It’s true, all Trek series have suffered from bad production at the outset. TNG was bad before season 3 (best example: different doctor for S2). DS9 season 1 wasn’t all that great (the episode where Bashir was taken over by a dictator’s spirit was awful). Voyager had a few shining moments but didn’t really mature until season 5.

Enterprise suffered from a sad combination of bad acting, bad directing, and bad writing. Sometimes it even suffered from all three simultaneously (such as a few key points in season 2). ENT wasn’t any good until the fourth season, when suddenly things not only got better, the show was actually good. ENT suffered from a basic premise flaw. The whole Temporal Cold War storyline fell flat. Nobody cared about the Xindi. The fourth season was good because the stories were well-written and were actually about topics the audience cared about (Eugenics Wars, Klingons that look like humans, the Borg, the founding of the Federation, etc).

Trek has always been a character-driven drama. TNG and DS9 were good overall because it cast veteran stage actors in crucial roles (Picard, Data, Sisko, Kira, Odo) and received quality backup from other good actors (Riker, Geordi, Garak, Quark, etc).

The leading men of TNG and DS9, Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks, were well-established actors with reputable resumes. VOY and ENT cast a bunch of nobodies, with the possible exception of “that guy from Quantum Leap.” Hint to producers: star power works.

Probably the biggest mistake Paramount made was creating a second series while one was already running (Voyager). DS9 was good, but it wasn’t as good as the studio wanted because…Picard wasn’t in it. So they brought Worf over. While the character actually fit in after a while, this shouldn’t have been necessary. Then, Voyager tried the same trick, but aimed low and exploited the “horny virgin Trek fan” demographic. ENT tried the same trick, but a sexy, half-naked Vulcan just doesn’t work. It’s insulting to have eye candy on a Trek show unless it’s handled correctly (JJ Abrams knows how to do it).

Uh…now where was my original point…

Oh yeah, Enterprise bashing. Probably the first bad production decision was naming the goddamn ship Enterprise. It violated established canon and smacked of attention-grabbing. Yes, you can have Star Trek without a fucking ship named Enterprise. DS9 proved that.

Yes, you can have Star Trek while also having quality acting. TNG and DS9 proved that.

Yes, you can have Star Trek while also having quality writing and arching storylines. DS9 proved that.

Trek went downhill once Voyager was conceived. Enterprise was merely a continuation. It’s like Paramount stopped demanding Trek be good and only requested that it exist.

Frankly, I wasn’t expecting any new Trek for at least a decade after ENT ended. That Hollywood actually stepped up and decided to (re)create something that was good came as quite a surprise to me.

Unfortunately, the chronological storylines that TNG and DS9 established, and that Voyager pecked at now and then, are surely dead. I wish Abrams weren’t doing a Kirk-era recreation, but rather something set after the Dominion War. Shit, it’s been ten years and a month since DS9 was discontinued. What happened to the Federation in the ten years after the Dominion War?