Star Trek: Enterprise

“Precious Cargo”

zero stars

Air date: 12/11/2002
Teleplay by David A. Goodman
Story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Directed by David Livingston

"Careful, man, there's a beverage here!" — The Dude, The Big Lebowski

Review Text

In brief: Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. Bad.

If a casual viewer happened to tune in this week, they'd have but one question: So, this is what passes for Star Trek these days?

I sincerely hope not. I hope the producers realized this was a dog and aired it only because, faced with a deadline, they had no choice. I hope they can one day look back and laugh at this atrocity. Laughing is not likely to happen right now, however, as UPN and Enterprise continue to face woeful days of sagging ratings and a questionable future. With an episode like this, those lousy ratings are deserved. Have the producers no respect for their audience's intelligence and, more important, the audience's desire to be entertained?

"Precious Cargo" is nothing. Zero. Zilch. A test pattern. An empty vessel. A hollow corpse. A lifeless mass. A limp body. A vapid hour. A lamentable experience. A lousy outing. A table scrap. A scrap without meat. A piece of garbage. A test of viewer endurance. Television detritus. Hoary insipidity. A road to nowhere. A road from nowhere. Utter crap. Astounding banality. Awful dreck. A dismal failure. An abomination. A self-parody. A bad self-parody. An insult to the intellect. A slap to the face.

Did I mention it was bad?

At the risk of overstating my case, I'll just say that essentially, this episode is one big, long, long, long, long cliché. This is certainly one of the longest hours of Trek ever made. And one of the dumbest. And most boring and pointless. There is literally NOTHING here that inspires thinking. The actors are deer trapped in the blinding headlights of the script, coming at them at 60 mph. Wham. Yikes — looks like this one's a DOA.

The plot rehashes elements of TOS's "Elaan of Troyius," which I'm sure was already a rehash in 1968. "Precious Cargo" is a rehash without the benefit of humor or satire. It plays its premise basically straight, as if it were actually a legitimate story. It clearly is not. It's nothing more than an assemblage of clichés.

The plot in a nutshell: Two aliens are transporting a woman in suspended animation ("Precious Cargo" — get it?). Their cover story is that they were hired to transport her in this manner. The truth is that they actually kidnapped her and are holding her for ransom. In a series of contrivances, this woman emerges from her hibernation, Trip gets on board the alien vessel and is knocked unconscious, and one alien takes off in the ship with Trip and the woman. Trip and the woman must then team up in an effort to escape the alien ship. The other alien is left behind on the Enterprise, where he is subsequently interrogated in the episode's only scene that comes close to working, but is still not nearly as clever or satisfying as it should be.

The woman is named Kaitaama and is played by Padma Lakshmi, who is very nice to look at but delivers a terrible performance. It certainly doesn't help that Kaitaama is a walking, talking cliché — a typically ultra-haughty princess who is appalled at her situation and even more appalled that she might be rescued by a lowly peasant like Trip Tucker. The ongoing "banter" between Trip and Kaitaama is downright painful to be subjected to. Like Trip, we're trapped with Kaitaama for the whole episode, and she's unbearable while also being unconvincing. I never for one moment felt like I was watching actual people, but rather artificial constructions of a hopelessly recycled, lame-brained plot.

There are scenes of Trip and Kaitaama crawling through air vents, cramming into an escape pod (tight spaces, up close and personal; har har!), and finally crash-landing and traipsing through a swamp. All of this goes on for a very long time with very bad dialog and very obviously no dramatic reason for existing whatsoever other than to fill an hour of a floundering network's bandwidth. It's utterly perfunctory and pathetic and without purpose or merit or life or entertainment value. Eventually Trip and Kaitaama get in a shouting match before they then suddenly clinch/kiss, in an oh-so-predictable scene that is so horrendous as to induce eye-rolling and groans. Watching all of this is like witnessing actors sleepwalking through an hour in a meditative trance, while production mechanically soldiers on, pulling the machine's garbage-in-garbage-out lever.

What's perhaps worst about "Precious Cargo" is that it's awful without also being funny. It's simply awful while being relentlessly boring. Okay, I did laugh when Trip punched the bad guy/alien in the face about five times, and then the alien actually looked straight at Trip and exclaimed, "Ha ha!" How ridiculous. My laughter was one of incredulity. If the alien had a mustache, he'd be twirling it while tying Kaitaama to railroad tracks.

The best thing about this episode was its ending. Not because the ending was good (it wasn't), but because it meant the show was over. Just how bad was this episode? Let me give you some details for the sake of perspective. I taped it on Wednesday and watched it on Friday, and when I queued the tape backward one hour, the counter on my VCR told me exactly how long was left in the show until it was over. "0:00" meant the end. My VCR's countdown to zero was the equivalent of Burgess Meredith in Rocky, telling me to hang in there and get through this fight.

Next week: The ship is taken over by aliens and Archer considers blowing it up. Looks like the Cliché Patrol will be on duty again.

Previous episode: Vanishing Point
Next episode: The Catwalk

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Comment Section

160 comments on this post

    That bitch needed a slap (or a spanking). She was sexy, but the 3 Orion women in Bound were much sexier eye-candy.

    Yep, this is it. The absolute bottom of the Trek barrel. Makes Threshold look like Shakespeare.

    Not one of the better outings for Enterprise, but zero stars is a bit harsh. It wasn't a painful hour for me to endure, and I enjoyed T'Pol's bit as a Vulcan inquisitor, and seeing Padma Lakshmi here, given her subsequent TV success.

    The teleplay for this episode was written by a future Family Guy writer which tells you all you need to know.

    If no one else is going to stand up for this episode, I will. I just saw it for the first time with a friend and neither of us thought it was so bad. I went in expecting legendary badness. If this is supposed to be the worst of Enterprise, it's still better than the bottom of the barrel episodes of other Trek series, such as Spock's Brain, Shades of Gray, Profit and Lace, or Threshold. It was better than the TOS episode Elaan of Troyius which it was loosely based on. The woman in this one was actually less rude than her if you can believe that and unlike that episode, Trip doesn't have to put up with her crap. It has a decent enough pacing to keep it from being painful to watch. Was this a good episode? No. Did it deserve better than zero stars? Yes.
    You're spot on with most of your reviews Jammer, but I think this one was a bit harsh.

    Before this guy was a Family Guy writer, and before he was a writer for Enterprise, he wrote the Star Trek parody episode of Futurama, "Where No Fan has Gone Before" Apparently he was overjoyed to be able to write it, because he was such a fan of the original series. Something to keep in mind for his first script.

    I didn't find the time dragging. I quite liked the aliens of the week who were endearingly shifty and cowardly. Trineer's performance was just fine, and if Lakshmi was a bit stilted, I was prepared to put that down to her character's upbringing and the fact that she had been in stasis for several months.

    One and a half to two stars from me.

    So it's official - I love the episodes that get the lowest Jammer ratings. This one was big campy space fun, Buck Rogers style, and I enjoyed every second.

    What I find disturbing is not that you gave this episode zero stars Jammer (I agree with the rating), but the fact you're acting so outraged a mere one week after giving 3.5 stars to "Vanishing Point".

    Both episodes are on the same level for me. At least this one's got Padma Lakshmi to look at.

    Good lord, Padma Lakshmi is TERRIBLE in this episode! She sounds like a robot. The episode itself isn't that bad. Ok, that's a lie. The episode itself is pretty bad too. But, wow, she's just awful! She's a beautiful girl. But, a truly painfully horrible actress. She really brought this episode from the toilet bowl to the septic tank.

    It's not THAT bad. We're not talking Threshold here. Heck, I thought it was better than the tedious speechmaking of "Stigma".

    It was at least competently executed from a plot perspective - step by step. True, nothing ground-breaking here - perhaps 1.5 stars or 2, but honestly I'd rather have watched this than a Mirror Universe episode or a Ferengi comedy episode or several other Trek staples.

    I can't call this one zero stars, but I can't call it good either. If Padma could actually act worth a flip it'd be a lot better.

    I'm quite surprised anyone is defending this episode. Lakshmi's acting was execrable, but Trineer doesn't exactly light it up, either. The rest is just all-around bad.

