Star Trek: Enterprise 10/15/'03: "exile" (1 Viewer)

[Rex Bachmann]

episode title: "Exile"
episode: #58
original airdate: October 15, 2003
writer: Phyllis Strong
director: Roxanne Dawson
synopsis: "The crew is presented with an interesting proposition: an alien named Tarquin will use his telepathic powers in their battle against the Xindi. But Tarquin has a mysterious motive...."


Hoshi's got something to do. Yeay! Maybe she can get the translation-thing down to not being so "Hollywood".

 

[Brajesh Upadhyay]

This one's being broadcast in hi-def (at least by Philly's UPN57), so I'm checking it out. The show itself has been a clunker though. If it were half as good as TNG or DS9, I'd watch regularly.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Who's Hoshi?

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

If it were half as good as TNG or DS9, I'd watch regularly.

Or half as imaginative as B5 or Farscape.

 

[Chris]

Or half as long. If this was a 1/2 hour program, I probably could deal with it It would eliminate a lot of what has become basically padding.. I think they should take a look at some of the Star Trek: Animated Series eps

 

[Tony Whalen]

Or half as dressed. Oh. Waitaminute...

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I think they should take a look at some of the Star Trek: Animated Series eps.

I watched a few of those not too long ago. Loved them when I was a kid but it has not aged well.

I actually think it would be cool to have a Star Trek animated show in the Trek Universe with a lot of the casts mixed but it would all depend on writing of course.
They are doing a Clone war cartoon and that looks pretty dark and edgy.
I remember seeing a cel years ago for a proposed TNG animated show but it never came to fruition.But back to Enterprise. I have watched two episodes this season to see the "New Direction" and I still wasnt overly impressed.
We have the new Vulcan Massage sessions with Tripp and T'pol that add absolutely nothing to the show and a show trying to be dark that is still just very wooden and generic to me.

 

[Kwang Suh]

Well hey, that was a pretty good episode. Good character episode.

I'm sure Rex will have a fit over Hoshi translating a book "just like that".

 

[TheLongshot]

Tho a little predictable, it was a well executed episode. Probably one of the better ones this season. A solid B.

A bit disappointed, tho, that they kinda gave the threat to Enterprise away in the promos. It wasn't needed, and you were just waiting for that move to happen...

Jason

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Tarquin gives Hoshi a book to read in a (to her) unknown "dead language". She reads it over night without aids. ("It reminds me of medieval Klingon.") [Hhhhhhhhhhh]

I missed parts of this:

(a) Tarquin appears to her at times in human form. Do they say how this form is chosen? Is it supposed to be the form of somebody she knows? If not, what is the basis of the choice?

(b) Whence and why the mini-dress?

(c) Archer and Tripp open their shuttle door directly to outer space while parked on the sphere. Wouldn't that cause problems? (Atmospheric decompression? Radiation leakage onto the ship? etc.???)


Not so action-packed, but a decent episode (by Enterprise standards, that is). Telepathy projected through a crystal ball, though . . . . ehhhhh . . . . .

 

[Nelson Au]

At first it almost felt like another Hoshi and her fears causes her to see things again episode, but it took off into a much better episode. Reminesent of the very best TOS dealing with lonely characters.

So is Hoshi born with telepathic powers or was she just an innocent that the alien felt he was able to make a connection with. I am opting for the later, based on the sequence when he lets her try the device that helps extend his range of telepathic powers, for lack of a better definition. I think he may or may not have the power to “see” things and to telepathically project images he wants. But that device I believe gave him the ability to see and communicate with others.

The gothic feel of the Exile planet felt like an Outer Limits episode. And the idea of the exiled being there felt very 1960’s Outer Limits, from story line to execution of the exiled Alien make up design. All it needed was a more Noir-ish cinematography style. The story with the exile was also rather engaging I thought. What were his mysterious motives, was he really going to be so altruistic? The ending was rather “sweet”. Nice they did not take the “blast ‘em to get Hoshi back” route and rather Hoshi was able to outwit the exiled Alien. And they parted at least with non-antagonistic feelings. The gifts he gives to Hoshi was the sweet part, the book and the final gift to her.

I was amused Tripp went to a lot of trouble to repaint the Pod’s name and graphics after the Trellium D coating. The sequence on the sphere was a waste of time, it was there mostly for visual fun. Hoshi's story was much more interesting, though we now know that the Expanse is a great big booby trap.

