Star Trek: Enterprise Reactions?

So, what did you think of it? The theme song has to go. Commander Tucker ("Kumanduh Tuckah") needs to get a personality other than "he'll be just like McCoy, only clumsy and stupid". Is it really necessary to rehash "cold emotionless Vulcans vs. thoughtless, reckless humans"? That plot device was old thirty years ago and it's physically painful to watch now. How can armor plating go "offline"? Electromagnetic shields maybe, but one of the virtues of a hunk of steel is that it doesn't go "offline". And what's with the soft porn? I was waiting for the bow-chicka-bow-wow music to kick in. CT: I didn't get to see it! I don't get UPN! Curses!

Comments

... one in every crowd.

[cookiej]

Does anyone remember the "Encounter at Space JellyfishLand (er, Farpoint)" that was the pilot of TNG?

Personally, I thought it was EXCELLENT for a pilot. The show will get its legs--let it happen and enjoy what you can while it does. Or just watch Andromeda.

Always looking to pick. Lighten up, dude.

Blatant Fanservice... Not that I mind

[Bonker]

Looks like Paramount is still trying to grab viewwers by their gonads. I know that I was certainly paying close attention to the 'disinfection' scene where the guy got to rub gelatin all over the scantily-clad vulcan girl.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of prejudice, intolerance and violence. This show definitely played a lot like an old TOS show. It was quite a refreshing change of pace from Voyager and TNG's 'moral issue of the week' approach.

The recent broadcast

[Migelikor1]

I kinda liked the show, keeping in mind that its a pilot. It had a bunch of good qualities:
No universal translators-Hooray, a realistic look at meeting strangers...they're strange!
No ridiculous premise-phew...they haven't been warped to a far off dimension, a la the worst trek of all. They're just explorers, trying to prove themselves.
They aren't invincible-There doesn't need to be mind control or some wacky technology to disable the Enterprise ( like in STTNG) it gets pounded, because, frankly, it's not that good.
There is potential for some ongoing plot lines, like the best of DS9. If the show is done right, there will be diplomatic issues w/ the Klingons. (the whole encoded information in genes, conspiracy thing)
On the other hand, there are a few annoying bits:
I didn't like the vulcan. She wasn't even hot enough to fill the 7/9 spot. The just bugged me, like a really dumb spock. At least the original pointy ears respected the humans.
There wasn't a lot of character development, but hopefully that will come with time.

Anyway, I'd tune in to the next few episodes to see if the problems go away.

JTK is back in town

[Tetsujin28]

Let's see...

Getting kissed by alien hotties...

Running, two-gun Western-style shoot-outs...

Caution-be-damned attitude...

Oh, yes -- Jim Kirk is back!

(Now they just need to build a decent show around him...but I think they're on their way.)

Re:Real treckers...

[dragons_flight]

We have a time traveling bad guy providing tech (some reports say 29th century alternate universe), and you expect time line consistency?

Oh, come now.

Re:Spoiler-tastic

[nEoN nOoDlE]

I have scoured the internet for weeks looking for the answer to the age old question "What really happened to the Klingons between TOS and TNG which changed their appearance from white looking guys with shoe polish on their face to the full decorated Worf that you see today?" I have finally found the answer all of us seek! Apparently, somewhere between 1950 and 1990, new prostetic latex make-up technology was invented that allowed more complex make-up than a pair of simple "spock ears" to be created. Apparently, this new technology was used to give the Klingons a better look. To tie it all together when Worf went back to the space station which "The Trouble With Tribbles" took place, the writers of DS9 decided to put in a little joke which was very funny at the time. Now, it's seen as some kind of huge conspiracy. Well, I'm here to tell you folks... there's nothing to see here, it's all a bunch of smoke and mirrors and you should think of the racist white Klingons of TOS to just be the Klingons you see today except with more make-up.

Trapped by the canon

[maggard]

Y'know, I kinda feel bad for the Enterprise writers. They've got 5 TV series, 9 movies, a cartoon, who knows how many books plus guides and manuals and even language dictionaries out there with every ST-fanatic just drooling to be the first to catch an error.

Get over it. It's a TV show, not a coding textbook. Yes there will be inconsistencies and errors and who knows what else. Sometimes they're done for dramatic effect ("whoosh" sounds in space), sometimes they're done for convenience (ships always being shown upright 'cause it's too hard to explain to Uncle Vern why it's not *really* upside-down) and sometimes they just screw up. Or an author screwed up years ago. Or they're screwing with continuity on purpose and this will all make sense later.

Whatever the case for a premier episode it wasn't half bad. As many others have pointed out it's no worse then most other TV shows premier episodes and certianly not worse then any other ST's premier episode.

They've established the characters, given us a couple of directions for dramatic tension, showed off the fancy new (old) hardware and apparently started their first big plotline. Not bad for one show.

Sure we can all wonder if this is going to rise up to the best of the past or suck out loud like Voyager. As many others have pointed out that all of the series and movies and books and whatnot have had good stuff sprinkled amongst a lot of clunkers. Now the question is how will this new team and cast and direction play out and it's really unfair to judge from just one episode, particularly the first.

So enough nice-talk, my own opinions:

• Loose the "Felicity" music. Get something that won't date *quite* so fast.
• Enough with every race having weird ears and bad noses. CGI, puppetry and the popular imagination are good enough we can have a few more "Horta" races. There was a hint that the next destination will be non-humanoid, hoorah!
• I like that the new Dr. is a bit bizarre. Aliens *should* be, well, at least a bit alien. I don't get the direction of thought of many SE Asians or E. Europeans right off; the thought processes of an alien should be a lot harder.
• If they're going to go the morality play route then at least be bold about it, no more of these covert "the gay episode" where if there is any subtext it's so buried to be meaningless. Stand up for *something* - DS9 could've gone some interesting places with the issues of refugees and occupation and such but backed off and eventually just diluted it into oblivion.
• Loose the softcore porn. I'm absolutely no prude but the jello-wrestling bit did nothing to move the story forward, the plot point could have happened anywhere else a lot more effectively. Play up the sexual tensions on the ship (close quarters, lots of stress, different cultures, different species, different cues & values etc.) if they want but make them part of something, not just there to get the boys all horny.
• Finally, and this is something that Voyager finally did start to get right (if only out of desperation): Add some background characters. The person who always answers hails to Starfleet, the maintenance person usually polishing the decks late at night, the cranky supply depot supervisor who likes alien trinkets in return for good service, the flack from Starfleet PR constantly trying to hype & spin Enterprises missions, whatever. Give these folks a bit of a world to live in, not just the same faces doing *everything*.

Anyway, I'll hold my judgement for a few more episodes. At least the premier wasn't awful even though it wasn't great either. Heres to hope...

what a bunch of whiny bitches

[argStyopa]

Fer chrissakes. "Hi there, we're the /. crowd, and we have the patience of a mayfly..."

"There wasn't any character development" : hey guys, this was a PILOT. Few pilots develop much characterwise, they have too much expositional ground to cover. Two hours is what, 80 pages of script? How much "development" can you cram into that without forcing it, AND still have time to show all the neato-whiz-bang special effects for which the series is famed? (And remember, they ARE trying to build a ~new~ audience, not just attract the old. The old will keep coming to con's and buying rubber vulcan ears forever.)

"How does armor plate go offline?" SOMEbody wasn't listening when they said that the armor POLARIZATION had gone off line. 1) At least in the NCC1701 a great deal of the hull stability was imparted by gravitic and other (insert pseudo-physics handwaving) fields. Assuming something has to assist normal matter holding together at 4.5 times the speed of light, yeah, I guess that would make sense. 2) Alternately, (insert more pseudo-physics handwaving) one could postulate that the "armor" was an ultradense iron/coherent molecules/whatever the heck - something that required a charge and computer support to dynamically resist damage. Whatever, it's nit picking.

I thought the pilot was decent. Bakula was (if I may mix genres) a physical Sean Connery-esque to Picard's Roger Moore-ish distance. I thought, yes, some of the supporting roles were pretty forced. But then again, I *remember* Encounter at Farpoint - a truly crappy pilot. Ship's Counsellor? What, a ship's prostitute in the future? And remember, Riker and Troi could communicate telpathically? That was dumped pretty quickly. And who can forget the Naked Now (episode 2) where writers (apparently already grasping at plot straws) reverted to the old saw of "everyone acting opposite" which would have been a lot better if we had more than caricature opinions of what their personalities WERE in the first place!
ST:NG took FIVE SEASONS to come up with ep's like "The Inner Light" - DS:9 royally sucked the first 2 years (fortunate, since I preferred watching B5 anyway...which ALSO took at least a few episodes to find it's feet).

The only two gripes I've seen that are valid IMO are the gratuitous slathering scene (not unappreciated, but pretty obvious. My god, no wonder we like the Vulcans!) and the points about putting spoiler comments on the front page before it aired. Rather provincial mistake, really.

The rest of you, cripes, give it a season or two. Let some of the characters' personalities gell a little, and let some chemistry develop. They may even change the theme music. I think it was a fine pilot, given the circumstances, no matter how "disappointed" some /.'s are from over-pumped expectations.

Re:Spoiler-tastic

[jx100]

Actually, this guy is getting the idea right, but the facts wrong. The incident Bonker is referring to happened on the episode on TNG where another culture (the ones with the unseparated digits) were about to obtain warp capability, when one of the federation "spies" (Riker) is caught after an accident.

In the episode, Picard refers to the first contact with Klingons as with the Federation making first contact(when the Klingons attained Warp drive) , and that the Fed. didn't know anything about their culture. He also says that if they had implanted spies like Riker, then first contact would've gone much smoother.