    One thing this episode does illuminate are several themes that will become fatal hallmarks of this series:

    1) Numerous episodes in which the crew must put on some kind of poorly acted and elaborate ruse to get something out of the antagonist (T'Pol's silly performance as an inquisitor here, the Ferengi episode, "Canamar", but to cite a few).

    2) The consistently adolescent way in which sexuality is depicted or otherwise alluded to on this show. Like the writers are a bunch of Mt. Dew-addled 13-year-olds. I can see the pitch: "Hey, I've got an idea! Let's make them spread K-Y Jelly on each other half-naked every time they return to the ship!" It's insipid.

    3) Abductions, kidnappings, and hostage situations provide the basis for the plot in seemingly every episode.

    It's clear Star Trek is a money-generating franchise with all the creative strictures and stunted story-telling that that label implies. It's content to run over the same well-trod ground, but with half the brains and a quarter of the heart. And I was naive enough to think Berman and Braga would stretch their wings on their last go-round.

    I did get a laugh reading about and remembering "Threshold". I remember seeing it first-run and thinking, "What the hell just happened?"

    I didn't see this as bad enough for 0 stars (leave that to some of DS9's Ferengi episodes and/or things relating to Lwaxana Troi) but yeah, pretty bad.

    The second that it was known that a) The precious cargo was female and b) Trip was the one going in - it was painfully obvious where it was leading, so much that I cringed and said "oh here we go" out loud.

    Trip's reputation as this series's token tart precedes him.

    I'm sor t of disappointed in you here, Jammer. This is not a review. I'm sorry. This is clearly where you very strongly dislike an episode and then try to rationalize that, with an emphasis on try.

    I'm not saying that this episode is good, I'm just saying that this review isn't either. Let's disect the review:

    In brief: The episode is bad.
    Paragraphs 1 through 5: The episode is bad.
    Paragraph 6: Reviewing
    Paragraph 7: Summarizing
    Paragraph 8: Some reviewing before we're at "This episode was bad" again
    Paragraph 9: Mostly summarizing, but also some reviewing and some calling the episode
    Paragraph 10: There was some reviewing, but more importantly, we're just calling the episode bad again
    Paragraph 11: This episode is bad.

    This just won't cut it as far as reviews go. You need to spend less time repeating yourself and finding new clever ways to say the same thing and instead comment on why you think the way you do about an episode.

    I'm going to jump on the "it was bad but not zero stars" bandwagon. I mean, plotwise, it's no worse than the Star Wars prequels... oh wait.

    I just have to say this is one of the funniest reviews you've ever done, Jammer. Whenever I need picking up, I just read this review. I've never seen the episode, and I don't intend to, either, once I get around to watching Enterprise.

    That said, I'd say this is tied with your "Demon" review as your funniest. The runners up would be your reviews for VOY"s "The Disease", ENT's "The Xindi", and ENT's "A Night in Sickbay". (I don't intend to ever watch "Night in Sickbay" either, after reading the Agony Booth recap of it and then your review.)

    Jammer...really? Why again was it bad? You must be a TOTAL nerd to not appreciate a little romance and fun. I admit, Enterprise episodes were pretty bad, but I actually liked this one. Watching T'Pol play bad magistrate was pretty funny, and seeing a beautiful woman like Padme was fabulous (oh yeah and I'm a gay trekker). I am watching episodes on Netflix and this has in fact become the highlight of Season 2 so far (I'm on episode 12 now). Season 2 is sucking so bad..the one I kinda liked was Carbon Creek and it was because of the pathos of it.
    Also that you for reminding me of ST VOY Threshold episode, I just saw it a few weeks ago and it was terrible...again. I thought maybe it might have remembered it differently. haha

    I agree that this episode was terrible. For me it wasn't so much the cliché. The only parts that I found to be completely cliché were when their anger boiled over into romance and the "pampered" part of Kaitaama's character. Yup, it's sure believable that when two people are in a life and death survival situation that they can't even keep their pants zipped for even the first night.

    What took this episode from bad to completely terrible was Padma Lakshmi. Her acting in this episode sounded like she was reading the lines for the first time and just saying the words to say them. Lakshmi reminded me of the very first Janeway that didn't work out.

    As for those criticizing this review, I rather liked the review. It made me feel better about the last 43 minutes of my life. Knowing that I'm not the only one that watched this episode gives me comfort.

    In ABSOLUTE agreement with Marco P. This episode and the last deserve the SAME exact rating 1 star, at least in this episode we have someone to challenge T'Pol 's utter lack of acting skill. I'm not sure who wins...it's close but I think Padma wins by a hair.

    I'm offended... not by the episode, by the review. I don't think I've ever seen anyone overreact so much in my life. This might not have been a gem, but it was eminently watchable and entertaining as well. Both "A Night in Sickbay" and "Acquisition" were much worse episodes and I could name several others that were no better.

    Nor did I have a problem with the guest actress's acting. I think people are reacting negative to the personality of the character she plays and transferring these negative feelings to the actress instead. For shame.

    I'd probably give this two stars.

    I agree, Captain. Any episode where the main characters don't end up devolving into amphibians deserves at least a star or two.

    I never bothered watching all of Enterprise.

    Then, when I was considering it after a few years passed, I caught this episode.

    Needless to say, I still haven't finished Enterprise.

    Although it was predictable with little plot I thought it was light=hearted and kind of fun to watch. I don't expect a serious episode (especially from Enterprise) each time I watch. Sometimes it is relaxing to enjoy a mindless show.

    However, I keep watching this series in hopes of more profound plots.

    One long cliche. When I saw Padma's name in the opening credits I cringed. She is a model, not an actress.

    When the First Monarch tore her dress to get into the pod I thought they might actually depart from the helpless princess trope and make her useful. Silly me! She only tore her dress so we'd see her legs. Low point of the episode was when she asked Trip if there was any food, he said, "Check the compartment right above your head," as in literally a foot above her head, and she whined, "Can't you do it?" I fell asleep with ten minutes to go but it sounds like I didn't miss anything.

    Yes, nearly every single step of the plot could be seen coming from a mile away, and yes, Padma Lakshmi is not a great actress. But zero stars is going way overboard. Tbe worst thing an hour of television can do is be boring, not derivative and cliched. This was derivative and cliched, but I was never bored. As another commenter mentioned, Ms. Lakshmi's stilted performance sort of works for a monarch in waiting who isn't used to talking to her inferiors, and I thought she had nice chemistry with Connor Trineer.

    I also liked T'Pol's play-acting--the fact that she's willing to play along with Archer's sort of goofy plan shows that she's become more open-minded (or perhaps just a good sport) since first joining Enterprise--and I would have liked that scene to have played out a bit more. The one thing I really objected to is the ultimate in Trek cliches: the fact that Reed suddenly has to be such a lousy shot with his phase pistol in order to allow the aliens to escape.

    At the end of the day this is a solid two-star episode for me--it didn't require me to use my brain but it kept me reasonably entertained, and yes, Lakshmi's performance even helped seal the deal simply because she played off of Trineer so well.

    Jammer is spot on. This episode is absolutely useless. It goes down in my hard-core fan history as the only episode of any Star Trek I have absolutely steadfastly refused to watch again.

    Bad ... but not as bad as Threshold, which set and still maintains the threshold for the worst episode ever.

    Padma is good as eye candy.

    When are people in Enterprise who are holding hostages going to realize that you can't leave them alone for extended lengths of time? Too many episodes have used this tired pattern.

    The "princess's" fake language was really horrible... thank god for the universal translator.

    Oh for the days when trek languages were actually thought out with dictionaries and people who actually studied them... now we get people making noises in an American accent.

    Odd that if she's known on hundreds of worlds we never see her people again.

    Did like T'Pol as judge though.

    After seeing the vehemence of this review, I was expecting a lot worse. It's not Shakespeare ad it's certainly derivative, but I'm always a sucker for Han Solo/Princess Leia style courtship, and this definitely imitates that. Trip is more likable here than usual. The bit with "tough T'Paul" was cute. I'd give it 2.5 stars.

    I always enjoy the ones jammer says are terrible. This was no exception. Sure, it's not "The Inner Light." It's just mindless, hokey, old-fashioned space opera-- Moronic escapism, which at times we all need.

    If its any consolation, Brandon Bragga calls this piece of filth the worst episode of Trek ever.

