Customer Reviews

STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE - COMPLETE SERIES

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2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Caveat emptor / buyer beware!

This is just a note to people considering buying "Star Trek: Enterprise The Complete Seasons 1-4" on DVD from certain Amazon sellers.

If you see the Star Trek: Enterprise DVD collection in a single box rather than in four separate boxes (one box per season), it's likely an Asian import edition rather than from the studio.

Especially beware the appellation "the Chosen Collection" which was copied from the complete collector's edition of Joss Whedon's TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Buffy "Chosen Collection" is official while the Star Trek: Enterprise "Chosen Collection" is not.

Furthermore, if the DVD set mentions it's region free, then it almost certainly is an Asian import, because the studio does not have a region free version of Star Trek: Enterprise on DVD (at the time of this review).

It's true the Asian import edition will be considerably cheaper, and as I mentioned region free, but there are drawbacks as well. For example, the audio and video quality suffers relative to the regular edition. Also, if there's a scratch or other slight defect on one of the DVDs, most of the sellers won't refund the buyer's money or replace the DVD(s). Some might, but it could be tricky (and perhaps despite their claims to the contrary). Not to mention that purchasing an Asian import means the money goes to the Asian distributor and its affiliates rather than to, say, the cast or crew or anyone else on the actual production team -- which in turn could presumably be funneled into bringing back Star Trek (although it's debatable).

And please make sure to read Oren D. Applequist's helpful comment below regarding World Express Mail Service (EMS).

Anyway, obviously people are free to do what they like, but I'm mentioning all this so buyers can at least be aware of the risks.

The previous reviews of the Enterprise series are accurate and fair. The writing was at times weak, but the show's concepts were so brilliant and the acting so well done that it overcame the weak scripts and turned the strong scripts into some of the best Star Trek television episodes in history.

The two episodes focusing on the Vulcan civil war rank as among the strongest in the series, not only telling an important part of the Star Trek canon, but doing so with especially good acting. It explained well the variance of the Vulcan characters' duplicity with the straight honesty of the Vulcans of Spocks' era. Indeed, Spock represented the Vulcans who ultimately won the civil war and abolished the corrupt Vulcan High Command.

Not often mentioned directly, but poignant for me, were the two episodes focusing on the Terra Prime terror group. For me, the interaction of the clone infant and the T'Pol character was some of the most well acted portions of the series. It wasn't the typical mother/infant interaction, but it bridged a gap between the cultural differences of Vulcans while also providing a glimpse of the underlying similarities of the human and Vulcan races. The final scene of Trip and T'Pol standing by their dying daughter was a particularly poignant moment that needed a strong expansion in the series finale.

Speaking of the finale, the dessert was particularly unappealing. The series finale was so horrible and mangled that it will endure as a low point in the entire history of the Star Trek industry. The Enterprise ensemble cast did their best to polish a shoddy script, but could only do so much.

The series deserved to end with a series entirely devoted to the cast. A story set at the time of the Enterprise NX-01 decommissioning was perfect. It should have been a series of ensemble cast memories played out in a script of the sadness of seeing "the old girl" put out to pasture. The Archer speech at the founding of the Federation of Planets should have been given a full weight of the speech laid before us.

T'Pol and Trip should have had a bittersweet ending of their crew association, with a final answer on whether or not they were going to endure as a Vulcan/Human couple. Trip's death was a distraction, not central to the theme, and horrible disjointed. It is a bitter fruit for all Star Trek fans who liked this series -- and there were many who did.

The series finale almost seemed to be the two original producers getting together and serving up a poison pill for Paramount to consume. It was anything but a valentine. It's true indication of bitterness is the fact that not a single primary actor in the series has supported the script, and all who have commented have provided bitter recriminations.

Blaylock, Bacula, and Trinneer have all offered blunt honest negative assessments. These views are accurate.

People who will likely purchase this DVD collection are fans of the series, and don't need a review to make a purchasing decision. However for those few who did not see the series I highly encourage you to purchase the collection. All four seasons contain nuggets of beautiful scripts and excellent acting. It should be enjoyed in sum as a series that boldly went in a direction where many mistakes were made by the characters in trying to form the rules for future crews.

