Notes toward an overanalysis of a failed sci-fi spin-off

I’ve been using Gerry Canavan’s Star Trek CFP as an excuse for “researching” the red-headed stepchildren of the franchise: Enterprise and The Animated Series. I began by rewatching Enterprise over the last couple months, a process that is coming to completion. Over the course of this rewatch, I shared with the members of the Daystrom Institute a wide range of theories and assessments — again, justifying this as “research,” to see how the fan community responds to my ideas. This morning, I wrote up my definitive assessment of the final season, so hopefully my obsessive Enterprise redditing is at an end. Hence I compile some highlights here for those who are interested in my hermeneutical approach to an unpopular and mostly forgotten Star Trek spin-off.

• In which I consider how Enterprise might reframe certain events and themes from the original series.
• In which I make the daring claim that the Borg episode does not cause a continuity error and indeed is necessary to preserve continuity.
• In which I debunk of a popular fan theory that the show caused an alternate timeline.
• In which I cautiously reassess the concept behind the series finale and argue that it was in principle a cool idea that should have been used more frequently in earlier seasons.
• In which I stake out the claim that the first two seasons were actually the best, contrary to most fans.
• In which I ask what it was like to watch the season 3 Xindi arc in real time, prompting a Post of the Week-winning comment relating a time when the online fan community collaboratively invented a made-up episode in the course of “critiquing” and “defending” it.
• In which I wonder aloud whether the Temporal Cold War could provide the grounds for an in-universe explanation of the existence of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• In which I argue that Enterprise and The Animated Series are the most systematic instances of world-building within the Star Trek franchise.
• In which I investigate the possible influence of MacGyver and X-Files on Enterprise.
• In which I reveal that the reboot films draw to a surprising degree on Enterprise.
• In which I put forth the episode “Hatchery” as exemplary of Enterprise‘s particular strengths as a series.
• In which I issue a scathing critique of the Orion Slave Girls episode.
• In which I assess the final season, contradicting the widely-accepted fan opinion that it is among the best of the series.

As they say, look up on my works, ye mighty, and despair.