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Could TNG Stunt Casting Save 'Enterprise'? 785

Posted by timothy from the vote-off-the-space-island dept.
Tycoon Guy writes "It seems Star Trek: Enterprise isn't about to go down without a fight. TrekToday is reporting that Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis will guest-star on the season finale of Star Trek: Enterprise, to reprise their Next Generation roles of William T. Riker and Deanna Troi. Hello stunt casting! The news has been confirmed on Sirtis' official fan site."
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Could TNG Stunt Casting Save 'Enterprise'? More

Could TNG Stunt Casting Save 'Enterprise'?

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  • How about they just do it the old fashioned way and revive the series by reversing polarity and firing anion thrusters to create a temporary wormhole that can act as a gateway to the ratings.

    No... That didn't work at all for Voyager...

  • Oh Dear God (Score:2, Insightful)

    by datastalker ( 775227 )
    Please, no. Just let it get cancelled and go the way of the dodo like it should!

  • nah.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:26PM (#11476157)
    the show will still suck.
    unless they stop travelling through time. and get the regular actors to learn how to act....

    • Re:nah.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by miu ( 626917 )
      unless they stop travelling through time

      I'd like to see a time travel moratorium in scifi. Unless the writer can improve on the one of the existing time travel stories or invent a new one then maybe they should just stay away.

      There is a reason all the good time travel stories are short stories: time travel is destructive to structure, a short story can sustain that weakness and even make it part of the mood, a novel or long story cannot.

      • Re:nah.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by waynetv ( 112053 )
        Time travel was used to good effect in Babylon 5. They even had part of the time travel arc in the 1st season and revisited it, in the other timeframe, in the 3rd(?) season.

        That single instance of time travel was an essential element to the entire mythology of Babylon 5. StarTrek, of course, uses it as a cheap plot gimic.

  • Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TempusMagus ( 723668 ) * on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:26PM (#11476160) Homepage Journal
    Does anyone really care? I'm sorry but with Battlestar Galactica reinventing the science fiction genre in the same fashion the Sopranos did to the gangster genre - it's hard to watch anything Trek related. It's the visual equivalent of listening to Cyndi Lauper records from the '80s - you can't believe people ever liked the stuff when you look at it with some hindsight.

    Plus, IMHO, most science fiction is really science-themed fantasy. I enjoy the Stargate shows most times (with all the light beings and whatnots) but I don't really count it is SciFiction. Trek was true SCIFI but after years and years of prostituting its original ideas for meagre ratings - there is nothing but a shell. I mean how many Borg related episodes did they drag out for sweeps? It's like gay marriage and abortion to republicans - whenever they wanted to get attention they would drag out the Borg! I'm sure the last Enterprise episode will feature a half-vulcan/half-borg Picard with large breasts.

    • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dswensen ( 252552 ) * on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:34PM (#11476235) Homepage
      The new Galactica is really good, despite my initial misgivings about it -- but it bears no resemblance to Trek at all. Trek is, and has been, about the future, humanity's place in it, and how we will deal with all the issues that make up being human -- with some rubber monsters thrown in. It's "Wagon Train to the Stars" with some Utopian elements added in.

      Galactica is essentially a bleak war movie in space. There is none of the technophilia that Trek so prominently features, and the emphasis is on finding and killing an implacable, deadly enemy. It's dark, it's gritty, and very entertaining, but comparing it with Trek is compeltely apples and oranges to me. Nothing against Galactica, but I like a little optimism in my visions of the future sometimes.

      I could watch a few more seasons of Galactica, but it seems like it's playing most of its cards in the first season. If Galactica is the "new face" of sci-fi, I think it will get pretty boring pretty quickly.

      • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by JudgeFurious ( 455868 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:39PM (#11476723)
        I know it's splitting hairs and all but the emphasis on Galactica isn't on finding and killing an implacable, deadly enemy. It's about running like hell from them.

        I do agree with you though that multiple seasons of no hope would get pretty tough to watch. At this point it's seemingly correct as the story goes IMO. It "fits". I'm just hoping that when the time comes to move the story along the producers realize it and do so. For now though I'm digging it.

        • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Funny)

          by Leo McGarry ( 843676 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:17PM (#11476998)
          Somewhere I read that the premise behind "Star Trek" was, "Let's see what's out there," while the premise behind the new "Galactica" is, "Run like hell, they're after us."

          The premise of the old "Galactica," of course, was, "Run like hell, they're --ooh, a casino planet!" First recorded instance of a TV show with ADD.
      • "Trek is, and has been, about the future"

        No, trek is about the past. Specifically, the technocratic science-utopia ideals of the 1950s, the emerging civil rights movement of the 1960s, the 1980s liberal ideal of an greed-free moneyless society so utterly purged of "isms" that they've become inconcievable.

        SF has always been about the present day as seen through a distorting lens. Trek was no exception.

