10 Reasons Star Trek Enterprise Deserves A Second Chance

Enterprise was the first of the Trek series to rely almost entirely on CGI for the big effects. While both DS9 and Voyager had switched to CGI in their later seasons, they had begun their runs with studio models.

The problem is that, from the very beginning, it showed. While Doug Drexler's design for Enterprise showed a beautiful and sleek design, it was not in fact intended to be the final model. It was a quick CGI mock up, intended for use as a study piece. Of course, that ended up not being the case and it was the depicted ship for all seasons (and one model reference in Star Trek Into Darkness). But early '00s CGI had not yet caught up with the imaginations of the writing team, at least it hadn't for television. The show had a soft edge to its designs that took the viewer time to adjust to.

Revisiting these early episodes now, the fact that they were all filmed in HD is both a hindrance and a help. The designs are truly eye-pleasing, yet that sheen is hard to ignore - especially when all previous shows had used models in some capacity. Compare the CGI of the remastered Original Series to the Model shots. It's undeniably cleaner but it all looks as though it comes from a cartoon.

A revisit needs to be approached with the knowledge of the limitations of the CGI. It is worth the trip but that doesn't mean every shot is going to be easy to look at.