While there is no questioning the astonishing brilliance of 'Broken Bow', I've found that Enterprise (they've only just started airing Season 2 on Sky One in the UK) is have trouble maintaining the same sense of exploration of the unknown that is showed in the pilot.

The first indication have right back in episode 4 'Strange New World'. While this was a good episode, with some good performances from Trineer and Blalock, it displayed a procedure of "exploration" that wreaked of publicity stunt.

They enter orbit of the planet and T'Pol suggests orbital reconaissance for an overview before sending down a landing party.

What a good idea. As I recall, the Ranger series, the Surveyor series and the Lunar Orbiter series were all launched by the US prior to sending their astronauts and today, the Mars Exploration Program seeks to prepare us (or rather them) for the first manned expedition, whenever that it.

However, Trip complains. He says he doesn't want to sit up in orbit while probes "have all the fun". Archer agrees with Trip and orders a landing party be readied. He says he "likes the look of the southern continent". Well that's a good scientific way of choosing a landing. There's NASA, picking Mare Tranquilitatis for the G mission because of easier (and therefore safer) access from orbit, smoothness of terrain for a safer landing, presence of distinguishing features for easy navigatiom and other criteria laid out in the presskit, when they could have just said "I like the look of this crater".

Anyhow, the shuttlepod lands and the Captain runs out to a tree, followed by Archer. T'Pol immediately whips out her scanner thing and takes atmospheric composition measurements. Good for her, although such details, including harmful gases, would have already been known had they listened to her original suggestion.

Archer responds, "Put that thing away."

At which point, I respond with, "Shut up, Archer, she's doing her job." (Yes, I plan to see a quack about talking excessively to my television)

Trip then takes out a camera for a tourist shot. I'm glad someone brought a camera along. Surely if you're going to expend all those resources on this landing mission, you'd want to document what you see. However, I don't see Trip doing what he's supposed to do and take pictures of the landscape, soil penetration of the shuttlepod.

Speaking of which, where is the mention of collecting contingency samples? What if you get a call from Enterprise saying you've got to return?

So, T'Pol takes Cuttler and Nevokovich (sp?) and they do some astrobiology. Archer, Trip and Travis go off and do some... er... strolling. When they fail to report back to the landing site and get a call from T'Pol, Archer says they lost track of time. Doing what? Enjoying the countryside, it appears. What is this? The Sound of Music?

They get back to the landing site and T'Pol reports she wants her crew to stand behind to study some marcupeals (sp?). Good for her again. To Trip's request to turn this into a camping trip, she objects. Archer says, "Research isn't the only reason we're out here." What is the reason you're out here then? What else in your mission objectives could bring you down to this uninhabited planet?

Not much professionality there.

I also have a problem with the discovery of a trinary star cluster in 'The Andorian Incident'. At the end of the season, it was mentioned that Enterprise was not even 100ly from Sol. Being generous and assuming that they are halfway to that episode upon duscovery of a stellar nursery, that places it no more than 50ly away. How could Earth based telescopes miss a trinary star cluster less than 50ly away? More to the point, this discovery was supposedly made "a couple of weeks ago". What the hell are they doing wondering about where next to go then? They've got a trinary star cluster for Bird's sake. That's big news. Surely that's got to occupy them for a little while. Or is its only significance as a photo op for the newspapers.

Anyway, I could go on but I'm beginning to even bore myself! I should mention that 'Vox Sola' did a stunning job though.

However, my point is that Enterprise's mission seems to have no substance to it. It seems flagrantly contradictory to the meticulous, thorough ways of scientific exploration of the old American space program that they salute in their title sequence.

However, the Stargate program is different. Here we have a load of teams that go on small scale expeditions with specific objectives. The stargate destinations have been mapped so they know generally where they're going and when going to a new planet, they send a drone through first.

I was watching 'Window of Opportunity'. Yes, that's right, that supremely hilarious episode. The very repetitive mission briefing told of why they're going P3X639 and what they're going to do when they get there. Information was provided by SG-15 who brought back photography of all the scribings. That's right, they have cameras. Of course, evidence of O'Neill's and Teal'c's plight comes from their knowledge of the arrival of SG-12 ahead of schedule. That's right, SG-12 had a planned return time.

The whole exploration thing is much more professional and meaty.

The stuff about the Gua'old... the Ga'ould... the... the wormy things is also pretty good aswell.

Larry Niven has been recomended several times on this board. I'll do so again.

