Don't get me wrong the idea itself is a very good one and the subject matter was very appropriate for a prequel series. Afterall, we had been examining several of the founding worlds of the Federation and realizing that before they could unite as a group they had their own set of internal issues to work through--so why would Earth be any different even moreso with the Xindi attack which no doubt have fueled xenophobia. Unfortunately, the material was presented in a rather underwhelming story. Not helping this was the fact that the writers shoehorned in an awkward subplot with Mayweather that just was dull as dirt. I realize the writers might have wanted to give a little sendoff for each of the cast but I hadn't cared for Mayweather since season one coupled with Trek's horrible track record with romances and they really should have jettisoned this thread. I liked how S31 was brought back into things. The show did a fairly good job with the intrigue surrounding the baby and her origin. The VFX were great. Terra Prime was much better than Demons but still flawed in a lot of ways. I was disappointed that it was a hostage/rescue story again. The elements that really salvaged this two-parter were the stirring speech that efficiently and eloquently sumarizes the whole appeal of Trek; the touching moments between T'Pol/Trip and Elizabeth and the bittersweet nostalgia surrounding the episode given it was the end of an era as far as Trek goes which has only been reinforced by the unsatisfying way Abrams has so far handled Trek with XI. It was really hard to imagine the end of the Trek era. It had been such a significant part of my life. And while I had issues with ENT I still was invested in it. I know many ENT fans call these two episode classic but I think that has a lot to do with sticking it to B&B's TATV(which is not nearly as bad as it is made out to be and far from the worst ENT ep or Trek episode). The episode isn't what I would call great tv or even great Trek. I mean you have a rescue, Gannett shoehorned in, Samuels doesn't really exist apart from an obstacle same for Paxton, the Terra Prime spy is literally revealed and killed in less than a minute, the focus was wrong but still it does in many respects showcases a lot of the appeal of Trek. I was looking forward to Demons but it turned out to be rather middling. The one thing I will say in its favor is it finally made the Trip/T'Pol believable and interesting--for the last two years it was a contrived mess. I'd give it an average score of 2.5 stars out of 4. Terra Prime was a bit better so I'd give it 3 stars out of 4.
* shrugs * For me, that's sort of the whole point of doing IAMD from that perspective. Because the circumstances in the two universes are different, there's no reason for any of the counterparts to be the same or even similar as personalities. I mean, look at how the Intendant behaved on DS9 vs. Kira. They're two different people, and in that case it worked. I do think having crossovers can work as well, and has worked, but I don't think it should always be that sort of story. There are too many possibilities inherent in a parallel universe, and it's nice to see a view from the other side of the mirror for a change.
The only two things I dislike about Demons/Terra Prime is the Mayweather sub-plot. It's boring, cliched and irrelevant. And the only other really STUPID move was sending Trip and T'Pol to Paxton's lunar mining operation. Did they really think they wouldn't be recognised? That was sloppy writing there. I like everything else about this two parter and it explores a subject matter I've been waiting on for years in Trek. But everything else is a positive: + I like Paxton, he's believably portrayed by Peter Weller. Also, his moon base is so delightfully Bond villain. + I like seeing more of Earth, the Moon, Mars and xenophobic earthlings + I like that Trip and T'Pol have something VERY important at stake, and the final scene between them is wonderful. Had there been a season 5, there relationship would have probably started to mean something. + Colonel GREEN Given the disappointment of TATV, I would've been happy if the series had just ended here. These episodes do a much better job of being a 'love letter' to the last 20 years of Star Trek television than TATV ever did.
AMEN! I'm going to have to disagree with you there. "This Ain't The Valentine" is hands down the worst offering in the entire franchise. AMEN. There are problems with Demons/Terra Prime, which have already been addressed, but they're microscopic compared to the abomination that followed.
Agreed. The Mayweather sub-plot was very boring, but it was nice that he was given a last hurrah before the show bowed out. The Trip/T'Pol baby angst was a bit too much to take as well. Aside from those points though I think that Demons/Terra Prime is a nice note to go out on though. (Yes, I pretend real hard that TATV was an anniversary special of some sort that had nothing to do with anything.) Exploring the human angst, and just being back in the Solar system was a really interesting direction to take. Enterprise was supposed to be Earth's first deep space mission, so its surprising that more wasn't done to play up this aspect throughout the show's run. The casting of Peter Weller was inspired too.
