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October 1, 2004: One more week to the
premiere! I've updated the Drinking
Game to take advantage of potential storylines. Your suggestions
are always welcome and will be credited.
October 8, 2004: Italians
from Brooklyn leading the resistance to kick Nazi ass hee
hee hee I love it!
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T'Pol: Mister Reed, I am aware
that you have been plotting for the last year to seize
command of Enterprise for Commander Tucker and
yourself. If you were my husband, I would poison your
tea.
Malcolm: Subcommander, if you were my wife,
I would drink it.
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Okay, whatever reviewers said this was "wooden" need
to turn in their credentials. I really enjoyed this. Camera
work was impressive. Good character moments. T'Pol's bugeyes
were a riot. (Blalock did a good job playing "a Vulcan
with not quite enough emotional control" rather than "hysterical
addict on the verge of flaking out." She did tear up
in the final scene, but we'll give her that one.) Interesting
blending of actual WWII events and this alternate universe.
Coto's dialogue was wonderfully smooth. Archer was calm and
steely-eyed without being Super Archer Saves the Universe.
All the crew got air time and worked together as a team.
Even Cat #1 liked it -- she kept getting up in front of
the TV to watch!
I'd be just as happy if they wrapped up the
Temporal Cold War with this pair of episodes; it's getting
old. Time travel should be used sparingly on Trek. It screws
with continuity, it leaves too many paradoxes, it's way too
easy to abuse the Reset Button™. Just as well Braga's
dialing back this season -- keep his grubby hands out of
the plotbox.
They recycled Daniels's latex from the Vidiians (they
haven't gotten any prettier since Voyager left them
in the Delta Quadrant) and both J. Paul Boehmer and the building
which gets blown up in the presentation film from "The
Killing Game." Well, why not? Props ain't cheap.
Did anyone else get First Contact flashbacks?
Captain of the Enterprise goes back in time, has to
stop an alien menace from wrecking the timeline, finds a
beautiful brilliant black woman to help him? I mean, no complaints,
just pointing out the similarities.
It's been so long since I heard the theme song
-- I think the Season 3 premiere was the last time I sat
through it -- that I'm not even sure if there were changes
made or if this is the "new" arrangement! Not that
I care, particularly.
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The New York City UPN station pre-empted
the season premiere for a Yankees game? Are
you joking?
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I suppose if Archer was in a truck driving
through the forest being taken to New York City, he was in
New Jersey? Maybe that's why WWOR pre-empted it for the stupid frelling
Yankees game -- they were upset to hear about Nazis invading
Flatbush and people fleeing across the Brooklyn Bridge to
escape.
Note that T'Pol doesn't actually deny that
they're back in time 200 years; Trip just pitches a tantrum
before she can speak. I would hope that after "Carpenter
Street" (you slept through it, I slept through it, it
was the boring Thanksgiving episode where the Dynamicless
Duo went back to 2004 Detroit) she just accepts that time
travel is possible and gets on with it.
I guess at some point we'll learn how long
the Evil Gargoyle Alien Nazis (EGANs) have been on Terra,
and how they talked the Nazis into helping them, because
none of the Germans even blink at them. Or is the idea that
whatever the Führer orders, they accept, without question?
Wouldn't people of 1944 be a bit freaked out by aliens, let
alone time-traveling aliens? Although from the New Yorkers'
dialogue, it sounds like it's relatively recent -- Alpha-Lily
says she "still can't believe it" that the Nazis
reached our shores and invaded. Figure a few months that
they've been on our side of the pond, so the EGANs have been
helping the Axis for what, a year?
The Head EGAN says he has a portability problem
with the plasma weapons. Was the rifle plugged in somewhere?
Looked pretty portable to me....
I just laughed when the Head EGAN handed the
general a folder of requisition forms for materials for the
weapons. That Nazi love of bureaucracy never changes, does
it?
Um. How does a disease target "non-Aryans"?
Or was the Head EGAN blowing smoke to another fanatic lunatic?
Humans really don't have all that much difference among the
races to qualify for a marker like that which a pathogen
could latch onto. What could it be, melanin poisoning? Dogs
and cats have breeds which vary wildly, but any disease which
kills dogs is gonna kill weiner dogs, pit bulls, poodles,
retrievers, and greyhounds. The XindiSnakes' idea of a pathogen
based on blood type was more plausible.
"You have to stop him..." Daniels
gasps before ooping, acking, and conveniently passing out. "Stop
who?" T'Pol asks. Agent MacGuffin, of course.
Trip gives a decent showing against Silik,
but you can't really wrestle with somebody made of Silly
Putty. He should've yelled for help immediately, though --
what's the first thing you do when you encounter a hostile? Call
for assistance. (And then Trinneer splays his legs again
when he collapses. I looooove consistency.)
A leeetle too much blue eyeshadow on Malcolm,
and I think he borrowed T'Pol's T'Pink lipgloss. Everyone
else's makeup was fairly subdued, though.
So...why didn't T'Pol beam Trip and
Travis out immediately when the Nazis were approaching and
then destroy Pod 2 from orbit? Does Enterprise have
limited transporter minutes and needed to save them for Archer
and Alpha-Lily?
I've seen too many "X-Files" episodes
-- when the EGAN was shot and started to bleed, I was expecting
everyone to start clutching their eyes and screaming from
caustic fumes....
Quite a few Nazis, human and alien, killed
ruthlessly by our crew and the resistance, weren't there?
Are they so evil, so indisputably Enemy, that they fall into
the same category as Bad Xindi, to be offed whenever possible
in defense of the species?
Archer tells Phlox, "That's the last time
you'll have to watch Porthos." Does this mean he's leaving
the dog home after they fix the timeline? Poor li'l puppy
needs some breathing room. Not to mention it would free up
the camera to concentrate on the human cast....
Stupid interrogators -- don't they know there's
no force in the universe which can get Travis to talk? :D
Moderate Trip damage. Food Chain intact. Recycled
Trek Actor Checklist: Tom Wright (Assistant EGAN) was "Tuvix" (VOY)
and Christopher Neame (Nazi General) was Unferth in VOY's "Heroes
and Demons."
October 15, 2004: Okay,
that newsreel in the teaser was the most frightening thing
I've seen in a long time. For the crappy hand Coto
got dealt by the Killer Bs at the end of "Zero Hour," he
sure pulled out gold.
A few overly-casual lines (I cannot see Malcolm
Reed saying "the targeting array is fried")
but good natural-sounding dialogue for the most part. A satisfying
conclusion to a confusing arc and a WTF?! cliffhanger. The
captain came off pretty well and rarely lapsed into Super
Archer Saves The Universe Alone mode, everyone continued
playing nicely together, Malcolm got to show off his weapons
knowledge, T'Pol kept her eyeballs demurely in their sockets,
and Trav and Hoshi were once again relegated to cameos. Trip
got to escape the Nazis almost all by himself, although I
was expecting more heroics -- the episode felt like they
cut out about seven minutes. It was pretty tightly packed
for the 40-odd minutes it was. Nice camera work again. Gorgeous FX, especially Enterprise sailing
into the sunrise and then dogfighting over Manhattan!
According to the IMDb, the EGANs' species is
called "Na'kuhl." I bet somebody had just finished
watching Lord of the Rings and had Nazgul on the brain.
Anyone else notice that the shots from the
Previously reel were not directly from last week? They were
the same scenes, but from different angles. It's especially
noticeable when Archer and Daniels are talking, because we
never saw a crane shot in Sickbay.
We finally found a species which can out-Nazi
the Nazis, from their slithery, hypnotic, almost-believable
rhetoric to their calm ruthless violence to their fanatical
belief in themselves as the purest and ultimately greatest
form of life. Not even the Founders were quite so chilling.
You almost want to laugh at the Nazi general for his shortsighted,
obsessive focus on the Reich's conquest of America in the
face of the EGANs' much greater scale of monstrosities. The
poor numbskull doesn't get it. Of course, we never do find
out how it is that they accepted an alliance with time-traveling
aliens, so we don't really know if the Krauts buy the EGANs'
story, or if they really even understand it. The general
is so shiny happy to announce that the Führer has given
him direct control of the EGANwaffe, and the Head EGAN just
plugs him. I would wonder about all the NPC Nazis who overhear
the temporal chatter, but when the Gihugic Reset Button™ gets
engaged, there never were any EGANs, so it's moot. (Does
that mean Silik's not dead? Since Daniels clearly isn't either?)
