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Post by Chicago Jake on May 7, 2005 23:08:27 GMT -6
I'm bad at keeping up on the technical literature of my chosen avocation. Which is to say, I tape Star Trek: Enterprise and watch it when I can! Since we're down to the last few episodes before entering the long interregnum that we must suffer through until the next Star Trek series is launched, I figured we might as well savor these remaining few episodes and discuss them here.
Tonight, I watched the second half of the two-part "Through a Mirror, Darkly", the Enterprise entry in the "Mirror Universe" series. I believe this was begun (in earnest) in Deep Space Nine, although there were a few Original Series episodes that could be construed to be part of the Mirror Universe.
Anyway, this one was great! The opening credits were altered to include historical scenes of warlike destruction instead of the usual soaring exploration scenes, and the theme song was replaced with a warlike anthem. Every character was of course morphed into an evil doppelganger: Archer was an ambitious conqueror, Phlox was a sadistic Mengela, Malcolm was a cruel bully, Trip was a pessimistic nihilist, and Hoshi was a sleazy opportunistic tramp. Only T-Pol was still an idealist. In the end, we have the seeds of the matriarchal totalitarian regime so familiar from DS-9.
What did you guys think?
Next up: the Peter Weller episode, which I haven't watched yet......Jake
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 7, 2005 23:25:03 GMT -6
I thought it was one of the best Enterprise episodes in the last couple of years. Matter of fact I thought both part 1 and part 2 were both excellent. ;D They gave a breath of fresh air to the series. ;D It would make an interesting series if they continued with that theme. I would watch it and enjoy it. I like the way they ch-ch-change the opening credits to show, almost made it seem Hitler like. That might be a bad example but that's all that came to mind.  I think the everything is a okay with the universe theme has grown old with followers of the show. They need to have a complete theme ch-ch-change or move ahead 150 years with the show. Going in reverse was a mistake IMHO.  I have not seen the Peter Weller episode yet. Will watch it Sunday evening when the rerun it here.  Hopefully it won't be to long until the next series.  I heard some rumor about a possible movie next year with a completely new cast, and no tie in with any of the other series. Joe. |
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Post by Chicago Jake on May 7, 2005 23:47:50 GMT -6
.....It would make an interesting series if they continued with that theme. I would watch it and enjoy it..... Yes, Larry and I have said that many times: the next series should be totally set in the Mirror Universe; lots of fun and not so bloody optimistic all the time! .....I like the way they ch-ch-change the opening credits to show, almost made it seem Hitler like..... That's exactly what I thought too. Damn, you're a smart one, Joe!......Jake |
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 7, 2005 23:53:29 GMT -6
Damn, you're a smart one, Joe!......Jake Thank you for the complement. But I think it's time for the Star Trek theme take a new turn. Being bad ass wouldn't hurt. More action, more special effects, less bullshit. Time to blow some shit up.  Jake we might just have to have a Star Trek geek conversation over a drink or two at Hedo this December. Joe. |
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Post by Chicago Jake on May 7, 2005 23:56:47 GMT -6
You're on. I'll buy......Jake
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Post by Hazelita on May 8, 2005 5:33:01 GMT -6
Looks like Denice (that is Mrs. jdwinelover, not to be confused with any other persons with a similar name) will have to explore other forms of entertainment while you two geeks are ... well, geeking it up.  |
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on May 8, 2005 6:10:58 GMT -6
The ending of this show was a topic of discussion on the board where I download the shows of this series. In the original Evil Kirk/Spock show with this theme, apparently they referred to the "Emporess". The final plot twist in the show was meant to dovetail into THAT reference and the DS-9 shows references.
What bothered me was that given a 100 year kick in the technology ass, Empire Earth didnt really take advantage of it, and by the time of the Original Star Trek and the DS-9 series, the alternate universe Earth is back on par with the 'good' Earth.
All in all, probably the best two-parter of this ST series, just a damn shame that it is getting so good now instead of a couple years ago.
They could have pulled off the backwards step in the technology level, the plain facts that killed the series... a) the writing sucked most of the time b) character development outside of the 3 main characters (Archer, T'Pol, Trip, and maybe Malcolm ) was minimal and c) UPN was a crappy network to air on (they would have been better off, that is made more $$, on an all cable network rather than the last gasp network of over the air broadcasting).
