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Television Media

Star Trek: Enterprise Premieres Tonight 713

Posted by CmdrTaco from the for-those-who-can-get-it dept.
Ankou writes: "'Enterprise' premieres tonight on UPN. Scott Backula, you may remember him in as the lead role of 'Quantum Leap', plays Jon Archer the captain of the NX-01 which is the Enterprise predating the NCC-1701 and Captain Kirk by almost 150 years. It even takes place before the whole United Federation of Planets came about! This series will prove to be a more rougher, blue-collared version of star travel than the picture portrayed by Kirk and Picard, i.e. crew wear baseball caps and their captain is a regular 'Joe' kind of guy (possibly why they chose Scott Backula as the lead role). Only time will tell if this series will last, be the judge for yourself and see it tonight, Sep 26, on UPN at 8/7 central." I discovered last weekend that I stopped getting UPN. Who knows when, since I've never needed it before. So I will be missing it, and crying in chair, while mumbling curses directed at my cable provider.
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Star Trek: Enterprise Premieres Tonight More

Star Trek: Enterprise Premieres Tonight

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  • Good series! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kronik Gamer ( 518652 )
    This should prove to be a good series, tailored towards fans of Babylon 5 and the like. First post!

    • Re:Good series! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dslbrian ( 318993 )
      Since this is before the original trek, the obvious question is whether the buttons and knobs on the control panel will be even bigger than before. I would expect that the ship's clock will be an even bigger odometer too.

    • Re:Good series! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tycage ( 96002 ) <tycage@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:07PM (#2353672) Homepage
      What have you heard that makes you think this is tailored towards fans of B5?

      Are you saying that there is a basic preplanned story line that they are going to follow? I'm hoping that's what you are saying. I've not heard anything like that about it, but I've not looked much either.

      B5 taught me to love the "story arc". Before that I'd just watched sci-fi shows as a series of things that happened. How I watch sci-fi hoping that each episode will be part of a larger whole. Nothing as detailed as B5 has come along that I know of, but it has had an influence. Farscape, for example, has a nice continuing story that, while not planned out to the extent that B5 was, does seem to have a general direction each season.

      Oddly enough, Buffy and Angel both have this same kind of "seasonal arc" which I've come to enjoy so much.

      --Ty

    • Re:Stealing my idea (Score:4, Interesting)

      by slickwillie ( 34689 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @03:42PM (#2354263)
      When STNG first came out, I thought it would be cool to have a series showing what it would be like to be a rookie at the lowest rank on the Enterprise. Stuff like replicators that didn't always work right: "I wanted a Gornburger, not this Klingon worm crap.". Or low resolution holodecks. Or "Do I smell burning ham - or did Kirk singe himself again? Hey, what's with this red uniform?"
  • Are the ceiling lights really bright or something? Why would they wear baseball hats?

    • Re:Baseball hats? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Curien ( 267780 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:26PM (#2353292)
      We wear baseball caps in the US Air Force. Usually, each squadron (sometimes group or directorate, if the Sqd is small) has their own cap, with their patch on it. I would suppose that Starfleet would be a derivative of the USAF, so it does make sense.

      We don't wear them indoors, though.

      • Re:Baseball hats? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Squorch ( 21295 )
        Um, Starfleet is obviously a derivative of the Navy... Think about it.

        - StarFLEET (Like a fleet of ships)
        - Ensign, LT (j.g.), LT, LT CDR, CDR, CAPT, ADM, etc.
        - "Engineering" (there are no "engineering" spaces on aircraft)
        - The process of naming ships individually is a Navy thing. Individual aircraft aren't named. (compare the USS Enterprise, NX-01 with the USS Enterprise, CV-65)

        And so on and so forth... just watch most any Trek show and you'll get the idea.

        • Re:Baseball hats? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by SirWhoopass ( 108232 )
          Actually, the B-2 bombers are named. Probablu because they're as expensive as a ship.
        • BUT... the Navy doesnt fly (through air OR space, it doesnt matter). perhaps starfleet is some kind of Air Navy? =)

        • Re:Baseball hats? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Exedore ( 223159 )

          - "Engineering" (there are no "engineering" spaces on aircraft)

          What, you've never heard of a flight engineer [dol.gov] before? Here's a partial description: "The flight engineer is a technical expert, who must be thoroughly familiar with the operation and function of various airplane components." Sounds like the same concept to me.

