binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

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#1 binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by bernomatic »

Since my daughter hooked me up with her Amazon account, I have been binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise and I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.

1.) If T'Pol is on the screen, does anyone really care about anyone else?
2.) Round about season three, when T'pol quit the Vulcan high command, she started wearing different colored jumpsuits. Now is it me or does she match her lipstick color to the jumpsuit she's wearing?
3.) I am a fan of TOS and highly enjoyed some of the tongue in cheek episodes (A piece of the Action, Mudd's Women and of course The Trouble with Tribbles). I think I've seen just one for Enterprise (the shore leave on Rigellan episode) which didn't exactly make me split a gut, but was a bit more humorous than the others. Did I miss some?
4.) and of course I have to have a controversial question dealing with the tech issue. So in Enterprise they have the new technology of the transporter. Can someone explain what the reasoning behind NOT using the transporter on someone who is critically injured: Beaming them into the buffer, then using an stored buffer pattern to rematerialize the person hale and hearty?

Thank you, inquiring minds would like to know.
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#2 Re: binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by Rocket Babe »

The simplest way I can describe the transporter deal is that it would be easier to beam an inanimate object, that's simple cell restructure but a living thing is a different story and would be the next step up for the technology which they eventually were able to do without much real world explanation. Beaming them to a buffer that contained a complete copy of the person would be kind of like using the original boot disc for your computer to restore it 100% should it ever be corrupted.

One idea I thought of back when the original series was on 200 years ago was that doctors could put a person in and then reassemble them a few seconds later minus cancer or any other disease.
Last edited by Rocket Babe on Sat, 14 Jan 17, 01:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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#3 Re: binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by bernomatic »

Just an up date on the lipstick issue and T'pol. I watched an episode dealing with augments where T'pol wore a light blue outfit and no blue lipstick. :(
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#4 Re: binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by luke strawwalker »

bernomatic wrote:Since my daughter hooked me up with her Amazon account, I have been binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise and I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.

1.) If T'Pol is on the screen, does anyone really care about anyone else?
2.) Round about season three, when T'pol quit the Vulcan high command, she started wearing different colored jumpsuits. Now is it me or does she match her lipstick color to the jumpsuit she's wearing?
3.) I am a fan of TOS and highly enjoyed some of the tongue in cheek episodes (A piece of the Action, Mudd's Women and of course The Trouble with Tribbles). I think I've seen just one for Enterprise (the shore leave on Rigellan episode) which didn't exactly make me split a gut, but was a bit more humorous than the others. Did I miss some?
4.) and of course I have to have a controversial question dealing with the tech issue. So in Enterprise they have the new technology of the transporter. Can someone explain what the reasoning behind NOT using the transporter on someone who is critically injured: Beaming them into the buffer, then using an stored buffer pattern to rematerialize the person hale and hearty?

Thank you, inquiring minds would like to know.
What a coinkydink-- I've been getting Keira kultured and we've been watching ALL the Star Trek series in order, from TOS to TNG to DS9 to Voyager and we just started season 3 of Enterprise... that was after we watched all the MOVIES in order from TMP to the big letdown "Nemesis" and of course even JJAbrams drek, which neither of us like or consider "real" Star Trek-- more like popcorn fodder to separate braindead mall rats from $10 in ticket money for the afternoon...

