Enterprise 10/8

[Selena]

Have not seen any comments about last night's episode of Enterprise yet.

Was it so bad no-one but me watched it? I missed the first half hour (got home from work late) but the last half was very weak.

[Zantar]

is it the weekly ritual to bash enterprise?

[Digger]

I didn't see it (too busy watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees!), but I did see that it got a 3.9 rating, down from 4.0 last week and the 4.4 it got for the season premier. Last year during this week Enterprise got a 5.4 rating (according to MediaWeek Magazine) but by the end of the season it was pulling mid 4's. If it is already getting below 4 now it could be in some real trouble.

Of course they can claim they lost people to the baseball games (and could be right about that), but Smallville killed it (got a 6.4) and so did Ed (6.6) and That 70's Show hasn't even started yet. Not good for Enterprise.

[CookieCat]

I thought the episode was halfway decent, which is a definite improvement over how it usually is. I missed Phlox's explanation of what was happening to the Vulcans because my dog saw something outside and went into a barking frenzy. :puppy: I couldn't hear a darn thing until he went outside. The episode wasn't great TV, but it held my interest more than Enterprise usually does.

[vhsiv]

It was another iteration of 'Eat Me' though I thought that they had already done that two weeks ago with 'Extinction' or some such rot.

It opened with the usually calm and collected T'Pajamas raving incontrollably, before they ran the Prozac credits. It was possibly the shortest 'teaser' segment in the history of the show.

End commercial. A title revealed that the teaser segment in sickbay had actually occurred 19 hours earlier. and they 'start' the episode by locating a signal from the Zelbinion, a ship that T'Pajamas had served on before she came on Enterpise - the Zelbinion had been lost in space for more than a year (years?) and it had been succeeded in the Delphic Expnase by the ship that turned all of its Vulcan cremembers inside-out.

Anyway, the Zelbinion is trapped in a field of dynamic Trellium-D asteroids that are bouncing off one another in a localized field like the balls in a pinball machine. But of course the SOS signal is coming from the Zelbinion, which is trapped in the asteroid field, so they just have to go in and rescue them, even though they've presumable been trapped in this asteroid field for the past 3 years, and they have some nutty, optimistic idea that there are still Vulcans alive on that ship after all this time.

I'm going to break for lunch, and finish this up later...

[atlantagirl]

It was a truly, truly awful episode. It's hard to say if it's the worst ever because they are all so outrageously bad I keep expecting to see the MST3000 guys at the bottom of the screen.

I suppose it was an homage to Halloween. The Vulcan ship (sounded like Saleeya) was filled with deranged Vulcans who looked for all the world like the stand-ins from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. It had a haunted house feeling to it, but I got the feeling they kept the lighting low and moody just so you wouldn't get a close look at the horrible makeup jobs on the Vulcans.

BTW, they were deranged because Trellium-D is a potent neurotoxin for Vulcans (figures). So now Archer is putting off reinforcing the hull of the Enterprise with the compound (which they have yet to successfully synthesize anyway) because it would drive T'Pol starkers.

Everything was just bad -- the plot, the acting, the effects, everything. :hork:

[CookieCat]

Originally posted by vhsiv

It opened with the usually calm and collected T'Pajamas raving incontrollably, before they ran the Prozac credits.



they 'start' the episode by locating a signal from the Zelbinion, a ship that T'Pajamas had served on before she came on Enterpise - the Zelbinion had been lost in space for more than a year (years?) and it had been succeeded in the Delphic Expnase by the ship that turned all of its Vulcan cremembers inside-out.

Anyway, the Zelbinion is trapped in a field of dynamic Trellium-D asteroids that are bouncing off one another in a localized field like the balls in a pinball machine. But of course the SOS signal is coming from the Zelbinion, which is trapped in the asteroid field, so they just have to go in and rescue them, even though they've presumable been trapped in this asteroid field for the past 3 years, and they have some nutty, optimistic idea that there are still Vulcans alive on that ship after all this time.



:rollin: OK, I like this name for T'Pol.

I believe the name of the ship was Solea (or something like that) and I'm pretty sure T'Pol said it had entered the Expanse 9 months ago. The second Vulcan ship went looking for it and met that rather nasty end.

