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Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

So I had vague memories of Star Trek Enterprise when it came out 15 years ago. Captain Quantum Leap, Hawt Vulcan, British Dude, Southern Dude, who the @#$% hires an alien doctor for a human ship, and the rest.

I watched most of the first season and then pretty much forgot about it.

And it seems so did everyone else.

Enterprise lasted 4 seasons while the 3 shows preceding it lasted 7 a piece. Even Andromeda (Hercules in space) manged 5! And as far as I can tell there's no real fandom of it, no one cosplaying Enterprise crew, no one quoting lines from it, no references to the Xindi (Zindi?), nothing.

I'm now catching up on Netflix (for the record Indian Netflix sucks) and... it's not that bad.

Acting is better than TNG (Patrick Steward aside), FX are the best of the 5 ST shows, there's lots of Earth based stories that viewers can relate to, lots of Easter eggs...

So why didn't/doesn't anyone care?

Some thoughts:

It's a prequel, in a franchise whose mission is 'boldly go where no one has gone before' they're going back.
(of course this didn't seem to hurt the Abrams Star Trek which made a gazillion starbucks at the box office)

More of the same. While there's some change it still feels like a Star Trek show. Same tech, same directing style, same people standing around spouting terrible dialogue, just with more blue. So much blue...

Pissing off the dedicated fans. OK, so it's a prequel. A prequel with Ferengi and Borg showing up 200 years early. And technology that's more advanced than Kirk had 100 years later. And hand waving with a 'temporal cold war'. They even left off the Star Trek name for the first season or two.

Pissing off the casual viewers. While trying to break with ST cliches it also has stories where Dr. Soong teams up with Khan's genetic upgrades against the Orion pirates. If that sentence made sense to you then congratulations.

Changing styles. The Battlestar Galactica reboot came along 2-3 years later and just blew this show away. I like space opera, I like it a lot. And I will settle for 'not that bad'. But only if 'really awesome' is not available. And once 'awesome' became an option 'not that bad' gets forgotten. Plus it came along just as DVDs and then steaming became ubiquitous. I can't remember the last time I made time in my schedule to watch a TV show (probably BSG). If I can watch anything I want any time I want, would Enterprise make the list?

So, I dunno, any thoughts?

 
   
Made in ca
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer





British Columbia

The biggest thing was the waste of an interesting opportunity. It was us first stumbling out there. It could have really explored that for years.

Done well its compelling. Apollo 13 is just some guys in a sardine can but it hits the right notes and the stakes are well defined and serve the narrative.

Enterprise panicked and went back to the well.

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Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

I think the cast of Enterprise suffered from having the worst of both TNG and Voyager; mediocre to middle acting combined with bland boring characters who only managed to be interesting when episodes were explicitly about them. Phlox is the only one who I think was always fun to have on screen, and he was but the third in a line of eccentric doctor characters.

Honestly though I think the biggest hole in Enterprise is that the only thing more bland and uninteresting than the cast are the episodes. Seasons 1 and 2 have maybe three episodes I remember well between them and thought were good. That's even worse than season 1 of TNG! Seasons 3 and 4 did better, but not well enough to save the show from the body blows the ratings took in the first two.

People wanted to see the origins of the Federation, conflict with the Klingons, and the Earth-Romulan War. Enterprise made the Kingons cartoon villains, dealt with the origins of the Federation more in how much people talked about it than actually doing anything about it, and the show ended before we even got to the war with the Romulans. The most memorable episodes of Enterprise deal directly with the Andorians and the Vulcans imo, and the rest of it is varying degrees of forgettable which is probably why no one talks about it, cosplays it, or quotes it is precisely that.

Out of the 28 seasons of Star Trek, the Enterprise ones are most memorable for how mediocre they were.

Also just saying that it still shocks me Andromeda made it to five seasons. I thought that whole thing became boring after season two, and it just kept sinking deeper and deeper into incoherence from there.