ANYWAY, here's my take on your questions...
1) T'Pol... DEFINITE Vulcan hottie. Some folks really knocked her performance (most Trekkies knocked Enterprise anyway on a number of levels-- yes the writing was kinda soft and had plot holes big enough to fly a ship through, and there was a lot of problems in how they developed (or failed to develop) the characters), but I think ALL the actors on that series turned in a good job-- maybe not "Oscar level performances" but certainly good given the material. T'Pol certainly got ones attention... Betty asked me last night "is there a reason why she can't wear full-length pajamas (referring to the bare midriff blue jammies she wore in a few episodes in her quarters). "Yep", I said, "she's a hottie... that's called "bein' sexy"... LOL:) I liked what they did with her character and the Vulcans in general in Enterprise... they almost seemed like the Soviets or Red Chinese, in that they had a very regimented society, only based on logic instead of communism, were intolerant of questioning the state, disobedience, or anything the ones in charge didn't deem "normal" or "good". It was a nice contrast to what we learned about the Vulcans in TOS with Spock... these more "regimented" Vulcans were holding back their own society in a dogmatic and narrow view of logic which brooked no dissension, and at the same time were trying to hold Earth back since they didn't deem humanity "ready" to explore into deep space and contact other cultures. It goes a long way to explain how Earth and humanity became the primary founders of the Federation rather than the more technologically advanced and "more civilized" Vulcans. It also fits with some of the transitionary material found in the last season of Enterprise-- had Enterprise continued for a fifth year, I think they would have had some really interesting stories... It also fits with some of the things we learned about the Vulcans in TOS, like the "Vulcanian Expedition" which they never really expanded on, but sort of alluded to as "opening up Vulcan" to other cultures much like Commodore Perry's expedition opened up Japan in the late 19th century...

2) We're just a few episodes into Season 3, but I think you might be right... the marquee they have up for "Enterprise" (we're watching on Amazon Firestick so I'm not sure which app it's coming through) shows a picture of Capt. Archer and a red-jumpsuited T'Pol who is VERY made-up... far more makeup than she typically wore on the show. I think it was probably a publicity shot done for the show for magazine ads or the like...

3) I liked the humorous ones of TOS as well, for the most part... Mudd's Women being a bit of a stretch IMHO and not really a "humorous" episode per-se IMHO... more about vanity and the perception of beauty. What I REALLY missed about Enterprise vs. TOS was the "morality play" aspect of TOS that never really carried over much into the newer series (beyond a few TNG episodes). That's one reason I REALLY like "Star Trek Continues" in that most of the shows have been morality plays, in addition to REALLY good stories and the production value is better than TOS was when it was on TV, and on par with anything that the studios are putting out, and the stories are LIGHT YEARS better than the CRAP that the studios are pouring money on like no tomorrow and cranking out from idiots like JJAbrams... I don't recall any other really "funny" episodes of Enterprise-- perhaps with the funnily BAD "A Night in Sickbay" when Archer's dog contracted a bug on an away mission... that episode has been described by various commentators as "the worst episode in the history of Star Trek". I don't think it's COMPLETE garbage, BUT, the writing was pretty awful, and Archer came across as a complete asshole, and the rest of the characters seemed either befuddled or inept... I chalk it up to bad writing and/or bad script development... I know it was done when the characters were still "kinda fuzzy" in how the writers intended to develop them and how the actors were to approach bringing the characters to life... I think they got scripts where they were supposed to be "one way" in this episode and then "another way" in the next one... one week Archer was heroic or noble, the next week a pissy A-hole... It doesn't endear your characters to the audience when you write things that way, or don't catch it in script meetings and say, "hey, this makes Archer look like an asshat... how bout we tone this down a bit-- maybe a little re-write is in order?"

I think that sorta was one of the BIG overall complaints about "Enterprise"... it just seemed like the writers and cast and staff were "phoning it in" so to speak-- no real direction or polish like on the other series. The special effects were great, the acting was decent, but the characters never really "gelled" and we never really got the same feelings for them like we did for the characters on other Trek series...

Course, I didn't actually watch "Enterprise" when it was on TV in it's first run... I was "burned out" on Trek at the time and I think a LOT of people were... I watched (and taped) every single episode of TNG FAITHFULLY, even when they sorta started steering TNG away from the original vision that Roddenberry had for it (which wasn't necessarily a bad thing). Rick Berman did a good overall job with TNG and kept it true to what "Star Trek" was supposed to be (to me anyway). BUT, a lot of the writers and story editors and stuff complained that TNG was VERY hard to write for, because "personality conflicts" or "human conflict" between the characters was "not permitted", which of course makes it hard to create tension or drama... the only time "conflict" was allowed between the characters was when it was caused by the 'alien of the week' or the 'interloping nefarious character of the week (usually a misguided or "evil" admiral issuing orders contrary to "Starfleet/human ideals") or as a result of some "disease of the week" or whatever of that sort. The TNG characters were all supposed to "get along" and be on the same harmonious wavelength, according to the 'harmonious future' envisioned by Roddenberry. That's great, but it makes things awfully DULL after awhile... LOL:)