        And then, it painted itself into a corner. Typical left-utopia problem: nowhere to go, nothing to do, no

    • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DarkEdgeX ( 212110 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:00PM (#11476419) Journal
      Does anyone really care? I'm sorry but with Battlestar Galactica reinventing the science fiction genre in the same fashion the Sopranos did to the gangster genre - it's hard to watch anything Trek related. It's the visual equivalent of listening to Cyndi Lauper records from the '80s - you can't believe people ever liked the stuff when you look at it with some hindsight.

      First, let me say, I thoroughly enjoy Battlestar Galactica. But I take offense to the idea that just because BSG discovered that handheld style camera movements makes for a more dramatic show makes it worthy of being presented as "reinventing" science fiction. Take away the handheld camera style and you're still left with your traditional sci-fi drama. BSG is just lucky in that it doesn't have to respect canon and can kill off or change characters however it sees fit.

      So give Trek a break, it's doing a lot better this season story-wise with Manny Coto, and if there is a season 5 I'm sure we can expect a whole lot from him.

      • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by forkazoo ( 138186 ) <wrosecrans AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:09PM (#11476491) Homepage
        I'm no BSG fanboy, but it has a hell of a lot more going for it than shaky camera moves. BSG feels much grittier partly because of the cinematography, but also because the writers don't suck, the setting and mood are completely different, and the acting and backstory are quite intense. I wouldn't say that they reinvented the genre, but it is frankly some of the best space opera I've seen. period. I don't say that a lot, and I used to be a major TNG fanboy.

        The writing in BSG refuses to let the technology get in the way. On Voyager, it was always a damned alient of the week using the particle of the week. On BSG, it's a story about the people, how they interact, how they respond to extraordinary stresses, etc. Star Trek always claimed to be that, but then Geordy saved the day with a fancy modification to the main deflector dish.

        BSG explores ideas of how we define God, and who is eligible for religeon, and stuff that Star Trek wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

        That said... I don't watch much TV anymore, so there may be other shows I've been missing that are very impressive. I've been reading a lot lately. much better than any space opera TV show. :)

        • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by realdpk ( 116490 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:49PM (#11476805) Homepage Journal
          BSG doesn't shove as much bullshit ("Let's transport the deflector dish into holodeck 3 and reverse its tachyon pulse to the 4th power!") into its lines as TNG, which I find refreshing.

          • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Leo McGarry ( 843676 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:58PM (#11477222)
            Funny story. The series pilot (a 3-hour movie that was run in December 2003 as a miniseries, and later edited down and run on NBC as a movie-of-the-week) is out on DVD now, and it comes with a commentary track. The writer, Ron Moore, is on the track, and he talks about the one part of the pilot that he really, really regrets.

            I don't know if you've seen it, but at one point Capt. Lee "Apollo" Adama uses a set of electric pulse generators to send out a big burst of radiation in order to cover the refugees' escape from a cylon attack. In the commentary, Moore says that he hated putting that kind of technobabble bullshit into his script, but he'd written himself into a corner and that the jargon was the only practical way out of it.

            But he did poke some fun at himself along the way. After Apollo gave his wordy, jargony, meaningless speech to one of the other characters, her slightly glazed-over reply was, "The lesson here is not to ask follow-up questions."

            I thought it was a good line at the time. Now that I know the story behind it, I think it's brilliant.
        • BSG explores ideas of how we define God, and who is eligible for religeon, and stuff that Star Trek wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

          That's just it. Star Trek used to do that! At least in pre-Berman TNG.

          • Re:Stick a fork in it please... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Leo McGarry ( 843676 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @12:12AM (#11477307)
            Well, sort of. "Star Trek" was pretty superficial for the most part. There were exceptions, yes, but in general they dealt with Big Issues in a very shallow way. Take the episode where they tried to decide whether Data had civil rights. It was a very one-sided hour of TV. Well written, nicely acted, and extremely entertaining, but it was very one-sided. The question was, "Does Data have rights?" and the answer was, "Yes," and then they spent the final three acts proving it. "Galactica," by contrast, tends to keep the Big Issues fuzzy. There are no answers, no resolutions.

            Funny you should mention "The Next Generation," though. In my opinion, some of the best episodes of that series are "Darmok," "The Inner Light," "The Perfect Mate" and my personal favorite of all, "Family." Other episodes like "The Best of Both Worlds" and "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "All Good Things" were very good, but in my opinion they're not really on the same level as the four I named.

            What those four episodes I named all have in common is that they've got nothing to do with spaceships or phasers or Romulans. They're about characters. "Darmok" is the story of two characters who don't speak the same language. "The Inner Light" is about a man who loses his memory. "The Perfect Mate" is about impossible love, and "Family" is about how a man recovers from an unimaginably traumatic experience. Any one of those would have made a great drama without any science-fiction aspect to it at all.

