Online Reviewers Praise 'Enterprise' Fourth Season DVDs

The release of the final set of Enterprise DVDs, Star Trek Enterprise: The Complete Fourth Season, was overshadowed last week by the death of former Star Trek executive producer Michael Piller. However, many new reviews have appeared in the week since (the first batch are here).

• Dan Phelps of DVDFanatic gives the episodes an A+, the overall package an A and the only B to the extras, which like many reviewers he found skimpy. "Thanks to some new writers and executive producers, stories and scripts seemed to vastly improve from the previous three seasons," he wrote. "It was very well written, and exciting. The season also was pivotal in the sense that it finally got around to really establishing things about Star Trek fans would hope for."

• DVD Talk's Todd Douglass Jr. gave the set four out of five stars for content and video and three for extras. "This show achieved something that had only been accomplished in the Trek universe by the original series: cancellation," he wrote. "Executive Producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga essentially stepped aside for most of this season, which isn't surprising after their comments in an extra from the season three DVD in which they basically said they were tired of working on Star Trek and had run out of ideas. This left the show in the very capable hands of Manny Coto. Who by all means was the best thing that every happened to Enterprise." Like many reviewers he very much enjoyed the Mirror episodes, hated the finale and disliked the alien Nazis, but for the most part he appreciated the show's development.

• Digitally Obsessed's Nate Meyers wasn't quite as impressed, giving B grades for style, substance and extras with As for the image and audio transfers. "Despite a slow beginning, Season Four is actually the best in Enterprise's short run - though that's not saying too much," he noted. "Comprised of various story arcs that run two or three episodes, the storylines offer greater character depth than in previous years." He recommended that fans switch to the new Battlestar Galactica.

• At Ain't It Cool News, Hercules praised "sweet continuity porn" and said the season "contained at least one must-see episode: 'The Forge,' the first episode penned by longtime 'Star Trek' novelists Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. It tied 40 years of 'Star Trek' lore into one very elegant and entertaining hour." He added that the two mirror-universe episodes "seemed pretty good too, but my mind might be clouded by the torso-exposing uniforms Hoshi and T'Pol sported through much of the saga."

• BWilliams at TrekWeb gave the set four out of five stars overall, saying that clearly fourth season production addition Manny Coto "has a deep love for all things Trek, and his attempts to bring Enterprise into connection with the other series really shows. Unfortunately, it came too late." Williams thought the use of digital video enhanced the look of the episodes and appreciated the soundtracks, though like others he thought Paramount might have provided more extras for this final set.

• Canada's Metro News reviewer Rick McGinniss gave the set three and a half stars out of five, calling the final season of Enterprise "an uneven but mostly decent bit of work." Here is yet another reviewer writing, "It would be more tempting to mourn Enterprise's passing were it not for the revival of Battlestar Galactica by a discontented Trek writer, a superior, compelling take on sci-fi TV that made Trek obsolete in one season."

• "Perhaps the best way to sum up the fourth and final season of 'Star Trek Enterprise' is by saying it tried the best it could," wrote Michael Bitalvo at Elites TV. "Season four plays out like something that either a long time Star Trek fan would love or passionately dislike. There is not much room in between." He enjoyed the flashbacks but felt that the show did not do enough to establish its own identity, though he had higher praise for the extras than many critics.

• And finally, at The Trades, Jim Pappas rated the set an A. "The failings of 'Enterprise' have been discussed ad nauseam, and I'm not going to dwell on that here," he said. "Instead I believe that season 4 of 'Star Trek: Enterprise' was television at its finest." He cited 'In a Mirror, Darkly' as his favourite and added, "If that kind of creativity had been exercised earlier in the series, and as I alluded to above, we'd be seeing new episodes of 'Enterprise' this television season, for sure."

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