Ick!
Okay, now that everyone (who wanted to) should have had a chance to see the final episode of Star Trek Enterprise, whenever it got aired in their local market, I can complain about it without giving away spoilers.
If, for some reason, you didn’t see it and don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading now.
SPOILER SPACE:
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Now, the producers tried to spin this episode as "a love letter to the fans," but it left me feeling more like I’d received a "Dear John" letter.
Even after details emerged (amid complaints from castmembers, notably Jolene Blalock) about what the episode would involve, I tried to keep an open mind, particularly in light of how much better Manny Coto had made the series in its last season.
But apparently boneheaded writing reasserted itself for the final episode, no doubt at the behest of the producers.
Here’s the basic idea: The last episode of Enterprise . . . wasn’t an Episode of Enterprise at all.
STUPID THING #1
It was an episode of Next Gen. Specifically, it’s set in the seventh season of Next Gen. This was so the producers could bring back Riker and Troi and have them guest star, as if watching the actors portray characters they’re now 12 years too old to play would be a "magical" experience for fans.
But they don’t get Riker and Troi hooked up with the Enterprise crew by time travel (which could be cool). Instead . . .
STUPID THING #2
The whole episode is a freakin’ holodeck adventure! Sheesh!
Riker is playing the holodeck adventure to try to find guidance for a Big Decision that he’s got to make (and which you already know the outcome of it you watched the seventh season of Next Gen), and so he decided to play a holodeck adventure set on the (apparent) founding day of the Federation to sort things through by watching someone else make a Big Decision.
Does Riker get the help he needs?
STUPID THING #3
No! He doesn’t! When it’s become clear whose Big Decision he was focused on (Trip), and after he’s watched Trip make it, and when he asks Trip if he has any advice about making his own Big Decision, holo-Trip says nope, he doesn’t! Riker will just have to figure it out for himself.
Now, what was Trip’s Big Decision?
This has to do with the main dramatic action of the episode.
It is, after all, the (apparent) founding day of the Federation, so you’d expect the main action of the episode to be tightly bound up with the founding of the Federation. The crew of the Enterprise ought to be thwarting some last-minute threat to the Federation that could unwravel Star Trek history as we know it if they fail. Instead,
STUPID THING #4.
The main dramatic action of the episode has nothing to do with the founding of the Federation. Instead, the characters interrupt their Federation-founding schedule go galavanting off and help Andorian recurring-character Shran (Jeffrey Coombs, nee Weyoun and Brunt) rescue his daughter from kidnappers.
This was a bad, bad move on the part of the writers/producers. Never have your Big Finale deal with a threat completely unrelated to the main thing the viewers have tuned in to see (and, in fact, been waiting years for you to finally get around to showing them).
The previous two episodes–which did focus on a threat to the founding of the Federation–were far better and would have made a far better finale to the series than this tacked-on doo-dad.
So how does all this hook into Trip’s Big Decision?
STUPID THING #5
Well, the alien kidnappers get mad at the Enterprise crew for snatching the little girl from them and so they come after them, cornering Captain Archer and Trip.
Now the thing is: Captain Archer is s’pposed to give an inspiring speech at the (apparent) founding of the Fedration, and "I’m sorry but he was just killed or otherwise delayed by kidnappers" is not going to be an acceptable excuse for not making it.
Thus in a "Gotta git the Cap’n to the church on time" frenzy, Trip uses his engineering wiles to undertake an action that he reasonably foresees will kill the kidnappers–and himself–while leaving the captain free to go make his uber-important speech.
That’s the Big Decision.
Only the whole thing falls completely flat because (a) it’s implausible to think that the whole future of the Federation hinges on this speech and there are no valid excuses for not making it or being late and (b) Trip had no reason to think that this speech was so crucial that he needed to sacrifice his life for the captain to make it.
It might have been different if Trip had simply sacrificed himself for the sake of his captain out of duty or for his friend out of friendship, but dragging the speech into it casts a whole "saving history" aspect over the whole thing that is completely implausible. If they’d at least had a time traveller show up to tell them "The captain must make this speech or the future will come crashing down in flames" that would have at least given Trip a better reason to do what he did–even if it would still be acting on a totally stupid premise.
But then
STUPID THING #6
We get a post-Big Decision scene in sickbay where it looks like Trip might survive (except that we’ve been told by Riker and Troi that he won’t). Thus Trip goes smiling into some kinda big cat scan device, only to have us find out next thing that he really is D-A-I-D.
A pointless major character killing in the service of a boneheaded premise distracting the reader from the main plot the viewer tuned in to see, wrapped in a freakin’ holodeck story in a pseudo-Next Gen episode.
What drek!
Oh, and what about loose ends, like Cap’n Archer’s crucial speech?
