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Listen! Do you smell something?
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January 4, 2005: Happy new year! Okay, I had way too much fun with this Get
Me Rewrite. But really, look at those guys. Can ya blame
me? :D
January 14, 2005: I suppose it says something about the current
state of Trek that my main thought about "Daedalus" was What
a waste -- as in, what a waste of air time the last season
and some of Season 2 was, when they could have been airing
episodes like this.
Erickson was great -- Bill Cosby's morally
vague older brother. Not evil, just fanatically driven to
create and design -- the best ones are always a little nuts
anyway -- and haunted by the limbo in which he left his son.
I would have done the same in the end; even if it's just bringing
home a body to bury, better an end one way or another rather
than the neither/nor where Quinn was left. Although it seems
that even several hundred years later neither the Talaxians nor
Starfleet have any better ideas about reconstituting the
scattered, so Erickson shouldn't feel so bad about that.
(He should, Moogie notes, be going to prison for the fraud
he perpetrated on Starfleet, however.)
I am again struck by how stiff ENT's cast can
be, in contrast to Erickson's big gestures and fluid movements
and loud laughter or Soong's merry arrogance. Archer greeting
the Ericksons was perfect -- the friendly hugs and kiss of
dear old friends -- but then he wound himself up again. I
suppose it's the character(s), but the difference was startling.
I love the idea that we have this generation
of mad geniuses all working together coming up with the discoveries
and inventions which will get us out into space, and by necessity
their families are thrown together (and ignored by the geniuses)
and their kids become friends, and then the kids become a
generation of explorers.
Did they change Blalock's wig or makeup or
something over the break? She looked different, and not in
a good way. Was it supposed to reflect the time she'd spent
out in the desert, or that she was grieving for her mother
since it looked like she'd been crying for hours?
Nice to see a teasing moment between Trip and
Archer, where we can believe for a moment that they're still
friends, but then it's bookended by the slapdown in the hallway,
so there goes that idea. Does Archer take out the Expanse
Kommandant just on special occasions and then stuff him back
in the footlocker when he's done, like Mr. Hyde?
Interesting parallel paths going on: Trip's
(apparently completed) journey of grief over Lizzie, Erickson's
15 years of holding his breath over Quinn, T'Pol's either
private or complete denial of her mourning for her mother.
Trip is the healthy example. He misses Lizzie, he expressed
and worked through his anger and loss and grief, but he's
accepted it and moved on. Erickson has held out, hoping against
hope, for almost two decades that he can undo his terrible
mistake. T'Pol could be mourning during her meditation, which
would at least be an explanation for why she looked like
she was ready to burst into tears at any second throughout
the episode, or she could be deciding that she has to shut
down her emotions entirely in order to be a "real" Vulcan,
and is suppressing whatever she feels.
"Ah wouldn't've picked up on any of it
if you hadn't asked me to take a closer look." grrrrrrrr
WHY does Archer constantly have to be the brains of the entire
ship? Why does he have to do everyone's job? Rather, why
do the other characters have to announce that Archer did
the thinking for them offscreen? Trip is only the
Chief Engineer, and he comes to Archer with his suspicions
-- not the other way around -- that Erickson is blowing
smoke. (and the line is overdubbed, too -- it's slightly
louder and "closer" than the dialogue actually
spoken by the actors. It was added in post!) So Trip wouldn't
think to keep a closer eye on what Erickson was doing with
his beloved engines, especially after being insulted and
blown off? Malcolm did this too, in "Proving Ground," as
though as the Tactical and Weapons Officer he wouldn't have
thought to watch Talas for sabotage. This Archer ex Machina
crap is really tiresome. It only makes everyone else look
bad.
Moogie notes that (even though the same error
was made in VOY's "Night")
just because you hit a patch of space with no stars in it
doesn't mean the light from the stars around it won't
reach you. A star which is 100 light-years away will still
be putting out light, and there's nothing in the vacuum of
space to interfere with that light.
Moogie wondered if there's a pattern: when
two people beam on board, male and female, it usually means
big nasty trouble for the ship. Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth
Dehner in TOS's "Where
No Man Has Gone Before." Paul and Jenice Manheim
from TNG's "We'll
Always Have Paris." The brother-and-sister scientists
who wanted to keep the Federation from going faster than
Warp 5 in TNG's "Force
of Nature." (Of course, considering how episodic
TV is structured, pretty much when any guest star
beams on board there's going to be trouble.)
I should have known David Straiton was the
director, from the strange angles to the bizarre jump-zooms.
He's not a great cinematographer; why do they keep inviting
him back?
"I had no choice!" -- drink! Malcolm
had one scene, Montgomery just propped Trav's clone up at
the helm, Hoshi was on screen for exactly one second (good
catch, Nikki), and the three of them went off to work on
their golf game....
Food Chain intact. No new Recycled Trek Actors.
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"Show pips"? Cap'n, Ah'm a gentleman!
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January 16, 2005: In discussing the episode
"Daedalus," we should probably be familiar with
the Greek legend. (Get comfy.) Daedalus was a famous inventor who lived in Athens. He murdered his
nephew, who was his apprentice, when he thought that the boy
would become more skilled than he was. He was tried and convicted
but escaped Athens with his son Icarus and went to the island
nation of Crete, where he took employment with the king and
queen. King Minos asked the sea god Poseidon for a sign that
he was the island's true ruler, so Poseidon sent a great white
bull. Minos then insulted Poseidon by refusing to sacrifice
the bull to the god. In revenge, Poseidon bewitched Minos's
wife, Queen Pasiphae, to want to have sex with the bull. She
had Daedalus build her a wooden cow to hide in for the bull
to mount. The result of this stud service was the Minotaur,
the half-man half-bull. Daedalus built the Labyrinth (a maze)
to cage the beast, but eventually the hero Theseus came and killed it and ran off with Minos's and Pasiphae's
daughter Ariadne. Minos locked Daedalus and Icarus up in the
Labyrinth as punishment. Daedalus built huge wings, held together
with wax, for himself and his son, and they used the wings
to fly away from Crete. Daedalus warned his son not to fly
too high (or the wax would melt from the heat of the sun)
nor too low (or the feathers would become soaked with sea
spray and not carry him). Daedalus took the middle way and
soon fell asleep with exhaustion, letting the wings do the
work. Icarus, being young and stupid, ignored his father's
advice and flew close to the sun, whereupon the wax of his
wings melted and he fell into the ocean and drowned.
Now, in legend, Icarus's death is his own fault,
because he didn't obey instructions and took unnecessary
risks. But in this episode, the fault is the father's, I
think, because he doesn't say at any point something like "I
thought that the theory would work if I just kept beating
at it long enough." He simply admits that it's flawed,
and he always knew it was flawed, and that he knowingly sent
his son to test a flawed and dangerous mechanism. Quinn did
not know the risks when he was transported -- not to that
extent. It was manslaughter bordering on murder. The reference
to the myth is a good one regardless, reflecting the father's
brilliance, hubris, and loss -- in the myth, fitting punishment
for his pride in killing his nephew; in the episode, fitting
punishment for putting his reputation above his own child.
He had to have been "thinking about the consequences," but
he assumed they wouldn't apply to him.
That moment when Trip jokes "You got a
mean streak in you, ya know that?" was one of the freshest
and most spontaneous things I've seen out of him in a year.
Delightful. Actually, the entire conversation between Trip
and Archer to that moment was really nice. We need more of
this. I want to see more teasing, more relaxed conversations
between people who are friends and who act like friends.
