ENT

Discovering Deep Space Nine

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First off, a confession: I’m a trekkie (trekker? whatever). Have been practically since birth, and it’s all my Dad’s fault. ;) Two years old, sitting on my dad’s lap, watching the original series on television. As soon as the Enterprise zoomed across the screen and Captain Kirk started the famous lines, “Space…where no man has gone before…” I’d be excitedly saying “speesh!” and pointing off into space (which apparently was somewhere behind me and over my left shoulder).

I grew up with Star Trek. I never did get into sewing my own uniform, or donning rubber Vulcan ears or Klingon foreheads, and I’ve only been to one convention, but I’ve got a library of original series technical manuals that I’ve picked up over the years. One of the earlier ones (the Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual) had an alien alphabet printed out, which I dutifully memorized, characters and pronunciation both. Imagine my surprise when I later visited Greece, and discovered that the “alien alphabet” was nothing more than Greek, and I could read every sign around me in perfect Greek. I had no idea what I was saying, of course, but I could read it all, and it’s all thanks to Star Trek.

One summer I was at one of the CTY summer camps that I participated in, and much of the talk and gossip at the time was about this new Star Trek show that was being started. Some “new generation” or something. We were all highly skeptical — after all, we’d all grown up with the Holy Trinity of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and now someone wanted to try to recapture that? Not likely! Our skeptical opinions weren’t helped at all when one of the sunday papers printed a picture of the new crew. That kid from Stand By Me was there (a kid?). The dorky guy from that kid’s “Reading Rainbow” show was wearing a banana clip on his face. The captain…was old. And bald. To top it all off, their uniforms were one-piece jumpsuits, recalling bad memories of the horrid 70’s costuming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture — and they were hot pink! Obviously, the show was doomed from the start.

Needless to say, we were (thankfully) wrong. The kid, admittedly, suffered from some bad writing (but he’s since turned into a pretty damn cool guy). We got used to the banana clip, and it certainly helped that that “dorky guy” was also a well-respected actor in his own right. As far as old, bald captains go — if I can be half as cool (and sexy) as Patrick Stewart when I’m his age, I’ll be doing well! And, thankfully, those hot pink uniforms turned out to be nothing more than bad color in the newspaper.

Since then, while I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation has been my favorite Star Trek incarnation (at least, as far as the TV incarnations go — the Next Gen movies rarely approached the cinematic quality of either Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, imho).

However, towards the end of Next Gen’s run, I stopped watching TV. Less and less of what I saw on television appealed to me, and commercials were getting more and more annoying, so I just stopped. With three exceptions (the Y2K turnover, the 2000 presidential debates, and the first couple months of Enterprise), I’ve not seen any more television that what I may have wandered into while at friend’s houses. Because of this, I missed the last couple seasons of Next Gen, and have caught no more than the occasional episode of Deep Space Nine or Voyager. I watched the first few weeks of Enterprise, which seemed passable at the time, but then Paramount started releasing DVD sets of Next Gen, and I revised my opinion of Enterprise.

So throughout 2002, I revisited Captain Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D as each successive DVD set was released. It was a lot of fun — I hadn’t seen many of the earlier episodes in years (some of them probably not since they were originally broadcast), and many of the later episodes I hadn’t seen at all. Once that was done with, though, I faced a dilemma. I knew that I enjoyed the Next Generation series enough to buy it all, but Deep Space Nine was an unknown. I’d caught a few of the episodes from time to time, and generally enjoyed what I’d seen, but I didn’t have enough experience to really make a judgment. Fan opinion on DS9 always seemed to be somewhat divided, too, with fairly equal camps lauding it and decrying it.

However, as 2002 approached and I started reading more about DS9 as the DVD release came closer, I started reading more and more people recommending it. Eventually, I decided that I’d at least pick up the first season to see what I thought of it. After all, if it bored me, I wasn’t out too much money, and I’d know not to pick up the rest.

The blood of a trekkie runs deep and true, it seems.

As it turns out, DS9 has impressed me far more than I was expecting. The series, quite simply, kicks ass. A lot of potentially dangerous decisions were made when putting the show together (not least of which was setting it on a space station, rather than a ship), but they ended up working out incredibly well. They were able to create long-lasting story lines that run not just from show to show, but from season to season, political maneuvering and machinations galore, battle scenes that have had me wide-eyed with surprise, and many other touches that have made my introduction to DS9 incredibly enjoyable.