Then came DS9, which was a good idea on the face of it, but didn't quite work out as planned-- and which strayed further and further from what "Trek" was supposed to be (an optimistic if "imperfect" view of the future), trading Roddenberry's original concept for the "darker, grittier" reality that was the big rage at the time... and under the influence of Ira Steven Behr and some others, basically walked DS9 "off the map" of what Trek was supposed to be, IMHO... In fact I was SO disgusted with the weird turns DS9 took from the TNG "universe" we'd seen every week during TNG's tenure on TV, that I quit watching DS9 shortly after TNG went off the air (TNG went off during the second or third season of DS9, which is about when I quit watching). I saw an episode here and there, but I didn't follow DS9 anywhere near as closely as I did TNG, and didn't like the "darker, grittier" Trek DS9 came to embody... When Voyager came out halfway through DS9's run, I watched the first season of it, but never really got into Voyager either-- it had a lot of similarities to DS9 with the "characters in conflict" (how many fights between Kira Nerys and Commander Sisko could one take-- or between Odo and Quark, or Odo and Sisko). Voyager just seemed to me to be a retread of DS9 put on a ship, mish-mashed up with "TOS" by dumping their lone ship into the Delta Quadrant... with the "Kazon" standing in as a poor-man's retread of the "Klingons", etc... so basically about the third year of DS9 and the second year of Voyager, I quit watching both with any regularity-- if I was at the house and doing nothing, I'd watch it, if it grabbed my interest, but I didn't go out of my way to watch it. By the time DS9 ended halfway through Voyager's run, I'd lost ALL interest in DS9 and MOST interest in Voyager... I saw maybe a half-dozen episodes of Voyager's last 3-4 seasons. By the time Voyager ended and Enterprise started, I was like "meh, another Trek spinoff" and watched part of one episode and went "meh, so what" and never watched it again...

Years later when I saw it in reruns, I got into it and was kinda sad I never watched it in the first run... it stumbled around a lot, but so did TNG basically the first two seasons... the third and fourth seasons of Enterprise were MUCH better than the first two, though by that time I think the damage had been done... they'd lost their core audience and couldn't make money off it, so they canned it, which was a shame in a way-- I think a fifth season of Enterprise would have been VERY good... sadly they never got the chance. Instead, years later, we got JJAbrams DREK which is simply AWFUL...

4) Ah, the transporter... you DO know that the "transporter" was an idea concocted to get around the fact that the original TOS didn't have money originally to build a shuttlecraft, right?? They realized that 1701 couldn't land on planets in every show, and they didn't have money to build a shuttlecraft to ferry their characters down to the planet's surface for every show, so they needed a "cheap-n-dirty" solution-- hence the 'transporter' and the idea of "beaming" from the ship to the planet and back again. Which, of course, then led to some interesting story ideas deriving from the premise of a transporter-- like when Kirk was "split in two" in the one episode with the unicorn basset hound (can't recall the name ATM) with "bad Kirk" going after Yeoman Rand, or the crew swapping places with their "Imperial" evil counterparts from "the Mirror Universe" (which was subsequently used to generate quite a few EXCELLENT stories in its own right, especially in DS9 and Enterprise,which even got a modified theme song and intro!) The PROBLEM is, you have to be *careful* in how you USE the transporter in stories, or it can become a sort of "god-machine" that can do ANYTHING and therefore provides TOO EASY of an "out" for whatever situation you write the characters into... and of course that temptation HAS led some some rather obvious "overuse" and "abuse" of the idea of the transporter over the various series and episodes... from beaming between alternate universes or reintegrating split personalities in TOS, to repairing genetic damage in several episodes of TNG (returning a severely age-ravaged Dr. Pulaski to her current "youthful" appearance in the second season opener, to fixing Picard, Keiko, and Ensign Ro when they were turned into kids after flying through the "space anomaly of the week", to Scotty surviving in a crashed ship for 75 years on a Dyson sphere by dematerializing into the pattern buffer for all that time, and various other "miraculous" fixes for episodes which then lead you to say "why didn't they just use the transporter to fix that" in some other episodes... It also leads to conflicting and sometimes contradictory "rules" that "limit" the transporter, which are then conveniently 'forgotten' for subsequent episodes or stories where it's the only "possible" solution-- like "not being able to transport at warp speeds" which isn't allowed in some episodes and crucial to others, or "not being able to transport through shields" which is conveniently "solved" in various episodes, like the "1/50 of a second" window O'Brien uses to beam over to the Phoenix in the episode of TNG where his old Captain (Maxwell) is blowing up Cardassian ships...

