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March 28, 2024, 01:04:46 PM

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Scott Bakula Star Trek Enterprise

Started by Virgo76, March 22, 2021, 06:56:28 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Wonderful Butternut

A few people have touched on it already, a lot of the time it feels like a mild version of American exceptionalism set in space. Dates to the George W. era of American politics very obviously imo.

Although personally my biggest stumbling block was that I felt like I was watching a show starring a bunch of unlikable shits, led by the worst captain ever.
Archer is a petty, ill-tempered, incompetent moron for the first 2 seasons. And you're supposed to be on his side. There are a few episodes where his mistakes or deficiencies are spun as inexperience in space, understandable and possibly desirable from a storyline point of view, given the setting, but most of the time he's shown to be right. Yes, this giant fucking buffoon of a man, somehow knows better than people who've been in space for decades and centuries. I presume the intention was to make Archer look like some great pioneer who ultimately is key in founding the Federation. But he doesn't carry it. He's too much of a small minded dickhead. I'd take orders from Burnham before I'd follow Archer. Fuck, I'd follow Tilly ahead of him.

T'Pol is a disaster. No agency from her character whatsoever. Spends most of her time going around like she had a lobotomy at some point and staring meekly into the ether whilst Archer tells her how wrong Vulcans are. Takes space crack in season 3 and has sex with Trip so they could show the top 2 centimeters of Jolene Blalock's arse. Look Bermega, I'm sure her rear is quite nice, but if I want to look at attractive hindquarters I'll go to pornhub or something.
Trip never stops whinging and his accent pisses me off.
Phlox is Neelix combined with the EMH and the other three might as well not exist 90% of the time.

Mid way through season 3, watching the writers awkwardly trying to thread the line between the uncompromising search for Iraqi Xindi WMDs and still trying to be all peaceful, positive and enlightened as Star Trek is meant to be, whilst T'Pol takes space crack, I just couldn't hack it anymore. I picked it up again in Season 4 cos people insisted it was better and it wasn't really. Not to a sufficient degree to make it good, or even passable anyway.

Finally, it ended on "These Are the Voyages", which is still the most offensively bad Star Trek episode ever made, despite some fine efforts from the writers of Discovery to dislodge it.

Alberon

Oh yeah the finale. I can understand where the producers were coming from as it was the end of eighteen years of continual Trek TV production, but it was a real smack in the face for Enterprise and its fans. Second worse thing they ever did to that show.

The worst?

Faith of the heart.

Pranet

I remember watching back in the day on Channel 4. It was part of the T4 strand, young person's television for young attractive people, and back then Star Trek was for nerds, and nerds were not cool, so they treated it with open contempt. Not for the reasons that it deserved to be treated with contempt, but because they were Steve Jones and for some reason thought themselves too good to be introducing Star Trek.

I stopped watching it but I can't remember exactly when or why. I quite liked it really while also knowing it was a bit shit. But I stopped watching it before people say it got a bit better. I sometimes think about going back to it and watching the apparently slightly better bits but tv series were over 20 episodes a series then and I've never seen the Godfather films or read any Dickens so perhaps it wouldn't be the best use of my time, I don't know.

Remember when it got cancelled the fans tried to crowdfund a new series?

Pranet

Still one of the all time great theme songs.

Alberon


evilcommiedictator

Quote from: Pranet on March 23, 2021, 10:34:23 PM
Still one of the all time great theme songs.
I'll bet you enjoy the movie Armageddon as well, and it's theme tune

Pranet

Oh come on everybody, join in-

"It's been a looooong road, gettin' from there to here"

Malcy

Riker referenced Faith Of The Heart and the finale in Lower Decks.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=izKWG3u-g-8

2 minute mark.




Virgo76

Quote from: Pranet on March 23, 2021, 10:32:10 PM
I remember watching back in the day on Channel 4. It was part of the T4 strand, young person's television for young attractive people, and back then Star Trek was for nerds, and nerds were not cool, so they treated it with open contempt. Not for the reasons that it deserved to be treated with contempt, but because they were Steve Jones and for some reason thought themselves too good to be introducing Star Trek.

I stopped watching it but I can't remember exactly when or why. I quite liked it really while also knowing it was a bit shit. But I stopped watching it before people say it got a bit better. I sometimes think about going back to it and watching the apparently slightly better bits but tv series were over 20 episodes a series then and I've never seen the Godfather films or read any Dickens so perhaps it wouldn't be the best use of my time, I don't know.

Remember when it got cancelled the fans tried to crowdfund a new series?

