2 Themes

Enterprise has been seen as an attempt to move Star Trek away from the political correctness of recent series towards being a more traditional action adventure. The casting of a white male as captain, his preference for unilateral action, the introduction of the Suliban as the clearly-indicated and largely simplistic 'bad guys', and even the dropping of the name "Star Trek" from the title are seen as distancing the new series from those which came before.

One newspaper writer has compared Star Trek's hawkish shift with the advent of the War on Terrorism. The name "Suliban" was, in fact, based upon the name of the Taliban, though the production work for Enterprise occurred well before the September 11, 2001 attacks. [1] Some viewers claim that Trip Tucker and George W. Bush share a similar facial appearance.

3 Theme song

The series' theme song, a pop song written by Diane Warren and sung by Russell Watson , is a marked contrast to the sweeping instrumental themes used in all other Star Trek series. It is also the first such theme not to have been composed specially for Star Trek, having previously appeared (performed by Rod Stewart) in the film Patch Adams ( 1998). Like virtually every other aspect of the series, the theme song has polarized Trek fans, with many loving the song and many considering it inappropriate for a Star Trek series. A new, more upbeat arrangement of the theme song was introduced with the third season, but this had no impact on the controversy, except to elicit criticism from some who actually professed to like the original one.

The song is known by several titles, most commonly "Faith of the Heart" (the title from Patch Adams). However, the official soundtrack CD for Enterprise, as well as all releases of the song by Watson, give it the new title of "Where My Heart Will Take Me."

In late October 2004, the official website startrek.com posted a preview of what appears to be a possible new opening credits sequence, in which Scott Bakula recites a modified version of the famous "Space, the final frontier ..." speech (with the phrase "where no human has gone before" in place of "where no man" or "where no one"). Although no credit text is shown over the footage of Enterprise flying through space, it is about the same length as the current opening credits. The music used for this piece of footage (which startrek.com currently calls a promo, not a new opening credits sequence) is "Archer's Theme" which is a more traditional orchestral instrumental heard over the closing credits. Speculation is rife among fans that the credits may be changed, perhaps in an effort by the producers to win back those viewers who were turned off the series by its unconventional theme song, or as an indication of the fourth season's "back to the basics" approach.

Another iron in this fire is the existence on various file sharing networks of a 14+MB MPG file containing the current opening credit sequence with the music replaced by the orchestral closing title theme from Star Trek: Generations. The file contains a fairly official looking slate from "Paramount Television Operations", and has likewise generated both approval and annoyance from fans ("They've got that; why don't they use it?")

As of Oct. 28, 2004, no announcement had been made as to whether the credits will actually be changed. It was rumored that the episode "Borderland", scheduled to air in the United States on Oct. 29, would feature the new credits, but this turned out not to be the case.

Ironically, after three seasons of complaints from some fans about the "Where My Heart Will Take Me" theme song, there are indications that protests may greet any new credit sequence from those who liked the original tune and associated credit sequence.

4 Controversy

Many Trekkies have been upset by Enterprise, claiming that it violates the canon which has been established in previous series and movies. Brannon Braga, executive producer of the series, has gone on record as challenging the fans who make such claims to prove it:

What have we done? Give me one good example. There are some picayune things that we have chosen to do. We have not broken the rules, but we have bent rules. But there's nothing that important. It's not like we've stated that Kirk never existed. What have we done? [2]

Some fans have complained about the use of "phase pistols" when phasers allegedly should not yet exist (however, see below), or the depiction of Romulan ships with cloaking devices when in "Balance of Terror" (an episode of the original series) cloaking technology was supposed to be a new invention. It can be said that these inconsistencies are trivial when compared with some of the holes presented in the original series. The decision to have the Borg appear in the second-season episode "Regeneration" angered many who felt this was a continuity violation.

