Thoughts on Season One

I started watching Enterprise with trepidation. This was Trek's "franchise killer," after all. Hardcore Trek fans - many of them, at least - cite this as the worst of the franchise, worse even than Voyager, and still regard Rick Berman and (to a lesser extent) Brannon Braga as Trek anti-Christs. Go to IMDB, and you can find a thread under Rick Berman's name wishing him a Happy Birthday... with posters down the thread telling him to go throw himself in front of a truck, among even less pleasant posts.

Given how quickly I abandoned Voyager on its initial airing, I Netflix'd Disc One with a sense of morbid curiosity. "I wonder how bad this is?"

Imagine my surprise to find a generally well-structured, well-acted pilot, followed by a pair of flawed, but generally interesting standalones. Discs Two and Three came along and presented more varied quality, with a few dire episodes (Terra Nova, Fortunate Son), and mediocre runarounds (Unexpected, Civilization), alternating with far stronger fare.  The good was very good... but some of the bad was truly dire, and it wasn't until Dear Doctor truly delivered on the potential of the series with a thoughtful, controversial episode that simply would not fit any other Trek series' format that I finally decided that yes, I would stay on board for the full series.

By this point, I am no longer Netflixing Enterprise, but have instead purchased the full series set. It has become my second-favorite Trek spinoff, behind Deep Space Nine.  I'm trying very hard to keep myself unspoiled for the remainder of this series, and I look forward to experiencing each episode as something totally new to me.


Good Characters vs. Weak Filler
I like the characters. I like Archer's headstrong nature, and I like that he sometimes behaves stupidly and sometimes does the wrong thing. I like the evolving friendship between Archer and T'Pol, and the tentative friendship/potential romance(?) between T'Pol and Trip. I like Malcolm Reed and his obsession with making things go "boom!" I like Hoshi and her enthusiasm for new languages and cultures - clashing harshly with her fear (rather refreshing, in a Trek show) of not only perilous situations, but the judgment of others and even of cramped spaces. I like Dr. Phlox, a character who had the potential to be stupid comic relief, but in John Billingsley's hands has become equal parts wise and creepy, cheerful to the point of mania, and alien to a degree where he often seems less emotional than T'Pol. You could shove Mayweather out of an airlock, and it would likely be weeks (or months) before I'd even notice he was gone... but that's a better track record on characters than most Trek spinoffs have managed.

I don't like the series' tendency to fall back on formula Trek "filler episodes" to pad out its episode count. Episodes such as Terra Nova, Civilization, Rogue Planet, and the like could easily come from any Trek series, and only serve to diminish this series' own sense of identity. I suspect I'm right about why these episodes exist.  When you have to make 25 episodes a season, you fall back on formula filler shows to stretch the episode count.  Speaking just for myself, I'd rather have shorter seasons without this filler. I much prefer seeing the characters struggle with an uncertain technological place in the universe, or watching them embark on fairly routine missions (Strange New World, Breaking the Ice) and finding themselves overcome with awe at the wonder of just being in space. When I see Archer playing Kirk - or worse, Picard - it just doesn't fit.


Season Two Wishlist
So on to what I'd like to see in Season Two.  I'd like more genuine exploration. More episodes in which they find themselves in truly alien situations (ala Vox Sola), and have to think their way out. More situations with the humans finding themselves technologically outclassed by other races. And yes, I'm still waiting for Archer to make not only a mistake, but a truly disastrous misstep. This series' format demands Archer innocently stick his foot in and do something catastrophic... and no, Shockwave doesn't count; Archer needs to actually be at fault. Of course, I'd like more on the Temporal Cold War as well, though Season One extras make it clear that this was evidently a network stipulation, with Braga seeming mystified that in a show set more than 100 years in the future, the network still demanded something "futuristic" within the concept.


Overall
Season One, at its best, shows a lot of potential for Enterprise. Right now, only occasional episodes live up to that potential, but it scrapes it often enough for me to rate this as a pretty good first season overall. Certainly, it compares quite favorably to the first season of Next Generation.  Showing potential is really all it needed to do in Year One. It's had its shakedown year, to figure out what worked and what didn't (*cough* Mayweather *cough*). Now it needs to raise the bar and start realizing that potential on a more consistent basis.


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