Star Trek Enterprise- first time Watch

[thetopher]

Yeah, regarding the 'Temporal Cold War' thing; cool concept...but the writers didn't have set out any set of ideas regarding this particular plot and, unless you're a really talented writer its best not to dick around with time travel in your prequel setting.
B & B were not talented writers.

 

[Btvs fan]

Yes, the whole Temporal War arc is generally thought to be pretty bad. Best of Both Worlds does still work as a cliffhanger, and it must have been even better pre-modern internet when no-one knew what was going to happen, you had to wait months to find out and it wasn't even known if Patrick Stewart was coming back.



I would say a big problem of the series is a lot of "meh" episodes interspersed with too many genuine stinkers.

Also, Archer is the only captain in any of the series to this point to be so regularly beaten up.

I don't think he's beaten up that much and I noticed there's quite a few Shirtless Scott Bakula scenes showing off his abs. Also Picard wasn't an Action guy and famously gets captured and tortured when he is. Its just bland writing.

Another issue is the Uniforms. They're bland too and just Navy blue with minimal colour. Instead why not have them the Trek colours with blue shoulder pads instead ?

Post automatically merged: May 24, 2026

Yeah, regarding the 'Temporal Cold War' thing; cool concept...but the writers didn't have set out any set of ideas regarding this particular plot and, unless you're a really talented writer its best not to dick around with time travel in your prequel setting.
B & B were not talented writers.

Yep this isn't City on the Edge of Forever quality thats for sure.
I just don't care about any of it so when it ends with Archer trapped in the future I shrug my shoulders and am like ok

 

[XanderesqueMan]

As someone who has been watching Star Trek since he was four, I will grant you that it's the worst of the original five series (which are the only series as far as I'm concerned), but I enjoyed it immensely. I found the stories generally engaging (there are some low-points as with most shows), the aesthetics were a great blending of styles that took advantage of new special effects technology but still seemed feasibly pre-TOS, and I actually found many of the characters likeable.

I think Archer is a good captain, something like a James T. Kirk dosed with a bit of Jean-Luc Picard, thoughtful but willing to kick butt when the moment calls for it. Trip and Malcolm Reed are my favorite characters. I enjoy their friendship immensely, opposites who bond against all odds (like Bashir and O'Brien on DS9.) Phlox is amusing and lovable, an intelligent, caring, overly optimistic, and charismatically acted doctor. I also really loved his brief friendship with Crewman Cutler (Kellie Waymire.) Now, I admit, Travis Mayweather is a bit on the bland side. There are a few episodes where I think he shines a bit more, such as the Horizon episode, but overall he functions to ask one or two questions an episode as an audience stand-in and not much more, which is disappointing, given past helmsman included Data (perhaps my favorite Star Trek character), Sulu (who I love), Tom Paris (my favorite Voyager character), and often (aboard the Defiant) Jadzia Dax (my second favorite DS9 character, the first being Julian Bashir.)

I get it might not be everyone's cup of tea, as they say, and it certainly has its flaws, many of them (it is certainly no TNG or DS9 or Quantum Leap), but I thought it had heart and I enjoyed the characters, so I was happy to go along with it. I'm actually rewatching Enterprise right now as a part of a rewatch of all five series (this time around by in-universe chronology) and I'm having a good time.

I liked Enterprise, it was so corny and cheesy to watch. The song made me think it was much older than it was (I didnt see it when it aired either). Comfort tv now.
Has the hottest vulcan of the lot.

Fair. But, for me, Hoshi is best girl. ❤️

I loved TNG and DS9 and didn't like Voyager despite its great concept which Berman and Braga did nothing with .

Fair to think. It could have definitely been handled better in some areas. But personally, I love Voyager. It isn't the masterpiece of The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine but it was solid entertainment to me (mostly; Threshold need not be mentioned) and I found the characters mostly great—Tom, Harry, Janeway, Tuvok, the Doctor, etc. To each their own, I suppose. I know there are many fans who agree with your assessment.

