[ November 15, 2003, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: TSN ]
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
IT ROCKED!
They acyually managed to take the WORST premise of TOS and make areally really good episode! No "parrallel earth" crap either!
Moment of true greatness: Reed stuns T'Pol! No wonder he's my favorite character! GO REED!
Archer getting shot was particularly gruesome too.
Techwise, Not much. The aliens can breed with humans, but that's nothing new for Trek. Aliens probably had transporters of something close. Archer was born in upstate New York and grew up in san Fran.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
- The colony consists of roughly 6000 people, majority of which are human. That's after about 300 years on the planet. I imagine the harsh environment isn't conductive to population growth. - The humans were abducted by the Skagarrans to build their colony, because they were deemed suitable for working the climate. Questions such as "why did the Skagarrans travel all the way to Earth to abduct a handful of humans to build a little colony?" and "why didn't their people come looking for them when they lost contact?" came to mind. Maybe they were the last of their people, in which case the humans almost commited genocide. - The humans somehow overthrew their Skagarran overlords despite being outmatched in every sense. Go humans? - Authentic Western clothing and weapons somehow found its way into the NX-01's possession. The leather even appeared weathered. I can understand how they can machine the pistols, but did someone onboard know how to make authentic Western outfits? - Of course, no one from NX-01 had the right mind of making themself a kevlar vest to go with their coats. *sigh* It's not like they didn't know they were going to be shot at with pistols. - Earth has no ship that can ferry 6000 back from the Expanse. It sounds like they can't even do it with several ships, a good indicator of Earth ships' size and range. - Energy weapons vs projectile weapons, part deux. Much more realistic this time, at least, if you call Western style shootouts realistic. We see the sniper rifle in action once more, though I can probably make the shot the MACO did without the scope, if the rifle had some actual fixed sights... - Archer gets shot in a most bloody of manner! Suits him right for the sudden urge to run forward and engage the enemy too closely. Cool part when he cuts through the part of a balcony with the kill setting to drop the shooter up there through the floor. However, when's the guy going to realize that He Is Not Kirk? - Kevlar, I know I said it already, but for crying out loud, how stupid can these people get? - During the firefight, no one on the Starfleet side had the mind to pull out a tricorder to detect snipers hidden from view, and people sneaking up behind them, which resulted in... - Reese shooting T'Pol! The stunned look on the hostage-taker's face! The last movie in the mess must have been "Speed".
Personally, it was a somewhat enjoyable episode in terms of production value. Although IMO, the premise sucked, the plot was too predictable, and it took away from the tension of the existing storyline.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Dude, stop calling him Reese. It's REED!
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Ah reckon David best be puttin' up some spoiler warnin's on the title, 'else we be rustlin' up the ornery moderators.
Mine own review t'come later. Ah dun mind being late.
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
What annoyed me the most about this episode was that it repeated the same gol-darned mistake that they did a long ways back in Voyager's "The 37's." Of course, it's not quite as bad here since it's not on the other side of the galaxy. But you know what...? I kinda think that it would've been BETTER if they'd made the aliens the same species -- makes them widespread and kinda explains why they went to Earth for slaves... if they had other planets that were somewhat closer to Earth, it wouldn't've been such a big deal.
quote:Originally posted by David Templar: - Authentic Western clothing and weapons somehow found its way into the NX-01's possession. The leather even appeared weathered. I can understand how they can machine the pistols, but did someone onboard know how to make authentic Western outfits?
Well, I'm sure that Trip has some Westerns in his library... that would also explain why both he and Archer seemed to be trying to obviously fake some really AWFUL accents in this episode!
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
Nothing said about the skagarran wreck? Or are we all holding our collective breath for Mark?
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
I tuned-in, in the middle. Just in time to see a line of text scroll across the bottom of the screen: "The clue is 'phaser'". Anybody know anything about it? I can't find any sort of official star trek contest.
Posted by BJ_O (Member # 858) on :
I didn't make the connection to "The '37s" until after it was over, but I thought this was much better executed. For one, there's no plucking of historical figures and placing them in the future (unless someone actually knows if there's a real Cooper Smith). Also, I thought their definite lack of technological development was very believable. Just going by today's population of 6 billion, each one of those humans would have to come up with all of the ideas and innovations of 1 million people on Earth in order to keep up.
I would have loved to have seen the aftermath of Reed shooting T'Pol! I wonder if she'll bring that up again sometime later... My wife made the point that T'Pol would agree it was the logical thing to do, but repressed or not, she still has those pesky emotions.
