{"id":3520,"date":"2023-09-22T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3520"},"modified":"2023-09-09T13:12:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-09T12:12:59","slug":"trekaday-108","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/09\/22\/trekaday-108\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday #108: Broken Bow, Fight or Flight, Strange New World, Unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENT S01E01-02 Broken Bow <\/strong>(\"3). Voyager<\/strong> had been a risk. All of those political factions, familiar aliens, established guest stars and popular locations would be jettisoned in favour of a single ship, exploring the unknown. There would be no missions from Starfleet and nowhere to go home and refuel if life got too tough. It worked \u2013 just about. The new show didn\u2019t really do what UPN needed it to do, and the viewing figures were nowhere near those for TNG<\/strong>, but it did better than DS9<\/strong> and it had its fans. Maybe the mistake had been to try and launch a new show while the old one was still on the air? If so, Paramount wasn\u2019t going to make that mistake again.<\/p>\n

But watching Enterprise<\/strong> now, it seems as if the creative team was at pains to take only the most piddling of risks (removing the words \u201cStar Trek\u201d from the name, having a song for the opening titles instead of a purely instrumental piece) but elsewhere the mantra was: play it safe. Berman and Braga wanted to take the whole first year to get Captain Archer into space. Paramount insisted that the crew had to be exploring Strange New Worlds as soon as possible. Past captains had tried to put distance between them and Kirk. Jonathan Archer is just Kirk in different pyjamas. TNG<\/strong>, DS9<\/strong> and Voyager<\/strong> had made stars of then-unknowns Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew. Enterprise<\/strong> chose Quantum Leap<\/em> star Scott Bakula. DS9<\/strong> in particular pushed the envelope in terms of representation. The main crew of the NX-01 are white male humans. Of the two aliens, one is yet another Vulcan and the only two people of colour are also the two most junior people in the opening titles. This is a boy ship full of boy people going out into the galaxy to kick some alien butt. Hoo-yeah. And if it looks bad now, wait till we get to Season 3. Yikes.<\/p>\n

Picking up where First Contact<\/em> left off, we quickly establish via some father-son Airfix painting that Vulcans and humans are working together on interstellar travel, but the the Vulcans are hitting the brakes, not the gas. Following which, a crashed ship gives us bumpy-forehead Klingon, some shapeshifting dudes and an human wanting them to get out of his backyard. It\u2019s a bit of a jumble. Poor old Scott Bakula doesn\u2019t even make it into the teaser of his own show.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s run down the main cast. As noted, Jonathan Archer is pretty much Diet Coke Kirk. He is charming, friendly, and he\u2019s got a dog. The kind of captain you\u2019d want to have a beer with. T\u2019Pol (who spends much of her opening scene mute) is pretty much a 50\/50 blend of Spock and Seven of Nine \u2013 or if you prefer, she\u2019s yet another incarnation of Majel Barrett\u2019s original Number One from The Cage. But Jolene Blalock immediately understands that a little dry humour goes a long way and it\u2019s clear what the producers saw in her. Rounding the central triumvirate is Bland White Guy number two, Connor Trinneer as Trip Tucker who starts out, as so many characters do, as just a position. We\u2019re light years away from Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The second tier starts with John Billingsley as Phlox, who is another blend of existing characters, in this case the Doctor and Neelix. His cry of \u201cOptimism, Captain\u201d put me weirdly in mind of the Thermians from Galaxy Quest<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Bland White Guy number three, Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed, who thankfully doesn\u2019t sound American because he looks almost identical to Tucker. The two junior crewmembers are Linda Park as Hoshi Sato and Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather. Mayweather is basically Harry Kim Redux, only if memory serves, he gets even less to do. Hoshi is the one genuinely original character in the entire regular cast. Instead of having automatic translation whenever it\u2019s needed, a linguistics expert is needed to figure out what these aliens are saying. And the novelty comes from the fact the she\u2019s a scaredy-cat who hates space flight. That makes a change from the usual ubermenschen but it\u2019s pretty regressive when the only two women are an ice maiden and a frightened little girl. Park is a very appealing performer, which makes it even more of a shame that\u2019s she\u2019s saddled with this characterisation.<\/p>\n

The NX-01, whose CG exterior looks very nice in the new widescreen frame, is dispatched to ferry a wounded Klingon back to Qo\u2019nos, which sets up the chief conflict between buccaneering Archer and stay-in-your-lane T\u2019Pol. It\u2019s a major step forward for Earth\u2019s burgeoning fleet of starships, and they get a send off from none other than James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane reciting a paraphrased version of William Shatner\u2019s opening narration. It\u2019s meant to tug at all sorts of nostalgic heartstrings, but it comes across as a bit flat, a bit rote, a hasty sketch of a magical moment rather than a truly earned sequence of genuine emotional power.<\/p>\n

Complicating matters are the Suliban who invade and make off with the ailing Klingon. When our crew pursue him, they fetch up on a supposedly exotic planet but in fact it\u2019s just another riff on the Star Wars dive bar, with yet more male chauvinism, as near naked alien chicks writhe for the entertainment of male patrons, and a foxy Suliban chick can only confirm Archer\u2019s trustworthiness by making out with him. it\u2019s a marvel she doesn\u2019t say \u201ctell me about his human activity you call kissing.\u201d Later James Conway\u2019s camera perves all over T\u2019Pal\u2019s curves as she and Trip slather decontamination gel over each other\u2019s bodies, which is a pretty poor way of \u201ckeeping the dads watching\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, among all of these disappointing choices, there is interesting stuff her. Archer may be a bland Kirk-clone but Bakula\u2019s personal charisma is capable of a lot of heavy lifting, and Jolene Blalock is the show\u2019s early MVP, both because of the detailed performance and because the human\/Vulcan conflict is something genuinely new and interesting. Although she does have very human looking eyebrows. Plus, this opening double-length episode doesn\u2019t attempt too much, so the characters do get the chance to breathe. True, that exposes how thin some of them are, but it gives especially Hoshi a chance to establish something beyond which station on the bridge is home. And the setting is novel, with no Federation, no replicators, transporters which aren\u2019t rated for live cargo, and much else besides. It remains to be seen whether these limitations will raise the stakes, or cut off avenues of storytelling.<\/p>\n

