TheGodBen Revisits Enterprise

[TheGodBen]

Complaining about cliches? It's Star Trek for crying out loud!

I always complain about clichés in Star Trek, except those times where I'm too engrossed in the episode to notice them.

Hell, they had the balls to kill Admiral Forrest - a named character who appeared in the series regularly. It's a lot more than can be said than the rest of Star Trek.

Tasha Yar, Vedek Bariel, Tora Ziyal. Killing off Forrest was a cool and unexpected twist, but it was hardly new for Trek and didn't have the same sort of lasting emotional impact that those three had. Hell Voyager even killed off Ensign Hogan after using him in a half-dozen episodes.


Kir'Shara (**½)

Given the fact that the plot makes no sense, this episode makes the right decision in not talking about the plot too much and prefers to focus on resolving the various situations the characters find themselves in. In fact, this episode is actually a series of prolonged distractions possibly designed to distract the audience from the plot, although they are also included to fill time before the big battle and revelations at the end of the episode.

The first of these prolonged distractions is the endless scenes of Shran torturing Soval for fun and profit, which boringly pads out the episode so that we can get to the battle. Maybe this scene would have been more interesting if these two had an onscreen history together other than Cease Fire, as it is this is two supporting characters shouting at one another based on racial hatred. Nothing interesting even comes out of it; Soval has no secrets because he has been telling the truth all along and Shran has always been willing to do the right thing during crunch moments.

Meanwhile on Vulcan: T'Pol reinforces the negative stereotype of the minority from Stigma by continuing the lie that she was forced into melding with one of them even though she was a willing participant. I can understand how B&B could make that mistake, they're the head honchos and have to worry about bigger things than fact-checking previous episodes, but Mike Sussman co-wrote Fusion so the very clear intention here is that T'Pol is a liar who is willing to dispense damaging information about a minority so as not to feel ashamed about her own actions. What a nice person.

Then there's a fight scene that caused me to think this:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9LNI_-w66c[/yt]
See, I went to the trouble of making a video, so nobody is allowed to accuse me of half-assery for this review.

Then there's a space battle which lacks all the excitement of the the big-ass space battles from season 3 despite the fact that this should feel more epic considering the fact that it involves aliens we care about. Archer manages to walk into Chancellor Palpatine's office... oops, I meant Administrator V'Las's office without being confronted by guards because he was wearing a hood, and everybody knows that if you're hiding your face behind a hood you are clearly not up to anything shady and have authority to walk into the head of government's office. Then Archer activates the Kir'Shara which causes a bright green light to shine up onto the ceiling, and then everyone turns to dust and dies. The End.

Oh wait no, V'Las is working with the Romulans. Whodathunkit?

Archer Abuse: 32
Transporter: 21

Not a great episode, but a step up from Awakening and the final twist was excellent. I didn't think I'd say this before reviewing this season, but I actually preferred the augment arc to this one, the story here is too contrived, and V'Las's portrayal rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Kir’Shara: I thought this was a lot stronger than Awakening. It was a strong ending to the trilogy and covered a lot of ground.

T’Pol is ashamed to admit she has Pa'Nar but instead of scorn T’Pau embraces her. I also liked how T’Pol was disoriented afterwards explaining her irritability and snapping at Archer later on. I also was cheering when Archer and T’Pau busted into the HC and challenged V’Las. It reminded me again of the Circle trilogy only instead of Kira and Jadzia crashing the party in robes with the help of Bareil to expose Jaro with the padd, it is Archer and T’Pau in robes crashing the party in robes with the help of Koss to expose V’Las with the Kir’Shara. The scene of the Kir’Shara activating projecting holographic scriptures was a nice visually thrilling moment.

I especially enjoyed the final scenes as we see the ice melt finally between Archer and the Vulcans and a hopeful new era of partnership where Earth will stand on its own--no longer held back by the HC. Then just when it seems it is over there is a very well done fade to black. I had no idea this was coming and took me by surprise.

I also liked the idea that it wasn’t solely Romulan interference eroding Vulcan. Here we see that V’Las was a Vulcan who along with others adhered to the more militant ideals of those opposed to Surak. That makes a lot of sense. Of course there would be Vulcans who even if weren’t Romulans would have still held on to their more violent tendencies and rejected Surak. So it makes for a perfect partnership that Romulans would reveal themselves to a select few and let them know that they have their support while staying in the shadows.

The hour ends on a nicely ominous note.

I also took notice of the forehead appliance. It wasn’t nearly as pronounced as it usually is. I suspect it was a compromise between no ridge(Coto) and ridge(Berman). Oh and they could have done a better job with conveying the Romulan contact was the same as the Vulcan soldier that served with T’Pol because frankly they look totally different to me. And I thought the NEM uniform popped onscreen quite nicely.

