IvanF's Uninformed Reviews of the Fourth Season of Star Trek: Enterprise (2004-2005)...

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- IvanF's Archived, Cut & Paste, No-Name Reviews of
The Fourth and Final Season of Star Trek: Enterprise (2004 - 2005) -
(Jonathan Archer becomes immortalized, Trip bites the big one, T'Pol becomes a true Vulcan, Hoshi becomes an Empress, Mayweather gets a line, Reed works with Section 31, Phlox creates TOS Klingons, The Augment and Romulan arcs, and These are the Voyages...)

... and replaced with a whole bunch of reality TV bullshit on UPN (not to mention WWE Smackdown in its Friday death toll timeline... oh, the irony... sort of...)...

For the first time in pretty much my entire life (or the parts of my life that I do remember), Star Trek will no longer be on the air in any sort of current season fashion... Sure, there will always be syndication. Sure, there are DVDs... Sure, I know that Star Trek will return one day, either with a new television series or a new set of movies...

I am one of the few who loved Star Trek: Enterprise since its very first conception... I still remember how I felt that series pilot day, determined to never watch another episode of Trek after the abomination that can only be known as Voyager... and yet I still fell in love with the series the moment I laid eyes on the NX Enterprise and her crew... I could never quite figure out why, but I did...

The first season may have had a ton of boring filler episodes, but there were truly some classics in there as well, like Dear Doctor and Shuttlepod One... Season two in retrospect wasn't quite as great as I remembered it, but increasing tensions with the Klingons and one kick ass Borg sidestory in Regeneration, truly made the season memorable to me... And truth be told, I absolutely loved the third season of Star Trek Enterprise. While I admit that the Xindi war arc does leave a bit of a bitter taste in an old Trekkie's mouth, for seemingly coming out of nowhere with no prior precedent in history, I still must admit that I just loved what that season long arc stood for... Earth couldn't defend for itself. In the end, humanity had to become best friends with its worst enemy to save both races. And in the process? We got some kickass battles against the Xindi, and some great episodes along the way such as Similitude, Azati Prime and Damage...

Season four was arguably the strongest of the four seasons though. Because just like with The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, things really start picking up for Trek series with their third seasons leading into their fourths... Manny Coto was given free reign to bring his love of the Original Series to Star Trek Enterprise. And while as a TNG fan, often Coto's dreams didn't end up quite as my own wet dreams come to life, I still have to admit that he did bring out some of the best nostalgia I have ever experienced out of Trek, or any television show for that matter...

The return of the Augments were simply amazing, with some great tributes to Wrath of Khan throughout that mini-arc. The episodes with the Orions stood out as well, if only because of the reminders of just how sexy and sleezy the Original Series really was... The mirror universe episodes done in season four were far superior to the crap ones we got in Deep Space 9. And the Romulan arc? Simply put, United became one of the best episodes ever of Trek, right up there with Shuttlepod One and Azati Prime in my book... And for the TNG fan in me? Brent Spiner made a terrific return at the start of the season. And even though I won't even try to argue that These are the Voyages was a decent way to end the series, I still have to admit that the CG work on the Enterprise-D in the asteroid field, still nearly brought a nostalgic tear to my eye...

I loved season four, not just because of all the amazing mini-arcs put forth by the reinvigorated writers, but because of the strong acting and performances of all members of the cast throughout the season as a whole...

Mayweather did his usual thing, only getting to say a couple of lines for most of the episodes throughout the season... But hey, they eventually threw him a bone. Even he got a moment to shine, getting the uber-hot girl in Demons and playing backstabber in In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 2)... But it was Hoshi that truly got to shine in the final episodes, compared to every other season but her first perhaps... She still makes my bits and pieces sizzle as Empress Bitch in the mirror universe episodes. And Linda Park even got her moments to really shine actress wise, with strong performances in Observer Effect and arguably Terra Prime...

I do wish that Phlox was given more air time in season four. John Billingsley is perhaps the most talented overall actor on the cast, and it's just unfortunate that his first season episode, Dear Doctor, still hasn't been topped in terms of acting and moral controversy (though Similitude came close)... Still, while Phlox wasn't exactly given an entire episode devoted to him, he still definitely had his fair share of the spotlight. He had perfect chemistry and animosity with Brent Spiner's character in the Augment arc, he showed some real balls when it came to protecting his patients in Observer Effect, and he probably had his strongest showing of the season in the Klingon plague arc...

Malcolm Reed has been sadly ignored since the first season. To be honest, besides Shuttlepod One and some of his homoerotic scenes with Hayes in season three, the actor has been sadly invisible behind his console... Reed wasn't exactly given the ball to run with in season four either, but at least a lot of his friendship with Trip was allowed to come back. The two definitely worked perfectly with one another throughout the Romulan arc, and they even got to share a moment with the decommission of the NX Enterprise in the series finale... And at least Reed will forever go down in history (or the Star Trek encyclopedia at least), as being one of the first ever members of Section 31 not only immortalized everyone's favourite Brit, but really helped to make Terra Prime into one of the strongest outings that Enterprise has ever produced...

Now, Connor Trinneer has never been quite ignored on the series, no matter how few lines he had throughout the seasons past. The actor has always managed to stand out nonetheless, thanks to some real character development and some kickass hick acting along the way... Hell, B&B even devoted the entire series finale to pretty much everyone's favourite engineer from the South, and why? Because quite frankly, he's one of the best characters the series has ever seen... Now, he didn't have much to do with Hoshi this season, except play the big brother sort of crush for her. And except for some touching scenes with the death of his cloned baby, Trinneer didn't interact with Phlox much either...

But if there's anything truly redeeming to say about the series finale, it's that Charles Tucker the third was forever truly loyal to his captain and best friend. Connor nailed his speech perfectly to Chef about trust in the end... And throughout the entire season, you could name pretty much any episode, and Trip was a huge part of it... His reactions to T'Pol's marriage were the only redeeming moments of Home. I loved his final scenes as a dead man in Observer Effect. He was such a poor, tragic, hapless figure to T'Pol's fine ass figure in the mirror universe episodes... And hell, you want to talk about tragedies? Trip is a man who has lost his hometown, his sister, his baby, his girlfriend (sort of...), and eventually his own life...

