Revisiting Enterprise

[Noname Given]

'Precious Cargo' is definitely a contender for one of the worst Enterprise (and worst Trek) episodes ever. However, I think 'Bound' from season four wins that prize.

I love both 'The Seventh' and 'Singularity'. The former gives some great background about T'Pol and gives us glimpses of emotion (guilt and remorse) and shows how strong her relationship with Archer is becoming. Jolene Blalock gave a great performance in that one.

The latter episode I simply find really quite funny in some places. Watching Tucker making a noise on the bridge and Reed's tactical alert going off ("This isn't a bloody pleasure cruise!") always makes me laugh.

You know, I'll never understand the hatred for Bound (it's not my favorite Enterprise ep.; but at least it presented Orion slave girls that looked closer to 'Vina' (from TOS The Cage/Menagerie) than anything since those two TOS episodes - including Yvonne Craig's version in Whom Gods Destroy); and the end bit where it's shown the Orion males ARE pawns of their females was a nice touch (imo).

But I gotta agree that Precious Cargo is one of the top contenders for 'worst ENT episode'; righ up there with (for me):

These Are The Voyages <---- utter crap and an insult to the ENT cast that this was the 'finale' episode.

A Night In Sickbay <--- Look Porthos IS cute, but this whole episode WAS a dog.

 

[Shatnertage]

I would actually rank ANIS above "The Seventh." I'd definitely watch ANIS again for the sheer entertainment factor, while "The Seventh" just didn't do it for me.

"Precious Cargo" is awful only in part because of the bad acting...which is exemplified by the way the actress randomly switches from Galactic Princess inflections to what sounds like Sherman Oaks standard pronunciation. The worst part is that they pawn off Trip as a poor man's Han Solo. They really play up the hickishness, too, with the harmonica playing.

It made me thinking that it would be a more interesting character if they had him be a good ol' boy from Florida who really digs Baroque music, because its got a balance that reminds him of engineering work, or something like that. Or it's just his personal preference. It's not like in the 22nd century his musical taste is limited by whatever AM stations he can get, right?

 

[RookieBatman]

So back to the actress question, why is it that way. Why can't someone be smokin' hot, and have talent all the same. There's probably many actresses that do, but far too many that don't.

I think the problem is not that women can't be smokin' hot and also talented (I can think of quite a few women that I consider smokin' hot and not bad actors), but that if a woman is smokin' hot, then maybe the casting people don't really spend too much time worrying about how good their acting is. You wouldn't generally see an ugly person on TV if they're also a bad actor, because if they don't have looks, their skill needs to carry them. But if they're hot, then they don't so much need to worry about that. So, it's not really that there aren't any smoking hot actresses who can act, just that the percentage of bad actresses in the smoking hot category is far higher than in any other, because they have another type of "talent" already.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, I don't know.

 

[Monty_66]

'Precious Cargo' is definitely a contender for one of the worst Enterprise (and worst Trek) episodes ever. However, I think 'Bound' from season four wins that prize.

I love both 'The Seventh' and 'Singularity'. The former gives some great background about T'Pol and gives us glimpses of emotion (guilt and remorse) and shows how strong her relationship with Archer is becoming. Jolene Blalock gave a great performance in that one.

The latter episode I simply find really quite funny in some places. Watching Tucker making a noise on the bridge and Reed's tactical alert going off ("This isn't a bloody pleasure cruise!") always makes me laugh.

You know, I'll never understand the hatred for Bound (it's not my favorite Enterprise ep.; but at least it presented Orion slave girls that looked closer to 'Vina' (from TOS The Cage/Menagerie) than anything since those two TOS episodes - including Yvonne Craig's version in Whom Gods Destroy); and the end bit where it's shown the Orion males ARE pawns of their females was a nice touch (imo).

But I gotta agree that Precious Cargo is one of the top contenders for 'worst ENT episode'; righ up there with (for me):

These Are The Voyages <---- utter crap and an insult to the ENT cast that this was the 'finale' episode.

A Night In Sickbay <--- Look Porthos IS cute, but this whole episode WAS a dog.

I have to admit that I did like the revelation that the Orion males are pawns of the females in 'Bound'. However,I still think that the episode was so poorly written and (no matter how deliberate Coto was trying to be in giving a nod to TOS) and the fact there was virtually no focus given to the female crewmembers and their thoughts or them doing anything at all about the situation.

I did forget about 'These Are The Voyages...'. I totally agree - utter tripe.