STUPID THING #7
We never get to hear it! Not one syllable! All that build-up and we don’t even get to see what was so important that a major character had to die for it!
And what, then, about that two-season loose end: Trip’s relationship with T’Pol?
STUPID THING #8
Nothing comes of it!
After shoving the relationship down the viewers’ throats for two seasons, after establishing that there was ongoing romantic chemistry between the two, after establishing that they were telepathically linked on some level as a result of their relationship, after having the two of them discover a technologically-created daughter of theirs in the previous two episodes, after having that daughter die tragically (causing both of them to tear up), and after ending THE VERY PRECEDING EPISODE with the two of them holding hands and tearfully talking about how it would be possible for a Human and a Vulcan to have a baby together if they wanted . . . NOTHING COMES OF THIS!
Rick Berman and Brandon Braga, what the heck were y’all thinking?
After the viewers have been made to suffer so much from the incompetent set-up of this relationship, the least you could do would be to PAY IT OFF by having them become the first Human-Vulcan married couple, setting the stage for Spock’s parents later on.
After that tearful, hand-holding, "Y’know, T’Pol, a Human and a Vulcan could have a baby iff’n they wanted to, wink, wink, nudge, nudge" scene, simply dropping the relationship (and pointing out explicitly and repeatedly in the finale that it was dropped) is a TOTAL letdown.
I’m sorry. Y’all may have meant this as a love letter to the fans, but after watching it I feld like I’d received a "Dear John" letter instead.
You can see why.
And that is why B5 rocks and Trek doesn’t 😛
I ducked out of Enterprise early on; I just couldn’t stand looking at it’s muted dark colors and too-close close-ups. But I think the kicker for me was when Archer said something at one time like “a long time ago, my civilization decided that hunting was WRONG.”
Unbelievable. I turned it off after that episode and never went back, except for a few sporadic minutes of verious other episodes, just to confirm my belief that they dropped the ball.
Your article is the nail in that coffin.
Did you know Brannon Braga had never even WATCHED an episode of ANY trek when Berman brought him on? No wonder he screwed it all up once he was in charge.
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. What have I been telling you all this time? If you fall in love with a show like Star Trek, and you’re gonna get treated this way. It always happens this way, I’ve seen it a million times. You’re too nice a guy to go off chasing shows like this. OK, now, pick yourself up, put a smile on your face, and shoulder on. We’ll leave a light on for ya. Sign me, a sadder but wiser guy myself.
I see I wasn’t the only one dissapointed with the final episode of Enterprise. What the heck were they thinking? Especially considering that the writing for this season was much improved to go out not with a bang but a whimper.
Had Frakes ever had a guest appearance on Enterprise before (it’s amazing how he manages to weasel them in)? If not, maybe that was the point of the episode: to get Frakes on the only spin-off he hadn’t appeared in.
Life long Trekker here. But I stopped watching this show when it turned into the Vulcan porno show. A man ought not go where he’ll be tempted. 🙂
Well, it’s about time. Inquiring minds were wondering when you’d get around to telling us what you thought. My own take is here: http://luxopolis.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_luxopolis_archive.html#111626301870948752
Dude, your so right. That episode blew chunks. Though I’ll always have a place in my heart for Star Trek(and even Enterprise managed to pull off a few good ones, very few) it was crappy writing like that is the reason why I’m a Red Dwarf/Farscape/B5/Star Wars fan.
Very well put.
I have very little tolerance for stupid stories. Once the organic unity is torn apart, I take my leave and pretty much never look back. I stopped watching X-Files when it became too kitschy, I stopped reading Usula LeGuin’s Earthsea series when she started demonstrating a lack of respect for her own characters, and I stopped watching all Star Trek after Next Generation finished. All the other series are apocryphal — not true iterations of the series.
Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks so. Incorporating Next Gen characters into an Enterprise story is a cheap and desperate stab at ST lore legitimacy.
Poor Enterprise fans. You spent all those hours watching all those episodes. And for what? An ending that teaches you a valuable lesson about wasting time — you could have sewn a pretty nice quilt by now. And with a bad ending like this, how motivated do you think people are going to be to buy the series on DVD?
Ultimately, when fiction becomes a massive franchise, like ST had become, creativity gets stifled and the guiding intelligence of the overall story gets confused by all the money-minded meddlers (producers). It is the opposite problem of Star Wars, where Lucas surrounded himself with uncritical yes-men, churning out, in the end, stilted pabulum.
I couldn’t agree more Jimmy. This was bad stuff cobbled together by bad writers, in a rush and too bored with the whole thing to take the time to tell a good yarn.
That final episode of Enterprise was so bad I would even go so far to say it made STAR TREK V look good!
I’m serious! Really!
