Quickie notes tonight.. As luck would have it, "Enterprise" is going to be showing opposite "24" this year, and I happen to consider the latter show worth wathing as it airs. So schmoo on that. Good choice, as this week was a fairly boring fluff episode with obvious lendings from "The Seven Samurai" and a bunch of "A-Team" episodes. The lack of significant depth this season continues to grate on me.
-The planet this week is an arid place, and as such we get to see the gang in their desert outfits again. T'Pol comes along when they land, so she gets to be seen in ANOTHER skin-tight outfit. An awful white number this time. Sigh.. PLEASE, let's see T'Pol in some REAL CLOTHES!! Actresses can look just as sexy, if not more so, in LESS FORM-FITTING OUTFITS!
-We're at a deuterium fueling station today. A Kretassan merchant (they must've become all nice-like since "Sickbay") told them where it was. Enterprise is short on fuel, having lost most of it a few weeks ago ("Dead Stop"). All they wanted was a few hundred liters regardless.
-Um, which Pod was lost in "Desert Crossing", if any? Pod 1 was used for the descent. The pod is designed for 1/4 impulse, but Trip contends that he can squeeze a lil' more out of her.
-The auto-suture staplegun that was seen in "Sickbay" is apparently a very expensive piece of equipment, according to the bumpies of the week. Phlox is still happy to give 'em one anyway.
-Archer: "Deuterium is a highly-valuable commodity". Th'hell?! One wonders how the bumpies are making the stuff, and why they can't just set up shop on a more watery world to do so a heck of a lot easier. As it stands, the stuff this time seems an awful lot like oil.
-Enterprise's sensors can make out a dozen Klingons on the incoming ship when it shows up. Is this a hiccup? We really haven't established the limits of certain aspects of 22nd century tech, but being able to scan specific lifesigns on a ship that just dropped out of warp feels awfully TNG to me. Strangely enough, the Klingons don't seem capable of returning the
-New Klingon ship this week! It's a frieghter, looks REALLY Vor'Cha, and sports a bunch of deuterium tanks slung underneath. They also have transporter technology, and use it freely to beam themselves up and down. They're still no match for Enterprise.
-If deuterium is do valuable, couldn't the bumpies trade some of it for some decent protecttion? Mercenaries, good sensors, maybe a ground-based artillery that can shoot down their freighter?
-The bumpies' weapons include a smattering of stock prop guns, including a Bajoran phaser rifle, a TR-116/Breen rifle (!), possibly a Kazon gun and others. All of them are suitably dirtified.
-Hoshi is cute when she's shooting things. T'pol is not as cute as a Vulcan martial arts teacher, and one wonders why she doesn't change our of her near-transparent white outfit when on Enterprise. Travis at least bothers to strip down to a thin white undershirt.
-Vulcans are familiar with the bat'leth and mek'leth, the latter of which is described as a "two-proned dagger". I do believe Worf would feel insulted. The Klingons use bulkier disruptor pistols at least. Reed gets to use his plasma rifle.
-As part of the "let's ditch the Klingons" plan, Archer gets the bumpies to move their whole town fifty meters away. Oddly enough, the Klingons still manage to beam down in EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE in town! How did they know to do this without realizing the town had moved?
-Continuing on the T'pol thing, she looks WAY better in the more conventional outfit she adopts to blend in with the bumpies as she literally kicks Klingon ass.
Mark
[ October 30, 2002, 09:16: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
This new Klingon ship-does it have a name?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Nope.
Mark
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Double post.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Fine, the Nope'Makh it is. 8)
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Without checking the credits, I'll bet twenty dollars that this is a Brannon Braga script. Who else would there be to continue the much-hated "Demon" conspiracy?
Damn, this is giving me awful flashbacks to "Voyager." Deuterium ore, deuterium at 500�K... I thought they were going to be paying more attention to science? Isn't Andre Bormanis (supposedly a science expert) still on the writing staff?
And why the hell are they running out of deuterium, but not antimatter -- or even that classic TOS staple, dilithium? This may be one more clue for me that the writers are really out to lunch...
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Andre Bormanis is a fucking moron. Star Trek would do better having my mom as science advisor than him. He's the guy who basically said that since "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" screwed up science so badly, so can Enterprise.
As for the Klingons, yet again this once (or will be?) proud Star Trek race has been reduced to cardboard thugs even worse than their depiction in TOS. And the fact that they clearly have superior technology to everyone else while acting like a bunch of savages is just ridiculous.
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
They blew up the alien repair facility in "dead stop" with several tanks of what was that again?
I didn't think it was Dueterium.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Warp plasma.
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I haven't seen it yet, of course, but while I enjoy getting my hate on as much as the next guy, there is enough of a difference between the hydrogen you find floating around in an atmosphere (or an ocean) and the kind you would need to top off your engine to make processing it a worthwhile enterprise.
And though I would agree that Voyager never quite addressed the issue in a really satisfying way, refueling should be, for any show about a lone ship far from home, an interesting topic. Consider: how did Earth plan on refueling Enterprise in the original mission plan? Waiting for deuterium/antideuterium tankers to arrive and preselected positions way out in deep space hardly sounds likely. (Why bother with the Enterprise at all in that case?) And trusting the Vulcans to do it can't be the most desirable option. We don't know how much fuel Enterprise carries, but it would appear to be a smaller amount than a similarly sized ship of the Federation. So having the ship come back when it was half empty (or less than that, since you'd have to leave a safety margain) would severely limit her range. (Just taking this episode as a guide, the ship would have had to turn around sometime after "Sleeping Dogs.")
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Refining deuterium? It's an atom! It's either deuterium or it's not. And I see no reason why it shouldn't be a simple matter to get any other molecules or atoms out of a collection -- hell, we can do that today! And deuterium fields? Jeez, that makes no sense...
