Star Trek: Enterprise -[Final Mission]- Stardate:503150. Final Log

[Crothian]

I liked the ending. THe show did not live up to what it could do through the 4 seasons, but it ended on a high note with some good stories and good performances. I am pleased.

 

[LrdApoc]

Well that was, um, interesting. Now I remember why I didn't watch it. Was it just me or did Trips death seem pointless and sudden? It was if they just needed a reason to kill someone. :\

It made absolutely no sense.. especially knowing that he had a full crew compliment and had been in a situation like that oh I don't know.. 20 minutes before in the prior episode. I guess Trip lost his quick wit over the course of those 10 years.

 

[Silver Moon]

Well I regret watching the last half of the final episodes. I should have taken the advice and turned it off at 9.

I agree. I found the final episode bad on so many levels. Expecting the viewers to believe that Ryker and Troi hadn't aged any since TNG Season Six was a real stretch. Even the best scripted scenes in the episode, the one-on-one conversations between the Enterprise crew, lost any real impact by having the invisible third person standing in the room evesdropping rather than it being a private moment. And then they tell us that Archer gave a great speech and end the episode before we get to hear any of it!

The episode prior to that was a great ending. So I guess I'll just have to convince myself that "Terra Prime was the final Enterprise episode (along with the facts that there never were any sequels to the movie "Highlander", the "Gilligan's Island" castaways were never rescued and that "Buffy" ended after Season Five.)

 

[wingsandsword]

Terra Prime was a good close to the series. It felt like good Trek, some drama, some action, it generally made sense (the array was reasonably explained, I presume it doesn't work against shields or there was some other perfectly good reason why it wasn't used on the Xindi weapon), and I'll presume that part of Mars was pointed toward that part of Earth at the right time for that shot to work. Hoshi actually taking command was nice touch to it all as well, as was Malcolm going back to his Section 31 contact and seeing them again. That felt like the real conclusion of Enterprise. If it had ended there, at least there was some vague sense of completion: although damaged the diplomatic underpinnings that would lead to the Federation had been built.

These are the Voyages was two things, a footnote-glimpse of the day the Federation was founded, and an appendix to the TNG episode "The Pegasus". I can see how the cast of Enterprise felt like second-fiddle at their own finale, being shunted to being holodeck characters just there to be background to a story told a decade ago. You could tell Manny Coto was out of the loop on that one I'm sad to say. Trip's death belongs right behind Tasha Yar on the Senseless Trek Deaths list, with Kirk getting randomly shot in the back also way up there (of course, Generations and Kirk's death was another Berman/Braga concept, so this is par for the course for them).

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I stopped watching at 9PM...not on purpose, just started flipping channels. I'm glad I stopepd when I did. It was a good ending, and I guess I didn't miss much with the other one.

 

[myrdden]

What a horrible way to end the series.

'Nuff said.

I mean - what was the point featuring Riker over the actual cast?

Dumb, dumb, dumb....

I wasn't overly fond of the Terra Prime episode either but it was better than the final.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Problems with the last episode:

Turning the show into an episdoe of an older show is great for an anniversary ep (see Trials and Tribblations), not such a hot idea for a SERIES FINALE.

Revisit the much overused holodeck episode shtick. I'm surprised Moriarty or Riker's old holo-girlfriend didn't show up.

Meaningless character death already mentioned by others. It seemed kind of sudden -- from what I saw, he was being treated, then T'Pol was packing his things. Where the heck was security while the captain was being surrounded by criminals, and how did they get on board?

Blow the chance to show one of the key moments in the entire Star Trek universe, the founding of the UFP. No speech, no signing.

Same problem as Nemesis -- the NextGen cast has aged. Not their fault, but it is the fault of the writers to try and set the episode during the original NextGen run. Would have been better to have a post-Nemesis viewpoint if they had to use Riker and Troi.

Flashback episodes should go back to something meaningful to the characters. The Pegasus was an episode meaningful to RIKER. If they wanted to go back to that, they should have at least tied it to the Romulan War.

Having said that:

The flip between the NextGen, TOS and Enterprise captain's monologue was nice.

Data's little "raincheck" confusion was silly, but still brought back nice memories.

The actual story involving the Andorian trying to get his daughter back would have been OK as a regular episode, and was reasonably well done.

I liked the exchange between Trip and T'Pol about whether they missed each other.

Basically, they turned an OK episode into the series finale. The only thing I can think is that they had a script planned for next season lying around and got lazy.

 

[John Cooper]

That was the most disappointing series finale I can think of in a long time. Most of my points have already been made by others, but so much of the episode seemed to be leading up to things they just never got around to showing. Archer's Federation speech is the best example, but I was also left really wanting to see T'Pol meet with Trip's parents. Also, many of the characters just seemed "off" this episode - T'Pol's hesitancy to trust Shran (it was pretty embarrassing having Archer have to explain racial tolerance to her), Trip's suicidal "I guess I have to blow myself up to stop these invaders even though I'm sure a ship full of Starfleet personnel and MACOs can handle four aliens with guns," and so on. And tying the whole episode into a Riker and Troi storyline was bad enough, but to tie it into a storyline that we've already seen was a particularly bad move - we already know that Riker's going to tell Picard about the Pegasus cloaking experiments, so where's the suspense?

Oh well, I suppose I should just be glad that the entire series wasn't explained away as a holodeck program.

As for the previous episode, I agree that that made a much better ending for the series. I wasn't surprised about Elizabeth's death or status as a clone, though - that way, they've still got Spock as the first human/Vulcan hybrid. (Elizabeth, as a clone with a DNA error/flaw, kind of "doesn't count.") And did you notice that the Mars station was named after Carl Sagan? Nice touch!

 

[driver8]

Worst...Finale..Evah...

Soo disappointed. At least Voyagers Finale played on the characters and their histories with each other, even if it did sort of render their long journey home moot by breaking the rules to get home. Bit this, this had nothing.

The Terra Prime wrap up was ok, but like so many 2 parters in Enterprise's history, the payoff was much weaker than the setup.It kinda felt like an afterthought. They took down the big Bad guy easy enough, no real dramatic tension IMHO,but there was at least several nods to the cast members- Hoshi commanding, etc..

As for the finale..it was just a mish mosh. I wonder if it was slapped on after Coto had begin his mini arcs or what. The TNG tie in was ok-it was actually nice to see Riker and Troi, but it was terribly distracting. But so little made sense to me. No epic final mission to help found the Federation; Trips death was in what you could almost call a "side trek" in D&D terms. WTF?

And we didnt even get to hear the speech Kind of a cop out. But in the end, it is indicitive of the way the series went. Such a waste. Goodbye and good riddance.

 

[Napftor]

Terra Prime ended on too much of a sorrowful note to be an ENT finale for me. As for TATV, well, I enjoy Riker and Troi and seeing them and the great ENT-D visuals only makes me want a TNG-era series even more. As a series finale, it just doesn't cut it. The hints in the previous episode for a Trip/T'Pol baby are blown out of the water when it's revealed that they depart from an intimate relationship in the finale. The subplot with Shran's child and Trip's death...I just couldn't bring myself to care.

They should have just ended the series with alien Nazis.