[fermicat]

Originally posted by atlantagirl
It was a truly, truly awful episode. It's hard to say if it's the worst ever because they are all so outrageously bad I keep expecting to see the MST3000 guys at the bottom of the screen.


Hey! Now there's a good idea (and it would probably help the ratings). I'd watch it if it were combined into a MST3000 show!

[mgraylorn]

Like Zantar, I'm wondering if its becoming the weekly ritual to bash Enterprise.

Lest silence be construed to be agreement, I liked the episode. It was more of a Halloween episode, although it might be the result of the influence of the X-Files guy now being involved.

As for it being a rip off of "Eat Me", I'd say no more so than "Eat Me" being a rip off of "Night of the Living Dead".

Doesn't it get tiresome for you all to try to compare everything negatively to Farscape? Do you compare your life and people you know negatively to the Farscape characters? If you don't like Enterprise, fine, don't watch it, but do those who do like it a favor and stop whining about it all the time.

Not every Farscape episode was "War and Peace". There were some sucky episodes of Farscape too. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the show over all. Nor do I feel compelled to come here and trash the episodes I thought I thought were stupid.

[MrVesham]

Actually, I've been amazingly surprised that a group of fans haven't already taken the Xvid'd or Divx'd Enterprise episodes and started rendering (wouldn't be difficult at all) out the bots as a nice alpha'd black overlay with some decent quality voice-overs.

God knows we have the wit-speed and humor in the community to pull it off. You could easily distill the episodes down to 20-30 minutes each and keep the plot perfectly solid (hey, it's Enterprise).

[atlantagirl]

I don't think any of these threads are gratuitously bashing Enterprise (or any other shows). People have a right to give their honest opinion of whether or not they enjoyed an episode.

I've been watching Star Trek my whole life. And I am becoming more aware of the fact that my nostalgia and loyalty is simply being abused by Enterprise. I have continued to watch for 3 years in the hope that it will improve, but it hasn't.

MGraylorn, I don't fault you for enjoying last night's episode, but I don't apologize for not liking it and for giving my honest opinion. I didn't make any kind of personal attack (nor has anyone else in the thread) and I didn't descend to being childish or mean-spirited. I simply gave my honest opinion.

Those of you who did enjoy it have every right to jump in and say what you thought was good about it -- this is a discussion thread after all.

[vhsiv]

Ok - I've been corrected - the Vulcan ship is the Solea and they entered the Delphic Expanse 9 months ago. You guys are going to have to forgive me on this, as I'm not the master 'Enterprise' reviewer that Dork is, and I'm navigating this review by the seat of my pants, using familiar landmarks, at it were. This is my first 'Enterprise' review, ever.

Anyway, atlantagirl has already shot down all of the spoilers for this episode, so I guess I'm left with the dripping and the crumbs.

So let's see, Capt. Q'Archer decides that they need to try to stage some sort of rescue mission, to retrieve the Vulcans, even though he has no idea if anyone's still alive aboard the other ship. But he doesn't want to dent his Daddy's Cadillac, so they decide to use one of the smaller, more versatile shuttlecraft. T'Pajamas, Hoshi, Tucker and some new crewmember - who may or may not have been named 'Sgt. Kemper' board the shuttlepod and head off to investigate the derelict Vulcan ship.

Meanwhile Reed and the token black guy, decide to investigate the Trellium-filled billiard-balls, since T'Pajamas and Tucker got to have all the fun last episode, when they blew up a lab, trying to synthesize liquid Trellium-D. They have some initial success, playing with the transporter, which seems to have acquired the capacity to defeat the laws of physics, as well as that of instantaneous matter transport: One of the Trellium rock they beam aboard is not only intact, but it's lost all of the velocity it had while it was hurtling through space. Our guys get ambitious after the first successful transport, and elect to reel in a bigger sample. Lo, and behold, they break the transporter - the lights blink on and off, and the once-large Trellium-D meteor they were beaming aboard is now so much splatter, lining the toilet-bowl that was once the transporter bay.

"No fast saves tonight...", says Reed to Maywether.

"I was looking to get out anyway, let's take one of the other shuttlepods and go get some." says Mayweather to Reed.

"Whoo-hoo!" says, Reed, as they head down to the shuttlebay, to don their Buck Rogers™ Commemorative Gold and Silver EVA suits.

Back in the pinball machine, Capt. Quark and his qrew approach the Zelbinion and dock - presumably without a key - but who knows, maybe they just left the door open for their fomer comrade, T'Pajamas.

