I recently finished Enterprise season 3, and oh gods that was a slog at the end. Like 5 plot-heavy episodes in a row! No fun, no whimsy, no exploration. It’s the least star-trekky I have ever seen Star Trek. So I finished it, and thought “can we see some strange new worlds now?” And then Archer was taken prisoner by nazis and I was all “oh no, is this going to be season 4?” But that got resolved in two episodes and I was glad. But now there’s an augment arc? Please tell me it ends soon so we can get back to the strange new worlds.
I have the same problem with SNW, to a lesser extent. Too much klingon war stuff, not enough strange new worlds. Lower Decks has the perfect amount of strange new worlds, though, they visited a Halo this season! It was perfect.
Imma give up on Enterprise if there’s a whole season of augment drama.
I feel you. Depending on your opinions about Voyager, Trek really is struggling to capture what worked about TNG/DS9, almost like modern TV doesn’t know how or cant do it. In the end, my critique about Voyager is that it is an example of what often happens to crafts … they get perfected right in the moment of redundancy. Voyager was pure synthesised TNG-era trek right when it had been done to death. Everything since has either been a prequel or reboot, with the Abrams films being both and SNW sadly hinting/heading in that direction.
Enterprise was the first attempt to try something kinda different but sadly fell into the prequel trap (where Trek is literally about looking forward!!) and dug up the worst of the inclinations of the remaining show runners, where it’s clear as day that Piller and Taylor had left Trek by that point, where together with Behr for DS9 seem to have been the heart of TNG-era, and IMO “peak” Trek.
I still remember seeing Enterprise for the first time as a kid and swearing that it was a cheap knock off of Trek and was surely going to be sued for copyright infringement … none of it made any sense to me as a continuation of Trek.
My problem with Voyager is their native american consultant was a fraud, they ruined the Borg, and Janeway’s racism and transphobia wasn’t treated with the appropriate seriousness by the plot. I watch Star Trek to see woke communists explore space. Voyager and Enterprise both break that core enjoyment by making me feel pessimistic about the future, as though humanity will never grow beyond its baser instincts. People say Enterprise is supposed to be non-progressive because it’s a prequel, but the problem with that is that the real world progressed beyond the likes of Trip in less than a decade. It sends a message that things are gonna be worse in the 22nd century.
9/11 plots and augment wars suck because they don’t inspire me with hope like TNG did. S4E4 was actually pretty good despite my apprehension, they definitely went hard on the theme that people are capable of being better than they are and I really appreciate that. But I wonder whether they’re going to stick with that theme and redeem these characters, or chase conflict and misery for the appeal of the drama. Drama like that doesn’t appeal to me.
I just wanna see a strange new world. It’s been like 10 episodes since I got one in ENT. Why can’t we just seek out new life and new civilisations? And no, an Orion slave market doesn’t count, because it’s miserable and Star Trek is about hope.