            I think that's the kind of writing that we see on "Galactica" every week. It's complex and nuanced and, in a way, hair-tearingly frustrating, because there are no answers. Take last week's (US-aired) episode for instance. Is Tom Zarek a terrorist or a prisoner of conscience? We don't know, because the writers don't tell us. We're not allowed to know, because which one he is isn't important. What's important is how people react to the situation he creates. Or last week's "33." Why 33 minutes? We never find out, not ever, not even by the end of the first season. I can see where some people would be annoyed by that kind of laser-beam focus on what's important to the story. Personally, I really like it.
        • You talk about how the "writers don't suck," but you seem to neglect the history Trek has. BSG was able to trash the canon developed by the original series because a) said existing canon was awful (BSG 1980 anyone?) and b) BSG had far fewer fans than Trek. Writers who are forced to respect the previous history of the show are really limited. As for the "setting and mood", again, a direct result of being able to totally overhaul the series-- if someone could overhaul (or "reinvent") Trek I think you'd have j

    • Stargate: progressive discovery (Score:5, Insightful)

      by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:29PM (#11477057)
      While it has its flaws, I would say Stargate is one of the hardest science fiction shows in history.

      The reason why is because it's progressive. If you exclude the introductory and wrap-up episodes common in more recent series, you could swap the first and last episode of ST:TNG. ST:TOS. Quantum Leap (other than Sam regaining his memory). Seven Days. And on and on and on. It's all fantasy - the actors have a magic box or two and roam the universe or timeline without really changing anything.

      Stargate is one of the few shows that shows progression. The Tori'i were clueless in the first few episodes (after Teal'c joined them). But their hard work introduced them to the Toik'ra, gave them naquida generators, introduced us to the Asgard, bootstrapped the development of our own fighters, allowed us to run the Prometheus, got us advanced engines from a grateful Asgard, and on and on and on.

      Have they had missteps? Sure. Are they on the verge of having so many goodies that they run the risk of having the rabid viewer ask "why didn't they use the gozmotron from the 3rd season?" In fact they've turned that to their advantage - after a few seasons those goodies are reintroduced in a natural manner. The "safe" bullets are used for training. The virtual reality pods are used for training and planning.

      Sometimes the science is hokey, but you have a very real sense that they're trying to figure things out and often get it wrong. But they keep at it until they succeed.
      • If you exclude the introductory and wrap-up episodes common in more recent series, you could swap the first and last episode of ST:TNG.

        Well, that's true in one sense, but in another sense it's not true at all. The technobabble and the bumpy-headed aliens and the blinky lights all stayed constant during the run of that show, yes, but the characters evolved visibly. Picard grew from being a gruff, distant captain to being a father-figure for the crew and emotional touchstone for the show. Geordi went from b
    • ...with Battlestar Galactica reinventing the science fiction genre in the same fashion the Sopranos did to the gangster genre...
      Now that would save Enterprise: a Galactica/Sopranos crossover!
    • ... I'm sure the last Enterprise episode will feature a half-vulcan/half-borg Picard with large breasts.

      Dude, you most surely will rot in a special circle of hell, for having laid that image in my mind.

      "I am Locutus of Borg. Do you have any decontaminant gel?"

  • Oh, no more... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dswensen ( 252552 ) * on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:26PM (#11476162) Homepage
    Much as I wouldn't mind seeing Frakes and Sirtis in action again, it would only be because for nostalgia's sake. When your show becomes characterized by this kind of hysterical desperation, it's a pretty good sign you should just let it die.

    TNG and DS9 were at the top of their repective games in their later seasons -- they just got better and better, IMHO. Neither shows needed this kind of nonsense to shore them up for another handful of weary episodes. If Enterprise doesn't have enough momentum to propel it after all this time, then it's just plain out of gas, and stunt casting is not going to save it.

    Especially when I, as a not-so-fanatical Star Trek watcher, can probably tell you the plot of this episode right now. Picard and Troi, on board the Titan on a diplomatic mission to Head-Ridge VII, run into a subspace anomaly and are transported back in time, and must deal with the cultural and technological gaps while...zzz...

    I'd advise letting Enterprise, and Trek, rest in peace for another few years while it still has some dignity, but unfortunately that moment is already long past (for me, the last of TNG's dignity departed with the introduction of Retarded Data in Nemesis). I guess now the best we can hope for is that these sorts of decisions don't bury the franchise altogether.
    • Well DS9 did it too. They brought in Worf as a regular character in order to make it more attractive the TNG fans.

      • Re:Oh, no more... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:58PM (#11476402) Homepage
        Well DS9 did it too. They brought in Worf as a regular character in order to make it more attractive the TNG fans

        Two key differences. First, he was, as you note, a regular character. It wasn't just a guest appearance.

