The irony of this thread is that viva had to ask in the other thread if anyone was going to start it.
I, of course, won’t see it for another three weeks but that’s never stopped me from discussing ENT before, so here’s the thread. Discuss!
HOSHI
I liked it.
A curse* on every Trek doper who didn’t read or respond to the athelas late review!
I dreamed about Enterprise last night. I missed almost all of an episode but I saw the final shot: Archer and T’pol beaming out in the middle of a firefight in what looks like 1950s US (a phaser beam shot through T’pol’s little shadow thingee as she was beaming away). Odd.
*resulting in cursee being required to watch Enterprise this week
NoClueBoy - I have a long hiatus - Cit…, uh, never mind.
carnivorousplant - There are clips at vidiot.com, though - It either errors or trys to load forever, oh well.
Aesiron - We got Spock back! - Uh, what?
athelas - A curse… - Your commentary reminds me of how I mentally try to “fix” the problems in each episode. I like your interpretations, but I don’t think the Xindi’s actions are written consistently enough. It’s like they’re NPCs that change to further the PCs goals.
I think that Bergama cannot be deliberately trying to make bad episodes, but I can’t understand why the complex character interactions in other shows (DS9 to ER) are not present here. As has been pointed out, most eloquently by Cervaise, it seems they are too afraid to make the characters look bad. I only see the motivations behind each of the character’s decisions after-the-fact. Maybe that’s just me.
What if, after Archer tried to “really” convince the aliens to part with their warp drive (yeah, like anybody would do that!), that he made an aside to T’Pol that “Maybe we should just take it.” Then he could discuss the pros and cons with her and flesh out his character and motivations. Her response would be about the danger of “losing humanity” but any plan that involved trading Trellium-D for it would be met with her change of heart. Together they would each be facing their duties and fears and their compromises would drive the action. They would then have to face their good and bad choices. As it was written, no ones choices seemed to influence anyone elses choices. Am I seeing this wrong or too naively?
For “The Forgotten” we are going to see Trip confront the death of his sister. Again. He’s done a little of that before, and now they trot it out again. Do they have little bits of this struggle through all the other episodes? No. Other that the mention that he’s undergoing Neuropressure for bad dreams.
How about this? A short dream sequence; Trip startling/waking in fright. Later he snaps at crewmembers for saying “What are we doing here?” They respond that they mean “What are we doing ‘here’ when we could be attacking.” “Oh.” Just some scenes that further character development instead of “the race to the weapon.”
The episode also has the good-Xindi-Council meeting with Archer, on Enterprise, near a Sphere. Okay, why don’t the Xindi take their enemies into custody and get whatever information is needed? Why do they doubt the Trannie? I don’t think any reasons have been given. (Am I forgetting?) The Spheres are supposed to be mysterious, right? So now everyone just goes to having a meeting near one? The Spheres are supposed to have that invisibility field. If the high-Xindi know of it then they should be 1) studying the Spheres, 2) deactivating the Spheres, 3) blowing up the Spheres, or 4) worshipping the Spheres. However they don’t seem too concerned with these things that really screw up the region.
Then there is the mini-Xindi-Council meeting on Enterprise and being totally vulnerable instead of flying by shuttle and meeting on an asteroid or something.
As for T’Pol’s addiction, she hasn’t had any bad consequences occur because of it. Nothing to really feel bad about or regret. She had sex she can blame on it, but didn’t get pregnant. She didn’t kill anyone or cause any deaths. She did break an airhose on a spacesuit, but she fixed it. She’ll be like a rock’n’roller. They do drugs and make great music, then they crash, are rehabilitated, and can extoll the virtues of not doing drugs.
So at the end of “The Forgotten” we’ll have the mini-Xindi-Council thinking, “Gosh, you think maybe we should look into this Trannie’s story some more before committing genocide?” And Trip will be, “I can’t blame all of the Xindi for what just some bad-Xindi are trying to do.” And T’Pol will say to Archer, “Sorry, I’ve been a bad girl … you wanna spank me?”
I thought that Gralik told Archer that the Xindi-Arboreals had all been killed in the last Xindi-Wars. Since there is one on the Council, am I confused?
And where’s his wings? And unless he’s really hollow boned, I don’t see how he could fly.
:dubious: = Spock
:wally
I think this is the corporate influence more than anything. Trek is a fairly lucrative property for Paramount, though lately they’ve been wringing it pretty dry, and the natural impulse in a market economy is to protect and defend valuable assets. Don’t take risks, circle the wagons, stick to the middle of the road, whatever you want to call it. That makes sense when you manufacture widgets or develop software or engage in some other objectively measurable business: If you can get this resource or raw material for X percent off, you can project your bottom line fairly accurately; if you increase your market share by making the product appeal to more consumers, you increase profits; and so on. It makes good sense, and it’s understandable that the MBA-trained suits who pull the strings at these big corporations would attempt to apply their physical-product philosophies to movies, television shows, music, etc.
