Which thing annoyed you the most on Enterprise?

[Luther Sloan]

Which problem bothered you the most on Star Trek Enterprise?
Please vote and tell us your reason for doing so.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

~LS.



Side Note:

Oh, and I didn't leave myself enough room to add the beginning credits song. Sorry folks. Please mark other if this is what you disliked the most. Thank you.

 

[RegFan]

The Temporal Cold War. It was always badly written and took up too much screen time.

The beginning credits song is pretty bad, but as I only watch Trek on DVD, I can easily skip it. The lyrics were good for a prequel, but the melody doesn't feel like Trek to me.

I don't mind the too advanced-looking technology - yes, it looks more advanced than technology in TOS, but it only looks more advanced. Besides, Trek has to either evolve or end as a franchise. I'd prefer the former. Making the series look as if it was made in the '50s would only make the series look ridiculous.

In my opinion, Scott Bakula isn't a bad actor. He was simply miscast. Jolene Blalock is a bad actress, but not that bad. The acting overall was mediocre.

Mishandling of canon? There were continuity errors, but none of them were worse than in the other series.

Lack of character development? If you have a problem with that, go watch Voyager. Archer, Trip and T'Pol all developed as a result of the Xindi arc. That's more than what most Voyager characters ever got.

The uniforms? I like them. They made the series look more contemporary and I like that. They also look very practical.

 

[Nerys Myk]

My pick
Other: It didn't get seven seasons.

My comments on the other choices
Acting (over all) Seemed on par with the other shows. Though I think DS9 was the best group over all.

Lack of Character Development They did a good job on arcs for the big three, but the other four needed some attention. (Same as the other shows)

Mishandling of Canon Canon can't be mishandled. Its just a collection of approved stories.

Technology was too similar to the 24th Century Non starter, all Trek shows have similar tech. As I said in another thread: The tech is part of the Trek "signature".

Certain Uniforms had not changed in over 200 years Since they aren't the ones worn by the regular cast, I can't care too much. TV shows have budgets. I'll trade "new" costumes for SFX or sets any day.

Scott Bakula I like him.

Jolene Blalock I think she got Vulcans better than the writers or producers.

Certain Story lines went unexplained Didn't care for those storylines anyway.

Vulcan Sex Suit (The Seven of Nine Carbon Copy) Sexy women in sexy costumes, SOP for Trek. Other than being form fitting they went for a different look for T'Pol. Had more in common with Kira or Troi's suits than Seven's. ( to my eye )

The Song Not A song or style I care to listen too as entertaiment, but I don't listen to pseudo-clasical either. That said, it did a good job in capturing the themes presented by Enterprise and worked well with the visuals. It was a daring move not going with a more tradtional theme.

 

[DonIago]

I don't think I can pick one factor that was significantly worse than the others, but I have a few comments-

Theme Song - I might actually like the song on its own terms, but as the opening to a Trek series it seemed more like TPTB were trying to be "cool". Their mistake.

Lack of Character Development - This is a pretty serious problem. During the first two seasons you could at least argue that everyone was being developed at roughly the same rate (if poorly). As much as I liked the character complexities introduced in the final two seasons, it was unfortunate that the secondary cast became increasingly more secondary.

Mishandling of Canon - I'm not sure what you mean by this, though I'm guessing you meant to say Continuity rather than Canon. While there were some continuity oddities, I'm not sure any of them were particularly more egregious than those brought up in other series.

Technology was too similar to the 24th Century - It was a shame that the tech couldn't have been made to look less advanced than that on Kirk's ship while simultaneously not looking like a throwback to the '60s, but I'll admit I'm not sure how this could have been accomplished. Still, I'm not sure how much they even made the attempt. Doors that need to have buttons pressed in order to open isn't exactly a notable throwback.

Certain Story lines went unexplained - Which storylines? Is this a reference to the Temporal Cold War? If so...yeah, that was mishandled. For as much as Lost was clearly not plotted out in advance, it at least comes out looking much better in the overall story planning department. And let's not talk about B5.

