Scott Bakula Star Trek Enterprise

[JamesTC]

The TNG Season 4 episode Half a Life is actually quite similar.

Spoiler alert

It too ends with a suicide funnily enough.

[close]

Cogenitor doesn't work in the way Half a Life did because the writers on TNG recognised the person rallying against the culture needed to be outside of Starfleet whereas all of the Starfleet characters were respectful of all cultures no matter how different but also respectful of individual choices. It is always a difficult balancing act with these Prime Directive stories and Half a Life is the only one to truly nail it.

[bgmnts]

The TNG Season 4 episode Half a Life is actually quite similar.

Spoiler alert

It too ends with a suicide funnily enough.

[close]

Cogenitor doesn't work in the way Half a Life did because the writers on TNG recognised the person rallying against the culture needed to be outside of Starfleet whereas all of the Starfleet characters were respectful of all cultures no matter how different but also respectful of individual choices. It is always a difficult balancing act with these Prime Directive stories and Half a Life is the only one to truly nail it.

Even Worf??

[Wonderful Butternut]

Archer's speech at the end is what really wound me up - he blames the death of the cogenitor on Trip, even though the suicide was brought about by Archer's own decision to return the cogenitor to quasi-slavery. Felt like Archer was trying to dump the consequences of his own decision onto Trip, who didn't even do anything out of line at first, given that he was granted permission to speak to the cogenitor.

Archer's just a shit captain.

[JamesTC]

Even Worf??

Considering some of the Klingon traditions, I think assisted suicide is probably something he would be respectful of.

[Lemming]

Onto season three and wow, it's just nosedived. Only three episodes in (just finished "Extinction") but it's like they've made a concerted effort to intentionally suck all the fun out of the show. In it for the long haul now and hoping the season improves as it goes on, but the Xindi plot seems like a total dead-end from where I'm standing (and those scenes where the Xindi council or whatever are gathering to debate how to kill Archer gave me Farscape vibes in the worst way possible), and the attempt to force a grittier mood is just making the show dull. It's annoying because, mediocre as they were, I was mostly very much enjoying the first two seasons.

That said, the unintentional comedy value, always high in Enterprise, has actually increased. Was absolutely howling when one of the marines (fucking Starfleet marines) snapped a guy's neck for absolutely no reason, followed almost right away by the first-person thermal vision sniper shot. Completely embarrassing. I fucking hate Star Trek. Archer torturing the guy with the airlock nearly took me out as well, proper belly laughs. Close-up of Scott Bakula's face with a light right above his head so his eyes are dramatically covered by the shadow of his brow. Exquisite.

Love the forced scenes with Trip and T'Pol too. Just not clicking on any level and thoroughly cringeworthy to watch. It's Chakotay and Seven all over again, except this one looks set to stick around. I like to imagine Connor Trinneer and Jolene Blalock getting together beforehand, looking at the script, and trying to figure out how the fuck to make it work. Early days so I'll give it a chance, but this is shaping up to be a disaster.

[JamesTC]

The next episode isn't great either but hold on till the episode Twilight. Plain sailing from that point. It really is a great season but just takes a few episodes to get going.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Archer's just a shit captain.

Archer being a shit captain could work, that's the bit I find so frustrating about Enterprise. This is the early days of the (proto?)Federation, let's have protagonists who make mistakes and see some consequences for those mistakes and who aren't perfect people with no personal issues. They give Archer a reason to have a chip on his shoulder about Vulcans - they held back the implementation of the Warp 5 engine that Archer Sr. worked on. His hostility about having a Vulcan supervisor on His Ship makes sense. The Archer-Trip-T'Pol dynamic in season 1 is so uncomfortable to watch because T'Pol clearly has no idea how to deal with the waves of anger and racism streaming off the other two. Archer should come to understand the Vulcans' "softly softly" approach to space exploration since he has the personal grudge with them. Leave Trip as the bigot (with a Southern accent, great fucking choice there Bermaga) if you must. But no. Instead every time Archer seems to realise he's being an asshole to T'Pol, he's right back to his assholery the next episode, and the show is written in such a way that you're supposed to side with him.

Enterprise is the reason I only give a show one or two episodes to wow me now. I will never waste an entire season on a shitty show again.

