TheGodBen Revisits Enterprise

[Alidar Jarok]

I tend to agree with your list of episodes to remove, although I'd probably keep Chosen Realm and certainly would keep Similtude. Then again, I'm not sure Exile was a worthwhile episode, so that could replace one of the ones being put back in.

Your graph pretty much backs up my thoughts on the season. Inconsistent, but got very good by the end.

 

[Alex1939]

I like to think of Season 3 as a commentary on the War on Terror, and how it should've played out. We can contrast what really happened to how Archer and co. handled it, and maybe feel a little embarrassed.

This really is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. In what way does the fictional Xindi war in the Star Trek universe compare to the actual War on Terror?

 

[Alex1939]

Poor choice of words, perhaps. I was on Day 3 of quitting smoking, too, so Bones, please forgive.

What I meant was, in real life the West bombed the hell out of a lot of people after 9/11, which was the crew's desire in the first few episodes of the season. Vengeance!

Except in the Fictional Star Trek Xindi War, Earth had no way of attacking or bombing the enemy.

However, in Enterprise they talked with their 'enemies,' and found out said 'enemies' (Xindi/Muslim world) weren't a monolithic group of bad guys as they'd been said to be.

Is this similar to how Americans, Europe negotiated positively with several muslim countries? Where was the "all muslims are evil" speech that I missed?


Beyond responding to anything else line by line... I'll just put it this way:

There really is no comparison. In the Star Trek Xindi war, Earth is surprised attack by a technologically advanced race. Earth's only retaliation is to send it's one and only ship to destroy the weapon and investigate the cause.

In the war on terror, terrorists, not a government or country used a sneak attack on American soil, and over the years in several other countries. America, England, and a group of allies attack two countries primarily in response. One country that is directly related since it's where the terrorist lived. One country that is not related but is tied in under the guise of possible future scenarios involving WMDs. The allies did negotiate with several muslim countries, Pakistan comes to mind, in order to work together to defeat terrorists.

Other than there being a "sneak attack" I don't see anything similar. I don't see how negotiations with Al Queda would solve anything.


Sorry man, but trying to draw profound political insights from Enterprise season 3 just doesn't sit right with me, at all.

 

[Tomalak]

I'm glad you put this note in because I was totally clueless and wondered if it is because I am totally clueless.

Behold Countdown, one of the longest running gameshows in the world, entertainment for millions of pensioners, the unemployed and stoned students. I only ever watched it for the number rounds because I was good at those, in the letter rounds the best I could normally manage was a 5 or 6 letter word.

Just on Countdown, Charlie Brooker did a part of Screenwipe in which he showed a group of Americans various UK TV shows, including Countdown. It's hilarious!

 

[Bones2]

Also -- thank you Ben for these reviews! May not always agree with them (mostly do), but man they are entertaining to read.

Then it has all been worth it.

<internal monologue> Three seasons in and only 25,000 views, this is rubbish. What's wrong with all these people that don't like me? </>

You wanna try reviewing Doctor Who, that makes you popular with no one. Especially as the only people who'd crop up on a Trek forum to talk about Doctor Who would be those who must like Doctor Who quite a lot.

 

[TheGodBen]

I could review Doctor Who, but it would stand a good chance of having a lower score than Voyager. I mean, there's time travel in every episode!

 

[Kegg]

I sort liked the ending of "Zero Hour". One thing that bugged me about Voyager was that show's tendency for half-assed cliffhangers - sure, "Equinox" was good, but that bit where an alien jumps out and ohmygodit'sgoingtokillJaneway was a sort of blunt fakery, since they can of course just zap it and move on - did anyone think it'd end any other way?

Stranding Archer in the past where aliens have become Nazis, though, you can't shrug that off. And it's not merely suprising, it's completely insane. It shows chutzpah, drive, and maybe just a sprinkling of lunacy... though yeah, in the end it is a contrived ending that's just to suddenly set up a reason for people to keep watching, like all cliffhangers, and as usual B&B probably had no idea how they were going to write themselves out of this scenario.