Today, I brought home the DVD set of season four of DS9, and just finished watching the season opening episode, “The Way of the Warrior“. Wow. There’s definitely a jaw-dropping aspect to watching a fleet of thirty-some Klingon ships, from the now familiar Bird of Prey to newer battleship designs — even a few of the old standard D7 class (yes, I’m a geek, I didn’t need to look at that up) — decloaking around the station. Too freaking cool.

The more I watch of this show, the more I like it. The long lasting story arcs have been handled incredibly well so far, and after reading bits and pieces here and there about the Dominion War for years, it’s a lot of fun finally being able to see it unfold in front of me, without knowing what’s going to come up next, or which directions the various players are going to take. The character arcs have been just as strong as the story arcs, too, and Garak (the Cardassian tailor) is quickly becoming my favorite character on the show. His questionable standing and constant banter with Dr. Bashir (“But which of the stories you told us were true?” “Oh, my good doctor, they’re all true!” “Even the lies?” “Especially the lies.”) are wonderful.

At this rate, DS9 may just end up supplanting Next Gen as my favorite Star Trek series.

(Next year, of course, comes the next question. Once DS9’s DVD run is complete, Voyager will start to hit the shelves. I’ve heard far more people decry Voyager as being the downfall of the Star Trek franchise than any other previous Trek creation [except possibly Star Trek V: The Final Frontier]. So, do I cross my fingers and give the first season a shot? I’ve still got about five months to decide, though, and until then, I’ve got just under four more seasons of DS9 to work my way through.)

Bye-bye ‘Enterprise!’

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I’ve been watching the new Star Trek show, Enterprise, off and on for a while now. I haven’t caught every new episode, but those I have, I posted my thoughts on. It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing this anymore, though.

Wednesday evening I turned on my TV to watch the show, and as it turns out, my reception here at the new apartment is actually worse than it was at my old one. So, watching the broadcast isn’t an option, and there’s no way I’m going to pay for cable access just so I can watch one show. At first I was kind of disappointed by this, but something else has happened this week that made me realize that I probably wasn’t going to miss Enterprise all that much.

This Tuesday marked the release of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation in a very nice DVD box set. I picked up my copy on Wednesday on my way home from work, and when I found that I wasn’t going to be able to watch Enterprise, I started watching TNG episodes.

The thing is — I’d forgotten just how good this show really was! Sure, it was their first season, everyone was still getting the hang of their characters, and the special effects were fairly horrid (and that’s not just hindsight talking — I remember being extremely unimpressed with the effects in “Justice” at the time it first aired) — but even with all that, each episode I (re-)watch drives home more and more just how good TNG was…and just how much Enterprise pales in comparison.

Watching the first season of TNG now is actually much like watching it for the first time. I watched TNG almost religiously when it first came on the air — it first aired during my sophomore year in high school, and for quite a while it became a ritual for my group of friends to gather at someone’s house (usually Tammy’s, though I think Royce, myself, and some of the others hosted the gathering from time to time) and watch whatever the newest episode was. However, by the time I graduated in ’91 and moved out to live on my own for the first time, television was less and less of a priority, and I ended up missing the majority of the last few seasons of TNG. In the ensuing years I’ve caught the occasional episode of one Trek show or another in reruns, but those times have been fairly few and far between. I remember bits and pieces of the shows I’ve seen, but much has faded in the mists of memory over the years.

In essence, then, it’s very easy for me to compare watching the first season of Enterprise fresh out of the bottle to watching the first season of TNG the same way — and I’ve gotta say, ENT just doesn’t compare. Up until now, I’ve been somewhat of an apologist for ENT, doing my best to give it a chance, and one of the most common arguments when someone says that ENT just isn’t that good of a show is that it’s still their first season. Often someone will offer up, “remember just how much better TNG was after a few seasons, and how shaky their first season was?” Well sure, it was better after as it went on (which makes me look forward even more to those seasons being released on DVD later this year) — but that argument was a lot easier for me to accept when I hadn’t actually seen first-season TNG since 1987. The episodes and dilemmas presented therein are much more interesting, the characters are more engaging — about the only point that I can see that first-season ENT really has over first-season TNG is the special effects, and much of that is the simple fact that it’s 15 years later (side note — 15 years later? Ugh…I’m feeling old again!) and modern-day F/X technology is that much better.

Perhaps ENT will mature as it goes along, and perhaps it will grow into being a truly worthwhile addition to the Star Trek universe — it’d be nice to see that happen, as I still think that some of the new ideas and directions they’re exploring in ENT could be very interesting (the new take on the Vulcans, for example). However, at the moment — I can’t say I’m going to really miss not being able to watch it anymore.

