The Star Trek Thread, 3.0

Hard to say because I'm on a friend's computer and don't have immediate access to my reviews/ratings, so this is just from the gut and may not be accurate:

TOS:
Best: "Balance of Terror"
Worst: "That Which Survives"

TAS:
Best: "Yesteryear"
Worst: "Magicks of Megas-Tu"

TNG:
Best: "The Drumhead"
Worst: "Cost of Living"

DS9:
Best: "In the Pale Moonlight"
Worst: "Profit and Lace"

VOY
Best: "Blink of an Eye" (I honestly don't know for sure, I'd really have to look at my notes, but this one comes to mind immediately so I went with it)
Worst: "Threshold"

ENT:
Best: "Minefield"
Worst: "These Are the Voyages"

ENT: "Broken Bow"

I guess I'll keep it short. On the positive side I think it succeeds fairly well as a piece of space adventure entertainment. On the downside I think it's underwhelming. I have a lot of ideas on what I'd change, and I think I'd rather cover them in a revision I want to do of the script. I always say I've got ideas, but I think "Broken Bow" provides a solid framework upon which to build something a lot better with the right changes, and I think I could do it. Hell, I got a lot of ideas just from watching it.

I will say that I find it a hell of a lot more engaging than VOYAGER. I don't hate 75% of the characters for one thing, and I've always been more interested in the 22nd/23rd century era of Trek.

I guess I'll run down a few if my ideas for changes if anyone is interested. I'll try to keep it pretty consise.

-The ship is the same, but with only 60 people on it, not including T'Pol and Phlox.

-The big change to the story would be replacing Klang (or whatever his name is) with Shran, and opening up the triangle relationship of humans, Vulcans, and Andorians right off the bat. The language barrier would maybe be there, with Shran going in and out of english.

-Archer is a former NX Project test pilot, and not a trained starship commander. My idea for a 13 episode season would see him come into his own, but in "Broken Bow", rather than lead T'Pol to his ready room to have a stern word with her, he'd explode at her on the bridge in front of everyone. It would be a tense and awkward moment, then he'd lead her off the bridge.

-Archer broke the Warp 3 record for humans. Travis Mayweather broke Warp 4. Travis is Archer's protege and in a way his rival. Travis is the younger version of Archer, basically, but I'd still have Travis be a "space boomer". Travis would be a lot cockier.

-Reed starts out as a complete fucking asshole. It's Colonel Reed. He'll replace the man who was going to be the armory officer when he brings aboard his squad of MACO's and an arsenal (including torpedos) that will far exceed what Starfleet intended to use on Enterprise. Archer and Reed will not get along very well at first, and Reed makes it no secret that he can assume command in a combat situation if he deems it necessary. I actually have a funny way for Reed to get knocked down to size early on when his team gets creamed by the Suliban invaders who kidnap Shran. And with Reed, T'Pol, and Mayweather all on the bridge, Hoshi will whisper to Archer, "I think I'm you're only friend on the bridge."

-I want Hoshi to say to T'Pol, "I have sharper ears than you."

That wasn't so concise, was it? I see a buttload of internal conflict in a cramped space, and in the first few episodes the crew basically just F***S up at every turn. But they emerge as scrappy heroes in what I have in mind for the season finale (which is very Trek VI-ish).

On the set of STAR TREK 2: PATTERNS OF FARCE.

Always agreed with most of those ideas. The intro of Klingons in the pilot never made sense and always just felt like a shoehorned in attention getter.

Ah, "Broken Bow", set over a wonderful period of 144 days (not counting the detour to Rigel). Honestly, Braga has written a lot of stupid shit, but "four days at warp 4.5" is right up with the stupidest -- four days at Warp 4.5 won't even get you to Alpha Centauri. It just shows that ENT, like VOY, was a total failure of actually utilizing its premise (in this case, the rough and tumble early days of Starfleet) at any deeper level than lip service, abandoned in favour of doing "more TNG" really.

On the other hand, Earth to Andor at Warp 4.5 would be around 45 days, not unreasonable.

Also, It ever bother anyone that in Cochrane's speech they "corrected" the famous split infinitive? What a massive fuck you to Roddenberry's words from B&B, eh?

When I was watching it, I thought that if they actually stuck to the real warp timetable they'd get to Qo'nos at the series finale. "Four years there, four years back."

http://www.ditl.org/pagspeedcalc.php?ListID=Calculators

My plan is to have them go to Andoria, which I calculate would be a round a month at warp 5 (I should kill myself for knowing that). But T'Pol's help would shave four days off their journey, to which Trip would quip to Archer, "Hey, that's four days there, and four days back." I'd fudge the timetable maybe just a little so they could actually go somewhere in a decent amount of time, but nothing glaring like what we saw. And I'd drop Rigel. There would maybe be some asteroid that would have some Orion outpost or something. When they get there I'd have Trip say something like, "Great. I wanted to explore strange new worlds and the first place to see is a rock with a bar on it."

