I appreciate the risk of a season-long arc, but there were problems:

- The Temporal Cold War storyline was moving much too slowly, not really going anywhere.

- Sending Enterprise to an area that was out of communication range of Earth was too much like the concept of "Voyager".

- This also made the show more "stand-alone" instead of connecting it to the history of Trek and the formation of the Federation, which was really the selling point of the original concept.

- Transforming Archer from "puppy dog" to "perpetually angry".

So. From somewhere happy, Manny Coto comes to be associated with the show as a writer, creating a couple of the better episodes to air in Season 3. From a further happy place, for some reason Berman and Braga decide to entrust Manny with the production of the series.

For the first time ever, I can say: "Thank you, Berman and Braga."

Manny has stated that he's a huge fan of classic Star Trek, and has stated that his mission is to tie Star Trek: Enterprise into the history of the Star Trek universe. He wants to bring in characters and stories that fill in the gaps that fans have wondered about.

So far I'd say the man is doing a great job. So far this season we've seen:

- Orions, made famous by the one classic Trek episode highlighting the well-known dancing Orion slave girl.

- References to the Eugenics wars, and a connection between the Khan era, Enterprise, and the development of TNG character "Data" with the appearance of an ancestor of Dr. Soong from TNG played very well by Brent Spiner.

- Mention of T'Pau from the original series, the quote "the needs of the many", and lots of other little things that make us longtime Trek fans giggle like happy idiots.

- Episodes taking place on Vulcan, highlighting more of the culture and showing the stirrings of civil war.

- Scott Bakula as Archer is finally finding a middle ground between thoughtful and angry as a basic personality.

Finally, but not of least importance, it seems that Manny has gotten rid of the dreaded A-story/B-story format that has plagued Star Trek since "Next Generation." I don't know how this concept came to be a requirement for every single episode, but it became so annoying that it wasn't even funny. For some reason there just had to be a sub-plot completely unrelated to the main story every single week. So far this season I haven't seen this ugly beast surface it's head in the previous format. Sub-plots are still present, but now they actually relate to the main story.

Another great thing is the creation of three episode story arcs, which gives enough time to really develop a story, but is not so long that it gets sidetracked.

If you've given up on Star Trek in general or Enterprise in particular, you owe it to yourself to give it another look.

And to Berman, Braga, and Manny Coto: THANK YOU! :)