          Anyway, I agree that Starfleet is more derivative of a navy than an air force... just thought I'd clear up the "engineering" part.

        • Re:Baseball hats? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by i_m_sane ( 145871 )
          In most sci-fi worlds Spacecraft are always deemed as Navy. Look at the recent out in space movies/books:
          wing commander
          The reality disfunction
          starship troopers
          and many more that i cannot get my sleep deprived brain to think about.

          Personaly I always thought of it as old saliors sailed useing the stars, now they sail to them. So for me useing naval terms in space is cool...
          as long as there isnt a combined sea to space movie...that could get confusing.
        • Individual aircraft aren't named.
          Says who? The F-111s at at least one base in England [nstemp.org] in the mid-80s all had names. Some even had nose art, though none of it was as risque as what got painted onto fighters and bombers during WWII.

          I'll allow that not all of 'em get names (maybe the squids don't name any of theirs; as an Air Force brat, I wouldn't know), but to state that none are named is inaccurate.

          That said, the rest of your post is accurate enough.

      • I would suppose that Starfleet would be a derivative of the USAF, so it does make sense.

        Back in the early 90's (I think it was late '92 to early '93), the Air Force actually adopted the Navy's rank insignia system. They kept the rank names (LT, CPT, MAJ, etc.), but went to the system of thick and thin stripes that the Navy uses to display rank on jackets and shirts (excepting the Navy khakis, that is).

        I thought this was pretty cool, for one reason in particular -- this makes it easier for USAF to morph (likely in a joint capacity with the Navy, hence the rank titles themselves) into Starfleet, since the rank pips on ST:TNG forward (and, apparently, from the pictures I've seen, ST:Starfleet, too, anachronistically) are based on the Navy system. (For ST:TOS, they didn't use pips, they had continuous and broken wavy stripes on the end of their t-shirts, and I'm not sure they were even consistent with it, either...)

        Of course, they also changed the cut of the jackets, so they looked more like suit jackets than uniforms, dropped all other insignia (didn't even have a prominent "U.S." on 'em), and used silver for the stripes, so everyone thought they looked like airline pilots. Lasted less than a year, I think.
      • No, Starfleet is *not* derivative of the USAF or the US-anything. This was *after* WWIII, remember? There was no more USA after that.
    • While I agree that in a psudeo-naval situation such as the Enterprise the wearing of baseball caps would be out of place. I could easily see people wearing them around the ship that aren't currently working. How many people do you see in the mall, movies, school, church, middle of night that wear baseball caps.
    • At least it's not a beret.

  • UPN doesn't have it exclusively... (Score:4, Informative)

    by B00yah ( 213676 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:22PM (#2353257) Homepage
    at least not here in St. Louis...Our local "we run anything we want, but claim to be WB" network has Enterprise debuting Saturday...they also have rights to run other "UPN" shows, like WWF Smackdown...
  • Anyone notice that the commercials for this thing are less and less Star Trek and more and more Lexx meets Farscape.
    • Anyone notice that the commercials for this thing are less and less Star Trek and more and more Lexx meets Farscape.

      We can hope -- though I doubt it. Besides the blue alien in the cat suit I've seen in the commercials, I doubt that Paramount will do much to match the main attraction of the other shows. Sex is important (7of9) but if that's going to be it pr0n is a better use of my time.

      Farscape, Lexx, Earth: Final Conflict, and B5 have a progression from episode to episode. None of the Treks have, except for an attempt with DS9 that really could have been stronger.

      Here's a clue for Paramount; make us care about the major characters, kill one/some of them off, and then keep them dead .

      Is this necessary? Nope. Yet, of each of the shows above, only Lexx -- an un-ST like show if there ever was -- hasn't killed off a major character perminately. If they aren't even going to try to get beyond the ST formula, I'd hope that they wouldn't even try.

        • Farscape, Lexx, Earth: Final Conflict, and B5 have a progression from episode to episode. None of the Treks have, except for an attempt with DS9 that really could have been stronger.

        That does hurt you in re-runs though. Of the five shows mentioned, I can only be bothered "dipping in" to Farscape and Lexx. Even the mighty B5 loses it's punch when taken out of context.

