posted
If T'pol had four asses, would she be quadrupley as hot? Anyway, things to look out for:
-The new bridge, and mention of upgrades now that Enterprise is back to business. Apparently there was a special on UPN last night as some wrestler guy is guesting as an Orion slaver - Jolene escorts him to the bridge set (damn he's huge!) and we see a look at a partially-lit bridge, complete with new chair. Odd - if this is the new lighting, it's decidedly warmer than before. Here:
-Stuff on Orion slavers, culture, how it matches up to other established facts, and any hints at an Orion Syndiacte.
-Apparently their mucking with the timeline has now placed the Eugenics Wars, or part of it, only twenty years previous. This DOES mesh with the notion of what Admiral Bennett was saying in DS9 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" that the EW were two-hundred years ago, though he does evoke Khan in that speech. Courtesy st-minutiae.com:
BENNETT
I don't think so. Two hundred years ago, we tried to "improve" the species through DNA resequencing and what did we get for our trouble? The Eugenics Wars. For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there's a Khan Singh waiting in the wings -- a "superhuman" whose ambition and thirst for power have been enhanced along with his intellect. The law against genetic engineering provides a firewall against such men and it's my job to keep that firewall intact.
I guess we'll see what rationalization we can make of this continuity thing this time around.
-The "Augments" hijack a Klingon ship to do their dirty work, commanded by J.G. Hertzler as yet another old Klingon character. It's an ENT-era BOP, complete with tractor beams, though stangely dark. Be on the lookout for more about Klingon ships in this era.
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: -Apparently their mucking with the timeline has now placed the Eugenics Wars, or part of it, only twenty years previous. This DOES mesh with the notion of what Admiral Bennett was saying in DS9 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" that the EW were two-hundred years ago, though he does evoke Khan in that speech.
No, this is not correct. TrekToday misreported that because they had incomplete info. Soong's arrest was "a couple of decades" previously, but this arrest was not part of the Eugenics Wars. He had stolen embryos left over from the wars from a medical facility and revived them. A poster on the Trekbbs who has already seen the episode in its entirety clarified this issue and pointed out the error.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Damn, I wonder if the Orion makeup is toxic this time around...
A wrestler and a former Calvin Klein model in this episode... hmm...
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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quote:No, this is not correct. TrekToday misreported that because they had incomplete info. Soong's arrest was "a couple of decades" previously, but this arrest was not part of the Eugenics Wars. He had stolen embryos left over from the wars from a medical facility and revived them. A poster on the Trekbbs who has already seen the episode in its entirety clarified this issue and pointed out the error.
Ah, okay then. Still, I'm sure that SOMEONE will be trying to link what Bennett said to this arc. The timeline matches up, if only a bit.
posted
God, what's NOT to like with this episode? Rock on, Coto!
-Possibly for the first time since "The Voyage Home", the bridge of a Klingon ship is NOT the same set premiered in that movie! The room is a pastiche of old sets dating back to DS9, and while some elements of the set walls are from the old Klingon set, the characteristic upper level, freestanding consoles and door are nowhere to be seen. The freestanders are originally from DS9, and while the chair is Klingon it's on a single pedestal - there are no steps anywhere.
-Is there a particular reason Soong is being kept in a Starfleet facility? Does the interstellar nature of his crimes put him in their jurisdiction?
-Enterprise has apparently been moved back to its original spacedock, so they could use that stock footage again. We first meet the crew on the bridge in civvies, as they're being recalled to duty as the fastest ship in range. Sounds a lot better than "the only ship in range", anyway...
-Ahh, the new bridge! The first time we see it, the new chair is covered only to be revealed later. The set has been repainted to be slightly LESS grey, and it's lit a little warmer. I believe there are new sound effects to match the more red and yellow LCARS... Did anyone else hear the bouncing "pyoingyoingyoing" sound taken from TOS before now?
-The floor is also blue in places - not clear if it's padding or plating, but it's new...
-The chair has understandably had its panels replaced with blinky lights... Which seems to be a new motif on the bridge. Maybe it's the new paint or lighting, but the bridge seems a whole lot blinkier.
-VFX - the launch sequence IS changed. The overhead shot during the launch has had the two guys in spacesuits removed, and I'm sure the ship is seen from a slightly different angle as it goes into warp. Is this is the case, the new shot uses the same older spacedock model as from the premiere! They deliberately dug it up to keep it consistent. Well done!
-A Y-class freighter is seen in orbit as Enterprise pulls in. I'm guessing that it's either an oversight, or a batch of humans in a piddly little warp 2 transport with one plasma gun can handle more than we are led to think in such hostile territory.
-The set improvements continue! The transporter chamber has been modified, looking more red and with swirly things in the back to make it look more TOSey. Another good move!
