20 Years of Enterprise- the Hype

When the Original Series started in the UK, it was about three years before my parents even met, let alone 11 years before I was even born. When The Next Generation reached these shores in 1990, I remember it being covered on a Kids Saturday Morning magazine programme. (I want to say it was one of the ITV ones, but as TNG would have been on the BBC, it was more likely to be on that network). By the time DS9 started, I was a fan of TNG, and slowly immersing myself in the rest of the Trek Universe. I didn’t find out the thing existed until I saw a trailer on TV. When Voyager dropped, I was a dyed in the wool Trekkie. I had seen a good chunk of what was out there, and I used to read the Okudas’ Trek encyclopaedia religiously. I followed the show from its announcement to its broadcast. I even remember that I watched Voyager for this first time on holiday to the US as a kid. And yet, I didn’t have a peer group to interact with over this show. I didn’t have any local friends that were into Trek.

By the time 2001 came around I was a university student in my second year of study. I was part of a few online fan groups for Star Trek, and I had even run a few (by fan groups, I mean Yahoo Clubs and subsequently groups. Think Facebook groups, but they clogged up your eMail inbox instead of your FB Timeline). So, as Voyager was winding down, rumours about what was going to replace it started to spread.

As a fan, I remember feeling bitterly disappointed that it was going to be a prequel. Aside from an episode or two of Voyager, we hadn’t had a peep at the “present” timeline of the Alpha Quadrant since we left DS9. I accepted that we weren’t going to look in on the DS9 crew, let alone the TNG one as the contracts would have been prohibitive, but I wanted to see the 24th century endure, I wasn’t interested in a time before Kirk. What was the post war political landscape? What was the impact of Voyager’s return? These were the questions I wanted to see answered

Then there was the decision to drop the Star Trek prefix from the title in favour of calling it Enterprise. Which is like calling a movie “Iron Man, Captain America and their chums.” Instead of “The Avengers”. It felt like they were trying to isolate themselves from Star Trek, while keeping the connection to Star Trek.

The final point of nerd rage was the announcement that the show wasn’t going to have an orchestral sound track, it was going to be a Rod Stewart single from 1999.

All of this means that in the run up to the show I didn’t quite have faith… faith of the heart. But one thing that saved it, other than the fact that it was Star Trek was the announcement of the lead actor.

The 1990s had been a golden age of science fiction for me, and one of the jewels was Quantum Leap, fronted by Scott Bakula as the smart, yet humble Doctor Sam Beckett. Much like a Starship captain, the time traveller would have cool tech at his disposal (kinda, sorta) but ultimately it would be his humanity that would be needed to complete his missions. When I heard that he was going to be the lead character, it outweighed all of the perceived negatives I had at the time.

But would I like it?

Find out in my next blog entry!