[Lemming]

Forgot to mention the most galling change to come with season three - the remix of the title theme. Are those fucking bongo drums? It sounds like the drumbeat that gets added to the music in Super Mario World when you get Yoshi.

The original theme is absolutely brilliant, the perfect mix of being an ironic joy and being genuinely uplifting, especially with the technological advancement montage that it plays over (which puts Amelia Earhart after a space shuttle, for some reason), and it's perfect for the mood of the first couple seasons of the show. The new remix is taking some getting used to, but I almost laughed the air out of my lungs when it first played, so that's a plus. I bet Rick Berman played the bongos himself.

The next episode isn't great either but hold on till the episode Twilight. Plain sailing from that point. It really is a great season but just takes a few episodes to get going.

Definitely going to stick it out - even if the Xindi arc doesn't work for me, I'm excited for the forming of the Federation in the next season. I just hope the characters cheer up a bit and stop walking around grumbling and being edgy military people. Trip especially has, over the course of just four episodes, gone from being my second-favourite character to being annoying. LET'S GET IN THERE AND BLAST EM, CAPTAIN! I know his sister exploded in definitely-not-a-9/11-allegory, but still.

Archer being a shit captain could work, that's the bit I find so frustrating about Enterprise. This is the early days of the (proto?)Federation, let's have protagonists who make mistakes and see some consequences for those mistakes and who aren't perfect people with no personal issues. They give Archer a reason to have a chip on his shoulder about Vulcans - they held back the implementation of the Warp 5 engine that Archer Sr. worked on. His hostility about having a Vulcan supervisor on His Ship makes sense. The Archer-Trip-T'Pol dynamic in season 1 is so uncomfortable to watch because T'Pol clearly has no idea how to deal with the waves of anger and racism streaming off the other two. Archer should come to understand the Vulcans' "softly softly" approach to space exploration since he has the personal grudge with them. Leave Trip as the bigot (with a Southern accent, great fucking choice there Bermaga) if you must. But no. Instead every time Archer seems to realise he's being an asshole to T'Pol, he's right back to his assholery the next episode, and the show is written in such a way that you're supposed to side with him.

Yeah - T'Pol's my favourite character in the show so far and that's partially down to her scenes with Archer, where he'll go off on one and she'll just stand there contemplating on what a big mistake she's made in agreeing to be assigned to this guy's command. Archer seems to end up being unlikeable almost no matter who writes him and no matter how much they try to make him endearing, which is pretty astonishing.

[Mr Trumpet]

It's a recurring issue with some of these American action/adventure type shows, in that they pit a red-blooded, macho character against someone more intellectual and less gung ho, and they expect the audience to side with the former whether or not they've made the effort to make them sympathetic. Same thing happened constantly in Stargate:Universe.

[JamesTC]

Definitely going to stick it out - even if the Xindi arc doesn't work for me, I'm excited for the forming of the Federation in the next season. I just hope the characters cheer up a bit and stop walking around grumbling and being edgy military people. Trip especially has, over the course of just four episodes, gone from being my second-favourite character to being annoying. LET'S GET IN THERE AND BLAST EM, CAPTAIN! I know his sister exploded in definitely-not-a-9/11-allegory, but still.

Hmm, maybe you won't like the rest of Season 3. Not much room to cheer up when an alien race are building a super weapon to destroy your planet.

The theme tune change is really baffling. They take the show in a tonally much darker direction and decide that should be accompanied by a jazzed up theme tune.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

It's a recurring issue with some of these American action/adventure type shows, in that they pit a red-blooded, macho character against someone more intellectual and less gung ho, and they expect the audience to side with the former whether or not they've made the effort to make them sympathetic. Same thing happened constantly in Stargate:Universe.

