Could TATV have been good?

[Mach5]

* Assign Reed to work with two people from the Academy named Kobayshi and Maru

LOL, where did THIS come from? No offense, your other suggestions were quite good, though I'm not sure about the 'Captain Tucker' stuff - after 10 years of active duty I would have grounded him, made him director of Starfleet R&D or something (agreed on Admiral Archer and Ambassador T'pol).

My fix for TATV:
...

I really like that idea.

So do I, a good one indeed.

 

[Stephen!]

Re: Could TATV been good?

Trip wouldn't commit suicide, he would either die a hero, or not at all.

Although whether he did actually die is debatable, since it wasn't shown.

 

[cooleddie74]

I'm not bitter about TATV. Non-canon though it may be, The Good That Men Do actually made it worthwhile.

It made it fractionally more tolerable, I'll admit. Now I can watch it without feeling as disappointed in it as before. But it's still a nougated platypus turd of a finale no matter how you slice it.

 

[Mach5]

It made it fractionally more tolerable, I'll admit. Now I can watch it without feeling as disappointed in it as before.

You actually still watch it? Once was more than enough for me...

 

[cooleddie74]

It made it fractionally more tolerable, I'll admit. Now I can watch it without feeling as disappointed in it as before.

You actually still watch it? Once was more than enough for me...

I've seen it a few times since 2005. Twice on the Season 4 DVD box set a friend let me borrow. I always give stinkers at least a couple of tries to redeem themselves in my eyes.

 

[commodore64]

* Assign Reed to work with two people from the Academy named Kobayshi and Maru

LOL, where did THIS come from? No offense, your other suggestions were quite good

Thanks! Kobayashi-Maru is the name of the unsolvable test officers take to become captains. In Star Trek II, TWoK, Savik takes the test and fails miserably. I thought it might be a cool wink and nod to the ENT characters helping to devise the test.

'Captain Tucker' stuff - after 10 years of active duty I would have grounded him, made him director of Starfleet R&D or something (agreed on Admiral Archer and Ambassador T'pol).

Interesting. I see him less as a thinker and more as a do-er.

 

[Mach5]

Thanks! Kobayashi-Maru is the name of the unsolvable test officers take to become captains. In Star Trek II, TWoK, Savik takes the test and fails miserably. I thought it might be a cool wink and nod to the ENT characters helping to devise the test.

Geez, no reason to start mocking people (first time I saw TWOK was at the age of 5, I barely spoke a word of English, and thought that the nice elven lady from "Cheers" looked funny + I did read M&M's "Kobayashi Maru")

Interesting. I see him less as a thinker and more as a do-er.

Trip bashing. It's like Bush bashing, only un-cool.

 

[cooleddie74]

Trip is the reason for the season.

 

[commodore64]

I wasn't mocking, I was explaining. Mocking would be: "Boy, un-nerd, Kobayashi-Maru was only like the most important test an officer can take to become a captain. You call yourself a Star Trek fan?!" I know people have lives and don't retain every nerdy detail of Trek. I don't either, but some have been imprinted on my brain. Yeah, I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday or when I get paid, but useless Trek trivia? Bring it!

Not knowing means you're not a nerd, Mach5. Enjoy!

And as far as Trip bashing, you know ... I almost clarified I didn't mean he couldn't think. I just don't see him as a guy who doesn't want to be part of the action. Like Scotty -- he hated being part of the action, he just wanted to work on his engines. LaForge was the type of nerd engineer who enjoyed reading about and interacting with historical figures to get a better understanding of the engines. (And he wasn't in love with them like Scotty.) Miles was a tinker-er. He liked using tools and his hands. Trip just seems more interested in "the action." Doesn't mean it's bad.

On the Bush statement, the closer he gets to leaving office, the sorrier I feel for him. I think I have a lot more sympathy than I did before Obama won. I fear HR will remind me these discussions are best left for TNZ, if we still have one. (And she's right!)

 

[Cyke101]

* Assign Reed to work with two people from the Academy named Kobayshi and Maru

LOL, where did THIS come from? No offense, your other suggestions were quite good, though I'm not sure about the 'Captain Tucker' stuff - after 10 years of active duty I would have grounded him, made him director of Starfleet R&D or something (agreed on Admiral Archer and Ambassador T'pol).

I don't think that's *too* far off. The show jokingly implied that Red Alert was named after Malcolm Reed.

 

[JiNX-01]

'Captain Tucker' stuff - after 10 years of active duty I would have grounded him, made him director of Starfleet R&D or something (agreed on Admiral Archer and Ambassador T'pol).

Interesting. I see him less as a thinker and more as a do-er.

