The boards aren’t sending me email notifications, damn it. It’s bad enough that I have to wait a week to watch episodes but now I have to double check my User CP all the time to keep up to date in here.
Center of the Galaxy Guy hates me. [/whine]
Oh, and welcome to the USS DopeTrek, Kinthalis. Try to avoid **NCB ** when he’s had a few… he’s worse than ol’ Tiberius ever was.
First, Porthos! And of course, Phlox does rock. 
It was a bit heavy-handed, imo–but it’s what I’ve come to expect from Bermaga (is that the right one? Gah, what a duo!). Now you all realize that I’m a Quantum fan, so I enjoyed him tonight but I don’t have blinders on and can see his weak points (I just tend to overlook them. :p). I think if D’jama (sp?) could have chosen the Enterprise crew member to “sacrifice,” it would have been T’Pol. They seemed to be implying (to me at least) that science can/will take the place of religion, and I’m not sure I’m ready to think that. I saw parallels with the Bajorans too–their Gods were called “wormhole aliens” by many in the Federation, rather than being seen as Gods. It’s an extremely tricky subject, one which they may have been better off without trying to tackle. (If that makes any sense … I’m under the influence of Haagendaz Pineapple Coconut ice cream right now! :D)
I may take my Archer action figure out of the package and have him act out some scenes yet. I think it will have to be a better show, though.
I predict Cervaise will not like the ep, but will be quite pleased with certain small things that point to even more gooder shows. Like the Kirk/Spock type of “we know what each other’s thinking” relationship that is being written correctly for Quantum/T’Pol. Or the Kirk type of speech (unseen in this ep but implied) that turns an enemy operative into an ally.
What will Kingpenguin think? I really don’t know. A borderline action/suspense story. Answer not clear.
Linus will like it but have loads of nits.
Clean up that lice, boy.
Aes will like it, but will feel that it’s too messagy to be really good.
Wearia fell asleep and is now sleep walking around in his underwear.
CornerCase will point us to the Star Wars novel this was ripped from and will find 27 lapses of continuity.
viva is drunk (again).
Or is that me?
Kn(*)ckers is watching all this (including our Trek Doping) on her 69" plasma screen in her 12 bedroom villa in the south of France, secure in her knowledge that we will never find her. ( 3 Moulin Rouge Ave, Napiers )
OMG, it just started! I’m so pumped!!!
Somehow i am now less pumped…
It was really slow to start, like how we have had no tornados in Oklahoma in 239 days.
What I do in my underwear is my own business.
Spoilers ahead incase your worried about the eppy getting spoiled.
I agree the 9 instead of 10 day thing was to far fetched. No way could a few hundred year old war be fought on such a stupid premise. They could have at least said that the one believe the Makers made the sphere and the other believes that the Grand Moff Pumbah created the spheres. That at least would be worth fighting a war over.
Things I did like,
Their database got DELETED! That pissed me right off, I would have punched ReligiousGuy in the throat.
Reid threw his gun at the other guy! Man, that was a great moment in Trek history.
Phlox and batgirl. Well played El Doctair.
Things I did not like,
Their database got DELETED! That pissed me right off, I would have punched ReligiousGuy in the throat…twice…
The 9 days thing as I mentioned.
Are their one half decent species in the expanse? All the ones they’ve run into are jerks.
Never pick up hitchhikers, ever.
So in closing, if next week is an half-hour of Quantum punching ReligiousGuy in the throat, and then quantum leaping into him and punching himself in the throat for the last half-hour then it will be the greatest Start Trek episode ever.
finally some action, Jackson!
Oh, the sad ending with the Library of Alexandria in ruins. So sad. 
Ehhh. Seen it all before.
Yet another example of a plot which hinges on Archer being stupid enough to assume a just-met-alien-species is friendly. And then that they’re stupid enough to fall for the transporter trick.
Ahhh! They erased the hard-drive, too.
Much better if they had had to sacrifice a naked female heritic with long dark hair.
I waited all day to see these “big ol’ titties” you were talking about here, and when I finally got home and got to see Enterprise, what did I get? A pair of B cups! C cups, tops!
You call those big? Hah! Hah, I say!
Welcome, Kinthalis. Do you know what you’re getting into? Are you ready to sacrifice a living Panda to us? NCB, did you enjoy eating the Christmas thing you were supposed to send me? Was it quite delicious? Aes, there was no Jake tonight, only America’s Bottom Models, none of whom I give a hairy rat’s butt about. I’ll send a tape after tomorrow night.
Linus, are you there?
tarragon, did you get that ENT mug I sent? Everyone else got their stuff. I think the USPS in your area is rife with anomalies.
Did anybody see Mayweather on the Sharon Osbourne show? Neither did I.
Hoshi fans will be sorely disappointed, as will Trippers.
Sure, we’ve seen echoes of it in the other series(es), but the allegory was solid enough. An abortion implied, too. I don’t think they were slamming religion, just the extremists and fundies in all of them–especially the ones who think they can achieve paradise or whatever by destroying everyone who isn’t with them.
Mayweather spoke! This is always comment-worthy, for it is very rare.
Hey…When Archer tells D’jonmustard “It doesn’t ring a bell,” how does the U.T. translate the idiom?
These folks remind me of Bajorans. They’re probably their ancestors.
May I say once again that Phlox is the coolest?
Archer really didn’t need to grab Trip’s arm like that. What a bastid he’s been lately.
“Save your breath” from Archer was a good line.
But…Archer claims that he draws the line at murder? Excuse me? Does anyone remember that poor bastard SIM???
Couldn’t the religio-pirates have scanned for Archer’s biosigns, or did he shield himself without my noticing?
Are you telling me there’s no frikkin’ back-up of the Xindi data? The hell?! Does no one in the future know about CDRs and System Restore?
