Why did it fail?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Star Trek: Enterprise
enriquesinghjr — 9 years ago(August 26, 2016 02:57 PM)
Less seasons than other Star Trek shows, lower rating
I am a very casual Star Trek fan, so would like to hear what was wrong with Enterprise from people more into this 'universe' thanks. -
Inspector81 — 9 years ago(August 27, 2016 01:08 AM)
- Prequel series that retcons a lot of Star Trek history before TOS that didn't need to be revised or explained
- First two seasons sucked
- Too much temporal time travel crap
- Before this show Vulcans were respected and cool, now Vulcans are d!cks
- Horrible opening theme song when every series before had a great orchestral score
- Enterprise looks ugly
- Star Trek fatigue after 18 years straight of Star Trek on TV from 1987-2005 (TNG, DS9, VOY & ENT)
Just to name a few
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isbabo — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 01:42 AM)
agree with everything on this list, but would add:
8- Great captain, hot Vulcan. Every other character was completely forgettable. Every other ST series has at least a couple of great characters besides the captain, but this show didn't. -
masterhasanofbolu — 9 years ago(November 30, 2016 12:55 PM)
8- Terrible production design
I get that being a prequel has restrictions but it doesn't excuse the interior to be so dull and boring. Compare the bridge from TOS and TNG. They could have come up with a better design. Take battlestar galactica for example. It looks like they have even lower technology than Enterprise in this show, but it still is a better background to the story. -
timmytony80 — 9 years ago(August 28, 2016 11:58 AM)
ENRIQUESINGHJR, INSPECTOR 81, KEVIN GUDGEON;
- What other visual representation, 2 this depth, have Vulcans enjoyed?
- 1st season, in my opinion,
was actually the best in many ways! It drew-in viewers. And it wasn't stuffy! - Vulcans being Vulcans. And they lied about their spy base. Some Vulcans were shown displaying emotions (the old colony ship)! 1st Contact was a great ep.
- Great song! Great opening!
- It was the 1st Star Fleet Ship. Function, function, function!
- Trekkies don't burn-out.
KEVIN GUDGEON; Those were inclusive eps. ENT wd've lost the general audience if it became 2 cultish 2 soon.
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timmytony80 — 9 years ago(August 28, 2016 12:30 PM)
ENRIQUESHINGJR; 2 ans yr ?. After 36yrs TOS & spin-offs, movies, novelas/novels, cartoons, conventions, etc. every trekkie had a distinct vision of what pre-Federation, pre-Prime Directive, pre-Force Shield, ST looked & felt like. You simply can't please everyone!
Plus, Paramount Pictures wasn't exactly looking 4 another long-running ST series. They're very expensive & become very high-salaried! 4 yrs is the sweet spot 4 producers. You cut expenses before SE/CGI gets out of hand. And before actors' contracts balloon.
Then you begin racking in the real $ on the syndication. -
warren-87235 — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 10:43 AM)
I've been binge watching them all the last few weeks, mornings/lunchtimes (I work from home, and haven't watched them since the original run), and I've been enjoying them on the whole, but I must admit there are a lot of flaws
- Prequel series that retcons a lot of Star Trek history before TOS that didn't need to be revised or explained
I can't say that side of things bothered me too much. It's still trying to be fun and fit with TOS, whilst having its own stories. I think we can allow them a little leeway. - First two seasons sucked
I think sucked is unfair, but the first season was certainly weak in a lot of places. - Too much temporal time travel crap
Agreed. There was just way, way too much reliance on that. And it got tiresome. They had several major storylines all centred around that. - Before this show Vulcans were respected and cool, now Vulcans are d!cks
I kinda liked that. It added a bit of friction with supposed 'allies' and the go-between with the Andorians made that fun. - Horrible opening theme song when every series before had a great orchestral score
100% agree. It's completely out of place and ruins the tone. I have to skip it every time. It amazes me they didn't realise and fix the issue after season 1, and give it a good theme. - Enterprise looks ugly
Exterior, interior or both? Personally I liked it. It's supposed to be an early ship, more utilitarian than luxury. It's not a cruiseliner like 1701-D. - Star Trek fatigue after 18 years straight of Star Trek on TV from 1987-2005 (TNG, DS9, VOY & ENT)
Yeah, I think that was a part of it.
