ENTERPRISE 04/02/'03: "The Crossing" (1 Viewer)

[Jack Briggs]

Where's Sargon when you need him/it?

I was too impatient last night and switched to a PBS American Masters documentary about Joni Mitchell. And I don't even care much for Joni Mitchell. I'll be more open-minded during Sunday's "encore presentation."

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Yeah I never quite understood why incoporeal beings needed a physical starship, or why that particular element (unobtanium?) prevented then from entering that catwalk.

What does God need with a starship?

I also thought it was strange that they couldn't live in space, but they could go in and out the ship's windows into space.

 

[Mark ZA]

Did anyone else notice that Jolene Blaylock's tan lines were showing in that scene with "Malcolm"? A little bit of a screwup on the director's part.

Yeah, but what great tan lines, only thing thats keeping me watching unfortunately:frowning:

 

[doug zdanivsky]

I also thought it was strange that they couldn't live in space, but they could go in and out the ship's windows into space.

Yeah! What the hell!? Never even occured to me.. Or the writer's, obviously.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Second viewing, second thoughts:

I'm not sure---here I should've been more attentive on this point---did they go out (i.e., through) the window out into space or was the Enterprise within the confines (interior environment) or at least at the maw of the giant ship when they fled it? That's a point that needs careful documentation.

I can see as quite plausible that purely energetic forms of life might not be able to survive in the naked, raw environment of space, since there are, no doubt, all kinds of energy and energy sources ("cosmic radiation") there that might disrupt other forms of energy.

The episode was good enough, if not particularly innovative. As some of us have already noted, it is based on one of the ten or so stock "sci-fi" basic plots that get recycled in Hollywood from production to production, that of:

the "haunted" planet/space ship.

I'm compiling a list for a future thread on space action/adventure "sci-fi".

 

[Greg_S_H]

I'm not sure---here I should've been more attentive on this point---did they go out (i.e., through) the window out into space or was the Enterprise within the confines (interior environment) or at least the maw of the giant ship when they fled it? That's a point that needs careful documentation.

episode at startrek.com and the reason we are seeing the above seemed more reasonable than I feared, and it could make for an interesting episode. It should, at any rate, be visually interesting. I liked the look of Voyager's "Timeless," and I'm picturing a similar thing here.

 

[PhilipG]

It would have been more interesting if the aliens had been innocent. I mean, this show is supposed to be about exploration, but Archer keeps wanting to shoot first.

That's right. Someone needs to wake up Gene. Archer was downright hostile in this episode.

The aliens don't need bodies but they need a ship? So why didn't Archer offer to transport all of them to some obscure planet? You'd have thought, that even with a damaged ship, these highly-evolved aliens would have shielding far in advance of Enterprise's missiles. And - excuse me - Enterprise is the first alien ship they've encountered?! What b/s is that?!! They couldn't fly to a class M planet?! They couldn't send an SOS to attract more aliens?! And the other thing, of course, is that if the aliens were serious about the takeover, then they would have all swooped upon the Enterprise crew at the same time.

So many plotholes. Are B&B ever going to go past the first draft stage??

 

[Qui-Gon John]

And they can't get into the nacelle, (except for the one in Tripp)???

Greg, thanks for the redemption on the window thing, when we see that happen, with Trip and his alien, it was after the aliens let the Enterprise leave the inside of their ship.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Greg_S_H wrote (post #26):

Well, the Enterprise shot the two torpedos right into the guts of the ship from close range with its mouth open ready to receive. Under those circumstances, no "shielding" would protect any ship.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Since the aliens were clearly lying about everything, uit's hard to make plot-holes out of how their stories didn't match up with the facts. As for Malcolm hitting on T'Pol, presumably the entity was either saying she was beautiful because Malcolm's brain was saying that was the correct way to initiate the mating procedure or because he was using Malcolm's knowledge/memories. It doesn't mean the clouds would be attrsacted to here andmore then the clouds would think the foods Tucker was eating taste good.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Dan Rudolph wrote (post #30):

And, although there may be perfectly valid technical reasons why they couldn't do that, the story doesn't give us any.

For these reasons, in my mind, it still remains totally unclear what the entire real story is and where the aliens' points of reference derive from. I'm totally unconvinced that the motives of take-over for survival purposes and exploration of new realms of sensation for intelligent sentient beings are completely mutually exclusive.

As I've said before, not a bad story, but one with plenty of holes (some quite intriguing).

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I didn't meaning that the aliens were necessarily lying about everything, only that all parts of their story are suspect.

 

[derek]

I enjoyed the episode and thought it brought up some interesting points to ponder. I believe a main theme was one of 'eternal life/death.' The super aliens had 'found/evolved to finding' the secrets to eternal life...a capability of allowing their 'souls' to exist indefinitely. However..they were now faced with that ship malfunctioning and their unability to repair it. They faced the prospect of death possibly for the first time in many millenia. Upon finding a human host as adequate my sense is that their civilized behavior was pummeled by a desire to avoid death as the cost of other life. So...chalk up one for the human species as being the more 'evolved.'

 

[Qui-Gon John]

But I have a problem with non-corporeal beings, that are for all intents and purposes immortal, requiring a ship or bodies to sustain them.

I mean, from all of my best viewing and absorbing of meaning in Babylon 5, I always felt the Vorlons used the encounter suit and travelled in ships, mainly to interact with the younger races in a manner they could comprehend, not because they really needed them to survive.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

They never really discussed if this was the ship their corporal bodies used and it was finally breaking down.

Perhaps, since the non-corporal beings had been "human-like" once (at least, I think so) since they were not compatible with Phlox, they had similar "sexual" and food appetites.

Malcom said he wanted T'Pol for mating purposes because she was the hottest woman on the ship (which is true, although the other woman was not bad looking at all) and some part of Malcom's instincts were driving the entity. Malcom's body probably does lust after T'Pol and hence putting the moves on her.

The beings probably weren't lying when they said they missed the sensations of their past existence. Part of their insistance on taking over the crew, perhaps.

Dan

 

[Rex Bachmann]

John Co wrote (post #34):

I don't know about the "encounter suits", but as far as ships are concerned, the Vorlons are shown travelling through space in ships a million years before the time of Babylon 5---presumably before there were "humans", as we understand the concept---in a flashback in the tv movie Babylon 5: Third Space.

Bear in mind, their ships, too, are corporeal---as well as a living part of themselves, it seems. They might need those encounter suits even to "build", travel in, and interact with their own vessels, regardless of contacts with the "younger" races.