Classic Trek was built on not just the Away Missions of the
Big Three, but their clear devotion to one another built
over many years of service together. That's what holds Trek
together. That's what greases the wheels between action scenes
-- Trip and Malcolm bantering, Archer teasing Hoshi, Phlox
and T'Pol having lunch.
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Motel NX-01...We'll leave the lights
on for ya. Even if there's no one out here to leave
the lights on for.
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I disagree with the idea that long-range transporters
would eliminate the need for starships. If you want to set
up a transporter on a planet which sensors can't reach, you
need to get there to check it out. Some medicines can't survive
being transported. You may need to send something beyond
a forty-thousand-kilometer range. Then there are questions
of defense -- what are they going to do, beam torpedoes
at the enemy? -- and sheer exploration. A long-range transporter
is useful, but won't replace starships any more than jets
have "replaced" cargo ships or trains.
At dinner at the Cap'n's table, Erickson brings
up the philosophical questions associated with the transporter,
like whether the person who materializes is the same person
who dematerialized. I was really happy to hear that, given
that it's something hubby and I have spent many hours chewing
on over the years. (Is it a clone? Is it murder? Does your
soul transport? Are you more than the sum of your electrons?)
It's a real-world question, so to speak, and it was nice
to see that the people who "really" populate the
Trek universe would have discussed it also. It grounds the
episode and the characters and links them to us.
"Mankind is better off," Erickson
says. Don't other species use transporters? The Orions certainly
do!
They turned off the Spotlight Probe™! Good
attention to detail. Bad detail to have written in, but at
least they were consistent with it.
Poor Trip looked so disappointed that
his heretofore-idol didn't want to play with him. This man
was the reason he became an engineer, and repeatedly blew
him off and misdirected him. Trinneer did a wonderful job
showing the struggles between politeness and territoriality
and intrusion.
There was an attempt at a cool piece of camera
work which didn't quite come out: when Dani is in Archer's
quarters reflecting on her brother, you can see Archer in
the mirror to her left. It looks neat, but you can hear Archer
actually off to her right -- and then she turns to talk to
him, and the camera stays in position so he seems to be on
her left while she's talking in the other direction.
wombat61 and I were both wondering why it was
Trip and not Erickson's daughter who puts a comforting hand
on his shoulder just before they try to transport Quinn.
Even if they needed to show that Trip had reconciled himself
with what Erickson had done, why wasn't Dani comforting him
anyway? Or was she too angry?
Isn't it just a leeeeetle too convenient that
suddenly all over Vulcan people with Pa'nar are willing to
out themselves and be cured? Is the implication supposed to
be that V'Las had stigmatized melders and Pa'nar singlehandedly,
and the new broom of Surak has not merely swept the government
clean of corruption but scoured the planet's surface of prejudice?
That's some Reset Button™.
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Malcolm: I'm quite looking forward
to the Mirror Universe episodes. I've been promised
an eyepatch and a goatee, and I may have a whip. What
about you?
Travis: Well, they told me to look up this guy
who used to hang out at Quark's bar -- said he'd be
able to give me some pointers on my role. I think his
name was Morn.
Malcolm: Oh, so you'll be vomiting latinum on
cue, then? Quite interesting.
Travis: Vomiting?
Nobody said anything about vomiting! I'd better
go call my agent.
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January 21, 2005: Good episode,
solid throughout with only Super Archer Saves The Universe
(I should make that an acronym: SASTU) being the weak spot
in the fourth act. Kirk would have made the same speech without
risking himself. There was no reason for Archer to
have been the second person assisting Phlox. He's the captain.
He has no special medical training of which we're aware. He's
not particularly strong or fast or anything which qualifies
him for a heavy-lifting job. It was just necessary to put
him in danger. The Reeves-Stevenses are usually better than
that.
That having been said, I was surprised by the
passion Bakula displayed in that Sickbay scene. I don't think
I've ever seen that much emotion out of him in the entire
series -- real emotion, not a temper tantrum. Is this
why everyone praised his work in Quantum Leap?
Trinneer was marvelous as always. He was so
adorable collapsing headfirst onto the decon couch! He added
a lot of spontaneous-feeling touches into his performances
-- ums and yeahs and eyerolls. Vejar got great work out of
almost everyone this week. The first chitchat scene in Decon
with Hoshi was such a delight. I'm not surprised that Trinneer
brings out Park's best the way he does with nearly everyone
else. And speaking of that scene, we doubled our knowledge
of Hoshi in five minutes! That's both good and ridiculous
-- it shouldn't have taken this long, but at least we got
something.
The RSs may make a few plot errors, but their
characterizations just sing. Trip and Hoshi telling each other
stories was warm and genuine. The glue of friendship is what
holds Trek together. It's what we watch and rewatch for. This
is the first episode this season I've felt was worthy of keeping
and seeing again, because of these scenes.
When Trav had more than three lines in a row,
that should have alerted everyone on board that there was
a problem. "Who are you and what have you done with Travis?!"
I liked how each pair kept the mannerisms of
the two Organians -- the first one more of an Eager Beaver,
the other formal and Curmudgeonly -- and how each pair of
characters echoed those characteristics normally. Hoshi, Malcolm,
and T'Pol are the quiet ones; Trip, Travis, Archer, and Phlox
are the outspoken crew. Montgomery was better in the odd intense
questioning here than he's been in practically anything else
he's done on the show, including "Horizon."
How cool that this is how Organians study for
First Contact! A bit of fore-echo of the TNG
episode by the same name and a touch of the coldblooded
aliens in VOY's "Scientific
Method." I wonder if these are supposed to be two
of the group which meets up with Kirk and Co. in TOS's "Errand
of Mercy" or just two random observers.
The teaser was really well done. At first I
was amused by the Fastest Chess Game Ever, then annoyed that
they were implying that the Tactical Officer had never played
chess, then the dialogue sounded weird, then the realization
dawned that these were not in fact Trav and Mal at all.
I do find it a little difficult to believe
that after eight-hundred-odd years, the Observers haven't
come up with a more subtle way of getting information from
the people whom they're observing. You'd think the direct,
nosey, nearly inappropriate questioning would alert the subject
and wind up interfering with the events as they unfolded.
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{Pac-Man sounds} Game over. Insert 25
credits to continue.
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Nice Season 1 promo
photos on the monitor readouts of Trip's and Hoshi's conditions....
(That's still better
than on X-Files, where they used a glamorous over-the-shoulder
shot of Scully on her ID card in the opening credits for
a few years. Or VOY's "Endgame" where Tuvok had
a Season 5 cast photo in a frame on his desk.)
So according to this episode, only Terrans
(and maybe Denobulans and Vulcans) of all species have compassion
and empathy? Cardassians are always cost-efficient? Klingons
always choose to die rather than struggle for a cure? That's
very TOS, and in the dated, 1960s, cowboy diplomacy kind
of way. I know that the various species are supposed to be
generalized to be foils for us, but we're more sophisticated
as an audience now. I guess it's difficult, having seen the
Klingons go from enemy to ally, to watch them regress to
enemy (and therefore easily stereotyped) again.
I wonder if Keating deliberately echoed his
Wissssp performance when he walked into Sickbay as the Curmudgeon
-- the tilt of his head, leading with his chin. Not that
the strange intrusive questioning led us to think Mal was
at home, but the little nonverbal cues were nice also.
