The carrier Enterprise was the most decorated ship of World War II. There have been eight United States naval vessels named Enterprise, the first commissioned in 1775. Enterprise VIII, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is still serving.
Posted on 02/16/2005 10:29:59 PM PST by WillRain
Star Trek has been with us in one form or another for 39 years now. What started as just another TV show that very nearly never made it to air flourished into a media phenomenon that spanned the globe and five different decades, spawning hundreds of television episodes, a string of movies, and creating the world's biggest fan club.
This show – this legend – has shaped the world. The very first space shuttle was named in honour of the show; even now, astronauts speak fondly of the show that inspired them to go out into space and has continued to inspire them to further humanity's progress. Engineering faculties around your country are full of students who wanted to be the miracle-working engineers they saw on the show.
Scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, celebrities, humanitarians, astronauts- these people and many more are part of the generations that were inspired by a show that dared to portray a better humanity. A better future. A better understanding of our world and acceptance of those around us. On the eve of the fortieth anniversary of this amazing social and cultural phenomenon, its latest outing – Enterprise has been cut short, for lack of perceived interest.
Legends never die.
Now we invite everyone here and the world around to pick up the gauntlet thrown down to us by the people with the power to make the show happen. For every child that grew up to be somebody special because of Star Trek. For every pessimist that grew to think the future might be a wondrous and brilliant destiny rather than a dismal and dark demise. For the knowledge that Star Trek is relevant to our society today and that the values it teaches have been transforming the heart of our world culture for years now.
I want you to sit down in front of your TV this October. To hear the rising sounds of instruments beginning to play in harmony. To see the vibrant colors of scenery fade into life. I want you all to see Enterprise's fifth season explode on to your TV screens in a magnificent blaze of sound and passion signifying everything. And I want you to think: I made this possible. I had a hand in creating this. I helped give birth to this next chapter in the most entertaining and incredible saga ever told.
And next October, I want you to know that around the world, millions of people who hold the same ideals as you, who love the show as you do, are sitting in unison forged by that same bond. Welcome to TrekUnited.com.
We've got a show to save. Let's do it!
The first shuttle was named Enterprise, and was mainly used as a test bed for the technology.
It wasn't named for Star Trek, though, since Enterprise is a name that several US navy ships have carried. :P
When I was a wee lad in elementary school, we had a mock vote in 1976, and in our class Gerald Ford won. Would that the rest of the country had agreed.
Ford might not have been the greatest, but he makes Carter look like, well, never mind. Carter doesn't need any help to look like that.
Meanwhile, I mighta cared about the new Trek, if they hadn't run the franchise into the ground years ago. I watched an episode or two, just channel surfing, and the latest version did seem more interesting and gritty, but ... the touchy-feely generation, followed by Gunsmoke in space, followed by Gilligan's Island in space, well, it's hard to get excited about it anymore.
Knowwhatimean?
...or maybe I was wrong. *g*
The carrier Enterprise was the most decorated ship of World War II. There have been eight United States naval vessels named Enterprise, the first commissioned in 1775. Enterprise VIII, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is still serving.
I know that... there was an aircraft carrier in WW2, and a sailing ship in the Colonial days... probably before that... I think the Captain explained this in an episode to that Andorian guy
I don't mind linear plots but when you pretty much have to watch the entire series in order its a bit weird and its hard to get new viewers in mid-stream. That was one of their problems, so was the fact that almost no-one watches UPN
"Gilligan's Island in Space"
A better description of Star Trek I've never seen.
It's why I prefer Star Wars, even though the last two movies sucked, and am VERY into the new Battlestar Galactica (a realistic physics model!!!).
I was tolerant of Enterprise for the first three years--not great, but entertaining. Conventional wisdom is that this season is just the bee's knees, what with Berman/Braga relegated to the background and Coto in charge. Frankly, I think it's the worst season yet. Basically unwatchable. The concepts are great--insight into the Eugenics Wars!; history of the Vulcans!--but the execution has been severely lacking.