The only thing which fogs the issue is the Temporal Cold War subplot. Having been told they were not allowed to spend the majority of the first season getting the ship into space, Brannon Braga fretted that the show needed another element, and grafted this on from a non-Star Trek<\/strong> project which was at a nascent stage. It fits poorly with the rest of the material and feels like a distraction. The top brass on Earth are given the names Forrest, Leonard and Williams \u2013 as in DeForrest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner. There\u2019s also a Vulcan named \u201cTos\u201d.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E03 Fight or Flight <\/strong>(\"2). Linguist Hoshi Sato is moonlighting as an exobiologist, fretting over the future of an alien slug. Contributing to the low-key feel, Archer is fretting also, this time about a mysterious noise from under the deck, like he\u2019s your grandad who claims the plumbing is stopping him from sleeping. And Hoshi is also having trouble sleeping because she\u2019s on the wrong side of the ship. We\u2019re a long way from the luxury of the NCC 1701-D (or even Voyager<\/em>) which is refreshing, but these trivial concerns also just aren\u2019t all that interesting. And travelling at under Warp 4, space seems very cold and empty.<\/p>\n

Finally, the tedium is interrupted when a small probe shows up and T\u2019Pol tries super hard to get Archer to leave it alone. But the excitement doesn\u2019t build, because there\u2019s an awful lot of getting-ready admin and further Hoshi-fretting to contend with first. Eventually they get on board and discover fifteen alien bodies being drained of fluid which is quite a striking image to say the least. Fooling nobody, Archer warps away leaving the corpses and the mystery behind. And having burned a good ten minutes of screen time, we eventually start a post-mortem. TNG<\/strong> would have got us to this point in the teaser.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E04 Strange New World <\/strong>(\"1). T\u2019Pol wants to spend a week scanning a new planet from orbit, but Archer insists on sending a crewed shuttlepod. I think we\u2019re supposed to see him as gung-ho hero, and her as an overly cautious fusspot. Actually I see him as a patronising jerk, and the episode comprehensively proves her right and him wrong. Either way, it\u2019s another soggy teaser, focusing on a pair of anonymous red-shirts (although both survive the episode). Shortly, Starfleet\u2019s finest prove themselves incapable of dealing with a camping trip interrupted by thunderstorm and a scorpion, as if this episode of Star Trek was in fact a pilot for a Stand By Me<\/em> television spin-off. Eventually it all goes a bit Naked Time<\/em>, but for that trick to work, we\u2019d need Archer in the Cave of Hallucinations, and for the psychic shenanigans to be more than this generic paranoia.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E05 Unexpected <\/strong>(\"2). Trying to pull off zero gravity water on an early 2000s TV budget is either very ambitious or very stupid depending on who you ask. But, again, we\u2019ve replaced a wish-fulfilment dream of excellence with a bunch of screw-ups who can\u2019t even manage something as simple as having a shower without literally falling on their arse. I also don\u2019t like T\u2019Pol refusing to try blueberry pancakes. Sure, it\u2019s a relatable shorthand for her alien\/fussbudget\/spectrum persona, but Spock was more driven by curiosity and I can\u2019t account for why T\u2019Pol is so fearful in comparison. When they make contact with their hitchhiker, the translator takes a moment to kick in. It should be fun seeing a less advanced crew but the danger is we\u2019ll just end up seeing them solve the same problems each week, so it takes longer to get to the story.<\/p>\n

Giving Trip Riker\u2019s job of participating in the officer exchange programme is a good idea on paper, and my hope is that I will find out something a bit more impressive about him, given that last week his very poor showing consistent mainly of panicking and wetting himself. Alas, this time, he keeps calling and asking Daddy if he can come home from camp, even though he\u2019s only just got there. Once again, this problem is solved in just a few minutes, and so the story never gathers momentum. Instead of piling complication upon complication, we just encounter a trivial issue, rapidly solve it, and then plod on to the next plot point. It\u2019s more like a dull computer game than a science-fiction adventure. And the novelty of seeing alien environments can be assumed to have worn off the audience who has been watching them every week since 1987, which again means when the characters go \u201cGolly gee whizz\u201d it makes me think less of them and not more of the setting. The feeling of slovenly pacing is increased when Trip and Malcolm spend most of the next scene reminding us what happened earlier in the episode.<\/p>\n

More scientific illiteracy. These very human-looking aliens whose body chemistry must therefore be almost identical to ours, are not familiar with water, which is fundamental to organic life of almost any kind. Despite this colossal gulf in their physiologies, Trip ends up impregnated by the foxy alien chick who very nearly asks \u201cWhat is this thing you humans call love?\u201d Say what you like about Voyager<\/strong>, but they would have had Harry Kim up the duff by the first ad-break. Maybe before the opening titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENT S01E01-02 Broken Bow (). Voyager had been a risk. All of those political factions, familiar aliens, established guest stars and popular locations would be jettisoned in favour of a single ship, exploring the unknown. There would be no missions from Starfleet and nowhere to go home and refuel if life got too tough. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[539,19,79,528],"class_list":["post-3520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-enterprise","tag-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-trekaday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-UM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3520"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3522,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520\/revisions\/3522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}