Star Trek: Enterprise First Season
Original air dates: September 2001 – May 2002
Executive Producers: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga
Captain’s log. Ninety years after first contact with the Vulcans, Earth has united under a single government and is ready to explore space more thoroughly beyond a few colonies here and there. Under the strict (some think too strict) guidance of the Vulcans, they do so.
The Warp Five Project includes three NX-class ships, the first of which is Enterprise, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer, the son of the late head of the W5 Project, Henry Archer. When a Klingon crash-lands in a cornfield, the Vulcans want to let him die, but the Starfleet admiralty insists that he be cared for and brought to his homeplanet. Enterprise goes to Kronos, but they’re hindered in their mission by the Cabal, a group of Suliban who’ve been genetically engineered by a mysterious figure from the future as soldiers in a Temporal Cold War. Archer and his crew, as well as a Vulcan observer T’Pol, who signs on as his first mate and science officer, get the Klingon back to his homeworld with information that staves off a Klingon civil war.
After that, Starfleet sends Archer out to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before. They find the lost colony of Terra Nova. They make first contact with the Axanar, the Ferengi, and the Andorians, in the latter case finding themselves stuck in the middle of their conflict with the Vulcans. They find spiffy comets and rogue planets and fancy-shmancy phenomena, and also get caught up in more Temporal Cold War nonsense. Along the way, they save a lot of lives, and make a bunch of mistakes, sometimes at the same time.
At the end of the season, after a mediocre trip to Risa, the Cabal frames them for the destruction of a mining colony, killing 3600 people. When the Cabal’s enemies from the future try to fix the temporal screwups by taking Archer to the thirty-first century, it results in an apocalyptic future that Archer is now trapped in…
Highest-rated episode: A three-way tie among “The Andorian Incident,” “Shuttlepod One,” and “Vox Sola,” all of which scored an 8. This is only the second television season in all my Trek rewatches where the highest-ranked episode in a season was an 8—the previous instance was the first season of TNG.
Lowest-rated episode: Another tie, this between “Dear Doctor” and “Acquisition,” both of which scored well-deserved 1s.
Most comments (as of this writing): “Broken Bow” with 155. Honorable mention to “Terra Nova” and “The Andorian Incident,” which also hit three figures with, respectively, 101 and 109 comments.
Fewest comments (as of this writing): “Oasis” with only 16, the only episode to have fewer than a score of comments.
Favorite Can’t we just reverse the polarity? From “Shockwave“”: Archer throws out a ton of technobabble while telling Tucker how to build the beacons: dispersal curve, sub-assembly tolerances, emitter algorithms, stable flux between the positron conductors, renormalizing the tertiary wave functions, and a whole lot of other nonsense.
Also, when they mentioned quantum beacons, I couldn’t help but flash on the line Scott Lang has in Ant-Man & The Wasp: “Do you guys just put the word ‘quantum’ in front of everything?”
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Favorite The gazelle speech: From “Civilization”: Archer gets to lead a landing party, kiss a pretty woman, and get into a firefight. It’s the Trek captain trifecta!
Favorite I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations: From “Rogue Planet”: T’Pol pointedly comments to Archer that he probably wouldn’t be so eager to look for the wraith alone if it was appearing as a scantily clad man. She isn’t wrong…
Favorite Florida Man: From “Unexpected”: Florida Man Knocked Up By Scaly Alien Seductress!
Favorite Optimism, Captain! From “Vox Sola”: Phlox gets Reed to slow his roll when it comes to testing his force field on the alien sample in sickbay, as he’s unwilling to torture what might be a sentient being. Reed tries to pull rank, but Phlox pulls it right back, as it’s his sickbay, and only the captain—who’s indisposed—can counter the doctor’s authority there.
Favorite Ambassador Pointy: From “Shadows of P’Jem”: Soval has many disparaging remarks to make about Archer on his way out the door.
Favorite Good boy, Porthos! From “Acquisition”: The Ferengi try to interrogate Porthos, assuming him to be intelligent because he has such large ears. They are initially confused by the fact that the translator can’t do anything with his barking. They then take Porthos as part of their spoils (but, of course, give him back in the end).
Favorite Rules of Acquisition: From “Acquisition”: Krem states that there are 173 Rules of Acquistion, which means that 112 more will be coined between the twenty-second and twenty-fourth centuries. We get a new one in #23: “Nothing is more important than your health—except your money.” In addition #6 is stated to be “Never allow family to stand in the way of profit,” where it was stated in DS9’s “The Nagus” as “..in the way of opportunity,” but the Rule could easily have evolved over two hundred years.
Favorite The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… From “Cold Front”: T’Pol declares that the Vulcan Science Directorate has studied the notion of time travel extensively and come to the conclusion that it doesn’t exist. Given that this comes after (at this point) thirty-five years of Star Trek stories, many of which involve extensive time travel, this is particularly absurd.