Probably if you're watching something and quite enjoying it, you should just carry on watching it. No need to overthink it. It's quite possible to watch Star Trek, see The Godfather films and read some Dickens, after all.

Although, that said, William Shatner is now 90 and claims to have never watched an episode of any Star Trek series. So there you go.

Mr Trumpet

Quote from: Pranet on March 23, 2021, 10:32:10 PM
I remember watching back in the day on Channel 4. It was part of the T4 strand, young person's television for young attractive people, and back then Star Trek was for nerds, and nerds were not cool, so they treated it with open contempt. Not for the reasons that it deserved to be treated with contempt, but because they were Steve Jones and for some reason thought themselves too good to be introducing Star Trek.

I stopped watching it but I can't remember exactly when or why. I quite liked it really while also knowing it was a bit shit. But I stopped watching it before people say it got a bit better. I sometimes think about going back to it and watching the apparently slightly better bits but tv series were over 20 episodes a series then and I've never seen the Godfather films or read any Dickens so perhaps it wouldn't be the best use of my time, I don't know.

Remember when it got cancelled the fans tried to crowdfund a new series?

I always thought Jones had some enthusiasm for the show. It was Miquita Oliver who didn't bother to disguise her scorn.

The T4 showings were interesting in how blatantly and crudely they censored the show for a Sunday lunchtime audience. There's a tedious cowboy planet episode (fresh idea guys, really great) where there's a gunfight between phasers and six-shooters. The way they left the phaser hits in but removed anyone getting shot with actual bullets was really noticeable.

Pranet

Channel 4 were/are terrible for that. They did the same for Angel. There is a guy out there on the internet who documents all the cuts they make to the Simpsons.

Malcy

They used to show Stargate SG1 on T4 as well but don't remember them censoring anything on that and there's always people getting shot in it.

Mr Trumpet

Quote from: Malcy on March 24, 2021, 09:59:41 AM
They used to show Stargate SG1 on T4 as well but don't remember them censoring anything on that and there's always people getting shot in it.

Isn't mostly either space lasers or bullets on metal armour though? Who knows where they draw the line with these things.

Sebastian Cobb


JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Virgo76 on March 22, 2021, 06:56:28 PM
Has anyone seen many of these?
What did you think?
About twenty years old now.

Years ago not long after the series started I caught part of an episode.  I'd switched on and the show was already underway and I didn't know what I was watching, but clearly I thought I was watching a really poor Star Trek ripoff.  It wasn't until the next commercial break that I realised it was actually a part of the Star Trek franchise rather than some random ripoff.

I just got through watching Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda on the Horror channel and I really enjoyed it.  It's supposedly based on unused material by Roddenberry although I've no idea how much was written by him, probably not much.  It's not part of the Trek universe and it offers a more gritty representation of the future rather than what you get with Trek.  For a start there's no prime directive and the captain is badass and has "nova bombs" that can destroy entire solar systems!  And while the first four seasons work as standalone episodes like Trek, the 5th season needs to be seen in its entirety to properly follow the story.  I liked it and would recommend it to anyone who's not seen it.

And now that's finished they've started showing the original Battlestar Galactica.  I was only a kid when it first aired and I barely remember it, although once the theme tune started I remembered that.  But, boy what an utter pile of crap!  The makers were clearly inspired by Star Wars with the title sequence lettering, and all the space scenes that followed.  It looks very cinematic, but it seemed to be all image and no plot and some of the acting was appalling and after 10 minutes I had absolutely no idea what it was about, but I said to myself that I'd at least force myself to watch until the end of the episode.  Five minutes later I'd had enough and changed channel.

Virgo76

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on March 25, 2021, 12:43:17 AM
Years ago not long after the series started I caught part of an episode.  I'd switched on and the show was already underway and I didn't know what I was watching, but clearly I thought I was watching a really poor Star Trek ripoff.  It wasn't until the next commercial break that I realised it was actually a part of the Star Trek franchise rather than some random ripoff.

I just got through watching Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda on the Horror channel and I really enjoyed it.  It's supposedly based on unused material by Roddenberry although I've no idea how much was written by him, probably not much.  It's not part of the Trek universe and it offers a more gritty representation of the future rather than what you get with Trek.  For a start there's no prime directive and the captain is badass and has "nova bombs" that can destroy entire solar systems!  And while the first four seasons work as standalone episodes like Trek, the 5th season needs to be seen in its entirety to properly follow the story.  I liked it and would recommend it to anyone who's not seen it.

