Liked:
The 1000 yard football throws.

The designs for the Nausicaan ships. I'm definetly using some of those design elements in my future lego starfighter designs. One of the smaller Nausicaan ships had kind of a Steamrunner class look to it. The warp engines were attached right on top of the main hull with the bridge between them, but there wasn't a deflector dish hanging off the back ends of the engines.

The story was good.

The transporter was NOT used to save the day.

Dislikes:

Archer suddenly becoming a flower boy and deciding to let the Nausicanns go without so much as a scolding really pissed me off. For god's sake, those people are running around and killing frighter crews and stealing their cargo! If it had been me, I would have laid waste to as much of the Nausicaan base as I could and then I would have given Starfleet the location of the pirate cartel's base so that the can send in a few ships and finish the job. That whole, "Lets not piss off the Nausicaans or they will CONTINUE (notice I didn't use the word, 'start') to kill our people and steal their cargo." message that we got from Maywether and Archer was absolutly idiotic in my humble opinion. They didn't seem to relize that even if they DON'T piss them off, which is something they failed to do for the most part, the Nausicanns will still be killing and stealing. Other than that, I thought it was a good episode.

I swear, if Bernd gives this episode an unfair rating of a 1 or a 2 like he did with the Andorian Incedent.......

[ November 22, 2001: Message edited by: MIB ]

[ November 22, 2001: Message edited by: Harry ]

Unfortunately I think they missed a couple of chances for some really interesting drama. The most obvious of which would be for Archer to get conflicted about what to do with the Nausicaans. I thought his gut reaction when he sees the human ship under attack by the Nausicaans would be to open up on the Nausicaans, and sort it all out later. I mean, he wouldn't do that, but maybe he "belays that order" or something and instead has Hoshi try to raise the ships on coms instead.

I also felt the backstory of the Boomer first officer was a bit much. It reminded me of MIB's false spoilers about the USS Indianpolis scene from Jaws with Robert Shaw (except far less interesting). On the other hand I liked the way the scene was handled where Ryan and Mayweather are sharing Boomer stories. Where Ryan tells him that his parents were on the North Star and it isn't overtly explained what happened right away. I also liked the line "You know that's not what we're saying." where Archer confronts Ryan about the Nausicaan captive. Ryan seemed to consent a bit too easily here and as MIB brought up, I thought he capitulated far too easily at the climax (I think he'd need to be wounded or his buddy would have to be killed before he saw the light). So, I didn't buy a couple of things about Ryan's character, but I thought it was a pretty good episode over all...

[ November 22, 2001: Message edited by: Balaam Xumucane ]

Likes:

T'Pol finally works WITH the crew - not against. We get to see her interact with the young'uns on the freighter .. she's loosening up a bit now... that's good to see.

I loved the Nausican's ships .. they really looked cool.

I liked the history lessons on the Boomers - it was good to see that side of humanity. Real 'Caravan/Gypsy' type stuff ...

Cool facts about more NX-Class ships coming out.. Wonder when they're gonna start announcing deep-space stations.. Starbases.. So that if maintenance is required for the Enterprise they don't have to double-back so far.

Anyone have any idea how far they've gone so far? And in which direction?

Dislikes:

I think that the scenes between Ryan and Mayweather could have been better! The acting was a little iffy and strained - on both of them ... I'll chalk that up to - first season syndrome... but Mayweather seemed to struggle thru all the high-drama scenes.

When it comes to playing the ensign, wide-eyed in the heat of danger .. he's good.. High-Drama .. I felt he struggled thru it all, a little. <-- this is not a major issue for me .. just a little observation.

I agree with Balaam - Ryan gave up too easily at the end. One minute.. he wants to kill them; Mayweather says - their gonna kill you all - he gives up..

And is it just me - or does archer always fight with Torpedoes?? Do they not have a plasma weapon? I'm a little unsure on that!

On the whole, it was an entertaining episode. Not enough Phlox - I love his character.. but his ep is coming. WE learn more about Mayweather. We haven't seen much of him .. so this was a good spotlight for him.
 

I have no doubt it will get better.
 

I really liked this episode. Neat ships, neat story, etc. But...

Is there anyone remotely likeable in the entire galaxy at this point? Anger and resentment over Starfleet trying to control a situation I can understand. Firing at Starfleet vessels and trying to kill Starfleet personnel? That feels like an awfully extreme reaction.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by TSN:
I don't really understand the term "space boomer". Why would people start having a bunch of kids just because they were in space?

