Reevaluating Star Trek: Enterprise

[clearspira]

Those of you who have followed Trek for a long time cannot fail to have noticed that ''Enterprise'' was considered ''the worst thing ever'' from the moment of its airing, and was accused of being the number one factor besides ''Nemesis'' to help cripple the franchise.

And then, in 2009, JJ Abrams rebooted Star Trek with the Kelvin timeline... which suddenly became the ''worst thing ever.''

And then, in 2017, Star Trek Discovery aired... which suddenly became the ''worst thing ever.''

So, I guess my question here is, do those of you who hated ''Enterprise'' still hate it despite all of these other things that you hate, or have you since had a reevaluation based on what has come after it?

I'm not blind to the faults of ''Enterprise'', when it was bad, it was BAD. T'Pol on heat, Archer murdering the Valekians, the Trip gets raped and impregnated episode.
But other things, such as ''In The Mirror Darkly'' which is one of the biggest love letters to the fans that we have ever had, the set and prop design that feels far more like a prequel to TOS than STD does despite being a hundred years further back in time than the latter, the best Borg episode since Scorpion.

Is it perhaps time to say that ''Enterprise'' may not have been great or even good, but it wasn't the devil that it was portrayed as? Certainly one thing I have noticed is that ''Enterprise'' seems to have become a forgotten memory to many, whatever crimes it committed have faded. It just does not come up that often off forums such as this. That does imply a certain measure of forgiveness, to me at least.

[LittleRaven]

I have been following Trek for a pretty long time. (since 1987) However, I must confess that I have never called Enterprise the worst thing ever - mostly because I gave that label to Voyager and pretty much just left it there.

I thought the new Trek movies were more sci-fi action flicks that I generally look for in a ST movie, but I understand why they are that way. That's probably the only way you can get a studio to make the damn things.

Discovery was....fine. It had plenty of good stuff - great actors, good effects, some cool sets...and plenty of mind-mindbogglingly stupid stuff. But it's the first season of a Star Trek show. Those are usually not great. I'll watch a season 2.

[nebagram]

Enterprise has a lot going for it if you look in the right places. Season 3 was an experiment that aside from a few bumps in the road (T'Pol being a smackhead probably being the biggest pothole) worked, and season 4 was pretty much everything a Trek fan could hope for from a prequel that was competently done. Apart from 'These are the Voyages', of course, that can just shit off. A lot of the hate for Enterprise doesn't just come from comparison to other Trek shows though, but to other contemporary SF shows. Farscape got screwed out of its much-deserved fifth season while Enterprise continued on unabated (I believe Rockne O'Bannon called Enterprise a 'lumbering dinosaur' in his speech to the Farscape crew after the final wrap), SG-1 was going strong and the last couple of seasons of Enterprise coincided with the first two seasons of Lost and BSG. That was a lot of competition for a show that had stumbled so badly in its first two seasons.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I didn't see Enterprise until after the Kelvin timeline hit the screen. My opinion- a decent portion of the show isn't all that bad, but most of the show isn't all that great either. Even the portions of the show that are heralded by fans aren't all that, I mean they rose above earlier mediocrity but that's about it. I don't know that I'd put the very best episode of Enterprise in the top 25 episodes of the franchise. The show got good when it started to commit to its longer story arcs, but compared to some of its contemporaries those arcs don't have great depth.

[Beastro]

Those of you who have followed Trek for a long time cannot fail to have noticed that ''Enterprise'' was considered ''the worst thing ever'' from the moment of its airing, and was accused of being the number one factor besides ''Nemesis'' to help cripple the franchise.

And then, in 2009, JJ Abrams rebooted Star Trek with the Kelvin timeline... which suddenly became the ''worst thing ever.''

And then, in 2017, Star Trek Discovery aired... which suddenly became the ''worst thing ever.''

So, I guess my question here is, do those of you who hated ''Enterprise'' still hate it despite all of these other things that you hate, or have you since had a reevaluation based on what has come after it?

You forgot Voyager which started the trend.

Keep in mind a universal of this life: it can always get worse. That something can always get worse doesn't mean it makes that which is relatively less worse, better.

There are times when a successor work is reacted to too badly and in time is reevaluated in a better light, but that does not apply to Trek after Voyager.