Well I finished The Shield, and I'd just like to say to whoever it was on this board who spoiled me about what happens involving Shane, DAMN YOU! I spent the whole first part thinking "Is this when it happens? Nope, guess not. Is this when it happens? No, he's just wiping away her pee. Is this when it happens? Nope, he's shopping. He's not going to bang the jailbait again, is he? Nope, he's going home." And so on and so forth and suchlike. Good finale though, good series too. A bit too episodic, and I'm not a big fan of police procedurals so I found myself drifting out at those points in the episodes, but it picks up in season 3, and season 4-6 and very good with the final season being excellent. It's not as good as The Wire in my opinion, but The Wire wasn't really a cop show, it was a show about institutions and the American city, it just happened to have cops and police investigations as central plot points. What show am I supposed to be reviewing again? Oh right, Enterprise! Terra Prime (****) Terra Prime, Enterprise's adopted finale. It does sort of work as a finale because it gives all the characters something to do, we get to see one of the major stepping-stones towards the foundation of the Federation, and it has an unusually long coda for an Enterprise episode, around 10 minutes. Section 31 make another fairly pointless appearance. These guys are supposed to be secretive masters of political and social manipulation, they're not supposed to know about Mars' atmospheric composition and all that. I understand Manny trying to fix the situation left over from Divergence, but couldn't he have fixed that in Divergence rather changing his mind about Reed's direction 5 episodes later? Oh, and making Paxton a hypocrite who would have died without a treatment devised by the Rigellians was such a pointless and dick move by the writers because it doesn't go anywhere. I'm a Star Trek fan, I'm watching this show because I like watching humans interacting with aliens, my incentive to dislike Paxton is that he's opposed to the fundamental concept of the show, not that he's a hypocrite. You know who else is a hypocrite? T'Pol. She falsely accused a member of a suppressed minority of mind raping her while claiming to be trying to protect the image of that minority, so does that mean that T'Pol is a bad guy too? No, that was just bad writing, but my point is that being a hypocrite doesn't make you a bad person because we're all hypocrites in some sense. I claim to care about the environment, but that didn't stop me from getting a bigger car last year purely because I wanted it. I claimed that my girlfriend was the only one for me, but whilst making love to her I'd sometimes end up thinking about her best friend (come on, we all do it at some point ). I'm a hypocrite and I'm proud of being a hypocrite, but that doesn't stop me from being judgemental of other hypocrites, and I'm proud of that. I forget how this all relates to Terra Prime. Then there's some scenes where my good pal KelKel is persecuted by Reed and Travis. They jump to conclusions with only a limited understanding of the situation and blame a guy who was recently screwed over, they're worse than Dick Ebersol. The guy who is actually responsible mans up and shoots himself in the head, which is probably the only way I could be encouraged to watch Jay Leno ever again. (Yes, yes, I'm With CoCo.) Archer's speech is okay, if a little trite at times. The problem I have with the speech is that it is horribly staged because the director knows that audiences wont sit still watching a man giving an impassioned speech for 90 seconds, so they have Archer walking all over the place in order to give the camera an excuse to move. The effect of this is that Archer looks like a man who desperately needs to pee. The Trip/T'Pol stuff isn't so annoying and manages to be touching towards the end, even if Trip's "comforting" talk to T'Pol about how the technique used on Elizabeth was flawed so there is hope that humans and Vulcans can successfully procreate if they wish. 1) This feels like a writer inserting inappropriate lines into a scene so that the tossier (this should be a word) of fans don't scream "Spock!!" and 2) It felt like Trip was saying "Don't feel too sad about our daughter who just died, we can always have another kid. What say you that we get crackin'?" SHOCK HORROR! Who'd have known that Phlox's analysis of a hair would prove to be inaccurate?! Andre must have taken some time out from playing Hide the Saltine with his lady friends to send Manny Coto a memo. "RE: Alien hybrids. They're risky." Archer Abuse: 36 Captain Redshirt: 38 Only one episode to go now. I hope it's good.
