The Series (4/5)

    I have never until recently considered myself a very  big Star Trek fan.  I loved certain films (1,2,4,6), I used to watch the original series re-runs when they came on TV, and watched Voyager and Deep Space Nine sporadically at best. I didn't fully get into Next Generation until the recent Blu-ray sets took me by surprise, and blew my mind. Needless to say I was previously not a fan of Enterprise. When it originally aired, I was (and still am) in my post-episodic TV phase. I very rarely watch a show when it's broadcast, and usually only catch it after it's over and done with, when a complete package  can be offered, and I can binge watch from beginning to end. I didn't plan this with Enterprise, but now I just might.

    Season 3 ended up on my doorstep a few weeks ago, and having heard things over the years about Enterprise being the least of the ST series, and being canceled early into it's run I never considered giving it a look. But now I am glad I did. The series, is now equivalent to Deep Space Nine with my favorite Star Trek Series (so tied for third).  I was taken in by the darker more raw version of the Star Trek mythos, a continuing storyline (which obviously had been done in both DS9 and Voyager), and an excellent Captain in Jonathan Archer and an eclectic and excellent crew.

    Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise follows the crew of the Enterprise into the Delphi Expanse an unknown region of space where they are attempting to reach the homeworld of the Xindi.  The Xindi are a grouping of six alien species that have recently attacked Earth in response to an attack that they have foreseen in their future from Earth's forces.  They are doing this in hopes to preventing further attacks from the group.

    Not every episode adheres to the Xindi plot line, and we do get a number of excellent standalone episodes in the series. Honestly, the only negative I can really find against the series is the awful theme song which I find myself skipping every single time.  I was later to find out this theme was written by Diana Warren the same person who essentially gave Aerosmith their one hit, and destroyed any shred of rock and roll credibility they had left with Armageddon soundtracker I Don't Want to Miss A Thing.  Of course, a theme song is a small part of a show, and the actual story is what matters and Enterprise Season 3 offers that in spades, and certainly should be checked out by those like me, who were hesitant on giving this version of Star Trek a chance.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3 comes to Blu-ray in a quite nice, but not spectacular MPEG-4 AVC encoded 1080p 1:78:1 transfer preserving the films original aspect ratio.  The colors in the transfer are nice, blacks are solid, and detail is good for the most part.  There is some minor softness throughout, but that is my only real complaint.

The set comes equipped with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track.  The track sound quite good with the dialogue coming through nice and clearly, music and effects sound fantastic as well.  I did not detect any instances of pops, cracks, or hissing on the track.

Extras (4/5)

    There are extras spread out all over the entire set.  The odd exception being the fourth disc which is absent of any extras.  All other disc have at minimum an audio or text commentary track by a member of the cast or crew. The first disc contains some archival documentaries from the DVD sets, and  Disc 3 and 5 contain deleted scenes from the series.  The Sixth disc contains the majority of the extra features.  This disc includes a 4 part documentary called In a Time of War that explores this season from various perspective and goes into detail about the Xindi Arc. We then get a profile on Enterprise engineer Connor Trineer.  There is also a 17 minute documentary on the actress turned director Roxann Dawson. We get a piece on the cinematographer of the series Marvin Rush, and a short 4 minute piece called Enterprise Secrets that shows off locations on the Paramount lot where Trek has been shot.  The disc is rounded off by Outtakes,  and Photo Galleries.

Overall

    One of my favorite Sci-Fi surprises of recent memory has been the Blu-ray set of Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3.  I have avoided watching the series thus far, but am now happy to be catching up with it.  The Blu-ray has quite good A/V, and elaborate extras. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.