Oh well, at least its going out on a high point.
Gordon
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 8, 2005 9:15:10 GMT -6
Looks like Denice (that is Mrs. jdwinelover, not to be confused with any other persons with a similar name) will have to explore other forms of entertainment while you two geeks are ... well, geeking it up. I am sure you can find something for her to do while Jake and I so called geek it up. ;D Joe. |
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 8, 2005 9:17:51 GMT -6
the plain facts that killed the series... a) the writing sucked most of the time b) character development outside of the 3 main characters (Archer, T'Pol, Trip, and maybe Malcolm ) was minimal and c) UPN was a crappy network to air on (they would have been better off, that is made more $$, on an all cable network rather than the last gasp network of over the air broadcasting). Gordon They are guilty on all charges as far as I am concerned. If they would have syndicated the show like the did with TNG and DS-9 it might have stood a better chance. Joe. |
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 9, 2005 15:24:54 GMT -6
Watched the first part of the episode with Peter Weller Sunday night. Was not impresses with the story line. Same old boring crap. Hopefully part two is better.
Just my opinion don't let me stop anyone from watching it.
I won't see part 2 or thr final episode until Sunday night since we will be out of town from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. So don't give anything away if you post before I see it, please.
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Post by Denise Irish Eyes on May 9, 2005 20:13:28 GMT -6
Looks like Denice (that is Mrs. jdwinelover, not to be confused with any other persons with a similar name) will have to explore other forms of entertainment while you two geeks are ... well, geeking it up. That clarification was really not necessary, as anyone here knows that you will not engage in repartee with me. It DOES show that you really need to move on from our contretemps - Not everyone who is named Denise or Denice or Dinese or Dennis or who is Irish or who drinks Irish Whisky automatically refers to me to anyone, except you. Get over it! You can refer to Denice without any qualifications or reservations. Let it go!!! You'll feel better! |
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on May 10, 2005 5:21:13 GMT -6
Watched the first part of the episode with Peter Weller Sunday night. Was not impresses with the story line. Same old boring crap. Hopefully part two is better. Just my opinion don't let me stop anyone from watching it. I won't see part 2 or thr final episode until Sunday night since we will be out of town from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. So don't give anything away if you post before I see it, please. Same feelings about that show here. Problem is (and part of the problem with the entire stepping back story line for the WHOLE series), we know what the ending is supposed to be, and its pretty easy to determine what fits in and what doesnt. The premise of this story doesnt fit in, so you know that the antagonists will lose. Gordon |
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 15, 2005 20:11:13 GMT -6
Watch the last half of the Peter Weller Episode. Not impressed with the ending. Watched the final series episode WTF were they thinking of. ![]() www.websmileys.com/sm/mad/206.gif [/img] Won't say much more tell I know everyone has seen the final episodes. Joe. |
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on May 16, 2005 5:42:43 GMT -6
Watch the last half of the Peter Weller Episode. Not impressed with the ending. Watched the final series episode WTF were they thinking of. ![]() www.websmileys.com/sm/mad/206.gif [/img] Won't say much more tell I know everyone has seen the final episodes. Joe.[/quote] Downloading the show as I write. Based on your comments here I will be packing my rubber dart gun to shoot the TV with when I watch. |
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Post by danimal on May 16, 2005 15:08:03 GMT -6
Downloading the show as I write. Based on your comments here I will be packing my rubber dart gun to shoot the TV with when I watch. Can I assume that people have seen it by now? I saw it last Friday...I was looking forward to it...it wasn't good. They didn't have to do what they did to Trip...he was one of the characters on the show I liked. It was good in that they started to develop a lot of the characters, but NOW?  ? It's the LAST friggin' episode!!! Its supposed to be set six years in the future, but you couldn't tell....T'Pol wan't even TRYING to stay in character... Ah well, its gone...trouble is, there isn't anything to take its place....time to dig into my Dr. Who collection for some GOOD SF..... |
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 16, 2005 17:06:10 GMT -6
It just plained sucked. Kill off Trip was plain ass stupid.
No wounder the show was cancelled.
The final with the TNG cast sucked to. Made it look like the past and tried to tie it into one of the old TNG episodes, (can't remember the name) that happened 15 years ago. Just didn't work. SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They could have at least used something more current as an idea.
Joe.
