As soon as I saw that Archer was on a covert away mission in a pre-warp culture, I knew it would only be a matter of time before he was in jail again. Unfortunately, I was proven right. How many times is the captain of the Enterprise going to be thrown in jail? Were the writers required to do this at least x number of times a season? At least they didn't turn that cliche into an entire act by having an armed jailbreak. This whole episode just felt so forced and cliche, but despite all the flaws it was still kinda entertaining. I liked how Archer flew the shuttlepod down to show the people what was really going on, and the scene between him and the sheriff was pretty good.
I love this episode, and really appreciated how much time and effort went into after listening to the production commentary on the DVD.
I thought the commentary was great! And I liked seeing the Universal western sets. (Lots of history there.) Plus that great sepia look of the town scenes, and the top-notch production values overall. I enjoyed the episode very much.
It's a long standing tradition started by TOS. Kirk was always getting tossed in jail or losing control of the Enterprise, just like his boyhood idol.
Agreed, I enjoyed it, though it felt a little out of place in the third season. Felt more like a standard Seasons 1-2 Random Planet of the Week.
I too agree that this is out of place in S3, but they carried it off, sort of like the "pause that refreshes." This, to me, seemed like ENT doing it's version of "Firefly." Or, "Firefly" meets "The 37's." I love the bit of the shuttlepod landing in the middle of the street-a great ENT moment.
I grew up watching Saturday afternoon westerns: Big Valley, High Chapparel, The Rifleman - hours and hours. North Star has dozens of little touches that make it authentic, and show that the people who produced it love filmmaking in general and westerns in particular. It's a beautiful homage, and it never crosses the line over into cliche. Out of place in the arc? Maybe. But it's brilliant to me, so that nitpick gets a shrug. Besides, it's the teacher that gets thrown in jail and busted out by Archer.
Never crosses the line over into cliche? Are you joking? It's chock full of cliche, but most of them are handled reasonably well.
No, I am not joking. There is a difference between using recognizable elements of a genre and using cliches. I can think of a lot of fill-in-the-blank 'westerns' that feel like second-generation xerox copies of the classics. North Star feels very authentic to me.
It was an all right episode. I liked many of the one-liners, like the "can he fill my coffee first." I also liked the shoot out.
Reed shooting T'Pol in the hostage situation was the best bit And everybody looked great in their western gear
yeah nerys is right. kirk spent his fair amount of time being captured. though i think maybe kirk more often found his own way out through there was some were he had to be rescued. north star would have been a nifty season two episode .
He was usually lucky enough to get jailed with Spock! Spock always had an escape plan involving long distance mind melds or subcutaneous transmitters. Not sure who Archer usually wound up with as a cellmate or if he was captured alone.
I'm no Voyager fan, but The 37's was a great episode. The revelation about A.E. blew me away. It was really truly her. I loved that. I think what I love most about North Star is the reaction to Archer getting beamed out in front of everyone. They were like..."huh???" I find it interesting that Jolene Blalock was scared to death to get on the horse and ride with Connor leading the way. (IIRC, he had next to no experience riding a horse.) Supposedly they almost didn't get the shot in, but she ended up being a trooper.
You would think that every actor/actress would take riding lessons in order to be considered for more jobs in Hollywood. I watched the episode this weekend and now may watch the comtery of it.
Yes, a great bit. And since they were humans from earth, no violation of the Prime Directive there to worry about.
Absolutely. I've always enjoyed ST episodes where the characters are moved away from their normal appearance. They did look cool, and the horse scene was a hoot! Remember the 'western'episode of TOS? The shoot-out at the OK corral? (I forget the title). I know it wasn't supposed to be an authentic western epi, it was more of a solve-the-mystery-set-for-them-by-aliens, but it was really well done I thought, with the weird sets and camera angles. Anyway, back to ENT - I bet the cast and crew had fun making this one!