-As we saw last year in "Raijin", the slave market is a potpourri of known and unknown species. A Tellarite was prominently shown at one point - he's the guy that buys T'Pol.
-Rebar manufacturers rejoice! Aliens will one day flock to earth to buy your wares to make cages out of.
-Enterprise carries 18 kilos of tritanium cobalt. Whatever it is, it must be an alloy, not an ionic compound.
-Hey! Archer goes to two prisons this episode, and he's NOT a prisoner either time!
-Anti-jiggle breast tape. Hyup.
-As has been seen before, the Klingon ship's corridors are made from pieces of Defiant corridor.
-A new interview with "Malik" actor Alec Newman reveals that most of the augments are actually wearing hairpieces to evoke the 80s hairstyles seen on Khan and his followers in "Wrath of Khan". So what - is the mullet a genetically inbred trait?!
-One wonders if that strategic command room is still there. Was it installed for the Xindi mission, and would it be removed if they didn't need it anymore? The brig's still there...
-Hey! The one female MACO is still there! And she gets shot - again!
Mark
[ October 29, 2004, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
-- Excellent and abundant views of the old-style BoP; once the usual HDTV screencaps are posted some talented artist should be able to render schematics of the design.
-- The writers can't seem to make up their mind about whether it's called Alpha Centauri or Proxima colony.
-- Soong continues his work in genetic engineering on a theoretical level---literally on paper---in prison. Every few months they clear out his cell and vaporize everything. At the time of the episode he's designing a cure for Sherat's (spelling?) Syndrome. (At first I thought this was supposed to be the genetic hearing disorder that Picard was afflicted with, but looking at the Nemesis script I see that was "Shalaft's.")
-- Trip warns Archer not to push a particular button on his new chair. This is probably an "in-joke" allusion to the fact that it is a re-use of the Nemesis chair with the surprise seatbelt. (Although someone on the TrekBBS pointed out that it could also be a reference to Kirk jettisoning the ion pod from TOS "Court Martial.")
-- T'Pol accepted the Starfleet commission mentioned in the last episode, and she is now a Commander, complete with pips and NX-01 patch on her arm. But she's still wearing the catsuits and not a uniform. This strikes me as a bit incongruous, but I suppose one only need think of Troi to dispell that feeling. (NOTE: We now have concrete canonical refutal of the "urban legend" about Spock being the first Vulcan in Starfleet.)
-- Phlox confirms that the Eugenics Wars still took place in the 20th century. (No retcon = good! )
-- The Orion ships with their looming "wings" seem subtly reminiscent of the design from the animated episode "The Pirates of Orion" to me, but that may be a subjective/psychological thing on my part.
--Anybody catch what unit of currency they were using at the auction? Whatever it was, T'Pol sold for 6 million of them, IIRC.
-- Is it possible that "tritanium cobalt" is what later comes to be referred to as "tricobalt"?
If I think of anything else I'll be back.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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-- Soong once reprogrammed a PADD to open every security door in his compound. He was quite proud of that. (I would be too.)
-- T'Pol definitely said "Orion Syndicate."
-- Death toll for Eugenics Wars as given by Phlox was 30 million. This jibes somewhat with Spock's figure of 37 million for the "Third World War" from TOS "Bread and Circuses," although technically if one were rounding from that, it would be 40 million. (What's a million here, a million there? ) In TOS, the EW and WWIII were treated as the same conflict, though Riker's WWIII figure (600 million) was considerably larger.
-- The Orions utilize neurological inhibitor chips which induce convulsive seizures in the wearer to control their slaves. They also have a self-destruct feature a la Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace which prevents theft.
-- The Augments have a lifespan *double* that of contemporary (2150s) humans. Considering that the humans of the era apparently have significantly expanded lifespans themselves when compared to us, this could be a long time. I wonder if there are any of them still running around in TNG?
-- It occurred to me that the lead female Augment's name (Persis) may be a reference to Persis Khambatta, who played Lieutenant Ilia in TMP.
-- Minor VFX gaffe: At the end, after the Orion interceptors are said to have disabled the NX-01's warp nacelles, the external blue warp coil glow is still in full force.
-- Some little tiny pathetic geeky part of me is wishing Soong had said "Go home and start learning to speak Klingonese."
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"In TOS, the EW and WWIII were treated as the same conflict"
This seems to me to be overstating the case a bit. I mean, yeah, Spock (and others) made several different "big war late in the 20th/early in the 21st century" references, with little distinction between them, but I don't think that's quite the same thing.
Registered: Mar 1999
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![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
We first meet the crew on the bridge in civvies, as they're being recalled to duty as the fastest ship in range. Sounds a lot better than "the only ship in range", anyway...![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
) In TOS, the EW and WWIII were treated as the same conflict, though Riker's WWIII figure (600 million) was considerably larger. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
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