And as for the other half of the tragic, Romeo and Juliet couple?... I've never been a big fan of Jolene Blalock, especially when it comes to her behind the scenes comments about the show... But damn, does she ever have chemistry with the pecan pie man... Sure, some can complain that the both of them together made Star Trek into a space opera. But how the hell can I complain, when Trip and T'Pol made me an actual 'shipper for the first time in my life?... I felt so bad for them when they lost their child in Terra Prime, that my heart literally melted when the two held hands. And the bond between the two of them (and Trip's rolling of the eyes at its revelation), was perhaps the only true redeeming part of Bound as an episode... Blalock as a mother was amazing throughout the Demons and Terra Prime arc. But it should also be noted, that she showed some true Spock like moments when it came to the Vulcan Kir'Shara arc as well... Hot damn, did she ever sizzle the screen as an oppressed minority in In a Mirror, Darkly. And hell, I'm actually proud of the actress... Because no matter how much she despised the premise of These are the Voyages? She still put on an amazing performance when it came to Trip's death...

The T&T space opera may have stolen the show and stolen my heart, but the true man of the season was Captain Jonathan Archer... He was immortalized in canon Trek history in a dozen different ways, from the naming of Archer IV in the mirror universe arc, to even getting his big speeches memorized in future grammar schools by TNG characters... The fans wanted proof that Jonathan Archer would forever be remembered as a great man. And if there was any decent point to These are the Voyages in the end, it was that the Birth of the Federation ceremony proved once and for all, just how beloved everyone's favourite quantum leaper turned out to be...

While I still prefer season three over season four, I'll gladly admit that Scott Bakula had his best chemistry of the series with each of his fellow cast members this season... His fling with Hoshi the Hottie in In a Mirror, Darkly provided some of the greatest scenes of the entire series. And with Phlox, Archer put forth a wealth of memorable scenes, in both Observer Effect and the Klingon forehead arcs alone... He finally showed some real respect for T'Pol, even if teaching her how to mind meld was stepping the bounds just a bit too much after the Kir'Shara arc... And we all knew beforehand that Trip and Archer were long time friends. But they really did stress it and show it this season, as the trust and loyalty between the two of them made for a brilliant, Original Series like trio, with T'Pol as the third pillar in the mix...

... I loved Star Trek Enterprise... with all the faith in my bloody hell heart...

... it was my favourite Star Trek series since The Next Generation , no doot aboot it...

... it's been a long time... but alas, not long enough... its time is finally here...

But at least Star Trek Enterprise will achieve what no other Trek series but DS9 has...

... it's the kind of show that people five years down the road will be asking themselves, "why weren't we watching this?"...

Notable Episodes: Borderland, The Augments, Awakening, Kir'Shara, Observer Effect, Babel One, Affliction, Divergence, In a Mirror Darkly (Parts 1 and 2), Terra Prime, These are the Voyages...
Best Episode of the Season: United

"I've been waiting a damn long time for this episode... Just ask any of my (remaining) friends at university. And besides all my obvious Nintendo fanboyish rants, there's only been one thing on my mind... four mouth-watering words...

I'm probably the only damn person I know that has enjoyed the series right from the start (although I do know a few who were converted back from the third season). And as the only hardcore Enterprise fan left in my entire city, it was no wonder why I was pretty much frothing at the mouth last night as that god-awful "Faith of the Heart" song bellowed out of my television speakers...

Now, as for the episode itself... Storm Front (Part 1) carried over pretty much all of the same problems that plagued the Rick Berman and Braga era of the series. I loved Manny Coto's episodes last season, but I was hoping that he would put a bit more effort into cleaning up the mess that B&B left as a WTF cliffhanger at the end of the third season... Now, don't get me wrong - I actually did like the twist three months ago, assuming it had something to do with the Romulan War... but unless Vosk's people turn out to be 31st century Remans, chances are that Enterprise has for itself yet another generic time traveling arc in the works...

Like I said, the same problems plagued Storm Front that plagued everything but the best episodes from season three... Once again, the plot took center stage focus rather than the characters, and even T'Pol's and Trip's relationship barely factored in a flinch... You know something is a bit amiss, when Mafia loan sharks get more recognition than Archer did when he just magically showed up alive and well on Enterprise. And the surprise factor just wasn't there, with Silik showing up too early, and too much of Vosk's alien nazis being shown on screen (although I was surprised at fugly Daniels just showing up out of nowhere)... The episode did sort of feel like it was going through the motions, with the point A to point B to C contrivances that Enterprise has always been known for. And seriously, the alien nazis?... Honestly, WTF?...

... but you see, there's one thing I'm missing here... I may know deep in my circuital logic, that Enterprise season three was deeply flawed... but hell's bells, read any of my reviews from last season, and you could clearly see that for me at least, it was still a kickass ride. It was my favourite season of Star Trek since TNG, and why? Because I'm a Star Trek Enterprise whore, that's why... And as a gladly admissible whore, how could I not indulge myself on Enterprise's Storm Front?... Sure, I struggled to find any sort of deep, metaphorical message in the episode, with Daniels pulling a Southpark Kenny and dying a second time (those bastards!). And I'll surely be pissed off if Archer doesn't decapitate Hitler or something in Part 2... But if I managed to enjoy Enterprise before, it was because I can somehow take the series for what it's worth, and truly enjoy it at face value (something the television world just can't seem to do anymore...). And that's what I did with Storm Front - I just shut off my brain, and let the excellent pacing and atmosphere of the New York setting take me along for the ride... And in that sense? The episode was far more enjoyable than the last bit of the Xindi arc ever was. Storm Front didn't take itself too seriously, and since I never take Enterprise seriously either, that's always been a recipe for my favourite episode of the week...

Not like there was much competition, with Smallville sucking as usual, nip and tucking itself away into a corner... but that's besides the point...

