Anyway, this script is out there and I'm not sure for how long, as I imagine the Paramount legal beagles will set phasers to frag and go a-romping across the net, as they are more than entitled to do. Track down a copy if it floats your boat.

What I'll do is go through the script and pick out some of the little details that I'm sure pretty much everyone is waiting for, hopefully without ruining the story, which many people wouldn't want.

Oh, and yes, it is inordinately egotistical of me to start a whole thread for me to placate my swelled sense of self-importance. But give me a break, OK? I'm still trying to get over the whole backfired Rick Mercer gag thing.

How do we know this isn't fake?
Well, it could be, but if so it's a masterful one. There're even OCR errors in the file from when it was apparently scanned-in. The writing looks professional. There isn't an iota of inconsistency with previously-known spoilers in it, as best as I can tell.

And the date of the script?
May First. Meaning it's one of the last drafts before they started shooting. It hasn't been broken down into commercial breaks yet, for instance. There are a few differences apparent thus-far, most notably the fact that Mayweather was still a Lieutenant in this version, but this is likely to be fairly close to the genuine article.

Enough already. Tell us about the ships. A handful of new designs. The Enterprise, the shuttlepods, an orbital inspection craft, Suliban cell-ships and the Suliban helix core are the best-seen, plus a crashed K'Toch class Klingon shuttle and some barely-seen alien craft at a port. I guess you could also count young Archer's [remote control] model spaceship, which the script specifies is "an early 22nd century transport." Nothing from the Vulcan Navy just yet.

The Enterprise?
Actually, just Enterprise. We've had discussions about this before and the use of the direct object is nixed again here. That is, we'll get lines like "I'll see you back on Enterprise" and not "I'll see you back on the Enterprise." I wasn't kidding when I said I'd cough up miniscule details.

So, what's the status on the Technobabble?
It's had a haircut. The load has been lightened but it's still there. So while some were lobbying for it to get reduced to Patrick Stewart levels, you'll have to settle with Cirroc Lofton. Better than the Walter Koenig of season 5 Voyager. Anyway, there are no or next-to-no imaginary particles but there is some term-tossing when it comes to upgrading the sensors. It certainly doesn't erode the 22nd-century feel, in my eyes anyway.

So, anything nifty about the ship?
Hard to glean too much from the script description. The hull plating isn't batmobile armour, as the script makes no reference to an optical ext. shot after Archer orders it polarized and no there's mention of any kind of transformation later on. One thing I kinda like is the fact that the ship isn't shown in its entirety until it leaves dock.

And the interior sets?
Interesting is the fact that a few of the sets we know will exist don't show up, or in this draft anyway. There's no sight nor sound of the armoury room which got the press in a tizzy when they saw it. And it's the Launch Bay, not the shuttlebay.

And gadgets?
Lee take note, there are two different types of hand weapons, standard issue plasma pistols and rifles which fire "bright red plasma bullets" according to the script, with the phase pistols only appearing near the end of the show. We also have flip-up communicators/universal translators, and as mentioned elsewhere the translator slips up once or twice. The script is stuffed with "grammarbabble" which I'm sure will please Frank greatly. There's no scripted explanation of how FTL communication works just yet, though.

Y'know, this is all very shallow, let's talk about something other than tech.
Fine. How about obscure TOS continuity references?

Sure
Well, there's a rather good scene where much is made of Vulcan vegetarianism. Mayweather says he's been to "both the Andorian moons." And in what I'm suspecting might have implications further down the road, the word "Tholia" crops up as a proper noun that all the humans are unfamiliar with.

What about the whole Rigel mess?
Now this one's downright weird. Our human adventurers haven't heard of this star system and need to go through Vulcan star charts to find it. (It's mentioned as being 15 ly from the ship's present position.) The simplest explanation is that "Rigel" in the Vulcan language refers to some other star system, I guess, but it's still quite irritating.

Hmmm
On the plus side, the Klingon used in the ep all appears to have been painstakingly translated. And the in-joke about the first human to see a Klingon being named "Moore" is a nice touch.

Archer's dog...
...appears to be a more useful character than Neelix, yes. Porthos' role in the pilot consists of (1)Sleeping (2)Sniffing T'Pol's leg (3)Listening to Archer vent and (4)Getting his belly rubbed. He does not run for help when Mayweather falls down a well. There's little in the script to describe him in terms of size, breed or temperment, but it does imply he's smallish since he has a basket in the corner of Archer's Ready room.

