Comment Stream

Re: TNG S6: A Fistful of Datas

"I WANT MY BOY. WHERE'S MY BOY?" LOL this episode had me in tears laughing! I don't see it as a serious episode-- even the title strikes me as intended to be funny (a Fistful of Datas?! ha!). I thought Worf and Troi were hilarious, too. Troi didn't strike me as the obvious choice either, but I loved that they picked her and it was so funny how she threw herself into the whole "ancient West" vibe. "My name is DURANGO!" "Right-- Counselor Durango..." hahaha!

And I definitely thought Data in all those guises was pretty chilling but also kind of hilarious. When he loomed into the picture in the sombrero and mustache I lost it. I took this one as being a humorous detour and I suppose I don't have any particular dislike for holodeck malfunction episodes (to me this is leagues better than say, the Enterprise version where they all go down to the ancient Western planet. That was just awful.), so I thought it was a winner. Sheriff Worf all the way!

Re: DS9 S1: Dax

Doing a second go-around with DS9 and I just watched this last night-- I have changed my mind about a lot of the characters I didn't like the first time around (e.g., Major Kira) but I still really don't care for Dax. I agree wholeheartedly with the person who said she's a third to Neelix and Wesley (also, that was hilarious). Understanding this is subjective, this is just my personal opinion.

I have never seen Farrell in anything else so I suppose I can't really comment on her as an actress, but the Dax *character* comes across as painfully boring and wooden to me. Kind of like Beverly Crusher in 98% of her episodes. I did feel like she was reciting lines in the early episodes; especially when she had a lot of scientific jargon/technobabble to say, which as science officer happens constantly.

She'd just be banal if it weren't for the other characters constantly going on about how amazing she is: Bashir embarrassing himself to get her attention or Sisko zestily remembering old times and her woodenly reciting some fact the symbiont remembers, or Worf in the later episodes. It was particularly off-putting in this episode though, because again, everyone around her was working overtime on her behalf and she came across like she was drugged and out of it. Her explanation for why she wouldn't argue on her own behalf could have proved the Klaestron guy's point. To me, that made the side-step of the question of her individuality even more irritating. The whole thing just seemed half-baked, and so did Dax. 2 stars for the Odo parts (except where he quasi-extorts Quark) :).

Re: DSC S4: ...But to Connect

Not to get into it but to clarify, Ensign Cortez is the guy in Stormy Weather (DSC) who was blown out of the hull breach before Zora sealed it off. Unclear whether he was white or straight, but maybe we can just not know, right :)?

Re: DSC S4: Anomaly

Ah this review is spot on! This episode was *so* maudlin I couldn't handle it. I know DSC is generally maudlin (this is my first comment for this show but I've been watching since the jump), and Michael Burnham gets the Wesley treatment with her awe-inspiring, Mozart of space-time brilliance, but this episode really highlighted every one of those irritating inclinations at the expense of any science or science fiction (lol: pseudo-intellectual is a great way of putting it).

Just a couple of comments since the review and most of the comments cover it well. I thought this episode just showed Burnham is not a good captain. Period. She is bogged down in her boyfriend's emotional baggage and she made a dumb decision. It seemed silly and convenient to imply (via Saru) that he would be better for the mission when he's sitting around in a fugue state. I suspect we're supposed to appreciate her empathy for his situation, but that seemed un-Captainlike and is a great example of the emotional focus sapping all the life out of the "mission" aspect.

Also, I wish they had just let Gray go at the end of last season. He is the overly emo-dynamic in character form. There's no good reason for him to be around. He was never a member of the crew so he contributes nothing except to the missions. He's purely there to wring emotion out of scenes with Adira and he drags... them... down. Whenever he's "interacting" with a crew member she has to repeat everything he says because they can't hear or see him (yet). He is a major drag they dedicate a weird amount of time to. Maudlin.

Re: ENT S4: Daedalus

I really enjoy reading the comments on this page because I always feel like I get more out of the episodes than just watching them. I'm not saying Enterprise is deep or philosophical, but sometimes I do change my mind, or have a clearer understanding.

I agree with the commenters who were not impressed. The continuity problems were jarring. Archer's dad's life story changes depending on what the episode requires (also, if Archer is best friends with Starfleet elite, why isn't he better at this?), and I thought in the Kir'shara episode T'Pau said it would take years to translate Surak's writings. Did I miss something... how is T'Pol reading it now?