        Second, it made sense in terms of the story. One of the things DS9 did much better than both earlier and later ST series is flesh out other races (yes, other ST series had important aliens, but they were isolated...only DS9 made it so the whole alien race was important--compare, for example, the Ferengi on DS9 and TNG). The Klingons were an important part of the ongoing story. Even if there had been no Worf from TNG, it would have made sense for them to invent the character for DS9.

        • Re:Oh, no more... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by thogard ( 43403 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:35PM (#11476694) Homepage
          Maybe thats because there wasn't much else to do? Its hard to come up with 30 stories a year that aren't repeats or copies of someone else's stories.

          The origial Trek did push difficult issues such as birth control, eugenics and racial issues. Kirk kissing Uhura was a major risk for TV in the late 1960's

        • Re:Oh, no more... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by node 3 ( 115640 )
          Two key differences.

          Which aren't "key" differences.

          First, he was, as you note, a regular character. It wasn't just a guest appearance.

          That's a big difference, but I don't see how it's key. It also wouldn't make a lot of sense (putting a future character into the show would cause too many problems. Dr. Soong has some potential though...).

          Second, it made sense in terms of the story.

          I don't think it did. With Miles and Keiko it made more sense, but with Worf, in the series finale of ST:TNG, Worf and

        • Re:Oh, no more... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by edunbar93 ( 141167 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @05:44AM (#11478540)
          One of the things DS9 did much better than both earlier and later ST series is flesh out other races

          No, it fleshed out the Ferengi really. One of my biggest peeves with the Star Trek franchise is how one dimensional all the races are. It basicallly took single aspects of the human race and made other races utterly single-minded in that aspect.

          The Klingons see glorious death in battle as their highest ideal, something they've been breeding for for thousands of years. Don't ask me how the hell they managed to become a spacefaring race, because it seems that wimpy occupations like scientists, bakers, and librarians are simply not allowed. These occupations are absolutely necessary to any civilization.

          The Ferengi, I can dig the greed thing. That *almost* makes sense. But they probably exterminate their unemployed. Or worse, sell them at a markup.

          The Vulcans have their logic, to the exclusion of all else. Too bad creative thinking is required for science...

          The borg mindlessly stumble their way through the universe like a bunch of zombies. I think their highest ideal is to be scary.

          The dominion... they seek... dominion... over everthing... Mmmkay.

          But the humans? What do the humans believe in? Well, nothing it seems. And as the franchise got older, it seemed to get worse and worse that way. In TNG, everyone was perfect and boring. Or flat and featureless, take your pick. We apparently still had an emotion or two, but mostly it seems that we'd completely stopped bothering with art and music, since the most modern thing anyone listened to was jazz, the most modern drama anyone was interested in was Shakespeare, and the only pictures to be seen anywhere were drawn by an android. Noone's religious, noone drinks, and noone is unemployed. It's like we're all turning into Vulcans or something.

  • I remember (Score:3, Informative)

    by Raul654 ( 453029 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:27PM (#11476167) Homepage
    When TNG started, people were afraid it wouldn't suceed without having to bring back members of the original crew. And while it did eventually bring most of them back in some form or another (McCoy in the pilot, Spock in Season 4, Scotty in season 6, and Kirk in Generations), it spread it out so much that it was fairly innocuous. On the other hand, this is a blatant attempt to appeal to TNG's popularity to save what has been an otherwise horrible series.

    • Re:I remember (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "On the other hand, this is a blatant attempt to appeal to TNG's popularity to save what has been an otherwise horrible series."

      Or it's a blatant attempt to show the effects the temporal cold war will have on the future like they've done already with the Enterprise-J.

      I realize it's popular opinion here to hate Enterprise, but geez, give them a little credit.

    • Re:I remember (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
      You are forgetting that the only regular characters played by people who could REALLY act and were given a chance to act on a regular basis are Picard and Data. I have to admit that Michael Dorn delivered a consistently solid performance and that all of the main characters have their moments, which is why I'll watch any but the worst episodes of TNG pretty much any time, but frankly I don't think it is on average a great show although I did almost always enjoy it.

      I am not a fanboy about the old star trek,

  • Fade Away... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mesach ( 191869 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:27PM (#11476170)
    Can't they just let it fade away instead of making everyone HATE it.

  • Gee... that'll save 'em (Score:5, Insightful)

    by popo ( 107611 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:27PM (#11476172) Homepage

    So... their strategy to save a show which suffers from incredibly poor casting, is to bring two of the previous generation's casting gaffes.

    I can't think of two more expendible characters from TNG (After wesley crusher of course) than Riker and Troi.
  • I doubt it. The time-traveling alien Nazis was the worst part of the season. Everything else was at least watchable.

    I thought season 4 was an improvement, and at least they didn't screw up the storyline with Brent Spiner.

