TheGodBen Revisits Enterprise

[Glacial]

This pisses me off and is a major inconvenience, but I've never had the desire to kill any of them because my brain is bigger than a peanut. (It's the size of a walnut.)

Once again, let's not equate brutality with stupidity. And of course we could have a long and boring discussion about WHY you don't desire to kill them, involving societal norms and etc, but please God let's not!

Nerys' post two up from here is perfect (and something I'd forgotten!) Kor indeed DID arbitrarily order the massacre of hundreds of Organians (though of course the joke was on him in the end). So, I think the ENT Klingons fit perfectly with the TOS Klingons. Which would be the idea

Edit: Still dig the reviews, though, even if I think a watch-through of TOS would probably help give ENT some context!

 

[TheGodBen]

Nerys' post two up from here is perfect (and something I'd forgotten!) Kor indeed DID arbitrarily order the massacre of hundreds of Organians (though of course the joke was on him in the end). So, I think the ENT Klingons fit perfectly with the TOS Klingons. Which would be the idea

But it wasn't arbitrary, it was strategy. Kor threatened to kill the Organians in order to impose order, he never seemed to relish the opportunity to use deadly force, and he ordered the executions in the second quote in order to get the Organians to hand over Kirk. It was all a part of a strategy. Lets take a closer look at what Kor says in that episode:

KOR: It's a mind-sifter or mind-ripper, depending on how much force is used. We can record every thought, every bit of knowledge in a man's mind. Of course, when that much force is used, the mind is emptied. Permanently, I'm afraid. What's left is more vegetable than human.
KIRK: And you're proud of it.
KOR: It is a tool, a weapon. Somewhat drastic, but very efficient.

KOR: I can get what I want through our mind-scanner, but there would be very little of your mind left, Captain. I have no desire to see you become a vegetable.

KOR: Bad enough to be a military governor, but to govern a population of sheep! Very well, Lieutenant, round up two hundred more.
KLINGON: Yes, sir.
KOR: Fools! Will I have to kill them all?

Kor clearly had no desire to kill, but he was willing to do so when necessary. When he eventually did find Kirk he took him into his office and had a peaceful conversation where the menace took the form of a rational thought process. He did not shout, he did not snarl. Watch that scene and then watch the scenes from Enterprise I highlighted (as I have just done) and you will see that the characters act nothing alike.

Now lets see if other TOS Klingons acted like the Enterprise Klingons.

The Trouble With Tribbles

KOLOTH: Captain Kirk, there's been no formal declaration of hostilities between our two respective governments. So, naturally, our relationship will be a peaceful one.

There was no declaration of war with Earth, so why were the Klingons attacking without provocation?

The Day of the Dove

KANG: You attacked my ship! Four hundred of my crew dead. Kirk, my ship is disabled. I claim yours. You are now prisoners of the Klingon Empire against which you have committed a wanton act of war!

He plans to take them as prisoners, he doesn't immediately jump to the decision to kill Kirk and co.

KANG: Patience. Vigilance. They will make a mistake.

A Klingon ordering patience and planning.

There's a reason why those three were fondly remembered by fans while Krell and Kras were not. As someone pointed out above, the Klingons in TOS were closer to the Cardassians; they were ruthless but they were also scheming and used violence as part of a plan of action, not in place of it. I don't think that the Klingons acting stupid and violent in Enterprise has anything to do with the way Klingons acted in TOS.

 

[SRFX]

I felt that the Klingons in ENT were a bit unnecessarily dumb too, but the episode Judgment does a good job exploring how the Klingons have sort of lost their way and have become glory-hog war-mongers.

Perhaps between ENT and TOS they experienced some sort of sociological re-awakening, similar to the Vulcans?

 

[thew40]

I thought the ENT Klingons were dumbasses, as well. Regarding the comment Picard made about Klingon first contact can be applied to the events of "Broken Bow." I think that having a Klingon mercenary get almost killed in the middle of the US would be a pretty poor first contact -- not to mention the events afterwards. Saving Klaang was the one and only good thing that came out of the Starfleet's interaction with the Klingons.