But Archer's attitude is definitely consistent. I must have missed the part where he grew and learned lessons. He never stopped grimacing and shouting platitudes in absolutes ("We never do X!" "I'll always do Y!" "Z is unacceptable all the time!") and yet there hasn't been a boundary he wasn't willing to cross and somehow not be made out as right in the end. His helping this Emory guy, disregarding Trip and T'Pol's warnings, pulling rank, and facing zero consequences was unimpressive, but unfortunately, not surprising.

Trip was probably the highlight of the episode-- at least his scenes with Emory had some nuance (I agree though, that Cobbs was not great in this). The whole T'Pol breakup though... what? I literally had no idea they were ever a couple. I thought she was telling him they weren't going to have sex anytime soon, which seemed kind of weird since I didn't get the impression that's what he was after... there is so much reading between the lines with their "relationship" I literally missed the entire thing (except what he told her mom, which seemed implausible, honestly). Agree with the poster who said those scenes were boring. Hopefully we're not coming back to that when she's done with her Kir'shara.

Re: ENT S3: Harbinger

I agree wholeheartedly with Jammer's review but I think 2 stars is way too generous. I feel like we're grading on an ENT curve here and that seems to concede that the overall quality of the show is not up to that of the other Treks.

There were, by my count, three storylines here that in no way hung together and were all so poorly executed and in some cases, even embarrassing or undermining of characters. Since they were all sort of randomly thrown together, none of them was fully developed. But I'll give my thoughts on each (warning: all are gripes):

1. Alien in a pod-- this seemed like a waste of time. It advanced the Xindi storyline almost not at all (basically the last line of the show was it, plus I suppose the business about the alloy of the ship). It still boggles my mind that Archer et al. continue to blithely bring aliens on board after *everything* they've gone through to date, so hey-- no surprise he started wreaking havoc around the ship. Considering the trouble they went through and apparent pain they inflicted on the alien (which I think was the majority of the time spent on that plot), was the "We will prevail" line and the metal alloy information really worth it? I'd argue no. I'd also argue Archer comes across as a moron for continuing to make the same mistakes and endangering his crew/ship, and he and Phlox don't look good as they "bend" ethics on the regular.

2. Reed and Hayes: wow, Reed got the worst of this one. I've never been a fan of that character, although he's sometimes funny (mostly unintentionally). His only consistent defining characteristic (aside from "being English") is a massive inferiority complex. Commenters who pointed out Archer should have cleared up the chain of command when the MACOs came on board were absolutely right. BUT come on-- Reed provoked Hayes, then escalated every argument, then taunted him at every opportunity, all the while with a sour expression on his face. That character is so absurd. And it's also absurd that, as others pointed out, his "team" was missing from the training scenes. I guess at least the upside is Travis got a little action for once.

3. T'Pol and Trip have a one-night stand: @Just another fan asked if there were any female posters on this site. I am a female poster and I did think this scene was degrading. It was horrible as a plot point, embarrassing in execution, and offensive in what it says about the writers and producers. I suppose we're supposed to believe T'Pol and Trip have some kind of sassy, sexual tension going on like the Sam and Diane of Enterprise. If there's one thing ENT does not do well (and there's more than one thing), it's building and maintaining sexual tension. The massage (ahem, neuropressure) scenes have been so tedious, and not at all subtly pointing in the direction of them getting together, but it would have been nice if, when they did, it wasn't shown in the cheapest possible way-- I could virtually hear her saying "Feast your eyes... on THIS!" when she threw off her robe--and then written off as meaningless sex for experimental purposes. How is that a "romance?" Even if she was lying (which, is that better? I find that notion gross), I honestly don't understand how anyone could credibly just go with it the way Trip was supposed to. "Ah well, what are you gonna do? We're still doing the massages though, right?"

I appreciate that there have been a lot of props in the comments for Jolene Blalock but I think she's been saddled with an impossible job-- or at least one that's impossible for her. Very little that her character has done is consistent with what we know about Vulcans from previous shows: she has to be emotionally restrained but sassy and charismatic, sexual, but only interested in sex every seven years, physically strong but submissive, and smart but not smarter than Archer who is regularly an idiot (this is especially irritating: they do a lot of gyrations to make Archer the Hero whenever possible.). I think if she were really playing a Vulcan female, she would not at all be appealing to the human men of ENT as we know them. But it's clear that's not why she's on the show. So she ends up being reduced to the hot woman who monotones a comment every now and takes her clothes off. It's degrading.