    Oh, and as for it being confirmed on Sirtis' official site...as far as I can tell any reference to such a confirmation was removed.

  • Am I the Only One (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BlakeLupa ( 767754 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:30PM (#11476198)
    Wow, am I the only one who likes Enterprise, and hates Battle Star in any incarnation? One hot andriod is no enough for me to get interested in Battle Star!

    • Re:Am I the Only One (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:33PM (#11476230) Homepage Journal
      No, I am right there with you personally. Enterprise was far more enjoyable to me, on average, than TNG. (At least after they raised Marina's neckline. Don't you think humans will be able to handle cleavage in the 23rd or 24th or whatver century?)

    • Re:Am I the Only One (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kooshvt ( 86122 )
      I enjoy Enterprise. I do agree that they need to lay off of the time travel though. I have not seen the new Battlestar Galactica, it's hasn't made its way into my schedule yet. It's funny, I didn't start watching Enterprise until I downloaded a few shows from suprnova a few years ago. I probably would not have gotten hooked on it if I hadn't. I would like to download the episodes of Battlestar that I have missed and determine if it is worth watching. Oh well I guess it is something I just will have to

  • EMPATHY ALERT (Score:4, Interesting)

    by karmaflux ( 148909 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:32PM (#11476215)
    I sense a deep feeling of forboding...

  • The answer: (Score:3, Funny)

    by mboverload ( 657893 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:34PM (#11476233) Journal
    BSD..er...Enterprise is dead.

  • OK, give the show a chance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by runenfool ( 503 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:43PM (#11476307)
    Despite the fact that this is probably the last season being abandoned on a Friday night ... I think Enterprise is finally hitting its groove. I know everyone has their opinion, but while it isn't comparable to the very best of DS9 or even TNG, its certainly miles ahead of Voyager in terms of quality. I don't think its the casting that's necessarily weak - but probably more the characters. Still, TNG didn't have characters as good as TOS ... and DS9 was weaker than TNG until they brought Worf aboard. It took Avery Brooks until probably Season 3 or 4 to really start getting into Sisko ... he wasn't like Patrick Stewart who had a great screen presence almost from the beginning (sorry, it took me a while to get used to the bald captain :) ). Voyager never .. NEVER had good characters .. at least the new series has Hoshi :) And really there isn't anyone groan inducing like Neelix (which is strange - because the doctor kind of reminds me of him - just not annoying) or Nog from DS9 or Wesley (sorry Wil .. still think *you're* cool) from TNG.

    Seriously ... go back and watch enterprise lately .. I think they are doing a great job. Not as good as it could be, and certainly not as "cool" (now the in thing is to be anti Star Trek) as Battlestar (now that we decided not to kill anyone for a female Starbuck and human cylons) or Stargate (but not Atlantis, because thats NOT cool in the eyes of the SF culture police) ... but they are making it entertaining at least ...

    • OK, give the show a chance

      I don't know about you but I gave it 76 chances. After that I decided I wasn't going to bother with the fourth season. Time travel is the last refuge of the uncreative. I can stand a few episodes of it but it's really been abused in this series.

      at least the new series has Hoshi

      What's that supposed to mean? Did they finally start doing some character development in the fourth season? That's my biggest problem with Enterprise; They haven't done anything to help me get

    • No. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by istewart ( 463887 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:48PM (#11476797)
      I've given the show multiple chances so far.

      I have to admit that I was against the idea of a prequel to start with. It just seemed like the Berman/Braga team saw that George Lucas made a financial (if not artistic) success of the idea and therefore decided it was worth copying. I watched the pilot anyway, but gave up about halfway through. Now, Trek pilots are classically weak, but this one was just boring. Like Voyager on Sominex.

      So I waited a while. I still didn't like the whole prequel idea, didn't like the fact that the tech seemed to be more advanced than the first TOS pilot, and wasn't that impressed by the cheesy technological substitutions for stuff from chronologically subsequent eras of Trek like "polarized hull plating" and "protein resequencers." (Now of course the obvious reason is that "The Cage" was 1966 and "Broken Bow" was 2001, but how do they go from "phase pistols" to "laser pistols" back to "phasers?" Why does the Romulan ship look like it belongs in the 24th century with the similarly-styled D'Deridex rather than the 22nd? But I digress.)

      So when an anticipated "event" episode that all the reviewers said was good came up, I tuned in. I did this with the Borg episode. How cute, they managed to work one of the the most recognizable Trek villains in and made all sorts of in-jokey references while leaving the principal cast in the dark as to what they had just encountered! I did this again with the first Xindi episode, when half of Florida got taken out. The terrorist metaphor and somber mood just seemed forced to me, like they were groping for something to write into the script.