---

Ok, so you're in a small space with limited entertainment facilites... What would you do?

Didn't think I'd have to EXPLAIN that.
 

[ November 23, 2001: Message edited by: Raw Cadet ]

I think the scenes with Ryan and Mayweather could have been a bit better. The resentment that Ryan felt over Mayweather's going into Starfleet could have been a bit sharper if the conversation over Mayweather's enlistment was more gradually with a greater amount of time spent on the reaction of Mayweather's family and the Horizon's crew. It was a little fuzzy. Ryan could have been a bit more defined, I feel. The backstory presented could have been done in a way that would have allowed the audience to feel for him and sympathize with him. Instead, he kind of came off as a revenge-minded lunatic with delusions of godhood.

I liked the modular design of the Fortunate with her nacelles tucked into the underside of the hull. Seems like a fairly sensible design for a cargo ship. It actually reminded me a bit of today's 18 wheelers. I don't think the hull of the cargo modules are strong or well built, though. When Ryan punches a hole in the hull, it looks like the hull is incredible thin. Probably short-sightedness on the part of the VFX crew for the shot and the writers for having the hole being created so easily. The Nausican ships were a fairly nice design. They look more like little fighters than raiders, though. No transporter technology, since it had to dock to the side of the Fortunate. Did it use a tractor beam or grapplers to snag the Fortunate? I can't remember too clearly.

The conclusion to the episode was all right, but it left me wanting a bit more from Mayweather's solo at the end. I think it could have been more believable if the relationship between Mayweather and Ryan had been better scripted in the beginning. I also think that it was a bit too easy to convince Ryan to give up his hostage. I think that part could have been run through another editor's desk for refinement. As far as Archer's decision goes, I have conflicting thoughts on the matter. On the one hand, I could see keeping him in custody and arresting the other Nausicans that led the raid on the Fortunate. On the other hand, the Fortunate did get some revenge on the Nausicans by discovering one of their bases and attacking quite a few of their ships. I would have liked to have seen the Nausicans taken into custody by Archer, but that couldn't have really happened since Archer's first priority was to do whatever to protect the Fortunate.

One interesting point that this episode brings up is that it seems Starfleet is a relatively weak organization in the fabric of human affairs. Archer had no jurisdiction to give orders to the Fortunate's crew despite it being an Earth cargo ship. Archer also couldn't override the Fortunate's captain and take Ryan back to Earth to face charges of starting an galactic incident. I guess part of this could be because Starfleet is relatively young and small.

As for the other assorted tidbits from the episodes, I found them interesting. The Enterprise's class is NX Class. This is in keeping with the DY-class cargo ships and the Y-class ships mentioned earlier. Also, didn't Mayweather say the Horizon was a J-class cargo ship? Seems that Earth is sticking to letters for categorizing ship designs. There are also three more NX-class ships slated for production. Given the state of humans technology and the Starfleet's waiting for shakedown reports from Enterprise (I hope they're doing this), I would guess we wouldn't be seeing another NX-class ship for another couple years. Maybe. I also liked that Enterprise's systems need a bit longer for repair (the long-range sensors needed four hours) and the limited capabilities of the short-range sensors in picking up the Nausican hostage. Also, I appreciated the restraint in using the transporter.
 

Still, the hulls of modern spacecraft are often flimsier than might be expected. Assuming you keep the interior pressures at sea level, that isn't a great deal of force to counteract, all things considered. The human body seems to handle it pretty well, for instance. But, to stretch my analogy a bit, if you put a few chunks of plasma on one, you'll get a hole.
 

Anyway, I just found it kind of odd as I was watching the episode. It wasn't so much the three shots that blasted the small hole in the side so much as that the impression I got from the VFX sequence was that the hull width was really thinner than what I would have imagined.
 

"The human body seems to handle it pretty well, for instance."

Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty sure my human body couldn't hold up against the near-vacuum of outer space...
 

Damn it, quit looking at me like that!

[ November 26, 2001: Message edited by: Siegfried ]

But no, I still won't let anybody carry a plasma pistol with him when he walks inside me while I'm in vacuum. That's bad policy.

Timo Saloniemi
 

Anyway, I don't think that the force of the air through the hole would necessarily be strong enough to make it larger. But I freely confess a lack of data. Tell you what, TSN. You get the vaccum chamber, I'll bring the plasma. Then we just need a volunteer...