I proached this subject in my own thread, but I still believe that you can see the seeds of TOS' Klingons in ENTs. You just need a microscope.

 

[Glacial]

But it wasn't arbitrary, it was strategy. Kor threatened to kill the Organians in order to impose order, he never seemed to relish the opportunity to use deadly force, and he ordered the executions in the second quote in order to get the Organians to hand over Kirk.

But brutality IS a strategy. Get known as the guys who'll massacre you for the slightest provocation, and you'll have to deal with far fewer provocations. This is how most empires have always worked. Read up on some of the Chinese civil wars -- it's truly horrifying stuff. And it works. That the camera's not privy to that decision doesn't mean the Klingons are somehow idiot savages -- I mean, they build starships.

Kirk had a much better position vis a vis his Klingon counterparts than Archer did. The UFP was an equal power to the Klingon Empire, the 1701 was more than a match for a D7 cruiser, as we saw in the Battle of Organia. That earns some respect. The Vulcans in ENT apparently have good diplomatic relations with the Klingons, being the other big power in the area - we don't hear anything about Klingon ships suddenly attacking Vulcan ships. They ain't brainless berzerkers, just brutal to the lesser races.

The NX-01, however, is just some pissant weak little alien ship from some non-power solar system nobody's heard of, sailing up to a Klingon battlecruiser like it owned the place. One that was having mysterious problems with its systems which would understandably put you on edge.

C'mon! Let's not confuse subtlety with intelligence, or a lack thereof. If you had to police a massive empire, being absolutely savagely brutal in the face of any perceived disrespect inspires a great deal of compliance from the lesser races. Such has been the philosophy of almost all human empires, anyway...

 

[Skywalker]

Interesting. I don't think I ever thought of Reed as the "happy" sort.

No, decidedly not "happy": he struck me as a one with quite a number of psychological problems. He has never been my favourite character of the show, but still I think he was an EXCELLENT character - very coherent and human.

Malcolm is actually one of my favorite ENT characters after Trip. Unfortunately, because TPTB were trying to emulative the Big Three of TOS, characters like Malcolm who had a lot of potential (honestly, all four of the non-Big Three had potential) were often pushed aside in favor of Archer, Trip, and T'Pol. I really wish they'd stuck with the ensemble flavor of the rest of post-TNG Trek. The writers and producers did a huge disservice to Malcolm, Phlox, Hoshi, and Travis by moving away from it.

 

[TheGodBen]

I felt that the Klingons in ENT were a bit unnecessarily dumb too, but the episode Judgment does a good job exploring how the Klingons have sort of lost their way and have become glory-hog war-mongers.

I agree, Judgement was probably the best episode dealing with Klingons in Enterprise, but even still, Duras was pretty dumb.

But brutality IS a strategy.

No, brutality can be part of a strategy but is not a strategy in its own right.

Get known as the guys who'll massacre you for the slightest provocation, and you'll have to deal with far fewer provocations.

Not a particularly smart strategy, if you kill everyone then who will warn the others? You should also factor in that if the Klingon commander had decided to fully appraise the situation in Unexpected then he would have learned about the Xyrillian holodeck technology and traded for it before he jumped on the decision to execute the crew. If the Klingon commander had appraised the situation in Sleeping Dogs then he wouldn't have tried to attack Enterprise only to look foolish when Archer pointed out how the Klingons would lose the battle.

This is how most empires have always worked. Read up on some of the Chinese civil wars -- it's truly horrifying stuff. And it works. That the camera's not privy to that decision doesn't mean the Klingons are somehow idiot savages -- I mean, they build starships.

So do the Ferengi. So do the Pakleds. The thing is, if the writers on Enterprise want me to think that the Klingons are intelligent then they should show me that, like the TOS writers did, they wouldn't show me them acting like morons 90% of the time.