As for the Klingons, they would be mentioned in S1, but that's all. Ominous rumblings and gossip of this fierce warrior race. "Do they really exist?" The earliest they should be introduced would be the end of S2, but I'm focusing on S1, and I actually have almost all of the episodes lined up in terms of story ideas. Some are very much like what he actually have, some are totally different. The whole thing is basically a refinement of the real thing.

Back to "Fight or Flight" for me. I'm paused at 18 minutes in, and I have to say that so far I think it's a pretty good episode.

EDIT ADDON: Oh yeah, the title of my project is FIRST ENTERPRISE. And no phase pistols. They use EM-33's (older EM models are out there too). They're mentioned in the series and I'd have them be the grandfather of the phaser, but pretty sloppy in comparison.

The main thing ENT failed at was showing early space travel as being in any way more difficult than it was in any other Trek. They basically just didn't have all the conveniences and gizmos, or sometimes the same gizmos renamed to seem like earlier versions but essentially identical (hull plating can somehow go down to 18% without noticeable consequences just like shields do, for instance).

Honestly, have honest travel times and really show the effects. Abandon the "a season is a year" policy and just tell the stories as they need to be. You can have them warp off to Andor and arrive after the act break and it's a month later. Whatever. That sort've thing might actually get you to the Romulan Wars and the Founding of the Federation in a reasonable amount of episodes, lol.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

The main thing ENT failed at was showing early space travel as being in any way more difficult than it was in any other Trek. They basically just didn't have all the conveniences and gizmos, or sometimes the same gizmos renamed to seem like earlier versions but essentially identical (hull plating can somehow go down to 18% without noticeable consequences just like shields do, for instance).

Honestly, have honest travel times and really show the effects. Abandon the "a season is a year" policy and just tell the stories as they need to be. You can have them warp off to Andor and arrive after the act break and it's a month later. Whatever. That sort've thing might actually get you to the Romulan Wars and the Founding of the Federation in a reasonable amount of episodes, lol.

That's sorta what I'm thinking. I'm trying not to plot too much ahead, and focusing on outlines for S1. I might have a "Captain's log, two weeks later".

I still have "Fight or Flight" on pause, and I'm planning to have it (modified a bit) as my second episode. But already it's like what you said that space travel is easy. They're talking about having all of these planets to explore. "Thousands" on their course. But it would take days or weeks at least to reach each star. As I recall, this episode has them itchy to make first contact, then they board the Horror Corpse Spaceship and everything ends up happy in the end. My idea is that is they have been out in deep space for well over a month since "Broken Bow" and rather stupidly investigate a derilect ship and run into some super asshole aliens and get away by the skin of their teeth after a violent armed conflict. And in the next episode, "Strange New World", I'll do the element from "Breaking the Ice" where Shuttlepod 1 falls into a crevasse, but here Archer loses his first crewmember. And the fourth episode, "Stranded", completes the "Fuck everything up" trilogy by basically being my equivalent of FIREFLY's "Out of Gas".* "Shuttlepod 1" writ large. The whole point is that they left before they were really ready, and T'Pol is there and starts to make a little sense to Archer.

But yeah, I'm not thinking in terms of "a season is a year". I'm thinking the first season will be about a year because it's an appropriate amount of time and it feels right.

Better get back to "Fight or Flight" before I become too tired to keep watching.

*Who am I kidding? It would be a completely shameless ripoff.

ENT: "Fight or Flight"

Actually a pretty solid episode, I think. I'd still modify it. Set it in deep space, nowhere near a star system. Have a hostile race, but probably not a friendly one. I dunno. I'm tired to think anyway.

It's got a nice story for Hoshi, and I like how Archer is motivated to go back to the ship. It played differently than how I had remembered.

Certain things about the way the universe was portrayed in ENT never clicked for me -- like how NX-01 is for all intents and purposes the first starship yet there is already a cadre of experienced officers, already a hardened brass of by the book admirals, people passing the time with stories of the Academy, etc etc just like in regular Trek. I get that Starfleet was probably brought together by combining pre-existing elements but the show never wants to talk about that, its a prequel show that almost deliberately avoids any actual worldbuilding or scene setting and instead wants to basically have its cake and eat it too, like VOY. Its the same shit, different jumpsuit.

I think it's a balancing act between having them be experienced and just no0bs. I think they should be highly trained, but with little practical experience. That's how I envision my version of Archer. He was a test pilot, he's a natural leader by personality, but he's not a "service" guy. No matter what Gene thought, Starfleet functions like a military. It has to. My Archer would be called "Captain", but he'd call everyone by their first name. Very informal. Reed would be the only human main character who would sorta fit into traditional Starfleet.

