There’s been a lot of Star Trek: Enterprise bashing on this site, and I’ve certainly done my fair share, but credit where credit’s due - this week’s episode, “Twilight”, was really, really good.
Some derivative concepts (Memento, anyone?) but overall this is the closest Enterprise has come to a great episode, and I might even go so far as to say it’s up there with some of the best Trek episodes of any series – strongly reminiscent of greats like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “All Good Things”. For someone who’s been on the verge of tuning out for some time now, this episode came right out of left-field and pretty much blew me away.
The destruction of Earth was gut-wrenching, as were the images of the rag-tag remnants of humankind being led by a battered Enterprise through space in search of a safe place to call home. This was some seriously dark stuff, and a great indicator of the kind of direction I think many long-suffering fans would like to see the show go.
I suspect this episode may just have been a fluke and doubt that the show as a whole is on any kind of general upswing based on the rest of this season so far, but for anyone else, like me, who struggles to remember the last time they saw a really kick-ass slice of Star Trek, I recommend you check out Sunday’s re-run.
I stopped watching this show half way through the first season. When they started changing continuity willy-nilly just to suit their current story lines need I decided it was enough. I’ll see if I can find the VCD of this one though.
I rather liked “Twilight” as well, but I hope the writers resist the temptation to do more reset button shows like this, especially since the episode has proven to be so popular. The first couple of times it’s great, but this is one narrative device that quickly loses its impact when overused, as was the case on Voyager.
Thanks for the heads up. I stopped watching back when they caught the alien virus that turned them into monkeys, but I downloaded ‘Twilight’ and enjoyed it.
I tuned it out because Archer was just too wimpy. I remember when he told the Klingons in one of the first episodes something like “Please don’t hurt those people, they are really nice people if you get to know them.” Anyway I had heard that they were going to reinvent the show and add “Space Marines” or something more militaristic, so I tuned in again. I think I saw the same episode you are talking about. This one had archer really old and some organism had gotten into his brain and caused the destruction of humanity. I was really enjoying it until they started spewing the techno-babble out at full throttle. Turns out if you kill the organism in Archer’s brain then the creatures die in the past as well. Due to whatever space time techno dribble, the creature existed in multiple time dimensions. Click off went the tube. I guess I’m just looking for something with a little harder sci fi edge. If only they would make Honor Harrington into a TV show.
Because the premise of B&B’s approach to writing a ‘continuing’ story is to have maybe a significant event at the start and end of a season, one inbetween and then filler - lots of filler - which doesn’t have to agree with any other episode at all.
You know that as soon as anything truely consequential happens that the reset button is not far off and hence any sense of drama is completely lost. It’s not like in Babylon 5 where main charcters actually left, got into enourmous trouble for half a season and returned emotionally scarred having -shock- consequences over more than one episode. You can’t treat it as an epic - it’s just one endless sucession of filler for an hour at a time.
I guess you missed the whole thing “Shadows over P’jem” thing and the struggle between the Andorians and the Vulcans, since it had a lot of impact in the first season, since the whole incident was basically caused by Archer in the first place.
Exactly. It’s not like there have been any changes in the characters at all, due to this or anything else that’s happened. Unless you count T’Pol’s evolution from drab science officer who occasionally takes showers with men to permanent rub-and-tug girl in day-glo jumpsuits.
Even this campaign against the Xindi has gotten wimpy. Archer’s gone from this grand campaign to get the bad guys to negotiating with one of them at what is basically a weapons plant. He even gives the guy a chance to destroy Archer’s entire mission, which is about saving the very existence of humanity. We’re already seeing how the Xindi aren’t evil, just misunderstood and/or manipulated. You’ve gotta know that the conclusion to this storyline is going to be Archer abandoning the perfect chance to take out the Xindi once and for all, just like Picard did in that ridiculous TNG episode with the Borg and that computer virus. He’ll get close to pushing a button and then back off to deliver a speech about how he would actually be destroying humanity to save it. Then the Xindi will realize humanity is no threat, everyone will sing kumbaya, and the real bad guy will be revealed to be one of those silhouettes from the future.
No I didn’t miss it - and it’s a good example of where any possible conflict is played down.
Did Archer bother to read the message that T’Pol wrote? Nope. That was plain lunacy after he’d caught the Vulcans spying on him. His implict trust was gained over mere episodes for the sole reason that it would play down any building conflict - his relationship with T’Pol is going to remain pretty much the same over the next five years (save Dr Pholox telling him he wants to shag her despite no indication of this previously).
I doubt we’ll ever see the Andorians again. If I were Archer I would have been questioning whether the Vulcans were such great allies and whether the Andorians had a point about being ‘paranoid’ about the Vulcans - if indeed you are even paranoid if your fears about being spied on are infact true. I would have been approaching the Andorians more. I would want to know WTF is going on - it is after all something with significant reprocussions for earth.
But that ain’t ever going to happen. Ever. And that is why Enterprise is second rate and always will be.
This thread makes me glad I stopped watching ST:Enterprise.
And in fact, this is EXACTLY why I play computer games instead of watching TV in general. Although I’m sure there are people out there who are excited by the television series on Showtime or HBO or some of the more interesting drama shows, I really couldn’t care less about that stuff.
If I’m watching TV fiction it’s either a sitcom or sci-fi. Right now there are no good sci-fi shows or sitcoms on television. ST:Enterprise is just the most pathetic example of a show that self destructs every episode.
At this point, if I’m watching TV it’s either the news, historical documentaries and MXC.
And the only reason MXC is awesome is because the Japanese made it!
Good call, Spoofy, because we all know that the writing and plot-handling in computer games blows away what you see in tv or movies – or novels, for that matter!
I mean, my wife was watching some Russian program called “Dr. Zagnut” on public television the last two weeks.
Total crap.
Me, I was playing HL: Opposing Force. There’s a story with character development, shooting, and drama![/quote]
Dude. It was the new Doctor Zhivago for Pete’s sake. And it had Keira Knightley in it. Looking 100 times hotter than a girl should look! Keira Knightly! :O
And as far as Keira Knightley goes, I’m sure she’s the most attractive person in the history of people, but I’ll take my normal looking wife anyday because she’s the mother of my twin sons Yury and Pasha.*
*HA! Fooled you! We don’t have twin boys, and if we did they would be named C3P0 and R2-D2