Quark and the away-team step across the airlock to behold a scene of wanton destruction: Sure it looked bad from the outside, with holes in the hull and such, but housekeeping had had a major laundry-failure. There were dead Vulcan stacked in the hallways and all sorts of sparkling Chrismas ornaments hanging from the ceiling. And then they see a rustling of dark shapes in the shadows...

"Oh, my god - they've left the pizza out overnight, again," cries T'Pajamas as one of her former crewmembers steps out of the shadows with a visage that resembles nothing short of 9-month-old Pineapple Deep-Dish, and every bit as green.

The Pizza-faced Vulcans attack the away-team bodily, rushing in from the sidelines, but the Qrew fire their Phasers back - notibly in the 'stun' setting, though one of the Pizza-Vulcans looked as though he or she was about to take a big bite out of Hoshi.

As they retreat, T'Pajamas begins to faulter, "Something's wrong, Captain. This is a bad show - I-I-I can't quite explain it," she says. "Get away from me, you're all trying to destroy my career!" And that pretty much summarizes all of her dialogue for the rest of the episode.

Somehow word of T'Pajamas' pending breach-of-contract gets back to Dr. Neelix on board the Enterprise, and he determines that the Trellium-D is, in fact a powerful neurotoxin to Vulcan physiology. Now we know why T'Pajamas has been giving Tucker all of those late-night, naked backrubs: She's been addled by all of the illegal Trellium-D experiments that she and Tucker were conducting during the last episode. Either that, or Raiijin gave her some new ideas...

So Reed and Mayweather harvest their rocks, and Quark and the away-team abandon the addled Pizza-Vulcans to their fiery deaths aboard the Zelbinion, as it was only the Quark-Qrew's visit to the ship after nine long, lonely months, that catylized the burnt-out hulk's destruction. T'Pajamas is turned over to Dr. Neelix in time to see her naked, under a sheet, somewhere in sickbay.

"We know that the Trellium-D has an adverse effect on Vulcan physiology," says Captain Quantuum.

"Well then, I insist that you let me off this ship at the next available Vulcan-stop," says T'Pajamas.

"Oh, no little lady - you signed a seven-year contract - we're not letting you go until we see some butt-cheek," says Q'Archer.

"Oh well, okay," says T'Pajamas.

And that's about it.

ROLL CREDITS.

[PrairieScaper]

There are X-Philes alums working on Enterprise now? I had no idea. Which ones? I haven't watched much of this season -- okay, none -- but I did catch most of last night's ep. The trailers intrigued me, I admit. A creepy zombie story seemed appropriate for the month of Halloween, so I thought it wasn't bad. But I wanted the end to be less tidy, somehow. Maybe I was hoping the scare would stick around for awhile. I remember how scary the Reavers on Firefly were, because they were always out there somewhere, looking for other spacefarers to cannibalize. Ick! :ghost:

[mgraylorn]

John Shiban worked on Enterprise for Season 2. I hadn't heard that he'd left, but I don't see him credited for Season 3.

Did you catch the very very end? It looked like it was all tidy and T'Pol was fine, going to movie night and all, but then she started halucinating the dead Vulcans were after her, and it turned out she was still in sick bay. The last scene was her lying there, looking back an forth nervously, possibly hearing or seeing things not there. I was left with the impression she still had some residual damage that might take a while to go away. I didn't think that was a tidy ending.

Now whether she will be all fine and dandy next week, or still have some residual effects remains to be seen.

This episode did explain what happened to previous Vulcan ships that went into this region of space. Previously it was just said that they went mad but no one knew why.

They are also left with a delimma, in that the goop they need to apply to the ship to save the humans from the effects of phase shifts is very toxic to Vulcans.

