the natural lifespan of a fandom is unlimited. when well tended a fandom can be functionally immortal. and yet everywhere you look you see newly bred fandoms withering and dying when they’re barely a year old. barely even six months old. fans are looking at their six month old fandoms and saying i think it’s on its last legs, should i euthanise it? when with the proper care that fandom could outlive them for decades. it’s sad. sad state of affairs we’re in.
"character deserved better" (but they were never going to get it that's the stuff great tragedies are made of) vs "character deserved better" (but the writers really blew it)
It takes historians two centuries to figure out that the Federation Declaration that Archer signed was really a heavily disguised marriage certification between him and Shran because Shran had bet him he could have more witnesses attend him signing his half than Archer could.
To be fair, Andorian familial structure means Shran knows a lot of people, but Archer won rather handily.
The Great Sci-Fi Rewatch - Star Trek: Enterprise (S1)
"When Zefram Cochrane made his legendary warp flight ninety years ago, and drew the attention of our new friends, the Vulcans. We realised that we weren't alone in the galaxy. Today we're about to cross a new threshold. For nearly a century, we've waded ankle-deep in the ocean of space. Now it's finally time to swim.”
I grew up on Star Trek. There's a genuine possibility TNG is embedded in my psyche and that I will forever hold Jean-Luc Picard as the gold standard to which all human beings should aspire. That being said, when I decided to attempt a great sci-fi rewatch, I decided to start the the much maligned Trek prequel, Star Trek: Enterprise.
And the thing is... I kind of really love ENT. It's the first Trek series I wasn't able to watch as it aired, so I ended up watching all four seasons in almost one sitting one summer shortly after it came off the air. Perhaps because of that, my relationship with ENT has always been different from the earlier Treks - in that it was the first I made an active effort to join the fandom, and spent several months as part of fan forum dedicated to it before I got exhausted arguing about the validity of T'Pol's commission or the degree of stupidity present in the finale.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This about S1... which, while not the best television ever aired, is still worth a place in this rewatch.
Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Season 4
The Show:
Star Trek has always offered a beautiful dream - the best of what humans can be in the best of situations. It's a delightful change of pace after the ubiquitous dystopian futures offered by every other sci-fi. ENT is meant to showcase how humanity goes from now to then - humanity's growth as we leave our small corner of the universe and how that growth leads to the creation of the Federation. It's a grand idea, especially since moral perfection is not something that happens overnight. This is about humanity becoming the best possible version of itself as well as exploring what really is still a frontier.
For the most part, it works. Instead of restating that the Prime Directive is a good idea ad nauseam, it shows us how and why it was developed. It gives us characters that are halfway between WWIII and TOS - getting there, but still oh so very relatable to modern humans - and plots that brush against important issues in interesting ways.
That being said: despite loving time travel tropes, I loathe the Temporal Cold War. For all that all prequels are forward-looking, none make it quite as explicit as ENT does - really hammering home about the development of the Federation and humanity's role in the galaxy. I'm all for the Federation, but I'd rather the characters have no idea what they're working towards than be Burdened By Glorious Purpose.
Otherwise... S1 is better than I remembered, full of solid world-building in the first few episodes that mostly make up for the lackluster middle. Hoshi, Travis, and Malcolm get the most character development they ever do... and Trip and T'Pol alternate who's the angel and who's the devil on Archer's shoulder between episodes. Well worth a watch - with a few episodes well worth skipping the second time around.
The Cast:
Jonathan Archer is not my favorite captain, but in all honesty few can compare to Picard, Janeway, or Sisko. This becomes particularly trying when ENT devolves into the Captain Archer Show, but for the most part I've no problems with him. His Fantastic Racism is a bit heavy and feels tonally out of place in ST, but mellows believably over the course of things, showing once again that Starfleet isn't about the destiny but the journey. As my mother says, he has more of that test pilot mentality than later captains, but it works. (Also my great-grandmother supposedly once worked as the actor's father's secretary and tried to pair off Scott Bakula and my grandmother, so six degrees of separation for the win.)
Trip and T'Pol's chemistry jumps off the screen in a way I forgot existed pre-S3. No idea if the writers always intended to pair them together, but they play off each other well without becoming caricatures. I feel incredible sympathy for T'Pol in having to deal with an all-human crew (a few of my own interactions with coworkers have this vibe) and knowing details of later seasons have a better appreciation of the tightrope she must have had to walk. Trip is a character but only occasionally a caricature... though I must say in a decade of living in FL I've never once heard anyone native with his accent.
The rest of the command crew bursts with potential, even if we rarely get to see it after this season. Travis is almost too innocent and naive, in a way that might be meant to echo Bashir but which feels fatuous most the time. Hoshi is enjoyable - and several of the episodes have her playing off of Archer so well I wonder why I don't remember more people shipping them. Malcolm is a blank slate, yes, but honestly in a way I find professional rather than bad characterization (except for when they try to make it his characterization). Phlox's good-humor is a delightful palate cleanser when not overdone.... and even Porthos feels less like a gimmick this time around.
