Watch everything up to the end of Enterprise and stop. There's no Star Trek after Enterprise.
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Star Trek Franchise |OT| To Boldly Go.....
- Thread starter Deleted member 3812
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Watch everything up to the end of Enterprise and stop. There's no Star Trek after Enterprise.
Man, I'm old enough to remember when Enterprise was airing and folks said the same thing. As an example from 2007:
www.trekbbs.com
Hell, I remember the Usenet wars over Deep Space Nine. Or DS9's showrunner for a time:
www.salon.com
Why is DS9 so disliked....
Well, maybe not disliked, but a lot of my friends I've run into online and in person who are fans of Trek, have either considered DS9 anywhere from...
www.trekbbs.com
Hell, I remember the Usenet wars over Deep Space Nine. Or DS9's showrunner for a time:
Remembering "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine": A controversial sci-fi landmark
Showrunner Ira Steven Behr on his new documentary about "Deep Space Nine," a turning point in TV history
Man, I'm old enough to remember when Enterprise was airing and folks said the same thing. As an example from 2007:
Why is DS9 so disliked....
Well, maybe not disliked, but a lot of my friends I've run into online and in person who are fans of Trek, have either considered DS9 anywhere from...
Hell, I remember the Usenet wars over Deep Space Nine. Or DS9's showrunner for a time:
Remembering "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine": A controversial sci-fi landmark
Showrunner Ira Steven Behr on his new documentary about "Deep Space Nine," a turning point in TV history
Go back even further and there were similar things said about TNG. Some of that stuff was vicious.
Not liking something is fine. Gatekeeping is not.
In the case of Enterprise I agree (not with the "it's not Star Trek part" but with the "it's bad" part), the show basically ignored its own premise. It was supposed to be about the early days of space exploration but it just was TNG/Voyager with with buttons, zippers and a horizontal not glowing warp core, all the changes were cosmetic, the stories they told often felt like rejected TNG or Voyager ideas where they just replaced phaser with phase pistol, photon with photonic and warp 9 with warp 5. In style the show was basically identical to its predecessors, it even used the same technobabble solutions.
I remember being so disappointed, I was ready for something new and got more of the same. I specifically remember how in the pilot they talked about the transporter only being used for cargo and that it was unsafe for living beings ... and then they immediately used it to safe Archer's ass in the same episode and it worked fine.🙄
I also hated Archer and I resented the show for making me hate Archer because I loved Scott Bakula, I watched the shit out of Quantum Leap in the early to mid 90s and was excited when he was announced as the star of Enterprise and then they have him play this whiny, unqualified dumbass who only got the job because of who his father was.
Enterprise: *discovers new species or situation*
T'Pol: Let me give you some sensible advise based on Vulcan exploration and experience ...
Archer: Nah, we're doing it the HUMAN way!
And of course the ship immediately gets in trouble. The Vulcan's were holding humanity back? The show made me understand why.
Archer at his worst was when he complained that he had to apologize to some aliens because his dog pissed on some holy trees. It was his mistake, apologizing is the least he can do, wtf was his problem? Ugh.
I remember being so disappointed, I was ready for something new and got more of the same. I specifically remember how in the pilot they talked about the transporter only being used for cargo and that it was unsafe for living beings ... and then they immediately used it to safe Archer's ass in the same episode and it worked fine.🙄
I also hated Archer and I resented the show for making me hate Archer because I loved Scott Bakula, I watched the shit out of Quantum Leap in the early to mid 90s and was excited when he was announced as the star of Enterprise and then they have him play this whiny, unqualified dumbass who only got the job because of who his father was.
Enterprise: *discovers new species or situation*
T'Pol: Let me give you some sensible advise based on Vulcan exploration and experience ...
Archer: Nah, we're doing it the HUMAN way!
And of course the ship immediately gets in trouble. The Vulcan's were holding humanity back? The show made me understand why.
Archer at his worst was when he complained that he had to apologize to some aliens because his dog pissed on some holy trees. It was his mistake, apologizing is the least he can do, wtf was his problem? Ugh.
How about when Archer meddles in some alien affairs and then the next episode he gives tripp shit for doing the same exact thing
Yes, that too. It was like he was gaslighting Tripp because it really was what Archer would have done.