In Enterprise, the transporter is "new technology" and therefore not "widely used" or exactly "trusted". It's far more limited than the transporters in TOS and the subsequent series, I know they mention it's only capable of transporting people about 5,000 km (IIRC, maybe it was 10,000 km), unlike the TOS transporters which transported in the range of 20,000 km or so, and TNG's which were about 30,000 km or so, though more advanced "experimental" transporters were used for various episodes to transport truly ENORMOUS distances, at warp, through shields, etc.) It's also easily fouled up by excessive layers of rocks or metallic or magnetic minerals, as well as other "phenomena" that screw with the signal or lock... As for the question posed about "beaming a sick or injured person into the pattern buffer til they come out well" that is another 'god-machine' paradox that can really screw things up for future episodes and limit your writing capabilities... Plus, while the function of the transporter has always been a little 'fuzzy' in that often contradictory or conflicting information is given about it in various episodes, from what I've gathered basically the transporter uses an energy beam that is "locked on" to a person on another ship or planet, then it reads their "pattern" molecule by molecule and then "disassembles" those molecules into a "beam" of energetic particles, evidently "encoding" the precise position, state, spin, and basic "quantum state" in how the particle is spinning or "encoded" into the stream (perhaps by frequency, amplitude, or polarization modulation, encoded as "pulses" digitally as each particle is "disassociated" into the matter stream, etc). This information is transmitted THROUGH the matter stream to "reassemble" the person on the other end. Of course the travel time of this matter stream is NOT "zero" and it takes time both to disassemble the material at one end and "reassemble" it on the other end, and so the matter "in transit" is stored temporarily in the "pattern buffer" which maintains the data encoded in the matter stream that tells the transporter how to reassemble whatever it is that's being transported... to encode that information as digital "instructions" for every single atom and molecule in a human body would literally take TRILLIONS of gigabytes of information for a SINGLE transported object... encoding it "in the matter stream" onto the particles themselves would obviate the need for this HUGE computer data transfer and storage problem... (in theory) and thus allow the matter stream ITSELF to tell the transporter how to "reassemble" the disassembled particles back into coherent, functioning, complete matter, person, organism, etc... BUT it would require that the "pattern" imprinted on the matter stream to be "preserved" during the time between its arrival in the transporter's "matter stream receiver" and when that is "rematerialized"... hence the 'pattern buffer". It's been described in several episodes that the pattern buffer is ONLY a "temporary" storage tank of the matter stream-- after awhile the encoded data begins to 'degrade' as the matter stream becomes "muddled" swirling around in the pattern buffer, and whatever method is used to "encode" the instructions for rematerialization into the matter stream is lost or "fouled up". Without the sufficiently intact pattern, the transporter has NO idea how to rematerialize the matter stream back into the original object, be it person, material, etc... They've gotten around that "limitation" in some episodes by "creative means", ie Scotty "locking the pattern buffer into diagnostic mode" which *somehow* (god machine) manages to "repolarize the matter stream" and prevent pattern degradation... even over 75 years (it's been said in various episodes that the pattern can only exist for a matter of minutes (various time spans depending on the needs of the episode). Apparently it's also "possible" to inject "new data" into the matter stream, in that on several occasions they've plugged characters "DNA profile" into the transporter and used it to cure incurable disease or repair damage that turned the crew into children or whatever the problem of the week happened to be... Apparently the transporter can be "programmed" to override the matter stream-encoded data from the dematerialized sick person or child and substitute their "healthy" DNA pattern when it comes time to rematerialize the transported person's DNA in their cells as they are rematerialized... Which of course presents an OBVIOUS "god-machine" problem-- why doesn't EVERYBODY keep a "transporter trace" or "DNA sample" from when they're 20 and strong and healthy, and when they get old or injured, ride through a suitably modified transporter and emerge healthy and whole and perfectly intact, as they were when they were 20?? Of course this is, rightfully, explained away in that when Picard beamed himself out "energy only" into the energy cloud in one of the early first-season TNG episodes and was "rematerialized" some time later by his "pattern" which was still in the buffer (evidently since he was beamed out "energy only" the physical material of his body remained in the pattern buffer, only the "energy" released as the atoms and molecules were broken apart was beamed into space?? Weird and poses a whole TON of questions in itself...) Of course Picard is "miraculously" rematerialized to save the day by Riker, and is explained as being "but confused-- this pattern of Picard was created before he beamed out there (as he beamed out there, so he would retain no knowledge of what had happened to him after beaming out). SO, anyone 'reverting to their 20 year old DNA" to be healed or made young again would ALSO LOSE ALL their accumulated knowledge and experience gained and encoded in their neurons and neural pathways in the intervening years, and would "rematerialize" as the inexperienced 20 year olds they were when the pattern was originally made... theoretically, anyway...