On September of 2001,the UPN network and Star Trek producer Rick Berman with writer/producer Brannon Braga introduced viewers to Enterprise (later renamed Star Trek Enterprise in season three).
This fifth live action series from the franchise took place a century before James T. Kirk's five year voyage of the original series.This series follows the pioneering voyage of the first warp five ship in the early days of Starfleet, before the formation of the United Federation of Planets.
The crew of the NX-01 led by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), consisted of the Vulcan liason/first officer T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker III (The great Connor Trennier), British armory officer Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating),Communication Officer/ linguist Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), Helmsman Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery), and Denoblian Chief Medical Officer Phlox (John Billingsly).
The show had the distinction of being the series that ruined an almost forty year old franchise.But in the end it's only crime was bad timing, the creators total disregard to continuity,as well as wasting time putting around the galaxy, and focusing on the confusing Temporal Cold War while fans wanted to see the early days of Starfleet leading up to the founding of the United Federation of Planets.At first the series was sampled by Trekkers curious about the beginnings of the Federation,which wasn't adressed until the fourth and final season.Viewership dwindled by it's racy tone, disregard of continuity, the fact that NX-01 looked technologically advanced to Kirk's NCC-1701,the unnessesary "Temporal Cold War" and it's theme song which was a AOR pop song(!!!!).The stories felt prefunctuary as to appeal to a larger audience, which was the previous Star Trek Voyager's biggest flaw.
Aside from the shows fallabilities, the first season boasted great episodes in Broken Bow (the series pilot), The Andorian Incident, Breaking the Ice, Cold Front, Dear Doctor, Shuttlepod One, and Shockwave (the season finale cliffhanger).
By the time of the second season, it was pretty obvious that Enterprise was a disappointment to viewers who felt the show direction was weak as well as "Franchise Trek" becoming stale (indicated by 2002's Star Trek Nemesis's poor box office performance). After the follow-up to the excellent first season finale (Shockwave pt II),the season consisted of weak episodes(Precious Cargo, Canamar,The Crossing,Horizon, and the terrible A Night in Sickbay),among some of it's finest(Carbon Creek, Minefield, Stigma, Future Tense,Judgment,Cogenitor, Regeneration, and the best Enterprise episodes ever,Dead Stop ).Fans who first tuned in to see how the steps were taken for the UFP to be formed(which would be touched upon during the last episodes of the fourth and final season) had to contend with two seasons worth of "Boldly Going Nowhere.
Sensing a change in direction was needed, the show took on a different course as Enterprise respond to an attack on earth ("The Expanse", an allusions to 9-11), and try to stop the Xindi race from developing a weapon of mass destruction.This story arc continued into the third season,as Archer's new mission of stopping the Xindi from destroying Earth with a superweapon.Albiet,there were some weak semi stand alone episodes (Extinction,North Star,Carpenter St.,and E2),among classic episodes which ranks with some of the franchises best(Impulse,Twilight,Azati Prime/Damage,The Counsel/Countdown/Zero Time).Staff member Manny Coto was responsible for new direction which made for the most exciting season of the entire four year run.
Unfortunatly the exciting new direction couldn't produce ratings and was barely renewed after a fan based letter writing campaign,echoing the classic series fan fueled renewal.
The fourth season of Star Trek Enterprise was the season that most Trekkers have been waiting for, with homages to the original series(Mirror Universe,The Eugenics Wars,Orion slave women,T'Pau), as well as rectifying continuety errors(The Vulcans,The Klingon "forehead" issue).Unfortunately,the show was cancelled prematurely as the show was becoming what Trekkers been waiting for since "Broken Bow".
Sensing that the show wasn't going to see a fifth season,Executive producer Berman handed the reins to Coto, who set about in correcting the many elements in Trek history that have been disregarded,which driven away even the most dedicated fan.
The season's format was tweaked to make room for multi episode arcs which dealt separately with The Eugenics Wars(The Augment trilogy featuring Brent Spiner as Arik Soong),A Vulcan Civil War(featuring Surak, and T'Pau),A Klingon Virus (resulting in the humanoid Klingon foreheads from the original series), and the mirror universe featuring the USS Defiant from The Tholian Web.
One of the biggest disappointments of the season itself was the final episode "..These Are The Voyages" which takes place on the Enterprise-D, featuring Riker and Troi reviewing the NX-01's final mission before the charter signing of the UFP.Instead of giving the NX-01 crew a dignified send off,they were used as supporting characters in a glorified "Next Generation" episode.
Unfortunately,Enterprise would be a troubled production whereas the declining interest of Trek, flawed stories of the earlier seasons, and bad ratings would lead to it's cancellation.The finale (written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga) was called a "Valentine to the fans".But the real valentine was the entire fourth season which finally gave the fans what they wanted,and the most problematic Star Trek series a dignified ending, dispite it's weak finale.