Is it perhaps time to say that ''Enterprise'' may not have been great or even good, but it wasn't the devil that it was portrayed as?

Voyager draws an emotional response because there was so much lost potential. That isn't to say that Enterprise didn't have any, Season 4 showed that, but by the time the pilot debuted the writing was on the wall that we were going to get more of what made Voyager bad, then 9/11 happened and we got another layer of terrible that didn't get it's footing until that plot arch was ending.

and season 4 was pretty much everything a Trek fan could hope for from a prequel that was competently done

Not everything.

1: Enterprise wasnt like that from the get go.

2: It ultimately failed to save the series and winded up being a noble last ditch experiment than setting a trend.

3: Trek continued with prequels and kept forgetting the lessons Enterprised learned being unspoken of reboots tying to cash in on promises of nostalgia to get in the gate.

[Robovski]

I never hated Enterprise either - it was slow starting and a lot of the first two seasons were not great but I was willing to wait for improvements to be made, then 9/11 happened and I felt the show was making a cringy response which didn't improve well into the season. Then Season 4 came and it was GOOD (and basically pre-cancelled). I mean if you want bad, we have Star Trek: Insurrection to point at.

[Darth Wedgius]

I never hated Enterprise, but I stopped watching it. I suppose that's just as bad, though.

I'm going to be less than helpful and say yes and no. The Kelvinverse movies I saw (the first two) don't make me like Enterprise more, but it makes the first two seasons look less exceptionally bad.

The prequel nature of Enterprise never bothered me like it did a lot of others, but I didn't really like the writing of what I saw, and some episodes (e.g., "Dear Doctor," "Fortunate Son") really didn't sit well with me. Like a lot of things (e.g., Stargate: Universe, the Star Wars prequel trilogy), it apparently got better after I stopped watching it. I think Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens joining probably helped a lot; I'd liked their Trek novels long before they joined up with Star Trek: Enterprise. If they'd been part of it from the beginning...

I gave up on the Kelvin-verse after two movies, but I think it wasn't really better than Enterprise, and I think Into Darkness was worse (for me) than the Enterprise average, though not as bad as the worst that Enterprise could throw at me. I heard Star Trek Beyond was better -- yet another property that got better after I quit.

I've never seen STD, so that hasn't had an effect. On the other hand, if I watched the first season and then quit, the later seasons would probably be the best Trek ever.

[LittleRaven]

Beyond was most definitely better. It wasn't brilliant or anything, but it was a good time and I actually found it to be the most "Trek" of the three movies.

Give it a watch when you're bored one night. You probably won't be too disappointed.

[PerrySimm]

... the first two seasons were not great but I was willing to wait for improvements to be made, then 9/11 happened and I felt the show was making a cringy response which didn't improve well into the season. Then Season 4 came and it was GOOD (and basically pre-cancelled). I mean if you want bad, we have Star Trek: Insurrection to point at.

Good point, though Season 3 was in 2003, not 2001. There's a lot of Suliban stuff that was dripping with "relevance" even in 2002.

Speaking of "at the time" ... Insurrection got some good press for its romance subplots. Not to damn with too much faint praise, but still better than Nemesis.

... A lot of the hate for Enterprise doesn't just come from comparison to other Trek shows though, but to other contemporary SF shows. Farscape got screwed out of its much-deserved fifth season while Enterprise continued on unabated (I believe Rockne O'Bannon called Enterprise a 'lumbering dinosaur' in his speech to the Farscape crew after the final wrap), SG-1 was going strong and the last couple of seasons of Enterprise coincided with the first two seasons of Lost and BSG. ...

This is quite accurate. Enterprise was not just bad by itself, it was deeply disappointing compared to the glut of the other shows that were on. Let's not forget about Andromeda, either... literally a Star Trek prequel and sequel running at the same time. And the knock-off version is the successful one with a longer run!

[Admiral X]

I still dislike VOY and ENT. I liked the concept of both shows, but the execution was definitely lacking. They ignored their own premises and tried to be TNG, but seemingly without knowing or caring what made that show work, and in the end coming off seeming like a half-hearted attempt. But I liked the ideas of the shows enough to come up with my own reboot concepts for them, and to actually start writing on a rebooted version of ENT that ended up being named Foundations.