Those final few episodes were the sort of thing I'd hoped the entire series would be. How could a series based on an "early days of the Federation" premise all but ignore the universe's overarching story lines? It was the history I wanted, not just a linearly-scaled-down version of the same old stories whose only connection to future history were the heavy-handed references planted as inside jokes. I liked the show, ranked it higher than Voyager and equal to DS9, but the wasted potential aggravated me too.

The mirror-universe episode was impressive, and I remember thinking that they probably felt they had nothing to lose once the series was cancelled; and it was a shame that they hadn't gambled like that earlier. Replacing the opening sequence with the alternative Terran Empire opening was gutsy--the marketeers hate to mess with the "brand"--but it really paid off.