Top five episodes
1.Dead Stop (season two)
2.Impulse (Season Three)
3.Dear Doctor (Season one)
4.Cogenetor (Season Two)
5.Damage(Season Three)

I'm a fan of this show. I never missed an ep. This price, however, is so high it's offensive. What in the world are they thinking?

About the show:
It had a lot of promise. They had good actors, an established 'universe' to play with, good special-effects budgets, a decent time-slot, and a crew that had been putting out quality shows for years. They did not, however, have a crack team of writers. Some were good, but on the whole, the writing was flat, the stories were predictable, the character arcs belabored and inconsistent, and -- the worst thing television writing can be -- boring. In short, they weren't good story-tellers.

It was very disheartening having to see such a talented ensemble of actors being given such asinine things to do. I understand that sex sells and showing skin is considered by some to be a legitimate plot device, but how many "suntan lotion" decon-chamber scenes can one series have before it's done to death?? If you're going to play the 'sexual tension' angle, at least be clever about it. I felt like the writers assumed we were all fifteen year old boys.

If the series had not been driven into the ground by poor writing and lack of focus, it could've been one of the best shows on television. (It would also still be on the air instead of being ignominiously canceled after four seasons.) Manny Coto finally came on board in the fourth season in a last-ditch effort to pull everything together and put out a good show, one that actually lived up to its promise. He managed to almost single-handedly lift it out of the mire. Unfortunately, just when things were improving, the network decided enough was enough and canned the show.

If you decide to purchase, I'd recommend buying the fourth season only. $480-something dollars is way, way too much for anything less than a classic series, and sadly, this series does not fall into that category.

Disregarding the price, which is unbelievably high, Enterprise is an important part of the Star Trek franchise, one which didn't deserve the ridicule it recieved. I have been a die hard Star Trek fan since I was a kid, and I appreciate the loose ends this series tie together--without boring me. I'm hoping that this isn't the last series, what will they think of next? Amazing!

It has been two years now since "Star Trek: Enterprise"(hence STE) has been taken of the air and with it the whole Star Trek-franchise. Whether or not this forced hibernation will be of a permanent nature remains to be seen. Many see STE as the major contributing factor for this state of affairs.

STE has the unfortunate distinction of being the most reviled installment by the Star Trek community and has come perilously close of being disavowed as being Trek at all by that same community. How did this state of affairs arose? When the producer duo Berman/Braga, responsible for three very successful installments of the franchise, announced that a fifth installment would be a prequel eventually leading up to events depicted in the Original Series and subsequent series, expectations ran high in the community. Fans were hoping to see the formation of the federation, the Romulan wars, the foundation of Star Fleet and other events merely mentioned or hinted at in the other series. What they got in the first three seasons was less than expected and then some. Resistance from the fan-base was vehement to put it mildly.

To make a prequel, be it in TV-shows, movies or books is tricky business at best. Contrary to sequels, doing a prequel, writers have to be very, very conscious about the continuity and the established frameworks of the whole, which constricts their literary leeway in no uncertain measure. Successful prequels therefore (as unfortunately proven by the Star Wars-, and Highlander Series), because of violations against continuity and framework are far more rare than successful sequels and unfortunately STE is no exception.

It can be argued that it already went wrong with the intention to whom the series should appeal. Berman and Braga are on record of having stated that it was their intention that STE should appeal to both the fan-base and to novices to the whole Trek experience. This was therefore the main reason why the series at first was simply called "Enterprise" without the prenom "Star Trek" as not to shy away potential new viewers (let's face it the Star Trek Community has a reputation not too appealing to non-trekkers). But it also meant that those new viewers were not to be burdened with too much reference to established Star Trek lore so as not to loose them. So from the very first get-go a potentially disastrous tension-field and a lack of direction was already built in and it has proven to be thus. It was precisely the perceived lack of reference to the established Trek lore that alienated so many of the fan-base in such a vehement way that it attracted nationwide attention and drove away the intended and now bewildered new viewers. In an effort to appease the fan-base "Star Trek" was added to the series titles in the third season and finally in the fourth season all pretenses of attracting a new audience were dropped and an all-out attempt was made to regain the loyalty of the fan-base. Too late as it turned out to be, the studio by then had decided to cancel the series. Because of all the clamor, the series failed to attract a new audience and die-hard fans turned their backs to STE in droves, driving ratings into the ground. Ironically, in hindsight, it was "Star Trek: Voyager", although not originally intended to do so, which attracted the most new audiences, because the premise of that series was far more suited for that (a ship lost and totally out of touch with home, so references to established lore could be reduced to a minimum and therefore be pallatible for novices, a luxury STE because of its premise could not enjoy). To date Voyager is the most well liked Trek series amongst non-trekkers.

