Star Trek: Enterprise 5/05/'04 "e²" (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Grey]

You missed the most obvious- The name e^2 is remarkably similar to B^2, a B5 episode about two Babylon stations and time travel.

Really good episode. I have to say I'm really enjoying Enterprise and look forward to watching it every week. I hope that it gets renewed.

 

[Nelson Au]

e2 was a pretty good little diversion on the way to meet Degra. It has character development with emotional punch and some fun views of another possible future. Archer’s Enterprise is about to enter the wormhole in order to cut the distance needed to meet Degra given Enterprise’s compromised engines. Before they enter the wormhole, they encounter’s their future ancestors on a future Enterprise who warn them that they can’t go in there.

After a short time of Archer’s disbelief of the story of the future Enterprise’s Captain Lorian, Archer agrees to try engine modifications from Lorian to allow the Enterprise to reach Degra in time by avoiding the wormhole.

As the modifications are being made, the crew learns about their future selves and what happens to their lives. One of the better earlier scenes with humour and characterization is with Hoshi, Mayweather and Reed having lunch. After Hoshi and Mayweather tell each other about their spouses and children, they ask Reed who admits he’ll be alone. It was a sad moment for him. But a short time later it was a laugh out loud moment when he spots the female crewmember looking for a place to sit after Mayweather and Hoshi leaves. He tries to invite her to join him. Did she join him?

As we learn that Lorian is the son of Trip and T’Pol, there is great scene where they bicker about getting together. She stubbornly pushes him away and he in return walks away.

Later the future T’Pol warns Archer that Lorian’s plan is too risky and can cause the engines to fail. As Archer confronts Lorain about why he didn’t tell him, we see the stress of the legacy that Archer left him. He feels the weight of the responsibility and wants so badly for the mission to succeed that he resorts to Archer’s old tactics and tries to steal the warp drive injectors so he can complete the mission in place of Archer. After a short exciting battle between the two Enterprises, Archer convinces Lorian to work together so that they both can complete the mission. It was the logical choice.

A very strong character scene involved T’Pol on T’Pol where the future T’Pol tells T’Pol that she will never be able to control her emotions as she once could due to the brain damaging effects of Trellium. Blalock’s performance as the current T’Pol learns this was very moving. It could have been a disastrous sequence but it had a nice emotional punch. Future T’Pol tells the current T’Pol to seek out Trip. He will help her deal with her problem, that he is a good man. She learns from her future self’s wisdom.

Finally the climax where the two ships try to enter the wormhole and work together to fight off the alien’s who don’t like their space violated. It was a somewhat “Yesterday’s Enterprise” moment, but it was from the other Enterprise’s point of view this time around. They make is because Lorian turns his ship around to fight off the aliens ships. What I liked was how in the end as Archer and T’Pol wait for Lorian’s Enterprise to come through, they come to realize they either may not have survived the attacking ships, or they may have disappeared as this Enterprise got through and must have changed the time frame ahead. But as they ponder what could have happened and why they still remember the other ship, they learn a ship is approaching. As Archer and T’Pol learn it’s Degra’s ship, you can see the deep emotional hit on their faces. T’Pol lost her son. But did she?

 

[Joseph Bolus]

I have to admit that, in spite of the obvious similarity to "Children of Time", I really enjoyed this episode. It was very much a character-driven show for the most part, but it still managed to provide some exciting segments with the two space battles. (And the production values on these recent episodes have been of a very high quality.) The concept of a Vulcan woman with exposed emotions is also very intriguing.

I still very much miss what I had initially expected from this series: A sense of wonder and discovery as mankind takes their first timid steps into a universe dominated by technically more advanced aliens.

In any event, if the ratings are any indication, we probably only have three episodes left, so we may as well enjoy them ...

 

[PhilipG]

It was "Children of Time" crossed with "Yesterday's Enterprise" - not as good as either, but still pretty enjoyable. The scene with Malcolm was particularly good - Sarah Connor would be proud.


Amen to that. 90% of these Enterprise threads are people moaning for the sake of moaning, or repeating exactly what they've said before. Perhaps B&B should stay afterall - originality and creativity are obviously hard to find, even amongst fans!

 

[Jason Seaver]

I think you're conflating form and content here. I don't find it objectionable that the standard Star Trek plotline is a ship named Enterprise going to an unexplored planet/region of space, finding something odd, and investigating it while trying to avoid entanglements in local affairs and/or protecting their ship. Certainly, there's a template in place, but that's how episodic television works.

Now, a better example would be if Law & Order did an episode where the murder victim was Lenny Briscoe's old partner, who they soon found had connections to organized crime; and then a couple years later, Special Victims Unit did an episode where the murder victim was Elliot Stabler's old partner who apparently had ties to organized crime, although to make it seem a little different (and fit the show), the hitman sodomized his victim first; and then a couple years later Criminal Intent did an episode where the victim was Bobby Goren's old partner, only to make it seem a little different he had ties to corporate sharks. And that would tick fans of L&O off, even if that repetition had the higher-quality writing and performances we expect from Law & Order than I do from post-Behr Star Trek.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Well, I enjoyed it, with the exception of the massive paradox of the E2 crew insisting that Enterprise not go through the passage. If they don't, how could the E2 even exist?

Good for character stuff... lousy for established ST-standards for time-travel.

 

[Greg_S_H]

But, remember, Archer and T'Pol discussed this very thing at the end of the episode. "Why do we even remember them?" Hopefully, the show will last long enough to provide an answer to that question (if it isn't already addressed in the remaining 3).