John Fleck is a great villain. He must have
loved the chance to play with his makeup off for once --
although it's disconcerting to hear that bedroom purr of
a voice come out of an ordinary face. I hope he was Reset
and we do get to see him again, the end of the TCW notwithstanding.
And it's not really over, or it's not really
wrapped up, is it? We still don't know about Future Guy.
Let's recall, in fact, that it was Future Guy who warned
Archer about the Xindi and the Tesseracts and launched S3.
Does that mean the Tesseracts were another faction? Back
in "Carpenter Street," Daniels said, "History
doesn't mention anything about a conflict between humans
and Xindi. The events that are taking place are the result
of temporal incursions. They're not supposed to be happening." But
in the History Reel, you can see the last few moments of "Zero
Hour" with Archer doing the GalaxyQuest gauntlet
run off the exploding Death Star and then the shot of the
Death Star itself exploding. Does that mean that whatever
the EGANs were doing, the Tesseracts' meddling was something
else? Yet Future Guy, who helped the Suliban, knew about
both the EGANs and the Tessearacts? ("Time travel. From
my first day on the job as captain I promised myself I'd
never let myself get caught up in one of these God-forsaken
paradoxes. The future's the past, the past is the future.
It all gives me a headache." Janeway had
it right. Am I ever glad this E-plot is over.) And why did
Future Guy warn Terra after all? What use do the Suliban
have for Terra, or the Federation? Especially if the Federation
helps create the Time Police who are the Sulibans' enemies?
As monkee phrased it, when they put an arc behind them, they really put
it behind them.
Jack Gwaltney, the Head EGAN, was another good
casting find. His delicate pauses and slightly hissed sibilants
gave his words just enough menace to make you blink.
I suppose it would make sense that Carmine
and Sal and Nicky the Scalpel et al. are from Bensonhurst, but Alpha-Lily spoke of living in
Flatbush -- which is a good half hour across the borough
-- and specifically called it a "colored" neighborhood.
Was she implying that she used to live in Bensonhurst until
the Nazis drove her, as a "colored," into Flatbush?
Okay, how, uh, focused am I that when poor
battered Trip is rolling over onto his back after recovering
from a Nazi interrogation, the first thing which goes through
my mind is "Damn, but the boy's got some nice
arms!"? Trinneer was working out over the summer again,
and looks delicious.
I can't believe Archer didn't bring his Tactical
Officer to a negotiation with the enemy! Okay, at least
he brought two well-armed MACOs (and are they going to
stay on the ship this year?), but he really needed another
senior staff member with him. I was also surprised that
the Head EGAN thought that it would be easier to convince
Archer to join him rather than to threaten Archer by holding
his men hostage against his cooperation. If the EGANs think
other species exist to serve them, why play the alliances
game? I guess the Krauts were really getting his panties
in a knot.
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Trip: Ah can't believe it! This
isn't happening!
Archer: I know, Trip, but it's all right. I'm
alive, you're alive, Malcolm is going to blow up the
bad guys in a minute, and then we're all going home.
Trip: No, Ah mean Ah can't believe you're wearing that
hideous jacket! The 1970s called and they want their
couch back!
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While it was funny to see two Trip-Archer reunions,
how did Silik know that Trip still thought Archer was dead?
Was he a literal fly on the wall for all of "Zero Hour"?
The Sickbay scene where Phlox coolly alerts
the captain and then the MACOs to Silik's deception was lovely.
Subtle, swift, no arguments, just a well-oiled team. And
about damn time the crew of the flagship should be able to
work together like that. Now, when Archer starts taking Mal's
recommendations that smoothly, we'll really have gotten somewhere.
I will say, however, that the stunt CGI for Trinneer was
a terrible likeness. Trip is blond, for pity's sake,
not a brunet. Did they use the Art
Asylum or Hallmark scans
for the texture map?
Archer stalks back and forth outside the Brig,
trading glares with Silik. "You persist in asking questions
you know I will not answer," Silik bluffs. "Oh
yeah? Ask me about my airlock," says Captain de Sade,
who's barely had time to have the XindiSnake blood scraped
out of his uniform....
This is an error which keeps popping up in
Trek and annoys the bejesus out of me every time: the Head
EGAN tells Archer that "a large amount of data has been
stolen from our computer system." Now, unless Silik
stole the equivalent of a hard drive, he downloaded, or copied,
the data. So it's still there. It wasn't stolen. And the
process for tracking down a user's movements (to prove something
was copied to an external disk) is different from sitting
down at your desk and going "Holy catfish, where'd my
Q drive go?" Unless they were looking for any console
usage which was the least bit out of the ordinary, they wouldn't
have discovered what Silik did that fast. The same garbage
happened on VOY more than once -- as if downloading something
was the same as removing it. It's not, and people who write
for Star Trek should know better.
If the EGANs actually had a plasma cannon aimed
at Enterprise, why did it have to come up out of the
roof in order to fire? This guy bluffs like a poker champ.
The gun battle in the compound was rather ridiculous.
That many machine guns taken out by a bunch of hand pistols?
Imagine if we ever had enemies who could aim.
Jeez, Trip discovers his captain and friend
of ten years is alive, and isn't even allowed to give the
man a half-second hug? UPN is so homophobic it's unreal.
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Heading into a new day...think Manny
Coto is trying to tell us anything?
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Malcolm rattling off bullet caliber and WWII
German aircraft weaponry from memory hee hee hee! See, that's
the kind of little throwaway detail which builds a character
-- we get the hint that armaments are not just his job, but
a hobby, a passion. Plus he finally got to blow some
stuff up -- and it was the tactically critical stuff, and he
had to target by hand!
Why must villains stop and pause dramatically
to make grand pronouncements at critical moments? The Head
EGAN really should have read the Evil
Overlord List before trying to start a Temporal War.
And speaking of leaving, didn't he tell his
assistant "We're leaving tonight"? Then why is
it morning by the time Archer and company finally get out
of Dodge?
For all my joking about the Magic Trek Reset
Button™, it was sort of amusing to watch it actually
unreeling and going all "We
Didn't Start the Fire" at the end.
No new Recycled Trek Actors. Food Chain veeeeery
tenuous and only because I'm cheating.
October 22, 2004: That was marvelous.
Wonderful. Deep and honest. Like TNG's "Family,"
a nutshell of character interactions and desperately-needed
followup to insane events. The Killer Bs' influence is dead;
long live Star Trek!
I wish this could have been a two-parter, because the B and
C stories could have used twice as much air time to develop -- let's see
a frightened Earth, let's see all the debriefing, let's have Trip
return to his mother's house (she's not dead, so far as we know, and he
has two more siblings!) and grieve and be comforted -- but these first
three eps were to clean house from the Killer Bs' squandering of ENT's
prequel premise, and Manny Coto has promised to bring on the good stuff
after sweeping out the dross. So we'll manage.
Were there quite enough promos for next week? Ya think they're
hoping to draw in a few TNG fans?
No promotions? No medals? They saved the universe and all
they got is an assembly? Malcolm is way the hell overdue for Lt. Commander's
pip, and the mime and the receptionist should be Lieutenants by now. Or
Hoshi at least, for her amazing codebreaking skills.
Did the captain of the Columbia ever
get named in dialogue? Seems a little awkward for Archer to
earn his first notch towards Captain Slut (three or more boot-knockings)
with someone whose name we never learn. (The official site
and IMDb both list her as Erika Hernandez, but we don't hear
that on screen.) On the other hand, Cap'n Columbia does basically
contradict Janice Lester's assertion in "Turnabout
Intruder" that women couldn't be starship captains.
Not that I object to that -- for once, continuity is violated
for a good reason.
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Java. Java NOW.