 

[bluedana]

Bound would have totally worked for me if the solution to the situation had involved the women retaking the ship, rather than them having "headaches." It was beyond stupid that male security officers were placed on duty while the Orions were in the brig.

 

[tomalak301]

I've been watching a ton more lately and I'm starting to agree that Season 2 is the weakest season. It's not that the stories are bad, but rather things feel like it's going at a mundane pace. Episodes like Dawn and Canamar are pretty much routine and feel boring. Dawn is a blatent rip off of Enemy Mine, which is another thing I've noticed this season. Too much ripping off for my tastes. Still, some quick thoughts on the episodes I've seen up to this point:

Stigma: Even though it was heavy handed, it wasn't bad. I am confused my one thing though. T'Pol didn't know about the Mind Meld's in Fusion, yet she knew about the Stigma. Yeah she was forced, but originally she did it willingly. Kind of blows the point of this episode out of the water doesn't it?

Cease Fire: I really like this episode, but of course I love everything about the Vulcan/Andorian arc. Nice to finally get acknowledgment of Shran's name too, as well as some great stuff from Soval.

Future Tense: This episode is frustrating. I loved seeing the Tholians, but what exactly happened. We learned nothing new about the TCW, and the Ship just disappeared for no reason and everyone went their different ways. Uh, Ok, but all that stuff before hand, what did it say again?

Canamar: Not really a fan of this one. It's kind of boring and routine, again. Also, that Zumis guy was annoying.

 

[JiNX-01]

Sleeping Dogs (***)

Decent Klingon episode, I guess but kind of forgettable. Nice to see Hoshi grow from the freaked out person she was in Fight or Flight to actually wanting to go on these missions, and the stuff between Her and T'Pol was nice. Still though, After the last two episodes, this is a significant step back.

You know what I liked about this episode? It was Hoshi's idea to fire all weapons to boost them higher into the atmosphere. Ballsy and coming from someone who once tremulously asked if it was safe to be in engineering!

 

[Shatnertage]

Future Tense: This episode is frustrating. I loved seeing the Tholians, but what exactly happened. We learned nothing new about the TCW, and the Ship just disappeared for no reason and everyone went their different ways. Uh, Ok, but all that stuff before hand, what did it say again?

I still don't know what the point of the episode was, except to see how close they could come to referencing Doctor Who without actually referencing Doctor Who. When I first saw this I thought that it was actually going to be a cross-over--I mean, you're seeing a time travel machine that's bigger on the inside than on the outside. Can't be too many of those. But no, it just went nowhere.

Would have been funny if a bunch of jelly babies and scarf had fallen out of one of the cabinets or something.

 

[tomalak301]

Judgment (****)

Yeah, I haven't given out stars all season, but I wanted to for this episode because I think it is one of the best episodes of the season. Everyone says it's a blatent rip-off of The Undiscovered Country, and it is, but looking at this episode I thought there was a lot of depth in the character work and that made things a whole lot more compelling. That, and I love JG Hertzler that he could probably read the phone book and I would love it. Anyway, I loved Kolos, and the scene with both him and Archer in the cell and Kolos talking about the Klingon Culture like the class system and how things used to be. Instead of all the Honor talk that we got in the 90s, this episode provided some interesting backstory to Klingon culture that I particularly enjoyed and that really rose this episode up for me. Also, the Duras, son of Toral was a nice touch too given I love TNG.

Of course the only downsides was it's rip-off and the ease of getting off Rural Penthe. This is an episode that could have been a nice two parter. I actually just read something (TheGodBen, if you're reading I've been using your thread as a reference ) that Canamar could have been the conclusion to this story. That would have made that episode a whole lot better I think.

 

[bluedana]

Stigma: Even though it was heavy handed, it wasn't bad. I am confused my one thing though. T'Pol didn't know about the Mind Meld's in Fusion, yet she knew about the Stigma. Yeah she was forced, but originally she did it willingly. Kind of blows the point of this episode out of the water doesn't it?

I would think that she found out all she could about both the melding/melders once she was diagnosed with the disease.

I think what they were aiming for in Fusion was that she is curious enough about accessing more deeply the emotions she connected with in her dream after not meditating. But when Tolaris attempted to really meld with her, she got scared and tried to pull back -- and he did it anyway and hurt her. Much like an inexperienced girl's date-rape scenario. So it's true, if incomplete, to say that it was done against her will, since after she said stop, he overbore her will. She doesn't correct Archer's assumption, though, when he terms it as an attack.

