Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Just what it says on the tin.

Moderators: justTripn, Elessar, dark_rain

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby putaro » Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:28 pm

I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through all of the episodes. I'm going to post my quick reviews and impressions on the episodes as I go through, feel free to join in!
Last edited by putaro on Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
Image

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Broken Bow Part 1

Postby putaro » Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:37 pm

Off to a strong start with a big explosion caused by Klang. But why didn't he just shoot the farmer?

Archer is way out of control barging into the ICU where they've got Klang on life support. We have our first glimpse of "logical" Vulcans - Archer's comment "When your logic doesn't work, you raise your voice?" was a great burn and kind of dead on for the rest of the series. T'Pol is in fine form, strong and confident.

Phlox is great, I loved Hoshi in Brazil. Why does Enterprise not have any battery power emergency lights?

This episode sets the tone for the whole series and, sadly, it's one of wasted potential from my perspective. We've got Enterprise going boldly where no one has gone before, except for Travis Mayweather, the boomer, who has gone to more places than any of the StarFleet crew. We've got potential to meet lots of races before they've got big guns and fast ships but pretty much everyone is way, way ahead of the Humans at this point. And, rather than meeting races we've seen before for the first time when they're not so developed, we've got to add new races, like the Suliban. Future guy and the coming time war was an annoying contrivance.

All in all, though, this was a decent episode and a strong start for the series.
Image

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Broken Bow Part 2

Postby putaro » Sat Mar 08, 2014 5:20 pm

OK, our landing party has been captured by the good Suliban. But we don't learn that until after their leader stuffs her tongue down Archer's throat so she can figure out if she's trustworthy. Hmmm...at least she didn't transform until after she kissed him. Unfortunately she gets killed off right away. I think she would have been more fun than Silik. But he's not here yet. Up to the roof on a lift that is definitely not OSHA approved, a firefight as they're looking for the car (we've all been there) and Archer takes one in the leg which turns out to be one of those wounds that makes you unconscious.

Back to the ship and T'Pol seizes control. And FAN SERVICE. Yes, Jolene is definitely not wearing a bra. Turns out a little ear massage is all she needs to come around to Trip's way of thinking. We still have to wonder why Commander Tucker didn't just toss her in the brig. Maybe they are all completely scared of the Vulcans.

So they follow the Suliban into a gas giant. Reed can't hit anything to save his life until he needs to nail a ship with the "grappler". They figure out that the big ship is an "aggregate" ship. Which seems to mean that it's made up of lots of little ships bonded together. But, the ship that they hijack doesn't have any space inside. Plus each ship has at least one pilot so the aggregate ship should be swarming with Suliban. But it's not. And Reed makes a maglock unlocker with a five second timer. Maybe a few more seconds would have come in handy?

So they find Klang, Archer stays behind to valiantly trigger the unlocker (why?) and winds up in a fight with Silik and then transported off at the last minute. And we're on the Road to Kronos where apparently it's no problem for an unknown ship to zip all the way through the Klingon Empire to the home world. And, turns out that Klang's message was encoded into his blood.

Enterprise is off for further adventures and T'Pol is on board as the science officer.

Lots of explosions and action in this episode. Unfortunately the plot isn't as tight as I would like. The Suliban were kind of duds as enemies and not even especially creepy - even though all that crawling on the ceiling stuff was supposed to evoke that. We do have the start of some trust between Archer, T'Pol and Tucker which is good. BTW, what ever happened to the Temporal Cold War trying to disrupt the Klingon Empire? And why was it a "Cold War"? Seemed like plenty of shooting going on to me. Well, we know this all ends on the holodeck so may as well just try to enjoy the ride.
Last edited by putaro on Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Image

User avatar
Alelou
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Posts: 7894
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:05 pm
Twitter username: @sheerhubris
Show On Map: No
Location: Upstate New York
Contact:

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby Alelou » Sun Mar 09, 2014 4:33 pm

:) I was just wondering if re-watching the series would give me the impetus I need to start with the free weights again. Those two things are kind of linked for me. Also, while cleaning out I decided I definitely wasn't ready to ditch the Enterprise DVDs yet. (Also, I'm kind of hopeful it would give me the goose I need to finish North Star.)
OMG, ANOTHER new chapter! NORTH STAR Chapter 28
Image.Image
Read opening chapters free at Amazon (US): The Awful Mess: A Love Story
Blog: Sheer Hubris Press / Twitter: @sheerhubris / Facebook: Sandra Hutchison