Now, I do wish there was more character development in Storm Front, than just T'Pol looking like a bulimic deer caught in her own headlights... Mayweather shockingly got lines, and even got to correctly identify ancient P51 Mustangs. But for the token black role on the cast, he was completely outshadowed by Alicia in the meantime, who actually reminded me a lot of the finer points of Lily from First Contact... Trip got to show some real kickass moves, and would've taken Silik out if it was a fair fight. But it's just too bad he showed no concern for anything later in the episodes. There might be an explanation for that in Part 2, but chances are, he was just ignored for the plot... Malcolm was there. He didn't even get to blow up the shuttlepod himself, or nuke the San Francisco sons of bitches for their AA gun attack. But still, both of those scenes were pretty damn cool (although looking a bit underbudget)... Phlox didn't even get to pull off his token joke of the week. But it was fun seeing Daniels in sickbay looking more disfigured than any alien I've seen before. And while Phlox didn't have anything to do with that, you gotta love how he rarely ever sounds negative, even with a man dying of a temporal hot war paradox on his bed... Hoshi didn't have much to do either, but at least she finally got a memorable moment in her daughterly like (or incestuously sexy?) hug of Archer when he came back... And T'Pol? She had little to no reaction to Trip, and I really hated how "shippy" her staring at the returning captain seemed. The actress almost looked tired in her role, but in a sense, her subtlety (or just lameness) somehow created more suspense than dialogue ever could've...

And Archer? Well, the episode was all about Mr. Quantum Leap, taking it to the Nazis like any damn good American wholesome good boy would... And you see? The episode may have the dumbest time paradox contrivances ever (killing Vosk would prevent this all from happening? Huh?), and the most tired of cliche Nazi baddies this side of the comic book regime... But dammit, it was Captain Archer vs Evil Alien Nazis! That's like Kirk vs The Gorn, or Picard vs Professor X! It's just something you cannot top, and I reveled in every single moment of it... This was one of Scott Bakula's best Enterprise performances ever, because even in a situation where we all knew he was lost, he took charge and just ran with it... Just like with T'Pol, subtlety in his speech was one of his strongest assets. His silent little smile when he heard Enterprise was in orbit, was just as clever as the contained chuckle of glee (or hopefully orgasm...) Hoshi had when he first heard Archer's voice over the com... And whenever Archer started looking like his average, speechifying self, his mobster buddies picked up the pace for him. It was dumb that Archer wouldn't kill the alien nazi in the alleyway, so obviously I cheered when one of the loan shark guys did it for him...

Now, if anyone is expecting Enterprise to be as deep and meaningful as a Shakespearean play, or even as whimsical as one of those over-pretentious DS9 episodes that every Trekkie but me seems to love, then obviously you'd be disappointed in Storm Front (as most cynical critics were)... But I'm sorry, I've never liked Star Trek as a social commentary. I've always liked it as a kickass ride... And c'mon already! Who doesn't enjoy EVIL FUCKING NAZIS trying to take over America? Who doesn't enjoy Brooklyn accents, using their thuggish pistols to whip the Nazis off the hamburgler streets? And seriously, maybe it was just my satellite channels or something, but Enterprise looked absolutely gorgeous in all its colourful splendour and candor. I've never seen any TV show or DVD look so vibrant on my pathetic non-HDTV screen, and yet Enterprise somehow pulled through, as it always did in the past...

Storm Front was not exactly the high class caviar that some people were expecting from the start of the Manny Coto regime... But seriously, we got old skool, black and white films of plasma rifles, we got the first ever blown up shuttlepod, and we got an old skool rescue of the captain and co by transporter... This episode was simply a hell of a lot of Kirk vs Gorn, Picard vs Professor X, Original Series plain ol' fun. And if people just would let them enjoy fun TV these days, then maybe we could finally get a hundredth episode and a fifth season of Enterprise afterall..."

"Heh... my friend from high school, who convinced me to start watching Smallville in the first place (in exchange for him watching Stargate, at least...)?... Well, I guess all my negative Smallville weeks in review have finally started to get to him... because he's been complaining a bit about all the glowing, overly positive reviews I've been giving Enterprise in comparison. And it's completely obvious why I've been doing this...

I love my Star Trek. Always have, always will... But even though I thoroughly enjoyed Storm Front (Part 1) last week, I do admit that it did feel emotionally vacant. It was just pure eye candy, with no real plotline and no real action to speak of... It didn't leave a lasting impression on me. Or at least, not the way that the better episodes of season three did... So since I obviously want to stay on my friend's good side, I was planning to finally write a semi-negative Star Trek Enterprise review this week. I knew Storm Front (Part 2) would still share the same flaws as part one of the Temporal Cold War closer did, so I thought maybe I would throw my friend a bone, and give the Best Episode of the Week award to a Smallville episode that might actually deserve it... if only because of Mandy MuchMusic's amazingly hot body, and if only because of the Christopher Reeve tribute...

And yeah, sure the episode was emotionally vacant. Almost every single actor but Scott Bakula had nothing to do... And the temporal war paradoxes? Oh dead lord, the goddam paradoxes... Sure, Manny Coto made sense out of his whole reset button. The Nazis invaded America not because of Vosk, but because some other faction from AFTER Vosk turned the temporal cold war into a hot one, assassinated Lenin (because he apparently hated communism as much as I do)... So by stopping Vosk from igniting the war in the future, it stopped the faction in the future from ever forming and changing Lenin's past. It all made sense to me... but then all the other reset buttons? And the oh so convenient return of Daniels, Enterprise's own uncanny version of Southpark's Kenny?... and oh, the fact that Silik was officially killed off (with no reset, since he was on Enterprise), the only decent character to come out of the Temporal Cold War (which I did enjoy at some parts... Cold Front was a good episode, but the rest?... umm...)?...

... heh... Hey terrorists, terrorize this!... with a montage of Hitler times 911 times 100 footage in it, no less...