A recap of the fan-base's major gripes with STE shows that it falls mainly into two categories, casting/performance and continuity-issues.

Casting/performance: Scott Bakula suffered especially in the first two seasons from intense criticism in his portrayal as captain Archer. True, he comes across as an unstable character with unresolved anger-issues, who is better situated on a therapist's couch than on the captain's chair. His evident dislike of Vulcans is borderline bigotry. Were I in Starfleet Command, he certainly would not be my first choice in leading man-kinds first interstellar diplomatic mission. But be aware, this is of no fault on Bakula's part. He has proven to be a fine actor in his other work, so the fault entirely lies with the writers, who were unable to find a direction for his character in the first two seasons. They were trying to make Archer into a cross between Kirk and Picard and succeeded in neither. As an actor Bakula must have been very frustrated of the lack of direction the writers were giving him. Finally in the third season, because of the long story-arc, Bakula was able to come to grips with his character and made it his own and developed it further in the final season. Kudos to Bakula in pulling this one off, for he was given very little to work with. It is mystifying why writers had such problems of beefing out Archers character (the producers lack of sense of direction is the only reason I can come up with), because they had no troubles at all in making A.G.Robinson (Keith Carradine in 2nd seasons "First Flight") or Erica Hernandez (Ada Maris in 4th season's "Home" and "Affliction") completely believable and stable commanders in only a few scenes (two characters I would have chosen over Archer to command the Enterprise at any time, although Hernandez got her own command).

The same criticism has also been uttered in more or less degree regarding the other characters. Here I tend to disagree. Each character had from the beginning a far better direction than the Archer character and have been written for as such. With the exception of Mayweather (who has proven to be very difficult to write for character-wise) each character has been given enough screen-time to beef out their personalities to a satisfying degree, thereby debunking criticism that the secondary characters didn't have enough screen-time. They had far more screen-time than the secondary characters in Star Trek The Original Series (hence: TOS) ever had. And remember their acting and that of The Next Generation in the first two seasons or so was far more wooden than that of the performances in STE (thereby debunking yet another criticism). And yes, some characters come across as too down to earth or annoying. But remember STE takes place far more closer to our era and shortly after a series of destructive wars than to the subsequent eras were people tend to be far more "enlightened". We people of the early 21st century are rather annoying and self-destructive, so their portrayal looks true to me. And if you want to hear a really sobering view of us 20/21st century humans, listen to what Picard has to say about us in TNG's episode "The Neutral Zone". Personally I believe that by then the fan-base was so frustrated by what they have been shown thus-far that they would grab any stick to beat the horse with, justified or not.

Much also has been said about the gratuitous sexism especially in regard to the T'pol character shown in STE. True the nerve-pinching sessions have been overdone a bit too much, however in the decontamination scenes one might argue that the characters were overdressed. It defeats the purpose of decon by wearing contaminated clothes during decon-sessions as any employee working with hazardous materials can attest to. Even Jolene Blalok purportedly complained about the sexism. However to claim that it in any way diminished her character is a blatant exaggeration. Being blessed with nice curves did not in anyway whatsoever meant that T'Pol was not being portrayed as a strong and intelligent woman, because she was. Furthermore veiled or not so veiled sexism has always been a staple of Star Trek (it is well known that Gene Roddenberry intentionally liked it thus) or are we forgetting Yeoman Rand (TOS), Counsellor Troy (TNG), Jadzia Dax (DS9) and Seven of Nine (VOY) in all of their tight fitting outfits and which was more or less accepted and even poked fun at ("...and they wore less..." states Dax dry-witted as she dons a female crew uniform of the TOS-era in DS9's 5th season "Trials and Tribble-ations"). Furthermore on a general note, it is a fact of life, it is even biology that most men like to watch women and that most females like to be watched by men, as amply proven by a multi-trillion cosmetics-, and fashion industry. To seriously try to deny this, is to deny human nature itself and smacks of hypocrisy. Unless Phlox, McCoy, Crusher, Bashir or The Doctor comes up with some sort of a hormone repressant, it will remain a fact of life for some millennia to come, deal with it.

