Why Enterprise Was Just Kinda…Ehhhh…
By stephanie - Tuesday, February 27th, 2007
I caught an episode of Enterprise on SciFi yesterday. The crew stops at a mysterious space station that magically repairs their ship, with our captain wondering “What’s the catch?”
I had checked out Enterprise when it first “launched” and just didn’t find the show interesting enough to continue. In viewing the show again with fresh eyes, I was left with these thoughts on why the show was just mediocre at best:
It’s not just that Enterprise was formulaic, it completely lacked personality and spark.
I really do like Scott Bakula, but as a starship captain riding the new frontier, he’s about as exciting as a piece of dry toast. Even our quirky alien doctor in sickbay (who provides some sort of relief from the monotonous voices of the rest of the cast) isn’t enough to make this show come to life.
If I were to recreate Enterprise, I’d want to see a swashbuckling, dynamic, crazy-ass captain who was willing to do whatever it took to protect his crew. I want to see a captain bristling with so much spark and sexual energy, he’s seducing aliens across the galaxy. Oh, wait, that was Captain Kirk!
I want the other characters to be just as memorable and interesting. Even though Scotty was a terrible caricature of a Scotsman, we all remember his soundbites. Can you say that about anything uttered on Enterprise?
Enterprise…you blew it. I shed no tears for your demise.
As McCoy would say: “He’s dead, Jim.”
March 1st, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I completely 100% agree…but you really should check out the 4th season some time if you get a chance. At the end of the third season they brought on a new head writer. Manny Coto, he brought the series back to Star Treks roots. The fourth series feels a lot more like TOS than anything else. I’m not saying it was perfect but the show greatly improved that last season. Too late it wasn’t soon enough to turn the series around.
March 4th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I desperately wanted to like this show, but grew bored after 2 seasons. I found Bragga’s disregard for Trek history annoying as he would allow contradictions, TOS be damned. The show showed promise @ the end when it was teetering on cancellation…it’s just too bad it did not start out the way it ended, i may still be on.
March 5th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Your absolutely right Flexnfx, I felt like Bragga was shitting all over the franchise on a weekly basis. Its a shame too because the series could have worked if in the right hands as we saw in the last season. Also I find it ironic that some of the best modern Trek, namely the second half of DS9, was something that Berman and Bragga had almost nothing to do with. They were busy running Voyager into the ground and pretty much had no creative input into those last seasons of DS9. I still think thats why it was so good. I’m not saying that Berman never did anything good, during his TNG years he was on the right track, but somewhere along the line he lost his way, and Bragga sure didn’t help.
August 7th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I’m not a fan of the other series in this franchise so I’m not aware of all the little canon nuances that others seem to be bothered by, but I loved the show in its second running. I admit that at first I caught a few eps and was left unimpress until the 3rd and 4th seasons blew me away. I even ordered the UnPopular Network just to start viewing it at and around the episode Similitude. But now, going back and catching those missed eps from the first and second season, I see flaws but still don’t think it’s total crap. Even the wooden and sometimes irrational portrayal of Archer by Bakula (whom I liked…just not in this role) makes more sense to me now and isn’t as grating on my nerves as before. And John B’s work as Phlox and Trinneer’s fantastic acting as Trip Tucker makes this the only Star Trek that I can honesty say has made me a real fan.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:23 am
‘Ell yeah…the 3rd w/ the Xindi; the Temporal Wars & the Romulan Marauder w/ Mirror Universe were the best. (thanks to non-bergman approved writing) At least with J.J. we won’t be falling asleep w/ predictable trek plotlines this summer….