Sure, the plotline of the episode was weak. But why does it goddam matter? The atmosphere for the episode was great, and some of the best I've felt since Azati Prime of last season... I don't care how stupid it is in principle. Seeing Enterprise sweep through Manhattan, firing phase cannons at alien suped up German Luftwaffe fighters, was exactly the kind of badassness that I wanted from the show... Sure, it pissed me off to no end, that three photon torpodoes had less of a explosive effect than a modern day cruise missile would. But at least it was damn cool, to see the Enterprise taking a real beating again, and see Vosk scream in his cliche evil alien nazi sort of way (strangely enough, we've seen it all before...)... And while Silik's shapeshifting effects were pretty poorly done, I really have to admit that the sight of the Enterprise soaring into the sunset was one of the best damn effects I've seen in a long time... And c'mon already! Who can't love an episode that plays all the same tricks that helped make ST First Contact into an actually good TNG movie (even if I didn't like it)?... Sure, Alicia was a bit too much of a clone of whats-her-name from First Contact. But her shock after being beamed up into space with time travelers, was still written well enough to be mostly effective... And who can't enjoy a good ol' fashioned battle of tommy guns against the Nazis? While it was disappointing that none of the insurgent mobsters died, there was still a hell of a lot of a cool carnage. Even without any blood, the pinpoint shot to the German neck was definitely the guy highlight of the day...

Archer was both great and a bit stiff this episode... His super Matrix slowed speech was way too much of a giveaway to Silik in sickbay. And he was too much of a generic action hero with his phase pistol, and not enough of the confused bastard he played so well in part 1... But he definitely had chemistry with Alicia. It was somehow a nice touch for the show, simply when he thanked her... And while not much emotional acting was involved, I liked his rapport with Silik as well. I mean, someone finally brought up the change to "Airlock Archer", with a mention of his brutality during the Xindi crisis as well. And all the talk about why Silik was suddenly on the good guy side again, was a nice continuity touch with Cold Front so long ago... Archer's best moments were with Trip though. I loved the look on real Trip's face when he saw the captain alive and well. He was actually going to hug him, until the nice comic relief of the base blowing up, came up at least. Still, it was just definitely nice to see the real friendship back between the two, that's all... It was also neat to see Action Figure Trip Tucker back, slitting his wrists of rope with glass. And even when it came to fake Trip, he was still damn cool, if only because he gave Archer a Matrix kick to the face...

The rest of the cast each had their moments, but not really their dues... Hoshi looked so damn adorable when she heard all those Star Fleet voices over the comm (where the fuck were those dozens of ships when the Xindi attacked though?!...). I just love her little "O-face" (of wow, I mean...) whenever her smile beams on the bridge... Mayweather was back to being the token black guy, looking like the dumbass when sitting next to foo-Tucker. But hey, he got to be beat up and interrogated by racist Nazi pigs. That's something to put on a resume, at least... Phlox only had a moment shown in sickbay. I liked his subtle gesturing towards the security comm, but besides that, he definitely didn't have much to do... Neither did Malcolm, but at least he got a great moment of comic relief when in the middle of an attack run, he melted away at the thought of fighting vintage German planes... And T'Pol? Well, her character has really felt off this season so far. She seems to ignore Trip, she seems to go all weepy on Archer, and she seems to not really be there as an actress for all the times in between. Guess time travel just ain't a Vulcan's thing, eh?... Well, at least her suit still looks good, even though everyone else's uniforms have been subtlely fried over the Xindi arc season...

So I'm sorry, I'm really sorry... an apology to my friend at least... Smallville was decent this week. But Enterprise, as hollow and shallow as the episode may have been, still kicked Clark Kent ass...

Now, I may not like Storm Front (Part 2) in a few weeks time, just like I didn't much care for Shockwave (Part 2) a few weeks after that aired two years ago... But right now, does it really matter? I watched the episode twice already tonight, in lovely SDTV quality, and I still can't get enough of Archer being a badass, or of the Enterprise taking on evil alien nazis, or even the tear jerking sight of a beautiful fleet of ships finally welcoming the Enterprise home, as the third season of the show was always meant to end...

Storm Front, both parts, may have been nothing more and nothing less than a popcorn, fluff, Manny Coto Bruckheimer film. But I like Bruckheimer films, goddammit... they're built like a rock, although Pearl Harbor did suck... and why did Pearl Harbor suck? Because there were no evil alien nazis in that World War 2 goddammit, that's why!... And like I always say, who doesn't like evil alien nazis?...

... well, besides all the people who are going to goddam cancel Enterprise after this season, but that's besides the point..."

"It's been a long road... getting from there to here... it's been a long time... but my time is finally near...

... or at least, that's how most Trekkers have felt about the Braga and Berman era of Enterprise... and especially about the Enterprise theme song, but that's besides the point...

Truth be told, I'm a Star Trek whore. Because except for god-awful Voyager, I actually loved the B&B run on Star Trek... I liked the first season of Enterprise. I even liked the second... and I absolutely loved the third... I may never forgive Berman for the travesty that can only be known as Voyager (or the travesty that can be only known as Travis as well, but that's besides the point...). But I do love Enterprise... ever since its initial series incarnation, I've loved the show... and I'm still loving it, with Manny Coto now at the helm...

Well, the thing is... either Smallville's excellent episode this week (with The Flash) is throwing me off, or something just didn't feel right about tonight's episode of Home... it just didn't hit home, you know?... Maybe it was the low budget special effects or something? The first scene with the huge crowd in San Francisco did look worse than any Star Trek blue screen I've seen before... Or was the wrong feeling simply from the fact that this episode just wasn't as powerful as Family was for The Next Generation?... I mean, I liked how Airlock Archer became cynical Archer over his past year dwellings. And some parts of the T'Pol and Trip scenes on Vulcan were heartbreaking... But overall, the episode just didn't feel as cohesive or fresh as it should've felt. And it didn't really feel nostalgic either... afterall, I never did like The Original Series in the first place, but...

