opinion I remember.

[Madner Kami]

TFA was a typical Abrams thing. Spectacle, but not much thought. The later part wasn't that much of a problem, given it setup a million things in typical Abrams-style and didn't have to resolve anything, so the glaring problems weren't a issue for that single piece, they were an issue for everything that would follow. And boy did these issues cause grief, especially since everything got worse thanks to Johnson's unwillingness to pick up any of the million threads left dangling by Abrams and beginning to spin his own yarn.

[McAvoy]

I don't know. Maybe 20 years. Ten years didn't really change much for ENT or Voyager even when we had Abrams Trek.

I think that ENT and Voyager got reevaluated when people started hating on DISCO instead.

I was seeing that before Discovery aired. Probably just because of a lack of Trek and the benefit of time passing by. As opposed to it being fresh in their minds when it was airing.

[CmdrKing]

I’d add there that Enterprise waited longer for the opportunity for reevaluation and longevity that TNG and VOY had for years because it never made it into the same heavy syndication rotation they did.

Once we get into the streaming era it benefits a lot because while season 3 is uneven it works much better binged, and the overall excellent 4th season is almost all multi-part episodes. Enterprise might have found it’s audience earlier if every mid-tier cable station showed three episodes a day like they did Voyager, but I think it was always gonna take until streaming became a thing to really find its people.
(DS9 has also benefited from streaming for this reason, but it found a huge audience due to dvd before that)

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

ENT would have done better if the writers didn't have the patriot act to work with as an inspiration for writing Starfleet.

[CharlesPhipps]

ENT would have done better if the writers didn't have the patriot act to work with as an inspiration for writing Starfleet.

I dunno, Season 3 is kind of a ping pong ball for me. Because it certainly provides Enterprise focus that it didn't have before and weirdly, it has a very Trek message as Archer is seeking out the Xindi for peace making reasons. However, at that time, so much of America was in vengeance mode and so many changes were being made that it wasn't immediately apparent that the show was repudiating that attitude. The first time Star Trek's serialized format works against its messaging.

I'd argue ENT 1 and 2 are what turned people off the show really because they may have had some good episodes but they had no consistent idea of what they were saying or worldbuilding. TNG and DS9, by contrast, REALLY KNEW what their settings were like and what their "message" shows meant. Say what you will about TNG even in season 1 but Gene Roddenberry had a vision for the Federation and life in the 24th century. Ira Behr knew what Bajor was like.

By contrast, Earth and Space in the 22nd Century are very very confusing.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

ENT would have done better if the writers didn't have the patriot act to work with as an inspiration for writing Starfleet.

I dunno, Season 3 is kind of a ping pong ball for me. Because it certainly provides Enterprise focus that it didn't have before and weirdly, it has a very Trek message as Archer is seeking out the Xindi for peace making reasons. However, at that time, so much of America was in vengeance mode and so many changes were being made that it wasn't immediately apparent that the show was repudiating that attitude. The first time Star Trek's serialized format works against its messaging.

From what I crudely remember, the timing of the Iraq war and the abrupt concluding of the show just seems peculiar.

I'd argue ENT 1 and 2 are what turned people off the show really because they may have had some good episodes but they had no consistent idea of what they were saying or worldbuilding. TNG and DS9, by contrast, REALLY KNEW what their settings were like and what their "message" shows meant. Say what you will about TNG even in season 1 but Gene Roddenberry had a vision for the Federation and life in the 24th century. Ira Behr knew what Bajor was like.

By contrast, Earth and Space in the 22nd Century are very very confusing.

I was really surprised watching ENT. I noticed that much of the show's mini arcs were worldfilling narratives, and I found myself to enjoy the undertakings of a lot of them. The Klingon virus, the Andorian/Vulcan conspiracy, conflicts of military and exploratory directive, and also the mirror universe two parter that dovetails into the TOS episode where they find the crew ded.

DS9's worldbuilding was rather prolific in its own right, but its touch on the main universe with the founders and the gamma quadrant is pretty self contained in its own series. To be fair though, it's more at the tail end of the golden star trek era.

[McAvoy]

ENT would have done better if the writers didn't have the patriot act to work with as an inspiration for writing Starfleet.

I dunno, Season 3 is kind of a ping pong ball for me. Because it certainly provides Enterprise focus that it didn't have before and weirdly, it has a very Trek message as Archer is seeking out the Xindi for peace making reasons. However, at that time, so much of America was in vengeance mode and so many changes were being made that it wasn't immediately apparent that the show was repudiating that attitude. The first time Star Trek's serialized format works against its messaging.

I'd argue ENT 1 and 2 are what turned people off the show really because they may have had some good episodes but they had no consistent idea of what they were saying or worldbuilding. TNG and DS9, by contrast, REALLY KNEW what their settings were like and what their "message" shows meant. Say what you will about TNG even in season 1 but Gene Roddenberry had a vision for the Federation and life in the 24th century. Ira Behr knew what Bajor was like.

By contrast, Earth and Space in the 22nd Century are very very confusing.

Problem is that Enterprise in its first two seasons tried to pass itself off as TNG or VOY but with 22nd century tech but yet it's not quite like that.

I think there was some attempt to make it like NASA in the 60's and 70's. The Right Stuff.

Temporal War had nothing to do with Berman or Braga from what I have heard or read either. Interference from the higher ups it seems. Or that Berman didn't want to do another Trek show right after Voyager.

I have heard rumors for awhile now that Enterprise was given a fourth season just get the episode numbers up for syndication. Reduced budget also caused the mini arc episodes we had in the fourth season.

The way I see it, Enterprise was just destined to fail. The only way it would have worked I think is if Berman somehow found someone that could help him with the show with a clear idea of how to do it even with interference.

I have read some suggestions like Enterprise should have had time jumps like a season being two or three years. With the obvious lead up to being the war with the Romulans and ending the series with the formation of the Federation.

[Frustration]

It would have been better to find people with something to say, rather than just wanting to create product to make money.

On the other hand, arguably we got that with Discovery, and look what happened there.