Okay, so the virus is silicon-based. Moogie
asks: what does a virus do? It replicates itself. Sometimes
it injects its own DNA into the cells of the host. But the
virus is silicon and the hosts are carbon. How did it infect
the carbonites? Wouldn't they just have effectively exhaled
microscopic sand? And if the carbon and silicon can't interact
(which we know because the carbon immune systems can't conquer
the silicon virus), where is the virus getting more silicon
with which to reproduce itself? (Then we started getting
into rude jokes about Blalock's implants and I had to stop
the discussion.)
Okay, so apparently Hoshi is in fact really
good at math, and codebreaking, despite whining to T'Pol
in "Vox Sola" that she had trouble with it. I guess
we're just supposed to hold our noses and ignore that? And
she doesn't hesitate to tell her two-night stand on Risa
that she speaks 38 languages, so why fudge with Trip and
make noise about "recognizing patterns"?
The Beav makes good if slightly clunky points
about responsibility (which comes with great power, etc.
etc.). Curmudgeon seems perfectly content to watch the ants
scurry about, but the Beav really feels for the lab chimps.
It's a quandary which Trek has raised a few times with species
which are presented as vastly superior to Terrans -- the
Organians, Sargon
and Thalassa, the Q
Continuum, the wissssps. Are we bugs in a jar or potential
allies? Even if they are as Aristotle
sitting on a tree branch talking to the bird who will
never understand him, is Aristotle still obliged not to shoot
the bird just to see if it bleeds red?
A little problem with the quarantine being broken:
even if the NX-01 has completely sealable decks like the Big
D, which is iffy, is it standard procedure to evacuate the
whole deck if anyone is in quarantine in Decon? That would
get kind of inconvenient and tiresome, wouldn't it?
Anyone else get Pulp Fiction flashbacks
from that big ol' needle Archer had to use on Hoshi's heart?
I was starting to wonder in the last Bridge
scene if T'Pol had been taken over again, because she was
so utterly immobile. Now, before you start yelling about hypocrisy,
I'm NOT saying I would have preferred that she weep or whimper
or yell or bug her eyes out. But she was hardly breathing.
A Vulcan can be concerned without gushing all over the place.
Coupled with a return of that ghastly skinniness from the
Brent's Kids arc, she looked like a zombie.
I was very pleased to see the plea for tsunami
aid by Bakula. I imagine UPN had a star from each show do
custom PSAs -- Bakula never says his name or show, and UPN
isn't Trek-supportive enough to have that PSA shown throughout
all their other programs. (Not that I'd know, as I don't watch
anything else on UPN. In fact, the only other thing we're
watching these days is the new Battlestar Galactica, which I highly recommend with a clear conscience since it's
not on at the same time as ENT.)
Food Chain intact. Bottle show with no guest
actors. The recap is written, so once I get the ep digitally
it won't take too long to get the screencaps in and the recap
posted.
January 23, 2005: Full recap of "Observer
Effect" is up! And a proper one too, with jokes
abounding.
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Malcolm: Could you not adjust
that, please?
Shran: Stop complaining, pinkskin. I know how
to operate a ship's phase canon.
Malcolm: Yes,
but that's not the ship's phase canon you've
got there.
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January 28, 2005: A drone ship! I did not see
that coming. Third party faking out the other two sides, holographic
projection, falsified weapons signatures -- all predictable. But that
the Roms weren't even on board! Nice twist. Extremely suspenseful as
our boys get closer and closer to the heart of the ship, and we assume
they're going to burst in on the Romulans, and then -- pullaway! (I know
Rick Kolbe did the same thing in VOY's "The
Chute," but it's still a great visual.) I really like these
three-episode arcs, since they give the story enough room to breathe
properly. Only a dash of SASTU, and Malcolm was off the ship at the time.
Hoshi got a small but meaty scene. Trav had a bunch of lines. Trip and
Malcolm got to do their jobs, and we get to see the return of
the Disaster Twins!
Mike Sussman provides crackling great dialogue and André Bormanis
gives good TECH as always. One thing which bothered me: did anyone else
see weird camera work or visuals or lighting or something which made
certain scenes look jerky or rough? Was it filmed on a hand-held? Something
do with digital vs. film? It happened often enough that it threw me out
of the story. I did enjoy the odd but cool spin-pan-from-beneath in Engineering
when Trip reports that repairs are done. There's no significance to the
scene, but the camera swirling around was all woo!
Shran lost 80% of his crew -- ouch! This is where Archer
would be in a decade, knowing everyone and having served with them through
fog and fire. It's where Janeway was in "Year
of Hell," where "asking you to stay would be asking you
to die." The marvelous Jeff Combs definitely makes us feel the loss
of that crew we didn't know existed until now. I could take another two
paragraphs and rave on about Shran as a character and Combs as an actor,
but I've done that several times before. :)
The teasers are getting much better! At first I thought
Curmudgeon Organian might've given Hoshi a spine implant,
but after the first line or two I realized what was going
on. Linda Park put some
nice spark into that scene. At least they're dealing with real Tellarites.
That bounty hunter was a total geek. The ambassador started
out kinda cool -- he chuckled at Archer's insults, as if
to say he liked the human's
bravado. I hope we get to see more of that as the arc moves
forward. If they're going to form an alliance with Shran,
we should have some
liking for the guy.
I like Archer's teasing Trip with the insults.
(Wow, moments of friendship weeks in a row! Be still my Trekkie
heart!) Bakula totally had me going until the little smirk
afterwards. Nice job. And his gack after the slug of
Andorian ale was worth a good laugh.
Why did T'Pol have her arms crossed so often? Was she feeling
overly defensive, or was Blalock cold on the set because
she has less than half a percent body fat? (And that overpuffy
wig is doing her no favors
either -- makes her look like a Three Stooges lollipop.)
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Our group had 32% fewer cavities!
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Much as I love Shran, I note that it's the Andorians who
have been squabbling with two other races now. One wonders who started
which conflict. I wonder if Shran ever heard himself bitching about the
Tellarites and heard the echoes of his complaints about the Vulcans?
(And now that Enterprise saved the Andorian life pods, does
Archer only owe Shran one?)
The pseudo-Andorians are shooting at Enterprise.
Archer snarls at Shran for help. Shran growls back "I need to access
your targeting array." Because, since everything in the universe
is based on the MacOS, all intelligent species have the same interface
design for their computers and Shran can just log in and chmod the parameters
no sweat...
Okay, let's talk about the Romulans, specifically the TECH
in the control room. Who or what was that under the MechWarrior helmet?
A flunky? Neo? Barclay? Tam
Elbrun? Is that why the ship could move so fast? Were the holographics
and weapons also under Dark Helmet's control? It's typical of the Roms
that they would want to sow dissension but not actually get their hands
dirty -- they just wrapped up that whole business with V'Las and the
VHC, after all. A drone ship which can look like almost anyone's is a
great way to go about it. Moogie wonders if the prototype is an early
exploration of variants on the cloaking device.The pointy-faced ship
was very cool-looking. It was vaguely shell-shaped, like a shrimp or
a hermit crab.
So they beam onto the Romulan ship, and Trip says, "I
can't read anything through these bulkheads." Yet communication
to Enterprise works fine, and he can uplink his scanner back
to the ship?
Malcolm's an engineer, Trip's an engineer. Why not take
a MACO each and look around instead of leaving the two senior officers
at the mercy of whatever's on the ship? The MACOs can still be beamed
out first, leaving our boys as sacrificial ping-pong balls.