One complaint: the ship is still damaged, but it isn't so obvious any more. Quarters, corridors and the like seemed in better repair, with the exception of the mess hall. Of course, they do effect repairs between episodes, but it didn't seem that a lot of time passed between last week's and last night's.

 

[Nelson Au]

An interesting development has arisen; according to a few Trek sites, UPN has set up a phone line for all the "Save Enterprise" people and fans to call to tell them to save the show for another year. The line was set up because they were overloaded with calls from Trek fans.

I wonder if the UPN brass are just sitting back and riding on all the enthusiastic and free fan publicity.

Here's the site for the few that read these Star Trek threads and like Enterprise: SaveEnterprise.com

 

[Rex Bachmann]

PhilipG wrote (post #24):



I've said this before and it's obvious (to me) that it bears repeating here. The more "outlandish", fantastic, outré,---whatever---and the more powerful the premise the greater the impression it will make on the viewing/reading/whatever audience and, consequently, the less "directly replayable" it will be in future. In other words, comparing cop shows, Westerns, law or medical dramas, and the like to "fantastic" film (science fiction, supernatural horror, fantasy) is like comparing apples to oranges. The burden of dispelling the skepticism to accept the "outlandish" premise and of instilling a willing suspension of disbelief is so much greater on that kind of live presentation that the two (the run-of-the-mill and the fantastic) can't be considered exactly parallel.

In other words, "fantastic film" is a "niche" form of entertainment for exactly the same reason that obvious repetition doesn't work as well for it as it does with run-of-the-mill "genre" programming. No way.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I don't know how much it's doing, though - the show is still coming in behind Smallville. I mentioned it with the web polls, but I can't help but wonder if Star Trek's known core of very enthusiastic fans is starting to work against it - that even when there's a lot of enthusiasm which would make them reconsider any other show, when you apply it to Star Trek it's the same bunch of loonies.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Why did the other T'Pol look so old? As I recall, Vulcans are supposed to have a very long life span and often don't look very old until they're several hundred years old. Also, IIRC, T'Pol was supposed to be around 80 when the show began, so at that point she'd be like 200, just middle-aged for a Vulcan.

They could have blamed it on the trillium exposure with a quick line, but nothing.

 

[Steve_Pannell]

Maybe the Botox wore off.

 

[Anthony Hom]

Maybe it's time Berman went on to other things instead of just rehashing the same plot lines from previous episodes of previous series. I always thought science-fiction was a world of endless imagination and creativity, but maybe I'm mistaken.
The actors and production crew are doing a great job with the show and I see no problem with that, but that alone will not carry a show worthy of repeat viewings, although I'm sure they will have some when they are guaranteed seasons 5-7.

 

[Roger_R]

"Why did the other T'Pol look so old? As I recall, Vulcans are supposed to have a very long life span and often don't look very old until they're several hundred years old. Also, IIRC, T'Pol was supposed to be around 80 when the show began, so at that point she'd be like 200, just middle-aged for a Vulcan." - Vulcans have a lifespan of about 200 years, so yes, she was supposed to look that old

 

[Kevin Hewell]

Didn't T'Pol have that syndrome (can't remember the name) from mind melding with one of the emotional Vulcans in the first season? Maybe that could explain why she seemed to look older than she should.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

I thought Sarek was well over 300 years old when he died.

 

[KyleC]

I read this over at digitalbits today. I'm sorry if it's been posted but hell I'm sure it won't hurt to see it again:

UPN implements dedicated "SaveEnterprise.com" voicemail.

After receiving a flood of calls from the website www.saveenterprise.com. UPN has established a dedicated voice mailbox to handle all Save Star Trek Enterprise calls to UPN.

A UPN representative confirmed that the calls coming in from the website are major! So much that it was decided that the members of saveenterprise.com warranted a dedicated voice mailbox. Therefore, when you call all you need to do is ask the operator for the "SaveEnterprise.com" voicemail and you will be redirected. We were also told by the UPN representative that every message is listened too. Moreover, May 20, 2004 is fast approaching, we need to rally more support for the show as time is of the essence. Everyone needs to call in NOW! Call several times a day, if possible. Our goal is to flood UPN with calls from "SaveEnterprise." Remember, we are going into the closing week we have momentum on our side let us not waste it.

Here is the telephone number for UPN: 1-310-575-7000 (ask for the SaveEnterprise.com voice mail, or if after hours press 3).

Operators at UPN are expecting your call: Call now!

 

[Dewitte]

Sarek was 202 when he appeared in "Sarek" during TNG's third season. He would have been around 204 when he died in "Unification," which aired during the fifth season.

De

 

[Jason Seaver]

Gee, they don't think Paramount/UPN/Viacom is onto this by now? I guess all the "Save Enterprise" people can do is escalate, since UPN can tell from looking at the ratings that the amount of phone calls coming in is out of proportion to the actual audience, but they're getting into a vicious circle where they have to yell louder to be heard, which means they'll have to yell even louder the next time...

I have to wonder how many of these folks think Enterprise is really in danger of cancellation. They're probably gettin a baseline from Voyager sales on how much a not-particularly-beloved entry in the franchise can make on DVD, and they'll probably crank Enterprise out until they can't make it profitable in the long term any more. It will probably have its budget cut next year (a move which will likely result in Berman and/or Braga being given walking papers), and only last five seasons as opposed to six, but failing UPN closing its doors, I doubt cancellation before 2006 is really a possibility.

 

[Will_B]

I thought UPN had nothing to do with whether Paramount sells DVDs.