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DVD TV Show Reviews
Star Trek is one of the most successful franchises ever.
The first series was good, by sixties standards, but it failed to find its
audience until later, in reruns. The second series (Next Generation) was a
huge success, but subsequent series (and movies) have been less and less so.
There is a lot of speculation as to why this is so: Rodenberry's death, and/or
Rick Berman's taking over the franchise; Star Trek fans growing up; fans getting
pickier; more science fiction shows for it to compete with; poorer quality in
the writing, etc. Whatever the reason, Enterprise is the most recent (and
possibly the last) Star Trek series in TV history, and also the least
successful.
The show's premise is interesting: the voyages of the first
starship Enterprise, long before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, not long after our
current time. The captain, Captain Archer, is played by former Quantum
Leap star Scott Bakula. The producers may have figured that Bakula's fans
from that other scifi show would jump to see him in this. I loved QL and
Bakula, but I don't think he ever fit right for playing the captain. I
don't know if it's his fault, or the writers' fault. As Sam on QL, he was
cute, kinda laid-back, and a really nice guy. As Archer he is very uptight
and mostly humorless. Also, they never should have cut his hair because,
well, he has kind of a big nose and so, while he looked cut on QL with the hair
to balance out the length, it didn't work in Enterprise. This is from a
woman's point of view, of course!
The other characters were fine, but I don't think the
writers ever really developed any of them well enough to make them as
interesting as the characters on Next Gen (or even Deep Space Nine). Many
Star Trek fans took issue with some of the storylines, feeling like they made
too many changes in the Star Trek timeline (remember, they can't really mess
with major issues because Star Trek fans know what will happen in the future, in
Kirk's time or beyond). This may have also hampered them a bit in finding
stories. The stories in Enterprise are solid, but nothing special.
Later, they tried to make it more interesting by putting in more "action"
(meaning, violence, shoot 'em up, bang bang), but that's not what viewers
wanted, either. Then they put in more romance, perhaps to bring in female
viewers. Clearly the writers never really had a clear vision that worked.
In this first season, we get to know the characters a
little bit. If you haven't watched the show before, give it a try because
it's not bad at all (and the first season may have the best, although in the
last season they did get better again).
The extras have all the usual stuff: cast profile,
interviews, audio commentary, plus some interesting things like outtakes and
deleted scenes. It has a very cool cover, as well. Any Star Trek fan
should love the extras.
Please visit our Star Trek
site!
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