Allow me to offer a somewhat different viewpoint.
I came to Star Trek with the original movies, saw a few of the original series episodes on reruns, and fell in love with the Next Generation, eventually seeing every single episode. While I can't even bear to watch 98% of those shows on re-runs now because I find them so dated, boring, and horrible, there was something about that show that hooked me instantly and held me until the very last episode.
I didn't care for the first couple of seasons of Deep Space 9, but I eventually learned to love that show, too, especially as they got closer to the end and it became more and more a political drama. The last couple seasons mark a Trek "high-water mark" for me.
Voyager was a bitter disappointment, and aside from a few episodes in which they brought in 7 of 9 and the Borg Queen, I largely ignored the last five seasons of that show. Judging by the ratings, I was part of a mass exodus of Star Trek fans.
When the new show came out, I took stock of the situation. Same production team. Odd "set in the past" format that seemed at odds with the "canonical" information I knew about the show. Folk music opening. Without ever watching the show, I happpily wrote it off. Up until last night, I'd _never_ seen an episode of Enterprise, and I was content to live a life completely absent of Star Trek.
"The Expanse" was written for viewers exactly like me. I read all the quibbles and complaints in this thread with an arched eyebrow. I'm sure the producers are glad that many of you regular viewers liked the episode, but I'm also certain you're not the episode's target market, and that trekkie complaints about water rushing into canyons and quantum dating problems (valid as both are from a scientific perspective) are of little concern to Braga and Berman, who are trying to save their show (and probably their careers).
If Enterprise is going to succeed as a show and as a financial enterprise, it's got to attract more viewers. The logical place to start is with viewers like me, who once had an affinity for Star Trek but who had lost faith in the "franchise runners" and were willing to give it up.
Like I said above, I've _never_ seen an episode of Enterprise. Here's what I saw last night:
* By far the most exciting and visually compelling Star Trek space battle I've ever seen. Yes, the "whip around and shoot them from behind" maneuver was a bit cliche, but it looked _spectacular_. I have no idea if all Enterpise space battles have looked this cool so far, but the special effects technology of this show is _leaps and bounds_ better than its predecessors. The ships seem to have a "weight" to them that's been missing from previous series, and the camera angles are much tighter than in the past, making you feel like you're flying along with the ships. I thought this was great, and so did my girlfriend, incidentally. She thinks Star Trek is for nerds, for the most part. If the "bold new direction" gambit is going to work, the show must attract people like her, too.
* An obvious compact with the fans that "yes, we know certain characters on the show are namby-pamby, and all that's about to change." I like Scott Bakula fine as an actor, but had concerns about him as captain. In the time since TNG, it's become clear to me (and I think several others) that the passive, "let's think our way out of this problem with a psychologist at our side and a kid on ops" style of Captain Picard is far less enjoyable to watch than the "devil may care" emotions of Shatner's original fist-fighting Captain Kirk. I think most viewers want an emotional captain willing to throw a punch and willing to blow his enemies to high heaven. While I have no idea where Archer has been as a character, it seems clear that the deaths of 7 million people are going to push him a tad further into the Kirk region.
* Lots of "fan service" to people like me. THAT's why the klingons were there. Klingons remind the casual viewer that this show has ties to the previous series. Showing the Enterprise shoot photon torpedoes was a great touch. Both my girlfriend and I said "oh, wow! This is where they introduce photon torpedoes! Neat." Not "according to my desk reference of Star Trek technology, photon torpedoes were introduced several years later."
The Vulcan high command was another such reference. As were the Starfleet scenes. As was the spacedock allusion to Star Trek I. As was the image of the first warp ship in the opening credits. I know you guys have seen that image lots of times by now, but for people who haven't ever seen the show, it was a welcome nod to the past that suggested the people in charge of the show know what they're doing.
Now I don't know if they _do_ know what they're doing, really, but the job of this episode was to make it seem like they were, and for me it worked in spades.
* As Jonathan mentioned, the Xindi attack was an obvious allusion to September 11th, and how a terrible surprise attack on the homeland can change everything. I thought this was too heavy-handed, but it appears to have been missed by a lot of folks, so perhaps they played it off with just the right amount of subtlety. In any event, it helps to make the new series direction "relevant" in the same way many people thought Lord of the Rings, with its tale of good against evil, tapped the post-September 11th zeitgeist.
* Most importantly, I left the episode with the impression that the show will now be about exploration into unknown space (like the original series, and like Voyager attempted and failed to pull off convincingly) with lots of fighting and explosions (like the best movies and episodes of TNG and DS9, notably Wolf 359 and the last season of the Dominion war) and a cool new ship with a captain that's not afraid to use his numerous new armaments.
I'm desperately hoping that the show will cast aside the liberal posturing of the 1990s that made Voyager seem so dull and boring and will get back to the spirit of high adventure that made the original series so enjoyable in its time. But this time, it'll hopefully have some of the politics of DS9 and Babylon 5 coupled with the exciting space battles of something like Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars.
Am I a convert to Enterprise? Not really, no, but I definitely will record the first couple episodes of the next season on my TiVo. If they're good, I'll add it to my season pass and will become a happy new viewer. So will my girlfriend, who doesn't generally care for Star Trek, but who really liked that show.
Chances are most of you die-hards will be watching the show no matter what. You watch it now, when by all accounts it's got some serious flaws--flaws the producers apparently recongnize and are trying to recitify with this new direction. If they were able to pick up two viewers like me with last week's episode, I'm sure they picked up thousands more. Maybe hundreds of thousands more. If those people tune in to the first episode next year, they'll have vastly increased their audience, which seems to be the point of the "bold new direction."
I suggest that, at least as far as my apartment was concerned, "The Expanse" was a staggering and utterly surprising success.
--Erik