Future Tense: This episode is frustrating. I loved seeing the Tholians, but what exactly happened. We learned nothing new about the TCW, and the Ship just disappeared for no reason and everyone went their different ways. Uh, Ok, but all that stuff before hand, what did it say again?

I actually appreciate that they left it a mystery, much like in Silent Enemy. It leaves the impression that there is so much about space that they don't understand, can't solve, and can't explain. It's nicely creepy.

 

[tomalak301]

^The thing with Silent Enemy though is it was a contained episode which dealt with an very interesting mystery and it was well written. With Future Tense, this dealt with the whole TCW Arc, which has been the one of the only recurring stories at this point and we didn't really get any new information about it. That was really my problem with the episode. It didn't really go anywhere other than rehash information we already knew.

 

[Noname Given]

Future Tense: This episode is frustrating. I loved seeing the Tholians, but what exactly happened. We learned nothing new about the TCW, and the Ship just disappeared for no reason and everyone went their different ways. Uh, Ok, but all that stuff before hand, what did it say again?

I still don't know what the point of the episode was, except to see how close they could come to referencing Doctor Who without actually referencing Doctor Who. When I first saw this I thought that it was actually going to be a cross-over--I mean, you're seeing a time travel machine that's bigger on the inside than on the outside. Can't be too many of those. But no, it just went nowhere.

Would have been funny if a bunch of jelly babies and scarf had fallen out of one of the cabinets or something.

As originally concieved - THIS was the episode where the NX-01 crew would have encounter the U.S.S. Defiant (from the The Tholian Web - it was a 'sequel episode' of sorts.)

Of course Brannon Braga said, 'too expensive to do any TOS type sets'; so 'the ship from the future' element was kept (but changed), and the Tholians were kept; but the other elements massaged into what was on screen.

Personally, I'm glad this happened because it was after this that Mike Sussman developed the Mirror Universe angle for a Tholian/Defiant story, and re-pitched it when Manny Coto was in charge; and we got In A Mirror Darkly Parts 1 & 2).

 

[tomalak301]

I'm almost to the Xindi. Just a few more episodes to go.

Horizon: Not a bad episode. Nice family reunion and gives Montgomery something to do finally.

The Breach: Trek has done a lot of these kind of episodes and I always appreciate them. I did however want to mention one thing about it. Let us mourn the tribble who bit the dust at the beginning of the episode. I honestly forgot all about that scene, so when it just "happened" I actually jumped in a bit of shock. We always see them so cute and cuddly and Phlox turns it into a meal for one of his pets. Holy Cow.

Cogenitor: Originally, I thought this episode was a bit overrated. Now, I do think it's one of Enterprise's best episodes. I got caught up in this story, and it seemed real for this series for Trip to let misconceptions stand in the way and make a very good first contact go really bad. That end scene where Archer says that the Cogenitor committed suicide was sad and shocking all the same. At the end I just sat there thinking about it while the credits ran. Very powerful stuff and something I wish the series did more of.

Regeneration: Ah yes, the episode that caused this forum to go up in a frenzy and even caused one member to throw his TV out the window. Or did he just say he was going to do it but common sense got the better of him. Still, I remember very well when this episode was announced and man let's just say I wish members like Samuel T. Cology and Stewey were still here. Good times.

Anyway, as for the episode itself, it was damn clever and filled in some gaps while keeping it it's own story. Yeah, some people say they violate continuity, but I'm not sure if they did. The Message would be received to the Borg in 200 years right? Well, a lot of things can happen in 200 years, on both sides. What if the message got broken up in transit? What if something happened on earth and the information was lost. Florida/Venezuela are going to get attacked (Storywise) a few months later and then there's the Romulan War. It was just really awesome how the writers did this episode, and it was a great episode in its own right.

 

[RookieBatman]

That, and I love JG Hertzler that he could probably read the phone book and I would love it.

I was also a little put-off by the unoriginal nature of this episode, but I agree that Hertzler does make everything a little bit better.

 

[Willieck]

Me too.

 

[Shatnertage]

I'll have to re-watch Cogenitor--when I first saw it I thought it was way too moralistic, but I'll give it another viewing.

I liked Regeneration, though, up until Phlox's cure for the nanites.

 

[tomalak301]

I've made it to Season 3.

I don't want this to be a long post, so I'll just briefly talk about the episodes I've seen, then talk about Season 2, and then do something about Season 3.

