New Testingstan

Ghetto edit

adr wrote:After this, I think I'm going to watch Babylon 5, I have had that on dvd for a while too and never actually seen it.

i mean better late than never but holy shit

I only saw most of it in the last year. Still haven't seem S5, or the movies, or Crusade.

TBH it's one of those shows SFDebris make sound much more awesome that it is to watch. I notice the same thing with episodes of Doctor Who he likes and I don't.

Stofsk wrote:I seriously can't get over how much I could just sit back and enjoy Enterprise without going 'zomg SDN says this show is stupid.' That place really poisons one's thinking.

Yeah. I am now about five episodes in... I'm paused in the middle of the Andorian Incident and I'm basically enjoying it. "Strange New World" was decent, though not amazing. I liked Terra Nova and Andorian Incident is a pretty fun time (so far).

That said, I like Voyager more, I actually thought Voyager season one was consistently good (though not great, I think Voyager had its first *great* episodes in season two with Death Wish, Tuvix, The Thaw) but this isn't too bad so far.


And yeah I just never got around to B5, but I've heard enough good things that I want to, it and Farscape are the ones I bought on reputation but haven't actually watched.

So one thing that kinda jumps out at me is an awful lot of of Voyager's displays looked like CRTs embedded in the consoles, and Enterprise's look like off-the-shelf LCD monitors (hell, at quick look, I think I see HP logos! but i don't think that's what it actually is).

TNG looks more futuristic to me than the other two, oh well.

onto Fortunate Son... and I like the design of this cargo ship. The nacelles look TOS-y without being a total copy and the inside has that 70's sci fi font all over to give the impression that it is kinda retro sci-fi, which it is in universe, being an old, last generation ship. I both kinda like the look itself and the artistic thinking behind it (well, at least as I interpret it).

On the other hand, the criticisms that the writers too much lean on Star Trek tropes is kinda accurate, they mentioned shield frequencies here... lol.

Stofsk wrote:Even Dear Doctor, which is a bad episode, was good for most of it up until the last five minutes. It reminded me of Data's Day.

I'm watching Dear Doctor now.... and it might be my favorite episode of Enterprise so far. I actually like Dr Phlox this time (first time I watched, I found him annoying but now I like him), seeing the day to day stuff from his perspective is cool, and the moral dilemma makes things more interesting. Archer is making good points too.... and T'pol's "the Vulcans are still there" is a solid consideration too.

....and just hit 39 minutes in and the episode takes a dive. Kinda reminds me of "Alliances" back on Voyager, I really enjoyed it until like five minutes to the end, where the arguments that were strong to that point just pompously die. (and it is worth noting that I *agree* with Janeway there, I just didn't like the way it was presented. Here, I both disagree with Archer and don't like the way it is presented... "this directive", groan)

Nevertheless, I have a way of ignoring endings I don't like, so I still actually like the episode overall.

LOL "what do you do then, program a holographic doctor?"

That's the kind of reference that makes me plain lol, it fits the story, delivered without any silly wink, just he considers it absurd but it something that makes me lol

Dear Doctor pisses me off because it's a perfect demonstration of why Enterprise failed to capture people's hearts. It's a good episode up until the last five minutes. It has an interesting idea that is executed poorly. You have characters who are otherwise likable do heinous inaction with zero justification. And it's all to make a point about the prime directive. At a time when the prime directive wasn't even there.

If you want to do a prime directive story in a prequel Star Trek series, that's the complete bass ackwards way to go about it. To properly cement why non-interference became so imperative to Starfleet ethos and policy, you have to tell a story where interference is categorically disastrous. Where it results in catastrophe, the absolute worst thing that could have happened happened, and it could have been prevented if you didn't get involved at all.

In this episode it should have been the other way around, Phlox refuses NOT to interfere and goes out of his way to try to find a cure, only to discover the cure is worse than the disease in the most heartbreaking way possible. (Say the only way to produce enough of the cure requires unsynthesised proteins or whatever, and the only way to get that is sacrificing half the population to save the other half, or the second species is used up entirely for this purpose) Maybe the compound could be synthesised with the infrastructure the planet has and Enterprise doesn't, so the cure is handed over in a good faith fashion. Only they find out later that they took the path of least resistance anyway and just sacrificed the other dudes.

