Hey! As some of you may know, I'm not a fan of Enterprise but I am re-watching them now and I just got done with "Dawn". Now this was actually a good episode but what bugged me about it was the fact that it was pretty much the movie "Enemy Mind" minus the whole baby angle. I also noticed how close the alien in the episode looked like the Drak from the movie... Anybody else notice this?
Yeah, that was discussed quite a bit when the episode first aired IIRC. They were really running out of ideas at this point of season 2.
Yeah I agree there are many well done aspects to this episode but it would seem that pulling it off was far easier when it's copied from a movie!!! I vaugly remember this episode when it aired but watching it again made me cringe!
Dawn borrowed heavily from Enemy Mine which borrowed from Hell in the Pacific which borrowed from None But the Brave.
What bugged me was, once Enterprise located Trip and the alien on the surface, NOBODY thought to beam down a tent and air conditioner.
Or even water, which Bernd Schneider pointed out on his site. "Hey guys, while you're figuring out how to rescue us, how about sending down a tent and a canteen?"
This is hardly the only time Trek has done something incredibly similar to another setting. When the modus operandi for scifi series is to make all aliens humans with funny faces, it happens. Take these two for example...
Enemy Mine originated as a short story by Barry Longyear in the Sept, 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov magazine. It is one of my absolute favorite works of any length. It was later expanded into a novel that more paralleled the movie than the original short. If you ever read it, the phrase "Grow four, five?" will register. I liked Dawn precisely because it did take another turn at the same old but worthy idea.
I seem to recall falling asleep fairly early in the episode. Which isn't necessarily the episode's fault, but still.
Enemy Mine should bore the crap out of me having seen this served so many different ways but I think it is well done and oddly gripping.