Just a reminder... here were the episodes from this past year... hopefully I will have a review of which ones were good... if any and which ones sucked...

Episode number Name Date Shown, Rerun Rating

#301 The Xindi 09/10/03 06/02/04 7.3
#302 Anomaly 09/17/03 06/02/04 8.2
#303 Extinction 09/24/03 06/09/04 7.1
#304 Rajiin 10/01/03 06/09/04 7.4
#305 Impulse 10/08/03 06/16/04 8.3
#306 Exile 10/15/03 06/23/04 7.8
#307 The Shipment 10/29/03 7.9
#308 Twilight 11/05/03 9.0
#309 North Star 11/12/03 7.9
#310 Similitude 11/19/03
#311 Carpenter Street 11/26/03 03/24/04 7.4
#312 Chosen Realm 01/14/04 7.1
#313 Proving Ground 01/21/04 03/31/04 8.7
#314 Stratagem 02/04/04 8.5
#315 Harbinger 02/11/04 04/07/04 7.6
#316 Doctor's Orders 02/18/04 04/07/04 7.7
#317 Hatchery 02/25/04
#318 Azati Prime 03/03/04 04/14/04
#319 Damage 04/21/04
#320 The Forgotten 04/28/04
#321 E² 05/05/04
#322 The Council 05/12/04
#323 Countdown 05/19/04 8.9
#324 Zero Hour 05/26/04 8.6

The rating provided is what StarTrek.com gave it. No rating means that they just haven't decided to rate it... My review should be tomorrow... until then keep guessing which will be my favorite episode...

Spater
Phoenix

- posted by Bruce @ 10:34 PM

 
Ok, This episode would have been better had the ending not sucked. I mean really, now aliens are responsible for Germany's great metal in WWII. First Voyager dispels the myth of where the computer generation came from... now this... and where is the arc for next year??? Here is the plot for Zero Hour

As the Xindi weapon heads toward Earth, Archer asks a weakened Sato to decrypt Degra's schematics to force the weapon to self-destruct. Yet after telling Reed of his plan to board and disable the weapon, he suddenly finds himself seven years in the future with Daniels, witnessing himself giving a speech at the founding of the United Federation of Planets. Daniels tells Archer that it is too great a risk for him to be part of the weapon boarding party, but Archer insists that his place in history is saving Earth. His resolve only increases when he and the Xindi on Degra's ship witness the Reptilian destruction of one of Earth's orbital stations.

Meanwhile, T'Pol and Tucker prepare to take Enterprise to disable Sphere 41, though the Guardians have surrounded it with powerful anomalies that Phlox says will kill the entire crew in less then 15 minutes as they approach. While the crew's skin begins to decay from the anomalies, the ship successfully approaches the sphere and uses the deflector dish to emit a pulse intended to disrupt the sphere's systems. Several Guardians appear on Enterprise, attack the crew and attempt to sabotage engineering, but Tucker is able to compensate from the bridge and the Guardians disappear from the ship - and from the Expanse - as Sphere 41 implodes, destroying both the sphere network and the anomalies transforming the Expanse.

The Reptilians attack Degra's ship as it attempts to put Archer's team on the weapon. Unexpectedly, Shran arrives on an Andorian vessel and defends the friendly Xindi, then destroys the Reptilian ship, though not before its commander has followed the humans aboard the weapon. With Reed and the MACOs to defend him, Archer follows Sato's directions to invert the weapon's firing platform and sends the crew back to safety on Degra's ship. The Reptilian commander attacks him before he has finished destroying the reactor; Archer kills the Reptilian with a charge he detonates remotely, but Degra's ship cannot get a transporter lock on him. The weapon explodes in space, leaving Earth safe.

The surviving Xindi rendezvous with Enterprise, where Reed unhappily tells Tucker that Archer did not survive the destruction of the weapon. While the Aquatic ship transports the damaged Enterprise back to Earth, T'Pol thanks the Xindi for their help and says that she is pleased to hear the Xindi Council plans to reconvene, though the Reptilians have not yet accepted that the Guardians' promises were empty. "Your captain's sacrifice will not be forgotten," one of the Humanoids promises her. Back on Enterprise, Phlox assures her that her skin will recover from the ravages of the anomalies in time, and Porthos, too, will recover in time from the loss of the captain.

Approaching Earth, Sato cannot hail Starfleet, nor any of the orbital platforms, nor the lunar base. When T'Pol sends Mayweather and Tucker in a shuttlepod to San Francisco to find out what has happened, their vessel is shot at by World War II airplanes. On the surface, in a hospital displaying a Nazi flag, a German-speaking doctor shows a burned, unconscious Archer to a Nazi officer. No one can identify his uniform. An alien wearing a Nazi uniform steps forward to examine him.

Here is my analysis...

If there were any doubts about the worthiness of Enterprise to bear the name Star Trek, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga put them to rest with "Zero Hour", which lands the prequel firmly in classic Trek tradition. I don't mean because we get a glimpse of the founding of the Federation, a battle on a spherical weapon with more than a passing resemblance to a Borg sphere, a bunch of talk about timelines and the coming together of former enemies under the banner of peace. No, I'm talking about EVIL ALIEN NAZIS!

You must forgive me for laughing when, after a near-perfect 50 minutes of television science fiction in which the Xindi arc was wrapped up stylishly in a very First Contact-like manner, the episode ends with the cheesiest of cliffhangers, throwing us back into "Patterns of Force" territory. What in hell are EVIL ALIEN NAZIS doing with U.S. warplanes? What year is it supposed to be on Earth? Did the Aquatics trick us? Was the entire Xindi arc a ruse to distract the crew from the real threat, in the form of the Suliban and time-tampering and a World War II which ended the wrong way? These questions won't be answered until the fall, by which time hopefully I will be able to address them with a straight face.

