Enterprise: Episode 15 - SHADOWS OF P'JEM

"T'Pol is recalled to Vulcan after the events of "The Andorian Incident". During her final away mission, she and Archer are kidnapped, leading to a confrontation between Vulcans and Andorians."

I'm sick and don't feel like doing this ... so here it goes.

Solid episode here. T’Pol is being reassigned by the Vulcan high command because that Vulcan temple from a few episodes ago was destroyed by the Andorians. She’s in trouuuubbble. Like we are really going to believe that T’Pol will be taken off of the show half way through season one. 

Oh one of the Vulcans was the Alien Nation guy … he has the most recognizable male set of lips since Mick Jagger. By the way the Temple was named Pearl Jam. Which is fitting seeing how temple was full of people that are talented but deadpan know-it-all's.

Archer and T’Pol get kidnapped by some alien species. Archer is a wise ass as usual and gets a beating. Archer and T’Pol are tied together and try to release each others’ restraints, each time ending up in odd sexual positions. How convenient for Archer that it was T’Pol and not another guy, although that would have made for better TV. Archer also forces her to eat off the floor…

I like when Trip has to be the captain, he’s very Bones-esque. The Vulcans show up and are pissed because T’Pol isn’t there. Trip and Malcolm go down to the planet to save the captain and T’Pol. They are confronted by … tada…An Andorian/Brian Cranston/the Re-Animator guy. They actually want to help out, which is cool because I really like these Andorians. The Andorian is so pissed because he’s losing sleep over having to repay Archer for helping them out previously. 

Vulcans show up on the planet, there’s a big fight, T’Pol gets shot while saving a Vulcan officer….and she gets to stay on the Enterprise. 

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 15 down 83 to go

Enterprise: Episode 14 - SLEEPING DOGS

"Hoshi, Malcolm and T'Pol board an unresponsive Klingon ship on decaying orbit into the crushing pressures of a gas giant."

They save a Klingon ship from sure destruction, only to have the Klingons threaten to kill them. See, this is why I love the Klingons. They are so realistic. Angry, miserable and violent. Is it disturbing that I actually found the Klingon female attractive? I expected more from this episode, it was just ok.


ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 14 down 84 to go

Enterprise: Episode 13 - DEAR DOCTOR

"Phlox & Archer must decide where their morals lie about letting a species live or die from a pandemic."

Sweet a Dr. Phlox themed episode! Phlox is both a good doctor and a sturdy perennial. The episode begins with Dr. Phlox receiving a letter?? from a friend, a man, from San Francisco!! So I’m thinking, oh it’s obvious, Dr. Phlox is obviously a Giants fan. It’s interesting to see Dr. Phlox observing humans, he’s way out of his comfort zone. He keeps bringing up mating, then we see that a human Ensign girl is actually attracted to him. It’s obviously for his personality….so unrealistic.  Human woman like to pretend that they care about personality, “I don’t care about looks, as long as he has a good sense of humor”. LIE… Anyway, Archer asks Dr. Phlox to save a species from a disease. The planet has two life forms, both humanoid but one is more of a “Neanderthal type”, like Vin Diesel. Phlox discovers that the disease is genetic and only affects the non-Neanderthal type. They will eventually be extinct and the Neanderthal’s will evolve. Phlox refuses to interfere with evolution and Archer reluctantly agrees. So they leave the people to die. Bravo. Great episode.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 13 down 85 to go

Enterprise: Episode 12 - SILENT ENEMY

"Archer faces an enemy that doesn't respond to hails while Hoshi tries to find what Malcolm's favorite food is to surprise him for his birthday."

Again the stumble upon aliens with attitudes. They are not interested in talking, just fighting. They disable everything and board the ship. They look a bit like the Mars Attacks aliens, so for once  on this show they actually look like a stereotype. How come they never made them look like the aliens form the movie Spaced Invaders? The commercial showed them singing "Louie, Louie", I go to the theater to see this piece of garbage specifically to see this scene ... and it never happens!! I was so pissed.