I think Trip came off better of the two of them but not by much. Unfortunately, he seems to be subjected to these degrading scenes too, and for some reason he comes off smart sometimes and very basic at others. Why he'd be okay with her reaction the next day is beyond me since she supposedly used him pretty callously. But my expectations of this show have lowered considerably, so I guess I'll have to grade on the ENT curve going forward too.

Re: ENT S3: Proving Ground

From @Peter G.: "just as a matter of observation it does seem to say something about the mental image of humanity in the mind of the writing team. "

I 100% agree with this and with TeeBone's point. I am a Shran Fan, and he made the episode for sure, but it's obvious to everyone that 'pink skin' means white person and when you are not a white person (I am not), that kind of line is a flashing light indicating whom the writers consider the "typical" human. I like Trek because it sets a pretty high standard generally, by not reinforcing those antiquated norms.* To keep it within the realm of the show, none of the humans the Andorians encounter have antennae-- why not point that out instead (I can't think of a "good slur" but I'm fine with that)? Instead they go for this weird skin color comment that just feels gross. Shran deserves better.

*Enterprise has not been as good about this as other shows, as other posters have mentioned.

Re: ENT S3: Carpenter Street

The Xindi are the worst kind of TV villains-- they do everything the hardest and most contrived way possible and no one (for example, MacGuffin Daniels) explains why the easier/more straightforward approach was ignored. Obviously the reason is the writers and the producers. It's very annoying though, to have very obvious questions that demand answers "in universe" (why go back to 2004? what's up with needing each blood type? why specifically Detroit-- or the US for that matter? why not just use an existing virus? Why use a bioweapon at all? Why pick T'Pol to go when she doesn't believe in time travel and would blend in with humans less well than the *human* crew members (not to mention shouldn't second in command stay with the ship? BUT OK)?) because when there are no answers given, it takes you right out of the story and exposes the quarter-assed effort that was put into it.

Also a grim underuse of the talents of Jefferey Dean Morgan: I can't believe he was under all that rubber! Glad to hear JDM stuck with acting after the terrible experience :-).

Re: ENT S3: Similitude

Now that I've finished the comments I wanted to add a couple more things! The comments seem to broadly break along the lines of those who thought the episode was moving enough (which I read as "well-acted" enough-- mainly by Trineer who had to do the yeoman's work by conveying the tragedy of adult Sim's plight) to overlook the layers of magical science fantasy (i.e., "didn't nitpick"), and those that agreed it was well-acted but found the flaws in the premise and the plot generally, as well as its letting Archer and Phlox off the moral hook by having Sim do a complete 180 for no reason whatsoever, too problematic to get past.

Obviously I'm in the latter category. You'll get no disagreement from me that the acting from Trip and even Archer was really great (as I mentioned): I guess one's mileage varies on how much that lets the problems with the episode off the hook. I would dispute that it's nitpicking when there were ways to set up the central conflict that involved fewer contrivances and avoidance of important questions raised.

For one thing, I'd revise, my comment above that Trip and Sim were totally interchangeable: as other commenters pointed out Sim was innocent and lacked artifice or emotional baggage (like going off on Vulcans for reasons that I never caught) but had all his best personal qualities and apparently was also a genius at fixing the ship. Obviously T'Pol was a fan of his (Sim's): why wouldn't she step up to advocate for him and object to Archer's actions or urge him to figure out another solution-- like this enzyme they brought up and then disposed of minutes later, so what was the point of that?

Right, because there was no other solution and no one ever wanted to find one. He existed for the sole purpose of this organ harvest and was even aware that his lifespan was absurdly short. That was a done deal from the jump and despite all the gyrations they went through to create this possibly *more* likeable Clone Trip who wanted to live (even letting him work as chief engineer?), Archer, T'Pol, Phlox, Hoshi et al. had no intention of ever letting him survive. I thought that was pretty gross and depressing. But I will concede the acting was definitely good :).

