The Few, The Proud

[scarfman]

You know, I like Star Trek: Enterprise, I really do. Yet I have a real hard time pointing at any particular element of it and saying that that's what I like about it.

For instance, for each Star Trek series I've picked out a model episode, a high-quality example of what it does and does well and does better than the others. For the original, Doomsday Machine (actually that was my mother's suggestion). For TNG, Measure of a Man. For DS9, In The Pale Moonlight. Even for Voyager: One Small Step. For Enterprise ... uh ...

The closest I can come to is Future Tense, which (if I even remember the title correctly) Twilight which is the third-season story set twenty years on from the Xindi War. It's set during the only Star Trek season arc, it's time travel which Enterprise was all over (but that's a different topic), it highlights the ambiguous relationship between Archer and T'Pol, and - whoa! - everyone liked it.

Edited for episode title 12/20/05

Comments

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I saw Doomsday Machine on a Saturday morning the last time I was home. It wasn't among my favourites when I was a teenage Trekkie, but damn-- it really is good. I'm really starting to see this fabled Hornblower influence in Kirk and his harebrained save-the-day schemes.

[1-big-grizz.livejournal.com]

YES! Someone finally stood up and said "I like Enterprise." I can’t understand why so many people didn’t like it.

If I had to pinpoint what I liked most about the show, I’d have to say it’s the nipples way the writers tried to make the adversaries dynamic individuals rather than just generic bad guys. One of the downfalls of the previous series is that they all very clearly define the “bad guys” and the “good guys”. There was hardly ever a grey area, and Enterprise tried to break that mold. Shran is a perfect example. He wasn’t really good or bad, he was just a dude with his own agenda. What he was doing was good... from his point of view.

I also like the way the crew was still so connected to Earth. That scene where the bridge crew is recording the message for the school children back home was brilliant.

Oh, and BTW, high five on Measure of a Man. I think that’s probably my fav too. The scene where Data asks Picard why all Starfleet officers aren’t required to have cybernetic eyes; the “slavery” conversation in Ten-Forward between Picard and Guinan; and Picards closing arguments at the end of the trial are all incredible Trek moments. I still get a lump in my throat when he points at Data and says "well there it sits!"

Yeah, I miss Enterprise, and am trying to download all I can so I can watch it again.

[scarfman]

If you like Measure of a Man, and you like fanfiction, you may like my In Thy Image. On their return to Earth, the crew of USS Voyager sue Starfleet Command in a class-action suit on behalf of their EMH and other holographic beings in Starfleet service, and the Time Lord known as the Doctor litigates the case for them. It's a logical extrapolation of the exploration of holographic beings made by various Voyager episodes. Though it's set just after the ship's return to Earth it was written some months earlier - yes, before Author! Author! aired, and I have the Usenet post headers to prove it. It occurs in the same crossover multiverse as do my fanfiction comic strips (and the other stories on my website).

[trinalin.livejournal.com]

My favorite STNG was and will ever be "Darmok." 'nuff said. :-)

[1-big-grizz.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's a gooder.
"The Inner Light" is way up on the list too.
And who can forget the first time they ever saw "Best Of Both Worlds Part 1" and wondered if they were really writing Patrick Stewart out of the series?

Damn I miss that show.

[larksilver.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Enterprise, too!

The Measure of a Man was a benchmark episode, but the Darmok one was my favorite.