WORST episode in season 5?! VOTE!!

[Wowbagger]

Ugghh... I keep hearing all this great stuff about "Outer Space." Am I the only one who thought the ending was horrifically overblown? Vulcans. Don't. Cry. (Anyone care to make me an avatar of T'Pol with the words: "Not. Crying." on it?)

Anyhow. I accidentally voted for "Debugging Entry," but that was a misclick. I meant to vote for "Trial By Fire," which, in terms of writing and quality, was clearly the worst of the season (producers: why did you keep letting Berman and Braga into the writing room? Have they not proven their suckitude to you yet?). I wasn't bugged so much by the plots--although they were tedious and overcomplicated--as by the overall lifelessness of every single scene. "Beyond The Pale Moonlight" wasn't great, but I think it was redeemed by its references to the only Hoshi show I ever really enjoyed (Season 3's "The Interregnum").

I was surprised that "For I Have Chosen The Path Unseen" didn't make the list, simply because, after all the hype (Oh, it's written by Coto! Oh, it's the story of Salem One!) it was such a cop-out. Not as bad as "Barbarians," but a lot more of a let-down. FICTPU would have gotten my vote, had it been listed.

Incidentally, my audio drama, Star Trek: Excelsior just did a sendup of "Debugging Entry" for April Fool's Day. Some of you might get a kick out of that. </shameless plug>

P.S. Newspaper Taxi, Memory-Alpha says it was called "The Minutemen," but I haven't seen it since it aired.

 

[galleywest]

I liked the episode where Porthos came into contact with that alein that made him super intelligent. It was really sad when he decided he had to move out of Archer's room because Archer would kick him off the bed during the night. I also liked how he got to be an acting ensign and that uniform was adorable. I think the episode was called "The Musketeer."

Yeah, it was. The ending was really sad, though, when he went back to normal, and Archer folds up the little uniform and puts it in a drawer. *sniff* Although...I think he retained some of that super-intelligence. That look he gave Reed right before the credits? Just as he was peeing on his (Reed's) leg? You know he still understands what the humanoids are saying.

But back to the worst--did anybody read that online interview with Jane Fonda? She said she loved that costume when they brought the design to her! Is she nuts?? Hello Tina Turner in Mad Max!

 

[Plecostomus]

Well here is hoping they replace Fonda with Dawn Allison in the Enterprise Remastered edition. Also I'm really hoping they fix The Wrench Scene as well in Debugging Entry.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I notice Decontamination didn't make the grade. Exactly how much strategically placed vaseline do you suppose got used in that one? I still maintain a gel-based lifeform was a stroke of genius...

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I still maintain a gel-based lifeform was a stroke of genius...

There was a lot of stroke in that episode.

I still can't believe that did that dog episode. TNG never did a episode about Spot or Picard's fish!

 

[MrPointy]

Voted "Trial By Fire", since that was a bad, bad ep, but the worst ep of S5 is not on that list.

"Refusion" was mindbogglingly fucking retarded. Connor Trinneer impersonating Jolene Blalock for an entire episode wasn't a good thing. Plus, they gotta stop cribbing VOY scripts, first "One" gets turned into "Dear Doctor", and now "Body And Soul" gets turned into this.

I loved "Decontamination". The scene where Hoshi and Reed hook up is classic - though drunk scenes are kinda cliche. Wow, those guys had chemistry. Trek's first female frontal topless scene (Jolene's boob job is quite good) was a bonus.

I don't agree with galleywest. S5 of ENT reminds me of S2 of TNG in a weird way. Half of the eps are really, really excellent - truly classic in every sense of the word.

For example, "93 Hours" (the remake of Phase II's "Tomorrow and the Stars") was easily as good as DS9's "The Visitor".

And, man alive, "The Q-rious" was fucking hilarious. Stephen Colbert as a Q - brilliant! Better than "Win, Place or Show", IMO.

But the other half of the episodes were fucking terrible. That poll could easily have 12 episodes in it.

 

[cooleddie74]

Any ENT episode with a gratuitous cameo by a drunken, time-traveling Bajoran wormhole alien is a bad idea.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

I'm surprised that no ones mentioned The Naked Hoshi yet. OK, it was a good prequel to The Naked Time and The Naked Now but surely it must have disappointed a lot of people?
What a cruel sense of humour the producers have - calling it that and having her keep her uniform on all the way through!

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

ENT season 5? WTF??

 

[MrPointy]

ENT season 5? WTF??

You didn't see it? It was on Spike last year. Got a 24 episode run and everything. Everyone on the board was freaking out over how they replaced Anthony Montgomery with Sticky Fingaz. I personally thought it was an improvement.

The DVD boxset is coming out in October.

 

[cooleddie74]

Originally they were going to hire Mos Def, but contractual obligations got in the way.

 

[Biggshow]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned "Honorable Men", the first Romulan contact episode. OK, granted the entire encounter took place audio only, thereby observing canon (Yay!), but it was like watching a conference call. The only redeeming feature of this episode is that it set up "Cry Havoc!" Not even the Tripol reconcilliation helped.

As far as Jane Fonda in the erzatz Barbarella costume goes, yeah, the bare midriff was a bit much. She was good, though.

Colbert, heh, or should I say Qolbert. HI-larious.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I think the last straw with Season Five, for me was the introduction of Trip's brother and his partner. Even I found the publicity surrounding Chuck and Monty from WWE being cast deeply offensive...

 

[cooleddie74]

"Debugging Entry" also had the brief shot of the overhead boom mike sticking into the scene. Not very professional.