And I changed my mind about having Reed on the bridge. He'd be mostly in the armory. Archer would quietly joke to perhaps T'Pol, "I always feel like he's plotting a coup down there." I always liked in "Balance of Terror" that the bridge had to call down to fire weapons. That's definitely how it should be on the NX-01. Anything to make it harder for the characters...

Would they ever find themselves in a firefight with communications down? *evil laugh* Of course.

The only time I can recall a fight with comms down was the Battle of Azati Prime but it was incredibly insignificant and more Trip to bridge than anything.

I think of Michael Jan Friedman's "Starfleet Year One" that had been promoted for yonks, comes out and then ENT comes out and destroys any reason for more 'Starfleet at basics'. Sort of like the new movie destroying more Shatner Starfleet Academy books. Sort of.

I always liked that one episode of DS9 where everyone on the Defiant had to issue orders manually. That was cool.

Seriously. I love that show just for Eddington being so great in it, but that side effect of his tampering is just wonderful in terms of overlapping sound and seeming 'real' to my ear.

NX-01/NCC-1701/NCC-1701-D travel times to various worlds.

Andor
NX-01: 34.5 days
1701: 6 days
Delta: 2 days

Rigel
NX-01: 7 years
1701: 1 year
Delta: 192 days

Tellar:
NX-01: 33 days
1701: 5.5 days
Delta: 2.5 days

Vulcan:
NX-01: 48 days
1701: 8 days
Delta: 3.5 days

Cardassia:
NX-01: 167 days
1701: 28 days
Delta: 13 days

Kronos:
NX-01: 107 days
1701: 18 days
Delta: 8 days

Romulus:
NX-01: 103 days
1701: 17 days
Delta: 8 days

Bajor:
NX-01: 151 days
1701: 26 days
Delta: 11 days

Ceti Alpha:
NX-01: 2 years
1701: 124 days
Delta: 55.5 days

Deneb:
NX-01: 11 years
1701: 2 years
Delta: 313 days

Orion:
NX-01: 76 days
1701: 13 days
Delta: 6 days

ENT: "Strange New World"

There are things that I like, and things that I don't like.

I like the very beginning of the episode, and the whole landing thing. Seeing this planet is an event for the crew, though I think it should have been even more of an event. And when T'Pol says, after she suggests sending probes down to the surface for a week, "This planet has been here a long time, and it will still be here in seven days," I wanted Trip to jokingly reply, "You don't know that." I do love Trip's line, after Porthos leaps from the shuttlepod and darts to a tree, "Where no dog has gone before."

Then shit gets stupid with some... hallucination shit. Planet LSD. Could have worked with Roger Sterling present. And the stupid ghost story Travis tells. It's a means for the script to set up the "spooky" aspect of the story, but it's pretty stupid for 22nd century space explorers to tell ghost stories set in outer fucking space.

I'm still not sure what I'd do with the episode. Certainly have arriving there be an event. I'd set it up as the planet they aim for at the end of "Broken Bow", but they don't reach it for a month or two. "Fight or Flight" happens during that time. So they enter the system, pass some other lifeless planets, and then find this beautiful, earth-like planet. Seeing as I imagine my Enterprise to be computer animated (just how I see it), it would be possible to have a more alien world than something that looks like fricken Griffith Park. That's another problem with this episode. This world is not strange.

I imagine some giant storm kicks up, but Enterprise has left the away team on the world and checked out some other planet in the system or they've maybe picked up an alien spacecraft. Maybe. I see the Shuttlepod lifting off and going to much higher ground, like a mountain range. I dunno, I just imagine indulging my Everest obsession by putting some of these people near the Death Zone. And I'd kill off Cutler. Archer would be guilt-ridden, and he and T'Pol would have a scene in his briefing room. I came up with decent dialogue for it, and wish I'd written it down.

Ah, shit. I rambled about ideas again. Sorry.

Would rather read that than a j7 post.

I imagine his post would have been:

"What the heck!? Why didn't T'Pol take off her clothes? Stupid episode!

.5/5"


Anyway, "Strange New Worlds" basically felt like "The Apple" except nobody dies. But it does pull off the old TOS trope of having characters look in astonishment saying "Wow, it's just like our own Earth".

It struck me as I was going to sleep and had already turned off my computing machine that the planet they land on looks like a golf course.

ENT: "Unexpected"

If you asked most fans, "What was the first bad episode of ENTERPRISE?", they'd probably laugh and say "Broken Bow". I wouldn't. I'd just utter the word "Unexpected" and then go catatonic as I delve into an hour-long fantasy of punching Brannon Braga in the throat.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The first half is competently scripted. Enterprise encounters an alien ship, Trip is excited to check it out and help fix their engines.