Mini reviews
Deep Space Nine: Awesome with a slow start
Voyager: Pretty good but inconsistent, it has high highs but also low lows but the cast is likable (mostly)
Enterprise: Meh
Discovery: Actually a good show, ignore the haters.
Picard: It's okay, the finale is kinda disappointing but if you're a TNG fan watch it. The best thing about the series is Marina Sirtis acting circles around Patrick Stewart, it's not like he's bad but it sometimes feels like he's forgotten who Picard is, Sirtis has Troi down to a T and it's awesome to see her, it's like she showed up on set and decided to show everyone how to do TNG in the 21st century.
Lower Decks: A lot of fun with some decent dramatic moments.
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TNG: 1.5 dire seasons and then it hits a great stride
DS9: Rough waters for two seasons, but better than TNG's first for the most part. Then greatness.
Voyager: Some great episodes, but it consistently lets down its premises and characters.
Enterprise: 2 dire seasons like TNG, S3 is... something. 4 is pretty good.
Discovery: Too action-heavy and Burnham-centric for S1, S2 is about half-good, S3 is on great footing.
Picard: The latter half is struggle, especially the ending. Just... put Picard on the ship with the crew and let them play off each other more.
Lower Decks: Too Rick and Morty in episode 1. Slows down in 2-3, and finally really settles into a great place. Probably the best first season of any Trek for me.
DS9: Rough waters for two seasons, but better than TNG's first for the most part. Then greatness.
Voyager: Some great episodes, but it consistently lets down its premises and characters.
Enterprise: 2 dire seasons like TNG, S3 is... something. 4 is pretty good.
Discovery: Too action-heavy and Burnham-centric for S1, S2 is about half-good, S3 is on great footing.
Picard: The latter half is struggle, especially the ending. Just... put Picard on the ship with the crew and let them play off each other more.
Lower Decks: Too Rick and Morty in episode 1. Slows down in 2-3, and finally really settles into a great place. Probably the best first season of any Trek for me.
DS9 actually starts with a bang, the first few eps are legit good. There's some shaky stuff later on in seasons 1 and 2, but the overall quality level isn't at all comparable to TNG or ENT.
And of course, TOS is just terrible all the way through.
And of course, TOS is just terrible all the way through.
Those sentiments about seasons 3 and 4 of Enterprise are no joke. I'm finally finishing it up after skipping it for years, and the jump in quality is really noticeable. Or more interesting anyway. I'd say I've even enjoyed it more than Voyager. Voyager had such an awesome premise and potential, but it just kinda whiffed. Still had some really, really good moments though.
Voyager is like that old shirt you can't throw away. It's nothing special, pretty bland, yet oddly comfortable when you slip it on.
Voyager is like that old shirt you can't throw away. It's nothing special, pretty bland, yet oddly comfortable when you slip it on.
Someone up thread said it - seasons 1 and 2 of ENT, while having an interesting setting and set up, tell stories that wouldn't have been much different as an episode of TNG or VOY. It was really obvious that the writers at that point were comfortable with telling particular types of stories…Trek was an extremely well oiled production machine at that point. If TNG was the prototype and DS9 was the first production model, VOY/ENT is where they figured out where to cut corners to mass produce their product.
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Now…about that TOS is terrible take. Sure, some episodes have aged poorly, but the best episodes, have aged extremely well, especially compared to other genre contemporaries. In fact, speaking of first seasons, I think that TOS's first season is the true best first season of all the shows. So many instant classics in that season, building the universe from nothing, and introducing elements which are still fundamental to the franchise to this day. Klingons, Romulans, Pike, Time Travel, alternate universes, the Prime Directive…all came from what the writers accomplished in that single season of TV.
So yeah. I had to say that as a TOS fan.
;I KNOW RIGHT
Destroying Bakula's natural appeal is the biggest crime they did on ENT. It's fine I guess to have Archer, the first captain, be the reason they made all those rules about how to behave, the first captain being a *bad example* is at least an amusing twist….but they shouldn't have done it to Bakula.