See, what a wasted opportunity to subvert this trope! Especially in Star Trek, which appeals primarily to huge nerds. It would make a ton of sense (given the prominence they end up having in the Federation) for humans to retain their "tear arse across uncharted territory poking our noses in everywhere" gung-ho-ness but have it tempered by the Vulcans' more cautious approach, resulting in things like the Prime Directive and protocols for studying/contacting early warp civilisations. You could show this happening on a personal level as Archer takes some of T'Pol's recommendations and comes to understand the Vulcan point of view. I wouldn't even expect Archer to change his opinion of Vulcans overnight. Of course he'd backslide (as he does in some episodes) and go "oh those fucking Vulcans - not you T'Pol, you're one of the Good Ones". It's just that every. Single. Time. Archer turns out to be right, "Haha we were correct not to trust the fucking Vulcans, especially you T'Pol, have dinner with Trip and I so we can abuse you more".

[Mr Trumpet]

Yeah they don't really learn anything over the course of the series, do they. If only there'd been an opportunity for Archer to deliver a speech that underlined some kind of change in perspective, would have been a neat way to cap the show off.

[Lemming]

Just saw "The Shipment", which feels like it was there specifically to calm people like me down. It worked to a degree, it's promising that the Xindi look like they might shape up to be much more than just evil insect/lizard people who are going to blow up Earth after all. Love that Archer finally acknowledges that of course the people responsible for not-9/11 are presumably just a small specific group, the Xindi council or whatever.

The expanse is confusing me, though - it's so scary and filled with weird shit that Vulcans routinely get ripped apart in there and are never seen again, but it's also got big marketplace planets, people casually flying around it like there's no problem, and is more populous than any region of space seen in the first two seasons. Hard to complain since this is the case with all regions of space in all Star Trek shows, but I'm still wondering how the Vulcans managed to repeatedly lose entire ships while Enterprise just cruises through.

It feels like there's multiple different writers with multiple noticeably different interpretations of Archer, and poor Scott Bakula is somehow having to act an awkward compromise between all of them to try and keep the character consistent, and the result is just that Archer's coming across as an absolute arsehole most of the time.

[JamesTC]

The episode Impluse basically explains that, doesn't it? They need Trellium D to navigate through relatively safely but this was a deadly neurotoxin to Vulcans. Presumably it is full of races that all know The Expanse and have the protection against the anomalies that the Vulcans didn't. Any Vulcans that did find out about Trellium would be exposed and go crazy.

[Lemming]

Ah yeah, you're right - I missed a few parts of the Vulcan zombies episode due to watching it under less-than-ideal circumstances, will probably have to go back and rewatch it. I think I was thinking also of the line at the end of season two about how the laws of physics don't apply and the crew of an entire Klingon ship were turned inside out, but I suppose, being Klingons, they probably just flew right at one of the anomaly-causing spheres for HONOUR and got extremely unlucky.

[Lemming]

The next episode isn't great either but hold on till the episode Twilight. Plain sailing from that point. It really is a great season but just takes a few episodes to get going.

Just seen Twilight and yeah, very strong episode, up there with the other big time travel stories like City on the Edge of Forever, The Visitor, Timeless etc. Felt like Bakula was passionate about it and gave one of his best performances yet. Interesting that they went with some fairly subtle T'Pol/Archer stuff after a string of episodes trying to push Trip/T'Pol.

Netflix put up the screencap for the next episode and I saw Archer in a cowboy hat. Genuinely cannot express how excited I am for this one.

[mothman]

It's a good'un, and from here on in the season fair shuffles along. A few duff notes of course, and if you're not on board with the whole 9/11 war-on-terror analogy then YMMV.

[Lemming]

Getting near the end of season three and it has been very good overall, after the shaky start. The Xindi stuff still isn't quite grabbing me in itself, but at least it's acting as the catalyst for some good characters like Degra and some complicated plots like "Damage".

Only complaints are that the Trip/T'Pol dynamic still isn't working at all for me, and the T'Pol-on-drugs stuff feels like a big misfire so far. Other than that though, it's really good. Definitely much prefer the Xindi stuff to the later Dominion stuff in DS9.

Seth McFarlane popped up out of nowhere in the episode I just watched, his only role being to get yelled at after fucking up some simple task and getting someone seriously injured. Sublime.

[Cloud]

I thought it was alright, but was definitely "that era of Star Trek running dry".