 

[NotASlayer]

Phlox is amusing and lovable, an intelligent, caring, overly optimistic, and charismatically acted doctor.

He's great and also rather terrifying. In the Mirror Universe he has pretty much the same personality; cheerful, bubbly, really into and enjoying his work, just like he is in the Prime Universe, but in the Mirror Universe his work happens to be inflicting pain and torturing people. Prime Phlox is one lab accident away from becoming a supervillain... 😀

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Maybe I'm in minority but I overall liked Enterprise. Had arguably the best premise. Had a mostly good cast/characters. My biggest problems were with some of the casting (looking at you Mayweather), focusing on certain crew members, certain overlong story lines. Also I hated the whole temporal timeline garbage. 😐

 

[XanderesqueMan]

He's great and also rather terrifying. In the Mirror Universe he has pretty much the same personality; cheerful, bubbly, really into and enjoying his work, just like he is in the Prime Universe, but in the Mirror Universe his work happens to be inflicting pain and torturing people. Prime Phlox is one lab accident away from becoming a supervillain... 😀

Ah, yes, in "In A Mirror Darkly." Like Voyager's EMH, the Doctor, when Ransom deactivates his ethical subroutines in "Equinox." Frightening.

Maybe I'm in minority but I overall liked Enterprise. Had arguably the best premise. Had a mostly good cast/characters.

I felt the same way. Enterprise has always faced harsh criticism from a lot of the fandom. I remember discussing the episodes online every week on the BuffyBB (sadly, now defunct.) It was rough. But, though I still see plenty of it, it seems many fans are looking back at it more fondly now, taken in comparison to more modern series. I think at the time it was too different from prior Star Trek series, and it definitely struggled to find its footing. Unfortunate.

 

[NotASlayer]

I felt the same way. Enterprise has always faced harsh criticism from a lot of the fandom. I remember discussing the episodes online every week on the BuffyBB (sadly, now defunct.) It was rough. But, though I still see plenty of it, it seems many fans are looking back at it more fondly now, taken in comparison to more modern series. I think at the time it was too different from prior Star Trek series, and it definitely struggled to find its footing. Unfortunate.

It struggled to find its way (and the Time War arc didn't help, given how disliked it was), and you also have the problem of trying to show a less advanced starship when technology has moved on. The Defiant that ended up in the Mirror Universe, despite being "more advanced" than the NX-01, looked more primitive. That may be the most obvious instance, but anyone familiar with TOS would have thought the original Enterprise looked less advanced than the older version in this.

In DS9, when they went back in time, they did try and counter how much more primitive the tech looked - and even in-universe it was supposed to be - by having Jadzia comment on loving the retro designs of the time.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

There's no good way to reconcile futurastic 90s with futuristic 60s. To me, it's no different than TMP looking very different than TOS or even WOK. It's an art choice, you have to sometimes accept that Trill change appearance, or Telarites look less fake.

 

[NotASlayer]

Well, the easy way of reconciling it is don't do series that are set in the universe's past.

 

[Btvs fan]

Well, the easy way of reconciling it is don't do series that are set in the universe's past.

Honestly that could've been given a pass but Berman and Bragas writing was just awful.
Now it wasnt bad persay except that it was just milk toast. Every episode was the same every day. It was so bland

 

[machinewolfhear]

star trek picard is the best in my opinion, the gang is all there

 

[Btvs fan]

star trek picard is the best in my opinion, the gang is all there

Picard season 3 is fine (not great) but 1 and 2 are awful

Post automatically merged: Jul 31, 2026

@machinewolfhear The first 2 seasons were Kurtzman Trek. I loath Kurtzman and everything he's done in Trek. I don't even call it Star Trek just Kurtzman Trek.

For Season 3 which was Terry Matalas. It was basically nostalgia bait and member berries and had more endings than Lord of the Rings.
The best character was the Captain who they killed off

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

@CassieForever care to weigh in? I know you're a big Trek fan.

