Star Trek: Enterprise has built up a bigger fan base since it came to streaming.
That doesn’t mean that every episode and/or scenes have been appreciated. There is a universal consensus, whether on Redditt or social media, that Star Trek: Enterprise could have left these scenes out, and it wouldn’t have affected the series at all. In fact, their deletion might have made the episodes better, at least that’s what some fans think.
So what are the cringe-inducing moments in Enterprise that most fans prefer to avoid? The decontamination scenes, especially the ones where someone is rubbing on T’Pol (Jolene Blalock). Why? Because most of the audience sees them as gratuitous sex appeal that wasn’t needed for the series with some even saying they would skip past those scenes.
It wasn’t like the following conversation between T’Pol and Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) couldn’t have taken place anywhere else aboard the Enterprise. (And this is from the very first episode, Broken Bow!) And if the crew had to be decontaminated, couldn’t they have used something similiar to what was used in The Andromeda Strain (1971)? That actually looks like it’s decontaminating something rather than being used for titilating purposes. The jeweled helmets really help!
Star Trek: Enterprise didn’t need to up the sex appeal.
And the focus wasn’t just on Blalock, either. The camera included plenty of shots of Trinneer and Scott Bakula so that no one was objectified alone. Enterprise didn’t need these scenes to be a good series, especially as it reached its fourth season. But even in the first season, producers didn’t give the series an opportunity to stand on its own without believing they needed to bring in the sex appeal.
Honestly, it’s no wonder why these scenes are universally disliked. They served no purpose other than eye candy, and while some viewers appreciated that, others wanted to watch a really good science fiction drama which they expected from Star Trek.