And now that's finished they've started showing the original Battlestar Galactica.  I was only a kid when it first aired and I barely remember it, although once the theme tune started I remembered that.  But, boy what an utter pile of crap!  The makers were clearly inspired by Star Wars with the title sequence lettering, and all the space scenes that followed.  It looks very cinematic, but it seemed to be all image and no plot and some of the acting was appalling and after 10 minutes I had absolutely no idea what it was about, but I said to myself that I'd at least force myself to watch until the end of the episode.  Five minutes later I'd had enough and changed channel.

Have you seen the revived 21st century version of Battlestar Galactica though? Much better.

earl_sleek

Quote from: Mobbd on March 23, 2021, 12:21:47 PM
I didn't think that one was particularly bad either! The aliens were far more interesting than your average forehead alien.

I haven't seen it, or any ST:E, for many years, so it could well be better than I remember. It was more of the straw that broke the camel's back, rather than being a particularly terrible episode in itself.

earl_sleek

OG BSG is an enjoyable enough romp, but it doesn't stand up to even TOS Trek, except in SFX.

Wonderful Butternut's post upthread:

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on March 23, 2021, 10:06:46 PM
A few people have touched on it already, a lot of the time it feels like a mild version of American exceptionalism set in space. Dates to the George W. era of American politics very obviously imo.

made me think of the remastered BSG, in that it was from roughly the same period as ST:E but far superior, and far more willing to interrogate contemporary real-world politics and the assumptions of its viewers.

Alberon

Saw the original double length episode of the first BSG in the cinema. I remember saying to my Dad (poor bugger had to sit through it with me) that it was good, but no Star Wars.

The rebooted BSG was very good, but dropped the ball badly in the final episode. The Caprica prequel was largely shit, but then I strongly dislike prequels anyway. The upcoming new BSG series is supposed not to be a reboot of the reboot, but connected to it somehow.

Andromeda started well, but then they deliberately lobotomised it to increase ratings. Exactly the same thing happened to the other Roddenberry project made after his death, Earth: Final Conflict, which was quite reasonable for its first year before turning into the worst bilge imaginable.

JesusAndYourBush

I saw the Battlestar Galactica film at the cinema.  I remember the supporting feature was some sort of Army recruitment film.

The other day I had a brief 'Mandela Effect' moment when I Googled and was informed there never was a Battlestar Galactica film!!!
After more Googling I discovered there were in fact THREE cinema films, and all three of them weren't proper films but were just cobbled together from the TV episodes which is a bit of a cheat really, and I'm disappointed even though I remember nothing about the film I saw.

I never saw the early 2000's reboot.

What I failed to express in my post the other day about the 1978 version was that what I disliked about it was that although it was episode 1 it was like suddenly starting watching something halfway through episode 3.  There was no attempt to set the scene, to explain who the people were and what they were doing.  I'd have had to watch it for a number of episodes until I got it, and once I was up to speed on everything & everyone I'd have had to then start again at episode 1, armed with the information that episode 1 should have given me in the first place if it'd been better written.

Virgo76

Reboot of Battlestar really is much better. On the BBC iPlayer now. It's generally held in very high regard.
I don't think the original has ever been rated very highly by anyone really. It was largely seen as a Star Wars knock-off with a nice theme tune

mothman

Struck by how many of us did go and see the OG BSG pilot film when it had its U.K. cinema run!

I remember that after the film, my mum got us back to the car (parked somewhere along the front in Worthing) just before a traffic warden was about to ticket our car because the meter had run out. She was very nice though and let us off. Funny how you can recall a detail like that, 40+ years later.

I can't remember the website now, but I recall one OG BSG fansite which did at least cautiously embrace nuBSG - up until the ep where
Spoiler alert
It's revealed the Pegasus crew have been raping and torturing the Six clone
[close]
. The webmaster was FURIOUS (and went off on a long rant disassociating his site from any consideration of the newer show) - not that the notional good-guys in the scenario were doing these things, more that it was being presented in a manner which suggested it was somehow a bad thing to do. Why, surely the United St- er, the Colonials would never do such things... if it was justified and the Muslims victims deserved it?

MojoJojo

The original Battlestar Galactica features Fred Astairs last dancing apperance.

Lemming

This is the only Star Trek series I've never seen in full (except Discovery S3 which I couldn't be fucked with) so after seeing this thread I thought I'd check it out. Saw that the opening episode was a two-parter and couldn't be fucked with that either so started with episode two since it's apparently episodic anyway. Thoughts:

Fight or Flight - this was fine, I like that Hoshi shat herself in the Corpse Room, gives the audience someone to relate to and drives home that these people aren't emotionless 24th century Starfleet officers. Lucky escape for Archer, who fucked quite literally everything up and got miraculously bailed out by a one-in-a-million chance at the end.