What is it about Romulan ships which always leaves Mal
breathless?....
I'm so accustomed to looking at my ENT action figures in
the EV suits that the ones on the show look painfully fake! The toys
are too dang realistic! (Although I note Trip's suit has the label C.
TUCKER III on it. Each person has his or her own fitted EV suit?)
It's so nice to see Trip and Malcolm working together again,
smoothly and effortlessly. When was the last time these two had an away
mission together? Trip lets Malcolm take point, as he should being the
security officer, and there's no power struggles or pecking order squabbles
or awkward tension. Just two competent friends doing their jobs.
The MACO on whom Talas pounces gives a good accounting
of himself. He didn't give in to her flirtations, he heard Shran behind
him and struck, and even got in a few good punches before she took him
out. And now we know -- the Andorian Imperial Guard issues tighty-fuschias.
A little problem with the refill: humans don't
breathe 100% oxygen. We breathe an oxygen-nitrogen
mix. We don't need the nitrogen per se -- wombat61 points out that
it's inert, and a mix of oxygen and carbon dioxide would be fine --
and it won't kill the boys to breathe the pure stuff for a few hours,
but it's not good in the long run.
They used my mag-lock
boots! I love it when fiction imitates parody. Of course, they
didn't walk around in them properly, but we'll take what we can get.
Food Chain intact. Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: Three
Trek Latex Masochists this week. Lee Arenberg (Gral, the
lead Tellarite) played two TNG Ferengi DaiMons, Bok in "Bloodlines" and
Prak in "Force
of Nature." On DS9 he was, oddly, also a character named Gral
in "The
Nagus," and on VOY he was Pelk in "Juggernaut." Brian
Thompson (the lead Romulan) is better known to X-Philes as
the Mighty Morphin' Power Assassin, but he's played several Trek roles,
including
Klag in TNG's "A
Matter of Honor," Inglatu in DS9's "Rules
of Acquisition" and Toman'torax (that'll be the name of our
next cat) in DS9's "To
the Death," and was an unnamed Klingon helmsman in Generations.
J. Michael Flynn (Nijil, whichever one he was) was Zayner
in TNG's "The
Hunted" and one of the Mazarite goons in "Fallen Hero."
February 2, 2005:
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Yes, the sad news is true:
Moonves cancelled ENT this afternoon (or more properly, didn't
renew it for S5). The early notice gives the writers time
to craft a proper series finale, and allows the actors to
get in on the fall pilot season. I can't say I'm shocked;
I've sort of been expecting it since the summer. The S4 renewal
was more about cutting licensing fees than fan clamor. Ratings
have continued to slip incrementally (although the Nielsens
are only slightly more accurate than a Ouija board). Moonves
doesn't like sci-fi and hates Trek, and all the show's allies
were fired or promoted out of their Paramount jobs. At the
moment I'm mostly numb, and disappointed. But it does hurt,
because the series was getting so good, and had really
found its voice and its purpose. Credit whom you will, but
Season 4 was what ENT should have been all along. Groups like
SaveEnterprise are continuing their efforts, hoping to have
the show relocated by SCIFI or continued as a miniseries like
Farscape.
What does it mean for TripHammered? Well, without
new episodes, original content either has to come from me
or from you the readers. I'll be cutting back to updating
every two weeks rather than every week once the finale airs.
There will be plenty of Get Me Rewrites, I have some parody
ideas which have been sitting on a back burner, I did start
another DVD commentary, there are several seasons of ENT Libs
to write -- there's life in the ol' girl yet.
In the meantime, my thanks to everyone who has
written and called TPTB and the sponsors and generally supported
the show. Trekkies are the best fans.
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The late lamented Shrantenna. Cut painfully
short, much like our beloved show.
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February 4, 2005: EEEEEEEEEE
He cut off Shran's antenna! I don't even have one
of those things which hang and I got the screaming meemies!
Hooo!
Another brilliant episode all around. Shran
was great as always, believable in grief, proud but not unyielding,
always thinking, sometimes letting his heart lead, willing
to take risks, calling Archer his friend. I found that moment
surprisingly moving. It broke my heart to watch Talas die.
We liked her! :`( No SASTU, but a calculated risk which only
Archer -- not just the human captain of Enterprise,
but Archer -- could take, and get away with. Everyone
doing their jobs. Hoshi and Trav got so many lines even Moogie
was like "what the hell?" T'Pol -- let's say the
content of her dialogue was quite good, and if I didn't know
better I'd say they were trying to set up the Archer/T'Pol
romance again, but Blalock just can't act her way out of
a paper bag. And I don't care. Moving on. A little too convenient
that the TECH details were being guessed and confirmed on
each other's heels, but that's Trek for you. Stupendous dialogue
from the RSs and great story by Manny. David Livingston only
had one weird zoom but many spin-arounds, which are mostly
effective (Shran in Sickbay) and only occasionally distracting
(Hoshi and Trav brainstorming in the Mess Hall).
Trip and Malcolm were so friggin marvelous
to watch that the two of them should get their own series
as Captain Tucker and Commander Reed running Jupiter Station
with Phlox as the wacky next-door neighbor and Archer and
Shran and Soval dropping by for adventures. These two
have chemistry. The actors are best friends offscreen and
it truly shows. These are two people who love what they're
doing and love each other's company. No strain, no tension,
no misunderstanding, no juvenile horsehockey -- two dear
devoted friends who are comfortable together, from teasing
to support to putting one's life on the line for the other.
This is everything which T'Pol can't conceivably muster up
in her stilted denials and out-of-character emotion. I will
never understand for the life of me what any PTB ever saw
in those two that they had to make the pairing canon. (Okay,
fair warning for the remainder of the season: since the series
is apparently finished, I'm taking some of my Nice filters
offline. Deal.)
Obviously there was no way to know at the time,
but a few lines of dialogue and some scenes were actually
reflective of the turmoil in Trekdom following this week's
non-renewal announcement. "One man can summon the future," "The
future isn't fixed," the idea that a mutual threat gets
warring camps to work together -- well, the best Trek is
a mirror of life...
Trav is half of the team which saves the day
not once but twice! Poor AT's brain must have been on overload
with all the lines he had to learn in this month of filming.
And how far has the Vulcan XO slipped that even she's referring
to the helmsman as "Travis" and not "Mister
Mayweather"? Is this supposed to be another "current
Vulcans are jerks" cultural trait which will be eliminated
by Spock's time, or evidence of T'Pol's permanently eroded
neurons?
I loved Shran's tender moment with Talas. Joking
about being jealous of Phlox was priceless. Two toughened
warriors, no punches pulled, but not without affection. And
the absolute devastation on his face when he later hears
she's dead -- he bent over her body and his antennae crumpled.
Extremely good coordination between actor and the folks working
the puppetronics.
Um. Remans? Puh-lease. Next.
 |
|
The Romulans obviously use Windows,
or they wouldn't be getting this Bluescreen of Death.
|
I think the Rogue Lobster ship is the Mighty
Morphin' Power Centurion's idea, and Senator Jerknose agreed
to sponsor it. As far as the Romulan Senate goes, success
has many fathers but failure is has only one poor SOB who's
going to take the fall, thus the posturing and raised hackles
between Jerknose and the MMPC. "Taking the fall" usually
means the responsible party comes down with a bad case of
dead.
The Rogue Lobster can self-repair? Did the
Romulans come across the Stephen King repair station before
Starfleet did? Or maybe they found a stray Borg drone?