   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

My problem with ENT is that it either didn't feel like Star Trek, or tried too hard to be Star Trek (the Borg you mentioned are a great example). However, I loved the Mirror episodes.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






Like Voyager, I think the problem is that they set up a radically different setting, then went and watered it down with the same old clichés and brainworms.

No shields - but they "polarised the hull plating" instead.
It's set just after first contact with the Vulcans - but hey, let's put a Klingon in the series opener for no good reason. And some Borg later on. We've got a female communications officer, a Vulcan and an engineer with a funny accent. At least Uhura, Spock and Scoty were good at their jobs unlike this mob.

Time travel. just ... stop it. Star Trek IV and Guardian of Forever are the only time travel stories worth keeping. With an honourable mention for Trials and Tribble-ations. Other than that they don't do anyone any favours. Despite the other flaws I mention, this was what made me think "this is going to be bad", and they did it in the middle of the pilot.
And stop going back to Earth. TOS hardly ever did it (just once, IIRC, and that was a thinly-veiled pilot for a spin-off series. And they went back in time anyway). Get out there and explore, for goodness' sake. HMS Beagle managed a five-year mission, and it was only 90' long. Sod off and don't come back until you've gone at least as far as V'Ger did.

The look of the thing. I realise that it's hard to make something that is simultaneously "futuristic for 2001" and "looks less advanced than futuristic for 1966", but that's no excuse for "looks like Hunt for Red October".

Admittedly my dislike may be coloured by SFDebris' rather scathing reviews, but I wasn't a great fan of it even before I saw those.

I liked the Andorians, and I liked the way that the Enterprise managed to bring them and the Vulcans slightly closer together (OK, it would have been better if it were done by a diplomatic mission rather than the Enterprise blundering around like fools, but I'll take what I can get). More of that would have been good. As would have been increasing the number of species seen as recurring characters (or even as new crewmwmbers - let that show the increasing influence of the Federation as time goes by - more and more non-human crewmembers in the background), although their prosthetics budget might not have been up to it.

I'm not normally a fan of crowbarring in references to the "future", but it might have been nice to address some human colonies that didn't want to join the Federation - a little hint as to how Tarsus IV developed to the point that the leader of the colony could choose to euthanize half the population. Or ones fled Khan's supermen and the Eugenics Wars and feared the Federation was the descendants of that.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/29 10:08:36


 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And I forgot the final episode... (which I skipped ahead for along with the really fun Mirror Universe)

OMG...

The whole show was Rikers' holodeck program!

OK maybe just that episode but I like to think it was the WHOLE 4 SEASONS.

Most disrespectful ending since St Elsewhere, but at least when St Elsewhere did it it was clever (that is literally 1 of the 2 things I can remember from St Elsewhere, the other is Dr Hippy asking Dr Butthead about making a memorial to Vietnam protesters to go with the Vietnam Wall opening).

 
   
Made in de
Primus





Palmerston North

It has been a while (15 years) since I have seen it, so my memories may not be very accurate, but I remember that I really did not like the Captain.

I was expeting someone who was bold and assertive, someone who seemed a bit less evovled than Picard to reflect that this series was set before Kirks time.
Instead the Captain was weak and moany.

I did not like the opening song, also the sex seemed like it was there as a main course instead of spice.
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

 AndrewGPaul wrote:


No shields - but they "polarised the hull plating" instead.
It's set just after first contact with the Vulcans - but hey, let's put a Klingon in the series opener for no good reason. And some Borg later on. We've got a female communications officer, a Vulcan and an engineer with a funny accent. At least Uhura, Spock and Scoty were good at their jobs unlike this mob.



I can't help but think if they'd make it 50 years earlier it might have been more interesting. At a few points they do say outright there's no wars on Earth and that's a shame because I'd find a US-China space war a lot more interesting than an Earth-Rubber Forehead conflict. Imagine a balkanized move to the stars, with US, European, Islamic Conference, OAS, Chinese, etc fleets. Plus rebels, genetic augments, greedy corporations and all the non-real world factions.

