Enterprise 6-May-03

[Mark]

So I take it you didn't like the half-episode you saw.

That's a shame. The other half was the bestest half a show ever!

 

[Mallus]

It was a good episode.

But it suffered from the same laziness that really strips the tension out of these Borg episodes. The Borg's ability to react/defend/adapt against the crews attacks vary from scene to scene, apparently doing whatever is convenient for writers.

Sometimes they can conjure a force field after 2 shots from a phaser, sometimes it takes 6. Or 8. Its like a game of chance. Every time a Borg gets nailed with a phaser I half expect it to go off like a slot machine and spray quarters out of its mouth.

This really hobbles the Borg as antagonists. A long time ago they were the most frightening opponents to grace the ST universe: implaccable, alien, intersted in communication only so far as to issue terse ultimatums.

But this was still the best Borg episode in series/years.

 

[John Crichton]

Sometimes they can conjure a force field after 2 shots from a phaser, sometimes it takes 6. Or 8. Its like a game of chance. Every time a Borg gets nailed with a phaser I half expect it to go off like a slot machine and spray quarters out of its mouth.

That is TOO funny!! Sounds like a great idea for a Trek comedy spin-off. * gets out a pen *

This really hobbles the Borg as antagonists. A long time ago they were the most frightening opponents to grace the ST universe: implaccable, alien, intersted in communication only so far as to issue terse ultimatums.

Yeah, it does a little bit but I don't mind the not knowing when the phaser will stop working bit so much if the rest of the ep is solid, which it was. It's like a horror movie or something cut of the same mold. You know you can stop a few but eventually your weapon will be useless and might as well just turn it on yourself.

But this was still the best Borg episode in series/years.

No doubt!

 

[Viking Bastard]

Being really curious, I downloaded the episode (and found a pretty
good file too, small, yet not very fuzzy), which I don't normally do for
ENTERPRISE.

And I must admit, this episode rocked!

Really. No kiddin'. Are there holes in the plot and premise? Sure. Do
I care after watching such a good episode? Heck no! The only really
good Borg episode since tBoBW (not counting FC). Why? It was scary
(which is what makes the Borg tick and the lack thereof was why the
Borg never clicked on VOY). Great performances all around (except for
Travis, did he even have a line in this episode?) and Archer was all
big an' mean an' macho (go boy! Stretch those acting muscles you've
been letting go to waste). Overall just a really solid installment.

If we're gettin' more stuff like this in the 3rd season, I'm definately sold
(except I don't really want to see more Borg stories).

Frickin' fantastic!

 

[Kesh]

Eh. Personally, i was disappointed. The whole episode felt rushed, like the writers were trying to cram it all into one episode.

It's also another reason why I consider Enterprise an alternate-universe Trek. There should have been tons of data on the Borg available to the Federation after this episode, yet by TNG, no one had ever even heard of them.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Except the Hanses... and the Federation councel.

I guess VOY is also in that alternate universe.

We can call it 'the Bragaverse'.

 

[John Crichton]

It's also another reason why I consider Enterprise an alternate-universe Trek. There should have been tons of data on the Borg available to the Federation after this episode, yet by TNG, no one had ever even heard of them.

The Federation would have no info on them as they aren't around yet. And you can't get that much information with just one hostile encounter. Sure they would have had some, but it would just be classified away as an encounter with a hostile alien species.

 

[Mark]

All anyone in Starfleet knows is that there's one reference by drunken Cochran and one encounter with someone who never identified themselves and sent a deep space message that won't arrive at its destination for 200 years. Couple that with the fact that they blew apart the ship and have crappy sensors to begin with and I doubt they got much info/data anyway. I imagine they'll blow apart anything the Borg left behind (I doubt they left much) at the pole for fear of they nano-infection. By the time the Borg are encountered in TNG, what happened to Enterprise with Archer has got to be a footnote among many much more troubling encounters. Losing a couple of dozen personel is nothing compared to what they will lose in the various wars that they have yet to start... I mean finish... I mean settle through negotiation...

 

[Tom Cashel]

It's also another reason why I consider Enterprise an alternate-universe Trek. There should have been tons of data on the Borg available to the Federation after this episode, yet by TNG, no one had ever even heard of them.

You're thinking of time like they handled it in Back to the Future...as changes are made to the timeline the people in the photograph fade away, remember?

In Enterprise, TNG hasn't happened yet. It might never happen. It's completely hypothetical.

Besides, as Mark noted above: Q forces the issue with the Borg 10 years before the subspace transmission reaches the Borg homeworld!

I liked the episode okay. Just wanted to add that the opening scenes were a great homage to The Thing from Another World. Watch the skies!

Another thing...when the research crew discovered the Borg, it was night. Three days later, it was bright and sunny. What the heck happened to six months of darkness above the Arctic Circle???

Maybe that part of the timeline has been altered.

Side note: This business about the Delphic Quadrant slated for the (hypothetical) third season...a quandrant from which no one returns. Given the series' focus on time travel, and the obvious reference to to the Oracle at Delphi, does anyone have any guesses as to what kind of "temporal anomalies" will be encountered there?

My guess is "lots."

 

[Umbran]

Couple that with the fact that they blew apart the ship and have crappy sensors to begin with and I doubt they got much info/data anyway.

OI think the sensor idea is pretty important here. Picard has senseor 200 years more advanced than Archer's. Meaning that he probably gathered all the data Archer had and more within moments of seeing his first cube. Even if someone did recall the 200 year old report, it would havbe been pretty much moot.