Harder, Stronger, Faster, Onward

Just wrapped up watching the full run of Enterprise. I liked it. Now it is time to move onward in my quest of watching every series in its historical timeline. TOS is up.

I did not do an episode by episode critique in Enterprise but I should have. This time I will post my reflections on each episode and if something is related to Enterprise I will mention it. Not going to look forward and speculate because when this series is done TNG will be analyzed and ENT, TOS, & TOS Animated series will be the references. Eventually Voyager will be last and will have every other series and movie as a reference.

So lets get to analyzing:

TOS Season 1 Episode 1 "Pilot: The Cage"

First I like how the Doctor is also the bartender LOL. Mixes drinks in a beaker.
Pike seems to be a misogynist....albeit a mild one.
Have to overlook the use of printers and paper being passed around. Maybe Enterprise should have used some form of paper communication, but I guess that would have cut down the realism....guess it's just easier to overlook that aspect of the original show.
Big question: In the Enterprise series during the Mirror Darkly story arc. The crew captured the U.S.S. Defiant. It looked like the TOS series Enterprise but Archer and his crew surmised that the Defiant's crew complment was a little over 400, but in this first episode Pike says he is getting tired of being responsible for around 200 people. Was Defiant a larger ship or is that a writing mistake?
Have to overlook Spock smiling at the vibrating blue flowers.
Hand-held communicators are huge!
What is the reason for the change in the transporter technology? On Enterprise NX-01 it was one big pad, and now with the original series it is six individual pads. I wonder why this was not addressed in the Enterprise series.
Overall a good episode. Social implication is definately slavery and man's will to never be caged. Thought is was quite funny that one of the punishments given to Pike was I am guessing "hell", and the Talosian said it was taken from Pikes memory of an old fable...Haha. Bet that didn't go over to well with the religious right back in the day.

I don't want to sound like a wiki here, so I will just be giving impressions and asking questions.

 

Quickly, the pilots ("The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before") aren't necessarily consistent with the series, so you'll find lots to scratch your head about if you try to make them fit.

 

I believe that the single-pad transporter on NX-01 was supposed to be for cargo only, that's why they would use shuttlepods to get landing parties on and off planets.

 

It's best not to concentrate too much on the discontinuities in Trek, because you'll lose sight of enjoying the shows themselves. Star Trek in all it's incarnations holds together in broad strokes only. Once in awhile you might get a cute little explanation for something (like the Klingon foreheads), but most of the time it's just the powers-that-be moving the goalposts.

For example, at the start of TOS, they kept changing the name of the people who Kirk and crew work for - it was the "United Earth Space Probe Agency", it was "Space Central" and finally "Starfleet Command", which stuck and was then used in all the subsequent and even the prequel series, pretending the other names never existed. Ditto lasers not having stun settings, so they changed the name to "phaser" and later Treks pretended they were always phasers.

For a (hopefully) amusing look at some of the biggest continuity goofs throughout the Trek franchise, take a look at the Youtube videos linked to in my sig.

 

TOS: Season 1 Episode 2 "The Man Trap"

Whoot!!! enter Kirk as captain. Good solid episode with the beginnings of a stable cast.

Yeoman Janice Rand to bad they would not end up keeping her as a regular.

Best line in the episode:
Professor Crater: ...and your esteemed physician cannot explain our need for salt tablets?

Kirk: (irritated) We're all aware of the need for salt on a hot and arid planet like this professor, but it IS a mystery, and I don't' like mysteries......they give me a bellyache......and I got a beauty right now.

** I did notice, with regard to the first episodes hand "laser" weapon, that the Enterprise crew was using the classic phaser pistols, and the professor was using the ones that they used in the first episode **

Question: How much time has supposedly passed between episode 1 with Pike and episode 2 with Kirk?

 

Thank you so much for these. They are great fun and I laughed heartily. I especially love the troll face on the entire Enterprise cast

 

I will keep that in mind. Thank you for the information

 

The Cage does throw up a few inconsistencies. Lieutenant Tyler implies that faster than light travel is a recent innovation.

TYLER: And you won't believe how fast you can get back. Well the time barrier's been broken. Our new ships can...

 

I don't see how you conclude that. "Time barrier" doesn't mean "light speed". It could just mean their new engines are 10 times faster than the old ones.

 

Earlier Pike orders faster than light speed to Talos IV by saying "Our Time Warp, Factor Seven."

Basically, this establishes that warp speed is not only FTL, but also "negates" the time dilation effect about which Einstein theorized in his Special Theory of Relativity.

 

I just figured the Enterprise underwent a large scale internal refit between the commands of Pike and Kirk.

As far as canon goes, the 203 number is included in "The Menagerie".

 

Season 1 Episode 3 "Charlie X"

Ok, as a teacher I deal with children like Charlie X all the time, but I still wanted to slap him.

It is established that Charlie is 17 years old, and later on in the season, Chekov will say that he is 22, so what is the average age of the Enterprise Crew? Reason I am asking is that Yeoman Rand acts like she is so much older than Charlie. Sure he has a crush on her, and she tries to pawn him off on a younger yeoman by saying she is closer to his age, but I am really wondering the age question here. Anyone know the speculative age of most of the crew?

I still don't see how Charlie was able to escape the original planet surface in the first place, still, it was a decent episode that tackled the issue of teenage rebellion against authority.

The funniest part to me was Kirk trying to explain to Charlie about what was wrong with Charlie slapping Yeoman Rand on the ass. Classic Kirk!

 

Only if you choose to read it that way. It's really a vague statement.

I always took it that the Antares stopped at the planet and picked up Charlie while the Thasians were on the loo.

 

Knowing Kirk, he's probably had to sit through Sexual Harassment in the Workplace class so often he's got the whole lecture memorised.

 

LOL You guys crack me up!

 

It could be rationalized that different mission types might dictate a different crew complement. We don't really know the circumstances prior to the Enterprise being sent to Rigel and then immediately the events shown in "The Cage." There might be a valid reason half the crew seems to be missing.

 

I always rationalized it as the room needed for the warp engines decreased (a next gen system installed during a refit), which opened up more room for other things like extra crew.