Epic Star Trek Re-Watch - Enterprise - Season 1 - It's Bakula Time! - Week 1 NOW!

Star Trek is fantastic. It's been part of popular culture in one form or another for 55 years at this point and has entertained and inspired millions of people over the past half-century.

So lets watch ALL of it. (Yes even the shite episodes )

We've already worked through The Original Series, The Animated Series, the first six movies, The Next Generation, it's four movies, Deep Space Nine and most recently Voyager. It's been a long road, getting from there to here, but it's time to go back to the roots of the Federation.

Wikipedia wrote:Star Trek: Enterprise, originally titled simply Enterprise for its first two seasons, is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. It originally aired from September 26, 2001 to May 13, 2005 on United Paramount Network (UPN). The sixth series in the Star Trek franchise, it is a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series. Set in the 22nd century, a hundred years before the events of The Original Series, it follows the adventures of the Enterprise, Earth's first starship capable of traveling at warp five, as it explores the galaxy and encounters various alien species.

Following the culmination of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and with Star Trek: Voyager scheduled to end, Paramount asked Braga and Berman to create a new series to continue the franchise. Rather than setting it in the 24th century alongside Deep Space Nine and Voyager, they decided to set it in an earlier period, allowing them to explore new parts of the Star Trek fictional universe. Wanting a more basic, relatable, character-driven series, Berman and Braga concentrated on a core trio: Captain Jonathan Archer (played by Scott Bakula), Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer), and Sub-commander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock).

Paramount Pictures commissioned the series following the termination of Star Trek: The Next Generation to accompany the ongoing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. They wanted it to help launch UPN, their newly established network. Berman, Piller, and Taylor devised the series to chronologically overlap with Deep Space Nine and to maintain thematic continuity with elements that had been introduced in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. The complex relationship between Starfleet and ex-Federation colonists known as the Maquis was one such element and a persistent central theme. Voyager was the first Star Trek series to feature a female commanding officer, Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), as the lead character. Berman served as head executive producer in charge of the overall production, assisted by a series of executive producers: Piller, Taylor, Brannon Braga, and Kenneth Biller.

So, arm the grappers, slather on your decontamination gel and watch as Enterprise boldly goes where no one has gone before.



Where to find it?

https://www.paramountplus.com/gb/ (UK)

Proposed Schedule

Here's a look at the proposed schedule for the next few years. Shows in red are still airing, or will be soon so it's not possible to determine an exact schedule for them. I'll review closer to the time.

The Original series - Aug 22nd to Jan 8th 2022
The Animated Series - Jan 9th 2022 to Jan 29th 2022 (3 Weeks)
Movies 1 to 6 - Jan 30th 2022 to Feb 19th 2022 (3 Weeks)
The Next Generation - Feb 20th 2022 to Jan 21st 2023 (48 Weeks)
Movies 7 to 10 - Jan 22nd 2023 to Feb 4th 2023 (2 Weeks)
Deep Space Nine - Dec 2022 to Nov 2023 (47 weeks)
Voyager - Nov 2023 to May 2024 (46 Weeks)
Enterprise - May 2024 to Nov 2024 (26 Weeks)
Kelvin Movies 1 to 3 - Nov/Dec 2025 (2 Weeks)
Discovery
Picard



Lower Decks
Prodigy
Strange New Worlds

Spoiler Policy
I'm not anticipating this being a big issue, but I would remind everyone that we do have some newcomers to Star Trek going through the shows with us. When discussing episodes try and refrain from mentioning specific plot points outside of spoiler boxes. General comments are fine unspoilered through. Especially try and refrain from talking about plot points and character development further down the road. So please don't mention characters leaving/dying/getting promoted or other major developments etc.

Just watch the episodes and let us know what you think!

I really need to wrap up the last couple of VOY episodes.

Looking forward to Enterprise as it's the one where I had kind of checked out on Trek by the time it came along so only have very limited memories of it!

I've already posted my reviews of the series/movies that came after Enterprise, so this'll be my last Trek re-watch thread.

I'll get the first of my Enterprise reviews up soon.

I maintain that the opening theme is actually really good and the hate for it was ridiculously overblown. It only got bad in Seasons 3 and 4 when they did that awful remix.

I also maintain that Enterprise is one of the best, if not the best, pilot episodes of any Trek series.

Enterprise also brings back memories of getting the episodes before their UK airing from IRC of all places....good lord that makes me feel old.

Broken Bow: Part 1 & 2

Holy gooseberry fool, widescreen! We are really in the future (past) now!

And a theme song, that's different.

100 years on from first contact and the Vulcans haven't even bothered to tell us about the Klingons? Vulcans are such pricks.

I assume Vulcans etc can travel faster than warp 4/4.5? Do they not share their technology or did they want humans to figure it out by themselves? And it looks like we've only just invented transporters? Is that a human technology, all the other races seem to have it by the time of all the previous series.

Anyway, the episode itself. It's always weird starting a new series of Trek and getting used to a completely new set of people. I'm not sure who I like and who is going to be annoying yet.

As an opening it started well, got a bit flabby in the middle before going back to being ok. But enough about my sex life...

The doctor seems like a character. What is it with Trek and funny doctors? Bones was funny, Bashir was weird, The Doctor was hilarious. Crusher really let the entire profession down by being mostly normal, although she did strawberry float a ghost.

So far, I'm missing Voyager, but hopefully I'll soon snap out of that. And hopefully I'll stop hoping for hologram Al to show up.

Fight or Flight

The translator doesn't seem very suited to this. But I imagine they have highlighted her screaming and crying because she's going to grow as a character over the rest of the season.

Not an awful episode and was nicely creepy in places. It didn't blow me away though.

