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Enterprise Season Premiere Tonight
l0key432 writes "Enterprise, Star Trek's fifth series, begins its second season on UPN tonight at 8pm/7pm central with the episode Shockwave Part II, airing just before the series premier of the new 'The Twilight Zone' show at 9pm/8pm central. Shockwave II is the conclusion to last season's season-ending cliff-hanger, and additional info can be found at this page(possible spoilers!) on StarTrek.com." Of course with my luck, it'll be pre-empted by some sporting event.
Time Travel.
Wesley.
I hardly think it's morally correct to deny a race the cure to their genetic disease in favor of what might happen thousands or even millions of years in the future. To me it's the same moral question as "Does the end justify the means?" --- should one do something that seems wrong in the present in order to promote a future good?
Besides, on a more practical note, I think it would have made for more interesting character development later in the series if Archer had taken the opposite opinion and stuck to his moral guns, even if that meant a rift developed between him and Phlox. It would be fun to see the captain and the doctor at each other's throats!
We tend to forget that people involved with a specific popular thing have a perspsective bigger than that one thing. I don't know if Roddenberry would personally like Enterprise, but I'm certain he would judge it first as a television show and second as Star Trek. After all, he was a veteran writer, director and producer who did plenty of television other than Star Trek. I bet Gene would think pretty well of Enterprise as television, and would certainly allow that this one is somebody else's baby.
Did you notice how much better TNG got after he died? Did you notice that Roddenberry was egomaniac who claimed he had every good idea? Read Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever" for a strongly opinionated (from Harlan? No way!) and documented (Harlan kept track? No way!) counter-view of "The Great Bird of the Galaxy."
There actually have been a number of episodes which refer to previous episodes; mostly of the sort where they do something in one episode, and then encounter people who have heard about it and want them to do something else because of it.
I think they've done a good job of maintaining the Trek "everything is fixed at the end of the episode", while having people notice that this group has an impressive record of getting into situations and resolving them.
I'm not entirely convinced that Daniels's side is actually good; it seems like all of their information has come from Daniels, and he might just be feeding them propaganda. Sullick is clearly against them, but might have reasons for it. There's a lot of potential for a major plot twist at some point.
IMHO, the episode Shuttlepod One was one of the best Star Trek episodes I've ever seen.
Basically Reed and Trip are on a shuttlepod out in the middle of nowhere and it looks like the Enterprise has been destroyed. The pod is damaged and they have a very limited amount of air left. And they are light years away from anything.
It was Sci-Fi at it's best, a human drama between Trip's completely irrational hope (although deep down he knows the truth) and Reed's attempt to prepare for their pending deaths. They deal with things like whether or not to be comfortable and just accept death or be miserable and squeeze out a few more hours.
I'll take one of those episodes over 10 technobabble shows anyday.
Brian Ellenberger