Watching Enterprise for the first time…

…it’s great. Really good actually, and refreshingly different from the other 90’s Trek’s.

Growing up I (UK) saw a fair amount of TNG (lord knows on what channel, was it ever on BBC2maybe Sky1?) and snippets of DS9. I then actually saw a fair few episodes of Voyager as it aired (that was probably ‘my’ trek show in terms of timeliness of growing up - even then I appreciated TNG was a big step above in quality from the re-runs I would see) but never enough to watch it all.

I stopped, grew up and away from Trek and never saw Enterprise. I listened to the theme tune in time with the outcry, and heard all about the horrendous decisions of the final episode…and thought that it was clearly rubbish and not worth my time.

I’m now in my early 40’s, and have in the last 18/24 months decided to watch all of the trek on Netflix. I’ve watched all of TNG (fantastic on the whole, what a cast, season 2 on is quality, easily sped through it all), I’ve watched all of DS9 (as with TNG, and the overarching, continuing ‘war’ story is absolutely brilliant, again, easy to watch it all, especially season 4 onwards ) and of Voyager (a slog, a mess, with some truly badly written characters that revert to an unlikeable trope, but with some absolutely excellent characters that grow, and, a captain who stands toe-to-toe with the great Jean-Luc Picard - but the show was infuriating at times and often difficult to pick up).

I started Enterprise about 2 months ago, I’m halfway through episode 14, and I love it. I thought the pilot ropey, and I wasn’t keen on any of the characters…but every single one is growing on me, and I am absolutely refreshed by their ‘going by without a plan and making decisions on the hoof, completely hoping for the best’ attitude. The lack of rules, the fact that they constantly make mistakes, that they don’t have some ridiculous techno jargon to help them out….all in all it leads to a very enjoyable romp where I honestly don’t know what any episode brings. I even don’t mind the theme lyrics, I really don’t!

I’m going to hit the original series after, and hell, might as well complete the whole thing with the animated too, but man I am loving the earlier days of Trek!