To boldly go where we've already been

Can we talk about Star Trek?

I'm dying to talk about Star Trek.

With the premiere of "Star Trek: Picard," CBS has gotten me to re-subscribe to their dedicated streaming service. Their non-Trek selection remains anemic, but if you want to boldly go where no man has gone before CBS All-Access is where you have to do it.

And since I'm already paying for it, I may as well go all in. Thus, Thursdays have become my Star Trek Day. After watching the latest episode of "Star Trek: Picard," I also take in an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery's" second season (Which, if I'm being honest, I think I'm enjoying more. Yeah, I'm as surprised as anybody.) And, when I have extra time, I'm also catching up on the one other Star Trek series that I've never managed to get through, "Star Trek: Enterprise."

Let's rewind a bit.

It was 2001 and "Star Trek: Voyager" had just ended. In the fictional year of 2378, Captain Janeway had gotten her ship home, the Dominion War was over, and the bridge crew from the Enterprise was enjoying retirement between theatrical adventures. Star Trek had been back on the air for 14 years across three different series at this point, each building off the last.

Obviously, avid watchers wanted this to continue. To see where things went next.

Executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga had a different idea.

Instead of a new spin-off, picking up where the last had left off, the franchise looked back in time. The next Star Trek show wouldn't be set in 2378, but instead harkened all the way back to a fictional 2151, a full century before Captain Kirk encountered his first Tribble.

So here we are, at the turn of the millennium, with television special effects on the verge of a quantum leap with the increasing availability of CGI. And the next show in the world's most foremost science fiction television franchise is intentionally handicapping itself by setting itself in a period where all of the cool technology its predecessors had developed hadn't been invented yet. A decade and a half of universe building put on hold so we could watch Scott Bakula puttering around at warp five to initiate humanity's first encounters with Romulans, Klingons, and Andorians.

I tried to get into the show at the time. I gave it an honest shot. But I just couldn't get myself to care.

I was far from the only one.

The previous three Star Trek shows each lasted seven seasons, accumulating 170+ episode each. "Star Trek: Enterprise," or "Enterprise," as the show was initially called as one of several ways it tried to shake franchise conventions, lasted four seasons and didn't crack 100. After it was canceled, Star Trek was lost to television for more than a decade, only now seeing a revival exclusively on CBS's paid subscription service.

Rotten Tomatoes currently rates "Star Trek: Enterprise" at 50 percent, by far the lowest rated of any Star Trek television show.

I've tried a couple of times to get through the series over the years, but it's never been able to hold my attention. At least until now.

Now, I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

Two things are different this time.

It's taken nearly 20 years, but "Star Trek: Picard" has finally done what I've wanted Star Trek to do since Voyager ended. It's moved the franchise forward. With that in mind, no longer resentful over the missed opportunity that "Star Trek: Enterprise" represents, it's far easier to judge the show on its own merits.

Likewise, two decades of special effects advancement makes "Star Trek: Enterprise's" now dated special effects look much more appropriate. In 2001, the show was using cutting edge technology to make everything look older than its predecessors, creating a weird cognitive dissonance that was hard to shake. Today, the show's special effects look just as old as the show itself is supposed to portray. If you watch it alongside "Star Trek: Picard" and "Star Trek: Discovery," it's much easier to say, "Oh yeah, this show looks like it's 100 years out of date."

"Star Trek: Enterprise" was not the show audiences wanted at the time. It definitely wasn't the show I wanted at the time, but I think its unique circumstances have improved it with age.

Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and still doesn't like the pop-rock theme song