I mean...this show has been so serious all season. End-of-the-world scenarios, grave moral choices, seeking hope for peace and exploration in a universe filled with distrust and fear, that sort of thing...darker than Deep Space Nine, which was too dark to be considered Star Trek by some fans. And where does it all end up? The captain makes the big sacrifice, the ship takes the great risk, the interdimensional aliens are vanquished, the lethal aliens become allies, the future Federation members come through in a pinch...and there are EVIL ALIEN NAZIS! I'm sorry, I can't help it; I'm not ready to stop giggling.

Before this insane left hook of a cliffhanger, some nice things happen in "Zero Hour." T'Pol tells Trip how old she is - 66, same as the year the original series went on the air - and admits that it is an intimate act for a Vulcan to confess her age. Later she quotes Trip's concern for her to Phlox, saying that she guesses she's not so tough after all...and she pets poor Porthos, who is resting morosely in Sickbay, unaware, as the audience is, that of course Archer can't be dead because the show has been picked up for a fourth season. Malcolm has some nice moments doing he-man stuff aboard the Xindi weapon while his redshirts fall over railings into a bottomless pit ("No, Luke, I am your father!"), and Hoshi gets to have the tearful breakdown she was denied last week, predictably blaming herself for decrypting the Xindi launch codes and wishing she'd done a better job of killing herself.

But suicide is Archer's job, as he earnestly informs Daniels and then Reed, refusing to allow his tactical officer to peform a task for which he's probably better qualified than the captain and certainly more expendable. That's fine - Janeway would have done the same, and did, in "The Killing Game", which also had EVIL ALIEN NAZIS...oops. I know that this does not sound like a very serious review. Maybe I'm just dizzy from all the cross-cutting, jumping from the weapon to Degra's ship to Enterprise to the sphere-builders' realm to the Reptilian ship to Shran's ship to the Sol system. Maybe I'm giddy to have seen Phlox on the bridge offering critical command advice, which was great, and then to have seen him back in Sickbay providing the comic relief as well in the form of dictating his will and placating his plants. Or maybe I'm in shock, so great is my relief and surprise that the Xindi weapon has not destroyed Earth. I can't help wondering: if the show had been cancelled, making a cliffhanger unlikely, would the episode have ended with the universe as we know it exploding in a ball of fire?

If the idea is to shake the show up, this cliffhanger is sheer brilliance. No one could have seen it coming in a million years, no matter which timeline you were in! And now we're going to have to have an arc in the fall explaining how the timeline got changed, whether it was related to the Xindi threat and the Guardians or completely incidental, whether this all ties back in with Silik and Future Guy, or if maybe Captain Kirk saved Edith Keeler and Archer's going to have to find the Guardian of Forever and go back in time and phaser them both before her peace movement lets Hitler take over the world...fine, I guess someone's going to have to phaser me before I manage to get serious. EVIL ALIEN NAZIS!

I shall write an essay wrapping up Enterprise's deeply enjoyable third season in a few days, after I have time to assimilate it all. For now, however, I just want to address Jonathan Archer with a quote by Agent Scully from "Triangle", the X-Files episode with the evil time-traveling Nazis and the submarine and all the kissing: "Now I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to keep saying, 'There's no place like home.'"

I am going to sit and think long and hard about this episode, and perhaps watch it over and over again, just to try to figure out what the hell they were thinking of putting these damn EVIL ALIEN NAZIS into Star Trek history.

Spater
Phoenix
- posted by Bruce @ 8:04 PM

 
Greetings all, just wanted to let you know I am having a real freaking low day, and if it keeps up I might have to kill myself... just this time of year where you want to drive a stake through your temples, and drink liquid nitrogen just for the taste of it... oh well I will get over it, or I will die...

This radio rocks... it came in my new truck...

SIRIUS Satellite Radio - Over 110 Streams of Satellite Radio for Your Home, Car, or Boat

Spater
Phoenix
- posted by Bruce @ 9:49 PM

 
Greetings everyone, had a great day at Cindy and Dave's and now I am headed out to the bars, but before I do, let me do my review of Countdown... Plot first

Sato regains consciousness on a Reptilian ship and is told that her linguistic abilities impressed their commander, who demands that she decrypt the Aquatic command code to launch the weapon. When she struggles, the commander has parasites injected into her brain to make her cooperative. Meanwhile T'Pol's shuttle returns to Enterprise and Reed tells Hayes of his regret that Hawkins died. Archer meets with the Aquatics to beg for their aid, saying that even if they don't trust his evidence of the duplicity of the Guardians, the kidnapping of Sato, murder of Degra and theft of the weapon has altered the situation; but they refuse to act rashly like the Reptilians, and ask for time to deliberate. In the meantime, Archer orders the MACOs to retrieve Sato while having Tucker and T'Pol work on a plan to disable the spheres.

Sato tries to sabotage the Reptilians by encrypting the weapon's arming matrix and attempting to throw herself over a railing to her death, but the Reptilians retrieve her and continue to coerce her until she begins to crack the Aquatic code. The Reptilians are unhappy that the Guardians will not simply give them the code, but accept that their perceptions of timelines don't allow that kind of precision. The Humanoid and Arboreal Xindi tell Archer that they hope for a long-term relationship but that Archer will have to make good on his promise to disable the spheres.

While T'Pol and Tucker continue to work on that problem, Sato gives the Reptilians the third launch code they need. The Aquatics agree to help stop the Reptilians and bring Enterprise, along with a fleet of Xindi ships, to the weapon, but in the ensuing battle, the Guardians create anomalies to protect the weapon while the Reptilians begin its final arming sequence. Archer has Hayes lead a team of MACOs aboard the Reptilian commander's ship to rescue Sato, but although they are successful, Hayes is shot during his beam-out and dies in sickbay after telling Reed that McKenzie can lead his team.

Archer heads straight at the weapon despite the anomalies, but the Reptilians set a course for Earth and open a vortex before Enterprise can get close enough to damage it. The Insectoids pursue, asserting uncertainty that Degra was a traitor, but the Reptilian commander has their ship destroyed since he already has the Insectoid launch code. While Archer plans to lead a team on board the weapon, including the wounded Sato, the captain leaves Enterprise in the hands of T'Pol and Tucker, who have a plan to disable a key sphere in the network of subspace relays created by the Guardians. Reed tells the MACOs of the death of Hayes and asks for volunteers to go with Archer and himself, choosing three when all step forward. Archer promises T'Pol and Tucker that he will meet them at the rendezvous, and goes off with the Xindi to attack the weapon while Enterprise goes to try to disable the pivotal sphere.