        • only Lexx hasn't killed off a major character perminately

        Huh? Kai is dead, and Zev is a vegetable. Oh, wait, you mean, stop giving them lines... ;)

  • ...is spell his name correctly [imdb.com]......

    (stupid lameness filter!)

  • USAToday Review (Score:5, Informative)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:23PM (#2353271) Journal

    There is a pretty favorable review in USAToday [usatoday.com] that mentions among other things that this crew is a little weary of new items such as "Phase Pistols" and "Transporters"....It gets 3 stars out of 4.
    Can someone tell me why this did not get picked up by a more respectful network?

  • It premiered last night in Canada (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jonfromspace ( 179394 ) <jonwilkins@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:24PM (#2353277)
    Wow, we got something first!

    Seriously, though... I watched the 2 hour premier last night, and I will say this - It was pretty darn good. They have done an excellent job of "dumbing down" the technology, and the cast is pretty interesting. Combine that with the promis of some good-ol space violence, and you've got a winner.

    • You bastards! We won't get it for at least six months in the UK, so I'll just have to moan and bitch about how it's not as good as The Original Series without even having the opportunity to refuse to watch it!

      Really though, is it any better (or grimier) than Farscape or even Andromeda? From what I've seen so far, the cast looks anodyne, the plots predictable and your "promise" of good-ol space violence doesn't sound as though they had actual good-ol space violence.

      Basically, I want to see Archer kick a giant lizard in the love spuds, chuck one up a seven breasted alien bimbo, fight off a Gooboid battle fleet, and then vapourise a couple of small planets just for laughs - and all before breakfast. Any chance of that?

      • > We won't get it for at least six months in the UK, so I'll just have to moan and bitch about how

        Six months!! God, why is the EU suing Hollywood over DVD prices? (Not that I don't think that's a good thing(TM)) Why not sue over such scheduling nonsense as this?

        PS. I'm live in the US, but I'm getting pissed off with corporate America (mainly Hollywood and the big-media industries) and am ready for the US to be knocked off its collective pedestal for a change. At least for the corporate class to be knocked off its pedestal..

        Jim Witte

          • Six months!! God, why is the EU suing Hollywood over DVD prices? (Not that I don't think that's a good thing(TM)) Why not sue over such scheduling nonsense as this?

          Different network, commercial reality. The price drops over time, I expect, and the UK is a pretty cheapo country. But, I know, I know, don't get me started... ;)

          On the bright side, at least we get Lord of the Rings day 1, so I won't have to hide under the bed for a couple of months. ;)

      • You bastards! We won't get it for at least six months in the UK, so I'll just have to moan and bitch about how it's not as good as The Original Series without even having the opportunity to refuse to watch it!

        That's nothing. Here, the shows are dubbed and suck big time. We never get to hear the English original version. In countries like the Netherlands there are just subtitles, so you can still hear the original. Stupid tv stations...
          • Here, the shows are dubbed and suck big time

          Where's "here"?

          OT, but did you know that when Xena: Warrior Princess gets exported to countries with conservative attitudes (read: Islamic), they zoom right in on the faces during all the action sequences so you can't see what's going on. I dunno if it's wierder that they do that, or that they bother to show it at all.

    • No.... (Score:2, Funny)

      by squeegee-me ( 169687 )
      What you experienced was UPN feeding it down to the local affiliates via satellite, but with the solar flair with an X rating on Monday, it reflected off the northern lights causing it to shift to a frequency that was able to be received by your TV while decoding the digital signal as well. Either that or a reverse Tachion pulse caused the signal to travel back in time by 24 earth hours.

    • Since you've seen it already (Score:5, Funny)

      by WinDoze ( 52234 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:49PM (#2353925)
      Does it begin with Scott Bakula "leaping" into the body of a starship captain, only to be confronted by a screaming Klingon and sighing "Oh boy"?
    • Heh heh...and we got to see the the sexy vulcan chick and the engineer slather cold, wet, slippery de-contamination gel on each other 1st too...woo hoo! (judjing from T'Pol's umm..."thermometers"...it must've been cold...heh heh)...but I digress...

      Interestingly enough, it seems to be a tradition to show Star Trek shows a day in advance in Canada...

      When the original series was first played, the CBC received and broadcast their print of each episode one day prior to it's debut in the US. Subsequent series were syndicated and shown on various other independent networks and stations, sometimes a day in advance. I remember DS9 and Voyager in particular being shown here the day before it was on a US station.