We'll have to agree to disagree then. I can think of many more episodes from Trek that are worse--The Fight, LHWIWS, Favorite Son, Children of Eden, Precious Cargo, Ferengi Love Songs etc. Brannon actually had a good idea with framing not only Archer and the crew in a historic perspective via Riker & Troi in the 24th century but ENT within Trek--it also was a rather clever idea to achieve this via the holodeck. I had no issue with essentially turning the show into a TNG episode since it brought everything full circle given this would be the end of an 18 year era ushered in by TNG. Riker & Troi's inclusion didn't rankle me given how the writers pretty much had forsaken the ENT cast long ago and most of season 4 was plot-driven and the only real attention character-wise had been on Archer and a special guest star of the week such as Soval, Shran, T'Les, T'Pau, Shran, the MU characters etc so having Riker/Troi overshadow them was par for the course. The problem was with the execution of said idea. I would have used each holodeck scene to segue into a transitional flashback of the actual events. What really undermined the episode was setting it in an actual TNG episode from the show rather than in-between episodes from season seven. They could have framed it with Riker & Troi reminiscing about the founding of the Federation with some sort of bicentennial anniversary. Plus I thought it added a bit of poignancy going from Terra Prime where we were seeing the crew alive and in the "present" then essentially shifting 200 years into the future knowing that the people we had spent 4 years with are now gone. This emotional effect is one of the many things I loved about BSG's Daybreak finale. The episode shouldn't have focused on Riker's dilemma--it was forced and out of place. I also had a problem with the episode not having that sentimental feel that series finales usually do--part of it was the story itself but part of it also was the way the characters had been treated over the course of the series. Shran's inclusion was okay but the throwaway plot centering on him was a joke. The least they could have done was have this plot tie-in with the Federation ceremony given how all of this occurred on its eve. And that brings up something else they could have handled differently--given the use of the holodeck Riker could have easily jumped around from various points in time so that Trip's death, Shran's calling in a favor and the Federation founding didn't occur all at the same time. It was too much. Also it would have permitted Trip to have died in a more heroic manner say during the Romulan War. So while I do have quite a few issues with the finale it had some nice isolated moments such as between Archer/T'Pol following Trip's death, Archer/T'Pol/Phlox at the ceremony, Riker as "Chef"/Trip, the Trip/T'Pol conversation on the shuttlepod. I also liked the idea of the NX being de-commissioned which made a lot of sense since the Fed fleet would be integrated with newer more advanced vessels. I'd probably give it 2 stars out of 4. It is the least enjoyable of the Trek finales with AGT #1, WYLB #2 and Endgame #3. Looking back on it 5 years removed, it still has all those weaknesses but I will honestly admit I get a tad bit nostalgic for ENT--warts and all. TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT were the Treks I grew up with and despite all the ways Trek was mishandled in its latter years I still have a warm spot for it and it still stands head and shoulders above most of what has com out on tv since those shows went off the air.
Good review. Part 2 was definitely better than part 1. The Reeves-Stevens' were definitely a joy this season. Mayweather's plot was stupid in part 1 and reduced, I guess, in part 2. The coda at the end was enjoyable and helps to make it a seemingly decent finale. Basically, it was an episode that was supposed to wrap a season, but it takes the time to do slightly more. I forget if it was Mr or Mrs, but one of them said in the commentary that they knew it would be their last episode, so it was supposed to be their "send off". I know that the vast majority of Enterprise fans are glad they felt this way.
