STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE 9/24/'03: "Extinction" (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gardiner]

I agree with Nelson. Given the episode title ("Extinction") and my familiarity with both THE INNER LIGHT and MASKS I had the mystery figured out right away. I find it interesting that they managed to combine the very best TNG episode with one of the worst.

I got caught up on XINDI and ANOMALY right before watching last night's episodes, and thought I would give my comments here rather than in the old stale threads. The introduction of the Xindi storyline restores the "I wanna know what happens next" factor that has been missing from ENTERPRISE since the middle of the first season. I have to admit, B&B have finally learned the first rule of show biz, always leave them wanting more.

I'm surprised no one commented on the cargo container full of STEM BOLTS Reed found last week. Biggest laugh so far this season. (Can we assume, being 22nd century stem bolts, that they have to be sealed manually? )

Each episode so far this season has had a visual reference to Star Wars: The Xindi council, the 'Death Star' in Anomaly (although a Dyson Sphere is what first came to my mind) and now T'Pol is wearing Senator Padme's white catsuit.

I wanted to comment on two things mentioned in the Xindi thread: the sexiness quotient and the reflection of current events. As far as the sexiness goes, several folks mentioned that the original series had plenty of scantily-clad females for Kirk to choose from. HOWEVER, this was done, in part, to differentiate STAR TREK from other sci-fi shows, which were considered kiddie fare at the time (think LOST IN SPACE.) I agree that having a character act upon his libido is a superficial way of making a TV show "adult" in nature, but the original STAR TREK had adult ideas to back it up with. I think STAR TREK has endured because of the ideas it expresses, and the lovely females are only a bonus. But when Trip and T'Pol give each other naked backrubs, it has the effect of making the show seem more juvenile, not less. Maybe "sophomoric" is the best word to use.

On the post-911/gung-ho/let's-torture-the-prisoners attitude on ENTERPRISE: folks mentioned in the other thread that STAR TREK has a tradition of reflecting the times, and I agree that this is true. However, there is no tradition of blind acceptance of the status quo like we're seeing now. Maybe some fans who have been around longer than I have can answer this, but wasn't it considered radical, during the Cold War, for a TV show to advocate a policy of not imposing our values on other civilizations? Personally, I think if Gene were still around, we would see more thoughtful episodes along the lines of THE HIGH GROUND or PARADISE LOST. Now that Archer is willing to live with the remorse that comes from torturing a prisoner, I think the pacifist/humanist/visionary Gene Roddenberry must be spinning in his grave.

In any case, the "seductress" episode from next week looks like one I may be able to skip.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Rob, your post kind of sums up the entire Star Trek predicament in only a few paragraphs. Very nice.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Will_B wrote (post #21):

Guessing and knowing (and being convinced) are two different things. I'd like to know what the producers of this show are claiming. The tranformees don't just become "more "cultured", as you put it, they become "cultured" only after T'Pol establishes some kind of translational dialog with them. They could've acted just as "cultured" and not have been seeming to speak English, don't you agree? But, in the end, that's not how the scenario plays out, is it? There's a message there, whether intentional or unintentional, about cultural outsiders and cultural bias. What is this message?

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Nelson Au wrote (post #19):

I have no problem with a turn of events whereby they later regret having saved the viral agent. My problem is with the ethical motivation for saving it that is implied here, as I've said. Then, too, I'm not sure how effective a "weapon" the agent can be. It doesn't kill "the enemy". It converts genetically strange (humanoid) sentient intelligent beings into Lokeq, who are compelled to return to their home place and, presumably---we never get to find out---, will have the intelligence and know-how to revive the dead civilization of its creators and the capacity to reproduce and, thus, continue their genome. What makes it seem a "plague" is the attitude of the other (unnamed?) alien group that would rather kill off "tens of millions" of its own kind than be "assimilated". (Note the live burning of the downed and presumed infected hunter alien in the episode by his own people without any hesitation.)

