Hoo, boy! A few tech gems in this episode... The plot was pretty thin and dind't really involve the tech, but what there was was pretty fun! I'm watching JAG and 24 right now, so I'll be back later with a follow up. In the meantime:
-Enterprise weapons upgrade! We see new torpedo technology being introduced to the show, delivered by a Vulcan "transport", the T'keem (actually a re-use of the Vulcan ship those rogue guys used last year). The new torpedoes look much more phallic, and they're test-painted orange. This comes into play later. We're also marked at only 70 light years from Earth, which seems to fit in with the eventual return home by the end of the season.
-Next up is the ship, which looks a lot like the chrono-ship from VOY "The Year of Hell". It's not really detailed, but the REAL fun is inside - we get to see at least half a dozen CGI ships of stuff we've seen before - a couple Voyager guest ships, an ENT-era Romulan warbird, a Klingon raptor, and those big ones from "Civilization" - all being disassembled. Cool!
-Hoshi gets a new earpiece - it's bigger, darker grey, and pointed. There's a cute scene at the beginning where she and T'Pol discuss how this is making her look more Vulcan.
-Plot in a nutshell - big ship swallows Enterprise. Energy beings start exchanging places with crew... Blah blah blah. The key thing is that they start to degrade the brains of the crew, but not before they can extract the warp core - they need pieces of it to fix their ship and return to their dimension - they're noncorporeal here, and use the ship to get around.
-Anyway, the shiny orange torpedo does NOT succeed in getting them out of there (T'Pol is immune, and so is Porthos - but that's only mentioned). T'Pol eventually manages to un-zap Tucker and Reed (more on that in a bit) and together they use parts of the dis-assembled core - including a bit of antimatter in a silver ball-shaped thing - to soup up another orange torpedo into something a lot more powerful. With it, they blow the big ship up from the inside and escape.
-Nice explosion, by the way... But we see what must be the first photon torpedo! Or not - they note that they can't keep the antimatter stable for more than a couple seconds after they launch it because they "can't balance the photonic resonance". Could it be because they don't have photons or something? Anyway, a couple seconds are more than enough when trapped inside a ship. Of course, everyone gets unzapped when the ship is destroyed. Not really explained, but I don't think that it's that important. I'm a little annoyed that they're introducing photon torpedo tech still so early in the series. But.. big explosion! And the torpedo has what can be an early version of the torpedo effect from TOS, which is a decent nod.
-Anyway, the REAL kicker here is that they make a big plot point out of the fact that T'Pol DIDN'T explain how she managed to snap Tucker and Reed out of their neck-pinched possessed-ness. There's a little bit of a wondering, but T'Pol was clearly lying when she said that she just pinched them and they were fine. Could we be seeing the beginnings of a mind-meld arc or plot? It *is* a little out of the blue, especially considering the events of "Stigma" a while back. But hey, I'll take it.
Mark
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
A couple of points of wonderment:
-Isn't that transport from "Fusion" supposed to be an outdated model?
-Wouldn't that Raptor have used her own photon torpedoes with abandon when captured?
-Why doesn't this sound like the major disappointment I thought it would be when reading the early synopses?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
The Klingons developed the photon torpedo first? Strange... A visible Romulan Bird of Prey and no one even blinked on the NX-01 bridge? Ok, I guess the energy fields must have been offline in that ship then... Sounds interesting from the visuals of the trapped ships. Too bad it sounds like the time USS Voyager got stuck inside the creature and tried to digest it. And again antimatter saves the day.
Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :
...The hell? I think this is an April Fools joke, as about half of this writeup is not in the episode at all!
- There's no weapons upgrade ship - There's no abandoned ship - The alien ship looks a lot more like the City Destroyers from 'Independence Day' than the Crono Ship - There's no new earpiece making Hoshi look more Vulcan - The aliens do not degrade the crew's brains. They swtich places with the crewmembers, kind of a 'soul exchange'. The Wisps claim that they are 'subspace explorers, and left their corporal bodies long ago. They wish to exchange bodies with the crew temporarily to experience their past. Out-of-body crewmembers apparently relieve previous memories, Trip dreams of BBQs a lot. Later, the Wisps start forcing themselves into crew bodies, because their ship is damaged and they cannot fix it (probably because they have no hands!) Later, Phlox floods the ship with CO2 and suffocates the effected crew, forcing the Wisps out of them. Most of the crew are taking refuge in the Catwalk, as the aliens cannot get in there due to shielding. After the Wisps return to their ship, Archer takes the Enterprise to full impulse. The alien ship pursues and opens it's mouth to swallow the E again. Archer fires 2 missles inside the sip, and the ship and aliens are presumably destroyed. - T'pol doesn't snap anyone out of their possessed state. T'pol fights off possession with her superior mind, and learns the alien's intension in the process.
However, there is one 'funny' scene where a possessed Malcom goes to T'pol's quarters and tells her that she is the most attractive female on the ship (?!) and then asks her to remove her clothing, as Malcom needs to study her anatomy if they are to mate.
I am not making that up.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
I can vouch for Adam's synopsis. I watched it last night and Mark is definately pulling a prank...
Mind you we did get to see Hoshi's earpiece. It's white and looks like a telephone headset without the microphone piece.
