Well here are my thoughts on Broken Bow.
I quite enjoyed this as pilots go its pretty solid storywise. I think the whole future guy trying to manipulate the past stuff adds an interesting twist to what would have been a fairly straightforward mission of returning an injured dignitary to his homeworld whilst avoiding bad guys.
I really love the ship design. More so the interior and the technology which gives me a retro vibe for some reason. Maybe that’s cause it is pretty retro compared to the technbology in other trek series. I like that the crew have to share quarters which are small and cramped. Makes it seem more like an exploration vessel out there on the edge of known space. The only annoying thing about the ship and retro tech is the idea of hull plating instead of shields. The hull plating is the hull isn’t it? So when someone says that the hull plating is offline what that means is that there is a huge crack or hole in the hull and the air and stuff in that part of the ship is getting sucked out into space right? Casue that’s how I interpreted it
I do really love the phase pistols and the quarantine room is a good idea it makes sense they should have one though I hope it isn’t just there for fan service even though Conner Trineer has a nice physique I think that whole heated conversation would have had more weight to it if they hadn’t been rubbing decontamination gel all over each others half naked bodies. Another bit of retro tech that I like is the transporter or rather the characters attitude towards it. So its finally been given the okay for transporting living organic matter but naturally no one wants to be the first to try it. Reminds me of Galaxy Quest when they test the never before used transporter on an alien pig beast.
‘It turned inside out…..and now it exploded!’
Of course its fairly obvious form the general reluctance to try out the transporter that its gonna get used at some point probably for a last minute dramatic rescue
That said there were a couple things that annoyed me. For a start Archer and to some extent Trip come of as kinda obnoxious and unreasonable in their prejudice against and distrust of Vulcans. Its not like the Vulcans physically restrained humanity form exploring space they just
strongly advised against and the earth government
chose to defer to the Vulcans judgement. Also why did they kill off the female suliban mere moments after she was introduced? She would have been a cool character to keep around it would have been interesting to have her backstory and motivations for working against her people more fully explored.
Okay this one is gonna sound nitpicky but I have trouble with T’pol’s outfit and hairstyle. I don’t think it fits the era that the series is set in as its clearly based on the clothing and hairstyles favoured by female Vulcans in the later trek series e.g. later TNG, DS9 and VOY where they had short hair and favoured dark sombre colours. In TOS series and movies and early TNG Vulcan women favoured long hair and more brightly coloured clothing. Personally I found it horrifying how skinny she is in that catsuit makes her look like she’ll disappear if she turns sideways. I bet she had to be sewn into it and probably felt she couldn’t eat or drink during filming like poor Jeri Ryan. Given the way the top was designed they could very easily have made it a wrap around dress rather than a catsuit I think it would have looked better and the actress would have been able to breathe without worrying about splitting a seam.
Anyhow those annoyances aside I felt that it was a pretty decent episode considering they had all those characters to introduce and future plotlines to set up
Now I'll have to find something new and different to say.