      I did this again for the last Xindi episode. That was pretty neat, even though Archer's action-hero stint left me cold. The Death Star ripoff was kinda cool, and seeing the CGI P-51s was neat even though I knew the twist was coming, but the alien Nazi thing was just blah. I didn't really care how that turned out, fearing similar convolution to the concealment of the Borg and the intro of the Xindi. Since then I've tuned in once more, to the Augment episodes with Brent Spiner. He was kinda cool (my mom even walked into the room and exclaimed, "It's Data!") but the actors playing the Augments (who had to carry much of the story) kinda sucked. It was partly what they had to work with. The most memorable thing, to me, was that it was the first time I had heard the word "bitch" in what was ostensibly a Star Trek episode. Ooh, edgy.

      That being said, I have to respect Manny Coto for tying in old plot elements. It looks like the next hyped "event" episode will be the Mirror Universe one, and I may tune in for the "ooh-ahh" of a CGI battle damaged Constitution-class. But the TrekToday preview I saw made a point of noting how much more aggressive and backstabbing the mirror Archer would be. Big whoop. Another problem I've had with the show is that Scott Bakula seems to have lost his acting talent since "Quantum Leap." All the Archer performances I've seen come off as wooden, and I have no reason to believe this won't be the same.

      Another point in Enterprise's favor is the awesome special effects that trump just about anything else in Trek, but SFX do not a show make. Without characters to fly all them nifty ships in a convincing manner, it ain't worth much. A lot of people have cited the addition of Worf to DS9 as something similar to the Enterprise gimmick castings, but think about what they did with Worf on DS9. He got married, got captured and thrown in a POW camp, met Martok and joined his House, watched his wife die, and at the end of it all wound up a diplomat instead of a warrior. Tell me, is Arik Soong gonna be back, ever? Are Riker and Troi going to be stranded in the 22nd century and join the NX-01 crew, and thus explore new situations we haven't seen their characters in before? Hell, is any of this gonna happen with the already-established Enterprise characters as a result of these castings? Somehow, I doubt it.

      This comment is already way too long, but I'm also gonna h

      • Re:No. (Score:3, Funny)

        by croddy ( 659025 )
        yeah? well... double dumbass on you!

    • Re:OK, give the show a chance (Score:5, Interesting)

      by System.out.println() ( 755533 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:53PM (#11476829) Journal
      I agree.

      I think most of the "let it die!" crowd has either never seen the third season - IMHO one of the best seasons of any scifi show, ever, including any single season of Farscape - or is so obsessed with continuity that any deviation from the previously established universe is heresy.

      Well, how crappy, bland, and predictable do you think the show would be if everything went exactly as foretold? It'd be a challenge to get a single decent season out of that setup. And I do agree that neither of the first two seasons, where they tried this formula, were particularly good.

      Rather than looking at the downside of the lack of continuity, consider the upside - there's now a possibilty for an "alternate" future, where the temporal war has changed things. Will this wind up being for the better or worse? Who knows!

      DON'T TAKE THE TREK UNIVERSE TOO SERIOUSLY. When you get your panties in a wad anytime creative liberties are taken, you'll lead a very unpleasant life in your parents' basement.

      OK, rant over. Flame on.
      • I think most of the "let it die!" crowd has either never seen the third season - IMHO one of the best seasons of any scifi show, ever, including any single season of Farscape - or is so obsessed with continuity that any deviation from the previously established universe is heresy.

        Or, they just have different tastes, and find that the third season was pedestrian, unimaginative, derivative and uncreative.

        Well, how crappy, bland, and predictable do you think the show would be if everything went exactly as
      • "I think most of the "let it die!" crowd has either never seen the third season"

        I gritted my teeth through all of them, but Season 4 jumped the shark with 'Philadephia Experiment II'. In fact, if you consider that some of the educational channels are filled with sharks and Nazis, there's a bit of a link there.

        However.

        Season 4 has picked up a lot. Arik Soong was a great addition, there's been a turning point for the vulcans and we've just met the Organians. They're dealing with canon, rather than i

    • Re:OK, give the show a chance (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @12:26AM (#11477388)
      ... I think Enterprise is finally hitting its groove
      I think Enterprise got stuck back in its groove of crappy writing. Take the last episode, for example. Here it is in a nutshell: "humans are special, they are different than ALL OTHER RACES, they are more compassionate and willing to take risks, so they should eventually be First Contacted by some superadvanced aliens."

      Excuse me while I go vomit. It's thinly disguised xenophobia and megalomania. That, and these fucking aliens apparently can't have a private conversation without borrowing a couple ephemerals' bodies. Nonsensical crap like that is a big turnoff to me, even though I'm sure the vast majority of the show's audience either didn't catch it or doesn't care.

      Now, Galactica paints people as the imperfect beings we really are, and pits us up against one motherfucker of an enemy. Technically, and artistically, the show is great. Very high quality. Unfortunately, I'm not too fond if it because it's just so dark.