And I agree with possessed-Reed's statement. Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Sigh... Too bad about T'Pol's "sinister mind trick story arc".
Sigh... Of relief, overall.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
April Fool's.
No, it wasn't a very good episode; combined with the festivities of the day, I decided to make it more exciting. Got at least a couple of you, so it makes it all worthwhile! Pardon me while I laugh all evil-like for a while.
[...]
Okay, here's the real tech review:
. . . . . . .
Low on tech but high on visuals, "The Crossing" offers a slowish plot that looks realllly pretty. Ah well...
-Enterprise gets Jonahed when it's swallowed up by a big ship. It can move at warp 6, and is really detailed. Post swallow, it quickly takes everything offline except for life support. Oh, Enterprise is marked at 150 light years away from Earth.
-The ship's inside looks like a cross between V'Ger and the mothership from Independence Day, and the outside looks like the ID4 attack ship; hence, the post title. When Archer, Tucker and Reed take a shuttle to the bottom of the big bay, it's all CGI background and everything - very impressive.
-Travis' console can "rotate the dorsal cam". Traditionally, we're led to believe the main camera is usually on the leading edge of the saucer...
-There used to be only 3-4 space suit costumes... When in the suit room, we now see quite a few of them. Hm. Also, the lift in Engineering goes all the way into the floor! I thought it connected to the rest of the sets... How high off the soundstage floor is the set, anyway?
-Tucker gets zapped when he was on the "surface", and subsequently zapped again. Impressively enough, the Enterprise crew catches on really quickly, unlike previous series - but that quickness seems to be lost pretty quickly. While zapped, he is allegedly off "exploring another realm". But for self-described subspace beings, they have a really big and non-subspacy ship...
-After spitting Enterprise back out, the energy beings start randomly swapping with crew. Including the hapless Crewman Rostov from "Vox Sola"! What a guy.
-Mayweather discovers by accident that the catwalk is impervious to the beings, prompting Archer to order everyone to regroup there. Neat to see that they've preserved at least part of that set - it's a cool one. Crew count again - 58 in the starboard catwalk, 24 locked in their quarters, and the immune Phlox.
-Possessed Hoshi still fights like a girl.
-T'pol gives us our McGuffin when she merges, rejects the alien and discovers that the alien ship is falling apart and they can't fix it. They can't survive in space - or in a dying body, which is how they ditch them. Phlox can resuscitate, of course.
-In the process of "killing" the remaining crew, Phlox manipulated various controls in the Jeffries tubes - some of the pipes still have old-fashioned WHEEL VALVES as handles! Anyway, the CO2 poisoning Phlox engineers gets the energy beings out, which allows Archer to fire up the impulse engines. Before the faster ship can swallow them again, he fires two torpedoes through the open maw - blowing up the ship from the inside in an impressive explosion. Strangely, the torpedoes do not detonate on impact, but rather simply inside the ship. Still gets the job done, though.
Mark
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
The aliens[wisps?]need physical bodies to repair their own ship? Did they even build it in the first place or they stole if from someone?
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
And what did these subspace aliens want in 'our' space?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
And how did these energy beings OPERATE their ship in the first place?
This seems like a really picky thing to bring up, but I might as well. I can't recall any previous instance of a large starship docking with another one at warp, save for the Enterprise-D's saucer separation (which was a planned maneuver and could be accomodated for). The reason I'm wondering is because I would've thought that the alien ship's warp field would've interfered with the NX-01's, making for a bumpy ride. Maybe the alien ship's tech was a lot more advanced, but it was also in poor repair according to the dialogue...
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
But they're subspace aliens.. perhaps they are really good at manipulating warp fields.
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
Something that puzzled me...when first we saw the aliens possessing the crew, you'd see the blue effect of the alien enter the body and then a yellow effect leave...presumably the "out of body" experience. But later this appeared to have been forgotten. If you kill the subspace aliens, how do you get the disembodied crew's essences "back"?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Maybe the wisp going into your body isn't favoured, like a non-spontaneous reaction? It takes energy for them to enter, but once they leave the yellow thing gets sucked back in (a spontaneous reaction)?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
A soul vacuum?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: A soul vacuum?
That would be Al Gore. Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
If the aliens can't survive in space, then how come the Tucker-Wisp headed straight out the window and fluttered off after departing?
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
They couldn't survive in the human body in a vacuum because the body couldn't survive.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: If the aliens can't survive in space, then how come the Tucker-Wisp headed straight out the window and fluttered off after departing?
Well, think of it this way:
A human being also cannot "survive" in space. However, that doesn't mean that they die instantly on exposure to it. (See 2001: A Space Odyssey and ENT "Cold Front" for reference.)
The NX-01 was not far from the Wisp-ship at the time, they were basically parked right out in front of it. The Wisps could obviously survive in space long enough to bridge that gap between the two vessels, they just couldn't "live" there on a long term basis.
-MMoM Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
*re-bump*
Given the non-techy nature of this episode, I normally wouldn't have bothered - but the April Fool's prank I pulled makes it worth the re-read.
Any further thoughts?
Mark
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
As I'm too tired today to pull a proper April Fool's prank on Flare, I'll just remember the good one pulled last year. Ah, the memories...
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
While zapped, he is allegedly off "exploring another realm". But for self-described subspace beings, they have a really big and non-subspacy ship...![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)