5 Apparent continuity problems

The following is a list of apparent continuity problems encountered on , whose episode titles are followed by "(ENT)". Titles of episodes of the other series referenced are followed by "(TOS)", "(TNG)", "(DS9)", and "(VOY)" to denote the original series, , Deep Space Nine, and , respectively. Many fans are not satisfied with the supposed explanations of these problems, and feel that Enterprise breaks the spirit of Star Trek by undermining its origins.

• The episodes “Remember Me” (TNG) and “Trials and Tribble-ations” (DS9) both established that Kirk’s Enterprise was the first such starship of that name, and without qualifier (in other words, it was not stated that it was the first “Federation” starship or first "Starfleet" vessel of that name). The basic premise of “ ” indicates otherwise. The general response to this by Enterprise writers is that the NX-01 was the first Earth Starfleet starship of the name, not the first Federation ship (indicating that it may be destroyed or decommissioned before the founding of the Federation).

• The episode “A Matter of Time” (TNG) established that there were no phasers in the 22nd century, yet Captain Archer’s crew has “phase pistols”, which certainly sound like a 22nd century version of phasers. In addition, Captain Pike used lasers in the very first original series pilot, “The Cage” (TOS), suggesting that the subsequent switch to phasers in the first regular episode of that series indicated that they were new in the 23rd Century. The response to this is that phase pistols have never been referred to as phasers and therefore are different weapons (however the first season ENT episode "Strange New World" revealed that the Vulcan word for "phase pistol" is "phasor").

• In the episode “Unexpected” (ENT), the crew encountered a ship with cloaking technology, even though in “Balance of Terror” (TOS), cloaking technology was new, and Spock even said that invisibility was only theoretically possible. However, it has been noted that Spock and Kirk also reacted with surprise to the presence of a cloaked ship later in the series ("The Enterprise Incident"), while others have suggested that "Balance of Terror" refers to "new" cloaking technology.

• “Terra Nova” (ENT) alleged that the Terra Nova colony was Earth’s first outside its solar system, even though “Metamorphosis” (TOS) established that Zephram Cochrane moved to the Alpha Centauri colony not long after 2119. The response to his is that it was never established that Alpha Centari was an Earth colony, as ENT has established that Vulcan had a number of colonies in the vicinity of the solar system.

• Numerous members of Archer’s crew, including Archer himself, Commander Trip Tucker, Lieutenant Reed, and Dr. Phlox, have had numerous conversations in which they learned of the Vulcan mating cycle pon farr in episodes including “Fusion” (ENT), “Fallen Hero” (ENT), “Two Days and Two Nights” (ENT), and “Bounty” (ENT), yet fans alleged that no one, including Dr. McCoy, had any knowledge of it in “Amok Time” (TOS). This is an example of fanon as TOS established a character (Dr. M'Benga) who joins the Enterprise crew later in the series who studied on Vulcan. It is inconceivable that a medical doctor trained on Vulcan would not be aware of pon farr. In , McCoy claims to be unfamiliar with Klingon anatomy indicating that he does not have a complete knowledge of alien physiology and therefore might well not have been aware of pon farr.

• “A Piece of the Action” (TOS) made it clear that subspace radio had not been invented until after 2168, but “Silent Enemy” (ENT) shows Archer’s crew deploying and beginning to use subspace radio relays, even though that episode is set in 2151.

• Many viewers felt that the assertion in “Stigma” (ENT) that there was a strong stigma in Vulcan society attached to the mind meld was totally at odds with premises regarding the mind meld established in the movies “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, and “ ”, and the episode “Gambit, Part II” (TNG), however an examination of those sources reveal no such "premises" - once again, this is an example of ENT contradicting fanon, not canon.

• Intraship beaming was said to be extremely hazardous in “Day of the Dove” (TOS), but Captain Archer does so in “Chosen Realm” (ENT), without any mention of difficulty or danger. The response to this is that the crew of the NX-01 had not yet discovered the danger. Presumably a future incident would make intraship beaming inadvisable.

