Maybe I’m expecting too much, hoping to be entertained rather than being distracted by how derivative and so much like Voyager the current Star Trek series is.
Last night’s episode was terrible. What could’ve made it better if the lizard alien was a Klingon. It’s bad enough that Enterprise is pulling the same forehead of the week and not keeping things consistent but to rip off the Drac makeup from Enemy Mine? I was waiting for Tripp to have sex with the lizard alien with an ensuing, forty minute long pregnancy. At least that might’ve been interesting even though it wouldn’t have been family friendly.
The only thing that was keeping the alien and Tripp from communicating was simply a language barrier? Tripp was trying to convey abstract ideas to an alien with different hand gestures. When Tripp pointed at his stomach and said “Tripp” it’s a common convention that the speaker means to refer to themselves but the alien could’ve replied in the same way thinking Tripp was referring to a part of his anatomy.
Plus Tripp is a huge asshole. Tripp gets stupid, slashes up his forearm and the alien spits on it making it heal over in record time. The next thing Tripp does is pull a gun on the alien and tie him up?
The alien was stupid as well. What if his bactine-spit was deadly poison to Tripp? He’d be up shit’s creek without a paddle not knowing dick about repairing communication devices.
Of course there’s much more about Enterprise that I hate and the second season is halfway over. So much for the first season sucking and the rest of the shows getting good.
Hell, Enterprise hasn’t had an episode on par with the TNG episode “Darmok”.
It’s not even fun to sing along with the opening theme off-key anymore because the scripts and stories are going to be far worse than anyone can imagine.
No, I’m not expecting to see Shakespeare. I’m not expecting to see something on par with Greg Bear or Vernor Vinge or even one of the schmucks who bang out a Star Wars novel every week. I want Star Trek.
Well, Enterprise hardly has any time to get to the gym, what with Klingons and Vulcans and naked Hoshis. Expect Enterprise to start jogging sometime in the spring when it is warmer outside…
Well, for one thing, at this point in their run, Next Generation didn’t have an episode on par with “Darmok” yet; in my opinion, that didn’t happen until “Best of Both Worlds, Part II” at the beginning of Season 4.
Oddly enough, Just last week I was thinking that the story of Darmok that Dathon tells to Picard was itself a ripoff of Enemy Mine (which is of course a ripoff of something else, so I’ve heard, ad infinitum). And since it seems Dathon’s actions were inspired by this story, you could say that “Darmok” was as much a ripoff of Enemy Mine as anything.
Go figure. The newest Star Trek series seems to be one that even the TREKKIES can’t stomach.
It’s like they went and fired everyone associated with the previous shows who ever had an original idea or any writing talent…
I don’t normally watch this show, but I saw the episode in question because I’m home for the holidays and my sister likes it. I couldn’t help but wonder, does Starfleet provide no training at all in how to interact with members of other cultures? For crying out loud, I wouldn’t act like Tripp did around a foreign, non-English speaking human, much less an alien!
Doesn’t he realize that if someone doesn’t speak your language, repeating yourself loudly and slowly isn’t going to help? Doesn’t he realize that parroting alien words out of context and possibly with the wrong inflection or pronounciation is not the best way to attempt cross-cultural communication? Doesn’t he realize that it’s incredibly rude to spit out a beverage that’s been offered to you, even if you think it’s nasty? And after finding that the alien’s tastes were very different from his own, didn’t it occur to him that the alien might think human food was nasty too? Hell, it might have poisoned the poor alien dude. Stupid, stupid, stupid. No wonder the Vulcans didn’t trust humans to go into space without a Vulcan babysitter along.
Lamia, no Star Fleet yet in Enterprise. These are supposed to be yahoos.
Extra credit if you can identify the origin of the term yahoos.
That’s right. They bumble along, making mistakes so the TOS and others won’t/didn’t. (?)
What are you talking about, no Star Fleet?
The thing is, Trip is an engineer. They’re only being realistic when they show an engineer with no social skills. 
Daniels said Star Fleet exist yet but that Archer would be instrumental in starting it somehow.
For quite some time during the seventies, various networks tried to get another sci-fi franchise show off the ground.
It never worked. Not until well after Star Wars hit it big did sci fi really begin to work on TV.
I thought it might be because in ST:TOS, these people weren’t lost. They weren’t idiots. They were in command of the situation, insofar as they could be, and they were equipped, trained explorers, who were also capable of handling thorny situations and kicking some ass when need be.
