{"id":3530,"date":"2023-10-07T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2023-09-17T15:28:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T14:28:53","slug":"trekaday-110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/10\/07\/trekaday-110\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday #110: Dear Doctor, Sleeping Dogs, Shadows of P’Jem, Shuttlepod One, Fusion, Rogue Planet, Acquisition, Oasis"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENT S01E13 Dear Doctor <\/strong>(\"3.5). Michael Piller figured out the trick way back in Season 3 of TNG.<\/strong> Not a startling innovation \u2013\u00a0the curious thing is that previous show runners hadn\u2019t thought of it themselves. Build up your regular characters by giving them episodes which focus on them \u2013\u00a0and yet a dozen episodes into the new show and pretty much all we\u2019ve had is Archer, and a bit of Trip and T\u2019Pol. So, it\u2019s a bit of a relief to have a Phlox-phocused episode, especially as John Billingsley is one of the most able cast members. The window into the Doctor\u2019s life onboard the ship is genuinely fascinating.<\/p>\n

However, off the ship we find ourselves in the midst of a signature Star Trek<\/strong> social commentary allegory, since the plague planet consists of a master class and a slave race. And the problem can\u2019t be solved without Archer staying behind and\/or giving them warp drive generations early. Phlox\u2019s concern is that curing the plague will upset the natural development of the planet and he is unwilling to meddle. Archer, understandably, can\u2019t face leaving them to their grisly fate. Until suddenly he invents the prime directive and leaves them to their grisly fate. It\u2019s a weird switcheroo, which isn\u2019t really earned and means that a promising episode ends on a sour note.<\/p>\n

As usual, nobody has email (invented 1971) or devices which can receive messages. Phlox\u2019s voice mails have to be physically brought to him on a giant fluorescent SD card. Similarly, the ship shows only the kinds of movies which the writers would have grown up seeing on American TV.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E14 Sleeping Dogs <\/strong>(\"4). Another aimless start to an episode \u2013 Hoshi\u2019s target practice, Malcolm\u2019s sniffles, Travis\u2019s insomnia, none of these give the early part of the story any momentum. Hoshi also announces that she has found her space legs, which might stop her whining, but also removes the only thing which made her in any way unique. However, once the mission gets underway, the balance between expertise and jeopardy is struck rather better than of late. Malcolm and Hoshi are inexperienced but they aren\u2019t dummies, and it\u2019s slightly surprising to me that it\u2019s taken half a year to find that balance ever with anyone other than Archer (and him not consistently). Taking away the transporter also raises the stakes considerably when the Klingons nick the shuttlepod, stranding the boarding party. And there are some nice character notes for T\u2019Pol, indulging her human comrades for the sake of the mission and out of genuine friendship.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour own solar system has four gas giants,\u201d observes T\u2019Pol, despite the fact that Uranus and Neptune were identified as being entirely different in composition long before this episode aired, leaving only Jupiter and Saturn. Second outing for ersatz tractor beam The Grappler which looks far too Inspector Gadget<\/em> for my liking.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E15 Shadows of P\u2019Jem <\/strong>(\"4.5). Archer and T\u2019Pol\u2019s actions in The Andorian Incident<\/em> have consequences, which in itself is gratifying. And T\u2019Pol\u2019s recall to Vulcan plays differently than, for example, Kira being transferred off Deep Space Nine<\/em> \u2013 partly because T\u2019Pol\u2019s under-reaction is so affecting. Given that on paper, she\u2019s little more than Spock crossed with Seven, Jolene Blalock consistently manages to bring very impressive depth and subtlety to the part. That\u2019s just as well, as the limp screwball comedy-esque scene in which they are manacled together and have a heart-to-heart while in constant close physical contact would test any actor\u2019s abilities. The rest manages to build on the show (and the franchise\u2019s) past without requiring a new viewer to do a lot of homework to understand what\u2019s going on. The writers are so pleased to have come up with \u201cinsomnia\u201d as the motivation for Shran\u2019s change of heart that they have him explain it two or three times. I wasn\u2019t so enamoured.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E16 Shuttlepod One <\/strong>(\"3). In what passes for wit, Trip and Malcolm swap fairly rote Brits-vs-Americans banter in between exchanging exposition as their titular shuttlepod drifts past what appears to be the wreckage of Enterprise<\/em>. After a lot of rather flat, gossipy teasers, it\u2019s nice to have a bit of excitement for once. Yet after \u201cFaith of the Heart\u201d, Archer and Hoshi rapidly establish that it was little more than a fender-bender, which means that we\u2019re watching our heroes expend a lot of energy to solve a problem which we know doesn\u2019t exist. But it does generate some friction between two regulars which is a rarity for human characters.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen this device before, and better, in episodes like The Tholian Web<\/em>, where everyone on the ship thought that Kirk was dead and was coping with his absence. But Trip and Malcolm seeing a couple of bits of deck plating (and no bodies) and haring off into deep space in the hope of finding who knows what doesn\u2019t have anything like the same power, especially not when no-one on the Enterprise<\/em> is the least bit concerned. And I really could have done without Malcolm\u2019s Vulcan-flavoured sex dreams. (I gather Dominic Keating envisaged the character as gay, so it comes as no surprise to see Rick Berman stamping out any hint of that here.). Archer meanwhile doesn\u2019t seem to know anyone on his ship whose name isn\u2019t in the opening titles. Hair and nails don\u2019t keep growing after you die. Trip should fail his honours biology course.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E17 Fusion <\/strong>(\"1). A gang of feckless Vulcans needs their ship repaired, and they come off as horny teenage boys, marvelling that a third (a whole third!) of Enterprise<\/em>\u2019s crew are female and that they don\u2019t wait seven years for mating. Even given that these are essentially the Golgafrinchan B Ark collection, the state of their technology and the ability of the Enterprise<\/em> crew to fix it for them doesn\u2019t really reflect the centuries headstart which Vulcans have over humans. They also seem incapable of doing basic research into a society which their home planet has formed a long alliance with. Even T\u2019Pol seems clueless about basic facts regarding her own biology and psychology. Her experiment with not meditating strikes me as almost as silly as Guy Crawford never looking under his eyepatch. Second T\u2019Pol sex dream in two episodes, which is two too many. Weirdly, this episode establishes mind-melds as a Vulcan ability which has been largely forgotten \u2013 T\u2019Pol has never heard of it \u2013 which is very hard to reconcile with its depiction elsewhere in the canon.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E18 Rogue Planet <\/strong>(\"2.5). Rogue planets are those which aren\u2019t orbiting a star. Quite how this one sustains life without the warm rays of a sun stopping it from freezing solid isn\u2019t clear, but pretty soon, the landing party is ooh-ing and ah-ing over various bugs and creepy-crawlies. But another humanoid group has beaten them to it and pretty soon everyone is eating round the campfire, and seeing mysterious figures in the darkness. This turns out to be a manifestation of the hunters\u2019 quarry, changing form after reading Archer\u2019s thoughts. There\u2019s some interest in both perspectives, but in the absence of a Prime Directive (whether self-imposed or not) Archer decides that the shapeshifters\u2019 perspective is the most valuable and seeks to define them. Experienced director Alan Kroeker creates some nice effects with the hunters\u2019 goggles, glowing red in the darkness, but it\u2019s hard to know what all this is supposed to be about or why we should care.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E19 Acquisition <\/strong>(\"1.5). One problem with setting the new series before any of the others, is you have to ignore all of the alien races which later crews encountered for the first time. That even includes the Romulans, and it definitely includes the Ferengi who were unknown to Picard\u2019s crew. But, just as Voyager couldn\u2019t resist guest appearances by Jonathan Frakes, Dwight Schultz, Romulans and for that matter Ferengi, here comes Enterprise<\/strong> helping itself to a fan favourite alien. We don\u2019t even get subtitles for the opening scene which shows them buzzing our heroes without being detected. Trek favourites Ethan Phillips and Jeffrey Combs are among those donning the big rubber ears. Archer\u2019s manipulation of the thieves is fairly rote but amusing enough at first. But the script never develops this in any interesting ways, and the repeated refrain of \u201cthe women\u201d (used as bargaining chips) grates enormously.<\/p>\n