    At least 2* from this Cap.

    A bit of trivia that many may already know, but I didn't see it mentioned in any of the comments. Padma Lakshmi was actually married to Salman Rushdie for three years or so.

    Rushdie is famous for among other things, being the author of "The Satanic Verses" which made him the target of an Iranian Fatwa requiring his execution. He was the target of at least one assassination attempt as a result.

    This is an interesting episode to me, it was entirely predictable and yet - as others have said - I was actually not bored! Maybe it was the high satire aspect of it that kept me watching, sort of thinking - will they go there? Oh yes they do! While its undoubtbly true that Padma Lakshmi is wonderful to look at, and what a good sport Connor Trineer is, or maybe its the increasing "campy-ness" of the whole thing that makes it so compelling.

    But it is still below average - zero stars is a bit of a stretch though....

    Nowhere near as bad as Threshold, which still maintains the threshold for most execrable Trek ever.
    No doubt that Padma Lakshmi is beautiful, but to criticize her acting here is to miss the point that not even Meryl Streep could deliver this poorly scripted character (a ridiculously cliched stuck-up princess). In addition, Trineer and Lakshmi had no chemistry together so to see them fall into each others' arms was painful to watch.
    Yes, it was bad, but at least they didn't de-evolve into slugs.

    Episode summary: Trip gets laid.

    I dunno, it really seems like the first few seasons have a lot of unused scripts from TOS & TNG.

    Pretty bad, but not quite worty (unworthy) of Jammer's wonderful rant.

    Padma's acting was among the worst I have ever seen.

    Trip and Padma reminded me of Lone Star and Princess Vespa in "Spaceballs", with their Princess and commoner rescuer mutual hostility, sexual tension, and battle over who is in charge.

    Too bad Padma didn't get a chance to sample and judge Chef's cuisine.

    Pretty bad but not terrible. The plot was old and tired and you could see it coming from a mile away. Padma's acting was poor. But she is a model. She doesn't need talent for that.
    I thought the best part was when Archer and T'pol pulled a "bad cop good cop" routine on the guest alien.
    And finally I do have a question, or perhaps an observation for the audience. In the swamp scene where the princess slaps Tripp and then they roll around in the water it sure seems to me that we got a little better look at Padma's anatomy than the censors ever intended. I first caught it when Enterprise came out on dvd. It helps if you use freeze frame and click through just as she is making her first roll. I had kind of assumed the scene would be edited when Enterprise made it to bluray. But there it is. Forgive me for being adolescent about it but I think we might have a Star Trek first. They should have named this episode The Unintended Shot.

    I think a zero star review is being generous. The actress is the WORST to ever appear in a Star Trek episode. Soap opera actors could run circles around her.

    This episode may not have humans devolving into lizards or jealous Klingon lovers or the captain throwing a tantrum over the dog that his direct actions got said dog sick....but holy balls. That "acting".

    Enjoyed it enough first time. I must havent been paying attention. After second viewing, I more or less agree with jammer. Haven't seen such bad acting since double team.

    Probably the second worst episode of the franchise, surpassed only slightly by "Aquiel". I did think Trip and the princess had a little bit of chemistry but not nearly enough.

    Very much had a feel of something out of the TOS era to me, even down to the score. The odd couple theme was just the most prevalent of the rampant cliches on view, and the argument leading to passion fairly cringe making in its unoriginality. There was just no spark, no soul, no humour, it's another frankly boring show in what is become a desperately poor season. 1 star.

    Kind of reminds my of TNG's perfect mate.

    Note to the sleeping writers, if you are going to cast a bombshell to play a horrible part, please ensure she can act. I think a talented actress could have probably saved this one. I personally don't even find Padma Lakshm all that beautiful.... just skinny. Conner was so overly trying to overcompensate for her it hurts to watch.

    I've only watched this episode twice... actually I wouldn't call it watching - I always end up doing something else.

    I did enjoy T'Pol's little judgeship... so that's where my 1 star rating comes from.

    Greg, thanks for that... I think I need to do some research :-)

    I use to consider A night in sickbay to be the worst episode of Enterprise I ever watched, How wrong I turned out to be. That fucking "Actress" If I could even use the word was so bad I can't even describe it. she makes some of the bad guest actors from TOS look like patrick stewart in comparison. I thought it can't possibly be as bad as everyone was saying what could be worse than Archer going on a psychotic rant about Porthos pissing on a tree? I was Wrong. 0 stars.

    Another S2 episode of Enterprise that is probably best described as "hot steaming garbage". While it's not as awful as "A Night in Sickbay", it's up there (or down there, I should say).

    Sad to say that I am not surprised this is the season where viewers started to be like "You know what? I'm good!".

    After the solid trio of Shockwave II/Minefield/Dead Stop, this season has been very uneven so far.

    Trip got laid. Cool. Moving on.

    1.5 stars for that one Archer/T'Pol scene and some decent Trip lines.

    At least Threshold tried to be original. This one was a cliché right out of the gate. However, Threshold had a greater cringe factor for me. This one, while completely unoriginal (I'm an English teacher and most of my high school students could write a better story), paced a bit better and at least wasn't utter nonsense. I guess each episode was just bad in different ways.

    So here I thought A Night in Sickbay was the worst episode. On the birght side it can't get much worse - can it?

    Yes, this episode is 110% cliché. Still it isn't actively offensive like some other episodes out there ("A night in.." ahem.), so it deserved a slightly higher rating.

    I wonder how likely the ending is though. Wouldn't Starfleet have gotten an advantage with having one of its man next to the First Monarch? This isn't the future Federation which has hundreds of worlds and needs its (wo)men more than alliances. Earth could have something to gain here.

    Perhaps in a more 'realistic' Trek, Section 31 would have quietly 'suggested' to Trip to take up the offer, or at least make a visit. Than again this means we would have had to see more of this 'plot', so +1 for Trek not being realistic enough.

    How on Earth did this episode get zero stars, when Code of Honor, Justice, Angel One and up the long ladder did not? It is not a good episode by any standards, but it is not in the absolute buttom of horrible that Star trek has to offer.

    Wow, this was truly awful. I think Jammer's "review" poses the valid question: "Have the producers no respect for their audience's intelligence and, more important, the audience's desire to be entertained?"

    That being said, the episode didn't start out so badly - but it did degenerate into cliche after cliche after cliche - like a Bollywood movie. Maybe Trip and Padma should have done a dance routine in the rain.

    But I didn't really think Padma's acting was that bad - she is supposed to act like some kind of high-society princess - her role is supposed to be a cliche in itself.

    I don't see too many dreadful Trek episodes for relative rating comparison purposes - it does bring up a comparison to "A Night in Sickbay" and I don't see this as worse or better. "Precious Cargo" gets a precious 0.5 stars / 4 for me.

    As a woman of South Asian descent, I did get a little kick out of seeing Padma Lakshmi on a Trek episode. She's gorgeous. But her acting left something to be desired. I don't think this deserves zero stars, though. It wasn't THAT bad.

    Yes, it was zero-stars bad.
    This is a first-time run through of Enterprise for me, and being very familiar with the other Treks, I know that there are usually at last a couple of turkeys in every season, but wow, that was complete garbage. Super-dumb. I can like shows that are very dumb, but that's never what I'm looking for in Trek. That was depressing. Can we be certain that they didn't let an 8-year old write this, just for a laugh?

    And here I thought it was bad before - then it degenerated into an episode of Naked & Afraid without the naked. Holy shitballs.

    I'm not really going to defend this episode much. It was pretty bad, but it's not the worst star trek episode ever, maybe not in the bottom 10. The beginning wasn't too bad.

    1 star

    I am surprised at how much my take on the episodes is at variance with Jammer's take and I still think 11:59 from Voyager is the worst of the franchise but man he hits it on the nose here. This is definitely worth the zero stars Jammer gives it.

    Jammer was much kinder about this episode than I would have been. This episode was so bad it actually made me angry. I really can't say much about it because I simply couldn't hang in there to see how it ended it. Why would I want to?

    Who knew the universal translator could do annoying accents.

    In other episodes, the UT just gives regular accents to people. In this episode, somehow the UT picks up on how annoying the character is and gives her a super annoying accents.