Also the Vulcans were right and T'Pol ever getting stockholm syndromed into believing in the human way given the results that happened *every episode* is so crap. It makes her the worst Vulcan ever. And I normally find Tuvok to be the worst Vulcan ever.
Yeah, as someone partway through Season 4 of ENT, those thoughts echo the comments I was posting back while in the first two seasons. It's almost nothing but plots straight out of TNG/VOY, and Archer is absolutely awful. S3 has its ups and downs and is a touch jingoistic but at least it tried something (that actually leveraged the premise of the series a bit).
Whatever happened to the idea established in this DS9 episode that the hokey-looking sets of the TOS era are canon?
It wasn't just DS9 that established that. So did TNG and ENT. That was pretty much abandoned by the CBS era shows.
Whatever happened to the idea established in this DS9 episode that the hokey-looking sets of the TOS era are canon?
and thank the stars for that! also that episode while good was a mistake
I feel like the more "SciFi" episodes are the better ones. It's the ones that try to explicitly tackle social issues, typically by recycling sets from other productions in the lot, that just feel very hockey.
I wouldn't call it a mistake…just a fun conceit for an episode or two. It's completely unworkable for an entire series set in that era made in 2021. I think Pike's Enterprise on DSC is a great compromise. Looks completely modern, but shares a lot of the color palette with the original. It works for me, at least.
I'd agree with that, with "City on the Edge of Forever" being a notable exception. The "bottle episodes", like "Balance of Terror", "The Corbomite Maneuver" or "Doomsday Machine" tend to hold up better. I do like the location stuff in "Arena". The recycled fort at the beginning feels sufficiently like an isolated outpost…and I love the tone that episode has in it's first third.
Yeah, those episodes are the ones I would rewatch if I ever would go back to the series again. I actually would count Arena among those episodes, and probably City on the Edge of Forever.
It's when they go to Nazi planet or Cowboy planet and you know it's because they're saving money that the show just becomes really... well, of the time. lol
My core issue with TNG are: weird anachronistic planets (western world, gangster world...) and the ridiculous plethora of godlike beings they ran into. It's just constant. Can't fly 15 feet without bumping into a godlike alien. It gets old!
That's one of the reasons why I think season 1 is superior to the rest of TOS. Season 2, is fine, and has some really fantastic episodes, but that's also where you start running into the studio backlot planet of the week. There's only one like that in Season 1 ("Miri"). I don't mind "A Piece of the Action" though. It's a funny look at "cultural contamination" taken to a silly extreme, but episodes like "Patterns of Force", "Bread and Circuses", and "The Paradise Syndrome" don't do it nearly as well, or as entering as "Action" does.
I will defend the "western planet" episode though. That is such a surreal episode, and using those half finished sets was a cool way to show that the whole thing was being created out of the crew's imperfect understanding of the setting. That's using those existing sets and props in a far more interesting way than having some Federation historian visit a planet and the inhabitants just saying "we all Nazis" now.
Whatever happened to the idea established in this DS9 episode that the hokey-looking sets of the TOS era are canon?
Technology works on a sliding scale. Tribbles DS9 is meant to slot in with existing footage. Anything new—Abrams, Disco, etc—is asking "What does the future actually look like?"
Like, to be entirely honest, the Picard-era screens should probably be on the TOS era ships if presented now.
Looking back at TNG:
5 Ways 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Would Be Different if They Made It Now
Star Trek: The Next Generation gave us all a taste of a wonderful future. But 30 years after its debut, it's become dated in its own way.
www.popularmechanics.com
There was some fun with the tech advisor for Star Trek Beyond, for example.
Gawk at the fantastic futuristic tech from 'Star Trek Beyond'
The designer behind drool-worthy new concepts for the most anticipated movie of the year offers an early look at innovations that make the tricorder look passe.
www.cnet.com
It takes place in 2262. The question is what should that actually look like, not some weird slavish devotion to the way it looked before. Picard should be further techwise. Discovery jumped to 3188. Technology should be tackling what it means to be human at that point.
This is actually the thing I hate about Trek fandom the most. They want to envision the future while shackling themselves to the past.
I can see both angles to this. On the one hand, Trek was conceived as a look into a possible future, and for all his faults, Roddenberry himself was a bit of a futurist. Some of the ideas in the novelization of TMP are out there, both in terms of technology and humanity. Trek was meant to be forward leaning, not constantly looking backwards.
