Journey To Babel - One of season 2's finest?

[UnknownSample]

I never thought "Babel" referred to Spock and Sarek; they have a ship full of arguing ambassadors, there's your tower of Babel. Anyway, I enjoyed this as a kid, but now, I just notice that this episode has no real science-fiction content. We see Spock's family, which is nice, but the big stories are those with big, apocalypse-level events, not family spats. That verges on soap opera, though in this case, good soap opera.

It's a little funny that because of the design blunders in this story, when creating the alien ambassadors, the makers of Enterprise were saddled with making those silly aliens look credible 35 or so years later....!

 

[A beaker full of death]

Great episode, no doubt. But what's with the title "Journey to Babel?" I don't think it's really representative of the episode at all. Yeah, I know they were heading to "Babel," but still, the title borders on lame (IMHO).

Because...?

 

[A beaker full of death]

.

It's a little funny that because of the design blunders in this story, when creating the alien ambassadors, the makers of Enterprise were saddled with making those silly aliens look credible 35 or so years later....!

wtf?

 

[M'Sharak]

^ I believe he's mainly referring to the Tellarites.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's a little funny that because of the design blunders in this story, when creating the alien ambassadors, the makers of Enterprise were saddled with making those silly aliens look credible 35 or so years later....!

What "design blunders"?

Andorians were reimagined numerous times in Star Trek, "improved' with the available SPFX makeup technologies. ST:TMP came along at the same time as new "slip latex", that did not require the same baking that 60s rubber did. Those Andorians had grooved foreheads and tendril antennae, not possible in the 60s. For ST IV, the new makeup team was able to show a balding Andorian: the wig didn't have to cover the joins. TNG tried a different antennae design. And the relatively light, miniaturized gears used to animate the ENT Andorians - from across a soundstage - weren't around earlier than ENT.

The Tellarite masks were similarly improved with each TOS appearance, and again in ST IV and ENT. If anything, I thought the Gav mask, which caused the actor to peer through the eyeholes in a peculiar way, enhanced the alienness of his performance.