    I can only imagine the UT was giving Trip the same annoying accent for the alien woman to enjoy, because Trip was grating on my nerves too.

    I think this episode was meant to be a comedy. But the only time I laughed was at 'Faith of the Heart'.

    I agree with Jammer - utterly awful.

    For me, the cardinal sin of Trek is not to come up with something new and interesting. And there was absolutely nothing interesting in this episode; in fact if you told me to write a bog standard cliché romance storyline I'd probably come up with this. Except that it's Star Trek, and I don't want it to be some tedious rom com.

    When she told Trip to visit her at the end, I said instinctively "just as long as you don't make it another episode. That one is gonna be off-camera."

    Let’s see here, first: to each his own opinion. Next: to me the episode wasn’t great and definitely had a few weak spots such as acting that seemed a bit off. However I didn’t think it was awful either. 1.5 stars out of 4 feels just about right.

    Alright... I rated the previous episode 0/5 and said it is the worst episode of Star Trek I have ever seen. Well, it's not anymore! Even though the story was weak and the guest "actress" was painful to watch, my main issue is with the episode's directing and editing. However, only the scenes with the princess and Trip seemed to suffer from that problem, so maybe they just ended up with hours of shitty takes (thanks to the "actress") and just couldn't piece together anything better in the end. Can
    I give -1/5 to this?

    This is now, what, the 3rd time Trip has been paired with an alien female? Why not stick Reed in this situation, or even Mayweather, not that Mayweather can carry an episode with his acting (he's usually fine in small doses, which is good because that's all we get of him). Reed in particular would habe the potential to be hilarious with his awkwardness. The alien princess could have fallen for him precisely because he's so stubborn and mysterious, and he could have gradually opened up to her as they were forced to co-operate. Putting a man and a woman together in a tough situation is almost guaranteed to generate sexual tension, I've been there, millions of people have been there, it can be inappropriate and damaging or hilarious and create a deep, unspoken bond.

    The sheer repetition of ideas. Trip meets an alien woman and hilarity ensues; Trip acts out of character due to sci-fi mind effects; Trip takes command; Trip modifies technology to save the day; er, that's about it for him. I love Trip, my best friend who is even more blunt and impatient than me thinks Trip is the best character by miles, but at this early stage there were more than half the cast being marginalised and reduced to cardboard stereotypes. This was kind of an issue with Voyager with Kes and Kim, both very likeable characters who should have had some excellent and entertaining stories to tell, and Chakotay, who started out badass and eventually gave up on acting in the role due to receiving crap plotlines which all revolved around him being a Native American.

    TNG had the ghastly Dr Crusher who shags ghosts and (usually) delivers a bland performance. She was awesome in First Contact, though, but so was everyone since they had a real story to work with. TOS never bothered developing Chekov or Uhura, who weren't even in a few episodes, although again they got decent material in some of the films. Chekov and Sulu were under-utilised in the Abramsverse too.

    Seriously, all these shows had talented and likeable casts, they had teams of writers and creators and a rabid fanbase. If the showrunners produced boring and repetitive stories and under-used characters while over-using others, that is not franchise fatigue, that is not the viewers' faults for switching off, that is bad writing, bad planning, bad management. The bigwigs in any industry love throwing blame, excuses and even diversions around, but the buck must always stop with the person in charge.

    If Enterprise had been amazing, it wouldn't have lost 90% of its viewers - to suggest otherwise ("uhh, they changed it to FRIDAY, the one day a week no-one watches telly or remembers how to record programmes") is insanity. And while Enterprise would eventually go from strength to strength, it had already acquired a well-deserved reputation for mediocrity in its early seasons, and it was absolutely overwhelmed with competitor shows of significantly greater quality and relevance. (BSG, SG1, SGA, Buffy, Angel, eventually even Supernatural which had a sensational first two seasons.)

    That was certainly not the case for TOS in the 60s, or TNG in the 80s/early 90s. Hence they thrived.

    Seriously, just look at some of the Enterprise episodes so far with characters written out of character, episodes full of plot holes, repetition of ideas, very poor dialogue, lack of prequel elements in many episodes. THESE are the stories that needed to be told to the whole world? THIS is the show to compete against Stargate? This CREW is a consistently well-written, well-developed bunch of heroes who make us want to don our Starfleet jump suits and head out into space?

    @Nolan

    [[Before this guy was a Family Guy writer, and before he was a writer for Enterprise, he wrote the Star Trek parody episode of Futurama, "Where No Fan has Gone Before."]]

    Was it also before our sun burned hot in space?

    The episode was as awful as the intro song. It has taken me this long to finally get into the series, and it has only been because it is now available on Netflix which allows me to skip the intro.
    The show itself has been a pleasant surprise for the most part, and I think they have done reasonably well to reconcile obvious technological disparities between actual production time, setting time and existing storylines.
    To have produced such a contrived episode, with cliched writing and forced acting like this (and a song that let's be honest, sounds like it was written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker as a piss-take) makes it seem like it was left in the hands of the angsty, eye-rolling teenaged hipster offspring who owns some merchandise, but, you know, ironically.

    Not the strongest outing, I did not have the visceral reaction that Jammer did, but I was happy to have the laptop on while it was on the TV. Perhaps 1 star. I did not think I would be seeing Trip in his underwear so much in this series, it must be a Trek record.

    Nowhere near as bad as Jammer's rant makes it seem. Yes we've seen all this before, yes she's an awful actress, but she's very nice to look at. There are some pretty funny moments in this, e.g. the short Hoshi/Trip scene, the tribunal, the fight in the swamp and despite her limited acting skills, I thought there was some genuine chemistry between Kaitanna and Trip. 1.5 to 2 stars I'd give it.

    I'd far rather watch this than a lot of Discovery S2.

    What's interesting -- or rather disappointing and probably not coincidental -- is that ENT's "showrunners" Berman and Braga are responsible for some of the worst episodes of the first 2 seasons: this one, "Marauders", "A Night in Sickbay", "Acquisition", "Bounty" -- all of which I rate as 1* or worse.

    Tough start for this series when the brains behind it ran out of ideas and have to look in the wastepaper basket for more of them.

    Rahul, I noticed that too. The best episodes in ENT S1-2 are those written by Chris Black and Mike Sussman/Phyllis Strong, while the worst are the Berman-Braga efforts (for the most part). I think Berman-Braga were just running on empty by this point.

    Opening the show with a harmonica solo when it already has the most hated theme song was a brave choice.

    Otherwise ... very thing gruel, but better than I'd expected, given I'd seen Jammer gave it zero stars. It's only zero stars if your Star Trek scale goes from 4 stars (Tapestry, Far Beyond the Stars, Body & Soul, etc) to -4 stars (The Child, Code of Honor, Profit & Lace). Otherwise, it's worth a star.

    And I thought Lakshmi's acting was on point for the role ... it's just the role being what it was.

    Overlooked this one but now I finally saw it.
    This is just bad. Lakshmi is so bad. A dozen times I thought: Oh, no." Marveling at how bad this was.
    The other bad episodes are at least entertaining but this is just boring bad. The worst kind.

    Wow, I can’t believe most people dislike this! It’s fun. Like a TOS episode but without the weird 60s attitudes that throw you off.

    Lakshmi’s acting wasn’t great but she’s meant to be an alien princess who doesn’t talk to people as equals. It’s fine. I thought they had great chemistry together too. Trek romances are normally awful and I thought this one actually worked. I think I’ve liked all of Trip’s romances so far actually, they’re pleasantly low key and sweet.

    The bad aliens are pretty 2D but I appreciate that they didn’t make them more than they were. They weren’t the worst evil ever known or whatever. We don’t even know if they’re typical for their species, so we can probably assume they’re not. I get so sick of the unnecessarily high stakes they often use, it’s my biggest problem with Discovery.

    How could anyone not enjoy T’Pol in this? I like how she didn’t really say anything false, just implied it, and let Archer do the real lying for her. And oh, I wish she wore clothes like that all the time! Or at least the outer robes on top of the catsuit.

    I thought the visuals of the crash landing were pretty good too.

    There have been much worse episodes of Enterprise so far. I guess it comes down to your opinion of the prime directive (I’m always against it!) and how different kinds of humour work for you.