Archer actually questions the fact that the Enterprise left dock without even testing anything. Which is funny. Trip and Malcolm are hustling to install Phase Cannons that have never even been put in. Trip's Earth girlfriend breaks up with him, It's pretty tough to get over your boyfriend getting knocked up by an alien chick. Especially when she's black. Anyway, they finally install them and give those mysterious spacemen the beat down.

Side Plot: Hoshi has an impossible time trying to find out Malcolm's favorite food for his surprise birthday dinner. She asks his parents; they evidently hate him. She asks his sister; she evidently could care less about him. She asks his best friend; he evidently barely remembers him. She asks him; he evidently is autistic.
 But Dr. Phlox figures it out ... it's pineapple. They make him a cake. I must say this, I really like Dr. Phlox - he has to be the most likable character in Star Trek history.

So yeah, I watched two episodes today and then I watched "Let Me In" for the first time. I watched the Swedish "Let the Right One In" and liked it. The English one was just as good, it was easier to follow at least. Thanks to Capt. Naps for pointing out that "she" was really a "he" with a chopped off penis. Never would have figured that out from the movie. Also both movies are filmed in Vomit-Vision. Black and White, Puke Olive Green and Diarrhea Brown. That's the extent of the colors in these films.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 12 down 86 to go

Enterprise: Episode 11 - COLD FRONT

"Archer finds out a crewman on Enterprise is helping to fight the Temporal Cold War against Silik and some of the Suliban."

The Enterprise runs into another alien that is a complete jerk, he's captaining a ship that is escorting some weird religious people ... basically the Hale-Bop comet posse.  They want to see some kind of celestial event. Anyway, one of them is Silik in disguise (the Suliban bad guy from Broken Bow).Silik saves the ship from exploding, but he has other motives. At first I was expecting this to be one of those Next Gen episodes in which delegates visit the ship and then they discuss things for 50 minutes. But this episode takes a cool twist in which Silik must fight a time traveling waiter from the future. He has been dispatched to stop the Suliban from altering history. Stupidly this waiter has a device on him that will allow the Suliban to just that. Why carry this?? Silik kills him and gets the device, but Archer fights Silik and destroys the device. Silik then opens the bay doors and sky-dives out like he was mutha fuckin Lee Majors in the Fall Guy (although he looks more like Vin Diesel but with better skin and 10x the acting chops)

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 11 down 87 to go

Enterprise: Episode 10 - FORTUNATE SON

"The cargo ship Fortunate was attacked by Nausicans and the Enterprise lends a helping hand only to find the crew of the Fortunate has secret plans."

Sort of a boring episode. It was directed by LeVar Burton though. The captain of the Fortunate gets messed up so the next in command goes rogue and tries to single-handedly destroy the Nausicans. At first I thought that this rogue captain dude was Scott Wolf! It wasn't. The Nausicans kind of look like Predator. The Enterprise helps to resolve the situation. I get the feeling that this episode was a metaphor for blue collar workers. Or it was just an episode of a sci-fi show. Haven't decided which one.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 10 down 88 to go

Enterprise: Episode 9 - CIVILIZATION

"Archer, Trip, Hoshi, and T'Pol go undercover to observe a pre-industrial civilization to find they aren't the first observers there"

Have to watch two episodes today because I was way too busy being lazy yesterday.  So I just watched the episode Civilization and it was rather good. Typical setup of a Star Trek crew visiting an Earth like civilization. They discover another alien species hanging out there incognito, they are secretly drilling for stuff and making everyone ill in the process. They are dressed like Roman Centurions for some reason and much like every important person in Earth's history - they are really lizards. Archer has a Kirk moment in which he makes out with an alien. I actually agree with T'Pol's logic in the beginning of the episode in which she says that they should only expose themselves (haha whatever) to other planets that have already discovered some kind of warp drive. But as usual nobody listens to her. And strangely enough nobody on the planet really seems to care that there are "aliens" amongst them. American southwest take notice. ....because of Area 51, yeah, that's what I meant.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 9 down 89 to go

Enterprise: Episode 8 - BREAKING THE ICE

"Malcolm and Travis seek Eisilium on a comet."

