It was a fun episode. It was stupid that the Romulans didn’t just quickly kill the humans in the holo-ship. But it felt a lot like classic Trek.
Positives:[ul][li]Nice idea to create a holo-Enterprise to terrorize.[]Since Travis worked out the grid that needed the Alliance - Travis is the founder of the Federation! :)[]“Maybe you need to be like humans for a change” - “And you said you wouldn’t be insulting.” :)[]Talas’ death was sad, but at lesat the writers can kill when needed.[]I loved Sharn’s antenna being cut and Shran stumbling.[]I loved Trip whooshing Reed with that “disobeying a direct order” line.[/ul]A common annoyance is unnecessary dialogue. The Romulans continually have to say “lock on to target”, “check the internal sensors”, or “activate the backup reactor.” Just let people do their job and don’t micromanage them.[/li]
Annoying Nitpicks:[ul][li]Why do you never hear a pop as someone transports from vacumm to air? Not to mention condensation from the air onto a cold suit, or steam if the suit was hot.[]So the Romulans stop shaking Trip/Reed around to lock on to the next target. They just assume Trip/Reed will die. Is Dr. Evil a Romulan?[]You get a deadly infection due to a phase-pulse weapon. I get getting an infection, but what has phased-pulse got to do with it? :([]“Minister T’Pau”? She rose to power rather quickly.[]Trip gets the environmentals working and there’s lots of noise as the air rushes in. It would take time before there is enough air to conduct sound.[]What’s reactor coolant doing just outside the bridge?[]How did 128 ships of various species agree to join, communicate, and get to the rendezvous all in a hours? :([]Trip should be radiation poisoned with the exposure he had! :mad:[]Rotating the camera around Hoshi and Travis was annoying! I was getting seasick.[]When T’Pol responded “It doesn’t match” what was she talking about? Warp signatures? []Enterprise could not get a weapons lock through the camoflage but could get a lock on the emitters? Uh, why’s that? :([]Trip and Reed floating in space was stupid. They bounced back and forth against each other instead of obeying the laws of motion.[*]The blind Andorian pilot was weird. Why have a helmet cover a blind pilot’s eyes? Why Andorian?[/ul][/li]
So what’s this “Jolan true” reference?
“Jo’Lon’Tru” (phonetic spelling?) is something I recall from TNG. I thought it meant something like “I’m loyal to the Empire” or “Long Live the empire” or some such thing.
And just in case it still matters—here is more dirt on UPN:
Dawn Ostroff hated ENT from the beginning.
As Scott Bakula pointed out in many interviews, ENT was greenlighted
under other executives who brought him onto the project – Dean
Valentine, Kerry McCluggage, and Garry Hart. Valentine left soon
after ENT premiered. McCluggage around 2002 or 2003, and then Hart
just last year.
It’s been Ostroff slowly starving ENT for four years. This is akin
to someone not feeding a plant for a week, and then coming back to
it and saying, “Oh look, this plant is lifeless. Time to get rid of
it.”
When the lack of publicity was brought up by cast and fans alike,
her answer always was that the show had its fans, and that these
fans were advertised to in year one.
After all the discussions we’ve had here about good shows that have been killed off by various networks, it’s blindingly obvious that the majority of people in network programming have never actually watched TV.
To be continued AGAIN? Not a good way to get someone who’s only seen two episodes to keep watching…not that they care.
Stupid questions: Why did cutting off Shran’s antenna allow Archer to win? There were 20,000 codicils to that stupid law, and one of them was “If you cut off an antenna, you win.” ?? “Fight to the death! <unless you cut off a finger, then you win, it’s over>” Which isn’t even a valid comparison, since fingers don’t grow back and those antenna grow back in 9 months. So you can win by cutting off something that grows right back? Silly. And if that silly codicil really existed, why did it take so long for the other crew members to find it?
I thought the sensors were down on Enterprise. I was expecting a complex way for the two drifting crewmembers to get back…instead they simply fixed it two minutes later and beamed them back aboard. Yawn.
And I always see him and say “It’s the bad guy from Cobra!”
Jolan’tru is the Rihannsu (Romulan) equivalent of aloha. It means both hello and goodbye.
And NCB, while Valdore is a gratuitous reference, I don’t see how anything else mentioned is. It looks to me like they are trying to dispel the myth that the Romulans never had FTL engines until their pact with the Klingons since the tactical advantage Earth would have had otherwise would have made a long war impossible and* Balance of Terror* highly improbable. Granted, I haven’t seen the episode yet but based on what’s been mentioned so far, I don’t see much of an issue.
Besides, what’s the cut-off point between GTRs and keeping continuity?
Maybe I’m just bitter over the whole ENT “lack of viewership” bullshit. Just like FOX/TV, what do you expect to happen to a niche show that doesn’t get promoted?
Does anyone here want an extra ENT 2005 calendar? It has a cool diagram in the middle; just ask NCB.
Wanna see the bullshit email I got from UPN? It’s below…
Thank you for writing to UPN. The STAR TREK legacy has spanned nearly four decades and has spawned five television series. Ten years ago, STAR TREK: VOYAGER was instrumental in helping launch UPN.
The latest incarnation, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, has reached the culmination of its journey. This painstaking decision came after it was recognized that despite having many loyal fans like you, the audience for the show was declining steadily.
Therefore, ENTERPRISE is set to decommission and will be given a grand send-off on Friday, May 13th at 8 PM ET/PT on UPN. Well, isn’t that special?
This does not mean that STAR TREK is gone forever. Paramount, the studio that produced all five television series and ten feature films, is looking forward to the next chapter of the STAR TREK saga. When? In twenty fucking years when I’m contemplating retirement?
We know that this information may not make you feel any better but we want you to know how much we appreciate your input and we sincerely hope that you will continue to share your thoughts with us in the future. UPN has no future in my home if there ain’t no ENT on it.
If one of the combatants can no longer continue, the other guy wins.
Antennae are sensory organs. Note how Shran staggered in sick bay. He couldn’t stand up to fight.
It makes sense except that a loophole that big wouldn’t be obscure. If the severing of an antenna is all that’s required to end a blood match and satisfy the tradition, then every Andorian would know it, and Shran wouldn’t have been so shocked by it. Basically every match would end that way if the combatants didn’t already want one another totally dead. (I thought this plot point was pretty dumb, if you can’t tell.)
I have yet to watch the episode again, but I’ll probably have more to say when I do. Probably.
I suspect it’s a legal but sissy way out. So sissy that Andorians who carry their, er, doughnuts around in wheelbarrows, er, antigrav lifts, would be shocked by someone wimping out like that. It probably means that if one guy has his head cut off and is still stumblng around like headless bugs do, he is declared the loser lest her injure a bystander.
[]Enterprise could not get a weapons lock through the camoflage but could get a lock on the emitters? Uh, why’s that? :([]Trip and Reed floating in space was stupid. They bounced back and forth against each other instead of obeying the laws of motion.[*]The blind Andorian pilot was weird. Why have a helmet cover a blind pilot’s eyes? Why Andorian?[/ul][/li]