TheGodBen Revisits Enterprise

[Sykonee]

Also, the decon chamber. While in principle, this is a good idea because it shows the problems early space travellers would face when visiting alien worlds and ships, it is obviously just introduced for showing us some flesh

May be a bit late to suggest a counter, but Needlessly Gratuitous Sexual Titillation Scenes could work too.

[Pemmer Harge]

Every time someone is seen shirtless or in their underwear?

[Tallis Rhul]

If you held a competition for that among the crew then Trip has it nailed to the wall by about halfway through season 1...

There's one thing that leapt out of your review at me, TheGodBen, which is that very little of the plot of Broken Bow matters. I think it was about a month ago when I sat down to watch it, having already seen it on TV when it aired on Channel 4 for the first time in the UK. I enjoyed it, it was a nice action romp, but I was left at the end of it thinking "Is that it? What actually happened then?"

Also, props for Tasty Coma Wife. She was hot.

And if you say "oort cloud" over and over enough times it becomes very funny.

[HopefulRomantic]

Count Zero wrote:

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I remember that when I watched Broken Bow for the first time, I was immediately sold on the crew and especially Archer. I appreciated the fact that after all-too-perfect Janeway we'd get a flawed, slightly crazy captain for a change. Yeah, he's a prejudiced jerk, but somehow fun to be around. Or to watch, at least. But I'm probably pretty alone in that regard.

I personally wouldn't go as far as "crazy" and "jerk," but I thought the idea of a captain with flaws, grumpily battling to overcome the chip on his shoulder about Vulcans, was refreshingly realistic. And I loved his idealism and enthusiasm for exploration.

I enjoyed watching Archer and T'Pol slowly warm to each other, and by association each other's species. They both had a lot to learn.

[Count Zero]

So I'm not alone. Great. Well, I'm sometimes a bit blunt in expressing my opinion, hopefully no one will take it personally or too seriously. I'll always have a soft spot for Enterprise.

One other thing I forgot to say earlier: I think it's kind of outrageous that they introduced the Temporal Cold War as such an important plot point but never had any idea where they would go with this. Who the hell acts like that?

[JB2005]

^ B&B

[Pemmer Harge]

Count Zero wrote:

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One other thing I forgot to say earlier: I think it's kind of outrageous that they introduced the Temporal Cold War as such an important plot point but never had any idea where they would go with this. Who the hell acts like that?

I've missed quite a few episodes, so the only TCW ones I've seen have been Cold Front and Shockwave Part 2, however, everyone says it doesn't really matter. Question: If the Temporal Cold War is about stopping people from screwing with the timeline, do the events of Enterprise mean the ending of Voyager never happened?

[startrekwatcher]

Count Zero wrote:

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I think it's kind of outrageous that they introduced the Temporal Cold War as such an important plot point but never had any idea where they would go with this. Who the hell acts like that?

A lot of writers don't have everything planned out and choose to make it up on the fly such as DS9. I really don't care if they have it all mapped out just as long as it ultimately makes sense. The TCW never did.

[Count Zero]

Pemmer Harge wrote:

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I've missed quite a few episodes, so the only TCW ones I've seen have been Cold Front and Shockwave Part 2, however, everyone says it doesn't really matter. Question: If the Temporal Cold War is about stopping people from screwing with the timeline, do the events of Enterprise mean the ending of Voyager never happened?

That's not necessarily what the Temporal Cold War is about. It's about certain people (or factions) screwing with the timeline or preventing others from doing that. It never gets really clear what's going on, since we're seeing events from the point of view of the ENT crew (well, mostly Archer). While Future Guy and the Suliban were supposed to be the bad guys, they also help Archer a few times. It would actually be quite intriguing if it had some kind of pay-off.
We never hear anything about the 24th century in the TCW episodes, we only find out that the 22nd century is a frontline in the war. So I highly doubt the TCW influenced Voyager in any way.

[DWF]

Count Zero wrote:

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One other thing I forgot to say earlier: I think it's kind of outrageous that they introduced the Temporal Cold War as such an important plot point but never had any idea where they would go with this. Who the hell acts like that?

I don't think that was the cae, had Enterprise had lasted seven seasons as the last three series did I'm sure that the TCW would've been played out differently. But I never really thought that Enterprise would've lasted that long, Star Trek was going downhill at the time and it wasn't Enterprise's fault.

[TheGodBen]

Count Zero wrote:

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I recently rewatched Broken Bow and one thing that struck me was the odd pacing. This is also a problem in later episodes. Even though the story was exciting, my mind wandered off from time to time because the pacing wasn't quite right.

The same thing happened to me but I thought that it was because I was tired after a long week. My mind phased out a few times during the episode, even during the conversation between Archer and Sarin as she explains things to him.

Sykonee wrote:

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May be a bit late to suggest a counter, but Needlessly Gratuitous Sexual Titillation Scenes could work too.

That's a good suggestion but it needs a snappier title.

Nipples Ahoy!: 1

Tallis Rhul wrote:

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There's one thing that leapt out of your review at me, TheGodBen, which is that very little of the plot of Broken Bow matters.

