I recently finished Enterprise season 3, and oh gods that was a slog at the end. Like 5 plot-heavy episodes in a row! No fun, no whimsy, no exploration. It’s the least star-trekky I have ever seen Star Trek. So I finished it, and thought “can we see some strange new worlds now?” And then Archer was taken prisoner by nazis and I was all “oh no, is this going to be season 4?” But that got resolved in two episodes and I was glad. But now there’s an augment arc? Please tell me it ends soon so we can get back to the strange new worlds.
I have the same problem with SNW, to a lesser extent. Too much klingon war stuff, not enough strange new worlds. Lower Decks has the perfect amount of strange new worlds, though, they visited a Halo this season! It was perfect.
Imma give up on Enterprise if there’s a whole season of augment drama.
The fourth season is considered by a lot of fans to be the best of the series, but the finale was Game of Thrones bad.
I remember reading in the newspaper that the budget of season 4 was cut in half, and that the season wasn’t going to be so planet-focused. I haven’t re-watched it in a long time, so I don’t remember too many details. I could also be misremembering what I read 20ish years ago.