Customer Reviews

The Xindi

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like another reviewer, I was pretty burnt out on new Star Trek franchises when Enterprise (ENT) first debuted. When I sampled the first season, at the time, I definitely felt it was realllllly cheesy.

But now -

With the entire show on instant video, I figured I'd give ENT another shot. I decided to start as far from season 1 as possible. So I began with season 4, which I loved - really reminded me of some of TNG's best episodes. On to Season 3, in my reverse viewing of this series!

Season 3 of ENT combines all of the best elements of the original Star Trek, TNG, and DS9. There are excellent episodes on social issues, exploring ideas such as collective responsibility and genocide, as well as stem cell research and right to life, amongst others. At the same time, the writers came up with a genius plot device for the whole season: Enterprise must track down a new alien threat by exploring a new area of space known as 'The Expanse.' Not only does this give a long-term story arc for 23 episodes (much like the best parts of DS9), but it also lets ENT explore a whole new part of the Star Trek universe, without worrying about changing the canon, etc. etc. This gives a rich context for a lot of neat Star Trek style story-telling. If you're a fan of the franchise, you'll probably recognize the nods to previous plot devices - I found this endearing, and not at all derivative).

Finally, the cast of this show really seem to fit their characters. I was never able to dig Voyager b/c...well, nearly all the characters and/or actors annoyed the hell out of me. Don't know why, but they just did. This set of characters (and its matching cast) really shine in season 3 - many characters have to face difficult decisions that make them a little less polished, and a little more real (as the reimagined Battlestar Galactica famously did, to an even larger degree).

I have to say, as this season progresses, I admire more and more of the writing. There are many small touches of continuity in the story arc that delight the attentive viewer, endear the characters to you, and feel like classic Star Trek. Most importantly, however, they successfully turned what was a kind of hokey series in season 1 (in my opinion, at least) into a show that takes itself just seriously enough to be admired while still entertaining.

If you're a Star Trek fan of other shows, this season is a great introduction to ENT.

I am a die hard star trek fan ( the original series) but like most people suffered from some burn out by the time Enterprise came on the air. After starting the Amazon instant video I decided to find out what people were saying about all of the star trek series that were now available to watch. When I read that people enjoyed season three of Enterprise I decided to check it out. Man, I really enjoyed this continuing one year long story. IMO its some of the best star trek out of any of the new shows. There is more compelling character development and sense of urgency and suspense than has ever been in any of the other cold and politically correct shows such as TNG and Voyager. They actually made the story of the impending destruction of the earth by the alien Xindi exciting and the ships search in an unknown and unstable area of space to find and stop the alien weapon very addictive viewing. I was really surprised by the evolution of the T'pol vulcan character and her change from stoic arrogant vulcan to emotionally scarred and loyal crew member. Her arc involving her addiction to a mineral deadly to vulcans and its permanent affect on her emotional stability was fun to watch. Plus it was fun to follow her struggling with her feelings for Trip tucker and captain archer. Archer was forced to make some hard decisions that were a deviation from the usual preachy good guy stance of other shows. I always find it annoying when the new shows have the crew do everything they can to accomodate the vast array of alien jerks and bend over backwards to show how peacefull humans are. This season the stakes are the destruction of the earth so Archer chucks that PC stuff out the window and gets nasty ( a few times) in order for the mission to succeed.
I really believe that if this show had followed TNG instead of deep space nine then it would have been more popular. Not that Im a DS9 basher...I thought the last two seasons of that show were great as well.
If you watch anything of Enterprise...check out this 3rd season for the last great star trek television.

Ask me several years ago about Enterprise and I would have said BLAH! It started to grow on me over the years and I wish I had given it more of a chance. I just couldn't get past the whole going back to a ship that predated the original series. Give it a chance you might be surprised!