Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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White Devil said:
What kind of dumb, soulless faggot hates John de Lancie?
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John de Lancie is a great guy, I met him at a con in the early 90's. Very friendly and down to earth, great sense of humor. But I still hated Q episodes because I had enough "mysterious omnipotent alien" episodes from TOS and just starting out the series with another Great Gazoo was not a good start in my opinion.
 
So I finished Enterprise and now I can say that I've seen all of Trek Pre-Discovery.

Sadly, I have to say that Enterprise is the weakest of the Trek shows I've watched. Its unfortunately because conceptually, I was on board for so much of it. I loved that the technology was nowhere near as advanced, I loved that it was pre-Federation, I loved that the Vulcan/Earth relationship wasn't super strong yet...there was plenty there to give it a different flavor from all the other Trek shows.

Unfortunately, I think the show suffered from several things. One was Trek burnout. By this point, they had produced TNG, DS9, and Voyager, all of them running 7 seasons with a lot of overlap between the show's productions, so by the time Enterprise came around, I can almost feel their exhaustion displayed on screen where the producers just flat out ran out of ideas and the energy to execute them.

The other big problem that became apparent is that 9/11 clearly interrupted whatever plans they had and they pivoted towards a darker war show with the Xindi as a reflection of what was going on at the time. When that whole storyline kicked in, I was like "And here's where 9/11 and the War on Terror reared its ugly head" and the whole thing became a bit too on the nose for my tastes. It also clashed with what the show was supposed to be about, which is exploration and discovery. Its really weird to open up with that cheesy and upbeat theme song about expanding horizons and then follow it up with a story about "WE GOTTA KILL THEM ALL!".

And I kept waiting to find some connection with the characters and for the most part, I just couldn't. The character I liked the most was Captain Archer, with his more rugged and cowboy approach to being a captain, which makes sense given he was the first of his kind to man a starship with warp capabilities. T'Pol, outside of being hot, never really registered with me and I felt like she was what 7 of 9 would have been had the writing for that character not been any good. Trip was OK, but never quite reached the level of being memorable of past engineers like Scotty or Geordi. Phlox was basically a less annoying Neelix and had a nice calming presence, but not much outside of that. And Malcom and Trevor were so uninteresting that there were times I forgot they were even there (I had to look up their names for this post because I forgot them). And then there was Hoshi, who basically embodies everything right and wrong with the show. I love the concept of her as her role as translator makes sense given this early era of Trek and she has to make up for the fact that the Universal Translator tech isn't very good, and I liked the actress too (and honestly, I found her cuter than T'Pol, just saying). But ultimately...it felt like they never had much for her to do. Like most of the cast, it felt like she was just taking up space. Further indictment of the main characters is that I actually found myself getting more excited for the guest characters like Jeffery Coombs (always a welcomed presence) as the main Andorian. How is it that guest characters leave more of an impression and feel more important than the main cast? When my second favorite cast member is Porthos the dog...I don't know. Its not a good sign.

That's not to say I hated the entirety of the show and there were episodes I really liked. "Terra Nova" "Vanishing Point" "The Crossing" "Similitude" and my favorite episode "Doctor's Orders" were all great and captured what I was looking for in this show. And the "In a Mirror, Darkly" 2 parter was a fun way for the actors to cut loose and do different things while also playing with established Trek lore a little bit.

So there was fun to be had, but I think the show had too much going against it and never really found its footing. Season 4 started to become the show I was hoping for with the formation of the Federation being a central focus, but by then, it was probably too little too late.
 
40 Year Old Boomer said:
John de Lancie is a great guy, I met him at a con in the early 90's. Very friendly and down to earth, great sense of humor. But I still hated Q episodes because I had enough "mysterious omnipotent alien" episodes from TOS and just starting out the series with another Great Gazoo was not a good start in my opinion.
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I mean I can understand that. Just never really seen anyone outright say they hated Q. He got annoying at times but de Lancies performance is so great that it's easy to ignore when the writers got lazy and decided to do another Q episode.
 
If Q was a regular, I'd have hated him, but as a guest character, he became a fun distraction from the norm. And I always got a chuckle out of watching him bounce off of the no nonsense Picard.
 
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I'm not a huge Q fan, but I do love the episode where he loses his powers and just randomly shows up naked on the bridge.
 
RumblyTumbly said:
Trevor
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Travis was such a memorable character lol. He barely said a word after season 1. Hoshi needing to translate a thing is my favorite memory of Enterprise.
RumblyTumbly said:
The other big problem that became apparent is that 9/11 clearly interrupted whatever plans they had and they pivoted towards a darker war show
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Problem is also the Battlestar Galactica reboot did the gritty space war thing so much better. Giving T'Pol a drug addiction so she could weep and mewl felt so cheap.
RumblyTumbly said:
If Q was a regular, I'd have hated him, but as a guest character, he become a fun distraction from the norm. And I always got a chuckle out of watching him bounce off of the no nonsense Picard.
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The only Q episode I didn't like was Tapestry just because of the fart-huffing speech about not wanting to be a "small man" science officer. In retrospect it's a glimpse into the ego-driven direction the TNG movies would take.
 
Never Scored said:
I'm not a huge Q fan, but I do love the episode where he loses his powers and just randomly shows up naked on the bridge.
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Great episode, but I was disappointed that it got resolved at the end of the episode. I'd have loved 2-3 episodes of Q squirming at being human, starting to grow as a person, and then getting dropped back in his role as an omnipotent being after the arc was over. TNG's serialized format is mostly fine, but there were a few opportunities for ongoing stories they missed.