Of course it's all "make believe" and if anything like a 'transporter' IS ever invented, methinks it will be impossible of recreating most of the 'happy endings' it was used for in the various Trek series...

Later! OL J R :)
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#5 Re: binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by bernomatic »

I'm about midway through season 4 myself. I vaguely remember watching a few episodes when it first aired and wanting to watch more, but the early 2000's were not a stable time in my life. Suffice it to say making plans to watch a new trek series on a weekly basis was not going to happen.

I find it more enjoyable, especially with the two part shows, not to have to wait a week to find out how things turn out.
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#6 Re: binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by luke strawwalker »

Yeah, I do too.

I WOULD probably watch this new Trek series, but I'm simply NOT going to pay for "CBS streaming" for ONE single show... and I have ZERO interest in ANYTHING that CBS has had on the air in the last 20 years, AFAIK...

I figure sooner or later it'll work it's way out onto "other avenues" of seeing it. I can wait til then. I refuse to support CBS's STUPID decision to try to strongarm folks into their subscription based web streaming service simply to watch what may well be another POORLY DONE studio "reimagining" of Star Trek... (none of JJAbrams "Drek" has held ANY fascination for me in the slightest... if that guy EVER does ANYTHING original I'll just fall over in shock. We FINALLY watched the DVD of Star Wars "Episode VII: The Force Awakens" the other night before we took Betty to see "Rogue One" (which FAR AND AWAY blew "episode 7" out of the water on EVERY count-- writing, story, score, originality, acting, special effects, you name it). It occurred to all of us WHY Keira and I left the theater in Plymouth, Indiana last year after seeing Ep 7 ONCE and "Meh" was the most complimentary thing we could say about it... and despite having bought the Blu-ray back in spring, we never had a burning desire to watch it... having now watched it a second time, it was instantly obvious to us that it was just a VERY POOR MAN'S REMAKE of the original 1977 "Star Wars"... only substituting the forgettable chick in Luke's place, that wimpy whiny Kylo Ren as a VERY limp-wristed substitute for Darth Vader, and a slightly redressed and STUPID idea for a sun sucking "death planet" in place of the Death Star... (hello, how would the damn thing not FREEZE SOLID after it sucked its sun out of existence-- that along with the fact that the star would be THOUSANDS OF TIMES the volume of the planet... GACK-- I think JJAbrams needs to stick to whatever shitty comic book movies he was doing that "made him famous"-- he UTTERLY SUCKS at sci-fi and has managed to RUIN TWO major franchises...)

