Sigh

[andrewducker]

When I'm tired, everything seems overexposed, faded slightly, and scratchy. Listening to music starts to feel like having sandpaper pulled over exposed nerve endings, even when it's not the kind of music that's supposed to have that effect. I can't keep my concentration long enough to read anything in-depth and I can't empathise enough to make it worth reading much fiction.

It was not, therefore, probably the best time to finally get around to watching Broken Bow, the first episode of Enterprise.

However, having thought about it, I suspect it still would have come across as shallow, derivative, clumsily scripted and blankly acted. Sure, there's a few interesting characters in it (the doctor and the British guy, for instance), some nice special effects and a few interesting ideas but the hammering home of "We have to do it for ourselves, even when it's a bloody stupid thing to do" moral, the flaky "Trust the wind, even when it's a bloody stupid thing to do" philosophising, the fact that yet again we have a captain who throws himself into combat rather than being, well, a captain and the lack of any pace or feeling of threat meant that I have no interest whatsoever in watching any more of it.

If anyone would care to tell me that it gets better and it's ever worth caring about this crew, then let me know.

Ooh,in case it helps to know my prejudices, in order of preference:
1) Deep Space 9
Long arc plots, writers that clearly cared about the characters, moral decisions that make a difference to people's lives and a darkness that fits in better with my worldview than Voyager. Oh, and a fair sprinkling of humour too.
2) Next Gen
While it could sometimes be lacking, generally the acting is of very high quality, lots of the ideas are first rate and there's a lot of incredible episodes in there.
3) TOS and Voyager
Both TOS and Voyager and TOS have some fantastic episodes, but never managerd to sustain quality enough to make me watch a random episode, I'm afraid.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Enterprise sucks, I watched half of last season and it never got any better. It is by far the worst bit of Trek ever done. Thankfully, it also has terrible ratings and will hopefully be replaced by something better soon, unlike Voyager which was almost as bad and enjoyed exceptionally good ratings for some utterly unknown reason.

My Trek ranking would be:

1) DS: 9 (for the same reasons you list)
2) Star Trek Movies II-IV (the old crew with better scripts and better sets are wonderful)
3) TOS and TNG (TNG's "Darmok" is one of the great moments in TV SF, but there was a charm and life in TOS that was also wonderful)
4) Voyager (the actors playing the doctor and 7 of 9 did an excellent job, but no one else there could act their way out of a paper bag.
5) Enterprise I've rarely seen a show with less character chemistry more generic characters, or flatter acting. It is devoid of all worth and is only marginally better than watching a golf tournament or the shopping network.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Ah Enterprise. It seems like an age since I saw "Broken Bow", but I can't say I disagree with any of what you said. To be honest I would reccomend skipping over the enrire first series of Enterprise. In all the modern Star Trek series, it takes a season or so before the actors establish the characters and they become comfortable in the roles. Watch an episode of season TNG and see how wooden the characters appear.

I've only seen 8 episodes of series 2 of Enterprise but already it is infinitely better. The writers have toned down the machoism of the officers, and appear to have got a handle on some of the other ludicrous plotlines. For example Hoshi has stopped learning entire alien languages in 2 days, the captain has stopped being as brash and is more like you would expect a trained astronaut to be.

I'm now really enjoying Enterprise. It's great to see the "trek" back in Star Trek, now that we have a ship going out and exploring once again, meeting entirely new alien races. That was one thing that always bugged me about Voyager - in a galaxy a zikillion miles from Earth and they still run into Romulans, Klingons, Ferrengi and the Borg on a weekly basis.

Oh and the opening credits, complete with Russell Watson, are still the best I've ever seen in a series.

For the record I rate the series as follows:

TOS: the acting was awful, but the plots were ideas driven. The writers would take an idea and follow it to a conclusion, without being afraid of poor viewing figures. This, for me, was what science fiction was all about.

TNG: great acting and some good ideas. It's biggest weakness was that approximately every second episode was good, the rest often turned to technobabble or "anomaly of the week" to try to write a story. Oh and the Data storylines hadn't a patch on Asimov's "Robot" stories.

DS9: this series was the first to have a plot arc lasting more than 2 episodes. Problem was it was never like that until the writers reacted to the success of Babylon 5. It was always a poor cousin of the amazing Babyolon 5.

Enterprise: This series is getting better and may well rise higher with time. One thing in it's favour is they have a new writing team, wheras TNG, DS9, Voyager were all written by the same people.

Voyager: Voyager ran out of ideas far too quickly and rapidly degenerated into space anomaly of the week. Ironically the first episode "Caretaker" was one of the best episodes of any Star Trek series, but after that there was the odd episode which was good, but the majority was tedious.

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

I have no academic depth to my statements, and no analysing to the depths of the world, But the first eposode of any new series has to contain a fine balance of kicking off a new concept, new story and a bucket load of new charectors.. Enterprise in actualy fantastic..

You must watch more.

There.

I have put my foot down.

[broin.livejournal.com]

You're pig ignorant in only comparing Enterprise to Trek that's gone before.

Compare it to good tv - compare it to _current_ good tv - and see how far short it falls. I'd agree with Nathan above to a certain extent. There are some superb episodes ('Dear Doctor', for example).

But I've seen every episode to date, first and second season, and overall, it's a piss-poor show.

Compare it to the stunning imagination and storytelling of Farscape. (last week's had me on the floor, laughing, and then shivering with empathy a momnt later)

Or compare it to Buffy, heaven help us.

There is absolutely no excuse for a modern studio turning out such appalling, ordinary shit.

[broin.livejournal.com]

I meant to follow 'pig ignorant' with lots of smileys. =) =) =)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, actually, you're right. I mean, I haven't been "Ooh, Trek!" for years, so comparing it to just trek is actually doing it a service. Compared to West Wing, Six Feet Under, Scrubs, South Park, CSI, etc. shows that it's just not worth any time at all.

I watched the episode of CSI today where they find a room with blood sprays all over the walls and the cause is not at all what you expect. In the same episode, they play our knowledge of Urban Myths against us by having a SCUBA diver found up a tree after a forest fire. And both bits were well done, the whole thing was solidly entertaining, none of the plot felt forced and it was very entertaining. It didn't make me think "Best TV ever!" but it was a whole level above Enterprise.

Enterprise, to me, seems to be aimed at its known market, which means that it will turn inward, feed on itself and die. Whether it's later reborn, once it becomes insignificant enough to be daring again, is another matter. For a moment I nearly typed "I hope so", but then I realised that I just don't care. I have 3 films and 200-odd episodes I care about and they aren't going away. If they want to churn out shit in addition to that, it doesn't hurt me, I have other tv I can watch.

Oh, and I assumed smilies, but cheers :->

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

Oooh you are so wrong,

give it some time and try again.

Try to see how they are so much more *people* than Trek characters usually are.

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

I was begining to feel all alone here, cheers gord!