As for other memorable Q episodes, the one where Picard dies at the start is pretty good too.
 
Jean Lafitte 1812 said:
Great episode, but I was disappointed that it got resolved at the end of the episode. I'd have loved 2-3 episodes of Q squirming at being human, starting to grow as a person, and then getting dropped back in his role as an omnipotent being after the arc was over. TNG's serialized format is mostly fine, but there were a few opportunities for ongoing stories they missed.
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DS9 did just that in the season where Odo loses his "powers" and gets them back later in the season. They did it way better than TNG would have been able to do it, too.
 
RumblyTumbly said:
So I finished Enterprise and now I can say that I've seen all of Trek Pre-Discovery.

Sadly, I have to say that Enterprise is the weakest of the Trek shows I've watched. Its unfortunately because conceptually, I was on board for so much of it. I loved that the technology was nowhere near as advanced, I loved that it was pre-Federation, I loved that the Vulcan/Earth relationship wasn't super strong yet...there was plenty there to give it a different flavor from all the other Trek shows.

Unfortunately, I think the show suffered from several things. One was Trek burnout. By this point, they had produced TNG, DS9, and Voyager, all of them running 7 seasons with a lot of overlap between the show's productions, so by the time Enterprise came around, I can almost feel their exhaustion displayed on screen where the producers just flat out ran out of ideas and the energy to execute them.

The other big problem that became apparent is that 9/11 clearly interrupted whatever plans they had and they pivoted towards a darker war show with the Xindi as a reflection of what was going on at the time. When that whole storyline kicked in, I was like "And here's where 9/11 and the War on Terror reared its ugly head" and the whole thing became a bit too on the nose for my tastes. It also clashed with what the show was supposed to be about, which is exploration and discovery. Its really weird to open up with that cheesy and upbeat theme song about expanding horizons and then follow it up with a story about "WE GOTTA KILL THEM ALL!".

And I kept waiting to find some connection with the characters and for the most part, I just couldn't. The character I liked the most was Captain Archer, with his more rugged and cowboy approach to being a captain, which makes sense given he was the first of his kind to man a starship with warp capabilities. T'Pol, outside of being hot, never really registered with me and I felt like she was what 7 of 9 would have been had the writing for that character not been any good. Trip was OK, but never quite reached the level of being memorable of past engineers like Scotty or Geordi. Phlox was basically a less annoying Neelix and had a nice calming presence, but not much outside of that. And Malcom and Trevor were so uninteresting that there were times I forgot they were even there (I had to look up their names for this post because I forgot them). And then there was Hoshi, who basically embodies everything right and wrong with the show. I love the concept of her as her role as translator makes sense given this early era of Trek and she has to make up for the fact that the Universal Translator tech isn't very good, and I liked the actress too (and honestly, I found her cuter than T'Pol, just saying). But ultimately...it felt like they never had much for her to do. Like most of the cast, it felt like she was just taking up space. Further indictment of the main characters is that I actually found myself getting more excited for the guest characters like Jeffery Coombs (always a welcomed presence) as the main Andorian. How is it that guest characters leave more of an impression and feel more important than the main cast? When my second favorite cast member is Porthos the dog...I don't know. Its not a good sign.

That's not to say I hated the entirety of the show and there were episodes I really liked. "Terra Nova" "Vanishing Point" "The Crossing" "Similitude" and my favorite episode "Doctor's Orders" were all great and captured what I was looking for in this show. And the "In a Mirror, Darkly" 2 parter was a fun way for the actors to cut loose and do different things while also playing with established Trek lore a little bit.

So there was fun to be had, but I think the show had too much going against it and never really found its footing. Season 4 started to become the show I was hoping for with the formation of the Federation being a central focus, but by then, it was probably too little too late.
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Enterprise was more like DS9 in that it was more bland than it was outright bad, most of the "bad" episodes pail in comparison to the bad episodes of Voyager or even TOS.
 
It’s always funny to me that Q was such a popular character that they essentially recreated him in a completely different type of show about cartoon ponies and it still worked perfectly.
 
Quintex96 said:
Q episodes got significantly better as the show went on. Starting the entire show with Q was a mistake and "Encounter at farpoint" Should have been the season finale.
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The show itself got significantly better as it went on. The first season was mostly weak. It really didn't hit its stride until some time in season 2.
SteelPlatedHeart said:
It’s always funny to me that Q was such a popular character that they essentially recreated him in a completely different type of show about cartoon ponies and it still worked perfectly.
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And even got John de Lancie to do it. He isn't given enough credit for being a dramatic actor, though. His portrayal of Donald Margolis (Jane's dad) completely falling apart after the death of his daughter (thanks to Walter White) was absolutely heartbreaking.
 
The first season of TNG was bad but I still saw potential in it. It was one of those shows where I was like "I think they can get on the right track with this" and obviously they did.

Another example of that is Bates Motel. It turned out to be one of my favorite shows in the last decade but, as I tell people all the time, the first two seasons are rough, and unlike TNG, you really can't skip them. You just got to power through the crap to get to the gold. Season 4 and 5 are excellent and it made me glad I stayed with the show, but it was a shaky start.
 
Quintex96 said:
Q episodes got significantly better as the show went on. Starting the entire show with Q was a mistake and "Encounter at farpoint" Should have been the season finale.
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Q wasn't even supposed to be there, Roddenberry grafted him on when they got more time for the pilot. But I don't think "Detective Picard solves the mystery of Farpoint Station" would've been very good on its own, either. Nothing says excitement and wonder like a middle-aged woman and her teenage son buying bolts of cloth while their boss investigates a mysterious bowl of fruit.
 
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