So the crew discovers this huge comet, it has some rare element(?) on it and they go on it to dig the stuff up. The Vulcans show up yet again to spy on them. They are so irritating, now I see why Spock was actually cool, he was half human. There are a few irritating parts to this episode, 1. the whole digging on a comet thing. 2. Archer invites the Vulcan commander to dinner and the guy is a totally dick the whole time. 3. A quarter of the episode is comprised of Archer reading letters from grade school kids, I guess it's meant to be cute but it went on way too long. But worst of all, there is this huge build up to some personal secret that T'Pol has, Trip accidently finds out and he's freaking about it. I'm thinking "This has to be something really good, like she's depressed or she needs to do some kind of Amok Time thing." Turns out she's supposed to get married .... yeah that's it. Hmmm, um married, yeah well ok. In the end she eats Pecan Pie. Also they use that stupid grappling arm again, but the cool thing was that this episode showed the first appearance of the tractor beam. The Vulcans used it and they refused to give Archer the specs on it.

It's like 100 degrees out and I had to hide in my yard to watch this episode. I barely get internet out here, Netflix was crawling.... It took me almost two hours to watch it! It was nearly worth every minute. Oh...I just got the title "Breaking the Ice" like they dug into the comet ice...haha...yeah.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 8 down 90 to go

Enterprise: Episode 7 - THE ANDORIAN INCIDENT

“Archer, Trip, and T'Pol are taken hostage by Andorians in the Vulcan monastery of P'Jem”

Best one yet. Maybe one of my favorites of all time. Archer is the man in this one. He’s punching Vulcans, wrestling Andorians repeatedly getting his face beaten in by the Andorians and he still stays cool. In fact he purposely takes a beating, now that’s balls. If only Archer new that a few years later he would be sitting around a table squawking like hens with Ray Romano and Bubba Shrimp. The Andorians are super convinced that the Vulcans have some crazy spy machine in this temple…nobody believes them. The whole time I’m thinking “I really hate these Andorians with their antennae and blue skin … although they all seem to look like Brian Cranston in some weird way” … it turns out they re right! The Vulcans are sneaky pricks as usual. Then I’m thinking “I like these Andorians they are pretty tough but look super gay, which is totally respectable”

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 7 down 91 to go

Enterprise: Episode 6 - TERRA NOVA

(Viewed July 20, 2011)

“An early human colony on Terra Nova mysteriously disappeared 70 years ago and Enterprise is sent to find out what happened to them. “

I really dug this one. When radiation turns the surface into a wasteland, the inhabitants are forced underground. Much like the Megadeth song Dawn Patrol. As the years go by the offspring forget that they had ever lived above ground and view anything from the topside as evil. They want to kill Archer and his crew until the awesome Dr. Phlox cures one of them of cancer. Which answers my question of when will there be a cure for cancer? Over 100 years from now. I guess that’s actually not that bad. Oh yeah, this show is fake. Anyway, Archer saves one of them one of them saves Archer and that’s the end.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 6 down 92 to go

Enterprise: Episode 5 - UNEXPECTED

(Viewed July 19. 2011)

“Trip helps an alien crew fix their engines only to find himself pregnant. “

Really, that says it all. I nearly stopped watching Star Trek forever after this episode. It’s that stupid. The saving grace is the first appearance of the holodeck (which Starfleet seems to forget about for the next 100 years??) and the Klingons being total hard-asses as always. I wondered why the Klingons look like TNG ones and not more like TOS ones … then I remembered that this will all be conveniently explained in a few more episodes. The Xyrillian woman that Trip finds attractive seriously looks like Freddy Krueger, the sad thing is that half way through the episode I was thinking “ehh she ain’t too bad”. So she knocks him up by sticking his hand in her bowl of crystals … literally. At the end of the episode T’Pol states that this is the first time that a man has ever had a baby. Little did they know that a few years after this episode was made that a real life man that was actually a woman had a baby. Awesome.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 5 down 93 to go

Enterprise: Episode 4 - STRANGE NEW WORLD

“A storm traps an away team on an alien world, while spores cause them to experience psychosis. “

One big-time acid trip. Everyone is convinced that T’Pol is a spy, but it turns out that everyone was bugging out on some funky pollen. Trip was tripping. That’s my joke. 

