Late response!pjknibbs wrote: ↑Mon, 25. Mar 19, 12:31I don't give half a withered poop about the theme tune, the reason I don't like Enterprise is because it's a massive wasted opportunity, IMHO. Everything was just too similar to the original series, despite supposedly being a century before it--so instead of shields, which are a percentage-based thing that blocks damage, we have "polarised hull plating", which is a percentage-based thing that block damage. The ship originally left dock with practically no weapons, but they had "phase cannons" (aka phasers) before the end of the first season, and "photonic torpedoes" (aka photon torpedoes) at the beginning of season 3. It just struck me as the laziest of lazy writing--everything works exactly as it does in the later series, we'll just call things by different names and hope nobody notices!
I dunno, you raise a valid point in regard to technology but I don't think it changes the fact that Enterprise did have a distinctly different feel to all other Star Trek series that is appropriate to the setting and mostly has little to do with the specific tech jargon employed.
Most notably in the sense of threat, most of Star Trek can be characterised as: Cruising round the galaxy in my invincible death machine (but peaceful explorers!), rarely encountering any serious external threat unless it's being presented by what amounts to a God. Even the Borg who were initially introduced as a means of balancing this were a serious threat for about as far as Wolf 359 and little further. Voyager was the worst offender (as is often the case), when first encountered a single cube or even sphere was suitably scary . . . . a season later and they're going toe to toe with a Tactical Cube for half an episode whilst nicking it's warp drive.
By way of contrast every single hostile encounter in Enterprise feels as though they could get their ass kicked, and frequently they do. I can think of multiple episodes of the top of my head where the win condition is just straight up "RUN AWAY!", and / or begging for help from more advanced species.
I like the fact that in the first series they're all starry eyed and "Weapons? We won't need those much will we? Explorers!!" and by the beginning of the second they're "WE NEED GUNS!! UPGRADE THE DAMN WEAPONS!! NOW!!! . . . . ACTUALLY WE CAN'T WAIT WE'LL DO IT OUR-BLOODY-SELVES"
The whole Xindi mission (although I do think this was the point it went downhill) was approached very much with a sense of "This is probably a suicide mission".
That's the biggest single "feel" difference but there are many more:
- Everyone is terrified of the transporter (fair. . . ) and whilst they show some signs of starting to get used to the idea it never become routine.
- Nationality is a real and impactful thing . . . . more than just an amusing association between Picard and wine.
- Racism is VERY overt and pretty much everywhere pre-Federation, explored most in regard to the Vulcans.
- The culture of non-human crew members (mostly the Vulcans but to a lesser extent the Denobulans, sadly as I'd have loved more on them) are explored in a depth that is matched only by DS9 (which I agree is the best Trek).
- The military is still a distinct thing from Starfleet, and pure militaristic thinking is unashamedly on show.
My personal biggest single criticism of Enterprise is the treatment of T'Pol . . . . there really is no excuse for how often she's half naked, nor for the fact she seems to be allergic to wearing a bra. . . . . especially as it's clearly Hoshi who's "the sexy one".