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.
Bah.
:P
We all know the first encounter with the Romulans was in TOS episode "Balance of Terror", featuring none other than Mark Lenard (who went on to play Spock's father Sarek) as the Romulan commander.
Pppht. I'm a girl too ya know
The Romulans had a war with Earth many decades earlier than the Original Series episode. There were no face-to-face encounters. Just bloody space battles.
The question is, will Enterprise honor this bit of continuity?
1. Goto new planet or space phenomenon.
2. Imply Vulcans are either stupid and/or evil.
3. Marvel at planet or phenomenon.
4. Go down to planet/phenomenon.
5. Get into trouble.
6. Shoot at bad aiming aliens and escape planet.
7. Wrap up episode implying how Vulcans are agian evil/stupid.
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!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
There is nothing quick like being able to watch an episode of star trek and being able to guess who is going to die based on whether you know his name or not.
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.
what happened to the expendible extras in star trek? kirk: the away team will consist mof myself, spock, bones and ensign billy, now this mission could be dangerous, one of us may not make it back..."
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
... I can never get enough of these comments:
- The writers can't keep track of 10 movies and 24 seasons of episodes! Why can't they dedicate their lives to memorizing the Star Trek timeline like I have?
- STTNG was the only good series, the rest were crap. I can't believe they'd keep this show going even though the ratings were so good!
- Enterprise sucks! It offends me so deeply I want to tear my eyes out! I just can't get over there being a scifi show I don't like.
- I don't like this show, so nobody should.
I like to read these comments, then sit back and imagine what Galaxy Quest 2 will be like.
"Derp de derp."
The Enterprise on the show was never featured in Star Trek 1 as "One of the ships that had the name Enterprise"
There's an episode with the Ferengi in Enterprise. They hardly knew anything about the Ferengi on the first season of "The Next Generation". One of the ferengi (I believe played by Armin Shimmerman at the time) comments on how ugly the humans really are. Yet one of the Ferengi seem to obsess over a Vulcan.
This show has equipment far more elaborate than the original series. The consoles on the original show were dials and knobs.
Whatever happened to the Eugenics War of the 1990's? The one where Khan ruled 1/4 of the Earth, and ends up being ejected into space.
And my personal favorite, The Royale from Star Trek:TNG, where Picard goes off for 2 minutes on how Fermat's Last Theorem goes unsolved. Yes, Star Trek could be in a universe where Fermat's Last Theorem is unsolved, but then in Star Trek DS9, Dax was commenting on how she created another proof for it.
When I think of Star Trek, I always think of it as being in an alternate future, kind of like Command And Conquer: Red Alert where World War 2 never happened. Just I wish they'd keep things straight, and everything in the same universe. :)
Then again, maybe Star Trek TNG, Star Trek Original and Star Trek: Enterprise belong in different Quantum Realities :)
For their sake, I hope black holes do exist. It would suck if they had to go over all of the TNG/DS9 episodes and dub the word "Black Hole" with "Gravastar".
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Each series of Star Trek has one. On NG it was Troi. On DS9 it was Kira. On Voyager it was Neelix. And on Enterprise it's Phlox. He should take some of his own medicine and get himself killed in an upcoming episode.
-- SIGFPE
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".
as soon as they kill off the time traveler character and settle into episodes that have nothing to do with this 'cold war' thing they flaunt every few episodes.
:(
I think that having ACTUAL plotlines each episode would be nice, while I can see how they are going for "small plotlines with the occasional tantilizing glimpse of a larger adventure" thing, well; quite frankly they suck at it. Could be something to do with how they have had all of about three or four ORIGINAL episodic plotlines going around so far and they just kinda change the make-up on the alien's faces.
Oh, and the intro STILL sucks. Hopefuly they will remake it for season two. . . . but for some reason I doubt it.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Has anything actually happened with the time traveling cold war plot?
Can someone please copy it into a message? Stupid tech-hostile site. About as usable as a spacecraft that's always "right side up" in space.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
If I remember the episode, part of the problem was also that the race that was going extinct was inhibiting the planet's second race from growing. My recollection is probably off a bit, but I think that the choice was more along the lines of giving the dying race what it needed to survive versus letting evolution elevate the less-advanced race to dominant species. It's kind of like (though off by a ways) if you were given a choice to save the dinosaurs who were going to be eradicated by some meteor-induced ice-age, would you do it, given that it might destroy the natural progression of life on the planet? Kind of a crappy analogy, but it's the best I can think of at the moment.