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 4 down 94 to go

Enterprise: Episode 3 - FIGHT OR FLIGHT

(Viewed July 17, 2011)

“Hoshi faces her fears on an alien ship whose crew was murdered, while Malcolm tries to upgrade the ship's defense system. “

This episode is full of honest reactions. Hoshi being horrified by a dozen dead and deflated alien bodies hanging upside down is pretty much the reaction that anyone would have. Then the Enterprise takes off and literally leaves dead enough alone. Again, I would have this same reaction when facing another persons misery. You see someone trip and fall, lower your head and keep on walking. It's the American way. Problem is that Archer has OCD and can’t not not go back (that was a triple negative which makes it correct!).  Of course this gets the Enterprise attacked by the same guys that killed the Axanar. Oh and evidently the weapons systems’ on the Enterprise barely works, for some reason nobody thought of testing anything out before the ships launch. Another Axanar ship shows up and Hoshi cracks their language and asks them to help. They basically blow up the Alien ship in like one shot … which makes you wonder what the heck was the problem with the first Axanar ship?

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 3 down 95 to go

Enterprise: Episode 1/2 - BROKEN BOW

(Viewed 7/16/2011)



I need to say this right away, this theme song is hooorrrriiibble. The song itself is alright, some talent there I guess, reminds me of Warrant...Jani Lane bitches. But as a theme for Star Trek??? To be honest it depresses me. I actually get depressed every time I hear it.  It’s all about having faith, following your dreams and never giving up. Well, I've given up on all of that crap years ago! I don’t need to be reminded about it in a freakin theme song! Whatever happen to those great TOS lyrics “ahhh ahhh ahhhh ahhhhhh”

The episode begins with young Jonathan Archer with his father Henry Archer (designer of Warp 5 engine). Young Jonathan expresses his distrust of Vulcans. Fast forward a bunch of years later. A Klingon crash lands in Broken Bow Oklahoma, he’s being chased by two Suliban. He easily defeats them but ends up getting shot by a farmer.  I mean, will we really need actual farmers in 2151, one’s that still dress like Old McDonald and still use a shotgun?  But anyway. The Vulcans butt in, Archer meets a Klingon for the first time and offers to escort him back home. Archer did not seem very intrigued by this first glimpse of a new alien race, in fact none of the other humans really seemed to care much either.  I thought that this signified some kind of first contact with a Klingon, but maybe not. Also right off the bat they establish the fact that Vulcans are huge d-bags, this episode just throws that right out there. T’Pol is offered up to escort Archer escorting the Klingon.

Is it just me but does this all seem very unofficial:
Archer “I’ll escort him home”
Starfleet: “Yeah sure go ahead”
Archer: “I’m going to hire all of my friends”
Starfleet: “whatever”
Archer: “Ok, see ya”

Turns out that the Klingon was carrying a message home from Sarin (basically a Suliban rat) telling the Klingons that Suliban are a bunch of backstabbers.  Long story short; they take the Klingon home, steal a Suliban ship using some crazy grappling arm and use the transporter beam for the first time. Archer asks T’Pol to stay on as Science Officer (and then proceeds to hate her for the next 20 episodes).

This plot was way to complex, I have the attention span of a TOS fan.
One thing that does not make any sense at all, is this co-ed decontamination shower scene.

a) Why does a male and female need to be in there together?
b) Why would they need to rub each other down?
c) Why would they NOT be completely nude?

Also isn’t it ironic that a Commander on the real Enterprise made a video with a shower scene. No…not ironic. Hmmm.

ST ENTERPRISE COUNTDOWN: 2 down 96 to go

Wagon Train To The Stars

Hello

Now that Netflix has released almost all of the Star Trek series, you can now follow my pathetic quest to watch every Star Trek episode in series order (including the movies, and maybe the cartoon).

I'll write a little something up for each episode and I warn you I'm a terrible writer. Very very very terrible. See.

The trick to this is that I need to sneak behind my wife's back because she would just as soon leave me for watching Star Trek than for having an affair. There was a time when I was a pretty awesome Star Trek nerd, but those days have been nagged out of me. So sit back and read the Star Trek ramblings of a miserable, irritable, slightly mental Earthling.