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I don't understand why Trip thought he didn't have anywhere
to go. He has at least a brother and another sister, and probably his mother,
still alive. Surely he has cousins, aunts, uncles -- just because his hometown
is gone doesn't mean all his family died. Similarly, did Malcolm blow off
Maddie as well as the parental units? We know Hoshi's father is still alive.
Why didn't anyone else go to visit their families, especially in an episode
called "Home"? Another reason it should have been two parts.
Archer points to Columbia's Big Chair. "You might
want to talk to someone about installing a lumbar support," he says. "And
embroidered seat cushions so you don't jolt."
I was delightedly flabbergasted at both the
inquiry board and Archer himself bringing him to task
for his actions. This is the backlash we were begging for
-- for all the questionable command decisions and desperate
acts to come crashing down on Cap'n's conscience. And he suffered
like a trouper. He hates himself for Yossarian and the ship
of aliens he stranded after stealing their warp coil. Even
hubby was really pleased at how well Bakula pulled off Archer's
self-disgust (given that he only had five minutes of screen
time to do it). For Archer to be deeply upset at seeing himself,
his naïve, innocent, trusting former self, in Cap'n Columbia
was note-perfect, and realistic. He's seen and done some grand
and terrible things. We bitched for the first two years that
Archer was weak, gullible, uncertain, unprepared for command.
That's no longer true. And to his credit, he recognizes it,
and wants to keep Cap'n Columbia from being hurt as badly
as he was.
I wonder if Blalock deliberately went on SuperAtkins over
the summer to get that recovering-addict-chic look. She was so gaunt you
could have practically played racquetball in the hollows of her cheeks.
I suppose it works for the character, but jeez, I hope the poor girl gets
to eat a little this year. Separately, however, the trembling, the awkward
twinges while sitting down and pacing, and the flaking-out voice were all
good continuity touches. She is still supposed to recovering from
neural damage (which, Soval conveniently noted, may well be more curable
than Phlox first thought, so she can go back to being a normal Vulcan again).
I just want to say the set dressing folks and the costuming
department did outstanding jobs this week. The Vulcan house was beautiful
and exotic without being so alien we couldn't enjoy it. (And the big statues
echoed the restored scenes from Trek I! Even if the lighting on
them didn't nearly match the lighting on the two people standing in front
of them.) The ornate robes were splendid and the simple tunics were something
I wish I could get for myself. T'Pol's outfits were all pretty without
being too revealing. (Well, they did show off her disturbingly skeletal
frame, but that's a different problem.) And the river
driver shirt Trip was wearing -- yum!
Wow, I see Starfleet hadn't issued the beige backpacks yet
-- they're all black L.L.
Bean duffles. On DS9, every single crewmember had those shapeless off-white
shoulder bags. These are much nicer.
I love Trinneer's "I'm trying to be polite but this
just tastes gross" face. We haven't seen it since way back in "Desert
Crossing" and it's been missed. :)
It's hard to tell, but I think during breakfast, T'Pol is
eating a breadstick or vegetable strip or something...with her hands. Is
that supposed to be a little nonverbal cue how much she's changed from
her association with Terrans? If so, that was really well done -- and subtle.
If it was a weird fork, then there was no food on it.
Keating should not let the costume department dress him in
anything with a low collar. It makes his neck look too long and his Adam's
apple stick out oddly. And he didn't practice signing Mal's name; you can
see he's deliberately writing it, not dashing off a signature. I've seen
enough DK autographs to recognize writing vs. signing.
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Malcolm: Are you feeling lucky,
punk?
Drunken Bar Guy: I jush wannid ta know what color
lipshtick that ish. Sho I can get it.
Malcolm: "Bruise." It can certainly be arranged.
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Okay, how drunk was that guy at the bar to attack the armoury
officer of Starfleet's flagship? And Keating is still the king of
tiny expressions -- when the guy is gearing up to hit him, he smirks,
then twitches his eyebrow eeeeever so slightly and smirks a bit more.
He's relishing the fight about to come without tipping his hand at how
badly he's going to trounce this troglodyte. I loved the cobra-hood Inflatable
Defense Mechanism on Phlox, though. What a neato evolutionary holdover
from pre-sentience days, when puffing yourself up actually accomplished
something in frightening an enemy! (Didn't he look like the bubble-head
guy from Lwaxana's mudbath holoprogram in TNG's "Cost
of Living"? Or Louis
Armstrong playing?) But why did everyone run off? Did they think
he was going to explode? If he actually wanted to scare the bar patrons,
all he had to do was stick out his tongue. Or take off his shoes.
T'Les is just needling Trip, I think, when she implies that
Vulcans don't say "thank you." Courtesy is not illogical. It
smoothes interactions between people. In a race formerly known for its
spectacular violence, and still currently bound by quite a bit of ritual,
social graces would be important, not ignored. (Case in point: there's
a knock at the door, and she asks Trip "Would you mind...?" If
she didn't care about niceties, she would have said "Answer the door.")
Although she was very rude to start talking about her guest in front
of him in Vulcan. Miss T'Manners would have slapped her wrist for that.
And the "I'm her mother so I know what's going on with you two within
mere seconds of eyeing you up and down like a side of beef" routine
got old fast. How come she didn't pick up on her kid's Thrillerium addiction?
Or is she chalking it up to Pa'nar? Does she know T'Pol has Pa'nar?
If she's that perceptive even after several years of not seeing each other,
you'd think a little thing like neurological deterioration and brain damage would register on the
ol' motherly radar.
What a fascinating glimpse into Vulcan culture. One's life
is sizably in the hands of one's family -- a very anti-American sentiment,
which for a show produced in America and written by Americans translates
to "alien." The idea that one cannot dictate one's own destiny
is really abhorrent to Americans; it's the antithesis of "the American
dream." It's part of why Trip reacts badly to it, to give the audience
a voice. It also echoes forward to the rift between Sarek and Spock: to
say Sarek "wanted" Spock to be an ambassador rather than join
Starfleet has a much stronger meaning for a Vulcan parent and child than
for Terrans. Now the 18 years of estrangement makes sense.
But why did Koss offer T'Pol, and T'Les, that opportunity?
I'm assuming there's some plotting going on down the line -- she will owe
him something, Koss or his family will blackmail her or T'Les, he will
pressure her into using her Starfleet influence for something. It's an
odd gesture to make without a hidden motive. Didn't they say of the Cardassians
that for every visible motive there are three more behind the scenes? Does
he actually have affection or a desire for T'Pol in any sense? Is there
anything personal in his actions? The politics are interesting, but it's
odd to hear it happening among Vulcans. Does Koss's family see marrying
T'Pol in as a kind of punishment for her? Are they appointing themselves
to rein her in from her excesses (too much exposure to Terran culture),
in a parallel xenophobia to the Terrans at the bar? I hope we get some
answers. I do like that T'Pol feels that since T'Les lost her job over
T'Pol's actions at P'Jem, T'Pol now has to restore her mother to her rightful
place with an act of atonement, as it were -- kind of like B'Elanna and
Miral from VOY's "Barge
of the Dead."
"It's difficult to meditate if you're standing there."
"Sorry, Mom, I'll stand a little quieter. The problem is that if I shift,
all my ribs bang against each other like a set of wind chimes."
While it was a bit rushed (and the whole plot was contrived,
but so was the arc which birthed it, so they cancel each other out), I'm
glad that Trip was honorable enough to let T'Pol do what she felt she had
to do, and not to burden her with additional concerns. He voiced his objections,
she acknowledged them, and that was that. That's what friends do.
At first listen I thought Hoshi was taking Phlox to Lucky
Cheng's restaurant. I'm thinkin', wow, that's really daring for Trek!...
I see we still aren't talking about Vulcans being touch-telepaths
(or Soval would never have offered to shake Archer's hand) or telepathically
bonded during betrothal at age seven.
Food Chain solidly intact this week, thank goodness. Recycled
Trek Actor Checklist: Michael Reilly Burke (Koss) was Hogue in DS9's "Profit
and Loss" and "Goval" in TNG's: "Descent:
Part 2." Jack Donner (the Vulcan Priest) stakes his claim to
fame on being Subcommander Tal in Classic Trek's "The
Enterprise Incident."
