TheGodBen Revisits Enterprise

[TheGodBen]

Twilight (*****)

Wow, Mike Sussman has done it again!!! He threw every thing he had into this episode; Earth blowed up real good, T'Pol grew a ponytail, Archer developed space-Alzheimer's, Travis died and nobody cared, Enterprise became the Battlestar Galactica, Archer built his house on the site of Khan's future rosebushes, MU Reed came for a visit, T'Pol wanted to do the twisty-twisty-shake with Archer, Trip, Hoshi and MU Reed got sucked into space, Phlox fell very slowly and died, T'Pol was shot and died, Archer was shot twice and refused to die, Enterprise blowed up real good... and I'm not even making this shit up as I usually do! Mike Sussman has clearly shown that he doesn't need Phyllis Strong's unique blend of coffee to keep him going, this episode was a knockout. Good work, Mike.































I'm being serious on this one. This was a very absurd, very OTT, yet very good episode. I also think that this episode is essential for the Xindi arc to work; we already know that Earth isn't going to be destroyed because of 628 episodes and 10 movies, so seeing Earth actually be destroyed is important to buy into the notion that Earth really is in danger. At least is was for me, up until this point I still felt the Xindi arc was a bit weird and pointless, but this is the episode that allowed me to buy into it all.

Then there's Archer's plight, an interesting sci-fi device of its own. I can't imagine what it must be like to live a life unable to develop new long-term memories, but it must be extremely emotionally damaging, and T'Pol has to have a tremendous strength of will to stick with him for 12 years. I often feared during the early seasons that the writers were pushing these two characters together, but I don't mind it happening in this episode because they're no longer captain and subordinate, plus, it makes sense.

The action scenes at the end are the best that Enterprise has done up until this point, and even though it is a reset-button ending I don't mind it because they announced it was going reset-button when they blew up Earth in the first scene. So there's no double standard here.

Archer Abuse: 22

(And I didn't include a single joke about how dreamy Rob Pattinson is.)

 

[Emnabtond]

Hmm you seem a lot more lenient on Enterprise than you were on Voyager.
Twilight was a very good episode nonetheless from what I remember.

 

[Guardian Bob]

It was a great 'what if' episode. And the reasoning for it was new and unique.

 

[apenpaap]

Twilight was incredibly good. When I first saw it, I had only seen the rest of ENT season 3, and a few sporadic episodes of TNG and Voyager (None of them having Earth in it), so I actually believed they had blown up Earth.

 

[TheGodBen]

Hmm you seem a lot more lenient on Enterprise than you were on Voyager.

Possibly. But right now Enterprise is daring to be different in a way that Voyager tended to shy away from, and I feel that this episode is crucial to the success of that venture. If this had been a season 2 episode with standard villains of the week I might have been harder on it. Besides, I gave Timeless a 9/10 even though that was a big reset-button ending, the only reason that episode didn't get full marks is because of the huge logical flaw in that they didn't use the slipstream drive to make several large leaps back to the AQ.

 

[Disillusioned]

It was yet another "reset button" episode, and as such I couldn't bring myself to really care all that much about what happened in it.

 

[SRFX]

Twilight is definitely one of my favourites from not only S3, but from the series in general. Plus having the humans settle in the Ceti Alpha system was such a nice little touch - and especially amusing because even if the humans endured the constant Xindi attacks, they would've probably all be wiped out when Ceti Alpha 6 'exploded' in the 23rd century.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Twilight is probably ENT's best episode. It gets 4 stars out of 4 stars from me.

It was an episode that did it all and did it all well from an epic teaser with the destruction of Earth; finally demonstrating the Xindi as a real ruthless threat not content with simply destroying Earth but determined to eradicate every last trace of humanity; demonstrating the real stakes of Archer's mission; a sweet intimate human story for Archer & T'Pol amidst all the other epic sound and fury going on around them as well as an interesting character thread for T'Pol whether when she was standing up to Soval or being caregiver to Archer or her determination to protect the last vestiges of humanity until they found a new home; excellent battle sequences and VFX i.e. the bridge blowing off mid battle right before the NX-01 explodes and several haunting images such as the sight of the ragtag fleet led by Enterprise or the moment Archer steps out of his dwelling to reveal what is left of the human race. There were also a few little details that would be referenced in future episodes like Dolum mentioning he wanted an escort to accompany the weapon in "Azati Prime".

I didn't mind the reset and never have. It was a touching story not only with regards to the tale of the final days of humanity but for the crew.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Yeah, the episode works well. It was a bit over the top at the end with Super Archer, but that's forgivable. It works on many levels (as a love story, as a sci fi story, and as an adventure story with showing the stakes).

