Slowly making my way through Enterprise

myk

I never watched Enterprise when it was on TV bar the first couple of episodes. Starved of good trek and with Battlestar over I went back to watch it late last year.

I am about mid-way through season 2. I find many of the episodes charming or pleasant rather than amazing. The show is slowly building up the characters. I like it and I'll keep watching it, but I don't think its a patch on my favourite trek DS9.

Having said that there have been some episodes I really enjoyed. I just watched Stigma, S2 episode 14 last night, and thought it was very very clever. I generally love good analogies in my sci-fi or indeed in any fiction. This one maps homosexuality and HIV issues onto Vulcan mind melds and a rare disease spread by the practice.

At the start of season 2, Carbon Creek was an excellent episode which deals with early contact between Vulcans and man.

I have TOS which I haven't watched much of. I'll turn to that when I run out of Enterprise episodes.

Myrddin

Get ready for the barrage of ENT haters

Im with you on that though, its not near DS9 in anyway, but I found a lot of it very good/watchable.

Johnny Storm

EnterNow wrote: »

Get ready for the barrage of ENT haters

ahem.....

I'd be interested to hear what myk thinks of it by the time he gets finished.


IMHO TOS is the best, but then I did see it 40+ years ago.

paulusdu

I was a big enterprise fan, and was pretty disappointed when they wrapped it up in the end.
It was funny when the theme song changed and some people got so worked up about it!
Good characters and good writing for the most part. Obviously like any show that has 90 odd episodes there are going to be a few weak ones, but i really enjoyed it.
Although i enjoyed Firefly too, and that didn't last a bored weekends worth of watching . . . .

TheIrishGrover

paulusdu wrote: »

I was a big enterprise fan, and was pretty disappointed when they wrapped it up in the end.
It was funny when the theme song changed and some people got so worked up about it!
Good characters and good writing for the most part. Obviously like any show that has 90 odd episodes there are going to be a few weak ones, but i really enjoyed it.
Although i enjoyed Firefly too, and that didn't last a bored weekends worth of watching . . . .

While I enjoyed Enterprise more than Voyager (And I enjoyed root canal work more than Janeway's voice) I don't think the characters were up to much. The Trip(p?)/T'Pol relationship was pretty good and the tactical officer had a bit of depth, especially in the Xindi season. But, other than that, there was very little depth in any of the charaters. Take a look at TNG: Pretty much all of the characters (Will the possible exception of Geordie and (thankfully) Troi) were surprisingly three dimensional. Ryker started off as the square-jawed action hero, Data was the token vulcan/holodeck/whatever character, Worf was the... well the Worf. They all grew more "human" over time. Ryker got a sense of humour. Data evolved, Worf even got a family.

O' Brien had a HUGE part in TNG. Even well before DS9. Wife, family, back story, story arcs.
With Enterprise, apart from the main three it was Token black navigation officer, Token hot Asian girl, Token alien and you never really found out anything more about them. The navigation officer grew up on a ship I think I remember. But I can't remember his name. The communication officer had a beauty-and-the-beast story but I only remember her belly top in one episode The alien guy started out interesting but then what? His head expands as a defence mechanism.

Enterprise wasn't the worst (Hands up Voyager) and the Xindi season was pretty good. But it was just too............. I don't know.... BLAND!

Cookie_Monster

Enterprise is great, its the only box set I bought.
(Still want DS9)

Through a mirror darkly is one of the best episode(s) in all of trek.

There are a few others in season 3 & 4 that are class.

myk

I finished Season 2, and I'll get Season 3 for the next time I'm travelling with work (boring weekends in).

Some good episodes. The final episode has made me eager to see Season 3 and the Xindi arc. I have read reviews suggesting it is the best season.

One of the later episodes, the Cogenitor was really good. Its the one about encountering a race that discriminates against members of their third gender. I think in terms of the uneasiness of characters balancing difficult moral issues its probably the grittiest Trek episode that I have watched since DS9's in the Pale Moonlight. Its very good, but not as good as that DS9 episode.

Cookie_Monster

myk wrote: »

One of the later episodes, the Cogenitor was really good. Its the one about encountering a race that discriminates against members of their third gender. I think in terms of the uneasiness of characters balancing difficult moral issues its probably the grittiest Trek episode that I have watched since DS9's in the Pale Moonlight. Its very good, but not as good as that DS9 episode.

Don't like that one, another moralistic lesson about how flawed humans are and how they can't just leave well enough alone. handy way to write in and back out a very advance species that clearly would have appeared in later Trek series.

myk

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Don't like that one, another moralistic lesson about how flawed humans are and how they can't just leave well enough alone. handy way to write in and back out a very advance species that clearly would have appeared in later Trek series.

I thought the episode was more subtle than that, allowing viewers to make up their own minds. My own take was that Tripp was in the right, and that the rest of the crew took the cowardly way out.

Cookie_Monster

myk wrote: »

I thought the episode was more subtle than that, allowing viewers to make up their own minds. My own take was that Tripp was in the right, and that the rest of the crew took the cowardly way out.

Trip was wrong and ruined a possible alliance with the best thing that would ever have happened to Earth and ultimatly the Federation.

He always had a habbit of doing that, like in the 1st or 2nd episode where he's giving out about the woman teaching her child to breathe air. T'Pol was right when she told him to shut his face and mind his own business

Antar Bolaeisk

paulusdu wrote: »

It was funny when the theme song changed and some people got so worked up about it!