I liked the beautiful shots of the Vulcan capitol and the blue nebula, loved the symbolic image of the lone human starship caught right in the middle of the crossfire between Vulcans and Andorians, we get some nice fleet action, I have to ask what the point of T’Pol’s marriage was though. There were a few holes like how Syrran knew of the HC's intentions to attack Andoria when something like that should be kept quiet. Afterall V'Las seemed based on the teaser to be keeping it close to the vest. Perhaps unbeknowst to him there was a Syrannite sympathizer privy to this information. Also if Syrran knew of the urgency to find the Kir'Shara in order to stop V'Las, Surak would have known that as well and shouldn't kept the location of it a secret for so long realizing what was at stake. And it was too bad they couldn’t film the scenes in the Forge on location as opposed to on a stage because it is pretty jarring.

All in all a pretty good trilogy.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

After reading TGB's review of this ep there's one thing nagging at the back of my mind, which is that I want to see that same video clip again, but with Timmy Mallet's "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" playing in the background. I'm pretty sure it would add a unique colour to the experience in general. I am dead impressed that you went to the trouble of a video though, that's for sure. You put me to shame. To SHAME!

(I aslo put myself to shame because whenever I read "T'Les" I want to add "bian" on the end to turn her into a Yorkshire born homosexual...)

It reminded me again of the Circle trilogy only instead of Kira and Jadzia crashing the party in robes with the help of Bareil to expose Jaro with the padd, it is Archer and T’Pau in robes crashing the party in robes with the help of Koss to expose V’Las with the Kir’Shara.

I don't want to poop on anyone's parade here, but I noticed that parallel too, and having seen Kira and Dax do it once before it lost more than a little impact...

I also took notice of the forehead appliance. It wasn’t nearly as pronounced as it usually is. I suspect it was a compromise between no ridge(Coto) and ridge(Berman).

I suspect it was another half-assed attempt to piss about with the way a well-established race looks because apparently people who watch the show regularly aren't going to notice that Romulan foreheads slowly pulsate over a number of years... this seems to have been part of the inward movement leading into the smooth foreheaded TOS Rommies. Their bonces then start to bulge for TNG, before slowly being drawn back in, just in time for the events of 2387 in the Abrams film. We wouldn't want our main villains to have lumpy heads now would we, it might make them look threatening and the kids would get scared.

Seriously, I don't know who made that call, but for Christ's sake - why go to so much trouble to answer the questions about the incongruence in the Klingon make-up only to make it worse for the Romulans? I'd say the answer is that they really badly wanted thick people to be able to tell the difference between Romulans and Vulcans, and despite the glaringly obvious ease with which Romulans could have infiltrated Vulcan undetected it made much more sense for him to have been reverse-cosmetically altered for the whole revelation...

 

[Glacial]

The first of these prolonged distractions is the endless scenes of Shran torturing Soval for fun and profit, which boringly pads out the episode so that we can get to the battle. Maybe this scene would have been more interesting if these two had an onscreen history together other than Cease Fire, as it is this is two supporting characters shouting at one another based on racial hatred.

I'll disagree here with you -- my memory of the whole Shran-Soval thing is that Shran was agonizing over torturing Soval.

 

[SRFX]

Hell, they had the balls to kill Admiral Forrest - a named character who appeared in the series regularly. It's a lot more than can be said than the rest of Star Trek.

Tasha Yar, Vedek Bariel, Tora Ziyal. Killing off Forrest was a cool and unexpected twist, but it was hardly new for Trek and didn't have the same sort of lasting emotional impact that those three had. Hell Voyager even killed off Ensign Hogan after using him in a half-dozen episodes.

I don't count Tasha Yar because it was a casting decision turned into a forced death, so in that situation they only killed a character because it suited them.

Hogan wasn't a significant character.

As for Bariel and Ziyal, I don't count Deep Space Nine because that's clearly a superior TV show and shouldn't be compared to the rest of Star Trek. :P

 

[Seven of Five]

Wow. The Vulcan trilogy has some of the best episodes of the season for me. I honestly feel like it was the only trilogy that worked properly as a trilogy. Season 4 doesn't quite live up to season 3 for me, but The Forge/Awakening/Kir'Shira were right up there.

 

[neogothboy74]

Sorry I've been away so long.

The Vulcan Trilogy are my favorite episodes of Season 4. I loved how it brought in all forms of Vulcan continuity and transformed the Vulcans of Enterprise into the Vulcans we knew on the other Treks. It gave all those previous vulcan episodes a new lease on life because finally, here near the end, they had a point. At least for me.

