Enterprise 05-26-04

[William Ronald]

I have not followed the series closely this season. However, I thought the episode had many strong points. Hoshi played a vital role. The Andorians coming in to save the day seemed very appropriate and perhaps foreshadowed the birth of the Federation. However, I thought the Nazis appearing at the end was a bad move. First, as has been pointed out, Enterprise should have been able to tell that it was not the Earth of their era even without using advanced sensors. (You can probably tell the difference between San Francisco in the 1940s and 2004 from the air.) So, this was weak writing.

Also, the Nazis are somewhat over-used in the Star Trek universe -- although they are great villains. Somehow, I doubt that an alien advisor for the Third Reich would be going anywhere without a very good disguise. So, I am waiting for a good explanation -- for everything.

 

[Vocenoctum]

But the ending....perhaps I'm in the minority but I thought it was horrible. It's called "Star Trek" not "Time Trek." I mean really, how many times are they going to dip into that well? I started watching the series to see the old technology and see the federation emerge and shielding and phasers, etc. Instead I'm watching hull plating still...no tractor beams....and a whole bunch of time travel.

I don't follow the News of the shows generally, so I don't know how the show was advertised. But I certainly thought the show was about exploration and the Founding, not time travel and the temporal war. The Temporal War has gone from episode one and shows no sign of leaving the show, so I doubt I'll watch it.

 

[CCamfield]

Unfortnately not only did Enterprise try to jump the shark, they seemed to have missed their landing and fell in with the shark where we can watch them be horriblely mangled next season.

Take the laugh point.

 

[mojo1701]

And the Andorians coming to the rescue! That was another twist that no one saw coming.

Unfortunately, I did. I had to read the opening credits to see who was guest-starring, and I had to see:

and Jeffrey Combs as "Shran."

 

[Orius]

Actually they're the best villains for any series in any era. I mean, how can you beat the Nazi's! Heck, even this year's Angel show had an episode with them.

Truely, did I not say that Nazis are the ultimate villains in the Best Indy Movie thread?

 

[Orius]

Pretty good episode. But I had a problem with it besides the Nazi aliens, and with the season as a whole. Namely, where are the Earth defenses? Seriously, Earth knows that its at war, it already lost millions of people with a guarantee of future attacks that will be even more devastating, and they have a year to prepare. And they have nothing when the weapon arrives? They didn't build satellite defenses around Earth? No fleet of warships with minimal warp drives, since they're only built for solar system defense? They couldn't pull a rush job on that second Enterprise, or even commision a few more? They couldn't order all those interplanetary freighters or their escort ships back to defend the planet, at least on a rotational basis? They couldn't even ask the Vulcans for a favor that would save their species? It's ridiculous that Enterprise is back in its home system during wartime, and they have to rely on the friggin' Andorians to be their only backup (though the Andorians' return was pretty cool.)

Exactly. Star Trek ALWAYS does this. There's never any ships to defend Earth.

Which is stupid. Even if they don't have Warp 5 ships, Starfleet does have other ships, like the one that attacked the Klingons at the end of last season. And not having anything even remotely resembling orbital defenses is stupid given that they know the Xindi are gunning for them.

 

[Orius]

Spoiler

And I have no problem with Nazi's being the bad guys, alien Nazi's work just as well. Somebody on another board pointed out that alien might be a Remus, (Romulan) so they could be the next cold war species involved.

Ah! I was not the only one who caught that. I wasn't sure, but I could swear

Spoiler

that alien was a Reman

. Hard to tell with the lighting, and it was like 2 seconds. But this might be B&B's way of finally getting around to

Spoiler

covering the Romulan War, which should definitely be coming up

. Still, as pointed above, I don't understand why

Spoiler

Nazis would be working with an alien, given their views on "racial purity". But then if it is a Reman, it could still work. Remans do have telepathic abilities as evidenced in Nemesis. So he could be projecting some sort of powerful telepathic illusion the stupid Nazis aren't aware of.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Exactly. Star Trek ALWAYS does this. There's never any ships to defend Earth.

Not entirely true - in the movies, the ships are just never sufficient. (because the super-duper whale probe disables all ships and weapons, because the borg ships are to powerful and so on)

In Deep Space Nine, there always were troups and ships protecting earth (though, IIRC, there is still an attack on the Starfleet Headquarter in San Francisco - but hey, that was a "real" war...)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Orius]

Not entirely true - in the movies, the ships are just never sufficient. (because the super-duper whale probe disables all ships and weapons, because the borg ships are to powerful and so on)

Well, it was an exaggeration. One of the dumbest things about Star Trek all the time is that Earth seems to be lightly defended. I can see why that might be the case in TOS or NG era episodes, where the Federation is huge and Earth isn't facing a lot of direct threats, but here, it's just stupid. Archer's mission has already shown that there are a lot of nasty hostile aliens out there, building up defenses makes sense (especially if the Vulcans take a hands-off approach to it).

In Deep Space Nine, there always were troups and ships protecting earth (though, IIRC, there is still an attack on the Starfleet Headquarter in San Francisco - but hey, that was a "real" war...)

Yeah, in that episode though, some Starfleet officers attempted a military coup because of paranoia about Dominion agents. I don't know how much that affected the status quo, but it seemed to be presented as unusual.

 

[Trainz]

I just finished watching it.

Wow.

I liked it, and am flager... frabel... flaberd... am at a loss to explain the ending. Makes me think about the "recent" Planet of the Apes movie finale.

In truth, criticising the ending is halfway pointless, because the producers could be taking this in ANY direction. It could be dumb, it could be great, we just don't know.

Hell, maybe they don't even know at this point. Maybe they set it up and thought "we have the summer to think about where we want to take this".

I'm left on my apetite though. Before watching it, I told my bud "I just hope they won't end it with a damn cliffhanger".

Right...