October 29, 2004: "We're
gettin' hammered down here!" AAAAHAHAHAHA
My site makes it into canonical Trek dialogue! :D
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Was this the face that launched a thousand
ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
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That was fun! And complicated, and with some
nice echoes of current stem-cell research quandaries. Good
connection to Khan and his Supermen (that's what the Nietzsche
reference was for), which I think is what the Augments are.The
reviews for this ep were glowing across the board from media
and fans alike, and I'll add my huzzahs to the chorus. Everyone
got a few moments, Trav got a line or two, Archer didn't
act like a jerk to his staff, Malcolm got to do his job and
look threatening, and we were totally left wanting
more. Good job.
From the dates it was about two months or so
between the end of "Storm Front" and the beginning
of "Home," and two weeks later is when "Borderland" starts,
so that's actually reasonable for repairs to have been made
and people to have seen their families. I am not, I found,
the only keyboard kaffeeklatscher who thought "Home" should
have been the two-parter so we could have seen everyone
going home, but at least the eps allow for the events to
happen. Which explains the civvies; everyone was still on
a long but well-deserved leave when Archer called the Casual
Friday meeting on the Bridge.
Oooh! The gray jumpsuit Soong is wearing in
prison is the same one Sim wore until they killed and buried
him! Coincidence?
Soong's command of the crew's personal information
is creepy and effective. The little digs (telling Malcolm
he didn't get enough publicity, implying Trip's ancestors
were slave owners) were shocking -- literally, they were
jolting to hear. We got used to a lot of rough treatment
in the Expanse, but these are intimate insults, meant to
echo in the ears long after Soong has gone. I did love the
character's sense of humor, sick as it could be. It was a
startling blast of fresh air, especially paired against our
crew's stifling angst. (And the explosion in Sickbay cutting
off yet another Star-Crossed Lovers conversation -- jeez,
ya think Coto wants this stupid E-plot over and done with?
I admit that given last week's plot, it would be reasonable
in real life to have the conversation. Traditionally Trek
would have dropped it like a hot rock. So points for the
continuity, even though I don't like the story.) Bakula still
has some of the weight-of-the-universe delivery from last
season, which like the other arc actually works with character
development, and the contrast between those three and Soong's
jaunty indifference to their traumas creates some astonishing
sparks. I am really glad this will be three episodes. Soong
is also quite charismatic, especially in the scene in the
ship's brig. You can see why the Augments love and follow
him, and there's even a hint of Khan's arrogance.
Moogie thought that it would have been even
cooler if these three eps had not been contiguous -- if some
other plot, a standalone, was next week, and then this story
picked up again the week after that, which would be more
like real life. If Coto had had control of ENT from S1, we
could have had the luxury now of that braiding of ongoing
plotlines.
Soong as a scientist makes some good points.
Phlox essentially echoes the thought -- that gengineering
can be used to benefit people. The issue is that Soong "went
too far." Did he? Wouldn't we as a species want to eliminate
disease and extend lifespans? Wouldn't double intelligence
and quintuple strength be good things? It's a heavy thing
to ponder, and Trek specializes in putting those big questions
in front of us. I hope the second and third eps let us wrestle
with the ethics of this in more detail.
 |
| The first draft of the Art Asylum action
figures were considered slightly too realistic
by the focus groups. However, a few of the "comp" figures
still remain, and are eagerly sought after by convention
goers. |
Why was T'Pol allowed to blend the catsuits
with the 'Fleet pips, stripes, and patch? If she's in Starfleet,
she should have a jumpsuit like Hoshi's. If she returned
to the VHC, she could go back to the industrial carpeting
catsuit (not that I want her to). She was a civilian in the
Expanse, so I thought the pretty colors were akin to Seven's
sausage casings. I realize Blalock is the show's T&A,
but Troi's character improved immeasurably on TNG when they
put her in a standard uniform, and her attractiveness was
in no way diminished. It's a shame they can't follow that
example on ENT. It would give T'Pol back some of the seriousness
she lost last year.
Speaking of Blalock, I'm told she was fairly
ill when filming the first three eps, which is why she looks
like a Biafran child, and Trinneer came down with whatever
it was afterwards for the Spiner arc.
Yay MACOs! After Archer's little mountaintop
rant, it makes sense that he would ask to keep them aboard.
Not that they do much good against the Augments -- MACOs
seem to be best at retreating -- but hey, even half-assed
protection is better than none.
The slightly extended pullout from the repair
dock was yet another visual cue that Coto is rebooting ENT,
and all to the better. They did remove the astronauts from
the launch sequence this time; seeing them for a third round
would have been kind of painful.
At least the new version of the Big Chair fits Archer
properly.The Don't Touch That Button plays "Faith of
the Heart," so it's probably a very good idea not to
engage it.
Ships are not supposed to go into warp that
close inside a solar system, let alone right next to Jupiter
Station!
We have to assume the compass Archer gave his
XO was a symbolic gift, since there's no magnetic north
in space. The needle would point at every door it went
by.
What criteria did the Orions use to grab people?
It seemed rather random, especially when Ensign Wetbehindtheears
was nearly sold for dog food. It's not like they grabbed
all women or all security goons or all people above 5'6" but
under 110 pounds.
The kidnap-transporter was very funny. One
guy slides right into oblivion. Archer asks T'Pol if the
energy surge is a weapon. "No," she begins...and poof she's
gone.
Persis is quite the little manipulator, isn't
she? I guess double intelligence doesn't come with double
ethical restraints installed as standard equipment. With
great power comes great responsibility, kids. Not that the
rest of the NPC Augments were any towers of nobility either
-- they were quick to pull knives on behalf of whomever was
Alpha Dog of the moment. I hope we get to find out more about
how Soong reared them. Khan quoted from classics and was
clearly well-educated in human literature. Malik quoted Freddy
N, but did Soong leave them a library or read to them in
the cradle? Were they more Lord
of the Flies or "Miri" for
the last ten years? They were well cast, I thought -- most
of them looked like they could be very brawny 20-year-olds.
 |
|
Ow ow ow ow flames ow ow hot melting
lipstick ow ow ow
|
Okay, why was Soong being blamed for the Orion
attack? He "knew" the Borderland between the Empire
and the Syndicate but didn't warn the crew about the slavers?
He lied about how much he knew about the Orions? They kept
acting like it was his fault, and I couldn't figure out why.
"If you wish," T'Pol says to Ensign
Wetbehindtheears, "I can teach you how to minimize your
anxiety. Take off your shirt and let's light some candles
while I slip into some blue silk croptop pajamas...."
I thought the Orion woman was going to dance!
All she did was lean suggestively. The butterfly twins from "Broken
Bow" danced a little...
Shrek the guard taunts T'Pol, saying he's going
to keep her for himself. "I'm not for sale," T'Pol
snarls at him. "That was last week, and I did it for
Mother."
We both had a good laugh when Archer turned
off the restraints which Soong was hanging from in his escape
attempt. A simple sight gag but a good one, and sorely needed
on the show.
Why couldn't Mal Shoot The Hostage this time
when Malik grabbed Archer, satisfying as it might have been?
Because Malik would have ripped Archer's throat out anyway
to prove his point, where the cowboy couldn't know what "stun" was.
Food Chain extremely weak, but Trip (bless
his Italian heart) mentions putting a protein resequencer
on the Cap'n's new Big Chair. Manny, don't take away the
food! That's one of the good parts of ENT.
Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: Besides
Spiner (who seems to have played every male Soong relative
and creation in the franchise), Thom Williams (Klingon Soldier)
is a regular ENT stunt guy, and the Klingon captain is played
by J.G. Hertzler, who's competing with Jeffrey
Combs, Vaughn
Armstrong, Randy
Oglesby, Thomas
Kopache, and Marc
Alaimo for Most Trek Guest Roles. On DS9 he played semi-regular
Martok, a Vulcan captain in "Emissary," Laas
in "Chimera," and
Roy Rittenhouse in "Far
Beyond the Stars"; on VOY he was the Hirogen Hunter
in "Tsunkatse";
on ENT he was Kolos in "Judgment";
and he did the voice of Lurok for the Elite Force II videogame.
 |
|
Look, Ah'm all for ensemble pieces,
an' Ah don't even mind givin' half my lines to Mal,
but Ah am gonna get somethin' substantial to
do soon, right?
|
November 5, 2004: A typical middle to
a trilogy, I guess -- darker, more backstory, not quite as
engaging as the first or as satisfying as the third, but
pretty solid as part of the arc. Some bad science, bad psychology,
and the unfortunate return of Save-The-Universe-Himself-Archer.