Favorite Qapla’! From “Sleeping Dogs”: The Somraw appears to be Klingon military, but they’re also raiding sovereign outposts, so they may also be pirates. Or both. Also we see that they keep targs on board in a cargo hold to be killed for food when it’s suppertime…
Favorite Blue meanies: From “Shadows of P’Jem”: The Andorians were kind enough to give the monks (and spies) on P’Jem fair warning before blowing it up, so everyone survived. (Interestingly, T’Pol is the only one who asks if the relics were saved, and Archer doesn’t know—and we never do find out…)
Favorite No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: From “Broken Bow”: When they return from Rigel X, Tucker and T’Pol have a protocystian spore on them and they have to go through decon. This requires them to take as many of their clothes off as Broadcast Standards and Practices will allow and apply gel to skin with their bare hands, which is quite possibly the most inefficient method possible of decontaminating someone, though it does allow the camera to linger on Connor Trinneer and Jolene Blalock’s scantily clad, greased-up bodies.
Also Sarin is disguised as a human and kisses Archer, only then reverting to her Suliban form. Because the captain can only kiss an alien babe if she’s hot.
Favorite More on this later… From “Dear Doctor”: Archer speaks clumsily about how maybe some day there’ll be a directive that will tell them what to do when dealing with less advanced civilizations. Maybe it’ll even be a prime one!
Also, the Valakians mention the Ferengi, whom neither T’Pol nor Archer have ever heard of.
Favorite Welcome aboard: We start with Vaughn Armstrong, who—after appearing multiple times on TNG, DS9, and Voyager in one- and two-shot roles—has his first recurring role as Admiral Forrest. For good measure, he also plays a Klingon (“Sleeping Dogs”) and a Kreetassian (“Vox Sola”).
Other recurring regulars who debut in this inaugural season include John Fleck as Silik, Jim Fitzpatrick as Williams, Gary Graham as Soval, James Horan as “future guy,” the late Kellie Waymire as Cutler, Joseph Will as Rostov, and Matt Winston as Daniels. Plus James Cromwell puts in an uncredited cameo as Zefram Cochrane in “Broken Bow.”
Some excellent one-off guests, among them Jim Beaver (“Broken Bow”), Michelle C. Bonilla (“Sleeping Dogs”), the great Clancy Brown (“Desert Crossing”), Jane Carr (“Silent Enemy”), Mary Carver (“Terra Nova”), Melinda Clarke (“Broken Bow”), Diane DiLascio (“Civilization”), Renee E. Golsberry (“Vox Sola”), Tiny Lister Jr. (“Broken Bow”), Enrique Murciano (“Fusion”), Michael O’Hagan (“Cold Front”), Guy Siner (“Silent Enemy”), and the late great Dean Stockwell (“Detained”).
We have a mess of Trek veterans. Two are former opening-credits regulars, DS9’s Rene Auberjonois (“Oasis”) and Voyager’s Ethan Phillips (“Acquisition”). In addition, we’ve got past and future Trek guests in Erick Avari (“Terra Nova”), Julianne Christie (“Unexpected”), Dennis Christopher (“Detained”), Christopher Darga (“Unexpected”), Charles Dennis (“Desert Crossing”), Steven Dennis (“The Andorian Incident”), the great Fionnula Flanagan (“Fallen Hero”), Michael Flynn (“Fallen Hero”), Bruce French (“The Andorian Incident”), Danny Goldring (“Fortunate Son”), Clint Howard (“Acquisition”), Gregory Itzin (“Shadows of P’Jem”), Jeff Kober (“Shadows of P’Jem”), Thomas Kopache (“Broken Bow”), Charles Lucia (“Fortunate Son”), Robert Mammana (“Silent Enemy”), Rudolf Martin (“Two Days and Two Nights”), Jamie McShane (“The Andorian Incident”), Lawrence Monoson (“Fortunate Son”), Mark Moses (“Broken Bow”), Kieran Mulroney (“Fortunate Son”), Stephanie Niznik (“Rogue Planet”), Conor O’Farrell (“Rogue Planet”), Randy Oglesby (“Unexpected”), Eric Pierpoint (“Rogue Planet”), Robert Pine (“Fusion”), John Rosenfeld (“Silent Enemy”), John Rubinstein (“Fallen Hero”), Joseph Ruskin (“Broken Bow”), Christopher Shea (“Detained”), Keith Szarabajka (“Rogue Planet”), Barbara J. Tarbuck (“Shadows of P’Jem”), Karl Wiendergott (“Dear Doctor”), Wade Andrew Williams (“Civilization”), and Dey Young (“Two Days and Two Nights”).