The whole point of a good Prime Directive cautionary tale is to show that interference has unintended consequences. Not that non-interference is the best possible solution to all possible problems. It's supposed to make you stop and think and consider what the desireable and ethical outcomes can result of interference and whether it's justified to do so under the circumstances. And more importantly, it's supposed to emphasise that you have to live with the consequences. Too many times in TNG+ era, they never really had to live with the consequences of non-interference. It was just a 'welp, sucks to be those guys, let's warp out of orbit.' TOS at least seriously grappled with interference vs non-interference and navigating the tricky ethical maze of that, in addition to seeing unintended consequences bite the protagonists in the arse.

Even STID in it's cold opening actually showed the downside of interference.

Well done, you saved them. Now they think of you as a god!

Yeah, I agree. That's what really got me about the end too: Archer just kinda abruptly flipped sides without a great reason in character, he doesn't have any experience to justify that switch.

We've said before that the theme of TOS is "we aren't perfect, but we're getting there". (I'd argue TNG is "we think we're perfect, but we're still really just getting there"). I figure the logical prequel idea would be along the lines of "we're good folks with a lot of potential but don't know what we're doing yet".

So, I'd want to see Archer arguing from his gut, always wanting to do what feels to him to be the right thing, but that gastro-idealism backfiring to teach them the practical lessons that lead into TOS's gut tempered with the new rules.


The episode had him doing this until the end! I'd keep that part basically the same, just instead of "until my people have a rule I won't interfere", he says "until my people have a rule.... I have to do what I feel is right. Phlox, I understand you have reservations, but I want you to give them the cure."

End the episode on the high note, but we can see these people again in a later episode, it'd be too much to try to cram everything in here.

"The Communicator" was a pretty fun episode and again getting into prime directive territory. I was expecting to hate the ending but this one was OK.

From the title, I was reminded of "A Piece of the Action", and actually the old NES Star Trek 25th anniversary game. At the end of that game, you come on Sigma Iota IV and find it ruined - they figured out the communicator Bones left behind and screwed things up. You go back in time to get the communicator back and undo it to finish off the game. The time scale is a bit implausible but I liked how the game brought back the little line from the end of the episode.

So I expected this to go that way, but they did things differently and I basically like it. The lies told about the far away land causes its own problems, I don't think they have gone over that much before so I liked the new angle.

I'm chalk this up as another good episode. (btw I also liked "Minefield" and "Shuttlepod One", both kinda focusing on Reed lol, though still, so far, none of Enterprise has been *great*. Yet....)

In other news, finished DS9 tonight. I love the finale arc. It just hits all the right notes to me. I especially loved them giving us one last Bashir/O'Brien episode during it all.

And boy did the show runners love Vic Fontaine.

trip tucker's list of movies has two that sound familiar: "Dixon Hill and the Black Orchid" and "The Bride of Chaotica"

apparently in the ST universe those are two of the longest lived franchises up there with Shakespeare! Think about that for a minute, like 200 years later, these things are back or still popular, or just coincidental. But maybe it speaks to some eternal principle like the best of the classics. Chaotica reigns forever!


BTW I like a lot of stuff about the background stuff here. I previously praised a ship of the week, but Enterprise has fun labels too. i gotta check out interviews with the art department some time.

* * *

i love vic fontaine too soooooooooooooo

adr wrote:i love vic fontaine too soooooooooooooo

He's not a bad character at all, I like him too. I know he has some detractors, and I'll admit sometimes it shows that they just felt like giving him a full song for no real reason, but on the whole he's a good character. Sure he's no Garak but then, that's a pretty high bar to set.

I loved DS9's ending montage, and how all the characters pretty much got to move on with their lives. Contrast with TNG where it was mostly a Picard episode, and the main character moments were Riker accepting Worf's relationship with Troi (a plot development that was forgotten about by the movies, so completely worthless) and then Picard joining the card game, which was great. But aside from that none of the other characters really got to move forward at all. DS9 game them that, so I have to say it easily tops All Good Things in the series finale department.

WYLB was fine until it became a clip show then had to wrap up the stupid Pah-Wraith plot.