Who's the "bad guy" of the episode? The Lokeq? The hunter aliens? The Enterprise crew? Any of the above? All of the above? None of the above?

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Rob Gardiner wrote (post #22):

By "one of the worst", I assume you mean "Masks", an episode I like very much. I notice that this seems to be a commonly held attitude toward it. Would you spell out in detail why you do not like that episode? I'm trying to understand why so many seem to loathe it so much. No boom? Little flash? No gunplay? For Data's acting the part of a woman? Writer's halitosis? What?

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I tried my best to get through this episode but I just couldnt. As mentioned before it seemed like the Voyager episode to me and the rub down scene at the beginning?
Why?

 

[Qui-Gon John]

I bet we haven't seen the last of this virus. This could come back to haunt them, or it could be the solution to the Xindi problem when the time comes.

Hey, later it could start wiping out large numbers of Xindi. Then we could have a Xindi spin-off show where the Xindi crew searches the galaxy to find a cure for this virus. (or has this already been done on Crusade)!

 

[Mike Broadman]

FWIW, I agree with Rex's confusion over Archer's stance. I love exploring grey areas of ethics as much as anyone (do you kill Warf as he asked because his spine was broken?), but I saw no grey area here. Virus is bad.


Is "Masks" the episode where some ancient library uploads a bunch of mythological characters into Data, including some sun goddess? If so, I happen to love that episode, albeit for less than science or fiction reasons: Brent Spiner's performance. I can forgive almost anything to see a gifted actor at work.

I think, subconsciously, that's why I forgive TNG for a lot of the same slip-ups that I'll harp on other shows for making. They just had such great acting.

Every Trek series I like has some defining quality to it that makes it special to me.

- original series has both historical significance (I'm too young to have enjoyed the original broadcasts) which I can dig by placing the show in its context as best I can imagine and "kitsch," which results in both intentional and unintentional humor. Overall, it has a charm and import unmatched by anything else on TV.

- TNG: all about the characters, with brilliant actors and Warf, who just kicks ass.

- DS9: plot

All three were guilty of scientific nonsense, story holes, and some truly corny eps (Ferengi playing baseball? WTF?). But it's OK, because the stuff I listed above makes it worth it.

Voyager (after the 2nd or 3rd season) and Enterprise never had anything like that for me.

As for the sex thing, I will disagree that showing or using sexuality is immature. With Kirk, it totally makes sense for him to be, so, eh... active. Men of his sort (aggressive, charming, decisive, leaders) tend to be. But Enterprise doesn't explore anyone's sexuality. Although it looks like they may try on the next episode.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Please pardon the brief interruption:

If you are a TiVo user and an Enterprise fan, please refer to this thread in the PVR section.

M.

 

[Nelson Au]

FYI-Out of curiousity, it is mentioned on another site how much this episode is actually closer to a TNG episode called Identity Crisis, I just watched it on DVD, I never liked it so I never saw this one on the DVD set.

Geordi and other members of a crew from another ship 5 years earlier visit a world and are unknowingly inffected by something that 5 years later cause them to mutate to another life form and have a strong urge to return to the planet. It is later learned it is the way they reproduce. It was a Braga script.

The only main resemblence here is the TNG is about how a race reproduces and Enterprise is about recreating the race, or reproduce.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

It's all cut and paste in the world of Trek these days. A bit from this episode and a dab of that...
Sure plots in Sci Fi are all a veriation but you need to add a new slant like they did successfully on Farscape or even B5 to an extent.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Rex,

I should have referred to MASKS as "what is generally thought of as one of the worst" because while it often shows up on "worst of" lists, I personally don't think it's so bad. But, I think the reason many fans don't care for it is Data's over-the-top performance(s). Brent Spiner got to play a great variety of roles on TNG, if you count Lore, Ira Graves, King Henry V, etc. etc. but I think the various roles he played in MASKS were among his least effective.


