Enterprise: What idiots were running the show?

03-05-2020 07:54PM #1

Seriously, I like Enterprise and I think that it has aged far better than it was expected to BUT I have literally just started a run through and I lasted until 52 minutes in until a full eye roll.

Seriously what kind of pointless soft core nonsense were they thinking of, during the decontamination scene.

The lingering shots, the gel making slapping noises, the rub downs?

FFS

Rawr · 04-05-2020 09:17AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Seriously, I like Enterprise and I think that it has aged far better than it was expected to BUT I have literally just started a run through and I lasted until 52 minutes in until a full eye roll.

Seriously what kind of pointless soft core nonsense were they thinking of, during the decontamination scene.

The lingering shots, the gel making slapping noises, the run downs?

FFS

My guess it was a late Berman-Trek attempt at "Fan-Service". Before this you could sexualise characters with just a tight-fitting cat-suit but by the time Enterprise came around I guess they started to feel like that they needed up the ante a little. Thus, you get an oily semi-nude T'Pol....because...science I guess....

The trend of injecting soft-core fan-service stuff into shows like this appears to have just continued over time. Take for example any given HBO fantasy / scifi show in the past few years and you'll see that almost without fail they've managed to find a way to wedge in some nudity.

However with Enterprise it wasn't very subtile at all. I remember that first episiode thinking: "Ha...they *really* want us to know that this show may feature oily space-women...Will any other attractive people get oily in that space tube? Tune in next week to find out!!!!"

I also remembered the very blatant decision to drop "Star Trek" from the title in the early seasons with the show simply called "Enterprise". They really wanted a new fan-base for this show by the looks of things. I guess they regretted that move after a while and corrected the title.

Johnny Storm · 05-05-2020 10:00AM

Rawr wrote: »

I also remembered the very blatant decision to drop "Star Trek" from the title in the early seasons with the show simply called "Enterprise". They really wanted a new fan-base for this show by the looks of things. I guess they regretted that move after a while and corrected the title.

Totally correct. They thought they could appeal to some imaginary non-star trek audience. After 3 unsuccessful seasons they then changed tack in season 4 and tried to get the trekkies back, plus added "Star Trek" to the name.
IMHO Enterprise is the worst of all star trek series
Because they decided not to call it "star trek" I personally feel free to consider Enterprise to be non-canonical.;)

05-05-2020 10:04AM

OK so I finally got a chance to get through the 2 parter.

Overall it is a far better opening episode than I remember but I can see why so many people immediately gave up on the show.

The bad:

The dropping of Star Trek
The singing intro
The slapping noised lingering bra less T'Pol and muscled Tucker shots
Do we really need T'Pol in a catsuit? The woman is stunning, we don't need to objectify (had same issue with 7) so blatantly
A petulant Star Fleet which

The good (and trying to keep future impressions/knowledge out of this):

Setting up an obvious story arc. To be welcomed after Voyager's reset nonsense.
The arc seems interesting with a literally shadowy puppetmaster pulling the antagonist strings
I really like the Ship
Starfleet being weaker than other races but able to hold their own, seems Vulcans were right to slow progress?

Great introduction to all the characters.
Reed seems a bit on edge and overly sensitive to criticism for a tactical officer.
Loving Flox showing that not only humans are addicted to exploring other cultures.
T'Pol seems far more arrogant to Vulcans in previous Treks but shown that they see humans as running before walking.
Hoshi is far too timid, how the hell did she even pass basic screening, linguistic excellence excepted?
Tucker is very TOS like, obvious McCoy analogue, but I am loving his enthusiasm and drive to explore.
Mayweather looks to be very capable and his deep space living experience should lead him to being more than just the pilot.

Archer: has many of the right qualities. Scientist first, all about the exploration, immediately seems loyal to crew and not afraid to be challenged (within reason). Sees strengths in others to cover weaknesses currently, keeping T'Pol on even though he kinda hates her is a decision of a great manager.
BUT he is far too personally involved with sticking it to the Vulcans and is very reckless in decisions where their oversight conflicts with his view. Shuts down and barely tolerates opposing views the moment the Vulcans are mentioned.

pixelburp · 05-05-2020 10:06AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Seriously, I like Enterprise and I think that it has aged far better than it was expected to BUT I have literally just started a run through and I lasted until 52 minutes in until a full eye roll.

Seriously what kind of pointless soft core nonsense were they thinking of, during the decontamination scene.

The lingering shots, the gel making slapping noises, the run downs?