Seasons 1 & 2 of Enterprise are a mixed bag of mostly bad episodes IMO. Season 3 was almost perfect. Season 4 wasn't quite as good as Season 3, but was far better than Seasons 1 & 2. I detested "Storm Front" & the whole twist ending that got us there. I enjoyed "Home". The Augment Arc was ok, but I didn't love it. The Vulcan Trilogy though was when Season 4 became must watch TV for me...and I was only disappointed by 2 or 3 episodes that followed these.

Season 1 of Enterprise made me question my love of Trek. Season 3 made me love Trek again in a way I thought I'd lost with the ending of DS9. Season 4 continued this trend until Trek's worst finale made "Endgame" look not-so-bad afterall. Thankfully "The Good That Men Do" by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin corrected a lot of that damage for me and continued Enterprise in a fashion that I could enjoy.

 

[Enterpriserules]

I have to say that season four was my favorite because it is what I really wanted Enterprise to be from the beginning. Connecting ENT to TOS and seeing Enterprise deal with the Vulcans, Andorians and Tellerites; three races that never really got there due anywhere else. Also, season four was really setting up the endgame of the last three seasons of enterprise which would have been a lot like DS9 and given us the Romulan War and the beginning of the Federation. All in all, it was my favorite season of ENT and I think showcased the potential the show had from the beginning.

 

[TheGodBen]

I am dead impressed that you went to the trouble of a video though, that's for sure. You put me to shame. To SHAME!

Good, the world needs a little more shame. Anyway, this video was fairly easy, the Q one I made towards the end of the Voyager thread was much more time consuming.


Daedalus (*)

I'm a nerd, so my natural instinct here is to include a joke about the Daedalus class ships, but I feel that would be too obvious, so here's a picture of Scott Bakula riding a pony.

Spoiler: PG-13

Didn't see that one coming, now did you? See, that's the sort of quality entertainment that you don't normally find outside of asylums. I stand here before you as an example for all humankind: Don't do crack, otherwise you might find yourself looking for pictures of Scott Bakula in his tighty-whiteys one lonely afternoon.

ARCHER: You haven't stopped talking about this for a week.
TRIP: Well, it's different for you. You grew up with the man.

Convenient.

TRIP: When I was seven, my mom bought me a book about him. Emory Erickson, Father of the Transporter. I made her read it to me every night for a month. That book is the reason I became an engineer.

That's the saddest story I ever heard.

ARCHER: Captain's Log, supplemental: In preparation for Doctor Erickson's experiment, we've reduced power on all but essential areas of the ship.

In other words, we blew the budget on the epic Vulcan arc and now we need to save money by turning off the lights.

EMORY: All breakthroughs are hard to imagine before they happen. When I developed the transporter, most people simply couldn't grasp it. Some still can't.
ARCHER: I have to confess, given a choice, I'd much rather use a good old-fashioned shuttlepod.
EMORY: I'll never forget the protests when the transporter was first approved for bio-matter.
DANICA: Oh, God. Here we go.
EMORY: People said it was unsafe, that it caused brain cancer, psychosis, and even sleep disorders. And then there was all that metaphysical chatter about whether or not the person who arrived after the transport was the same person who left, and not some weird copy.

All well and good... except for the fact that all the major races had already developed their own transporter systems, so why would humans be scared of the technology when it was already in existence? The Vulcans invented transporter technology, the Xindi developed transporter technology, and even the idiotic Klingons of this era have transporters. The Andorians, who don't have transporter technology, have transporter technology as of last week.

Enterprise would have been much better off if humans were the only power to have developed transporter technology, that could have been the edge which helped humanity get a leg up on the other powers. Instead transporter technology is a common occurrence throughout the galaxy and I'm left to wonder exactly what it is that makes Earth so important at the foundation of the UFP.

T'POL: I took visual readings.
ARCHER: Can you slow it down? Hold it. Enhance. A little more.

Enhance? Enhance how? There are many ways you can enhance an image.

ARCHER: You've been lying to me since you came aboard.
EMORY: I had no choice! I'm sorry.

Why didn't you have a choice? This is the big problem with this episode, it wants to be a mystery even though Archer probably would have helped Emory save his son regardless, so there was no reason to lie. The mystery itself isn't that interesting and you can see it coming well in advance.

DANICA: Hey there, you must be Porthos, I've heard a lot about you.
(Porthos rolls onto his side)
DANICA: He's got a lot of personality.

What? The dog rolls over so that means he has a lot of personality? I must be the most interesting person in the world when I'm asleep because I'm constantly tossing and turning in my bed.