Continuity-issues: My personal feelings are that these are the root-causes of the problems STE encountered and that the above issues more or less resulted from this.
It already starts with the rolling of titles. Had it absolutely to be "Enterprise"? The series firmly established that Archer and his Enterprise are of pivotal importance in creating the Federation. However no mention of him or more importantly his ship are even hinted at in the other series. At least a depiction of his ship should have been on the plaquette walls of all the subsequent Enterprises, so here already is the first discrepancy and one that could have been so easily avoided in giving the ship another name, any name but Enterprise, "My Nana's Old Broomstick" would even have sufficed. It seemed Berman/Braga could not resist the temptation of the lure the name "Enterprise" holds (let's face it, when hearing this name one thinks not of the first atom-driven carrier or the carrier of World War 2 fame) and thereby in the process defeating their own intention of attracting a new audience. It was obvious that Berman and Braga had gotten high on their own supply as further examples will show.
The aliens-issue has also been hotly debated in the fan-base. It appears we are living in a very crowded corner of the universe. Archer has met more new aliens than Kirk and Picard combined. And most of them appeared to have died out since, because most of them have not been hinted at in the other series. True there are fortunately a few familiar races Tellerites, Vulcans, Andorians, Bolians, Nausicans do make an appearance but there are too many newcomers. In all of the other series and movies there have been ample scores of aliens of which we know little or nothing about and most of them as background which could have been highlighted in STE, without loosing storytelling possibilities. Nothing wrong in introducing new races, but the sheer magnitude defies credence, remember at this time earth's sphere of exploration encompasses only a couple of dozens light years.
And then there is the issue of introduction of alien races we are familiar with. Fans were baffled by Vulcans behaving more like Romulans, Ferengi which were not supposed to be encountered for another two centuries or so (TNG's "The Battle"), and the same goes for The Borg (Although there was a logical rationale for this, as stated in the writer's audio commentary track on the dvd, it was intended to clean up the -borg-mess after the events depicted in "First Contact", unfortunately it didn't came across on screen, resulting in more "time-line" foul-ups). One of the more serious breaches of established lore was the too premature introduction of Klingons, already in the pilot-episode. This also was not to have happened for anther 50 years or so and it resulted immediately in a very hot cold war (TOS's "Errand of Mercy" , "Day of the Dove" and TNG's "First Contact). A far-fetched attempt was made to bring the Klingons back on collision-course by having Archer get into a fallout with a powerful Klingon family. Again it seemed that Berman and Braga could not resist the temptation of using proven popular aliens even when it meant that continuity had to be broken.

Another issue which caused much discomfort amongst the fans is the issue of technology. Sure enough, STE started well enough; no phasers, no transporters, no photon torpedoes, no shields no nothing of the all too familiar technological gadgets so much intertwined with Star Trek-lore, The NX-01 had to do with missiles, armored plating, laser guns and shuttles to go to and fro and that just looked and sounded right, But much to my (and many others) dismay, all of these star trek tech goodies were very soon introduced and firmly in place by the end of the series. What this suggested is that for the next 200 years or so no significant technological breakthroughs (especially in the tactical department) would be made, only improvements in their efficiency and this is really trying credence. The first pilot and a couple of the first episodes of TOS for example, strongly suggested that phaser and transporter technology were fairly new by then (in the pilot "The Cage" set about a century after STE, they were still messing about with laser guns and McCoy's reluctance to use the transporter speaks for itself). It is true that Roddenberry wanted to have all the technology shown in his creation to have a scientific base, and by this day and age almost most of them have, at the very least on a theoretical level, with one glaring exception though: transporters. For the reasons why, you might want to read the chapter dealing with this in Krauss' book "The Physics of Star Trek". It is well known that Roddenberry was forced to come up with the transporter as a Deus ex Machina because of budget restraints (there simply was no money for shooting shuttle-craft scenes transporting our heroes to and fro), so it was one of the few tech items shown which was a pure flight of fancy, So to suggest we have this technology already available in a century or so is again stretching believability to breaking point, especially since it played again the part of Deus ex Machina in quite a few crucial episodes of STE. As an extension of these arguments, the fan-base also had gripes with the designs of the starships shown, i.e. they looked too modern in comparison with the ships shown in TOS. Here I've to disagree to some extend. Every effort has been made to make the ships "clunky" enough. What is true however that the ship's configurations lack imagination, i.e they (at least the Earth and Klingon ships) looked too much already as their 200 years later descendants. [Edit: Since the writing of this article it has come to light that where the designs were concerned, what was eventually shown on screen did not always met with approval of the conceptual artists and designers, many of whom were genuine fans. Since then some of them have started blogging and it could be discerned that most of them had a different opinion of what a "proper" design lineage should be, but were met with fierce vetoing from the executive producers, who wanted a recognizable "Trek" look, again contradicting their stated intentions. In one case the artists were put in their place by the producers by disallowing a hard worked design and using a model from the earlier series, creating an awful anachronism. By reading between the lines it becomes clear that the tension levels between producers and creative team had risen substantially in this stage of the franchise.]