These Are The Voyages... (*) The problems with this episode have been well documented over the last 5 years, so what's the point in me making a lengthy diatribe about it? There isn't one really, and I didn't feel there was the need to do one for Voyager's Endgame either, but people encouraged me to hack away at it so that's what I did, and I had a lot of fun doing it. So I am going to give These Are The Voyages... the same crap finale treatment that I gave Endgame, with the added bonus that this episode is just a little bit worse. Issue number 1: Cannot even meet lowered expectations Back in early 2005 I had acquired a new piece of technology called broad-band-int-er-net, and using this amazing new technology I visited the official Star Trek site to learn the latest Enterprise news. It was while I was reading the forums there that I first learned about Enterprise's ratings difficulties, and a week later I learned that the show was officially cancelled. Soon afterwards the plot for TATV leaked out. If you ever wanted to know what the internet would look like if piranhas had computers, reading those archives would give you a good idea. Fans were bitching about everything that was leaked, from the fact that it was set on the 1701-D's holodeck to the fact that Trip died. At that time I didn't think these story elements were that bad and even had potential to be good if done right, but the hatred being aimed at B&B before the fans even saw the episode was incredible. I assumed that once people finally saw the episode their opinions on it would change, I assumed the fans were just getting carried away with the rumours. But once the episode finally aired the reaction to it was even worse than it was to the rumours! I still refused to believe that the episode could be that bad and felt that the negative reaction was probably because people couldn't get past their hatred of the episode from the rumours, and they were still attacking it based on issues which I thought could work. So many months later Sky One finally got around to airing the episode on this side of the Atlantic and I sat down to watch it with lowered expectations but still thinking it probably wasn't going to be that bad. It wasn't the complete abomination that some were making it out to be, but it sure was a rubbish finale and even my lowered expectations weren't enough to meet the crapness of the episode. Five years later, with five years more bitching, the lowered expectations still can't help this episode out. So much about this episode is wrong and so little of it is right. Issue number 2: I can't write, but I can still write better than this I've criticised this line a few times before on this site, but I'm going to do so again because this really stood out for me when I saw this episode in 2005. Archer's line is three clichés merged into one of the most eye-roll inducing moments on television. The whole episode is filled with crap lines like this, from the obvious embarrassment displayed by Jolene Blalock and Connor Trineer while talking about their past relationship, to the horrendous voice-over by Brent Spiner where Data believes a rain-check involves actual rain. This episode doesn't feel like a tribute to Star Trek, it feels like a parody of it, and it's not a particularly intelligent or biting parody either. I don't know why the writing is so bad because Brannon Braga is normally a fairly competent writer; he co-created this show and was involved in some of the best episodes of TNG, so why is he unable to write for these characters here? Issue number 3: Why The Pegasus? I feel that The Pegasus is one of the best episodes of TNG because it combines three of my favourite things from television: Ron Moore's writing, Romulans and John Locke. I know The Pegasus well enough to know that this episode does not fit within that episode, and the others on this board who have experimented by editing these episodes together agree with my assumption. Once Admiral Pressman showed up in The Pegasus Riker became gravely serious as the situation weighed upon his conscience, whereas in TATV Riker is in a good mood and joking with Deanna on the holodeck. It's like adding oil to water; they don't mix and it makes you feel uneasy if you drink it. And it doesn't take a genius such as myself to figure out that the ending of TATV flies in the face of what actually happened in The Pegasus. According to this episode Riker made up his mind to talk to Picard because of his experience in the holodeck, in The Pegasus Riker decides to confess after he and Pressman find the cloaking device intact. I don't see how these two scenes can be rectified with one another. Of course, for many years people have made fun of the fact that Frakes and Sirtis' appearance in this episode doesn't match up with how they looked in TNG season 7 (to put it mildly). The obvious choice here is to post a joke image of Riker and Troi looking fat and old, but as you all know I don't like to do the obvious joke, so here's a picture of T'Pol singing a duet with Frank Sinatra with backing by an all Smurf band. Spoiler: Smurf finale Ha, caught you! Me posting a random image was far too obvious, so I did what none of you was expecting and I posted the obvious joke! I'm so funny and clever that I deserve my own Late Night talk show! Issue number 4: Shran's plot TNG finale: An epic investigation spanning three time-periods which has the possibility of changing history and erasing all life. DS9 finale: The final battle of an epic war for the future of the galaxy combined with a struggle between two supernatural races. Voyager finale: An epic showdown between Voyager and the Borg and the end of Voyager's long journey home. Enterprise finale: They rescue Shran's daughter. This isn't an epic event on which to end the show, this is the sort of boring fluff you'd expect to see in season 2. I can understand B&B's desire to bring Shran back for the finale, and the irony in the fact that Rigel X is the first and last planet Enterprise visits, but this is an incredibly lame way to end the series. As for the villains... TNG antagonist: Q, a well-known character who appeared on an almost annual basis and who was also in the pilot. DS9 antagonist: Female Changeling/Dukat, two well-known characters who appeared an a regular basis, Dukat was also in the pilot. Voyager antagonist: The Borg Queen, appeared in 3 or 4 episodes since season 5, while The Borg had been part of the show since season 3. Enterprise antagonist: Some green guy who not only doesn't have a name, his entire species doesn't have a name. Issue number 5: Trip's death What more can I add to this which hasn't already been said? How did the aliens board the ship? Where were the MACOs? Where were the extras that normally inhabit these corridors? Why did Trip implement the stupidest plan ever? Why did he survive when the aliens apparently died? WHERE WERE THE BLOODY MACOS?!!! Why is this death glorified two centuries later when it is so stupid and pointless? Issue number 6: A tribute to TNG B&B can claim that this is a valentine to all of Star Trek all they want, but it isn't, this is a tribute to TNG in every way. There's all sorts of references to TNG, there's no references to DS9 or Voyager, and the only reference to TOS was added in by Mike Sussman. TRIP: Indeed, we have reached this ship's Endgame. REED: Yes, but What You and I Leave Behind is a legacy that will endure for 9 centuries. TRIP: I hear that. REED: Turnabout Intruder! TRIP: What? REED: Oh, sorry, I thought I saw an invading alien for a second. It was just a shadow. TRIP: Hmm. TRIP: Yes, here's to those Enterprise-ing Voyagers. ARCHER: When heading into Deep Space they'll want to be packing Nines for protection. TRIP: That was an odd thing to say. I think this whiskey is getting to your head. ARCHER: The Original flavour of this whiskey is setting off a Series of taste explosions in my mouth. TRIP: Hmm. Various other issues The NX-01 Stasisprise. The production staff did a good job of updating the uniforms, and the bridge consoles look closer to the TOS Enterprise, but all the characters are exactly the same and even hold the same rank. How is Travis still an ensign after ten years? Chef acting as a therapist is not only dumb, it is something that has never been shown before but was apparently commonplace on this ship. The worst part of this is that each of the characters (except Archer) are given an opportunity to talk with him, but rather than use these scenes for the characters to discuss themselves and get some closure, all of these scenes are used to talk about Trip. What a wasted opportunity that was. The worst part is that it gave us this line, possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard on Star Trek: Brannon Braga, combine this line with the one from Shuttlepod One where you had Trip claim that he can't figure out simple velocity/distance/time equations and it becomes abundantly clear that you know fuck all about engineering. You have to stop writing TV shows that have engineers in them because you look like an idiot, at the very least you have to hire a science advisor who doesn't spend all his time in the Playboy mansion. Here's a short crash course: Boat engines typically work by rotating a fan under the water, and the angle of the blades causes the water to be pushed back, but the compression of the water also causes the boat to be propelled forwards. Warp engines work by BENDING SPACE-TIME! IF YOU THINK THAT WARP ENGINES HAVE ANY SIMILARITY TO BOAT ENGINES YOU'RE AN UTTER IMBECILE! *cough* Jolene Blalock gives a very odd performance in this episode. I'm not sure if she was directed to be this way or whether her loathing of this script was causing her to choke on the words as she said them. Either way, it was distracting. The good I liked the uniforms, I wish they had been like this from the beginning. Since TNG loved reusing stock-shots of the 1701-D, it was great to get some shots of that ship from new angles. There was a small bit of nostalgia in seeing the TNG sets again. The final 30 seconds showing the three Enterprises was fantastic, the perfect way to end this show. The episode title was also very good, much better than Endgame. That's all I can think of in terms of the good things from this episode. These Are The Voyages... It happened, it's canonical, get used to it. Archer Abuse: 37 Captain Redshirt: 39 Okay, I'll do this the same way I did Voyager: next I'll post a review for season 4, then I'll post a full series review, and then I'll move on the Babylon 5. Hopefully the Enterprise stuff will be up this weekend and I'll begin B5 early next week.