Hopefully we see more of the types of stories like "Rogue One" and less "Episode 7's" in the future...

Later! OL J R :)
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#7 Re: binge watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Post by luke strawwalker »

bernomatic wrote:I'm about midway through season 4 myself. I vaguely remember watching a few episodes when it first aired and wanting to watch more, but the early 2000's were not a stable time in my life. Suffice it to say making plans to watch a new trek series on a weekly basis was not going to happen.

I find it more enjoyable, especially with the two part shows, not to have to wait a week to find out how things turn out.
Yeah, like I said, I had a lot of "Trek burnout" about that time period, disliked what they'd done with Roddenberry's original idea as DS9 and Voyager wore on, and had just "tuned out" by that point.

I think "prequels" are hard to do... people sort of get a preconceived notion of "how it must've been" from what they learn about a show (either Star Trek or Star Wars) and then are 'disappointed' that the prequel doesn't exactly follow what they "anticipated" as their take on whatever they "learned" about the prequel era from watching the shows... I think that's why George Lucas's attempts with "The Phantom Menace", "Attack of the Clones", and "Revenge of the Sith", in particular Episode I: the Phantom Menace, were met with such derision and general unhappiness among the 'fans'... We know how things were in the original 1977 "Star Wars", and so we have to finish off with everything basically in alignment with that point, say "point M" in the story... but how you get from "point A" to "point M" is very much up for debate... that's where people tend to make up their own "story" based on what they know, and get disappointed when the writer chooses a different path... some might go from A to B,to C, to D, etc.. some might go from A to C to D to B to F to E to G... it's all sorta "up in the air" since we only know that everything ends up at "point M" and started at "point A"; how we got there isn't discussed and left up to the viewer to decide...

So it was with Enterprise, methinks... I thought it was kinda weird that they took on such a "modern" look for the NX-01 (it looks a LOT more advanced than the original 1701 in TOS) and that their communicators and phase pistols and stuff looked "more advanced"... even the bridge sets and "engineering" looked "more advanced" than Kirk's ship which was supposedly 100 years LATER than Archers... Of course the production value is SO much better now, that some of that is to be expected, I guess, and audiences now would laugh at a show with a dinky 1701 model zipping across the screen and aluminum painted beach balls for antimatter pods and stuff like that seen in "TOS". I guess, in retrospect watching "Enterprise" a dozen years later, it WAS a pretty good balance between modern production values and audience demands for "realism" on screen" and the requirement to be "100 years more primitive" than Kirk's ship... apparently somewhere along the line they "cleaned up" the designs and made everything more square and bland with lots of primary colors about... resulting in 1701, the standard Starfleet communicators, tricorders, phasers, and uniforms of Kirk's TOS...