I'd like to say that every character in Home got their dues, but I'd just be lying then... I can only hope that Manny Coto will start writing for each and every character and not just the captain, but Manny certainly didn't really show it here... Travis got to kick some ass and take some names. But that's about it, as he was just about as much of a token black guy as you can get... Hoshi didn't fare much better. Sure, she looked damn hot in that red T-shirt of hers (back to Brazil, eh?). Hell, she even glowed a bit as she lectured Phlox about prejudice. But she really didn't have anything but that one scene - literally... Malcolm Reed at least got a few moments to shine. With a shiner of his own, at lerast... I chuckled at his lame attempts to open the door while holding all of Phlox's luggage. And you gotta love his 'Reed Alert' narcissism when it came to wearing the Enterprise jacket... But besides his little xenophobia speech? He was pretty speechless as well... Phlox however did get quite a few moments to shine. Whoever thought before that the Xindi attack wasn't a metaphor for 9/11, then they better take a closer look at this episode. Because Phlox was basically labeled as a terrorist by that bad actor in the bar, and you can't help but feel for the poor egg-drop soup guy when his feelings were hurt at the end... And in the spirit of Phlox, it was great how in the midst of all this heavy prejudice stuff, we still get freaked out by the doctor puffing his face up like a blowfish. His character definitely is quirky, even when facing the worst aspects of humanity...

Archer and Captain Columbia, or whatever her name was (Martinez, I assume?), didn't really have a lot of chemistry. But the actress definitely looked damn fine in that mountain climbing gear of hers... Still, I did like a lot of the dialogue that the two captains shared. I loved Archer's reference to "Captain Jefferies" of Jeffery Tube fame. I loved the interior look of the two captains on the NX-02... And poor Archer just seemed so out of place on earth now, talking about battles here and wars there, when just three years ago, he only wanted to be a peaceful explorer... The most moving characters in all of fiction are always the tragic hero ones. And poor Archer was feeling the aftereffects, of just being an innocent boy turned into Cynical, Airlock Archer... The Xindi dream was a bit too cliche for my tastes. But it was damn funny seeing Jonathan fall that far... Still, overall I did like what Home did for the Archer arc, just like what Family did for Picard after his rescue from the Borg. There were a lot of unresolved issues with both Enterprise captains, and it's great to see both of them hailed as heroes, when neither of them really felt like one inside... Now, I could've done without the forced romance between Archer and what's-her-name. But it did feel natural, how he opened up to her, about wishing that he could just be alone. The poor captain was feeling the inevitable guilt of doing what he had to do to save the day... That's what being a hero means. He just wanted to be an explorer though... but of course, all kickass captains have to turn out to be heroes in the end... poor, cynical bastard, with goddam high schools named after him...

But the real deal of Home, was the sad state of affairs (with affair being the key word...) between Trip and T'Pol... Now personally, I thought T'Pol's mother, T'Les, was a little too feminine for a mature Vulcan female (then again, T'Pol must've learned her bitchiness from somewhere). But it cracked me up everytime she would just bring up relational stuff with her daughter or Trip, just out of the blue as if she were the American Pie dad or something... She did have some clever insights though. And that definitely made her feel like a mother, especially when she was just folding laundry and kinking it up like a Dr. Ruth... Now, as for Jolene Blalock, I personally have felt that she's been really playing her character strangely this season. She always seems like she either wants to cry or scream, but never quite gets there. Weird... But at least that worked well whenever she was with Koss. Koss was such a loser, even Vulcan joking about their ever classic fights to the death, so it was only natural that T'Pol would look disgusted... Problem was, she looked that way throughout the whole episode, with her mother and with just the state of affairs of everything... I did love her bickering with her mom though, as I know all too well the difference between what you want, and your responsibilities to your family...

The only time Jolene felt right in her acting, was when she was with Trip... I loved every scene they were together, right off the bat as the two sort of flirted and smiled with each other over their spontaneous 'trip' to Vulcan. It was just so coyly cute how T'Pol snuck a personal invitation in there... I also loved the Vulcan architecture designs, although they did look a bit too Asian. But they somehow matched perfectly with majesty of the Vulcan fire plains, which is something I think every Trekkie has wanted to see. Especially as the flames of passion routed and gutted poor Trip from underneath... His best scene was probably his surprise at T'Les' first American Pie moment. He was just fixing the stasis fridge like any good, pussy-whipped engineer would, only to have a sex talk with a mother figure a moment later. Poor bastard... And then did you see the look on his face when T'Pol told him she was going to marry Koss? Normally, moments of awkward silence on TV are just plain awkward. But somehow, it just felt right, the way Trinneer handled it on screen... Now, knowing all too well the beguiling ways of women, that kiss T'Pol gave Trip at the end was both sweet and a kick to the nuts. She married for money over love essentially, and they both knew it... The sweet thing though, was that the poor Hick Tucker accepted all that. In his final speech to T'Les, he admitted how he felt about her. He loved her. Enough so that he let her go... and what really made that scene really powerful, was not just Connor's acting, but the way T'Les react to his chivalry... We don't know what she wanted anymore. Maybe she was finally approving of Trip? Maybe she really did care for T'Pol's happiness? Or maybe she was just relieved that he would stay out of the way? I guess we may never know...

Now, Home definitely had its fair share of moments. The views of Vulcan, and the return of Soval and Admiral Forrest were more than welcome... But the overall episode itself suffered from really weird scene cuts, pretty bad budget cuts, and a whole lot of bruises when it came to the supporting cast... It was still a well written episode, giving me a ton of new hope for the Manny Coto regime of things. But unfortunately for both Enterprise and my own ego, I think the best episode of the week award will have to go to Smallville instead...

"Now, I'm the one who's always liked Enterprise right from the start... I thought the first season was a nice change of pace, I loved the action in the second season, and I really thought the third season of Enterprise was one of the strongest Trek seasons in the history of the franchise... Probably at times, I've felt like the only one who felt that Star Trek Enterprise was worthy of the Star Trek name...

... hell, even if I actually liked Smallville this week, it wouldn't have stood a chance against the return of Data... Now, I have no clue why Brent Spiner returned to the universe of Star Trek. I mean, last I heard of him, he was going on tirades about just how much he hated being typecasted for the robotic role he never wanted in the first place...

