This entire season was a delayed response to 9-11. The Twin Towers became the Xindi (themselves surrogates of Osama Bin Laden) attack on Florida and Venezuela. As such, it feels like a snapshot of the American collective state of mind that prevailed during the early 2000's. "The Mission". Enemies everywhere. Compromises. Torture. The character crossed lines that no other crew had in Star Trek history, and that had a huge cost in viewership. Even after 10 years, it's hard to watch it without wondering... it was worth it?.
Enterprise gets rebranded as “Star Trek: Enterprise” and is given a revamped theme song in its third season as it attempts an unprecedented season long story arc. In the wake of a deadly attack on Earth by an unknown alien race called the Xindi, the Enterprise is sent on an urgent mission into unexplored space to find them and prevent them from launching any further attacks. It’s a really interesting idea, but the execution is a bit lacking, as the Xindi story is broken up by a number of stand-alone episodes that disrupt the momentum. Yet, these breaks allow the show to balance out the main story arc with more traditional episodes about character development and exploration. Incredibly ambitious, Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise pushes the limits of the series and asks some very provocative moral and ethical questions.
Shout by Josh HornbeckBlockedParent2021-08-04T08:08:55Z
FIRST THOUGHTS:
It’s better than the show’s other seasons, but unfortunately, that’s not saying much. This season’s ongoing narrative was much more compelling than any of the other storylines they’ve found, but their attempts to go darker and wrestle with ethical dilemmas were halfhearted at best. Just because you have your characters talk about how bad they feel doing ethically dubious things for the greater good, that doesn’t mean you’re suddenly wrestling with weightier issues than your average STAR TREK show. The fact that the show’s writers seem to be on the side of the ethically dubious choices is tiresome, and the constant lionizing of the straight white male captain is tedious. Again, the narrative is much more interesting the the rest of the series thus far, but that’s a very low bar.