This is not a review, but a look at how the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise is coming along. Manny Coto has taken over the story side of production and storywise is pretty much running the show instead of Berman and Braga.
If you're a fan of classic Trek & have watched the franchise spiral down in a death spin of pain and embarassment: You can thank your lucky stars for Manny Coto, because in my opinion Star Trek is finally BACK!
First, a little history to justify my position (If you just want to get to why Enterprise is finally worth watching, click here): I'm one of those people who will watch almost anything related to Star Trek, however I do have my limits and I also watch with a critical eye. I didn't watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for the first few seasons because it was just too different from what I was used to. Eventually it grew on me and I enjoyed it towards the end of its run (except for that forgettable series finale). And then of course there is Star Trek: Voyager: The worst episodic piece of Star Dreck hoisted upon the fans, ever. I hung on to this one for the first couple of seasons, but it was the first Star Trek series that I gave up on for a number of reasons including:
- A starship that continued to look "showroom new" after several years on the other side of the galaxy after numerous battles.
- The Maquis plot line degenerating into absolutely nothing.
- No thought given to planning for the eventuality that the ship might actually take 60+ years to get back to Earth.
- A Vulcan with the longest running continuous scowl in TV history.
- And of course the general "Lost in Space" concept of a lost starship just trying to get home.
There are more reasons, but those are the main points that bugged me about the shows.
And don't get me started on the movies... The last really excellent Star Trek film was "Undiscovered Country". "First Contact" is the best of the Next Generation films, but outside of that it's been downhill. Don't even talk to me about the death of Kirk in "Generations"...
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Article comments
1 - Justene
This review was chosen for Advance.net. You will be able to find it on newspaper sites including Cleveland.com.
2 - Jim Carruthers
I'd mostly avoided all of last season Enterprise because Star Trek was moving more to a relation with science fiction like "cheese food" has to cheese. The characters were tedious, and the writing was just insulting.
I watched the three story arc with Brent Spiner, and it was better, largely because Spiner gives great villain (and Enterprise really lacked a villain with personality). After all, he took the worn device of "evil twin" on ST:TNG and made it work.
But, subtracting Soong, the rest of them are really riding the interstellar short-bus. Since they have the canon to prop them up, we know none of them are in any danger. Which makes for a series which only aims to pander to fans, not present something interesting.