I liked the stray line about Minister T'Pau,
and Archer casually griping that she picked a bad time to
purge the ranks. Beautiful little continuity touch.
How delightful to see the Chief Engineer working
engineering miracles ("Maestro!" Malcolm jokes)
and the Weapons Officer doing something creative with a weapon.
("You did all this with one phase pistol?" "You're
good at building things. I'm good at blowing them up.")
Mal is an engineer too, let's not forget, and it's a pleasure
to watch him work too.
I've often griped about the writers being unable
to find Archer's unique voice, or trying to shove him into
Kirk's mold. Here he seems more comfortable than he's been
in a long time, politely but firmly insisting that the two
aliens start making the compromises he's had to
make until now. "Why don't the two of you try behaving
like humans for a change?" And it looks like that is
his unique strength: holding on to what makes him human.
Compassion, cooperation, curiosity. Not being a swaggering
ass-kicking jerk, not always being right, but being a gentleman.
Who knew? (Now, this is not the same as complaining that
T'Pol has been reduced to a human teenager. Making an adult
compromise for diplomatic reasons without losing one's essential
personality and culture is light-years apart from completely
unraveling someone's established characteristics because
they're inconveniently in the way of a cheap-and-easy plot
gimmick.)
So okay, the Disaster Twins are in a hostile
environment, the ship is computer-controlled, and they've
only just established atmosphere. Why didn't Trip
take his helmet with him into the next room? Jeez, I take
my purse with me when I go to the corner store and I put
on a seat belt when I move the car for street cleaning!
The EV suits make everyone look like their
heads are on stalks. It's not very flattering.
The MMPC didn't really get creepy or threatening
until he started calling Malcolm by name. Of course, if he's
listening in on their comm frequency, Mal only says "Commander" and
Trip only says "Malcolm," so that's all he has
to go by. It was still chilling to hear.
Shran makes a good point, in Andorian culture:
if he doesn't avenge his losses, what soldier would follow
him? It's somewhat Klingon in reasoning, but valid in context.
Shran can't back down from the damage and insults he's been
dealt. He has to show that he's personally strong, not just
a good tactician or a good starship commander. He has to
have strength of character and fortitude, and courage and
hand-to-hand skills. In a society not quite as warrior-mad
as the Klingons but more open and less devious than the Romulans
or Cardassians, both brains and brawn are valued -- but both
have to be demonstrated. Passion does count.
It was quite a bit astonishing to see Trav
and Hoshi busily searching through the Blues' Clues to find
a loophole for the Cap'n. Previously, that would have been
given to T'Pol or Trip or Malcolm. And there's no reason
why these two can't do this task; in fact, it's perfect for
the two non-critical senior officers to work on something
painstaking but mind-numbing like this.
|
 
|
| Oh yeah, like that wasn't deliberate. |
So do the Andorians use antennae for balance?
Combs was playing it that way, which is a nice touch. It
was a masterful idea on the part of the writers -- serious
but still amusing. The fighter is "rendered defenseless" --
the Andorian equivalent of a knee to the family jewels. And
they grow back! That was a cool afterthought.
Watching the Rogue Lobster whip around practically
faster than thought was extremely cool. Practically
speaking, after one or two of those frappé spins the
Disaster Twins would have been smears of chunky salsa inside
the hull, but we'll let it go.
"I can't imagine how things could get
much worse!" Oh, Malcolm, why don't you just ask the
universe to kick you in the arse? Separately, in the vacuum
of space, there's no friction, so the Disaster Twins should
have kept going and not floated to a standstill in the middle
of the battlefield (unless their suits have thrusters we
don't know about).
The last scene between them is I think my favorite
60 seconds of the entire series. I just laughed until the
tears came to my eyes. I giggled the entire way through the
second viewing. Real and relaxed and ordinary and just perfect.
I will miss these two most of all.
So the Romulans' scheming backfired on them,
causing the very alliance which they'd hoped to destroy in
the first place. And it's quite believable -- one of the
fastest ways to get disparate groups to work together is
a common threat. Not much else would get four races to cooperate
when any two of them hate each other, and as Archer points
out, no one's ever even tried to get them in the
same sandbox. There were many alliances, many people united
throughout the episode: Archer and Shran, T'Pol and Archer,
Hoshi and Trav, Trip and Malcolm, Shran and Talas, Shran
and T'Pol and Gral and Archer with their respective races.
Cooperation and teamwork are hallmarks of the franchise,
some of the things I've loved best about Trek in all its
incarnations. Group efforts are more satisfying than solo
flights, generally speaking. It's that joining of individuals
to become something larger than the sum of them which is
so hope-filled, which gives Trek such promise, which makes
the future something to look forward to and not fear.
The poor Andorian at the end! All the blue
was sucked out of him! (Rebel without a blue?)
Food Chain intact. No Recycled Trek Actors.
February 11, 2005: Well, that was
disappointing. But I suppose it's to be expected when you
contrast an unforced and joyous friendship (Trip and Malcolm,
or hell, even Archer and Shran) with a contrived and and
out-of-character arranged pairing (Trip and T'Pol). Yes,
the TnT folks can skip down a few paragraphs. There was nothing alive
in the scenes between Trip and T'Pol. He had more goin' on
with the Big Chair back in "Singularity." Blalock
has utterly no interest in the work she's doing. The actors
have no chemistry, no spark, no fire, not even a friendship.
And we're supposed to believe that Trip is so distracted
over his widdle broken heart that he needs to transfer off Enterprise?
Trinneer is certainly doing his damndest.
He's carrying all these scenes by himself, because she's
entirely phoning it in. His muffled despair in Archer's quarters,
calling Phlox on his pimping, trying to coax her into admitting
that she had a thought about him beyond a crack fantasy --
he should get a commendation for not merely slogging through
this arc, but giving it 120% so the TnT fans have something
to hang their dreams on. If I were just coming in this year,
I'd be laughing at the idea that these two were ever together,
or were supposed to be together at any point. I'd be wondering
if Malcolm wasn't going to get jealous that his partner was
mooning over the Maxim girl. It was a mistake last season,
it's senseless for them to continue this now, and I fear
it's only going to get worse as we wind down. What a miserable
taint on a wonderful character and a great actor.
Moving on. At the end of last week's ep, I
was actually a bit surprised to see the "To Be Continued," because
it felt wrapped up. Yeah, the Rogue Lobster was still out
there, but what was the urgency? What emotional plot thread
was left dangling? What need did we have to see what happened
this week? That kind of carried over into the tone of the
entire episode. Shran was subdued, although still good. He's
a rather sensitive soul for a Commander in the Imperial Guard!
A little SASTU in going down to find the Aenar just with
Shran, but the briefing beforehand with the appropriate senior
officers made up for it. Malcolm and Trip each doing their
jobs. Trav and Hoshi back to silence again -- I don't think
Park had a single line, actually.
 |
|
Stick with me, baby. With my Trek record,
it's only a matter of time before they offer me another
role in different makeup, and you can be my lieutenant.
|
Before we get into the episode, let's talk
about Andoria. Let's talk about a world which is -90ºF on
the surface in the summer. Pure ice, all the time, for its
recorded history. You wanna tell me the two dominant forms
of life both look like primates and not giant tribbles? They
should be short, squat, and covered in fur, like Bigfoot
had an Inuit love-child. Vulcans developed pinnae on their
ears because they needed to hear sounds across a flat open
desert. Thin, delicate, sensitive antennae would be the first
things to freeze off in that kind of cold. This is a blunder
up there with assuming five entirely different phyla developed
sentient species at the same time on Xindis. I don't buy
it.