ENT S01E20 Oasis <\/strong>(\"2). Star Trek<\/strong>\u2019s flexible format means that, as long ago as Season 1 of TOS<\/strong> the production team discovered that it can be a courtroom drama, a tense siege, a morality play \u2013 a recent episode of Strange New Worlds<\/strong> was a full-fledged musical (even the thought of which had some particularly rigid fans clutching their pearls in despair). Enterprise<\/strong> was a goofy comedy last week, so having a go at a haunted house story this week seems fine, except that this script is nothing but cliches, which is disappointing. And while it\u2019s nice that somebody on the team seems to have remembered that Travis exists, he\u2019s still not given anything interesting to do or say. After about ten minutes of creeping around in the dark, suddenly the conceit is abandoned and we meet a far more typical gang of shifty colonists, including one Rene Auberjonois. Despite T\u2019Pol\u2019s acid-tongued warnings, Trip can\u2019t help but try and chat up the pixie-cut young engineer who stops him from making a fatal blunder. Once again, Star Trek\u2019s view of sex and relationships seems to be stuck at high school level. When Trip isn\u2019t arranging to meet her behind the bike sheds, she and the others are whispering in low tones about the secret which it\u2019s manifestly obvious they are keeping from the Enterprise<\/em> crew. Annie Wersching will be back as the third Borg Queen in Star Trek: Picard<\/strong> Season 2 before her untimely death aged just 45. Convergent evolution ensures that all intelligent species look humanoid, but dogs are known only to Earth, apparently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENT S01E13 Dear Doctor (). Michael Piller figured out the trick way back in Season 3 of TNG. Not a startling innovation \u2013\u00a0the curious thing is that previous show runners hadn\u2019t thought of it themselves. Build up your regular characters by giving them episodes which focus on them \u2013\u00a0and yet a dozen episodes into the […]<\/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-3530","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-UW","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","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=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3532,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions\/3532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}