I really like Enterprise, but it seriously suffered from being the wrong show at the wrong time. Premiering a week before 9/11, it seemed to be really out of step with the mood of the audience.
Darker, sharper, less optimistic. In short, Battlestar Galactica.
Enterprise's entire theme, the entire set up of the crew and the universe, is this very optimistic, very retro kind of feel. Which didn't have to be. They could have looked at this as the period following Khan's wars, and made it much darker. But with half a season in the can, it was too late for such a radical change in background.
Love it as I do, it just wasn't what viewers wanted to see right now.
As you could see from my earlier reviews, I liked what I saw, too, and I'm glad the convention a while ago changed my mind about watching it. But I think the problem overall isn't just the question of optimism versus post-trauma experience, it really is that they did not use or profile the characters they had nearly enough to distinguish them. I mean, within the Trek universe, look at DS9. O'Brien isn't Bashir isn't Sisko isn't Odo isn't Quark, to go through the male regulars, and Kira and Dax most certainy aren't each other. In each case, their backstory is quite important - take O'Brien, whose war time with the Cardassians colours all his interactions with them on DS9, he's the quintessential enlisted man as well as the family man and Everyman of the show. I know about his quirks and likes and dislikes and flaws and blind spots. You could not replace him with Random Surly Engineer From The Left, and this was already true in the early seasons, not just in the later ones
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You say that there wasn't so much about Reed, Mayweather and Sato and that you don't know so much about these characters. Well, I think at least for Malcolm you watched the wrong season. Mayweather and Sato stay kind of blurry of the whole series, that's true, but we really learn much about Reed. I think they cut the role of Reed down a little for the fourth season and enforced the relationship Trip/T'Pol. Before in Season 1 and 2 Tucker/Reed was one of the ultimate Slash pairings. ;-))
I've only seen the occasional episode of Enterprise, so I'm just popping in to note that anyone bagging on TNG needs to get their head examined. *shakes fist* Captain Picard Forever!
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Darker, sharper, less optimistic. In short, Battlestar Galactica.
Enterprise's entire theme, the entire set up of the crew and the universe, is this very optimistic, very retro kind of feel. Which didn't have to be. They could have looked at this as the period following Khan's wars, and made it much darker. But with half a season in the can, it was too late for such a radical change in background.
Love it as I do, it just wasn't what viewers wanted to see right now.
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I think they cut the role of Reed down a little for the fourth season and enforced the relationship Trip/T'Pol. Before in Season 1 and 2 Tucker/Reed was one of the ultimate Slash pairings. ;-))
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On a more serious note: okay, point taken. Would you recommend watching the earlier seasons?
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