Also it was just after 9/11 and had some really cringeworthy "THE EAGLE IS ANGERED" allegories, the worst point being when Archer decides to torture someone in an airlock as a form of interrogation.  (I lost a lot of respect for the character after that. He was frequently a prick in that era)
Edit: Seems I'm not alone in this and it's been discussed a lot already

[JamesTC]

Season 3 was an emotional response to 9/11 that lacked thoughtful consideration and then Season 4 is a response to Season 3. Basically they realised that whilst the season was entertaining story wise, the message was perhaps unwise (particularly for Star Trek) and remedied that with the Vulcan reformation arc, the seeding of the Federation and most obviously the Terra Prime story which all fed into a more accepting and progressive view of the future (and of the writers).

I don't think Archer's actions are ever not justified in the context that earth is about to be destroyed by a super-weapon. He never goes full Equinox.

[Cloud]

Yeah to be fair, your world about to be destroyed might push someone to the edge a bit!

But watching it now is for sure such an American-indulgent "look how threatened and angery we feel, never mess with us" and good thing that they patched it up for S4.

By then it was actually getting quite decent and I was keen to see more of the Federation founding being fleshed out over time, but alas, by then it was too little too late.

[Lemming]

I don't think Archer's actions are ever not justified in the context that earth is about to be destroyed by a super-weapon. He never goes full Equinox.

Funnily enough, the only thing I think he's done that was totally unjustifiable is the thing that's given the least attention by the scripts - destroying the scanning outpost on that one moon. There are three people down there and he immediately makes the decision to fire on them based on the fact that he thinks there's a chance they might reveal Enterprise's position. It's brought up in one line later on where he admits it was murder, but it seems far worse to me than the airlock torture or the warp coil theft, both of which are treated with much more gravity by the writers.

[Lemming]

I'm constantly checking the opening credits to see who's writing each episode now. I know this may be very simplistic and unfair, and there must have been a lot of collaboration between all the writing staff at all times so the blame for shit bits shouldn't fall on any specific people, but it really does feel like Berman and Braga just swing by to fuck everything up now and then.

People like Chris Black and Manny Coto appeared to be doing their best to make the Xindi interesting and complicated, culminating in the very enjoyable episode in which Archer must win the Aquatic vote. Then Berman and Braga come in to ensure that, not only does the arc nevertheless end with a boring-as-fuck series of dull shootouts, explosions, and fist-fights (plus placing a mine on someone's back and detonating it, christ), but also making sure to give the fourth season an impossible opener as a final "fuck you".

Seriously, what the fuck is going on with this alien Nazis shit? Did Berman and Braga just shove that in out of nowhere and wish the subsequent writers good luck with it? Awful. Just watched Storm Front Part 1 and hated it, proper load of cack. On top of everything else, it feels too stylistically reminiscent of Voyager's Nazi-Aliens two parter, which was a much better story. Just going to plow straight through part two as quick as possible to get into Season 4 proper, which looks promising from some of the synopses.

Enterprise is turning out to be a really odd show, I'm still not really sure what I think of it after all this. Season 3 was fascinating in that they clearly didn't have the slightest fucking clue what they were doing or where the plot was going, and yet, thanks to some talented writers, it all pulled together marvelously at the end (barring Berman/Braga's lame action finale). I'm glad this show exists though, and it does feel like Real Star Trek™ in a way that Discovery and Picard just don't.

[Mobbd]

and it does feel like Real Star Trek™ in a way that Discovery and Picard just don't.

Just on that note, I was thinking about in-universe reasons for this and I hit on one thing. All original (i.e. pre-Kelvin and Disco) Treks are essentially about "the final frontier." DS9 is about life in a frontier town, TOS and TNG are about uncovering new squares of the map, VOY is about doing the same in a very extreme way albeit through accident and upholding the associated values when under pressure, ENT is about humanity's first steps into the final frontier. Disco and Picard (don't know about Lower Decks?) aren't really about the final frontier at all.

Not saying Trek necessarily has to follow that concept, as I like the idea of "Star Trek as a place" in which you can tell all kinds of story[nb]I still don't know why Picard couldn't have been a mystery-solving thing, essentially Murder She Wrote/Columbo in the Star Trek universe with galactic archaeology and whatnot[/nb] but it's an inherent difference, isn't it?

