STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE

Hope and Hype

Hope - that is what we TREK fans had for this "brave new adventure" based upon the original Gene Roddenberry STAR TREK franchise. With promises of "how the Federation came into being", the travails of the first space ship Enterprise were to introduce us to the worlds beyond earth through the eyes of the original expeditionary crew. Rick Berman in an interview with "Star Trek Communicator" (#134) said "I want to do something dramatically different ... going back to the past ... to see Starfleet, and actually Star Trek, all in its formative stages."

Imagine a Starfleet were humanity, for the first few decades of Vulcan "assistance", is relegated to placing colonies on the Moon and Mars, then with the ability to move about more confidently they colonize Europa, Titan, and other more exotic locales like planets around our closest stars with Vulcans offering to ferry us around. This could all have been explained in the first hour of a premiere. Finally after much secret research, and convincing of sympathizers in the Vulcan delegations, we develop a Warp 5 engine, and set out on our own.

Archer's character was described as more Kirk-like; ready to shoot first - or at least that is how the Vulcans would have seen him after several encounters before launch. But we could have seen his reasonable side as T'Pol would chime in with comments about his attitude, fearing he would start more wars than he could ever hope to stop.

T'Pol would have been much more antagonistic for the first season, as she grew to understand how Archer's mind worked, and that he had been chosen not just for his staunch resolve but for his compassion in dealing with strangers. But all that would have come about after Archer's clearly stated feelings that "mankind will not be held back from their rightful place among the stars". He would have made mistakes that only T'Pol's knowledge of inter-species relationships would be capable to save them from. He would have placed the ship in dangers because of his compassion, and sometimes that would get people killed.

With a new technology, breakdowns would certainly happen, and you can't always have the part on-hand. Crew would make mistakes in correcting errors that complicate the matter. They would be forced to have Vulcans and others rescue them.

We would have seen the universal translator come about only after many, many problems with humans trying to converse with intelligences so far different from our own that we just could not possibly wrap our brains around their alien concepts. Languages as different as english and mandarin as compared to dolphin and whale. Customs that, for communication to begin, require exchange of gifts, or getting naked, or which must end with backs turned as total trust is achieved. Problems that, because Vulcans tend to leave others alone, they had not seen either, and so had not made a universal translator.

Hype - that is what we got.

Scott Bakula is an accomplished, versatile actor. A "Quantum Leap" above some others that may have been considered for this part, he has the range that is needed here - forceful, caring, intelligent, athletic, sympathetic - and all of that is wasted on roles requiring him to do things like being infected with a retro-virus, turning him into another species, or mistakenly imprisoned 5 times.

T'Pol in a "cat suit" is SO un-Vulcan-like that it immediately throws doubt on the series. In every other shot of her and other Vulcans we see loose fitting robes - a grandeur that Vulcan's have allowed themselves (plus the ability to conceal things). But even though they are supposed to be somewhat bothered by our cooler standard temperatures (ST:TOS) she dons a form-fitting outfit. And you can't say it is because ship life is different from planet life, because all the other Vulcans on other ships still wear robes.

The transportor is a fantastic method of moving people; but forcing crew to use shuttles for the first 80 or so years of exploration would have made for storylines with true danger. How much trouble can you ever really be in if all you have to do is say "beam me up"? And certainly THEY would figure out what WE have extrapolated - you can heal people and make replacement parts with the thing! (Something even TNG didn't do.)

Medical treatments that require 'bleeding'? That is the impression we get from Phlox and his creatures, though animals and plants are known to have healing abilities. Leeches are now used to aid blood flow in re-attached limbs. But why not extract & store most of the useful material? Having to store feed for the things takes up precious space, and if those foods are lost, and therefore the medical-device animal, your medical ability is severely hampered.

How many times did Hoshi figure in to a storyline? Three to five, and maybe two where her translating abilities were the only thing keeping the crew alive? And really - a PDA device that somehow blocks the alien from hearing the original english as the Captain is standing there in front of her? How FAKE can you get things, Berman? Linda Park is up to far better treatment of her character. First-contact is EXPECTED to be difficult and communication is at the heart if most problems.

We are of course subjected to ship consoles sparking and smoking, but still functioning; our engineer looking at alien equipment and fixing it within hours, and parts from alien technology fitting our own.

In "Star Trek Communicator" we are told that T'Pol is a young Vulcan, but they have a storyline in which she indicates that she is over 100 (sure, she said it was a "story" but the producers leave us to believe that she is being evasive so as to hide her true nature) and therefore approaching middle-age.

And talk about polluting the time-line!! The entire series is based on a conflict literally spanning hundreds of years! Yet (and of course they broke this BADLY in the "Voyager" finale) Voyager and TNG both had storylines that made it clear that humans of our far-future were able to watch for and stop "temporal incursions", making this ENTIRE SERIES a joke.

And the Klingons want to chase the Enterprise across all of space for some affront to their honor like Kirk in movie 5? PLEASE come up with some NEW stories. (Also see the above 'imprisoned' reference.)

Seriously - what this show needs, and I know it will tick off those few that LIKE the current series, is Q. Q could "happen upon" Archer et al in this "expanse" and declare the entire Enterprise adventure, since before Archer's birth, a plaything of another Q and a total upset of his own plans for humanity, and set things right by taking away all these mistakes, taking away the time-travel ability of the aliens of the future, and letting the series START ANEW.

To sum it all up, ENTERPRISE could have been the best of all the TREKS as we were introduced to new ideas, new technology that sometimes didn't work, new aliens, and new ways to get along (or not) with our stellar neighbors. Instead we get re-re-re-hashed storylines, technology bumps that Kirk would like to have (how many women would he have created in a holodeck? The guy would never make it to the bridge.) like phasers that destroy parts of moons, and time-transmission communicators, and in general a show that I am not very bothered that it is not available in my broadcast area anymore (after the first 2 seasons, which I had to try, I am now sometimes getting tapes from a friend).

That is MY opinion.

Charles Miller