Dead Stop (*****)

Somebody bring me an extinguisher, because Mike Sussman is on fire! Phyllis Strong must have made a DAMN fine cup of coffee for this one, and probably a slice of cherry pie too. The writing in this episode is very clever; Roxanne Dawson plays a repair station which expands to fit Enterprise, this is clearly a hilarious reference to how B'Elanna Torres expanded in the fourth season of Voyager. There's also a Cardassian... and... some other shit happened... All I know is that this episode was fantastic! Good work, Mike!







































Dead Stop (***)

As said in Minefield, I love the fact that the damage from the pevious episode is not forgotten and Enterprise has to seek out help. It makes for an interesting scene at the beginning where Archer has to send out a distress signal, which is unusual because in the previous series there would be an entire fleet they could call on (except in Voyager, but I don't remember them making a distress call). The repair station is an interesting concept, and watching the crew interact with its fabulous advanced technologies was fun, although it would have been more fun if these advanced technologies were original rather than concepts taken from TNG.

The problem with this episode is Mayweather's death and how everyone reacts to it. We all know that Mayweather is a criminally underused character, and as such I have very little reason to care that he is dead. But we get scene after scene of watching a crew who we hardly ever saw him interacting with crying and acting depressed about the death of some guy. It feels very fake to me. Hoshi breaks down as she tells Phlox the story of a practical joke Travis once played on her, but there's one problem; we never saw that! We never even saw that Mayweather had a sense of humour. The ironic thing is that we learn more about Mayweather in death than we did while he was alive.

Then the episode reveals that all this fake emotional stuff was pointless anyway because Mayweather is still alive. The first time I saw this episode I thought they might actually have killed the guy, maybe he was a character they created purely to kill off after one season and that's the reason why the writers never felt like developing him properly, but instead it was your standard Trek death fake-out. So Archer decides that Reed's tactically trained redshirts are too valuable to send into a potentially dangerous situation, and he and his first officer go instead. They escape, Mayweather is brought back to health, Archer informs him that he found his stash of dirty magazines (I really wish they had left that line in) and the evil repair station repairs itself. The end.

Captain Redshirt: 14

 

[Yug]

[Not really. I was late for college this morning because I was held up in traffic at a roundabout. I shouldn't have been held up because there's a box junction on the roundabout designed to make sure that people heading towards the city centre don't block the passage of people turning right, like me. But every bloody day 75% of the assholes who use that roundabout refuse to obey the rule so that they can get 3m closer to their destination and block me in the process.

This pisses me off and is a major inconvenience, but I've never had the desire to kill any of them because my brain is bigger than a peanut. (It's the size of a walnut.)

But your car is not a spaceship a quadtrillion miles out in space were any little hiccup in your systems could be deadly. Fucking with a Klingon ship is more like poking a sleeping bear, you might just get your head torn off... oh, and your not a Klingon. Put a Klingon in your scenario and he may not kill every other motorist, but you'd most likely find a pile of upended vehicles left in his wake.

Is it at all possible that Klingons as a race did change quite a bit in 100 years, then 100 years after that? Mabye they were ruthless killers in the name of the empire during the ENT era, but then, as we saw in ENT season 4 they were cursed with human frailties and fears when Dr Soongs left over augment sauce virally fucked their shit up... What they were in TOS's Day Of The Dove was very much like Germanic Third Reich/Communist Russia Stalin era type behavoir... because part of them now was us. As noted in ENT after the mutation, for the first time they experienced fear, which leads to hatred, which leads to suffering (lil Yoda there for ya) it also made em a bit smarter, to figure out how to make up for their past strengths now gone, they became more devious, and less violent for violents sake but using violent acts as more a calculated weapon of control... a lot more like humans I'd say. Maybe they learned something from that experience 100 years later after they cured the mutation and regained their former glory, a bit wiser, less ruthless as Klingons centuries past. Not to mention the movie ST6 and TNG Yesterday's Enterprise as to further relations with Starfleet and the Enterprise-C saving their asses respectfully. I think ENT was trying to depict the Klingons going thru a learning curve, so that by the time we see them in the 24th century they have grown into what we saw in TNG and DS9, a bit humbled, a bit smarter and perhaps more tolerant. Which was a similar arc to that of the Vulcans, in many ways the Vulcans from ENT were different than TOS and beyond. Look at history, societies can change and evolve in a relatively short 100 to 200 year span.