But damn, am I ever happy to see one of my favourite Star Trek actors come back to the series I love... Because in all honesty, Brent Spiner completely owned the screen with all the amazing lines he was given in this episode... Sure, at times he acted a bit too much like Lore from TNG for his own good. But seriously, why the heck would that matter, when a) that actually makes sense, since Soong's descendent did program Lore, and b) Arik Soong had some of the best script writing I've ever heard on the show, period... Right from the start, Brent Spiner brought in a whole new conviction into the show, with just the way he would mock Archer for being the hero of the world... I absolutely loved the dialogue between Soong and Phlox, not only for bringing up a lot of real world points on genetic engineering, but because you could somehow feel that these two were once friends a long time ago... And you just gotta love Brent Spiner. He was just so damn observant as Dr. Soong, even somehow realizing that Trip and T'Pol had a thing for each other... Just the little nuances in the character, form the oomph he put into zapping the locator in his neck, to even his overdramatic fall from the magnetic handcuffs (which were pretty damn cool, by the way), helped forge a completely unforgettable episode... with probably my second favourite character in the entire Trek franchise next to Captain Picard...

It wasn't just him that made Borderland into absolutely borderline fantastic... His augments were a nice blast from the past, wearing exactly what the Eugenics wore in Wrath of Khan (a movie I despised, though...), and Darth Malik even having the same damn arrogant accent as that Khan prick did long ago... I just loved the first battle scene with the Klingons. Sure, the dancy martial arts were a bit over the top for the Trek series, but at least for once a show "realistically" dodged disruptor fire... And even if it was cliche, I even found the power struggle between Malik and that noname leader guy to be interesting. If only because the Cromag looking girl kept switching sides (like all women seem to do...), it just somehow brought an extra dimension to the Augments, instead of just leaving them as generic bad-guys as Enterprise used to do in the first two seasons... And c'mon already, who didn't love the scene where Archer gets captured (again), and the ship gets boarded (again)? Sure, some roll their eyes at the Enterprise crew getting their asses kicked for the umpteenth time. But dammit, the Augments definitely had style! Malik even warned Archer what he was going to do, and yet Jonathan just froze there like a deer in the headlights... And I even felt happy for Soong in a way, when he saw Persis again for the very first time. The group really did seem like a family... a very incestuous family who inevitably will go Oedipal on their father I'm sure, but that just makes them the perfect supervillains in my book at least...

The rest of the cast wasn't nearly as prominent as the villains were this episode, but every single actor did get a key scene or two to shine... I loved Malcolm Reed's reaction, to Soong knowing his name but not his face. I guess the writers were giving a subtle nod that Dominic Keating definitely hasn't been given his dues on the series... Mayweather only had a single line, but at least he didn't look like a dumbass this episode... I've already mentioned Phlox's outstanding work with Brent Spiner. Sure, the two were only together for one scene, but these two actors just somehow made the slightest few lines into the most memorable 'reading' that I've ever seen... Hoshi didn't get much to do, and I really don't get why such a fine women wasn't beamed away by the Orions. But damn, she looked so alluring in that T-shirt of hers at the start, that I really don't get why she just can't be in civies all the time... Trip didn't have many moments, but his romantic arc with T'Pol sure had short but sweet moments of continuity. I just loved the reaction on his face, when T'Pol basically told him that she didn't do it with her new husband... And c'mon, who didn't notice the poor engineering redneck, get all red in the face when arguing with Soong about slavery in the past?... And T'Pol? Well, once again, she felt a little off this episode. She was calmer than before, and her scenes with Trip just had so much touching chemistry, that you almost think the two in real life could become a couple... I like that she's now part of Starfleet (Spock fans be damned). I just didn't like how damn embarrassed and uncomfortable she seemed, as the WWE wrestler Big Show (all in green, like a fatter version of Shrek somehow...) was having the jolliest day of his life with Jolene... Sure, I laughed my ass off at how damn pissed off Blalock looked as she was fumbled around. But hey, good television is good television, even if the actress has seemed to be hating her job for the past four weeks...

As for Archer... It got on my nerves just how much he walks around when he's addressing his crew. But still, I always forgive him when he takes the ship out of drydock, and the campy music plays to the sight of his eyes glazed over in over-dramatic glory... It just works somehow. And his commitment to the crew later on in the episode seemed to work as well... I absolutely loved Archer in the Orion trading exchange. His control of the situation reminded me so much of his potential in the pilot episode of Enterprise... and I'm sure T'Pol being sold as a sex slave certainly helped as well... Archer had a lot of great moments of his own in those scenes. I loved how bored he looked as the Orion took forever to be knocked out from the hypospray. I loved how calm and collected he seemed when Soong was climbing the wall for his life... And even when Archer was dumb enough to get within arm's length of Malik, he still seemed rather badass and carefree as his neck was about to be snapped in two... But most of all, I really liked his dynamic with Brent Spiner. I loved their arguments over the augments together... Right from the start, when Archer brought up the point that Soong unsuccessfully tried to escape from prison, you knew the banter between these two would be gold. And it all cumulated in the brig... When Soong mentioned the death of Archer's father? Well, I almost expected Bakula to lose it there, neck ringing style... He didn't... but rest assured, when him and Soong meet again... there will be hell to pay... Airlock Archer will be back in full force, and I'm lovin' it...

Borderland was perhaps the absolute best episode that Enterprise has produced since Azati Prime... or dare I say it, even Broken Bow... It had everything a Trekkie would want, from Orion slave girls, to Archer going totally Kirk-style on Soong's ass... It had the best looking Klingon Bird of Prey that I've ever seen, period. And it saw the return of General Martok, as yet another Klingon leader who gets kicked in the face... It had the hottest Hoshi since Broken Bow, it had PMSy T'Pol sold to slavers. And the only way Big Show's appearance could've been better, was if he got hit with a steel chair to both the head and the groin, but I digress...

Every actor was spot on in Borderland. And how the hell can't I love the return of everyone's favourite Data?

Yes, I may have loved Star Trek Enterprise throughout its first three seasons... and I still love those seasons...

... I feel proud, actually... like a father... or a hot, incestuous sister at least...

"I had really high expectations for Enterprise after last week's stunning episode... But just like the up and coming inevitable backlash against Halo 2, simply because the game can't possibly be as good as the hype suggests, Cold Station 12 fell to the same damn greek tragedy... It was a great episode. But it just didn't feel nearly as fresh or invigorating as Borderland did...