Being a gay guy, the Vulcan Sex Suits didn't particularly register on me. Shame the men weren't given sexier outfits though.

 

[Admiral Shran]

My pick
Other: It didn't get seven seasons.

This.


Acting (over all) - The acting seemed just fine to me. It wasn't the best acted show in the franchise, that would be DS9, but it wasn't bad either. Then again, I wasn't expecting Oscar-caliber performances week in and week out.

Lack of Character Development - There was development. Sadly not enough, especially for the secondary cast. However, there was much more than in a series like TOS, for example. I'm hard-pressed to see how any of the characters from TOS were any different in Turnabout Intruder than they were in Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Mishandling of Canon - There were continuity issues, but each of the shows had them. ENT's were no different. Hell, TOS had massive continuity issues within its own series. The most serious issue, IMO, was the Klingon First Contact in Broken Bow. However, I think there are ways to explain most of the problems away.

Technology was too similar to the 24th Century - It's been said already, but I'll repeat it - having the show look like it was produced in the 1950s would have led to its cancellation after 13 episodes. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and accept that the technology is less advanced than TOS tech.

Certain Uniforms had not changed in over 200 years - Which uniforms would those be?

Scott Bakula - I like him. He's certainly not the best actor among the Trek captains, that would be Patrick Stewart. But, he didn't ham it up to Shatner-esque levels either.

Jolene Blalock - I don't know why some people hate her performance so much. She played a Vulcan who was different from what we'd seen before. She wasn't a Spock or a Tuvok. She was willing to experiment with emotions and so was a new take on Vulcans. I appreciated that.

Certain Story lines went unexplained - I assume you mean the Temporal Cold War. All I'll say is that the less said about that story line, the better.

Vulcan Sex Suit (The Seven of Nine Carbon Copy) - I'll admit, this did bother me. It's probably because I find the women on Trek much sexier in the standard uniforms. It leaves room for sublety, which I find very appealing. Women don't need mini-skirts or catsuits in order to be sexy. For example, I find Ezri Dax to be the most attractive female character in the franchise, and I don't think we EVER saw her in a catsuit. In the few episodes where T'Pol wore a standard Starfleet uniform, I thought she was much more attractive.

Theme Song - It was a gutsy more to do something so radically different and I appreciate it on that level. However, that being said, it's certainly not my favorite theme.

 

[Willieck]

Not many things bother me but I too am not all that keen on the opening song. I quite like the music to the closing credits though and usually sing along much to my wife's discomfort especially when I go for the high notes

T,Pol's uniform certainly improved once she had left the High Command. That grey job was appalling! What I did wonder was where she got all those new costumes from. She seemed to change every five minutes and to my knowledge they did not have replicators on Enterprise that would produce new clothing.

The normal uniforms did look more like electricians' overalls than Starship uniforms.

 

[Shazam!]

Making the series look as if it was made in the '50s would only make the series look ridiculous.

It's been said already, but I'll repeat it - having the show look like it was produced in the 1950s would have led to its cancellation after 13 episodes. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and accept that the technology is less advanced than TOS tech.

It would have been a fucking brilliant experiement though, and given the series a unique identity.

The idea of 'realistic' future is preposterous. TOS certainly didn't do that so why is it the norm now? The Star Trek universe isn't our universe...

Also, if it had been cancelled after 13 episodes, it would have been met with almost Firefly levels bemusement.

 

[DonIago]

It might have been gutsy, but I don't think a studio's going to make a move so gutsy that it will cost a series episodes. That's more like suicidal for TPTB.

I also hate to say it, but based on ENT's first 13 episodes...I don't think it would have gone the Firefly route.

 

[JiNX-01]

"Other."

My source of frustration was the writing, oddly enough in some of my favorite episodes.

Cogenitor:
I think we could have gotten along very well without the "Malcolm gets laid" sub-plot and put that time to better use. The scene where Archer meets with the Vissians should have included Charles and Trip and Phlox. And I would like to have a scene in which Archer weighs whether to grant asylum to Charles set against the larger question of humanity's relationship with other species, so we get to see where he's coming from when he says no.

