Enterprise Discussion Thread *spoilers*

[Kirk]

What better way to build post counts than arguing about more Star Trek?
All joking aside this is a thread for the discussion of Enterprise, what you liked about, what you hated about it, and what you would have liked to see. I expect everyone to be civil and to let everyone speak. Jimmy, please don't lock this down unless it becomes a complete s**tstorm (In which case, I am quite disappointed in all of you.)

I'd like to start off by saying that I loved seasons three and four (with the exception of the 1940's episodes and the series finale.) I cried when Trip told T'Pol that vulcans and humans could have a baby. If you can get me to cry, you have done a good job at writing.

However, what the hell was with the finale? First off, Troi and Riker on the Enterprise D. What couldn't you have them on the Titan? Why the pointless tie in with the Pegasus incident? I can see where they were going with it, but I really didn't see the point. But the main thing that infuriated me was that the episode prior Trip and T'Pol are at an emotional/ relational climax and in the finale, surprise, according to them their relationship ended the next day. What the hell. I wanted them to have the first vulcan/human baby damn it! On a positive note, I like what they did with the uniforms and set.

I'm done for now, carry on.

[FarShot]

Doug Drexler mentioned what he would have done with Star Trek Enterprise if he was producer.  He said something along the lines of this:
Klingons wouldn't have shown up in 1 & 2, except as mysterious bad guys who killed everyone, leaving no trace.
Season 2-3 2 parter would have had the Klingons decimate a human colony, where a war is started between them and the humans.
It would have been less Federation-y and much more Wild West-y, with more enemies, and less friends.
The Vulcans wouldn't have been helping the Humans as much as they ended up doing.

[ACES_HIGH]

Doug Drexler mentioned what he would have done with Star Trek Enterprise if he was producer.  He said something along the lines of this:
Klingons wouldn't have shown up in 1 & 2, except as mysterious bad guys who killed everyone, leaving no trace.
Season 2-3 2 parter would have had the Klingons decimate a human colony, where a war is started between them and the humans.
It would have been less Federation-y and much more Wild West-y, with more enemies, and less friends.
The Vulcans wouldn't have been helping the Humans as much as they ended up doing.

yeah and by season four or five we would have seen the NX-01 refit into something like Mark's NCC-05.

[Darkthunder]

When I first saw Enterprise, the ship seemed a bit too advanced for it's era in many respects. However it did have the "primative" feel, such as grappling hook (instead of tractor beam), an experimental transporter, spatial torpedoes, pulse cannons etc.

With the hindsight of the new Star Trek movie, the state of advancement for the NX-01 could easily be rectified if you go by the idea that the NX-01, the USS Kelvin incident, and the "Super Enterprise" of the new movie, all exist within the same alternate reality, starting with the destruction of the Borg sphere above Earth in First Contact.

Cochrane knew about the Enterprise (and thus likely influenced the naming of the first Warp 5 ship), the knowledge that there existed vastly superior races out there (the Borg) etc.

To our knowledge, a blackhole is a 1-way anomaly. However, within Star Trek we've never actually seen proof of what happens if a ship gets pulled into a blackhole. We've never seen "the other side". Until now. It could be argued that both the Narada and the Jellyfish possessed sufficiently advanced shielding to protect from the gravitational forces inside the black hole and thus got through to the other side intact. Perhaps the timeline was already an "alternate reality" before Nero arrived in the past, simply by continuing the timeline estabilished in ENTERPRISE.

All these facts together, and it would be very easy to explain both the NX-01 and the Super Enterprise superior technology compared to the counterparts of the "Prime Universe".

In conclusion: With hindsight, ENTERPRISE was a pretty good show. Particularly the 4th season which tried to rectify alot of the inconsistencies to match up with TOS. With all past incarnations of Trek, starting with TNG, DS9 and later VOY, they all started out pretty "slow" at first, and only reached their prime near the 3rd-4th seasons. With TNG it was Best of Both Worlds (3x26-4x01), DS9 it was Way of the Warrior (4x01-4x02) and VOY Scorpion (3x26-4x01). ENT did exactly the same thing by improving near the end of the Xindi arc, and the Storm Front 2-parter.

