Being a resident of Oklahoma, I just want to add that I thought it was hysterical havinga Klingon running through the cornfield and then getting blasted with a good ol boy’s double barrel.
AND in First Contact Picard says to Worf “Remember your zero G training Mr Worf?” (or something along those lines)
I suppose you could say Star Fleet starting training them in zero G later on but really it makes no sense not to have zero G training if you’re in a starship.
Why would Starfleet have ever gotten rid of pockets?!?! I can’t imagine life without pockets.
I was disappointed by the show on the whole. Some of my gripes have been covered here in detail, so here are some others, in no particular order:
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I think there’s been a continuity error in Star Trek history with the Klingon first contact. In this episode of TNG, Picard refers to the first contact with the Klingons as “disastrous”, an encounter that provoked decades of war. This makes more sense given that in TOS, the Klingons are military rivals and ofttime foes of the Federation.
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Plus, it seems ridiculous that in the humans’ first long range exploration mission in the galaxy, they would end up right at the Klingons’ homeworld. I agree with the other posters: save some for LATER!!!
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T’Pol isn’t Vulcan enough. Rather, she seems nervous and excitable. I think that woman from ER with the glasses has more composure than she does. In fact, with the possible exception of Tuvok from Voyager, and the priestess from Star Trek 3, no actor playing a Vulcan has been able to match the awe-inspiring, serene composure of Leonard Nimoy and Mark Lenard (Spock and Sarek). I am willing to accept Saltire’s explanation from a few posts up, but I still miss Nimoy’s performance.
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The comm officer’s dialog is SO badly written. Being the Trek geek that I am, I was reading character profiles on the Star Trek homepage before the pilot aired (incidentally, it’s here that you find out that a “boomer” is short for “space boomer”, or, someone born in space). Hoshi’s character profile says “afraid of space travel, likes languages.” Frankly, no one taught these writers about subtlety!!! I couldn’t take her lines seriously, because it seemed that each time she spoke, I could hear one of these mediocre writers speaking in my head “See, viewer? She said that line because she’s afraid of space travel!! Do you get it yet?”
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Let’s keep in mind that this was indeed humanity’s FIRST mission to the outer stars. I think they made it all look a bit too easy. Sure, quick mission to Rigel, scout around, get in a fight, escape, go play with funny aliens in a gas giant, jaunt over to the Klingon homeworld, not bad for a little first jaunt. Back home in time for supper, no sweat. Hey writers, you did a bad job trying to make it look like a real first-time exploration! I had trouble believing in it. Are they trying to make this look like every other Star Trek series? (Note: I had the same problem with Voyager - they had a chance to try something really unique, and it ended up too much like ST_TNG. No surprises, no different overall feel to the stories)
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Upcoming historical events that this show had better not mess up:
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The Romulan War: Big war between forces of Earth and the Romulans. Somehow, during this war, the humans never learn that the Romulans look like Vulcans (Kirk’s crew is surprised to discover this fact in the TOS episode where the Enterprise encounters a Romulan ship)
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The Beginning of the Federation: comprised of the five original races: human, Vulcan, Alpha Centaurian, Andorian, Tellarite. These races have a permanent position on the Federation Council. Hope they remember all this.
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Anyone remember this book?. It’s obscure but I really liked it. It describes the first mission ever of the the TOS Enterprise, commanded by Robert April, first officer is Kirk’s father, Cmdr George Kirk. It seems in that book, which takes place a generation before Kirk (say, 70 years after this new Enterprise series), that the Enterprise is the first ship big enough to be called a “starship” and that warp technology seems to be in near infancy. I don’t expect the writers of the new series to be true to this book, since it’s pretty obscure, but I’m still disappointed.
how did TOS handle this? Did they everpick up supplies?
I’m surprised that this whole thread has gone on and nobody has mentioned Kang and Kodos, the two green, tentacled aliens from The Simpsons… who were from Rigel IV!!!