Good ensemble work. Trip got to look very worried over Cap'n.
Malcolm got to shoot somebody. T'Pol is looking really disturbingly
gaunt, and I hope to high heaven it's just that Blalock was
ill and nothing worse than that. Some sparks goin' on there
between Phlox and Lucas, hmm?
As Julia
Houston once said, "It's a simple Trek truth:
create something sentient and it will do what it wants,
not what you want." Of course that's nowhere more
evident than when it comes to children, and doubly the
problem when said children are left like Lord of the
Flies for ten years, and double that again when they
were already being reared to think of themselves as the
superior of everything else. Now, one of the ways Soong
could have defused the rebellion the very first time Malik
contradicted him would have been to explain why he
didn't want humans killed. Noblesse oblige, with great
power et cetera et al., it's a bitch to get blood out of
the carpeting, whatever. But that would have made Malik
and the rest of Brent's Kids feel more like part of the
solution, rather than creating a problem. Nobody likes
to follow orders blindly. When you disagree with what Mom
or Dad says, it helps to know the why behind the because.
(I know, I know, short show.)
So, does Soong have any blood children? Since
Noonien is supposed to be his actual descendant? We thought
Aug'geek might have been the runt of the litter because he
was Soong's actual son. And one wonders if Khan (whose full
name is Khan Noonien Singh) is also any relation.
I like how Malik continued to test Soong --
first by challenging him, then by tears and lies, with defiance,
and finally by knocking him aside like any other human. Good
escalation of the character's hubris without ever spelling
it out.
The little father-child comments are funny,
and a nice touch. "I can't believe I held you back in
math," he jokes to the codebreaker Kid. It continues
to round Soong out as a complicated villain who is also really
a loving parent, not just a megalomaniac. Same with his strange
mixture of violence and mercy towards the hostages -- a little
reminiscent of Garak torturing Odo because he had to. Soong
really didn't want to kill the poor blood-bursting guy (way
to steal a disease from "Millennium" --
that was gross enough that I had to look the other way for
most of that scene) or Dr. Lucas. He was relieved when Archer
backed off. I wish we'd gotten half a line to explain that
attitude, so we knew why he was so intent on saving human
life at potentially the cost of his mission and his Kids.
 |
|
Phlox: Oh, for the love of little
green bats! You are not going down to the planet
looking like that, are you?
Malcolm: Why? What's the matter?
Phlox: You're sporting a five o'clock shadow and Shine
City. Not to mention all the other Starfleet personnel
will be wearing exactly the same outfit. You're
going to humiliate me in front of Jeremy.
Malcolm: You're just jealous because I didn't
need to go on Annelidkins to drop two stone.
Trip: He's got ya there, Doc.
|
Aug'geek would not have eagerly pounced on the
PADD with the information about his Russian parents. As the
runt, he would have clung twice as hard to his identity as
an Augment, and argued fiercely that Soong was his father
in every way which counted.
Okay, and while we're on the subject, how the
hell did Soong care for nineteen infants all at once,
all by himself? Build a few androids to give him a hand for
a few years?
Persis and Malik are just made for each other
-- manipulative, plotting, double-dealing, power-hungry little
jerks. Little doubt where they learned it, considering Soong's "Look
at what you're making me do to him! This is on your conscience!" speech
to Lucas. (Plus showing Persis in tighty-bluesies gives Braga
has his T&A quotient for the month now that Blalock is
insisting that T'Pol stay dressed.)
"Protocol 047" heh heh heh. I love
a good ongoing in-joke.
Cap'n and Aug'geek have steak, baked potato,
and...sour cream in sushi sauce dishes? What was in the third
dish, au jus? (That's a personal running joke, BTW -- whenever
Moogie and I see a menu where they list "roast beef
sandwich with au jus" we can't order for 10 minutes
because we're laughing so hard.) And it looks like Phlox
was trying to eat a pot pie for eight.
Lots of cool little TOS-sounding background
bings and clicks on the Bridge. We Trekkies eat that stuff
up.
How is it that Archer was able to hold his
own against any of the Augments even for a half-second? The
door slamming the one guy in the face shouldn't have fazed
him, and Archer should not have been able to do any
damage to Malik.
So Archer's had the snot beaten out of him
by Malik (although conveniently nothing's broken, and for
a guy who really wants to kill humans, Archer's strangely
alive). I ask, why didn't Archer send a MACO or Malcolm to
the MacGuffin junction? Moogie asks, why didn't they just
cut the artificial gravity, and Archer could *swoosh* up
the tube like Neo?
Food Chain intact. Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: Richard
Riehle (Dr. Lucas) was Batai in TNG's "The
Inner Light," and Seamus Driscol in VOY's horrible
Irish wakes "Fair
Haven" and "Spirit
Folk." (Oh, that's where I've seen him before! I
thought he was Wilford
Brimley's younger brother.)
November 9, 2004: Totally Shameless Fellow Trekkie Plug: Regular browsers of the site know that at the bottom of each
History page I post a cartoon, either about Trek or computers
or the 'net in general. I forgot to break the most recent
History page at October 1, so when I remembered to do it I
added a comic from a strip to which my sister just introduced
me, called "Sheldon."
It's drawn by dedicated ENT fan Dave
Kellett, and is reminiscent of the early days of "Bloom
County" in its characters and banter. Check it out for
a morning smile.
 |
|
Dang. Another show were Ah jest run
from the Bridge to the warp core an' back. Well, Ah
suppose it helps me work off all that pie.
|
November 12, 2004: A solid and satisfying
wrap-up, with a gasping good twist at the end and some spectacular CGI. If this is what digital filming allows, they should have
started that way! A leeetle too much TOS namedropping. Blalock
looks like she finally had a decent meal between eps. Trinneer
also seems to have recovered from the flu, and did a nice
job with the Days of Our Lives scene. (I'm really hoping
they finally put a stake in this damn E-plot. This isn't the
WB, for pity's sake.) Malcolm got to blast a torpedo out of
the bloody sky like skeet shooting! And had some technical
suggestions to make which were followed and which worked!
Bakula is totally digging being allowed to be subtle and underplay
moments instead of aiming for the back row of the theatre
all the time. Hoshi got to, uh, answer a lot of phone calls.
Phlox got to have one moment of angst over his boyfriend.
Not all our questions answered, but I wasn't left yelling
at the TVset.
Spiner is just marvelous. The glares, the obsession-glazed
stares, the anguished looks, kissing Persis's hand on his
way out, trying desperately to reach his "children" all
the way to the end, the mixture of joy and fear on his face
as he sees Malik is alive. I forgot entirely about Data until
the very last bit in the cell, when he's calm again
and his delivery went back to that measured rhythm. And that
is no small feat.
 |
|
Archer is finally convinced that playing
water polo in the middle of January is not the wisest
idea.
|
I'm fairly sure Archer would already have been
dead from the decompression and vacuum of space, but it was
just fast enough that I'll forgive it. Besides, seeing Archer
half-iced like a Demolition
Man makeup test was worth it. :) But the redness
around his eyes heals between camera shifts on the Bridge.
Maybe he was infected with a little Augment healing power?
(Maybe he has more in common with Buffy than
we thought?)
We still don't know whence comes Soong's nearly
fanatical objection to killing. He rats out his Kids to save
the Klingon colony and the rest of the Terran race because
he can't bear the thought of that much death. You'd think,
as Archer pointed out, someone who would do anything for
these Kids wouldn't blink at killing, but then again, his
whole purpose is improving and creating life. So it's not
entirely out of character -- I just would have liked some
explanation.
Did Jolene get a new wig along with the upgraded
catsuits? The bowl cut looks a little fuller.