One of the things that Niven points out is that spacers will be justifiably paranoid. In space, what you don't know can and will kill you. Spacers are meticulously neat, and meticulously cautious. Otherwise you're a dead spacer.

I had asked someone about Enterprise, whether it was worth watching or not. They cited this show, and the actions of the captain, as reasons why not.

There's an old space opera spoof called Flesh Gordon. Here, the scientist slams the ship down on an alien planet, throws open the door, sniffs, and says "Good, there's oxygen". Sad to see that the Enterprise writers think that's standard operating procedure.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but...

here in the "states" we are about half-way through the 2nd season and...IMHO...Enterprise seems to have lost it's "steam" as it were. I understand exactly what you are saying and (so far) the 2nd season is nothing to be particularly
proud of. Tis a shame. I guess I can always hope for a wiz-bang season finale. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I would also like to mention Babylon 5 as a good show to watch. It is already on vhs in Europe and is coming out on DVD. Season 1 is out on DVD and season 2 is slated for a spring-ish release.

Kizarvexis

Concur. The foreshadowing gets a bit heavy-handed at times, but it was interesting watching a show that had a direction. I'd heard that the series went downhill after it got cancelled; by that time i had a baby and had run out of time to watch.

Well, most shows do not produce their best episodes after production is ceased . . . [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2010 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

The thing is that I'm an amateur astronomer. I have a copy of Tasco SkyWatch, that I got with my Christmas trash and yet highly faithful telescope, which I've found to be brilliant (I haven't seen other Sky Simulators or Atlases). I like to spend a fair bit of time taking a look at all the great Deep Sky objects around, many things that are within range of Enterprise. The creators have all they need at their disposal to create a realistic flight path and fill that journey with all the things they want to. A specific journey that we could track would allow us to get into it more.

If I were Starfleet Command, I'd say that Enterprise's mission was a qualification mission. I would give them a course and a final target to reach and return from to see if the ship could do the job. Currently, all we see is Enterprise going as far out as they can with no specific objectives.

Anyway, there's another episode I'd like to mention. (Yes, I'm pacing myself)

'Rogue Planet'

The title conjures up all sorts of delicious prospects of Enterprise truly exploring these strange new worlds. So many great scientific questions to be asked. Why is this a rogue planet? Why was it ejected from its parent star system? Rogue planets don't form on their own. Or do they? Is this one an exception? Is there any evidence that it formed independantly? What about these volcanoes? They can't be the only thing allowing M'Enshara class areas? Or could they? Surely there must be something else at work. What is it? What are the mechanisms sustaining these habitable areas? How has the life adapted to the condition? Do they contain any evidence that they haven't always lived like this? Volcanism capable of sustaining these areas must surely spew out copious amounts of nitrogen and sulphur oxides. Or do they? If so, what's removing them from the atmosphere? How does the biosphere vary across the planet? Why is it habitable is some areas but not in others? It is the minerology? The tectonics? How have these things been affected by the lack of a star? Does this clue us into the planet's history and how long it's been a rogue? Can we learn from this planet a little more about our own?

That's a lot of lines just asking the questions a planetologist would ask. Think of what the great science fiction writers could do with this prospect.

How many answers do we get? None! The episode degenerates very quickly into a rather unoriginal anti-hunting statement. In fact, what's the point of having a rogue planet at all aside from the arguably dramatic effect of having a perpetual night. They call it 'Rogue Planet', but that was the one thing they focused on the least.

Hell, the set was filled with green leaves. Surely one of the landing party must have noticed that and asked why they look like your garden variety photosynthesising plants.

While it wasn't a bad episode overall, it probably wins the Star Trek prize for wasting the most potential.

Lets not forget that in that episode they help the flat worms by giving them a artifical chemical to mask themselves. What is going to happen after the hunters kill one, as they will eventually if only though blind luck, and they discover the masking agent? They are going to adjust their sensors to read the agent, and the Enterprise will have only made the situation worse.

Not only will they have made it easier for the hunters to locate they're quarry by introducing a foreign element, but they have now made an enemy of the hunter's race.

David.

I think a lot of the point of these blunders is to establish why the Prime Directive is so ingrained in later generations.

That doesn't excuse the cavalier and irresponsible way Starfleet have trained Archer and his crew to behave. As Daver says, Archer's method is a lot like that scientist from Flesh Gordon.

The Vulcans are absolutely right that humans are not ready for this. In fact, if I were in charge of the Vulcan High Command, I would shoot down (up, around, whatever) any Starfleet ship trying to leave the Sol System.