But the winner is the great Jeffrey Combs, who adds two more roles to his extensive Trek resumé, the recurring role of Shran in “The Andorian Incident” and “Shadows of P’Jem” and Krem in “Acquisition.”
Favorite I’ve got faith… From “Terra Nova”:
“I’m not familiar with the early years of human space exploration.”
“Really? Every school kid on Earth had to learn about the famous Vulcan expeditions.”
“Name one.”
[after a very very long pause] “History was never my best subject.”
–T’Pol and Tucker making fun of each other, and T’Pol winning.
Favorite Trivial matter: Probably the one for “Broken Bow,” as it established the show’s place in Trek history, and also had lots of references and things and stuff.
It’s been a long road… “Get me Admiral Forrest—this is not gonna be fun.” When going through my rankings for this season, I was not entirely surprised to see that fourteen of the twenty-six episodes had a 4, 5, or 6—either average, or just barely above or below average.
Which fits, because the first season of Trek’s fourth spinoff is incredibly “meh.”
There’s a good premise here, one that is rife for exploration. The opportunity to see humanity’s early explorations into space, seeing them make mistakes and meet certain species for the first time is a great one in theory.
In practice, precisely one interesting thing is done with it the entire season: the insertion of humanity into the middle of the Vulcan-Andorian conflict. This is especially fun precisely because we know the end result: all three species being part of the founding of the Federation. And indeed, watching the three nations get from their contentious state to one of peaceful alliance will be one of the show’s better through-lines.
Would that one could say that for the rest of their attempts. But everything is so perfunctory and uninteresting and unexciting and mundane. The show apparently made a conscious decision to not end act breaks on any kind of cliffhanger. While this may have felt like some kind of “edgy” and “different” approach, it mostly gave viewers no good reason to come back after the commercial. Watching the show now on a streaming service or a DVD mitigates this issue, but it still gives the stories an inconsequential feel more often than not—particularly the teasers that don’t actually tease anything, but just sort of end weakly before cutting to Trek’s Worst Opening Credits Theme Music (over, ironically, Trek’s Most Visually Exciting Opening Credits To Date, having been surpassed only by Discovery, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds since).
Half-hearted attempts are made to show humans stumbling toward a Federation, but there’s little coherency, many inexplicable decisions, and a consistent portrayal of humans as racist, impatient, and stupid even as the scripts insist they’re being bold and daring. And the Vulcans, whom the scripts insists are a bunch of big meanies, are actually acting like grownups.
The show feels like it’s embarrassed by the previous spinoffs and wants to get “back to basics,” which is to regress to what was considered progressive in 1966: white folks in charge, with other folks in noticeable but minor roles. But while just having Uhura and Sulu be there was huge in the 1960s, it was woefully inadequate to do likewise with Sato and Mayweather thirty-five years later, plus the vast majority of the side characters and guest stars who are human are more Caucasians. All the authority figures in Starfleet are white dudes, most of the Enterprise crew we see are white folks.
And in Archer, T’Pol, and Tucker they’re trying desperately to re-create the dynamic of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and it fails utterly, mostly because it feels so constructed. It doesn’t help that Enterprise presents us with the worst acting of Scott Bakula’s career. If I wasn’t already familiar with his work on Quantum Leap and Murphy Brown before this and NCIS: New Orleans and Men of a Certain Age after it, I’d think he was a mediocre actor overall. In Archer he gives us the Trek lead with the least charisma, the least excitement, the least interest. The impression we get in “Broken Bow” is that he got the job because his Daddy was famous, not because of any actual merit, and he does very little in the following twenty-five episodes to change that impression.
It’s telling that in this show about humans’ first tentative steps into the greater galactic community, the three most interesting characters are the Denobulan (John Billingsley’s Doctor Phlox is an absolute delight), the Vulcan (Jolene Blalock overcomes the aggressive male-gazing of her character’s costuming to give us a magnificently mature and complicated character), and the pooch (Porthos is THE BESTEST PUPPY!).
Warp factor rating for the season: 4
Rewatcher’s note: The Enterprise Rewatch will be taking Memorial Day off. Look for the rewatch of “Shockwave, Part II” to kick off season two on the 6th of June.
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Fanboy Expo Columbus this coming weekend at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. He’ll be appearing at the Bard’s Tower booth on the exhibit floor, along with fellow word-slingers Brian Anderson, Rick Heinz, Gama Martinez, and Dan Wells, and Trek actor/voiceover artist Carlos Ferro.
With the attention span of a gnat, I actually watched Shockwave II in preparation for reading this. :-)
I note that you’re giving the Best Supporting Beagle award to your least favorite episode. Doesn’t that suggest there is something to appreciate, even in Acquisition? And I wonder why Oasis is not in the bottom three, but then there is no arguing about taste.