Here is my analysis...

An episode focused much more on plot and action than on character development, "Countdown" nevertheless had some nice moments for most of the leads and gave poor Reed his job back after a season of taking second place in battle scenes to Hayes. The MACO's death was not unexpected: as he selflessly kept sending the rest of his team back to Enterprise, holding off the Reptilians with his own weapon, my entire family kept repeating, "Yeah, he's gonna die." This wasn't one of Trek's more emotional death scenes - it was more Tasha Yar than Spock, and we never saw any kind of memorial or ejecting-into-space, though maybe they're saving that for after the battle - but it brought the Reed/Hayes arc full circle, allowing Malcolm to step into the shoes of a man he once fought with for usurping his place.

"Countdown" kicks off by counting down much of the third season, tracking the history of human-Xindi relations, the rise and fall of Degra, the Guardians' involvement and Sato's abduction. It then segues into what seems to me a relatively pointless onscreen torture sequence, designed mostly to give Linda Park some acting time; we figured out that the Reptilian commander was ruthless and brutal when he knifed Degra, and the details of his manipulation of Sato sound a bit too Wrath of Khan to prevent Ricardo Montalban imitations and inappropriate giggling at what should be a dramatic moment. I guess we needed a reason that Sato would break the Aquatic codes for them, and they decided to show rather than tell us that she was under alien influences, but it would have been nice to see a bit more intelligent dialogue rather than grunting and squirming to get away.

But from that point the episode really doesn't let down. The scenes between Tucker and T'Pol as they try to hash out the best way to disable the spheres and work out some of their personal issues at the same time are wonderful; he finally thanks her for all the neuropressure that made her so uncomfortable, and she finally calls him Trip. There's a nice balance between each of them and Archer, too, surprisingly informal given the tension of their situation, more Kirk-Spock-McCoy than before this season. Plus we get the hint that we could see T'Pol in a Starfleet uniform next season, which would thrill me even if it violates Trek canon about when Vulcans first became Starfleet officers. Gotta love Trip for being able to worry about when he can next have a steak and buy his people drinks in the face of the end of the world.

I continue to have issues with how quickly the Xindi bend to the purposes of the plot: the notoriously finicky Aquatics bend to Archer's request almost at once, the Arboreals and Humanoids bend over backward to help him, even the Insectoids are suddenly nervous about the Guardians and the Reptilians might be as well if the Guardians didn't pop up one of their anomalies at a critical moment. I'm hoping the Reptilian commander pays for his arrogance, either by realizing at the last minute that the spheres do control the anomalies when one disintegrates just when he needs it, or by the damage inflicted by the Insectoid ship when it was destroyed and shattered against the weapon being serious enough to prevent it from firing. He is painfully one-dimensional and it's not clear why, whether he has any interest whatsoever in saving the Xindi or only his own people or if he's just power-hungry; either he's quite stupid or quite greedy, and either way, it's not clear why his people follow him when they clearly question him at times.

While this is a strong arc episode, bridging some important storylines and setting up the finale, it's hard to evaluate as a single installment. The visuals are solid as always, if a bit confusing; I thought the weapon was arming itself when the Guardians set up protective anomalies, and I'm still not clear why beings from a different dimension would have humanoid bodies so similar in appearance to our own. I am very curious how the weapon will be destroyed, since we all know it will - I am betting "Zero Hour" does not end with Earth being blown up, whether Enterprise is renewed or not; does it have an obvious exhaust port that any X-wing could approach, or will it be more complicated, involving thousands of Xindi sacrificing themselves to stop it, which might explain why we've never heard of them?

Archer makes the right call bringing Sato with him over Phlox's objections that she could die; she has already tried to kill herself to save Earth, and this is a pretty obvious case of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one, even if she's not Vulcan. But with Hayes dead, there's really no one left for him to make a tough decision about sacrificing...except himself, which the preview for the season finale seems to indicate he will try to do. Just like I'd lay money on Earth surviving, I'd bet Archer will be around for the rumored fourth season. I'm wondering if the unfolding of "Zero Hour" can possibly live up to the stakes set for it when there are so many things that it would seem have to happen, or if, like Voyager's "Endgame", it must inevitably feel like an anticlimax.

And incidentally, because I looked: February 13th, 2154 will not be a Friday the 13th. I wonder why they picked the date. Any ideas?

Have a good night, I will try to do my best...

Spater
Phoenix
- posted by Bruce @ 9:53 PM

 
Good Evening all, I have been quite derelict in my posting as usual... but will get to posting more when time allows... perhaps some german tonight, but the night will have to see. Anyways, here is my review of "The Council" episode of Star Trek:Enterprise...

First the plot
As Degra prepares to send Enterprise information on the spheres in preparation for an attempt to prove that their builders plan to alter the Expanse, one of the sphere-builders appears to him, saying that he has betrayed them after all they did for his people and claiming that the future, which they can see, may no longer include a strong, united Xindi species. Archer promises evidence that the "Guardians" (as the Xindi call the sphere-builders) have lied. Though Degra must threaten to shoot at a Reptilian ship in order to get Enterprise to the Council, he brings Archer and Sato into the chamber. There Archer insists that if the Xindi wipe out Earth with their weapon, the "Guardians" will colonize the region and destroy the Xindi themselves.

A sphere-builder then appears to the Reptilian leader, demanding to know why he allowed Archer to speak to the Council and insisting that the Reptilians and Insectoids must take possession of the weapon from the Humanoids, Arboreals and Aquatics. While Archer prepares to bring a holographic representation of the dead sphere-builder and his pod before the council, Degra begs Tucker to understand that he is risking his own life and the lives of his family to save humans and Xindi alike, and Tucker finally overcomes his loathing of the man who built the weapon that killed his sister.