TheGodBen, I really want to comment on this one when I get a bit more time because your initial thoughts about the episode having to do with lowered expectations are very similar to mine. In the end, the negative points brought up are the same that everyone brings up. You attach slightly more vitriol to them than I do, but less than most others (I'd give the episode a star and a half and feel that, if they had two hours instead of one, they could have made the Enterprise plot more epic and at least passed Endgame if that says anything). BTW, does anyone remember who spoiled the plot for everyone? I know it wasn't Morpheus (although he did chime in to confirm it). The furor at the time quite amazed me and I don't think anything has really compared to it on this board since (it was the good old days ).
I thought the choice was fairly obvious. They wanted to set the finale in the TNG TV series era, well, fine. But it's been over a decade since they went off the air, so even having the actors play their seventh season selves is pushing it but not as much as their fresh faced first season selves. And well, who can you get? Uh, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, maybe a vocal cameo from Brent Spiner... Right. Is there anything from season seven with these characters we could use? Incorporate into the story in some way? Something Trek fans liked? Can't be "All Good Things", that's Picard's story, and, uh, what else happened in the seventh season? That was good? Anyone? So it does make its own internal logic, though in retrospect they shouldn have set it in the Nemesis or post-Nemesis era, as that's more believable age-wise (hey, say the Titan is a Galaxy-class starship or whatever) or if they did go the seventh season route, not to try and tie to the Pegasus. But whatever, made sense on paper.
If they wanted to tie it back to TNG, they should have done a follow-up to "A Matter of Time." Berlinghoff Rasmussen was supposed to be from the 22d century, after all. They could have shown how the time machine was stolen in the first place. If TNG casting was going to be a problem, they could have used clips and voice-overs. Did this never occur to TPTB? Braga is obsessed with time travel, isn't he? B5!
2.5 star average for the mirror universe episodes? I really do hate GodBen sometimes. That's almost as bad as your rating for "Remember". Good review of TATV though.
Dear lord, GodBen, that was the awesomest review of TATV ever. Honestly, I wish that TPTB had been able to finagle a way to get Patrick Stewart back and do a story set on the 1701-E, since that's the last known (and non-alternate universe) Enterprise we know about. I liked the idea of the story, but instead of reliving something on the holodeck I think it would have been neat to do a Star Trek: Legacy sort of thing with a story spanning from the first Enterprise to the last (or, well, most recent). That said, I'm not sure how they would have been able to get any of the TOS characters involved except through archive footage, and that just would have been cheesy. Looking forward to your Babylon 5 reviews.
I second the 'why Pegasus' question. If they wanted Riker and Troi, couldn't this have been a 'Riker's reflections before taking command of Titan' thing? It would have helped this feel like a separate episode, a coda to the series, and this era of Star Trek as a whole. That would have worked better for the idea of the whole 'Valentine to the fans' BS line.
Jaespol, is that you? I mean, I was always a bit suspicious of you You_Guyz because of your blunt manner, and it's a little odd that you always call me GodBen even though I had the The added 3 months before you joined the board, but hey, coincidences happen. But your repeated complaints about my review of Remember raised my interest, so I went back and read that review and lo and behold, Jaespol hounded me for my review of that episode too. And when I looked at Jaespol's account I saw that you were one of the last 10 visitors, which is odd considering he was banned almost six months before you joined the board on account of him having been previously banned under another account. I kind of miss Jaespol and felt the Voyager thread went downhill after he left because it was lacking the stupid things he often said. I tried to compensate by being even dumber than normal, but it just wasn't the same. Anyway, You_Guyz, what you should do is start a thread called "A Hater Revisits TheGodBen's Hater Reviews". You can give my reviews star ratings, and at the end of each season you can make graphs and explain how you would have reviewed the episodes differently. It would be awesome.
You could not have put this any better TheGodBen. As much as I obviously love the character of Shran, and usually leapt for joy whenever he appeared in an episode, his appearance here was just pathatic. What really upsets me about is that TPTB intentionally kept him out of "Demons" and "Terra Prime" so they could use him for this God-awful thing. Personally, I think it would worked wonderfully to use him in those episodes instead, thereby having his final appearance being used to further develop the "founding of the Federation" storyline. It didn't happen as long as I continue to take my Repressitol pills. I think I'm gonna need a double dose tonight. I always liked "Masks." And yes, I'm being dead serious, as I've said numerous other places on this site. But, that wouldn't work either, so I guess that does leave "The Pegasus." Like you said, it makes sense on paper.