I've been reading some of the reviews of "Enterprise" online... most are completely EVISCERATING of the writing and stories and acting, characters, etc. of the show... the Agony Booth has a SCATHING multi-page blow-by-blow review of "A Night in Sickbay"... I think some of those reviews are rather harsh and unfair, but it's clear that UPN's attempt at using "Enterprise" as a flagship show for the network didn't work out as planned, and for whatever reason, Enterprise simply floundered around quite a bit for a protracted length of time before it FINALLY was beginning to find its real footing, just about the time the run was pulled out from under them. It's too bad, really. BUT, given the very premise of the show-- 100 years before Kirk and Spock, humanity starts taking its first tentative steps into the galaxy, and forging alliances which will lead to the founding of the Federation-- I think that several things were stacked against them which made audience acceptance difficult. First, the "prequel" dilemma... as I said, whatever you come up with, is probably going to upset or disappoint "somebody" who already had it "figured out a different way" from what they learned or thought about the prehistory of the ORIGINAL show (TOS). The way the characters and particularly, the Vulcans, were portrayed, was unpopular with a lot of people (though I found the idea of basically "stagnated" and rather "totalitarian", almost "communistic" Vulcans to be rather an interesting premise, which was developed nicely later on in the show with the introduction of the young T'Pau...) I liked that the Andorians and Tellarites, two species very rarely seen in TOS but introduced as two of the founding members of the Federation (along with humans and Vulcans) were given more screen time and interesting stories... (and which were suspiciously absent in many subsequent Trek shows as well, hardly ever appearing on TNG, DS9, or Voyager...) The whole "temporal Cold War" thing brought a LOT of criticism from fans, but I think it was an interesting story arc that allowed the writers the freedom "not to be hemmed in" by the dictates of "the prequel dilemma", in that again, we KNOW that the story takes up at "point M" in Kirk and Spocks day, and we know certain things (sometimes hazy or contradictory, like Spock's assertion that "they fought the war you avoided" in "the Omega Glory" (a nuclear holocaust) and instead fought a "Eugenics War" (which apparently was a "secret war" fought behind the scenes of modern human history, at least according to the books, which of course aren't canon), but which Picard alludes to in the very beginning of TNG-- the "post-atomic horror" and which is a "point A" somewhere in the 2050's, where a nuclear war ravages Earth with "600 million dead" according to Riker in "First Contact", which itself establishes a "Point B" in the timeline... (itself conflicting with TOS's assertion in an original episode that Zefram Cochrane was actually from Alpha Centauri and developed warp drive there, and apparently it was these "Centaurans" which were the "first contact" Earth had with extraterrestrial species, not an Earthling that developed warp drive which led to first contact with the Vulcans per the events seen in "First Contact". At any rate, we KNOW that there are plenty of "points" like A, B, C, etc. that were revealed as having occurred in history before the events we saw onscreen in TOS, some of which were conflicting or hazy or referred to only in a single line of dialog or whatever, and which have, in some cases, been expanded upon or even dismissed in further storytelling when it was either convenient or inconvenient to a story written much later... so it leads to a lot of "confusion" and in some cases, no matter WHICH interpretation you take and what 'spin' you put on things later on in a "prequel" like Enterprise, you're going to offend some of the fans on either one side or the other, so there's really no way to "win" in such predicaments. When you throw in decades of "fan fiction" about the prequel era, as well as "time travel stories" that are done in TOS and the subsequent series, it leads to a lot more "points of confusion" that causes dissension for the prequel later on. Couple that with the fact that one iteration of Trek or another had been on the air continuously with new episodes, with all the series more or less overlapping at some points in their runs (TNG started in 87 and ran 7 seasons, DS9 overlapped the last 2-3 seasons of TNG, then Voyager started basically in the fall after TNG ended, meaning Voyager's first 3 years overlapped the last 3 of DS9, Then Enterprise started up about the time Voyager was ending (don't recall if they "overlapped" or not-- seems like I recall Voyager wrapping up in the Spring and Enterprise starting that fall). Basically there had been various iterations of TREK on TV weekly (seasonally) uninterrupted from 1987 to the early 2000's... and not ALL of those iterations had the complete devotion of the fan base... a lot of folks were turned off to some degree or other by various decisions of the producers and writers in where they took those series... That was a LONG TIME (about 13 years or so?) of non-stop Trek, and of course people "demanded" each show be "higher quality" than the last, and so Enterprise was facing a lot of "backlash" from fans and very, perhaps exceedingly high, expectations that simply weren't met-- Enterprise seemed to have a HARD time establishing its footing-- far more than DS9 or Voyager did, or even TNG, which really didn't hit its "stride" until the third season, by most accounts...