5.1 First contacts

• The term “First Contact” seemed to refer to the first formal encounter between two alien people, which is supported by the fact that humans’ first contact with aliens is considered to be the open, formal one in “ ” with the Vulcans, and not the numerous mostly unknown or clandestine pre-2063 visitations by aliens to Earth established in “Time’s Arrow part I” (TNG), “Tattoo” (VOY), “Death Wish” (VOY), etc. But “Carbon Creek” (ENT), which depicted Vulcans visiting Earth in 1957, attempted to refer to this clandestine visitation as “First Contact,” although only in a joking context on the part of T'Pol. It is never implied that any serious attempt to declare First Contact was made.

• Archer’s encounter with four Ferengi in “Acquistion” (ENT), directly contradicts “The Last Outpost” (TNG), which made it clear that Picard’s encounter with them in that latter episode was the Federation’s first. However the series clearly established that humans knew of Ferengi before the events of "The Last Outpost." Although criticized by some, the official canon line is that the crew of the NX-01 never discovered - nor bothered to discover - the identity of their hijackers.

• Some claim that the First Contact with the Klingons depicted in the pilot episode of the series, “Broken Bow” (ENT), contradicts what was established in by Captain Picard in the episode “First Contact” (TNG) and by Doctor “Bones” McCoy in “Day of the Dove” (TOS). Picard said that the encounter led to decades of war, and Dr. McCoy said that they were only blood enemies for 50 years at the time of “Day of the Dove” (well over a hundred years after “Broken Bow”). Neither episode established exactly when First Contact occurred; "Day of the Dove" simply indicates that the Federation and the Klingons had been blood enemies for 50 years at the time of the episode.

• “The Breach” (ENT) indicated that Denobulans, who, along with humans and Vulcans, are part of the Medical Exchange program, are familiar with Tribbles, even though Dr. McCoy was not familiar with them in “The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS). Then again, as mentioned above, he wasn't that familiar with Vulcan or Klingon physiology either.

• Archer’s crew encounters non-corporeal, energy-based lifeforms in “The Crossing” (ENT), even though Spock spoke of non-corporeal life as merely a possibility in “Wolf in the Fold” (TOS). However, T'Pol continues to express the notion that time travel is an impossibility despite experiencing it numerous times; there is therefore precedent for Vulcans to deny facts already in evidence.

• Prior to “Regeneration” (ENT), one could be content to speculate that reports of the Borg by the El Aurians rescued in “ ” were filed away someplace, since they did not have visual records, proof, or possibly even detailed explanations of the people who they fled from. But in “Regeneration”, there is an abundance of photographs of Borg drones, which Commander Data should’ve produced when the Enterprise-D crew “first” encountered the Borg in “Q Who” (TNG). Moreover, Dr. Phlox’s discovery in “Regeneration” (ENT) that omicron particles are harmful to the Borg nanoprobes was never mentioned in any of the “ ” or “ ” episodes featuring the Borg. Many fans have speculated that the establishment of Section 31 in DS9 makes it very possible that discoveries regarding the Borg were classified and not made available to the crew of the NCC-1701-D. An episode of Voyager ("Raven") established that at least some in the Federation were aware of the Borg prior to "Q Who".

Additionally, some complain that the series doesn't preserve continuity within itself. For example, an episode from the first season establishes that Vulcans do not eat food with their hands, as T'Pol eats a breadstick with knife and fork. However, an episode in a later season shows her eating popcorn by hand. Actress Jolene Blalock has gone on record as objecting to such inconsistencies. Some fans, however, take issue with this criticism, stating that the series is simply establishing that T'Pol is adapting to being around humans, while most of her "inconsistencies" in the third season can be explained by her actions as revealed in the episode "Damage". It should also be pointed out that trivial inconsistencies such as this are not exclusive to " ," as they are present in all five of the live-action " Star Trek" series, most notably " ", a show that featured the eponymous starship traveling home from a distant part of the galaxy, but which on several occasions during its run encountered aliens from regions of space that it had been left behind months or years earlier.