FFS

Mark of the time IMO. Pre internet, it wasn't uncommon to have a marked female character as the T&A for those inclined to ogle. Mixed with the cliché of Trek or Sci-Fi fans in general being repressed male horndogs. Some shows really haven't aged too good for that reason.

05-05-2020 10:10AM

Johnny Storm wrote: »

Totally correct. They thought they could appeal to some imaginary non-star trek audience. After 3 unsuccessful seasons they then changed tack in season 4 and tried to get the trekkies back, plus added "Star Trek" to the name.
IMHO Enterprise is the worst of all star trek series
Because they decided not to call it "star trek" I personally feel free to consider Enterprise to be non-canonical.;)

Season 3 is TV made for this era's TV watching.
A massive single arc across a season, closing of an even larger 3 season arc.
Now it's been a few years so once I finish this run through I may have a different view.
It was roundly rejected back then but would fit right in today.

Even S4 was arcs within arc. Each self contained multi episode arc was leading to alliance forming relationships, Romulan war, coalescing of Earth, Andor, Vulcan, Tellar.

nyarlothothep · 05-05-2020 10:10AM

Enterprise was just a holodeck simulation to me. I watched a few episodes but never got into the "temporal cold war". Anything involving time travel tends to get my eyes rolling and result in a sudden lack of interest because it feels like lazy writing most of the time. That being said I prefer it to Discovery and even STP because despite dropping "Star Trek" from the title, it's still very much Star Trek. It's crazy to think it's almost 20 years old, I remember it like yesterday when it was "new" and "fresh" back in 2002. Oh yeah, it had an amazing theme tune, the best in all of Trek.

odyssey06 · 05-05-2020 10:22AM

The writers were probably told to re-watch TOS for inspiration and may have taken the wrong inspiration from its micro skirts, skimpily dressed female guest stars and who can forget the Orion Slave Girl!

https://io9.gizmodo.com/weirdest-and-sexiest-costumes-from-the-original-star-tr-5969957

05-05-2020 10:24AM

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Enterprise was just a holodeck simulation to me. I watched a few episodes but never got into the "temporal cold war". Anything involving time travel tends to get my eyes rolling and result in a sudden lack of interest because it feels like lazy writing most of the time. That being said I prefer it to Discovery and even STP because despite dropping "Star Trek" from the title, it's still very much Star Trek. It's crazy to think it's almost 20 years old, I remember it like yesterday when it was "new" and "fresh" back in 2002. Oh yeah, it had an amazing theme tune, the best in all of Trek.

Honestly the Temporal Cold War is one of the better handled time stories, in Trek, and one could see how hampering Earth just as it makes first steps would be the latest you could do something so drastic, while still keeping the other races on a relatively advanced level. Once Federation kicked off the loss of Earth would destabilise the quadrant.

05-05-2020 10:26AM

odyssey06 wrote: »

The writers were probably told to re-watch TOS for inspiration and may have taken the wrong inspiration from its micro skirts, skimpily dressed female guest stars and who can forget the Orion Slave Girl!

https://io9.gizmodo.com/weirdest-and-sexiest-costumes-from-the-original-star-tr-5969957

Let's not forget the the micro skirt was not an uncommon dress, at the time.
And the slave girl, even if not what they were going for, was appropriate for what the girl represented.

The guest stars, pure flesh for flesh sake.

BUT that was the 60s and feels worse seeing a single actor objectified like that in the early 2000s.

nyarlothothep · 05-05-2020 11:38AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Let's not forget the the micro skirt was not an uncommon dress, at the time.
And the slave girl, even if not what they were going for, was appropriate for what the girl represented.

The guest stars, pure flesh for flesh sake.

BUT that was the 60s and feels worse seeing a single actor objectified like that in the early 2000s.

I hear good things about that arc but never made the effort to get into it. Maybe with this lockdown I will though...

As regards the uniforms, what was the function/purpose of wearing red tights and black socks for karate training in Charlie X. Further to that, yeah I agree that the uniforms in TOS were...interesting but then again, we have "sexposition" in shows, it's died down a bit though but Spartacus and GOT are infamous for it and a lot of the time it was really, really pointless. Ditto for Jessica Jones, mandatory sex scene but one wonders what the point of it is. I would say the costumes in TOS are entertaining at least.

