Working from the oral history in The Five Year Mission: The next 25 years, this is a fascinating deep dive that answers the question “How did a recycled cover of a 1998 song written for Rod Stewart, ‘Where My Heart Will Take Me’ aka ‘Faith of the Heart’ become the title music for Enterprise?”
Also, after resisting melodic scoring in all the 90s shows, it turns out this was the music Rick Berman liked?!!
“…I, for one, can tell you that I thought it was a great opening and I’m not alone in that. I don’t think I’m in the majority, but I’m not alone."
And it seems the song does have its own subniche of supporters who share Berman’s view. (But not I.)
I honestly think that music did more to hurt the show than anything else. It was the musical equivalent of starting EVERY EPISODE with a voiceover saying: “we hate all that old star trek. This is the new WB Network Star Trek, with 70% more down home, Midwestern American values! Yeehaw!”
Gotta love how after hearing everyone complain about how bad it was, they doubled down and made a “jazzy” version for later seasons.
Yep … completely agree and I’ve said the same before. Whether the producers liked it or not, the opening and its vibe is part of Trek. If you want to do a different kind of show … cool … but you’ve gotta meet fans somewhere in the middle. Starting the whole thing off with a complete undoing of the whole vibe of the thing is not the right way to meet fans in the middle.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but when I first saw enterprise, I honestly thought it was a cheap rip off that was bound to get sued, and the song was a huuuuge part in the that impression. “No Star Trek would start with that song, this is some weird corporatised shit”.
And the effect of that … to this day, even though I didn’t mind ENT S4, I don’t count it as part of (my) Trek (it also did particularly bad on the bechdel test). And to this day, even with new-Trek, we’re struggling to get new series that push Trek forward without being nostalgia driven, a reboot, prequel or maybe even all of the above (looking at you SNW!). Lower Decks, in this way, really does stand out (Prodigy too, though I haven’t seen it).
people did react that way, but I liked the song well enough, and grew to like it more.
It’s like root beer. The worst part is after a while you actually start to like it.
To quote the great Nicholas Meyer (Director of Wrath of Khan) who spoke on this topic:
“Roddenberry had his own utopian vision about the perfectibility of man, and I never really believed that. And I don’t think the show demonstrates that. I think it is about gunboat diplomacy. In the final analysis, the Enterprise fires. They’re always shooting and bringing civilization, and coming to worlds where they don’t approve of tyrannical enterprises – no pun intended – and they substitute their own quote unquote enlightened version of how society is supposed to work, which is essentially American.”
I get what they were going for with the song, but it’s a swing and a miss for me. I think the opening credits montage fits perfectly with the show, but not the song. When I watch ENT, the only time I don’t mute the sound during the opening credits is for “In a Mirror, Darkly, Parts 1 and 2.”
" … another ‘space theme for nerds,’ so to speak … "
Not so to speak. Exactly that. Give me the orchestral story telling. Give me that epic space theme.
I don’t hate it. I hate Nazis. I don’t hate the theme song from ‘Enterprise.’
¿Por qué no los dos?
I hated it at first.
Then I grew to love it.
The show is about humanity taking it’s first steps into the wider galactic community, and the song is both about a journey but also less refined than other star trek intros, just like Starfleet is a less refined version of what we are used to.
🤷
I hated it until they changed it in season 2 or 3 and then I realized that I hated the new version even more and in retrospect the original wasn’t quite that bad.
The lyrics are generally fitting to the theme of the show. The Rod Stewart performance didn’t work for me then, later or now.
I thought Stewart wrote the song, but the on-show singer was someone else.
Anyone have good insights on the downfall of TNG-era Trek?
With Enterprise and Nemesis, it feels to me like the kind of situation where all the good people left and the person in charge (or Berman) didn’t know how much their success was because of the good people.
And so they run with their ideas, thinking they’re good and indifferent to the pushback from their underlings.
Is that what happened?
EDIT: So my vague guess as to what would have constituted “all the good people left” would have been Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor (and maybe Ronald D Moore counts too?) leaving. I just checked, and it seems by about Voyager S3/4, they’d both more or less left Trek, and, by the time Enterprise comes around, I’m guessing it was just Berman and Braga who’d stuck around, and, I’d also guess they really didn’t have much of a role in giving (or understanding) the TNG era qualities that made it good.
Like, if you take the four series and the people who seemed to have driven their creation and writing (taken from wikipedia):
- TNG: Roddenberry,
Berman, Piller, Taylor - DS9:
Berman, Piller, Behr - Voayger:
Berman, Piller, Taylor,Braga - Enterprise:
Berman,Braga
… it seems pretty clear Berman needed good creative minds around him, and Braga just wasn’t that person. Moreover, it really looks like it’s Piller and Taylor that defined TNG era Trek (or the good parts at least).
Yep! He’s also probably the clearest “black sheep” of all the major show runners or writers. Like Voyager and Enterprise do not happen the way they did if he’s got an influence.
I’m sure it pisses Berman off to hear about all the fans of DS9 given that it’s probably the one he had the least influence over (compared to Voyager and Enterprise at least)
Can you expound on those words? I don’t know anything about him, other than his name is in the credits.
Can you expound on those words? I don’t know anything about him, other than his name is in the credits.
#Check out
After Roddenberry and his wife passed there was no one to reinforce the ideals that drove Trek.
DS9 was arguably anti-Trek, or at least seriously questioned the idea of the Federation as a force for only good in the realpolitik of the Alpha Quadrant.
I feel like the problem with Voyager and Enterprise was more that the writing wasn’t as good.