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby putaro » Sun Mar 09, 2014 5:09 pm

Definitely watching from beginning to end is easier than trying to pick episodes to watch.
Image

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

S01E02 Fight or Flight

Postby putaro » Sun Mar 09, 2014 5:19 pm

After the strong start of Broken Bow this episode is a disappointment in a lot of ways. I often hear about TV shows needing time to hit their stride but this makes little sense to me. The first few episodes should be the strongest, at least script-wise. I can understand if the cast needs a while to gel, but the writers and producers should have been thinking about this show quite a bit as they get ready to make it and have plenty of fresh plot lines. The script has an awful lot of filler ("Extend the docking arm" "Extending the docking arm") that shouldn't be there.

So, we've got random aliens being killed and used for some kind of drug production. What happened to the Suliban? We do get a lot of Hoshi time which is good but she's mainly just whiney. Archer begins his long streak of "lucky idiot" decisions. T'Pol's advice to run away is pretty good considering they're in a lightly armed vessel whose weapons don't even work as well as they're supposed to. Archer going back puts all of his crew in danger for no good reason and it's not even overconfidence (it would have been more interesting if they didn't find out the torpedoes were FUBAR'd until the bad aliens came back) it's just stupidity.

Lots of "deh stupid" - why wouldn't the evil aliens just take the bodies with them? There's only fifteen. It would have been very easy (and much creepier) to make the attacked ship a huge passenger liner with thousands of people on board. They drop Hoshi's slug off on a different planet. You'd think after all the problems we've had with invasive species on Earth that that would be just a no-no.

Best part - Hoshi screaming like a 12-year old.
Last edited by putaro on Wed Mar 12, 2014 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image

User avatar
Alelou
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Posts: 7894
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:05 pm
Twitter username: @sheerhubris
Show On Map: No
Location: Upstate New York
Contact:

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby Alelou » Tue Mar 11, 2014 6:10 pm

Yep, that was just a howler of an episode in so many ways.

Best part for me was Trip and T'Pol appearing to do some (more) bonding as they coped with Archer's bullheaded stupidity.
OMG, ANOTHER new chapter! NORTH STAR Chapter 28
Image.Image
Read opening chapters free at Amazon (US): The Awful Mess: A Love Story
Blog: Sheer Hubris Press / Twitter: @sheerhubris / Facebook: Sandra Hutchison

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Strange New World

Postby putaro » Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:39 am

Hurray, we open with Liz Cutler (Kelly Waymire who was taken from us far too early). She's studying "Termites of Loracus Prime" - but it seems to be the easy reading edition with lots of pictures.

We've found a new planet. StarFleet apparently has given absolutely no thought to how to go about exploring a new world. T'Pol's precautions seem pretty minimal already - only six or seven days to determine if a planet has anything harmful? But Archer, OMG, Archer, can't even wait that long - what is this, the S.S. Minnow? And then right after they land he lets Prothos out of the shuttlepod without a leash. If I'd written this episode Porthos would have been BEM chow right then and there.

OK, let's stay overnight and tell ghost stories while we camp out in our Dollar Store tents. You know, those little mesh panels have zip up things to keep the wind out. And bugs, too. Just sayin'. Big storm comes up unexpectedly. What's the point of having a ship in orbit if you don't look at the weather???

So we move to the cave and everyone starts acting irrationally. Except T'Pol who, if she was half the covert ops bad ass she's said to be in later episodes, should have just stunned everyone so she could have a quiet evening.

Novakovich slips his cams and runs out into the storm. Archer comes to get them with a shuttlepod but can't land because of the wind. Everyone except T'Pol is seeing things. It's obvious to the audience that the human characters are hallucinating so there's no surprise or tension there. They beam Novakovich up to the ship and figure out the magical gobbledygook of the week that's affecting them. Except that there's more to it, Novakovich is really sick and ARCHER, of all people, has the gall to go off on Phlox about not doing enough testing!

Trip has gone round the bend, Archer feeds him some cock and bull story but it doesn't work so T'Pol zaps him which is what she should have done in the first place.

