Maybe we (critics) were wrong regarding Archer.

[blockaderunner]

When I was a kid, like most Americans, I was raised to believe that the Founding Fathers was this noble, righteous, unified group batting against tyranny.

It was when the History Channel aired its documentary The Founding Fathers, it was a different story. Yes, they did fight against tyranny. But most of the times they were hardly noble, righteous, or unified. They were petty, vindictive, vain, argued with each other, and even killed each other (Hamilton/Burr duel). Dispite their human flaws, they were able to forge a pretty good democracy.

Maybe, just maybe, that was what B&B were trying to aim for when it came to Archer. We fans assumed that the person who laid the groundwork for the Federation, "Kirk's Childhood Hero" if you will, would be this exceptional human being and exceptional soldier/statesman in the making. So most of us were upset to see that this great man turned out to be an incompitent, whiny, wooden, petulant, baby. But perhaps that's the point. History is written by the winners. Perhaps the Federation doesn't want the "real" Archer in the history books because the historical one, the legendary one, is the one who inspires people to greater things (i.e. join Starfleet). I'm not exonerating B&B or hailing them as geniuses. But either this was interesting aspect of ENT which showed their insight in the perception vs. the truth of historic figures, or it was just a happy accident. What do you think?

 

[JiNX-01]

My main beef with Archer is that he was crabby without cause. He asked T'Pol to stay on as science officer, and yet when she provided her counsel (backed up by logic and considerably more knowledge and experience in the matters at hand), he'd bite her head off because it wasn't what he wanted to hear.

I'm fine with the idea of a flawed hero (first time I saw Firefly, I swear, I wished Malcolm Reynolds had been captain of the Enterprise. He could be a major jerk, yet he still had a sense of decency about him.)

The flaws should flow out of a well-defined character. The writers had Archer all over the place. Great guy when he's dragging Trip across a desert; snarking and snotty when T'Pol asks him to accompany her on an important a mission. And of course she was constantly being subjected to his bitching about Vulcans (imagine fan reaction if he'd crabbed about black people to Travis or Asians to Hoshi!) He had plenty of humans he could have unloaded on, he didn't have to pummel T'Pol with his bigotry.

 

[Kegek]

Flawed heroes are fine. Hell, I love a good antihero.

But Archer is a boring speaker. That's death to me for a character. If you can't monologue well, what's the point?

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Yeah, I have no problem with Archer being flawed. In fact, I think lack of flaws was one of the reasons many TNG characters never gelled for me. But the Archer we got was inconsistent and boring. I found Mirror-Archer much more interesting and I didn't find him all that interesting at all. I'm still very disappointed in Scott Bakula's performance. I expected much better from him.

 

[commodore64]

I think Scott Bakula's performance was great. The inconsistency? I think the one thing Star Trek past DS9 never got right was the interaction between writer, actor and director. Multiple writers can't write for multiple directors without much interaction between either group and have the actors still have the consistency they need.

I liked a flawed captain and found Archer an interesting character; he's my second favorite Star Trek character right after Mr. Spock.

 

[EnsignRicky]

I would agree with that if I thought the writers actually sat down and decided to create an incompitent, whiny, wooden, petulant, baby. Unfortunately I think it was just the result of a poorly written and badly acted character.

 

[SFRabid]

I did not like much of the writing for him and most of that centered around the dog. Plus, this is the first ST series where the captian was overshadowed by other characters. (Trip and T'Pol)

 

[Lady Conqueror]

JiNX-01 said:
My main beef with Archer is that he was crabby without cause. He asked T'Pol to stay on as science officer, and yet when she provided her counsel (backed up by logic and considerably more knowledge and experience in the matters at hand), he'd bite her head off because it wasn't what he wanted to hear.

To be fair it is one thing to acknowledge that you have prejudices and see the need to overcome them, but putting it into practice after years of ingrained thought processes has to be a lot harder.

And T'Pol shares some of the blame here too - she knew that Archer & Co had issues with the Vulcan way of doing things and that they were really eager to explore but she kept on plugging that they should do things the Vulcan way all the time (no wonder she was ignored) It would have been more Logical to come up with a more modified approach to situations that the impulsive humans might have actually listened too.

For example in SNW they arrive at the first Earth-like planet they've seen since coming out there and she suggests that they follow the Vulcan protocal of sending out probes to scan for a week - that was never going to go down well - she should have suggested a probe to collect data for a day maybe or at least for a few hours over the sight they planned to land. It sounds a lot more reasonable to human ears.

Plus in those early eps she gave all her advice with a rather bitchy attitude - I wouldn't have listened to her either

 

[pookha]

frankly sending out probes for a week was something they could have been doing in tos.


i always wondered about the scans they did on that planet in the episode apple.

 

[Lady Conqueror]

^would probes be able to pick up things like rocks that explode when you step on them?

If they explored any planet the way they should have, in any of the series, it would make for deathly dull television.

 

[JoeZhang]

Kegek said:
Flawed heroes are fine. Hell, I love a good antihero.

But Archer is a boring speaker. That's death to me for a character. If you can't monologue well, what's the point?

Right - his expression resembled that of a man desperate for a poo not of a great leader.