Strange New World

This might have worked better without the hallucinogenic pollen causing the crew to get paranoid. The crew seem unsure about Vulcans anyway, so what if there really were rock monsters and T'Pol was communicating with them, how would the crew react?

As it was, it was ok.

Unexpected

It's really weird watching this show after all of the previous series. Jumping back 100 years before Kirk & co makes all of the technology seem really old fashioned and primitive. I have to stop every so often and remember that they are far far far advanced from where we are.

It's early days, but so far this is my favourite episode of Enterprise. Weird new aliens, Klingons being mocking arseholes and a bizarre pregnancy all added up to a funny story.

Although, it was another example of a holodeck causing problems. They really need to ban that technology

Terra Nova

It's off putting they they keep mentioning "Boomers". Surely those bastards aren't still around in another 150 years?

How did cutting the rock in half make it any easier to lift? It'd make sense if they lifted one piece out of the way, but they still lifted up the entire thing.

I didn't like this one much, the basic plot was an ok idea, but the execution was boring.

Moggy wrote:
Strange New World

This might have worked better without the hallucinogenic pollen causing the crew to get paranoid. The crew seem unsure about Vulcans anyway, so what if there really were rock monsters and T'Pol was communicating with them, how would the crew react?

As it was, it was ok.

To this day, I insist that this episode should have been called "Bad Trip".

The Andorian Incident

I'm watching Andor on Disney+ at the moment. I'm hoping this also has Andy Serkis playing a nasty prison inmate.

Is Weyoun in every Star Trek series? His voice is way too distinctive, every time he speaks I end up thinking the Dominion are about to attack.

An excellent episode (those sneaky Vulcans!!) but that was one hell of an abrupt ending. Lots of great build up and then it was over in seconds.

Breaking the Ice

The tension between humans and Vulcans isn't something I expected, I always assumed we were best of friends, even if we don't really understand each other.

The two main plots suffered from being so bloody obvious "make sure you get back before the ice cracks!" obviously meant that the two blokes would get in trouble. And I didn't for a second believe that T'Pol would choose to leave.

But I liked the episode, the awkward Q&A with the Irish kids was hilarious.

Civilization

It always amazes me in Trek that almost every intelligent species looks so human. And these ones even knew what a dog was.

This was a bit gooseberry fool. The hidden base thing was done in the Andorian episode and I didn't give a crap about the "romance". I like Scott Bakula, but he's no William Shatner/Riker in the galaxy class shagging leagues.

I'm not sure she'll be my favourite character in this, Vulcans are too humourless for me (other than Spock), but T'Pol is stealing the show here. The rest of the crew are a little dull, Bakula being an exception but that might just be because I loved Quantum Leap.

Looking on Wikipedia, the filming for this episode was paused due to 9/11. I know that was a long time ago, but it feels like yesterday to me, it's weird that I am now watching "modern day" Trek.

Fortunate Son

I liked that we got to see human space travellers that were not Starfleet or hapless colonists.

At this stage of human space exploration, it makes sense that some of the other races would look at us as easy prey. "that ship only does warp 1.5? Haha, let's steal their stuff!".

The main freighter guy was a complete twat, but deliberately so. His desire for revenge made sense, we all know hotheads who would do the exact same thing (if we had spaceships ).

Cold Front

The temporal cold war was mentioned in the first episode but I wasn't sure if it'd continue on. I'm glad to see it does, a war raging across time could be amazing. But I know Enterprise isn't highly thought of, so I'm not getting my hopes up! I guess if you have Scott Bakula you kind of have to do something time travel related.

I'm assuming that the sealed room won't stay sealed for long. At least, I hope it doesn't!

A very good episode!

Not going to lie, I'm struggling to get into this at the moment.

Can't quite put my finger on any specific thing that's the cause, think it's more just an accumulation of issues

Silent Enemy

All the Trek series do this, but it's weird that the secondary plot never really fits with the primary one. Enterprise is under serious attack from hostile and unknown aliens....and one of the crew is just wandering around asking what somebody likes to eat.

Odd that they didn't reveal the aliens or who they were. Hopefully it's left as a mystery (not everything has to be explained!) but I am guessing they'll be back at some point.

Dear Doctor

I'm not completely sold by this show yet, there's something about it that feels a bit odd. But it is interesting to see the Trek universe before things like the prime directive.

I get the doctor's concerns, but I don't think I could ever not help a people avoid extinction if I had the ability to stop it. The concerns over the "lesser" race on the planet are valid, but their possible evolution in 1,000 years is irrelevant compared to the actual extinction that is about to happen.

I'd make a gooseberry fool Starfleet officer.

Sleeping Dogs

That decontamination scene at the end. They knew what they were doing there. And that's just Reed....

A so-so episode. It held my attention and it's great to see the Klingons before they made friends with the Federation.

Shadows of P'Jem

I like the tension and mistrust between humans and Vulcans. They see us as children (they're not really wrong) and we see them as overbearing parents (again not really wrong). I guess Spock must have seen Kirk as being a toddler - he wasn't wrong.

That scene where they are tied up went on for far too long. And the tits in the face was like something out of a Carry On movie.

Weyoun is a decent actor but he plays the Andorian exactly like Weyoun. It's a shame as it's hard to suspend disbelief with this character.

Not a bad episode but felt like it was backstory/build up to something that's coming later.

Shuttlepod One

Wow, this was brilliant.

A simple concept, Trip and Malcom think they are stranded and they are running out of air. But it was very well done - other than the weird dream sequence!

I think I'd have chosen heat over a bit of extra oxygen.

Going to struggle to keep up with Moggy pace, he's definitely broken the Warp 5 barrier early!