In many ways, Star Trek: Enterprise is the black sheep of the franchise. The prequel to the original series, it ran on the UPN network from 2001-2005 and featured the adventures of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and his crew aboard the NX-01 Enterprise, the first Starfleet vessel to achieve speeds of warp 5 or better.
Enterprise wasn’t well-received by some fans of the franchise, and one common complaint was the show’s theme song, “Going Where My Heart Will Take Me.” It was the first series to have a lyrical opener (although the original series theme does have lyrics written by Gene Roddenberry that were never used), and became a weird bone of contention that caused one fan to take his opinion all the way to the gates of the Paramount Studios film lot, where he would catch the eye of the show’s star, Scott Bakula.
It’s no mystery why “Going Where My Heart Will Take Me” was chosen for the show’s theme song. At the time, Rick Berman was executive producer, and he wanted a theme that was a complete departure from those of shows like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Star Trek: Voyager. Berman believed it gave the show a more contemporary feel.
Has any other television theme song completely polarized a fandom the way “Going Where My Heart Will Take Me” did, and why did some people dislike it so much? Well, as Star Trek tells us repeatedly, humans hate change, so some fans did a lot of pearl-clutching over the franchise’s “traditions” being torn asunder by the theme song. Many took to the internet to complain ala Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons (worst. Star Trek theme. EVER), and one fan took his complaint right to the top during the show’s production!
Bakula is known to his fans as a kind, intelligent, and talented man who truly appreciates his fans, and one morning, upon approaching the gates of Paramount Studios to film an episode of Enterprise, he noticed one lingering near the gates wearing a sandwich board. The front declared: ENTERPRISE: LOVE THE SHOW! Bakula said he appreciated the sentiment, but then the man turned to reveal the back of the board, which read: HATE THE THEME SONG! Startled but amused, Bakula drove through the gates, leaving the man to his work.
This incident just goes to show you how a simple aesthetic choice, like whether a Star Trek theme has lyrics or not, causes ripples that spread throughout the fan space of a series. Even all these years later, people still discuss whether Berman made the right choice, and if we would’ve been better off getting from there to here with a non-lyrical theme.