The alien ship really strikes me as being at least partially organic. The roaming-free grass is evidently part of the environmental systems (not to mention that their main food grows on the walls). There also seem to be water tubes with eels flowing through them (reminds me of Darwin the dolphin and his tube system from SeaQuest). The "terraphasic" coils sounds a bit unusual, and the warp core set looked very flowing and organic. Lots of green and earth tones in the set designs, too.
It also strikes me that the writers are trying to stick to a realistic portrayal of early deep space exploration. We've never seen any human crew members before go through an environment acclimation procedure before. That was interesting to watch, and it didn't strike me as being too big a drag on the pacing. It was also good to see that Tucker needed a great deal of time before fully adjusting to the climate.
The mess room scenes are really beginning to grow on me. I liked watching the buffet breakfast line and the exchange between Phlox and T'Pol. T'Pol is still quite a grump and still seems to hold a good deal of contempt for human cuisine. First there's the meat, and now she doesn't like blueberry pancakes. It did stick me as a bit odd that food is served through a buffet line, though. I was expecting something more like a cafeteria line.
[ October 17, 2001: Message edited by: Siegfried ]
I still don't think we saw a toilet in Archer's bathroom. Are we ever going to get to see one of those things on a starship?
There's still some nice interplay here between the characters. Watching the final dining scene with Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker really did remind of how a lot of the TOS episodes ended. You have Archer supervising a trading of remarks between T'Pol and Tucker. Quite nice, actually. It's also nice to see that Archer actually invites other crew members to dine with him. This time Phlox got the invitation.
The Klingons are quite the hostile little warriors, aren't they? I guess they're still ticked off with Klaang nearly dying in a cornfield. The Klingons do seem to be quite trusting of the Vulcans. Seems that they do have a good diplomatic relationship at this point in time. This episode really shows off their aggressive nature with the "fire first, ask questions later" introduction to Enterprise.
[ October 17, 2001: Message edited by: Siegfried ]
quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
I still don't think we saw a toilet in Archer's bathroom. Are we ever going to get to see one of those things on a starship?
I assume you mean other than the one in the Enterprise-A brig.
LOL
I guess it's true that ya learn something new everyday. I had always assumed that it was a built-in chair that simply slid out since there didn't seem to much of anything in there to sit on. I guess being a toilet would explain why it looked so... odd.
"I can see my house from here!"
{Edit: Krenim, how could we possibly have done that?}
[ October 17, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
"I can see my House from here."
There.. now its a classic.
I have noticed a trend in Enterprise, though... The show takes us interesting places for about 45 minutes or so, then concludes with a sequence of the bridge with Archer explaining the ship out of trouble. The climax of Broken Bow's plot was the temporal chamber and then the high council scene, but 'Fight or Flight'; 'Strange New World' and 'Unexpected' have all ended with Archer having to stand there, get Sato to hook up the translator and then Archers bullshits to get out of trouble and resolve the episode. I find it less than satisfying.
[ October 17, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
Besides, Hoshi Sato was the one doing all the talking at the end of "Fight or Flight," not Archer. This episode it was T'Pol and Archer together that were talking to the Klingons, and the climax sequence itself took place with just Archer, the Klingons, and the aliens.
On another note, I think I like how Enterprise is dealing with the sensors of the main diagnostic bed. It looks like the bed itself may be rigged with basic sensors to check pulse, respiration, etc. However, the more advanced scans require the patient to slide into what looks like a giant MRI chamber. That's the first time we've seen this process, and I found it quite a realistic way of showing how the in-depth wide-area scans are completed.
And the best line uttered by a Klingon was in "Broken Bow":
"Stinky boots!"
He should at least watch Galaxy Quest. If he had seen it he would have made sure they checked the pollen out more thoroughly last week "Dont open that!! Is there air out there? Can we breathe!? Do you know?!"
And he could ask Phlox where his Thermian accent came from
I think he dealt with it the only way he knew how; a guy that is out there wanting to make friends with everyone that he meets; the way he would on his own planet.
Archer really has nothing to base his Xeno-Diplomacy on. He approaced the Klingon the way you would approach another human.
If he had come out and spoken to the klingon as if he already knew how to treat them, it would have annoyed me a little.
And I think that is the precisely the reason T'Pol was put on the Enterprise; tho' I'm not certain they had T'Pol specifically in mind .. only that they ensured a vulcan with travelling-experience was onboard to provide 'guidance'.
As we see here - it is a good case for the Vulcans. I wonder if she'll rub it in his face?
[ October 18, 2001: Message edited by: Alshrim Dax ]
Her reaction to Trip's pregnancy was incredibly insulting. If they ever want to make her into a whole character in my eyes, shes going to have to own up to the fact that shes being irrational and get that chip off her shoulder
[ October 18, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
Her personal opinions may also derive from her experiences stationed as an ambassador's aide on Earth. It's fairly obvious from Archer, Tucker, and other humans that they don't like the Vulcans. She's probably gotten a good deal of grief from these angry humans and that has reinforced her prior opinions. Tucker's pregnant, pregnancy needs intercourse, humans are governed by primal urges, sex is a primal urge (yeah, baby!), therefore it's reasonable for her to assume that Tucker did the coaxial slipstream with the alien woman. She was definitely wrong, but I can see how the chain of thought went.
She'll definitely be warming up (as far as Vulcans can, I guess). We already saw a brief bit of that at the end of "Broken Bow." We also saw part of her going out to trust Archer (a human) at the ending of "Strange New World." Hell, she and Tucker shared what I thought was a very fleeting moment of understanding.
One of the parts to Enterprise that I'm most excited about is seeing the friendship among Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker development slowly and fully. If the writers screw that up, though, I'll be really ticked off. So far, it looks like its stagnating a bit, but there are plenty of episodes left to watch this. I really felt cheated by Tom and Neelix patching things up after one episode, and Janeway and Chakotay rarely having those conflicts in Voyager.