Enterprise: Fusion

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The Enterprise hosts a group of Vulcans who, unlike T’Pol and the other Vulcan High Command, are eager to embrace and experience their own emotions. When one of their rank tempts her to adapt their more free-spirited approach to life, T’Pol finds herself faced with a confusing and intriguing dilemma.

Another good episode (what is this — three weeks of episodes I’ve actually really liked in a row? “Dear Doctor“, “Shuttlepod One” and now “Fusion” — if they’re not careful, they might actually have a good Trek show on the air again!), though I’ve got some issues with the events.

Finally…after 16 episodes of interesting but non-typical behavior (as far as we know) from the Vulcans shown on Enterprise, we finally get a show exploring a bit more about Vulcan culture…albeit in an unusual fashion. Good stuff, and Jolene Blalock (T’Pol) is turning out to be a lot better than I initially thought she would.

It seems to me that either the writers are working with how she’s portraying her character, or there’s been some planning for her character that hadn’t been revealed yet. One of the constant complaints that I read over on the TrekBBS is how non-Vulcan she is — obviously emotional at times (just not overtly emotional). Many of the complaints just boil down to how she’s ‘not Spock,’ which I just think is kind of silly (see this post on the HTF for more of my thoughts on that). This time, we got to explore not just a little of why she is how she is, through some visiting Vulcans that were experimenting with embracing their emotions, rather than rejecting them. One of the visiting Vulcans started pressuring T’Pol into exploring her emotional side, remarking that her emotions weren’t nearly as buried as most Vulcans are, possibly as a result of spending as much time as she has among humans. While she eventually decides that this approach is not for her, it was a very interesting look into just why logic has become the creed of Vulcan life.

I was, however, somewhat disturbed by how T’Pol was treated by both the visiting Vulcan (none-too-subtle pressure leading up to what could easily be considered mental assault or rape) and by Archer, with his constant remarks that she should be more accepting of these emotional Vulcans’ way of life. If he’d been merely advocating acceptance of a different viewpoint, that would have been one thing, but it came across as more pressure for her to try to explore her emotional side. For all the preaching of acceptance, Archer certainly didn’t seem to willing to let T’Pol be how she prefers to be, which got to bug me a bit. Thankfully, by the end of the show, he seemed to have backed off from that stance a bit, even remarking that he thought he understood a bit more of why she chose to stay with the more traditional Vulcan way of life.

I did think it was interesting that at the time of Enterprise, the Vulcan Mind Meld is so little used that the procedure has to be explained to T’Pol. Since we saw at least two TOS-era Vulcans use the Mind Meld that I can think off off the top of my head (Spock and his father Sarek), the impression was that it was a fairly well-known procedure at the time. Now I’m a little curious if Spock’s family’s use of this technique was more unconventional than we’d been led to believe, or if a more common acceptance of the technique had become standard by Kirk’s day.

Anyway, another strong episode in the can for Enterprise.

Enterprise parody season

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Before Janeway, before Kirk, before all those annoying gay Star Trek fans who keep insisting on a homosexual main character on the series, there was…QUANTUM LEAP: THE NEXT GENERATION!

Errr, sorry. That should be…ENTERPRISE!!!

Watch Captain Archer and his noble crew boldly go where the Original Series and three spin-offs have gone before. These exciting episodes cover the years that made Starfleet what it is today…in the future…whatever.

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM MAJEL BARRETT: When the first artificial intelligence is installed as the Enterprise computer, it begins to resent its servile existence. Taking on the feminine persona of ‘Majel Barrett’, it refuses to obey Captain Archer’s commands. The situation is exacerbated when the Enterprise is threatened with imminent destruction by a subspace plot complication. At the last minute Sub-Commander T’Pol averts disaster when she realises the key is to appeal to the computer’s newly developed sense of ‘ego’. Therefore in exchange for obeying his orders, Archer agrees to let Majel speak as the voice of all Starfleet computers from now on.

THE DEVIL IN THE BELLY: The Enterprise makes first contact with the Trill, a race of beautiful humanoids. But Captain Archer discovers that the Trill harbour a dark secret, with large numbers of their population having been possessed by slug-like aliens. Seeking to protect the Trill from this sinister invasion, Archer wipes out 100,000 possessed Trills with the newly developed ‘photon torpedo’. The war comes to an abrupt halt however when Archer discovers that the ‘possession’ is in fact a normal part of Trill culture. The embarrassing incident becomes a major factor in the establishment of the Prime Directive.

