Keating: Enterprise Finale OK By Me

[Vic 17]

Unlike many fans and some of the actors associated with Star Trek: Enterprise, Dominic Keating liked the finale for the show.

 

And playing Reed was very satisfying for Keating. “…I was very happy with the workload I was given and the story arcs I had and the general fleshing-out of Malcolm,” he said. “I got just of the heavy work days to make me feel like I was earning a crust.”

 

There were times when Keating wished for more lines for his character though. “There were some stints in there somewhere where it was like, ‘Come on, give me something to do other than this slightly perfunctory stuff,” he said. “But all in all, I got thrown a nice couple of bones every year and I got some great B-stories. And I inadvertently and unwittingly became the action man on the show, I guess, running in to save Trip’s and the captain’s screw-ups.”

 

Part of the appeal of the Star Trek: Enterprise finale for Keating was getting to work with Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes. “I loved it,” he said. “I’ve said this at the conventions many times, but I had no issue with it. It was such a treat to work with Marina , who’d become a chum over the years on the convention circuit. They were shooting Nemesis next door to us during our first season. And I loved Jonathan.”

 

Keating didn’t mind having the entire Star Trek televised series, not just Star Trek: Enterprise, wrapped up in the finale, although he felt the story used to bring in Sirtis and Frakes could have been better. “I thought that device they used in order to include them was a bit clunky,” he said. “The reason was a bit spurious, them wanting to go back into the archives to check… What was it? I can’t even remember. But once you’ve gotten past that, it was fine. And fair dues to (executive producers) Brannon (Braga) and Rick (Berman), they were winding up seventeen years of their take on the series. It was just our four years. They’d done a lot more stuff prior to us. So I thought it was fair enough. I didn’t have any sort of issues with it at all. I enjoyed working with Marina and Jonathan, and there’s some idea of a heritage there, of start to finish.”

 

 

 

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[VaBeachGuy 12]

I didn't really like that they turned the Enterprise finale into a TNG episode. It was an interesting concept for an episode, but not for the final episode of the entire series.

[A l t e r E g o 9]

Neither do I.

 

That they, or he, had a great time working with Sirtis/Frakes is irrelevant. A GOOD series finale is what is important.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

As I will never get tired of saying, These Are The Voyages is an example of why Enterprise had to die. The writers had an extra year to come up with a fitting ending, and this was the best they could do?

 

Yes, that really was the best they could do! This was what many of you were actively trying to save!

[VaBeachGuy 12]

No,one episode is not a reason for a series to die. Enterprise was an excellent series and was only getting better. That's like saying "Skin of Evil" or "Code of Honor" or "Shades of Gray" were reasons that TNG should never have made it past 1 or 2 seasons. For that matter, just taking the first 2 seasons as an example why a third shouldn't have happened.

 

Had TNG happened to be the 4th series, made in 2001 and given the exact same cast and episodes, it wouldn't have made it to it's third season.

 

I've said it before here, I would hold Enterprises forst 4 seasons up against any other series in the franchise and it would hold it's own and even beat a couple of the series. TNG and Voyager specifically.

[Mr.Picard 12]

Hey! I love TNG's first two seasons! (Especially the second one.) They're my favorites! (I know I'm alone in this but I always protest when people make it look like as if no one liked the first two seasons, lol.)

 

I think Enterprise as whole was incredibly bad and treated canon so poorly that I could barely stand watching the episodes. It got only worse in season 4 when they desperately tried to somehow make it blend into what happens "later" in TOS. The whole basis didn't convince me - you can't shoot a series in these modern times and then set it before one that was shot in the 60s. You'll only end up with people asking questions like "why do their computers have flatscreens and on TOS they're bulky things" and so on. I could write an entire essay on why I think Enterprise was a bad idea to begin with and why it makes no sense at all, but then, I've done that quite a few times and I don't care to repeat it, lol.

 

As for the final episode - that was the final slap into my face. An incredibly poorly written episode, a re-used Jean-Luc scene from "Menage A Troi", a Ten Forward that didn't look like Ten Forward at all, Troi with different hairstyle and Riker looking visibly older than on TNG (which is only natural, but it doesn't make this more convincing in ANY way)... and that was just the TNG part that I hated. I haven't even begun talking about the ENT part. lol

 

So, I disagree with Keating. Absolutely. I'm glad he had a good time and whatnot, but I'm with AE - a good final episode was needed, not Keating getting along with Sirtis and Frakes. But then, that episode was the "finest" episode Bermaga were able to come up with at that time. It just fits to the rest of the series. I would've been really surprised if they had actually come up with a decent final episode, but I did of course not expect a disaster like "These Are The Voyages". After forcing myself to watch the entire series I thought it could not got any worse in the final episode... I was wrong. It could.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

Yeah! Take that VBG!

 

I will say that ENT didn't screw with the canon so much as what people *thought* was canon. Even ignoring that, however, you really did get a headache trying to sort out the differences between canon and assumed canon and trying to find a way to make it fit. Was Spock the first Vulcan in Starfleet? No, he was just the first one to graduate the Academy. Was Spock the first Human-Vulcan hybrid? No, just the first one that lived. You think the casual, non-anal retentive, Trek viewer would take the time for such a detailed analysis? Forget it.