And while we're on not buying premises, how
is it that the Aenar (which I keep reading as Ay-nar, not
Eee-nar) are technologically developed enough to have automatic
doors, but the Andorians only found them fifty years ago?
And if they're blind, why do they need lights in their homes?
Why are the doors and walls different colors with decorative
swooshes? Why are the chairs all translucent and matching?
Why do their clothes have trim of a different shade of white,
consistent from person to person? Why are there windows in
the infirmary room?
So I was right: the Rogue Lobsters are the
Mighty Morphin' Power Centurion's idea, and Senator Jerknose
is sponsoring him (which will now be a serious liability).
I'm surprised that they let the MMPC work on this drone idea,
given that he was ejected from the Senate for dissent --
or is this a punishment detail which the MMPC has taken to
heart to try and earn his honor back?
Moogie wonders, even if the Roms took out Enterprise,
Columbia is in the batter's cage. It's not like they're
wiping out the human race. Do they know that much
about the individuals involved that they're gambling that
the deaths of Archer, Shran, and Gral would destroy the
alliance?
Check it out -- Trip got Malcolm to start drinking
espresso! He's got a demitasse at the Briefing Table. (And
I bet he threw a slug of anisette in there after Archer insisted
on going down to a strange planet, with only Shran, completely
out of communicator or transporter range.)
 |
|
Star Trekking across the universe, always
going forward 'cause we can't find reverse...okay,
I just thought this was a beautiful image and I wanted
an excuse to post the photo.
|
Tip of the hat to the SFX folks this week for
the lovely planet shots. The rings of Andoria are gorgeous,
and adding them in the sky of the moon (I guess that's where
they were, because the moon didn't have rings, so that has
to be Andoria over the horizon) was a nice touch.
Okay, not only would both Archer and Shran
have lost most of their faces to frostbite in that kind of
cold without proper protection, Shran should have collapsed
because he's not wearing a hat. And André Bormanis
wrote the script, so he should know better!
I was amused that Shran is still arrogant enough
to refuse to allow Archer to help him stand when he stumbles.
Very much in character for a proud man and a species which
isn't fully committed to this friendship yet. Besides, Archer
was the one who detennaed him, so it would be another dollop
of humiliation that he would be the one to get Shran back
on his feet. Of course, once he does get up, he promptly
does a Flying Wallenda down the stairs and impales himself
on a convenient icicle. (What is it about Romulans and leg-spikes?)
Makes me want to start toting up his damage points.
ShranHandled?
I liked Jhamel, and the actress. She did a
fairly good job of playing blind most of the time -- she
didn't remind me of Mary from Little
House on the Prairie, anyway -- and was nicely fleshed-out
rather than being so ethereal and wifty we didn't care what
happened to her. It made her brother's few lines much fuller
as well; he felt real, and we missed him when he provoked
the MMPC into killing him.
Let's contrast again the albatross of an arc
which the writers are hanging on Trip's neck with the guest
star's dilemma. She stands up to her society and her leader
to rescue her brother, leaving not merely her home but her
planet, and its entire environment. She gets hooked up to
a completely alien device which sends her into seizures,
but risks brain damage and throws herself into the fray to
reach her brother. Trip is allegedly having trouble concentrating
because Carboard Barbie is, heaven forfend, actually acting
emotionally unavailable like a proper Vulcan, and he runs
away from his dearest friends and the ship he loves because
the angst! the heartache! the misery! is too much! to handle!
So the woman we'll never see again is brave and courageous
and defiant, and the most popular character on the show is
reduced to a spineless soap opera stereotype. If a woman left
a ship because a one-night stand didn't want to call her the next day, the audience would be screaming
bloody murder about misogyny and chauvinism and how the writers
were making her look weak and ruled by her emotions instead
of being able to be objective and sensible and professional.
(And you know, this is part of why shipboard relationships are frowned
on. This is one of the risks which the two of them didn't
discuss like adults before they flailed.) I've complained
before that the writers tried to make Archer look good by
making the rest of his staff into idiots. They already had
to strip T'Pol of her Vulcanness (and clothing) because they
couldn't figure out any other way that she could shag a human.
Now they have to break Trip? Is he going to come slinking
back on his belly, whimpering about how he'd rather live
with her aloof disdain than live without her at all? This
is a shameful way to treat a character who's done nothing
to deserve such abuse.
So the "Tellarite freighter" shows
up, and there's this big moment of indecision about whether
to shoot the thing. When the "Andorian" appears,
T'Pol immediately identifies the power signature is wrong.
What stopped her from doing that with the first one? If they
were too far off, why didn't someone say so? They had plenty
of time for a line or two which would have cleared that up.
Boy, the Aenar have really gotta have some
astonishing brain power to handle two of the Rogue Lobsters
at once. Ducking, weaving, evading, firing, coming around
-- just whipping one around was challenging to watch.
The only thing which got me about the final
scene: Archer pulled out a bottle of something and two glasses,
clearly intending to get Trip to open up. And Trip quietly
leaves, and the camera shifts so we see the two empty glasses,
untouched. A nice shot.
Food Chain intact. No Recycled Trek Actors.
February 18, 2005: Klingon Augments...now that was
a nice touch.
It was the only big nice touch, though. This left
me feeling disappointed, maybe because the various plots weren't
working well together. And I'm starting to wonder who these
pod people are who are slowly replacing our crew. Meek ineffective
Hoshi suddenly knows aikido. Not only does T'Pol have the ability to meld (and we still don't know if every Vulcan
can do it or only some), but human Archer "walks
her through it." Sunny Trip abandons everything for a Thillerium-goggled
fling which didn't work out. Malcolm is a double
agent, and a lousy one. If Travis goes to Phlox in the Orion
Slave Girl episode and declares that he's always wanted to
be a woman, I'm going to give up. So not much to say this
week.
 |
|
Malcolm attempts to use the Force to convince
SCI-FI and Paramount to come to a agreement about Season
5.
|
Okay, Malcolm. What the hell is up with Malcolm? What happened
to the reserved Brit? Who's this teary-eyed trembling putz who can't cover
his tracks or lie with any effectiveness? If he was part of this covert
ops organization (which I'm assuming is Section 31, or its predecessor),
he should be the toughest SOB walking. Since we know he's a sensitive man
at heart, with a strong sense of honor and duty and loyalty, howinhell
did he get involved with these spooks? The way this was played makes no
sense. Someone who's gentle enough to mist up at having to lie or at disappointing
his father is not the type to be recruited by black-budget agencies. To
misquote Tom
Hanks, there's no crying in intelligence work. I'm not saying Keating
didn't play Malcolm's deep conflicts well, but this is not in character.
And that bothered me, so much so that the entire
episode felt disjointed. Phlox becoming intrigued with the
viral puzzle despite his initial balking was typical of him,
and amusing. Watching Malcolm acting so strangely and without
reason was painful. Trip on Columbia is just weird
-- there's this huge hole on Enterprise without him,
and since they haven't gone to the least effort to address
that hole, you know he's coming back, so there's no point
in wondering how the crew is going to adapt to his absence.
The emotional push of the script was all over the place. I
was fascinated by the unfolding Klingon dilemma, I was irritated
at Malcolm's descent, I was bored by Trip (and isn't that
a damn shame, when the best character and best actor on the
show is rendered boring). This isn't a deliberate act
by the writers to play the audience, it's just distracting.