Johnny Storm · 05-05-2020 01:56PM

Just my opinion, but I think Enterprise had a lot of things going against it:
- Many of the acting performances were pretty bad - even from established popular actors.
- the whole idea of a prequel did not fit in with Star Treks forward looking ethos
- as already mentioned in this thread, the show-runners felt they could somehow appeal to some non-star-trek audience so didn't feel the need to fit in with established canon (until season 4 when they over-did the canon)
- In my opinion, there seemed to be a lack of ideas or inspiration resulting in some very lame plots

Evade · 05-05-2020 06:41PM

I really like the Ship

I like the NX class too but I always thought they messed up by having it look too much like a 24th century ship. It implies all Starfleet tech is human based and not a coming together of all the founding planets. If they had changed the colour scheme to something completely new and had the Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellorite ships each have an aspect, hull/weapon/engine colouring and secondary hull, of the 24th century ships it would have had a more of a sense of the Federation being a group effort.

05-05-2020 08:57PM

Episode 3 (after 2 parter opener)

Bit of a comedown. Good to see humanity in play here with Archer refusing to give up on the aliens BUT

OK here we see the NX completely outmatched. Missiles taking several seconds to make contact, just slapping off sheilds and slow enough for energy weapon targetting.

Alien captain turns up and does not think that the vessel under attack and being cut into is the one sending distress call.

**** but Hoshi is completely out of her depth, I'm sorry but no amount of growth excuses her being there int the first place.

Oh and releasing an alien animal onto another planet? Just no

AMKC · 08-05-2020 01:50PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Episode 3 (after 2 parter opener)

Bit of a comedown. Good to see humanity in play here with Archer refusing to give up on the aliens BUT

OK here we see the NX completely outmatched. Missiles taking several seconds to make contact, just slapping off sheilds and slow enough for energy weapon targetting.

Alien captain turns up and does not think that the vessel under attack and being cut into is the one sending distress call.

**** but Hoshi is completely out of her depth, I'm sorry but no amount of growth excuses her being there int the first place.

Oh and releasing an alien animal onto another planet? Just no

I think when we do eventually invent a drive like a warp engine and begin to explore deep space and maybe even meet aliens that we will have better weapons than just rockets and torpedoes but will not use them unless we absolutely have to.

As Hoshi. Yes she was out of her depth there but who wouldn't be. Its all new Give her time.
Some of the episodes in Enterprise really stand up even today but there is a few dudes too that could have been better.

Evade · 08-05-2020 01:54PM

AMKC wrote: »

As Hoshi. Yes she was out of her depth there but who wouldn't be. Its all new Give her time.

She has possibly the hardest job on the ship. Everyone else's job is at least based in something universal, laws of physics etc, languages with no common roots are completely arbitrary.

pixelburp · 08-05-2020 02:01PM

You can see what they were trying to do at the start: plucky humans heading prematurely out into the stars, getting in over their heads but powering on through sheer gumption. The writers weren't good enough though & it just ended up making the Ent. crew look outstandingly idiotic. At the start of the show? The Vulcans were right, the humans weren't ready. But then the writing also made Vulcans into monumental a$$holes so the subtly was completely lost in favour of decontamination scenes.

08-05-2020 02:04PM

Look, I have obviously seen the show before but going through it trying to ignore future knowledge.

Hoshi has the hardest job but still, at the moment, she would not make it through any pre-screening.

Watched "Fight or Flight" yesterday
People say it's a weak episode but I quite enjoyed seeing how just under the surface the hostility to Vulcans still is.
It also looks to be laying the groundwork for listening to Vulcans, in relation to Scan/Observe/Interact, as a proper probe of the planet may have highlighted the pollen.

Next up, Trip gets pregnant

Evade · 08-05-2020 02:20PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Hoshi has the hardest job but still, at the moment, she would not make it through any pre-screening.

Probably not but we do later find she's given a lot of leeway because of her skills. I'd take a Hoshi over a Tilly any day

08-05-2020 02:47PM

Evade wrote: »

Probably not but we do later find she's given a lot of leeway because of her skills. I'd take a Hoshi over a Tilly any day

That we can agree on. Well season 2 Tilly, who has been given super powers, anyway

AMKC · 08-05-2020 05:19PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Look, I have obviously seen the show before but going through it trying to ignore future knowledge.

Hoshi has the hardest job but still, at the moment, she would not make it through any pre-screening.

Watched "Fight or Flight" yesterday
People say it's a weak episode but I quite enjoyed seeing how just under the surface the hostility to Vulcans still is.
It also looks to be laying the groundwork for listening to Vulcans, in relation to Scan/Observe/Interact, as a proper probe of the planet may have highlighted the pollen.