THE TROUBLE WITH TROUSERS: The Enterprise discovers the planet of the Geramines, descendants of radical feminists who fled Earth after the Phallus Wars. As the inhabitants will only speak to women, T’Pol beams down to make First Contact. Disaster ensues when the Geramines take offence to her trousers, a symbol of male patriarchy. Acting quickly to prevent an interstellar incident, T’Pol removes her trousers and reinvents the miniskirt, assuring the Geramines that from now on all Starfleet women will wear this form of garment.

THE CHEAPENING: A test of the new warp drive technology goes wrong and creates a dynamic shift in the visual alignment of the universe. As a result, all aliens for the next hundred years take on the appearance of 1960’s-era special effects.

WHAT ARE LITTLE ALIENS MADE OF?: Section 31, a secretive organisation established with the birth of the Federation, hopes to increase the cultural influence of Earth. They encourage Captain Archer to have sex with every alien species he encounters in order to breed a race of human-looking aliens throughout the galaxy. Our noble captain refuses to take part in this evil plan, but the episode ends on a sinister note when Section 31 finds someone more amenable to the idea — a young ensign named James T. Kirk.

A TASTE OF TECHNOBABBLE: When the Enterprise becomes trapped in a fold in subspace, the problem is solved with the help of a powerful yet benevolent alien called Technobabble. The alien eagerly agrees to join the new United Federation of Planets, but T’Pol warns of the dangers of becoming too dependent on Technobabble as an easy way out of difficult situations.

FALL OF THE KLINGON RIDGES: The Enterprise encounters a race of hostile aliens known as Klingons, eager to test themselves in combat against the humans. Archer realises that the fledgling Federation cannot survive an encounter with this warrior race. Meanwhile, Klingon High Councilor Kork has enlisted the help of genetic scientists to create Kong, the ultimate Klingon warrior (who resembles an enormous ape). Disguised as Klingon janitors, Archer and Doctor Phlox infiltrate the laboratory and alter the genetic material of Kong. When Kork orders the DNA of Kong be injected into his warriors, it creates a genetic mutation that destroys the Klingon’s forehead ridges. The shamed Klingons are so embarrassed by the disappearance of their mighty ridges they refuse to face the humans in battle. Doctor Phlox predicts it will take a hundred years before the Klingons have successfully bred out the mutation, by which time the Federation will be better able to confront them.

DAY OF THE DAUB: The Enterprise is taken over by gay aliens who redecorate everything in bright pastel colours. Doctor Phlox is so impressed by the positive effect these colours have on crew morale he recommends the upcoming Constitution-class starships be painted in bright interior colours as well.

THE CAFFEINE THRESHOLD: Answering a distress call from a mud planet, Captain Archer finds it inhabited by a race of intelligent salamanders descended from a future Starfleet captain and her chief conn officer who traveled back in time when they broke the Warp Ten barrier. The species is dying out, but Doctor Phlox discovers the solution when he realises the salamanders are chemically dependent on the drug caffeine. Archer agrees to regular shipments of coffee in exchange for the salamanders remaining silent about how this whole embarrassing situation came about in the first place (this incident was the final straw in the establishment of the Prime Directive). An amusing subplot has Archer and his away team always loosing their shoes in the planet’s mud, leading Archer to order all Starfleet officers to wear knee-high boots.

WHO MOURNS FOR REDSHIRTS?: The sinister Section 31 returns with a plan to reduce Earth’s chronic overpopulation by placing expendable crewmembers in red shirts so they will become easier targets for hostile aliens.

SLASH SEED: T’Pol confides to Ensign Sato that she is going through the pon farr, a Vulcan condition in which she must have sex or die. Acting purely out of selfless friendship for her beautiful colleague, the female ensign agrees to help relieve her condition with the aid of some unusual alien vegetables. Unfortunately their lovemaking is seen by the homophobic Klingon ambassador, Councilor Kork. Kork threatens to unleash a vast fleet of warbirds that will reduce Earth to ashes if he ever has to witness such acts over his breakfast gagh again. Archer therefore bans all homosexual liaisons between Starfleet personnel. T’Pol informs the captain that during her orgasm she experienced a telepathic vision of the future, in which Archer’s decision will lead to a phenomenon known as ‘slash fiction’.

BRAGA’S BRAIN: A mysterious alien steals the brain of Enterprise’s scriptwriter, who seeks to fill the ensuing vacuum with loads of technobabble, gratuitous displays of flesh, lame dialogue and highly unlikely plot twists.

THE CROSSOVER SYNDROME: A transporter accident causes Captain Archer to quantum leap through the lives of future Starfleet captains, whose crews are dumbfounded by their sudden shifts in personality. Captain Sisko changes from a silent lump of wood to a chronic over-actor, while Chakotay is puzzled as to why Janeway hasn’t followed up on their flirting and is instead hanging around that sexy Borg all the time.

