And all of this in 2155... Which is, what? Sixty-three years before the original official/canon first contact with Klingons? Where'd Romulans get and lose
their ridges then? Enterprise really shook up canon, from natural starship designs to official events basically. But then, that's the risk one must take to keep the show more cool as if it was a TNG-era Star Trek show, and those were cool, were they not? Nobody wants to see primitive spherical primary hulls and cylindrical secondary hulls and warp nacelles and necks as well as boxy warp pylons. Nobody wants to see primitive lasers with some TOS sound effects hints and stuff. That's why there's Phasers and Photons on the NX-01 (if you ignore the lack of
R in
"Phaser" and the addition if
IC at the end of
"Photon") and cloaking devices in many species, from Romulans (and their Jem'Hedar-esque warp nacelles) to the Suliban, and planet-destroying devices of the Xindi.
I heard something similar Romulans had during the Earth-Romulan war in one of Diane Duane's books set in the Mirror Universe back in 1993... But I digress.
Although Enterprise is entertaining, I wouldn't bother setting it in an ideal Trek timeline, aside from it being a part of an alternate quantum reality (referencing
"Parallels" [TNG]). As I said in
another thread, canon isn't all that's cracked up to be. That's why I blame the more-Russian, less Imperial/Oriental-esque culture and smooth foreheads on early Trek universe development and lack of good budget and graphics. Otherwise, I think Klingons would've developed in TOS to being similar to what they were in late-TMP/mid-TNG as we saw them, culture
and makeup-wise.
But that doesn't mean Enterprise's no fun. Although several pre-established and many assumed canon were broken in the first place, it was interesting nonetheless, as is Season 4, and as it will be in the future, with future episodes like
"In a Mirror, Darkly" [ENT]. I'm
especially looking forward to
that episode. It might as well be my favorite.