In any event, I actually really enjoyed that episode. In my mind, at least, the Doctor's dilemma was a lot more profound than you make it sound. Without the prime directive as a guiding principle, there's a lot more room for this series to be interesting.
I must admit I haven't watched Enterprise. But the thing that always struck me about almost all star trek episodes (except the original series) is the way they always get out of trouble. Solution number 1: "Pass the tachyon beam through the deflector array" Solution number 2: "Reverse the polarity of the nuetron flow" And it is guaranteed to work.
Commander Tuvoc (Voyager) bled green in several episodes. As far as I know blood color continuity has been consistent across all Star Treks.
Enterprise has not dealt with alien blood colors to this point to my knowledge.
Of course, this'll probaly cost me Karma as its pretty much offtopic.
grrrrr.
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
Sorry, but the only thing that got me to watch Enterprise was uber babe Jolene Blalock.
...To fire the proton torpedoes or not, that is the question Captain"
StarTrek has degrading from swashbuckling action to moral pontification in space, no more "Let's get our shirts ripped, blow away the bad guys and get the greenskinned girl back to our quarters."
Now it's, "who are we to act like gods in space?
To be fair, the series premiere and finale were good, I really enjoyed. But, all the episodes in between were old hat and just plain boring.
What I'd like to see? Mission Impossible StarTrek style, ditch the ship and whip out all the cool gadgets to spy on bad guys and make big explosions with! Seriously though, a StarTrek focused on a few StarFleet secret agents with the latest in badass sci-fi tech going out on commando missions would definitely be worth watching and add some new blood into the aging ratings vehicle.
UPN dudes -- You reading this?
wishes the series would kill more people off like the original Star Trek
Maybe they should introduce the colored uniforms so we could have redshirt ensigns.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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!
I can see it now...Star Trek: Enterprise, Season Two:
Star Trek meets South Park!
Captain Archer: "Oh my God! They killed Dr. Phlox!" "You Bastards!"
Ensign Mayweather: "But he's the most popular person on the Enterprise! How will we ever replace him?"
Commander Tucker: "No need to worry captain! We have a copy of his atomic signature in the cache of the data resequencer in the transporter! We'll be able to generate an exact copy of him, as if he never left!"
--- BZZZ BZZZ ZIP! ---
Dr. Phlox: "Hello, captain! I'm back from helping out the Balaxians on Balax 7! I hope nothing happened while I was gone!"
When I heard who was gonna be in it, I said two things
1) Scott Bakula will make a crappy captain. He's way too soft
2) I like the keep my porn and my star trek separate, thank you.
Sure enough, I was right. Scott Bakula is not a very good captain, in my opinion. He's getting better, but really, he's pretty soft. Too happy.
As for T'pol, yes, she's hot, but she's been doing an ok job of not making a big sex symbol out of herself. Save for the obligatory near sex scene in the decontamination chamber.
What's really getting me the most the the _grotesque_ opening theme. Good lord. That may be the worst crap I've ever heard.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Bringing STAR TREK's newest alien face to life isn't always easy for actress Jolene Blalock, who's spent the last month jiggling her time in space with her time in...
Now that's an interview I might actually read!
GMD
watch this
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.
The black hole fired first! :)
And the infamous anecdote is that any such ensign wearing RED is the one that inevitably gets killed! Don't believe me? Check those old TOS episodes again....
Who cares about all that crap. I just want to see the large-breasted vulcan chick in a bikini. How hard would that be to work into the storyline?
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I love and hate voyager, it has great ideas, and i really enjoy watching it, but there are some elements of silliness that really stand out. Like whenever they are being attacked, all the console and overhead lights start to oscillate on and off.
But i liked the Borg stuff, Seven discovering her individuality, very bold stuff, perhaps not for pure sci-fi people, but as a big fan of PKDick, i loved this human story line!
Nah. Last I checked he had a love interest. Have her cheat on him with some ensign who later needs his flu shot, but instead of a flu shot Phlox gives him 21st century ebola. And then have it such that everyone on the ship knows what he did, but they can't prove it, so he remains their doctor.
I like the intro. Mind you, I don't watch the show every week, preferring to catch it in reruns, so I don't get a continued and repeated dosage of it. Plus I happen to like country, and I grew up on easy listening, so my tastes are probably vastly different from everyone else's.
This intro's still a million times better than Voyager's, though. That intro theme could put a person to sleep. Actually, come to think of it, it has..