Being a natural-born Optimist and greedy for more besides, I too watched SHOCKWAVE (Part II); clearly I shall have to be a little less yare in future! (-:
Anyway, I tend to agree that Season 1 didn’t exactly push the boats out, but I did enjoy it’s modest charms far much to resent the show. Also, anyone who wishes to contest my pet theory* that the Starfleet Academy mascot is ALWAYS a beagle can pick up their ushaan-tor and meet me in the area – If you listen carefully, they’re playing our song!
*Those newfangled kids and their ‘head canon’ – canon might let off some fireworks, but it can’t fetch your neurones and sleep at the end of your cerebellum can it?
Also, I’m not going to lie, having heard The Gazelle Speech … it actually makes sense. I’m not saying it works, but you can more or less understand Captain Archer’s thought process, if not the Deadly Earnestness with which he delivers a sentiment that would work somewhat more elegantly as self-deprecating humour (One can only wonder if the Vulcan Ambassador heard him out, thought “Do I really want this man back in my generally vicinity for longer than it takes to refuel?” and came to a very logical conclusion … ).
The show only gets better from here!
@4/Alan: I disagree — for me, season 2 is the weakest. Season 1 was imperfect, but at least it had a focus and a direction, telling a loose arc (culminating in “Shockwave Part 2”) of humanity venturing out into space and establishing a name for itself with the galactic community. Season 1 is about something, and it progresses from beginning to end. Season 2 just meanders aimlessly.
@5: I agree; I thought season 2 was significantly weaker than season 1. Seasons 3 and 4 may have had their flaws, but I give them credit for attempting storytelling approaches that were unique to Star Trek series of this era. Season 2 was a model of mediocrity, except this time peppered with garbage episodes, which, in my opinion, season 1 lacked.
It’s kind of funny, thanks to two decades of removal and deep-seated nostalgia for my days as a teen coming home from soccer practice just in time to catch Enterprise, I now unironically love Russell Watson’s version of Faith of the Heart and will happily sing-along while holding a fake microphone every time it randomly comes up on my shuffle while working out. I don’t want to say it’s the best Trek opening, but… it might be.
I too unironically love Faith of the Heart…and am annoyed by the season 3 remix. I understood the Gazelle speech and I get the point Archer was trying to make. They certainly didn’t give the man the gift of eloquence though. Fortunately they made him by far the best cheater in a fight. But we’ll have to wait til season 3 to appreciate it. Now I’ll resume dreaming of the Earth-Romulan War arc that would never be.
You know, I’m absolutely loving Strange New Worlds. As of this writing, the first three episodes have aired and I keep coming back for more each week. The reasons:
1. This isn’t just Star Trek: Retread. It’s Star Trek: Retro But Still Boldly Going Forward.
2. The stories don’t make me cringe.
3. There is an honest to goodness attempt to express diversity (not pay lip service to it). SNW feels like “IDIC in action.”
4. The captain is just the right blend of Buck Rogers and Jean-Luc Picard. Anson Mount is more than just a square jaw and cocky attitude. He’s fun to watch.
5. I actually *care* about the characters.
Contrast this to Star Trek: Enterprise:
1. This feels like Star Trek: Retread.
2. The stories make me cringe.
3. The casting feels like they were paying lip service to diversity. “Huzzah! We cast a Black man!” And then promptly gave him nothing to do. Enterprise feels like “IDIC? What’s IDIC?.”
4. Archer is all Buck Rogers. Scott Bakula is … sad to say … boring. (And I *LOVED* Quantum Leap!)
5. Almost every character except Phlox is … sad to say … boring. In two dozen episodes, the only characters given any kind of depth are Archer, T’Pol, and Tucker.
TL;DR: Strange New Worlds is what Enterprise tried to be. I watched the first three episodes of SNW and am eager for more. I watched the first three episodes of ENT and just couldn’t bring myself to care.
“After all you’ve done, I would have hated to see this end.”
I’ve also watched “Shockwave” Part II just in case, and I’ll try and avoid commenting too much about it, except to say that it reinforced my belief that the Vulcans are the real racists of this show, at least until the Season 4 quasi-retcon. Aside from T’Pol and the ones from “Fallen Hero”, I’m not seeing anything grown-up about their behaviour: They’re more like a bunch of abusive prefects who enjoy having power over the younger children.
I’m afraid I have to agree that, however flawed Season 1 is, Season 2 is even worse: Could it be the first one where the top-rated episode is a 6 or 7? I noticed the move towards empty teasers in the last few episodes of Voyager, knowing it was going to get worse on Enterprise: The problem isn’t just that they don’t give people a reason to tune back in but that they’re so damn short. Viewers in 2001 sitting through a minute or so of nothing and then having another ad break were probably changing the channel in droves. That said, whilst I’m not sure how unironic it is, I do love the theme song, whereas I couldn’t even tell you what the theme of Picard is.