    A bad, bad, really bad episode. Yuk.
    First, lack of creativity is obvious. This revamp of "Perfect Mate" is an insult to one of my favorite tng episode. While there is a perfect chemistry between Patrick Stewart and Famke Jannsen(her first TV role!), Lakshmi and Trineer one is fake.
    Lakshmi is a queen of beauty(like Femke) , I'll give you that, but she can't act, period.
    Turn "Perfect Mate" in a screwball comedy was not a bad idea(remember "Tng's Captain's holiday" with vash), but childish script, dialogs and bad acting ruined it.
    Obviously, this episode was inspired by 1998 movie "Six Days Seven Nights" with Harrison Ford. Not bad, but scriptwriters should have watched 1934 "New York-Miami" with Clark Gable, that's a hell of screwball comedy!
    To conclude,this episode is pile of garbage and belongs to the top 10 st worst épisodes, "a night in sick bay" included.

    0 stars

    Hello Everyone!

    Most of my thoughts have been well covered above, but I had a comment about something I've seen in this series, over time.

    I know the Enterprise doesn't have the crew compliment of the D, but in TNG they'd send over an engineering team. In this episode, it seems like they'd send more than one person to work on their stuff. Perhaps three. Tripp, and two to help or be gofers.

    Enjoy the day... RT

    This episode was better the second time I watched it, when I reluctantly, after many years, bought season 2 on DVD. Season 2 is generally horrible with only a handful of episodes that can remotaly be considered "good".

    The first time around, I couldn't believe that this sort of predictable, cliched rubbish was still being made.

    Don't give up if you are watching this show for the first time. Things vastly improve and the show finally starts to adhere to its concept. Reviewers were so jaded that they rate the two later seasons lower (much lower) than they should have done. Season 3 is a tremendous improvement and season 4 is like a different show, the only Trek apart from DS9 that remembers its characters live in a bustling, exciting universe.

    I am doing a rewatch. I have the liberty to skip anything I do not like. But I did not skip this episode. Is it one of the best episodes? no. Is it funny to watch? Yes, fairly.
    Sexistic, primitive, simple, ridiculous ... still or perhaps because of that, I find it quite funny and enjoyable. But I must admit I lot forward to "the catwalk".

    I disagree at the 0 rating, I'd give this episode a 1. Am I offended at the unkind things Jammer said about it? No, why would I be? It's his opinion. Even if I thought it was 4 stars I'd not be offended. Most of these comments are respectful; I just don't get the people who get legitimately angry because his opinion didn't align with theirs. If this sounds like preaching, it is.

    Zero stars? Come on. Zero stars is for absolute trash that not only has incoherent writing but is also a chore to sit through. This is neither of those. It’s not an episode that is doing anything new but it’s perfectly fine. I think it’s in the two star range and I can’t agree with anything under 1.5

    Meh, other than the questionable acting by the lady, it’s about as good as any Enterprise episode.

    To be more fair, maybe 5% of Enterprise episodes are good to great. The other 95% are about like this one. At least this one wasn’t boring.

    The "Tribunal" scene alone was superb. At least 1 star for that, come on!

    I thought this was a decent episode. The language barrier thing was great. I thought the actress playing the princess was all right. I just found the security on the ship has been dreadful in various circumstances.

    Winston Churchill might say this episode is a banality wrapped in a cliche inside an ambien.

    1/2 star

    I am surprised that I only now got around to seeing this episode. What a waste of time! One of my barstools could have delivered a less wooden performance than Padma Lakshmi's.

    A fun episode with a spoiled brat that Tucker is sadled with. I found it entertaining. The only real problem I have with the episode is the implied immorality that took place between Tucker and the princess (or whatever her title was) It is a shame that television has to sink to that level.

    Other than that, it was an ok episode.

    And I know everyone's taste varies, but I am always surprised at the females that are portrayed as attractive. The princess was REALLY not pretty to me at all! (but again, that's just my opinion)

    Ok can you spare us your Christian fundamentalist preaching? Two adults having sex is not implied immorality, it is two adults sharing a nice moment with each other. You may find it dirty and disgusting, most people do not.

    @Sean J Hagins
    Hoping for a space being to commit planetwide genocide is immorality, coincidentally something you wish for, but two adults having sex without a priest giving them his approval first is not. You may think so but thankfully most people do not.

    @Booming

    You have to make your own decision and carry your own responsibility for it, Booming. I am not here to argue with you

    @Sean J Hagins
    So true. It is not necessary to argue with people like you because you already know all the answers, eh? Let's just wait for god to kill all the wicked, as you call them, aka atheists, Buddhists, agnostics, homosexuals, Shintoists and so many more.

    @Booming

    There is one thing to note. We are not "just waiting" We are engaged in a global preaching campaign helping those who want help. Matt 24:14 says "And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." 2 Peter 3:9 says, "Jehovah is not slow concerning his promise,i as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire anyone to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance"

    The thing is, it would be cruel to let wickedness go on unchecked. Rather, at the appropriate time, God's Kingdom will take control on the earth, and the righteous will live forever in a paradise in perfection. This is the good news mentioned that we are trying to help people to be a part of. Whether they do or not, is up to them-and that goes for each one of us, myself included. So, I do not say "I have all the answers", I am trying to help all who want it

    @Sean J Hagins
    What you wish for, my dear Sean, is the death of everybody who is unwilling to believe what you believe.

    @Sean J Hagins
    Yes, and evil is anybody who isn't willing to believe what you believe. Let's just condense what you believe.

    Death to the unbelievers.
    Deus lo vult

    An because you like quotes so much, here are a few:

    “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
    ― Isaac Asimov

    “In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.”
    ― Friedrich Nietzsche

    “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
    ― Voltaire

    @Boomer, again, you are quoting words of men-I am quoting God's Word the bible. It isn't what I, or another man believes is right, but it is God who has the right to decide what is right and wrong. Indeed, that is the entire theme of the bible. It was when Adam and Eve decided (with the prodding of the serpent) that they could determine right and wrong, that we (mankind) started being led astray

    Are Matthew, Mark Luke and John not men, Sean? How do you know they're speaking God's words and not the serpent's?

    @Tom-A good question. There is quite a bit of information about the gospels and about Jesus. May I direct your attention here:

    https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/messianic-prophecies-jesus-messiah-meaning/

    https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/antichrist/

    @Tom
    Don't try logic with him. He has the bible. A book compiled under the watchful eye of Theodosius who not only ended the Olympic games, closed the Delphi Oracle, let the last part of the Great Library burn down and started the first widespread persecution of non Christians, he also once killed 7000 men, women and children in a stadium.

    The Eastern Orthodox Church considers him to be a saint.

    @Booming

    Theodosius, while combating paganism, also came out in favor of the orthodox [Catholic] Church; his edict of 380 C.E. ordered all his subjects to profess the faith of Pope Damasus and the [Trinitarian] bishop of Alexandria and deprived dissidents of freedom of worship. The great Council of Constantinople (381) again condemned all heresies, and the emperor saw to it that no bishop would support them. Nicene [Trinitarian] Christianity had well and truly become the State religion . . . The Church was closely united with the State and enjoyed its exclusive support.

    Thus, it was not the unadulterated Christianity of the apostles’ days that became the State religion of the Roman Empire. It was fourth-century Trinitarian Catholicism, imposed by force by Emperor Theodosius I and practiced by the Roman Catholic Church, which was then as it is now, truly a part of this world.

    We have nothing to do with that kind of so-called "Christianity", Boomer. If you notice, again, I haven't quoted from any of those "fathers" of Christendom, that either blended pagan beliefs with the bible, or taught their own thing.

    However, the bible was not "compiled under the watchful eye of Theodosius". That is just when it became the religion of the state

    I was born into Catholicism.

    I never got a chance to thumb through a King James Bible until I stayed in a hotel room for the first time. I was shocked to see a half dozen books were "missing".

    There's still no universal consensus on exactly what the Bible is. One denomination's apocrypha is another denomination's Holy Word.

    @Dave in MN:

    You bring up another good point! I found a really good article on this subject:

    https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200000305#h=5:0-12:1212

    @Sean J Hagins
    Jehovas Witness consider the bible to be the finals authority and their bible version is the Vulgate if I'm not mistaken and the Vulgate was compiled under the reign of Theodosius.