  • Ziggy says... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JohnnyKnoxville ( 311956 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:26PM (#2353294)
    there is a 1 in 10 chance this show won't survive because the hordes of Trekkies have nothing new to watch. It won't even matter if it's good.
      • there is a 1 in 10 chance this show won't survive because the hordes of Trekkies have nothing new to watch. It won't even matter if it's good

      Uh oh Sam! It turns out that Ziggy got his calculations wrong. Trekkies are not enough to support a prime time show; they need Joe Sixpack as well, so it needs a decent hook. It can be well acted (TNG) well written (DS9), or it can have some nice T&A (Voyager post "Data in a D cup"), but it needs something more than just "The Original Series with zippers".

  • I only watch Voyager for an obvious reason, in fact for two very big obvious reasons...

  • Let's go more blue collar than that! (Score:3, Funny)

    by canning ( 228134 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:28PM (#2353324) Homepage
    This series will prove to be a more rougher, blue-collared version of star travel than the picture portrayed by Kirk and Picard, i.e. crew wear baseball caps and their captain is a regular 'Joe' kind of guy

    Then why didn't they get Tom Arnold?

  • Judging by the massive, bleeding failures that were voyager and sorta DS9, I'm not going to waste my time watching it.
    And I dunno about Taco, but UPN is on peasant vision here in portland, oregon - twice (ch 4,32)
    Perhaps you might investigate the possibility of buying bunny ears.
    Anybody know of any "trekkie" parties?
      • Judging by the massive, bleeding failures that were voyager and sorta DS9, I'm not going to waste my time watching it

      Heh heh. If you care enough to post that, you'll care enough to watch it just to see how bad it is, and to give you something to bitch about. I know I will. ;)

    • Okay, I'm not the most objective individual on this subject, and I really didn't like the direction Trek went after Gene died, and the odds are, if you didn't like Voyager or DS9, you won't like Enterprise, because it's the same creative team.

      However, before we premiered Next Generation, we were dismissed pretty much out of hand before anyone had seen a single episode...and we ended up running for 10 years, not sucking most of the time, IMHO.

      So I'll be watching, excited as hell that there's new Trek on TV, and hoping against hope that it doesn't suck.
  • As long as they avoid time travel as a plot device the show has a chance. Except for the original "Guardian of Forever" time travel has been used as a crutch when the writers get bored.
  • Starbase 21 & UPN are sponsering a premier of the new Trek series Enterprise at the Cenimark theater wednesday in Tulsa Ok... on a big screen and with no admision costs. starbase21 [starbase21ok.com]

  • Opening Credits Video here!!!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by DreamTheater ( 172259 ) <mark@markricPOLL ... om minus painter> on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:52PM (#2353570) Homepage
    The opening credits weigh in at 26MB, but it's worth it! Almost brought a tear to my eye... http://www.enterpriseuk.tv/e-media/series/index.as p Download it here [enterpriseuk.tv]

  • Heard on the bridge (Score:5, Funny)

    by return 42 ( 459012 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:56PM (#2353601)
    "Shields at 35 percent, Captain."

    "Captain, the enemy vessel is firing again! Shields buckling!"

    "Captain, the enemy commander is hailing us. He demands our immediate surrender."

    "Captain?"

    "Captain?!"

    "...Oh boy."

  • There are stills and a video clip (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mtgman ( 195502 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @01:57PM (#2353614)
    on startrek.com [startrek.com] It looks like this episode will be the first contact of the humans and the Klingon Empire. There is great tension in the video clip between Archer and the human commanders and the Vulcans who believe the humans aren't ready for interstellar diplomacy yet. They will obviously be proven right and the war with the Klingons will ensue as a result of Archer's actions.

    I'm looking forward to watching the episode which relates what Jean-Luc Picard later referred to as "A poorly handled first contact [which] led to decades of war with the Klingon Empire."(said in a episode where Riker and a couple of other under-cover agents investigating a planet that is a candidate for contact were discovered, don't remember the episode name, but it was a decent one)

    Steven
      • I'm looking forward to watching the episode which relates what Jean-Luc Picard later referred to as "A poorly handled first contact [which] led to decades of war with the Klingon Empire."(

      OK, but based on Voyager precedent, it'll be an honest misunderstanding that Archer will work tirelessly and earnestly to avoid and then repair.