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Post by Irish Stu on May 25, 2005 11:35:45 GMT -6
...time to dig into my Dr. Who collection for some GOOD SF..... Have you seen any of the new Doctor Who series with Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his assistant? It's awesome. They have managed to strike the right balance between remaining faithful to the spirit of the show whilst bringing it up to date. My little girls, 8 and 10, love it and it's great to be able to sit down with them on a Saturday evening and watch a show that thrills them as much now as it did me when I was a kid. Simon |
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Post by danimal on May 27, 2005 11:24:37 GMT -6
Have you seen any of the new Doctor Who series with Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his assistant? It's awesome. They have managed to strike the right balance between remaining faithful to the spirit of the show whilst bringing it up to date. My little girls, 8 and 10, love it and it's great to be able to sit down with them on a Saturday evening and watch a show that thrills them as much now as it did me when I was a kid. Simon Yeah, I did catch the first episode...It was good---sorry, I'm just not used to seeing Dr. Who filmed so well...I am so used to the aluminum foil-bubble-wrap-cardboard-paper mache stuff they had in the old episodes...This is definitely a new take on the Doctor...much more physical than brainy...I think that's the part that I'm going to have to get used to...also have to get used to a Doctor that looks like something out of "Trainspotting." I just hope the writing stays high caliber...that was the best part of the show...Dr Who introduced concepts like the transporter and warp drive long before Star Trek, and has never gotten any credit for it...it is to me the greatest SF TV show of all time, bar none. Well, okay...maybe not bar none...have you ever seen "Red Dwarf" --the British SF version of 'the Wizard of OZ'? Its true...and a robot (tim man) a human evolved from a cat (cowardly lion), a sentient hologram (scarecrow) and a human (Dorothy) plus a sentient Ship's computer named Holly (the Wizard) who is so dumb, it once mistook spatters of grit on the monitor for black holes and evacuated the ship!] GREAT stuff! But I think it'll grow on me....just as long as it doesn't follow in the footsteps of the American Dr. Who..ugh! They even did an American Pilot for Red Dwarf...PeeeYew!! American's just cannot do British shows.... ------------------------------------------ .......um...sorry guys...I kinda went 'geek' on y'all back there...I apologize...I try to keep it in check most of the time.... |
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Post by Chicago Jake on May 29, 2005 0:15:34 GMT -6
I finally watched the last two episodes of Enterprise tonight. Yes, I'm slow. I liked them both, but I'll only discuss the final one for now.
The finale was, I thought, very fitting. I liked that we FINALLY got to see what "Chef" looked like! Well, sort of. I love those kind of "you do AND you don't find out" types of endings.
I liked that they had the balls to kill of a major character (Trip). Yes, I liked Trip. As an engineer myself, he was one of my favorite characters. But be fair, the show is ending, so ALL the characters are essentially dead; you might as well go for some pathos and kill off a few beloved folks on-screen. And his death was, in a way, inevitable: Archer HAD to acquiesce to Shran's request, because Archer and Shran had this favor-balancing thing going on for years. And that led inevitably to the situation where something bad had to happen. Trip took the reins by the horn, based on his love of Archer. I liked it.
Some people have bitched about the TNG tie-in, as if this is an insult to Enterprise, like they were implying that it couldn't stand on its own. I thought the opposite: they framed the final Enterprise episode within a TNG story, but that only showed how much the later generation revered the earlier generation. I thought that was cool, and gave it a perspective that it could never have had about itself, showing how important these events were to the future of the Star Trek universe.
I loved the three captains voices at the end... Picard, Kirk, and Archer. It shows that the producers consider them equals and peers.
Finally, I liked the way they wrapped it up at the VERY last instant. Riker is watching his historical heroes on the holodeck, and finally learns what he needs to know to resolve his own personal dilemma (which we never find out what it is, since this ISN'T a TNG episode after all, which was cool), and he utters the immortal line: "End program"... which is EXACTLY what they were doing! Ending the program!!! Awesome writing!
I love Star Trek.........Jake
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on May 29, 2005 5:57:41 GMT -6
Jake, The TNG episode involed with the Enterprise finale was "The Pegasus". That was Rikers former ship which had been alluded to in previous TNG episodes and coupled with some dark secret and the deaths of much of the crew. THe secret was that the Pegasus had been equipped with an illegally developed Federation claoking device. Riker had been sworn to secrecy regarding the device by his former Captain, also a survivor. In the Pegasus episode, the approximate whereabouts of the ship have been determined by Romulans (I believe), and the TNG Enterprise was in a race to discover it before the Romulans.