Figured out how to save the crew by taking shelter in "The Catwalk." Nobody else -- not even their science officer -- had any ideas.
Figured out how to maintain Warp 5 for longer periods by compressing the plasma stream (which was a significant improvement in the enginer's design). The ship's science officer -- who had served on superior Vulcan ships, didn't come up with any suggestions.
Sim (with nothing to go on but Trip's knowledge and experience) figured out how to save the ship. Once again, the science officer didn't have a plan despite having sufficient enineering skills to be assigned to engineering repairs on occasion).

Seems to me Trip/Sim are thinkers AND do-ers.

 

[Mach5]

^ And they practically labeled him an 'uneducated greasemonkey' in TATV (insulting on many levels, even the Beebs should have known better).
Trip was ingenious, a natural born problem solver, and there's tons of stuff that bunch of young *fresh out of academy* hot shots in StarFleet Research & Development could learn from him (running R&D doesn't have to make him a pencil pusher, right?). That said, I doubt Trip would be happy being in command. Being a captain is nothing like being an engineer.

 

[CaptainHawk1]

Let me start off by saying that I haven't read any of the preceding posts so if these issues have been touched upon, please forgive me.

To answer the thread title's question: no, there is noway that TATV could have been a good episode for a number of reasons.

1.) It's not an ENT episode, it's a TNG episode

2.) Even as a TNG episode it's awful and there was absolutely no attempt to use make-up to make Sirtas and Frakes look like they did a decade earlier. Yes, there is only so much you can do but it has been done realtively successfully on other shows and if they couldn't do it, they shouldn't have subjected us to that nonsense with those characters (Frakes especially) because it was totaly unbelievable. If they were so set on doing a TNG story, they should have used Stewart, Dorn or Wheaton as they don't look like they've aged at all in the last decade and you can hide a lot more under Kligon makeup anyway.

3.) They killed Trip off for Fuck's sake!!! WTF were they thinking?!

4.) The episode is a downer all the way around.

5.) Because of the fact that they spent 75% of the episode on the Enterprise-D, they didn't flesh out the founding of the Federation at all. It should have been a two hour episode.

6.) Even if they had made the damned thing sans the TNG storyline it still should have been a 2 hour ep.

In closing TATV wasn't just a disservice to Trek fans or ENT fans it was a disservice to anyone who actually enjoys a good story.

I used to be a huge critic of ENT but in the last few months I watched the entire series the whole way through and I actually like it a lot more than I did and despite what most people think, I think Season 3 was great (Season 4 is a given).

That being said, TATV is still a POS despite me giving ENT a second chance.

-Shawn

 

[Praetor]

I think it might be made to work. The attempt there was noble, but greatly flawed.

My fix for TATV:

Riker and Troi scenes are set in the immediate aftermath of Nemesis. They're enroute to the Titan aboard a transport ship. Riker is looking out a window, musing about the change in Federation-Romulan relations. Troi does a "penny for your thoughts" line and he remarks that they might be seeing the end of the Romulan neutral zone. He that points toward a small nebula ... he tells her that that was where the agreement to end the Earth-Romulan wars was negotiated and the RNZ established. It was Archer's last mission as captain of Enterprise to escort Earth's negotiators to the site.

The Orions had profited from spying on and supplying both sides and tries to stop the talks ... Trip sacrifices himself to save the chief negotiator on the Romulan side, thus preventing the continuation of the war.

More or less my thoughts too.

If confined to the same basic requirements of the TATV we were given (Riker and Troi framing story, Trip must die, etc.) I would have preferred creating a 2-hour telefilm resolving the TCW as part of a plot to let the Romulans win the war. Riker has been studying logs on the Romulan War as preparation to his mission to Romulus on the Titan. No holodeck, just Riker and Troi reminiscing, and then we the audience see that, narrated by Riker. It might also be nice to set it on the Titan proper. We see time lapse for Enterprise, promotions, battle scars, etc. At the end, have Trip die (if he must) piloting Enterprise on a last-ditch kamikaze run against the Romulan flagship. Then, Riker and Troi arrive at Romulus at the end on Titan and are given Enterprise's recovered, scorched, dedication plaque.

TATV's biggest sins were trying to pin the episode needlessly to 'Pegasus' assassinating Shran's character and killing Trip poorly. I don't mind a character's death, but Trip's was just dumb. I see what they were trying to do, but blecch.

 

[Mach5]

3.) They killed Trip off for Fuck's sake!!! WTF were they thinking?!

"Trip was always my favorite character on the show and I wanted to….I just wanted to kill him. I cant give you a coherent response. We wanted to do something that had emotional impact and had consequences which is something we were never allowed to do."
-- Brannon Braga @ VegasCon 07

Now, does that sound like something a *normal person* would say?