I guess we didn't get to see Trip's goodbye party because
he's going to be back? We're not allowed to see Trip being wished well
or even interacting with any of his friends from the last three years?
Maybe that's why Malcolm totally fell apart -- Trip left and didn't even rearrange
the rocks from The Swamp to spell out a farewell.
Good setup in the beginning: the Starfleet investigator
says she's looking into the abduction, and Archer pretty much
ignores her conclusion and goes with Malcolm's suggestion,
showing that he trusts Mal -- which makes it hurt more when
he winds up double-checking Mal's work later to find it falsified.
(Of course, this scene would have slightly more resonance
if Archer had shown any of this trust or reliance on anyone on his senior staff in the last three years....)
So the Columbia insignia is...a shot of the ship's butt as it flies off? I'm not sure
how mooning everyone is supposed to inspire exploration, but
okay...
I note that Trip carefully says "Captain" and not "Cap'n." That
was a nickname for Archer, and not his accent. Good touch on Trinneer's
part.
 |
|
Trip: Ya know, Seth, the occasional
breath-taking raunchiness of "Family Guy"
is usually offset by the clever pop-culture references
and tightly-packed humor. But "American Dad"?
Mostly lame. The jokes aren't nearly good enough to
compsenate for the uncomfortable subject matter.
Seth
MacFarlane: Blast!
|
So how did Cap'n Columbia expect Trip to act? He's been out
in deep space for several years and has real experience under his belt.
These people are all theorists. Columbia is six months behind schedule,
and it's now his responsibility to get her out of Spacedock. He's gone
from an efficient, well-oiled, well-trained crew who know his personal
quirks and have served through fire with him to a bunch of newbies. Of course
he's going to be hard on them -- clearly, being nice didn't get anyone
anywhere. And if she didn't think he was going to take the transfer, why
did she offer it to him?
With all the closeups on Keating, I was repeatedly struck
by his lovely eyes and long lashes. Maybe he's born with it -- maybe it's Maybelline --
but they're really compelling.
Totally believable that the Klingons would overreact
to the theft of a Bird of Prey by Brent's Kids by trying to
match the Terrans gene for gene, so to speak. Having augmented
enemies is an inequality, an imbalance of power, a threat
which the Empire could not overlook or underplay. It removes
the pretense of honor from a physical fight. So the High Council
orders what scientists and doctors they have ("Summon
the Band Geeks!") to come up with a solution, yesterday,
or they'll just slaughter the infected to keep the problem
from spreading. They did a really good makeup job on
the altered Klingons. We were delighted to see how closely
they resembled Classic Trek Klingons, especially Kor from
"The Trouble with Tribbles." I'm also happy to see
that neither Worf's comment from DS9 ("We do not discuss
it with outsiders.") nor Sev Trek's were contradicted.
What happened to Lieutenant Hess? I thought she was second-in-command
in Engineering. Did she stay behind on Terra? and who's this Commander
Kelby guy?
Why is there this vertical ladder display thing mounted practically
in the middle of Columbia's Bridge? That's going to make it impossible
to pace. Oh, and having the warp-sync lights on the walls? That would have
to go in half a second. No way could I concentrate with that strobe going
on all the time; I'd have migraines and then seizures.
And since TripHammered is a site about aired episodes
of ENT, and not filmed fan fiction, there will be no discussion
of those particular minutes of teenage wish-fulfillment which
were slipped in between the scenes of the real program.
Food Chain intact. Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: We
have several Latex Masochists this week. John Schuck (Antaak) played two
Klingon Ambassadors (or maybe the same guy), one in Trek IV and one in
Trek VI, he was one of the boys in the Chorus in VOY's "Muse," and
he played Cardassian Legate Parn in "The
Maquis part 2." Eric Pierpoint (Harris), better known to genre
fans as George Francisco from the TV series "Alien Nation," was
Shiraht in "Rogue Planet, Kortar in VOY's "Barge
of the Dead," Captain Sanders in DS9's "For
the Uniform," and Ambassador Voval in TNG's "Liaisons." Brad
Greenquist (one of the alien extras) was one of Jerry's Kids in "Dawn," Demmas
in VOY's "Warlord,
and Krit in DS9's "Who Mourns for Morn?" Marc
Worden (the Klingon prisoner) has done this shtick twice before as adolescent
Alexander, in DS9's "You
are Cordially Invited" and "Sons
and Daughters." Finally, Seth MacFarlane of Adult Swim fame, previously
an unnamed engineer in "The Forgotten," must've transferred to Columbia with
Trip and got a pip and a name (Rivers), although I don't think we got it
in dialogue.
 |
|
Trip: This is Commander Tucker
to Ground Control. Ah'm stepping through the door,
and Ah'm floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars
look
very different today...
Malcolm: Hello, Commander Tucker. Are you receiving?
Turn the thrusters on. We're standing by.
|
| With apologies to David
Bowie and Peter
Schilling |
February 25, 2005: Well, that was more
like it! A well-packed episode, with lots of interesting stuff
going without the distraction of out-of-character confusion.
No tears, just a conflict of loyalties. The camera work was
damned amazing in the starship scenes -- I yelled and rewound
the TiVo twice that was so cool. Trip eeling along a tether
between two very fast starships -- Cap'n Columbia doesn't
want to let him go! Trip immediately leaping to Mal's defense,
as I predicted. Phlox getting pferocious with K'General over
the plague cure. Bakula having some fun chewing a bit of chair
scenery. Archer had to go down without any security or MACOs
so that he'd be the only human available for Phloxenstein
to work with, but he didn't come off as SuperArcher too much.
SOEP kicked under the rug. But why was T'Pol all over Engineering?
She's a scientist at best. Kelby -- you know, Enterprise's
current Chief Engineer? -- and Hess should have been helping
Trip out.
"We have 47 minutes until the reactor breaches." The
mighty 47 lives on!
Swishing through Columbia's skin, through two consoles
and some walls, to zoom in on Hernandez's face was just gorgeous. A brilliant
piece of visual work for a totally throwaway moment. (On the other hand
-- oh my god those strobing Bridge lights kill me now!)
Now, we saw Columbia's insignia last week (and again
this week more than once), and it is not in the same shape as Enterprise's.
It's a three-quarters profile, from behind. Which means that Trip brought
his EV suit with him, and he still hasn't gotten to the quartermaster to
get his uniform updated. (And not for anything, but if he stays on Enterprise to "help
out," it means Kelby isn't learning anything, which defeats the purpose
of Trip moving on and putting Kelby in charge.)
I'm guessing "reset the algorithms and purge the subroutines" is
TECHnobabble for "shut down, count to twenty, and restart"? That
works when the office laser printer gets a fatal error.... I mean really,
for all the running and yelling and sparks and buttons and PCI cards and
pistons, that's essentially what Trip did. Not that I object to having
Trip around, but Kelby couldn't have done that? And without waiting the
ten very dangerous minutes for Trip to Mission: Impossible from
one ship to the other? I like exciting as much as the next person, and
it's great that Trip gets to save the day doing his job, but on second
viewing the plot contrivances don't really hold water. It's a real stretch
to get Trip "back on the ship" without having him transfer again.
I like that Phlox is repeatedly lured in by the puzzle of
the virus, and then ultimately swayed by the millions of lives to be saved.