Vaughn Armstrong appeared as Seskel in two (non-consecutive) episodes of DS9’s final arc: Does that qualify as recurring?
But yeah, while I can see the problems of the show (I’d argue that Hoshi has made a bit more of an impact than Travis, possibly because she’s a better character), I do enjoy this little corner of the franchise and I’m happy to have this opportunity to revisit it!
For me, Enterprise is primarily a failure in terms of world-building whether than acting and storytelling as a whole. As we’re seeing with Strange New Worlds, there’s nothing wrong with episodic storytelling after more serialized shows but the problem is that the characters have to authentic to themselves as well as interesting. Watching Season 1 after latter seasons, its pretty clear that the writers actually had no idea what the personality of a lot of the characters do or where to take them.
To explain what I mean, TNG was very good at world-building despite its episodic nature. You knew the Klingons, the Romulans, and Federation as well as how they related to it. When the Borg arrived, you knew they were an existential threat to everyone. Later, we figured out how the Cardassians fit into things.
You have no idea how the Andorians, Vulcans, Tandarians, Klingons, and Tellarites all fit together with the political landscape of the galaxy largely a mystery. Which would be fine except it’s not portrayed as a mystery and there’s no reason for it to be. Humanity can and did ask for Vulcans to just hand them a map of the local area. No politics or the “beginning of the Federation” is examined until Season 4, which is why it was arguably the best.
And when will we ever hear about the Tandarians? Never again.
The problem is that even with the plot forced on them by the Temporal Cold War, they had no interest in world-building and like some of the VOY episodes, it felt like the writers would rather have been writing TNG. By refusing to engage even with an imposed plot, they limited the amount of audience investment for the world they have been creating. I feel like this is also due to the fact they DID apparently have an idea (first season entirely on Earth) but it got thrown out. Interesting elements like Boomers and language study also get left aside.
Characterization-wise, I’m not even sure what most of their personalities were like and some of them weren’t particularly nice. Archer’s defining personality trait for me is his racism against the Vulcans, which is something the audience is expected to agree with despite them being the most popular race with Star Trek fans by far (including humans). Mayweather should be the guy with the most practical real-world experience with space but frigging NEELIX knows more about things than the Boomer who has “been out there.” Hoshi? Well, we know she likes languages but theres’ a reason they moved Daniel from that role in Stargate SG-1.
The technology seems largely identical to the TNG era with substitutes for replicators, shields, and phasers.
I would have given it a 6. But then, I enjoyed both Dear Doctor and Acquisition. Okay, perhaps “enjoyed” isn’t the right word to use with Dear Doctor, but I appreciated the moral quandary being presented. But I understand that you didn’t (and that, unlike me, you hate the Ferengi episodes), so we’ll just have to agree to disagree there. At least we agree that Scott Bakula is Starfleet’s most mediocre captain.
I do agree with CLB that season 1 was stronger than season 2. It at least had the sense that it was going somewhere, even if it was really taking its time. Season two just felt like a pause before season 3 suddenly shifted things into overdrive.
@1/o.m. & @2/ED: Yeah, that was why I decided to wait until after krad posted the Season 1 Overview to watch “Shockwave, Part II.” I watched it when it first aired in fall 2002 and…that’s it. I remember watching it. Oh, Archer calls Silik an ugly bastard. *Coughs.*
Yeah, it does not get better from here. At least Season 1 felt like it was going somewhere. Season 2 definitely will not.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that they manage an actually good season until the final one (though fans of the Xindi arc may disagree).
@14/jaimebabb: I find season 3 ambitious but flawed. I think it’s got some of the most effective and potent storytelling in the series paired with some of the dumbest, most frustrating concepts in the series. But at least that’s preferable to the blandness of the first two seasons.
Quoth David Pirtie: “(and that, unlike me, you hate the Ferengi episodes)”
This is a false statement. There are plenty of Ferengi episodes that I like very much, including “Little Green Men,” “Business as Usual,” “The Magnificent Ferengi,” “Ferengi Love Songs,” “The Price,” “The Battle,” “Bar Association,” “Inside Man,” “Peak Performance,” and a bunch more.
I like good Ferengi episodes, is what I’m saying. But, as I said in my rewatch of “Acquisition,” the bad Ferengi episodes are all really bad because they don’t take the Ferengi seriously, which makes it impossible to take the episodes themselves seriously.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Season 2 was my very first season of Star Trek ever. And yet I ended up sticking around for the ride for the last 20 years!
11. C.T. Phipps: Going by my own observations, some reflections on NX-01 personnel:-
Captain Archer – Inveterately suspicious of Vulcans, not least because they really can be condescending ‘helicopter parents’ who think that Humanity really need to sit down, shut up, let the adults do the talking for them (Also, I suspect, because he’s quite clearly aware that the Vulcans ARE, in many respects, physically superior to Humanity’s Best and often mentally superior too – which leads to a good deal of insecurity when you know that Vulcans aren’t always right*).
