TheGodBen Revisits Enterprise

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Enterprise' started by TheGodBen, Sep 5, 2009.

  1. Jimmy Bob

    Jimmy Bob Commander Red Shirt

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    Oh God, Oasis. I forgot that it was the next episode after Acquisition. It was just wrong. But while Acquisition made me want to commit suicide, with Oasis I was just dead on the inside. Fortunately for season 1, Detained happened. Season 2 has yet to have Detained (at the point where I'm in). :(

    Detained was amazing. It sort of colored the rest of the season. Every episode was under it's shadow and they made it feel like stuff matters in Enterprise.

    :eek:
     
  2. Seven of Five

    Seven of Five Stupid Sexy Flanders! Premium Member

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    Ha! It's so true though. And they hired Rene Auborjonois as Odo to make the homage complete. So nice to see Odo one last time! :rolleyes:

    Another duff episode really. Trip's relationship with the alien woman is a bit sickly, and the mystery of the episode plods along with no urgency. So that's three duff episodes in a row. Luckliy things are about to pick up, as there is quite a strong end to the year. However the overall consistency of the season is somewhat reminiscent of Voyager's. I'm getting ahead of myself though.
     
  3. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    I'm actually about to start going through ENT again myself. There are a couple eps in seasons one, a few in season two, and a lot in season three that I've missed, so it won't be a complete revisiting, some stuff I'll be seeing for the first time. I don't want to hijack TGB's thread with my own reviews, though I do think it'd be fun if everyone else who's going through the series (and even people who aren't) could have a thread for anyone to post their thoughts and reviews in without having to worry about taking away from TGB's work here.

    Would anyone else be interested in something like that? And would you mind if we did it, TGB?
     
  4. flemm

    flemm Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    The mere concept of sentient holograms gives me heartburn and makes me dizzy. Worst. idea. ever. Maybe being in their presence has a similarly emasculating effect on Captain Archer? :)
     
  5. Peter the Younger

    Peter the Younger Commodore Commodore

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    Taken together, Unexpected and Oasis convinced me that the writing staff had been psychological conditioned to include holograms. Maybe it's an insecurity thing, like Linus' blanket or something. And poor Rene, what a waste of a good actor.
     
  6. Tallis Rhul

    Tallis Rhul Commander Red Shirt

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    Ah, but he has a magnificent beard...
     
  7. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I don't know, I felt the beard was a little mangy. It looked like the sort of beard that I would have if I let it grow, which is one of the reasons why I don't let it grow.

    Are you talking about a separate thread? I wouldn't mind that at all, but if all the reviews were posted in here then it would make my post-season episode score and link collection take longer.


    Detained (*****)

    Wow, Phyllis Strong must make some damn fine coffee, because Mike Sussman has done it again! :D What an astounding episode, it had everything; Archer, some Suliban, Mayweather got beaten up and Reed turned green. But most importantly of all, this is the very special episode where a popular sidekick from Don P. Bellisario's science fiction epic finally made his way onto Enterprise. That's right, Higgins from Magnum P.I. gave an award winning performance, and it is a huge pity that he didn't win any actual awards.

    But the real winner here is Mike Sussman for writing such a great episode. Good work Mike. :techman:
























    Detained (***½)

    Theorizing that he was invincible, Captain Jonathan Archer stepped into the shuttlepod, and vanished.

    He awoke to find himself trapped in a Tandaran detention facility, facing a Colonel that he thought he recognised from some place, and driven by his ego to change their society for the better. His only guide on this journey is Travis; a helmsman from his spaceship, who appears in the form of a black man that only the audience can see and hear.

    And so, Capt. Archer finds himself leaping from planet to planet, striving to put right what he thinks is wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap to his father's attention.


    Archer and Mayweather wake up in a prison for some reason, and then Archer goes to meet the head of the facility, Grat, who happens to be played by John Hillerman. What makes Grat more interesting than your standard Star Trek villain is that he acts like a kind and understanding person at first, you can actually believe that he is trying to help Archer. It takes a whole 15 minutes before he turns into a sociopath, the kind of person that would screw his mother/daughter for shits and giggles.

    You see, Ziggy does some calculations and determines that there is a 34.8% probability that Archer is in league with the Cabal, so Grat refuses to let them go. Enterprise manages to make contact with Archer by beaming in a communicator, but the Tandarans find Mayweather with it so they beat him up and Grat orders that they rip his eye out. Mayweather recounts that it looked like a hard boiled egg, but nobody could hear him.