So Khan and Brent's Kids are all the same batch,
that's the idea? Okay, that works. And these guys are too young
yet to have developed the astonishing presence and charisma
which Khan had (but old enough to have his arrogance and
utter confidence). Interesting that Malik thought Khan's mistake was
to run and thereby get lost, rather than stand and fight
to the bitter end. Khan, as a leader, understood that survival
was the most important thing. If you survive, you can fight
again later. If you're dead, it's over.
Anyone playing along with the Drinking
Game can be forgiven for switching to a non-potent
potable for this arc, since "I had no choice!" was
used about a dozen times and that's a two-drink line.
Moogie points out that there are two problems
with "removing the genes for ambition": you eliminate
a certain amount of self-preservation, because the altered
people don't think far enough ahead to plan for defenses;
and a culture with no ambition has no accomplishments, no
urge to do anything new. What's the point in living 200 years
free of disease if all you do is sit around and watch the
grass grow? (Which see "The
Enemy Within.")
Why does Soong set a course for "184-mark-3" but
in "Azati Prime" Trip tells Trav to take the Xindi
shuttle "Negative Z-axis, 10 degrees"? Since LeVar
Burton directed, did he and Spiner both slip into TNG-speak
and forget that 'Fleet doesn't use that terminology yet?
I finally noticed that the carpeting and doors
on the Bridge are a nice blue! That's a change from last
season.
Little problem with Malik's plan: the biotoxins
would have been fired from a Klingon vessel using Klingon
torpedoes onto a Klingon colony. How would anyone know to
blame Terrans? Just because they were stolen from a Terran
facility doesn't mean Terrans did it, especially when the
rest of the station is also poisoned.
Now we know what happened to the Tuckers, and
we have proof that Charles Tucker II is still with us. But
since Trip said that his parents are fine, and they have
a house, that still negates his "Ah don't have anywhere
to go" line.
The bluffing bit was quite funny. I loved Archer
ending it with the "garbage scow" line. It's a
total and direct line-of-foresight to "The
Trouble With Tribbles," but it worked.
Okay, WHY doesn't the UT ever translate "Qa'pla!"?
TNG did the same damn thing. The Klingon captain is, one
would assume, speaking Klingon the entire conversation. So
why is that one word not translated into English or Standard
or whatever they're calling it? Is it supposed to be like "laissez-faire" or "faux
pas," when a foreign word or phrase gets used so much
it becomes part of English?
And wombat61 asks, "So the Klingons have
just forgotten that Archer is an escaped criminal?" It's
barely within the realm of possibility that Archer himself
didn't speak to any Klingons when things were smoothed over
at the end -- and I think it would have been better if things weren't smoothed,
if that were the beginning of the Terran-Klingon wars --
but it's not really plausible. This is the kind of show where
we can say that it's good enough that these little nits can
be overlooked, but Manny, you don't have an unlimited number
of Get Out of Nitpicking Free cards. Start cleaning up after
yourself. Yes, we like the continuity, but don't overcorrect
from the Killer Bs.
Lots of NPCs filling in for Bridge crew! Wow,
we were just bitching about that last week. It's nice to
see a little realism.
So what was with Persis? She never went for
the strongest, she kept going for the next.
Whoever was going to be on top was the guy to whom
she aligned herself. Strange character trait. I wonder if
that was a twisted variant of ambition -- she had this drive
to move forward, always forward, in some way she couldn't
understand, so she expressed it by fueling and supporting
revolts.
It was fun to see the retrieval and opening
of the escape pod from inside the pod. We don't ever get
that angle. Still the same idiotic protocol where the captain
risks himself by opening the pod first, then Malcolm's behind
him, then the MACO behind both of them, completely
unable to protect the captain if the occupant of the pod
attacks him. I'm just going to blame Archer for that, since
Mal is doing so well this week.
I swear Malcolm was drooling a bit when he
said "D-5 class battle cruiser"...
Pulling the nacelle off the ship so they can't
create a stable warp field? That's inventive. Almost something
Janeway would have done.
The ending was note-perfect for Brent's Kids.
Malik especially embodied "better to die on your feet
than live on your knees," particularly if jailed by
the "normal" humans on whom they are the improvements.
I did not predict Malik would beam in and try to kill Soong.
That last shot going clear through Malik ew! (And
why was it that the first shot by the MACO barely singed
his eyebrows but the second by Archer left a plot hole in
his spleen? Is that the difference between Stun and Kill
on the Maisie Boomsticks?) The violence has really skyrocketed
along with the CGI, and I'm hoping the next arc or two are
less bloody and more cerebral. Did I need to watch Malik
kiss Persis ere
he kill'd her, and see her die slowly and painfully upon
a kiss?
 |
|
Little-known cross-franchise fact: the Silver
Surfer's cousin, the Rainbow Reactor, helped
Zephram Cochrane develop the warp drive.
|
CGI highlights: The big blue gas giant, several
rainbow warps, the Praxis explosion of the torpedoes, the
Klingon ship coming up the Z-plane to buzz Enterprise.
A big round of applause for the SFX folks.
So...does Soong have biological children yet
or not? I guess he doesn't, but that means what, he marries
a prison guard? (Remember that all the Paramount propaganda
has specifically named him N. Soong's great-grandfather,
not a mere ancestor.)
If you're wondering why, on a Trip-focused
site, I've barely talked about Trip at all these last three
eps, it's mostly because the ensemble has focused on the
guest villains and Trip hasn't had much to do. And the only
time he has been center stage it's been part of the
frelling soap opera which will not die. I had been hoping
that "Home" would have shoved that out the airlock,
but TPTB seem determined to keep dragging that dead horse
around to beat it a little more every week. Since I refuse
to talk about that plot, and Trip is apparently not allowed
to do much of anything which doesn't involve that storyline,
there hasn't been much for me to say about our boy. I hope
that changes soon.
Food Chain is NOT in fact broken; rainwoman
reminded me that T'Pol points out Trip hasn't been at the
Cap'n's Table for dinner in a while.
Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: Mark Rolston
(Captain Magh) was Kuroda, the bad guy, from "Canamar"
and Lieutenant Walter Pierce in TNG's "Eye
of the Beholder." Dayna Devon, the unnamed blonde
engineer NPC, was an unnamed alien in "Stigma."
 |
|
Trip: Sorry, doc, Ah just can't
let you do it.
Phlox: But they're so cute!
Trip: Not while Ah'm in command.
Phlox: Hoshi said sehlats are just Vulcan teddy
bears!
Trip: Not precisely, Doctor. On Vulcan,
the teddy bears are alive, and they have six-inch fangs.
|
November 19, 2004: Oh my god! They killed Forrest!
You bastards!
Well, okay, the Reeves-Stevenses pretty much kick butt otherwise,
so we'll just assume they're taking a page out of Joss Whedon's book and
whacking characters whenever it serves the story. Still. Forrest! We
liked Forrest.
Anyway. Much Soval, doing very well, although Gary Graham
looks like he caught the same flu which ravaged the rest of the crew. I
was surprised to see him cast his lot so far with the Terrans so fast --
maybe that's what Forrest's death was supposed to accomplish? The "I can
meld" thing was way too convenient, even though Coto and the RSs really
busted their humps writing their way out of "Fusion"/"Stigma." Jeez,
they'll have to give ENT another season just to let Manny finish cleaning
up all the messes the Killer Bs left lying around! >:(
A fascinating script. Very involved and layered. Yes, there
were bits which were too pat -- the Plot Complication Storm, Soval abruptly
coming out of the melding closet, the Vulcan All-Citizen DNA Database (and
that creeped me out, not for anything) -- but it's a three-part arc of
39-minute shows, so at some point you have a cut a corner or two to move
the story forward. Many TOS namedrops (Spock's "Remember" when
passing on his katra, the Vulcan inner eyelid) and even one TAS reference.
Good ensemble work in the B-plot again. Trip didn't get to do too much
while in charge, but we have two eps to go yet (plus he was working with
Malcolm, so no complaints).
*dreamy sigh* love the Vulcan statuary. Loved the
glowing red planet shots with the ship in orbit. Loved the boys all hot
and sweaty playing Triad.
I mean basketball.