I don’t remember seeing a teaser for next week’s ep. at all. Was there one?
Jake’s not being showed again until sweeps in February, I think, viva. I just hope that it coming on then won’t hurt it and the UPN execs think that the show sucks or something. Then I’ll have to send **Wearia ** to punch one of them in the throat.
Is Joan on this tape? I read the thread that was made for it and it looks like a really good episode. If nothing else, I should be assured of one quality show.
No Hoshi makes a sad, sad Aes. As does this new layout, which sucks and won’t send me my farking emails when people reply to the threads.
Sadly, no…I read the thread and had the impression that you had seen it.
Ah, well. I can’t always tell what you watched and what you didn’t. Sorry 'bout that.
I get the replies okay in Hotmail…but I really don’t like all the extries in this new layout at all.
Zeke was a bit late with this, but here is five-minute “Twilight”:
http://3sygma.com/fiveminute/enterprise/twilight.html
P.S. Are Cervaise and Jervoise related?
:mad: the DVR didn’t record the show for some reason. Tarter-sauce!!
Although overall it sounds like this show didn’t add much to the canon – “some data maybe got erased, maybe” is the serial impact of to the arc, no?
:eek:
That’s never stopped you before! Just curious… what gave you the impression I’d seen it? I didn’t actually comment on the episode, I just asked a question. Oh, well… guess I’ll have to see if someone else in there taped it and will mail it to me. If not, I can catch it in a repeat.
Yep, I’m here. Not much to get excited about. Regarding this episode, at least (you guys are always worth getting excited about). Viva can get excited about the fact that I just ended two sentences with prepositions (she loves to have a reason to correct someone).
I do think that the point was hammered home a little hard and was a bit too simplistic (Intolerant fundamentalism, bad! Rational thought, good!) OK, a lot too simplistic. And in case we hadn’t quite gotten the message (because we’d been sitting on the couch with our eyes shut and our fingers in our ears during the entire rest of the episode, yelling “nah, nah, nah! I can’t hear you!”), we’re beaten over the head with a bit of planet-wide devestation.
A couple more thoughts:
I really hope they start next weeks episode with Archer saying, "I wish they hadn’t erased our database. Now we’re going to have to spend all day restoring it from this advanced technolgy know as a friggin’ backup! (yeah, I know that Viva already mentioned it, but I felt it was worth bringing up again)
Whatever happened to the intruder defense stuff that pumps knockout gas into compromised locations? And even if it doesn’t exist, couldn’t that been done by Phlox as easily as the magically whipped up organic explosion counter-agent. And Archer has control of everything including weapons, but not environmental controls?
Speaking of Phlox, he does, in fact, rock.
Archer almost said it (Uh, oh! Better get MACOs)
NoClueBoy lives up to his name. 
Because in point of fact, other than how ridiculously easy it was for the zealots to hijack the ship, I didn’t find anything major to complain about. Maybe this has something to do with my being a hardcore rationalist, not to mention a major cynic, but I thought the cultists were both good as villains and depressingly plausible as characters. Sure, the allegory is totally transparent, but this time out it made me think more of the old Kirk-style Trek and its obvious messages (the comparison to “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” is apt) than the clumsier modern versions (e.g. that Vulcan disease we’re never going to hear about again).
So my response is actually the opposite of what NCB predicts. The show doesn’t work in its details, but in the end I thought it was pretty solid.
A couple of details: T’Pol, a couple of minutes into the show, referred to data in the singular (“The data is…”). Also, when ABWBWDTT (alien babe whose breasts were disappointing to tracer) went to visit Phlox to ask about the “procedure,” I cringed when he said “please sit down” and casually touched her on the shoulder. That’s a human gesture, I thought; even if it’s something he’s learned on the ship, he’d know better than to try it on an alien species he knows nothing about, whose members may have a completely different set of customs.
And, of course, the ship was laughably easy to take over. When are these guys gonna learn to quit letting guests wander around the sensitive areas of the ship? Didn’t they learn that lesson from Rajiin? For comparison, if I were a guest on an American aircraft carrier, it don’t matter how much of a VIP I am, I ain’t about to gain unescorted entry to the reactor room.
But then after that, I thought the crew displayed a lot of the sort of competence I’ve been missing up to this point (my favorite stupid example: Archer sticking his head into the door of the mysterious probe and taking a deep breath). The use of the transporter was a legitimately good idea, and then Archer had an actual plan. They used various methods (AOL Chat, heh), they got themselves set up, and they executed. And Reed chucking his rifle into that dude’s face was sweet. (There’s no way a pair of pilgrims would be evenly matched with both Reed and the MACO chick in that kind of tussle, but whatever.)
If I wanted to be a grouch, I could point out that no military-style organization would go into space without protocols for that sort of takeover. As soon as the majority of the crew was secured in quarters, Mayweather and T’Pol should have been able to lock their consoles, control would have been automatically rerouted, and so on. I seem to recall there was a nod to this sort of protocol in Kirk-era Trek; the good captain was in trouble, and under duress he called back up to the ship and told Scotty things were “fine, condition green,” which let Scotty know something was up. It’s occasionally annoying on the current show how their lack of foresight and preparedness makes them seem like the alternate ark full of telephone sanitizers, but for whatever reason, this time, I was able to overlook it.
I cannot offer any detailed explanation why it was okay in this episode, but annoying in others. Maybe I just appreciated that this time, there were actual consequences (dead crewman, half the other ships were destroyed, bad juju all around). I dunno.
<Picard> “It’s a mystery!” </Picard>
I noticed this too. But I’ll give you 2-1 odds that by 2150 the vast majority of the Usage Panel will accept data as singular - it’s already up to 60%.