If you go into watching ENTERPRISE, expecting to see a ship more primative and dare I say it "cheesier" than the TOS Enterprise, youre about to be disappointed. Keep an open mind, and value it for what its worth: Entertainment. There are plenty of good episodes throughout ENTERPRISE if youre willing to keep an open mind.

[Kirk]

I actually hated "Storm Front." I thought it was a pointless twist and a bad way to bring the Suliban back into the story. The Enterprise had just blown the Xindi weapon to hell. It was a time for celebration and sadness at Archer's loss (Yes, I wouldn't have minded if they killed off Archer. Make Jolene Blalock the captain. ) Also, if the timeline really did reset when the time machine was destroyed, wouldn't that have essentially eliminated all of Enterprise up to that point? Think about it, the mission where they vaporized a planet's atmosphere was never supposed to have happened, the Xinidi attacks, should never have happened, etc. Furthermore, why kill off Silik? One of the things DS9 (and especially Stargate) did so very well was have consistently recurring secondary characters. Though with the timeline reset, I guess that means Silik never died, right?

[Dalek]

Janeway: I have a solution to dealing with time paradoxes.
Kim: Whats that Captain:
Janeway: Don't think about it. It gives you headaches.

After reading Kirk's post, thats how I felt.

My fav episode was the Mirror Universe ones. Something about it just seemed right. Particular with the TOS references. And the Gorn!

[Kirk]

Yes, the Mirror episodes were awesome. I wanted more TOS outfits in the series after that.

[Tuskin38]

IMO, Season 4 was the best season of all.

I recommend this read if you would like to know how season 5 could have been.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise#The_would-be_Season_5

[ACES_HIGH]

Janeway: I have a solution to dealing with time paradoxes.
Kim: Whats that Captain:
Janeway: Don't think about it. It gives you headaches.

After reading Kirk's post, thats how I felt.

exactly what I thought.  Don't even try to make sense of temporal paradoxes.  They're called Paradoxes for a reason

[mckinneyc]

I liked how the series and characters progressed. In the first season they are all wide eyed explorers and they have no idea how many bad guys are out there!

Then by the four season they are a battle hardened crew who tend to go to Tactical Alert as soon as an unknown ship appears on sensors, much like Kirk used to do in TOS.

I loved the Borg episode but I have to agree seasons 3 and 4 were the best with season 4 being what I wanted Enterprise to be from the word go, a TOS prequel!

Thanks to Drex files I've saw what a labour of love the 01 was for him and the team and how many nods to the 1701 they put in, inluding the hull colour which doesn't come across on screen. However alot of details he wanted were over ruled by the boys upstairs.

[Villain]

The entirety of the show would've been vastly improved had they taken the mirror universe approach in the first place. so much freedom, and it could've been action-oriented like they were trying to do. ENT was meant so we could relate easier to the characters right? The mirror universe seems to be just modern day stuff with higher tech, isn't it?

Either way I sat through the whole thing (Which is more than can be said about some shows on scifi channel) and enjoyed it, though had it all been as gripping as the Mirror Universe two parter I think it'd have demolished my TNG preference.

[newman]

One thing I didn't like about Enterprise was their access to transporter technology - experimental or not. I mean, in one episode they're having trouble setting up a simple force field in a corridor, but all the while they have devices that can break you apart into molecules, send you hundreds of kilometers away and then reconstitute you, one-upping mr. Heisenberg in the process. So they can teleport people around and they can create and artificial gravity throughout the ship, yet simpler stuff like holodecks, force fields and replicators elude them (ok, replicators aren't simple but they're simpler then the transporters - instead of having to disassemble, send and reassemble a human flawlessly, replicators only have to use the same basic principle to create an inanimate object/food from a pre-recorded pattern. So, if you got transporters working you should really be able to figure replicators out). It just doesn't seem consistent with the rest of the ship's tech level. I for one would have found it cooler if they didn't have them at all, and had to shuttle everywhere they go. It would accentuate the feeling that this ship is a lot more primitive then the Enterprises we knew so far. Maybe invent them sometime later in the show, but to start off with them while having to use a grappling hook to tractor things? No.. just doesn't feel right to me.

[majormagna]

 If memory serves me correctly, TOS had transporters, yet no holodecks or replicators; correct?

[newman]

TOS had "foot slots", which were presumably early replicator versions.

[Nebula]

noo... cause the tribbles were able to get into them... I say they were more like the ones ya get in Ent.