Mr Phelps and Enterprise Andorian Incident(Spoilers) (1 Viewer)

[Dave Scarpa]

I guess I've Might have piqued your interest with the topic. So I'll Explain myself. When Paramount made the 1st Mission Impossible Movie I hated it. MI, like Trek was one of my favorite TV shows as a kid. So I went to the film adaption much like it was a trek Film. The Film Stunk for a variety of reasons. But mostly it was because of One Cardinal Sin by the Producers. They Made MR PHELPS the bad guy ! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??? To take the main character and turn him bad. Whhat does all this have to Do what Enterprise? I ask the same question what are B&B thinking? What the hell are they doing to the Vulcans? I ask this question as I watch the latest ENT ep "The Andorian Incident". It was probably the best ep so far of the series but so what. At what cost?. First I won't even mention the obvious Plot holes like why did'nt Reed just beam the three of them out of there? Well of Course it was so later they could find the hidden Base. I'll go Deeper. What the heck are B&B doing to the characterizations of Vulcans in this show. They keep on having Archer say they are enlightened, but they come off as Racist Jerks. Even T'Pol can't stand the Humans "Stink" and she has to be reprimanded by the more toleran Phlox, what's going on here? Have B&B ever watched any single episode of the original series? Or any of the movies? I think it was a good Idea to have the human resent the vulcans, but the Vulcans themselves should be proving themselves as worthy Allies. Are these the same Vulcans we cheered at the end of First Contact offering a sign of Peace to the humans? Are these the same Vulcans we revered thru Spock and Sarek? Now I suppose it could be that future guy is a renegade Vulcan and the Base and these "Monks" are just their evil Minions, but I doubt they are that smart. And the Vulcans will come off as Highly Unethical and truely opposite of the character they have built from 35 years of Trek Adventures. I started to think I was watching Romulans. On one level I liked the Andorian Incident. And on another I hate and depise it.
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[RobertR]

I was just about to start a similar thread, Dave. Vulcans aren't being shown in a very good light at ALL in this series. First they come across as arrogant and rather emotional. Now they're being depicted as lying spies.
Compare this to the noble, honest, tolerant Vulcans in TOS. Curious.
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[Bill Catherall]

I think you hit the Romulan thing right on the nose. It's been a while since the plot from the very first episode has been addressed. It's been discussed that the "future guy" is a Romulan. What if these Vulcans we saw were really Romulan and were using their Vulcan appearance to be more deceptive. This whole "Vulcans are the bad guys" bit may be leading up to a Romulan plot. Don't you think?
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Bill

 

[Nelson Au]

You guys beat me to it here. I thought this was a really good episode too, until they reveal the big surprise in the end.
I kept thinking that B&B as you put them, are doing everything they can to distance themselves from Gene Roddenberry's vision of a future of perfect humans and Vulcans. As been discussed before, I think they think the characters first created by Roddenberry on The Next Generation are too "goodie-goodie" characters. So there's no conflict to create drama on that show. Perhaps the B's are doing the same to the Vulcans, distancing them from Roddenberry's.
I kept thinking that there's some kind of set up going on here that will be paid off in a future episode. I'm likely wrong here, but I just can't believe that these Vulcan's on that planet are the great Vulcan's Leonard Nimoy and Roddenberry created. Maybe they are trying to keep the technology from the Andorians as they held Warp technology from Humans until they felt they were ready. Maybe somekind of surprise is coming up.
Was I wrong or did T'Pol also seem a little surprised by the big reveal in the end? I saw she didn't want to give the info to the Andorians. (By the way, Jeffrey Combs is making a good living as Trek aliens. But this characteriszation lacked the zing he usually has I thought. Probably due to the writing)
I am really enjoying this series, but tonight, I'm concerned. If those guys, B&B, read this forum, which I doubt, I hope they get the message. Once Braga was called "Evil Incarnate" for his comments that he never saw Trek before. Recently he explained that he was stupid for his comments for not explaining them. He said Gene Roddenberry told him not to. He says he's since seen all of the TOS shows and really liked them. Hmmm, did he really?
Nelson
Edit:
Bill, we posted at the same time and I just saw your post. Hmm, I missed the whole idea of the Future Guy and the Romulan connection. Makes sense, the big surprise coming up. If this is right, then I take back what I said about B&B.
[Edited last by Nelson Au on November 01, 2001 at 12:24 AM]

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I thought this was a good episode, but some of the things, Archer and crew did were so moronic I was scratching my head.
Why did Archer go and get the shit kicked out of him, just to throw the statue down the hole? Why didn't Trip just walk up to the hole to see that it was indeed the same room???
Why did Reid blow up the same wall later, giving himself away and letting 2 of the Andorians escape? There were three Andorians, three Enterprise officers and three holes in the wall. Why didn't they just shoot the Andorians through the holes???
Why didn't T'pol do the vulcan neck pinch on the single Andorian that was guarding them while the scenario in the above paragraph was taking place???
Why did the anonymous crewman who got shot TWICE survive? He was a red shirt, he should have been dead! Why does everyone have to live now on the show???
Finally what was up with the ending? I mean it seemed like it just ended in the middle of a story. No resolution at all. They better follow up on this in later episodes.
Well even with all the bagging, I did enjoy this episode quite a bit. I just hope Archer and crew get some brains soon.
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-Jeff Cooper
"Curse you inspector Dim! You are too clever for us naughty people."

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Furthermore why did'nt Reed just beam them up, they obviously had a lock on them from the scans. I'd like to think this is all a Romulan plot but that too would be bad since it was established there were no facial contact of the Roms until Kirks encounter with them.

