Full Season Review
B-Tier
Average Episode Rating: 2.75
Key Episodes
Azati Prime & Damage
The Forgotten
The Council
Enterprise's third season is surely one of the most unique in the extended TNG era, if not in the franchise as a whole. With a dark, desperate tone and being centered around a single combat mission, there is a unique energy here that carries through even its worst episodes. It does build on elements from earlier series (DS9's multi-episode experiments with serialization in its final two seasons, Voyager's aborted "Year of Hell" season) but succeeds in feeling completely distinct, which Enterprise's previous seasons did not accomplish.
My chief criticisms of previous seasons were low energy and uninspired stories. Those issues are mostly gone here. Season 3 is bursting with life and doesn't feel like what came before. There is new energy behind the camera as the directors amplify the drama with more dynamic camera movements and more dramatic lighting. In front of the camera, the actors dial up the intensity too. Stunt work and fight choreography improve with the flashy introduction of the MACOs, and the special effects team crafts some of the franchise's best space battles in "Twilight," "Azati Prime," and "Countdown." There are plenty of bad episodes here -- -- but the overall quality of the scripts has gone up. I would place all five of my Key Episodes here above each of the previous ten.
Archer, T'Pol, Trip, Reed, and recurring character Degra all get well-defined character arcs across the season. This is an improvement after a second season that didn't bother with character arcs at all. Some of these arcs are quite successful; Archer's moral unraveling, Trip's struggles with grief and anger, and Degra's redemption arc are engrossing and give each actor great material to work with. On the other hand, Reed's drawn-out dick-measuring with Major Hayes just makes him more unlikable, and T'Pol's drug addiction storyline is nothing short of baffling. The other characters are still being left out. Phlox and Hoshi get a single episode each ("Doctor's Orders" and "Exile") and minor moments in the Xindi arc ("Damage" and "Countdown"). Poor Mayweather lacks a spotlight episode entirely, and a heroic moment in "Azati Prime" that seems tailor-made for the ship's pilot is given to Archer instead.
A lot of this season rests on the Xindi as villains and, just like everything else, they are a mixed bag. At first, they come across little more than a generic Council of Evildoers. Watching bad guys in goofy costumes talk politics on a discount Attack of the Clones set is hardly compelling. The turning point comes in the episodes "The Shipment" and especially "Stratagem," which work hard to humanize the Xindi. It soon becomes clear that the Xindi arc is not about a revenge-driven invasion to find the enemy WMD, but rather a journey of reconciliation. In a welcome vindication for Star Trek's humanist philosophy, Archer risks it all on a chance for peace and forges a diplomatic alliance between Enterprise and three of the Xindi races at the climax of the arc "The Forgotten," "Azati Prime", and "Countdown".
This development in the Xindi storyline is critical to the success of the season's central 9/11 allegory, steering back from the warhawking in "The Expanse." The Xindi are not stand-ins for Al Qaeda. Instead, their fractured nature is a better reflection of the United States; they are plagued by division in an ineffective legislative body, misled by their leaders (the Sphere Builders) into starting a war, and in the business of developing weapons. This choice strengthens the season's social commentary. Instead of demonizing America's supposed enemies, this season turns a surprisingly harsh look inward. But while the Xindi avoid being depicted as terrorist strawmen, the standalone episode "Chosen Realm" seemingly exists solely so the square-jawed American Captain Archer can punch evil alien suicide bombers in the face.
Overall, the success of the central storyline and the overall quality of the season follow an ascending arc. The first half of the season is disjointed, tries too hard to be edgy, and fails to generate interest. The cringeworthy "Extinction" and sexist "Rajiin" grind the season to a halt right as it's getting started, and the Xindi and Expanse storylines struggle to compel until halfway through the season. By contrast, the final stretch of episodes from "Azati Prime" through "Countdown" is peak Enterprise, with a cohesive storyline, genuinely dire stakes, and the kind of narrative momentum that leads to impromptu binge-watching.
Perhaps unfortunately, Enterprise isn't able to completely transform, and some of the previous seasons' problems are still here. It's disappointing that the bold new Xindi arc is so intrinsically tied into the directionless Temporal Cold War. The flimsy time travel adventure "Carpenter Street" is the Xindi arc's low point. When reptilian Xindi's plan for a bioweapon (a plot thread since the start of the season) dead-ends in contemporary Detroit, it becomes clear that there was no vision or direction here -- at least not at first. And while the dreaded Decon Chamber is gone, it has a successor in the form of Vulcan Neuropressure. This is just the latest paper thin excuse to get the cast undressed. It's shame the burgeoning Trip/T'Pol relationship relies so heavily on this silliness.
Enterprise Season 3 was an improvement, but was it enough? Rival sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica began airing during the same broadcast season, show-run by an ex-Star Trek writer also attempting to break free of the series' creative limitations. Both sought to update the formula by with serialized storytelling, a darker tone, increased violence, more flawed characters, higher stakes, and moral complexity. However, Battlestar also made a conscious choice to appeal to more serious mainstream audiences by discarding sci-fi cliches that could be seen as corny. That show shied away from elements like forehead aliens, technobabble, and time travel, all of which are front-and-center in Enterprise. This is a dramatic war story, but it's also full of so much tacky, unapologetic sci-fi pulp that it feels more Farscape at times, replete with zombies, lost cities, slave girls, space pirates, lizard people, giant insects, and a superweapon. This may have been a miscalculation. Enterprise careens wildly between throwback sci-fi B-movie schlock and gritty post-9/11 drama. We end up with a season that is too self-serious for cult sci-fi fans, too silly for mainstream audiences, and too violent for some fans of TNG-era Star Trek.
I don't want this review to end on such a negative note, however, since this season does indeed make it into my B-Tier for "Rock Solid" seasons. Perhaps this is because I genuinely like all of its clashing components. Traditional Star Trek like The Next Generation is great. Gritty war dramas like Battlestar Galactica are great. Zany sci-fi pulp like Farscape is great. So a confused mash-up of the three just works for me.