    It's really smart how those kids managed to create a rhyme which still worked when translated into English. :)

    Anyway, Archer decides he doesn't like the cut of Grat's jib and orders Enterprise to organise a jailbreak for the lucky 89 Suliban whose detention facility Archer happened to end up in. There's some spaceships and some explosions and all of this stuff is very well done, it provides all the action which you'd expect from an episode about breaking out of space-prison. Grat confronts Archer in his cell but, realising that he has lost, he puts his phaser in his mouth and kills himself.

    Disappearing Aliens: 7
    Archer Abuse: 10
    Captain Redshirt: 10
    Transporter: 4


    Grat's wife never remarried

    She and Grat had four daughters and were due to celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary in space-June.

    Capt. Jonathan Archer never earned his father's love.
     
  8. Gepard

    Gepard Vice Admiral Admiral

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    :guffaw: :guffaw: :guffaw:

    Literal laugh-out-loud moment here. I'm glad my roommate is gone. :lol:
     
  9. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, I was talking about a separate thread so we don't get in the way of the excellent work you're doing here. :techman:
     
  10. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

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    Having Rene there really made it obvious that they ripped off the episode, didn't it? :D

    BTW, TheGodBen, I agree completely with your review of Detained. I give it credit for being more ambitious than much of Enterprise in actually trying to tell some things, but the story has weak points that you pointed out. It doesn't quite want to make the Tandarans compelling enough or give Archer a good enough motive to act on his own.

    In my idea for a revisited Suliban and Temporal Cold War, this episode plays a key role because it expanded the Suliban into an interesting race ... Then the writers forgot about it and they went back to a cross between pawns of a cartoon supervillain and some weird sniveling early TNG Ferengi-type alien. The only consequence of this episode is another episode that mentions the Tandarans and goes nowhere.


    It was the first full episode of Enterprise I saw, however. I saw the end of the pilot, which was interesting, and some random scene of Fortunate Son. Then I forgot the show until this was airing during repeats. Then I decided to watch Shockwave when it aired, watched a couple more second season episodes, registered on this board, forgot about Enterprise again, my account was deleted along with many others, and I didn't register again until late second season when I started to watch again regularly.
     
  11. SRFX

    SRFX Captain Captain

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    Probably TheGodBen's best review so far. A good laugh! :D
     
  12. FlapJoy

    FlapJoy Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I agree, this one was pretty good, nice work Mr Ghoul. :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2009
  13. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Thanks everyone :) I wasn't sure about going the Quantum Leap route because it seemed too obvious, but once I thought-up that line about Mayweather I had to go for it.

    As for the episode itself, I agree that this was a big missed opportunity; there was some good universe-building going on here by exploring the Suliban and introducing the Tandarans, but it doesn't go anywhere in the long run. Archer's motivation for freeing the Suliban really did seem to be that he held a grudge against Grat for zapping him in his love handles. But it had a good message at the beginning about Archer prejudging the Suliban prisoners, the escape was a fun sequence, and it had Dean Stockwell which is always worth a few extra points.
     
  14. SRFX

    SRFX Captain Captain

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    I feel ashamed to say, but I would five star this episode on the basis of it combining Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell.

    I watched this episode numerous times on this basis alone as it amuses me so greatly. I am pretty sure the first time I viewed it and Stockwell appeared I burst out laughing.
     
  15. KottenFutz

    KottenFutz Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    Here's an interesting piece of sci-fi lineage connecting Quantum Leap to Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, if you'll indulge me: Recall if you will, back in the seventies, the first Battlestar Galactica (a show created to capitalize on the success of the first Star Wars film and Star Trek reruns) was cancelled BUT given a second chance show in the form of Battlestar Galactica 1980 (the Next Generation). WELL, Donald P. Bellasario was a producer of this new BSG spin-off (later to create Magnum PI, co-starring John Hillerman), BUT his original concept was to have the Galactica finally find Earth, following picked up radio transmissions of man landing on the moon, only to find when they arrive human civilization had not advanced as far as originally thought. WELL, as it turned out, in a pre-First Contact plot twist, the Cylons found Earth first and went back in time (yes, back in time) screwing up history and setting human advancemant back several decades. (BTW, some of the "smarter" Cylons look like humans in this treatment... and they had a plan) So Adama, Starbuck, and Apollo embark on a mission to send Starbuck back into Earth's altered timeline (somehow) and bring humanity's tech level up by having Apollo in 1980 transmit historical data, recorded before Earth's Cylon meddlings, back to time jumping Starbuck and correct what was changed, and make right what once went wrong ~ it's TRUE! But Richard Hatch (Apollo) didn't want to return to the show so the whole concept was scrapped, only to be revisted by Bellasario a few years later in the form of Quantum Leap, starring our own Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett and Dean Stockwell as Al in the Starbuck and Apollo roles respectively. Fast forward several more years and we see Bakula, helming a new Star Trek, and Stockwell as a Cylon in the new Battlestar Galactica!! As well as Stockwell along with Magnum PI's Hillerman guesting on Enterprise... isn't that interesting?

