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I officially began my journey through all Star Trek on October 9th...

Cold Front is a confusing one.

Time travel is back and it's here to stay. The Suliban are also back, and they've come to save the NX-01 from history, to the dismay of some 29th century time cops... time cops who are ridiculously willing to give up classified information about the future and time travel.

I'm not sure why these guys are fighting, why the Suliban decided to save the NX-01, or why this is where they're going with the prequel... but whatever. It might have some potential, but I don't think they really got into the backstory enough for why this is all happening. Archer should tell them to piss off and stop bothering him, TBH, do the time cops' jobs for them by not allowing them to give away the whole timeline as Daniels was this episode.

If you think the temporal cold war is confusing and pointless now, just wait another three seasons.
 
Cold Front is a confusing one.

Time travel is back and it's here to stay. The Suliban are also back, and they've come to save the NX-01 from history, to the dismay of some 29th century time cops... time cops who are ridiculously willing to give up classified information about the future and time travel.

I'm not sure why these guys are fighting, why the Suliban decided to save the NX-01, or why this is where they're going with the prequel... but whatever. It might have some potential, but I don't think they really got into the backstory enough for why this is all happening. Archer should tell them to piss off and stop bothering him, TBH, do the time cops' jobs for them by not allowing them to give away the whole timeline as Daniels was this episode.

Do us a favor... if during the course of the remainder of the show, you ever find or figure out the answers to the things that left you confused in Cold Front... PLEASE LET US KNOW!!!! (I wish I was joking about this)
 
Do us a favor... if during the course of the remainder of the show, you ever find or figure out the answers to the things that left you confused in Cold Front... PLEASE LET US KNOW!!!! (I wish I was joking about this)
I agree, I watched the show. But maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. That temporal cold war/Suliban plot never made sense to me.

On another note, wasn't Cold Front directed by Robert Duncan McNeill?
 
Do us a favor... if during the course of the remainder of the show, you ever find or figure out the answers to the things that left you confused in Cold Front... PLEASE LET US KNOW!!!! (I wish I was joking about this)

Check out the book Watching the Clock by @Christopher L. Bennett for one amazing take. It puts together a cogent and consistent theory of time travel that includes every example of it across all Trek, including making sense of the entire Temporal Cold War arc, while also incorporating concepts from real-life physics to help support it (if a bit twisted for the sake of sci-fi).
 
IIRC, the writers who came up with the temporal cold war admitted they had no game plan for it. Just threw it out there and hoped they could wing it.
 
I really like the episode, apart from the bad ending. It's the Phlox and Cutler dynamic that saves it (barely) for me, as well as the letter-writing framework. I agree that an episode purely based on this with no dodgy ethics would have been better.
 
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Ah, nothing like a good 'ol Trekkie ethical dilemma for our heroes to solve.

Dear Doctor is the first episode of ENT that asks questions outside of "how are our heroes going to blow up the bad guys this episode?". Going into it, I was excited. Mainly because this was the first episode to present a puzzle for the characters to solve through their ethics and morals.

Unfortunately, I think they handled it all wrong. The episode asks some interesting questions and had a good premise behind it, would've made for a great TNG episode, but the solution is downright pitiful. We can all tell the episode is here to provide some kind of backstory to the Prime Directive, it's spoon-fed to the audience with a few lines of dialogue, but it compiles all the worst aspects of the Prime Directive and combines them together for the story of this show.

I'll admit, I did feel they put out a convincing argument while watching it, but after doing a little more reading (mainly on evolution and Neanderthals, who were their shining examples of non-interference and their moral justification for letting a whole species die off), their whole logic is flawed. Evolution is not some magical solution to all problems nor does it make any moral distinctions. It's a process that carries out over many generations and allows a species to better adapt to their surroundings, not give one species an advantage over another. It is just the result of a species becoming better suited to their environment.

A generational disease that has the inevitability of wiping out an entire species of intelligent people is NOT a natural part of evolution. A life-threatening disease is not a natural part of a person's growth and evolution, it's a problem. Neanderthals were wiped out because humans were just smarter, physically better adapted to our environment and therefore better at acquiring essential resources.

This species is intelligent, is perfectly suited to its environment and even has its own space exploration technology. Letting them die off can't be justified in my mind, and the "playing God" argument is just as wrong as the act itself when you consider the doctor does exactly that. Phlox's role as a doctor is to save lives, it's what he is morally and ethically obligated to do, not take them. This, in my opinion, goes against everything he stands for.

Maybe these are the growing pains I previously spoke of (and hoped for) in seeing a pre-Kirk, pre-Spock Starfleet crew trying to survive out in the cold, dark, mysterious void they're out here exploring for the first time, but I can't help but feel somewhat insulted. The intent was nice, more ethical conundrums are welcome, but the execution was all wrong.