The Expanse:
I thought this was a really good episode, but sometimes it's the little details that can make a good story a great one. I realize they had a lot to cram into 43 minutes, but I think some scenes could have been handled differently.
1. Drop the Klingon sub-plot -- that'll save some precious time.
2. Add scene: Archer gets a call from Forrest in the middle of the night. Next time we see him he's entering Trip's quarters where he tells him Florida has been the site of an attack from space. His home town is gone.
3. How could Forrest have multiple conversations with Archer without providing satellite images of the disaster zone? Should the crew really have to wait until they get back to Earth three months later to see where the strike was?
4. Granted, I don't know anything about television production schedules, but it would seem to me that somebody must have had a few grains of an idea for the season finale in advance. I would like to have seen Elizabeth Tucker in a real-time video "phone call" from home (in an earlier episode) so we could see her relationship with Trip and get to know her before they kill her off.
5. Show don't tell. If you're going to have Trip recalling events when Lizzie was growing up, let's see some of them.

Similitude:
A scene where we learn how Trip felt about Archer and Phlox killing Sim to save him.

Any episode following E2:
T'Pol tells Trip about her trellium abuse. She explains that she wanted to be able to relate to him more easily. At first he freaks out. She assures him that with Phlox's help, she has stopped but that the effects will linger. He tells her he will help her handle it.

Home:
In light of the upcoming Vulcan arc, I think T'Les should have told T'Pol that her discharge from her job was not a consequence of T'Pol's actions aboard Enterprise. And not even Koss' connections can help her. T'Pol returns to Earth with Trip and spares us the poorly-written "angst" and time wasted on a pro forma "marriage."

Observer Effect:
Hoshi + black belt? Really? I wonder sometimes if Bermaga ever watched the show.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Trip/T'Pol bothered me the most. Next to that, the lack of character development except for Trip, Archer, and T'Pol irked me. Malcolm, Travis, and Hoshi got tiny little one-off episodes and the show was cancelled just after we started to see into Malcolm's spy background.
I didn't like the constant decon scenes either...an interesting concept but the scantily clad massage scenes were totally unnecessary. It felt to me like the writers said "You know, I'm not sure anyone's gonna keep watching the pilot unless we change something to keep their interest. Wait, I know...scantily clad massage scenes!"

The acting was okay, the tech never bothered me, I've never really cared about Canon (besides, the whole point of ENT was that the timeline was being messed with so that's a moot point to me)...but the storylines never dealt with did bother me.

 

[Shatnertage]

I said "certain story lines went unexplained," but it's really just frustration over the writing in general. There's just a lack of complexity to many of the plots that might not have been a problem in the 1990s, but wasn't going to cut it in the 2000s.

I don't think that Archer ever had to deal with the consequences of his mistakes--beyond taking off his shirt and chainsawing a tree. For example, Detained could have been made much better. What if Grat had been right, and everyone Archer set free was killed by the Suliban cabal? Or what if they themselves attacked an Earth colony, maybe killing a sibling or Reed or Hoshi? To me, that would have given the show another layer, something that I think current audiences expect. Lost went off the air weeks ago, and I still don't know if Locke was a "good guy" or "bad guy." They could have used some of that in Enterprise.

I don't have any quibble with the look of the show or continuity--it's the stories that, I think, could have showcased the characters better.

 

[NXOner]

"Other."

My source of frustration was the writing, oddly enough in some of my favorite episodes.

Cogenitor:
I think we could have gotten along very well without the "Malcolm gets laid" sub-plot and put that time to better use. The scene where Archer meets with the Vissians should have included Charles and Trip and Phlox. And I would like to have a scene in which Archer weighs whether to grant asylum to Charles set against the larger question of humanity's relationship with other species, so we get to see where he's coming from when he says no.

