10 Reasons Star Trek Enterprise Deserves A Second Chance

Enterprise arrived on the heels of the underwhelming finale of Star Trek Voyager. To close that series with a shot of the starship finally arriving back to Earth and then for the audience to be told almost immediately that the next show would go back in time by two hundred years compounded the first set of issues that Enterprise faced. It would be locked in by canon - gone were the Cardassians, the Borg (heh), the Romulans and any of the aliens that were first encountered by Kirk onwards.

So, how did Enterprise combat these issues? While it is fair to say that the show was somewhat mixed and that it's first two seasons probably had more down sides than good, the latter two seasons were excellent, on par with some of the very best that Trek had to offer.

A revisit of the series is more than needed at this point and the lives of the first crew should be addressed as more than throwaway lines in Star Trek Discovery. With strong acting, compelling story-arcs and the Trek franchises's first season-long story, Enterprise has more to offer than what was originally thought.

By 2001, the first stages of franchise fatigue were starting to set in. Deep Space Nine had concluded in 1999, Star Trek Voyager had just wrapped up and Insurrection had underperformed at the box office. Along came this new show, going back to basics by revisiting a time set before the establishment of the Federation.

The first issue it got caught up with was canon. In the pilot episode, a bumpy headed Klingon was seen running through a cornfield on Earth. Barely three episodes later, the K'Tinga Class battlecruiser was flying through space. To canon purists, both of these were examples of committing huge sins. EVERYONE knows that the Klingons had smooth heads until the movies. EVERYONE knows that the K'Tinga class was only introduced in the Motion Picture. Seemingly just dropped in, these only served to fuel the fears of old fans.

Add to this was the simply idea of exploring strange new worlds. If Discovery and Picard have done something right, its addressing the fact that much of the Star Trek Universe already has been explored. That is not to say that they should not seek out new life and new civilizations but, in 2001, people just weren't into that.

The tone also jarred horribly with real life events. 9/11 changed the world and TV started to adapt. The revived Battlestar Galactica took this head on, while Enterprise looked like it was ignoring it. Whether that was an unforgiveable crime is for history to decide but the show is certainly far more palatable in today's climate.