On the issue of technical nit-picking: I'm afraid I agree with the others here. When I watch Star Trek, I extend my "suspension of disbelief" to cover the issues that you mention. I think STAR TREK lost any claim to scientific credibility in the very first scene of "Where No Man Has Gone Before", where it is established that Spock is half-human and half-Vulcan. Biologists consider two organisms to be the same species if they are capable of producing viable offspring. Are we to believe that humans and Vulcans are the same species? So the most important character (arguably) in all of Trek is a scientific impossibility.

Then again, the purpose of Spock's character is not to examine the life of a realistic half-human half-alien, and the purpose of Star Trek is not to examine scientific concepts. If I understand correctly, TV writers such as Gene Roddenberry and Rod Serling were drawn to the science fiction genre because it allowed them to tell intelligent stories about controversial topics and get them past the censors by "disguising" them as sci-fi (which was considered kiddie fare and therefore subject to less scrutiny). [Also, Gene & Rod assumed their fans were more clever than the TV suits, and would understand what their stories were REALLY about.] Spock was created out of Gene's desire, in his own life, to be able to make decisions logically, without emotional considerations. [Numero Uno was the original "logical" character but this property was given to Spock when she was dropped.] The character was made half-human in order to give him some internal conflict and to give the actor something interesting to do, (see THE NAKED TIME) not to explore a scientific concept.

My point is that when writing Star Trek, the emotional considerations and storytelling needs come first, with a pseudo-scientific explanation added in order to satisfy the requirements of the sci-fi genre. As has been said many times, "It's about the people."

 

[Will_B]

For me the general rule is that contradicting reality is bad, but imagining a future where more is known is fine.

A contradiction would be, for example, having the crew land on the sun and safely walk around on it because it was night.

But complaints that an engineered virus could not embed memories "is not realistic", simply because we haven't any experience by which to judge such an idea, well, I can't get into that kind of complaint, because nothing is contradicted given that we have no experience with such a thing. For that matter, we don't even know how much about how memories are stored, so where would we begin to claim there was something contradicting reality there?

Contradicting reality vs contradicting science are sometimes confused. Add the fiction into the mix and this discussion can go nowhere.

 

[Will_B]

Biologists consider two organisms to be the same species if they are capable of producing viable offspring. Are we to believe that humans and Vulcans are the same species? So the most important character (arguably) in all of Trek is a scientific impossibility.

When K'eyhlar was aboard the Enterprise visiting Worf, she mentioned to someone, maybe Picard, that for her to be part human and part Klingon, some genetic tinkering was required.

Given that we've managed to mix jellyfish with wheat plants, I would say all bets are off.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

Just watched it last night.. First Enterprise episode I've ever fast-forwarded through..

 

[PhilipG]

FYI-Out of curiousity, it is mentioned on another site how much this episode is actually closer to a TNG episode called Identity Crisis, I just watched it on DVD, I never liked it so I never saw this one on the DVD set.

Ack - you're right! I had blocked the memory of Identity Crisis out of my mind. Truly a very poor episode of TNG. This episode was a little better, if only for adding the one extra plot element - "shoot first" aliens with flamethrowers.

 

[Nelson Au]

Actually, in re-watching Identity Crisis, it wasn't that bad! I enjoyed it more then I expected I would. How Geordi used the Holodeck to work out the shadow, and his stubborn effort in rewatching the video record to find a clue, etc.

 

[Will_B]

Yeah, Identity Crisis was one of my favorite episodes, I wasnt aware some disliked it.

 

[phil-w]

I know I have mentioned this before, but, is it just my local UPN, or does Enterprise have one of the worst picture qualities of any show on any network?

I don't watch anything else on UPN but Enterprise is almost completely unwatcheable on a large screen. It is so blurry and lacking in contrast and detail, while being full of compression artifacts and other noise.

I am getting UPN Phoenix through Directv.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

No, my Enterprise is the same. Grainy, colors fade in and out. I tape my shows and watch them later. This is the only one to look awful.