First Flight: This episode is very sentimental to me. When I was growing up, I was very much into Space Travel and I actually wanted to be an Astronaught. I just thought it was cool (Part of that love was Star Trek actually) and this episode I felt captured that spirit very well. I actually got a little emotional at the end when T'Pol named the nebula after AG.

Bounty: This episode really isn't worth discussing as it wasn't very good. The Tellerite part was decent, but the T'Pol in heat stuff wasn't. Also, I thought only the Vulcan Males had Pon Farr.

The Expanse: This has been the episode I've been waiting for. The start of Enterprise's new direction and it felt like the urgency was increased quite a bit. This episode had everything worthy of a perfect set up while being a great episode in it's own right. It ended the whole Duras story, and began the Xindi arc. I don't talk about scenery very much, this episode did awesome with it, showing the damage from the Xindi weapon to the scene against Duras was nicely done. I do wonder about the whole time thing (The Klingons never caught up to Enterprise in 7 weeks time?) but that's pits compared to what the writers were trying to do and I think it worked as a good finale.

The Xindi: Not the premiere I was expecting, but I was very glad to find out some tidbits that are important for the rest of the season. We found about about the Trillium D being insulation, and the 5 races of Xindi (And we got to meet them with some very nice CGI of the insectoids) but we also got the stupid Neuropressure scene (In place of the decon chamber I guess) and the old Archer get's captured in a trap and is taken prisoner. I'm reminded of the quote to End DS9, "The More Things Change, the more they stay the same." It's somewhat appropriate here.

Season 2 Overall

Well, that's a wrap for Season 2 and I think not a moment too soon. This season I thought was worse than Season 1, with some bad episodes like Canamar, A Night in Sickbay, Shockwave 2, Bounty, and Precious Cargo. Then you had the ho-hum episodes like Dawn, Marauders, Canamar again, and The Crossing. I thought this season did more meandering than Season 1 did, but maybe Season 1 was still new and fresh that there was that certain something that made it better.

With that said, there were still some pretty great episodes. Minefield and Dead Stop were the two first great episodes of the season, and I noticed the season got stronger at the end with The Breach, Regeneration, First Flight, Cogenitor and of course, The Expanse. Still though, the closer I got to Season 3, the more I couldn't wait for season 2 to be over. For that reason, Season 2 is my least favorite season of the show, and that's probably always been the case. Still, My top 5 episodes for this year in order are:

The Expanse
Cogenitor
Minefield/Dead Stop
First Flight
The Seventh (I know a lot of people don't like this episode, but I liked T'Pol's backstory)

In terms of character, I wish Mayweather had stayed on the Horizon. They don't use him very much and he really wouldn't have been missed. I also say the three best characters this year are T'Pol, Phlox, and Trip.

Season 3


So here we are at the Xindi Arc. I've been itching to see this season ever since I started watching Season 2. Looking forward to seeing if I like it more now than I did before. I've said that my problem the first time around was it didn't feel very Star Trek to me. It felt more like an action show that could have been it's own series. I'm not one to really care for Continuity so that really doesn't have anything to do with anything (And how many times has Star Trek in the last 45 years violated it's on timeline, with the first really bad example being in Assignment: Earth and the Enterprise going back just for "Research." Give me a freaking break regarding Canon.

Anyway, sorry for ranting, but this season is going to be interesting.

 

[RookieBatman]

First Flight: This episode is very sentimental to me. When I was growing up, I was very much into Space Travel and I actually wanted to be an Astronaught. I just thought it was cool (Part of that love was Star Trek actually) and this episode I felt captured that spirit very well. I actually got a little emotional at the end when T'Pol named the nebula after AG.

This is one of my favorite episodes of the whole series, and I sometimes wonder how things would've been different if the pilot had been more like this. It would've been really ballsy (and, I admit, off-putting to some), to start with a "grounded" episode, that could've made the whole thing feel a lot more prototypical, and then when they really did get out there, it would've meant a lot more, instead of straight to Qronos on the first day. But maybe that's just me. Anyway, the episode itself was really good, and I thought Keith Carradine did a great job, too.

 

[tomalak301]

That Keith Carradine, was he the guy who choked himself in a hotel room or was that another Carradine?

 

[Noname Given]

That Keith Carradine, was he the guy who choked himself in a hotel room or was that another Carradine?

That was David Carradine (Kieth's brother). His claim to fame was in the original Kung Fu series (1972 - 1975) where he played the lead, Kwai Chang Caine.