Unfortunately, it can be a counterproductive impulse when it comes to selling storytelling, which is essentially all television (and Hollywood in general) is. It’s kind of weird to think about it that way, but it tells you something important about human psychology that so much money is being devoted to the art of storytelling. Vast sums are spent on creating and launching storytelling vehicles, and equally vast sums are laid out by ordinary people to consume those stories. The very same human need that drives sitting around a campfire trading tall tales is behind the multi-billion-dollar entertainment business with which we have such a love-hate relationship.
But what makes a satisfying story, really? It’s awfully ephemeral; it’s nearly impossible to point to one movie or television show and say that it was successful because of such-and-such, and this other one bombed because of that-and-the-other. Entertainment companies spend all kinds of time and money analyzing their product, trying to figure out how much, say, Meg Ryan is “worth” to a movie, trying to reduce her value to a formula that says she contributes X dollars to its bottom line if it’s a romantic comedy co-starring Tom Hanks, but she contributes Y dollars if it’s a heavy drama co-starring Dennis Quaid. It’s largely a waste of effort, because nobody really knows why any given movie catches the public’s attention or is given a miss; the executives are basically just inventing busywork for themselves in an effort to justify their own salaries and make everybody think they’re contributing something. Or, to quote William Goldman’s famous maxim, “Nobody knows anything.”
Which brings me to Enterprise. They know they have a show that devoted fans will watch; admit it, there’s a small group of hard-core Trekkers who would tune in to see Ezri Dax doing macrame for an hour every week. They don’t have to worry about that segment. There’s another segment who is at risk, though, people who watched most or all of Next Generation, a lot of Deep Space Nine, and some or little of Voyager. These are the people who will walk away if they’re not satisfied. And then there’s the really valuable demographic, the casual viewer who couldn’t care less about Trek but who may get hooked and become a convert, at least in the short term, if the stars align just right. That happened with 24 to some extent, which is a very different, very ballsy (if sometimes uneven) show that really shouldn’t have worked for a mainstream audience and yet caught on somehow. Compare Karen Sisco, which is also offbeat and different but that couldn’t find an audience, and is now dead.
When you’re struggling to survive (the industry term for a show teetering between renewal and cancellation is “on the bubble”), one’s natural instinct is to reduce risk and become as innocuous and safe as possible. Manufacturing concerns do this all the time when they spin off and sell divisions that don’t relate to their core product; they’re “going back to the basics.” Sometimes that works in film and television, as evidenced by lowest-common-denominator crap like Becker and According to Jim, which go out of their way to be as generic and inoffensive as they can be. More often, though, it falls flat: The list of dead television projects is overwhelmingly dominated by retreads and ripoffs and offered nothing beyond what the executives recognized as having worked and which they therefore concluded the public wanted. Look at the movies that came out in the wake of The Sixth Sense, as the suits apparently decided that what people really want is a mindfuck movie with a slam-bang twist ending so we’ll do a lot of that even if the rest of the movie doesn’t make any sense and hey, why the heck didn’t anybody go see Basic with Travolta and Samuel L, it’s what you wanted, right?
We see exactly this mindset at work on Enterprise. They don’t want to scare off viewers, so they make sure all the characters are “good guys,” people without any negative traits who might alienate the audience. The exact same thing was done on the amazing-for-the-first-season Boomtown, a creative decision that led directly to the death of the show, and yet Paramount’s honchos are going down precisely the same path with Enterprise. At the same time, they’re ramping up the elements that can be used in the previews to hook the much-coveted casual viewer, the explosions and eye candy and what we’ve taken to calling “panda.” Getting Jolene to drop her robe and display her bare back for the ten-thousandth time is kinda pointless in any given episode, but hey, it’s great for an eye-catching two-second clip in a commercial!
I’m ranting again, aren’t I? Yeah. To wrap up:
Enterprise is frustrating because what we want is to be told a story, and what we’re getting is a 1996 Honda Civic with a metallic-beige paint job. We want to be taken on a journey, we want to be thrilled and transported by the adventures of people we can identify with, but instead, every week, we’re served fettucine alfredo from the Cheesecake Factory. There’s nothing really wrong with it, it’s edible and stuff, but you certainly aren’t going to go tell your friends how much you liked it and they just have to try it.
It’s fascinating from a sociological perspective, looking at how the inherently subjective art of storytelling is crushed and compressed into the neat little boxes of the corporate metrical mindset, but trying to actually enjoy the product that results from the process is quite a bit less than satisfying.