It's consistent with how he's been written over the years -- finding a
solution to a medical problem fascinates him, even if the solution then
gets him into hot water. Once he's presented with a quandary, he can't
let go of it, no matter where it takes him. And the ultimate outcome of
the viral cure is a brilliant tip of the hat to TOS Klingons; even their
eyebrows were perfect. Kudos to the RSs and to the makeup department.
Why were the MACOs manhandling Malcolm on the way to the
Ready Room? It's clear he was cooperating and going quietly and had done
so before. Did Hayes train his kids to be jerks?
Keating did a much better job showing anguish without breaking
down in this ep. He ducks his head when he can't bring himself to confront
the other person, he draws his lips back tightly from his teeth, he looks
away and back again. You can see the teenage boy Malcolm was, being shouted
at by a bullying and unreasoning father whom he desperately wanted to please.
Keating's been great at keeping this in his performance since back in "Desert
Crossing."
Something I did wonder, though: why is Malcolm loyal
to Archer? No, really, why? Archer has ignored him, overruled him, dismissed
his suggestions, done his job for him, outshot him, and guilt-tripped him.
What has he done to earn Malcolm's loyalty? Why would Malcolm choose Archer
personally -- not Phlox, not Enterprise, not his friend Trip, not
rule of Starfleet law -- over Section 31? There's never been any particular
closeness between them. When Archer said "I thought I knew you," I
practically snarfed my dinner laughing. And in Malcolm's closing speech,
when he snarls that he's only loyal to Jonathan Archer, it clunks like
a mud bell. Where did this come from? The same place as Hoshi's poker game
and aikido skills? Are we going to find out next that Porthos is hiding
all the ship's lost socks under his bed?
 |
|
Phlox: I'm afraid I have some bad
news, Captain. Your mother was apparently correct. You
made that face too long, and it is going to stick
that way.
|
Considering some of the things Dr. Phloxenstein has done
before, injecting healthy Klingons and the captain with live virus to help
find a cure should hardly have made him blink. It's not like he was murdering
his adopted son or condemning an entire species to a senseless death by
omission. And it's clear that Phlox is one of the 47 (heh) physicians who
make up Holodoc's database on VOY, because infecting
someone (or a whole bunch of someones) to get them to allow a cure
to be dispensed always seemed a bit heartless for our favorite hologram.
So Malcolm volunteered to join Black Ops? And
figured that once he was on Enterprise he was out,
and would never be called on to do anything against his current
CO? That's naïve. If you're in, you're in, and no amount
of foot-stamping or head-tossing or steely-eyed pronouncements
is going to get you out. And it makes his weepiness from last
week just look pathetic. (Moogie and I then had a really intense
ten-minute high-volume discussion about whether Harris had
given Malcolm permission to discuss the operation before he
gives Archer the name of the colony, and whether he had to
answer for anything he'd done either to Section 31 or to Archer
these last two eps.)
I love how Harris gets totally dissed by K'General. "And
you...believed me." Live by the bad out, die by the bad out,
as Snoopy always says.
Good space battles at the end. Hernandez's dig was unnecessary,
though. I was expecting her to compliment Archer on surviving out in the
wilds for so long without help, rather than sneering that he obviously
needed her.
Recycled Trek Actor Checklist: The only addition this
week from last week's cast is Wayne Grace (Krell), who was Governor Torak
in TNG's "Aquiel," an
unnamed Cardassian Legate in DS9's "Wrongs
Darker than Death or Night," and did the voice of Poktari in the
Klingon Academy video game.
For the repeats block, which (as of the moment) is running
for six weeks, we'll have a few Get Me Rewrites, plus a new fun Extra I've
been working on with one of the TripHammered Half-Dozen. Don't be a stranger!
New stuff every Friday.
March 4, 2005: And back to everyone's
favorite Extra, Get
Me Rewrite! Usual disclaimers: anything overly lewd or
crude will not be posted.
March 11, 2005: Another Get
Me Rewrite! with Malcolm in it at Tripper's request. Tripper helped me write next week's Extra, so she deserves
a bonus and a *wave* from the stage. :) The form is
a little cranky for some reason, so if it doesn't work, you
can always email me your caption.
They've started another ENT Drinking Game thread on the
TrekBBS. Feel free to read over the TripHammered
version and send suggestions as we head into the final stretch of
the season.
 March
18, 2005: Something a little different this week: Bumperstickers
of the NX-01 and friends, along the lines of the New
Year's Resolutions and Last
Wills and Testaments. (Yeah, I know, run out of ideas,
make a list. When I start doing Top 10s, then you know I've
hit the bottom of the barrel.) Co-writing credit goes to Tripper,
who was instrumental in helping me get this one going. If
you have any suggestions, feel free to email them to me and
I'll post the ones I like. While TripHammered is as always
PG-13, I did make up a list of R-rated bumperstickers as well
(since most of the funny ones were dirty), but if you want
to see it you'll have to email me for it. ;)
Happy birthday early to Connor Trinneer! And
Happy St. Joseph's Day early as well to everyone who's celebrating
it. Pass the sfingi!
March 19, 2005: Official
disclaimer: My comment about Top 10 lists
being the "bottom of the barrel" has nothing
to do with Five-Minute
Voyager or Zeke whatsoever. I mean it. Really.
I wasn't thinking about 5MV when I wrote that. I happen
to love 5MV's Top 10s -- did I not write a Top
13 rebuttal? -- but the point I was trying to
make, testa di cipuda, is that when I do an Extra for
TripHammered, it's meant to be content for an entire
week, and a substitute for several thousand words of
analysis plus two to four photos with a caption and
a funny text alt each. IMHO, a single Top 10 list is
not substantive enough for that replacement. And I
was thinking aloud, so to speak, in anticipating that
in two years or so, coming up with several thousand
words of content every fortnight about a show that's
no longer airing will start to become a strain. Now,
5MV updates four to seven times a week, with links,
commentary, lists, original "events," and
sometimes fivers. It covers what, a dozen TV shows?
plus video games and the entire works of Shakespeare.
There are several staff members and people lined up
begging to provide content. A Top 10 is perfectly sufficient
as one day's content on a site of that depth, breadth,
and frequency. TripHammered is all me, baby, just this
little overtaxed brain churning out the goods on a
steady basis, with occasional assistance gratefully
received from three or four friends. The comment was
a knock at me, not at you, Zeke. All cleared
up now? Great. Pass me a damn sfingi already and go
put on another pot of coffee.
March 25, 2005: And we're back to Get
Me Rewrite! I am trying to have something else for April
before the new episodes recommence with "Bound,"
so bear with me. Actually, if you have suggestions or requests,
send 'em along and I'll see what I can do.
For the next three episodes, UPN will be
running the "Viewers' Choices" for which people
voted in their online poll (picking from UPN's pre-narrowed
choices, of course). Tonight's is "Similitude," and
while it's from Season 3, since we're in Season 4, I've
put it at the top of the Season 4 Recap page for easy access,
since that's where I move the current episode.
Site updates, January
2 through June 26, 2006
Site updates, October
3 through
December 26, 2005
Site updates, July
4 through September 26, 2005
Site updates, April
1 through July 1, 2005
Site updates, October
1 through December 31, 2004
Site updates, July
4 through September 24, 2004
Site updates, April
7 through June 30, 2004
Site updates, January
1 through March 31, 2004
Site updates, October
1 through December 31, 2003
Site updates, July
4 through September 30, 2003
Site upates, April 2 through July 2, 2003
Site upates, January 1 through March 28, 2003
Site updates, July
4 through December 31, 2002 |
