As a life-long Star Trek fan, I have watched all of the various series with the exception of the two currently available on CBS, All-Access; Discovery, and Picard. I just can’t bring myself to subscribe to CBS’ paid TV on the strength of Star Trek alone. If they ever land on Netflix, I’ll binge the hell out of them.
Right now, I’m revisiting Enterprise. I didn’t even get through season one on my first attempt because I had some issues with it going in. One of these issues was the main lead, Captain Jonathan Archer, competently portrayed by Scott Bakula. In my prior experience with Trek, the Captains had all been–to me at least–relative unknowns. Sure, they had achieved some level of fame, but I was largely unfamiliar with them when they landed on Trek. Patrick Stewart, an experienced Shakespearean actor was only known to me through his role in a B-grade Sci-fi film called “Lifeforce” and the much more well-known “Excalibur.” The same with Avery Brooks, who portrayed Captain Benjamin Sisko on ST, Deep Space Nine. I knew him from Vega$, but that was it. Scott Bakula, however, was very well known for his long-running TV series, Quantum Leap. I can’t really explain why it bugged me, but it did. The other issue I had with Enterprise is that it’s a prequel occurring before the original Star Trek series, but was made with far superior special effects. To me, this made it less believable because the “technology” was older than what we saw in the original series, but it LOOKED much, much better. Anyway, this is just me unable to suspend my disbelief about a sci-fi show. Pay me no mind. =P Fast forward to a few weeks ago. ST, Enterprise is now streaming on Netflix so I gave it another go, AND I LOVE IT! Bakula and Co. do an excellent job almost right out of the gate. I can recall during season 1 of Star Trek, The Next Generation, noticing how wooden the performances of the cast were, all of them. But as the show progressed, they all improved, each of them finding their characters. Another thing about Enterprise I love is that you really get your money’s worth. They produced a TON of episodes, over 20 per season. Compare that to the measly 7 or 8 you got per season from Game of Thrones. Seriously, I feel that some of the episodes are rather derivative of the original series (and possibly others), but they are well written, well acted and have excellent FX. Who knew the crew of the NX-01 would save the universe and make friends with the Antarans all before Kirk ever set foot on his Enterprise. Thanks for reading.
Wordsmithy 