Watched Enterprise tonight. Actually, I had a real Trekkie day. I caught the 11 AM rerun of Deep Space Nine, the twelve noon rerun of The Next Generation, the 4 PM rerun of Voyager, and the 9 PM new episode of Enterprise.
I'm starting to have mixed feelings about Enterprise. Every Star Trek site I read, they're talking about how Enterprise has managed to turn things around these past few episodes and how it just effing ROCKS now. I, personally, don't see it. I'm starting to ask myself, "What am I missing? Am I the last angry man when it comes to Enterprise?"
Tonight's episode, E2, was again done better on Deep Space Nine. After searing all season, Archer and crew finally got a meeting with the Xindi council to begin negotiating peace. But, to make the rendezvous in time, they have to take a shortcut through this wormhole-like thing. Just as they're about to enter, a duplicate starship Enterprise shows up. The captain of this Enterprise says, "Don't go in the wormhole! Your impulse engines will react negatively to it and you'll be throw 117 years back in time! We're your decendents and we're here to stop you from making this horrible mistake!" And then, the two Enterprises work together to make sure Archer gets to the meeting on time.
But the one people are still raving about is last week's episode, The Forgotten. It was a strong character episode. When Archer asks Trip to write a letter informing a crewman's family of his death, this leads Trip down a dark emotional path that finally forces him to deal with his sister's death. (See, Trip's sister died in the initial Xindi attack in last year's season finale, and just now do they have Trip deal with it.) And, I will admit, it was a highlight of this season.
So, I don't know. Should I jump on the bandwagon and say, "Enterprise is finally getting good again!" or should I just stick to my principles which tell me, "We've seen most of this before."
And I have to acknowledge the Voyager rerun. It was the one that introduced us to the female caretaker. Remember the pilot of Voyager? They were brought to the Delta Quadrant by an alien called the "Caretaker," and, on his deathbed, the Caretaker said that he had a mate, but she left him to explore the galaxy. Janeway's final words in the pilot were, "There's another caretaker out there, and she has the power to send us home." But they only did ONE FRIGGEN EPISODE with the female caretaker, and it was the rerun I watched today.
That's another prime example of a great concept introduced in a Star Trek show that went nowhere. In the early days of Voyager, I was so hoping that the female caretaker would be Voyager's Q; pop up once a season, toy with the crew, get their hopes up of getting them home, then mysteriously vanish. And then, finally pop up in the final episode and get the crew home. But no. It was this brilliant concept they introduced in the pilot, and did nothing with.
The Rick Berman era of Star Trek has been filled with stuff like that. Brilliant concepts that went nowhere. I remember reading an interview with Voyager's writers about the character of Kes. Kes, according to the writers, was a great concept for an alien. "She only lives 9 years! She'll probably die at the end of the show!" But, it was a great concept that they had NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH. That's why they wrote Kes out of the show. They had no idea what to do with her. And that's also why they brought in Seven of Nine. They did, however, still have a dozen good ideas on how to use the Borg left over from The Next Generation.
Probably my biggest frustration right now does involve both Voyager and Enterprise. Captain Archer is developing in the way that I always hoped Captain Janeway would develop. Archer right now is flat-out obsessed with completing his mission of stopping the Xindi from destroying Earth. He's lied, cheated, stealed, and pretty much violated most of his principles to stop the Xindi. I wanted Janeway to turn out like that. I wanted to see Janeway get flat-out obsessed with her mission of getting Voyager home. I wanted to see her lie, cheat, steal, and pretty much violate most of her principles to get her crew home. But, Janeway always took the moral high road and never snapped the way Archer has been doing.
So, maybe that's enough to keep me stuck to Enterprise.
And let's not forget my soap opera...Pokemon! Ash won his first badge in the Hoenn League today. And May finally levelled with the group. She revealed that she's not really into pokemon battles and doesn't want to be a pokemon trainer. May revealed her big plans.
See, one of the new wrinkles in Ruby and Sapphire editions of the Pokemon games is pokemon contests. Instead of pokemon battles, you enter your pokemon into these pokemon contests where they show off their moves and their beauty. Instead of badges, you win ribbons.
So, that's May's big plan. She wants to be a "pokemon coordinator," which is a person who runs around entering all these pokemon contests. True, she didn't like pokemon in the beginning, but she's grown closer to her Torchick and she's warmed up to pokemon and she figures pokemon contests are more for her than pokemon battles. Our heroes were naturally supportive.
*sigh* It's almost unhealthy how much I love that show....
Next Issue...The Needs of the Few
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