A final issue is the storyline discrepancies. I already mentioned the untimely introduction of alien species. Further examples are: Spock being the first Vulcan to serve in Starfleet ? Neh, been there, done that in the form of T'Pol...The V'Ger incident being the first planet wide emergency, again, neh here come the Xindi, blasting away at Florida and Central America and I can go on for awhile. But what is even worse, two major elements have been introduced with major repercussions for everything henceforth : "The Temporal Cold War" and "The Xindi Threat", Granted the first event could have been explained away by an extensive cover-up, but not the second one, since it blasted away huge chunks of Earth, Since this event represented the very first time that Earth faced imminent destruction at the hand of extraterrestrials (at least in the Trek-Universum) it is very unlikely that this would not have been referred to in any of the other series (since every other Earth threatening event, from the Eugenic Wars onwards, has been referred to)...

To anybody but the fan-base these points sound to be trivial, however for the fan-base it is of crucial importance. Trek has become in the last four decades an ongoing legacy, established within its own framework, To commit violations against that framework is, for them at least, a serious offense and as a (not too fanatical) fan I tend to agree. I have to admit that when I was watching the specials and hear Berman state that they did everything to ensure the continuity of the Trek Universe, it was for me quite a toe-wrenching experience since it was so obvious that this was not the case. The things Berman/Braga did get right from the start were the firm connections with the events depicted in the movie "First Contact" and the inferred events depicted in the TOS-episode "Babel", namely the troublesome beginnings amongst a couple of the founding races of the Federation (Vulcans-Andorians-Tellerites).

So now then, is STE a bad sci-fi or a bad Trek-series? Well actually NO!!! Not only was it quite good sci-fi, it also was quite good Trek. I for one enjoyed the series quite a lot from the very first get-go, Yes, I did get bothered as a Trek aficionado by the discrepancies described above, but unlike the fanatics I could get past that and enjoyed the series for what it was. Ironically, the first two seasons (the ones most reviled by the die-hard fan-base) were in spirit ("To boldly go where no one has gone before") closest to the TOS than any other of the Trek-incarnations. Every episode, they did get to visit another situation just like the old TOS, or have we forgotten that? And true there were some lame episodes, but doesn't this also held true for every other Star Trek series? Let's be honest here "The Next Generation" had more than its share of lame episodes during the first three seasons, but we stuck by it and we got rewarded for it from the latter half of the third series onward (granted, TNG did not have any whatsoever competition at the time). In our days TNG would not have lasted one season. Every Star Trek series (with the exception of TOS) needed time to find its footing and pace. Each of them found it in its second or third season, that's how the format worked (after TNG there was only a year or so to come up with the premise for a new series). To compare them with very successful shows like "Babylon 5" and "Battlestar Galactica"(the new series) is unjustified...In the latter cases the creators spent many, many years to beef out the premises and story-lines, whereas the last three series of Star Trek only had one year each. In the case of Babylon 5 for example, once the original story had been told (four seasons), the franchise staggered considerably with its spin-offs (none of which successful) as is also the case with "Galactica", where the producers already announced the end of the series, ending it on a high note rather to let this quality-series depreciate itself. One could argue Berman/Braga should have done the same with Trek after "Voyager", that the world was "tired" of Trek, that the franchise should give it a rest. Well they did not. They gave it another run. The results are well known. No matter how I feel (and yes, quite a few others as well) about the first two seasons, they proved a rating disaster for all the reasons I stated above. The long Xindi story-arc of season three went a long way to improve the series in no uncertain measure (a very outstanding season by anybodies standard, were it a sci-fi series not associated with Star Trek, it would have been a hit), but it strayed even further from the Star Trek-Universe.

