First time watching Enterprise!

[Merlanthe]

The Andorian incident

I find the beginning of this episode to be both humorous and frustrating. Its funny watching T’Pol give Archer and Trip stern instructions on how to behave like their little children. But the funnyness ends when you realise that Archer and Trip are acting like little children. Most of the instructions she gives them are basic courtesy that most humans would do anyway in a strangers home and there is a definite diplomatic vibe to this trip so they should be taking her advise seriously but instead Archer and Trip treat it more like shore leave and act as though T’Pol is asking a lot of them and being really unbearably strict just because she told them to let her do the talking not touch any of the ancient relics.

Why yes Archer its so horrible of T’Pol to ask you not to touch any of the ancient relics your mother always said it was okay to wander into strangers homes and touch whatever you wanted so long as it wasn’t a murder scene. Cant have mommy’s little angel get mistakenly sent to prison now can we

I love Jeffrey Coombs he is an awesome actor and great on DS9 and Justice League and also really nice that one time I got to meet him. And he is probably the best thing about this episode. Well him and Reed who is also awesome in this episode. They should leave Reed in charge more often as he is very competent

That one Andorian guy is down right creepy. The one who is very happy to have a female Vulcan as a prisoner. His sexual threats toward T’Pol are just unnecessary the only purpose they serve is to mark him out as one of the bad guys which had already been successfully conveyed by his belonging to a group of angry paranoid hostage takers. Maybe if they had played his character off against Shrans to make Shran seem paranoid and dangerous but reasonable and the better of two evils it would have made more sense but no hes just evil cause hes evil.

Its interesting how the Andorians are right in the end but im not convinced that all of the priests were in on it. it is funny how the little figures working on the relay do not react at all to the sudden and obvious intrusion of Andorians and humans but then their only CGI. Overall I award this episode 4/5 the creepy Andorian guy drags the episode down from a being a full five

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I like all the mouldering web covered Vulcan mummies.

 

[R. Star]

Jeffery Combs starring as a semi-regular character was the best thing Enterprise did. Though really, Archer is pretty much the worst diplomat ever. They'd be better off with a clone of Joachim von Ribbentrop up there.

 

[Merlanthe]

I think Reed is my favourite character so far. He loves shooting things and exploding things and gets disappointed when he cant do either and really happy when he can do both. Hes probably going to remain my favourite character unless he does something horrible like try to blow up an entire innocent species or something but i doubt he would do anything like that.

Now im wondering what were anyone elses favourite characters when they started watching Enterprise? Did they remain your favourite characters?

 

[jespah]

Reed FTW (from the beginning), with Hayes coming in during S3. I dig Shran, too.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I've liked Reed more with each rewatch and now he's right up there, just underneath Soval (but not literally).

 

[BruntFCA]

Reed is awesome. I will admit that when I first started watching ENT that I hated Trip but now hes one of my favorite characters. My favorite character however is Doctor Phlox, unfortunately he has very few episodes which is why Doctor's Orders is one of my favorite ENT episodes despite being a complete rip off of a VOY episode.

 

[Merlanthe]

Ooh yes Phlox im kinda biased towards liking that character due to spending a half hour or more chatting to the actor who plays him and his lovely wife Bonita at a comicon. They were giving away free candy!

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
I had the privilege of joining about 25 other ENT fans in Hollywood where he did a one-man performance in the character of Ambrose Bierce. (Google him.) After the show, an assistant came out with a washtub full of iced beer and white wine for us. Billingsly came out after about 20 minutes and spent over an hour talking and answering questions. A very special evening.

 

[Merlanthe]

Breaking the ice!

I like this episode. Reed and Mayweather get to have their own mini adventure its great to see them have fun away from the ship and bond a little. And that snow man is sooo cute! And Reeds happiness at getting to blow him up is also cute. I also like that we get the introduction of some Vulcan drama in this episode with T’Pol’s impending arranged marriage and the arrival of a Vulcan ship possibly to spy upon them. Though I now get the feeling that her deciding to stay on Enterprise might have been a way to put distance between herself and a marriage she lacks enthusiasm for. It would certainly account for her willingness to remain with a quirky bunch of aliens lead by an individual who often shows contempt for her race due to petty personal reasons and wear an uncomfortable looking catsuit rather than return home to friends and family and more comfortable clothing.

I really don’t understand why Trip was the one to read her decoded private massage. It would have made more sense for Hoshi as the communications officer and translator and the one who decrypted the letter to be the one to read it. it could have been a bonding moment and marked the start of a nice friendship between the shows two female characters.

Instead we get Trip reading it and awkwardly agonising over having read it and awkwardly giving her advice. Maybe its meant to be a bonding moment between T’Pol and Trip but imho it seems forced and unnecessary as its already obvious from his behaviour around her so far that he is seriously attracted to her even if he isn’t aware of it yet. The show doesn’t need this forced bonding moment.

