Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 4
£17.99
Enterprise, Schmenterprise! - The problem with Star Trek Enterprise is it lacks confidence, or rather the studio which made it lacked confidence during production. Executives were stepping ina ll the time trying to secure high ratings and often intervered with the plot lines, a situation that peaked in the early days of the new Star trek movie when producer Rick berman left the studios his early script idea was rejected. The story lines are familiar Trek concepts but Enterprise seems way to heavy in laser fire battles in ship corridors and insipid american way ideas. Year three is basically the same as the borg story wth a big metal ball hurtling towards earth set on destruction...yawn. The opener to year 4 is set in nazi occupied earth...(wasnt that a Voyager story???), oh and somewhere in year 2 there is an episode set in the wild west...EVEN BIGGER YAWN. Worth knowing I skipped the nazi story because basically - who cares! I was very frustrated how the lead character Cpt Archer seemed to self appoint his historic prowess without any real merit. He is not great to look at (in fact none of the male cast are) and seems to make stupid decisions that just would nt happen. For example in Year 4 he is the one who climbs up the the tube to stop pathogens killing everyone - when the obvious choice is to get the agile security chief to do it (who had to tell archer what to do in the first place). He tortures a man for information and steals a warp core...ruuuubbbiiisssshhhhhh! This is all repeated over and over. Archer is always being the hero. The most laughable shot is when they destroy the Xindi weapon and a slow mo archer is seen running to camera while a ball of fire erupts behind him, inches from engulfing him. I nearly spilt my tea it was so shockingly bad. My belief is that the actor playing Archer became a bit to insistant on this hero status (once, he went against the produers wishes and insisted on being unshaven in an episode, because that s how he felt his character should be). The fact seems that he was actually just going for a macho look and it was all a bit of vanity. Anyway, to summerise, if you want a weak vulcan who nearly blubs with every difficult decision (in years 3 & 4 anyway), a butch bloody minded engineer with an accent that sounds like he is sucking a marble, a fat doctor who overacts, a black pilot who never has any lines, a Thai comms officer who is scared evertime a torpedo is fired and a captain who loves himself so much you want to vomit - and a collection of 20 and 30 somethings all loving themselves for their ineptitude - then Enterprise is DEFINATELY for you! I d wait till its £9.99 a box set thern you can make lots of cheap ashtrays with the discs.
liked season 3 better - Pity the story of season three was ended, it was certainly the best star trek season ever!Hope there will be another new star trek like season three in the future.Season 4 therefor a little disappointing, the complete show in fact ends with the first episodes.
Leave them wanting more! - Considering that various Star Trek outings are there to explain, extend or justify the original Kirk series from 40 years ago could Enterprise ever have lived up to our individual expectations? Put aside past histories and expectations and enjoy Enterprise for what it is...thoroughly entertaining.On DVD the story lines run more smoothly, the characterizations are much stronger and it builds nicely through seasons 1-4, with even more great extras and outtakes.Scott Bakula delivers the goods as the heroic Capt Archer - when they beat him down he jumps back up and spits in their eye! He leads an interesting mixture of crew incl. a Brit and loathes Vulcans. And the NX-01...well, she has a character all her own!Okay, so odd stories are a little thin and the direction occasionally reduces the actors efforts to mere posturing. But hey! there are 98 episodes with some wonderful verbal rallies and some true moments of cinematic brilliance.Enjoy it for it s own merit.Season 4...so sad...what will we watch now???
where did it all go wrong? - I was a great star trek fan. It s time to tell it like it really is. Times change and it is time for a rest. The feature films apart from first contact were dumbed down and lacklustre, badly written with poor scripts.I was hoping enterprise would take off after the lack lustre voyager series. I really didn t care if they got home or not before i died of terminal boredom. Enterprise i,m afraid just followed the trend. The scope of the series was severely limited by the tired imagination of its writers, run of the mill scripts star trek by numbers I didn t care for the characters or the obvious formula of the series. Even in the really bad original trek episodes (mainly in season three when Roddenberry had lost control) you still cared for the characters , the chemistry was there and they could act. Enterprise is inhabited by cardboard characters. Only Nimoy could inject likeability and complexity into the vulcan character. Enterprise suffered from obvious scripts, lack of inventiveness and social relevance. Hence the use of aliens which should never have appeared in enterprises timeline. It is evidence Trek has been run into the ground and made mundane by a lack of the corporation/producers to change it or experiment with it. The past trek good and bad has become a heavy anchor for anything coming after it because of the need to keep it consistant with its complicated history.It needs a radical break with its past and gizmo saving device of the week to inject some new life into it. This should have been buried alive.
To boldly go... - This last season of Enterprise was actually a second successful season. As other Star Trek series, only after the third season things start to warm up towards better episodes with stronger build characters, unfortunately Paramount executives cowardly cancelled this show when things where starting to get really good. A shame. The continuity of arc episodes, after the very successful recipe of thrilling third season, makes this 4th Season a must see, making me restore my almost gone faith on Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. The end of it was a little to rush (although comprehensible), and the tragic end of one of the characters was definitely too much unnecessary (reminds of Steven Spielberg s finales: just another easy way to touch the viewers). There are several excellent episodes: the first two (WWII) and both of the Mirror Universe are the best of the better. The CGI is great, as usual, the MW aliens are also great. Special features are very good. Unfortunately the subtitles options are very poor: again, there are only English subtitles and English for the hearing unpaired (but better this then none what so ever). There are no audio options besides English. I sincerely hope Star Trek franchising will endure, and soon, really soon, there will be a new Star Trek series to boldly go were no man as gone before, marvelling us all with the GREAT Gene Roddenberry s (and Rick Berman’s continued) vision for the future of mankind. For Star Trek is the best of the best within Sci-Fi gender and will always have the best of the best fans backing it up. “Live long and prosper”.