The series has polarised some areas of the Trek fan community, to the point where two "factions" have been identified: initially the term "Gushers" was used to describe fans who enjoy the series, while "Bashers" was applied to Trekkers who did not like the show. Each group tends to object to these titles, however, and more recently the terms have been modified to usually refer to only the extreme fans on both sides (i.e. those who reject any criticism of Enterprise are called gushers, while those who hate the show and refuse to be swayed are called bashers). The negative extreme is illustrated by the existence of the "Kill Enterprise" movement that was created by Polish Star Trek fans in response to fan-based efforts to save the show. An ongoing debate among Trekkers is whether or not the cancellation of this series will mark the end of televised Star Trek. In an ironic twist to the years-long fight to bring Star Trek back to television in the 1970s and 1980s, there are a growing number of Trekkers who feel that the concept has worn itself out and should either be retired, or laid to rest for a number of years. Enterprises producers have stated on a few occasions that, no matter how long the current series runs, when it ends it will probably be the last Star Trek television series for some time to come.

The producers of Enterprise were faced with a controversy of another kind with the 2004 episode " Harbinger" which included a love scene in which T'Pol's buttocks were briefly shown. Aside from complaints from some fans that such nudity was inappropriate for Star Trek, the episode was also scheduled to air not long after the Super Bowl XXXVIII controversy in which Janet Jackson "accidentally" exposed a breast on live TV, leading to a upswing in censorship in America. As a result, when the episode was finally aired on UPN, the scene was censored. Viewers in Canada, however, saw the uncensored version and it is assumed that the uncensored version will appear on the upcoming DVD release.

6 Future

Despite most critics agreeing that Enterprise's third season is its strongest yet, the series continues to suffer in the ratings. This, along with the poor box office performance of , has given the Star Trek franchise an uncertain future. While some have placed blame on the current production staff or on the concept of the series, others blame its parent network UPN for not promoting the series and allowing major affiliates to preempt it on many occasions for local sports coverage, a fact they say is ignored by critics. Many fans also reported that they chose to watch UPN's weekend rebroadcasts of the series, which were not counted in the ratings.

There was speculation that the series would be cancelled if ratings did not improve before the third season ended in May 2004. In response, several fan campaigns to save the show were launched; most notably those of "The Enterprise Project" and "Save Enterprise" -- the former has bought several full page advertisements in the Hollywood Reporter to encourage the network to renew the show, and to congratulate the cast and crew when that occurred. The ads were funded by donations from fans; excess funds were donated to charity in the names of several cast members.

On May 20, 2004 it was announced that Enterprise had been renewed for a fourth season, but that the show would move from Wednesday to Friday. Paramount cut its per-episode price and reduced the number of season 4 episodes from 26 to 24 so that the series would be more financially attractive to the struggling UPN, and it is assumed that one reason why the show was renewed was so that Paramount would have enough episodes for proper syndication should it be cancelled in 2005 thus it will have the 100 episodes generally deemed necessary for this).

The new timeslot, it is hoped, will reduce the number of network affiliate preemptions of the show and allow a more accurate account of its viewership. Unfortunately, this now appears unlikely, as viewers reported that UPN's affiliate in New York City aired a baseball playoff game rather than the fourth season premiere on Oct. 8, 2004. This, combined with other UPN affiliates airing coverage of the second debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry that night in lieu of network programming, resulted in very low ratings numbers for the fourth season premiere. The next episode, aired on Oct. 15, scored even lower ratings, though it was reported that the actual number of viewers of the episode went up from the previous week, and although the ratings aren't as high as they were on Wednesday nights, the series has so far scored higher ratings than competing programs on The WB, or the Friday night movie UPN used to air in the timeslot. Additionally, it is unclear why the network reruns each first-run episode in a weekend timeslot the same week it is released -- effectively making its ratings appear worse than they are, since Nielsen does not rate the rerun.