That’s what happens when you let the bean counters take over–you get entertainment that’s NOT ACTUALLY ENTERTAINING!
PORTHOS
Livingston.
Teaser:
Recap going all the way back to Season II finale (Xindi probe over Florida).
St Crispen’s Day speech by Quantum.
Total lost in the attack: 18
Act I:
Tripp, new haircut and all, is directed by Quantum to write a dead soldier letter to an underling’s family. He balks. Quantum says, “Do it. Do it!”
Blalock is looking kind of rough. Are they altering her makeup to enhance her character’s problems? They did makeup tricks in Where No Man Has Gone Before with Gary Lockwood, adding grey and then silver to his hair as well as drawing bags under his eyes to show the immense strain his body was having dealing with the enhanced esper powers.
“Perhaps you can demonstrate your ability to time travel?” I liked that line.
Um… there’s a hole in the ship.
Act II:
Why is Hezekiah showing the Egyptians the treasures of Jehovah’s house?
iow, why is Quantum showing the Xindi nice guys all his time travel stuff? What in those items will PROVE anything?
Phlox pulls rank on Tripp for sleep. “Remind me never to buy a car from you.” HUH!? In TOS, they barely recognized cars!
Ah… the mummy guy is a Sphere Builder! I see, I see…
Xindi-Earth Alliance violates all sorts of canon, Bergama! Damn it.
Act III:
We had one commercial during the Act II / Act III break.
Ghosts from the Id. Dreaming about the letter. Wait!! They already built the Saratoga !?!? WTF?
Chronometric distortions, blah, blah, blah. Hard to say “chronometric” with those sloth buck teeth, apparantly.
Tripp likes the engineering of the Xindi Happy Fun Ball. At least he’s to saying, “Cap’n.”
EVA time! Whee!
Act IV:
Plasma jet is a good effect. What’s with all the space noise, though?
Six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes Douggy Fresh you’re on.
Reed is toast! I mean, literally.
Tripp is seriously losing it, bro.
Xindi conscience. Interesting concept. Degra remembers the memory erasure! What a hoot!
Tripp gets down to the letter. An audio message, hmmm… (Trineer is a good actor)
Q: Did you invite Mr Potato Head (Lizards)?
A: It ain’t a party without Mr. Potato Head!
Climax:
Stupid meanie lizards.
Finally, a good battle scene. 3D, fast, all over the place. No 2D fight there!
Degra kills pretty easily for someone who says he dislikes killing.
“Not unless you can ressurect the dead!” Tripp blows up. She was your sister, dude! Let it out! Like I said, the man has a knack for believable performances. I sincerely felt for him. I was in his shoes. That’s good acting.
(Still no mention of Cutler being among the dead.)
Degra gives coordinates to Council Chamber and a transwarp conduit. I guess he firmly for the Earthers now.
Denoument:
Tripp’s letter. “She won’t be forgotten.” Damn. That was good.
I didn’t really like this episode overall. Too many stupid errors and unbelievable twists.
But I am amazed at Trinner’s abilities. He had me on the verge of tears, he had me scared for him, he had me mad as hell with him. Writing? Or acting? I say 30/70 W/A
The preview of next week shows a Phlox child and a T’Pol descendent.
Arboreal as in sloth-like. Climbs around in trees.
Aerial as in dead dudes with wings.
Excellent episode due mostly to Trinner’s acting as had been said; but a well written part for him, too.
Noise in space: Probably not thought out by the writers, but you can hear astronaut’s power tools as the vibration is conducted through their suit. I would imagine there would be some noise from vibration through the hull and suits.
FYI
USS Saratoga NCC-1937 was disabled by the whales in TVH.
USS Saratoga NCC-31911 was destroyed at Wolf 359. Jennifer Sisko was among the KIA.
I guess there could’ve been a pre warp 5 Saratoga, but it was never shown in any ep. A lot of ship names can be seen in various eps, esp in TNG on different viewscreens, thus making them semi-canon. It used to be a game with us NitPickers to see how many names, ships, places we could see on still frames of view screens. With DVD, it should be easier.
Carn, yes, some noise by transduction (?) but not the teenagers at the mall that they shouted at us in that scene. Not exactly well done, but not terrible per se.
I saw the show tonight. Sigh… It really is just clumsily plotted techno-mush at this point. “Archer” really sucks as a captain. All these special effects at their disposal and they wrap it in a story so ploddingly unfolded I really could give a crap if I miss a show or not at this point. It’s over. Move on.
Is that what they call it on Vulcan? 
And for the men, is it the “staff of logic”?