 

[TheGodBen]

North Star (*)

My past experience with westerns:

The second half of The Magnificent Seven while at my grandmother's house one Christmas, and which I mostly ignored while playing a game on the PSP.

Spectre of the Gun

A Fistful of Datas

Firefly

Back to the Future Part III

The western episode of Red Dwarf

If you haven't figured out the pattern here it is this; I only watch westerns when my science fiction series force me to. I can just about tolerate it in some cases so long as the episode has a better hook than "It's a western in space", but if that is the hook then I'm not going to be all that interested. Sadly, the hook for North Star is "It's a western in space... with racism!"

*yawn*

TRIP: Don't suppose you'd be interested in a trade?
STABLEHAND: Well, that depends what you've got to trade.
TRIP: *gets out an harmonica and plays it*

Why does David A Goodman keep on insisting that Trip plays the harmonica? When has Trip ever played the harmonica in a non-David A Goodman episode?

ARCHER: Tell me about... Cooper Smith.

Ah, now I understand, this is an RPG. It's like Mass Effect; the galaxy is on the brink of annihilation and Commander Sheppard must find the Reapers before they can activate The Conduit and destroy all life... but first he's going to search some monkeys to find a missing data module.

ARCHER: Once we've dealt with the Xindi we'll come back here. Do what we can to help them. For now, they deserve to know that Earth hasn't abandoned them.

ARCHER: We've moved past things like intolerance, prejudice.

Hmm, I seem to remember Archer being intolerant and prejudiced towards a certain well-known alien race before...

REED: The Captain's been in there quite a while.
T'POL: I imagine the Sheriff has a lot of questions.

Where's the mayor? Where's the president? Why is Archer talking to the sheriff?

BETHANY: You must think we're barbaric.

Yup, pretty much.

Disappearing Aliens: 26
Archer Abuse: 23
Captain Redshirt: 25
Transporter: 8

 

[Guardian Bob]

You have to admit, North Star had a really good set and costumes.

 

[Sykonee]

If you haven't figured out the pattern here it is this; I only watch westerns when my science fiction series force me to.

Oh, you have to at least give Blazing Saddles a chance.

 

[Glacial]

Twilight remains one of my favorite Trek episodes of all time. The story is brilliant and loaded with subtle fan service (Ceti Alpha was just glorious), but what got it for me most of all was the acting. Everyone, I think, turned in their best work in the series on this one.

Archer's look of agony as T'Pol tells him that Earth has been destroyed and humanity basically exterminated, and that he's been told many many times before... it was perfect.

North Star was cheesy as hell, and just plain bad, but a fun tip of the hat to TOS's ridiculous gunfight at the OK Corral. Doesn't excuse the awfulness, but I can look back on it and smile.

 

[startrekwatcher]

North Star is a decent episode but its main fault is that it halts the momentum of the last few episodes and takes us away from the Xindi arc.

Had it been shown in season two it would have been one of the better outings but the problem that any tv series faces when it is telling an arc is the last thing anyone usually wants is a show that has nothing to do with it. You are swept up in the unfolding narrative and you want to see what happens next or learn some new interesting revelation or plot development.

DS9 in the Occupation arc had this problem with Sons and Daughters and in The Final Chapter with Extreme Measures. BSG had it quite a bit in the last three seasons. The only two shows that have managed to actually avoid this problem in my opinion are LOST mostly in seasons 3,4 and 5 and HEROES in season one. They wisely had more than enough material to sustain a season of uninterrupted arc storytelling, had no studio interfering with how serialized they could be and because the writers wisely interconnected everything was relevant in advancing the Big Picture.

So North Star looks worse than it really is simple because of where it is placed. Other than that I enjoyed it more after season three was over and the Xindi arc had played out and I went back through the episodes--the second time through I could be more tolerant of it given that I was no longer antsy about the next Xindi installment(and this wouldn't be the last time this happened--Similitude, Chosen Realm, Doctor's Orders, E2). It had nice set design, nice production values and while the guest stars might have been cliches I liked them well enough.

I'll give it 3 stars out of 4.

 

[Kegg]

I'm not a big Western fan either. I liked The Magnificent Seven better when it was The Seven Samurai and A Fistful of Dollars better when it was Yojimbo. The whole 'Western... BUT IN SPACE!' trend which seems oddly popular with a lot of sci-fi fans is something I've never quite got (Firefly really manages to make its premise work, but honestly it's rather literal Western PLUS SPACESHIPS struck me as pretty stupid).