 

[Disillusioned]

I think the first time we really got to see the Klingons as the stereotype they would become was Star Trek III. One could argue that it goes back to TMP, but we didn't see a lot of the Klingons before they got tazed out of existence by V'Ger. Star Trek IV probably gave us a the last look we got at the more intelligent, cunning Klingons from TOS. In TNG they were effectively turned into the barbarian horde, with pretty much all of them falling into one giant stereotype. Enterprise pretty much carried that tradition on, so I have to agree with TheGodBen that the Klingons were once again basically made out to be basically space thugs. The episode "Marauders" is coming up, and the Klingons in that one pretty much underline what TheGodBen is talking about.

 

[Sykonee]

I'd watched a couple episodes of ENT sporadically up to this point, but Dead Stop was the one that got me to finally sit, take notice, and think, "Hey, this show does have some promise. Maybe I should keep an eye on it."

Sadly, A Night In Sickbay was my reward.

The really funny thing is that I had no idea Travis was supposed to be a main character. I thought he was just an Ensign Deadmeat, and couldn't understand why they were spending so much time mourning him.

 

[miriel68]

No, decidedly not "happy": he struck me as a one with quite a number of psychological problems.

How does that prevent him from being happy?

I identify with Reed, I see a lot of myself in him; reserved, grumpy, sarcastic, cynical, disagreeable... but that doesn't mean I'm not happy. I am these things because I am happy, because I can look at those aspects of my personality which others might try to exorcise and actually like them about myself. What you might consider a "psychological problem" I consider to be an admirable or humorous trait. And if somebody tried to convince me otherwise, if somebody tried to remake me in their image, then I would see that as a desperate move by someone who is so unhappy in who they are that they're desperate to justify their life by making others like them.

But that's because I'm cynical.

Well, I am sure you better stay as you are, at least as long as you are writing these refreshing reviews of Enterprise
However, putting aside the problem what is the "psychological problem", Malcolm's character was not written as a happy person IMO. His social uneasiness, for example, was portrayed admirably, but he himself didn't seem to feel admirably well with it ... Most of all, he appeared as a very inhibited person. I never saw him as sarcastic, cynical or disagreable. Reserved - yes, but it is hardly a psychological problem itself.

 

[TheGodBen]

But your car is not a spaceship a quadtrillion miles out in space were any little hiccup in your systems could be deadly. Fucking with a Klingon ship is more like poking a sleeping bear, you might just get your head torn off...

But the Xyrillians were not intentionally having an effect upon the Klingon ship, it was an unintended by-product of them stowing away in the Klingon ship's wake. But the Klingon captain didn't even bother to try and understand the situation, his decision was to kill the crew without a moment's thought.

oh, and your not a Klingon. Put a Klingon in your scenario and he may not kill every other motorist, but you'd most likely find a pile of upended vehicles left in his wake.

That doesn't mean the Klingons aren't stupid, I'd argue that such behaviour is instinctual and an intelligent person doesn't act solely upon instinct.

Is it at all possible that Klingons as a race did change quite a bit in 100 years, then 100 years after that?

Certainly, all the other major races changed a little over the centuries, but my argument isn't that the Klingons in Enterprise weren't enough like the TOS Klingons, my argument is that the Klingons in Enterprise weren't interesting because they were stupid and unsubtle. I'm okay with the Vulcans being different in the 22nd century because I could understand their motivation a little bit, and they tended not to shout so much.

The episode "Marauders" is coming up, and the Klingons in that one pretty much underline what TheGodBen is talking about.

I think when Marauders first aired on Sky One they had a two-hour event night; A Night in Sickbay and Marauders. It's possible that the reason I liked ANiS is because it wasn't Marauders.

The really funny thing is that I had no idea Travis was supposed to be a main character. I thought he was just an Ensign Deadmeat, and couldn't understand why they were spending so much time mourning him.

