triviageek

Mythbusters was on TV tonight and I watched it as usual. But doing so reminded me that for the past several months there have been ONLY TWO TV-shows that I've watched every episode -- Mythbusters and Enterprise.

And the second one, Star Trek: Enterprise, is about to end. On Friday night the final two Enterprise episodes are supposed to be broadcast. Then that's it; no more new Star Trek. And I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Or rather I should say, I have mixed feelings about Enterprise ending now. I was one of the original fans of Star Trek (the original series) way back when. I loved that series so much than when they threatened it's cancellation after the second season, I was one of the thousands of fans that wrote letters begging that it NOT be cancelled.

And we succeeded.

The original Star Trek returned for a third season. A very bad season, in my opinion. I didn't care for the plots of a lot of the episodes that year. So when it was once again threatened with cancellation after that season, I DID NOT write a letter again.

And it was cancelled.

While I certainly missed the Star Trek of the first two seasons, I didn't care about seeing any more episodes like those of the third season. But it was a looooonnnnggg time before there were any Star Trek movies.

The animated series that followed first was ho hum. I dunno if it was better or worse than third season. Different anyway. The animation allowed some effects that could never have been performed with a physical cast and studio set. But the animated series aired only briefly and it definately was not as good as the beginning of the original series.

Finally, after many years, Star Trek returned with The Next Generation and I generally liked it and watched all the episodes. It lacked the novelty of the first series, but it was pretty good except for Wesley Crusher. For some reason Wesley always annoyed me and episodes that revolved around him were barely tolerated by me. But overall he was a small part of that series and I always watched the episodes.

Not so with the Deep Space Nine and Voyager spin-offs. I watched them for a while but eventually just stopped bothering. In particular I did not like the stories that focused on Jake Sisko, Bajoran politics, or Seven of Nine. And as these characters/situations seemed to dominate more and more time on-screen, I gradually watched less and less until not at all.

I welcomed the new series Enterprise. It initially harked back to the thrill and novelty of space travel. It met new (to them) species and did a lot of exploring -- during the first and second seasons.

Then, at the start of the third season, they wrote the devastating attack on Earth and the season-long arc wherein the Enterprise crew pursuded and eventually defeated the Xindi responsible. That was a terrible season and I very nearly stopped watching.

Adding insult to injury, they switched what had seemed to me as a growing attachment between Captain Archer and T'Pol to an attachment between T'Pol and Trip. And they did it via what seemed to be the very far fetched and artifical means of those Vulcan relaxation sessions between T'Pol and Trip. UGH!!!!!

Anyway I've still been watching faithfully although sometimes, it seems like I'm just barely hanging on.

This final season has been a bit better in terms of NOT having a season long Xindi arc, but I seriously think they should have used the Time Travel gimmick to UNDO THE EARTH ATTACK!!!!! Undoing the Earth attach and the T'Pol/Trip relationship would have restored a lot, in my opinion.

But they didn't. The producers/writers didn't choose to go that way. Or maybe the actors portraying T'Pol and Trip lobbied for their on-screen relationship. Whatever. I still think it was a mistake.

So now the series has been cancelled. And I remember my feelings at the end of the third season of the original series .... and all the years afterwards of no Star Trek at all.

And I have very mixed feelings.