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Alelou wrote:Darn those primitive NX-01s!

I know I am diverting the subject, but I never liked 'Minefield' and the Aenar subplot because they broke the TOS (& TNG) established basis. I feel that with cloaking devices, the R.W. would have finished with a victory of the Romulans. It is hard to accept a whole war of the still primitive Earth ships (NX's are only 2 by end 2155 and the others are far more W3 primitive) against the cloacked ships and mines presented on those episodes. In any case, I also remember that in some place of TOS/TNG it is stated that the war with the Klingons started due to bad conducted first contact, that's not what it is shown in Broken Bow.

I'm okay with it, at least partly because 1) they needed plots in which they could win, and 2) history is one of those things that becomes so easily corrupted by myth and misinformation and one's own view of what the narrative is that I can easily imagine things getting shaded one way or the other in the future.

Yeah, let's blame that war on a bad first contact with the Klingons. It's hard to imagine what a good first contact with Klingons could be, unless you went in there and whupped 'em all and then got them all drunk and singing Klingon opera with you. And a determined historian with an agenda can interpret almost anything as good or bad in retrospect. Hell, it happens all around us in real time as history unfolds.

Enerdhil wrote:I feel that with cloaking devices, the R.W. would have finished with a victory of the Romulans. It is hard to accept a whole war of the still primitive Earth ships (NX's are only 2 by end 2155 and the others are far more W3 primitive) against the cloaked ships and mines presented on those episodes.

I do agree (and have said before) that the 'Federation-doesn't-know-what-the-Romulans-look-like' canon from TOS never made any sense.
As for your theory that the Coalition of Planets would be no match militarily for a Romulan fleet with cloaked ships, I have to agree with that as well. But since the Romulans were fought to a stalemate, I conclude that they could not have possessed cloaked ships. My theory to explain this? The technology in 'minefield' was still highly experimental and not suitable for operational use. Too much power required to cloak anything bigger than a mine, perhaps. Maybe the cloaking field interfered with the warp drive. Or the navigation systems. Maybe they were too unreliable. For whatever reason, the Romulans fought the war with uncloaked ships, allowing Kirk and company to be surprised by the technology 100 years later.

If Enterprise is supposed to be pre TOS I still think that the Humans could get the Xrillians Stealth device and they would have cloaking ability.

Why in the episode "Unexpected" why didn't Archer try to get something from the Xrillians for saving them from the Klingons? Like the stealth technology. He didn't even ask for the Holoprogram that Trip saw. That was fairly stupid of Archer.

I cannot remeber if it was TOS or TNG that the Federartions signed a treaty with the Klingons or Romulans, not sure which that they would NOT use cloaking devices. I mean that would be very, very stupid but par for the course for Star Trek. Stupidty being almost a requirment for Humans.

Was it ever established where the Xyrillians were from? Maybe their home system is really far away and the ones that they encountered were just some kind of space nomads. That might explain why there was never any successful subsequent contact in order to get their stealth technology. Just a thought.

But since they gave the Klingons thier Holotechnology they should have been able to give Enterprise their schematics for the Stealth Technology or even helped Entrprise modify it to fit the Enterprise. No need to go back to their home world. They said at the end of the Episode the Xrillian ship was returning to its home world and would be there shortly. So,Enterprise could have followed them and got the technology. Still think it was Stupid of Archer not to ask for it in return for the help Enterprise gave the Xrillians. Missed opportunity.

But that was not nearly as stupid as suggesting to the Klingons that THEY could make use of it. Oy!!!!!

I watched Enterprise only in DVD, several years after the TV show. Don't know if someone has ever made this question but it came often to my mind: Have the authors of ENT watched TOS, TNG, ... ??

I find that kind of remark so deeply irritating.

Enerdhil wrote:I watched Enterprise only in DVD, several years after the TV show. Don't know if someone has ever made this question but it came often to my mind: Have the authors of ENT watched TOS, TNG, ... ??

Well the primary writers on Enterprise were the primary writers for TNG. There were a couple of new faces, but the showrunners were the same guys. I think they just decided they wanted a new kind of show. They were kind of hacks, to be honest. I think they swallowed too much of the BS being printed about them being sci fi geniuses so they just decided to try and invent their own formulae and their own metrics and it just didn't work at all. They should have gone with the DS9 model of a large, ensemble cast because then everybody finds someone to relate to. The "Triad" concept (Archer, Trip, T'Pol) only worked in the 1960's and even then, nobody seems to remember that show only lasted 3 seasons (TOS). DS9 had an ensemble cast, even Voyager and TNG had something of an ensemble cast.

I hate to say this but I think some part of the failure of Enterprise to live up to the standards of viewership was bad casting for some of the minor parts. Travis and Hoshi were the only other bridge crew and they were atrociously awful actors. Hoshi was ok, she just needed better writing. Malcolm suffered the same problem - he was written so stereotypically british it was painful for ME to watch, I don't even want to imagine what Brits thought of him.

Elessar wrote: They were kind of hacks, to be honest.

Hacks?

I do think they had a lot of nostalgia for TOS, which I also had after (what little I saw of) Voyager and DS9 and frankly even TNG, which I saw obsessively from beginning to end. That often felt like the exciting voyages of the U.S.S. Marriott.

While ENT's writing was uneven and inconsistent, especially in the first two seasons, if you ask me that's the MO of every ST series I've ever watched (except that TOS actually got worse in the third season).

I would agree they suffered from poor casting for Travis's role. But I think they mostly suffered from fatigue in the fan base, and from being the erratically-scheduled child of a newly launched, ultimately failing network.

Your mileage may vary and clearly does. I should give up defending the people who came up with the show that inspired this site, because it's obviously pointless. But I wish there was a special thread called "Bitching about how much the people who wrote Enterprise sucked" so everyone could get it out of their system and I could avoid it.