Definitely an average white man in almost every single respect (by Starfleet standards), except for being – to date – invincibly willing to treat perfect strangers as equals & potential friends (or just skip the “potential” and get right to the buddy-buddy). Thankfully intelligent enough to recognise this and make a point of not only letting his more brilliant subordinates think their way out of various problems, but make every effort to lend them his wholehearted support (also worth noting, he’s actually willing to move past his biases, for which witness his ongoing relationship with T’Pol).
Out & proud dog man with impeccable taste in Man’s Best Friend.
*Not least when it comes to judging Humans by Vulcan standards; what holds true for one species does not necessarily hold good for another.
Sub-commander T’Pol: The woman, the legend, the consummate professional. Proper Vulcan, but not arrogant about it – which not even Mr Spock can say with perfect honesty. Might very well enjoy being a superb Ambassador for Vulcan logic in the midst of (sometimes merited, sometimes cockeyed) Human Optimism, at least subconsciously relishing being so very able to surmount the diverse challenges thrown her way and help her crew do likewise.
Might also be much more leery about returning to the bosom of Vulcan Society after that mind meld incident, given the long-established Vulcan tendency to Not Talk About Things (Also, it bears pointing out that Humans, at least, are incapable of the telepathic invasion of your thoughts).
Appears to have made the scientific impossibility of Time Travel the hill on which she is prepared to die, because even the Best officers need to draw lines somewhere or risk becoming downright credulous.
Trip Tucker: Good ‘Ol Boy and unsurprisingly a dab hand when it comes to keeping the boat running; Makes me think more of James T. Kirk than Doc McCoy though, possibly because he’s generally good-tempered and absolutely down for some adventure (Even to the point where First Contact meets Third Base and possibly further on that that).
Friendship with Captain Archer very probably grounded in their shared All-American qualities (and possibly one viewing too many of THE RIGHT STUFF); willingness to look past respective differences to see the worth in an alien culture confirmed by his ability to accept Water Polo as the price of his continuing friendship with Captain Archer.
Proudly upholds Florida’s tradition of attracting more weirdness than the rest of the United States put together.
Lieutenant Reed: Stiff upper lip appears to be steel wrapped ’round Space Concrete, but I suspect Reed is consummately close-mouthed because he’s worried that if anyone got a closer look at the horny little pyromaniac underneath he’d be booted out of the service (An exaggeration, but his cheery fantasies about T’Pol and his ‘dudebro’ conduct on Risa strongly suggest he’s a bit of a caner when off the record; his Absolute Delight when given the chance to blow something up is also well-recorded).
Ensign Sato: Quite enjoys seeking out new life and new civilisations, but appears to have reservations when it comes to going boldly – quite sensible reservations, as it turns out. Too much of a trouper to let her creeping existential dread get in her way for long though, especially since she seems to be working to live up to T’Pol’s excellent example.
Manages to be a dead sound professional and absolutely adorable (I strongly suspect that Hoshi Sato & Porthos are seldom shown in close proximity because the screen would spontaneously generate bunny rabbits & candy floss).
Ensign Mayweather: Nice chap who probably wasn’t as integral to his home ship’s operations as many seem to think (Consider how young the ensign is and the fact that he had to go through a fairly lengthy training programme, he was probably too young to be much more than supercargo on his family voyages), hence his relative lack of contributions to the success of NX-01.
Generally a nice young man with some interesting tidbits of trivia who has a long way to go before he’s a grizzled old space-hound knocking the kids dead with some thrilling tales of life in the black when Uncle Travis was a lad (It occurs to me that it’s a pity that the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF … books seem to have tied themselves to the captains**, since characters like Mr Mayweather would definitely benefit from the suggestion that, while they’re mostly keeping their mouths shut and their heads down, they’re taking it all in and will be giving their honest opinion of things at a future date***).
**With the obvious exception of Mr Spock who was, as it happens, also a Captain (of the NCC-1701).
***It also bears pointing out that the most useful – or at least the most interesting – sources for Historians are seldom the Big, Famous types talking about how well they did, but those who – rather like Forrest Gump – were walking around their ankles long enough to get a good look at the feet of clay underneath (or, to be rather more generous to the famous and the less storied alike, were busy living history while their bosses were making history).
Doctor Phlox: Cheerfully mad anatomist, proud xenophile and so outgoing (not to mention so charming) that his profoundly alien morality frequently flies under the radar (‘Dear Doctor’ is rightly infuriating, but most acceptable as a case study of Denobulan mores contradicting those of Humanity).
