'Enterprise' First-Season DVDs Released Today

The first season of Star Trek: Enterprise was released on DVD today in a Region 1 box set containing a variety of interviews, commentaries and extras.

• Ain't It Cool News reviewer Hercules called both the prequel premise and the temporal cold war "inspired" and said it was apparent that a lot of love went into Enterprise. He had particular praise for Jolene Blalock's T'Pol, though he felt that the casting of Scott Bakula might not have been the producers' wisest move. "At least nine of the first-season episodes are actually worth your valuable time," he added, noting his enthusiasm for the producers' willingness in the commentaries to analyze some of their failures.

• "This season of 'Enterprise' isn’t nearly as bad as fans have made it out to be," wrote Justin Cleveland at DVD Town. He gave the series scores of 8/10 for video and audio and 7/10 for extras and value, sharing no major complaints with the video or audio. He liked the impressions (albeit purely positive) of the cast,a nd said, "'Star Trek Time Wars' looks at the exact element of the show that I hated, the time traveling. While the creators aren’t completely complimentary to the concept, they don’t take a critical eye to it either. I still don’t like it."

• Scott Weinberg at JoBlo's DVD Clinic gave the DVDs four and a half stars out of five while rating the content four stars. He felt that it was a "fun show" even if it was controversial with long time Star Trek fans and found the "yak tracks" quite informative if a bit dry. "It's certainly smart, slick and entertaining enough to keep you happy if you dig the space adventure vibe," he concluded.

• Over at Home Theater Forum, Scott Kimball noted that many Trek fans gave up on Enterprise before it left spacedock and cited a list of continuity errors that had bothered him. "If you can get by all that...and accept Enterprise on its own merits...it isn't a bad show," he added. "It's not up there with Deep Space Nine in terms of story arc construction, or The Next Generation or The Original Series in terms of chemistry between characters. But it exceeds Voyager in most respects." A highlight of the DVDs for him were the outtakes, "nine minutes of line flubs, laughing, tripping, practical jokes, etc. This is a pretty good blooper reel. It's not every day you see a Vulcan laugh."

• das Monkey of DVD Talk enjoyed rewatching the first season, despite disliking the packaging and finding errors in the episode labels on the fourth disc's menus. The show "looks pretty darn good" and the extras are labeled "decent"; there's also a guide to the Easter Eggs in the DVD set.

• "Before the series lost its footing in the second season, it had a premiere season that was full of vitality and was, quite possibly, the best first season of a Trek series since The Original Series – way back in 1967!" wrote Eclipse Magazine's Sheldon A. Wiebey. He gave both the content and the bonus materials grades of A, particularly noting Blalock's passion, Berman's confession that he loved the "reset button" and "'Enterprise Outtakes' – about nine minutes of bloopers (probably the single funniest gag reel I’ve ever seen)."

• The Springfield Republican said that while Paramount had been generous with extras, "'Enterprise' pales in comparison to the original series or its successful sequel 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.'" Ray Kelly said that based on these 25 episodes, a casual viewer would not be surprised by UPN's decision to cancel the show prematurely, and suggested that given the high price of the set, fans might want to wait to purchase the Season Four box set instead.

• Over at IGN the set received a score of 6/10 overall, with complaints about somewhat grainy interiors, not very immersive surround sound and uninventive extras. Peter Schorn found some of the features too brief while others seemed padded, and said, "The show was supposed to be character, as opposed to plot, driven, but these characters weren't that compelling and some were downright annoying."

The complete first season of Enterprise may be ordered from Amazon.com.

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