The Expanse:
I thought this was a really good episode, but sometimes it's the little details that can make a good story a great one. I realize they had a lot to cram into 43 minutes, but I think some scenes could have been handled differently.
1. Drop the Klingon sub-plot -- that'll save some precious time.
2. Add scene: Archer gets a call from Forrest in the middle of the night. Next time we see him he's entering Trip's quarters where he tells him Florida has been the site of an attack from space. His home town is gone.
3. How could Forrest have multiple conversations with Archer without providing satellite images of the disaster zone? Should the crew really have to wait until they get back to Earth three months later to see where the strike was?
4. Granted, I don't know anything about television production schedules, but it would seem to me that somebody must have had a few grains of an idea for the season finale in advance. I would like to have seen Elizabeth Tucker in a real-time video "phone call" from home (in an earlier episode) so we could see her relationship with Trip and get to know her before they kill her off.
5. Show don't tell. If you're going to have Trip recalling events when Lizzie was growing up, let's see some of them.

Similitude:
A scene where we learn how Trip felt about Archer and Phlox killing Sim to save him.

Any episode following E2:
T'Pol tells Trip about her trellium abuse. She explains that she wanted to be able to relate to him more easily. At first he freaks out. She assures him that with Phlox's help, she has stopped but that the effects will linger. He tells her he will help her handle it.

Home:
In light of the upcoming Vulcan arc, I think T'Les should have told T'Pol that her discharge from her job was not a consequence of T'Pol's actions aboard Enterprise. And not even Koss' connections can help her. T'Pol returns to Earth with Trip and spares us the poorly-written "angst" and time wasted on a pro forma "marriage."

Observer Effect:
Hoshi + black belt? Really? I wonder sometimes if Bermaga ever watched the show.

Nice summaries ! I like the extra scenes you've planned - (why didn't they put you on the writing team, jinx!)
I would add;

Broken Bow

A scene where Trip is told he has lost his First Officer position to T'Pol and has some angst about it.

The Expanse .. onwards

Tucker gets some contact from or to his parents. We know little about them except they are not dead, but they lose Lizzy and Trip (and the baby) and are not mentioned or talked to by Archer?

The Temporal Cold War

Yes, I would have loved a time travel element - 32nd Century - cool! But Bermaga couldn't even manage continuity within the 4 years of the 22nd Century - they didn't have a hope!

Damage

Did the Ilyrian ship make it back safe after Archer hi-jacked their warp engine? Why no repercussions in Series 4?

North Star

Did the Earthers ever get rescued? How did Trip and T'Pol manage to ride out into the badlands without falling off?

The last 2 are nitpicks really - just would have been nice to have some closure, but another 3 seasons would have helped - perhaps ...

 

[Pemmer Harge]

What annoys me the most is the characters. Not that I hate them (though at first I did, the show did a horrible job of selling us on them in my opinion), but they bored me. Without interesting characters, I find it really hard to care about what happens in a show.

Second to that would be the writing. The show did have some good writers, but too often the pacing felt wrong and the plots were generic. The show only really started to get over this problem about half-way through Season 3, which was rather late!

 

[AstroSmurf]

I marked "Other" for two reasons.

One: I hated the song over the opening credits. I hated it from the pilot on. (Love the song and Russell Watson on their own though.) I did loved the credits themselves. The imagery was beautifully done. We just needed music that was more epic and heroic instead of the cloy sounds of modern pop.

Two: Travis. I enjoyed the other actors and their characters but poor Anthony was atrocious. And the reason why we didn't see much of Travis in the last two seasons... he couldn't get through a scene without coming off as stilted and wooden. And his line delivery... yikes. When I used to teach acting I would have used his performances as an example what NOT to do to my students.


I also agree with the lack of character development too. However, I don't think it was as bad as Voyager. But we didn't learn or see all that much about any of them really.

 

[Middleman]

Other:

The writing and story line consistency was a bit problematic in what was other wise a brilliant concept that was well done.

Acting (over all) - The acting was just fine.

Lack of Character Development - Could have been better and this I chalk up to the over all writing issues.

Mishandling of Canon - I could care less.

Technology was too similar to the 24th Century - Hello! It was 2001 not 1964!.

Certain Uniforms had not changed in over 200 years - Huh?

Scott Bakula - He overacted, but not as bad as Shatner.

Jolene Blalock - Every bit as good as Nimoy, when the writers allowed her to be. If she had any shortcomings, chalk it up to the writers.