      Compare with DS9, "Way of the Warrior" (paraphrasing slightly for effect...)

      • Gowron: Bwah ha ha, I have half the Klingon fleet with me! Surrender your station or face war!
      • Cisco: Come ahead if you think you're hard enough.
      • Gowron: ...? Er? Is this thing on? Did you hear what I said?
      • Cisco (chanting): You're going home, in a starship ambulance...

      Just once I'd have liked to have seen Voyager show that kind of panache.

  • I'm really willing to give this series a chance. I don't think Voyager was "horrible" like a lot of people do, though it certainly wasn't as great as Next Gen or even DS9. Does anybody beleive that if this show gets canceled, there will be a massive fan mail campain like there was when the orginal series was on the chopping board? I don't think there will be.

    The inheiriters to Gene's vision get two more chances to save Star Trek from destruction. The first is the "Enterprise" series, and the second is the new upcoming movie. Fortunatly for them, the next movie is an even-numbered one (odd-numbered trek movies have been cursed since the first one, while even numbered ones are great).

    One bad omen: Some of the promotional ads for "Enterprise" are using some pop crap for background music. Star Trek has a perfectly good composer, Jerry Goldsmith, who is as good as Star War's John Williams. They really ought to USE HIM! When "Enterprise" comes on, and I hear the opening credits being sung by N'Sync, I will shut off the TV, rip the tape out of the VCR, and burn it (the tape, not the VCR . . . on second thought, the VCR goes, too).

  • Hit Dish Network's [dishnetwork.com] web site, find your local dealer, haul ass over there, buy whatever receiver model amuses you (I'd pick between the HDTV and PVR versions), and get it hooked up and activated before 8pm. It's doable. (Sears sells them under the JVC name too, but an independent dealer is probably better.) Dish Network carries TWO UPN stations in their Superstations package (and THREE WBs!), so even if one of them is playing some lame sports game instead of Trek you're covered. I've been a Dish subscriber for almost 5 years. Highly recommended. You can probably get the Detroit network stations too, or better yet, the NY/LA East/West combo if you're not in a local broadcast area. You will need line-of-sight to the southwest (in Michigan), 30 degree angle IIRC.
  • Ankou writes: "'Enterprise' premieres tonight on UPN. Scott Backula, you may remember him in as the lead role of 'Quantum Leap',

    MAY remember him???

    Besides the spelling error, I SERIOUSLY doubt anyone who reads /. doesn't know who Scott Bakula played. *grin*

  • How to pick up local stations in a pinch (Score:3, Informative)

    by HongPong ( 226840 ) <hongpong&hongpong,com> on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:16PM (#2353732) Homepage
    I discovered last weekend that I stopped getting UPN. Who knows when, since I've never needed it before. So I will be missing it, and crying in chair, while mumbling curses directed at my cable provider.

    I have employed the following method to varying degrees of success. I suggest to CT and anyone else who needs broadcast stations to simply unfold a paper clip and jam it in the coaxial pin hole. On a regular analog television you'll be able to get strong local stations if you aren't within heavy walls. A lengthy bit of wire also works. I don't know if slashdot's very proprietor would be willing to lower himself to the paper clips, but hey...

    On 9/11 in the big library at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities I at least got sound as the news rolled in.

  • Trek V: GenX in space? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:29PM (#2353819)
    The Star Trek universe is the reflection of our
    universe, with science fiction props to
    illuminate understanding of ourselves. The 35 years
    of shows- more like 45 if you include the initial
    scripts and lifetime of the fifth series- span at
    least three cultural generations of Americans:
    The pre-boomers, the baby boomer yuppies, and now
    the GenX. The show has always focused on 30-something
    adults of the era it was filmed.

    The orignal trek series was like "Combat in Space"
    or the generation of the baby boomers. They even
    made fun of boomer culture like hippies and
    peacniks in some of the episodes. The pre-boomers
    were conventional, pro-establishment types.

    The second and third series, New Generation and
    Deep Space Nine, were "Yuppies in Space" or pure
    baby boomer. The main characters were educated,
    priviledged and aloof. The fourth series, Voyager, was
    transitional with late-boomer officers and a GenX junior crew.
    The independence of the latter was a source of conflict in the show.

