8. The Infantile Storytelling
It would be far from true to say Star Trek never moralized.
Very far. But, for the most part, the way such stories are handled works them into the overall plot. The story arc speaks for itself, in short. Unfortunately, that's not how it works on Enterprise. Most episodes have a message, and that message is hammered at with the hammiest fists Berman and Braga could find. It wouldn't be so terribly problematic if the issues they were tackling weren't so complex. But Enterprise isn't all that complex a show, so there still has to be good guys and bad guys. More often than not, the bad guys are the less fortunate of the two. The only time moral ambiguity gets involved is for plot twisting purposes. The only trace of ambition with their approach is Archer's Sorkin-esque speech at the end, which attempts to touch on both sides of the issue and offer some resolution to those lacking social justice. But what's most insufferable is the lazy, shocked questioning that the crew of the Enterprise employs when confronted with these issues. It's a cheap way to broach the problem, and one that is used so often that one has to wonder about the character's naivete. There are some things that should have been abandoned with The Original Series.