Star Trek: Enterprise

:

Season 3
  • Network: UPN
  • Series Premiere Date: Sep 26, 2001
Season #: 4, 3, 2, 1
User Score
7.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 24 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 24
  3. Negative: 1 out of 24
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  1. SchnitzelPoof
    Sep 18, 2013
    4
    Boy, where do I begin? After two promising first seasons, I was wondering what could go wrong with Star Trek: Enterprise.
    Then, out of the blue, the Xindi story arc hit me.
    How can I best describe this atrocity? It is as if a low-budget Attack of the Clones Power Rangers combo was thrown at Star Trek, with the same presentation of a below-average Xena episode. We're treated to    Boy, where do I begin? After two promising first seasons, I was wondering what could go wrong with Star Trek: Enterprise.
    Then, out of the blue, the Xindi story arc hit me.

    How can I best describe this atrocity? It is as if a low-budget Attack of the Clones Power Rangers combo was thrown at Star Trek, with the same presentation of a below-average Xena episode.
    We're treated to frequent Xindi council meetings, in a setting that screams of bad production values, and with dialog straight out of an amateurish comic strip. The actors shout their lines, perhaps in an attempt to add some impact to the cheap drama, but that only makes the situation look even more ridiculous.
    The entire plot calls for some heavy suspension of disbelief for anyone who has knowledge of the Star Trek universe. It simply doesn't fit with the theme of previous seasons, or other shows, and Brannon Braga's infatuation with time travel as a plot device is becoming tiresome, not to mention redundant. If the idea was to create a more combat-oriented season for Star Trek, I don't see why it had to be thrown in such an alien (no pun intended) setting, which wasn't fleshed out properly.
    Suffice to say that the writers were too lazy (or unimaginative) to *name* things, like the enemy's most destructive weapon (you know, the one that started this whole solo-ship endeavor into a fantastic region of space). It is simply known as "the weapon". What would the insectoid or reptilian race be called? Why, "insectoids" and "reptilians" of course. What was the name of the Xindi homeworld? Xindhor perhaps? Nope, "the Xindi homeworld", naturally. Apparently six different species that lived there for millennia were just too busy to come up with a name for their world, or even one city (I guess it would be known as "the city", and then "the other city", and "the *other* other city". It is as if a friend who thinks very low of your intelligence tries to not burden your mind with details. However, details is exactly what this story needs, in abundance.

    As for the regulars, Captain Archer is out of character for almost the ENTIRE season. Scott Bakula, an actor that I LOVE, does not fit the part here, and is not believable as the 'dark, tormented batman-in-space', or whatever the writers wanted to go with; the relationship between T'Pol and Cmdr. Tucker is almost as convincing as that of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox in Transformers; Malcolm Reed, wearing the face of a constipated man, acts like he's going to burst into tears over every matter that a tactical officer is expected to handle, and the list goes on and on. The only person who's consistently enjoyable to watch is John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox.

