Story: These Are the Voyages…
Written By: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
Series: Star Trek: Enterprise
Year: 2005
Terrible finale to an already lukewarm show. I know what Berman and Braga were going for in this one, but it fails to do so until the final few moments. The plot takes place 10 years after “Broken Bow”, so about 6 years after the rest of this season. You wouldn’t know it though. Where did our character go in the next six years? Nowhere. Hey just like the show!
Everyone is exactly in the position they were when the show began. Nobody has advanced in rank, no one has changed their position on the ship…No one has done anything with their careers…and when you look at this series on a whole…it ain’t that surprising. Sort of the same way you can look at this show, see things like “but Picard first encountered the Borg!” or “TNG made first contact with the Ferengi!” Or “Why doesn’t Starfleet know about the Klingon ridge killing disease?” Because these people are probably so incompetent they took absolutely no notes on their dumb mission…and they couldn’t advance in rank.
The big problem is that it doesn’t serve as a finale for Enterprise, but tries to serve as a finale to all of televised Trek. So we are looking at this Episode through the eyes of Riker and Troi. As this is the last episode of TV Trek to air after 18 long years, it almost makes sense to have it from the perspective of the show that began that journey 18 years prior. But it is sloppy, they stop the action in the holodeck and it literally STOPS THE ACTION of the show.
Essentially we are on the holodeck, so we get a distant view of our main cast, they are pushed to the sideline for a guy who doesn’t quite fit into his costume anymore. And they kill off the only guy who was consistently interesting in the regular cast in a death almost as senseless as Tasha Yar.
The only thing they did get right was the final moment of the show. Ending Trek on TV after 18 years, the lines “Computer, End Program” seem both sentimental and well thought out, and having Picard, Kirk, and Archer reciting the famous opening lines of TOS and TNG. It is a nice little touch; too bad they waited until the last moments to realize they were writing a finale.
NEXT TIME: Enterprise Season 4 Recap
Written By: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
Series: Star Trek: Enterprise
Year: 2005
Terrible finale to an already lukewarm show. I know what Berman and Braga were going for in this one, but it fails to do so until the final few moments. The plot takes place 10 years after “Broken Bow”, so about 6 years after the rest of this season. You wouldn’t know it though. Where did our character go in the next six years? Nowhere. Hey just like the show!
The big problem is that it doesn’t serve as a finale for Enterprise, but tries to serve as a finale to all of televised Trek. So we are looking at this Episode through the eyes of Riker and Troi. As this is the last episode of TV Trek to air after 18 long years, it almost makes sense to have it from the perspective of the show that began that journey 18 years prior. But it is sloppy, they stop the action in the holodeck and it literally STOPS THE ACTION of the show.
Essentially we are on the holodeck, so we get a distant view of our main cast, they are pushed to the sideline for a guy who doesn’t quite fit into his costume anymore. And they kill off the only guy who was consistently interesting in the regular cast in a death almost as senseless as Tasha Yar.
The only thing they did get right was the final moment of the show. Ending Trek on TV after 18 years, the lines “Computer, End Program” seem both sentimental and well thought out, and having Picard, Kirk, and Archer reciting the famous opening lines of TOS and TNG. It is a nice little touch; too bad they waited until the last moments to realize they were writing a finale.
NEXT TIME: Enterprise Season 4 Recap