Was Season Three of Enterprise it's Best?
 

We all know how well received Season Four of Enterprise was among many Trekkies, despite the fact that Enterprise was in it's dying days and was cancelled soon after. But let's us not forget the underrated Season Three of Enterprise and the suprisingly excellent Xindi Arc that ran through this very solid season of Trek. In some repects I felt Season Three is vastly underrated and in some ways superior to Season Four, due to it's epic scope and lack of obvious pandering to the TOS crowd, I found it the most consistently good season of Trek ever since DS9 finished it's run.

What is your opinion of Season Three of Enterprise?

Season 3 showed some signs of improvement, but Season 4 was the best season by far.

S4 was easily the best IMO. I didn't care much for the Xindi arc.

The Xindi arc was silly. More poorly developed time travel foolishness and an on again/off again crutch with the "expanse". The idea of a season-long arc against a major threat was cool, but the execution was awful, as was the consistency. Oh, and the cliffhanger was ass.

Nice poll options. -rolleyes-

das

I thought the last 2 seasons were great, even though I felt the Xindi arc...strained credulity as well.

Pick the "No, Enterprise was Still Crap!" option, das Monkey if you disliked the Xindi Arc. :scratch2:

I stopped watching Enterprise after the first season and didn't start again until the fourth, and the responses in this thread aren't making me reexamine that decision.

I was one of the ones that actually enjoyed Enterprise, but the whole Xindi arc was a major turn-off. It just didn't seem to be thought through very well. Maybe on another show not set in the ST universe it would have been ok, but it didn't feel right on Enterprise.

Same here. Most true fans of Trek were affraid they were going to get another Voyager and checked out early.

The last 6 episodes from season 3 were extremely good, including Damage, E², The Council, Countdown and Final Hour.

But I do agree with everyone that season 4 was the best, excluding the last episode of course !

I'm surprised by the slightly lukewarm reaction to Season Three, since it had a original and compelling premise and it had the most solid run of brilliant episodes since Season Seven of DS9, plus it was a major improvement over the uneven Season Two.

And Season Three actually felt like Enterprise and not the ironic TOS reference fest Enterprise became in Season Four, although Season Four was brilliant as well.

I admit I missed a lot of Season 3 due to apathy, but started tuning in again for four when I heard of the staff shakeup. I have to say season 4 is the only one I have any intention of buying on DVD (and that's if I can find a good price for it used or something).

I don't quite get the "TOS reference fest" comments. People complained from the get-go about how it didn't feel like it was really set before TOS, and when the new writers took over, I felt they gave us what everyone was expecting since we first heard the concept. Tholians, Orion's, Vulcan's not acting like total psycho's..., I think Coto and the Reeve's-Stevens's turned the show around, and should have been there from the very start. We'd be discussing the even better fifth season of ENT right now IMHO.

Your claim is that season 3 and 4 were "brilliant"? :hscratch:

Wow, we were definitely watching different shows. Unless, by "brilliant" you mean "just slightly better than the crapfest they fed us for the previous 2 years".

Enterprise was a weak show. Aside from the general idea of "prequel", they never thought it out at all. The show didn't have strong characters, strong writing, internal logic, subtle tie-ins to previous material, or anything else. It existed because B&B had to get more ST "product" on the air.

Season 3 is what killed it for me. Season 4 was starting to make up for it but then they wrapped everything up.

I suppose.

We'll just need to agree to disagree on that one.

Season 3 was the Xindi crapfest? Then that was my least favorite season of the series. (Not that I liked any of the seasons, but that was one was my most hated.)

Never mind that they created this huge horrible tragedy on Earth (that was never even mentioned on the other Treks), but the horrible heavy-handed 9/11 parallel was just downright offensive.

I think I felt more emotion when the Bugs destroyed Buenos Aires in Starship Troopers.

The Xindi stuff was OK, but there were really only a couple episodes from that season that were in any way compelling. Most were mediocre at best.

For me, Season 4 really fulfilled the promise of what the series should have been from the beginning, rather than the dreck foisted on us for the first three seasons. I really have to hand it to Coto, the Reeves-Stevens, and the rest of the S4 writing team for managing to creatively and plausibly tie up the crap (Temporal Cold War, War-mongering Vulcans) AND pay tribute to the rich history of Trek, sometimes accomplishing both simultaneously. Regretfully, I can only imagine what we would have gotten for a Season 5.

The Romulan War

Wow, now I'm really sad.

The Xindi arch was too long, and too much of a heavy handed 9/11 allegory, but it was very well done, when it could have been a total clusterfuck.

....and it was very recently rumored that Shran would've become a regular cast member (or at least a very regular guest-star).

Two things I would've looked forward to.

S3 was an improvement over 1 and 2, but still had the B&B stink all over it.

I'm surprised the show made it past season 3 to be honest

I couldnt get past season 1. This show just did not do it for me. I do feel vindecated after watching the movie Trekkies 2. At the end every fan that was spoken to felt that ST needed to take a break, re-group for awhile and come back with something new and fresh. I have been saying this for decades. They should have stopped after DS9.

I think thats also why Babylon 5s spin off did not work.