As for the blueprints thing, I wouldn't give them much credit. I'll bet you anything the only reason they're there is (a) because it looks cool, and (b) because Archer's father supposedly designed the ship, and they want to milk that for all it's worth. But mostly I think it's because of (a).
And now for something completely different.
I would like to propose the following; Video Mute. Instead of muting the audio, it would turn the video image contrast down, averaging out the video as much as possible without completely eliminating the video. This would be extremely helpful for whenever I'm watching television and an especially stupid commercial comes on that strobes. every. second. binding. you. (And hey, it might even make music videos watchable.)
Mute + Video Mute would be perfect for those of us who (a) can't afford a Tivo, and (b) want to avoid being distracted by the stupid flashing while we're trying to talk with fellow viewers, or read a book during commercials.
I hereby promise not to patent this idea, and I hereby give everyone in the universe free and unrestricted right to implement and use it, blah blah blah.. or has someone already thought this up and patented it? : )
Mirina Sirtis, in real life, seems very short when it comes to star trek. I remember going to a convention where she was.. Her overall impression of it was "I've been typecast. I'll milk it for everything its worth but i dont have to like it".
Then again, she could have been feeling the emotions of her aunt flo that day.
Klingon Blood in Star Trek 6 was pepto-bismol pink to maintain the PG-13 Rating, IIRC.
Vulcan blood has always been green. They usually go to lengths to give a greenish-tint to the skin of vulcans too. And, on TOS, Mascera.
Star Trek in the Roddenberry era was all about humanity. The ship was just a vehicle. Nowadays, its gotten pretty formulaic. Most of the Q Episodes after the first two were always good for a bit of lite philisophical entertainment, but damn near everything else was.. egh.
Roddenberry is doing a friction-free 200000RPM around in his..err, space-urn.
(Unless it's de-orbited already.)
Well, unlike many women, I think she improved with age. In the movies I think she's actually pretty attractive. But early on she was just horrible. You may have forgotten - check out Episode 1 again.
-- SIGFPE
All the star dreck that has come out since Gene Roddenberry died has sucked. Anybody but UPN wouldn't have wasted airtime on Voyager or Enterprise, and DS9 was a ripoff of Babylon 5.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
If you READ THE ARTICLE, you'd see that "Neelix syndrome" refers to the oft-mentioned but never-revealed remainder of the character's species. We never saw any other Talaxians on Voyager. The question was whether the same would be true of the Denobulans.
My deviantArt site
I quit watching it when they kept re-inventing future tech to make up for bad writing and kept giving time to the annoying translator character (who should be obselete by the Universal Translator).
GalaxyQuest is to Star Trek, as Star Trek is to everyone else.
There are plenty of us out there to nit pick the entire Star Trek canon :-)
May I recommend Nitpicker's Central for nitpicking Star Trek?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Actually, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) was much more attractive than Troi.
Mmmmmm.... red hair!
Now if they could only have done something about the 24th century giving people big noses (Stewart, McFadden, Spiner)!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It should be obvious that transporters -- like all devices in the future -- will have DRM protections preventing duplication.
--Reed
Phlox is an interesting character, T'Pol is just a pair of tits with pointy ears:)
In a Mad spoof, the Vulcan females had up-pointing tits also.
Table-ized A.I.
In one of the last few episodes of Voyager a population of talaxians inside an asteroid is helped by Voyager. Neelix leaves Voyager to live his life with his own people.
Yeah, me too... Who wants to bet that they'll figure out a way to sneak the decontamination chainber in again?
Seriously though, I'm surprised the censors didn't (well...) censor that. It's not cable, they do have serious limitations on what they are allowed to show.
Enterprise? Just a sad attempt to take a SciFi show and turn it into '90210'.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Romulans? Who were never seen before "Balance of Terror," which took place in Kirk's era? Who aren't due to show up in Enterprise for another few years, if they wanted to stick to the old Earth-Romulan wars?
I can see a bunch of Trekkers getting up in protest, breathing heavily, and promptly sitting back down.
[CBG] There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling![/CBG]
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
"...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.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Um, I like it. It's not a popular opinion here, but whatever. At least they finally got away from yet another wannabe orcastra piece. It has it's place, but not again....Dear Lord, NOT AGAIN!!!
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Is it bad that I keep reading that as "Star Trek: Terms of Service"?