Certain Story lines went unexplained - See writing comment.

Vulcan Sex Suit (The Seven of Nine Carbon Copy) - Let's talk about something that really matters.

Theme Song - Oh please! It was just fine.

To some it up, Enterprise was a great series that was wasted on the Star Trek Fan base.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

My pick
Other: It didn't get seven seasons.

This, hands-down.

I think if the show-runners had been guaranteed 7 seasons, and could feel comfortable planning a 7-year vision of overall character and story arcs, we would have gotten a lot of the missing scenes we didn't get, a lot more continuity/consequences regarding storylines, less contrivance, and more closure for storylines that weren't wrapped up satisfactorily (or at all).

Also, I wish the writing staff had nurtured Archer's character and written him more consistently. The character was set up well initially, and his overall arc of idealism --> disillusionment --> trial by fire in wartime --> maturity was a good one. But bottom line, when a bunch of Trek fans hate the captain of the ship, the writing staff hasn't done enough, character-development-wise, to compel viewers to care about him and want to accompany him on the journey.

If there had been more fresh blood in the writing staff sooner, and more enthusiasm (a la Coto and the Reeves-Stevens), that would probably have improved everything across the board.

I loved the premise, the look of the show, the theme song, the casting, the performances. Production values were outstanding. Music was great, and I especially enjoyed Velton Ray Bunch's scores -- I liked his work for QL as well.

I saw major character development for the Big Three and compelling character revelations for Phlox and Reed. Hoshi and Travis got short shrift, but supporting characters have gotten short shrift since TOS, it's the nature of the beast. 3 more seasons would have given them more opportunity to shine.

Canon is canon is canon. It is not possible to stay consistent with 30+ previous years' worth of shows, all of which had their own continuity inconsistencies, so it was never an issue for me. I care far more about compelling characters and stories, and ENT had plenty to keep me happy. All I wanted was more.

 

[Mr_Closet]

The Sarajevo class.

But seriously...

What annoyed me the most was the writing, plotting and direction. In other words, the overall production.

One can get bogged down specifying components of the canon, particular plot lines, poorly designed props or a million other things but at the end of the day, all of these problems, all the problems with the entire show, boil down to one thing:

Very poor tradecraft.

If they had simply "done a good job" then many of the things described in this thread could be forgiven. If Enterprise had been the best trek ever to grace television, everything from the Akiraprise to Porthos to the Xindi could have been, if not accepted or satisfactorily explained, then certainly tolerated. Because the strength of the story is the key element and the execution of the production itself the foundation.

Virgin Media have just begun to rerun the first season again, so I've had the opportunity to remind myself just how utterly damn stupid some of the shows were. Yesterday there was that one in which Hoshi acquires a pet slug, but it's not well. At the end of the show, they dump it on a "suitable" planet with the throw-away line "it'll be fine." And I was reminded of my reaction the first time I saw that episode: I wanted to bounce out of my chair and scream "you what?" You've just transplanted an alien life form into a completely virgin ecosystem in another part of the galaxy and you think this is a good thing? Yes, on balance, the slug is doomed - won't last out the week. On the other hand, it could be like rabbits in Australia, but a million times worse because at least the local wildlife shared a basic biochemistry with rabbits (pretty much everything on earth can eat everything else, but that does not have to apply to organisms which evolved on different planets).

Would it surprise anyone to learn at this point that my background is in biology?

I won't bore you with this biology lesson any more because my point is that these so-called enlightened explorers of the cosmos are supposed to know better. And if they don't, their Vulcan baby-sitters are supposed to tell them so. And this single act of ecological vandalism undermined everything - all the assumptions we're supposed to harbour about who and what these enlightened explorers are and how far they've come.

Today we got that one were Trip goes to fix an alien warp drive. First, how would he know how to do that? During the Cold War, the West would occasionally "acquire" Soviet technology and then spend a few weeks or months trying to figure out how it was turned on, never mind what it did... and that was when they were dealing with technology made by other humans from the same planet!