      I do like my entertainment to be positive, happy-endings and all that. With Trek and Galactica, however, the choice is between saccharine and vinegar. Bah, they both leave a bad taste in my mouth.
    • Voyager never .. NEVER had good characters ..

      The doc was cool.

      at least the new series has Hoshi :)

      That's because you have a thing for asian girls. :)

      And really there isn't anyone groan inducing like Neelix (which is strange - because the doctor kind of reminds me of him - just not annoying) or Nog from DS9 or Wesley

      Nog was fine. He was neat foil to Jake. In the beginning they were worthless characters, but by the end, they were both interesting characters. I know your heart sank when Nog lost

  • The "season finale"? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FuturePastNow ( 836765 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:02PM (#11476436)
    If Riker and Troi will be in the season finale, that probably means it'll be a cliffhanger...so if Enterprise gets cancelled, we'll never find out how it ends. I know the show isn't that great, but seriously, that would be a very sad way for a Star Trek series to end.

  • Get a stunt cast from... (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Fanta Menace ( 607612 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:03PM (#11476444) Homepage

    ...DeForest Kelley, and I'll be impressed.

  • But how??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <.mark. .at. .seventhcycle.net.> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:06PM (#11476472) Homepage
    Maybe they'll come through the same wormhole that allows Geordi to host Reading Rainbow.

  • The Old Joke (Score:3, Funny)

    by MavEtJu ( 241979 ) <<gro.ujtevam> <ta> <todhsals>> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:06PM (#11476474) Homepage
    Picard: "Mr Worf, fire at will!"
    *ZOT*
    Picard: "Hmm... where did Riker go?"

  • Better idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:34PM (#11476685) Journal
    How about instead they ditch those two, save all that money and instead spend it on a 45 minute long lesbian scene between t'pol and hoshi, no not some crappy kid-safe scene, a proper late-night special, go beyond the final frontier, the next generation, boldly! and it could even involve some elaborate time-travel scenario where they must get completely naked or else risk being stranded in a half-way dimension. Now tell me seriously that this episode won't get viewers?

  • Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Master Control P ( 655590 ) <ejkeever@nerdshac[ ]om ['k.c' in gap]> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @10:44PM (#11476764)
    I think that the number one thing they need to do right now for Enterprise is to 'cat script | grep temporal' For every word about time travel that shows up, you get to beat the writers with a 2x4. They abused time and time travel so horribly it's beyond reason. The Voyager two-part 'year of hell' was hard to believe, but Enterprise made it look downright quaint.

    Okay, an occasional foray into time travel is cool. An entire season based on a 'temporal cold war' it is a sign that the idea factory has burnt to the ground.

    Just my $.02...

    • Re:Depends... (Score:4, Funny)

      by loraksus ( 171574 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:42AM (#11477717) Homepage
      You know, I'll agree with you on the time travel thing, they have raped it dead. I will disagree on year of hell though, I thought "year of hell" was pretty good - it was, at the very least, original - especially given that most of the trek stuff is a rehash from st tos / whatever.

      Enterprise, end of third season, my reaction was
      Well great, ok, whats next?
      Eh?
      What the fuck?
      Nazis?
      Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to bring back fucking nazis? Kirk fought nazis, wtf.
      I HOPE YOU DIE!!
      I want my hour back.

  • Closing lines of the series finale (Score:5, Funny)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdougNO@SPAMgeekazon.com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:11PM (#11476964) Homepage
    [Enterprise 1 set vanishes, replaced by empty holodeck]

    Riker: [taps badge] Riker to bridge. Captain, the runaway holodeck virus has been destroyed.

    Picard (heard through communicator): Very good Number One. Mr. Crusher, ahead warp 5.

    Troi: How are you feeling?

    Riker: Hungry. For a hot fudge sundae. In your quarters.

    Troi: [knowing smile]

    Theme music up, Enterprise D goes into warp. Roll credits.

  • Enterprise is looking good (Score:3, Informative)

    by Quantum Jim ( 610382 ) <jfcst24NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:24PM (#11477040) Homepage Journal

    Enterprise is starting to look really good. I previously submitted a story - that was rejected :-( - about the next half of Star Trek: Enterprise. Trektoday reported [trektoday.com] that it will feature some exciting plots involving "Andoria, a Klingon moon, Romulan outposts, Romulan Marauders, Orion Privateers, Earth's Moon, Mars, a Constitution-class Federation starship and more. You'll see a live Tholian... and a Gorn." according to the show runner Manny Coto. Leaked mild spoilers [trekweb.com] also indicate that the Constitution-class ship is the U.S.S. Defiant, which re-appears in the two-parter episode titled, In a Mirror, Darkly. There have been beautiful pictures of the reconstructed set [trekbbs.com] just recently posted too. As a hardcore Trekkie, I find it fascinating.

