Star Trek Enterprise: Season 3 really is the best season of the series

The Xindi helped raise the profile of Star Trek: Enterprise in season three.

Everyone will have their own opinion as to why a season of Star Trek is or isn’t the best. Star Trek: Enterprise may not have the same fanbase as The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine, but that doesn’t mean fans don’t debate what season they believe is the best.

Season one started the series and gave us tension with the Vulcans unlike any other series prior. There was the exploration of the Klingons, space, and of course, the first season introduced Phlox and the newly created Denobulans to the franchise.

The second season had fantastic episodes like “Carbon Creek”, “Precious Cargo”, “a Night in Sickbay”, “First Flight”, and “The Expanse”. While seasons one and two brought the show to the fans, season three arguably brought it forward beyond it.

Many fans claim season three is their favorite, or “the best”. It featured “The Council”, “Zero Hour”, “Proving Ground and of course “North Star”, among others. The episodes are great, obviously, but is that the reason why season three is the de-facto “best” season as many fans believe?

It’s the villainous Xindi that solidifies season three.

Look at the best series ever, what do they usually have in common? Great villains. This was noticeably lacking in seasons one and two. Not to say there weren’t great antagonists along the way, but none that really invoked the type of feelings that we had seen in the series’ past.

That all changed in season three when the Xindi were introduced, a collective of aliens who feared the advancing of humanity. Instead of working together, the Xindi started an all out-conflict with Earth, firing a weapon that carved hundreds of miles along the Atlantic coast of both North and South America.

The attack cost one Trip Tucker his own sister, causing the officer to maintain his focus and composure the best he could as the Enterprise and its allies began hunting down those that caused the attack.

The season took a sharp change in tone for most of the episodes, but it was a tone that was well received by the fans at the time.