Again, while great visual effects does not make a show great, the effects here were great in that they continue to try harder and show more dynamic angles and views from the new fly-by of Enterprise to the top down view of the shuttlepod exiting the launch bay to the very well realized home on the mountain side of the exiled alien. And great music score again. I’m glad the generic music from the Next Gen/Voyager days is over.

 

[PhilipG]

Decent take on Beauty and the Beast. Ironic that this week Archer should leave someone behind who requested it, after last week when he refused to dump T'Pol...

(c) Archer and Tripp open their shuttle door directly to outer space while parked on the sphere. Wouldn't that cause problems? (Atmospheric decompression? Radiation leakage onto the ship? etc.???)

They could have depressurised first. I'm more dubious about how one engine on the corner managed to lift the whole ship straight up in the air (rather than flipping the ship and keeping it grounded). But it was a cute moment.

 

[Brajesh Upadhyay]

The hi-def broadcast was quite good. The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio was okay. The makeup looked more fake cuz of the added detail. The show looked very movie-like. I haven't watched 'Enterprise' in a while & I must say it's still ho-hum.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Archer and Tripp open their shuttle door directly to outer space while parked on the sphere. Wouldn't that cause problems?

Why do I have the sudden urge to ask "is there air out there? You don't know!" *hold breath*

 

[Joseph Howard]

You can bet the "book written by a long dead
civlization" is going to come back when they begin
to unravel "who built the spheres." Plus, Hoshi must
have some kind of esp to translate written language
with out a baseline context to begin that translation.

Oh, and a bit on the mathematics...I think you would
need a reading from a third sphere before you could
really begin the map out the other 58 of them.

I am, however, liking this season's episodes a whole
lot better than the previous years.

Dr. Joe

 

[Lawrence Stowbunenko]

Did anyone else get a flashback from TOS? I kept expecting Hoshi to smash the orb and have everything disappear with just a strange sounding bug creature dying in the dirt.

And as long as we're pointing out technical faux pas, did anyone else have a problem with Trip and the captain just standing on the orb looking dumbstruck when the pod came crashing to their feet? Was it a macho game of "Chicken", or did their grav-boots malfunction?

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Nelson Au wrote (post #):

If this were Babylon 5, I might confidently take up that bet. But, given that B&B are in charge of the production . . . .

 

[Will_B]

She said the language was similar to another she'd studied. So I think the equivalent was to how in our world if you've studied Latin you have a pretty good shot at being able to understand the gist of German or French.

And Rex, this isn't one of the CSICOP rallies where people in 1970s courdoroy jackets knock ESP, but if you persist, I might persist too.

Extra sensory perception is already firmly in place in Trek. In Trek, the Vulcans use this all the time, and the Betazoids, the Remans, and Picard and Beverly too in that Next Gen episode, to name but a few episodes. Over 60% of the United States believes it exists in real life too, mainly since families and loved ones experience it.

And the use of a crystal to amplify power is also a pretty firm part of Trek, what with dilithium crystals accentuating the matter/antimatter reactions, and, besides that, it is also firmly part of the real world's cultural lore as well (and they can be used in radios too, so it isn't as if the concept behind the belief is not based in reality).

Anyhow, you're getting crystals confused with crystal balls - a crystal ball despite the name is usually just glass, used for "scrying" (same as mirrors or water has been used) which is just a fancy word for using distorted or abstract imagery to get the mind's attention off of the material world and have it instead enter an altered state of mind which shamanic traditions say is neccesary to perceive things of a spiritual nature. A crystal ball is usually just glass. What the alien was using was not a crystal ball, it was a crystal.

 

[Jason Seaver]

She said the language was similar to another she'd studied. So I think the equivalent was to how in our world if you've studied Latin you have a pretty good shot at being able to understand the gist of German or French.

Except, of course, that the Earth-bound languages are related. There's no rational reason to be able to extrapolate from archaic Klingon to this other dead language.

 

[Steve_Pannell]

Did anyone else get a flashback from TOS? I kept expecting Hoshi to smash the orb and have everything disappear with just a strange sounding bug creature dying in the dirt.

Same here. Also, the alien depriving Enterprise of power to get Hoshi to stay reminded me of that same TOS episode.

Did anyone else notice that whatever side of Tarquin's face was shadowed kind of moved around or something? Kinda hard to explain but it looked like a mis-aligned projection or something. Or was it just my tired old eyes?