All right, now that I’ve seen the entire series, let’s break this down. Fair warning, I am a long-time Trek fan, and can get a little nit-picky about some details.

• Temporal war… was done already by the time that I wrote the last post. When they resolved the issue at the end of Season 3 and the opener for Season 4, that apparently unraveled the cause for the temporal cold war. Thankfully, they handle the time travel physics as consistently as possible to the Trek universe. Which is to say, I can’t put into words the rules involved in time travel, paradoxes, etc, but it feels solid. It doesn’t feel phoned in.
• I wasn’t wrong to look forward to the mirror universe episodes. I have to think that they were having fun and knew that they didn’t have another season, because they seemed to throw everything into their mirror universe counterparts. There was a Vulcan with a goatee! And a whole new intro without a shitty song with shitty lyrics! On top of that, seeing the TOS ship from the primary universe whoop some newer-looking Enterprise-era arse was extremely gratifying. These two episodes were total fan service, and I loved them.
• As for the final episode, I liked the concept, but it was implemented for crap. I’m not saying the Federation phase cloak discovery wasn’t an extremely stressful time for Riker, and I think that it was a neat idea for him to visit the decommissioning of NX-01on the holodeck to set his own internal conflict into perspective. However, Jonathan Frakes was… not the same man that he was during the taping of Next Generation. I was surprised as hell to see NCC-1701-D instead of E. It was difficult for me to suspend disbelief and see Riker as Riker, instead of a hastily slapped together linkng to the overall Trek universe. And lest you think I’m just a naysayer without any constructive input, I have two suggestions for better ways to end the series:
  • Instead of the discovery of the phase cloak device, fast forward to Picard’s retirement, and Riker’s promotion to Captain of the Enterprise E. Keep the nervousness, and cap off the character’s constant struggle with leaving Picard’s side to assume his own command. Appearance wouldn’t kick the viewer out of the story, and it would have ended Enterprise while continuing the progression of the Trek universe up until the reboot 8 years later.
  • Trash the entire idea, have the Traveler and Wesley Crusher show up in cowboy hats (and possibly an epic beard for the Wes), declare to Archer that they have a course he can plot, steal the ship, and conquer Risa in a bloodless coup.

I’m happy that the series didn’t suck rocks like I’d remembered. Except for the intro. Sooooo much rock sucking.