Brannon Braga Apologizes for 'Enterprise' Finale
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It's about time somebody apologized for the abortion that was the Star Trek: Enterprise finale. Listen, I have sympathy for writers who try to do good but end up producing crap. Sometimes you're constrained by the studio, or higher execs on the show, or your own imagination. From what I understand, showrunners usually reserve the right to write the season and certainly the series finale for a show. Sometimes that's just not a good idea, and this episode proves the point. I'm not going to sit here and give you a blow-by-blow of everything I thought was wrong with the finale. First of all, I've only seen it once, and I didn't like it. I don't remember most of it and that's probably a good thing, and a direct result of me not liking it. It's a done deal and rehashing a lot of this stuff is still extremely subjective and I just don't see the point.
I do plan though on writing at length about Star Trek: First Contact sometime later this week because I have a great deal of respect for Ron Moore, and I can't fathom how he wrote such a crappy Trek film. I can and will go on at length over that, but that's no so much to point out all of the flaws of the movie or to "review" it, so much as look at it on contrast to other things Moore has done with Star Trek: The Next Generation and Battlestar Galactica.
The Enterprise finale was a disgrace, whereas Braga thought it somehow was a "valentine" to fans, all it felt like was a kick in the nuts. Seriously, I remember watching the series finale of Angel on TNT and in the closing moments, they showed a "thank you" to fans in white-on-black text. I mentioned to a friend of mine how that thank you, after them canceling the show which fans absolutely loved, felt more like TNT putting out a cigar in your eyeball. It was that kind of irony, and the finale of Enterprise gave me exactly the same kind of feeling.
To be honest, I haven't really liked anything Brannon Braga has done with Trek, and I openly wonder if he even gets it. Maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it, since he's been doing Trek for so long that he and Rick Berman have basically redefined what Trek is. I don't know the new Trek under their guidance; I never have.
Anyway, you can read more about what Braga had to say here. I respect the guy professionally for following his instincts, I just don't like the product he creates, and he and Berman have been in charge of Trek for far too long.
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