    Jehovas witness have the lowest amount of college degrees of all religious groups by far in the USA. Pretty impressive. 76% are against LGBT+ and 74% reject evolution. Nice...

    Sadly I have to work now.

    @Booming:

    No, we do not use the Vulgate. We use the New World Translation.

    And you are correct-we do not typically go to a university (or college). Here is some information on the subject and you'll see why:

    https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jw-education-school/

    https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/402013764?q=higher+education&p=par

    As far as the other things you mention, both that lifestyle and the theory are not in harmony with the Bible. It is nice-thank you

    @Booming

    Once again, I appreciate your finding what we do impressive. But, remember, we are not taking credit for it. By following the bible, we are able to avoid such things, so credit goes to God for providing His Word so we can avoid different pitfalls that many fall into. I don't want you to think we feel somehow better than others. Indeed, as I said before, we strive to help all to gain an understanding of the bible, please God, and live in the paradise that He promised is soon to come. It is not something we credit ourselves for. So, the impressiveness goes to God, not us

    @Sean

    Those links didn't address my question at all, as far as I can tell.

    So let's consider a scenario instead. Let's say God is up there thinking, I'd like to give the world a new message. More information.

    There's literally no way He could get His message through, because you would consider it contradictory to a 2000 year old book. It must be in the Bible or it can't be from God. There is literally no way for Him to give you new information.

    If I were a follower of the Vedas, or Bhagavad Gita (also considered the word of God) and I took that same approach (which many do) that only these texts are the word of God and nothing else, it would follow that I could not accept the Bible as God's word. I can't see that your approach is any different.

    @Tom

    Actually, the Bible does prophecy new scrolls being opened, but that is only after Armageddon. Rather than wondering about new information, isn't it best at this time to follow the information we do have? I think a lot of people simply do not want to do that.

    I agree. Except not everyone agrees that the information you are referring to is reliable. I've met quite a few people who claim to commune with the Holy Spirit or Jesus every day, and what they hear is never about the bad people being destroyed or about immoral sex. And while I can't verify their accounts either, I'd listen to them over believing a 2000 year old account of God's word hasn't been corrupted by the many hands of authority and unreliable witnesses it has passed through. Because what better way to control people than doing exactly that?

    @Tom:

    Well, it all depends upon whom you mean is controlling people. If you refer to some kind of elite group of men, sadly, a lot of religions do engage in such behaviour. But if you were to research Jehovah's Witnesses, you will see that no one is profiting over another. The bible's guidelines on proper morality is not making any of us rich or anything like that. And it is also something we all strive to follow. I know at one point Booming mentioned homosexuality. We all face various temptations. And this is not a point of bragging, but rather it is showing how God helps us: I have never had that particular temptation. However, I am a single man who is middle aged. Of course the temptation to commit fornication is something I have had to contend with, but again, with Jehovah's help, I have not given into it. I can also see the dangers of falling to such a course. Know man has had to control me, or profit from this. You see, again, I understand that a lot of people do control people with false claims, even claiming to be a religious person. But true religion does not do that

    As John 13:35 says, "By this all will know that you are my disciples—if you have love among yourselves" True Brotherly love would never let one profit over another. It is rather the wicked that do this as Ecclesiastes 8:9 says, "man has dominated man to his harm"

    Thanks Sean for all the links but my Taliban neighbor has already given me a million links from Taliban.org and I want to read those first.

    @Sean Hagins
    No.

    But still I learned quite a bit about your group. That they predicted the world to end at least six times. Or that you are against blood transfusions?! If all Americans were Jehovas Witness more than 4 million people would die each year because of that. Extrapolating these numbers for the amount of Jehova witness (almost 9 million) would mean that every year almost a hundred thousand people die.

    But as I said, I have much to do and really don't need any explanation/links why this is actually a good thing.

    @ Booming:

    Ok, if it wasn't sarcastic, then please have a look at the links after you are finished with yours friends. He is in the Taliban? Is that the political group, or does that mean something else?

    As far as predicting the end of the world, we have predicted the end of this world system if that is what you mean-not the world. But as Jesus said, "No one knows the day or hour" (Matthew 24:36), so setting a date is wrong.

    Actually, it is "Jehovah's Witness", not "Jehovas Witness". And yes, we do not take blood as Acts 15:29 says. People would not die because of not taking blood-there are medical alternatives that we avail ourselves of.

    You said, "I have much to do and really don't need any explanation/links why this is actually a good thing", but then you said earlier, you would read my links after your friends. Which is it?

    It must be tough to watch Star Trek if you believe sex between consenting unmarried adults is immoral. There are episodes that deal with "forbidden love" here and there (the gender-neutral race in TNG, Dax's ex in DS9) but getting a permission slip from the church to make love has never been shown to be a priority for any character in any series.

    @Sen-Sors, It is, and of course, there are some episodes I don't watch. I deleted them from my collection, so I can't tell you which ones off the top of my head. It is also why Enterprise is actually one of the most recent tv shows that I do watch. I don't watch much tv anyway-I prefer to read, or actually to listen to audiobooks, because I don't have much time to read (typically, I actually do now with COVID) and I am a photographer and we travel A LOT (before COVID) so there was plenty of time for audiobooks. Some of my crew aren't into audiobooks, but I try to be fair about what we listen to in the car

    So you just avoid anything you don't like or approve of? I would have thought those episodes, if nothing else, would serve as good opportunities to forgive. Or do JWs skip that part of Jesus's teachings?

    In reply to what you said earlier about profiting from morality, I wasn't talking about JWs because I don't know much about them. But certainly, there was a lot to profit from by espousing, dogmatizing and enforcing moral codes in the past. The Israelites at various times thought that they were out of favor with God and that being good and moral and doing His 'will' would get Him back on their side, to deliver them a savior, return their homeland, banish the Roman occupation etc...

    The idea that God takes sides continues today in various forms, and with what you are preaching about the wicked being destroyed while the good (you) being saved.

    @Tom,

    Jesus did teach us to forgive those who are repentant. Like 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 says, "Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Do not be misled. Those who are sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who submit to homosexual acts, men who practice homosexuality, 10 thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners will not inherit God’s Kingdom. And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean" The people in many of those episodes you mention are not repenting as they are doing their bad deeds over and over again!

    Tom, I would NEVER declare myself "good"-that is for Jesus as Jehovah's appointed King to judge. To judge me, and you, and everyone else. But yes, God does take sides, or rather, those who side with Him are approved by Him. That is what I try to do

    @Sean J Hagins

    Well, I mean, the man you are talking about forgave those who were literally trying to (and did) kill him. If you need any more evidence that he was teaching unconditional forgiveness of all, and not concerned with "repentance", I don't know what anyone can tell you. Maybe you have let a strict, literal interpretation of 2000 year words blind you.

    But let's be logical here. A God that takes sides is not really a God, it's an idol. If God is all-powerful, omnipotent, and if there is some other power that can challenge Him, to the point where He needs to "destroy the wicked", or "punish the evil", or "judge the wrongdoers" then we are just worshiping one power out of many. Because if God is the source of all being, then being inherently good, it must follows that only God's creations are real, and good. And anything we see that appears to oppose that must fall into the realm of illusion. If we emphasize the need to repent before we can forgive, we are making illusions real, placing our faith in their power over God's.

    I don't know exactly what JWs believe but personally, a god who is weak enough to be affected by what I watch on TV, who I have sex with, and what words I speak, is not one I want to waste my time with.

    @Tom

    You have to choose what you will do, and who you will serve. If you are going to go directly opposite of what the bible commands and say that God is weak because He wants us to not watch bad programs, and have immoral sex, you should examine your true motives.

    Is it that you just don't want to be told what to do?

    "You have to choose what you will do, and who you will serve. If you are going to go directly opposite of what the bible commands and say that God is weak because He wants us to not watch bad programs, and have immoral sex, you should examine your true motives.

    Is it that you just don't want to be told what to do? "

    Not at all.

    Let me think how to put this. You say that it is not up to you to judge, that it's up to God. Okay, perfectly reasonable statement there. But then you are saying that Sean J Hagins, lowly and humble servant of God, has the power to change who He created you to be, from one created in His image holy and innocent, into what you are not - into something sinful and wicked and guilty. And God is powerless against this, to the point where He will be very angry and punish you for it. I mean, that's pretty impressive. And all without breaking a sweat! Just switch on the wrong TV channel, sleep with the wrong person. Such power almost seems.. godlike...