I had a similar experience with Voyager; the first episode I saw was Heroes and Demons and I couldn't understand why everyone was worried about some goldshirt called Kim.

Well, I am sure you better stay as you are, at least as long as you are writing these refreshing reviews of Enterprise
However, putting aside the problem what is the "psychological problem", Malcolm's character was not written as a happy person IMO. His social uneasiness, for example, was portrayed admirably, but he himself didn't seem to feel admirably well with it ... Most of all, he appeared as a very inhibited person. I never saw him as sarcastic, cynical or disagreable. Reserved - yes, but it is hardly a psychological problem itself.

He was definitely sarcastic and cynical, but the disagreeable part may just be me. I think we're both putting parts of ourselves into how we interpret the character; if I was to imagine myself in Reed's shoes then I'd imagine myself as being quite happy with it, perhaps if you were to do the same you would not. I don't think the show ever gave a simple answer on whether Reed was happy or not, but I think he was and without evidence to the contrary that is what I will continue to believe.

 

[Alex1939]

TOS Klingons...Enterprise Klingons.

My rebuttal to this entire line of thinking.

Would I act anywhere near the same as my relative from 100 years ago would?

Vulcans certainly did not act as they did in future series. Humans do not act as they do in future series.

The Klingons are still barbarous, but more stupid. Does not seem unreasonable to me.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

From what I've seen I've not been that impressed by the Klingons on Enterprise. This is probably the most famous alien species in Star Trek (except maybe the Vulcans) - their appearances ought to be more special, more momentous. I liked the way the Romulans were dealt with in Minefield - they were mysterious and threatening and it didn't feel like TNG or DS9, but seeing the Klingons in Enterprise is like seeing them in the 24th century shows , which, of course, we've done a hundred times.

 

[Yug]

But your car is not a spaceship a quadtrillion miles out in space were any little hiccup in your systems could be deadly. Fucking with a Klingon ship is more like poking a sleeping bear, you might just get your head torn off...

But the Xyrillians were not intentionally having an effect upon the Klingon ship, it was an unintended by-product of them stowing away in the Klingon ship's wake. But the Klingon captain didn't even bother to try and understand the situation, his decision was to kill the crew without a moment's thought.

oh, and your not a Klingon. Put a Klingon in your scenario and he may not kill every other motorist, but you'd most likely find a pile of upended vehicles left in his wake.

That doesn't mean the Klingons aren't stupid, I'd argue that such behaviour is instinctual and an intelligent person doesn't act solely upon instinct.

That’s why I say the Klingon may not KILL everybody even while it may be his first instinctual thought, but will respond with violence because he’s a pissed off Klingon. Rash behavior or committing unnecessarily violent acts is not limited by intelligence. Intelligent people sometimes act solely on instinct, and I don't just mean resorting to violence. But regardless, intelligence does not dictate our ability to react the same way these Klingons do. In many real world situations I'm sure there are countless acts similar to this one committed all the time... kill first ask questions later. It doesn't mean the Klingons are brainless death machines; they just have a different mentality and less respect for other sentient life forms… as do many "big brain" human cultures around the world and all throughout history.

 

[FlapJoy]

Carbon Creek (*½)

There's one very simple reason why this episode doesn't work for me; my grandfather created velcro, not a bloody Vulcan!

Okay, that's a lie, the real reason is that I was born in 1986. I have absolutely no nostalgia about 1950s rural America, that society is more alien to me than Vulcan is. This episode reminds me of 11:59 from Voyager, an episode I really enjoyed even though it was just a story about one of Janeway's ancestors in the past, but that episode worked for me because it was set in a time and a place that I could relate to and care about. And don't let the Voyager fans hear this, but I find Kate Mulgrew much more watchable than Joleene Blalock. Blalock is fine working with the rest of the cast, but removing everyone else makes me realise that she can't hold my interest like Mulgrew can.

I feel queezy for complimenting Voyager. I think I need a drink.

Anyway, Carbon Creek; you might like it if you're interested in watching 1950s America or Joleene Blalock, otherwise give it a miss.