B.J.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Oops, Reed. I keep thinking Reese's Pieces for some reason. Oops, spoiler warning, my bad.
quote:Originally posted by Starship Freak: Nothing said about the skagarran wreck? Or are we all holding our collective breath for Mark?
From what I saw, it was really just random bits of wreckage. Not quite sure how the humans managed to torch a starship... Apparently the Skagarrans couldn't salvage anything useful, but T'Pol and Tucker did manage to recover some data storage devices (they didn't get discovered, so I assume the discs were just lying about). They were clear, round disc, about the size of a silver dollar, and reminancent of other alien storage devices we've seen in ENT, which also tend to be round discs.
They only showed the physical wreckage at night, so I could really tell what they used from previous episodes and what was new.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The physical wreckage was mostly bits and pieces of random wreckage strewn about. The only real scene we saw was of the "classroom" scene, and that was only lit by fire...
I dunno if I'll do my usual tech review this week... There's so LITTLE tech to review this episode. Still enjoyable, though.
Mark
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Probably a key (and unsung) rebel servant on the Skegarran ship did something that caused it to crash from some high altitude... Then Good ol' Coopershith rode in and wiped out the survivors of the crash. It's the only way they could have overcome the Skegarran's advanced weaponry and transporter tech.
It's also likely that some of the humans were nominally educated in Skegarran tech and that was lost when those rebels died in the uprising.
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
It was funny that Reed shot T'pol but from a tactical standpoint it was stupid.
Your Phase Pistol is on stun, there's no way you can hurt T'pol, and the bad guy has left almost 3/4'th's of his body exposed, and Reed shoots T'pol for Christ Sakes!
Why not take the shot at the bad guy? You don't know that he'll be shocked by you stunning his hostage, he could do a reflex action and blow her head off. Plus, you've lost an additional member of your team who could have helped fight, and while she's lying there on the ground another bad guy can come up and kill her.
Reed's a dumbass. Either that or he just wanted to get a free shot in on T'pol.
This episode was dissapointing.
Where did the Humans get guns to rise up against there captors? Did they smelt them on their break period as mandated by the Slave Labor Act of 2151? If they stole Skagarran weapons what happened to them?
Why did the aliens bring horses for the humans to use to escape and fight on?
The Skagarran makeup was the laziest head makeup I've ever seen for an alien. I bet these guys could just walk around on Earth and not get a second glance. It just looks like they've got a rash on their temples.
Were the Skagarrans self-imposed exiles or something? Why didn't anyone from their civilization ever check up on the status of the colony in almost 300 years?
TerminArcher takes a gruesome blow to the shoulder and sluffs it off like it's nothing. Phlox's alien starfish must have been working overtime because before the episode ends Archer's arms fully healed like nothing happened.
Archer must have written the Starfleet Protocols on how to fuck up a secret investigation of an alien race. Again within 5 minutes of being there he's already embroiled himself in a society changing struggle.
The episode had a good premise that went nowhere. That being said, it is a natural episode to follow up on because it left so many loose ends. I would like to at least see some reference made to an attempt to return these people to Earth before the seasons out.
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Is it me or is it odd that in the end that Archer leaves Betheny a PAAD to teach Earth history? How will she charge that thing?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Solar, no doubt. Looks like they've got plenty o' solar power to spare.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There's no reason to think Enterprise didn't leave all sorts of things behind. Admittedly, we're led to believe the ship has had most of its nonessential equipment removed, but I'm sure they could spare some batteries, at least, and a few things to use them with. For instance, I'd bet some actual anesthetic would come in handy. And a book on germ theory.
I would have liked to see the humans incorporating some small bits of Skagarran technology into their lives. I'm sure they'd have a little trouble maintaining anything complex, having killed all the people who knew how to work it and probably not being too concerned with keeping (probably unreadable, to them) technical manuals around. But, say, something like public notices being displayed on a magic tapestry that can show moving pictures. I don't know.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
After the jailbreak, I thought I'd heard the Sheriff say something about "get the __________" which I was hoping was some kind of alien hardware. When it went all slow-mo there, I just figured they had some device to locally speed up time so the Sheriff and Deputy could get to the intersection and shoot the girl. Man that would have been cool. Especially when the MACOs are crawling around trying to avoid slugthrowers. But it was just an editing thing.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Crazy late response: I'm pretty sure he just said "Get the 'boys'," where 'boys' could possibly have been their actual names. Or "the others." Something like that.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
He actually said "Damn! I hit my "boys"!" That's why he was limping like that....