Worthwith, some witty reparte stolen from rec.arts.sf.tv:
>A thick jungle set and creature makeup that rendered some of our main players nearly unrecognizable distinguished the third episode of Season 3, the fifth turn at the helm of Enterprise for actor/director LeVar Burton.
>In “Extinction,” written by Andre Bormanis,
He was the Science Consultant on “Voyager.” This should be a fun ep,
even if for all the wrong reasons.
>the NX-01 crew locates a Xindi vessel on a jungle planet. When Archer, Reed, Hoshi and T’Pol go to the surface to take a look, they are infected by a biological agent on the planet that mutates them into some sort of primal alien lifeform.
They’re still letting Reg Barclay read the Starfleet Medical
Database???
>Things get more complicated when alien “decontamination agents” arrive intent on containing the mutagen by “neutralizing” the crewmen with their blowtorch-like plasma flame weapons.
??? As opposed to non-plasma “flames?”
Good thing these beings with interstellar travel don’t have weapons of mass sterilization and have to “neutralize” one organism at a time…
>Production concluded Tuesday after a seven-day schedule where more than half the time was spent in the Alien Jungle, a setting created with truckloads of foliage brought in to the swing-set soundstage, with a Xindi Landing Pod fresh from the woodshop placed amongst it. On the
>final day of shooting, the production crew gave the forest a
“scorched” look, to represent the aftermath of the alien decontamination efforts.
Sounds like quite a few parties I’ve been to.
>There were also a number of underground Caverns and Tunnels, a re-use of facades we’ve seen before,
<Harry Kim>
“I’ve seen that cave before!”
</Harry Kim>
>but some of those shots will have optical
>effects inserted later, imagery which should prove to be rather
>spectacular
Modern Trek technicians do excel in spectacular imagery.
>(sorry, that’s a story point we won’t give away). Among the
>standing ship sets, Sickbay and the Bridge had most of the scenes, but shooting also took place in a Shuttlepod, the new Command Center and some Corridors and Crew Quarters. The Decon Chamber was also used to cage a mutant Malcolm Reed for a while.
PHLOX: I’m sorry, Captain, some sort of alien blancmange has turned Lt. Reed into a Scotsman."
>And speaking of that, Scott Bakula, Dominic Keating and Linda Park got a taste of what castmate John Billingsley goes through every shooting day,
Acting convincingly?
>coming in early to report to makeup and have their faces covered with appliances. They spent five of the seven days in various stages of alien >mutation, which included “fleshy bladders” on the men’s throats that
>flared out when they “growled.” Jolene Blalock also received some of the alien makeup, but her character’s Vulcan physiology kept most of the mutations at bay.
I guess if they “flared out” her fleshy bladders any further, she’d
have to wear frontal scaffolding to support them.