Maybe it's because the arc should've been only two episodes instead of three, because the episode just felt weird, being in basically one room of the station for the entire episode... Still, if there's any reason to congratulate Manny Coto once again for his rebirth of the Star Trek franchise, it's because Cold Station 12 had some of the best pacing I've ever felt in an Enterprise episode yet... I was literally caught off guard when the final credits rolled, because the episode just flowed so seamlessly, that I didn't even notice that an hour had gone by... The dialogue was much more natural feeling than it was in Borderland. And while I really could've done without that awful blue screen in the embryo chamber, the Klingon Bird of Prey still looked better than just about any other ship I've ever seen in Trek. And even Cold Station 12 looked impressive, for a dimwitted, low security facility built in the middle of a rock at least...

What made this episode interesting to me, were obviously the Augments... Now, some have already complained against this episode, for just how predictable everything is turning out. We all know Malik will turn on Soong or vice versa, we all know Soong will probably have a change of heart, etc... But you see? This is why I hate television these days, or at least its watchers. Because people who can't understand the classics of literature (myself included...), keep demanding new, unpredictable actions in franchises where everything's already been done... If you asked me, I actually welcomed the predictability. Because it was a sort of Greek tragedy kind of predictability, the likes of which you can just feel and sense in all the amazing (but archetypal) stories of the past, most recently Gladiator included...

Soong is the tragic hero figure. He was a good father, and wasn't a true villain until he pretty much condoned torture. You feel both loathing and sympathy for the character, because you know he's a good man at heart. He just fell in love with his own intellect and power, and it's only a matter of time until he's knocked off from that pedestal by the people he thought loved him... Darth Malik (who was Angel's Drogyn with a bad mullet, something I can't believe I missed last time...) is the typical arrogant fool, reveling in his power. He's such a crybaby too, manipulating Soong with that fake sobstory about Rakin... He's not exactly a tragic figure, but doesn't he feel like someone out of a Greek tragedy to you? He's a guy obsessed with incest, hoping for approval, yet ready to defy and kill his father at any moment, simply because he can? Yup, there should be a play... And Cold Station 12 definitely had that strong, playwright kind of feel to it, especially thanks to the Augments' dialogue... And c'mon already, even Smike was played well this episode. Even with his poor acting, it was hard not to feel bad for the guy. He was betrayed by his friends, was cast aside as his name suggests, and was even denied three times. And then he was gone... he was like a mini-Soong in the end and all, depending on how the arc ends next week... And was CS12 predictable and even campy at times? Of course. But it was also very reminiscent of the classics of Greece and Shakespeare, and I honestly can never call either of those as unwanted television in the end...

If there was any real flaw to Cold Station 12, it was the fact that every character but Archer and Phlox didn't have much to do... T'Pol was just sort of there, without even a mention of her marriage backstory or anything. And Trip? Well, he got to chase around Smike in the Augment's old base, but that ain't saying much... Hoshi just got to look incompetent after Archer ruined her station self destruct plan like a bad villain who just won't shut up... Mayweather got to point a gun, but I really can't point out any of his lines... Reed got to kick some ass by bringing some MACO redshirts into CS12. He definitely had the demeanor in that scenes. He just didn't have the lines, that's all... Now, I was disappointed in Dr. Lucas, considering I've already seen him and his colleague as Watchers back on Buffy. He didn't really have that Dr. Lucas feel that I expected from Phlox's letters, so I thought the casting was a bit off... But I did really love his performance, as his fellow Watcher was being tortured in what was perhaps the first Trek episode since Night Terrors that made me flinch at my television screen...

I did enjoy the mini-story given to Phlox (although it was just strange how Dr. Lucas was willing to let his fellow scientist boil away to a gruesome death, and yet wouldn't even let Phlox feel one ounce of pain... wow, he really must've hated that other guy...)... Now, John Billingsley has openly complained that he didn't have much to do in this Enterprise arc or the next. But with the time he had, he certainly made it memorable... His acting in that torture chamber was laced with subtext. He didn't overplay the scene - he played it like a worried friend... And his conversation with Archer about Clark's syndrome? It was a good history lesson, considering we're still thinking of genetic engineering here on earth... The Eugenic Wars were caused by the arrogance of men who thought they were better than everyone else, including their own. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the entire science should be banned... It's a debate worthy of the Trek name, and I'm really glad that the arc is not hitting us over the head with the message (like a certain horrible DS9 episode did), but rather letting us see why the Eugenics Wars happened... simply by the way Malik perceives everyone else, even his own brothers and sisters...

Now, I know the internet loved Archer this episode. And it's not hard to see why... He got to pull off some Matrix Will Riker kicks, and then got Matrix slammed into an electrical conduit. That action scene alone was possibly some of the best fighting on Trek yet, and it was neat to see a captain actually do well in a fight, but still lose it... Jonathan was a pure captain in Cold Station 12. He made decisions on the fly, and went through with them, no matter how bad they turned out to be (transporting themselves into the station, only to be captured yet again?... fighting against the Augments with his bare hands at the end, for what?...)... Still, although I do love Action Hero Archer, I much prefer the more humane side of him that was actually more prevalent in seasons 1 and 2... I didn't like his indecisiveness, or his hypocrisy at times, but moments like his Clark's syndrome talk with Phlox are what defines his character to me, not the climbing of huge white shafts to stop a cliche supervillain countdown...

I did thoroughly enjoy Cold Station 12. Like I said, I was both shocked and disappointed when the episode abruptly ended... But it just failed to meet the unbelievable hype, you know?... The pacing was great, the script was some of Enterprise's best, and you gotta love the Augments, with their Cro-mag faces going at it in bed... But it just didn't feel like a new era to me. It didn't feel nearly as fresh as Borderland... It definitely did feel solid though. And it definitely did feel like Trek.

The new era is upon us... I just wish that it still felt new like last week, you know?..."

"This has been a great week of entertainment for me... Sure, I failed a couple midterms and assignments. But why should that matter, when I got Halo 2 on Tuesday, just came back from watching The Incredibles (review to come tomorrow), am still planning to get Mario Tennis for the GC, and just finished watching one of the best damn Trek episodes I've ever seen in my lifetime, period...

