Things required to get Enterprise into continuity

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by whoiam

It definitely earns him a nomination for the 'Zen post of the year' award...

And of course, the slightly less well-known Monoid Award :P

[Nate the Great]

Okay, was there an actual list or wasn't there? Is this some in joke that I don't understand?

[whoiam]

There was no list.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Hey! I'll do the Jedi mind-tricks around here, thank-you very much! :roll:

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

Hey! I'll do the Jedi mind-tricks around here, thank-you very much! :roll:

This isn't the irritation you're looking for...
:P
Oh, and there was no spoon, either :mrgreen:

[whoiam]

Um, there actually was no list. Seriously.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Oh, you just don't know when to stop, do you.... :P

[Nate the Great]

Why don't we return to topic? Okay, I want someone to either (figuratively) look me in the eye and say "I don't think there is anything wrong, and I think that Enterprise fits perfectly within established continuity, as stated in all canon materials including The Star Trek Encyclopedia and The Star Trek Chronology" or "I think that the following need to be changed in order for Enterprise to fit into continuity.

[Zeke]

Uh, Nate? Those books aren't canon under any definition I've seen -- aside from one's personal canon, which can include or exclude anything.

But it's a moot point, because the dichotomy you're creating isn't one I'm interested in. To me, continuity is important, but not all-important. The thing to remember is that every continuity error can be explained -- and will be, but only if the material is worth the effort. I doubt anyone felt inclined to make excuses for "Threshold," but "Dark Frontier" was rationalized in any number of ways.

If the question is "Did ENT hold perfectly to continuity?", the answer is no. Neither did TNG, DS9, or VOY. Neither did TOS from one episode to another. But the question that matters to me is "Did ENT hold well enough to continuity?" That is, were its mistakes small enough -- and the show good enough -- to be worth making the necessary excuses for? And my answer to that question is an unqualified yes.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Why don't we return to topic? Okay, I want someone to either (figuratively) look me in the eye and say "I don't think there is anything wrong, and I think that Enterprise fits perfectly within established continuity, as stated in all canon materials including The Star Trek Encyclopedia and The Star Trek Chronology" or "I think that the following need to be changed in order for Enterprise to fit into continuity.

And just when has any thread you care to name here remained on-topic?
What is the advantage of it?
I say, only remain on-topic after five specific economic tests for viability have been passed!
:P :mrgreen:

[Nate the Great]

I consider the books canon because Phil Farrand of Nitpicker's Guide fame says so. If you don't accept any books as canon, then I grant you, there's no possible way ANY of this stuff can be in the same universe from one episode to the next. It is a cardinal rule of nitpicking that all official reference materials from Paramount are considered just as canonical as the episodes themselves.

Yes, none of the other series fit perfectly. When one chucks the first dozen episodes of TOS, which was still the "getting our feet wet" phase, all of the other series have maybe one unavoidable nit per episode on average. The mere existence of Enterprise in a world post first contact with the Klingons without immediately going to war is the one acceptable unavoidable nit. There are tons more, which instantaneously make all other unavoidable nits unacceptable to me. THAT'S why I didn't care about Enterprise. All they had to do was set it in a universe OTHER than the one we've loved for thirty years, and I could love it for being what it is, as long as you call it something other than Star Trek. I like Andromeda because they know how to update continuity with new ideas and still not create entire episodes that spit in the face of the history of the fantasy world.

[Opium]

Let's all have a:

Willing suspension of disbelief

[Burt]

I think people get to caught up in continuity and sometimes miss the point. Yeah, it's nice to have, but doesn't mean it's always the most important thing.
Some fans always seem to want the history of TV show to be one easy simple story laid out in a nice straight line. But real history isn't really like that. It gets twisted, confused, copied, buried, and lost. So what the Xindi have never been talked about in other Trek episodes? Listen to people talking around your town. How many of them talk about the Napoleonic War's? I'm guessing very few.
And so what that new starships and different starship classes pop up? Can you name all the different ships in your countries Navy? I know a fair bit about the Royal Navy as I've studied it and even then, I mess up on some ships histories.
Personally I like that Trek's history is a bit more complicated. Makes it much more interesting!