I noticed a Bajoran phaser rifle in the "planning session" scene. Nice to know that Paramount is still amortizing the costs of those old props...
Those pulse rifles seemed to be built from some of the "First Contact" models. But I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be the NX-01's inventory or the natives' stock.
Also, it's a bit interesting to see that holographic target used in the armory again. (And my Dad joked "Use the Force, Luke" during that scene.)
The mek'leth is a dagger? Bah -- someone wasn't reading the Encyclopedia close enough!
Shifting the village 50 meters... now, I suppose it makes sense that the Klingon freighter wasn't top-of-the-line technology. But the transporter sensors MUST have noticed that either the village or the terrain had moved!
Either those weapons were awfully inaccurate, or else the people were lousy shots. I can't believe that the people simply couldn't just shoot them all.
I noticed that the Klingons' disruptor pistols looked rather similar to the TOS models from "Errand of Mercy."
I can accept that the Klingon ship was a freighter and didn't have great systems... but I can't believe that any of their ships would really be unarmed. Wouldn't they at least have turned the village into a smoking crater after they left as revenge?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
If I'm going to be burning deuterium, I'm going to want to be burning only deuterium, which means I need to first seperate the hydrogen from whatever medium it is in, and then I need to sort out my isotope of choice.
Look, like I said, I haven't seen the episode in question. Of course you don't mine the stuff. But you can't just pull up to Jupiter and top off your tank. (Or rather, you can, but you need the capacity to do what I just mentioned to the stuff you bring in.)
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
Someone should reprimand Tucker for leaving the shuttlepod door wide open...twice... Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
"Wow! We're trapped by a ring of fire. Ship, why don't you just transport us a couple meters to the right, let's just pick up our batleth and tear these insolent miners a new hole!"
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Which only brings up the question of WHY they dropped them all in the first place...
Mark
Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
This episode was written by Berman and Braga.
My mother was more interested in T'Pol's costume then she was in the story. She could care less about the story and went to bed halfway through. Anyway, Denise had the opinion the white uniform was nearly pornagraphic. She remarked on the crisp outline of the butt crack seen when T'Pol was in the captain's ready room. This was disgusting to her.
Thankfully, we didn't get to see a close up view of her front. I was afraid we might see a camel toe, as what happen to poor Ms. Sirtis in "Ensigns of Command".
And when Ms. Bialock attempted to run in that uniform, her running was terrible. It was as if the uniform was constricting her movements.
As for the story, it's crap.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Very amusing anecdote, Newark. It reminds me of Bernd's review for "A Night in Sickbay." He was watching the ep on a train, and he was worried that other people around him would think he was looking at porn.
Among other things, T'Pol's uniform was just ridiculous, and she looked ridiculous in it. When Blalock walks, she takes these huge strides that make her look like she's practicing to be a catwalk model. And to think that both Archer & Trip are oblivious to T'Pol's uniform...
Anyway, I won't go into nitpicking the story, as most people here already have. Suffice it to say that the one thing I did like was the Klingon disruptor; IMHO it was very TOS looking. Nice new Klingon ship too, although it was more TNG looking, with its similarities to the Vor'cha, and its dark green color. This would have made a good ship to show in "Unexpected" instead of the K'Tinga, especially since this new ship's screentime lasted for a whole four seconds.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
There is a terrible rot in our society if that's what we're now calling pornographic. I blame the liberals. Yes.
And "Marauders" wasn't written by Berman and Braga.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
"Marauders"
Story By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga Teleplay By: David Wilcox Directed By: Mike Vejar
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
They really neded Jonny Cash singing "Ring of Fire" fo that one scene though....
...and a dishonored Klingon is twice as likely to come back and kill everyone. I doubt the Duterium (miners? makes no sense) would carry weapons 24/7 in case these bozos came back. ...and the colonists' leader was awfully forgiving of the Klingons that killed his father....they must not have been real close. Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Hey, the bumpies this week were never referred to by name, right? That's kinda odd for Trek, but it is something that Enterprise seems to be doing with some regularity.
Given that the K'Tinga appearance last year was a one-off error that is not likely to be repeated, I'm sure we'll be seeing this new "Nope'Mahk" (sic) class ship again. Since the Klingons of this era don't seem to have a true military (we have yet to see a true Klingon uniform), the appearance of non-warships later is very likely...
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Best thread ever.
Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
How about Neb'Magh? It means "the betrayed beak" or "beak of betrayal" according to KLI's list of new words. Anyone know Klingon grammar?
Boris
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
As Dukhat confirms, it wasn't "written by" Berman & Braga. As far as the WGA's crediting policy is concerned, any television script where there's so much a whiff of someone else concieving the story immediately gets one bumped to a "teleplay" credit. If we're looking at creative influence over the final product, "teleplay" is way more relevant than what the WGA calls "story," and thus any potential ire should be aimed at Wilcox.
But don't. I'm sure he's a nice guy.
Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
I didn't like the new Klingon ship. It looked like a very ugly insect with egg pods.
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
From a top perspective, and without the pods, I think the ship would look like the new Romulan warbird. Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
*bump* For this week's rerun. Further thoughts, or is it merely good for introducing the Klingon Nope'Mahk class transport and T'pol's pointlessly huggy desert outfit? And the recycling of the Trek warehouse's array of stock weapons?
Mark
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: Andre Bormanis is a fucking moron. Star Trek would do better having my mom as science advisor than him. He's the guy who basically said that since "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" screwed up science so badly, so can Enterprise.
I don't think it is all his fault. As he says in the DS9 Companion, he usually will defer to the producers if they're insistent about some violation of science . . . it's rather like a general having to defer some tactical point to the President because he's the "commander in chief", and thus technically outranks the general . . . despite the civilian/military difference.
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