Hm. A trend for me? Maybe 'Samurai flick... BUT IN SPACE!' would really rock my world. Ugh no wait!

Now noir, there's a film genre that Star Trek should do more heavy-handed references to. "Ex Post Facto", "The Big Goodbye"... well, maybe not.

 

[Vestboy]

Hm. A trend for me? Maybe 'Samurai flick... BUT IN SPACE!' would really rock my world.

I believe that's called "Star Wars".

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

I really liked "North Star." The production design, especially the cinematography -- that washed-out sepia look -- and the direction, were beautiful. Images like the shuttle landing on dusty Main Street and Archer climbing out in uniform with T'Pol... totally cool. And I am fond of those Universal backlot sets. Plus, Archer made a fine-lookin' cowboy.

As bluedana said elsewhere, the commentary on the DVD for this episode, by 1st AD Mike DeMerrit, is very entertaining.

 

[TheGodBen]

Similitude (***)

I know that some people consider this to be the one of the best, or even the best, that Enterprise had to offer, but to me this is an episode of cheats which reduces the excellent story potential into something vaguely annoying.

Cheat 1: Two weeks earlier... I already explained my position on this when I talked about Impulse, it's a sensationalistic stunt which wasn't needed and only fooled the more simple amoung us. I knew Trip wasn't really dead, you knew Trip wasn't really dead, my dog knew that Trip wasn't really dead, the bacteria which resides in my stomach knew that Trip wasn't really dead.

Cheat 2: Sim has all of Trip's memories via the process of magic. How am I supposed to care about Sim when Sim is Trip? He has Trip's memories, he talks like Trip, he acts like Trip, and for all intents and purposes he is Trip. We're talking about trading one smart, blonde American white guy for an identical smart, blonde American white guy. If you had asked me to choose between Trip and a 56 year-old Filipino woman named Dalisay I'd be considerably more interested in the outcome because I can't fathom making that decision, they are two unique individuals. Sim and Trip are the same guy in my mind so I don't care, if Sim had been a guy that looked and sounded like Trip but had a completely different personality based on his own memories I could have bought into the dilemma much more.

Cheat 3: To save Trip, Sim must die. Way back when, through most of the episode I knew they were going to make it so that Archer had to choose between Sim and Trip and I feared it because it has been done before (Tuvix) and it has nothing to do with the stem-cell/medical-designer-baby analogy they're going for, it's just contrived drama. Then came the third act break. It's one of those rare occasions where I was annoyed that I was right. It's a cheat, they changed the rules 2/3 of the way in so that they could have scenes of Archer saying "Even if it means killing you" in a sinister way. I'm fine with Archer going to the dark side, it worked well in Anomaly, I just don't like that it happened because the writers tricked him into it.

Cheat 4: Trip saves Earth, other Enterprise engineers are chimps. I've seen some people suggesting that Archer only said that he needed Trip to accomplish his mission because he was justifying getting his friend back, and if that's the case it was handled very poorly. Firstly, the guy who knows Archer better than anyone, and whose life is at stake, doesn't bother to call him out on that. Secondly, when Trip is injured there are no engineers up to the job, Archer has to send T'Pol down there to take over. Am I supposed to believe that Starfleet could only find one capable engineer to send on a desperate mission to save humanity?

Cheat 5: If they used phase cannons to shoot open the doors to the shuttlebay, did they use torpedoes to open the doors to the phase cannons? If so, how did they launch the torpedoes? </uber nerd>

Cheat 6: This isn't a cheat, I'm just keeping to format, but why did I have to watch a scene of Trip looking up T'Pol's dangling top? Am I supposed to admire him for being a bit pervy? Am I supposed to feel a bit pervy? Because I often do after the neuro-pressure scenes.

Nipples Ahoy!: 15

I can see why many people enjoy this episode, there is much to like in the early half and it contains some of the best acting, directing and music you will find on this show. But this felt too easy for me. I don't want to come off like one of those internet nerds who thinks they could do better than a professional writer even though they've never written anything before... but I could probably have done better than this.

 

[Skywalker]

I do agree that things were a little too easy in "Similitude", but I enjoyed all the other aspects you mentioned (acting, music, etc.) so much that it didn't really bother me.

I do think it would have been interesting if they couldn't have saved Trip and Sim took over, but we know they never would have gone that route. Shades of Farscape in that idea though, I think.

 

[Kegg]

Heck, Voyager went that route when Kim died but was replaced by his magicked double. That's right: VOY was more ballsy with this sci-fi concept. When you won't take risks VOY will take, you're at a new low.