Rikers issue that was being played out in the STE finale, was, does he tell Picard the truth about the Pegasus, which could be very crucial to the current situation with the Romulans or keep his vow of secreacy to his former Captain (now Admiral and on board heading up the search)
The STE finale scenes involving the asteroids, the Ten-Forward shot at the beginning and a few other shots were taken from the "The Pegasus" episode of TNG.
With Extreme Geekness
Gordon
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Post by Merlot Joe on May 29, 2005 8:10:42 GMT -6
Jake,
Here is another thing that I had a problem with the TNG tie-in.
Riker looked 15 years older.(one of the first things both Denice and I commented on) People recognize that kind of stuff right off the bat. What were they thinking of?There could have been other ways to tie it in besides going back to an old TNG Episode.
I didn't like it. They should have let the show go out on it's own without TNG help. IMHO it took away for Enterprises charters saying "You guys suck, so we need to bring the first team in while you guys do Cameo's.It's your fault that the show is getting shit canned".
Maybe the should have brought it in with TNG help instead of the opposite.
Joe.
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Post by Chicago Jake on May 29, 2005 10:10:59 GMT -6
.....The STE finale scenes involving the asteroids, the Ten-Forward shot at the beginning and a few other shots were taken from the "The Pegasus" episode of TNG..... I don't remember that episode, but I figured the scenes had to be lifted from actual TNG footage. Those sets must have been dismantled long ago.....Jake |
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Post by Chicago Jake on May 29, 2005 10:15:23 GMT -6
...... Its supposed to be set six years in the future, but you couldn't tell....T'Pol wan't even TRYING to stay in character.... I think that was the point, Dan. T'Pol was noticably more emotional and animated, as would be expected after ten years working with humans. I thought the flaw was that everybody else had NOT changed at all......Jake |
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Post by Irish Stu on Jun 12, 2005 15:50:29 GMT -6
Have you seen any of the new Doctor Who series with Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his assistant? It's awesome. They have managed to strike the right balance between remaining faithful to the spirit of the show whilst bringing it up to date. My little girls, 8 and 10, love it and it's great to be able to sit down with them on a Saturday evening and watch a show that thrills them as much now as it did me when I was a kid. Simon Yeah, I did catch the first episode...It was good---sorry, I'm just not used to seeing Dr. Who filmed so well...I am so used to the aluminum foil-bubble-wrap-cardboard-paper mache stuff they had in the old episodes...This is definitely a new take on the Doctor...much more physical than brainy...I think that's the part that I'm going to have to get used to...also have to get used to a Doctor that looks like something out of "Trainspotting." I just hope the writing stays high caliber...that was the best part of the show...Dr Who introduced concepts like the transporter and warp drive long before Star Trek, and has never gotten any credit for it...it is to me the greatest SF TV show of all time, bar none. The first episode was excellent, and as you say a lot more physical than the old Dr Who. The subsequent episodes slow down to a more relaxed pace as the characters of Rose and the Doctor are developed. The plots and the aliens introduced are classic Dr Who and remenisent of the days of Tom Baker, and the recent Dalek episode was better than I could possibly have hoped. You're right that Dr Who is the greatest SF show of all time, well at least until Sylvester McCoy took his turn at playing the Timelord and the BBC killed it off... until now. Red Dwarf!! Probably the best show the BBC made in the 90's. Great characters and some brilliant writing made it one of the funniest shows ever. Even now any mention of Duane Dibbly to most Brits will have us grinning from ear to ear and recalling Cat's transformation into a buck toothed, airtex vest wearing, thermos flask clutching nerd ;D I think one of the reasons why America can't do British shows is that our writing style and humor doesn't Americanize well, and shows like Dr Who and Red Dwarf were produced on relatively low budgets so were, by necessity, very character driven. It's asking a lot of actors to recreate such strong characters and make them their own Simon |
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I heard some rumor about a possible movie next year with a completely new cast, and no tie in with any of the other series.
? It's the LAST friggin' episode!!! Its supposed to be set six years in the future, but you couldn't tell....T'Pol wan't even TRYING to stay in character...