In October 2004, it was announced that Enterprise was the 25th most popular show on the TiVo television recording system in the United States. Although TiVo has yet to achieve the same level of popularity as home video recording, this is an indication of the show's popularity among those who choose to tape the program on Friday and watch it later (i.e. "time-shifting").

There were reports during the summer of 2004 that UPN had only agreed to a half-season committment for Enterprise, allowing them to cancel the series if ratings do not improve quickly, though this has yet to be confirmed by the network. In early November 2004, production began on season 4's 13th episode, "United". Since the season is only scheduled to run 24 episodes, it would appear that the half-season purchase rumor is untrue.

Despite an apparent uncertain future for both Enterprise and televised Star Trek in general, Paramount Network Television president Garry Hart was quoted in an August 2004 New York Times article that Paramount and UPN stand by the series and hope to see it continue for several more seasons. However, Hart's subsequent departure from his position a week later has placed this outcome in doubt.

A new executive producer, Manny Coto , has been brought in for the fourth season. Coto has decided to retain the "arc" concept, but reduce it from one arc for the entire season to several "mini-arcs", each over three episodes. The first of these arcs somewhat resolved the "Temporal Cold War" storyline set up in the pilot episode. Coto was, as noted, a fairly well-received writer for the show in season 3, and has stated that he intends to cater somewhat more to fans of the older incarnations of the franchise -- hints of this have been visible in the fourth through sixth episodes of season 4. Ironically, this new direction has generated criticism from those who don't want Enterprise to be a rehash of previous series.

Over the summer of 2004, it was reported that a special appearance by original Trek star William Shatner was being planned, reprising his character James T. Kirk, though as of September 2004, an announcement had yet to be made. New reports in early October indicated that negotiations between Shatner and Paramount were "warming up" however. A major stumbling block is said to be Shatner's asking price, coupled with his commitments to the TV series Boston Legal. Brent Spiner of made an appearance in episodes 4 through 6 of the fourth season as Arik Soong, an ancestor of Noonien Soong who created the android Data.

7 DVD release

In October 2004, Paramount announced that it will release the first four seasons of Enterprise on DVD in North America during 2005, with the current season arriving in the fall of 2005. If the series is renewed for a fifth year, this will be the first time a Star Trek series will enjoy a contemporary release of recent episodes on DVD.

8 Cast

8.1 Main characters

• Captain Jonathan Archer ( Scott Bakula)
• Subcommander (later Commander) T'Pol, a Vulcan, second in command ( Jolene Blalock)
• Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III, chief engineer ( Connor Trinneer)
• Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, tactical officer ( Dominic Keating)
• Ensign Hoshi Sato, communication officer ( Linda Park)
• Ensign Travis Mayweather, helm officer ( Anthony Montgomery)
• Doctor Phlox, the ship's Denobulan physician ( John Billingsley)

8.2 Recurring characters

• Admiral Maxwell Forrest, Archer's superior officer ( Vaughn Armstrong ), killed in " The Forge "
• Soval, a Vulcan ambassador ( Gary Graham)
• Silik , a Suliban ( John Fleck ), killed in " Storm Front (Part II)".
• Crewman Elizabeth Cutler , a young, inexperienced crewmember ( Kellie Waymire). (Cutler's status is not known as of the start of season 4; Waymire died in 2003; however the character has been mentioned as being a crewmember since the actress' death).
• Degra, a Xindi-Primate ( Randy Oglesby ), murdered in " The Council".
• Major Hayes, leader of the MACO team, killed in " Countdown " ( Steven Culp)
• Shran, member of the Andorian Imperial Guard ( Jeffrey Combs)
• Crewman Daniels, a temporal agent from the 30th Century ( Matt Winston)
• Michael Rostov , a member of Tucker's Engineering team ( Joseph Will )

9 See also

10 External links

• Star Trek official site
• Enterprise at the Internet Movie Database
• article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek episode reviews by Jamahl "Jammer" Epsicokhan
• Save Enterprise
• Kill Enterprise

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