On the other hand, Trek is sort of a genre unto itself. It has a built up history that does not and will not jive with real history. It's already, in essence, an alternate reality tale, not an extrapolation of our real future, but an alternate future, created in the 60s, expanded in the 80s, but mostly stagnant since then.
If TPTB aren't ever going to actually reboot Trek, the solution to this is to never do prequels…but that ship sailed 20 years ago. The only other alternative is to do what DSC has done, which is to essentially say "this is what TOS looked like and this is really the technology they had", which I'm perfectly fine with. I can imagine the adventures of Kirk and company on a ship that looks like Pike's Enterprise. As long as the spirit of the stories remain, it doesn't matter that it doesn't look like a 1966 version of the future. Nothing story, or character wise has been rewritten.
Honestly, the only thing that bugs me about the DSC style interiors are the gigantic turbolift chasms. Not because it contradicts anything in TOS or TNG, but because they are freakin' stupid from a design standpoint. No designer is going to put stylus to tablet and say "let's use 95% of our spaceship's interior volume for elevators to zip around in".
Now this I absolutely agree with. That shit simply made no goddamn sense.
Admittedly I haven't watched any of these episodes in at least 15 years if not longer, but it was them learning about the Hatfields and McCoys right? lol
Probably should rewatch TOS again at some point. I remember it being a trip rewatching TNG because episodes were 50 minutes long and the pacing is completely different from the modern 40 minute episode, so TOS being 55 minutes each is going to be a trip even on that level.
I rewatched all of the TOS movies earlier this year because Blank Check podcast did a commentary series and it was really striking going through them and realizing just how much lifting they do to get the entire setting from the fragmentary, detail light backdrop of TOS to something of a coherent galactic civilization even before TNG starts. A lot of the sort of...aesthetic of the Federation as a social order that we associate with TNG is basically invented whole cloth over the course of the first four TOS movies
Nope! "Spectre of the Gun" is an alien recreation of the gunfight at the Ok Corral. It's easily one of the best season 3 episodes.
For some reason I remember a Hatfield and McCoys reference, but maybe that was just a comment based on Bones' name. lol
The TOS movies did create a lot of the "look" of 24th century Trek, mainly due to the reused sets, props and ship models. It's hard to unsee once you realize that the corridors on the ENT-D are the same as the corridors on the refit ENT from TMP, just with a fresh coat of paint.
Post TNG's premiere though, it's more annoying when it goes the other way. The TNG corridors and transporter room were used essentially unmodified in TFF, and the president's office is painfully obvious as Ten-Forward with a set of curtains in TUC.
It's a common thing though. The bridge of the USS Defiant is the same as the bridge of Enterprise NX-01
If it helps in the novels (yeah I know)….
Archer and Reed develop neurological symptoms as well as not being able to have children.
As someone who's happy with like 99% of what the modern Trek fare brings to the table... yeah, the sprawling Blade Runner turbolift metro transit system is... something.
TNG: Agreed.
DS9: Agreed.
Voyager: I actually think the fourth and fifth seasons are fairly fabulous. I'll also award a special note to the second season for making the first look good by comparison.
Enterprise: I think the first season's OK. The second is when it really goes all-in on the TNG knockoffs. It's also when the show's ratings began to drop to an alarming degree. There's a particularly dire stretch around the middle of the way through the season. Like clockwork, the audience evaporated. The third season is great. I like it even more than the fourth, which is also great.
Discovery: First season's good. Second is better. Third is roughly tied with the second. They're all quite different, which is something I really like about the show. But if Discovery is ever going to "settle in," now would be the time. I concur that the third season's on great footing.
Picard: Woefully uneven, but the highs are handily some of the best first-season episodes in the franchise. In particular, "Remembrance," "Nepenthe," and the last quarter or so of the season finale are all superb.
Lower Decks: I don't love it. I'll just say that. :P
TNG: Agreed.
DS9: Agreed.
Voyager: I actually think the fourth and fifth seasons are fairly fabulous. I'll also award a special note to the second season for making the first look good by comparison.