 

[Mike Broadman]

If the "red" crewman would have died, people would complain that they were repeating that tired old plot device. The writers on Trek are often in situations where they just can't win: people will qvetch either way.
Anyway, we all have to remember that this is a prequel. The "perfect" Vulcans in TOS may have gotten that way since the time of Enterprise.
The whole point of Star Trek is that cooperation between different people only serves to benefit in the long run. The Vulcans and humans learn from each other, advancing their respective people in the process and establishing the principles of the Federation.
And remember, just because the Vulcans say they're always honest and logical doesn't make it so. Vulcans do have emotion, they just hide it. It always ticks me off when people say, "He's not supposed to get angry, he's a Vulcan and Vulcans don't have emotions." No, Vulcans do have emotions. In fact, they are much stronger than human emotions. They just surpress them.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I have no Problems with Red Shirts not buying it. I however am dismayed when the producers neglect 35 years of established character traits. Vulcan just would not act so, it goes against everything we've learned about them. And Enterprise is not set that far back to allow this

 

[Nelson Au]

I agree with Dave. It was established in TOS that Surak founded the Vulcan culture and way of life long before Enterprise's time line.
The Kolinar Temple they visited was the place for Vulcans to go to purge themselves of emotion, to control it.
The Romulan theory seems more likely here to me, and whlle the statements made from "Balance of Terror" of no ship to ship visual contact until Kirk's time might have been ignored by B&B.
Nelson
[Edited last by Nelson Au on November 01, 2001 at 11:34 AM]

 

[Bill Catherall]

quote: Furthermore why did'nt Reed just beam them up, they obviously had a lock on them from the scans.[/quote]
Well, since you asked...here's my take on it.
Why would you risk killing the people you're trying to save if there are other ways of doing it? The first time they used the transporters to rescue Archer, there really wasn't any other way of doing it. They took the risk and it worked. But the second time they tried it, foreign objects were caught in the confinement beam and they couldn't separate the foreign data and they had a minor accident. So now they are once again skeptical. The rescuers used the transporter because, as rescuers, they were willing to risk their own lives to save the lives of the other cruemen and the captain. It's logical for a security officer to risk his life to save the captain's...not to try to save the captain at the risk of killing him.
Or perhaps, after the Andorians detected that 3 people were beamed out, they'd go in firing and kill all the monks. A situation that they were trying to avoid.
I still think that these seemingly minor plots are leading up to something big. Things may not make sense to us now, but we don't really see where this show is going. Oh, we think it's leading up to the world we know in TOS. But how do we get there? We know the future, so how can they possibly make an interesting show? They've got to introduce an interesting twist.
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Bill

[Edited last by Bill Catherall on November 01, 2001 at 12:28 PM]

 

[WoodyH]

I actually liked this one, much more than the last two. Here's my take on some of the points brought up...

Was I wrong or did T'Pol also seem a little surprised by the big reveal in the end?

Seemed so to me, which makes sense. I'd bet that since the Vulcans were quite blatantly defying the treaty they had with the Andorians, they wouldn't want too many people knowing about it - so why should she know? It's quite possible that the Vulcan people as a whole are the noble, trustworthy people we've known them as all these years - but the current High Council has a bit more tendency to scheme.
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Woody Hanscom
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[Bryan]

Red Shirts...
My wife and I were watching Wink Of An Eye. Kirk, Bones and D'iamgo (something like that) were beaming down. My wife says "There's no Red Shirt. Who's going to die?" Then they cut to the guy operating the transporter. He's wearing a red shirt. I say, "There he is." and sure enough, the girl blinks into the transporter room and kills him.
My two cents.

 

[Randy Tennison]

I may be wrong, but in TOS, didn't someone have to have a communicator in order to be locked onto with the transporter? There were many times that Kirk and Spock couldn't be beamed, because they lost their communicators.
Archer's communicators were smashed. Hence, no beaming.
Am I right?
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Randy Tennison
Kansas City, MO
Home theater photos located at
http://home.kc.rr.com/thetennisons/

 

[BrianW]

Randy, I think you're right, but I can't say with certainty that there were no TOS episodes in which a transporter lock was possible without the presence of a communicator.

As Bill mentioned, nobody seems to eager to step foot in the transporter unless it's an emergency situation that deems it.

Then why not just beam down a few weapons and some more communicators? Their solution was far from optimal. It put additional personnel at risk without gaining any real advantage. I'm all in favor of losing the B&B plot devices, but I became aware halfway through the show that circumstances were being contrived to reveal the Vulcan's secret. After that, it was almost painful to watch. I'm thoroughly enjoying this show, for the most part, but I must confess that the bonehead decisions made by the characters in this episode caused me to utter more than a few audible groans.
And while we're talking about things they should have done, when the Andorian told Captain Archer that he was in his debt, I think Archer should have popped him in the nose and called it even.
At least this episode explains all the times Kirk chortled and said, "Yeah, right!" every time Spock said that Vulcans never lie.

 

[Michael Allred]

Folks, how many "Enterprise" threads do we really need?
Can't we keep it all in the "Official Enterprise discussion thread"?

 

[Bill Catherall]

Then why not just beam down a few weapons and some more communicators?

They discussed doing that, but T'Pol brought up the point that a fire fight in such close quarters wouldn't be a good idea.
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Bill

 

[BrianW]

They discussed doing that, but T'Pol brought up the point that a fire fight in such close quarters wouldn't be a good idea.

Yet, somehow, a fire fight in such close quarters is what ended up happening. I'm not quibbling that they didn't consider the option. I'm just pointing out (all right, quibbling) how contrived their actions were to lead us to the big ending, and how obvious this became early on in the episode.

 

[Joel Mack]

I think the purpose was to avoid a close-quarters firefight with a bunch of innocent (at the time) unarmed monks standing around. The firefight ended up being the the catacombs with everyone armed...
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