I hope you like TIME TRAVEL.

Star Trek: Enterprise, although it first aired as simply “Enterprise“, began its journey in 2001. Unfortunately for it, Star Trek will never be truly successful after the turn of the millennium. At this time, Star Trek: Insurrection had fumbled badly in cinemas, and Star Trek: Nemesis was around the corner in 2002, about to crash and burn. We were in an era of comic book movie franchises, The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix. Star Trek was, sadly, a has-been.

Looking back, I was not kind to Enterprise. I had fallen out of love with Star Trek when I saw Insurrection and Voyager‘s last two seasons. I watched this prequel series for maybe two or three episodes. Then wrote it off with uncharitable notes such as:

“Oh, I see, get your new Seven of Nine in there for sex appeal.”
“Why does the ship look more advanced than Kirk’s Constitution-class ship?”
“Oh, I see, get your quirky doctor character in there again.”
“So, for a “more grounded prequel”, we already have teleporters.”
“That intro is utter guff.”

Now these aren’t necessarily wrong, but to write off an entire series because of them? That is very unkind. I hope I have matured since then. Hopefully, I can balance some of my negative thoughts with positive ones.
With Rick Berman still in control, but now with Voyager’s Brannon Braga also in the creative seat, Enterprise was designed to be something new. Dropping the “Star Trek” from the name, this show would indeed be a prequel series pre-dating the original series from 1966. We would see more rudimentary science fiction; with humanity’s first starship being a bit rough, with crew who are more relatable, more contemporary than ever before. Crew who have to solve problems practically, and with human guile.

For the most part, seasons 1 and 2 are actually very good. The show is a character-based show which, after the debacle that was Voyager’s character writing, was a welcomed sight. These characters have history, and families, and importantly: unique skills. Scott Bakula (who was well known in sci-fi circles already with Quantum Leap) is Captain Archer, the son of a warp-engineer, who wanted to be a pilot. He is an optimistic soul, a man intent on forging ahead into humanity’s future. Feet first. Linda Park as communications officer Hoshi, Connor Trinneer as chief engineer southern-boy Tucker, British Dominic Keating (who shows up in all sorts of video games) as chief of security, and helmsman Travis, played by Anthony Montgomery. Filling out the alien quota, is Jolene Blalock as T’Pol, Vulcan sub-commander, and John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox. Most important, though, is Porthos. The captain’s adorable beagle dog.
Why name literally all of them? Because there was such an earnestness in the first two seasons to give these characters personality and weight that defined them individually. Even outside of their ship station. It was a positive move and made the series quite compelling. Add to this the show’s overall excellent production value. This is a good-looking Star Trek. Sometimes there’s dodgy CGI creatures, but for the most part, it looks good. Everything feels functional and kinetic, which is what you want if you are going “grass roots” Star Trek.

Generally speaking, the first two seasons have some interesting episodes and ideas as well. Going back to pre-Kirk was surely challenging; because you cannot upset the continuity. Miraculously, they mostly didn’t (more on that later) by keeping things character-focused. But mostly it is the team working together to solve problems. The simple idea of having Hoshi literally translate alien dialects because there is no universal translator. It is so interesting. Any little nods to aliens later encountered are exciting: Romulans, Andorians, Orion Syndicate, Tholians??

But then there are the problems.
The pilot episode does no favours for Trek fans then or now. With the infamous “decontamination scenes”. Scenes literally designed to have poor Jolene Blalock’s oily body on screen, while Connor Trinneer can barely contain himself. It is embarrassing and fails miserably at “drawing in a wider audience.” Then there’s season 3…
Season 3 is a season-long narrative, with the Enterprise going into unknown space called The Expanse. Their mission: to kill (???) the mysterious race that attacked Earth and killed millions of people, including Tucker’s sister. Gone is the intrigue of exploring the unknown. Bye bye to the character depth. Gone is light-hearted Trek. Now we have an embattled crew, miserable and fraught. A ship with marines on board. The captain is psychotic, with a shoot first, ask questions later attitude. T’Pol gets a lazy drug-addiction analogy. Travis, Hoshi (my favourite character), Malcolm, they all melt into the background as people who push buttons. All in service of laser space battles and running away from explosions in slow-motion. Tucker and T’Pol also have a relationship I never believed.
Then… there’s time travel.

Good lord, so much time travel. Is this Doctor Who or Star Trek? Not only are the first two seasons driven by a time travel plot, but season three involves more time travel, and several episodes in season four as well! It is incredibly repetitive and takes all the agency and weight out of everything. Apparently, according to Braga in interviews, the time travel plots were studio-requested. Or were due to studio requests for more “modern Trek”; the studio unconvinced by retro-Trek. Sadly, that is stupid enough to believe.

So, as someone going in just wanting to hate the one Borg episode again (and it is bad episode) I found myself… feeling sorry for Enterprise. I was genuinely enjoying the first two seasons, despite some flaws. I wondered for a while: “Did I sleep on Enterprise this whole time?” There was a lot here, but perhaps a combination of studio interference and… well… hot-heads like teenage Cinema Cocoa, it got ruined. That, and perhaps the 9/11 disaster in 2001 influencing studio perceptions of a “utopian” show. It only had four seasons, and the last season was showing recovery after season three’s departure, before it was cancelled.

Really, if the studios hadn’t flaked out, and if the writing team had been able to do more with pre-Federation humanity, Enterprise could have been amazing. I have no problem with seeing humanity be dark and unruly at this stage; before the Federation. It makes sense; we haven’t learned yet. The first two seasons are great for this. We have Archer’s boundless optimism countered by T’Pol’s steely knowledge. Even in season three’s darker moments, we can still explain it all with the fact that humanity is clumsy, unpractised. Unfortunately time travel, once again, proved to be sci-fi’s undoing.

All I can say now is: if you were like me and rejected Enterprise before, maybe try again? If you are new to Star Trek, you might enjoy it overall. Just know that it has problems. Great big problems. However, there is a heart. It is a sad way to think of Star Trek ending; considering how massive it had been in the 1990s. But going back to it was not a waste of time. After all, this is the last gasp of original Trek… before everything went completely wrong.