God, no. Then we'd end up with Don Most as Trip Tucker...
[Family Guy sing-a-long] "He was Potsy on Happy Days..."
[Family Guy sing-a-long] "He was Potsy on Happy Days..."
Re-cast Captain Jonathan Archer
- Thread starter Fatemo
- Start date
I got to agree with this. He showed a lot more fire than Bakula. I like Bakula and I think he did all right but his acting wasn't exactly up to par at times.
Absolutely serious: Bruce Campbell (The Chin!)
Bakula is good enough in his element, but ENT wasn't it. He could play befuddled week after week in QL, because he was supposed to be, but he never came across as either capable or charismatic in ENT - every week, it was just more befuddlement. Not all of that was writing - he overacted when he needed subtlety, and was tentative when he needed to be intense. I don't know whether it was all Scott, or his directors, but I don't recall a single convincing performance out of him in the entire series.
Bakula is good enough in his element, but ENT wasn't it. He could play befuddled week after week in QL, because he was supposed to be, but he never came across as either capable or charismatic in ENT - every week, it was just more befuddlement. Not all of that was writing - he overacted when he needed subtlety, and was tentative when he needed to be intense. I don't know whether it was all Scott, or his directors, but I don't recall a single convincing performance out of him in the entire series.
Some of these are good choices.
I would cast Bruce Greenwood, who's playing Capt. Pike in the new ST movie.
Or Ben Browder from Farscape and Stargate. Then we'd have that southern captain Connor Trineer seems to be a favorite to play.
Or maybe Billy Campbell from that dumb TNG ep The Outrageous Okona. I like him. He was one of the choices for Commander Riker, after all.
And another out-of-left-field choice would be Kent McCord, from Adam-12 and more recently, Farscape as Crichton's pop.
Red Ranger
I would cast Bruce Greenwood, who's playing Capt. Pike in the new ST movie.
Or Ben Browder from Farscape and Stargate. Then we'd have that southern captain Connor Trineer seems to be a favorite to play.
Or maybe Billy Campbell from that dumb TNG ep The Outrageous Okona. I like him. He was one of the choices for Commander Riker, after all.
And another out-of-left-field choice would be Kent McCord, from Adam-12 and more recently, Farscape as Crichton's pop.
Red Ranger
What about Stratagem? When he ripped off half a dozen episodes of Hogans heroes?
Could he have been replaced by an inanimate carbon rod?
Let me see if I can help you here.
Observer Effect
Similitude
Damage
Azati Prime
Acquisition
Desert Crossing
Minefield
Dead Stop
Singularity
PreciousCargo
Cogenitor (Archer was horribly written but Scott was fine)
Twilight
Proving Ground
Stratagem
The Council
Countdown
ZeroHour
Stormfront (yeah, I hated it, but he was still good)
And just about everything in Season 2 Everything
For the most part, I think Ptrope hits the nail on the head, but I would agree there were some convincing performances from him during the four seasons. Out of your list Jinx, I would go with
Observer Effect
Similitude
Damage
Azati Prime
Desert Crossing
Singularity
Cogenitor
A convincing leader of men and a military commander who is capable of victory against steep odds and wise foes, is what is meant by "Convincing".
Most of the time I thought I was watching a scifi movie about Charlie Brown. Everytime some one kicked his ass and he got flattened, it just looked like Lucy was pulling a foot ball out from under him.
Observer Effect He was pwned and mindwashed.
Similitude For all his daddy issues it took Archer time to realize that killing people for parts is not just something the Vidiaans do. Not that he knew who they were. It just proved that he had no forethought as he waded into a clusterfuck of murky morality. You'd think it was possible considering Henry Archer's illness that Johnny wasn't also bred for parts.
Damage Nice speech. But humanity is about to be destroyed and Archer doesn't even notice that the woman he trusts most in the world is on space crack.
Azati Prime More animal parables? He thinks he's Chakotay! Archer refuses to be fates bitch until he's on a meat hook with more options left.
Acquisition Actually this is a splendid example of Scott/Archer being cunning. Everything they did here would have saved trips Life in These are the Voyages... It's like they got less wily as time went by.
Desert Crossing Super trustfully Archer played sports with people who kidnapped him without preformulating an exit strategy. Talk about sticking your nuts in a blender.
Minefield Reed was right. They should have shuck him and saved the ship.
Dead Stop Phlox figured it all out after Archer thumped his chest about how tragic and unfair it was that the helm boy was... Really, how much processing power did Mayweather's brain have to offer?
Singularity They were all driven crazy. It was fun but no one was in their right mind to say that any of their actions are not balmy or drastic. Even T'pol who was just luckily singularily fixated on the problem fracking the crew. Immunity my ass.
Precious Cargo They invited slave peddlers to have dinner at the captains table while Trip was repairing their slaveship. Then the slavers with just a hand gun each make it from the captains table to their ship and escape from enterprise completely with out Archer being any the wiser?
Cogenitor Big gay sex with the Narn. Once you accept that. Everything else falls into place. Trip was ragging on Archer's Boyfriend which is why his response to Trips actions were so out of character.
Twilight Again. Crazy people. They should have showed him and T'Pol fucking like Phlox alluded towards what was really going on. With him running and screaming about "put some clothes on!" and "What are you doing to me!"
Proving Ground Cunning. Smart. Well, except what's the point of anticipating a double cross if you're standing on the bad guys bridge that he's not going to through you in the brig before life imprisonment on the homeworld?
