I don't bedgruge Enterprise (except the awful intro). On one hand, it tried to veer the series into a new direction, trying to explain how the federation came to be. A show without the tech that the viewers knew too well, with awkward phaser pistols and no photon torpedoes. It was actually a joy to see the characters coming up with stuff that would be iconic to the series, such as the Yellow/Red alert protocols.
On the other hand, they didn't just have every single problem that Voyager had, but also lacked the only aspect that made Voyager survive: A good cast with good chemistry in good roles. I really like Scott Bakula, but he is seriously one of the most ill-fitting actors for a captain's role. It's quite hard to be serious, or violent, or firm-handed when you're the human personification of a puppy. I actually bursted into laughter whenever he tried to be 'serious', for example, when he yells at his dog while Archer is having a psychotic crisis from a virus, he looks more hurt than angry. When he tries to be intimidating with Aliens, he looks more like a kid that has the ball in a dodgeball game. If that had been actually worked in the script, a captain that is skilled but is burdened by a huge sense of ethics with overly humanitarian tendencies to the point it endangers the crew, it could be good, but they always tried to play him on par with the other captains of the franchise. Other reviews and the YMMV page will give more info on the other characters. (Poor T'Pol, was supposed to be the Spock of the group, ended up like the Bitc*)
The rest of the cast doesn't fare better, and not due to their own fault, more of the script. And speaking of, while there were good ideas, they felt generally aimless and desperate. Whenever they worked an interesting setup, it often backfired (looking at you, 'this species needs to die' or 'Our engineer was raped, its funny' or 'we will allow ourselves to be killed to not reveal that we are aliens, even if an autopsy of our bodies would confirm it') due lackluster or incompetent writing, and then, they'd try an old formula of the series, only to make it feel spent or result in breaking the canon. The characters were supposedly experienced space farers that were trying for the first time to dive deep into space, but they behaved as if they were newcomers in everything at best, and bumbling idiots with awful, awful choices and awful consequences at worst. The result was, sadly, a boring set of episodes with a crew that could barely cooperate without appearing akward.
In the end, you can enjoy this series if you feel you have nothing better to do and wanna spend some time with a bucket of popcorn, and enjoy the eager attempts at going somewhere new with the franchise. But to me, it ended as a sadly boring and overly long affair. For want of a good casting, it ended the whole franchise.
For want of a "Nail"
I don't bedgruge Enterprise (except the awful intro). On one hand, it tried to veer the series into a new direction, trying to explain how the federation came to be. A show without the tech that the viewers knew too well, with awkward phaser pistols and no photon torpedoes. It was actually a joy to see the characters coming up with stuff that would be iconic to the series, such as the Yellow/Red alert protocols.
On the other hand, they didn't just have every single problem that Voyager had, but also lacked the only aspect that made Voyager survive: A good cast with good chemistry in good roles. I really like Scott Bakula, but he is seriously one of the most ill-fitting actors for a captain's role. It's quite hard to be serious, or violent, or firm-handed when you're the human personification of a puppy. I actually bursted into laughter whenever he tried to be 'serious', for example, when he yells at his dog while Archer is having a psychotic crisis from a virus, he looks more hurt than angry. When he tries to be intimidating with Aliens, he looks more like a kid that has the ball in a dodgeball game. If that had been actually worked in the script, a captain that is skilled but is burdened by a huge sense of ethics with overly humanitarian tendencies to the point it endangers the crew, it could be good, but they always tried to play him on par with the other captains of the franchise. Other reviews and the YMMV page will give more info on the other characters. (Poor T'Pol, was supposed to be the Spock of the group, ended up like the Bitc*)
The rest of the cast doesn't fare better, and not due to their own fault, more of the script. And speaking of, while there were good ideas, they felt generally aimless and desperate. Whenever they worked an interesting setup, it often backfired (looking at you, 'this species needs to die' or 'Our engineer was raped, its funny' or 'we will allow ourselves to be killed to not reveal that we are aliens, even if an autopsy of our bodies would confirm it') due lackluster or incompetent writing, and then, they'd try an old formula of the series, only to make it feel spent or result in breaking the canon. The characters were supposedly experienced space farers that were trying for the first time to dive deep into space, but they behaved as if they were newcomers in everything at best, and bumbling idiots with awful, awful choices and awful consequences at worst. The result was, sadly, a boring set of episodes with a crew that could barely cooperate without appearing akward.
In the end, you can enjoy this series if you feel you have nothing better to do and wanna spend some time with a bucket of popcorn, and enjoy the eager attempts at going somewhere new with the franchise. But to me, it ended as a sadly boring and overly long affair. For want of a good casting, it ended the whole franchise.