"These are the fantasy TNG Holodeck Voyages", I don't consider it as part of this show even, it was Braga's final failed attempt to make one more TNG Ep.
So from now on I ignore it. That episode should NEVER have been made. To Blazes with Braga, because of him, many talented people lost their jobs. I'd rather see the cast and crew doing what they are best at: Making TREK shows, rather than remembering Trek shows at Conventions.
I had dismissed and panned this show, mostly cos of the canon- breaking writing and too-human Vulcanians. Imagine the head of the Vulcanian government in collusion with Romulans and acting like one himself? The excess emotions and bombing a sacred temple with people in it not a big enough CLUE? I could not swallow the multiple 24th century anachronisms, the multiplex time paradoxes, although the one on "Carpenter" Street" in Season 3 was great. I thought T'Pol sucked, but that was before I knew she had been exposed to a toxic emotion- causing Trellium-D Overdose. Now that I can see the progression of her Character, Jolene did a swell job at playing a Vulcan on the deteriorating side.
So, I had mostly ignored Enterprise all these years. But that was MY Bad. After Binge Watching the whole show just now, there are many good things about it. "Is it Star Trek?" YES. And this episode here, and the one prior to it, are the appropriate Series Finales this show deserved.
Season 4 was quite a bit different. It was made during the great "Change" - Shows no longer had 26 Eps per season, like Enterprise 1st 2 seasons. Season 3 got 24 Eps and season 4, only 22. But those 22 were not individual episodes, but rather little 2-3 Ep vignettes, which propelled the story toward THIS Ep.
I had trouble with "Arik Soong" and his Mulleted "Arguments" I like to call them, and I had a lot of trouble with the "Vulcanians with Testosterone" Eps. But even those had some good things and some great story elements.
But these last 2 Eps, which are the actual season and series finale, reflect the crappy things that are happening in the US this year, Xenophobia has made it into the White House. These episodes were merely a warning made during the last time we had a reactionary governing us, people forget that this country was almost destroyed that time too. How fast can 8 years of forward progress be eradicated?
So it is best to remember this episode: And also the fact that most decent people in this country won't put up with what John Frederick Paxton (Peter Weller) and the Xenophobe in the White House are pushing.
Ironically, this is not the first time Peter Weller plays a reactionary Meathead in Trek, he was a similar Meathead in "Into Darkness". In Fiction, the reactionaries get their just desserts. Sometimes, they get what they deserve in real life, too.
