Enterprise: The Final Voyage

Bolstered by the two mirror universe episodes, I decided to watch the final three episodes of Enterprise, the latest incarnation of Star Trek, and perhaps the last, as it's been prematurely cancelled after 4 seasons.

The first two of the three, "Terra Prime", comprised a pretty routine story about xenophobeic humans and hostages. There was a pointless aside about a human-Vulcan hybrid baby, and a real big "but surely someone would have thought of that!" moment. Mostly it's the sort of story that Babylon 5 often did well and treated with sensitivity or hysteria as the scenario dictated, but which second-generation Star Trek just doesn't handle well because it lacks subtlety.

The final episode was "These Are The Voyages...". It would be easy to observe that it's a wholly unsatisfactory and abrupt ending to the series, but since the series was outright cancelled they obviously had to scramble to wrap things up at the end. So that's fair enough.

That said, I'm going to spoil the details of the episode below, so stop reading if you haven't seen it and care about such things.

The episode features Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) from The Next Generation (some point during the series' original run, I guess, from the visuals and uniforms) in the holodeck watching the NX-01 Enterprise's final mission before Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) gives a speech at the signing of the interspecies alliance charter which would develop into the Federation. As Peter David notes, this amounts to a guy in a Star Trek outfit sitting around watching an old re-run of Star Trek. Riker is ostensibly watching the story at Troi's suggestion, to help him resolve a dilemma he's facing, and he sometimes assumes the role of the ship's cook to converse with the images of the earlier ship's crew.

On their return, Archer and company are contacted by an old Andorian ally of Archer's, who enlists the ship to rescue his daughter, to return a debt Archer owes him. That mission completed, they head for Earth, but the abductors catch up to them, board the ship, demand the Andorian be turned over to them, and Commander Tucker (Connor Trinneer) sacrifices himself to save Archer and defeat the intruders. The Enterprise finally makes it back, is decommissioned, and Archer gives his speech.

Written by series creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braaga, the episode manages to absolutely suck the drama from every angle of the plot. Once Riker drops the bomb that Tucker isn't going to survive, this is used as a cheap gambit where he's put in danger during the mission, survives it, and is then killed later. It's cheap and pointless and even a little insulting. Not to mention that the episode sets up the notion that the abductors can't catch up to the swift Enterprise, but they do anyway - without explanation.

The episode demonstrates by the holodeck is such a bad idea: Short of ridiculous pseudoscience intervening, it's just not dangerous. Moreover, we get to see Riker in a phantom replica of the original ship, whereas having him visit the actual ship 200 years later, would have been far more effective. Watching a guy watching television just isn't that interesting, even if what he's watching is. It's nothing more than a little love-fest for NextGen fans. (Reportedly actress Jolene Blalock - who plays the Vulcan T'Pol on Enterprise - was upset at the inclusion of Riker and Troi, and seeing what they filmed, I can understand why. How frustrating!)

The biggest disappointment in the episode is that Riker knows what's going to happen to the crew, but he's not going to tell us! The series may be over, but the characters' stories aren't, and this episode takes pains to make it clear that this isn't the end. To some degree this is a flaw in the very premise of this prequel series, but the total lack of facility with which Berman and Braaga carry this episode off is just dismaying. Heck, we don't even get to see Archer deliver his speech! What a blatant example of violating the "show me don't tell me" guideline. Gah.

The best moments of "These Are The Voyages..." are Archer and Tucker's interactions, and Archer and T'Pol's goodbye at the end. I'm not a big fan of Bakula - at least, not here - but his emotions and actions seemed entirely believable and he managed to pull together what little redeeming qualities the episode featured. Good job, sir.

Closing comments on 18 years of second-generation Star Trek:

When you get down to it, the final episode of Enterprise is very similar to the first episodes of The Next Generation: The characters are weak, there's no over-arching story, and the individual episodes either have silly premises, silly resolutions, or are devoid of drama and conflict. The acting varies widely - as that of almost any ensemble show does - but the good actors have to fight through the silly stories to produce a good performance. It's really just a horrible situation for any series to be in.

Where does the blame lie? A big chunk, I think, lies with Gene Roddenberry, who basically believed his own press. Star Trek has never been at its best when trying to present a bright, shining future for humanity. As with most dramas, it's at its best when it has good ideas which lead to tense situations and tough decisions for the characters. And from what I've heard, Roddenberry's directions laid down early in NextGen are exactly at odds with these characteristics. Result: Bad drama. Boring television.

The remainder of the blame, I think, has to land on the shoulders of Rick Berman and the fans. Berman - who's been a bigwig in Trek production since near the beginning of NextGen - has clearly faithfully adhered to Roddenberry's doctrines, scrupulously maintaining the "no drama" edicts. Fans, then, have happily lapped up the endless stream of mediocrity coming from Paramount for 18 years, rarely-if-ever demanding any sort of change, for the better or otherwise.

The obvious argument here is that fans wouldn't have watched eighteen years of Star Trek if they hadn't liked what they were getting. But there are many series which aren't much good and yet are hugely popular. This is because safe, inoffensive television is easy to watch (and not much harder to produce). Challenging, exciting television is quite a bit harder. It can be done, but it can be commercially risky. And in the end, no one really seemed interested in taking any risks: Produce some episode and go home seemed to be the doctrine of Star Trek.

Star Trek the franchise has seemed less relevant with each passing year. It was time to put it out to pasture (or syndication). We can remember the long-ago good times, but the shadow it's been for the last 18 years has been little more than an embarrassment.