However, 4 seasons is still pretty good for any series. It just happens not to be that long after Trek fans got used to the length of NextGen/DS9/Voyager. It just got to a point where the stories were getting recycled a lot of the time. Hell, that was happening with DS9, or even later NextGen!
On the whole, I think a lot of Enterprise is actually a better series than NextGen and DS9 storywise, but it still had a lot of bad, repetitive episodes from the writers/producers who did the worst of NextGen and DS9, so the weak episodes were really weak. I think it also suffered from a mixed cast. NextGen made up for a lot of flaws by a great cast. Voyager made up for a lot of flaws with some good later story lines, and fun characters (albeit some annoying), but Enterprise was mixed. Archer, Hoshi, Trip were okay, T'Pol was just annoying most of the time, Malcolm was an idiot and Travis was forgettable. Shran ended up being the best regular guest star that made his episodes interesting/fun.
I think that given the technology was supposed to be so much earlier than the others, it also relied too much on the usual technobabble solutions, when it would've been much more interesting to have well thought out ones in a lot of situations (If you want to see a clear contrast in how technobabble took over, watch all of the original movies working their way to next Gen. None of them rely on it until Generations, and then it doesn't go away).
- Prequel series that retcons a lot of Star Trek history before TOS that didn't need to be revised or explained
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Bernnard_Black — 9 years ago(September 02, 2016 05:09 AM)
The theme music didn't bother me that much; sh!t, it's 30 seconds of the show. The score for the show while it was playing was just like what we had in the other later series, and that's really more important to me.
The biggest complaint I had was the lazy-ass storytelling that went on. A borg episode? Really? And hey, Trek always has time travel so let's make it an entire story arc! Temporal Cold War! Yeah!
Ugh. The best parts of the show were the ones that any idiot should have been able to predict in a PREQUEL; the introduction and bringing together of the other races we already knew existed but didn't know the stories about. That's one reason the show was more engaging in the later episodes of seasons 3 and 4; we got cool development of the Andorians (thanks mostly the character of Shran, probably my favorite from the series), and got to see how the Federation was shaping up.
But SO much more could have been done! First contact with the Klingons could have been an entire season, given their importance in Trek loreand they should have been the TOS style human-looking ones. Would have been interesting to see a different explanation for why they looked the way they did later. I think if the show had had another season the Romulan war was going to be the big story, and that would have been cool, too. And more of the developing of the "morality" of Starfleet, as they develop the prime directive and learn from their mistakes about interacting with other species.
Just so much lost opportunity squandered on lazy, recycled crap like Borgs and time travel. What a waste those episodes were.
Whores will have their trinkets. -
comraderutherford — 9 years ago(December 07, 2016 04:41 PM)
"The biggest complaint I had was the lazy-ass storytelling that went on. A borg episode? Really? And hey, Trek always has time travel so let's make it an entire story arc! Temporal Cold War! Yeah! "
And don't forget the obligatorily forgettable 'western' episode!
But that horrible opening theme song really killed it for me. I still hate it to this day. -
gunslinger92557 — 9 years ago(December 27, 2016 02:24 AM)
Late in season 4 they have an episode that explains why some Klingon's looked like they did in TOS. The Klingon's had a run in with the Augmented humans and had their assessment kicked.So when they got hold of the fetuses of the Augmented humans they used the DNA to create augmented Klingon's which lead a virus that was spreading and creating a plague. Phlox solved the problem but one of the side effects was the infected Klingon's lost their ridges. Which altered their DNA and so their offspring also looked like the TOS Klingon's. But it was a small percentage of them.
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TMC-4 — 9 years ago(October 19, 2016 12:26 AM)
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kingaliencracker — 9 years ago(January 26, 2017 10:58 PM)
It suffered from franchise fatigue, being aired on a failing network, competition with other, superior science fiction shows, and angering the established fan base.
Personally, I think it's much better than Voyager and better than the first 3 seasons of DS9.