    Thankfully, things improved considerably in the fourth season (back to the roots, if you will), but by then, it was too late for the show, due to its impending termination.    … Expand
  2. Kai82
    Nov 19, 2020
    10
    Season 3 has an overarching story arc, is intense, grim and darker than anything outside the Dominion war in DS9. At the end of season 2 Earth was attacked by an alien probe and 7 million people died. The Enterprise is on a mission to the far away Delphic Expanse, a place were spacetime is sometimes distorted, to learn more about the attack and stop further once as it could just be a smallSeason 3 has an overarching story arc, is intense, grim and darker than anything outside the Dominion war in DS9. At the end of season 2 Earth was attacked by an alien probe and 7 million people died. The Enterprise is on a mission to the far away Delphic Expanse, a place were spacetime is sometimes distorted, to learn more about the attack and stop further once as it could just be a small scale test. It is a gamechanger as everything before was child's play. The Enterprise is now upgraded, has Photon Torpedo's and a squad of space marines (MACO). While I am at it I was always baffled why Earth is practically undefended in Star Trek (Including the only ship near enough situation in Star Trek 1). Compare this to Babylon 5 were you have immensely destructive orbital battle station atop of all ships and Mass Effect were they can assemble a huge amount of the combined fleets in a short amount of time atop at already being a place with multiple fleets. Back to season 3. Like I already said it is grimmer, darker and most serious. It is a frequent complaint by others that it gets too dark. I will not disagree even if I have a different opinion as I see the validity of the argument. The stories itself are excellent and deal with moral dilemmas and hard decisions while also focusing on the characters. Even I think that the characters go to far in the episodes “Similitude” and “Damage” but Earth and humanity are at risk so they have not a real choice (Hope I must never make such decisions in real life). This is however an indicator for good writing and characterization. To quote Sisko “It is easy to be a saint in paradise”. The characters will be pushed to their limits. I like also T’Pols and Trips arc and character development of others (Wont spoil). Overall I think this is a well made season and so far the best one. I must however warn you that it is too dark and grim for many. For me it is intense, has interesting stories and deals with solving problems with no easy way out. My recommendations are: “The Xindi” for the set up, good story and conclusion that will baffle you. “Impulse” is actually an episode you can watch at Halloween. It is intense, has ramifications and will surprise you. “The Shipment” for giving more perspective and evolving the Xindi. It is not as you expected. “Twilight” everything I like would be a spoiler or to close to it. “Chosen Realm” for the situation, moral and conclusion. It walks on a small edge as I can see it also be called foreseeable. “Proving Ground” for Shran and the cat and mouse games. “Stratagem” for the concept and ideas. Excellently crafted and makes Degra one of my favorite additional characters. “Azati Prime” and “Damage” are closely connected and are accumulation of previous arcs (I be vague here to avoid spoilers). “E²” is again something hard to describe without spoilers. I just say I like the new characters and hoped they would use them further. Finally “Countdown2 and “zero Hour” for the climax of the season / story arc.… Expand
  3. Method__Man
    Nov 29, 2018
    10
    Strong season coming from seasons 1 and 2. This was the first season that truly had me binge watching, and coming back for more.
  4. WorldofLucky
    Apr 27, 2018
    4
    A very big disappointment, but not for the reasons I had ignored watching it the first time around.

    Enterprise has good actors, and the occasional great performance, especially from my favorite, Jeffrey Coombs who played the Andorian Shran with an occasional recurrent role). The sets I thought were great, along with the costuming for everyone except T'Pol (which this comes into the    A very big disappointment, but not for the reasons I had ignored watching it the first time around.

    Enterprise has good actors, and the occasional great performance, especially from my favorite, Jeffrey Coombs who played the Andorian Shran with an occasional recurrent role). The sets I thought were great, along with the costuming for everyone except T'Pol (which this comes into the problems I have).

    The problem comes down to the writing. It is the laziest, sexist, unimaginative writing that I have seen in the Star Trek universe, overall more so then even the first season of ST:NG. The number of rape/assaults that occurred randomly on the show (mostly using mind-melds as the stand in) were fairly common. They even had T'Pol who seems to be the constant recipient of this do it back to someone else. That bothered me a lot.

    Then we get into the sexist treatment of T'Pol in general, constant forcing her into those situations, combined with that stupid body fitting outfit she wore, instead of the normal uniform. The ramrod writing of trying to shoehorn her into scenes such as the decon room where they have her sweating and posing sexually while waiting for the decontamination happens.

    I also need to point out that there were very few original ideas in the series as well. Instead of taking this opportunity to maybe do something more gritty (maybe on a Babylon 5 level) they instead reworked a lot of episodes (well sometimes not even reworking) from the original series. They also tended to not tell stories linearly, instead starting from the end and going back which is not their strength (stay in your lane).

    In addition there was no actual character progression, any progress in a character that was learned in a story disappeared within two more episodes. Not even counting the fact that the behavior of the characters would sometimes be 180 degrees from what they said in other episodes. I wonder if they even had a plot bible, which is a book or data store that records all the personality traits of each character and things that happen to change them, this way multiple writers have the same base character for each of their stories and it allows them to slowly change a character.

    Overall the sad writing is what made this show sink for me. I can't blame the actors at all, they did what they could. It was a chore to finish Season 4.

    Pros: The actors worked hard on this and did make it more watchable (especially Jeffrey Coombs).

    Cons: The writing was a mess, no permanent progression, no real original ideas, just rehashing old subjects.    … Expand