Two things which interested me about Soval's little speech
to Forrest about being unable to pigeonhole humanity. First, he was able
both to reify such an idea and then admit it to his human counterpart,
and especially while walking through the halls where anyone could hear.
There's a huge amount of trust and vulnerability going on there. I guess
one of the first steps to real trust is to allow the other person to see
you vulnerable, and hope that the exposure isn't abused. He does know Forrest
several years, so it's not inconceivable. He's like this the whole ep (and
I imagine now the whole arc), revealing things no Vulcan ordinarily would.
We don't know if this is deliberate for future events or just a character
change on the part of the writers; we'll have to see.
Secondly, the issue is as much that the Vulcans can't label
Terrans with any one consistent, shall we say, stereotype? as it is that
what they do see of Terrans' rapid progress unchecked with Vulcanlike logic
scares the crap out of them. Soval rattles off a bunch of species which
are reducible to a single (negative) trait: stubbornness, volatility, arrogance.
What discomfits him the most is that he can't boil Terrans down the same
way. This is an extremely subtle nod to Roddenberry's all-the-way-back
original idea of using sci-fi to tell stories about the present day, by
creating these other species with their single identifiable characteristics
to represent parts of us and then let our crew wrestle with them. It's
just flipped. All the other species are one-trick ponies, culturally speaking,
but Terrans aren't. And the Vulcans, who are scientists and like being
able to put things in a box, find this really annoying.
The game was cool. I like seeing the crew hang out and just
relax together, Trip and Hoshi goofing on each other, ordinary friendly
competition. The three 24th-century series had the ever-changing holodeck/holosuite
programs, but these guys have only the space they've got, and their ingenuity.
I wish I knew whether it was the directors or the actress,
but Blalock just emotes all over the dang place. She gave a spate of interviews
over the summer decrying how her character was stripped of all Vulcan characteristics,
but then she herself bugs out her eyes, twitches, flinches, whimpers, and
generally looks on the verge of tears half the time. If it's deliberate
because the Thrillerium and Pa'nar have left her control a shambles, I
suppose I'll go with it, but if it's that Blalock can't even deliver what
she's asking for, that's pretty sad.
I guess T'Les was right: Vulcans really don't say "thank
you." It actually started to get on my nerves by the end of the episode!
Why is that basic courtesy not extended?
"Surak I've heard of," Archer says. Well yeah,
considering T'Pol gave you the book of cthia all the way back in "Two
Days and Two Nights"...
 |
|
Red sky at night, Starfleet's delight;
red sky at morning, render farmers take warning.
|
Now, we have some timeline oddness here. Soval says it took
1,500 years for Vulcan to recover from electing the village idiot to the
presidency twice. The head of the VHC says that "even after 1,800
years we consider [Surak] the most important Vulcan who ever lived." Later,
Redshirt Vulcan tells T'Pol and Archer that Surak died on Mt. Seleya just
before a battle with "those who march beneath the raptor's wings," which
is the loveliest euphemism for "Romulan" I've ever heard. The
Romulans (who were Vulcans at the time) left Vulcan at that point and founded
their colony in a binary system (Romulus and Remus, or ch'Rihan and ch'Havran),
and there have been visually significant changes in the species since.
Recall that Donatra, the female Romulan commander from Nemesis was
a bit beetle-browed, as were Picard and Data when they went undercover
to locate Ambassador Spock on Romulus. (I'm not even going to get into
the whole Reman thing.) First, how can that kind of evolutionary change
happen in less than two thousand years? And second, given all that, that
means Vulcans have only been exploring space for three hundred years? Considering
that Vulcan life expectancy, as evidenced in "Unification
Pt 1," is around two hundred, does that sound right? My
copy of Spock's World is packed at the moment, so I can't check
(any volunteers?), but I really thought Surak and the Sundering (from the
people who would become the Romulans) were several thousand years farther
back than that. Yes, yes, Nitpicker's Guild, blah blah blah. :)
Malcolm doing his job again, twice in a row! woo hoo! Hubby
thought it was sloppy work the way he handled the discovery of the bomb,
because it appears that Malcolm just scans the thing without telling the
ship what's going on, but he does actually leave the channel open while
he's talking -- that's why he shouldered the thing so awkwardly, like an
office phone -- so they can hear him as he tells Travis what he's doing.
Still, it was another instance of dramatic padding with Travis playing Atlas and
Malcolm swearing. I thought we'd left that behind in the Expanse. And why
send down the helmsman? Why not another security goon? or a MACO?
"T'Pau...all Vulcan in one package." It'll be neat
to see how they connect those dots.
Soval says Forrest saved his life, at the expense of Forrest's
own. Watching that scene, I'm not sure how Soval gets that impression.
He did drag Soval off, but how could Forrest have "saved himself" and
not protected Soval? Left him to get FOOMed? Pulled Soval on top of him
instead of covering the Ambassador with his body?
The IDIC medallion is really beautiful. When the holographic
map popped up out of the center, did anyone else start rattling off Leia's
message? "Help me, Obi T'Pol, you're my only hope!"
Soval gives Trip a datachip listing when transports can't
be detected. Archer and T'Pol promptly hop up on the pad and...beam down.
Gee, that's some really good timing that they just happened to hit
a blank spot in the surveillance, isn't it?
Don't Vulcan children have any other domesticated animals?
For T'Pol to have even the same pet as Spock is really one namedrop too
many.
We should have known the helpful Vulcan was a goner: he chuckled,
and he's wearing red-orange robes....And speaking of robes, once again
T'Pol is the only Vulcan in any capacity wearing a catsuit and not something
tailored and sensible or flowing and elegant. If she's in Starfleet, she
should be in a flight suit. If she's still representing her species or
government, she should be in some version of their uniforms. The Vulcans
on Seleya were wearing the charcoal-gray busboy tunics like Soval's.
Why the strange up-the-nose closeups in Sickbay and later
with Soval? Director Michael Grossman cut the frame so closely Malcolm
got chopped for a moment when turning his head to make a point.
"Corporal" Asquith? In a 'Fleet uniform? Corporal
is an Army/MACO rank. Starfleet uses Navy ranks (like Ensign and Commodore
rather than Corporal and Major). Somebody oopsed.
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Soval: Do...you...mind not breathing down my Vulcan neck?
Trip: My breathing
is a simul-- oh wait, wrong show, sorry. Ah'll move.
|
I found it interesting that Trip was essentially willing
to injure the guard to get the information they needed -- shades of Captain
de Sade? Apparently the Expanse did have some lasting effects on everyone.
Okay, so Archer's not supposed to be in the desert. The VHC
isn't supposed to know he's on the planet. The Syrranites aren't supposed
to know he's (they're) looking for him. And what does he wear? A baseball
cap...reading NX-01. And he's traveling with a woman who
used to be part of the Ministry of Security, trained in reconnaissance,
working to locate and retrieve undercover agents who'd gone native. My
goodness, Starfleet does hire some bright lights!
Our silver-tongued boy talks Soval out of the closet and
into the fire. Trip is some persuader. Soval's gotta be thinking ew!
icky Human thoughts! but he mutters about "the needs of the many" and
relents. If you want a precursor to Sarek, here's where we should be looking.
Sigh. Does Archer really have to be not only the first
human to carry a Vulcan katra, but the carrier of Surak's katra? This Archer-Saves-The-Universe
bit is really getting old.
Food Chain intact. No new Recycled Trek Actors.
I'm really looking forward to the next two eps!
November 22, 2004: I can't tell you how delighted I get when someone writes in
to correct something I've gotten wrong, because it means that
not only are people actually reading and paying attention
to my site, but that they care enough that what I post is
right. So my thanks to Li, who pointed out that we did in
fact have a Recycled Trek Actor in "The Forge,"
namely Robert Foxworth (V'Las, the head of the VHC), who played
Admiral Leyton in DS9's "Homefront"
and "Paradise
Lost."
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|
Trip: You got all your shopping
done already? On Black Friday?
Soval: I ordered everything from L.L. Bean. The
quality of their goods is extremely high, and their
customer service is legendary.
Trip: Even on Vulcan?
Soval: Commander, if I were to purchase a catsuit
from the company, set it on fire, and return the ashes,
they would refund my money or send me a new garment
free of charge.
