Enterprise: Part one of the Pilot

I recorded the first episode of Enterprise, as it was on far too late for a poor family man who needs his sleep, and I finally got around to watching it the other day.

For those who don't know, Enterprise is the latest in the "What What Can We Scrape Off Next" chain of Star Trek spin offs. For a bit of fun, the makers have decided to set Enterprise before the first Star Trek series. It's actually set 150 years from now. So it starts with the first real interstellar journey on board the (you guessed it) Enterprise.

So with the premise in place, and the publicity (read Hype) machine on full, what did the studio come up with? Well, not a whole hell of a lot, if you ask me. While the concept was nice, and there was obviously money thrown around so it looked good, this show just didn't "do it" for me. It was full of red-neck Americans who knew how to do things right (when they obviously didn't) who were also obviously very stupid. There were also liberal doses of in-jokes. Things like "We can get all the way up to warp fact 4.5", which is nothing compared to the speeds later craft reached. And this is probably the train I had the most trouble getting on. The writers seem to feel that we can laugh at this the way we laugh at early predictions for computer or phone usage, or how we look on appalled at early nuclear-missile attack videos which told us to hide under tables. Unfortunately they seem to have missed the point here. The reason it's funny to look back is that real people got it wrong, which is not the case in Enterprise.

Aside from the in-joke quibble, the other problem with Enterprise was that quite often, it seemed to be plain dumb. In the opening scenes the shuttle bumps into the "Enterprise" while flying past, something that would be apalling in a car, let alone a stupidly expensive space ship.
Later the Vulcan science officer openly challenges the Captain on the bridge and all the captain can do in response is take her aside and give her a bit of a wrist slap.
On top of all this, Enterprise has the worst theme song of any show, ever. It is soooooo bad.

So, Enterprise does not get my vote for show of the year, and I can't see myself bothering to keep watching it.