I don't understand the point of this episode. It's not exciting and it's not interesting (even Travis' ghost story is boring). We don't learn anything interesting or new about the characters. At the end, Archer has nearly killed five crewmembers with his happy-go-lucky attitude. Did he learn anything? Sure doesn't seem like it.

Perhaps this is really a Vulcan comedy - T'Pol and the Pakleds would be quite a riot I'm sure.
Image

User avatar
Transwarp
Captain
Captain
Posts: 551
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:37 pm
Show On Map: No
Location: Dallas, Texas

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby Transwarp » Wed Mar 12, 2014 2:43 pm

I love these reviews, and not just because of the snarkiness. It's fun to relive these episodes through someone else's eyes and realize that I'm not the only one who noticed all the inconsistencies and idiocies.

When the show was good, it was *very* good, but it also had many moments of 'why in the world did they do THAT..?'
Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.

User avatar
Kevin Thomas Riley
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Posts: 4336
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:42 am
Show On Map: No
Location: NX-01

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby Kevin Thomas Riley » Wed Mar 12, 2014 11:34 pm

I tend to be pretty forgiving of early ENT in my reviews, although I do concede to many of your snarkier points, putaro. I mostly have problems with season two... and Archer in general.

Damn, I'm now tempted to start re-watching again, but I have so little time. Yet I just bought the blu-ray sets for season 1 and 2....
She's got an awfully nice bum!
-Malcolm Reed on T'Pol, in Shuttlepod One

Image

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby putaro » Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:22 am

Oooh, blu-ray, shiny! There are some makeup goofs that show up in hi-def in the first few seasons, unfortunately.

I was thinking a little more about "Strange New World" and how it could have been a better episode.

The plot device (hallucinogens in the atmosphere make everyone freak out) is cliched. That can be OK if something else happens. Imagine if in the first few episodes all of the Humans had always been polite and deferential to the Vulcans in person, but behind closed doors were constantly blasting them. Then, her crew mates' complete distrust of her would have been a real eye-opener for T'Pol and I think that would have even made the cliched plot device completely forgivable. Suppose that Archer had followed all of T'Pol's (skimpy) protocols and still something bad had happened.

As it was, T'Pol comes off as adult supervision and the Vulcans' poor opinion of Humans is completely justified.
Image

putaro
Captain
Captain
Posts: 646
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 6:18 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Cupertino, CA
Contact:

Unexpected

Postby putaro » Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:32 am

This episode is more of a comedy so we'll give it a pass on some of the "deh stupid". It's a lot more entertaining than the last two episodes were.

So we start with Archer taking a shower and the grav plating cutting out. Man, they sure did put in the fancy shower heads. Then it comes back on and he lands, hard, on his tailbone. That HURTS, I can say from personal experience.

T'Pol is definitely opposed to trying new things in this episode. Phlox is chowing down on blueberry pancakes and bacon. Yum! Trip is going nuts trying to fix things all over the place.

So the malfunctions are the result of a Xyrillian ship hiding out in their exhaust and streamlining along. Xyrillians don't seem to have a lot of regard for personal boundaries. A whole race of close talkers, must be.

Trip gets sent over to fix their warp drive. After submitting him to three hours of Vick's Vapo-rub they let Trip into the ship and it's too weird for him. But after an hour or so of lying down he's feeling much better (and the sonic distortion is turned off) and pretty soon he's eating grapes from the fingers of a slave girl - sorry, water jello from the fingers of Ah'Len, the engineer.

After getting the warp engine to the point where it will fix itself, he and Ah'Len go off for some R & R. And the infamous pebble game comes out. Hard to call on just how reprehensible this was. The telepathic exchange makes it more than just playing "hide the salami" and she didn't think he'd get preggers but still...

OK, so everything works, Trip goes back to Enterprise (note to writers: decompression is not something you can do both ways. In fact, if Trip needed to decompress to get onto the Xyrillian ship their air pressure was probably so low that he wouldn't be able to breathe anyway. But I promised to give them a few passes this episode).

Back on Enterprise Trip has a bump on his wrist so he goes to see Phlox. And when he gets out of the scanner, Archer and T'Pol are there. Phlox tells him he's preggers and T'Pol gets all the good lines.