[Silk]

Originally posted by Zantar
is it the weekly ritual to bash enterprise?
It should be! I love Star Trek. It was my life before Farscape. It is a great show, all of them. Then they came along with ENT. I loved it at first cause I liked QL too, and it was ST mixed with QL-good, right? No. Now it's just a frelling show. Literally. They are trying to draw in perverts with all their naked women and such. I mean, sure TOS and TNG had their occasional scantily clad woman, as did VOY and DS9, I'm sure (I haven't seen that many eps of those shows), but at least they had plots. I haven't seen ENT in a while, because I was so outraged at it. I mean, I thought we were having a temporal cold war with the Suliban, and when I come back from the widerness after four months, I go to startrek.com and find that we're fighting the Xindi?! Where did they come from? What happened with the Suliban? Has ENT had a non-cliche ep yet? Why the hell has T'Pol switched outfits at least twice this season? What's up with polarizing the hull plating (I don't know, have they gotten real shields by now?)? Will I ever start watching ENT again? Will I have a freaking idea what's going on?
Argh,
Silk

[darius]

I think that in regard to the bashing of Enterprise; people have to complain if they want to get something better. If people in general didn't voice their opinion about something, the people in charge would never know how to make it better. Also, this is a TV related forum, what would be here if people didn't post their thoughts on TV shows?

My opinion of the show in general is that the individual stories of each episode aren't very good in general and the seasons general plot has moved minimally in the like 5(?) episodes of the season so far.

I personally don't think that there was a "sucky" Farscape ep., maybe a "just okay" one, but that is a matter of opinion. I usually go back and watch eps. of Farscape in order when nothing better is on, I would never do that with Enterprise. Also, if an episode of Farscape, the original Star Trek, the X-files, Doctor Who or any other good Sci-fi show were on at the same time as this show in my area, I would probably watch that.

[Zantar]

...the zelbinion...that goes missing for years. Ok im sorry but they could have atleast changed teh fucking name.

[Redheaded_PK]

Zantar...they were just joking about it being the Zelbinion. The ship's proper name is the Solea, or somesuch.


Red

[SeasonOfDeath]

Zombies+80's Asteroids Arcade Game+Spooky Derelict Ship+Overused Strobe+T'Pol+Madness-Uniform="Night of the Living Dead Vulcans"

I was disappointed that the "red shirt" wasn't killed off or had fallen through the huge gaping hole they were trying to tightrope over. I think a zombie-Vulcan did, however, but not spectacularly.

If they're going to give us a cheesy Halloween episode there better be brain-eating involved. How can you have Zombies without brain eating? :cry2: :ppbb:

[akimbo]

Originally posted by SeasonOfDeath
I was disappointed that the "red shirt" wasn't killed off or had fallen through the huge gaping hole they were trying to tightrope over. I think a zombie-Vulcan did, however, but not spectacularly.


Mr. Akimbo made me laugh during the tightrope scene. You rarely hear a peep out of him and after Archer knocks t'pol out to carry her across he says: Why didn't he do that sooner, she was sooooo annoying. :D

I think on Farscape they would have tongued her unconscious a few times as a practical matter. They only knocked her out at that point to make the tightrope more dramatic. Like the "chompers" in Galaxy Quest - why the frell are there chompers? :rollin:

I've defended Enterprise in the past. Even the theme song. And I'm a Star Trek fan, though I have missed entire years of some of the series (TNG was good, but DS9 was my favorite, but I even checked out of that towards the end).

I'm having trouble liking the characters on Enterprise and the story lines aren't that exciting (perhaps I've been spoiled forever by Farscape I think) and I've given them a few years to find themselves.

They can keep the Doctor, Archer and Trip, dump the rest on an asteroid and give them something more interesting to do. JMO

[shamecube]

"Oh, no little lady - you signed a seven-year contract - we're not letting you go until we see some butt-cheek," says Q'Archer.


Haha.

I have been way super busy this week and watched Enterprise at 3 a.m. this morning as I folded laundry and drank a beer. The only thing that came to my mind was the line from the Color Purple when Mister's Father says to Mister of Shug Avery: "I hear she's got that nasty women's disease."

The show is a laff riot. A parody of itself that has finally become a joy to watch.

P.S. I was at Toys'R'Us and noticed that action figures for Mayweather and Reed were on clearance for $3.98. So now's your chance to stock up on throwaway characters. They had other value-priced Enterprise merchandise as well. The prices were so low you could almost wipe your ass with them.

[vhsiv]

Originally posted by shamecube
I was at Toys'R'Us and noticed that action figures for Mayweather and Reed were on clearance for $3.98. So now's your chance to stock up on throwaway characters. They had other value-priced Enterprise merchandise as well. shamecube! - I was wondering when you were going to show up for the T'Party!

'Enterprise' action-figures going for $3.98? If I were you, I'd snap up a whole bunch of them, b/c they might be 'collectables' as soon as next year: We all know that they're not going to be making any more of them. Heck, you never know - Viacom might offer you a bucket of money, just to erase the evidence of them ever existing...

[shamecube]

But it's Reed and Mayweather. Two very (scandalously) underutilized characters. Doritos used to say: "Eat all you want, we'll make more" Some unsuspecting toy company will "land" the Star Trek license and create action figures ad infinitum. Besides, the only way to erase all evidence of ENTERPRISE is to, well, have the Xindi destroy the Earth. Seriously, perhaps that's the real reason that the Xindi want to blow us up so bad.

"T'party" That made me take T'pause and laff T'profusely.

[Third EYe]

I agree, bash away. However, please stop with the "they stole that from Farscape" stuff, cause someone will stop by and point out from where all the Farscape eps were stolen from, and yes, to some degree, they were all stolen, it doesn't take away from the show.


This last enterprise ep was one of the worst yet. I didn't really pay attention. It was clearly a stand alone ep, yet, to keep the timeline, they mentioned the zhindi. whoopdidooo!


I've always been a fan of the Trek series, and this one is very disapointing. I watch em all, like I was being paid to.

[shamecube]

I've always been a fan of the Trek series, and this one is very disapointing. I watch em all, like I was being paid to.

You're not getting paid? You need to contact Human Resources at Paramount. It'll take a few weeks to get set up. They even do direct deposit.

[darius]

I agree that saying Enterprise rips off Farscape or even comparing them is wrong. It would really be an insult to Farscape. It's true that pretty much every show takes ideas from other shows but it's in how they use it that makes the difference.

[Selena]

Originally posted by Zantar
is it the weekly ritual to bash enterprise?

I didn't think I was bashing anything. :fwap:
My objective was to initiate a discussion about the episode just like we do with the other shows we watch.

[shamecube]

However, Braga basically repeated Kemper's comments about Farscape S4 when referring to Enterprise S3. That's what I was referring to when I said Enterprise rips off Farscape. Perhaps I should have said Braga rips off Kemper.

[TokyoScaper]

I thought that it wasn't too bad. The CGI was amazing, the story was plotted a little bit tighter than usual and the A and B plots actually had some connection and tied in together in the end. They through in some continuity and even attempted some (gasp!) humor. All-in-all a definite improvement. Notice that it wasn't written Brannon and Berman.

The real problem with Enterprise is that the characters are boring, wooden and generally unlikable with a few exceptions. In TNG, DS9, TOS (I didn't like VOY) there are always characters that you like and can identify with that help you tolerate the weaker stories. Take Farscape. I think that any of us could find redeeming qualities in any stupid Enterprise story as long as it had John, Aeryn, Chiana or D'argo in it.

[Third EYe]

You got me thinking. At one point, I thought that Trek was going to be my only source for SF TV.

In the other series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, they characters were allowed to maneuver in thier relationships. They had arguments, they made up, they had love interests, all kinds of stuff like that. You're right, even during slow episodes, the characters relationships were enough to carry the show for a bit. Enterprise started out that way, a bit, but it quickly got stale.

My favorite character of all the Trek series was Odo. Very complicated guy.

[Selena]

Originally posted by shamecube
However, Braga basically repeated Kemper's comments about Farscape S4 when referring to Enterprise S3. That's what I was referring to when I said Enterprise rips off Farscape. Perhaps I should have said Braga rips off Kemper.

I've heard it said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Braga ... :bowdown: ... Kemper

[Selena]

I watched Enterprise on Saturday night and felt that it was better than some of the other eps they've had.
It did make me cringe however where Archer seemed very awkward as he said "This is the ... Star ... fleet vessel ... Enterprise, ... " It was as if he wanted to say something else but couldn't quite get it out.

I also wondered how they got the shuttle fixed so quickly ... they don't have replicators and carry few spare parts.

[frellyou]

I didn't see this episode. Did Tpol go crazy and rip off all her clothes?

[Saajak]

I also wondered how they got the shuttle fixed so quickly ... they don't have replicators and carry few spare parts.

They probably got another shuttle from the "amazing shuttlecraft replicator" they had on Voyager. Lose a shuttlecraft and your a million miles from home? Don't worry, we have a shuttlecraft replicator just for you!:aok: