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Doctor Phlox on Season 2 of Enterprise
Steve Krutzler writes "TrekWeb has posted a brand new interview with actor John Billingsley (Doctor Phlox on Enterprise). He talks all about the second season of the Star Trek prequel including the upcoming episodes "A Night In Sickbay," "Minefield" (featuring the first encounter with the Romulans!) and "Dead Stop." He also talks about the character of Doctor Phlox possibly falling into the 'Neelix Trap' and says he wishes the series would kill more people off like the original Star Trek!" Billingsly
was great on a recent episode of SG1 too. I'm seriously excited for the
next season of Enterprise. I don't think I've ever said that about any of the
other Trek series.
There are plenty of us out there to nit pick the entire Star Trek canon :-)
Balance of Terror was a damn fine episode, but they are really going to have to be careful with continuity. Just look at the Ferengi, they got by with saying that 'we can include them because their race name was never mentioned'. A nice way of showing the Romulans is to have a plot line revolve around one of their ships (relating to the catalyst for the war)... but that is my 2 cents.
I'm pleased with Phlox's development, in that he is a very strong character, I especially liked John Billingsley in the Stargate ep a couple of weeks ago, especially his lines about 'the shrine to Gene Roddenbery'.
Note to /. editors, when is Star Trek goign to get it's own section (instead of just 'Television'), Star Wars has it's own!
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OK, I'll admit that I don't think Enterprise is very good. I also don't think TNG, DS(, or Voyager were very good either.
That being said, I really like John Billingsley and fell he is the only redeeming feature of Enterprise.
As for the Romulans, I can only assume it will be the Romulans of TNG/DS9/Voyager and not the Romulans of Star Trek. I'm still unsure why it was necessary to swap the virutes of the Romulans and Klingons, but that's just one of the major changes Berman/Pillar have made to the Trek universe.
Ah well.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Although I was skeptical, Enterprise didn't start out as badly as I would have expected.
It was different enough of a show that I continued to watch, at least up until the episode entitled "Dear Doctor", in which the ship's doctor got morally fixated on the wrong problem and convinced the Captain to ignore the tens of thousands that were dying every day, along with the strong possibility that the entire race would soon follow.
My reaction was along the lines of: "Wait, so this race can't fly through space faster than warp one, and therefore you're going to knowingly kill them off? Fsck you, Federation!"
Since that episode I gave up on the series for falling into the sad attempts at ignoring a good plot in an attempt to "present a moral lesson".
Quote from the interview: "We build to a climax and then the last ten minutes we need to really 'go, go, go, go go!'.
I have always hated that, 35 minutes of the universe going under until someone invents a transplaxmo-sub-dehumidifier that they attach to the microtubularinjectors of some other thingy, and bingo, we have saved the world.
Always seems that they are going on with the story until someone realizes that there's too much content for one show and then, presto, they find a solution by thinking up some new gadets, that will end the show in 4 minutes.
Not that I don't like to watch the shows.:)
my sig
The question is "Who is watching this show?"
The only people I know who watch this show are the UberGeeks. The kind of guys who wear the little Playmates Tricorder toys (purchased on eBay) with their work uniforms. The kinds of people who wear Starfleet uniforms not just to Star Trek conventions, but on dates. The kinds of guys who used to be superstars during the dot-com time.
All the people I know who loved all the other series, but were the big detail guys are iffy on the series.
And the guys who liked ST:TNG, ST:DS9, and some of ST:VOY but not TOS generally hate the show.
I myself am in the last group. I have a few TOS eps I like, but not many. I like the movies, I like TNG, I loved DS9, and VOY was okay. But I saw 3 episodes of Enterprise, and I hate it. I can't watch it.
Now, time to go back to my other nerd occupations.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
"...but if I had a job related to the continuation of it you better believe I'd do my homework."
I got news for ya: You'd definitely make mistakes. Let's do a little math:
4 series. TOS had 3 seasons (I think), TNG had 7, DS9 had 7, Voy had 7. There were 10 movies, 6 of which based on the TOS crew, the other 4 were based on the TNG crew (with one approaching rapidly.) I think the number of episodes per season was in the 22-27 range depending on the series, so let's pretend there's 23 eps per season just for giggles. 7 * 3 + 3 = 24. 24 * 23 = approximately 552 episodes to watch.
Sorry, you're human mind isn't capable of doing that error free. This isn't a 'homework' scenario, it's a PHD.
"Derp de derp."
"...and says he wishes the series would kill more people off like the original Star Trek"
HEAR, HEAR!! I've become a hardened cynic when it comes to Trek lately. It's been way too sanitised and this new series is no exception. If there was one series that could have benifited from a darker, more brooding plot, this is the one. I had originally envisioned Enterprise taking it's cues from America's blue water Navy during the American Revolution-- The Federation just stepping out onto the Frontier; Outgunned and woefully behind the technology curve, struggling to maintain soveignty amoung the stars. But what do we get? The bumbling crew of the first Enterpise that miraculously stumbles from one encounter to the next against vastly superior opponents and still manages to emerge in one piece. And to top that, they're already leaning on Trek's infamous temporal crutch, that way overused script idea. John is right-- This series needs to loose a few people as well as some major plot CPR. Sure, the Rombulans are coming (is it just me or is the Okuda time line just a bit out of sorts here?), but the way things are going now, it's going to be yet another ho-hum experience...
Finally, it's not entirely a haters club here. While I doubt the the person responsible will ever see this, major props to whomever designed the opening credits. I've heard complaints all day long here, but the opening is wonderfully poetic. Stylish. The sole spark of creativity in an otherwise bland series.
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Sorry, you're human mind isn't capable of doing that error free. This isn't a 'homework' scenario, it's a PHD.
Respectfully disagree, 552 episodes is not that many, especially when you cut out all the ones that deal solely interpersonal issues between characters. There are books about major events in the timeline and it is the screwing with major events that pisses ordinary fans off. Glossing over some obscure event from an earlier series is fine if it will greatly enhance the current one.
The Ferengi episode is a great example, it added nothing the story of Enterprise but took too much licence with the timeline (they recorded the Ferengi on security cameras for gods sake). The episode on it's own was quite good but but even my girlfreind (only a casual fan) found the blantant timeline flouting annoying.
I have been enjoying Enterprise, far more than I thought I would but if they need to resort to screwing with the established universe in first season I have my doubts about it's staying power.
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>Here's what bugs me: Enterprise has a wonderful
...
>opportunity to explore some of the events that
>were alluded to in the other series. Not only
>that, but we get it from the perspective of
>people fresh into deep space. This is really
>exciting, but these stupid 'purists' think that
>the show is better if they adhere to it
>literally.
Those stupid purists being Berman and company?
>It's a TV show!
That doesn't mean it has to be stupid.
> It's ENTERTAINMENT!
That doesn't mean it has to be stupid.
>Enjoy it,
Enjoyment is what you enjoy, and some people can't enjoy what they find stupid.
>... don't sit there and act like you could make it better
You don't know that they couldn't. Infact these days it seems it wouldn't be that hard.
>...because you remember details that were only
>intended to pad out the drama.
You don't know what those details were for. And Michael Okuda sneaked in a lot of those details on TNG, that didn't hurt or harm anyone and arguably improved on the flavour.
Just because you are content to settle for less, don't vilify those who want more.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Enterprise is going to follow in the footsteps of Voyager, I'm afraid.
Its going to have lots and lots of stories that we've all watched before in previous ST Series (STTNG, DS9), its going to have the same old plot complications, and sadly......its going to have the same cookie-cutter mix of characters.
Enterprise, to me, is lowbrowing the series...but its the first season, and ALL first seasons suck.
Watch the first two seasons of DS9 or TNG and try not to vomit in your lap.
Roddenberry's passing was a great blessing for Trek, his uber-pacifist approach to the series was getting very tired. The final seasons of TNG were very good, the final 3 or 4 seasons of DS9 were however, Great. Voyager blew from start to finish, the characters were among the worst batch I've seen in a show...not a one of them did I care anything at all about, and now Enterprise is sadly following in that same vein.
TNG had a great mix of characters....DS9 had a more diverse group. But Voyager was a ship full of people you just don't care about, at least I didn't, and I just saw very shallow 2 dimensional characters. Enterprise is sort of more of the same.
The Vulcan-in-skin-tight-lycra thing was like strike-2 right away..that was clearly a lame assed attempt to draw "anyone we can get" to watch the show. But what will kill enterprise is the same old writing....they need to invent a new formula besides "go to planet, solve problem, leave planet". I guess I really disliked the character selection in Voyager, and this show seems to mimic that cast.....and as such, I'm really not getting into Enterprise...at *all*.