And y'know, if they want diversity I would love a devout Muslim woman on the cast somewhere. MOre signs that the Earth is not a California shopping mall, that diversity still mean diverse lifestyles, faiths and opinions.

 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






It's amusing that the Enterprise crew is perhaps less diverse than that of Star Trek, which featured among its bridge crew a black woman (a twofer!) and a Russian. At the height of the Cold War. Enterprise really should have had an Iraqi and a transgender crewperson.

There was an early episode where the Enterprise D was at a planet of hermaphrodites and Riker gets off with one. The actor was a woman in androgynous clothes and makeup, although Jonathan Frakes originally wanted the character to be played by a male actor.

By comparison, I'm thinking of some of the supporting cast that have popped up on Doctor Who in the last few years - quite a few different ethnicities and gender preferences dropped in with no comment.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

Hmm, I'm not a fan of diversity just for diversity's sake, if you take my meaning, and not that that's what you're saying. Someone like Vasquez in Aliens was absolutely, positively perfect (and there's a hilarious story that she went to the audition thinking Aliens was about "illegal aliens"!) but sometimes in later Star Trek series, it has felt forced. Unlike the original, as you point out, which was extremely diverse all on its own (this really stood out to me in the recent movie remakes, too) but felt "natural".

I didn't realize these were on Netflix so I might check them out now

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/29 12:06:06


 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

Can't speak to US Netflix but they're on Indian Netflix.

 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






It's not so much prequelitis, but that it's not a sequel to the frankly sublime Deep Space 9.

See, DS9 changed the shape and politics of the Alpha Quadrant following a serious, sustained threat from an aggressive outside force.

I wanted to see how the Federation in particular deals with the aftermath of the Dominion War. It went from Scientific to full-on War Footing. Stuff like that doesn't just get put neatly back in it's box.

The Dominion War also brought the Alpha Quadrant together, in the end. Everyone vs The Dominion and The Breen in the end.

We deserve a follow up to that.

Enterprise went back to fill in blanks that didn't exist before it created them for it to fill in.

   
Made in us
Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces






Southeastern PA, USA

This might ruffle some feathers, but I think any new ST endeavor will have a hard time both serving the diehards and intriguing casual fans and new audiences. A large chunk of the diehards like what they like, and don't want to see anything truly different from ST. Meanwhile, many casual fans tend to feel like they've seen it all before -- a result of the many self-imposed 'rules' of ST -- and want something fresh.

ST needs both audiences...but good luck making that work (see the Abrams films here too). As someone said, both Voyager and Enterprise promised something fresh and new, but wussed out *immediately*.

Ultimately, I think Enterprise was 'same' enough to not interest new audiences, but 'different' enough -- part of that being that it wasn't a continuation of the other TV series' 'timeline' -- to tamp down the enthusiasm of the diehards.

The sweet spot for ST is very, very narrow, if it's even achievable IMO. Look at Discovery. Any other possible issues aside, the fact that it's breaking from the episodic format and (*gasp*) willing to show Federation personnel in conflict is enough to doom it among certain segments.

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Made in gb
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The North

Personal preference:

Star Trek Enterprise was so painfully 'Americana' that it killed it for me.

The rest of the franchise was multi-cultural and an effort on the behalf of all humans. Enterprise just felt like 'America leading the world which doesn't actually appear to make much if any contribution to the foundation of the Federation'.

The EU is much closer to a tolerant left-leaning society like the Federation but perhaps they were conveniently nuked during the war and the US suddenly became tolerant and progressive. Ugh

Anyway, the plot also seems tame and uninspired. I can't really put my finger on it. Compared to Deep Space 9 that has a number of interesting plot-lines I really have no interest in Enterprise.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/29 13:44:38


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Made in us
Fate-Controlling Farseer





Fort Campbell

I'm a fan of Enterprise. Sure there were some things wrong with it. I've always held the belief that when Star Trek writers got lazy, they'd do some stupid time travel story line. Way to much of that happened with Enterprise.