    So my question to you would be, why worship anyone? You could almost start your own religion.

    Zero stars is insane. Bland and cliched, but nothing worse than that. But I do admit it is a bad sign when the Great Comments Section Derail of December 2020 is more entertaining than the episode!

    Yes, this episode was bad, but coming across religious nuts in the comments is even worse. Especially when the next season's 'Chosen Realm' deals exactly with this subject.

    Like the previous episode, "Vanishing Point", this one feels as if it's trying to crib from previous Trek episodes. A Kriosian woman in a stasis pod? Well that's obviously meant to evoke the (far better) TNG episode "The Perfect Mate", where Famke Janssen played a Kriosian empathic metamorph who became 'bonded' with Captain Picard.

    But here, it's like the writers belatedly realised that if they continued any further they'd be making a shot-for-shot remake of that episode, and decided instead to swerve into a dismal escape-from-captivity plot, starring the most inept criminals this side of those Ferengi from last season. It's perfectly serviceable if you like this kind of thing, but it's just fluff. It's meaningless, and by the time Archer and T'Pol arrived to oh-so-conveniently rescue Tucker from one of the aliens (who seems to be immune to face-punching for some reason!), I found myself wondering "is that it? Is the episode over? What was the point?"

    The whole Trip/Kaitaama plot alone would be enough to put this episode down. But just if that wasn't enough, we get the most laughable good cop/bad cop scene on Enterprise that serves no purpose whatsoever in the plot.

    The only effect of that scene is that we now know Archer is willing to threaten torture and death to obtain information, and that T'Pol went along with this pathetic charade. What was the point of this? Just to show that Archer and T'Pol are stupid assholes pathetically inept at pretend?

    This episode is what happens if you let a 10 years old do the writing. And if it wasn't actually a 10 years old, if it was actually Berman & Braga, then I'm afraid this episode is what happens if you let Berman & Braga do the writing.

    I'll give it say two stars. Someone wondered why it should be Trip who rescues Kaitaama and not say Malcolm or Travis. Who but Charles Tucker III could hunt down wild game on a swampy planet like he grew up doing, and cook it using the pod's thruster assembly to start a fire and boil some water. Skills! And why would anyone make a fuss about the two having sex? She said herself she hasn't had a date in four years! The girl had needs, and she's only human...or Kriosian anyway.

    Also, on this viewing, one thing that caught my attention was how when Trip used the universal translator, Kaitaama's English doesn't come out of the translator, it comes directly from her. Seems to me it should come from the device, and I guess we're just supposed to accept that it doesn't, unless someone wants to set me straight on this.

    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.

    And now you know why I never watched all of Enterprise, and am never going to

    There might be ok episodes here or there, but I felt by and large that the show itself was just a bad premise in the first place.

    And look at that, they tried to do it two more times (Trek 2009 and Disco).

    And they're about to do it again, with Strange New Worlds. I am just about jaded enough at this point to preemptively dub it "Mundane Rehashed Worlds" because gosh darn it, the Star Trek Prequel series has been tried 3 times already and it has sucked every time.

    "You are using the name of Star Trek for some twisted game! For that alone, you should die! And if you do not stop making shitty Trek prequels, I will KILL YOU, RIGHT HERE!"

    "And now you know why I never watched all of Enterprise, and am never going to

    There might be ok episodes here or there, but I felt by and large that the show itself was just a bad premise in the first place.

    And look at that, they tried to do it two more times (Trek 2009 and Disco)."

    Seems to me that you have are personally baised against prequels. Because this is the only thing that ENT, ST09 and DSC have in common.

    At any rate, I strongly disagree with you that Enterprise had a bad premise. Making a series about the most interesting time period of the Star Trek Universe - a bad premise? A series that gives us man's first explorations of deep space and humanity maturing into a respectable member of the galactic community? A series that gave us events leading to the Romulan War and the foundation of the Federation?

    As for the Nu Trek prequels: The problem with them is not that they were prequels. The problem with them is that the show runners didn't give a hoot about maintaining a coherent universe, telling good stories, or making any kind of sense. And as ST:Picard showed us, a show doesn't need to be a prequel in order to destroy continuity in that manner.

    And regarding Strange New Worlds:

    I wouldn't get my hopes up simply because it's Kurtzman-Trek, and we already know how *that* turns out. It's a pity, because a quality series about the explorations of Pike's Enterprise could be lots of fun.

    Besides, we've never seen how the TOS Enterprise would like with modern sets and special effects (no, the complete redesign we've seen in Discovery does not count).

    I always wondered why the show didn't start directly after first contact. The ending of First contact was the best part of the movie and for good reason.
    So many great stories. How does humanity deal with not being alone in the universe. From rubble to space. World peace. First exploration beyond the Sol system. First moon colony, first Mars colony...

    Why jump in at the first ship that can fly faster than warp 5? That is such an arbitrary and uninteresting starting point. They can already fly to Qo'noS easily which is in the Beta Quadrant (as far away from earth as Romulus, Cardassia Prime or Bajor). Why even make a prequel if you just jump in at some point. They could have put the first Enterprise anywhere in time. Like maybe being the first official ship that was build. That would explain why it is so prestigious and the flag ship.

    Then there is the stupid Vulcan Human conflict and the temporal war.. It paints the Vulcans, an already fairly annoying species, as even more annoying and burdening the show with a time travel arc. Time travel plots are always problematic because nothing makes sense when you really think about it.
    Soooooo many bad ideas right from the start. Combined with lots of bland writing.

    Late Trek
    Not with a bang but a whimper...

    Of course that was all before the horrors of NuTrek which should actually be called ZombieTrek. I really wonder how long Kurtzman and his grave robbers will continue. They certainly did what Enterprise did not. Severely damage my feelings for Star Trek. They looked at Star Trek and thought:"What we have to fix is that positive and hopeful portrayal of the future."

    Agreed that the Temporal Cold War thing was terrible. Mystery-box writing at it's worst.

    As for why not start from Cochrane's First Contact:

    From Cochrane to the Federation that's 98 years. The only way to make a series like that would be to make it an anthology where the ship and the crew is different every season. That would have been super-cool, but not very practical from a TV production perspective.

    Any rate, Enterprise still managed to fill in much of the details regarding the era in question: The Conestoga. The Lunar Mining Colony. The Space Boomers. The history of the NX program. The Augment Arc and the Vulcan Trilogy. All in all, I think the series did a good job shedding light on the late 21st and early 22nd centuries.

    By the way, jumping straight into the first warp 5 starship isn't as arbitrary as it might seem. It is heavily hinted that previous ships were limited to about warp 2, which is 15 times slower, so this was a huge turning point in the human capabilities of space exploration.

    "Any rate, Enterprise still managed to fill in much of the details regarding the era in question: The Conestoga. The Lunar Mining Colony. The Space Boomers. The history of the NX program. The Augment Arc and the Vulcan Trilogy. All in all, I think the series did a good job shedding light on the late 21st and early 22nd centuries."
    I would rather see all these awesome accomplishments then being told about them afterwards. Think about it. Would the ending of First Contact have been better if it was Data and Picard talking how great it was to see first contact? :)
    Anthology would have been great, would have worked better with the whole season long arc, too.

    "By the way, jumping straight into the first warp 5 starship isn't as arbitrary as it might seem. It is heavily hinted that previous ships were limited to about warp 2, which is 15 times slower, so this was a huge turning point in the human capabilities of space exploration."
    Of course, they made the starting point artificially important but even if you accept this retcon considering many other things that happened between 2070 and the beginning of the show it is still fairly unimpressive.

    If they would just give me 100 million € I would make the best Trek show ever! Or take the money and flee to a country without an extradition treaty...

    Oh, I agree that seeing all these things would have been better. But it's hard to fault the Enterprise show runners from not doing the impossible ;-)

    By the way, the show B&B wanted to make was a bit closer to your idea than what we've got. They wanted the first season to be on earth, before the Enterprise was built. They also waned a

    (oops... previous comment sent prematurely)

    By the way, the show B&B wanted to make was a bit closer to your idea than what we've got. They wanted the first season to be on earth, before the Enterprise was built. They also wanted no transporters and a more appropriate Daedalus-like design for the Enterprise.