Re: ENT S3: Similitude

I haven't read through all the comments yet but wanted to weigh in as I just watched "Similitude": it was a TERRIBLE, maudlin plot and the science was so bad it was painful to take in. I agree with the review except I'd give it a much lower star rating. I am willing to accept Trek's take on warp cores and dilithium's properties because they are not real and most of the time they follow an internal logic. Real things like DNA, cloning, organ transplants, etc. (ahem, deuterium) should respect-- or at least mostly respect-- the parameters of the actual science. So it comes off as ham-fisted and convenient that Sim was born with Trip's memories, accent, education, and technical skills encoded in his DNA so he's magically interchangeable with Original Trip once it's time for the transplant procedure to happen. The "enzyme" and Phlox's discovery that he wouldn't survive the procedure were likewise hard to get past as plot contrivances. Them calling him Sim basically said it all (although I do enjoy "Quad" haha): it was dehumanizing-- every single character corrected him every time he identified with Trip, although for all intents and purposes he was Trip. UGH. I agree with those who said this was not addressed as a moral quandary at all-- no one on the ship had any questions about who got to live and what Sim's rights were. So the science was bad, the moral questions were non-existent, and I am very sorry to see that they're catalyzing this romance with Trip and T'Pol even though it was obvious she wasn't just going to serve as his personal "morale officer" for the rest of the show.

I also thought of Tuvix as soon as Sim decided he wanted to live. I really disliked Tuvix (the episode... and I guess the guy), but I thought it had more substance than this.

That said, I did think the acting by Trinneer and Bakula was surprisingly good, given the crumminess of the plot. They did a better and more affecting job than this episode deserved. That is particularly surprising for Archer, who is so 2 dimensional. So it wasn't all downsides (but unfortunately, their efforts weren't enough to make this good).

Re: ENT S3: Impulse

I thought this episode was so incredibly lame. It was like watching a video game. The player guides Archer through different stages of insane Vulcan zombies: the sickbay, the engine room, the docking port... endless, confusing spaces with decor apparently inspired by a Borg aesthetic and all illuminated with lights strobing at a variety of aggravating frequencies. The dialog was terrible (I'd love to subscribe to the idea that this is a commentary on what happens when Vulcans lose control, but none of the dialog supported that). There was no tension whatsoever since they started the episode a day after when they were already back on Enterprise.

I have a special ire for the way T'Pol was handled here. T'Pol's descent into madness came off floppy, wimpy, and weird. She's supposed to be incredibly strong and brilliant (right?), but whenever she has a scene where she has to lose control she comes off very feeble and pathetic. At one point, Archer literally slings her over his shoulder and carriers her out butt-first (oh wait... I get it now). She should be a real threat/challenge to all the other guys, kicking their asses and outsmarting them so they have to really work to contain her. Not cowering and goggling her eyes. [OK screed over] 1.5 stars at best.

Re: TNG S3: The Price

Oh boy; count me as a member of team WTF with the Troi/Ral "romance." The Troi plot had all the worst Troi tropes. It seems like the writers have no idea how to write for her and came up with the most generic woman clichees-- loves chocolate, can't help herself around a "smooth" man in a sparkly suit, girl talks with her girlfriend Beverly during aerobics (that scene was so agonizing I felt my soul leave my body. Bev's pea green, turtleneck unitard and boob-framing thong leotard hurt enough, but to have Troi then come bounding in in the silver unitard and boob-framing pink thong and giggle about toe-curling men while they held hands and did the splits was the LOWEST point for their characters. It was truly something out of an 80s feminine hygiene ad but with worse outfits: BLECH), and falls in love in the hottest of seconds: it. was. the. worst. Ral was creepy out of the gate with his unblinking staring, and I'd dispute the idea that he was a good actor or in any way smooth. Every scene where he was engaged in behind-the-scenes machinations he was so ham fisted and obvious about it. I'll concede the scene where they have dinner and he outmaneuvers Troi on her ethical dispute was pretty solid, but for the most part the actor was really, really awful.

The wormhole plot I liked (despite Ral's presence): I love that it expanded the universe to the Delta quadrant and that there are callbacks in VOY, and I love that it created the stable wormhole concept for DS9. The Ferengi didn't really detract from this for me but they certainly didn't add anything. I would probably give this 2* b/c I was so horrified by the Troi plot. It was truly the nadir of Troi episodes in my humble opinion.

