Season 3 - should have been the Romulans, not the Xindi?

[DarKush]

ENT could've, and should've been the series that fleshed out the Romulans, but failed to do so.

No, The Next Generation should have been the series that fleshed out the Romulans. They were featured quite extensively and we learned next to nothing about them. It was a missed opportunity, and after that it was too late.

Well, I'm not sure I agree with that. Don't get me wrong, it would've been great to get the Romulans more fleshed out. But I think TNG originally intended not to revisit a lot of the TOS races and that's why we got the Ferengi and the Borg. Also, TNG seemed more intent of fleshing out the Klingons.

I think ENT was a good spot to flesh out the Romulans since the other series hadn't, plus it was in the time period of the Romulan War, which made it the best candidate to flesh out the Romulans. In both TOS and TNG, the Romulans were emerging from long periods of exile. But in ENT timeframe there were no such restrictions.

 

[DarKush]

It is hard to do much more "fleshing out" of a race you cannot see face to face. And don't forget to give Enterprise credit for doing such a good job with the Andorians and Vulcans.

I think how ENT did the Babel arc could've been a way to do it. The ENT characters didn't have to see or interact with the Romulans necessarily in order for the audience to see the Romulan point of view.

 

[xortex]

The Xindi should have been working for or mind controlled by the Romulans and have identified themselves as Romulans even.

 

[Cadet49]

The Xindi should have been working for or mind controlled by the Romulans and have identified themselves as Romulans even.

... that would have been an interesting arc ... the Romulans secretly using the Xindi to do their dirty work! It would explain why no one had seen a Romulan yet, and we know they like to scheme behind the scenes ... uber intelligent Vulcans using their logic and intelligence to manipulate other civilizations.

It would have even have been interesting to discover that the supposed "warning from the future" that the Xindi got, saying they would be attacked by Earth in the future, was actually a Romulan trick ... there were no Sphere Builders ... it was actually Romulans pretending to be from the future! (though it would be hard to explain how 22nd century Roms had the rechnology to build giant, Borg-like sphere weapons capable of destroying Earth ... but it would be an interesting twist ... the Romulans provide the weapons, then sick the Xindi on Earth, and sit back and wait for Earth to fall...

 

[xortex]

It could be more simple than that, Cadet49, the Sphere builders could be the Romulans in the future.

 

[Ultramann]

Still trying to understand why a fan reference is considered "fan wank" or some derivative. A reference to the hard core fan is a good thing not automatically something negative. Like anything, it can be taken to extreme but even that is relative.

 

[Timo]

...Read the recent Romulan War novels for an example. The references to "fan material" (or actually to the fan-originated yet thoroughly commercial FASA roleplaying game) are moderate and amusingly interesting. The references to onscreen trivia on characters and starships, probably mined from the darkest depths of Memory Alpha, are painfully high speed bumps bringing the drama to a jolting and eventually screeching halt.

Fortunately, no onscreen work (be it an episode, a three-parter, or a season) could have crammed that much trivia into the story.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

I would suggest that STXI did - it referenced countless episodes, movies, novels, even videogames (the USS Newton is based on the Proxima-class battleship from Starfleet Command) and obscure fanlore (the USS Kobayashi Maru is based on a fandom design from the 80's), all without slowing the story down one iota. That's how to do it right.

A good example of doing it wrong is the end of ENT's Augments arc. Arik Soong is imprisioned and starts babbling about creating artifical life - a reference to Brent Spiner's Next Generation character Mr. Data ("...maybe... artificial life. It may take a few... Generations" *groan*) It's done in such a cheesy, subtle-as-an-axe way that an Enterprise fan who hadn't seen TNG is left wondering what the hell that end scene was meant to mean, taking them out of the story. Another example of fanwank gone wrong is "These Are The Voyages" - I'm a lifelong, die hard fan and I barely had any recollection of the Next Gen episode the ENT finale was supposedly squished into.

 

[Winterwind]

A good example of doing it wrong is the end of ENT's Augments arc. Arik Soong is imprisioned and starts babbling about creating artifical life - a reference to Brent Spiner's Next Generation character Mr. Data ("...maybe... artificial life. It may take a few... Generations" *groan*) It's done in such a cheesy, subtle-as-an-axe way that an Enterprise fan who hadn't seen TNG is left wondering what the hell that end scene was meant to mean, taking them out of the story.

I swear you posted that thought in another thread I just read. Or maybe I just need to get some sleep. Either way I completely disagree. I'm sure most people (casual viewers, non-TNG fans, etc) would just take it at face value: Switching from augmenting humans to developing artificial life and it's something Soong didn't expect to be fully developed in his lifetime.

 

[SFRabid]

FanWank - a term used by someone who is upset that Star Trek writers did not consult him/her before writing a scene that other long time fans enjoy.

 

[F. King Daniel]

A good example of doing it wrong is the end of ENT's Augments arc. Arik Soong is imprisioned and starts babbling about creating artifical life - a reference to Brent Spiner's Next Generation character Mr. Data ("...maybe... artificial life. It may take a few... Generations" *groan*) It's done in such a cheesy, subtle-as-an-axe way that an Enterprise fan who hadn't seen TNG is left wondering what the hell that end scene was meant to mean, taking them out of the story.

I swear you posted that thought in another thread I just read. Or maybe I just need to get some sleep. Either way I completely disagree. I'm sure most people (casual viewers, non-TNG fans, etc) would just take it at face value: Switching from augmenting humans to developing artificial life and it's something Soong didn't expect to be fully developed in his lifetime.

It wasn't the lines, but their nudge-nudge-wink-wink execution. Non-TNG fans knew they were missing some "inside joke"