"Three days. You were only there for three days and you couldn't restrain yourself. "

"One of the first things a diplomat learns is not to stick his fingers where they don't belong."

Trip starts going off on the dangers of the lift in Engineering. I gotta say, though, the finger chopping bit looked pretty bad. Enterprise is obviously not OSHA compliant.

The next bits, I'm not sure if Trip is supposed to be some kind of a parody of a pregnant woman. He seems to be having some kind of hormonal induced paranoia. Archer and Phlox are pretty merciless while Trip is chowing down.

Oooh, and a classic D7 Klingon battlecruiser. OK, Memory Alpha claims it's not a D7 but it looks like one. The Xyrillians are not terribly bright because they're hitching a free ride on the Klingons.

Lots of posturing and explosions from the Klingons. Archer is too stupid to mention that the Klingon Empire owes him one so T'Pol has to do it for him. Then Trip has to out his pregnancy to everyone on the bridge.

And one more good zinger from the Klingons in the holo chamber - "I can see my house from here!" After they get everybody happy and the baby removed, Trip complains over dinner "The only thing worse than spending three hours in a decompression chamber with a bunch of Klingons is doing it twice in one day. I smelled things in there I hope I never smell again." - which seems to be a callback to something David Gerrold (The Trouble With Tribbles) wrote about Klingons long ago:

David Gerrold wrote:A Klingon is a good person to invite to a rape - or even a murder, providing it's your own. Klingons build their battlecruisers without toilets; it makes them a little nastier. Klingons pick on old ladies. Klingons fart in airlocks. Klingons drop litter in the streets. Klingons pick their teeth in public. And those are their good points.


Everyone leaves on their merry way and Trip enters the history books.

Ethics aside this works pretty well as a comedy episode. The Xyrillian ship has a few neat alien touches Is T'Pol jealous or viewing Trip as a typical over-sexed male? I'd have to say at this stage of the game it can't be jealousy.
Image

User avatar
Asso
Site Donor
Posts: 6336
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:13 am
Show On Map: No
Location: Italy
Contact:

Re: Unexpected

Postby Asso » Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:53 pm

putaro wrote: The Xyrillian ship has a few neat alien touches Is T'Pol jealous or viewing Trip as a typical over-sexed male? I'd have to say at this stage of the game it can't be jealousy.


However, it may be an unconscious premonition of jealousy.
Which would be really well thought out.
However, for an idea of this kind, you should give credit to the authors, of a capacity of design and planning, which is something not at all small, and ... well, I have to say...it seems rather unlikely.
But, for once, let me give credit to the authors of the episode.

It makes me feel better.
Well yes. I continue to write. And on Fanfiction.Net, for those who want, it is possible to cast a glance at my latest efforts. We arrived to
The Ears of the Elves, chapter Forty-four


And here is the beginning of the whole story.
Image

But, I must say, you could also find something else on Fanfiction.net written by me. If you want.

Weeble
Captain
Captain
Posts: 662
Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2011 12:49 am
Location: NW Lower Michigan USA

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby Weeble » Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:25 pm

Ya take a couple of days off, and Putaro goes nutsie cookoo. Your snarkiness is super. No more days off for me. I'll skip the first 3 eps, buuuttt, I can't lay off of "Unexpected". Your analysis missed the Xyrillian's slow movements as they glide around. Trip whining was annoying, hard to square this character with who we saw later. Archer was as usual a jerk. T'Pol was in character. Actually a fun episode although I wish the missing scene with Trip heading off to puke had survived the director's cut.

Something tells me, that someone is on a beta holiday. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
RIP Tom, I will miss you, as will many others

User avatar
Kevin Thomas Riley
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Posts: 4336
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:42 am
Show On Map: No
Location: NX-01

Re: Putaro's Enterprise Rewatch Reviews & Snarkfest

Postby Kevin Thomas Riley » Fri Mar 14, 2014 1:17 am

putaro wrote:Oooh, blu-ray, shiny! There are some makeup goofs that show up in hi-def in the first few seasons, unfortunately.

Oh my...! Now I'll be on a constant - and probably distracting - lookout for them! :shock:
She's got an awfully nice bum!
-Malcolm Reed on T'Pol, in Shuttlepod One

Image


Return to “General Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests