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

[MacLeod]

TATV is a terrible series finalé and fails on several levels but there is a decent story buried away in there it just has several elements which detract from it.

 

[Forbin]

I guess we shouldn't talk specifics until after our friends here have seen it. *Grinds teeth*

 

[DamarsKanar]

Brent Spiner on ENT is something I never expected to see, but it worked out pretty nicely. Turns out Dr. Soong is a lot crazier than we all thought, kind of adds a more sinister undertone to Data's backstory.

I like how the Augments all look like they came right out of the '80s too, maybe they went a bit far with the Khan inspiration.

The look of the Augments was so over the top Khan-homage! But I kind of thought it was great (in a cheesy way).
But I'm guessing Dr Soong was maybe the grandfather of Data's creator? Although I don't see how this Soong had a child to carry on his line (all his 'children' were Augments).

 

[wayoung]

Alec Newman playing the genetically perfect superman produced by a eugenics program. Talk about typecast

You have the two best episodes of ENT (two of the best episodes of trek in general) coming up soon with the mirror universe.

 

[Forbin]

Mmmmmm... Mirror Hoshi and her 2-piece uniform.

 

[wayoung]

Mmmmmm... Mirror Hoshi and her 2-piece uniform.

Spoiler

All Hail Empress Hoshi!

 

[Griffeytrek]

Let's put it this way. And I say this for both Shalashaska and DamarsKanar.
- When nearing the end, stop watching for the night at the end of Terra Prime. Don't push on and finish the series in one sitting. Keep Terra Prime separate in your mind. Give them a day or two separation.
- before watching These are the Voyages, go rewatch the TNG episode The Pegasus. (But keep some separation there as well, just remember the story.)
- Carefully remove any throwable objects from the room and put them someplace safe.
- Get Drunk. It helps
- wear shoes
- Watch it on a disposable tv that you won't regret putting your foot through.
- when the sobbing and convulsions stop, and the bleeding dies down, immediately rewatch Through a Mirror Darkly 1&2 in the hopes of imprinting this on yourself as a mirror or alternate universe story.
- get more drunk.
- your soul now scarred and battered, give up on life and become an angry message board troll.
- get even more drunkerer.

 

[Griffeytrek]

As I recall, when they did the space Nazi finale, they had no idea how they'd resolve it the following season, and the new showrunner had to figure out WTF to do.

I think they are in some way contractually obligated to include at least 1 Space Nazi story arc in every Star Trek series. It's the only thing that explains it.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I think they are in some way contractually obligated to include at least 1 Space Nazi story arc in every Star Trek series. It's the only thing that explains it.

TNG and DS9 didn't have space nazis.
At least not literally, unless you count the Cardassians.

Regarding TATV...
The last 30 seconds are pretty cool.

 

[Griffeytrek]

The look of the Augments was so over the top Khan-homage! But I kind of thought it was great (in a cheesy way).
But I'm guessing Dr Soong was maybe the grandfather of Data's creator? Although I don't see how this Soong had a child to carry on his line (all his 'children' were Augments).

Brain fart on my part. Can't be Noonien Soong unless he aged only 20-30 years in the space of 200 years

While not cannon, Rodenberry's pre TNG series pilot The Questor tapes gives some decent food for thought to what Gene's original take On Data and Soong was.

 

[MacLeod]

Seems like that's the end of the Temporal Cold War arc. New writers hopped on board, wrote some flimsy plot about aliens collaborating with Nazis, and wrapped it up with Daniels saying "thank god we're done all with that time travel crap". Glad they got that out of the way as soon as possible, seeing as this is the last season.

Watched Home too. I hope we see Captain Hernandez again, loved the chemistry between her and Archer. Sure beats whatever they're setting up between Archer and Hoshi.

I beg to differ that they got rid of the TCW as soon as posble, it should have been shelved the moment it was brought up in the eary days of the show and nve been an element of it.

 

[Forbin]

IIRC, the TCW was a half-formed idea they threw in at the beginning (Braga can't seem to let go of time travel, despite not being very good at writing it), without any actual plan or idea where it was going.

 

[m.lp.ql.m]

The TCW always seemed like a 'back door' to me, so that they could have a 'special appearance' by 7 of 9 or Deanna Troi in a time of dire ratings.

 

[Griffeytrek]

That Vulcan trilogy was great.

Like @DamarsKanar said, it was a lot like the Bajoran stuff on DS9 (which I was a big fan of). For the longest time, it felt like the Vulcans had kind of stagnated, there wasn't much room left for growth. Seeing that there's still conflict and flaws among Vulcans makes them a bit more interesting and fleshed-out as a society.

