Enterprise 11-05-04

[Mark]

Enterprise - "Cold Station 12"

Dr. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner) sacks a scientific outpost to create an army of superhuman Augments and threatens to release the deadly pathogens stored on site if anyone interferes.

Cast: Scott Bakula, Connor Trinneer, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, John Billingsley.

Guest(s): Brent Spiner as Arik Soong, Alec Newman as Malik, Abby Brammell as Persis, Jordan Orr as Young Malik, Adam Grimes as Lokesh, Amy E. Wieczorek as Denobulan Pilot, Richard Riehle as Dr. Jeremy Lucas, Kaj-Erik Eriksen as Smike, and Kris Iyer as Cold Station 12 Deputy Director.

Mike Vejar ("Enterprise" (2001) TV Series episodes - 1.05 "Unexpected", 1.09 "Civilization", 1.14 "Shadows of P'Jem", 2.06 "Marauders", 2.12 "Catwalk, The", 3.04 "Rajiin", 3.11 "Carpenter Street", 3.14 "Strategem", and now 4.05 "Cold Station 12")
and Alan Brennert ("Enterprise" (2001) TV Series episodes - 4.05 "Cold Station 12" and (later this season) 4.10 "Daedalus") as the writer.

Here we go with the splitting of the directorial and writing duties mid-arc again. There must be some sort of reasoning why they do this...

 

[Orius]

Here we go with the splitting of the directorial and writing duties mid-arc again. There must be some sort of reasoning why they do this...

I dunno. I just blame Hollywood unions; that's probably the case. Besides, Star Trek does it all the time, so I'm not worried. As long as the plot for all three episodes is consistant throughout, it shouldn't matter much. Besides, it's the job of the producers to try to homogenize these group efforts.

Anyway, last week pumped me up, so I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I dunno. I just blame Hollywood unions; that's probably the case. Besides, Star Trek does it all the time, so I'm not worried. As long as the plot for all three episodes is consistant throughout, it shouldn't matter much. Besides, it's the job of the producers to try to homogenize these group efforts.

As far as the writing credit goes, I imagine that's just what it is. The whole story was likely plotted out by the entire writing staff, and given to one writer to write up, with changes and suggestions made by the producer. They only credit the main "writer", however (for union purposes), but the story has actually been gone over very thoroughly by all involved. It's a very common practice (happened on Buffy a lot), particularly on weekly shows (where there is a lot of work to get done in a short period of time).

I think you'll find it's actually fairly rare for the alternative to happen- where a multi-episode arc is credited as being written by the same person.

As for the different directors, I'm not quite so certain what the rationale is, but I think it's probably similar- due to time demands on directors during the production of episodic television, they split the directing duties between two or more directors. In a situation like this one, I'd wouldn't be surprised if there were two directors shooting out of sequence for all the episodes back to back at the same time (sort of like what is called a "second unit"), so that there are 2+ directors working at the same time, dividing the usage of the actors.

 

[Wycen]

So, how was it? I was hanging with a non-Enterprise watching buddy (though playing Jump to Light Speed was sufficient consolation).

 

[mojo1701]

Dr. Lucas finally shows. I thought it would've been a younger man, actually.

 

[John Crichton]

Dr. Lucas finally shows. I thought it would've been a younger man, actually.

And he was played by "That Guy."

 

[myrdden]

I have successfully missed every single episode so far this season. I am not liking te new time slot - especially with the positive comments so far.

 

[mojo1701]

And he was played by "That Guy."

That "Fair Haven" Guy, Tommy-Boy?

 

[Orius]

The storyline's still going pretty strong.

I sympathize with Soong a little bit. It seems that he's operating under the assumption that the Augments weren't really as inherently dangerous as every else seems to believe. He might be right as well; I do not think that genetic enhancement itself makes them arrogant and aggressive, after all, there are plenty of violent people in the real world who do these sorts of things without genetic enhancement. I don't know or care what Khan's excuse was. But it seems Soong's history lesson might be the (or a major) root behind Malik's aggression here, I don't really know. Like Archer said, this thing happens when one group of humans thinks they're better than everyone else.

Anyway, I think Soong took these embryos because he believed they could be raised without going berserk and killing everyone else. He disagreed with the widely help opinion by most of the rest of humanity, and Earth's/The Federation's authorities rarely seem tolerant of dissenting views in Star Trek*. The fundamental moral question here is, "Do the Augments have a right to live?". Soong definitely thinks so, and there's probably enough people back on Earth and its colonies who have moral issues with the thought of the embroys being destroyed.

*Of course that raises the question of why Kirk's loose cannon behavior was tolerated; my assumption is that Section 31 had no problem with Kirk taking on threats the way he did regardless of how many times he broke the Prime Directive or Starfleet Regulations.

 

[CCamfield]

I'm sure that Soong's history lesson wasn't the only one; he must have raised them constantly telling them they were superior.