Any headscratchers?
Well, Archer's nickname is apparently "Jack." A holdover from earlier drafts in which he was called Jackson Archer, perhaps? Anyone ever known a Jonathan referred to as "Jack?" And no Red Alert, either...

And tantalizing hints for upcoming episodes?
It seems to me that the Enterprise chef will appear as a recurring character but debut an ep or two after the pilot (a la Garak.) He's referred to numerous times and there's a very obvious situation where it would be logical for him to appear but doesn't. We don't even get a name.

With the minor bits out of the way, how about some general comments on what you thought of the episode?
Action, Action, and more Action. There're six distinct fight scenes in the episode, and while there're no true space battle there's some kinda submarineish combat. ("Balance of Terror" it ain't, but it still reads pretty nicely.) And I think unique among all previous 2-hour Treks it is structured like a Three-Act film rather than a extralong hourlong ("Encounter at Farpoint") or a stodgy poorly-paced mess ("What You Leave Behind") which does give it a far more cinematic scope.

Is it kinda dumbed-down, then?
Well, there isn't a helluvalot of traditional Trekkian moral quandries, no. But don't get me wrong, this isn't Michael Bay. There is a very strong focus on the nature of humanity in it and some reasonably smart wit. Dialogue is quite good on the printed page. Of course, let's wait until we see the wood-factor in the acting. The humour, too.

Humour?
I was grinning several times while reading the script, yes. Perhaps I'm just easily amused. The jokes don't look as out-of-place as they sometimes do coming out of the mouths of 24th century humans, for starters. There's also some nice physical comedy that likewise I'm hoping doesn't wind up looking dumber than I envisioned it in my mind. It would take the man who turned Troi into a cake to write a funny scene about a Vulcan eating a breadstick. *fingers crossed*

And this more contemporary dialogue?
It doesn't read cheesily, in fact, I like it a lot. But it could very well play out cheesily. I don't think it'll sink to Andromeda levels, though. Oh, and for the record, 2 asses, 1 screw and 1 bitch. Hurray for the depuritanization of network TV

So where can this fail?
Well, the main drive of the interpersonal drama are the exchanges between Archer and T'Pol. They could be very interesting but they could also end up very hammy. If Bakula and/or Blalock descend into the Admiral Ross school of lumberyard theatre then the show's fucked, plain and simple.

Any things you dislike?
I think Garth Franklin at Dark Horizons drew attention to the fact that some of the concluding bits of the script are a bit weak. And yeah, I'll buy that. The pen-penultimate scene where Archer and T'Pol "learn to accept and respect one another (tm)" comes off a little heavy on the saccharine. I'm also with Garth on his disappointment with Silik, the main Suliban baddie. The guy is essentially totally undeveloped the entire way through and doesn't have anything by way of a good line. Thus far he's no Dukat or Weyoun. We'll see him again, though, so maybe he'll pull a Damar.

Speaking of undeveloped characters, any Chakotays in the making?
Mayweather probably gets the least to do but he's well-written thus far and so I'm fairly confident with what little we've got to go on. Time will tell on him. We get zippo by way of background on Reed but he definitely gets some of the best deadpan quips. Phlox is likewise left very mysterious, too, but I think that's intentional. He doesn't have a huge amount of stuff to do, either. But who remembers The Doctor's two scenes in "Caretaker"?

So the other four characters are front-and-center in this one?
Yup. Hoshi carries a fairly heavy workload in this episode. The Archer-T'Pol-Tucker triangle is definitely the centerpiece, though. And while it does bear more than a few similarities with Kirk-Spock-Bones, it does differ in several ways. Garth Franklin compared the Archer-T'Pol relationship to Mulder-Skinner and I can't think of a better comparison. I wouldn't put Archer stuck between the other two the same way Kirk was caught between Spock and McCoy, either. There's certainly as much stubbornness coming at T'Pol from Archer as from Tucker, but they do take slightly different tilts. It's all quite convoluted. Again, I think we'll need to see the actual acting not to mention more material before we can tell if it is just a cheap and inferior ripoff or something new and interesting.

The verdict?
Good. Inspiring. Different. Likely to build expectations, perhaps unreasonably.

[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]

quote:

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Originally posted by The_Tom:
Anyone ever known a Jonathan referred to as "Jack?"

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A door behind Archer opens up, John Cleese comes in in his BBC-reporter gear, shouts "Tholia! Tholia!" and walks away...

[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: Dukhat ]