As you say it asked interesting questions and arrived at hamhanded answers designed more to shoe horn in later TOS/TNG concepts. That was the episode that John Bilingsley had issues with. Apparently the original script was much better and at least followed a consistent logic path, but was changed due to network or producer interference.

The sad thing is while they frequently try and force TNG type deep question philosophical episodes onto Enterprise, they almost never ever work well. Just something about Enterprises makeup always makes them ring hollow. Maybe it is the fact that unlike TNG where Picard and the 1701-D almost always are the advanced alien race standing at the point of moral superiority, whereas Enterprise is a pack of barely literate savages first setting out in a lone sailboat, or just the difference in crew chemistry, they just don't work. Another stunning example of this is season 2's "Cogenitor". Whereas Enterprise works extremely well when they take on a more societal and diplomatic examination. Much like DS9 often did. The Enterprise episodes dealing with known races and politics are often fantastic. (Just accept that some minor changes from TOS and TNG continuity may occur.) You are about to hit one of the best of these, "Shadows of P'jem" immediately followed by another of the series best "Shuttlepod One". Two episodes that well showcased what Enterprise could be if it was allowed to step out from TNG's shadow.
 
On the bright side, I liked the subplot, Phlox going about his day aboard the Enterprise and seeing his evolving relationship with Crewman Cutler. Wouldn't have bothered me much at all if that was the whole episode, something Data's Day-esque.

Yeah Kellie Waymire had great chemistry with John Billingsley in the few episodes she was in. I wish we could have seen more of her. Very sad. :weep:
 
I wish the Klingons were more like their TOS selves than the TNG/DS9 warrior archetypes.

Unfortunately, the problem is how TNG and DS9 established that Klingons were "always" like the 24th century versions, with how they set up the whole culture of honor as going back to the original days of Kahless and all. Even when they brought back Kang, Kor, and Koloth in DS9, they were still essentially modern Klingons in terms of culture, outlook, attitude, etc. It was something that they definitely could have done better, but they were kind of caught between a rock and a hard place.

(Avoiding details so as to not spoil you: They do end up addressing the cultural difference in both a subtle way and a blatant way, but people are very split opinion-wise on the latter. :p )
 
That's the one with the mashed potatoes, isn't it? I recall that being quite a controversial subject around these parts back when it aired.
 
Shadows of P'Jem is great, a nice follow-up to The Andorian Incident. Andorians have potential as a race, I think (JEFFREY COMBS!1!!11!!!), their disdain for the Vulcans is pretty entertaining to watch.

T'Pol is freakishly similar to Seven though, just with how she's clearly used as a sexual object for 12-year-old boys watching the show.

T'Pol does eventually break out of the Seven of Nine mold. Jolene Blalock actually surprises in the role. T'Pol turns out to be one of the few Star Trek characters with development and a character arc.
 
Sooo..... Shuttlepod One...

Really good episode, nice story with Trip and Malcolm (even if it's a bit morbid), but man, poor T'Pol. Seems like Berman & Braga have some kind of fetish for emotionless alien girls in tight-fitting catsuits.

I'm going to remind you that the Janeway Lizard sex came out of the disturbed and depraved mind of Brendon Braga. As did almost every other bit of fetishistic sexualized weirdness since Roddenberry passed away. At least in the later seasons they get a bit more creative and inventive with wardrobing. (You might want to set aside some "private time" when you get to "Through a Mirror Darkly". It's got something for everybody!)
 
T'Pol is freakishly similar to Seven though, just with how she's clearly used as a sexual object for 12-year-old boys watching the show...Seems like Berman & Braga have some kind of fetish for emotionless alien girls in tight-fitting catsuits.
Nice to see someone new to the show come to the same conclusion. Not that it's a difficult conclusion to come to :lol:.
 
I totally agree - T'Pol was just a re-warmed Seven and it showed a lot of the time. It took me ages to warm to her, somewhere in season three I think.

Shadows of P'Jem was a decent followup to The Andorian Incident, mostly for Shran. The Archer/T'Pol scenes were groan-worthy though.

I love Shuttlepod One though. Some really nice character work there, and it shows you don't need a big budget to tell a good story.
 
Jolene eventually made T'Pol interesting with some good performances, but my first reaction, upon seeing the first cast-in-character photo, was, "What is WRONG with these guys??" :lol:
 
Jolene eventually made T'Pol interesting with some good performances, but my first reaction, upon seeing the first cast-in-character photo, was, "What is WRONG with these guys??" :lol:

You were not alone. And then that decon rubdown scene in Broken Bow... Aiiiggghhhh!!!!! It still astonishes me that Jolene turned out to be one of the better performers on the show, and had great chemistry with Connor Trinneer. Whereas poor Scott Bakula and Archer. Somehow the character comes off as the timelost love child of James T Kirk and Janeway. He's like the creepy output of every half baked fanfiction on the internet.
 
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