Editing Star Trek (section)

==''Enterprise''==
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[[File:NX-01.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Where it all began. For better or worse...]]
From the minute the Nickelback-tier theme tune started, Enterprise attempted to take Star Trek in a new direction and was only partially successful in doing so. The series never quite caught its footing, although it still managed to have some enjoyable moments. It was most notable for providing a first-hand view of the key events that directly led to the formation of the Federation. The Federation's founding races were also featured heavily, with Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans all enjoying significant screen time alongside the human characters.

It's a prequel to the rest of the canon, taking place on the first ''Enterprise'', before the Federation was founded and during the period when Earth was still an independent power- so there's a lot of primitive versions of things from other series. At least the uniforms were pretty cool in an Air Force sort of way. Captained by <s>that guy from ''Quantum Leap''</s> Jonathan Archer, in hindsight the fact that they had to rename him from their original choice of Jeffrey Archer to avoid confusion with the disgraced British MP and author of the same name probably cursed the series with bad karma before it had even begun shooting. In an unusual twist for a ''Trek'' series, his first officer isn't a <s>terrorist</s> ''noble freedom fighter,'' however she does share a trait with her ''Voyager'' predecessor in that the actress who portrayed her frequently criticized the show's writers in interviews. Other than that, well, Hoshi Sato screams a lot, Travis Mayweather was so dull that even the writers forgot he existed, the resident Vulcan T'Pol serves as both the Science Officer and source of sexy fanservice, Malcolm Reed has an accent, Dr Phlox is a weird creepy alien with weird creepy alien morals (and gets surprisingly interesting when given enough screentime, which hardly ever happened), and Trip also has an accent and [[gets shit done]].

One thing that makes the show and cast so frustrating is that you get glimpses of interesting things that could be explored but just aren't in favor of rejected TNG concepts. A weapon' officer still having somewhat free range as there are not federation guidelines? Not really, Malcolm is just here to give a second opinion and be Tripp's wingman. A linguist and sociologist without much of a clue as to what everyone will encounter in space in an age before rules of engagement and diplomatic norms are established? Not really, Hoshi just screams a lot to let you know something dangerous or scary is nearby. The struggle between a potentially more profitable civilian life and an assignment as a glorified military grunt before Starfleet is the institution we all know it would become? Who cares, the writers all forgot Travis is even in the show most of the time. All these questions are somewhat hinted at in some episodes when they really could have been defining character arcs for the cast but instead we got vulcan romance getting most of the screentime when the Xindi plot wasn't happening. Oh well.

Was retooled twice, the third season tries to be ''24'' IN SPACE (stop some aliens, the Xindi, from blowing up Earth) while the 4th season is a massive apology about the last three seasons that tries to fix all the problems they had. As a result, the last season is the only one that's close to being really good.

Unfortunately, the poorly-received final episode is set on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D, which leaves us with the firm impression that the producers would have much rather have just continued making ''The Next Generation''. Considering the mediocre quality of the ''TNG'' movies we got instead, this probably would have worked out better for all involved (Or not since ''Voyager'' was that; its first episode was even numbered 901, as in Season 9 Episode 1).

Yet despite all the bad directing, subpar plots, and frankly boring episodes, ''Enterprise'' sometimes still manages to be moderately enjoyable with occasional moments of awesomeness if you can suffer through a fair few awful spots and aggressive mediocrity almost everywhere else. The focus on founding Federation races like the Andorans was refreshing and the technology level, being somewhere between the original series and the real world present-day, was quite interesting. We also got to see the Vulcans portrayed as arrogant, superior dicks. This actually makes a lot more sense than the way they're usually portrayed (which is fairly submissive towards humans) because they are, obviously and objectively, the superior race. The Klingons certainly still considered themselves to be honorable but the show made it clear that the Klingon notion of honor is rarely analogous to the human concept which was interesting as all hell to watch. There have been a few small nods to Enterprise in Discovery and the Abrams movies.

And let's be fucking honest, [[/tg/]] loves 40k and the Xindi arc was about as grimdark as shit gets. And that was awesome.

*'''Outstanding Episodes''': "Damage" (Enterprise is nearly destroyed and can barely function), "Zero Hour" (End of Season 3, good action and good payoff), "Regeneration" (Borg episode, silly but well executed), "Babel One", "United" and "The Aenar" (three episode arc involving the Romulan scheme to engineer war, a glimpse of what might have been).
*'''Episodes to Avoid''': "Dear Doctor" (boring prime directive extremism), "These are the Voyages" (Trip dies in a rush-job ending, last minute or so is alright as a visual send-off divorced from crap narrative).

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