  • Hey look - another persons random enterprise op. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @12:33AM (#11477430)
    When I was a kid, I love ToS. I don't know why - I can hardly watch it now. Probably cause it was sci-fi more than anything. I remember when TNG came on, and while rough at start, it became a damn good show, going all sorts of places the original never did.

    I'll admin that I never really watched DS9. The theme music put me to sleep, and I saw it as B5 without tha action. I understand it got a lot better, but the first season turned me right off.

    I watched Voyager - I can't recall very much about it. Lots of holodeck adventures or "oh...that never really happened" stories to the best of my knowledge.

    Voyager to me was way too calm. TNG had stuff going on, crap that just had to happen even if Picard thought it was a bad way to handle things. Voyager just seemed to be too much of "well...we're in a jam, lets all sit down, talk about it, and then talk our way out of it." Though, in their defense with Species 8xxx, they finally came up with an alien that was more than a funny forehead or nose! Though another annoying thing was every alien planet looked like the california desert with little mud homes that had high tech doors on them or something. Okay...find a few different locations to shoot on folks.

    I was REALLY looking forward to Enterprise. Sounded cool - the Federation at the beginning during it's rough founding years. Soundes like a nitty gritty show. I like Scott Bacula as an actor and thought that would help.

    While I still like it better than Voyager, the show suffers from the same problem - too much "lets show the universe how wonderful and diplomatic humans are".

    I think one of the best episodes was when Archer sole the warp coil or something from one ship stranding them. Reminded me of TNG where crap had to be done, against the rules or not and it was done - damn the consequences.

    Other problems I have with enterprise are:
    1) Why is it so damn dark? Here it is in 2005 and we have light bulbs that put use 25 wants and act like a 75 watt light bulb. The enterprise looks like it is lit with a few flashlighs that need new batteries.

    2) why is the ship so nice? This is one of the first ships, it should be rougher. I like the different bridge design, but to me, it should be something more like the Maru in Andromeda.

    3) Why don't we ever come across aliens that can't kick our ass?

    4) Enough of the shots of the shuttles. We know the transporters work pretty okay now - time to start using them and stop having "were stuck due to shuttle issue" stories.

    5) enuff of the damn vulcan's. Yeah...they are annoying but mostly look good in tight garb. We get the picture.

    Probably my two favorite characters are Hoshi and the Doctor. Hell...on Voyager, the Doctor was my favorite character as well. Perhaps they should write more medical stories.

    Oh well...I'm tired.

  • The only way I'd buy it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @12:38AM (#11477451)
    Have Riker and Troi in the present (well, the present for them at least - TNG time) and have them researching or learning about something that happened during Enterprise's time period and show it with the enterprise crew in flashbacks or something.

    That way you can get the guest appearances without having to come up with a complete cheese story.

    Kinda like how they got Starbuck into Galactica 1980!

    Either that or have them be guest stars but in different roles or something.

  • This kind of thing is why I *stopped* watching... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BlindSpot ( 512363 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:20AM (#11477616)
    This is the latest bad gimmick in a tragic series. Enterprise got more and more gimmicky every month, until they had nothing left.

    The first season was quite good, though it had the usual Trek first-season weaknesses: plots kind of random, characters not fleshed out, tech not developed, etc. Unfortunately that probably turned off a lot of the viewers who were expecting more, and the reduced ratings may have started the whole spiral...

    I rolled my eyes when they brought in the time-travel gimmick with people from the future, but at least it was all new material and helped the storylines develop, so that was okay.

    Then they did this future-9/11 thing which was obviously a big huge gimmick to try to tie the show to current affairs. It was too obvious, but it did help the stories (some were actually quite riveting) -- for about half the season.

    Towards season's end they started dropping more and more references to past Trek series (i.e. to the future), like Archer hinting about the Federation and "explainations" of some of the history from TOS/TNG/DS9. That was the point they crossed the line from "good" gimmickry to "bad". These did nothing for the series, and just seemed to be there to try to keep old Trek fans hooked.

    Then Archer starts making alliances with the fuckin' "hated" Xindi and I knew I wouldn't be watching for much longer. I know Trek is repetitive, but it's usually in a good way. Heck, they've used the "enemy-turn-friend" theme to produce some great Trek episodes in all series up until Enterprise. There it just killed the story lines and took the drama with it.

    I stopped watching at the end of last season, and when I saw the preview for the first episode with Spiner in it, I knew I'd done the right thing.

    I wondered how much lower they might sink, and with this Troi/Riker thing, now we know.

    It's time to kill this Trek and file it off in the "bad mistake" pile along with ST:V and most of Voyager. (Though at least Voyager didn't make a mockery of Trek. It just wasn't well-written most of the time.)

    Hopefully we'll still get to see a "Birth of the Federation" series at some point, which is what Enterprise originally (d?)evolved from. There's so much potential there. Just as long as they don't give it to the Enterprise producers...

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