"What are you doing? It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!" - Guy, in Galaxy Quest

Okay, I'm going to play devil's advocate here and defend Enterprise a little bit.

As far as sending people down to alien planets without sending a probe down first, Star Trek has been doing that since '66, so it's kind of unfair to suggest that this is something the Enterprise producers have just started doing. I know, nobody specfically made that accusation, but still . . .

Also, they seem to have pretty good sensors on the ship. They know the planets are Class-M (breathable atmosphere) before they even get into orbit - it's not abundantly clear what additional information an automated probe would give them.

And as for the suggestions on "Rogue Planet" -- no offense, but are you trying to get Enterprise cancelled? Let's spend forty-five minutes talking about the geology of the planet instead of having human interaction/conflict. In a sci-fi novel, you can do that kind of stuff, but not a weekly TV series. This ain't the "Starfleet Discovery Channel" you know! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

On a lighter note,
Cute, very cute! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2010 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

A choice quote. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Firstly, we never did say it was okay that they did that in the earlier series. I remember in 'The Neutral Zone' [TNG], Worf and Data beam over to the cryosatellite and as soon as they arrive, without breathing apparatus, Worf reports that there is breathable air after consulting his tricorder. Handy as if that had not been the case he'd be dead.

Secondly, I think it's fair that we be more strict with this kind of thing on Enterprise because of the billing of the show. Classic was never intended to do the grand exploration thang, despite the fact that it did it on the whole better than any other series. Roddenberry simply wanted to do a Gulliver's Travels. In fact, according to Inside Star Trek the Real Story, there was a brief time when that was what they were going to call the show. The fanfair, as dramatic as it turned out to be, was more downplayed in its initial drafts. NextGen was simply a rehash. DS9 was something different entirely. Voyager was about going the other way.

Enterprise however was billed intentionally as a return to the pioneering ways of space exploration. It was given this as a mandate rather than Classic that did it as a byproduct of its intention to be a soapboax. The opening credits celebrate the American space program while acting in ways antithetical to it. The point is that the creators said they were doing a series defined to be about exploration of the unknown and so it is reasonable that we be more stringent this time about them doing it professionally.

Also, the other series were set at a later time when humans were interstellar veterans and the name of the Federation commands respect across the quadrant. At this time, humans are rookies and so more caution is advised.

I agree that their sensors are good (at little too good sometimes. Plot device good), so that's why I think they should put them to greater use before undergoing expensive undertakings such as launching a pod. But that still doesn't excuse their attitude, where Archer selects landing sites by what he likes the look of, the ship goes to places that 'peaks' the crew's interests and where they launch manned landings because they don't want probes to have 'all the fun'.

My questions were a bit hardlined, but I was trying to give a huge number of options from which the hypothetical creators could pick a few plot points to be integrated into such an episode. I agree that simply doing a Star Trek version of a LEVA would be dull to the vast majority. The problem I have with 'Rogue Planet' is that the namesake of the episode had absolutely no position in the actual teleplay. If they wanted to do an episode dedicated solely to an anti-hunting statement, they could have chosen a more appropriate title. In other words, an episode with that title should be focused on the planet and its mysteries. It is possible to have a good interesting teleplay that can work with those questions that I outlined and get some intrigue. Obviously dedicating the entire episode just to it would be tedious, but just ignoring the subject completely negates the point of having it.

They set it on a rogue planet and expect us to be grateful. We want (or at least I do) the rogue planet to be a integral part of the episode.

The show is defiunitely going downhill. I am a avid Trek watcher. I have watched all of the TNG shows, All of Voyager, Up to the last two or three seasons of DS9 (when they got way to religious and boring) and only the first seasoj of Enterprise.

To me Enterprise has gone downhill in that their episodes are more of a rehash of other shows and their plots seem to be cheesy. They strictly follow the same path. Go to some unexplored place, find something new, cool or they find something very evil happening or about to happen. They try to help the good guys. The last 5 min of the show they find a way to beat the bad guys and the bad guys go running home with their tail between their legs.

Yes i will give them the credit for original episodes like the one where the genetic disease was killinng the people on the planet wiht two races. But that was a rarity.

Plus the ratings for Enterprise are abismally low. I really think that there will be a fight to keep it on for one more season.

Star trek has been known for its bending of science. From their warp drives to their technobabble or non-exhistant things. Enterprise seems to take a veery large offshoot from the original series and TNG. They sometimes seem to have tech that never works. And sometimes they seme to have tech that is a hundred times more advanced than Voyager (the tricorders come to mind). Be consistent people!!

