Enterprise

When Enterprise was canceled after its fourth season in 2005, TV was left without a Star Trek show for the first time since 1987, when The Next Generation premiered.

Enterprise came after Voyager ended its run in 2001, after seven seasons or searching for a way back to Federation space after being marooned 75 years from home at maximum warp in the pilot episode. Used to watching (and eventually reading) about Starfleet and the Federation in the 24^th century, I wasn’t sure at first if I’d enjoy a 22^nd century version – a Star Trek without a Federation. Prequels rarely piqued my interest, and I figured that Bergman and Braga were running out of ideas. I caught a few episodes, notably the one where some of the crew were stranded in a Class-M planet that harbored plant life that caused the humans to experience delusions. Another was when Trip came aboard a seemingly friendly race to repair the engines of their transport ship that was revealed to be carrying a royalty they abducted for ransom. I wasn’t impressed; they were too campy and reminded me of The Original Series. Don’t get me wrong, I like TOS well enough, but hey, this is the 2000s. I stopped watching Enterprise, but I kept reading the non-canon TNG, Deep Space Nine and VOY novels.

Earlier this year though, I bought Enterprise on DVD, thinking I might enjoy watching an episode every now and then. And that’s what I did – I’d pop in a disc whenever I felt like it. That was usually at night after work, when I want to watch something, but didn’t want to stay up late. A nice 42-minute Star Trek episode is a perfect fit, since the story is resolved by the end and not leave me hanging and pushing the Next button on the DVD remote to find out what happened next.

This went on for a good few months; I’ve progressed through the second season bored and disgusted with some episodes, delighted with some. A much larger story arc – the Suliban and the Temporal Cold War in the 31^st century – was inserted in places to give the impression that there’s a “big picture.” I still wasn’t impressed. It’s like The X-Files. Most episodes are brilliant, but a handful were just plain awful (but hey, I love that show). I hate most time travel stories (but that doesn’t keep me from reading/watching them). I also didn’t like the way familiar species from the other four shows were tackled. Some details were just inserted to elicit a chuckle – Dr. Phlox’s tribble, for instance. Romulans, Borg, Klingons, Orions, Organians – I was just waiting when the Cardassians, Species 8472 and Q would show up (they didn’t). There was even an episode that tackled the Mirror Universe (grrr…) – the entire concept is tacky, if you ask me. (The last one was during the fourth season, but I’m putting this detail here.)

It wasn’t just the stories. Captain Archer was too uptight and self-righteous. Subcommander T’Pol was irritating, but well, she’s a Vulcan. Commander Tucker was particularly annoying. Lieutenant Reed was better, but not by much. Dr. Phlox’s accent was getting on my nerves. Ensigns Mayweather and Sato were just too bland to merit descriptions.

Halfway through the second season however, the episodes became... better. It wasn’t gradual. The quality of the show skyrocketed by Episode 15 and it stayed there since. It was still episodic, but the stories were incredible. The second season finale introduced a new story arc that hinged upon the Temporal Cold War. An alien species called the Xindi attacked Earth with a probe that cut a swath 4 000 kilometers long from Florida to Venezuela that killed seven million people. It was revealed that the Xindi discovered that Earth will destroy their homeworld 400 years in the future and the attack was a pre-emptive strike. Sounds familiar?

I thought that since this was a finale, the story will be resolved in the premiere episode of the next season, like what happened previously with Shockwave, parts 1 and 2. I was in for a pleasant surprise. The Xindi story arc consumed the entire third season, and it was spectacular. By the end of the third season, when the Xindi threat came to a resolution, a new story arc was introduced, though it wasn’t fully developed until the fourth season premiere.

Sulibans and the Temporal Cold War again, but this time, Enterprise was thrown back more than 200 years into the past, specifically near the tail end of the Second World War in 1944. But history has changed. An alien faction from the 31^st century traveled back in time to help the Third Reich. The digression of the timeline started in 1916, when Vladimir Lenin was assassinated, preventing the October Revolution. Russia doesn’t become communist and Germany didn’t consider them as a threat, therefore concentrating all their efforts to the west. Not long after, Russia, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, England and eventually the United States became occupied by the Nazi. It was spectacular, but a bit boring since I particularly despise the Star Trek tradition of using historical events as a backdrop. (The most absurd one is Voyager finding Amelia Earhart in the Delta Quadrant in or around 2375, having been abducted by an alien species resulting to her mysterious disappearance in 1937.) I found it weird that the Nazi story arc extended for four episodes, but I was in for a surprise. The fourth season was different, having story arcs extending for three or four episodes with a breather or two in between. A bit eclectic, since season three was a bit more like Battlestar Galactica. That’s the way I like it though.

Enterprise was almost canceled after its third season, but it managed to hang on for another year before being shelved. The longer story arcs, the presence of more significant species and personalities like Soong and the larger involvement of Starfleet Command were perhaps a final attempt to save the show. It didn’t work. It could have, but it was too late. The first and half of second season of the show was so terrible, and I, for one, was turned off early on to even bother to check out what happened in the third and fourth.

The series finale These Are The Voyages… was supposedly a grand send off, set ten years after Enterprise first left spacedock. It wasn’t that grand. First Officer William Riker of Enterprise-E was watching/participating the program in the holodeck, trying to gain an insight about a decision he was about to make regarding Pegasus. It was more like a misplaced TNG episode than an Enterprise series finale. While the Andorian Commander Shran played a significant role in the eventual formation of the United Federation of Planets in 2161 primarily because of his friendship with Archer, he wasn’t a very important character to merit Commander Tucker’s death.

All in all, Enterprise is a rehash of both The Original Series and The Next Generation not only because they involved the crew of a ship of the same name, but also because of the mission for exploration milked for money episode after episode. While longer story arcs is a novelty in itself, since even Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War and Voyager’s encounters with the Borg dragged on for entire seasons, Enterprise is the first Star Trek to employ multiple arcs that hinged on one another, making it seem like we’re actually following their story on a given timeline. Had the producers introduced such reforms early on in the first season, the show could have matched TNG, DS9 and VOY’s seven seasons apiece, but with better and longer stories to tell, as well as providing the context of the 22^nd century for a fuller understanding of all the Star Trek that came before. Star Trek XI, the yet untitled 11^th movie to be directed by Lost creator J.J Abrams, is set for December 2008. While I am still not convinced that a prequel is necessary, perhaps a fresh start on Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty isn’t a very bad idea, since a successful box office showing could provide the motivation for Paramount to create a new Star Trek TV show. Now THAT is something worth waiting for.