The Pickytarian

I like Enterprise, OK. (Hate the theme song with a passion though.)

Dissappointed that they scuttled the series' premise that it was set in the past relative to Star Trek and the latter series with all the meddling time travelers.

Did flesh out the Vulcans a bit, if not exceedingly well.

Weren't the energy beings the Organians that 'later' intervene in the Klingon/Federation hostilities in TOS?

I used to passionately hate the theme song as well, but I liked the visuals of the intro, with the progression of ships through history, so after 3 seasons (or is it four), I find the theme doesn't bug me anymore.

I watch Enterprise every week, but I have to admit that it is only a so-so show, and I won't miss it terribly. All the other incarnations of Star Trek (not counting TOS, which I do not and never have liked), were filled with a myriad of races, artificial beings, and people with either extremely interesting backgrounds/personalities, or super powers (Geordi's visor, Sisko's relationship with the prophets and demi-god status amongst the Bajorans, etc.). Even TOS, for it's time, was filled with that, having a black woman on as a sex symbol, a Japanese man as a high-ranking officer, etc.

The Enterprise cast, by comparison, is quite bland. Archer's personality is vague, and he often makes decisions designed to keep the plot moving rather than being in line with his character. Malcolm... who cares about him? Yoshi is super smokin' hot, but again, does her personality really stand out? An T'pol doesn't seem emotionless to be a believable vulcan, nor emotional enough to be a human, but instead of that making her a Worf type character, caught between worlds, it instead makes her impossible to predict/understand.

Trip and the doctor are okay, but Travis? Come on. You would think in this day and age we'd be past the token black guy with no personality.

Ironically, my favorite character is Commander Shran, played materfully by Jeffrey Coombs (Weyoun from DS9), who really gives life to the paranoia of the Andorians. And that scene in the last episode where Shran's blue-skinned girlfriend whoops one of the Mako's asses in nothing but her underwear was great, both from a martial arts point of view, as well as a blue cleavage perspective.

Tom the Dog has some good comments about the show (http://tomthedog.blogspot.com/2005/02/tv-enterprise.html) that echo a lot of what you said, Peat, namely the late character development and the great work by Jeffrey Coombs.

OK, it wasn't the greatest show in the world, but I really thought it was improving. T'Pol was a very non-Vulcan-like Vulcan, but that's what made her interesting. She would have to be very human-like to want to join the Enterprise crew and to start a relationship with Tripp. And they addressed her inner conflict in the show, most recently with her new studying of that ancient Vulcan sect or whatever it was. She was certainly a much more interesting character than the black Vulcan guy from Voyager, that's for damn sure.

I stopped watching Voyager after the first Seven of Nine season, and by then I was watching only sporadically. So I guess I like Enterprise more than Voyager. I really hated Kate Mulgrew and you're right about Tuvok sucking.

Still, for all the time and episodes they devoted to developing T'Pol, I never felt it. I can't tell you how little I had invested in those Vulcan episodes. I so don't care about Vulcan philosophers.

And Jolene Blaylock is kind of freaky looking. She has a weird gauntness about her face and that heavy jaw. Plus it looks like she got collagen injections in her lips. Granted, she has possibly the nicest ass ever, but I don't trust a girl that top and bottom heavy with a 10 inch waist. Looks like she had a couple of ribs removed, ala the Supergirl statue.

I think they could have "fixed" Enterprise by beefing up the cast with either some cool aliens or some A-level actors. It worked with DS9, which started off pretty terrible, but grew into a fantastic show. I have the last few seasons on tape, and they are awesome.

But hey, whaddaya gonna do? No one spends the time to work on a show without the ratings anymore.

I'm gald we can all agree that Voyager was the worst show of all. Seven of Nine was all that show had going for it, and she wasn't really enough.

And you're right, Jolene Blaylock started to get very freakish in an eating-disorderly way last year. I think that the pressure of being on national TV in a skin-tight suit every week got to her. Still, it was kind of cruelly entertaining to watch and comment on her progressive starvation, in the same way that it was entertaining to watch Riker's uncontrollable inflation over the years.

Agreed.