So by the end of season three of STE the whole franchise was in serious trouble, Berman/Braga saw the writings on the wall and they both scurried for cover, like Ismay (the general manager of the Titanic, who sneaked his way on board of the few lifeboats) finding employment elsewhere, a very ignominious way to end very distinguished careers in the whole Trek-Universe, but at least they gave us the gift of handing over the reigns to a very gifted man, named Manny Cotto, He, aided by equally gifted writers like the writer couple Reeves and others, possessed with a thorough understanding of the Trek-Universe produced a fourth season of STE, firmly establishing this incarnation with the rest of Star Trek-Lore, finally telling stories the fanbase have been waiting to see:
-)A story-arc dealing with the fall-out of the Eugenic Wars, resulting in a link not only with TOS but also with TNG
-)A story-arc dealing with the fact that Vulcans of STE differ so much with the rest of the Trek-universe, which by the way did (in hindsight) not sounded too far-fetched. We do have a 20th century equivalent in the form of communism...It too strayed a very, very long way from its original writings and intentions (if you do not believe me, read Marx's "Das Kapital" and compare it with its eventual outcome). Were Marx to appear in Red Square in the 50's he would certainly not have been so lucky as the katra of Surak in STE (Stalin would have seen to that).
-)A story-arc dealing with how latter day Klingons do not look like as TOS Klingons (in reality because of budget restraints there was no money available for elaborate make-up), something I as a star trek fan was not really looking for, but got nevertheless in a brilliant piece of spin doctoring, turning the too premature introduction of klingons into an advantage explaining this.
-)A story-arc dealing with the coming about of the Mirror-Universe, an absolute fan favorite. Not only does this arc explains how the Terran Empire came to be (without any cross-overs from our Trek universe), but we also get to see a TOS-starship operating in the STE-era. And believe you me it is most gratifying to see a ship designed in the 60's to perform so well in a show of the early 21th century. Not only was this show an absolute homage to TOS, but in my mind at least, it also was a subconscious rebuttal to the fans who claimed that the STE-ships were too modern looking... Seeing the Defiant making short work of STE-era ships was never a stretch of believability...I for one can not think of a greater homage to the late Matt Jeffries, the designer of a timeless starship...His creation can still hold up to the very best this CGI-driven era can generate...

In hindsight, the fourth season proved to be the most popular amongst the primary audience i.e. the fan-base for which the prequel should have been intended all along. The one issue I have with the last season is this: It all seems to be a bit too forced, and actually it is. Most likely Manny Cotto & Co. must have sensed that this season would be the last (and it was proven thus), so in order to cement this series with the rest of the franchise a lot of stories had to be told in a very short time. The sad irony is that were some of the arcs of the fourth season spread more evenly over the previous three seasons, STE would have had a far better survival chance than it had; Then Berman/Braga would have had the opportunity to achieve their goal of satisfying two very distinct target audiences.

Conclusion: So did STE heralded the end of the Star Trek Franchise? Well, yes and no. In no way did STE spawn the downfall of the franchise. It's third and especially its fourth season did show there was life in the old gal left yet. Were we living ten years earlier STE would have been given a chance to further develop into a full fledged trek series, it definitively had the potential. However we are not living ten years earlier, nowadays a new show has to go off with a very strong premise from the very start even to have a chance to go into a second season. And this is exactly were STE failed. Not only was a certain patience still expected from audiences (which was no longer there) in order to find a specific pacing in the series, but this misjudgment was also further compounded by a lack of direction as described above. If I have been too critical about Berman & Co. then I must tone it down right now, for they have given us literally hundreds of hours of marvelous entertainment in the Trek Universe, stronger even, they've given the franchise a second lease of life and let us all not forget that. So if they have given us two disappointing seasons, remember they have also given us twenty two seasons of satisfaction, no small feat. The only fault I can find with Berman & Co. is that they have seriously underestimated the changes that took place the last ten years in the world of TV-dramas. That being said, I can not see any of the newcomers, no matter how good they are (and I can name but a few, all of which I do no see having a lifespan of more than four-five seasons), of being able of building a legacy like that of Star Trek...Many have said that Star Trek (beginning with VOY) as a format has become "tired"...Well I personally do not agree with this assessment, I would rather say that Star Trek is not "in vogue" for the time being. Only time will tell if this will be of a permanent nature, but then again Star Trek has risen from the dead before...(although times have changed considerably, Paramount auctioned off last year a considerable part of their trek-paraphernalia, thereby giving off a very strong indication that we will never again see a re-appearance of any of the Trek-incarnations thus-far). If in the future a new incarnation is to appear, remember, don't get burned on making a prequel (It seems however that this warning has come too late, because at the time of this writing a new Trek movie, no.11, is in the make and yes it's a prequel, dealing with the young Kirk and Co. The director is on record that he will not take into account established Trek-lore, thereby opening up the possibility of driving home the last nail in the coffin of the franchise. We will have to see if this will indeed be the case).