 

We had a local convention here when ENT was in it's first season and already they had been screwing with the canon. One of the writers or producers was on stage and answered questions about canon. Already there were inconsistencies. You know what the answer was? Pips. Archer had pips like Picard had pips but Kirk did not. It's all because Zephram had met some TNG crew and Lily was on the ship. That's why canon changed. But of course we have no explanation why until that Borg episode, which actually set canon on the right path by explaining how 7 of 9's family heard about the Borg before the TNG crew did, but by then the series was already lost.

 

Along that line, however, ENT missed a golden opportunity with the Temporal Cold War (which seamed like a hot war to me). What is the one thing that long-term Trek fans want to know but were never given a canon explanation? I've said it before... There were no Eugenics Wars in the 1990s! What an opportunity for ENT to go back and explain why a lot of what was predicted to happen from the 1960s to now never happened! They didn't even address it.

 

Sorry, Enterprise was shit.

Edited May 4, 2011 by He Who Shall Not Be Named

[Mr.Picard 12]

^

 

The Eugenics Wars in the 1990s - blame Berman. He forgot about that one on Voyager already in that episode in which some of the crew are stranded in the 1990s. He was asked why there were no apparent Eugenics Wars... his reply was that he had never seen TOS and not even known about these wars in a really arrogant "oops, I was supposed to have known that? Sorry, never bothered with TOS" way. And THAT's the guy who boldly went ahead and tried to make a series that was set before TOS. It was bound to fail.

 

And I hated the way they "eluded" canon by not actually NAMING the Ferengi or the Borg. That's a really cheap way of cheating. They only had the Ferengi and the Borg because they thought they were "cool" and would bring better ratings. (The Borg episode is one I have the biggest issues with. How did the Borg survive the crash? The atmosphere would've burned their organic parts to ashes, and really, even if they survived SOMEHOW I doubt that, at the end of First Contact, Jean-Luc would leave without scanning the planet for ANY kind of Borg technology, life forms, whatever. HE of ALL people WOULD make PRETTY sure there were NO Borg. He would NOT forget about this. Not he.)

 

I will say that, as a sci-fi series, ENT would've been pretty nice perhaps. But in the Trek context? Ugh... if Bermaga had made the entire series an alternate universe series, everything would've been fine. They could've screwed around with canon and could've introduced new time lines and so on and would not have needed to bother with what Trek canon told us about Archer's time. (Granted, they ignored it anyway or tried to move around it on more than one occasion - that's exactly what I mean and what upsets me about that series. The other series broke canon as well, sometimes even their own, but it was always small little glitches. With ENT, I just get the feeling that Bermaga didn't WANT to bother with canon and disrespected it for the sake of better ratings or more action or whatnot. That's an entirely different matter - they conveniently forgot about canon. I have the very same issues with Star Trek: Nemesis, by the way, so this is by no means a rant from a TNG lover who thinks TNG is always perfect.)

Edited May 4, 2011 by Mr.Picard

[VaBeachGuy 12]

Yeah! Take that VBG!

Take that? Take what? This isn't an argument where someone is right and someone is wrong. It's opinion, it's tastes. You didn't like Enterprise, I did. That's ok.

 

Thinking back on Enterprise, I can't think of any instance where they went against canon. Maybe they did but at the moment I can't think of it.

 

As for the Ferengi and Borg, I liked both of those episodes very much. The Borg episode actually tied the series nicely together with TNG and made a good connection there. The Ferengi episode was just fun.

 

Like I said though, everyone can have their own opinion of each series and that's ok. It's not a competition where one side wins and the other loses. Hard core Star Trek fans will always fall on one side or another. My father was a big TOS fan, he watched TNG but hated Picard and thought of him as weak and not in the mold of what a Star Trek captain should be. Mr.Picard would obviously disagree with that opinion, but that's ok.

 

Was Star Trek Enterprise a good series? I'll listen to Hard Core Star Trek fans opinions but wouldn't let those opinions persuade. I would actually look more toward casual fans or even non fans to see what their opinoins are and those would hold a little more water with me.

 

My oldest brother recently watched Enterprise from start to finish, originally he had a pretty low opinion about it (when it first aired). After watching the entire series from start to finish though he thought it was a very good series and couldn't understand how it ended up cancelled. I have a couple of other friends that did the same thing and very much enjoyed the series.

 

You didn't like it, that's ok. Just don't buy the DVD's, watch the re-runs or streams of it online. As I've said, I put it's first 4 seasons up against any other first 4 seasons in the franchise and in my opinion it's just as strong as all other series and better than some. Especially those first 2 seasons. Sorry Mr.Picard but with only a few exceptions the first season of TNG was really bad, the second season wasn't a whole lot better but it was better. TNG didn't really start to get good till the third season... in my opinion of course.

[Mr.Picard 12]

^

 

Oh I've had my share of discussions with die-hard ENT fans (in fact, one of my best friends for a long time was one of the biggest ENT fans out there, she loved Trip Tucker and I despise Trip Tucker and guys like him, lol - and it did not damage our friendship in any way), but they always remained civil because I never attacked those who like it for liking it. I may not understand it (just as you may not understand me liking the first two TNG seasons so much, I like them just BECAUSE they're often a bit trashy, lol) but I do respect it. As you said, this is not a "you're wrong and I am right" issue, it's a matter of different opinions.

 

Oh and I understand those who have their logical reasons for disliking Jean-Luc. I don't agree with ALL the decisions he makes either. It's what makes things interesting IMO. I'd love to have a few discussions with him about the mess he made with the Edo, for example.