It also leads in quite nicely to TOS, where Vulcans seem to have evolved and gotten a bit better at controlling their emotions (something that seems to be a real struggle for V'Las and the High Command).

That Romulan cameo at the end got me excited too. It's a shame they only have one more season left to tell all these stories, the writers finally seem to have found ENT's identity.

We should probably warn you, the Romulans were being teased and setup to be the big bad for Season 5. Which obviously didn't happen.

 

[NOVE9]

The TCW always seemed like a 'back door' to me, so that they could have a 'special appearance' by 7 of 9 or Deanna Troi in a time of dire ratings.

Absolutely, I remember reading shortly after the series ended that they were going to have a character from voyager show up in the 5th season. That would have been cool to see them back in character but time travel in the later years became too contrived and repetitive. No to mention nonsensical.

 

[Isolinear]

Absolutely, I remember reading shortly after the series ended that they were going to have a character from voyager show up in the 5th season. That would have been cool to see them back in character but time travel in the later years became too contrived and repetitive. No to mention nonsensical.

I don't remember where I read it (could be the Blu-ray specials), but didn't B&B want to do a prequel and the studio wanted a sequel, so they shoehorned in the TCW as a compromise. That way the new series could still have a connection to "modern" Trek.

I don't agree that the TCW was a bad idea. It was a great idea, with lots of potential for cool time travel stories. But they ruined it because they obviously didn't know what they were doing and wasted it on one-off episodes that didn't go anywhere.
It could have given us exceptional quality like Yesterday's Enterprise, City on the Edge, Year of Hell and The Visitor, all enriching the Trek lore. Instead all we got was VOY Relativity's poorly done "LOL trime travel, weird stuff happens: swallow it" drivel.
The writers weren't interested in it, that's for sure. I mean after three seasons we still didn't know basic stuff like who exactly these "factions" were in the TCW and what they were fighting for. Daniels surviving death and the small ship with the huge interior... never explained. Weird sh* just for the sake of doing weird sh* I guess. As I said, great ideas, horrible execution.

 

[MacLeod]

I don't remember where I read it (could be the Blu-ray specials), but didn't B&B want to do a prequel and the studio wanted a sequel, so they shoehorned in the TCW as a compromise. That way the new series could still have a connection to "modern" Trek.

I don't agree that the TCW was a bad idea. It was a great idea, with lots of potential for cool time travel stories. But they ruined it because they obviously didn't know what they were doing and wasted it on one-off episodes that didn't go anywhere.
It could have given us exceptional quality like Yesterday's Enterprise, City on the Edge, Year of Hell and The Visitor, all enriching the Trek lore. Instead all we got was VOY Relativity's poorly done "LOL trime travel, weird stuff happens: swallow it" drivel.
The writers weren't interested in it, that's for sure. I mean after three seasons we still didn't know basic stuff like who exactly these "factions" were in the TCW and what they were fighting for. Daniels surviving death and the small ship with the huge interior... never explained. Weird sh* just for the sake of doing weird sh* I guess. As I said, great ideas, horrible execution.

There was one decent ENT that dealt with the TCW "Future Tense" and even then it could been re-worked slightly if the TCW never existed.

Really if they wanted to a TCW storyline they should have gone into the future i.e the 29th Century and have a crew on a Time Ship trying to maintain the timeline from factions who want to change it for their benefit.

What did the TCW really add to ENT?

As for the small ship with a huge interior it was obviously dimensional transcendental. Sometimes it is better not to explain too much, keeps your options open.

 

[Forbin]

I always said the Klingon forehead thing could have been more sensibly explained by realizing that the Klingon Empire was, ya know, an Empire. Warriors from many subject planets could be manning their ships. In TOS, we only saw Klingons from certain planets.

 

[Isolinear]

You know, I was a little disappointed with In a Mirror, Darkly. I've never been a big fan of the Mirror universe, and while the new intro was pretty badass, I didn't think the story was all that different from your typical Mirror universe episode. It's probably the best of the lot (at least out of the spinoffs) for the fun TOS/USS Defiant bits in Part II, and the ending was great...

I thought the ending was a bit weak. It just sort of ends. Hoshi's big line and then.... credits. Ok.

So, you're ready for the End! Just watch Demons and Terra Prime as if they were the true finale. Then a few days later watch TNG's "The Pegasus", and then "These Are The Voyages" as a "what-if?" epilogue.

 

[Griffeytrek]

In a Mirror Darkly I always thought was interesting largely because it was so self contained. An intriguing experiment that works just for that story, but isn't something we would want to revisit. What little connectivity there is is the evil crew looking through the Defiant's records of themselves. And in at least one universe or timeline Hoshi is important. It also shows that there are no possible timelines where Mayweather is interesting or important.