DCMonkey
You're asking the writers to do something they never do in a Trek series... Character devlopement. Does a character go through a tramatic experience in Ep 21.1? Don't worry! He'll be back to his chipper self in 21.2! Events have no lasting effects on the characters. Their personalities are static. They don't grow, they don't develope. The only thing I ever saw come close was Picard with his Borg incident bothering him, but that was normally only when the story directly delt with the Borg in some way. They couldn't just have him wig out one ep with flashbacks as a minor part of the story, or be be hardened and emotionless in certain situations. Ok, I'm ranting, but the characters need to more dynamic, less 2D.
As far as Phlox goes, his roll is the same (token alien side-kick), but the personalities are different. Whether he should go through hell or not-- Sure, why not. Somebody in the series needs to. Besides, Slimey, acid producing alien encounters builds character. Like spinach.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Yep.
"Gee, Bob... What do we have in the script bin?"
"Um... Don't know. Why don't you go look."
"I chose the script last time."
"No, I chose the script last time because the veiwers were complaining about your stupid temporal stories."
"Hey, it was a good story!"
"Hey, it was the twelth one this season"
"Fine. But I beat you in foozball before lunch. You owe me."
"Fine. Then we can start counting all the sodas you owe ME."
"Hmmm... Well, I'm still not getting the script."
"Neither am I."
"A Q episode?"
"Sure, why not?"
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...Or have some poor intern chained to a filing cabinet whose sole job is to keep track of the Trek timeline. I've heard of worse jobs for em...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Need I say more?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
And I even like the 80's style 'rock ballad' theme song...
Did you know this was sung during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games?
Strange but true!
"Information wants to be paid"
Replace the theme with "Do you want to be a Spaceman?" by Oasis. Give it a try, the song fits alot better than the current song or the voyager theme used in the alternate intro.
If I had some editing software I would have done it myself and let it loose on kazaa.
>
I went to a con and saw Marina about 6 months before "ST:Generations" came out. She refused to give away details (nevermind the fact that I had just bought a script to the movie about a half hour prior), but she said "And when you see the movie.. that planet came out of NOWHERE."
And then she ranted for a while about Michael Dorn's little dog that was more like a rat. but anyways.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
They are right - it does get much better. In fact, the story just increases in quality gradually over time - until it hits the final season (that was tacked on - they'd planned to end it a season earlier) when it falls like a rock.
Much like Star Trek, first season is mediocre, second is okay, third is awesome.
The B5 pilot came out much before DS9 was shot. B5 was originally pitched to Rodenberry as Star Trek, but he said no way. So they made an independant show called B5. The pilot didn't take for a long time, and DS9 was made as soon as Rodenberry died.
IMHO, the stuff got much better after he stopped holding them back. First, they got rid of his pet Wesley as a regular character, and then they made DS9 - which I call Star Trek with a plot. DS9 actually had a continuing cast other then the heroes - how wierd eh? There were actually non-military characters! Wow.
Idunno, I thought Jake and Nog were good characters once DS9 progressed. At teh beginning they were just annoying kids, but they got better. I thought it was a great concept that Jake becomes a writer and Nog joins Star Fleet (since everyone expected Jake and Nog to follow in their parents footsteps). And they're not supergeniuses like Wesley - they're just regular guys.
Analogously, when red-shirted ensigns bit it on some dangerous, unexplored planet, Kirk was mad, but that didn't stop him from going erect when some cute alien chick walked by a few minutes later. Hey, going where no man has gone before is supposed to be dangerous. You have some funerals and you get over it!
This attitude was much less visible by the time Piccard took over command. Ensign mortality went waay down, and the few that bit it were mourned much more deeply. It's just like the Challenger thing: by TNG, people got into the mindset that interstellar space is not so dangerous after all, so they found the occasional ensign mortality appalling. They were also much better prepared to manage the risks of space. (Would Kirk have sent in a councelor to console the survivors? No way! At best, he would have sent in Scotty with some scotch!)
Of course, by extrapolation, life on the earliest starships would have been far cheaper still. One would expect "ensign resupply busses" to be dispatched regularly to catch up with the Enterprise and replenish its staff. I mean, from technical problems alone, I would imagine a few people might die each month. The first Enterprise was not designed to take hits from most of the weapons fired on it, so naturally it would not have been as mature in terms of safety as the later models... which means, more people would have died in comparatively minor situations. The survivors would surely have the attitude: Hey, that's just what space is like.
So I'm asking you: Why are ensign deaths so damn rare on the first Enterprise? Is this a big coverup? Are we really seeing "Enterprise propaganda?" Surely, a reasonable person cannot believe that all these interstellar freshmen really live through all those encounters with hostile and technologically superior races, riding on a ship that was designed by engineers who were merely guessing at what starships should be like, having no experience to base their designs on. I mean, come on, anybody gets on that thing is basically does so with the understanding that they will die there, probably sooner rather than later.
