You’re quite right. Sorry–I was pretty upset at the time and things were a bit blurry for me, mentally.
I have a Barfy Smiley that jjimm made long ago. It should have been added to the choices.
Does it look like Barfy from The Family Circus?
Actually, from what I can tell, there’s plenty of creativity in TV and movie making these days.
The fad to do remakes isn’t because the writers are uncreative, it’s because the producers want a guaranteed built-in audience who’ll be drawn to the movie no matter what. It’s basically brand-name identification, like putting “Clorox” on a toilet bowl cleaner or “Coca-Cola” on a can of some soft drink that tastes nothing like Coca-Cola. To be competitive, movies and TV shows have to have high production values, which means larger investments, which means more skittish investors who want to be sure that their investment is going to pay off. Hence, remake mania.
Liked Terra Prime, didn’t care for These Are The Voyages… - but I felt I had to address this. On one hand, we have you complaining nothing happens offscreen, and then a few posts before, we have someone complaining about the “contrived” events in Shran’s life up to this point.
Clearly, some things happened offscreen.
Ah, but Shran isn’t crew. He’s not part of the regular cast.
The thing is, even in the episodes on-screen, events rarely have lasting effects on the characters. I liked the T’Pol-Trip relationship during the series just because, for better or worse, this did lie between them, and it was an issue that was acknowledged. But that’s one of very few examples.
But then to say that more time passed than the entire series we watched - with less effect on the crew and characters - and it’s breaking my willing suspension of disbelief.
Yes, Shran had a backstory. In all those years, he fell out with the Guard, got married, had a child, got in trouble, tried to get out of it, etc. I guess the writers don’t mind doing this with characters that aren’t the main ones.
Why doesn’t each and every member of the crew have six years of events like that? Or, since they wouldn’t have time to show that in the last episode, why doesn’t at least one?
Issues with plotting and characterization and other silliness aside… I gotta say, the *Enterprise-D *is one BEAUTIFUL ship. I got goosebumps every time she appeared. Less so whenever Riker’s paunch was on the screen.
Also, shouldn’t it be “Bermaga,” not “Bergama”?
Regardless of how it’s spelled, it’s actually pronounced “hacks”.
Two points to jayjay.
BLARGH…
I actually loved Demons/Terra Prime. and if that was the finale, I would’ve been happy. “These are the voyages” was so hacked together, so tacked on, and so insulting, I couldn’t believe anyone actually thought this was a good idea.
Now, i’m not even a writer, and I could write an episode where Trip died and have it mean something. Hello, how about some emotional impact? Where the hell was T’Pol? Wouldn’t a tear from a vulcan be kinda meaningful? A wink? His “last words” are a wink? A far cry from “I have been and always shall be, your friend…”
The only thing I liked was Riker as chef. A cute way to acknowledge the joke without ruining the joke.
If I did it, I’d kill off Archer. 
If firce to whach Trip, I’d have Archer jump the bad guys, Trip join in and be killed in the mele. Can’t figure out how to spell that, Knight tournament fight thingie.
<RPG Dork>melée</RPG Dork>
I expected to hate the finale beyond all reason, so perhaps my mixed reaction is a bit skewed. The thing is, though, I thought “Terra Prime” was okay, and “These Are the Voyages” was mediocre but had a couple of redeeming points.
In “Terra Prime” — I really liked the Mars setting. I thought it was an extremely effective device for conveying the historical, retro feel that a prequel series should have. Of course, they needed to do this FOUR YEARS AGO, and the impact is diluted somewhat by the realization of “what might have been,” but it still worked in a big way for me. (The “Carl Sagan Memorial Station” — oh, I loves me some NASA porn.)
Plus, Trip’s bit with the guard dude, when he stands up as if in confrontation, the thug says “go ahead and try it,” and Trip slumps, but then says “okay” and decks him: That was the coolest little character moment possibly in the whole run of Enterprise.
“…Voyages” — Believe it or not, this episode actually made me see Counselor Troi in a new light. She’s the most worthless and disposable character on TNG, but here they show her as being privy to all sorts of critically confidential information as part of her job. If you remember the “Pegasus” episode, you know what Riker was telling her is pretty explosive stuff. It provides, in retrospect, some insight into her function on the ship that seven years of TNG and a couple of movies failed to achieve, and that’s worth something.
Of course, I don’t tune in to Enterprise to see character insights from TNG, so, yeah.
I’ll have to watch it again to see if there’s anything else worthwhile. But otherwise: Meh. Very, very meh. Somebody needs to tie up the Bermaga and kick them into an engine.
evay at TripHammered has some excellent commentary on both of these final eps. http://www.triphammered.com/index2.shtml
It’s long, but worth reading.
I don’t think I could bear to watch TATV ever again. It’s horrible and horribly written.
You know what I’m gonna miss?
Jolene Blalock.
Oh oh, and you guys too. But come on, have you seen that girl in her bronzed glory? And there’s no Boston Public crew to join.
Seriously though. Does everyone like BSG? Cause we could invade that area of the dope.
I was too busy to watch the first few months of BSG, and given its heavy continuity, I’m not sure I want to start midpoint (look what that did to Firefly!). Does anyone know if there are any plans to release the first season on DVD for those of us who want to catch up without resorting to episode synopses?
Blech, I say, Blech!
The episode was wildly inconsistent with the events in The Pegasus, namely there was never a scene in that episode where Riker “had a talk” with Picard where Riker spilled his guts. In that episode, the one-on-one conversations between them were Picard demanding info, Riker deferring to Pressman and Picard getting all snippy like a child deprived of a happy meal toy. Riker didn’t reveal the nature of the cloaking device to Picard (and everyone else on the bridge) until after it had been recovered from the wreckage and the Enterprise-D had been trapped inside the large asteroid.
In some of the Enterprise-D footage, large asteroids can be seen careening by. So, at a time when they’re searching an asteroid belt for a piece of treaty-busting gear and a Romulan warbird is known to be in the area, the first officer takes a bunch of timeouts to the holodeck (and the second officer has an appointment with the counselor)? Yeesh. Further, the big decision Riker had to make was in no way analogous to either to the historical decisions made by Archer or Tripp.
Trip’s death was just… dumb. Oh, look! The alien criminals have caught up with us! How did they manage that, you might say, since we’ve presumably been high-tailing it for Earth at top speed to get the appointment we’ve put at risk by going on this pointless side mission? Who cares, apparantly. And when the aliens board, why didn’t Malcolm or a MACO or some other form of security detail show up? Who cares, apparantly. And why did they still not show up after a major explosion occurs? Who cares, apparantly.
The fact that three of the four final Trek episodes (not counting “Turnabout Intruder”) involve some form of time travel is a bit eye-rolling, too. Overall impression: a sad end to a mostly sad series. Bring me the heads of Berman and Braga.
And two other things I forgot in in my wroth: I’m glad they didn’t retroactively change the “where no man” speech, but are they suggesting this was the speech Archer gave at the Federation ceremony? That’d be like someone saying at the opening of the U.N. “We can all be proud of this moment, looking forward to a period of peace, justice and the American way.” Didn’t the first episode of Enterprise show a variation of the “where no man” speech given by Zephram Cochrane some decades earlier? That makes Archer’s use of it doubly strange.
Also, why is Archer tapped for “Admiral” ? Shouldn’t the next rank be “Commodore”, since it was still used in Kirk’s time, several decades in the future?
I need to know about BSG DVDs too, since I don’t have cable. I’d love to watch all the eps and get caught up.
Maybe in a few years we’ll have a scene where Riker’s soul-searching is a holodeck program being watched by Crewman Daniels.
Heh heh heh.
You de man!