Star Trek: Enterprise 103: Fight or Flight

Episode Title: Fight or Flight

Director: Allan Kroeker

Writer(s): Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

Wikipedia Synopsis: Hoshi faces her fears on an alien ship whose crew was murdered, while Malcolm tries to upgrade the ship's defense system. 

Guest Stars of Note: None

Impressions: Hoshi's unhappiness and fear is paralleled with the health of a slug they have removed from it's native habitat. So there's that. A slug they then release onto a similar yet different planet in a completely different star system so... you know... fuck native ecology.

Trip wants to go and explore but can't and that makes him antsy because he's a man of action or something.

Archer, T'Pol, and Trip have the beginnings of a very awkward dinner and I found myself wishing that they would do an episode of just that, just three people uncomfortably eating salad in space... just half conversations and barely contained resentment.

Archer ignores perfectly sound advice from T'Pol and gets nosy almost leading to his crew being harvested for their brain juices. I understand that he's the defiant adventurer type but when you're boredom almost gets people killed maybe you should re-think command.

Why does Archer always leave the ship? He's the damn captain. Hey, Archer, DO YOUR JOB!

I like that Phlox seems sort of disgusted that he has to constantly point out the Hoshi/slug parallel. Also, why hasn't there been some sort of Phlox spin-off. If the do decide to do the Worf spin-off show then Phlox better somehow be worked into it.

So Hoshi has come to terms with her space fear issues already? Well that was pretty quick arc.

Try as I might, I will never be able to take Reed seriously as some sort of badass. He looks like a math teacher. This is a fault in my character and I accept that.

Score: 1 out of 4.

Star Trek: Enterprise 101: Broken Bow Parts 1 & 2

Episode Title: Broken Bow Parts 1 & 2

Director: James Conway

Writer(s): Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

Wikipedia Synopsis: First contact with Klingons; the Enterprise (NX-01) is launched. Archer finds himself in the middle of a Temporal Cold War.

Guest Stars of Note: James Cromwell, "Tiny" Lister

Impressions: It's not that they decided to go with a pop song as their opening theme, it's that they decided to go with a song from Patch Adams that irritates me, did Star Trek not carry enough cultural clout in 2001 to swing an original shitty pop song for the opening credit sequence? 

The Klingon Klaang is taken down by a space redneck with the future equivalent of a squirrel hunting rifle, it's a sad showing for a representative of a military caste based culture.

Why must Archer's father also have been a part of the team to work on the first warp engine? Why can't he dislike Vulcans solely because they have impeded humanity's progress? Isn't that motivation enough?

Also, on a production design level you know that you are designing a prequel show to what may be the most Sixties-era looking show in the history of everything. I understand that the crazy day-glo, bubble design from the original series isn't going to cut it with a modern audience but the Enterprise of this show has to believably become the Enterprise of the original series and the designs are so fundamentally different it's sort of shocking. There are roughly 100 years between Enterprise and the Original Series so I'll just assume a race of crazy space aesthetes joined Starfleet during that time and just punched everything up.

Trip is just awful. As the chief engineer of a space vessel he is unaware that there is a little pocket of reversed gravity IN EVERY SPACE VESSEL EVER. How do you not know that when your job is to maintain the ship. That's like the doctor not knowing where the medicine stores are kept.

T'Pol is also just awful. 

Speaking of T'Pol let's discuss the gender politics of this episode for a second shall we. They have two female characters in the pool of this show, both are supposed to be the big brains of the ship, T'Pol the Vulcan science officer/executive officer and Hoshi Sato the communications officer with some sort of savant gift of language. Let's discuss how they are used in the show. T'Pol has to smear her as naked as they could get her body with space oil to decontaminate herself and Hoshi spends the entire episode afraid of every noise on the ship like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Yay, space suffrage! 

The lizard tongue butterfly devouring space strippers/prostitutes also bother me. I'm not a prude and I will concede that Trip also gets oiled down in the decontamination scene but by and large the women are objectified hard and long in this episode and it becomes sort of embarrassing. The issues with how women are treated so shabbily is a theme I fear I will be returning to again and again so I'll save it for a later episode.

Dr. Phlox, aside from the horrific CGI smile, is the greatest character on the show. I will brook no discussion otherwise.

Why must the Archer and Trip be the two crew members to enter the unknown alien vessel and rescue the possibly violent seven foot alien space marine? Aren't there any like ensigns that they could spare so THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP and THE CHIEF ENGINEER MAYBE DON"T HAVE TO PUT THEIR FUCKING LIVES ON THE LINE? I forgive Kirk when he does this kind of shit because Kirk is a sociopath but Archer isn't so that just makes him stupid I guess.

Score: 2 out of like 7 or so.

EDIT: Temporal Cold War? Really? That's the best you had? 

Preconcieved Notions on Star Trek: Enterprise

I watched all 98 episodes of this monster last year and they were by and large awful. I will attempt to view them with fresh eyes this time through and try to find the good in them. However, the character of Trip may be the worst character in the history of everything and I can't promise to keep all my vitriol in check.
ONWARDS!

A Statement of Intent From Me

About a year ago I decided to watch every episode of Star Trek in its various incarnations (TV, Movie, whatever) chronologically within continuity. Thus I started with Enterprise, moved on to the original series, then the animated show, then movies, and have now found myself a season and a half into Next Gen. While the enterprise (pun only partly intended) has been noble, I realized I haven't documented my journey at all so I plan to remedy that with this here blog. Hold on to your hats and pity me, for I plan on tackling the entirety of the Star Trek Mythos and I shall record my impressions as I go.