I get the feeling that Archer has been deliberately trying to find ways to one up the Vulcans a bit in last couple of episodes. The Vulcan star charts are outdated ha we found a comet made of some element the vulcans only found very little of ha. Score for humanity!. Yeah it makes them seem petty. Their out there to explore and see what they can do not to see what they can do better than vulcans no wonder they were held back so long.

But its good that though he is quite put out by the arrival of the Vulcan ship he does try to be friendly and handle things in a diplomatic way with inviting Vanik over for a meal rather than being outright hostile like he has been previously. And when things go wrong he is able to put his pride aside and ask for help. It’s a good show of character growth. Overall I give this episode four stars.

I would be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on how I am ranking the episodes so far. Are there any episodes so far where you wildly disagree on how I’ve ranked them? Also did you guys think Trip was crushing on T’Pol however subconsciously in this or previous episodes?

 

[MacLeod]

It's been a while since I've seen this episode, but at times you got a sense of wonderment, that they where doing something new. Bt one would have thought the Vulcan's would have been intersted in the comet, due to containg a rare mineral.

 

[lurok]

I really like all the characters and actors, though T'Pol/Blalock and Reed/Keating probably edge ahead. And Combs is just awesome at everything he does. I really wasn't a Bakula/Archer first time watched but he's grown on me over time

 

[NeedsOfTheMany]

I began watching Enterprise for the first time about 2 weeks ago and have to say that I can't believe what I've seen. It took a few episodes to really get going but I have been solid since the first season. I have 5 more episodes to go and feel a little cheated that it'll be over soon. So much momentum in the 4th season.

 

[R. Star]

Breaking the ice was a fun episode. The snowman and it's evolution was a hilarious bit. I agree, it would've made more sense for Hoshi to be the one to read it... she is the freaking communications officer... but well, you'll notice after awhile Enterprise really follows the "big three" system of TOS, in this case Archer, T'Pol and Trip with the rest of the cast being glorified extras.

I'm really surprised you thought Archer was being diplomatic with the Vulcan captain. I'll concede he was TRYING to be diplomatic, but... well it really did fail. Though to be fair, sure Archer was hostile but that Vulcan captain was making no effort to be diplomatic either. More Evil Vulcan Syndrome. It was nice that Archer did suck up his pride and ask for help at the end.

There was not much of a point to the whole episode from a plot perspective, but there was some nice character tidbits and this really did capture the feeling of humans being in deep space for the first time.

 

[Merlanthe]

In the pilot Archer was openly hostile and insulting to Vulcan diplomats and threatened to knock one on her a$$ so him inviting the Vulcan captain over for a meal instead of immediately telling him to p!$$ off was friendly and diplomatic. It was just unfortunate that that particular Vulcan captain seemed to be as loath of humans as Archer is of Vulcans.

 

[R. Star]

In the pilot Archer was openly hostile and insulting to Vulcan diplomats and threatened to knock one on her a$$ so him inviting the Vulcan captain over for a meal instead of immediately telling him to p!$$ off was friendly and diplomatic. It was just unfortunate that that particular Vulcan captain seemed to be as loath of humans as Archer is of Vulcans.

Friendly and diplomatic for him maybe. Archer really was a terrible choice to represent humanity in deep space making first contact for Earth.

 

[NeedsOfTheMany]

I like Archer but those first 2 seasons were hit and miss with his character development.

 

[R. Star]

I like Archer but those first 2 seasons were hit and miss with his character development.

Yeah, at least when he acted insane in season 3 and 4, there was a reason behind it.

 

[NeedsOfTheMany]

It seems as if Scott overcompensated for the lack of character development by over doing it a lot in the first 2 seasons to create drama with his character.

 

[Merlanthe]

Civilization

Classic trek story of the Enterprise crew observing a pre-warp civilization and finding that all is not as it seems. The bad guy was stereotypical cliché and obvious. Should have made his species more alien imho. Then they could have pulled his rubber mask off at the end and he could have proclaimed ‘and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for those darned humans!’

I adore the fashions in this episode except for Archers which looks overly flamboyant. T’pol looks like an elf Is it mere coincidence that she and Trip have complementing outfits?

I really like the alien doctor lady she has a really pretty dress and a genuinely nice personality with a touch of eccentricity. It’s a shame they couldn’t bring her with them but she was needed to help cure the sickness plus she was obviously one of the great minds of her world and of great value if her people were to advance in the field of medical science. They would probably still advance but more slowly without her gentle genius there to speed things along.

I also really like that they left the Vulcans to look out for these people. It shows that Archer is growing up a bit and more accepting of help and is consistent with the bit of development that he got in the previous episode. Overall this episode gets three and half stars the cliché villain failed to impress but everything else was great.