The theme tune to Enterprise was always crap but then they changed it and made it worse

I must admit I initially hated Enterprise but having gone back and watched all the episodes again I surprised myself and enjoy the majority of them though I still hate most of the characters and this, for me, is what really began to wear thin about mid-way through season 2.

Archer had that swagger, the upper torso wobble, that he performed whenever he was preaching which was just so damn annoying to watch.

Hoshi, apart from being one of the most unbelievable characters in the history of Star Trek (she could speak an entire language after hearing five words!) was overly whiney and deserved a good slap about ten minutes into every show.

Travis should have been left to die in that episode "Dead Stop" as he was just boring and didn't really add anything to the show.

I think the only character I did like from the entire crew was Phlox and I really enjoyed any of the Phlox centric episodes.

While I still feel it is the weakest of the Star Trek shows it's still worthy of a watch and does have it's moments. It was a shame to see it canceled and a greater shame they had such a terrible final episode.

Johnny Storm

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

While I still feel it is the weakest of the Star Trek shows.

Yes.

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

it's still worthy of a watch.

No.

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

and does have it's moments.

No!

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

It was a shame to see it canceled.

LOL

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

and a greater shame they had such a terrible final episode.

Well, at least it was finally over.

Apologies, I just couldn't help myself
I do agree with your opinions on the characters. I liked Ol' Wooden Face in Quantum Leap but he was awful in Enterprise (IMHO), T'Pol's character was pretty bad too.

Cookie_Monster

Johnny Storm wrote: »

T'Pol's character was pretty bad too.

hawt though :pac:

CSaber

I started watching ENT on C4 when it started but soon lost interest. I then spent two years or so watching the entire run on DVD. While I found most of the episodes ok, and somewhat enjoyable, my biggest criticism was that it felt it wasted so much potential and didn't really bring much to the franchise.

But then, Trek for me is TNG.

Svalbard

CSaber wrote: »

I started watching ENT on C4 when it started but soon lost interest. I then spent two years or so watching the entire run on DVD. While I found most of the episodes ok, and somewhat enjoyable, my biggest criticism was that it felt it wasted so much potential and didn't really bring much to the franchise.

But then, Trek for me is TNG.

Sorry to derail the thread and harp on about a very old topic but......

While TNG is undoubtedly groundbreaking, phenomenal etc etc does anyone else find themselves saying it was their favorite series out of a feeling of, i dunno, duty/respect/nostalgia?
Don't get me wrong I LOOOOVED TNG and what it did for the Trek universe, BUT my favourite series is DS9.
For all the reasons people have harped on about before - the darkness, the great characters, the character driven storylines, the fab story arcs and the sheer intelligence of it all. Even watching it now its hard, and sad, to think it ended over 10 years ago.

Ok thats me.......

CSaber

Well personaally TNG is my favourite cos I like it the most, not for any other reason. I just prefer the characters and stories to the ones from the other series.

Johnny Storm

My theory is that most people prefer the Trek series that they saw first.

Similarly you can tell roughly how old people are by which Dr Who they think is the best (Patrick Troughton for the record)

Cookie_Monster

Johnny Storm wrote: »

My theory is that most people prefer the Trek series that they saw first.

not in my case I have to say

First saw TNG, favourite is DS9 followed by ENT

Svalbard

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

not in my case I have to say

First saw TNG, favourite is DS9 followed by ENT

Same as that. Except for ENT.

Johnny Storm

I refuse to accept your facts as they are not of the same high quality as my theory

CSaber

Johnny Storm wrote: »

My theory is that most people prefer the Trek series that they saw first.

Similarly you can tell roughly how old people are by which Dr Who they think is the best (Patrick Troughton for the record)

Well Tennant, Peter Davison and Troughton are my favourite Who's and I started with McCoy...and I'm only 26

Johnny Storm

I'm not listening ............

darragh666

Season 1 and 2 have a few good episodes.

Season 3 and 4 have some great episodes. Some very good story arc's.

I liked the finial episode but it shouldnt have been the finale. Should have been shown a few episodes earlier or something.

norrie rugger

darragh666 wrote: »

Season 1 and 2 have a few good episodes.

Season 3 and 4 have some great episodes. Some very good story arc's.

I liked the finial episode but it shouldnt have been the finale. Should have been shown a few episodes earlier or something.

Or it should never have been shown at all

myk

I'm now about half way through Season 3 of Enterprise- the Xindi season. It is my first time watching these. Again there are some very good episodes as well as a few so-so ones.

The Doctor is a great character. I'm not too fond of how the Captain bounces between being all for the mission to save earth and then other times being more compassionate and principled.

It isn't on the level of my favourite parts of TNG or DS9. But it is still good TV and shows how recent Sci Fi series like V or Sarah Connor Chronicles were never really up to the level of Star Trek in any of its incarnations.

hogflem

Ive been watching Star Trek since the mid 70s and I love them all, from TOS to Enterprise,all the different treks have both good,and bad episodes,some more than others perhaps.I think that the story lines in TNG and DS9 are just too hard an act to follow. They'll eventually come up with something decent,whether it will please everyone is another story.P.S. Jon Pertwee was the Dr for me.

myk

myk wrote: »

I'm not too fond of how the Captain bounces between being all for the mission to save earth and then other times being more compassionate and principled.

Actually I take that back. I made the comment mid-way through watching the Hatchery episode. He is more consistant than I gave him credit for.