Also... well... it's just luridly, unapologetically pulp. Evil Aliens who are Nazis. We've come from a comparatively nuanced view of a vaguely fascistic society with the Cardassians to the comic book view of Nazis as uber-villainous stormtroopers to be taken out by Indiana Jones or Jonathan Archer. Somewhere in the middle we had the Hirogen calling the Nazis assholes. The wheel turns.

You wanna try reviewing Doctor Who, that makes you popular with no one. Especially as the only people who'd crop up on a Trek forum to talk about Doctor Who would be those who must like Doctor Who quite a lot.

By contrast, impromptu, entirely unplanned and mostly incoherent ramblings about Battlestar Galactica make you everyone's friend. Lack of effort is the key - give paragraphs of explanations and a series of graphs and it'll look like you put real thought into it.

 

[TheGodBen]

About the cliffhanger...

I am judging it partly based on what I know comes later, but even when I didn't know that I didn't like how it undercut the ending of the Xindi arc. So much stuff happened in season 3, a lot of it (Azati Prime - Zero Hour) taking place in little over a week. Archer tortured a man, pirated from innocent aliens and had the weight of the world on his shoulders for a year. T'Pol is a recovering drug addict who is returning to a situation of divided loyalties. Trip only just learned how to deal with his sister's death, and a number of people in his department died at the hands of the Xindi. A number of people under Reed died too, and he had the stress of all the boarding parties and space battles he was responsible for, and he has to deal with the death of his rival, Major Hayes. Phlox has been overworked, especially since the attack at Azati Prime, and he helped to create and murder a sentient being. Hoshi was tortured and almost responsible for the destruction of her homeworld. Travis... Travis... well, the ceiling almost fell on top of him, so he might now have night terrors about... ceilings falling on top of him.

My point is that these people have been through a lot this year, except Travis, and now that the arc is over I'm interested in seeing how they will adapt back into regular society, I want them to come to grips with what happened to them. I want what Family was to Best of Both Worlds. If the show wanted to give these characters one final kick in the gonads before they get their rest, as in BSG's Revelations, then they should have had a cliffhanger that had something to do with the Xindi or the sphere-builders, it shouldn't have been something completely unrelated. Instead we get a cliffhanger that doesn't have anything to do with the Xindi arc, and we have to sit through an unrelated two-parter before we finally get to the episode I want to see.

Lack of effort is the key - give paragraphs of explanations and a series of graphs and it'll look like you put real thought into it.

I did put real thought into those graphs, I learned how to use MS Excel 2007... which was easy because everything is in a simple to understand ribbon interface. But I had to pick the colours!

 

[Bones2]

I would give graphs, but my Excel Trial expired

Everything costs money these days.

 

[TheGodBen]

Not everything. You can download the Office 2010 beta which will work until October 2010, although it will probably have some bugs in it. Still, free Office for a year.

Then there's OpenOffice, a free office suite which has a program called Spreadsheet which is very similar to Excel.

And if you have a Google account you can use Google Docs. Although MS Office does tend to produce fancier looking graphs.

 

[SRFX]

I don't think comparing season 3 of ENT to the war on terror is ridiculous at all.

If anything, the first half of the season felt like this is what the writers seemed to be intentionally allegorically referencing. Heck, Trip's little tirade to Archer at the end of S2's "The Expanse" where he talking about 'finding these bastards' and 'don't give me any of that non-interference crap' really felt like the writers were trying to make the parallel really obvious.

I feared season 3 was going to be a difficult season to re-watch, given it's arc-y-ness, but I recently did (the good episodes anyway), and I still love it. Many episodes in S3 are Star Trek's finest hours (not just Enterprise's) and I welcome them into the ST fold.

I should also like to state, I love Alien Space Nazis, and Storm Front is just one big kick-ass win-fest. But I will say that the ending of Zero Hour leading straight into this was a dumb move. I really eager to see these characters get home and putting them in 'another situation' (as Trip says it himself in part 1), felt like a big kick in the balls.

But on the plus side, it resolves the annoying TCW in an exciting way so it's a valuable set of episodes. *shrugs*

S3 episodes we can easily live without: Exile and Extinction. Even the other weak episodes add something to the story. Take away these episodes and you've got one of ST's finest seasons of television.