So goddamn it, die already! Then build a new ship, and get a better crew (except keep Phlox, he's cool).
Idunno, they tried something like that with Space: Above and Beyond. It was good for a while, but they ran out of storylines.
I think Starfleet Academy would've been better. Even if it was "dawson's creek in space" - it'd still have been better. Watch Smallville for a good idea of mixing sci-fi and teens well.
Unfortunately Starfleet ground combat equipment is - Star fleet ship's crew uniforms with phasers.
Come on, ST could deck out commandoes hardcore, but they never do. We're going to fight the Borg - lets bring phasers and trichorders and nothing else.
My ideal Starfleet Marine would be decked out with
1) rifle (compression phaser, old phaser, transporter sniper, whatever).
2) little class 3 phaser (the tiny keychain sized one) as a backup.
3) chemical-propelled projectile pistol with replicator and conventional ammo clips (for those environments where phasors dont work).
4) visor instead of trichorder. Be good for light-amp and scanning - and I'm sure you could set it to see visible.
5) some sort of little unarmed little anti-grav scouts - like flying versions of the spiders from minority report. Lets send the expendable robots to look around that corner instead of the yellowshirts. Give them a live feed to the visor.
6) energy shields. If it only has a 10 second charge or only stops projectiles or something, its still useful.
7) Spock's boots. Death by falling is not an option. These would probably not be used all the time - I'm sure youd just be a target flying around the battlefield.
8) Variable charge grenades that could level a city block. You never know - besides, they've got shields. Star Trek has matter energy conversion - these are quite doable.
9) A short sword. How many times have things become hand to hand combat when all that high-tech crap doesn't work.
10) Armor. People get shot at with conventional bullets and hit with Battleths all the time. Why are they not prepared for this? Throw in Insurrection-style personal cloaking while they're at it. I'm sure its very primitive and can be seen with a simple visor, but you're not always fighting well-equipped people.
One thing they never do - we're behind cover, so are they. We've got a ship in orbit. The enterprise's phasors have been used to bore holes into planets. Why not just request some fire support? Could have some very nice special effects for seeing the main phasor banks hitting a point a kilometer away.
I think Enterprise is fantastic for all the reasons most of you people hate it for. Because Star Trek has, after ten movies and twenty-four seasons, discovered a sense of humour. Seriously, the theme tune is hilarious and I laugh out loud every single time I hear it. The 'sex scene' was brilliantly done, especially with the geek-boy fantasy of rubbing a voluptuous Vulcan's pointy ears. In one of the episodes the away team is going through a deserted town, and a freaking tumbleweed blows past them. And let's not forget the guest spot with Al from Quantum Leap. I mean, who's cracked a real smile at most of the recent Treks? Hmm? Neelix, funny? Data? Anybody? I suppose you could make a possible exception for Quark, but even that's pushing it.
Compare this with Babylon 5 (all hail JMS), which can be darkly emotional and amusingly flippant with ease. For instance, when the first officer says to the captain "Good luck Captain, I think you're about to go where every man has gone before." just before he gets laid. Sci-fi should take itself less seriously once in a while. TOS had it just right - making you think while still being entertaining.
By the way, why isn't there a Captain Debate? I'll start you off: Kirk's the best because he's not afraid to use force and he gets laid nearly every single episode. Also, he could beat any other captain in single combat with ease. And blatantly William Shatner could out-sing them too.
He's dead, Jim. You grab his wallet, I'll take his tricorder.
Idunno, all I want them to do is blow up the Earth in a TNG movie. Really, Earth is always this sickeningly sweet planet in Star Trek, everybody's home - it gets attacked so friggin' many times. Just fscking blow it up, give us some real tragedy.
Other Items needed:
Cool Title
A cool 'special forces' ship (small,fast lots of guns)
Tanks, Aerocycles, Tunneling machines etc.
No enginieer (If it's broke, blow it up attitude)
HoloCloaks (limited invisibility and/or feature changes)
Breaching tools (penatrate a shield and board a ship)
Limited Ammunition
Holodeck training facility
Holo-enabled briefing room
Starfleet disavows knowlege of missions
D&D casting (Barbarian, Magician, Thief, Cleric)
Blood & Gore
Antimatter Mine (Magnetic bottle of antimatter that breaks on command)
Quantim Black hole capsule (open over enemy bunker and enjoy)
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â