I disagree. The first two seasons were not good; Berman & Braga couldn't break their bad writing habits, and fundamentally seemed to lack the imagination to break away from what they'd done before -- for example: they found a way to introduce a holodeck episode just five episodes into a series set centuries before humans have holodecks. And of course, neither of them particularly liked the original series, so you just knew they were going to go piss all over the franchise's continuity, and they did.
Having said that, I think the show's third season was mostly good, and season four was actually excellent. Of course, that was because season four saw creative control handed over to Manny Coto, who did love the original series, and who worked to weave the events of season four into established continuity. It really is a shame the series got canceled just as it was hitting its stride.
And having said that I'll add that one positive thing (to me at least) about its being canceled before season five was that they were going to add Shran to the Enterprise crew. I get that he was a popular character, and Jeffrey Combs did a fantastic job portraying him, but I think he just works better as a recurring character, who crops up from time to time as Archer's equal. Putting him on the Enterprise and therefore under Archer's authority would have diminished what worked so well about the character.
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