With Mayweather piloting, T'Pol leads an away mission and takes Reed and Hawkins inside a sphere. There they find the memory core which they hope will provide proof of the true origins and purpose of the spheres. But before they can escape with the evidence, they trigger automated defense systems that kill Hawkins and fire on Reed and T'Pol. As the shuttlepod makes its escape, Reed miserably declares that the casualties on this mission have been painfully high. T'Pol tries to console him with the Vulcan axiom "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", telling him that Hawkins died honorably for a cause he believed in.

Degra arrives on Enterprise to report a surprising development: the Reptilians have agreed to postpone the launch of the weapon until Archer has presented all his evidence about the sphere-builders. But it's a ruse, and the Reptilian commander kills Degra in his quarters after declaring that they have proof that Degra's ship destroyed a Reptilian scout. Archer is warned by the other Humanoid on the Council that his ship may be targeted, but soon they have bigger problems, for the Reptilians and Insectoids have launched the weapon. While war breaks out among the different Xindi species, and the Reptilians damage Enterprise in order to kidnap Sato from the bridge via transporter, the Insectoids escort the weapon into a subspace corridor where the Earth ship cannot follow.


Here is my analysis

"The Council" is a tense action episode whose plot twists are somewhat predictable, yet that doesn't stop them from being wrenching when they occur. We've waited all season for the launch of the weapon, yet when it finally arrives, it feels anticlimactic compared to the murder of Degra and, perhaps more significantly, to Tucker's finally having accepted that he must forgive the man who built the weapon that killed his sister if either of their species is to survive. Enterprise has been strikingly topical all season, and despite several moments when I found Archer reminding me in a disturbing manner of a certain President, it's never been possible to draw easy parallels or distill easy political messages from the show, as some of its detractors claim.

This week, the Xindi United Nations fragments along racial lines. It looks a bit stereotypical - the two most human-seeming species, the Humanoids and Arboreals, are behaving most reasonably, while the more alien Reptilians and Insectoids are being set up as the bad guys and no one's sure what the mysterious Aquatics will do. Yet despicable as the Reptilian leader seems, murdering Degra in cold blood and threatening his children, his position doesn't sound all that different from those of certain Americans in the wake of 9/11, swearing vengeance for bloodshed and betrayal on entire nations. I received many letters from fans in the wake of "Damage", when Archer elected to violate his principles and bully an innocent ship in the name of his higher cause; the Reptilian leader, who is certainly guilty of arrogance and short-sightedness yet claims the same noble goal, the salvation of his species, acts with a self-righteousness that looks chillingly familiar.

The sphere-builders, the real outsiders to the galaxy, play on these internal divisions, fostering distrust and hatred among people who united would represent a threat to their plan for domination. Though they speak in English on the show, thus making them seem superficially less alien than the Insectoids, they are also revered as quasi-religious figures, often a trigger for distrust (on this show in particular: "Chosen Realm" focused on people who revered the Xindi Guardians as the Makers, and were prepared to commit genocide in their name). There's never any doubt that these are the real bad guys and the Reptilians are just their pawns, the hired muscle promised power in exchange for acquiescence. It's both predictable and annoying when the Reptilian leader bows to their promises of glory and triumph, but rather poignantly believable, based on human history.

So Degra is dead, and what a loss that will be for the show...not only in the arc, where he was Archer's closest ally, but in terms of moving character development, for Randy Oglesby played beautifully off both Scott Bakula and Connor Trinneer. Degra and Tucker have been headed toward a confrontation for weeks, so neither its arrival nor its contents are really a surprise. Yet there's a real emotional wallop when the weapon designer finally grabs Tucker's arm to tell him that he understands Trip's pain but Trip's got to work with him now, combined with the engineer's unhappy realization that he isn't honoring his sister's memory by refusing to let go of his hatred and may in fact be endangering more people.

The episode suggests, though it isn't entirely clear, that while the Reptilians and Insectoids may have been able to launch the weapon, they can't initiate its firing sequence without a code from one of the other three species. I assume that the remaining episodes will focus on Archer's trying to convince the wild-card Aquatics not to give up their code, though perhaps I'm confused and the fact that they were able to launch means that there's already someone giving the Reptilians inside information. It's interesting that "The Council" begins with a glimpse of another apparent ruling group, the sphere-builders, who don't sound entirely united in their plans even if their goals are clear. They can manipulate time, and fewer potential futures show the results they want to see. Does this mean that if their plans are thwarted, a giant reset button will go into effect that negates the Xindi attack on Earth entirely? I'm a little nervous about that, but it would certainly be the simplest means by which to bring Enterprise back in line with Star Trek canon.

In addition to killing off Degra, this episode also presents the death of a MACO we know by name from previous installments, which gives Malcolm's grief more weight for viewers than Trip's for the unknown ghost in "The Forgotten." It's also the trigger for what is presumably the first human exposure to the words by which Spock lived and died about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. I've had that saying on bumper stickers and t-shirts since the movie came out, but beyond its simple message of altruism, there's another possible interpretation, the one Archer used to threaten a being in an airlock and later to rationalize taking engine parts from an ally. It's the same one the Reptilian uses to justify killing Degra and taking over the Council. The skull of an Avian, the extinct species of Xindi, represents what's at stake. These people are all fighting for their lives; they're merely too determined to press forward to notice who the real enemy is, as Archer and Tucker were when they first went out to find the Xindi.

Great pacing, fine acting and some appreciated moments of humor in the script enliven an episode that's already quite engrossing; I giggled about Archer being sent to the principal's office and got choked up by Reed's rant about acceptable losses, not to mention Phlox's tapeworm diet (love the message that diets can be self-destructive even in people who supposedly need to lose weight). And those were minor aspects of "The Council." It's an odd, bittersweet thing to see this show coming into its own so uniquely in what may be its last weeks on the air.


So until later...