Hmm…
First, some of the people writing in this thread really need to take a course in how to watch a TV show. I get the sense that lots of folks missed half the show because they kept screaming “This is crap! This sucks! This violates continuity!” 
The theme music is very bad-- for any show. I love the opening video sequence, but the lyrics are an absolute choke-fest. I will never listen to that song again.
Lighting was good. People complaining that they couldn’t see everything on screen because it was dark need to watch some other television dramas. Or adjust their screens.
The shady, mysterious future guy? Is it the admiral from Insurrection?
The engineer is one real bad pilot. Very bad. I’m waiting for the episode where he smashes the pod into the side of the hanger when returning from a mission to retrieve the warp core.
As for the whole evolution/time travel thing: Star Trek will mess it up. They always do. They’ve never ever ever got it correct. Until they get Lawrence Watt-Evans or some other experienced time-travel sci fi writers in their stable, Star Trek will never get a time travel episode right.
The show itself was unnnh. Transporter? They blew that. Yes, the audience was expecting some trepidation-- it should have been written in anyway. It only fits.
If you compare Enterprise to some of the other first episodes I’ve seen this month, it fails miserably. It’s barely better than the opening episode of Friends, it’s on a par with the season opening of ER (which was fairly weak for the show), and Alias kicked its butt from hell to high water.
I’m thinking that UPN devoted its budget to Buffy-- confirmation will come on Tuesday.
I may just be tired, but I don’t understand this comment AT ALL.
Are you saying they should have made more extensive use of the Transporter? That they should have had the crew more concerned about the possibility that this new peice of tech would fail? What are you saying here?
We don’t know the results yet. We don’t know what Chancellor K’Whois said to Archer.
No joke. You try it. You try it in a cat suit. ^:)^
I think they are trying to show deep space travel is new. It’s her schtick. Yes, they beat us over the head with it. Maybe they’ll stop.
I have a feeling that the future guy will change this, just as time was changed about the Borg in “First Contact”. Heck, Lily say Enterprise.
Books ain’t canon.
I’ve sort of skimmed through this thread. Any mention of the doctor’s race? Do they mention it in the show. I was watching it at work, so I missed some dialogue.
Meh.
No.
Personally, I think his mother was a penguin who has assaulted by a Cardassian.
This is a long thread, so I will probably be restating some things. I wasn’t impressed by it.
This series was supposed to be something different. Yet, by the end of the show, we were more-or-less at TNG status.
For a two hour show, I find it odd that I still have no idea what that Texan guy’s job is. Sometimes he seemed like an engineer, sometimes like a first officer. The crew never really got past the status uf, this is the Doctore, this is the Uhura, this is the Pilot, this is the Texan, this is the Science Officer.
This is supposed to be a very different show, with a different tech level and a different worldview, yet hardly any of that came up, in favor of the “run around for 90 minutes” plot. Anything that could have made the show interesting was scrapped in a mad rush to establish status quo. “We don’t have transporters, except we do.” “The sensors are primitive, except now they’re not.” “We don’t have phasers, but now we do.” “The Vulcans won’t let us do anything, except they will.”
I have no idea what the world is like. How used are humans to aliens? What is the status of the Federation? There seems to be a Starfleet - what’s it all about? We’re told they eliminated poverty and hunger - how? How far has mankind been in space? What IS different about this mission? What role do the Vulcans play on Earth? Who the hell are these people on the ship? I would like to have gotten some of this information to put everything else in context. Instead I got a third rate TNG episode.
If we don’t get the MacGuffin to the Klingons’ they’ll have a civil war. So? Why on Earth would anyone on Earth care? I might understand what is motivating these people if I had indication that something other than the script was doing it.
In usual Trek style the characters are bland to the point of being translucent. One of them seems to have breasts, though.
I guess in the long run I just didn’t find it that interesting. For mankind’s first major foray into space, no one seemed to give a damn. No one seemed to be impressed by it. I sure wasn’t.
Excellent post, Legomancer. I was so distracted by the small errors like the use of “Rigel,” I missed the big-picture suckage going on. You’re right, nothing seems as new or dangerous or scary as it should.
The thing that nags at me the most is, what does it mean that there’s a Starfleet, if Enterprise is the first high-speed, long-range ship? Are the other ships all in-system cargo vessels? No, because the “boomer” talked about growing up on interstellar ships far from Earth. Well, what then?
I continue to lay the blame squarely on Rick Berman and Brannon Braga’s shoulders. Is there no way, from the fans’ level, to oust these retards from the franchise helm and bring back people who know what they’re doing, like Ronald Moore or Rene Echevarria (sp?)?
The transporter.
They throw away a line in the opening of the show-- “this thing has just been approved for biotransport”-- and both characters express some nervousness about this “the captain wouldn’t even let his dog go through this”.
Then later in the show they throw in the old Deus Ex Transporta to haul the Capt out of a jam-- when there shouldn’t have been a jam in the first place.
(because the capt didn’t need to sit beside his maglock disruptor while it went off, and get stuck inside-- and then go wandering around what was left and get locked into the mystery elevator that lets anyone wandering by into the secret Time Temple without so much as a lock on the frigging door).
That’s either weak writing, or damn weak directing. Probably both.
If you want folks to be nervous about transporting, then build up some tension-- Don’t blow your wad in the first show with a premature transportation.
I’m thinking it’s time for a revolt. Get some people who can write, and who **are familiar with the show ** behind the scenes.
And the schlock that was Voyager doesn’t count as being familiar with the show.
Wow.
The meanies all come out at once.
Did you have a sleep over?
The music was OK (some people HATE it), but I really like the opening sequence (historic flights, ISS being built, etc)
In general I like the cast, though I’m not alone in getting some of the characters mixed up. (Reed and Tucker, Reed = British, Tucker = Southern)
Dont like the time travel aspect. I liked Voyager more than most people, but one thing I agree on is that there way too many time travel episodes.
Rigel has been commented on. (I like the idea thats Klingons called it Rigel, not the Rigel we all know and love)
It will be interesting to see the Klingon-Human relationship evolve (seemed to start off resonably friendly, things obviously get worse)
I’m fine with the ridged Klingon. I’d accept either no explanation whatsoever about the TOS Klingons, or that they were genetically engineered for some reason.
Since I’m a guy, I’ll ignore the flaws in the decontamination scene, and just admire the view… (count me amoung those looking forward to seeing Ens. Sato being decontaminated…)
Overall pretty good. A LOT better than the 1st Ep of TNG (which got good about the 3rd season)
Brian
one final note, When T’Pol says to Sato “maybe you should go to yout quarters and have a lie down”, Sato responds with something like
“Pon Farr ret” We all know that Pon Farr is Vulcan mating time, so now we know some Vulcan swear words…
have to watch it with close captioning to get the exact phrase…
But of course, Sato shouldn’t be able to make a reference to pon farr, because it won’t be until Kirk’s time that humans learn about it.
But I like the idea of friction between Sato and T’Pol. Maybe in a future episode they’ll get into an argument while they’re both naked in the decontamination room together, and they’ll both be greased down with gel, and they’ll start wrestling…
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Excuse me for a moment.
On behalf of all structural linguists and linguistics students, permit me to offer all physicists and space scientists my retroactive condolences. :eek:
Dialects cannot be counted. “Polyguttural” has no meaning, and if it did it would refer to phones or phonemes, not lects. I could go on, but suffice it to say that they used exactly one linguistic term in the whole episode that made any sense, and that was “proper noun.”
As Dr. McCoy would say,“Now wait one damn minute!”
There are some dialects here in AR without name, my Mother speaks a “dialect” identifiable as being from TN. I don’t know if these qualify as dialects are not, but:
Are not BarviDeustch (sp) and SudeDeutsch dialects? And Castilian, and Mandarin? My point being, if they have a name, can they not be counted? Of course, I think I unerstand your point that dialects are so varied, as I mentioned in the Southern USA, that they cannot “be counted”, but are not the most popular dialects of a language known, named and studied?