I really liked the flavor of the first couple of seasons with them kind of flailing around in space. A ship that was the pinnacle of their techonology, but as they discovered in most cases, was laughable.

I think the Xindi arc went on for to long, but I really enjoyed the premise behind it. Humanity had just thrown off the shackles of their war like nature. They were trying to become a better people, and all of a sudden they're thrown right back into it.

Season 4, I liked that they took the opportunity to close some gaps. The Klingon thing, while it really didn't need any attention, was neat that they did it. I didn't even mind the Borg, since it was an attempt to try to tie First Contact into the continuity.

I wish they'd have been able to go on with the show, it had some great potential, but it was a victim of its time I think.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/29 13:49:31


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Made in gb
Mighty Vampire Count






UK

It did have two fantastic Mirror Universe epsiodes - brilliant.

IMO it was ok - agree that the whole our best ship is just rubbish was quite good.

Amusingly traded on T'Pols breasts early on having learnt from Voyager - oh yeah lets smear go over each other in tight t-shirts

Got bored with the Time war and Xindi.

They need to do a full Mirror Universe series

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Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

I've been watching Enterprise on Netflix (and yes, it is indeed on US Netflix). I'm nearly done with the series, having just watched the two Mirror episodes, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly despite some episodes being laughably terrible. I really like the visuals and set design; in many ways NX-01 is more realistic than any of the other ships on Star Trek since everything "feels" smaller and more confined. There was too much sexuality in the show; the aforementioned episode where the characters smear stuff on each other made me burst out laughing at how contrived that situation was. The time episodes were mostly bad too, and they really did not need to cover the stupid Klingon head ridge disappearance thing (TBH they should have never mentioned it even in the DS9 episode; just chalk it up to TOS not having Klingon forehead makeup in its low budget and move on).

Still, for all of its faults, I've enjoyed the show and would still recommend it to any Star Trek fan to watch at least once. Just gotta muscle your way through the bad episodes...

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Made in us
Most Glorious Grey Seer





Everett, WA

Like all the other TV Treks (other than ToS) there was no adventure, less interesting stories, and a enough technobabble to give Voyager a run for its money. If TV Guide were still around they'd list the current episode with the sentence, "The crew struggles with some manufactured crisis while T'Pol goes into heat. Again."

Then there was the whole "that thing you like from the other show, well we actually did it first" theme that ran through the series.

The time travel plot of the show was boring drivel on its best day.

The series is only good for those two Mirror universe episodes. Otherwise it's completely irrelevant to the franchise, sort of like the TNG movies.

Oh, and the whole anti-military theme of the third season got old fast. "Let's put Marines on the ship and call them Makos so the crew can hate them because they're military and deserve to be hated because they're not enlightened like the rest of us. Then they can try to take over the ship every other episode because that's what the military does when they're on a ship." I swear the writing hit a level of childishness that even TNG couldn't manage.


This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/06/29 18:23:39


 
   
Made in au
[MOD]
Making Stuff






Under the couch

For me, the problem with Enterprise was just that it was boring.

While I tend to gravitate towards scifi over other genres, the biggest drawcard for me in any show is interesting characters, and without that no amount of pewpew lasers will win the day. Even at its worst, the crew in TNG were interesting.

From the little I watched of Enterprise, it was pretty much just Captain Bakula and a bunch of cardboard cutouts. And without an interesting crew, it was never going to hold my attention.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/29 19:25:30


 
   
Made in us
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The Great State of Texas

 RiTides wrote:
Hmm, I'm not a fan of diversity just for diversity's sake, if you take my meaning, and not that that's what you're saying. Someone like Vasquez in Aliens was absolutely, positively perfect (and there's a hilarious story that she went to the audition thinking Aliens was about "illegal aliens"!) but sometimes in later Star Trek series, it has felt forced. Unlike the original, as you point out, which was extremely diverse all on its own (this really stood out to me in the recent movie remakes, too) but felt "natural".

I didn't realize these were on Netflix so I might check them out now



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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It's not so much prequelitis, but that it's not a sequel to the frankly sublime Deep Space 9.

See, DS9 changed the shape and politics of the Alpha Quadrant following a serious, sustained threat from an aggressive outside force.

I wanted to see how the Federation in particular deals with the aftermath of the Dominion War. It went from Scientific to full-on War Footing. Stuff like that doesn't just get put neatly back in it's box.

The Dominion War also brought the Alpha Quadrant together, in the end. Everyone vs The Dominion and The Breen in the end.

We deserve a follow up to that.

Enterprise went back to fill in blanks that didn't exist before it created them for it to fill in.


Well there's no series after DS9. Infact some bits of the future have advanced weaponry that blow up Borg cubes with the same ease as the bioships did.
I'd posit thats the point the Federation goes from republic...to EMPIRE! mauahahaha

Now there's a series I'd watch. Watch our intrepid young heroes rampage through the galaxy the Spanish through the New World. Think the Mirrorverse but with Sovereign class dreadnoughts leading the good fight...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/29 21:26:50


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Made in us
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On moon miranda.

Part of the issue was that, the kinda fundamental core premise of Star Trek from the beginning was that Earth had it's gak sorted out, everything was amazing and peaceful at home, and humanity was standing on its own amongst other races and cultures, and the excitement came from exploring the true unknown and inner improvement as opposed to retreading or remaking what already was or had been.

Enterprise, in exploring this earlier time, really rather backtracked on the fundamental premise and spent way too much time in an era that the rest of the series was completely disconnected from, and the retcons just made it worse.

The other parts were bad acting, bad writing, terrible retcons, an awful intro sequence, and generally a poor concept and execution all around.

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Fort Campbell

 Vaktathi wrote:
Part of the issue was that, the kinda fundamental core premise of Star Trek from the beginning was that Earth had it's gak sorted out, everything was amazing and peaceful at home, and humanity was standing on its own amongst other races and cultures, and the excitement came from exploring the true unknown and inner improvement as opposed to retreading or remaking what already was or had been.

Enterprise, in exploring this earlier time, really rather backtracked on the fundamental premise and spent way too much time in an era that the rest of the series was completely disconnected from, and the retcons just made it worse.

The other parts were bad acting, bad writing, terrible retcons, an awful intro sequence, and generally a poor concept and execution all around.


I personally found the intro sequence to be the best of all the shows.

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Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




It was that bad. Bland actors (especially Cap'n Quantum, king of incoherent decision-making and terrible dog owner), bad scripts, incoherent stories, shoe-horning random 'Trek-things' in, then going off on that asinine time war 'plot' (bonus for random Nazis). Just... ugh.

The whole crew was offensively bad at diplomacy and exploration. The 'oppressive Vulcans' were just baffling. No idea why they'd care.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







I think a big problem with Enterprise is the Time War being a major focus for much of the show. Time travel is messy, it's confusing and you really need to know your gak if you're going to try it. Or, do what Doctor Who does and just ignore the main principles of it to make a character drama.

I think the best part of Enterprise was Season 4, however they essentially just rushed it too much. If most of Enterprises season 4 storylines were instead miniarcs throughout the show - 6 episodes, say (and this may include Mirror, Mirror too!) throughout the shows run, I think it would have been better received.
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Enterprise came at the end of a very long period of Star Trek being on TV continuously, running with a formula that only grew more rigid over that time. There was a real burn out factor, especially after Voyager had really tested a lot of people's patience through its run.

The other issue is that human crew in Star Trek got really terribly generic over time. It was bad in Voyager, and in Enterprise it was awful. As in previous shows the aliens were normally pretty interesting, but man I just could not tell the engineer apart from the security chief in any way. They were both completely generic human people. The comms officer started with a role translating language but they decided that wasn't very interesting after a couple of episodes* and she just became another generic human crew member.