To this feast of bitterly disappointed Sci-Fi fans, let me add a teaspoonful of scorn after watching Episode II on network TV last night. I rationalized that “It sucks, but it’s free,” but what I ended up doing was wishing MST3K could come back and start heckling BAD mainstream movies with comments like these:
“I look like an idiot, and I act like one too.”–Anakin
“I know I look like the pinup in Bar*** Le***, but I’m really a Senator.”–Padme
“Oh my gosh, I know he’s a monster, but he’s just so shekshee!! I gotta marry him!!”–Padme
“I’m short, but I can still kick butt.”–Yoda
“You mean this is the same movie? Where’s my contract??”–Obi-Wan Kenobi
In frustration, I am watching Season 3 of B5…again.
EpIII didn’t let me down. I liked the first two movies BUT for those who hated them or fear they might you can skip the EpI & II & go straight to III.
Jimmy, from what I’ve read of this site you sound like a good guy, but….
….I think you might be a little too worked up over the admitted travesty that was the last episode of Enterprise. Why do I say this? Because you included the absense of Archer’s actual speech as one of the drawbacks to the episode, when its presence was really the only thing that could have made the episode any WORSE.
On the plus side, Linda Park is still hot.
A sigh goes up for the state of TV sci-fi! Enterprise had such potential! Now what survives? Andromeda? (sorry, but yechh…) Of course, has anyone been watching Battlestar Galactica? I’d love Jimmy’s take on this one. Gritty, smart, immersive (it sems to this humble viewer) and they have religion, praise be! Granted, they’re pagans, but I’ll take the Lords of Kobol over the hyper-techno-nothingism any day of the week. And the special effects are cool (same guys who did Firefly effects?)
If that was a love letter to the fans I’d say that the writers of Enterprise are decended from the Marquis de Sade because if that was love it sure hurt. There was so much wrong with Enterprise. The Vulcans were all wrong. Scott Bacula, who’s wonderful in most things was totally wrong for this. The thing between Trip and T’Pol was messed up. Dr. Plhox was too much like Neelix. There was too much familiarity with the Klingons. The whole thing was just off from the start. It’s supposed be 100 years before Kirk but it had a very post New Generation feel. We should have seen the birth of the federation or the end of the Eugenics Wars or the start of the Kiingon war anything but the wretched soap opera we got.
I agree. The ST:E series overall sucked. The show had an original interesting concept, but poor writing will always ruin a good premise.
I agree. The ST:E series overall sucked. The show had an original interesting concept, but poor writing will always ruin a good premise.
The only good thing about Enterprise was Lt Reed if he’d been gay, he’d of been even better
i have been a trek fan for many many years and i am saddened that enterprise like so many popular trek shows have ended i am seriously considering ending my fan club membership i also know of many fans who feel the same by the way who and why are these decisions made to cancel popular shows and put crap shows on in their place
yours sincerely
jim gourlay
If you spent less time complaining and more time watching, we would still have a star trek show to watch, which, even at its worst, is better than most other shows on tv right now!!!!! So it sucked sometimes, it was still star trek! At least you have nothing to complain about anymore!!!!!!!!
As for Star Wars, go back and watch the first three (I refuse to call them episodes four, five and six!), there is no comparison between those movies and the new ones. For those of us not testosterone laden, the first three in addition to the battles, and special effects also delt with people, and alien creatures, and interpersonal relations. However, since the movie makers are catering to young males I guess that was to be expected!!!!!
By the way, you purists, go watch some of the original star trek episodes, they really sucked, but back then nobody cared we just watched and enjoyed!!! Frankly I think you are all a bunch of spoiled brats!!! GROW UP.
Anyhow, if you like horrors avoid “Dark waters”, Batman begins was suprisingly good, War of the worlds was predictably bad, and Wonka aside from one thing that is missig from this version. which I happen to think is a major issue, and Depp’s portrayal of Wonka, it is worth 2 hours of your time.
You know guys, if you quit going to really bad movies because your favorite comic characters are in them, they might actually be forced to make some good ones!!!!
Having watched the franshise almost religiously since 1987 it seems absolutely tragic that this latest incarnation should end so tragically. This last episode of the ‘prequel’ series should have been positive/inspirational for future generations, instead as was suggested it became a greek tragedy. Perhaps the politics at the TV studios just plain pissed off the writers but it’s a real let down for the fans. I hope like a ‘kill bill’ 2-parter a cross generation film can be produced and quickly that might re-write this tragedy and that a time traveller could report that Trip and T’Pol do have a child. Perhaps the child being seen during the ‘alliance’ speech would have a marked a new beginning.
Forgive the pun but the ending was ‘warped’.
It was a good Episode. It ended quite appropriately. You have to see how this series truly fits in. You are in the future looking back at “the beginning”. It made itself, at least, relevant to the future in a personal way as well as establishing the Federation. Trip isn’t dead, btw.