Take the aforementioned Eugenics Wars trilogy. Archer springs Soong to help him catch the augments (whom we've never seen and don't care a whit about), the augments try to start a war between humans and Klingons, the plot fails, they die, Soong ends up back in prison. Nothing has advanced with either the core characters or with the formation of the Federation. It's basically the old Reset Button everyone hated on Voyager, the difference being that nothing in the middle was even very interesting.
Then, we get to the Vulcan trilogy. Okay, Trek is a liberal show and Rodddenberry was a liberal man, but these people have the chance to write Vulcan history. This will be what is referenced for years to come in books and future TV shows and movies (if they happen). So, what do they do? They decide to axe-grind on Bush and Iraq! They take core issues leading to the founding of the Federation and tie it a topical bogeyman. And, again, it's not even compelling storytelling! Though, the DS9-style armada in the third part was kind of cool, for the few seconds it lasted.
Finally, we get some ship-in-a-bottle throwaway episodes. And, they manage to make the absolute worst episode of the entire series. This is the one where Hoshi and Tucker are dying, and the alien observers watch for the crew's reactions. I have seen longtime Trek fans who hated Voyager and have hated Enterprise praising this episode and this season--B&B having been shunted aside and them wanting to praise the replacement is the only thing I can figure--even though this could have been any bad episode of Voyager. Oh, man. I can't even begin to count how many ways this one failed. First of all, the absolutely ludicrous way they try to character develop Hoshi. She tells a story about how she used to run an illicit poker game and she decked an officer because he tried to break it up. Hoshi? Come on! That is not only totally against the established character, but it is a complete ripoff of the recent Battlestar Galactica remake! There, female Starbuck strikes an officer over a poker game. This felt like just what it was: a hack writer thinking he or she could introduce character development simply by having a character tell a stupid, implausible story from her past. Second of all, it's a medical investigation episode. Geez, I could probably think of a dozen of these episodes across the Trek franchise--pretty bad for people who "no longer have disease." Throw in alien observers, and you have any lame Voyager episode you can think of. Did anyone really worry about the characters? It really can't work if we know they're going to make it. They take it to the point of death, and then we get the big ol' reset button and they are good as new.
Anyway, I'm done. I was interested in saving the show at the end of three, but now it just needs to go off and die. I will say, though, that the last couple have been better than anything else this season. I didn't watch Friday's, but the other two were pretty good. Jeffrey Combs usually brings an episode up a few notches.
Wow, bump. I just got into Enterprise last season. This season is even better.
>the touchy-feely generation,
The Next Generation
( Q = laugh riot )
>followed by Gunsmoke in space,
Deep Space 9
(Cardassian Target Practice)
>followed by Gilligan's Island in space,
Voyager
(Instead of a manly/beautiful woman, how 'bout a man?)
DS9 was the Rifleman in space, and it was the best, IMO. It got as far away as it could from a lot of the communistic, anti-religous crap of the other Trek shows.
Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."
Yes, I know, what better fitting name for a ship that destroys Star Trek's answer(s) to the Death Star. ;P
Yes, I know, what better fitting name for a ship that destroys Star Trek's answer(s) to the Death Star. ;P
That's the real problem with these "experts" they have on there now. They are smugly throwing out TOS trivia, but forgetting that the stories have to be good. Right now it's just, "Ooh, look what I know!"
never mind.
I don't mind a story arc, like in DS9 where the enemies moved from Cardassian to the other side of the wormhole. But if you missed an episode it wasn't going to ruin the hole thing.
True however THE "Enterprise" that made the name famous was the aircraft carriers CV6 the most decorated ship of WW2 ... CVN65 was name in honor of CV6 and Roddenberry used CVN65 and aircraft carriers as a general concept for his star ships... that also where they got the different color jerseys idea in the original show for the different ship departments...from aircraft carriers
She's married.
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