It’s time for me to defend the infamous Star Trek: Enterprise. As the last Star Trek television program produced, it’s endured a massive amount of flak, both for fair and completely unfair reasons. Still, the fact remains that it was an underrated series, and it was cut off following a massive upswing in quality.

First, let’s examine some of biggest problems fans and detractors had with Enterprise (aside from the godawful theme song). Coming hot off of the heels of Voyager, the previous Star Trek series, Enterprise was created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, who together had spent a very long time working on the Star Trek franchise. Of course, this went to their heads after a while, as seen by the cheesiness and low quality of many Voyager episodes. As a result, fans feared the same fate for Enterprise, and the fact that it was a prequel series didn’t help matters.

Not only did Berman and Braga run roughshod over established continuity, much of the technology shown on Enterprise appeared to be far in advance of that seen on the original Star Trek series…which was supposed to take place over a century later! In some cases, it was more advanced than technology seen on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager! In fact, the look of Enterprise’s titular ship, the NX-01, was clearly based on the Akira-class vessels first seen in Star Trek: First Contact. You could write this off as the Akira class being designed with “nostalgia” in mind by 24th century engineers, but bear in mind that the average Star Trek viewer shouldn’t have to rationalize large chunks of the plot to make them work. (Personally, I do like the design of the NX-01, specifically the interiors; it looked like a submarine in space, which makes perfect sense!)

From a writing perspective, the show’s first two seasons were a bit sluggish. There were good episodes here and there, but the rest were either just average, a little boring, or downright horrible. There was even a continuity-smashing Borg episode; as if we weren’t sick to death of them on Voyager! Now, it is worth mentioning that The Next Generation also took a few seasons to really kick it into high gear, but that show was the first live-action Star Trek show we’d seen in nearly twenty years; it wasn’t coming off of three shows that aired seven seasons each in rapid succession, so it had breathing room, so to speak. Enterprise had ridiculously high standards to meet right out of the gate.

So with all of these problems, what made the show good? First and foremost, Enterprise had an excellent cast. While most were unknowns, the well-known actor Scott Bakula was so damned good that you never once thought “Hey, it’s the Quantum Leap guy!” Even when the cast got a crappy script, they poured their heart and soul into it. Granted, this behavior was common among all of the other Star Trek show casts, but the Enterprise cast really went above and beyond the call of duty to make their show work.

The supporting cast really carried their own weight, too. Not only did Enterprise see the return of the inimitable Jeffrey Combs, but his primary role on the show was that of Shran, a headstrong Andorian commander. The Andorians were a race only glimpsed a few times in Star Trek history, and Enterprise really fleshed out their history and civilization. They’ve proven to be one of the more interesting races in Star Trek lore as a result.

Speaking of other races, we also got to see a lot more of the Vulcans, which is always welcome. (They acted like dicks for the first few seasons, but that was smartly explained later on.) The Klingons showed up, too, and in the proud tradition of Deep Space Nine, we got more of an inside peek into their warrior culture. Of course, we were also introduced to countless new races, but most of them were handled deftly, and it made perfect sense: there was no Federation yet, so the NX-01’s mission of exploration was arguably more important than its successors.

Next we’ve got the special effects. Too many science fictions films may be a mess of computer-generated imagery (CGI) these days, but on television, Enterprise got it right. While I generally prefer real model work, I understand that using CGI is much cheaper, and you’ve also got more flexibility when filming complex space battles and scenery. The Enterprise visual effects crew managed to hit that sweet spot right between realism and seeming too over-the-top, which made every scene a treat. (Is it any wonder many of the crew also worked on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, which featured the finest special effects ever seen on a science fiction television show?)

Last but not least…Season Four.

You wouldn’t think that a mere fourth season of a television spinoff couldn’t be that important, but in Enterprise’s case, you’d be dead wrong. The show’s fourth season was, with few exceptions, nothing short of incredible. Newly appointed showrunner Manny Coto hired some of the best writers in the business to work on the season, and it shows. The writing team of Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, long known for their excellent Star Trek novels, cleared up many fans’ problems with the series’ depiction of Vulcans in a mere three episodes. Another three-part storyarc featured genetic supermen, last seen in the classic original series episode “Space Seed,” and the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That story even featured an ancestor of Noonien Soong, the man who built Data nearly two centuries later. What really made these episodes great was that aside from the rock-solid writing, they were filled with references to other Star Trek shows and events…without sounding forced or blindly obvious. That’s incredibly difficult to pull off in any long-running science fiction franchise, but the writers here managed it perfectly.

Of course, no discussion of the fourth season of Enterprise is complete without mentioning a little story called “In a Mirror, Darkly.” Mike Sussman wrote two episodes that were so jaw-droppingly amazing that even people who hated Enterprise from day one have claimed that “In a Mirror, Darkly” is some of the best Star Trek, if not the best, ever made. I shit you not. Watch it, and you’ll undoubtedly agree. Not only that, we got to see a Constitution-class starship in action again — the same class as the NCC-1701 Enterprise from the original series — and it was a potent reminder of just how powerful those ships were, even by modern standards.

The fourth season did have a few shitbomb episodes (including the horrendous “These Are the Voyages…”, which became the de facto series finale), but the quality of the good episodes far overshadowed them.

Was Star Trek: Enterprise perfect? Not by a long shot. But was it still a good show? Absolutely. Ignore the slathering diatribes spewed out by the haters, and watch the series in its entirety (or at the very least, check out Season Four). I’m sure you’ll agree that the show certainly wasn’t given its due respect.