Stratagem Yup. I agree.
The Council So much padding.
Countdown Tick tock. Inconsequential filling between episodes.
ZeroHour Was Daniels using reverse psychology? Surely going against Daniels is destroying the future from whence Daniels came? Where's the Love? But Reed could have done the job fine. and herein it's proved that the entire year running up, Archer was just a Taxi Monkey who didn't notice Sillik was a stowaway waiting for a lift into Vosk's 1940's sideways temporal hideaway.
Stormfront It took him forever to click. He was still talking about altering the timeline half way into the second episode.
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He's cast in the lead for the Sci Fi Channel series Revolution.
Maybe instead of recasting Bakula, we rewrite Archer. It might have been interesting if Starfleet had been less military and more NASA-like in the 22nd C (the opposite of what I've assumed, but certainly plausible). Starfleet sends out a guy who's basically an astronaut without realizing that space is populated by advanced alien cultures armed to the teeth and not shy about shooting first. Archer is in over his head and goes on a fast learning curve. That eliminates the oddity that Archer was supposed to be a military officer to begin with, yet didn't convince us, and will make us more sympathetic to him.
While camping Archer told the story about how he argued with Admiral Jefferies (Inventor of th tube?) about Enterprise having too many weapons in Home to get some, that he felt uncomfortable making peaceful first contacts in a gunship. This of course being four years on, he kind of regretted the limitations in armaments his ship had.
Trip also called him a trained Diplomat at one point.
He graduated "flight school" at 26, and went straight into Starfleet. It was all about his daddy programming him to make the engine work. it's really quite the same as why George took America back into Iraq.
Every writer had there own competing idea of who Archer was with out much reference to... Did they release the original bible for this show that we can be sure who these people were supposed to be before 10 dozen other writers weighed in?
Trip also called him a trained Diplomat at one point.
He graduated "flight school" at 26, and went straight into Starfleet. It was all about his daddy programming him to make the engine work. it's really quite the same as why George took America back into Iraq.
Every writer had there own competing idea of who Archer was with out much reference to... Did they release the original bible for this show that we can be sure who these people were supposed to be before 10 dozen other writers weighed in?
^ Profound! And I agree.
It's - as Jinx pointed out - through a series of episodes Archer begins to get his sea legs. Again, it's only through T'Pol's eyes he begins to gain understanding and why in Cogenitor he doesn't back up Trip. (Trip hasn't progressed yet and is still bound to decisions Archer was making in season 1, which was really part of the point of the show.) In Joseph Campbell speak, T'Pol played the part of the wise-sage, leading Archer to more success throughout the show. Even Phlox helps Archer in some respects, like in ANIS.
Me personally - I really liked T'Pol as a mentor and wish they'd kept up that relationship and reached equality rather than T'Pol taking a backseat and becoming the babe. Big mistake by the writers, imo.
I think we fail to see the point that humans are just limited at this point. Our world views are smaller. If he's trained as a "diplomat" by humans, he's bound to still come at life from a human standpoint.
It's - as Jinx pointed out - through a series of episodes Archer begins to get his sea legs. Again, it's only through T'Pol's eyes he begins to gain understanding and why in Cogenitor he doesn't back up Trip. (Trip hasn't progressed yet and is still bound to decisions Archer was making in season 1, which was really part of the point of the show.) In Joseph Campbell speak, T'Pol played the part of the wise-sage, leading Archer to more success throughout the show. Even Phlox helps Archer in some respects, like in ANIS.
Point of clarification -- they never said how old he was when he finished flight school or graduated from STC.
I think Archer had a while paragraph written about him. I think everyone had the same "idea," but had different interpretations. I didn't find him terribly inconsistent though save for a few things. I liked the progression of the character and joined ENT expecting really T'Pol to be one who helped them progress beyond their provincial attitudes (as she said in Broken Bow). I think this is part of the reason T'Pol took drugs in season 3-- she was less necessary. (After all, she kicked the habit when she became necessary again -- after Archer said, "I need you" in Damage.)
Me personally - I really liked T'Pol as a mentor and wish they'd kept up that relationship and reached equality rather than T'Pol taking a backseat and becoming the babe. Big mistake by the writers, imo.
I really like that guy in 'Burn Notice'. He'd be cool.
T'Pol was B and B's sexual lab rat. They did anything they could to embarass and degrade the character. T'Pol In Heat, anyone? She inexplicably became a physical weakling in Season 3 despite the fact that she should have been stronger than any man on the ship. It's a credibt to Blalock that she still managed to make her character compelling and interesting.
Yep. And it was sickening. B&B's specialty seems to be in taking super-intelligent women, putting them in catsuits, then humiliating them in some misogynistic way. -- RR
I just think unfortunately the writers, including Sussman (who I think is one of the best ones from the first part of ENT), don't know how to write for women. Little did they know, all they had to do was focus on the character and let hair and makeup folks enhance the actresses natural beauty for men to probably find them hot babes.
Since I'm a chic, I'll assume for a moment men are like women ... or at least me. I like beefcake. Seeing bare, hairy chests with only jeans is sexy. I don't want male characters to be shirtless every episode or them to be constantly chasing after women for a romantic liaison. Instead, I want the writers to focus on making the guy interesting, smart and competent.
Aww, say it ain't so. That guy had tons of charisma and was good looking too. Instead, we got the marginally "talented", and quite forgettable, Jonathan Frakes. Too bad.
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