These were people we wouldn’t have minded BEING, you know?
Every other series seemed to want to revolve around alien invasions or people lost in space, time, or other dimensions. Lost. Helpless. Unable to return home or affect their situation much.
Who’d want to be in THEIR shoes?
I suspect one of the things that helped Next Generation take off was this same factor. The Enterprise could kick ass. Picard was a hell of a role model. Number One was a tomcat, and an ass-kicker when he had to be, and don’t even get me started on Worf. They had an android who could plot multidigital course plots in his head, a telepathic psychologist, and a hot doctor who could cure anything. I mean, what sci-fi geek wouldn’t have wanted to be a member of the good ship Enterprise’s crew? Sure, they got in some jams, but they were TOUGH, dammit! And smart. And capable. We believed they could overcome.
Deep Space Nine was much the same way. The only difference being that the space station was stationary, instead of traveling. These were tough, capable, solid people, and they were interesting to watch.
Sure, there were good scripts, fine actors, and lots of other stuff fueling the fire, but I think the situation had a lot to do with it.
…and then… we got Voyager.
All of a sudden, we’re back to the ancient “lost out somewhere in space, unequipped, unprepared, weak, nearly helpless, and fighting to survive” situation. The only real difference being that Voyager’s crew knew where they were… but it would take seventy years to get home. Pfft. Once again, who would want to be on THAT ship? Particularly considering how often the bad guys took it over, kidnapped various crewmen, and killed various red-shirt types, in episode after episode. I’m sorry, but I never had an ounce of faith in Janeway for a minute. Miracle those folks EVER got home in one piece.
And now we have Enterprise, or, as I like to call it, “Doofs In Space.”
Man, someone just put a bullet in the franchise. Let it lay fallow for ten or fifteen years, and then put some solid, creative people in charge, and give us some solid, interesting, powerful characters that we believe could explore the universe without getting their ship stolen out from under them by a retarded Ferengi, for potato’s sake…
didn’t exist
didn’t
mmmm… Nyquil
Yahoos were the human-like creatures who lived with the horse-like creatures (not even going to try to spell their name) in Gulliver’s Travels, weren’t they?
Although Next Gen took a few seasons to get up to speed (and Darmok is still one of my favourite episodes), shouldn’t they really have gotten the hang of it by now?
Next Gen started when? The late 80’s or early 90’s? After a decade, you’d think the producers would be able to figure out who will be able to write interesting stories that make good use of the Star Trek format. And that if they can’t get interesting stories then people are going to turn off or watch something else. They can’t abuse the fans’ intelligence forever.
Or can they?
Bring back Firefly
NoClueBoy: Are you sure you’re not thinking of the Federation, rather than Star Fleet?
Naked Hoshi?! Wha?!
I loathe UPN now more than ever. I’m one of the few who liked all incarnations of Trek (okay, not all… I hated TOS) and I want to see Enterprise but can’t because my UPN affiliate is… well… non-existant.
Now I found out the hot chick (yeah, you heard me… Hoshi’s the hot one. T’Pol can jettison herself out of the nearest airlock for all I care) showed some skin! And I can’t find it on Google either!
Aaugh! I’m a hormonal twenty year old male… you shouldn’t be teasing me like this!
yeah, Arch, probably. But Star Fleet is an arm of the Fed. On Ent they just call it Command, so far. Unless I’m watching it all out of order. 
I don’t watch Enterprise much. When I saw the plot of this episode steering towards Enemy Mine/Darmok as rasinbread did, I reckoned (giving the writers some credit) that it would be an homage of sorts.
That it became a poor rehash (how many is that so far for the series?) both showed the lack of creativity on the writers part and the producers lack of regard for the fans.
I seem to recall the producers saying early on that this Star Trek would be different. We’d be going places no man had gone before but without the wonderful techinical marvels that became the mainstay of the other series; namely the transporter and the universal translator. In this last episode the transporter won’t work on the alien and Trip forgot to bring his hand held UT. How is this new and different. This series had a lot of potential. They had an audience already sold on the concepts. They got fantastic sets and a good cast. The writers and producers however are capible of nothing more then pabulum. “Worst episode ever”.
I had to stop watching the show because of the acting. It’s really unforgiveably bad.
Rip-off of the 1969 movie “Hell in the Pacific” starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune.