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! :)
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.