Trip: Think you could talk 'em
into sending back a standard uniform instead? 'Cause
if that's the case, we might finally have a way to get
T'Pol to switch over.
|
November 26, 2004: Wow, T'Pau's just a firecracker,
isn't she? Too bad Ted
Sturgeon's estate hadn't allowed her to be XO instead of T'Pol
like TPTB originally wanted. She would have chewed up and spit out the
whole Bridge crew without breaking a sweat. Rrrowwwrrr! (I wouldn't be
surprised if Surak does end up in her head. All of Vulcan in one package,
indeed!) I didn't yet get the fill-the-room presence from her which Celia
Lovsky commanded, but the potential is there. The actress was just
a little too cute, though. Someone looking more like T'Les (but younger)
would have been more convincing. <nitpicker>And they got the accent
wrong! Lovsky spoke like a Russian immigrant. Kara Zediker is just another
cute Californian carefully enunciating.</nitpicker>
This middle part holds up better than the middle of the
Augments arc, I think; it's got more plot of its own, and advances both
storylines significantly. Acting was strong all around. More of the Vulcan
puzzle is unfolding, deliciously so. Juicy politics. No spineless characters,
although the bad guy is fairly one-dimensional. T'Pol channels Scully.
Plenty of continuity. Less Archer-Saves-The-Universe, but it's still
there to deux ex vulcana things along.
Oooh, 'dja notice the pretty Vulcan buildings have the
same architectural feel as the sleek Vulcan ships? Let's have a round
of applause for the design folks who were paying attention....
An awful lot of emotional Vulcans! T'Les nearly smiles
at seeing her daughter. T'Pau's eyes smolder, snap, and crackle as she
defends herself. V'Las is off the scale: shouting, smirking, sneering,
purring, licking his chops. Jeez, the whole place needs a shot of V'alium.
I think since Malcolm had so few closeup scenes this week,
Makeup used Dom Keating's lipstick allotment on Trinneer and Graham --
both of them were looking très moisturous.
"I began seriously to question my beliefs." Just
a tip of the English major hat to Bormanis for having T'Les not split
that infinitive. :)
Did director Roxann Dawson reuse the temple-columns-in-the-desert
from Kumquaat, the Lokek capital from "Extinction"? Well, at
least that ep gave the franchise something to justify its existence.
I liked Surak a great deal. One of the things which so
appealed to me (besides that he was vastly better dressed than when he
showed up in "The
Savage Curtain") was that he wasn't stuffy in his control.
He was relaxed, completely certain of himself, not condescending or superior
but a teacher, leading by example. He had that calm centeredness which
reminds me of Buddha, and the twinkle in his eye which hinted that he
could take delight in life's funny moments. I credit the actor for a
lot of that -- he was on screen for less than five minutes, but I really
felt that depth. Mark Lenard had that quality also, of being absolutely
at ease with himself and unafraid of what he saw in the mirror. Tuvok
came off as though it would be embarrassing if he were caught appreciating
a joke. Sarek was the kind of man who could make a pun if he thought
his audience would appreciate it, and I think Surak would also. (Although
why he thinks his people will listen to an emotional alien over one of
their own I'm not sure....)
Dawson brings back the crane shots! Yay! (Not the spinning
ones, but we'll take what we can get.) She's also getting out of pitch-dark-set
mode, which makes it easier to see what's going on, at least. And she
echoes the roundabout which most directors do for mind melds, to give
the audience that claustrophobic feeling. I like it.
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|
That's it, then. Cancel the kitchen
scraps for sehlats and orphans, no more merciful koon-ut-kal-i-fees,
and call off Christmas!
|
Now the Vulcans-as-snots is starting to make sense. If
they are in fact drifting from Surak's teachings, they are disregarding
the need to control their emotions, which are violent. That's what caused
the wars (and The War, cf. Spock's World) in the first place.
So it isn't surprising that V'Las is getting a bit wild around the eyes
about the Syrrannites. It is surprising that all the flunkies leap
to do his bomb-bidding, even though his assistant blinks a few times.
(Anyone else think the head of Vulcan security was framed as a Syrrannite?
That he willingly planted the bomb at V'Las's request but then took the
fall when the false evidence was uncovered, whether he'd planned to do
so or not?) V'Las himself is pretty chilling. He ratchets up the intensity,
starting at "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" and
escalating to Martin Sheen's President Stillson from The
Dead Zone. (Yes, that was a movie before it was a TV show, and
a book before it was a movie; and Sheen didn't always play a good liberal president,
he was also a psycho religious apocalyptic nutcase one.)
The more Vulcans I see in layered embroidered robes or
nicely tailored outfits, the more annoying the catsuits become (not to
mention the continued lack of Starfleet uniform on a Starfleet officer).
Do none of the suits see the disconnect here, or are they blinded by
Blalock's breasts?
You know, Trav should just stay silent. Montgomery's
delivery of his four lines was really clunky. And why did they need to
rig special helm controls for the shuttlepod anyway? Regular propulsion
wouldn't get it down to Vulcan? If it was something about the geomacguffin
field, why didn't they mention that?
So, T'Pol can't get her control back and be fully Vulcan,
Archer can't get Surak out and be fully human -- are TPTB just going
to scramble the crew's brains one by one until they're all drooling lunatics?
Or are they going to stop here so Trip and Malcolm can take over the
ship permanently?
Moogie says Trip's cruisin' for a court-martial by not
leaving when 'Fleet ordered him to, and for firing back at
the Vulcan ships, AND for taking off for Andoria when Great
Bird only knows where
'Fleet told them to head instead. And Soval is right up there
in the stocks with him for multiple acts of treason. Obviously,
since this is
Trek, that won't happen, but in the real military, Trip would
be at least desk-jobbed and Soval would be cashiered.
Trinneer turns in another fine performance. I sometimes
overlook the simple, workaday episodes where he's just solid and engaging
with ordinary material, but since I was lamenting the dearth of Trip
earlier, I should make special effort to point him out now. He's relaxed
and confident in command, turning to Soval for advice but not to do the
job for him. The two fence nicely. I loved the resurgence of the "Vulcans
keep hanging up on Trip" joke from all the way back in "Cease
Fire." Notice that when he orders the ship to Andoria, not one person
squawks about leaving Archer and T'Pol behind -- Malcolm just wants to
know why Andoria and not somewhere else. They trust that Trip
knows what he's doing, a nice counterpoint to T'Pau (who doubts that
Syrran could possibly have intended to transfer Surak to Archer) and Kuvak
(who's watching his boss whip himself into a green froth).
You know, I bet if it had been another Vulcan carrying
Surak's katra, they would have had a nice flat cot for him to lie on,
rather than propping him up on his knees a foot off the floor so he'd
pitch down on his head after it was done. (Although I love how Archer
rolls his eyes with his entire head at the Pathetic Fallacy Lightning
which punctuates T'Pau's pre-ritual speechifying.)
So, in at least two years, not one person -- including
Syrran, who already had Surak as a katra companion -- figured out
that Rosebud was behind that particular door? Or didn't Surak
feel like giving up the locker combination?
Note that the Syrrannites had some kind of cloaking device
to hide their, uh, hideout, which the photonic cannons knock out.
Of course T'Pol is allowed to cry over losing her mother;
I'm not that hard-hearted. Jeez. (Then Moogie's yelling at the TV "Quick!
She's dying! Grab her katra! Stuff it inside T'Pol's head!") T'Les
said she joined the Syrrannites (to help them come to power, one imagines)
to help her overly emotional daughter. Because the reformations of logic
will help get her jangling neurons under control? Hmm....
Food Chain barely intact (thanks to Malcolm and his delicate
stomach). Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: John Rubinstein (Kuvak
-- the assistant, I guess?) was the Mazarite captain in "Fallen
Hero" and Earhart's boyfriend John Evansville in VOY's "The
37s." Bruce Gray (Surak) was Admiral Chekote in TNG's "Gambit:
Part 1" and DS9's "The
Circle."
December 3, 2004: That was frickin' awesome! Okay,
sorry, fanboy geek moment over.
... nope, not quite. That was amazing! Holy mother
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