Re: ENT S2: Cease Fire

I think I'd give this 3.5 out of 4: I LOVED Combs and Plakson: they're both so fun to watch :). Trip had a cool moment in command and Archer did a competent job, which I consider a win for him. Even Soval relaxed on the dickishness a little. It might have been improved by a negotiating table scene, but I wasn't sad about how it ended.

Re: ENT S2: Precious Cargo

I was wondering how bad an episode had to be to get zero stars if even A night in sickbay got one-- WOW. Count me in as agreeing with the review (although I think ANIS is arguably equally bad and should have gotten 0 too, but ok). Even with a confessed major Trip bias, this was painful for me to watch. I even think this could have been at least entertaining (if clicheed) if there had been good chemistry and sassy banter: sadly I think Trinneer had to work overtime to compensate for Lakshmi's execrable acting and the script was so bad I agree even a brilliant actor would have struggled.

I think the actor who plays Trip is really talented and when he has good material he is easily (imho) the best on the show. Unfortunately it's been the proverbial long road since Shuttlepod 1 (or the last good character work he's had) and the writers and producers have settled into these Trip clichees they keep going back to that don't serve him well AT ALL. Every single one of them was in this episode. Someone enumerated a few upthread, but just for my 2 cents:

Clichee 1: Trip knows how to fix or rewire every alien's ship (including species they've never met) better than the aliens.
Clichee 2: Trip tells folksy stories about his childhood/girlfriends back in Florida. There isn't always a point.
Clichee 3: Trip takes off his shirt/clothes no matter how unnatural it is to the scene (I agree that he has a great body, but less is more with those types of scenes and it gets way less sexy/exciting when it's so overdone.)
Clichee 4: Trip can't help but get into a romance with the female alien-- crazy adventure ensues!
Clichee 5: Trip's colleagues catch him in a compromising position or post clothing removal. If T'Pol is there she glares more icily than usual.

I'm bummed they keep going back to this well because I think the actor deserves better. Also because it doesn't make for interesting TV. I'm still in this until the end, and I guess they revamp (or so I hear) at Season 3, but yeah. Even if they didn't turn into salamanders, I think it's down there with Threshold.

Re: TOS S2: The Omega Glory

Oh man! The Omega Glory has aged particularly poorly among TOS episodes, which is pretty unfortunate for a show about the future. All the flag waving/patriotic stuff at the end was painful and obviously absurd. The idea that it was being critical or a parody would definitely improve it, but if that's what the intent was, it wasn't well-executed. Not sure I'd even give it 1 star, tbh.

Re: ENT S2: Marauders

Couldn't agree more with the review! The thing that bothered me most about it was how the deuterium was characterized: effectively treating the place as an oil field (so "mining" is confusing: do you mine liquids? I'd argue no). As others have pointed out, it would be gaseous and not liquid at a temperature where humans are wearing t-shirts and sweating (assuming we buy that there *were* just deposits underground). Make up whatever properties for the dilithium etc., but if a compound exists in reality it seems lazy not to look it up and make sure you're being accurate. As for the rest-- I think the review and most of the comments sum it up nicely :).

Re: ENT S2: A Night in Sickbay

I had to add one more thing! Someone upthread commented this would have worked better for Neelix or Quark: that is a brilliant observation. This has all the hallmarks of Neelix, who I think is the *absolute worst* of all the series (impetuous, overreacting, dialing every response up to 11, constantly getting in people's faces and in the way, and it goes on-- although I'll admit Neelix did mellow a little over time). Hard to believe the writers thought: "let's take Neelix's worst qualities and give them to the captain and dial them all up for this episode." Yet here we are.

Re: ENT S2: A Night in Sickbay

Oh wow. I'm amazed this didn't get 0 stars. I was frozen in a cringe pretty much the entire episode. I'm sure one's existing opinion of Archer has a lot to do with whether or not his behavior here was forgivable and I'll say straight off I didn't like him going into this for all the reasons described by others: arrogant, self-centered, immature, loud, undisciplined, bullying (the list goes on). IMHO, even if Jon Archer had literally any other job that exists now or in the future, his behavior would have been unacceptable because he created the problem (bringing his dog, wtf, then being rude, then blowing every element WAY out of proportion) and then refused to take responsibility. But he doesn't have just any job, he's a *starship captain*, and it seems reasonable to expect that a starship captain leading the first exploration into space live up to a heightened standard for behavior. The entire episode his subordinates were basically rolling their eyes at him (Trip/T'Pol/Hoshi/Phlox) and giving him good advice he basically threw back in their faces. OK great. So much for getting his team's input.

I 100% agree with those who point out that this being in season 2 is part of the problem. It comes across like there's been zero growth in his character, apology notwithstanding. So he's been in space for 2 years (I think they said: more than 1) and learned... what? He's even seen this race before! And I get the stress of the dog situation (which by the way, the fake dog was hilarious-- I did get a laugh out of that): I have a dog and she's part of my family. That said, dog ownership doesn't give you license to act like a dick when the dog is involved. Layer on that the fact that Archer endangered Porthos, got in Phlox's face when he suggested the surgery, and then *during* the surgery started asking him those idiotic questions about his "sexual tension"-- was there not a better time to have that conversation?-- I'm not really sure he's such a bang-up companion for Porthos either.

And of course the "sexual tension" was the truly dreckiest part of this. When he blurts out 'breast' and 'lips' talking to T'Pol I thought there was no way the show could get worse. Wrong! The dog funeral wet dream was one of the worst things I have seen on anything ever. There is no un-ringing that bell. At this point the writers and producers (the same people for this ep, right?) have stopped even pretending T'Pol is a science officer. I agree with commenters who said it's embarrassing and demeaning for the actress and cheapens the character. And of course she and Archer have zero sexual tension whatsoever. I suspect it's just the nature of the T'Pol character ("sexual tension is a human emotion"). I could kind of see maybe some minor something with Trip, but he's pretty charismatic and certainly more so than Archer. Trip generated more of a spark bantering with the computer from Dead Stop than Archer and T'Pol in any episode to date (including the subtle boobs-in-face scene mentioned above-- I think Shadows of P'Jem).

I'll end on a semi-positive note and say Phlox/Billingsley did the best with what he had and managed to get to the other side of this without ruining his character. Him narrating the wet dream was pretty funny too.

Re: ENT S2: Carbon Creek

I watched this one last night and almost entirely agree with Jammer's review. I only read a few comments and am *really* surprised by how much love this episode is getting. Imho it could have been good but failed on mostly poor acting and clichees that are outlined on the review, so it had potential it failed to meet. But here are what I saw as the pros and cons (and reasonable minds can differ of course):

Pros:
-I thought Mestral was pretty good (well... maybe that's an overstatement: solid) and his amusing moments delivered. He didn't seem dickish and I didn't think he was boring either so that's not bad (not a resounding endorsement, I know) (that fact about Tuvok and Seven is really interesting btw: I always wondered why they weren't together more since they seem to think alike: prioritizing logic and efficiency. I was never bored when they were together. I thought both were great characters and actors, but I can see the logic there).
-The other male Vulcan had a few moments of levity too-- I did enjoy his Moe joke. The I love Lucy joke amused me too.
(that's it for pros)

Cons:
-T'Pol/T'Mir/Blalock is the biggest "con" of all. I 100% agree this episode exposes all the weaknesses, if not of the actress then of the character. It seems extraordinarily lame that T'Mir and T'Pol are identical in every facet, down to the cheesy scene where she gets undressed behind a sheet and leaves exactly nothing to the imagination. That is not subtle. The only way it could be less subtle is if she stripped in front of the camera. She's got the same blank face, the same unmodulated, monotone voice, and the same dead eyed-expression. I have to disagree this is just how Vulcans are. Sarek, Tuvok, and Spock were not like that, and I disagree Spock's cool engagement can be chalked up to being half human for reasons already brought up by others above. I can see how Blalock could be limited by the producers/writers giving her bad material, her own acting limitations (esp. for a difficult character), or both. Whatever the case, it was just T'Pol in a new setting, a blank spot on the screen per usual. To me that is too weak to have a whole episode premised on it. [Although I will note it led to one of the unintentionally funniest scenes where Mestral and the lady who owns the restaurant make out and then she says "Uh-oh, we have company" and they look across the street to see "T'Mir" standing there staring at them. With the blank expression she looks like a sociopath, which CANNOT be what they intended. I laughed so hard.]
-The clichees were hard and heavy (the pool scene etc.): a lot of them were explained already so I'll just agree with those comments/reviews.
- How did T'Mir/Pol et al know how to speak English? I didn't catch an explanation for that on the show.
-How did no one ever find their ship?
- Pure speculation, but why is it that whenever first contact is made it's in some rural part of the US? You'd think the US took up 80% of the planet. I would love to see an episode where the Vulcans land in, say, a Tibetan monastery, which the bookish kid mentioned. Maybe their opinion of humans would be different. I think the interpretation they give "humans" generally seems very America-centric. That also makes me wonder why the Vulcans contemporary with Archer and crew have such a narrow view of our species: have they never been outside the US? (I realize it's just a limitation of this show, but it's still interesting: there were non-Americans on other ST crews; Picard being the obvious example. Or what about Reed here? Interesting)
-The patent business was absurd. I suppose as a funny name check for the actual inventor of Velcro it's a cute joke, but you don't just walk into an office (a law office? unclear) and hand over an item the guy has never seen and then get a big chunk of cash in return. You can't get a patent unless you go through a very onerous, time-consuming process with the US Patent and Trademark Office and even then, that's not how you make money on it. If she had told him to register the patent in the kid's name I could have swallowed it, since a lot of Trek requires *some* suspension of belief, but this was waaaayyy too perfunctory and convenient a solution to the problem of funding his education. I guess I may have misunderstood, but in that case the whole scene was unclear. Con!

