Enterprise

Family.

Something I’ve noticed when I “binge watch” a series vs. watching it at the pace it was released, is I can get more attached to the characters. Assuming, of course, it is a well written series. The characters can become part of my life to the point where they become “family”, at least in my mind.

I’m not sure this happens as much with a short series but it does happen with a series when there are more than ten or so episodes each season. In the case of Star Trek Enterprise, they averaged over 20 one hour episodes a season.

I know I covered Star Trek in general in a previous post and some of you, I’m sure, would be fine never reading about Star Trek again, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper into Enterprise as I recently wrapped rewatching all the episodes and this series doesn’t get a lot of love in the Star Trek universe. This wasn’t quite a binge watch as it took me four or five months to complete the process.

For those that don’t know, this series takes place about 100 years before the original series. It is the early days of Star Fleet and this Enterprise is the first “Warp 5” starship humans have created. I think what made this series unique in the Star Trek realm is everything was new, story wise. Basically, Star Fleet was trying to figure out what it was going to be.

Humans were adventuring farther into space and meeting new “aliens” as well as discovering how this whole process was going to work. It gave the series a different vibe and also gave it some freedom relative to the “rules” of Star Fleet and the Star Trek canon in general.

There were seven main characters: Capt. Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), Sub-Cmdr T’Pol (Jolene Blalock), Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery), Cmdr Charles “Trip” Tucker (Connor Trinneer), Dr Phlox (John Billingsley), Lt Malcom Reed (Dominic Keating) and Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park).

The series spent time developing the characters which is part of the reason they became family. You really get to know them and know, a bit at least, how they tick. Here are a few of my thoughts on each character.

Capt. Jonathan Archer: As with all the characters, he grew a lot over the series. He was a jerk with a large amount of baggage and hate at the beginning of the series and while still a bit of a jerk at times, he lost most, if not all, of that baggage by the end of the series. He was a good leader but we really didn’t get to see a huge amount of his personal side.

T’Pol: She is a Vulcan so she doesn’t show much emotion even though she contains those emotions and we see hints of them. She will always have your back and let you know when you’re wrong. I feel Jolene Blalock was able to convey so much though her body language with this character. Truly great acting!

Trip: He was an amazing engineer and the guy that got all the girls. Scotty and Kirk in one. Seriously, he stayed who he was at the start of the series but learned to open up more and be less judgmental as the series progressed.

Travis: Space was in his bones since he was born there. We get to see more depth in him as we learn more about his past over the series. The writers just needed to give him more stories.

Dr Phlox: The doctor and counselor for the ship. Being a different and new species to the series, gave the character room to roam and he did! He was the moral and social compass of the crew.

Lt Malcom Reed: A whiner (in my eyes) and probably my least favorite character in the series. We do learn what makes him tick a bit and in that, we learn why he is the way he is. Still, with all that said, he got on my nerves a bit.

Ensign Hoshi Sato: The communications officer and a hard nod to Uhura. I think she grew the most over the series. She didn’t want to go on the voyage but did, was timid early on and in the end, had to make one of the toughest command decisions of the series. Like Travis, the writers didn’t give her character enough stories. I think they tried to correct this a bit at the end of the series which helped.

The series ran for four seasons. For me, the second season was the best as it had the most character development stories. The third season was in second place as they did something different for Star Trek at the time and created a storyline that lasted the entire season. Season four is in third place, still great but not quite as good as two and three. Season one, like many series was in fourth place as it took a bit for the series to find its legs.

With all that said, the final show was a tough watch as I had to say goodby to these characters and their stories. With all their good and bad (story wise) they had become important to me. The writing and acting were good enough that I came to care about these characters and what happened to them and how they felt. They had become family. For me, there isn’t much higher praise when it comes to a series. Highly recommended.