EMORY: I've waited so long for this moment. Planned for it. What if something goes wrong? What if I fail?
ARCHER: On the day before I entered flight training, I asked my father pretty much the same thing.
EMORY: What did he say?
ARCHER: Don't fail.

I'm stuck trying to figure out of that's clever or incredibly stupid. On the one hand I want to think that it is clever, but on the other hand the track record of this episode suggests that it is stupid.

EMORY: Complete the transport sequence.
TRIP: I don't have a strong enough signal.
EMORY: Recalibrate the confinement beam.
TRIP: That won't help get us a lock.
EMORY: Just do it.
PHLOX: I'm reading massive cellular deterioration.
EMORY: That's not possible.
PHLOX: He's losing cohesion. If he materialises, he'll die in seconds.
EMORY: I can reverse the damage by cross-phasing the stream.
TRIP: The transporter can't do that.
EMORY: I built the damn thing!
PHLOX: I'm losing his vital signs.
ARCHER: Emory,
EMORY: Get away from me. Tie in the secondary buffers.
TRIP: There's not enough time.
DANICA: Dad.
EMORY: I can hold the pattern. Just do it!

I like this ship, it's exciting.

Despite having good intentions, this episode can't help but be dull. Bill Cobbs is the perfect example of what is wrong with this episode; he's a man trying to undo something he did wrong and save his son, but his performance suggests that he is bored throughout the whole episode. It doesn't help that the plot has many similarities to Voyager's Jetrel, so I'm deducting a point for that. The best parts of the episode are the scenes involving T'Pol and the impact the Kir'Shara is having upon her, but even that is hampered by being a part of the Trip/T'Pol relationship stuff.

Archer Abuse: 33
Transporter: 22


You_Guyz will be happy because I am sick again, I have a terrible head-cold which is giving me the mother of all headaches. I'm blaming the Scott Bakula image on that.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

I'm a nerd, so my natural instinct here is to include a joke about the Daedalus class ships, but I feel that would be too obvious, so here's a picture of Scott Bakula riding a pony.

TGB, you take the concept of "non sequitur" to dizzying new heights.

Incidentally, I thought the atmospheric low lighting in "Daedalus" was cool. And there was that last scene between T'Pol and Phlox -- very nice.

Of course, I was waiting the whole time for Archer to disown Emory and throw him in the brig, and then go after Quinn. I would have preferred that.

 

[Admiral Shran]

This episode was bad, but not terrible. I'd say it's the second-worst episode of the season (we all know what the worst is). I have to disagree with what you've said about the Vulcan Trilogy. IMO, they're some of Enterprise's best offerings and rank right up there with Star Trek's overall best, for reasons that have already been stated.

You_Guyz will be happy because I am sick again, I have a terrible head-cold which is giving me the mother of all headaches. I'm blaming the Scott Bakula image on that.

The headache it's giving me is manageable. The nausea, however, is pretty bad.

The Andorians, who don't have transporter technology, have transporter technology as of last week.

This bugged me as well. Andorians couldn't have developed the technology in the intervening time because, as we all know, nothing happens off-screen in Star Trek.

 

[apenpaap]

When I rewatched Enterprise a few months ago, the only episodes I couldn't bring myself to watch completly were Extinction and Daedalus.

 

[SRFX]

apenpaap: Come on, Bound is way worse than Daedalus.

Extinction on the other hand...

 

[Admiral Shran]

Enterprise would have been much better off if humans were the only power to have developed transporter technology, that could have been the edge which helped humanity get a leg up on the other powers. Instead transporter technology is a common occurrence throughout the galaxy and I'm left to wonder exactly what it is that makes Earth so important at the foundation of the UFP.

I've always taken Earth's importance in the foundation of the Federation to be that Humans were the race that effectively brokered peace between the other three races. Enterprise has already shown us multiple examples of this.

They helped broker peace between the Andorians and Vulcans in "Cease Fire." They further helped the two races remain at peace in the Vulcan Trilogy. They will later help the Andorians and Tellarites come together peacefully in "Babel One" and "United."

Humans are undeniably the weakest of the four races technologically. However, despite that, they are important allies to the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites. Without Humans, the others would still be hostile to each other, if not at all-out war amongst themselves.

On top of that, they stood beside them and helped them fight against the Romulans in the future Romulan War. So, Humans would have proven themselves as good allies in peace and at war.

 

[neogothboy74]

I didn't like Daedalus much when it aired, and I don't like it much now. I liked the T'Pol / Trip stuff. I know lots of people can't stand them, but I loved everything to do with them in Season 4. It gave their seemingly random storyline in Season 3 more meaning for me. And though there are a few episodes in Season 4 that disappoint, there's almost always a good Trip / T'Pol scene that helped me get through them. But that's just me.