Oh, Mr. Ghoul… You remind me of an old friend of mine who simply hated The Blair Witch Project because he was too hung up on how bad the documentary that poor scared girl was filming might have turned out had she and her pals not been, well, you know… Not even close to the real point of that film in the least.

If you’re really going to dismiss an entire episode because you can’t relate to 1950’s rural America then, once again, you demonstrate a lack of understanding into this story. It’s similar behavior exhibited by the Vulcan protagonists at the beginning of this very tale. Why not then imagine yourself in the position of those three Vulcans who I’m sure also felt no affinity with that culture or era, wouldn’t you identify with them in this occurrence, and experience this story through their alien eyes? That, at least, would be the concept closer to the intent of “them dumb writers”. In fact, it’s odd that you can’t bare to identify with life in the 1950’s but do endeavor to identify with future people who live in a spaceship, equally as unfamiliar circumstances I might suppose. I’m sorry if I’m being a noodge about these little things, but it just rubs me wrong, and that’s not how I like to be rubbed.

Carbon Creek was a lovely little yarn, as deliberately set up in the introductory scene, about a group of outsiders who adhere to only one narrow viewpoint of an entire race only to have that perspective irrevocably altered for the better by journey’s end. It’s allegorical for our human need to pass judgment on foreign cultures without due cause or intellectual reason. The pomposity to regard ones self in higher station to those considered lesser beings only to be confronted with an opposite and humbling truth. I could see this same story played out with three Americans stranded in the center of a small Iraqi village knowing only of those people what western propaganda about that part of the world decrees, but finding more or less that the contrary is true when met with kindness and sincere humanity. Plus, we gain a little more insight into how T’Pol really feels about these illogical humans she works with, all the while growing up with the details of this account and seeing them in thoughtful consideration while not yet revealing her bit of empathy at this early stage of living among them... It’s too bad really that you let this one slip by without any regard… I was really pulling for you. (I still am)

 

[SFRabid]

I thought the Klingons were ok in the first episode of Enterprise, but after that most of the Klingons could/should have been replaced by Nausicans.

 

[SFRabid]

The problem with this episode is Mayweather's death and how everyone reacts to it.

That is the best part because as was said, we believed they might actually kill him off.

 

[TheGodBen]

Firstly, I should point out that I've had a bit to drink, and I'm in a bad mood because a wasp that flew into my car when I had the window down to pay at the car park exit yesterday decided to sting me while I was doing 120kph on the motorway this evening. So if I'm a little snarky just tell yourself that it's because I'm angry at that flying yellow bastard for trying to kill me.

None of this would have happened if those bastards at the roundabout hadn't held me up for 10 minutes yesterday morning, that way I would have arrived into uni before the free car park was full. (See, I've got some continuity going on here.)

TOS Klingons...Enterprise Klingons.

My rebuttal to this entire line of thinking.

Would I act anywhere near the same as my relative from 100 years ago would?

In a hundred years will your descendants read the post right above yours? Here, let me highlight the important bit:

"Certainly, all the other major races changed a little over the centuries, but my argument isn't that the Klingons in Enterprise weren't enough like the TOS Klingons, my argument is that the Klingons in Enterprise weren't interesting because they were stupid and unsubtle. I'm okay with the Vulcans being different in the 22nd century because I could understand their motivation a little bit, and they tended not to shout so much."

That’s why I say the Klingon may not KILL everybody even while it may be his first instinctual thought, but will respond with violence because he’s a pissed off Klingon. Rash behavior or committing unnecessarily violent acts is not limited by intelligence. Intelligent people sometimes act solely on instinct, and I don't just mean resorting to violence. But regardless, intelligence does not dictate our ability to react the same way these Klingons do. In many real world situations I'm sure there are countless acts similar to this one committed all the time... kill first ask questions later. It doesn't mean the Klingons are brainless death machines; they just have a different mentality and less respect for other sentient life forms… as do many "big brain" human cultures around the world and all throughout history.

Intelligence does not limit violent tendencies, but there is a correlation between the two. Take a look.

