I’m one of the rare defenders of Enterprise mostly because I just really like Bakula in the role of a gruffer, more inherently American early Captain, so while I hate all these prequels and midquels and stuff they keep pumping out, I would probably watch if Bakula reprised the role.
I also like Archer in Enterprise, despite most of the fandom really not liking him.
I feel it’s completely unrealistic to expect him to be as much of a polished and perfect Starfleet officer as, say, Picard or Pike are.
He’s doing all of this stuff for the first time, with completely inadequate training, very little in the way of standard procedures imposed by the Earth government, etc. he also doesn’t have captain’s logs from others to pore through and learn from.
He’s an ex test pilot who’s been given command basics that are completely inadequate for interplanetary exploration and diplomacy, and he’s expected to learn on the fly.
People complain that he’s out of his depth half the time, but that’s the entire theme of the show.
It’s actually somewhat fun - as a one off for a Trek series - to see humans not be hypercompetent and perfect, while at the same time trying to be. You can see that they’re not at the level of evolved sensibilities that we see in TNG, but they want to be. That’s their goal. They’re trying to be. And not half-arsed trying either, they’re genuinely putting as much effort as they can to better themselves as a species. They’re risking their lives to be a positive force in the galaxy, only to end up making a mess of it and sometimes making stuff worse, but it works as a series because you can see it comes not from malice, but from a desire to do good. They’re trying to impose good morals on a galaxy full of realpolitik and shades of grey. It’s like watching Superman, except unlike Superman they don’t have might to back themselves up, quite the opposite, they’re small fish trying to impose goodwill onto the great whites. I find that very endearing.
I miss Enterprise. It’s a great shame we never got to see the Earth-Romulan war and more of the political back and forth between the Federation founder worlds.
I think this isn’t really a minority opinion anymore. Not even just in comparison to the current crop of ST. It was a jarring tonal shift at the time. But I think Enterprise aged very well. I’ve rewatched the Xindi arc numerous times .
The beginning of the Federation is a unique space to look closer at. Sort of similar to how Starfleet Academy clearly won’t be following a ship’s adventures. Take a more DS9 approach to it, focusing on the innet working of the Admiralty and Day to day operations at the command level, and it could work despite being a prequel timeframe.
One of the reasons Enterprise worked as well as it did was because it wasn’t as beholden to the existing canon. It was far enough removed in the timeline that it didn’t need to address most existing canon events. The ship wasn’t fast enough to get to far flung regions, and it allowed us to see the start of humanity’s exploration without the corrupted Admiralty of Starfleet in the TNG/DS9/VOY era.
SNW is great, but it is limited by the tight confines of its place in the chronology. Similar to Disco before its leap forward, except Disco had the added complexity of a magical propulsion system no one outside the crew could really know about.
I really agree early federation is very untapped, and despite it’s flaws I liked enterprise and consider it a mostly successful experiment in the franchise. Archer was a great character in terms of bringing up the early fundamentals of the federation but having to operate without having it’s often overwhelming force behind him.
I’m one of the rare defenders of Enterprise mostly because I just really like Bakula in the role of a gruffer, more inherently American early Captain, so while I hate all these prequels and midquels and stuff they keep pumping out, I would probably watch if Bakula reprised the role.
I also like Archer in Enterprise, despite most of the fandom really not liking him.
I feel it’s completely unrealistic to expect him to be as much of a polished and perfect Starfleet officer as, say, Picard or Pike are.
He’s doing all of this stuff for the first time, with completely inadequate training, very little in the way of standard procedures imposed by the Earth government, etc. he also doesn’t have captain’s logs from others to pore through and learn from.
He’s an ex test pilot who’s been given command basics that are completely inadequate for interplanetary exploration and diplomacy, and he’s expected to learn on the fly.
People complain that he’s out of his depth half the time, but that’s the entire theme of the show.
It’s actually somewhat fun - as a one off for a Trek series - to see humans not be hypercompetent and perfect, while at the same time trying to be. You can see that they’re not at the level of evolved sensibilities that we see in TNG, but they want to be. That’s their goal. They’re trying to be. And not half-arsed trying either, they’re genuinely putting as much effort as they can to better themselves as a species. They’re risking their lives to be a positive force in the galaxy, only to end up making a mess of it and sometimes making stuff worse, but it works as a series because you can see it comes not from malice, but from a desire to do good. They’re trying to impose good morals on a galaxy full of realpolitik and shades of grey. It’s like watching Superman, except unlike Superman they don’t have might to back themselves up, quite the opposite, they’re small fish trying to impose goodwill onto the great whites. I find that very endearing.
I miss Enterprise. It’s a great shame we never got to see the Earth-Romulan war and more of the political back and forth between the Federation founder worlds.
I think this isn’t really a minority opinion anymore. Not even just in comparison to the current crop of ST. It was a jarring tonal shift at the time. But I think Enterprise aged very well. I’ve rewatched the Xindi arc numerous times .
The beginning of the Federation is a unique space to look closer at. Sort of similar to how Starfleet Academy clearly won’t be following a ship’s adventures. Take a more DS9 approach to it, focusing on the innet working of the Admiralty and Day to day operations at the command level, and it could work despite being a prequel timeframe.
One of the reasons Enterprise worked as well as it did was because it wasn’t as beholden to the existing canon. It was far enough removed in the timeline that it didn’t need to address most existing canon events. The ship wasn’t fast enough to get to far flung regions, and it allowed us to see the start of humanity’s exploration without the corrupted Admiralty of Starfleet in the TNG/DS9/VOY era.
SNW is great, but it is limited by the tight confines of its place in the chronology. Similar to Disco before its leap forward, except Disco had the added complexity of a magical propulsion system no one outside the crew could really know about.
I really agree early federation is very untapped, and despite it’s flaws I liked enterprise and consider it a mostly successful experiment in the franchise. Archer was a great character in terms of bringing up the early fundamentals of the federation but having to operate without having it’s often overwhelming force behind him.