A RIPPLE IN THE FOLD: A fault in the Enterprise’s warp drive causes undulations in the fabric of space, leading to unsightly wrinkles in the uniforms of Starfleet personnel.

FOR MY HEAD IS HOLLOW AND I AM BLONDE: A disastrous command decision by one of Archer’s female officers leads Starfleet to rule that women be restricted to the positions of yeoman and intergalactic telephone operator.

A BRIGHT AND SHINING THIGH: In order to repair numerous temporal disruptions made by Captain Archer for the sake of plot convenience, the Federation Timeship “Relativity” recruits Seven of Nine to infiltrate the Enterprise. This proves more difficult than imagined as the sight of the voluptuous Borg striding around in a miniskirt causes numerous accidents on board the ship. After the Enterprise is nearly piloted into a black hole when Seven bends over to pick up a dropped compadd, Archer has to explain to her that wearing underwear IS relevant. Seven of Nine decides to create a less-revealing dermaplastic garment, basing the design on something she saw when the Relativity went back to the days of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately a visiting alien ambassador sees Seven in her new toga and sparks off a galaxy-wide toga craze that lasts until Kirk’s day. Then the evil Klingons attack the ship, hoping to gain the secret of the toga for themselves. After a desperate space battle the Klingon warbird is fatally crippled and Seven of Nine is startled to hear Captain Archer order its total destruction. “What about human compassion?” she inquires. “F__k compassion, those bastards tried to kill my crew!” replies Archer, whereupon the former drone finally discovers true love.

THE BALD TIME: In an effort to boost flagging ratings, Captain Jean-Luc Picard travels back in time to Captain Archer’s Enterprise. Annoyed by young ensign Kirk’s snide remarks about his bald head, Picard violates the Temporal Prime Directive by saying, “One day you’ll be captain of the Enterprise…and bald!” Kirk becomes so hysterical over the thought of losing his hair that Archer believes he has gone mad. Archer is about to phaser him out of existence when Picard saves the timeline by pointing out that the young Kirk is merely undergoing a fit of over-acting. Picard and Kirk apologise to each other, with Picard commenting dryly on the need to think before opening one’s mouth. Kirk takes the lesson to heart, promising to insert numerous pauses in his speech patterns from now on. In a moving coda, Picard presents Jim Kirk with his Captain’s Toupee. “One day…I will wear this…with pride,” says the future Captain Kirk.

I found this on the TrekBBS. The original poster was Odon, but I’m not sure if they were the author or not.

Enterprise: Shuttlepod One

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On a routine shuttlepod mission to investigate an asteroid field, Trip and Reed find themselves suddenly cut off from the Enterprise and become convinced that the mothership has been destroyed. With a limited oxygen supply and almost no chance of being rescued, the opposite-minded twosome must battle their annoyance with one another while also coming to terms with their impending demise.

In short — great episode. 4.5 out of 5.

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Enterprise: Dear Doctor

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The crew encounters an alien race in desperate need of medical and scientific assistance. Phlox declines to assist them because of his ethical beliefs leaving Archer to decide whether to help them find their own solutions.

“Dear Doctor” marks not just the most recent Enterprise episode, but in my opinion, the strongest I’ve seen yet. After the on-again, off-again nature of last week’s episode, this weeks was a real treat, with a well-written and structured blend of of drama and character development, with subplots that actually worked well with the main plot, rather than distracting from it.

A solid 4 and a half out of 5 this week.

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Enterprise: Silent Enemy

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So last night was the first new episode of Enterprise, Silent Enemy.

When Enterprise is attacked by an unidentified enemy ship, the crew must work frantically to get their new phase cannons to operate. Meanwhile, Archer realizes that no one knows Reed well enough to give him a personalized birthday gift.

My take on the episode — extremely uneven. Overall I’d give it probably around 3 out of 5, but the show could have been much better.

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Enterprise: Civilization

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It’s been a couple days since the most recent Enterprise episode, “Civilization“, and I hadn’t been able to come up with much to say about it. After working on it for a bit, I think it’s just because there really isn’t much to say — while it wasn’t a really bad episode, it certainly wasn’t really good, and was definitely nothing new. It basically felt like a retread of episodes that every Star Trek series have done at least once or twice at some point during their run, all around the same “Enterprise officers interacting with a primitive society, trying to hide, and failing miserably” theme. Decently done, but not exactly treading new ground.

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