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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.
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.
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
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".
and on TOS, it was Kirk.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
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.
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?
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
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
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.)
It should be obvious that transporters -- like all devices in the future -- will have DRM protections preventing duplication.
--Reed
"...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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Is it bad that I keep reading that as "Star Trek: Terms of Service"?
DCMonkey
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?"
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...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...
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check out the pinstriping on the Enterprise uniforms.. they have the colors that represent different sections.
Red is engineering and security
Gold is command
Blue is science and medical
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
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).