ENTERPRISE 04/23/'03: "The Breach" (1 Viewer)

[Rex Bachmann]

Title: "The Breach"
episode: #47
original airdate: April 23, 2003
writers: Chris Black & John Shiban
story: Daniel McCarthy
director: Robert Duncan McNeill
synopsis: "When militants take over a world, the Enterprise crew moves to evacuate Denobulan geologists that are deep underground. Meanwhile, Phlox has to save a dying Antaran that refuses treatment due to the history of their races."


I tell you plain that by now I'm in countdown mode till the end of the season. None of what's coming up looks any more promising than the previous fare that hasn't delivered.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Didn't think it was that bad... but then again I'm one of those weird people who actually enjoys Enterprise.

Laughed myself silly when Trip threatened to use his phase pistol shoot the Denobulan "in the ass".

 

[Jeff Kleist]

More heavy-handedness in the b-plot, A-plot was dull, basically reminded me of the first episode of Chain of Command (minus the espionage part)

 

[Jack Briggs]

If only the Star Trek credo could be applied to the "creative" staff as well: "To boldly go where no plot has gone before."

 

[doug zdanivsky]

Heavy-handed would be putting it mildly.. Turned me off..

:frowning:

 

[Stephen Orr]

First three minutes....

"Tribbles and Bits Reptile Chow!"

Ha-ha-ha-ha!

 

[Everlasting Gobstopper]

Sadly, there was no blood spray from the lizard cage. That would have made the episode. Also, anyone wondering if they just left Mayweather in the cave.

 

[Jack Briggs]

"Dr. Phlox, I'd like you to meet my friend, Dr. Welby. Marcus, I'd like you to meet our chief medical officer..."

Like the ABC series of yore, this episode proves that a serious medical crisis can always be overcome with an inspiring speech.

Man, this is daring stuff. These guys just might really probe the unknown some day—you know, big concepts, something really radical. Something as wild as, oh, I don't know, something as inconceivable as asking Lieutenant Worf to volunteer for a blood tranfusion to save someone from an enemy species. Who knows?

(If Paramount doesn't care why should I?)

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Mark Turetsky wrote (post #7):

I'm not wondering. I believe they showed Mayweather being hoisted out along with the rest. Of course, like most of his other appearances, you might bat an eyelash and miss it. (Malcolm to Mayweather: "You'll just slow us down." Translation: "You're not needed in this episode.")


---Parallelism (is it deliberate or is it accidental?):

Story "A": The moral issue of a doctor treating a patient against the patient's will, where Archer is willing to "force" the treatment on an unwilling patient, even when the physician is unwilling to go along.

Story "B": Tripp threatens the forced evacuation of the unwilling Denobulan geologists: "I'm going to tie you up and carry you out of here." However, the practicality of dragging or carrying full-sized adults through narrow mountain crawlspaces, especially against their will, would seem to have been nil, which seems to render the whole thing DUMB-looking.

"Heavy-handed"---actually ham-fisted---though each story may be, it's not at all clear what the producers/writers are preaching. "Force is good, when it serves to save the unwilling"?


---The sight of Denobulans climbing the cliff rock face under their own power reminds creepily of the Suliban.


---Phlox's success at getting through to the Antaran "xenomythologist" prompts him at the end to re-initiate contact with his estranged son, Mithis(?). ("Mending 'breaches' starts at home"?)

---And the main point of the episode is . . .? That the Denobulans are not just the smiling, free-loving polygamists we've been led to believe? Not only do they copulate plenty; mass-murder is (or only "has been"???) also part of their repetoire of behaviors.

 

[phil-w]

Has anyone else noticed an improvement in picture quality in the last two episodes?

Enterprise used to be virtually unwatchable on my 10 foot screen, very washed out fuzzy with lots of noise in the picture and no depth. It was the worst network picture I dared to watch, although I watched nothing else on UPN. The last two episodes have been cleaner, with more depth in field and color.

I don't know if it is just my local UPN here in AZ or if others have noticed this.

 

[todd s]

I thought the rift between the Dunobulans and the Antarans to be similar to the rift between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

 

[Greg_S_H]

No, the Vulcans and the Andorans represent the Israelis and the Palestinians. Or, is it the Cardassians and the Bajorans/Maquis/somebody? Or, could it be the Suliban and the Tandarans? Or, maybe it was. . . .

Obviously, this is Berman/Braga's big issue, but they don't seem too concerned about portraying both sides fairly. For a more balanced perspective, see TNG episode "The High Ground."

 

[Greg_S_H]

Actually, to be fair, the Cardassians and the Bajorans were probably the Nazis and the French if there was a parallel at all. And, I suspected the Denobulans were Americans and the Antarans were the Soviets, but that really didn't hold up for long. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar.

 

[PhilipG]

For a more balanced perspective, see TNG episode "The High Ground."

I disagree with this too. Sorry, Greg! It would have been more balanced had they mentioned the real difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter - the former deliberately targets civilians to bring about political change. In addition the episode irresponsibly "predicted" Irish reunification due to terrorism efforts.

 

[Greg_S_H]

This would, of course, get political if we continued too far, but it could be one of two things: 1) I haven't seen The High Ground in a while, and I'm misremembering certain things; 2) we disagree about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Let me just say that at least The High Ground showed that the separatist group (that's what startrek.com calls them; I don't see an official name for the group) was capable of terrorism. In Enterprise, from what I've seen, the Andorans are portrayed as innocent victims of Vulcan aggression who only strike back against military targets when possible. Specifically, I'm thinking of the episode where Archer, T'Pol and that Vulcan ambassador were shot down over the disputed planet. There, the female Andoran was a radical, but she was shut down real fast by the Andoran leader.

Okay, we're definitely getting too political here. I'm going to jet out now.

Oh, and for people who want to elaborate on Philip's point about later seasons of DS9, please take care to spoilerize if you could. I'm watching on DVD for the first time and like surprises.

Addendum: Huh. The separatist leader's name was Finn, which seems pretty Irish to me. Perhaps I was making it an analogy to the wrong conflict?

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Has anyone else noticed an improvement in picture quality in the last two episodes?

Enterprise used to be virtually unwatchable on my 10 foot screen, very washed out fuzzy with lots of noise in the picture and no depth. It was the worst network picture I dared to watch, although I watched nothing else on UPN. The last two episodes have been cleaner, with more depth in field and color.

Yes it did look better. But I thought it had been the tweaking I've been doing on my RPTV, with Color, Tint, Grayscale, etc. For the longest time it looked terrible and I thought that was due to my tweaks. Recently, I went back to the drawing board on my tweaks and I noticed the last couple of shows had been better. Guess, at least where Enterpsire is concerned, it wasn't so much my tweaks as the signal itself.

 

[Andrew Beacom]

I completely forgot this was on. Thats how far Enterprise has drpped off my radar.

 

[Jack Briggs]

For what it's worth, Enterprise's picture quality has always looked washed out and soft on both my systems.

 

[BrianW]

I would expect Commander Tucker and company to be disciplined by the Denobulan government for what they did.

refused you assistance. You should have left them there.

What's good for the goose, as they say.