"Chronic, violent offenders consistently had low IQ scores. For example, female chronic offenders were almost four times less likely to be in the top third of verbal-IQ test scores than female nonoffenders. Similarly, male violent offenders scored 10 to 17 percentile points lower on measures of vocabulary, reading, and language than nonoffenders."

Now I've never taken a formal IQ test, but the results of an aptitude test found me to be in the top 1% in three of the five areas tested, so I'm probably in the 100+ area. I'm not officially dumb, is what I'm trying to get at. I also have a volatile temper, I'm very quick to anger and I have horrible violent thoughts. But I choose not to act on them because violence begets violence, and I don't want any of that crap coming back at me.

A few weeks ago I was out in town at night and I go off on my own to get some money from an ATM, which normally isn't a problem, nothing had every happened to me before. On my way back there's a group of four guys and one of them asks me for a light. I don't smoke, so I don't have a light, so I tell him this, so he gives me an uppercut to the chin. I was angry at this, who wouldn't be? But there's four guys, I'm one guy and I would have trouble taking on an 8-year-old, so it wasn't difficult to do the math and make the decision I made which was to walk away. Maybe I'm just a coward, but I prefer to think that even with a few drinks in me I'm still smart enough not to pick a fight with a superior force.

Oh, Mr. Ghoul… You remind me of an old friend of mine who simply hated The Blair Witch Project because he was too hung up on how bad the documentary that poor scared girl was filming might have turned out had she and her pals not been, well, you know… Not even close to the real point of that film in the least.

What was the real point of that film? I've never seen it. Was the point not to go out into the woods alone? Because that's a lesson I've known since I was a child and I'd hate to waste two hours of my life learning a lesson I already know.

If you’re really going to dismiss an entire episode because you can’t relate to 1950’s rural America then, once again, you demonstrate a lack of understanding into this story.

I didn't dismiss the episode, I gave it 3/10.

Seriously, am I not allowed to find things boring now? I found the setting of this episode boring, and the episode didn't do enough with that setting to make me interested in it, so I found the episode boring. I also find football boring, and shitty singing competitions, and documentaries about the 18th century textile industry, and no amount of experts telling me that I should appreciate the weaving method used is going to make me think otherwise.

It’s similar behavior exhibited by the Vulcan protagonists at the beginning of this very tale. Why not then imagine yourself in the position of those three Vulcans who I’m sure also felt no affinity with that culture or era, wouldn’t you identify with them in this occurrence, and experience this story through their alien eyes?

I did. I did identify with the Vulcans at the start of this episode. About ten minutes in they started to lose me; the one who made the most sense to me (the one who looked like Moe) was given less screen-time than the Vulcans with the "right" opinion about humanity. If the episode had focused more time on Moe then I would have enjoyed it much more.

That, at least, would be the concept closer to the intent of “them dumb writers”.

When did I call the writers dumb? I said that I don't like the setting or the focus on Jolene Blalock, but if other people did then they might enjoy the episode.

What is it with people on this board who like to put words in my mouth that I didn't say? It has become an epidemic of late.

In fact, it’s odd that you can’t bare to identify with life in the 1950’s but do endeavor to identify with future people who live in a spaceship, equally as unfamiliar circumstances I might suppose.

It's not that I couldn't bare to identify with the setting, I just didn't.

I’m sorry if I’m being a noodge about these little things, but it just rubs me wrong, and that’s not how I like to be rubbed.

I was going to make a joke about how nobody likes being rubbed the wrong way, but then I remembered the S&M crowd.

That is the best part because as was said, we believed they might actually kill him off.

If they actually had killed him off then I would have been fine with it, but a lot of emotional scenes that come from nowhere and mean nothing because the guy is really alive, I considered that to be wasted time.

 

[SRFX]

Going through my own little re-watch of season 1 and 2 of ENT, it seems that the best episodes of S2 are better than S1's best episodes and the bad episodes of S2 are much much worse than the bad episodes of S1.

I think I can predict what GodBen's graph is going to look like for Season 2.