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GIYUL :-)
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." - Dan Sandler 2002

The one thing that kept me watching Voyager was the sense of continuity. The really liked the idea of the crew having to struggle to get home from the other side of the galaxy.

With Enterprise, the plots may be cheesy most of the time, but if we had some sense of continuity, such as being able to follow the progress of a defined mission in the real galaxy, it would help.

I agree. Voyager had a point, a goal, to get home in any way possible. They were in a new and uncharted part of the galaxy and can come up with new stuff. But by making Enterprise in the past the have to follow a scripted history and doctirne. The can't just make stuff up along the way. That is how you loose viewership.

No, i think good writing would make up for it. There's plenty of room there, and it'd give the tried-and-true trekkies some giggles if they managed to make reference to something we know about from shows later in the timeline. On the other hand, it's harder to write shows that fit into an existing chronology, and it'd require having someone in the production department who actually cared about consistency.

I got turned off by the first couple episodes of Vger (how many stupid glaring mistakes can you make in a pilot?); later i'd pause while flipping by on occasion (the occasions were pretty highly corelated to whether the Borg was in the shot), i'd resume flipping when someone started talking.

I had the same feeling with the Dyson Sphere episode of TNG. They gave us that really cool setting, and then did almost nothing with it. The plot centered almost entirely on the return of Scotty. And when they were done, we heard nothing about the DS again. What a waste.

Actually, I have only been able to see a few eps of Enterprise so far, taped for me by a friend. Rogue Planet wasn't one of them. They seemed to be pretty good, so they must be early episodes. I'll just have to take your word for it that it's going downhill. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

I consider TNG to have done the same thing, wasting an excellent chance to play off it's predecessor. There were so many good potential follow-ups they could have done from the original series that they never seemed to even consider. What about the Gorn, or the Tholians? Maybe they could have run into a second doomsday device, or discovered it's origin. The time portal from the "Edge of Forever" episode; The androids from Mudd's planet; more tribbles, the Horta, the Menagerie planet. Gads, there are hundreds of great potential leads that were just never explored.

In fact, I think that's what most people were expecting when the show was first announced. But while they did manage to make the show exciting and interesting in it's own way, it just never fulfilled it's destiny, as it were.

DS9 seems to have taken up some of the slack that TNG missed, doing things like the evil universe story arc, but it just feels like too little, too late to me.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

What I thought was funny about ST:TNG was that they were supposed to be exploring unkown parts of the galaxy - so they said the first episode. (Continuing the theme, "To explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization....")

Err, how many new worlds did they explore? How many new civilizations did they find? For that matter, how many worlds and civilizations did they interract with period (which seemed to be follow-up missions)! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

My opinion is that the only thing that kept TNG, DS9, and Voyager going was the Star Trek hype.

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

TNG still has a heavy following. Just see the ratings for it on TNN. But how many times have you seen DS9 on reruns? Me? never. Voyager only reruns here at 1 in the morning and on weekends. The TOS used to run all the time on the Sci-fi channel, but has now been replaced by John Edwards and UFO bs.

I think the series(star trek) ended for the average viewer at the end of TNG. I think after TNG the average viewer either did not care anymore or thought it to be too geeky to watch. The next few series tried to put more trek into the show and less catchup for non-trekkies. They were pushed along by the fans, and the fans only. That is what you see when you see the ratings of the latest movies.

I thought the TNG movies First contact, Nemesis were not bad. The rest sucked.
Yet no matter how bad they were rated by the critics, they all made similar amounts of money.

With enterprise i think the producers are realizing this and trying to get back to the basics. But they are still using the old trek producers and directors. To make this good they need a new directors and new producers and writers. Just because the guy has been writing for 20 years of trek does not mean he is good anymore. Get new, exciting, and original people to write.

I agree with the post above (as shown in my last aragraph), new writing can help the series. But unless it is done soon, the series is going to fade into oblivion.

I really hopeit does not get cancled. I love the cast and the characters. They seem to be good actors and work well together. Just the writing currently sucks. If they rewrote the series with new writers and producers, it could become big again.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: g99 on 2003-02-07 10:50 ]</font>

Good point. But to be fair, the episode wasn't entitled 'Dyson Sphere'.