But moving on... we then got Trip's experience of adjusting to an alien environment by going through some sort of decompression and decontamination. This was fine. I liked that. This was interesting and novel (in trek anyway) and believable. At this point, fixing alien warp drives no longer mattered.

But then we got the punchline. Trip got pregnant. I audibly groaned when Phlox said "blastocyst".

Promising start, but then nose-dived into boring mediocrity by defaulting to a plot a sex-starved, pimply, poorly-read 13 year old would have been proud of.

Brannon and Braga theoretically know what they're doing. So how on earth did either of them even dream that a plot involving, ha ha, one of our intrepid (male) heroes getting up the duff, ha ha, was even remotely interesting, whether to the casual viewer or the loyal fan?

And there are more, oh so many more examples. Basically every single episode in seasons one, two and three and one or two yet in the hallowed season four as well! But perhaps the latter suffered too much from trying to conform to the balls up that was the first three, so on balance, season four should get a pardon in it's entirety.

Phew... anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah.

The writing stinks!

'nuff said

 

[JiNX-01]

Nice summaries ! I like the extra scenes you've planned - (why didn't they put you on the writing team, jinx!)
I would add;

Broken Bow

A scene where Trip is told he has lost his First Officer position to T'Pol and has some angst about it.

Or perhaps even shrugs it off because, like Scotty, he'd rather be with his engines?

The Expanse .. onwards

Tucker gets some contact from or to his parents. We know little about them except they are not dead, but they lose Lizzy and Trip (and the baby) and are not mentioned or talked to by Archer?

Oh, that reminds me: I think "Home" would have been a lot more interesting if TnT had gone to see Trip's family (aside from the fact that we know more about Travis' family than we do about Trip's -- so what's wrong with that picture? ). His brother, a Terra Prime sympathizer, shows up with his kids and gives Trip a world of **** for bringing home "one of them" and even worse, he's romantically involved with her.
I always thought it was stupid to use a Never-Heard-Of-Him redshirt as the traitor in Terra Prime. Wouldn't it have been cool if it was Trip's brother who supplied TnT's DNA to Paxton? It's easy enough to take a few hairs from their brushes ... And when his brother sees what it does to Trip after Elizabeth dies, he commits suicide, compounding the tragedy.

The Temporal Cold War

Yes, I would have loved a time travel element - 32nd Century - cool! But Bermaga couldn't even manage continuity within the 4 years of the 22nd Century - they didn't have a hope!

I'd settle for an explanation of how killing one alien ends the TCW.

Damage

Did the Ilyrian ship make it back safe after Archer hi-jacked their warp engine? Why no repercussions in Series 4?

That reminds me, too: If I'd been running the show, Zero Hour would have ended with Enterprise being escorted by the little ships back to Earth (just like at the end of SF2). Season 4 would have opened with 2-3 "Home" episodes, not necessarily a connected arc, just bringing the crows home to roost.
Consider the opportunities for consequences:
Similitude:
T'Pol told Archer that the Lyssarian Protocols prohibit creating clones from the larvae. And Archer and Phlox not only ignored that, they went so far as to murder Sim to save Trip. I suspect the Lyssarians would take a dim view of that.
Damage:
T'Pol starts having serious control issues and her trellium addiction is revealed. Remember how ticked off Archer was when he learned of her Panaar syndrome? It would really hit the fan -- especially for Phlox -- when he realized she wasn't quite herself when he was leaving her in charge in the Expanse. I doubt that, under the circumstances, he'd be as forgiving as he was in Stigma.
Countdown:
How do you say "post-traumatic stress" in Reptillian, Hoshi? I was amazed that this tremulous character was fully recovered and looking forward to a nice Chinese dinner so soon after being tortured and having parasites injected into her brain that compelled her to help destroy her homeworld.
General subplots: Reed pays a visit to Hayes' family; Archer is ordered into treatment for his guilt issues -- as opposed to being cured by sex -- after he starts talking about going back to find the Irylians; Shran is demoted for screwing up his mission in Proving Ground (he leaves the Imperial Guard and signs on with Starfleet (hey, why wait until Season 5? ). Talas is given command of the Kumari.