Almost certainly not licensed to practice medicine on Denobulans (I’m a great fan of the notion that Doctor Phlox trained as a vet and found it very easy to apply expertise with non-sapient Denobulans to treating sapient species not native to Denobula – though I’m willing to give the Interspecies Medical Exchange credit for ensuring he was properly qualified to operate on fellow sophonts before accrediting him).
I watched the first season of Enterprise and was thoroughly disappointed with the storylines that I did not watch it again until its fourth season.
This is another one of those seasons that I want to like a lot more than I do. Like many of the other commenters, I remember the second season as being the low point for the series, as they struggled to find any sense of direction. Still, looking back on this first season, there were episodes (and moments in episodes) that I enjoyed. It may be going a step too far to say that the negativity towards Enterprise is overstated, but I retain a certain fondness for many of the characters. This first season was definitely flawed, but I still find myself looking forward to the rest of the rewatch journey.
It’s usually the aliens/non-humans that are the most compelling characters throughout the Star Trek franchise. TOS only had the one alien but even the humans all had distinct, charming, or fun personalities. Patrick Stewart could never be boring. The humans on DS9 were actually written compellingly. Kate Mulgew also made her character distinct and compelling. And then the humans on Enterprise were largely a snooze.
And I’ve griped about it previously, but the casting on Enterprise was positively regressive. Another white male captain. 5 out of the 7 cast main cast are white and the two non-white characters feel like unimportant, token representatives. Nothing groundbreaking when there was the clear opportunity to have an LGBT character at last. So I was very disappointed when the show premiered based on the casting/characters and felt less inclined to tune in. At least the stories themselves improved as the series progressed.
Also, yes, the pooch is adorable. Nice to see a captain with a furry companion.
Porthos is quite often my favorite part of an episode. He is a very good boy!
Agreed that this season was an awful miss. Basically it was Voyager-level episodic storytelling, but worse because as others noted, the writers both failed to make many of the characters compelling, and failed to do anything meaningful with the prequel setting of the show. The biggest miss to me by far was Jonathan Archer. I cannot understand how the writers thought they could write him as a petty, thin-skinned, ignorant, racist buffoon, and yet still have the audience somehow identify with him. I would guess there was some sort of clash between the weird maxims of Paramount (that the “Captain must always be right”) and a desire to center the show on a more flawed protagonist. Hence we got something that pleased no one – an idiot who is right because he is the main character.
I will disagree with the comment that Season 2 ends up significantly worse however. I guess we will see what KRAD thinks as it unfolds over the next six months or so, but my recollection is the second season has way more decent episodes – particularly in the back half. It’s just there’s also episodes like A Night in Sickbay and Precious Cargo, which are actively worse than anything in Season 1.
The first season of every Rick Berman-era Trek show is always a shakedown cruise. And an episodic season always comes with highs and lows. TNG had a masterpiece like 11001001 and an atrocity like Code of Honor the same year. VOY had Prime Factors and Learning Curve. Even DS9 wasn’t immune to this – its own first season filled with mediocre and bland episodes, lifted in quality only by the pilot, Progress, Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets. But I agree, Enterprise’s first season suffers just as much, if not more. I wouldn’t necessarily use the term franchise fatigue, but something definitely happened.
As I said before, there was a clear shift midway through the season. Their attempts at trying to distance Enterprise from past shows had some good attempts early on (Breaking the Ice, the Vulcan/Andorian arc, secondary characters like Cutler all being most evident), but then they went ahead and did some of the most mediocre been there, done that set of episodes (Sleeping Dogs, Rogue Planet, the Risa episode), going back to Trek stories that had been done to death by that point, without any passion or originality.
In short, I believe Brannon Braga hit a point of exhaustion, and we’ll keep seeing a lot of that exhaustion throughout much of the second season. But thankfully, I do think season 2’s last third does some effort at picking things up again (starting with the episode Judgement). And season 2 is also when they finally start breaking away from Rick Berman’s sonic wallpaper restrictions, and we gradually start to hear memorable thematic music once again.
I do like Bakula, but the show hasn’t yet gotten a good grasp of Jonathan Archer by this point. I think he improves quite a bit, especially during the Xindi arc. T’Pol and Phlox are the real breakout characters, and if anything, it only proves how underrated Jolene Blalock truly was.
I was surprised that folks didn’t agree with me that the show got better after season 1. So I went to Wikipedia to refresh my memory. And have to agree with them. Both Season 1 and 2 were hit and miss. It was season 3, with its strong arc, where I felt the show found its legs.
One thing I would have liked to see in ENTERPRISE that never really appeared was the interior of a non-NX class Starfleet vessel: given that Enterprise is explicitly at the cutting edge of Human technology (and is a ‘show pony’ to boot), it’s not really a surprise that the gap between it’s abilities and those of 2260s vessels can be bridged (to some degree), so it would have been useful to get an idea of what a more workaday ship class (mostly likely the ‘Warp Delta’/Ganges-class) makes do with.
