Well, I watched, and I marginally enjoyed. After mulling it over for 24 hours, here is my take on the premiere of Enterprise:
The Good,
Scott Bakula’s performance. Definitely the best part of the show. I was happy when I heard Bakula was on board as captain and I am even happier now after seeing Archer on-screen.
Homages to TOS. Communicators and their sounds. The bridge “scanner” used by T’Pol. Ship wide intercoms.
The shuttlecraft design. One of few designs in Enterprise that actually has some visual believability as far as existing before the TOS era.
The “uneasiness” the crew has with the transporters. I rather like this aspect of the show.
Archer’s Dog. My wife and I are “dog people,” as we call ourselves, so I liked the dog! The pooch can stay!
The Bad,
The Story. While I found the plot itself “average,” the episode as a whole “felt” (at least to me) as if it had been thrown together somewhat haphazardly, with little regard to detail or continuity. It didn’t seem to “flow” very well.
“Technobabble.” Too much gibberish for my tastes.
The “Temporal Cold War” plot device. Pretty pathetic. It would have been much better to simply focus on the “disastrous first contact with the Klingon(s).”
The disastrous first contact with the Klingon(s). While I agree that “first contact” did not go so well, it seemed to fall short of being the “disastrous” event that I had envisioned.
The Music: I am a musician by trade, so this is a big deal to me. I certainly do not care for the “pop-song” theme, but I do not necessary find it that offensive. No offense to composer Dennis McCarthy, but I really wish that B&B would have considered some new talent so we could get out of that “Voyager/DS9 feeling” that continued to lurk in the background of Enterprise.
Not enough Homages. While I applaud the homages that do exist, I still think that more are warranted. I would have liked to have seen TOS style rank stripes, the “tracer” below the main view screen, rectangular windows, and/or more TOS-like panels and readouts (similar, not exact), just to name a few.
The ship interior. Not too bad, really; but a little bit too “busy” (I thought) for pre-TOS.
The Ugly,
I was immediately disenfranchised when the first images of the “Akiraprise” were released. Still, I originally thought it was a fairly “neat” design, though quite unoriginal and certainly not believable as a ship that predates the TOS Enterprise. After watching Enterprise, I can honestly say that I now like the Akiraprise even LESS.
Klingon Warbirds? Is no one at Paramount doing their homework?
A space-age shotgun? How hokey is that?
Warp Travel. I found myself immediately questioning how and why they were able to travel so quickly from Earth to the Klingon Homeworld. Not to mention their little excursion to Rigel.
The “gel” scene.
I still have issues with continuity…
Overall Thoughts,
I really feel that this show is walking on thin ice, and I just can’t seem to get around that feeling.
Isn’t Spock supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet? Yeah, yeah, I know… This isn’t the FEDERATION Starfleet, it’s EARTH’s Starfleet. And T’Pol isn’t really even a member of Earth’s Starfleet, she is just “tagging along” for tickles and grins.
And what about the “Akiraprise” itself? Obviously this is a pretty big deal with humans just beginning to venture out into the great unknown of space, yet we have only now learned of the NX-01? There has never been ANY previous mention of this “Starship Enterprise,” and in fact, the NCC-1701 has always been referred to as the “first” Starship Enterprise.
Right, right… I got it, EARTH Starfleet versus the FEDERATION Starfleet. Sure… Like I said, Thin ice…
B&B could have avoided SOME of this controversy simply by naming the ship something OTHER than Enterprise (Akiraprise, perhaps?). It just seems that the more Trek that B&B produces, that many more “rationalizations” must be conceived amongst the fans in order to “preserve” continuity.
Is Enterprise just a TV show? Sure… But the problem is, it is based on something that has become MORE than “just a TV show. How many books and articles have been written on the mythos and fandom of Star Trek, not to mention how Star Trek has embedded itself into our 20th Century (and 21st) culture.
TPTB have a certain responsibility to make the show somewhat “believable,” even in Sci-Fi. Because this is a PREQUEL, this should occur on TWO fronts. First, the stories, characters, and events should be believable within the context of Enterprise. Second, the stories, characters, and events should be believable in the context that they occurred BEFORE The Original Series.
This is where I have a MAJOR problem with the Akiraprise. I see it, yet I do not really believe that this is a ship that could have existed before the TOS Enterprise. Even Wednesday night, I had to kick myself a couple of times through the course of the episode to remind myself that this is supposed to be happening BEFORE The Original Series.
I will continue to watch and see how the show turns out. To be fair, I will have to see at least a season (maybe more) in order to really judge the show appropriately. I can say this, however: I never got that “tingly feeling” (sometimes referred to as the “chill factor”) while watching the premiere of Enterprise. In actuality, it has been a long, long time since I last had that feeling while watching Star Trek…
Dan
[ September 27, 2001: Message edited by: Commander Dan ]
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“My experience with Rick Berman is, you know, he does not understand what he's doing, he does not understand science fiction.”
-- Andrew Probert
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