Star Trek: Enterprise 106: Terra Nova

Episode Title: Terra Nova

Director: LeVar Burton

Writer(s): Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

Wikipedia Synopsis:An early human colony on Terra Nova mysteriously disappeared 70 years ago and Enterprise is sent to find out what happened to them.

Guest Stars of Note: space Indians/barbarians/road warrior-y people

Impressions: So, Earth's first deep space colony went dark 70 years before Enterprise started their mission and we discover that the survivors of Terra Nova moved into underground tunnels, made highly refined and detailed D&D type leather armor, created a sort of ancestor worship type social structure, and completely forgot that they were humans. That's a lot of stuff in a mere 70 years. 

Once again they find a planet that seems dangerous so Archer decides he should go down... he was a bad choice for this mission I think.

Reed gets shot in the leg by a space barbarian and spends most of this episode sitting around in a cave wincing... so... glad he's in charge of the whole combat side of things.

Phlox cures a space barbarian of cancer in a couple of hours because... space medicine. Not that I'm all that bothered by this because Phlox also gives some space barbarians the stink eye in this episode and it's the best performance of the hour.

The end of this episode has a whole lot of, "Trust me," "Now you trust me," crap in it. 

The space barbarians have some pretty sweet tribal face paint.

Oh yeah, SPACE ARMADILLOS!

Score: 1 of 3 Space Armadillos

Star Trek: Enterprise 105: Unexpected

Episode Title: Unexpected

 

Director: Mike Vejar

Writer(s):  Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

Wikipedia Synopsis: Trip helps an alien crew fix their engines only to find himself pregnant.

Guest Stars of Note: some greasy aliens

Impressions: So, Trip gets wrist nipples... Jesus Christ, he sucks.

Some greasy lizard aliens ride around cloaked from sensors in the Enterprise's wake and suck up residual energy to make their ship go. As well as cloaking technology, they have a holodeck, and glass beads that make you psychic when you put your hands in them. It seems to me that they could maybe have designed a better engine.

The alien holodeck looks like one of those foil stickers you'd get when you were  kid, you know the ones, they're supposed to have an image on them but they're so poorly made all they do is shine in rainbows. 

Archer falls in the shower at the opening of this episode and I spent the rest of the show wondering how he didn't hurt himself.

 Score: 0 out of 2 wrist nipples

Star Trek: Enterprise Episode 104: Strange New World

Episode Title: Strange New World

Director: David Livingston

Writer(s):
Rick Berman & Brannon Braga (story)
Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong (teleplay)

Wikipedia Synopsis: A storm traps an away team on an alien world, while spores cause them to experience psychosis.

Guest Stars of Note: None

Impressions: We can tell their flashlights are from the future because they have extra buttons.

So they find a new planet that looks like it can support Human life and with no other research decide to land there and in the end they poison themselves with hallucinogenic pollen. Will they learn their lesson for the next time? Probably not.

On this brave new world Captain Archer decides to bring his dog. So... you know... fuck the native ecology. Also, he just allows the dog to run off willy nilly. What if some large predatory animal was around? Captain Archer won't allow his dog to be transported in the transport beam but will let him run off like a lunatic on an alien planet... he's a very inconsistent pet owner.

Speaking of the transporter they transport somebody up in a wind storm and he ends up on the ship with sticks and rocks embedded in him yet somehow he survives due to the one and only Dr. motherfuckin' Phlox. 

Trip becomes a bigger asshole when the paranoia kicks him leading in the end to T'Pol having to stun him which I wish happened somewhere in the first act so I wouldn't have to listen to his assholery.

Mayweather tells a ghost story and you find yourself wishing the plot to that was the plot to this episode.

Have you ever noticed that all alien planets look like California?

Score: 1 out of 4 for the episode, 3 out of 4 for the ghost story, and 8 out of 4 for shooting Trip.

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.