North Star

Did the Earthers ever get rescued? How did Trip and T'Pol manage to ride out into the badlands without falling off?

The horse knew a pair of greenhorns when he saw them and walked very, very slowly.

The last 2 are nitpicks really - just would have been nice to have some closure, but another 3 seasons would have helped - perhaps ...

I think Enterprise should have broken that mold and run for more than 7 years.

 

[DevilEyes]

Being a gay guy, the Vulcan Sex Suits didn't particularly register on me. Shame the men weren't given sexier outfits though.

But the men kept taking off those outfits...

I voted other - wasting a big part of the first 2 seasons in recycling tired old stories instead of doing something original.

Other things that annoyed me, in descending order of annoyance:

The theme song - the only redeeming feature is that I can mute or fast-forward it. (However, the theme of ITMD was awesome.)

Trying too hard to be sexy - the decon scene, T'Pol outfits (more about those later), the totally exploitative episode "Bounty"... It was just a bit too on-the-nose. Sometimes it worked (being sexy, that is), but when it failed, it was ridiculous.

The temporal Cold War went nowhere - but after having seen the endings of BSG and Lost, I'm more forgiving of such things.

Continuity problems within the show (see "Fusion" and compare it with "Stigma") - fortunately, this was fixed in season 4.

Lack of development of some of the supporting characters - something that VOY also suffered from, but Travis was the worst case of it in the entire Trek of a totally undeveloped character credited as a main cast member. However, when you look at how underused and underdeveloped half of VOY cast was, and remember that TOS only really focused and developed 3 characters, it doesn't look so bad. Unless you compare it to DS9.

T'Pol's awful costume in the first 2 seasons - not only because it was too obviously meant to be sexy, but because it was actually really ugly and drab-colored and made her look too skinny. The outfits she had in seasons 3 and 4 were much better.

Things that I don't agree with:

Mishandling of canon - what does that mean?

Acting - it was fine. The show had more problems with writing.

Lack of character development - in some ways more character development than any other show apart from DS9, if we're talking about T'Pol and Archer, even Trip to an extent. It did, however, push some of the supporting characters in the background (Travis and to a lesser extent, Hoshi). TOS had 3 great main characters but they didn't change at all until the movies. On TNG, Worf was the only one with a story arc (though Picard and Data had mini arcs), and the development of characters like Riker and Troi had nothing to do with planned story arcs, it was just the actors learning to act better and the writers starting not to write them so atrociously as they did in the early seasons. On VOY, some characters got development (EMH, Seven, Paris, Torres) but oddly enough, the captain and the first officer didn't - Janeway didn't really change, and Chakotay was pushed into the background; while Tuvok was underused, and Neelix was basically an annoying ill-conceived character who turned into a good character whenever an episode focused on him. Kim was basically what Travis would have been if he had more lines.

Jolene Blalock - I've hardly seen her in anything else, so I don't know, she may be a really bad actress overall; but she was excellent as T'Pol.

Scott Bakula - he OTOH might have been miscast, at least if one expects a charismatic, authoritative captain that people have been used to in previous shows.. But after some time, he managed to get a grip on the role, and in a way, the casting had the effect of making Archer a more accessible, gentler, more ordinary-guy kind of captain, which is actually kinda interesting. He did came off as a fool a lot of times, but I found him kinda endearing

Techology was too similar to the 24th century - well they couldn't have made the technology less advanced than the 21st century! Although I agree that they shouldn't have introduced the idea of holodeck so early.

Certain uniforms have not changed in 200 years - what? Which ones?

 

[Lady Conqueror]

Observer Effect:
Hoshi + black belt? Really? I wonder sometimes if Bermaga ever watched the show.

I sometimes wonder if this wasn't partly this boards fault - there were a couple of ENT writers at the boards at the time and I remember several threads where we mentioned Linda Park's martial arts training and suggested it should've been used. Careful what you wish for.

What they should have done was perhaps have her start learning martial arts from the MACO's or Reed on the way back home from the Expanse as a result of what she went through with the Xindi - would have made more sense imo.