) But there seems to be this expectation regarding Enterprise that every story will somehow be inseperable from the premise. Or, in other words, that they should be stories untellable in previous shows.My first comment: The Malurians..
TOS aliens! and with a good explanation why they arent around canturies later.
The Malurians are antagonizing the Akalli(sp?) and they wont be around because their home star system will be destroyed by Nomad in 'The Changeling' .. with their entire culture wiped out.
nothing too deep, but a solid adventure too.
Blowing up the antimatter reactor created quite the explosion.. i wonder if Malcolm will get any ideas.. hmm antimatter?
78 LY from Earth and its July 31st, 2151. We're definitely out of Sector 001 now..
I was worried that this episode was going to has a continuity error on the major boo-boo side. Early reports said that the Earth Starfleet had rules in place similar to the future Prime Directive that prevented non-interference in non-warping cultures. Nope, it's just the Vulcans with this rule. Eventually, we know that they'll get their wish to have the humans follow it as well.
The final battle sequences were pretty good. There was a minor visual effects goof, though. The torpedo that destroyed the reactor was fired from the port tube, not the starboard. However, this sequence does present new questions. Was the aft torpedo in "Fight or Flight" really fired from the aft pod or from under the saucer? What were those two orange globes fired at the alien ship? They didn't look like the torpedoes or the plasma pulse effect from "Broken Bow."
Here's a few minor details I'd like to point out. Apparently, the transporter cannot beam something from point A to point B without having it rematerialize on the pad first. Sato seems to be more eager about exploring in this episode than earlier in the season. Enterprise has a Quartmaster who must be a wonderful seamstress. Dr Phlox's character has definitely seemed to mellowed out a bit since his first appearance in "Broken Bow." Has his makeup changed? I don't remember there being so much brown around the edges of his facial ridges.
One complaint I had with "Civilizaton" was with the Tucker-T'Pol spar over "prepare to break orbit." Why did she give the order if she wasn't going to leave? This argument seemed to be thrown in for the hell of it. There wasn't much point to it other than a reminder of tension and to show that T'Pol is gaining respect for and loyalty to Captain Archer. I guess this is an extension of "Breaking the Ice" (which is good), but the insertion into the episode needed more though behind it.
Just seeing them do the cultural survey thing for the first time was thrilling, and addressing the translator issue in an entertaining manner was cool.
And Archers character is so un-Captain-like, that i can really relate to the guy. The series is really going to be his evolving as he faces all these new things and loses his wide eyed enthusiasm. So far, i have been loving all the screen time that Tucker gets and hes been a great character for me to relate to, but Archer is finally getting some of his due. I cant wait for a Phlox episode, because i have a feelnig he will really shine.
And i have a new favorite character every week.. they must be doing something right.
I liked it, all things considered. I was rather apprehensive about this one, before hand, for reasons that seem, in retrospect, odd. The descriptions available for this episode made it sound very...TNG-esque. Now, of course, that isn't a bad thing, necessarily. Everyone loves TNG, after all. (At least, everyone who matters. ) But there seems to be this expectation regarding Enterprise that every story will somehow be inseperable from the premise. Or, in other words, that they should be stories untellable in previous shows.
This expectation is a bit unfair, considering how wide-ranging Star Trek tends to be with its stories. But nevertheless, as described, "Civilization" didn't seem to be a story that TNG couldn't have done.
Of course, in practice, the episode didn't quite follow the TNG pattern. For one thing, they couldn't instantly read the local signage.
Anyway, things I liked:
I was expecting the search for the intruding aliens to take a lot longer. Instead: "Hey, you're an alien!" "Yes. So are you." "Oh, yeah. So..." A nice twist.
The Enterprise, with T'Pol in command, gets to beat up on a ship for once. It took cunning over brute force, too. So they can be undergunned and still win. Nice. Now don't forget!
Things which troubled me a bit:
Lucky for Archer that the one native who was also looking into this was completely nonplussed by...well, everything. Flying metal beast sucks up crates into its gaping maw? No problem. Man's skin comes off, revealing scaly weirdness? Cool. Your hometown is being fought over by two groups of aliens from outer space? Nifty.
Audio hookups? Er, how? I could see such data being gathered by dropping probes near the area they plan to land. No mention of such, though. It's either that or they were dragging a microphone on a very long tether.
Not necessarily a complaint, but:
T'Pol gives orders. Tucker doesn't like said orders. Tucker threatens to shut down engines rather than leave orbit. (Without having heard any other details of T'Pol's plan. Not that she volunteered any.)
I can buy this. It seems like a pretty serious and potentially dangerous conflict, but a believable one. Having said that, when did T'Pol become a part of the chain of command? Well, I know when. Not long into "Broken Bow." But I can't recall anyone actually saying "T'Pol will be your second in command." Strange.
Before we get into the details, first, we must clear this profoundly important matter...
THEY HAVE DOGS ON THAT ALIEN PLANET!!??
quote:
THEY HAVE DOGS ON THAT ALIEN PLANET!!??
And the Vulcans in "The Andorian Incident" had a toy horse in their monastery.
Mark
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a slight flaw with the TOS name-dropping in this ep. The Malurians, according to the Encyclopedia, were a civilization being studied by the Federation in 2367 before they were wiped out by Nomad. IMHO, this sounds like they were either a pre-warp civilization, or were at the most less advanced than the Federation. However, according to "Civilization", 100 years before 2367 the Malurians had working transporters, energy weapons and very deadly battleships. Seems to me that they would have been more than a match for Nomad. Unless, of course, these aren't the same Malurians.
Please correct me if im wrong.
We also have no information on the Malurian advancement (or lack thereof) after this episode. Maybe there was a massive war on their planet, bringing it back to the stone age, and Federation researchers were there just trying to figure out what caused it.
Or, did they say the researchers were studying the Malurians specifically in "The Changeling?" Maybe they were part of an exchange program and they were studying neutron stars, or termites, or whatever.
After Reed said he couldn't scan what’s under the shop, I imagined a whole sinister complex down there or the alien ship itself.
And a sinister mining operation it was!
No plot twist.
The malfunction of the universal translator was pretty much the high point IMHO.
Despite its malfunction, it still seemed a little "too" high tech for this time period.
At least it shouldn’t be that compact, how did Archer fix it so quickly? Were the batteries low? 
[ November 15, 2001: Message edited by: TheF0rce ]
My impression from "Fight or Flight" is that the universal translator is a program in the ship's computer and not an actual hand-held device. Sato and Archer were talking about the need for Sato to actual be aboard the Axanar freighter since she could run the translator from the ship over the comm line. It would seem to me that the ship's computer does the translation and sends instructions back to the translating device the crew is using. The universal translator wands in The Original Series seemed capable of doing the translating on its own without using the ship's computer.
I didn't pay enough attention to the episode, true, but it seemed like the crew got over seeing another Suliban pretty quickly.
I liked the ep. It's nowhere in the caliber of Breaking the Ice or Andorian Incident - but it was entertaining.
I liked that messing with the Prime Directive.
T'Pol kickin' ass was great.
I can't wait till the crew comes together as a unit.
I remember in Fight or Flight, Archer gave command of the ship to T'Pol. I think it is assumed that her Vulcan Rank carries over into StarFleet.
I could be wrong.
[ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: J ]
quote:
Originally posted by Proteus:
I was certain it was a suliban. but why would a suliban need a mask?? hmmm
The most obvious piece of evidence that it wasn't Suliban (aside from the fact that they never called it anything other than Malurian) is that it had scales. Suliban, while mottled and textured, don't have scales.