Next up, Trip gets pregnant

That's a fun episode.

pixelburp wrote: »

You can see what they were trying to do at the start: plucky humans heading prematurely out into the stars, getting in over their heads but powering on through sheer gumption. The writers weren't good enough though & it just ended up making the Ent. crew look outstandingly idiotic. At the start of the show? The Vulcans were right, the humans weren't ready. But then the writing also made Vulcans into monumental a$$holes so the subtly was completely lost in favour of decontamination scenes.

I hated the way they made the Vulcans look in it. I would have preferred if it was not made look as bad as it was. I would say the Vulcans were delighted to see Humans had discovered warp drive but they also knew how dangerous deep space was and wanted to make sure we were ready for it.

Evade wrote: »

Probably not but we do later find she's given a lot of leeway because of her skills. I'd take a Hoshi over a Tilly any day

The same here.

De Bhál · 13-05-2020 07:35AM

Only watched it the once and enjoyed it as it progressed but the theme song was a bad start to every show. The bad theme music is what stands out for me thinking back.
I'll have to rewatch it.

Inviere · 13-05-2020 07:50AM

For me the theme music was made ten times worse then they tried to "jazz it up" for the 3rd and 4th season. Sure the song wasn't to everyones liking, but adding a more pronounced beat to it certainly didn't help.

13-05-2020 08:33AM

Ok half way through "The Andorian Incident"

I must say that I am really enjoying these early episodes. All the cast have had some time in the sun, so far, and really getting to know them.

Current episode, again, shows Archer is far too rash. He and Trip crashing through to take the one Andorian without knowing how many others were there, was beyond reckless.
Jeffrey Combs is a treasure

Rawr · 13-05-2020 09:45AM

Inviere wrote: »

For me the theme music was made ten times worse then they tried to "jazz it up" for the 3rd and 4th season. Sure the song wasn't to everyones liking, but adding a more pronounced beat to it certainly didn't help.

Totally agree. Although I never liked either theme, the first version at least had this echo-y quality that somewhat suited a show about exploration in space. Jazzing it up just turned it into a thematic mess.

It boggled my mind back then (and even now) as to why they would drop their tradition of using orchestral music as the show's theme. This is one thing Trek had been good with for many years. Also by then it should have been clear to anyone producing Star Trek that the franchise was an International hit. Adding English lyrics to a theme tune seemed foolish with this in mind.

The whole "jazzing" up of the theme reminds me of how DS9's theme was also "jazzed up" after Season 3. But at least with that change it complemented the original well and was matched well with the show itself stepping up a gear.

Evade · 13-05-2020 01:38PM

Rawr wrote: »

Adding English lyrics to a theme tune seemed foolish with this in mind.

The least they could have done was written lyrics and not used them.

EDIT: That might be a bit obscure. There are lyrics for TOS' theme but they were never intended to be used. Gene Rodenberry wrote them so he could claim 50% ownership of it.

13-05-2020 02:56PM

Beyond
The rim of the star-light
My love
Is wand'ring in star-flight
I know
He'll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know
His journey ends never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.

Kintarō Hattori · 13-05-2020 03:06PM

I knew it was unpopular but didn't think to this extant. I loved it, even the cheesy theme tune- until they tried to jazz that up. I felt Archer was a great character and was well played by Scott Bakula. The season finale though, fecking hell, what a let down. They just shouldn't have bothered.

Evade · 13-05-2020 03:40PM

At least the in a Mirror Darkly theme is good.

AMKC · 15-05-2020 07:31PM

Inviere wrote: »

For me the theme music was made ten times worse then they tried to "jazz it up" for the 3rd and 4th season. Sure the song wasn't to everyones liking, but adding a more pronounced beat to it certainly didn't help.

Agree totally. I don't mind the original but hatted when they tried to put the dance music part onto it.

Evade wrote: »

At least the in a Mirror Darkly theme is good.

Yes that is an very well done opening credits and theme.

Bobtheman · 16-05-2020 04:25PM

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/enterprise-failed-star-trek.html

This is quite good on the whole thing.
I gave up on it mainly because of scot Baluka. Terrible casting
I also think the whole Star Trek thing needed a break at the time.
Then Came battle star Galactica -and SCi Fi went dark.
That has had some positive influence on Trek and some negative.

At Times TNG was to PC and Just too twee.
DS9 avoided being too PC but unfortunately the virus came back in Voyager

Enterprise: What idiots were running the show?

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