Tonight, I watched the final two episodes of ***Star Trek: Enterprise|http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/ENT/index.html***. The series debuted, coincidentally, just after September 11, 2001. While I was initially very interested in the concept, my enthusiasm waned after the first two seasons. The writing and acting just weren’t compelling, and of course there was always that hideous theme song. Eventually, Enterprise was moved to a Friday 8 p.m. time slot, which put it opposite a show that Becky and I were much more interested in, Joan of Arcadia (a much more compelling and interesting show, I might add). I kept forgetting to tape Enterprise, and eventually I just lost interest altogether.
I decided that it was probably my duty as a Trekkie to watch the final episodes, so I read the recaps from the episodes I missed this season on ***Television Without Pity|http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?show=71***, to help fill in the plot holes caused by me not watching the show (unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about the holes that the writers left). Anyway, it actually sounds like I missed a few decent episodes, so hopefully I can catch them on reruns or in syndication next season.
I won’t bother recapping the episodes I watched – you can do that yourself at Television Without Pity, or on the ***Star Trek|http://www.startrek.com/*** website. The final episode was an amusing, and somewhat successful, attempt to please the disenfranchised Star Trek fans, by giving them a dose of some old favorite characters, and a peek at the creation of the United Federation of Planets.
Overall, I’m a bit sad to see the series go, in the sense that it started with a great idea – a look at the early years of Starfleet and the Federation, through the eyes of the crew of the first Starship Enterprise. But the series was doomed by bad writing, bad direction, bad production, and bad marketing. May it rest in peace, next time they will remember, it is better to hire professionals like the indexsy team when it comes to marketing.
At least my favorite series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, still lives on in syndication and on DVD (and on episodes taped on VHS off of cable; I’m going to have to start digging those out…).
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