The Disembodied Brain - Enterprise and the end of...? (Spoiler alert)
Spoiler alert -- if you haven't read anything about the new game plan afoot for the fourth season of Enterprise -- and you don't want to know -- then don't read any further...
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From the San Diego Union-Tribune:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/w...es/000869.html
Enterprise and the end of...? (Spoiler alert)
October 05, 2004
Maybe there is hope for the spirit of Enterprise.
Executive producer Manny Coto tells Sci Fi Wire that writing the first episode for the series' fourth season involved writing an end to the Temporal Cold War.
While Enterprise has plenty of other flaws to work on (characterization, plotting, suspense, etc.), getting rid of the gimmicky plot device that has hung over the series since its inception is a good start. (Another would be to dramatically kill off T'Pol and either the generic helmsman or Hoshi.)
Generally a bad mechanism for any Trek, time travel/history changing has been an especially bad device for Enterprise because as a prequel it has an even greater need for continuity with the other series.
And when it has been used it's generally been used poorly, connecting the "present" with a future centuries after the other Trek settings, one of those futures with technology so advanced it could just as well be magic and from which the producers could pull almost any sort of rabbit they wanted. It was also drearily used to connect Enterprise to the past -- to us -- when the Xindi were inexplicably resorting to time travel to Earth's past to test biological weapons on humans, since traveling across space and time and hiding among an alien population (and not killing the primitives while you have an overwhelming technological advantage) is so much easier than space travel alone.
Having the Temporal Cold War, the survival of humanity and the fate of the future Federation hanging over Capt. Archer's head also had the effect of reducing every other crisis and storyline to relatively minor importance. Orion pirates? Pfah! Planet-eating space monsters? Pfah! Infested shipments of quadrotriticale? Pfah! (Turning to the dark side? Pfah!) I have a galaxy to save.
Coto, as quoted in the Sci Fi Wire piece, says he's a big fan of the old series and therefore plans to flesh out the original Star Trek's backstory by doing such things as having the crew encounter Orion slave girls and adventuring in the deserts of Vulcan. (Which would spoil my they're-really-Romulans-pretending-to-be-Vulcans backstory. Sigh.)
Hmm, will they sex up this season by dyeing T'Pol green and sending her undercover? I'm only half joking; it wouldn't surprise me if they did. Then again, Archer might just travel back in time to stop her...
Posted by Jeff Dillon at October 5, 2004 06:33 PM
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Morjana
SG1-Spoilergate
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SG1-Spoilergate/
Richard Dean Anderson Fans
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/rdandersonfans/
Proof-Positive
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/Proof-Positive
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
A
H
O
Y
O
Y
!
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/w...es/000869.html
Enterprise and the end of...? (Spoiler alert)
October 05, 2004
Maybe there is hope for the spirit of Enterprise.
Executive producer Manny Coto tells Sci Fi Wire that writing the first episode for the series' fourth season involved writing an end to the Temporal Cold War.
While Enterprise has plenty of other flaws to work on (characterization, plotting, suspense, etc.), getting rid of the gimmicky plot device that has hung over the series since its inception is a good start. (Another would be to dramatically kill off T'Pol and either the generic helmsman or Hoshi.)
Generally a bad mechanism for any Trek, time travel/history changing has been an especially bad device for Enterprise because as a prequel it has an even greater need for continuity with the other series.
And when it has been used it's generally been used poorly, connecting the "present" with a future centuries after the other Trek settings, one of those futures with technology so advanced it could just as well be magic and from which the producers could pull almost any sort of rabbit they wanted. It was also drearily used to connect Enterprise to the past -- to us -- when the Xindi were inexplicably resorting to time travel to Earth's past to test biological weapons on humans, since traveling across space and time and hiding among an alien population (and not killing the primitives while you have an overwhelming technological advantage) is so much easier than space travel alone.
Having the Temporal Cold War, the survival of humanity and the fate of the future Federation hanging over Capt. Archer's head also had the effect of reducing every other crisis and storyline to relatively minor importance. Orion pirates? Pfah! Planet-eating space monsters? Pfah! Infested shipments of quadrotriticale? Pfah! (Turning to the dark side? Pfah!) I have a galaxy to save.
Coto, as quoted in the Sci Fi Wire piece, says he's a big fan of the old series and therefore plans to flesh out the original Star Trek's backstory by doing such things as having the crew encounter Orion slave girls and adventuring in the deserts of Vulcan. (Which would spoil my they're-really-Romulans-pretending-to-be-Vulcans backstory. Sigh.)
Hmm, will they sex up this season by dyeing T'Pol green and sending her undercover? I'm only half joking; it wouldn't surprise me if they did. Then again, Archer might just travel back in time to stop her...
Posted by Jeff Dillon at October 5, 2004 06:33 PM
|*|(*)|*|(*)|*|
Morjana
SG1-Spoilergate
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SG1-Spoilergate/
Richard Dean Anderson Fans
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/rdandersonfans/
Proof-Positive
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/Proof-Positive
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