[geoschmo]

My biggest gripe with Enterprise isn't the lack of crewmember deaths. It's the overly moralistic tone. Star Fleet has always had this pie in the sky prime directive which sounds all good on paper, but never is quite practical out on the frontlines where you realize those cultures you have to let die because of your principles are living breathing people. The biggest tension in Trek has always been watching Kirk/Picard/Sisko/Janeway struggle with the inner conflict between doing the right thing and doing what their orders tell them. It's not always clean. There are negative repurcussions from making choices. But they make them and deal with it.

Archer is the opposite. He isn't even officially bound by the Prime Directive because it hasn't been written yet, and already he's living by it more strictly than any Trek Captain before. This latest episode with the tri-gender race and their enslaved concubines that were treated as chattel and kept purposly ignorant is a perfect example.

Kirk or Picard would have never sent the slave back without at least giving the aliens a good dose of guilt for their archaic behaivior. More likely they'd have found a way to solve the situation, inter-empire relations be damned. Instead Archer hands her over, appologizing for the interferance. And then reads Trip the riot act for having compassion and treating the slave with respect. Disgusting.

Of course this didn't start with Enterprise. That aweful Insurection movie set the tone I think.

Geoschmo