I noticed much the same rewatching Enterprise now... the first two seasons seem very "muddled" in their message and character development, and some choices were "not very wise" in how they were written or acted. Not that I think the actors were "bad"; I think they were given mixed messages in the writing-- after all, "if it's not on the page, it's not on the stage". A character actor in a long-running developing show has to 'figure out" who their character is, what they're like, and then play them that way. If the writers and producers are sending stuff down that conflicts with that, the actor can basically say, "I don't think my character would react this way, or say that, or whatever" but that's about it. So if one week you're handed a script where Archer is noble and self-sacrificing, you play it that way. If the next week you get a script where he's a pissy A-hole, what are you supposed to do? If "I don't think he'd act like this or say that" doesn't change it, you're stuck acting the lines on the page... that's where the producers fell down on the job I think-- insufficient story and script development. And, I see the point that some of the reviews and comments made, that the stories were "too simplistic" and 'too quickly and predictably solved" and led to a lot of disappointment and anger from the fans... choices made in the stories, like withholding the cure for the plague killing millions on one planet they visited, because it was "a natural development" and would lead to the extinction of one race, yet allow another intelligent related species existing as an underclass on the planet to survive and come to dominate the planet in their place (the "Neanderthal" episode, where the lower intelligence race was "suppressed" by the dominant race, yet they were immune to the disease killing millions of the dominant race). That was a story choice that was roundly and VERY LOUDLY AND ANGRILY denounced by HUGE portions of the fans... and created some interesting web discussions on the ethics of desirability of such things as a "prime directive"... At any rate, alienating huge sections of the fan base upon which you depend for weekly ratings is NOT a good method to increase the success of the show... Then there was the story about the Klingons raiding the deuterium outpost, which Archer and company helped defend (with a kickboxing T'Pol no less)... they lure what must be the universe's most gullible Klingons into a gas field they've mined, then tell them to get lost, and they DO... yeah, it was a "message episode" (Archer even states he "doesn't like bullies") but the ending is just too convenient... after being humiliated by a bunch of settlers and the Enterprise main crew, (who will soon be rocketing off across the galaxy elsewhere and won't be around to help next time), the Klingons mutter, "come on, we can get deuterium anywhere-- we don't need your lousy stuff" or something to that effect and fly off, never to bother the miners again... REALLY?? No, what probably happened is they came back a week later, slit everyone's throats in the middle of the night, and burned their encampment... from what we know of Klingons of that era.

There was even an episode which was a direct knock-off of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"... with Archer in the Klingon court dock instead of Kirk... after inexplicably being captured by the Klingons (another story hole large enough to fly NX-01 through) Archer is tried for being an enemy of the Klingon people, for rescuing a group of refugees from a Klingon-occupied world the Klingon's had "annexed" into their empire... Archer finally motivates his jaded Klingon defense counselor to actually stand up to the kangaroo court that the Empire's warrior class has turned it into, and stand up for REAL honor and justice-- which gets Archer a suspended death sentence, but ends up with him sentenced to Rura Penthe for life (just like Kirk and McCoy in ST 6) and his counselor sentenced to a year alongside him for "contempt of court". And, like Kirk, Archer is sprung in a ridiculously easy manner by his crew, though his counselor remains behind to serve his sentence so he can retake his position in Klingon society after completing it, to affect change on the Klingon home world, rather than run and be a fugitive...

It was a good story, but it had a lot of holes in it, and could have been done somewhat better and without such a direct rip-off of ST6...

Enterprise DID have a LOT of good stories, especially in seasons three and four... we just finished "North Star" about the humans from the Old West who were captured by aliens and taken as servants to a planet in the expanse by the Skragarcians (Skrags for short) and who subsequently overthrew their captors and killed most of them, burned their ship and destroyed their weapons, and then reestablished their "old west" society on the new planet, with the "Skrags" as an underclass, forbidden to teach their children to read or write or mathematics, not allowed to own land or to marry... Until Archer and company arrive and, after learning about the situation, decide to inform the westerners that they're from Earth, and that humanity has come a long way to overcoming such things as hate, racism, slavery, etc. in the past 300 years, and now plies the stars exploring in starships... and that they'll have to adapt if they want to rejoin Earth when more Earth ships arrive years from now. The turns they take with T'Pol and Trip were interesting, the temporal Cold War allowed for some very interesting (if far out) stories that couldn't have been done any other way, and there were some other interesting stories to come out of Enterprise... it was just hitting it's stride when it was canned, unfortunately...

Later! OL J R :)
My MUNIFICENCE is BOUNDLESS, Mr. Bond...
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