Star Trek: Enterprise Star Says The Show Was Ruined By Network Timidity

Star Trek: Enterprise is probably the worst live-action show in the franchise. Despite boasting Scott Bakula as Captain Archer and the great core concept of showing the first forays of mankind into the wider galaxy, it never found its feet (and it had an absolutely terrible opening song). The series attempted to switch things up in the third and fourth seasons by focusing more on action, but it failed to convince audiences and was unceremoniously cancelled in 2005.

The legacy of Enterprise was explored in a virtual panel at last week’s Galaxy Con Live, in which Enterprise stars John Billingsley, Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating discussed what did and didn’t work. Billingsley, in particular, didn’t mince words when it came to casting blame, saying the show’s flaws were the fault of the producers and network.

He went on to specifically criticize Paramount (and UPN) for not wanting to take risks and diluting the show’s best ideas, explaining:

He lays further blame at the door of Brannon Braga and Rick Berman as well, who he says by that point had been writing Star Trek for so long that they’d lost some of the excitement of working in this universe. However, he says that when Manny Coto joined the show in the third and fourth seasons, some of that energy returned. Still, Billingsley went on to note that the Mirror Universe episodes from the fourth season were “a little too meta.”

While I don’t think Star Trek: Enterprise is a huge disaster, it’s still far from what I want when I’m looking for Trek. Even Voyager, with all its flaws, wasn’t afraid to get seriously weird on occasion (yes, I like “Threshold”). For me, Enterprise commits the worst sin a science fiction show can commit: it’s kinda boring. And it seems that now we know that we have Paramount to blame for that rather than those working on the project.

Source: TrekMovie.com

Source: wegotthiscovered.com