"We wanted to do something that had emotional impact"
You attempt to create an emotional impact by ignoring everything your *favorite* character did (end felt) during the past season, and then you show just how little his crewmates cared for him and respected him after a full decade of serving with him? What kind of drugs were B&B on while writing this? (Trell-D? )

In closing TATV wasn't just a disservice to Trek fans or ENT fans it was a disservice to anyone who actually enjoys a good story.

And the cast:
"I don’t know if it fully delivered and it really pissed off the cast."
You piss of the cast (props to Jolene Blalock for being blunt), hear fans bitching years after the ep aired, and you still don't know if it fully delivered? Dude! I mean, really... DUDE!

I always respected Brannon Braga for being willing to face his failures and the fans, but there's something to be said about people who never become able to learn from their own mistakes.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

On the Bush statement, the closer he gets to leaving office, the sorrier I feel for him. I think I have a lot more sympathy than I did before Obama won. I fear HR will remind me these discussions are best left for TNZ, if we still have one. (And she's right!)

Well, now that that's settled, I'll just mosey along to the next thread.

 

[CaptainHawk1]

3.) They killed Trip off for Fuck's sake!!! WTF were they thinking?!

"Trip was always my favorite character on the show and I wanted to….I just wanted to kill him. I cant give you a coherent response. We wanted to do something that had emotional impact and had consequences which is something we were never allowed to do."
-- Brannon Braga @ VegasCon 07

Now, does that sound like something a *normal person* would say?

"We wanted to do something that had emotional impact"
You attempt to create an emotional impact by ignoring everything your *favorite* character did (end felt) during the past season, and then you show just how little his crewmates cared for him and respected him after a full decade of serving with him? What kind of drugs were B&B on while writing this? (Trell-D? )

In closing TATV wasn't just a disservice to Trek fans or ENT fans it was a disservice to anyone who actually enjoys a good story.

And the cast:
"I don’t know if it fully delivered and it really pissed off the cast."
You piss of the cast (props to Jolene Blalock for being blunt), hear fans bitching years after the ep aired, and you still don't know if it fully delivered? Dude! I mean, really... DUDE!

I always respected Brannon Braga for being willing to face his failures and the fans, but there's something to be said about people who never become able to learn from their own mistakes.

To me it just shows what an arrogant prick he was being at the end because he had have his greasy little fingerprints all over what Manny Coto had raised from the dead t ot he quality product it wound up being. Braga did it for the sake of doing it and that's crap and that's indicative of the problems that ENT had in seasons 1 and 2. And I actually like Braga but he screwed the pooch on that one.

On the Bush statement, the closer he gets to leaving office, the sorrier I feel for him. I think I have a lot more sympathy than I did before Obama won. I fear HR will remind me these discussions are best left for TNZ, if we still have one. (And she's right!)

Well, now that that's settled, I'll just mosey along to the next thread.

How the holy fuck did this get into the discussion about wheter or not TATV could have been good or not? You just can't let it alone can you?

Well here's some more fuel for the fire:

It's directly Brannon Braga's fault that Obama got elected. Allow me to explain:

Jeri Ryan was cast on VOY by Brannon Braga who subsequently dated her while she was still married to the future U.S. Senate hopeful from Illinois, Jack Ryan. VOY and her relationship with Braga destroyed her marriage. In 1999 they divorced and then 5 years later those divorce papers became unsealed and effectively destroyed Ryan's 2004 campaign, a campaign in which he was heavily favored to win against one Barak Obama. But instead Ryan resigned three days later, the Republicans for some God-unknown reason put the madman Alan Keyes up against him and the rest is history.

So there you have it, if you can't stand Obama and you can't stand Braga, you officially have one more legitimate reason to despise Braga.

That one's free... enjoy it.

-Shawn

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The biggest problem with TATV is that it implies Starfleet officers in the 24th century need to play holodeck RPGs to make important moral decisions. I lost a LOT of respect for Riker after seeing that.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

On the Bush statement, the closer he gets to leaving office, the sorrier I feel for him. I think I have a lot more sympathy than I did before Obama won. I fear HR will remind me these discussions are best left for TNZ, if we still have one. (And she's right!)

Well, now that that's settled, I'll just mosey along to the next thread.

How the holy fuck did this get into the discussion about wheter or not TATV could have been good or not? You just can't let it alone can you?

...

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear.

There will be NO MORE TALK OF POLITICS in this forum. The next person to try it will earn a warning.

 

[Mossura]

It was a terrific episode that answered all questions about Enterprise. Trip was on fire in his death scene, T'Pol seemed like a real Vulcan when she didn't care about his demise, and the lack of promotions was deserved. It was a true treat toisee Riker and Troi again, and revealing Riker was the oft-mentioned, never seen chef, was the high point of the series. A great valentine to the fans and a 10 episode.