Strange New World - standard-issue plot that's been done before, but really enjoyed this, probably because I've been primed by Discovery and Picard to be absolutely desperate for any kind of "classic" Star Trek. They've gone to a planet and something's happened, good enough for me! The Trip guy is a really good actor and I like that the solution to the episode was to basically do some fast-talk bullshit, Star Trek is always better when the solutions come through emotional intelligence rather than reversing the tachyon field polarity or whatever the fuck.

Unexpected - pretty fun episode, barring a couple of cringeworthy "haha he's PREGNANT haha like a WOMAN haha MOOD SWINGS haha" moments. Again the Trip actor is pretty clearly the strongest player in the cast at this point.

It's alright so far, might keep going. None of the characters are really pissing me off yet. Archer's fucking dumb but at least he's good natured and genuinely pumped up to be exploring space. Trip is fun, T'Pol is cool but you can already tell they're having trouble writing a Vulcan character so they've just defaulted to writing her as a prick, like pretty much every Vulcan in TNG/DS9. Hoshi was nice in the one episode where she had stuff to do, everyone else is just a non-entity at this point.

Great theme song by the way. Love it. I'm going to download it and listen to it over and over again. Absolutely brilliant. Might set it as my alarm, change every Windows notification sound to it, that kind of thing.

JamesTC

Honestly if you enjoy those as much as you seem to then you will likely really enjoy most of it. Season 3 and 4 obviously get better (as is the way with all Trek bar TOS). Season 1 and 2 pretty much hold the levels of the first few episodes that you have watched with a few exceptions. Season 1 in particular ends up doing the generic TNG/VOY setup with a few exceptions.

greenman

My memory is season 4 did belatedly become become somewhat decent, when it finished off the time travel arc early and instead focused on Doctor Who style 3-4 episode mini arcs.

Alberon

Quote from: Lemming on March 26, 2021, 01:13:29 PM
Great theme song by the way. Love it. I'm going to download it and listen to it over and over again. Absolutely brilliant. Might set it as my alarm, change every Windows notification sound to it, that kind of thing.


JamesTC

Quote from: greenman on March 26, 2021, 04:41:24 PM
My memory is season 4 did belatedly become become somewhat decent, when it finished off the time travel arc early and instead focused on Doctor Who style 3-4 episode mini arcs.

All the multi parters are really great that season.

Augment Arc (Borderland, Cold Station 12, The Augments)
Vulcan Reformation Arc (The Forge, Awakening, Kir'Shara)
Romulan War/Federation Prequel Arc (Babel One, United, The Aenar)
Klingon Virus Arc (Afflication, Divergence)
In A Mirror, Darkly Part 1 and 2
Xenophobic Humans Arc (Demons, Terra Prime)

Even the opening two parter is fun as a way to end the temporal cold war stuff in a light way. Just generic Nazi aliens stuff. I like the single episode that follows which is kind of Enterprise's attempt at the TNG episode Family. The three singular episodes scattered throughout don't quite hit the mark but they do act as a breakwater for all the big storylines.

Mobbd

Quote from: Lemming on March 26, 2021, 01:13:29 PM
Hoshi shat herself in the Corpse Room

Okay, I'm in.

Quote from: Lemming on March 26, 2021, 01:13:29 PM
Great theme song by the way. Love it. I'm going to download it and listen to it over and over again. Absolutely brilliant. Might set it as my alarm, change every Windows notification sound to it, that kind of thing.

Heh. "Doesn't half give me the horn."

Mobbd

Quote from: JamesTC on March 26, 2021, 04:25:37 PM
Honestly if you enjoy those as much as you seem to then you will likely really enjoy most of it. Season 3 and 4 obviously get better (as is the way with all Trek bar TOS). Season 1 and 2 pretty much hold the levels of the first few episodes that you have watched with a few exceptions. Season 1 in particular ends up doing the generic TNG/VOY setup with a few exceptions.

I've heard that it improves once the Xindi are in it but I never manage to get that far. I've dipped in to some random late episodes to try them and it was a struggle to enjoy them to be honest, partly from not really understanding what's going on. I guess you really do have to watch them all properly.

I'm on a massive Trek re-watch with my partner. Having the time of my life tbh. We've done all of TOS and TAS (ask me about it!) and now we're halfway through Season 2 of TNG. The plan was "The Cage to Endgame" (minus the movies - my partner's weird choice, but one I respect, Trek really being a TV thing) but maybe we'll try ENT again if we still have inertia. I must say this thread has made me curious.

Anybody want to do a review thread for it, like Lemming's one for Red Dwarf? ;)