 

[Bones2]

Not everything. You can download the Office 2010 beta which will work until October 2010, although it will probably have some bugs in it. Still, free Office for a year.

Then there's OpenOffice, a free office suite which has a program called Spreadsheet which is very similar to Excel.

And if you have a Google account you can use Google Docs. Although MS Office does tend to produce fancier looking graphs.

You wonderful Irishman. Now I realise what everyone else sees in you.

 

[TheGodBen]

Actually, most people like me for my body.

 

[Glacial]

Actually, most people like me for my body.

I'm on that team.

 

[Bones2]

Actually, most people like me for my body.

...your body of work?

 

[TheGodBen]

I've never bothered to ask the people who says they like me for my body to elaborate, I'm usually too busy trying to putting my shirt back on. Damn things are always falling off somehow.

 

[Kegg]

I don't think comparing season 3 of ENT to the war on terror is ridiculous at all.

It was obvious that S3 was about the War on Terror since... the S2 finale, with the 9/11 attack.

This honestly should be unremarkable. Star Trek was not above commenting directly on contemporary politics. "A Private Little War" is about Vietnam (less obvious: "A Taste of Armageddon" with Eminiar and Vendikar... America and Vietnam and how audiences have become desensisted to war because it's not happening at home? Yes, that's the damn point), The Undiscovered Country is about the end of the Cold War, and Dominion War is about Babyl... um. Kosovo. Yeah, that sounds plausible.

Heck, I remember when the show was first released there were some people - including Berman, but my memory may be playing stupid tricks on me - commenting on how conveinent that the name for their enemy species was Suliban. You know, like Taliban. A total coincidence, however, though "Detained" and "Desert Crossing" in the first season seemed to want to allude to recent events or not my memory is likely poor.

Also, I've seen people dispute the 9/11 allusion there and the even more obvious Iraq war allusions in the Vulcan arc (the whole weapons of mass destruction of Xindi origin the Andorians have is about as subtle as being beaten to death with a hammer labelled "Obvious"), so I'm curious to see whether people dispute that. Or TheGodBen rejects my 100% accurate reading entirely.

 

[TheGodBen]

What, what? I read my name somewhere.

Oh right yes, the Andorians and their Xindi weapon, I seem to remember viewing it as some sort of comment on the Iraq war. But I'm a very disagreeable person, so on principle I'm going to have to say that Kegg's 100% accurate reading of the episode is wrong.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

If you go by writer interviews, they came up with the idea of the weapon by looking at Star Trek IV and Star Trek First Contact and realizing that both involved threats to earth (and Time Travel!) so they decided that the season would be interesting if there was a threat to earth (and I guess time travel, but they ended up downplaying that as a the season went along).

Over time, they realized there was a clear allusion to the war on terror and decided to play on it, but I think it started as more of a happy coincidence.

 

[Alex1939]

I can see that the surprise attack on Earth could be comparable to the surprise attack on America, at least the surprise aspect of the attack. I can see that Trip's reaction of vengeance and anger could be similar to many Americans, etc.

But I don't see any similarities or connections between the Xindi war and the war on terror. Earth, the victim of the surprise attack, is weak and technologically inferior. America, the victim of the surprise terrorist attacks, is large and one of the more powerful nations on the planet. The Xindi council is a collective government figure, Al Queda is not organized as a nation or collective in many regards. For someone to say...

"I like to think of Season 3 as a commentary on the War on Terror, and how it should've played out. We can contrast what really happened to how Archer and co. handled it, and maybe feel a little embarrassed."

What lesson is there from Enterprise regarding how the war on terror should've played out? Does anyone believe there could've been a round table meeting between GW, Tony Blair, Saddam, and Bin Laden? In what way should the political leaders feel embarrassed or what exactly should they have done different similar to Archer and co?

I've only watched through most Enterprise episodes once, maybe I've completely missed these direct comparisons, but I really don't see it.


I won't personally derail this thread further with this discussion, but I don't see much if any real comparison between Season 3 Enterprise and the War on Terror.