Revisiting Enterprise

[tomalak301]

Hello all,

I've been thinking about Enterprise this week, and how much I've neglected it in the past. Truth be told, I do like the series, but I liked the other series more and Enterprise was the odd man out. Well, now that CBS.com has the episodes online, and I have season 4, I want to watch the 5th series again. I want to gain a new appreciation for it, and I like doing review threads (Heck, most of the time when I'm here, I search for episodes that don't get mentioned just to see what other people thought of them. There are some episodes that never get mentioned, like, say, TNG's Violations but I digress). Anyway, I'm probably going to start this weekend, but wanted to get this thread going and say Hi to all the Enterprisers out there. I've been here for a long time, but I mostly hang out in the Sports forum (Go USA) and I never post in the Enterprise forum. The latter part of that is going to change, starting tonight.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Welcome tomalak, looking fwd to your posts.

I had no idea there was a sports forum!

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Welcome to the Enterprise forum, tomalak!

This thread is a great idea. It's been way too long since we've had a revisit thread.

 

[tomalak301]

And so, It starts. Before I get into the episode, just to get the obvious things out of the way (At least arguments that were so rabid when the show started)

1) I like the theme song. I always have and probably always will. It's different than the traditional score, and the pictures goes along with it quite well. I will say though I like the "In a Mirror Darkly song better, but that is way down the road.

2) Yes I know the Enterprise looks like an Akira Class ship. I really don't care, since we haven't seen many Akira class ships and the technology is not so advanced. I chalk it up to technology in Trek has to be adjusted to technology in the real world. I mean if we went by the whole technology is primative thing in Star Trek, than this series might have looked corny. It's totally unrelated, but the Eugenics Wars actually never happened.

Broken Bow (**** Out of 5)

I'm always intrigued that the two least popular Star Treks brought us the best pilots. I'm talking of course about Broken Bow for Enterprise, and Caretaker for Voyager. Ask me to rank the pilots, and I would say probably Caretaker first and then Broken Bow. I really liked this episode, the introduction to the series, and the rivalries it sets up. For one, we have Archer and T'Pol, which is really like Archer vs. the Vulcans. I loved how it was developed here, and the confidence Archer shows. The use of the flashbacks I think really helped because this episode really is all about putting dreams in motion. We see Archer the kid playing with the ship and managing to finally fly it. Same thing with Archer the adult. Taking another big step and following his father's dream.

Also liked the main arcs it sets up, and yes that includes the Temporal Cold War. I found it interesting originally (At least in this episode) and it's interesting here. I forgot how fun it was to speculate on who future guy was. I still think it was a Romulan, since it looked romulan-ish, but maybe it was a Vulcan or someone else. Still, Romulan makes more sense.

The only thing holding this episode from being my favorite pilot, however, was the decon scene. What was that. I know they want to sex it up and stuff, but it felt tacked on for the sake of UPN wanting something sexy. There really is nothing of value of that scene, which is unfortunate because the dialogue isn't bad.

Overall though, great premiere, and I still wonder what the Klingon said at the end causing Hoshi to say "You Don't Want to Know."

 

[Joeman]

As someone who used to have zero appreciation for the series, but ended up loving it, I'm interested to follow along with you (when I can).

I used to hate the theme song. Honestly, I'm still not super fond of it (not a fan of that particular rock ballad genre), but I certainly appreciate it more since I gained my deep appreciation for the show.

I'm with you on Broken Bow (8.5/10). In fact I think the first 7 episodes are the strongest start out of the gate of any of the Trek series. I'll be interested to see how you see them.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

I've always liked the theme song too. For me, the lyrics and the visuals are a perfect intro for this series.

I enjoyed "Broken Bow" for what it did differently than other Trek series. -- the look of the ship and uniforms, the less-advanced weaponry, the less-advanced Vulcans, the weird alien doctor with organic medical treatments and an irresistibly cheerful optimism, the idea that humans were venturing into deep space for the first time and would have to fly by the seat of their pants -- which is what humans have done since time immemorial. The setting and the characters were rough around the edges, not polished and perfect like the 24th century of TNG. People made mistakes, but learned and grew, even in the pilot.

I liked all the conflict that was set up. Each adversarial party came from a position that was logical or sensible for them; no one came off to me as a contrived opponent. There were all kinds of seeds planted for future developments and relationships, primarily Human/Vulcan and Archer/T'Pol, which paralleled each other throughout the series, a nice touch.

As for the Decon scene... it could have been far worse, with Trip and T'Pol distracted by each other's physical presence, and getting all squirrelly -- contrived sexual tension. Instead, they're having a fight, and they just happen to be half-naked and smearing gel all over each other. I thought that was a much more interesting way to stage the scene, and more in tune with their characters.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Let me just say we LOVE the theme song. We have sang along with it LOUDLY each and every time we watch ENT. We also like annoying people by singing it during the opening of VOY, DS9, Bab 5.. try it some time, LOL. Sometimes we sing it in falsetto, sometimes we sing it as though we are Klingons.. heh.

Broken Bow blew me away the first time I saw it because it just looked so damn good! Sharp, modern, great pacing. I think it's the best pilot.

My only complaint, Archer's words to T'Pol.. "Volatile? You have no idea how much I'm restraining myself from knocking you on your ass." Excuse me, this is no way for starship captain to talk in a room full of diplomats, guests and his superiors. A terrible start and the first time through I didn't recover from my Archer distaste fully until Season 3. I'm kind of over it now though, lol.

 

[Shatnertage]

I just don't like the theme song, but when I imagine a bossa nova version instead of what we got, it's not so bad.

And I thought that Archer saying "ass" didn't fit, either, but more because of what I'd gotten used to with Trek. It seemed like they were saying "ass" for the purpose of showing that this was a grittier Trek. Kind of like "Assimilate this."

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It wasn't the word ass, it was the threat.

 

[Shatnertage]

Well, that too, particularly because by saying that, he totally proved the Vulcans' point.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

^^ When I first saw the "knock you on your ass line," I thought he was messing with her, exaggerating for effect -- playing the "worst case scenario" of a human to say in effect, "This is who we are, deal with it already." And maybe to get their goat and throw them off balance.

He does another version of it after Soval raises his voice impatiently, by needling him about it -- this time conveying, "You Vulcans aren't as loftily superior as you might think, and we're onto you."

The whole scene, IMHO, is about rebellion and the independent streak humans have -- Forrest surreptitiously setting up the confrontation between Archer and the Vulcans, Archer objecting to the Vulcans' recommendation to let the Klingon die, Archer refusing to be cowed by the Vulcans even though the Starfleet brass has been meekly submitting to their mentoring (for way too long). Forrest needs to get out of this diplomatic impasse, but he's not in a position to tell the Vulcans to off, and he knows knew Archer will, if given the opportunity. After the Vulcans sweep out, Forrest acts as if he knew exactly how it would go down, and is pleased about it.

 

[Joeman]

Let me just say we LOVE the theme song. We have sang along with it LOUDLY each and every time we watch ENT. We also like annoying people by singing it during the opening of VOY, DS9, Bab 5.. try it some time, LOL. Sometimes we sing it in falsetto, sometimes we sing it as though we are Klingons.. heh.

I would imagine that on an annoyance scale of 1-10, that would probably come in at around a 9 for me. lol

I always sing nonsensical improvised (and typically distasteful) lyrics to the Voyager opening. Something about that music just begs me to sing something to it.

 

[Leathco]

Enterprise is probably my second favorite series, right behind DS9.

It used to be TNG, but that show hasn't aged well at all. Of course, when I was in my teens, all we had was TOS, TNG, DS9, and I think Voyager was just getting started if I remember right. The first episode of Enterprise I watched was right after my son was born, we were in the hospital and I saw "different" Star Trek. The intro song was horrid, but the episode wasn't too bad. A couple years later I started getting all the Trek I could from Netflix, watching them all. Now I've just said screw it and started buying up Trek box sets as I find em cheap on Amazon and Ebay.

Wow, long post, sorry. Suffice to say Enterprise, especially season 3, is awesome.

 

[JiNX-01]

Enterprise is probably my second favorite series, right behind DS9.

It used to be TNG, but that show hasn't aged well at all. Of course, when I was in my teens, all we had was TOS, TNG, DS9, and I think Voyager was just getting started if I remember right. The first episode of Enterprise I watched was right after my son was born, we were in the hospital and I saw "different" Star Trek. The intro song was horrid, but the episode wasn't too bad. A couple years later I started getting all the Trek I could from Netflix, watching them all. Now I've just said screw it and started buying up Trek box sets as I find em cheap on Amazon and Ebay.

Wow, long post, sorry. Suffice to say Enterprise, especially season 3, is awesome.

You don't know what a long post is.

 

[Joeman]

You don't know what a long post is.

Ha I was going to say pretty much the same thing. You should see some of the ridiculously long, boring rants I've gone off on.

 

[gblews]

The only thing holding this episode from being my favorite pilot, however, was the decon scene. What was that. I know they want to sex it up and stuff, but it felt tacked on for the sake of UPN wanting something sexy. There really is nothing of value of that scene, which is unfortunate because the dialogue isn't bad.

Even if UPN had wanted sex in Ent, and I don't think it was ordered, Berman and Braga still had to write the scene and what we saw is what they wrote, so blame them.

But that being said, I enjoyed the decon scene if for no other reason that it was so overtly going for sex appeal, something that the other series, except perhaps, DS9, shied away from. But even DS9 never gave us close-ups of oily hands sliding over half naked bodies - and those bodies belonged to Starfleet and Vulcan officers.

Back in the days after TNG left the air, back in the old AOL Star Trek forum days, we speculated as to whether or not Trek would ever actually deal with sex overtly. And contrary to the common perception of Trek fans, we were all in favor of it. But we would see two more series before we saw a "decon" scene.

The scene was heavy handed and obvious but from that point on, we knew Ent was actually going to be different.

 

[tomalak301]

The whole scene, IMHO, is about rebellion and the independent streak humans have -- Forrest surreptitiously setting up the confrontation between Archer and the Vulcans, Archer objecting to the Vulcans' recommendation to let the Klingon die, Archer refusing to be cowed by the Vulcans even though the Starfleet brass has been meekly submitting to their mentoring (for way too long). Forrest needs to get out of this diplomatic impasse, but he's not in a position to tell the Vulcans to off, and he knows knew Archer will, if given the opportunity. After the Vulcans sweep out, Forrest acts as if he knew exactly how it would go down, and is pleased about it.

This was how I saw this scene too. It was shown that things were not all peachy clean when they first met. Also remember too there was another officer who was kind of arrogant as well to the whole thing. As for Archer's professionalism, well, TNG get's criticized for pretty much the professionalism (Or as many call it the strile-ness) of the Enterprise Crew. This showed that Archer wasn't going to be any other captain, and I kind of wish this was the Archer that stuck around throughout the series. I thought it was a nice scene.

 

[tomalak301]

Fight or Flight (***½)

After the big series premiere, we get a very nice character episode featuring 4 members of the cast. The episode focuses mostly on Hoshi, but it seemed like it added a lot more substance to Archer, T'Pol, and Reed as well. The plot itself, the crew going to investigate an alien ship and then facing off against another ship, is probably forgettable in the long run, but what I liked about this episode was that this forgettable plot helped serve a basis for character action. Dare I say this was a character driven episode, and that's interesting because I saw Enterprise more plot based before.

Anyway, this episode features Archer dealing with his conscious, Hoshi wondering if she signed up to the right job, Reed with that ever so familiar shoot first, ask questions later mentality, and T'Pol continuing that Vulcan cynicism. Of course this episode was about Hoshi so that's really what should be discussed. It was nice to see her go through the motions of doubt, need a little convincing, and actually coming through in the end. Yeah we've seen it all before, but so what. It worked here and Linda Park did a great job in this one. Of course I didn't the whole comparison between her and the slug though, and that that whole thing was a bit unnecessary. Yeah so they've been out exploring for two weeks, feeling desperate, and they find a Banana Slug. Well, did they join the Banana Slug Club and kiss it? (If anyone has any kind of outdoor ed thing in school, I did something like that and that was kind of an in joke amongst the students). Other than that, it was a decent Hoshi episode.

 

[bluedana]

The slug lends itself to the metaphor of being taken out of one's environment. The slug could not adapt; Hoshi ultimately could.

 

[tomalak301]

Strange New World (****)

I really liked this episode. Enterprise finally finds a planet after 6 weeks of tedium it seemed and they feel the affects of it by going through an overnight of hell pretty much. Really liked the exploring aspect of this one. You had the first away team beam down and Archer's attitudes were spot on pretty much, losing track of time, and such. Again, we see kind of that giddy nice and naivety of the humans just itching to see new things. On the other hand, we have the experience T'Pol going "by the book" as if she's done this a hundred times. We've kind of seen that in all the episodes so far and I kind of like those little things to make this a prequel series. Humanity isn't perfect yet, and I see a lot of myself in this excitement.

Then we come to the routine "something takes over the minds of the away team" plot and it was ok I guess. Kinda wish we had stuck with the first part of the story (Felt like two episodes in one) but it was showing consequences of the unknown. I can buy that and when it all comes together, that's why this episode get's the same score as Broken Bow. So far, I'm enjoying this first season, even though it's early. I remember having the same feeling back in 2001 so so far so good.

I wanted to talk about some characters that I've not mentioned yet, mainly Phlox. Phlox reminds me so much of Mathezar from Galaxy Quest, but I think that's why I like him. He get's a damn great episode later in the season (Dear Doctor) that really shows how great he is but so far, it's just fun to see. I think when all is said and done, Phlox my be my favorite doctor of the 5 series, even though I wouldn't want him to work on me. Having bugs and animals crawl up and down me is a bit disturbing.

I also wanted to talk about a crew member who was introduced in this episode and was featured greatly in the aforementioned Dear Doctor. Crewman Cutler. I liked her, but man I remember late in the first season when Waymire passed away. That was sad.