Enterprise: I think the first season's OK. The second is when it really goes all-in on the TNG knockoffs. It's also when the show's ratings began to drop to an alarming degree. There's a particularly dire stretch around the middle of the way through the season. Like clockwork, the audience evaporated. The third season is great. I like it even more than the fourth, which is also great.
Discovery: First season's good. Second is better. Third is roughly tied with the second. They're all quite different, which is something I really like about the show. But if Discovery is ever going to "settle in," now would be the time. I concur that the third season's on great footing.
Picard: Woefully uneven, but the highs are handily some of the best first-season episodes in the franchise. In particular, "Remembrance," "Nepenthe," and the last quarter or so of the season finale are all superb.
Lower Decks: I don't love it. I'll just say that. :P
I disagree that Enterprise's fourth season was good, that's where they officially gave up and turned it into the TOS/TNG reference hour to pander to a very small group of remaining fans. They also told stories that didn't need to be told like the Klingon forehead arc and the "fix the Vulcans" arc (there was nothing wrong with them, fans were just whining that they weren't a bunch of Spocks).
I feel like Enterprise's biggest miss might have been with Mayweather. On paper, he should have been the most interesting and unique character on the show. An ensign who has more experience than the Captain, someone who has had to create an existence in the harshest of environments…basically a working class Starfleet hero. A character like that would have given the show an unique voice, but the character's potential was squandered on a few references and what…a single episode that focused on him?
I get why Trekkies hated on TNG when it first started. They liked TOS and then the network canned it. And the fan-favorite cast, who weren't paid all the much to begin with, got typecast and couldn't get work. IIRC, I remember hearing at least one of them around this time had become homeless and was living out of their car. It was the Trekkies who saved the actors by paying them to come to conventions (which were a new thing, organized by the Trekkies). The devoted audience of Trekkies was why the TOS movies got made. And then the network comes along and says "Good news everyone, we've decided to reboot your favorite show, minus the actors you know and love because they're too expensive. Come give us your money." Of course the fans are going to feel betrayed and exploited. And it doesn't help that s1 of TNG wasn't great, and s2 was uneven (but had some high points).
But then TNG came into it's own and was amazing, and kicked off "Kirk vs Picard" debates. TNG opened up the door for Trek to get rebooted and for entire casts to get replaced.
DS9 got criticized at the start for being on a space station. How can you seek out new life and new civilizations from a stationary position? What are they gonna do, just sit around and talk to each other? (Yes.) I think DS9 is best seen as a side story to TNG/Voyager, and it's really great, even if it's different. And it introduced some things that became poison to the franchise like Section 31.
Voyager was TNG 2.0 (with a new cast to save money), but the TNG writers were too tired of writing TNG by that point, so they came up with new ideas, and then immediately abandoned those ideas.
Enterprise was TNG 3.0, with new ideas, promptly abandoned. Voyager had some ups and downs, but Enterprise was mostly bland to me.
The TNG movies were pretty much wrecked by actor egos. Shatner's famously the big ego of Star Trek, but Shatner only ruined one movie with his ego (Star Trek 5), while Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner's egos ruined every TNG movie. While DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise never got the chance to have any movies, which was a shame.
The JJ Abrams movies were mostly disposable fluff. Some good, some bad. Whatever.
I didn't like the Discovery pilot episode, nor a couple other points where I tried to peek in. It just seemed like with Discovery, Trek evolved and became something I'm not really into. It didn't seem offensively bad to me, although I know some people have higher or lower opinions of it. And I know people have said that it's getting better. With any luck, the show will come into it's own with time like TNG did, and become something really special. I want Star Trek to be good, and something that people can enjoy (and if I can be selfish for a minute, I would like to enjoy it, but I'm fine if it's just for other people).
"Picard" though, that was a show that I had high hopes for. And it crushed my dreams magnificently. I really hated it. I don't even want to think about it.
Lower Decks got a look from me because I like animation, even though it looked like Rick and Morty and I'm not really into Rick and Morty. And I thought the first episode sucked, but I kept going, and man, that show really clicked with me. I loved how the show has seen all of Trek, just like I have (well, most of it), and how it can embrace everything about the franchise, the good and the bad. I liked it's sense of humor, and it still managed to tell stories while dropping references and making jokes. It seemed to line up with and do a better job than it's contemporaries (Discovery and Picard) in a couple of places.