 

[CassieForever]

As for ST: Picard, seeing Jean-Luc is always great. That said, Season 1 was okay, Season 2 (set in LA in our time, dystopian authoritarian) terrific, and Season 3 -- the TNG crew reunited -- is fabulous. Amanda Plummer a great Big Bad.

 

[Btvs fan]

@CassieForever I agree with you about Berman and Id include Braga as well.
They messed up Trek so much it allowed predators like JJ and Kurtzman to get there claws into it.
@Joan the Vampire Slayer
To me TNG and DS9's success was due to Michael Piller and Ronald D Moore.
I always thought Voyager was a brilliant concept that B and B messed up.
The Enterprise Finale was basically a big insult. It didn't even make sense with the TNG episode it was meant to be a Prequel too

 

[Stake fodder]

Picard season 3 is fine (not great) but 1 and 2 are awful

I didn't care much for S1 - it just didn't seem "Star Trekky" to me. S2 was okay, I thought, but I always feel like time-warp episodes are just being done on the cheap, so they can film on the street, and that was a lot of the season. I only watched it because @Mr Trick (I think) said S3 was good, and I found that to be true.

This is wandering away from the original thread subject, but I've really liked "Strange New Worlds," which seems like old-school episodic Star Trek to me.

 

[Btvs fan]

I didn't care much for S1 - it just didn't seem "Star Trekky" to me. S2 was okay, I thought, but I always feel like time-warp episodes are just being done on the cheap, so they can film on the street, and that was a lot of the season. I only watched it because @Mr Trick (I think) said S3 was good, and I found that to be true.

This is wandering away from the original thread subject, but I've really liked "Strange New Worlds," which seems like old-school episodic Star Trek to me.

I refuse to watch Kurtzman Trek, its horrid.
I did do Picard Season 3 by Terry Matalas but it was basically member Berry nostalgia bait and had more endings than Lord of the Rings

 

[Mr Trick]

As I recall only the final season of Enterprise is any good; the first few were dire and just showed the slop that Trek fans used to put up with.

Enterprise has some really bad, unlikeable characters, and the rest were just really bland, no standout ones, their depiction of Vulcans is terrible and the writers often went for lowest common denominator writing- especially with T'Pol or whatever the hell her name was.

Overall I'm much more postive, but then part of that is because I wasn't watching it at the time. I think of it as like the Pierce Brosnan Bond films, far from the classics but also not the worse (well apart from the Invisible car one 🤣 ), and perfectly watchable. I think what they were trying to do was update Trek, but also keep some of the roots, which I think they did at least in some of the stories at least.

Where I agree is with the characters. Archer is one of my least favourite Captains, but then its hard to hate Bakula so his charisma carries it. I disagree on T'Pol think she's underrated and the actress did a solid job too. Some of the lowest common denominator stuff you are talking about is fair, but I also think its one of the limitations of that old style epsodic network TV era. The Original series, Next Gen and Voyager were all guilty of that at one time or another too.

One of the great missed opportunities with Trek is Hoshi. On paper she could've been one of the best characters of the franchise, Linda Park who played her was both next level beautiful and also delightful, but the writing really let her down and she was weirdly sidetracked for so much of the show. Whenever she had her own episode like with "Observer Effect" I enjoyed them, but definitely wasted overall.

This thread is good timing with Trek celebrating 60 years and coming up to its 1000th episode too! @Btvs fan I would recommend Strange New Worlds. S3 was the weakest season, but the first two were very consistent and S4 is off to the flier. The most recent episode going full blown horror was something to savour and much more eerie than a lot of horror.

@Stake fodder I have the hot take with Picard that S1 is my favourite, but I also get why fans tend to like S3 the most. 2 is my least favourite, Alison Pill's character drinking petrol and that tedious BS with Picard and his father in the past definitely gave me WTF am I watching moments?! 🤣

 

[Mr Trick]

For Trek fans in the UK in the London area or taking a trip there this might be worth checking out: Star Trek Celebrates 60 Years at the Science Museum – Trek Central

Its free too. I'm going to try to go.