Enterprise Flies Again or, Fourth Time's a Charm!

Has anyone been so foolish as to have given the dismal, sacrilegious, and second-rate Star Trek: Enterprise yet another chance in this, its fourth season?

I have a confession. I have.

And it was worth it!

What happened over the summer?! The show has begun superbly (minus the silly season openers that wrapped up last season’s cliffhanger)! It’s as if everyone over at Paramount suddenly woke up, actually watched their own show and finally realized it was abysmal television and an embarrassment to the Trek franchise. (Similar, if less obvious, transitions occurred on each of the other series’. Even The Next Generation took three seasons to find its stride. Enterprise, it seems, simply lags a bit behind the Trek learning curve.)

This season the special effects are terrific. The music is epic and thunderous. The cast, generally wonderful, have finally gelled. The acting caliber of the guest stars is spot-on. Porthos, the captain’s beagle, is adorable as ever. But most importantly of all, the writing and story craft have been elevated phenomenally. I’ve said for the last few years that the producers needed to can every writer on the show and bring in new, unpolluted, non-Trek writers. They have done the next best thing, recruiting Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, some of the Trek universe’s best paperback novelists. Their perspective, part reverential, part shake-things-up has been a breath of fresh, professional, erudite air.

The show still plays fast and loose with established Trek history, the chronological timeline, and the progress of technology, but it’s a complaint that, for perhaps the first time, finds itself superseded (thankfully) by the script.

From renegade genetically enhanced supermen (and a glimpse of Data’s creator) to conspiracy plots on the sweltering Vulcan desert, Enterprise is off and running and if the last several episodes (mini-movies actually as the last two storylines have been broken into 3-parters) are any indication of what is to come, the series shows no sign of slowing down.

Full speed ahead! It’s about damn time.