'Broken Bow' was beyond exquisite. 'Flight or Flight' was very good. 'Strange New World', bad behaviour aside, was pretty good. 'Unexpected' was very good with the excellent Xyrillian ship (that's the kind of thing we want). 'Terra Nova' I thought was dull and Archer was too busy playing around with his soap boax. 'The Andorian Incident' was okay but too political. 'Breaking the Ice' was great fun with improved procedures (they were collecting a core tube), but still lacking some important things. 'Civilisation' was pretty dull. The crew's wonder about this planet seemed more of a cringeworthy "cheddar cheeriness". 'Fortunate Son' was pretty good and it did convey a better feeling of the large unknown. 'Cold Front' was okay. 'Silent Enemy' was kind of good. 'Dear Doctor' had some good point about it. 'Sleeping Dogs' wasn't that interesting. 'Shadows of P'Jem' was all political. 'Shuttlepod One' was kind of fun. 'Fusion' was ... weird. 'Rogue Planet' I've already been through. 'Acquisition' was great fun. If the series was about them, it would be great. 'Oasis' was kind of good. 'Detained' was a good allegory although Trip should be slapped. 'Vox Sola' was stunning. 'Fallen Hero' was all political. 'Desert Crossing' was midly entertaining. 'Two Days and Two Nights' showed that the creators are prepared to due a more paced episode but they never do it at the right time. 'Shockwave' was the story arc thing.

I'm probably one of the few people who liked DS9. The thing about it was that it was distinctive. It also produced some of the best episode of the franchise: 'Duet', 'The Ascent', 'In the Pale Moonlight', 'Call to Arms', 'The Seige of AR-558'. DS9's problem is that the creators didn't plan what was going to happen and so when they created all these side threads, they tied themselves in knots and drowned. And they blew up the Defiant, which is the apex of all that is supremely gorgeous. I also loved Nana Visitor as the Intendant. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I know it wasn't named "Dyson Sphere", but I can't remember the actual title off the top of my head, so I just said "the dyson sphere one". I probably shouldn't have capitalized it though.

Actually, I thought DS9 was pretty good too, up to a point. I only got to see the first two seasons though, as it was about that time I moved to Japan. They were trying to make it different, at least.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

You didn't see the Defiant then. You poor deprived Bad Master.

Actually I have seen a sporadic episode here and there from later in the series (I had a friend sending me jumbled tapes of stuff at one time), so I know about the Defiant a bit. But I only have a vague understanding of how the story arc went and few details of the ship and how it fit in.

I know even less about Voyager, having seen only the first season, and an ep or two from after that.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

I'm just watching The Sky at Night. The episode is 'Astro Art'. We're seeing all sorts of great works of artists impressions about what all sorts of strange planets might look like. The creators should take a look at it for some inspiration.

What we're seeing is totally strange Buzz Lightyear, Jetsons sort of stuff. Truly exotic. That's what we need.

At this time, humans are rookies and so more caution is advised.

I have a tough time with this. I think the writing teams have really dropped the ball on this one. We have humanity plying the spaceways for the first time eager to break the Vulcan shackles. Not a chance in Hell. If we have this technology we're going to use it regardless if anyone else thinks we are ready. Enterprise also seriously breaks the canon etablished in all the other series. When Cochrane developed the warp drive as states in TOS, no one else had it. That actually puts the humans in a prime spot, but in Enterprise that's not the case. This show has yet to give me an inkling as to how we go from being the backwater newbies to the dominant race of the Federation in about 80 years. Numerous other references in the other series and movies state that without Humans, the Federation dies. Final point (such as they are) I don't think the show will go long enough to do so, but the Earth-Romulan war is just around the corner. Wonder how they will get out of THAT one?

(fix bbcode)

Season 1 was set ten years before the charter. If the series does last to completion, it might end with the beginning of the war.

BTW, we first saw th e Romulans in 'Minefield' where they had cloaking devices. But, 100 years later in 'Balance of Terror' [TOS], the discovery that the Romulans had developed cloaking technology was new.

I watched the first few seasons of DS9 and then started to wane off and watch every once in a while. Then during the big dominion war i picked it up again for a little bit. To me it got way to religous and out there. The characters were good and loveable and it did tie into the other series a little. (Heck in the begining of every Voyager show you see DS9 for a fleeting momnet).

Voyager i liked alot. It was more of a shoot and run type of thing. It also had many new and never before seen aliens and it had a goal right form the start. Plus the Borg (swedish? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]) are cool.



So here is a question. Which of the series was the most scientifically realistic?

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GIYUL :-)
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." - Dan Sandler 2002

Classic. There were no sounds.

I thought they did Whhooosshhh! in space and their lasers went Peettoow!

__________________
GIYUL :-)
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." - Dan Sandler 2002