    Ok, sorry... I'm new here.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2009
  16. Tallis Rhul

    Tallis Rhul Commander Red Shirt

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    Agreed! Nice work ^^.

    It's a shame how many episodes they had to write to practise first though, Archer's spent more time in prison or captured than he has on the bridge by now! Just wondering - does anyone know if any of the writing staff spent any time inside? Because it seems to be a recurring theme...
     
  17. Seven of Five

    Seven of Five Stupid Sexy Flanders! Premium Member

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    Archer ending up in jail all the time could have become some sort of recurring joke, and even an allusion as to why First Contact protocols need developing and observing properly. Oh well. :D

    Another nice review. Loving the Quantum Leap love. :techman:
     
  18. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    So what you're saying is that the Evil Leapers... were Cylons?!

    I knew it!! :D I called this years ago!


    Vox Sola (***)

    The best portion of this episode, without any doubt, is the first ten minutes, because it shows us some regular life aboard ship. Archer and Tucker watch a game and drink some beer, Reed and Mayweather go to see a movie, some redshirts in engineering want to leave work early to watch the movie, and Hoshi turns in early to get some alone time with her mechanical best friend. At least she does in my mind. :drool:

    The story begins when the two redshirts from engineering are captured and given an extra strong hug by a monster that looks like a cross between a cobweb and a certain substance which I wont name but you all know what I'm talking about. It turns out that the monster is really just a misunderstood alien, which was a revelation so shocking that I fell off my seat and ended up six meters into the ground. Mayweather has an idea to go speak with the aliens from the start of the episode, but nobody listens to him and he has to wait until they all leave the bridge before he can implement his plan. When he finds the aliens they demand that he apologise because Archer and co disgusted them earlier by eating, which Kreetassans find disgusting because they use their mouths to mate.

    Down in the armoury Reed is perfecting an amazing new technology called a "force field", which I think I saw once in one of the Star Wars movies. So Reed is... Whoa, whoa, hold on a second! :eek: The Kreetassans mate using their mouths? Screw Risa, Enterprise should go to that planet for shore-leave! Hoshi especially could use it.

    What this episode does reasonably well is give all the characters something to do; T'Pol and Hoshi work on translating, Travis talks to the aliens and asks completely the wrong questions for what I'm interested in, Reed works on the forcefield, Phlox does some medical stuff, and Archer and Trip get to take part in the longest money-shot in the history of human space exploration. Unfortunately, the story feels stale and there's not enough interesting stuff happening towards the end to keep my interest up.

    Disappearing Aliens: 8
    Archer Abuse: 11
    Captain Redshirt: 11


    I apologise for the disgusting and crude nature of this review, I'll try to write a higher-class of post tomorrow.
     
  19. Michael

    Michael Good Bad Influence Moderator

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    I'm glad you liked Vox Sola, TheGodBen. It's one of my favorite Enterprise episodes. I know, it's a rather quiet and not very action-packed bottle show, but sometimes that's exactly what I want from Trek. Plus, for the most part it's a Hoshi episode; which is probably another reason why I like it so much. ;)

    On the negative side, though, we have a rather goofy looking monster. I guess in theory it was a great idea, but on the screen it was obvious that they merely hung Archer and Trip from the ceiling and covered them in a thick, sticky, milky-white fluid that looked exactly like ... shampoo. (That is the substance TheGodBen was referring to, right?) But on the positive side the episode also offers a wonderfully spooky score by Paul Baillargeon (loved the violins) and some nice moments between Hoshi and T'Pol. Like TheGodBen, I also appreciated the fact that it gave everyone something to do (even Travis).
     
  20. Dane_Whitman

    Dane_Whitman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Yep, I really like the ensemble aspect of this episode. Also, the final shot is beautiful.