It's not so much that it doesn't matter, because most episodes of Trek are "filler" which don't matter, it's that the episode claims to be important and it seems to be setting up some sort of mystery, but nothing ever comes of it. If Future Guy's role in starting a Klingon civil war had been explained in Broken Bow then the episode would have been fine, but Future Guy is one of those mysteries which will never be solved (except in the novels, possibly).

Also, props for Tasty Coma Wife. She was hot.

I wonder what happened to Jamie? She just disappeared between seasons and we never saw her wheelbarrow-style ways again.

startrekwatcher wrote:

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A lot of writers don't have everything planned out and choose to make it up on the fly such as DS9. I really don't care if they have it all mapped out just as long as it ultimately makes sense. The TCW never did.

I completely agree, they didn't need to know where they were going with the Tasty Coma Wife so long as it was reasonably well explained by the end and made some sort of sense. I think one of the biggest mistakes the show made was how it was all brushed under the rug in Storm Front with no attempt to explain what it was all about. I would have rather had 5 minutes of a half-assed explanation than 2 hours of nazis with ray-guns.


Fight or Flight (***)

Back when I was watching the first season of Voyager a few people suggested that the fourth episode, Phage, should have be aired directly after the pilot because the Vidiians stealing somebody's organs showed the Delta Quadrant to be more deranged and lawless than what we were used to. Fight or Flight seems to have taken that suggestion, the mysterious villain species are killing sentient aliens and harvesting them because there is no authority to stop them.

A few things hold this episode back from being as good as Phage. What I felt made Phage such a strong episode was that it ended with Janeway realising she had no way of punishing the Vidiians and she was forced to let them go, whereas Fight or Flight ends with some some of the victim species showing up and blowing up the villain's ship real good. It is a little too neat and tidy for my taste. Secondly, the Vidiians were a very sympathetic villain because they were forced into their actions by their disease, it was kill or be killed. But the villains in Fight of Flight aren't even seen and the suggestion is that they were killing sentient beings for use as an aphrodisiac, which is as far from sympathetic as you can be. It's almost as bad harvesting human horn.

Hoshi's story is interesting because it is not the sort of thing we normally associate with Starfleet officers, she's scared and wants to go home. It's not brilliant storytelling, and it might be a little sexist that it's the woman character that acts this way and not one of the men, but it is taking advantage of the premise of this series in that space exploration is still new to these people. Once again the ending is a little too tidy, she manages to have a conversation in an alien language even though she only knows a dozen words and somehow that gives her the confidence to stay aboard the ship as it flies from one dangerous situation to the next.

Points go to this episode for the use of shuttlepods and EV suits, it helps to lend the show an odd retro/futuristic feel.

Memory Alpha has informed me that the Axanars were referenced twice on TOS, and we have no idea who the villain species are, so neither of these will be added to the alien counter. But Archer did fly over to an unknown ship adrift in space, that doesn't seem to logical to me.

Captain Redshirt: 3

[SFRabid]

Pemmer Harge wrote:

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Every time someone is seen shirtless or in their underwear?

It would be interesting to see who was shirtless most during three seasons, Trip or Kirk. Either one is better than Boy Toy Riker.

I've been watching TOS again on DVD and just finished season 2 and started season 3. In the last few episodes I've seen planned time travel by the Enterprise, a Romulan in a cat suit, and Kirk rushing in without thought. Makes me think, "Hey, Enterprise IS like TOS."

[SFRabid]

TheGodBen wrote:

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...

Hoshi's story is interesting because it is not the sort of thing we normally associate with Starfleet officers, she's scared and wants to go home. It's not brilliant storytelling, and it might be a little sexist that it's the woman character that acts this way and not one of the men, but it is taking advantage of the premise of this series in that space exploration is still new to these people. ...

I think it worked only because Hoshi was not a trained officer and was not one to travel in space. She was a teacher along for the ride to further is study of language.

[startrekwatcher]

I'd give "Fight or Flight" 3 stars out of 4. It was an episode that did a lot of little things whether demonstrating how making excursions to unknown alien ships is as simple as a jaunt down to the transporter room or the prolonged periods of boredom crews might experience before encountering something interesting or the fact that the NX isn't the baddest ship out there.

Once again B&B get the atmosphere and attitude right by making this experience new and fresh. The episode oozed with tension and had a spooky vibe to it. I always liked this type of episode on TNG where the crew came upon some mystery to be solved. Unfortunately, unlike TNG episodes like "Night Terrors", "Clues", "Schisms", "Remember Me" the revelation about the aliens wasn't that interesting.

Again B&B did some good work with the characters and unlike the early episodes of DS9 or VOY, this crew's interactions were more interesting to watch.

[Count Zero]

SFRabid wrote:

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I've been watching TOS again on DVD and just finished season 2 and started season 3. In the last few episodes I've seen planned time travel by the Enterprise, a Romulan in a cat suit, and Kirk rushing in without thought. Makes me think, "Hey, Enterprise IS like TOS."

Part of the problem is that you can't make the ENT crew look more sophisticated than the TOS crew. And thus they appear a bit anachronistic. I think that in 2151 space travellers would be culturally more objective and have a lot of well thought out protocols regarding contact with alien species and worlds.