Then we see a fucking holodeck. Fuck you, canon. Then Trip pops a boner for lizard woman. Then the ship is apparently fixed, and it goes on it's way.

Then Trip is pregers with nipples, and at the halfway mark what had been a mediocre episode at best begins to fucking plummet to something that is completely unfunny and embarrasingly juvenile. Like this thread.

And then the Klingons show up in a 23rd century ship. Fuck you, canon. I know the story about the model, and I agree with Drexler or whomever said to just ignore the ship on screen and pretend it was another ship. I can do that. I have to do that. But then we see that the Klingons will now have holodeck technology, which the Feds won't have for at least a century. And then at the end of the episode, Archer says the ship will be able to get home within a month on impulse. Which means their homeworld was (as I estimate) .0013 lightyears from the Klingon cruiser. But I thought Trip FIXED THE FUCKING SHIP.

Here's the episode in a nutshell.

-Trip fixes the ship, but not really.
-Trip gets pregnant, but none of the genetic material is his, so he doesn't any responsibilty for it and none of this matters and was only an excuse for cheap, UPN-style humor.
-The Klingons are back, and used badly. And now they have holodeck technology in 2151.

Oh fuck it, this episode isn't worth it.

EDIT ADDON: I just remembered my best and worst list a page or so back. I listed "Unexpected" as the worst after Python reminded me that that other episode doesn't exist. I honestly can't recall a worse episode of ENTERPRISE. Dull episodes? Questionable episodes? Ripoff episodes? Sure. But nothing this soul-crushingly inept and just plain shitty.

It's also morally contemptible as the episode is basically about Trip getting raped and knocked up, AND IT'S PLAYED FOR LAUGHS!!! WTF!!??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV1LzXf1TKQ

Makeshift Python wrote:

It's also morally contemptible as the episode is basically about Trip getting raped and knocked up, AND IT'S PLAYED FOR LAUGHS!!! WTF!!??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV1LzXf1TKQ

I didn't see it as a rape. Just an accident. I just thought the whole pregnancy thing was cheap. It's not even dealt with seriously (I mean in terms of consequences), it's just there to provide fuel for laughs that never happen.

Hell, what I did think was pretty low was that B&B were basically trying to create comedy at the expense of turning Trip into a woman by giving him sudden maternal instincts. It's written to be funny, but it just comes off as completely tasteless.

I say B&B. I have the image of their partnership being that Braga writes scripts, walks into Berman's office, waves them in his direction, and then Berman's like, "Yeah, that looks good."

ENT: "Terra Nova"

What a complete waste of time. I barely paid attention after a while. VOY's "Friendship One" would have filled this spot better. And there are logistical problems. Starfleet has had ships for years. Maybe not warp 5 ships, but certainly they had to have a warp 3 or 4 ship around that they could have sent to this planet only 20 light years from earth. It would take less than a year at warp 3.

Just a waste of time.

Two things I'm brainstorming for my possible "Broken Bow" revision... Why T'Pol is assigned to Enterprise, as it would have be adjusted with the addition of Shran. It's gonna open up a lot more conflict between Archer and T'Pol.

The other thing isn't about "Broken Bow". I'm not plotting ahead beyond "Broken Bow" and S1, but I would probably have the Enterprise destroyed at the Battle of Cheron at the end of the Earth-Romulan War. It never made sense to retire the ship after only 10 years. My idea for Apollo was always to destroy the ship, but have the crew survive, then have a two-part finale set a year later as they are going their seperate ways. I sorta had that notion for Enterprise, where the team would come together for one last mission, and Archer could say something like, "Enterprise was never about the ship, it was about the people."

ENT: "The Andorian Incident"

It's time for another installment of WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS EPISODE AND WHAT I'D DO TO FIX IT.

A 3,000 year-old Vulcan monastary? That's from before Surak or the Awakening. They had spaceships back then...? They must have had something for the Romulans to GTFO of Vulcan, but...

The episode is basically Archer and friends sitting on their asses the whole time. There's no real tension, and that secret control room thing looks laughably easy to find. I've had a tougher time finding a bathroom. Srsly, the whole thing is behind a door hidden behind a curtain.

What would I do? Well, my "Broken Bow" would feature Shran, so there would be backstory to his showing up here. I'd probably keep much of the setup, but make P'Jem a pretty new monastary (or a Vulcan community). It could make a decent analogue to Israeli settlements. I'd have Archer, T'Pol, and Trip taken hostage on the surface, and Colonel Reed left in command as Shran's ship enters orbit. Shran is already on the surface, but then his ship comes in and there would be a standoff with Enterprise.

So maybe it's a community. And the control room is hidden under a children's school or something. Vulcan men, women, and children is a much more tense situation than a bunch of moldy monks.

Those are some of my ideas.