So yeah, I agree with Jammer on the rating, even if some of the details mentioned weren't *quite* so bad (imho), others were much worse. 1.5* and not great.

Re: ENT S1: First Season Recap

First time commenter so this is very exciting for me! I just finished watching Season 1 of Enterprise for the first time -- it's the only series I hadn't seen yet. I love the analysis here and get a lot more out of the show from reading it. IMHO, Enterprise S1 has basically defined mediocre. There were some good highs (Shuttlepod One, Dear Doctor-- although I get the mixed reception) and some big time lows (Acquisition, and I didn't like Fusion at all) but plot-wise and concept-wise it was gliding through a mediocre middle that was hard to get excited about. Also I think the theme song is intolerable. I can't skip it anymore on Netflix and it's just the worst (I did get a big laugh out of whoever said the producers blamed it for the show's less than great reception though: come on.)

So I think-- and comments about the producers' statements seem to imply this is a fair point to evaluate the show on-- given the uninspired writing, the character development and acting become more important to making the show enjoyable. One big problem then, is I just can't bring myself to like Archer. He is *so* grating. I tried for 24 episodes to view him not in comparison with Picard or Kirk (or Janeway) and to keep in mind he was the first one out there and didn't have the same rulebook yet. Even so, he comes off obnoxious, belligerent, emotional, and short-sighted.

The second most screen time (I think) goes to T'Pol, who is also boring to the point that she's a dead spot on the screen. My husband tells me she doesn't have to be engaging b/c she's there to be sexy & attract men. That much is obvious. I don't have a problem with sexiness, but she suffers by the obvious Seven of Nine comparison, since Ryan was a much better actress and she had generally better material. Also, part of sexiness is charisma and personality, and they either omitted it for T'Pol or Blalock isn't conveying it. Playing a Vulcan is very difficult I'm sure-- Spock was always animated and engaged and had a distinct personality even while not being emotional. I'm sure that's a hard line to walk and few seem to have been able to swing it since. Oh: I could have also absolutely lived without all the decon room nonsense and crop top shots w/out a bra. People seem to comment that she gets better over time so I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed for that.

So Trip is the only one of those three that I liked. Episodes with a lot of Trip tended to be good episodes (except the weird pregnancy one) and episodes with insufficient Trip tended to be lame. I'll admit to a huge Trip bias as I know he had plenty of "decon room" scenes too; I've got no excuse there. Fortunately Trinneer is a good actor. :-)

Of the other four: Phlox, Hoshi, Reed, and Mayweather, I'd say Phlox is up there with Trip and I enjoy most of the scenes he's in. Hoshi I generally like, but I suspect they're going to veer towards oversexualizing her character in a juvenile way too, which seems unworthy of a Starfleet officer (I guess that applies to the others too). Reed is okay but doesn't leave too much of an impression, and Mayweather may as well not be there.

Here's hoping future seasons get better since I've committed to seeing this through. Since TNG needed a season to get off the ground, maybe the same holds here?