Maybe, just maybe, that was what B&B were trying to aim for when it came to Archer. We fans assumed that the person who laid the groundwork for the Federation, "Kirk's Childhood Hero" if you will, would be this exceptional human being and exceptional soldier/statesman in the making. So most of us were upset to see that this great man turned out to be an incompitent, whiny, wooden, petulant, baby. But perhaps that's the point. History is written by the winners. Perhaps the Federation doesn't want the "real" Archer in the history books because the historical one, the legendary one, is the one who inspires people to greater things (i.e. join Starfleet). I'm not exonerating B&B or hailing them as geniuses. But either this was interesting aspect of ENT which showed their insight in the perception vs. the truth of historic figures, or it was just a happy accident. What do you think?

That would be great if we were watching some deadly serious historical drama, but comeon this is popcorn TV, it hasn't got much depth to start with so making one of your lead characters as an unlikable dull asshole is never going to be a winner.

Characters can be unlikable assholes but they have to be interesting.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Maybe it's just me, but whenever Archer would stand up and take charge, He always came off like he was doing a really bad Chris Farley impression.

 

[pookha]

Lady Conqueror said:
^would probes be able to pick up things like rocks that explode when you step on them?

If they explored any planet the way they should have, in any of the series, it would make for deathly dull television.

well maybe killer plants

 

[angie]

I think Archer was a hero by accident as most heroes are.He made decisions and took responsibility for them.Alot of his success was luck which looked like smart moves by history---just like real heroes.Not heeding advice is not as big a flaw as not even asking for it IMO. Archer learned alot from T'pol though he often learned it by trying his way first which is still better than not learning at all.

 

[commodore64]

^ Nice comments and I agree 100% with Angie.

 

[Ptrope]

angie said:
He made decisions and took responsibility for them.

Like blaming his hosts when he took his dog to a critical encounter with a new species and it not only peed on their sacred artifact, but also got sick from their environment? I didn't see much effort to take responsibility there.

 

[bluedana]

It's clear by the end of the episode that Archer does take responsibility - swallows his pride, which was the entire issue - and apologizes to everyone involved. It takes him a while to get there, which is the point of the episode (cue Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" for the soundtrack), but he does make things right, even before he knows whether Porthos is going to be okay or not.

And nobody in the episode disputes that the aliens should have noticed that the pathogen was harmful to canines.

 

[Captain X]

I'm not going to get into the current discussion about ANiS, even if it is a pretty good example of how whiny and entitled Archer could be. Mainly in answer to the original post, no, I'm not wrong about Archer. I've seen what leadership looks like, and frankly, I don't think TPTB that made the show had any idea what leadership actually meant. Basically they continued along the same lines as they had with Janeway - the captain is always right, even when they're wrong - which is so completely wrong on so many levels. No, Archer was so inept most of the time, that he couldn't have lead his way out of a wet paper bag. The only reason the crew was shown to be so loyal and respectful to him was because that's what the show called for so as to glorify his completely undeserving character.

 

[Anna Yolei]

bluedana said:
It's clear by the end of the episode that Archer does take responsibility - swallows his pride, which was the entire issue - and apologizes to everyone involved. It takes him a while to get there, which is the point of the episode (cue Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" for the soundtrack), but he does make things right, even before he knows whether Porthos is going to be okay or not.

Considering he's ran into this rather anal species before, who ran out in a huff over people eating together, why would he take the damn dog down there at all? Dogs do doggy business, and they don't give a flying fuck whether it's a sacred tree or an ugly bush you're gonna dig up tomorrow.

That's the kind of lack of common sense that irritates people, even if I don't think ANISB was the worst offering this show has to offer.

And don't get me started on having a dog on the ship to start with, least of all a beagle that needs fresh air and space to run around

 

[Lady Conqueror]

^ I probably need my head checked for starting up the ANIS argument yet again but:

*the Kretassans weren't really all that anal - they left Enterprise in a huff the first time because they walked in on what was to them the equivalent of an orgy. When they reappear later in the episode they are fairly reasonable, accept Travis's apology and help out with the Snot alien's details.

* Since Archer sent down Porthos' details it implies that he did ask permission to take him down (and presumably since they wouldn't know what a dog was, he would've had to explain the pet concept)

* We don't know what precautions Archer took down with him (Lead, pooperscooper etc). Admittedly he's never been shown to use a lead before but we don't know for sure.

* We also don't know how well the sacred trees were marked off. Were they mixed in with regular trees? Were they in their own grove? Did the Kretassan's explain that they were sacred trees when they were showing them around?

In hindsight it wasn't the smartest move ever but I don't view it as a particularly heinous crime that some around here seem to make it out to be when discussing the episode.

Also:

* Let's not forget Archer was probably under a fair amount of stress before they even got to the Kretassan's planet - he nearly lost two crewmembers within the space of a couple of days in the two immediately preceding eps (Malcolm in Minefield and Travis in Dead Stop) and we don't know how much time passed between Dead Stop & ANiS. I can understand the want to have a bit of a run and play with his dog out in the fresh air to unwind a bit in the circumstances.

* By the time the episode starts the Kretassan's have kicked them off the planet and kept them waiting for (IIRC) five days before telling them what the problem even was - that's enough to make anyone a bit pissy and a tad reluctant to apologise straight away (and he only holds out for ONE night before making the apology)