    It's the idiots from UPN which nixed all these ideas. The Temporal Cold War was also due to their demand of "making things cooler" (sigh).

    In short, without the network meddlers, Enterprise would have been a far better show.

    @OmicronThetaDeltaPhi You said:

    [Seems to me that you have are personally baised against prequels. Because this is the only thing that ENT, ST09 and DSC have in common.]

    But they don't share it in common with any other series, is what I'm saying, and I find these 3 rather hard to accept on the level of many of the previous entries in the series. Picard gets a "barely pass" from me just because I like the story it ultimately does tell, even if it isn't treated as the main plot for sake of "Mystery Shitbox" writing that I 'oh-so-hate.' Keeping this spoiler free, and you'll know why.

    I do get that it can seem arbitrary when all 3 of these entries were produced in different times and different contexts. It's just a commonality that I noticed; I know that correlation does not imply causation, just like anyone who has studied logic (Star Trek fans, if anybody, you'd think).

    I am being quite human about it, I suppose. But, it gives me emotional security. :)

    I've been making my way through Star Trek: Enterprise for the first time and I've been really enjoying it. I think it comes down to people telling me the first two seasons of this show are terrible for years, and yet when I actually get around to it, I go into episodes with extremely low expectations, and then I'm usually pleasantly surprised by how good some of the episodes are. I find many of them to be underrated. This episode is one I'd heard about for years. It's one I think a lot of people point to as one of the worst Star Trek episodes of all time. So I went into it expecting something horrible like Shades of Gray, or Sub Rosa, or Threshold, or the Voyager Kazon episodes. And I just don't see it. Don't get me wrong, it's not a good episode, it's a poor one, but it isn't one of the worst hours of television I've ever had to sit through, or even one of the worst hours of Star Trek I've had to sit through. The worst thing about it is Kaitaama, who is very wooden. But even then, I didn't find it grating. I just thought, "Oh, that's kind of a strange choice. Huh..." I actually really like the stuff aboard the Enterprise with Archer and T'Pol creating a faux tribunal to scare the other captor into giving information. I would say this episode is a 1 star or 1 1/2 star episode. A bad episode that I won't go out of my way to rewatch on its own, but if I'm rewatching Enterprise as a whole, I probably wouldn't skip it. Just my thoughts.

    Eh. Seen worse, seen (lot) better. 0 stars is overreacting. I'll give it 1,5 stars. 0,5 for T'Pol playing "tough", and 1 for the nice workout my right hand got, watching red-hot bombshell Lakshmi prance around on screen in a ripped-up dress. ;) And imagining being cooped-up in an escape pod with her for 2 days. Yummy.

    Yea she's a terrible actress. Who cares with THAT body? Not me, I'm not watching her for her acting. Though I do wish she put that mouth of hers to better use ;) her voice is annoying.

    I.5 stars. Not as awful as Jammer says, but his review is spot on. The Han Solo/Leia thing got old very fast, and that princess was a walking stereotype. T'Pol was funny here but the whole fake trial concept was absurd. Was that guy really that stupid? Why not just do a mind meld? The "villain" was also a walking stereotype. I'll just leave you unattended with all of these tools and access to the escape pods. The evil laugh sealed the deal.

    See I'm confused how this has zero stars but the episodes before it, which were just as derivative and hackneyed, have scored more.

    Yep, this may be the worst of the series, maybe all of trek. I was so bored.

    Greg observed: " In the swamp scene where the princess slaps Tripp and then they roll around in the water it sure seems to me that we got a little better look at Padma's anatomy than the censors ever intended."

    I've been grabbing a bunch of screenshots from Enterprise recently and I think you may be correct. Probably accidental, but with UPN you never know. That see-through top the blonde MACO was wearing at the beginning of The Anomaly certainly wasn't an accident. I also noticed that the actress playing the princess had a very long scar on her arm. Additionally, I noticed that this episode really sucked.

    I don’t see what the big deal is about.
    I watched Kirk and his crew and still do on reruns.
    And I watched Picard and his crew and still do.
    I watched The crew of Voyager and still do.
    I still watch Enterprise.
    I don’t watch because they are realistic or authentic.
    As far as I am concerned none these actors are the least bit credible in any of there rolls.
    I also watch stuff like Bluebloods, NCIS, Yellowstone,
    Again not because they are true to life but because a different form of entertainment.

    Critics tend to degrade anything that they think will get a rise out of people.

    These shows would not have lasted as long if all believed as these critics do

    Just enjoy and if I don’t like it , I will turn it off!!!

    @Rudy

    But then we would have nothing to debate about on this fine forum. Has it occurred to you that criticism isnt intended to “cancel” the target but merely is another form of entertainment and intellectual stimulation?

    Indeed, I don’t waste time criticizing things I outright don’t care about, and I’m sure most critical thinkers are similar about it. Spending effort to slag things you don’t like is kids stuff.

    But properly thought out criticism and lively intellectual discourse is, of course, its own form of entertainment, in a way.

    Don’t take it personally because people don’t like the show you like, though…what’s the point of that? You’re like AntiLazarus over here, all “Kill!! KILL!! KILL!!”

    Kirk: “Dude, chill out”

    https://youtu.be/AUApXQW06AA

    Queen Elizabeth II passed away earlier today
    which got me thinking about this one, with its monarch "known on hundreds of worlds."
    Trip's line "well Earth wasn't one of 'em" resonated nicely.

    I hold no rancour toward the actors, nor the writers, who wanted to do their pallid version of a tale already done thousands of times, featuring the uppity female blueblood and the competent commoner. Watchable...made me think of the Italian flick "Swept Away." Although Swept Away was far more brutal. 'And here's for the high price of milk.' :)

    Brutally bad.
    This season has produced some of the worst-ever eps in ST history!

    Lol. Just reviewed it. My assessment "Watchable" from several months ago was not entirely sustainable.

    I was actually more annoyed at the Universal Translator Nonsense than the cliche comedy in the episode. The spoken language still appears to come from the person and not the device, which makes no sense. Even if the device translates it (which I feel is BS also given such little info), how does it make you physically hear something different than what's actually being said. Even if the device generates different vocalizations in real time you'd hear interference with what's actually physically being said by the person? How is it suppressing those sound waves, in real time, without any delay, and how is it possible for both people to hear their own respective language, simultaneously, in real time, with no delay, with no interference from the other person/the device itself. That's not a matter of how advanced the translating tech is, that's simply logically impossible. How does the device make them HEAR the other language as if it's coming from the person and not the pad?

    @Michael Miller: You didn't watch DS9's "Little Green Men," did you? That one will really flip you out.

    I can't stand DS9. Worst star trek series ever. Only maybe a dozen good episodes. In fact when I ordered Voyager through the mail they sent DS9 by mistake you can imagine how I felt (we then exchanged it back for the correct series).

    With Zero stars I thought I was in for a real horrible episode. It's hokey and stupid, but that doesn't mean I wasn't amused. Vanishing Point was oddly boring to me, with a mystery that never went anywhere. This may not be as smart as that episode, but at least it gave me a reason to keep on watching.

    Also, Blalock and Bakula seem to have developed some good acting chemistry together. I don't think the inquisitor scene was particularly well written, but they managed to make it amusing.

    For all that "A Night in Sickbay" has been duking it out with "Dear Doctor" and the finale (and more recently, "Congenitor" in some circles) for worst ENT episode, it astonishes me how this one is never brought it. It's the rare episode in which its terribleness is underrated and flies under the radar. I have to guess it's because of the Tucker fan girls giving it a pass because he gets to make sexy times with a hot lady, but good God, we have Harbinger, which was....I won't say "Good," but it was better than this Moonlight knockoff.

    About the only positive thing I can say it that it gave us a rather hilarious side story in the Lower Decks mobile game involving Boimler and a Cardassian that did the concept far better than this episode did .

    The Randomizer just took me from DS9’s “In The Cards” to….this. Talk about whiplash!

    This not as bad as many have made this out to be. Found it to be fun.

    Jammer, zero stars? Seriously? The first 15 episodes of TNG are worse than this.

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