I finally saw the Gazelle Speech

[RAMA]

I finally saw the Gazelle Speech

Are you okay? Do you require medical attention?

To be honest, I think it has been overhyped. I actually kind of liked the analogy.

Yeah, there's really nothing wrong with the analogy, I think ENterpise was just ripe for the picking when it became "infamous". Too bad.

It's funny you dislike the characters so much. I actually think from top to bottom Enterprise has the best cast...not that they were especially great, but there wasn't a weak one in the bunch, unlike the other series.

 

[controlfreak]

I don't get the hate for the gazelle speech. It sounds like something Roddenberry would have written for season 1 of TNG, which, imo is far worse than anything Enterprise ever did.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Wait till you get to the Xindi Turtle soup speech.

No wonder the Xindi Reptilians wanted humanity dead

 

[RoJoHen]

It's funny you dislike the characters so much. I actually think from top to bottom Enterprise has the best cast...not that they were especially great, but there wasn't a weak one in the bunch, unlike the other series.

I like the actors well enough, but I feel like most of the characters have gotten no development. I'm halfway through Season 4 now (I was sick yesterday and had a huge marathon), and I feel like half the cast has vanished. Yeah, they're still visible on the bridge, but Mayweather, Reed, and Hoshi don't ever do anything!

 

[horatio83]

Archer is not supposed to be able to hold great speeches on the bridge. He is a pilot and after one year in space he has not yet become a rhetorically skilled diplomat.
So at this stage this simply analogy fits his character perfectly. It even shows the progress that he has made concerning dealing with the Vulcans.

 

[jespah]

... Mayweather, Reed, and Hoshi don't ever do anything!

Yep. In a lot of ways, it turned into the Tucker-T'Pol show. But I do have to say that underwriting three main characters provides a lot of fodder for fan fic. When the characters are more or less blank slates, we can write what we like (within reason).

 

[horatio83]

Mayweather suffered from the 'what is the helmsman supposed to do or say?' problem and a bad actor but Reed and Hoshi were pretty well drawn out characters. It's not like they got less screen time than any other minor characters of TNG, DS9 or VOY and they changed a bit over the series, feeling more at ease.
I agree though that the fourth season was pretty plot-centred such that the minor characters got little to no spotlight ... which is one among many reasons that makes me like the second season a bit more than the last one.

 

[RoJoHen]

I agree though that the fourth season was pretty plot-centred such that the minor characters got little to no spotlight ... which is one among many reasons that makes me like the second season a bit more than the last one.

That's ultimately my problem with it. I've grown so tired of episodic storytelling. If you're going to do long story arcs, you need to find a better way to incorporate all the characters. People like Hoshi and Mayweather only ever got development when they set the arc aside and said, "This is a Hoshi episode" and "This is a Mayweather episode." As soon as the big story arcs began, they got pushed aside.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Hoshi did try and kill herself to keep the Xindi from getting the information from her. That was pretty awesome.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I found the gazelle speech to be painful. Scott Bakula isn't an actor who can pull off the intellectual monologues of Patrick Stewart or the bad-ass Siskoness of Avery Brooks.

IMHO he is the major thing that let ENT down.

As for the series getting better, S1 and S2 have a few rare good episodes. It isn't until S3 that they actually seem to find their footing and make an ok series.

 

[RoJoHen]

Hoshi did try and kill herself to keep the Xindi from getting the information from her. That was pretty awesome.

Indeed, but that was like 5 minutes of character drama out of the whole season. Not enough.

 

[RoJoHen]

Just finished up the MU two-parter, and I have to say, I have no idea what the point of it was. I kept expecting it to somehow relate back to the Prime Universe crew, but it didn't. It served no purpose whatsoever.

 

[RoJoHen]

Okay, just finished the show, and I have to say, I don't get all the hate directed at "These Are The Voyages." I actually really enjoyed it. It may have been unnecessary to frame around Riker and "The Pegasus," but I have to admit I enjoyed seeing Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis in their roles again. If they were going to do a TNG holodeck episode, I think it would have simply made more sense for it to be more of a history lesson than being focused so specifically around a single episode of TNG. I think the episode did a great job displaying the most important points of the series, and I especially liked the focus on Trip and T'Pol. The episode, more than anything, was about friendship, and I really liked that.

 

[horatio83]

It is not bad, just not as good as Demons / Terra Prime which, unlike These are The Voyages, actually features a little goodbye moment for every character, a moment in which we see him or her do something typical. And of course there is Archer's great speech plus Elizabeth's death which is one of the most touching moments in Trek.

 

[RoJoHen]

Yeah, after watching "Terra Prime," I thought to myself that it would have made a satisfactory ending to the show. "These Are the Voyages" acts like more of an epilogue, and I think that's why I enjoyed it.

 

[bluedana]

Okay, just finished the show, and I have to say, I don't get all the hate directed at "These Are The Voyages." I actually really enjoyed it. It may have been unnecessary to frame around Riker and "The Pegasus," but I have to admit I enjoyed seeing Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis in their roles again. If they were going to do a TNG holodeck episode, I think it would have simply made more sense for it to be more of a history lesson than being focused so specifically around a single episode of TNG. I think the episode did a great job displaying the most important points of the series, and I especially liked the focus on Trip and T'Pol. The episode, more than anything, was about friendship, and I really liked that.

There are too many plot holes for TATV to even make sense to me, which is why I dislike it so much to the point that it makes me angry. I don't usually care about TV episodes; if it sucks, it sucks and I move on. But this is one of the rare times I felt like the writers thought the audience was stupid and wouldn't notice obvious stuff. Stuff that could have been fixed had they revised the script instead of just dusting it off. Among them:

Why was there no Tactical Alert as established in Singularity?
Why didn't Trip even try to make a plan with Archer (as in Andorian Incident, where we saw they could communicate pretty effectively using mirrors and sign language)?
Why was Trip's only option a suicide run when we know from Terra Prime that he could McGyver his way out a tough spot?
Why after 10 years were Reed and Hoshi and Mayweather more concerned about their bad seats than the fact that Trip had just died?
How the heck could the alien ship catch up with Enterprise at warp and nobody noticed it docking or even getting close enough to transport?
Plus, how the heck does this whole hologram exercise even relate to Riker's Big Decision?

I'm no fangirl, but stupid stuff like that makes me mad. There are other parts that I do like, so this isn't blanket hateration, and I don't even mind that they killed Trip. My FF button gets a workout, though, so when I do watch TATV, it's about twelve minutes long.

As for the infamous Gazelle Speech, the analogy works for me. I don't think it's meant to be a Picard-esque lecture, but just a genuine moment of trying to get the Vulcans to get where he's coming from.

 

[RoJoHen]

Plus, how the heck does this whole hologram exercise even relate to Riker's Big Decision?

This is probably my biggest problem with it. Deanna recommended that he run the program, but she even admits in the episode that's she's never done so herself. So how the hell would she know that it would be helpful?

The rest I can chalk up to poor historical records and a holo-author with a shitty attention to detail.

 

[RandyS]

Just finished up the MU two-parter, and I have to say, I have no idea what the point of it was. I kept expecting it to somehow relate back to the Prime Universe crew, but it didn't. It served no purpose whatsoever.

The point was to do a fun episode. And it was. And it's an MU episode. That's the only "purpose" it needs.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, unfortunately, I didn't find it very fun.

 

[horatio83]

On a sidenote, the Mirror Universe episodes achieved the impossible, to make the Constitution class look more advanced than the NX-class. I do not know why but I guess that one reason is that the NX has it 'guts hanging out' whereas the Constitution has everything behind panels, be it stuff on the hull or control panels.