Spater
Phoenix

- posted by Bruce @ 7:50 PM

 
Good morning, no german today my friends, I had a great night with just a few regrets. Trying to think of words in my barely buzzed state is hard, more alcohol is required. Not tonight... perhaps tomorrow. Anyways once again I have fallen behind in my Star Trek analysis duties... so here is the plot and critic of E².... plot first

An aged T'Pol is visited by a young Vulcan captain who reports to her that everything has happened as before. She tells him that he must seek out Jonathan Archer. At the same time, a much younger T'Pol is visited by Tucker, who first pleads insomnia, then says he's worried about her because she rarely leaves her quarters. When he worries that she's been avoiding him, she snaps that she does not want a relationship with him. Later, on the bridge, she makes the startling discovery that an approaching vessel appears to be Starfleet. The ship hails, and its Vulcan captain tells Archer that he must alter his heading immediately from the Xindi subspace corridor that will lead him to Degra's ship.

Archer learns that the other ship is the Enterprise - his Enterprise, thrown 117 years into the past when it was attacked in the corridor. The Vulcan captain introduces himself as Lorian, son of T'Pol; his first officer is named Karyn Archer. When Phlox confirms these claims, he tells T'Pol that Tucker is Lorian's father. Because the ship could only travel through the corridor in one direction, the anomaly that made it travel back in time could not be reversed, nor could it risk visiting Earth and corrupting the timeline, so Lorian's Enterprise has been wandering, waiting for the Xindi to ready their attack so that they could try to stop it.

Lorian wants to alter Archer's injector assembly and reinforce the hull to allow Enterprise to travel at nearly warp 7 to reach the rendezvous with Degra, bypassing the corridor, but the elder T'Pol warns the younger that there's a greater than 20 percent chance the ship could be destroyed and suggests instead making modifications to allow the younger Enterprise to pass safely through the corridor. Archer asks Lorian to help bolster the ship to traverse the corridor, but the Vulcan captain is convinced that such a course of action will end the same way as the first time, with the time loop, and decides that he must use his Enterprise to stop the Xindi. To do so, he will need to steal Archer's warp plasma injectors, which he does, sending in a team and shooting Tucker himself.

Archer fires on Lorian's Enterprise and orders T'Pol to use the transporter to beam out Lorian's EPS manifolds and primary relays to shut down his ship's power. Then he demands a truce, warning Lorian that while he still may have the power to destroy his Enterprise, he's gambling that Lorian won't do that. In Archer's brig after standing down, Lorian admits that he blames himself for the first Xindi attack on earth, which he could have prevented, but only by destroying his ship and its crew; he hesitated, but he won't let his emotions prevent him from taking any necessary steps to protect Earth this time.

Archer and Lorian come up with a plan to trick the aliens protecting the nebula Archer must enter to meet Degra, allowing them to believe Lorian's ship is a sensor ghost until it turns and attacks. But Archer's Enterprise is badly damaged, and Lorian's ship tows it to the entrance to the corridor while taking the majority of hits from the alien attack. Enterprise successfully makes it to the other side and meets Degra, but there is never any trace of Lorian or his ship, and Archer wonders whether the ship might simply have ceased to exist because his own Enterprise - the one destined to become Lorian's Enterprise - never made the trip back in time.

Ok, here is my analysis....

That very dry plot summary above doesn't really cover the emotional core of "E²", which is focused far more on the characters and the consequences of their contact with their descendants than it is on the vast technobabble resulting in a successful traverse of the Xindi corridor. There are some obvious superficial parallels with one of Trek's great episodes, Deep Space Nine's "Children of Time", which was the turning point in Odo and Kira's relationship as well as a look at what might have been in terms of who married and had children with whom. But the more important and obvious parallel is between Lorian and another Starfleet captain, one who a few short weeks ago justified the theft of equipment from another ship by claiming it as an essential step in a mission to save Earth. Lorian's speech is eerily similar to Archer's; one wonders whether he watched Archer on old ship's records, like the jittery footage we see at the start of the episode indicating what happened to the ship when it entered the corridor. Jonathan, meet your logical descendant, even if he is Trip and T'Pol's son.

And that's the other whopper of a storyline lurking in the background of the technobabble: T'Pol's discovery that, in one timeline at least, her emotions will never return to what she considers a Vulcan norm, and she will not only procreate but apparently be happy with Trip until the untimely death that leaves Lorian without a father in early adolescence. We get only hints of the family dynamics: clearly Lorian isn't afraid to talk back to his mother, but clearly she isn't afraid to go behind his back and manipulate her past self when she believes he's wrong, even though he's the captain (it's never clear why the dying Archer of Lorian's universe left the ship in the hands of the young Vulcan, rather than his still-living science officer). Tucker observes that it must have been hard for Lorian, growing up without his father, but we don't hear about what it must have been like for T'Pol, saddled with emotions she didn't grow up with and faced with a tragedy of that magnitude.

The present-time Tucker and T'Pol continue to squabble, each denying that they want a relationship and pointing out flaws in one another - his immaturity, her stubbornness - that they claim would make any romance unpleasant, when it's perfectly obvious that they're both immature and stubborn and unquestionably deserve each other and are genuinely attached to one another besides. I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of Vulcan drug abuse and brain damage as the foundation for a love affair, but the characters have great chemistry and it's much more fun to watch them now that they're exchanging clever barbs instead of getting naked and giving each other backrubs (sorry, neuropressure) every week. The elder T'Pol seems afraid to see the young Trip, as if it might open old wounds; there's the suggestion of very great love and pain just beneath the surface, with a sort of Vulcan restraint that's missing in the present-day T'Pol, which lends great pathos to the romance-that-may-never-be.

And then there's their son, who in a wonderful bit of casting looks like he could be Tucker and T'Pol's son yet talks like Archer. Did he hesitate to sacrifice his Enterprise, when he knew it's necessary to save Earth, because he had promised Archer to take care of the crew? Because destroying the ship meant killing his mother? Because the loss of his father left him emotionally weak in a crisis, even though he claims that he combines the best of Vulcan and human strengths? We don't get to know Lorian well enough to get at his psychology, but he seems to be a man alone; if he's married with children, we don't meet the family, and he seems to take his first officer along out of rote duty more than any real closeness. By the time she stands up to him and announces that she won't help kill their ancestors, he's already slumping in defeat, accepting that he's not going to kill Archer's crew any more easily than he could kill his own.