The Episodes:
Ranked, using the highly scientific method of TNG's "Shades of Gray" being 0 and DS9's "In the Pale Moonlight" being 10.
Multipart episodes are placed together if 1) they have the same name and 2) they appear in the same season. Where Paramount+ and various online lists have episodes in different orders, I've defaulted to the former for convenience.
"Broken Bow (Parts 1 & 2)": Love how the whole command team goes down to the surface on their first away mission and how there appears to be only one trained pilot on the entire ship, but a solid, well-paced beginning. [7.1]
"Fight or Flight": Average episode made interesting by ethics and realities of exploration. Wonder why no one seems to pair Archer with Hoshi. [5.5]
"Strange New World": Well-written, well-acted teething pains of exploration. A quality stand-alone episode. [6.7]
"Unexpected": Fake grass, a room Lisa Frank would call overkill, and crippling amounts of second-hand embarrassment. [1.5]
"Terra Nova": Roanoke in space, a sci-fi staple. [5.0]
"The Andorian Incident": Shran enters the chat. Love it for the politics and the reveal at the end, though Archer’s distrust of Vulcans on principle is starting to get old. [7.5]
"Breaking the Ice": Character-driven episode not seen in shorter seasons. Can’t help but love it. [7.2]
"Civilization": Why the Prime Directive is necessary, the prequel. Solid if unremarkable. [5.4]
"Fortunate Son": The most unsympathetic look at Boomer culture possible, which may be positive only in that it reads as copy paste critique of American frontier settlement. Zero nuance, but Travis has a nice character moment. [3.2]
"Cold Front": I normally love time travel, but everything about Daniels and the Temporal Cold War just bores me. As does the B-plot. [3.9]
"Silent Enemy": A watchable if tepid episode. I wouldn’t rank it 14th worst Trek ever, but probably in the bottom 100. [2.5]
”Shadows of P’Jem”: Gloss of Cold War politics made moderately amusing by Shran and circumstance. Can see why people ship Archer and Shran for once. [4.2]
"Dear Doctor": Quaint day in the life that touches on what it means to encounters less advanced civilizations that know you can help. Quite well done. [6.9]
"Sleeping Dogs": Leave no man behind, ENT edition. With Klingons. [5.8]
"Shuttlepod One": Apollo 13 in deep space. Any positives for this episode were lost by the dream sequence. [3.5]
"Fusion": Everything about this episode makes me deeply uncomfortable, especially the actor who plays Tolaris. Slime drips from his every scene. [3.7]
"Rogue Planet": Sentient species being hunted for sport, with telepathy. Points deducted for being impossible to see. [5.1]
"Acquisition": Pseudo-first contact with the Ferengi. Absurdly ridiculous as all Ferengi episodes are, but riotously amusing. [6.1]
"Vox Sola": Hoshi talks to a tentacle monster. Trip and Archer watch water polo. [4.8]
"Fallen Hero": One step forward for Vulcan-Human relations. Trip wears a Hawaiian shirt. [5.1]
"Desert Crossing": Contender for worst accent in Trek from the alien freedom fighter. Trip and Archer get stuck in the desert. [4.6]
"Two Days and Two Nights": Can’t believe Michael Dorn directed this episode. Phlox was amusing, but otherwise a pointless penultimate episode. [3.1]
"Shockwave (Part 1)": Time travel shenanigans drive the plot and strand Archer in the future. Plenty of callbacks to things learned in previous episodes. Not bad, but vaguely unsatisfying that solving the mid-plot was hand-wavy knowledge from the future. [7.1]
Season 1 Average Rating: 5.20
Season 1 Median Rating : 5.25
Final Comments
The theme song: I know some people hate it and I know it's not very Trek, but I can't help but like it. It's inspiring and fits what ENT is trying to do. I listen to it every time.
The Vulcans: I get what ENT was trying to do, but all of the Vulcan's complaints feel very you should listen to what we say or else rather than these are our valid concerns, which you should listen to but we have no authority to force you to follow. An interesting turnabout of the Federation's actions with other worlds in earlier series, but all the nuance comes in later seasons. Soval comes across farcical more often than not.
The Andorans: Shran is everything we've come to expect from Jeffrey Combs. He gives his all, and gives the Vulcan-Andoran conflict meat it might otherwise have lacked. (Combs also gives us a delightful Ferengi in "Acquisition". He plays so well off Bakula regardless what character he's playing.)
I also adore the aesthetic - futuristic but no minimalistic, while also feeling like a work in progress. It feels like a believable middle step between now and TOS. The off-duty and civilian clothes are also neither the early 90s eyesores of TNG or DS9, nor are they as visibly dated as TOS. Maybe that dates me as well, but I love ENT for the vibe as much as anything else
Having to act so normal when Scott Bakula of all people was brought up by a coworker at work just now. Oh? Scott Bakula? That's an actor I'm aware of in a normal capacity. Oh you loved him in NCIS? Wow yeah for sure I forgot he was on that, that's neat. (it's been a long road starts playing in my head).
Too much trek, not enough time... @kirkjamest - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