Chiming in to say that I also think ENT’s second season is better than the first. It’s still a mixed bag and oscillates wildly in quality, but I found there are a significantly greater number of “good” episodes in the second season versus the first. It’s comparable to TNG’s first two seasons which often get lumped together as the same but in actuality the series had a bunch more standout episodes that second year. Both series found more regular consistency in higher quality in their third seasons although the third season of TNG is the gold season for throwing out classics or near-classics back-to-back-to-back.
Regarding Archer and company, I know it was Berman and Braga’s intention to make the humans of 2251 more similar to our day and age because 150 years apart to them translated to “they’re relatable.” Therefore, they’re going to wear more contemporary clothes to our era and be more salty in their speech and rough around the edges. And while I get that intent, imbuing the captain, the hero of the show that the crew looks up to, with the characteristics of racism and being quick to anger, is not a good look. Those are things we already look seriously down upon in our times. Racism and impulsive anger are still huge problems in our era and it would be comforting and very Star Trek to know that we’ve quashed those problems 150 years hence. B&B should have found other flaws or characteristics for Archer if he was supposed to me more like us – perhaps make him a bit more jovial and super involved in the off duty lives of his crew – the anti-Picard.
@27/garreth: “B&B should have found other flaws or characteristics for Archer if he was supposed to me more like us – perhaps make him a bit more jovial and super involved in the off duty lives of his crew – the anti-Picard.”
You’ve just described Strange New Worlds‘ Christopher Pike.
28/CLB: You know, you’re right! And that’s a quality of Pike that makes him endearing and no less an effective commanding officer.
I dare say, ENT had the best first season of any 90’s Trek show. Granted, much of that is because the Season 1’s of TNG, VOY, AND DS9, respectively, were gawdawful, but still.
Hmm, I’d definitely put VOY and DS9’s first seasons above that of ENT. You got a smattering of excellent episodes for both of those prior series and vastly more interesting characters overall as well. And TNG did have an awful first season, but at least it was often so bad or so silly that it was unintentionally entertaining. ENT’s first round on the other hand was so bland I could use it as a sleeping aid.
Season 2 has a few gems buried in there but it feels like at least half the episodes are the result of a competition to see who can come up with the most bland and generic plot that the audience have seen a hundred times before. It’s as if they looked at the first season and decided the model going forward was “Sleeping Dogs”, “Rogue Planet” and “Oasis.”
* Storm in space
* Alien possession
* Prime Directive. Even though it doesn’t exist yet.
* It all happens in a character’s mind
* Prison ship
* Bounty hunter
* Alien princess who Trip bangs
* Character reunited with family member they don’t get on with
* Enemy Mine rip-off
* Spatial anomaly causes everyone to act out of character
Rewatching the series I was better able to put other issues aside (the various other shows I could be watching, older Trek included) and appreciate Enterprise on its own merits. The series still wasn’t great but there are worse things you could be watching. I do have to agree with several other comments that Blalock was underrated and the best developed character of the first season. I shouldn’t have let my annoyance with the pandering premise of the “sexy Vulcan” character prevent me from appreciating that Blalock actually did a great job with it.
I don’t think Dear Doctor is all that bad but it was flawed and I do think it should have been clearer about what little morality play it was actually trying to tell and I can certainly understand why it is actively disliked. Different opinions exist. I think there were several underwhelming episodes that were worse but easier to forget about.
I have enjoyed reading these reviews and the comments too, thanks Keith for slogging through season 1 and giving us an excuse to rehash it too.
Catching up on these reviews about 18 months behind, in parallel with my first-ever watch of Enterprise. I’m excited to finally be watching this show, as it’s one of my few Trek blind spots – having aired while I was in college and not regularly watching episodic television. The lukewarm status it achieved among fandom, punctuated by its early cancellation, kept me from rushing out to buy VHS/DVDs, and I just never caught up. Happy to have these reviews and comments to add color to my watch!
As I reached the end of Season 1 , I realized that Berman and Braga were listed as the writers for almost (maybe every?) single Season 1 episode – sometimes with other writers credited for the teleplay on Berman & Braga’s story. This is different from other Berman-era shows, even considering seasons of TNG, DS9, and VOY where a showrunner had a clear guiding hand for a majority of a season. Is it generally known why this is the case here? Were they crafting the general plot outline for every single episode, then having the writing room (credited via “Teleplay by”) finishing off the actual dialogue and detailed plotting? Or were B&B truly heavily involved in every single episode – and if so, why now (Berman in particular)? I gather Enterprise had more riding on it, as a non-syndicated tentpole of UPN, but then so did Voyager right before it.