I maybe in error but I don't recall any of the 'characters moving on' actually flowing from anything in previous episodes.

Yeah I'm with Crazedwraith. WYLB is a mess. Stupid Pah Wraith Plot is stupid. Dominion War wrap up felt rushed. Honestly the Dominion War in general felt like a misstep in a lot of ways but it really became annoying at the end of the show where they kept raising the stakes and making the bad guys all-powerful, and then the good guys win in like half an hour. The clip show nonsense deliberately excluded Jadzia, which no matter whose side you're on is just a shitty thing to have happen to a character who was around since day one of the show.

It has a few good scenes and I loved the final scene too, but All Good Things remains the crowning champion of Star Trek final episodes.

Anyway adr who's your favourite character on Enterprise? I overwhelmingly like Trip the most out of all the humans but Porthos is the star

Well, Porthos is obviously the best ever, but I kinda like Phlox best among the others. Trip and Reed are cool too.

Hoshi and Travis I think are underused, though I do like them when they are doing something. Archer and T'Pol are just kinda meh. I don't dislike them (most the time), but I don't love them either.... actually, that's kinda how I am feeling about the show as a whole - it isn't bad (for the most part); I'm enjoying watching it, but it isn't great either.

Anyway, Phlox is probably mostly likable due to John Billingsley - the performance is sincerely quirky and I like that. It'd be easy to make his character just be ridiculous, but he is like the fascinated alien he should be. I just like seeing that.

Reed and Trip are likeable to me because they are... well, just likable, they are basically ordinary guys who don't annoy me and get enough screen time to actually grow on me.

I just watched the episode "Bounty". The A-plot was OK, like with the Andorian stuff, seeing people we know will be in the Federation later being antagonistic is fun to me and Archer softening their hearts shows the seeds that will sprout to be the Federation and explain why Earth is so important in it, I'll buy that concept.

But the B-plot is BAD. So bad. The decon chamber isn't a bad idea in principle, but every time it is on screen is bad news. This attempt at sex crap is so so so so so bad and the character assassination is, well, ugh.

Ugh isn't strong enough. *BARF*

like it just drives me nuts. Tuvok had pon farr but managed to remain, well, Vulcan. T'Pol became some kind of weird pornographic object.



BTW i miss Tuvok.

Another note, and more praise for the art side of things, the Enterprise uniforms are growing on me. I like the variety we see, with them changing clothes on some planets, and the ordinary one is just a nice design - it looks pretty good and seems generally practical. The color blue too makes me think more astronaut than any of the others.

I think I'm going to put them in my top three favorite Star Trek uniforms, the others being TOS movies and TNG season 3+. The TNG ones are distinctive but still simple enough, and the TOS movie ones are just the sex... though I'm not prepared to rank these three among themselves.


I'm adding pockets to my universe's starfleet uniforms now.

I just finished season three and the show has obviously changed. The theme song got remixed... and this version sounds OK to me on the TV. I still like the season 1/2 version as an independent song, perhaps even better, but this season 3 version I do think makes for a better tv show theme..... though I feel like I did with The Jem'Hadar, the new direction is good and I'm finding the show more gripping than before, but I kinda miss the old direction. "actually, we haven't done much exploration for a while". All that azati stuff was cool, "Similitude" was like a traditional star trek morality episode yay, and the serialization keeps my attention (though has the negative of making individual episodes less rewatchable; they come as a set).

And now season four, I really do like how Archer feels the same way about the change of direction and regretting the evil crap he did, good! The time traveling nazis btw was lame, I wasn't really interested in that at all, but now on the episode "Home", this is good stuff.

I kinda wonder if they will send someone to that ship they marooned though, it seems like a good way to at least try to make amends.

BTW Shran is cool, the Andorians look pretty good and Jeffery Combs is the mang.

ooh, J.G. Hertzler! and Brent Spiner?!?!?!

What show am I even watching?!

whoa, a sehlat! in live action!

i find this way more cool than i probably should

These three part stories are pretty cool, kinda reminds me of old doctor who. But I'm quite enjoying these. Having the Romulans running drones too is genius, way to work with the TOS nobody has ever seen them thing. I like it.

"if we drop below warp 5, we explode"

speed in space!!!!!!