[Lemming]

Moving slowly through season four and it's honestly pretty tough going. The WW2 plot to start with was terrible, then Home was a decent episode, but then we spring into two consecutive three-parters. First is the augment trilogy, which I thought was pretty dreadful on the whole, and now the Vulcan trilogy, which isn't really grabbing me at all either.

The obsession with existing lore is really not up my street - Kirk met an augment and an Orion woman, so we've got to have a three-parter where we meet augments and Orions, plus Brent Spiner. Kirk met T'Pau, so we've got to meet T'Pau. I understand there's a mirror universe episode coming up, which we have to include because Kirk visited it, in which we fight a Gorn, which we have to fight because Kirk fought one. Apparently, the Organians are gonna show up at some point too, because Kirk met them. James T Kirk is the only person who has ever done anything of note, and his planet-of-the-week adventures are the template for this entire fictional universe, apparently.

Just draw random Star Trek episodes out of a hat and combine them. How about a three-parter we meet Trelane, and he's got a tribble infestation which can only be solved by persuading the Tholians to help, but they refuse because they're busy building a Tholian Web around Balok's ship, where Balok is sheltering a Horta? (Kurtzman, you can have this idea for free)

It also feels kind of sad, like the show has basically already given up. Fuck it, nobody's watching except fans, let's just give them what they want - here, look, it's T'Pau. Kroykah!

Both the augment and Vulcan trilogies have felt very drawn-out and occasionally thin on content, and worse, when combined with the WW2 thing, they've eaten up eight episodes of the season. Definitely going to keep an open mind to see if any of season four's later offerings hit the right notes, though.

[JamesTC]

Ahh that's a shame. I like the Augment trilogy and absolutely adore the Vulcan reformation trilogy.

I think the most original story is the two part finale so that is one to look forward to. The proto-Federation three parter feels really big in scale like a movie even if it is just a better version of a TNG two parter. The mirror universe two parter is highly rated but it is just one of those stories to sit back and just enjoy without analysing deeply. There is also a rather good Klingon two parter but I imagine the fan wank nature of it may turn you off.

[Lemming]

Ahh that's a shame. I like the Augment trilogy and absolutely adore the Vulcan reformation trilogy.

I think the most original story is the two part finale so that is one to look forward to. The proto-Federation three parter feels really big in scale like a movie even if it is just a better version of a TNG two parter. The mirror universe two parter is highly rated but it is just one of those stories to sit back and just enjoy without analysing deeply. There is also a rather good Klingon two parter but I imagine the fan wank nature of it may turn you off.

I'm looking forward to the proto-Federation stuff. The Tellarites and Andorians are always interesting since they're essentially blank slates outside of Enterprise, and seeing the very beginnings of friendly relations between humans, Andorians and Vulcans was my favourite part of the Vulcan trilogy.

Less enthusiastic about the mirror universe - Mirror Mirror is great, but every recurrence of it in DS9 and Discovery really dragged for me. Then again, I've seen some screencaps and it looks like it's going to offer an excuse for Bakula and pals to prance around in TOS uniforms on the original bridge, which should at least be fun to watch.

[Mr Trumpet]

The Augment trilogy - three episodes to answer a question nobody needed an answer to (the Klingon redesign), thereby establishing an expectation that any visual update/redesign thereafter was bad writing if it wasn't explained in-universe. Indirectly some of the most ill-advised narrative Trek ever produced.

[Wonderful Butternut]

The Augment trilogy - three episodes to answer a question nobody needed an answer to (the Klingon redesign), thereby establishing an expectation that any visual update/redesign thereafter was bad writing if it wasn't explained in-universe. Indirectly some of the most ill-advised narrative Trek ever produced.

Affliction/Divergence is a different arc to the initial Augment arc, not sure if Lemming is that far on yet.

But I think explaining Klingon foreheads the only useful thing Enterprise contributed to Star Trek. Wasn't Ent's fault that some eejit would come along nearly 15 years later and turn Klingons into cavemen with elongated skulls and claws cos it 'looked cool'

[Mr Trumpet]

Ah, my bad about confusing the rubbish storylines with each other. You're 100% wrong about the second bit though, cos now every bore on the internet pisses and moans about every insignificant visual change between shows. They'd be castigating DS9 for getting Trills "wrong" etc if it was airing today.