Strange New Worlds might be good. I've heard that Anson Mount as Pike was one of the best parts of Discovery. I know I don't have a great track record with liking new Trek, but I'm still open to trying more.
Honorable mentions go to Galaxy Quest (a movie about what if the TOS actors got abducted by aliens), Babylon 5 (more DS9 than DS9, and a landmark in serial storytelling), Battlestar Galactica (Ron Moore's response to Voyager), The Orville (Seth McFarlane's TNG roleplay), and the Star Wars sequels (which make JJ's Star Trek movies look like Citizen Kane).
But then TNG came into it's own and was amazing, and kicked off "Kirk vs Picard" debates. TNG opened up the door for Trek to get rebooted and for entire casts to get replaced.
DS9 got criticized at the start for being on a space station. How can you seek out new life and new civilizations from a stationary position? What are they gonna do, just sit around and talk to each other? (Yes.) I think DS9 is best seen as a side story to TNG/Voyager, and it's really great, even if it's different. And it introduced some things that became poison to the franchise like Section 31.
Voyager was TNG 2.0 (with a new cast to save money), but the TNG writers were too tired of writing TNG by that point, so they came up with new ideas, and then immediately abandoned those ideas.
Enterprise was TNG 3.0, with new ideas, promptly abandoned. Voyager had some ups and downs, but Enterprise was mostly bland to me.
The TNG movies were pretty much wrecked by actor egos. Shatner's famously the big ego of Star Trek, but Shatner only ruined one movie with his ego (Star Trek 5), while Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner's egos ruined every TNG movie. While DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise never got the chance to have any movies, which was a shame.
The JJ Abrams movies were mostly disposable fluff. Some good, some bad. Whatever.
I didn't like the Discovery pilot episode, nor a couple other points where I tried to peek in. It just seemed like with Discovery, Trek evolved and became something I'm not really into. It didn't seem offensively bad to me, although I know some people have higher or lower opinions of it. And I know people have said that it's getting better. With any luck, the show will come into it's own with time like TNG did, and become something really special. I want Star Trek to be good, and something that people can enjoy (and if I can be selfish for a minute, I would like to enjoy it, but I'm fine if it's just for other people).
"Picard" though, that was a show that I had high hopes for. And it crushed my dreams magnificently. I really hated it. I don't even want to think about it.
Lower Decks got a look from me because I like animation, even though it looked like Rick and Morty and I'm not really into Rick and Morty. And I thought the first episode sucked, but I kept going, and man, that show really clicked with me. I loved how the show has seen all of Trek, just like I have (well, most of it), and how it can embrace everything about the franchise, the good and the bad. I liked it's sense of humor, and it still managed to tell stories while dropping references and making jokes. It seemed to line up with and do a better job than it's contemporaries (Discovery and Picard) in a couple of places.
Strange New Worlds might be good. I've heard that Anson Mount as Pike was one of the best parts of Discovery. I know I don't have a great track record with liking new Trek, but I'm still open to trying more.
Honorable mentions go to Galaxy Quest (a movie about what if the TOS actors got abducted by aliens), Babylon 5 (more DS9 than DS9, and a landmark in serial storytelling), Battlestar Galactica (Ron Moore's response to Voyager), The Orville (Seth McFarlane's TNG roleplay), and the Star Wars sequels (which make JJ's Star Trek movies look like Citizen Kane).
Oh yeah, the annual 'Discovery (/Kurtzman Trek) is cancelled!' rumours are circling, in which Mount had a perfect response:
Last person to ask me that is happy I told them to start season 4. Yes, it got better at that point in their opinion.
Annual? More like weekly! Lol…it's a never ending cycle. "Discovery is being cancelled!" - Discovery renewed and Picard is announced - "Discovery and Picard are being cancelled!" - Discovery and Picard are renewed and SNW is announced.
Discovery will eventually end after seven seasons and they'll all say "see, we were right!"
JJ ruined two franchises and somehow his disinterest in Star Trek meant that it got screwed over less. lol