 

[Reanok]

I didn't like Daedalus much when it aired, and I don't like it much now. I liked the T'Pol / Trip stuff. I know lots of people can't stand them, but I loved everything to do with them in Season 4. It gave their seemingly random storyline in Season 3 more meaning for me. And though there are a few episodes in Season 4 that disappoint, there's almost always a good Trip / T'Pol scene that helped me get through them. But that's just me.

As a Trip& T'Pol fan.I definitely agree with you.Their storyline was what I liked about seasons 3&4.

 

[SFRabid]

Daedalus was the worst of season 4. It made me of the bad episodes from season 1 when archer made so many stupid decisions.

 

[The Sneeze Police]

It was not an inspired episode, but at least it was not so bad that I couldn't watch it again when I rewatch Enterprise or catch a random episodeon cable.

 

[TheGodBen]

TGB, you take the concept of "non sequitur" to dizzying new heights.

Thank, I quite proud with myself on that one.


Observer Effect (***½)

This is a nice ensemble episode that uses the seven main cast members well to tell a story which isn't original but which is well played and which has some great character moments. Of course, the ironic thing about this episode is that Anthony Montgomery was given more to do here than in any episode for two years, in spite of the fact that Travis had no lines. This is probably Hoshi's best episode since Fight or Flight, we get hear about the wild days of her youth and we see her make a jailbreak. We also get to see her belly-button, which earned this episode an extra star.

I liked the fact that this episode brought back the Organians, and I thought it was fairly clever how the Organians were constantly comparing humans against the Klingons. What I don't like is this:

ORGANIAN: I'm defying the entire protocol. What Archer has done today, his act of compassion, you've never witnessed that before.

Humans are the only species in the galaxy who have compassion? Come off it with this human wank-fest. I'm willing to buy into the notion that humans will learn to put our petty differences behind us and that we will be a kinder, better people than we are today, but to claim that we will be the only species capable of acting upon compassion is one giant leap into the absurd that even Gene Roddenberry would have a hard time buying.

ORGANIAN: In time, we'll study other humans.
ARCHER: There's another way. Experience compassion for yourself. You want to know what it means to be human, you need to do more than observe. This was not written for chiefs. Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying We the People. That which you call Ee'd Plebnista was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.' These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!

If I get around to reviewing TOS or TNG I'm going to have an Ee'd Plebnista counter for whenever Kirk or Picard smacks down some aliens for not being as awesome as humans are.

This episode has the same problem that Q had on Voyager. When Q was on TNG his best episodes were those where he used his superior knowledge to teach humanity a lesson, whereas on Voyager it was the humans who were teaching the Q lessons, and that didn't work so good. In Errand of Mercy it was the Organians who taught the humans/Federation and the Klingons a lesson by stopping them from fighting a pointless war, whereas in this episode it is the humans who teach the Organians a lesson in compassion, and that's not as interesting. I can see the intent behind Archer's words, it is trying to set up why the Organians were on a planet pretending to be a human-like species when they are really god-like entities, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

Captain Redshirt: 35

 

[bluedana]

I liked the fact that this episode brought back the Organians, and I thought it was fairly clever how the Organians were constantly comparing humans against the Klingons. What I don't like is this:

ORGANIAN: I'm defying the entire protocol. What Archer has done today, his act of compassion, you've never witnessed that before.

Humans are the only species in the galaxy who have compassion? Come off it with this human wank-fest. I'm willing to buy into the notion that humans will learn to put our petty differences behind us and that we will be a kinder, better people than we are today, but to claim that we will be the only species capable of acting upon compassion is one giant leap into the absurd that even Gene Roddenberry would have a hard time buying.

Honestly? I think you've missed the point here. Nobody said that humans were the only ones who showed compassion; it was the particular act that the Organians had never seen before, not the sentiment.

The Reed-Organian was utterly bored because he had seen every permutation of the doomed races' responses. Some killed the infected crew in an attempt to save themselves. Some never figured out what the virus was. Some threw all of their resources into finding a cure (which was impossible given the level of radiation involved). In the end, everybody died, just like the humans would, and it was just a matter of which statistical category they ended up in.

But Archer sacrificing himself in an attempt to save Hoshi, even though it was hopeless, was something they'd never seen before, and that made Travis-Organian take notice. Maybe every other race has a self-preservation fail-safe switch. Who knows. It was the act of compassion, not the fact of compassion that got their attention. And that opened the door for Archer to make his case that they couldn't determine the value and potential of a species simply by throwing an unwinnable problem at it and recording the results.