    Andromeda is the first all-GenX sci-fi show.
    GenX'ers are more creative and independent and
    fully tech savy. I presume the fifth Trek series
    will be another GenX series.

  • Interpretive Dance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nhavar ( 115351 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:49PM (#2353927) Homepage
    I love it. See Star Trek in all it's forms is really a peice of art. Normal shows aren't because at the end of the show everyone talks and they've basically all see the same movie. The interpretation will be identical. True art gets interpreted differently by each individual viewer based on something inside the viewer that the piece of art speaks to. I've heard the interpretation of Star Trek described as "Self, EGO, ID (Freud)", "the three stooges", "racism", "team work (the three muskateers)", "hero worship", "morality play", "wwf".... I think it's hilarious how many different ways people can interpret and read things into the Star Trek franchise. Of course there are the people who can't just leave things at entertainment value and who must always search for "the deeper meaning". And of course sometimes there is a purposeful "deeper meaning".

  • Not much faith in the new series' success (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alumshubby ( 5517 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:53PM (#2353957)
    Not too long ago, a fellow Trekker and I discussed the prospect of a series based 150 years BTOS (before The Original Series), and we we both dicouraged when we saw our first view of the NX-01 -- clearly much more advanced-looking than even the post-refit NCC-1701 of Star Trek -- The Motion Picture.

    I vaguely recall seeing now and again in a series espisode or movie some passing references to earlier, pre-Constitution-class Enterprises, all the way back to the USN aircraft carrier and beyond. Some of those designs, while not terribly inspiring visually, still conveyed a sense of foraying into the unfamiliar.

    Coming from an earlier, less technologically sophisticated era, the ship should have looked less rather than more streamlined and fluid, even a bit clunky, conveying visually the idea of less advanced starship design in the earlier era. The production-design people have gotten this basic concept completely backwards. To make an analogy in terms of US naval warships, it's as if somebody wanted to make a movie about the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, but lacking any pre-World-War-II battleships because they'd all been sunk at Pearl Harbor or scrapped at the end of the war, the movie's producers used an ultramodern Aegis guided-missile cruiser as a stand-in and hoped nobody would notice or care.

    By violating the canon, the series' producers have made a conscious fundamental goof with the biggest visual element of the series, presumably just to have some cooler eye candy. Maybe they'll suck in a younger generation of viewers this way, but to my mind, they've forgotten to "dance with them that brung'em," as we used to put it in Texas. And that kind of egregiously flawed decision making on such a basic, early choice gives me little reason to expect the other aspects of the series to be any better than a rehash of other Star Trekism.

    • Craft design (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Animats ( 122034 )

      It's as if
      somebody wanted to make a movie about the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, but lacking any pre-World-War-II
      battleships ... , the movie's producers used an ultramodern Aegis guided-missile cruiser as a stand-in and hoped nobody would notice or care.


      Amusingly, the real Aegis missile cruiser design was originally criticized on the grounds that it didn't have enough weapons showing. Aegis ships use a vertical launch system, nothing of which is visible except a small hatch on the deck. No bristling missile launchers like USSR ships of that era. Members of Congress actually berated the Navy about this.


      The same thing happened with submarines in the 1950s. There was considerable resistance to building submarines that looked like bland cylinders. Nautilus, the first nuclear sub, still had a destroyerlike deck. All later US Navy subs, though, were dull, boring, but effective tubes.


      In battleships, the most attractive design ever was the streamlined Yamato of WWII. The designers claimed that the streamlining was to keep the shock waves from the 18-inch guns from damaging the ship. The Yamato, like most WWII battleships, didn't accomplish much militarily, and was sunk by aircraft in 1945.


      Once a technology is far enough along that
      a broad range of workable designs are possible,
      there's no obvious correlation between a finished-looking design and when the artifact was built.


      Look at rockets. The V-2 was the most nicely shaped rocket ever built. Since then, rockets are almost always simple tubes. But look at the Space Shuttle at launch, the wierdest collection of big shapes ever to fly.