We get glimpses into the possible futures of the others. Phlox will have nine children with someone named Amanda, presumably Tucker's onetime interest. Sato will have two children with a man whose name she opts not to learn, while Mayweather will marry the MACO McKenzie. Poor Reed's family line will come to an end, as he sulks about not having a woman of his own (in a bit of heterosexist conservatism, Sato assumes that there are certain to be some bachelors because there are more males than females among the crew complement; you'd think some of that large crew would end up in same-sex relationships, in triads, or reproducing artificially just to keep their DNA in a healthy, diverse gene pool). Archer's future wife is an alien we've not met yet. Karyn Archer's genetic background includes two other alien species.

The implication of all this is that, despite the horrific situation in which the crew finds itself - trapped in the past, unable to go back to Earth, incapable of fulfilling the mission to stop the Xindi in their own lifetimes - these people adapt and grow and find ways to be happy. They make the ship stronger, they forge alliances, they advance their knowledge of science...ironically, they carry out the very tasks for which Enterprise was intended before it was diverted into the Expanse to defend Earth from the Xindi. There is one great plot hole in this episode, and it's that Archer doesn't immediately start downloading the other Enterprise's entire database as soon as they meet up, to take what they have learned with him in case the other ship does not survive. It's thrilling to see this, even though we as the audience know from TNG's "All Good Things..." and Voyager's "Deadlock" and various other reset-button episodes that of course one of the Enterprises will have ceased to exist by the episode's end.

In the end, Archer asks T'Pol why they remember the other Enterprise if its timeline has been erased. That's the great reset-button-episode question. In Voyager's "Year of Hell", the reset button on the timeline erases the crew's memories of all events leading up to the point of origin, but in "Children of Time", the destruction of the alternate timeline does not erase it from the memories of the crew. "E²" works like the latter, but we never get a conclusive answer about what happened to Lorian's Enterprise, and somehow that's very satisfying. It existed, it is remembered, and therefore everything that happened here exists, even if it's only in the tiny changes in the crew: the possibility of changing values and hope and love where none existed.

Ok, written enough to get a certain someone out of my head, at least for the time being...

Spater
Phoenix
- posted by Bruce @ 2:43 AM

 
I forgot to do this earlier this week, and I when I blogged this morning, I saw that I forgot to update on the latest Star Trek episode. Life may be worthless, but at least I can contribute this little bit, and to those who wrote, thanks for the support. here is my summary and review of "The Forgotten"

Tucker wakes from a nightmare about his sister Elizabeth dying in the Florida attack. Later Archer gives the entire crew a pep talk, saying that they will succeed in their mission for the people on Earth and for the 18 crewmembers who have died. He asks Tucker to write a letter to the family of Crewman Taylor, an engineer who died in the attack, but he puts it off as he is terribly overworked trying to make repairs to the ship. In sickbay Phlox tells T'Pol that the Trellium is nearly out of her system but her neural pathways are so damaged that she may never be able to repress her emotions fully again. She asks Tucker when he last slept; he admits that it has been days, but says he's too busy to rest, as they are interrupted with yet another crisis.

Degra hails Archer at the rendezvous coordinates and has Enterprise follow his ship. Once on board, he and a Xindi-Arboreal from the Council ask to see Archer's proof that the future of the Xindi is at risk. Archer shows them the bodies of the Reptilians who died in the past on Earth and the Xindi technology used to build the bio-weapon, but the Arboreal insists that this will not be enough proof for the Council even though the equipment shows chronometric deviation. Archer also explains how the Sphere-Builders plan to transform the Expanse, using data on the test subject from the Sphere-Builders who died on Enterprise. The Arboreal believes that all he has proved is that the Reptilians disobeyed the Council, which they already knew, but Degra wants to hear more about Archer's belief that if humans and Xindi don't form an alliance to stop the transformation of the Expanse, none of them will be able to live there.

Under orders from Phlox, Tucker tries to sleep and has a dream in which Taylor asks him to remember her. Then he tries to write to her parents, but can't find the words. The next day, as T'Pol is showing Degra a map of the Expanse on a viewscreen in need of repair, Tucker asks about the telemetry from the Xindi weapon and starts shouting about his sister before Archer calls Degra away. Then a warp plasma conduit ruptures, creating a crisis that requires Tucker and Reed to exit the ship to make repairs. Reed nearly succumbs to heat from the burning plasma, and when Degra expresses his concern, Tucker demands to know why one more dead human should matter to him. Archer apologizes for Tucker's words but Degra is thoughtful, saying he thought the attack on Earth necessary to save his people. When he learns that Enterprise was designed to be a ship of exploration rather than a military vessel, he promises that if they are successful in their negotiations, it will explore again. He is very impressed with the scans of the inside of a sphere, which the Xindi have never been able to obtain.

A Reptilian ship arrives, demanding that Degra break off his negotiations with the humans. When Archer realizes that the Reptilians mean to destroy Enterprise, he begs for help disabling the vessel; Degra is appalled at the idea of attacking his own people but ultimately fires upon the Reptilian ship and destroys it once he realizes that the Reptilian captain would have told the Xindi Council of his secret alliance with Archer. He believes that Archer must take his evidence to the Council directly and offers to escort him to the Council chamber in three days, showing Enterprise a shortcut through a subspace corridor in a nearby nebula surrounded by a dangerous species. He also gives Enterprise a portable power cell to help with repairs, but Tucker refuses to use it, blaming the Xindi for the death of Taylor and also for killing his sister, whom he has been trying not to mourn. He tells T'Pol that he envies Vulcans their lack of emotion, but she says that Vulcans can be overwhelmed by their feelings, and that it is humans who are to be envied.

Ok, here is my analysis...