Also after years of awkward fan service with Seven on Nine, dropping a Vulcan in this series to do much the same thing was something of a tipping point. Particularly because outside of the fan service, they were both interesting characters.


*And fair enough, it didn't really make for interesting plots, just functioning to sometimes add a roadblock delay to the story.

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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

It's the only Star Treck show I've not watched all the episodes of, it just didn't seem to have any chemistry (and this is from someone who doesn't dislike Voyager)

It started off OK (well adequate) with the 'we're so backward technology wise' theme but drifted down from there

and then came the time war, dear Gods keep script writers away from time travel, and I just gave up

especially as the 'characters' in the crew just got less and less interesting as time went on, we're meant to like (or dislike) them more as we get to know them, but instead the just blured together into an uninteresting mush of humans with a few poorly served (plot wise) aliens as spice

 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






RiTides wrote:Hmm, I'm not a fan of diversity just for diversity's sake, if you take my meaning, and not that that's what you're saying. Someone like Vasquez in Aliens was absolutely, positively perfect (and there's a hilarious story that she went to the audition thinking Aliens was about "illegal aliens"!) but sometimes in later Star Trek series, it has felt forced. Unlike the original, as you point out, which was extremely diverse all on its own (this really stood out to me in the recent movie remakes, too) but felt "natural".


Yes, that's what I meant - they should make a conscious decision to diversify the cast, but the characterisation, drama and plot doesn't need to necessarily always draw from that diversity; just having them there can make enough of a point (like Furiosa in Mad Max; the film just put a woman into the alpha dog role, left her to get on with it without comment and let the audience draw whatever message they want).

gorgon wrote:This might ruffle some feathers, but I think any new ST endeavor will have a hard time both serving the diehards and intriguing casual fans and new audiences. A large chunk of the diehards like what they like, and don't want to see anything truly different from ST. Meanwhile, many casual fans tend to feel like they've seen it all before -- a result of the many self-imposed 'rules' of ST -- and want something fresh.

ST needs both audiences...but good luck making that work (see the Abrams films here too).


IMO, the Abrams films look like they decided to update the idea for the current audience. If any old fans liked it enough to come along then fine, but they weren't really chasing them.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/30 11:24:31


 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

AndrewGPaul - I think it's just a different take, but when I watched Mad Max it did not even occur to me to wonder about Furiosa being featured. Imo, that's what you're going for - characters that fit their roles perfectly. Some later Star Trek casts just didn't gel as well as the original mix, imo (how perfectly those characters were made stuck out to me again even in the remakes). Then again I'm just a junkie for the original, too
   
Made in us
Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces






Southeastern PA, USA

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
gorgon wrote:This might ruffle some feathers, but I think any new ST endeavor will have a hard time both serving the diehards and intriguing casual fans and new audiences. A large chunk of the diehards like what they like, and don't want to see anything truly different from ST. Meanwhile, many casual fans tend to feel like they've seen it all before -- a result of the many self-imposed 'rules' of ST -- and want something fresh.

ST needs both audiences...but good luck making that work (see the Abrams films here too).


IMO, the Abrams films look like they decided to update the idea for the current audience. If any old fans liked it enough to come along then fine, but they weren't really chasing them.


Oh, I agree. And note that the biggest critics of those films were among the core Trekker audience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 djones520 wrote:
 Vaktathi wrote:
The other parts were bad acting, bad writing, terrible retcons, an awful intro sequence, and generally a poor concept and execution all around.


I personally found the intro sequence to be the best of all the shows.


Yeah, I totally agree. But the diehards only ever want ships gliding through space to the tune of some orchestral suite.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/30 13:13:03


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Bab 5's intros and BSG's just beat the crap out of any of them but STOS.

And when I say BSG I mean both series.

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
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