  • Other reviews of the Premiere (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cy Guy ( 56083 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @02:54PM (#2353960) Homepage Journal
    WIRED: Star Trek: Bakula to the Future [wired.com]

    Scripps/Howard: Operation: Enterprise [augustachronicle.com]

    The San Francisco Examiner: Living in the now [examiner.com]

    New York Daily News: Bakula's Bold New 'Enterprise' [mostnewyork.com]

    Also, MAXIM [maxim.com]'s cover girl this month is Jolene Blalock, who plays Vulcan Sub Commander T'Pol. Presumably this is the same T'Pol that in ST:TOS Amok Time [amazon.com] oversees Spock's Pon Farr ceremony. Many of the Trek fan site are speculating on just how long it will be before her character experiences the Pon Farr with no Vulcan males around and only Capt. Archer present to address her needs.

    • Actually, the Vulcan who oversaw Spock's Pon Farr ceremony was T'Pau.

      And isn't it only Vulcan males who experience Pon Farr? In The Search For Spock, Saavik tells David that Pon Farr is the Vulcan male puberty, which implies that it does not happen in female Vulcans. Or perhaps female Vulcans go through a seperate, but similar type of thing?

  • Bit of a Review of Pilot (with partial spoilers) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quarterly Editor ( 524652 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @04:28PM (#2354555) Homepage
    Enterprise debuted here in Calgary on Tuesday night, and I was impressed with the pilot.

    For my background, I never enjoyed the original series, and found TNG much improved after Gene passed away and the Berman team took over.

    The intro song has, for the first time, WORDS! This was startling and disappointing, until I found myself liking the song. Anyone heard it before?

    We are provided with a glipse of post-First Contact politics. This includes a growing resentment of the Vulcans for with-holding technology and a passionate desire to be atonomous as a sepecies. This is especially evident after an accidental first contact with the Klingons. The Vulcans themselves appear to be a bit "off", in that they are not as 'emotionless' and they are obvious manipulators of the human leaders.

    New technology abounds in the form of phasers, transporters, medical supplies and other things I can't recall.

    The new ship is rushed into a mission early into the episode, and this quickly scuttles what up to that point was helpful character and relationship development.

    I enjoyed seeing the new set and costumes. The camera views the character much closer in than the previous series, likely b/c the feeling of smaller quarters is desired. I enjoyed seeing a necktie for once in a star trek series (that wasn't from the hologram or time-travelling mission).

    The plot was usual star trek, with 1st act that includes intro of Conflict #1, the external conflict; Conflict #2, the internal conflict; and quite often including last night Conflict #3, the Bigger Picture slash sure to be a recurring Conflict; followed by a partial resolution of conflicts which quickly becomes much much worse (the 1 step forward, 2 steps back plot); then acts of heroism, technological wonder, and unexplained scientific/human ingenuity makes everything better, or at least mostly better.

    Other noteworthy bits:

    The discovery of the ship's "sweet spot", which I hoped would lead to a committed explanation of artificial gravity

    Stopping on (planet began with R, I think this is where Troy and Riker spent a weekend, or something like that?). Sort of an underground brothel/strip club.

    The intro of the Suliban race, a shapeshifting race that appears to be the worker bees for a Temporal Cold War

    The Klingon homeworld, called Chronos... why? Did I miss something during TNG and DS9? How is it that the Klingons can live without electricity, but can still fly at high warp speed.

    Anyway, Enjoy the pilot,

    Dennis

  • No UPN? Here are your alternatives. (Score:5, Informative)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2001 @05:16PM (#2354897) Homepage Journal
    I discovered last weekend that I stopped getting UPN. Who knows when, since I've never needed it before. So I will be missing it, and crying in chair, while mumbling curses directed at my cable provider.
    UPN syndicates its shows in markets with no local affiliate. Usually broadcast on the weekend after the network showing. Go to ClickTV [clicktv.com] and search for "Bakula". Don't search for "Enterprise", you'll get a zillion rerun hits.

    If you're still blacked out (as in Holland, MI -- sorry Rob), I'd suggest contacting all the local stations that carry a lot of syndicated content. That sort of agitation is rather appropriate -- the first Star Trek series lasted an extra season because of it.

    Not that I really care about "Enterprise". I seem to be the only slashdotter who realizes that this will be a dud. Same "creative" team as Voyager, even more potential for logic-free stories. (The bad guys are time travellers, for crissakes! Every time the writers get stuck, they'll declare a pardox.) But it is essential that all America should witness Buffy's return from the dead!

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