Though I have some doubts about how quickly Degra chooses to believe Archer over Xindi with whom he has worked for months, I love seeing such a strong character episode in the middle of an action arc. While some important recent events are forgotten in "The Forgotten" - I'm not pleased at how quickly Archer seems to have put his unscrupulous behavior of last week behind him, not to mention how calmly he dismisses the recent brainwashing of Degra to Degra's face - this story gets back to the events that started the season, the human cost of the original Xindi attack.

Tucker hasn't mentioned his sister's name in weeks when he dreams of her. There's a lovely segue from "previously on Enterprise into the nightmare, which has been seen previously, but then the new footage of Tucker waking flows seamlessly from that point. We can't tell whether he was dreaming only of Elizabeth or of the long living nightmare of recent weeks in the Expanse, as the Xindi near completion of their deadlier new weapon. The continuity flows nearly as seamlessly for all the subplots, with T'Pol walking into sickbay to express concern about her heightened emotions just as she did at the end of last week's episode and Archer grimly expressing his commitment to meet with Degra no matter the risks of the rendezvous. Structurally, this arc is beginning to remind me of the climax of the Dominion War, which I mean in the best possible way.

Unfortunately for Degra, this series has not had time to develop his character the way DS9 developed Damar's slow-growing distrust of the Dominion and his change of alliances. He seems to be seizing upon excuses to betray the promises he has made to the other Xindi, and while we as viewers know that this is logical, it's an awfully rapid shift for a man who designed a weapon that has already killed seven million people, as Tucker keeps reminding him. The Arboreal Xindi's skepticism makes more sense, but he seems subordinate to Degra; in the end he is taking orders from him.

Degra's motivations, however, aren't what's really relevant here, important as they are to the conclusion of this arc. It's Tucker's and T'Pol's emotions that are on display this week, and while I still have reservations both about her addiction and the effect it's allegedly had on her, which flies in the face of much of what we've learned previously about Vulcans, the storyline is used to undeniable effect during her scenes with Tucker, who is on the verge of a breakdown from the first minutes of the episode. He won't sleep; he claims it's because the ship may fall apart around him, and we've seen such behavior from him in the past, but we know as well that it's because he's afraid of his dreams, not because he really doesn't trust his teams to hold things together for awhile. He can't control his temper around Degra (though I must say I think that he and really the entire crew do a fairly admirable job; this is after all the man who designed the weapon that killed seven million people). In his single-mindedness he doesn't notice how much trouble Reed is in on the hull.

Archer doesn't have time to see what a mess Tucker is becoming - he snaps at him over comments on his command and orders him to write a letter he's not ready to face - but T'Pol can see. It's hard to say whether this is because of her newly heightened emotions or not, as she and Tucker have always had a closer rapport than most of the crew we've seen. She's clearly interested in how he's coping, both in terms of her own need to learn how to deal with strong emotion and because she cares about him. Ironically, she seems more in control of herself with him than she does in sickbay telling Phlox of her fears. I never thought I'd say this, but I think they could both use a good neuropressure session.

It's a powerful scene, that tearful admission amidst the wreckage, with T'Pol's face streaked with soot and Tucker sweating and clutching at her hand. Connor Trinneer has never failed to deliver the punch in a big emotional scene, and he's superb throughout this entire episode, going from jittery anger and exhaustion to the confused tenderness of his dream about Taylor to the sheer misery of realizing that he must find a way to mourn for his sister - and to let her go. Blalock, too, gives a strong performance, though I greatly prefer her T'Pol when she's maintaining that veneer of control that has defined Vulcans throughout Star Trek rather than playing the inexplicably hysterical creature who would seem unprofessional were she human or even Klingon.

Archer's back in Captain form this week; he doesn't question himself or his tactics, he simply presses ahead with Degra. If he has feelings about the fact that this is the man who killed seven million humans - or about the fact that this is the man he abducted and manipulated - he doesn't show it. And Mayweather and Sato are back to playing Uhura and Sulu, with about the same number of lines per usual. Which, I suppose, in an arc like this, is perhaps inevitable; their skills are used as support for the people making the vital decisions about the ship. Even the MACOs seem to be absent, when one would think that with Degra on the ship, there would be a quiet guard presence hovering around.

I loved the scene with Tucker's ghostly memories of Taylor: we see so little of the lower decks during this mission, these young people who have been sent off to defend the planet, knowing that many of them will probably die, and to hear this woman we've never noticed describe her things for which she'd like to be remembered has great poignancy. The visuals in this episode are functional as always, and the pacing is strong, but this is a story about people, not the space battles they're fighting; and as such, it's probably my favorite of the recent war stories.

Spater
Phoenix
- posted by Bruce @ 10:22 AM

 
I forgot to do this earlier this week, and I when I blogged this morning, I saw that I forgot to update on the latest Star Trek episode. Life may be worthless, but at least I can contribute this little bit, and to those who wrote, thanks for the support. here is my summary and review of "The Forgotten"

Tucker wakes from a nightmare about his sister Elizabeth dying in the Florida attack. Later Archer gives the entire crew a pep talk, saying that they will succeed in their mission for the people on Earth and for the 18 crewmembers who have died. He asks Tucker to write a letter to the family of Crewman Taylor, an engineer who died in the attack, but he puts it off as he is terribly overworked trying to make repairs to the ship. In sickbay Phlox tells T'Pol that the Trellium is nearly out of her system but her neural pathways are so damaged that she may never be able to repress her emotions fully again. She asks Tucker when he last slept; he admits that it has been days, but says he's too busy to rest, as they are interrupted with yet another crisis.

Degra hails Archer at the rendezvous coordinates and has Enterprise follow his ship. Once on board, he and a Xindi-Arboreal from the Council ask to see Archer's proof that the future of the Xindi is at risk. Archer shows them the bodies of the Reptilians who died in the past on Earth and the Xindi technology used to build the bio-weapon, but the Arboreal insists that this will not be enough proof for the Council even though the equipment shows chronometric deviation. Archer also explains how the Sphere-Builders plan to transform the Expanse, using data on the test subject from the Sphere-Builders who died on Enterprise. The Arboreal believes that all he has proved is that the Reptilians disobeyed the Council, which they already knew, but Degra wants to hear more about Archer's belief that if humans and Xindi don't form an alliance to stop the transformation of the Expanse, none of them will be able to live there.