On a final note I would like to comment on the DVD-release. Being the last Trek series produced, well into the DVD-era, it is no surprise that the DVD release of STE is quality-wise amongst the best in the whole franchise. Sound and picture are excellent, presentation and format are very satisfying. The price-level is as usual with paramount productions (as far as Star Trek is concerned), rather steep, but okay we have gotten used to that and since we are Trek-fans, we'll cough up the dough.
My gripes, as with all the other Trek editions, are with the extras. Yeah, they are done expertly (this being a truly DVD-era product, even more so, i.e. most of the extras were pre-produced as being extras for the dvd-releases), the inclusion of the bloopers is a very nice touch and the commentaries, both text and audio are very insightful. However as usual, little attention is given to starship design as is the case with every other Trek-dvd incarnation, further fueling the frustration of many modelers, who are to this day in vain waiting for a comprehensive reference work (be it in writing, or on dvd) on Trek Starships (it defies belief that a franchise as venerated as Star Trek is not able to produce a single solid reference work on their starship designs, whereas even the most obscure sci-fi series like Lexx is able to do so). And for that matter the whole process of what is making the magic happen is somewhat under-lighted, as in every trek dvd-incarnation. Furthermore any critical note is missing from the extras as is usual with trek releases. Hardly any mention is made of the criticism stated above, although it proved to be very instrumental in the changes made in the course of STE and thereby the franchise as a whole. But this is hardly surprising, it has been a policy of Paramount to make the extras on any Trek-dvd release into glorified ads...

So now that all has been said and written, how do I rate this series? I still give it 4 stars, solely because I have been able to watch as a stand alone and very much enjoyed it as such, especially the 3d season. The 4th star is firmly deserved due to its 4th season, which so much warmed my Trek-heart. It is my hope therefore that opinions will become milder as time passes on...

This is the best Star Trek series ever !!! I have watched Star Trek since I was a little kid (Old Fart Now !)and this is the absolute best one !!!
The DVD features and quality are Top Notch !!!
Live long and view on....

Star Trek Enterprise is a great series looking back on it. I remember when it first premiered, it started off a bt rocky but episodes got better, for the most part. UInfortunately, I (among millions of others) fell out of viewer-ship for some reason and the show was cancelled.

Recently, I rediscovered the show on HDNET. It's broadcast in high-definition and without commercials. The special effects are quite simply amazing in HD and it seems like an entirely new show to me.

Take a look at the show on HDNET before you buy this. After watching it in HD, you may want to wait for it on BluRay.

Reading many of the reviews I have seen two sides: the people that didn't really like it anyway gave it a try and continue to complain, and the people that were open minded and gave the series a true chance.
Unlike what anyone says these are the real reasons Enterprise got canceled.

1. It was on UPN, a channel which at the time most places didn't get which they didn't take into account when they checked ratings.

2.Paramount and UPN were going through a shift in management. The Main reason the show was cut short was cause of the new takeover. This had nothing to do with ratings that was an excuse.

I remember seeing the HUGE rally to get this series to season 4. If the series was that poorly received nobody would of bothered. In Season 4 everyone attempted writing,emailing and calling everyone to continue the show. The new management would have nothing of it no matter what was done.

Having said that I will give you my review of the series.

Most people take things that they think are official, but are not. They Look at enterprise and see inconsistencies. There is none. The original series has a hell of a lot more, and the next generation spent time cleaning up that. Enterprise was created to officialize all of the unknowns or the "supposed" known.
Enterprise started out in testing waters in the beginning example being the sexy scene with T'Pol. Having realized it was a bad idea, it was quickly changed. After many adjustments I found that most of the characters had more depth to them over the seasons. Each one got a chance to have an episode about themselves which was nice to have for once. Many of the previous star trek's had very scattered episodes and had small pool of characters that got a chance. Having said that, the only one that got less was Hoshi.
As for the writing, besides the last episode which was the most atrocious piece of garbage I've ever seen in my life (the real nail in the coffin), most of the writing was well done.
For Consistency, there was more episodes that had meaning to them; less fluff. If you checked reviewers sites with ratings of each episode, Enterprise is the only Star Trek with the most consistency for ratings. All except the last episode are rated a 7/10 or higher.
For music the first version of the song was MUCH MUCH better, and it was something different, you know how everyone hates different.
I Know I'm saying randomness, but I would like to explain things, especially since I saw so many negative type reviews about the series.
Please Everyone Check out the series and give it a chance.

Simply the best Star Trek series which met its end far too soon. The last season is outstanding.