Star Trek Enterprise: Season One - DVD Review

It's difficult to review a full-season set of a show with such a devoted fan base, particularly on the morning after its execution (the series finale aired this month). It feels downright mean to nitpick about the quality of the writing in the first season when it's doubtful that a casual fan is going to shell out almost a hundred dollars for this impressive set. What I mean is if you're considering buying the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise, you're probably a fan of the show already, in mourning over its cancellation and just curious if this expansive new DVD set can ease the pain of no Star Trek franchise on the broadcast schedule next season and if you should start saving for the hefty price tag. Let me just say, if you're at all a Trekkie and fan of the newer series, start working a little overtime.

Going into this set, I had only seen a handful of episodes, including one of the best of season one, "Shuttlepod One", and, honestly, wasn't a huge fan. Just for the sake of full ST disclosure, I've probably seen all of the original series, all the films, a large majority of The Next Generation, and only around half a dozen of both Deep Space Nine and Voyager. So, I was a pretty big fan as a child, who never found the same joy in the later series (or, for that matter, the later films except for First Contact) as I got older. In other words, I'm not the target audience for the Star Trek Enterprise: Season One DVD set.

I can't really imagine the target audience, the legion of Enter-Trekkies who wrote letter after letter to UPN, trying to save the show from the cancellation axe, being honestly disappointed with this set. Paramount, a studio notorious for rushing television series on to DVD extra-free, took their time with this package and plan to do the same with the following seasons coming quickly on the heels of this one. Full of extra features, as-good-as-TV-gets video and audio transfers, and the kind of nifty packaging that hits deep to the heart of the nerd in all of us, Star Trek Enterprise: S1 is designed to please its fans.

So, who cares that creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga seemed to stumble a bit in this first season, trying to find the footing between the human angle of their story (emphasized strongly in their commentary and the other extras on this DVD) and the sci-fi directives of the network/studio? For me, the writing on Star Trek Enterprise always seemed caught between the two worlds, not quite devoted enough to either and, consequently, not as memorable as it should be. In the best sci-fi television (The Next Generation, the current Battlestar Galactica) both the richness of the characters and the ingenuity of the vision of the future work together to entertain. The writing on Enterprise, always stuck between the everyman angle of its lead and premise and a rather predictable science fiction vision, never gels for me in the first season (and I haven't seen any episodes from subsequent seasons, although I've heard it improved). I enjoyed most of the episodes I watched but forgot them immediately after viewing. That's not bad for a rainy Sunday afternoon but not exactly landmark television, which this franchise has been in the past.

But, like I said, I'm not the target audience for this set. The hardcore fans will love it and Paramount deserves thanks just for catering to its devoted, loving fan base. Television seasons on DVD are not usually built for the casual fan, especially for a cancelled show like this one, and yet too many studios rush their product to store shelves, not putting in the love and care to really make the real fans happy. Diehards may have wished for a commentary or two more (there's only one audio track and two text commentaries) but I doubt they'll complain as they look at the spectacular packaging. It will look right at home next to all their other Star Trek memorabilia.