Under orders from Phlox, Tucker tries to sleep and has a dream in which Taylor asks him to remember her. Then he tries to write to her parents, but can't find the words. The next day, as T'Pol is showing Degra a map of the Expanse on a viewscreen in need of repair, Tucker asks about the telemetry from the Xindi weapon and starts shouting about his sister before Archer calls Degra away. Then a warp plasma conduit ruptures, creating a crisis that requires Tucker and Reed to exit the ship to make repairs. Reed nearly succumbs to heat from the burning plasma, and when Degra expresses his concern, Tucker demands to know why one more dead human should matter to him. Archer apologizes for Tucker's words but Degra is thoughtful, saying he thought the attack on Earth necessary to save his people. When he learns that Enterprise was designed to be a ship of exploration rather than a military vessel, he promises that if they are successful in their negotiations, it will explore again. He is very impressed with the scans of the inside of a sphere, which the Xindi have never been able to obtain.

A Reptilian ship arrives, demanding that Degra break off his negotiations with the humans. When Archer realizes that the Reptilians mean to destroy Enterprise, he begs for help disabling the vessel; Degra is appalled at the idea of attacking his own people but ultimately fires upon the Reptilian ship and destroys it once he realizes that the Reptilian captain would have told the Xindi Council of his secret alliance with Archer. He believes that Archer must take his evidence to the Council directly and offers to escort him to the Council chamber in three days, showing Enterprise a shortcut through a subspace corridor in a nearby nebula surrounded by a dangerous species. He also gives Enterprise a portable power cell to help with repairs, but Tucker refuses to use it, blaming the Xindi for the death of Taylor and also for killing his sister, whom he has been trying not to mourn. He tells T'Pol that he envies Vulcans their lack of emotion, but she says that Vulcans can be overwhelmed by their feelings, and that it is humans who are to be envied.

Ok, here is my analysis...

Though I have some doubts about how quickly Degra chooses to believe Archer over Xindi with whom he has worked for months, I love seeing such a strong character episode in the middle of an action arc. While some important recent events are forgotten in "The Forgotten" - I'm not pleased at how quickly Archer seems to have put his unscrupulous behavior of last week behind him, not to mention how calmly he dismisses the recent brainwashing of Degra to Degra's face - this story gets back to the events that started the season, the human cost of the original Xindi attack.

Tucker hasn't mentioned his sister's name in weeks when he dreams of her. There's a lovely segue from "previously on Enterprise into the nightmare, which has been seen previously, but then the new footage of Tucker waking flows seamlessly from that point. We can't tell whether he was dreaming only of Elizabeth or of the long living nightmare of recent weeks in the Expanse, as the Xindi near completion of their deadlier new weapon. The continuity flows nearly as seamlessly for all the subplots, with T'Pol walking into sickbay to express concern about her heightened emotions just as she did at the end of last week's episode and Archer grimly expressing his commitment to meet with Degra no matter the risks of the rendezvous. Structurally, this arc is beginning to remind me of the climax of the Dominion War, which I mean in the best possible way.

Unfortunately for Degra, this series has not had time to develop his character the way DS9 developed Damar's slow-growing distrust of the Dominion and his change of alliances. He seems to be seizing upon excuses to betray the promises he has made to the other Xindi, and while we as viewers know that this is logical, it's an awfully rapid shift for a man who designed a weapon that has already killed seven million people, as Tucker keeps reminding him. The Arboreal Xindi's skepticism makes more sense, but he seems subordinate to Degra; in the end he is taking orders from him.

Degra's motivations, however, aren't what's really relevant here, important as they are to the conclusion of this arc. It's Tucker's and T'Pol's emotions that are on display this week, and while I still have reservations both about her addiction and the effect it's allegedly had on her, which flies in the face of much of what we've learned previously about Vulcans, the storyline is used to undeniable effect during her scenes with Tucker, who is on the verge of a breakdown from the first minutes of the episode. He won't sleep; he claims it's because the ship may fall apart around him, and we've seen such behavior from him in the past, but we know as well that it's because he's afraid of his dreams, not because he really doesn't trust his teams to hold things together for awhile. He can't control his temper around Degra (though I must say I think that he and really the entire crew do a fairly admirable job; this is after all the man who designed the weapon that killed seven million people). In his single-mindedness he doesn't notice how much trouble Reed is in on the hull.

Archer doesn't have time to see what a mess Tucker is becoming - he snaps at him over comments on his command and orders him to write a letter he's not ready to face - but T'Pol can see. It's hard to say whether this is because of her newly heightened emotions or not, as she and Tucker have always had a closer rapport than most of the crew we've seen. She's clearly interested in how he's coping, both in terms of her own
- posted by Bruce @ 10:21 AM

 
I have to write this while it is still fresh in my mind

Warum er erhält zu bleiben und ich gehen muß... er erhalte Ihr Doritos und ich erhalte, zu gehen... er habe Zicklein und eine Frau, habe ich ein Zicklein und keine Frau, und ich muß gehen... Sie habe, ihn persönlich für zwei Wochen, ich zu kennen drei Monate, und ich muß gehen... er erhalte Ihr Freaking, und ich erhalte Ihre Reste, und ich muß gehen... Sie erklären mir, daß alles im Leben, groß oder klein und ich gehen müssen... Ich wünsche Sie in meinem Leben, weil Sie ein Leben haben, das ich mit sein möchte... und ich gehen muß... Morgen benennen Sie, um zu sprechen, bin ich nicht dort, jetzt muß er der sein, den Sie alles... erklären und dieser letzte Kerl sind, da er wie er aussieht, und ich nicht... möglicherweise Leben bin ein Weibchen..., aber ich muß gehen... Ich schreibe wieder rüber Ihnen... Ursache nicht, die ich gehen muß


Nice guys always finish last!!! Fuck the world, and the horse it rode in on!!!

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Spater
Phoenix
- posted by Bruce @ 4:01 AM