But I took a break from Deep Space Nine and watched Enterprise. If you have never watched it, it is the story of the first starship Enterprise and it takes place between the events of Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: The Original Series.
I absolutely loved Enterprise. As far as I'm concerned, it is the best Star Trek I have seen. Yes better than even TNG. There were a few rocky moments but it definitely didn't take a season to find its way.
Each season was very different. The first two seasons really expressed the sense of wonder as the Enterprise as it visited new planets and met new species for the first time. I thought they really captured it well. It also dealt with the tension between humans and Vulcans and the resentment many humans felts about the Vulcans withholding technology.
The third season was very different. It was basically a season-long story arc about the Xindi threat. The Xindi, an alien people made up of a number of different race, had been warned that the humans would destroy them in the future and so they had decided to destroy Earth now to prevent that future. Enterprise's mission was to find the Xindi's planet-killing weapon and stop the destruction of Earth.
The fourth and (sadly) final season consisted of a number of shorter story arcs. These were some of my favourite episodes. These included the explanation of why there were some human looking Klingons in the Original Series. Perhaps my favourite was the In a Mirror, Darkly, two episode story. This took place in the mirror universe that was introduced in the Original Series and appeared in the later series, including the most recent Star Trek: Discovery. It was a lot of fun.
Some people didn't like the final episode, which actually revolved around Commander Riker of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I actually quite enjoyed. It was neat to see Riker and Troi in their old uniforms. It was quite nostalgic. More than that, it epitomized Enterprise's role as the thread that connects all of the various series.
That is part of the charm of Enterprise, is that it has connections right across the Star Trek universe. It includes early aliens such as the Andorian and Tellarites (and even a Gorn) but also later additions such as the Ferrengi and the Borg. A good example of this is a fourth season arc that features a character named Doctor Arik Soong (played by Brent Spiner), an ancestor of the man who created Data in TNG. But more than that, Soong is working with augments, the same genetically modified humans that Khan for the Original Series and the movies belonged.
Enterprise was just a lot of fun. Having also recently watched the first season of Discovery, I was amazed at how much Discovery relied on the events of Enterprise. This was especially true of Discovery's own trip to the mirror universe.
If you have never watched Enterprise, I recommend you check it out.
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