The Augments may not have been a perfect episode, but thanks to Mike Sussman and Levar Burton, it was one of the most epic, suspenseful hours of sci-fi I have ever watched in my life, period... I absolutely loved the Augments and their over-the-top Shakespearean-tragedy kind of feel... Who didn't feel bad for poor Persis, as she was kissed away to death by the blade of her incestuous lover? Who didn't see the huge Oedipus complex that poor Drogyn Malik had, with that god-awful Mullet of his?... And c'mon already. Even if I never liked Wrath of Khan, even I found it to be a blatant, brilliantly nostalgic touch, to see Malik crawling on the floor of the broken Bird of Prey, as Khan did on the Reliant... I loved Malik this episode. He seemed like such a lost boy... I loved how upset he was with Soong when his father wouldn't pay attention to him amidst all the repairs. I loved how Malik was so ruthless in his arrogance, that he was willing to sacrifice all his brothers and sisters along with countless Klingons and humans in a bloody war... I loved the nice little Trek references to the Botany Bay and the Briar Patch, even if I can't remember where I heard of the latter before... And I just found that final battle scene to be epic beyond belief. It bugs me why the Bird of Prey seemed to have absolutely no shields this episode, but at least Malcolm finally proved his worth at the console (using his Star Wars missile defence tactics, I see...). And Malik's appearance on the actual Enterprise ship at the end, fooled me in the best of ways... I really thought he was dead. And then I really thought he'd snap Soong's neck. I was wrong on both accounts... and somehow, those few moments of unpredictability were truly refreshing...

Brent Spiner as Soong was one of the best decisions the series has ever made. It's amazing what kind of raw charisma and character that Spiner brings to the show, just from the way he goads Trip into protecting his woman... Now, sure I found his reference to Data from TNG to be a bit forced and silly in the end. But for every other scene in the episode, Spiner absolutely owned the screen... You could just see in his acting, how disappointed he was both in himself and his augments, as he slowly began to accept the fact that his creations weren't nearly as perfect as he thought they were... I loved how he wouldn't even justify himself to Malik. When he was being escorted away by his children, he stood defiant before them, standing as a man for once it seemed... Soong was also far more brilliant than Malik ever was. I mean, his children were all overly aggressive and short minded, with Malik being all about the testosterone fight and not about the victory. Soong though, made a brilliant move by leaving the Denobulan in a gas giant for Enterprise to save (although I don't see why Ent couldn't just beat the hell out of the Bird of Prey first and then come back, but I digress...)... And once again, the chemistry between Spiner and Scott Bakula was amongst the best the series has ever seen. Archer actually had the right idea in second guessing Soong's motives after finding his escape pod, and it was just great acting, to see how Soong slowly managed to earn back Archer's trust. I mean, you could actually see it happening somehow... And you almost feel bad for the poor doctor. The look on his face when the Bird of Prey self destructed was a bit of overkill. But he just looked so damn sorrowful as Malik was about to crush his throat, that he really did feel like one of the best tragic heroes/villains the Trek franchise has ever produced since Star Trek VI...

... it would've been nice if Levar Burton had appeared in the episode too along with Spiner, just for shits and giggles... But oh well, at least Mr. Reading Rainbow brought in a cute blonde chick to man Trip's usual bridge spot... hell, she even got more lines than Mayweather did, it seemed...

Once again, the only problem with this astoundingly epic Augments arc, is that most of the regular actors had nothing to do... Mayweather just mindlessly pushed buttons as he stared at his paycheque. Hoshi had a few lines, but didn't even get to communicate with her Klingons... Reed got to show some real bragging rights stuff off, with grappling the shieldless D7 Battlecruiser, and taking out the Bird of Prey in a couple of shots. But the actor himself really had nothing to do... I wish Phlox had more of a role, considering his only contribution to this episode was one memorable look in sickbay. Then again, I'm also relieved that this episode didn't really play the morality card, with Soong's bitter disappointment over his children being the only thing I needed to remind me of the moral issues at stake here... As for Trip and T'Pol, they didn't really have many memorable scenes. But it still broke my heart when Trip was being a gentleman... He made me go "awwh" like a pansy girl when he said he was proud of T'Pol for marrying that bitch. But then he did the stone cold snub thing, and admitted that a Vulcan and human relationship could have never worked. Romeo and Juliet in a Shakesperean tragedy indeed... and the look on T'Pol's face was simply priceless... Jolene Blalock looked so amazingly vulnerable there, that I completely forgot that she hasn't been able to act for the entire season so far...

And then we have the main man, Archer... He had an amazing escape from the CS12 hatch (which was realistic, by the way - you can survive in space for 15+ seconds if you exhale with all your might, NASA claims). He brought out the best in Spiner as he stunned Malik with his return from the grave... I loved his trickery with the Klingon ship. The Orion slave girl comments were a brilliant reminder of a brilliant start to the arc, and I just adored that Kirk-like smile that Scott Bakula gave at the end of his speech... Now, I don't know why that D7 cruiser didn't have shields to protect against the grappler hooks. But it was still a brilliant strategy by Archer nonetheless, the likes of which we only caught a glimpse of in season three... And I just loved Scott Bakula's delivery of lines this episode. He was all business - and while sometimes I consider that as a one dimensional bad thing, it certainly wasn't in this episode, where millions of lives were at stake... He gave one of the best quotes of the series yet: "superior abilities breed superior ambitions". And his character just meshed so seamlessly with Brent Spiner, that it almost makes me wish they could keep Soong on as a reoccurring character... Archer truly was The Man this episode. And he proved it by finally kicking Malik's ass and taking his name, right through his bloody gut... To be the man, you have to beat the man... nice...

I really don't have anything to complain about this episode... Sure, some of the Khan and Data references felt forced. Sure, some of Archer's strategies this episode shouldn't have worked... But these are all minor quibbles and tribbles and tribulations, in an absolutely epic episode that I more than just adored... All the special effects looked amazing, from the great looking Bird of Prey, to even the suspense of watching two glowing torpedoes go at it in orbit... And the acting was spot on, from Spiner and the Augments, creating the most Shakespearean feel to the series outside of the original series movie franchise... And really, while I wish there was more Phlox, Trip, and hopefully more Hoshi the Hottie in future episodes, the fact of the matter is, Archer really came into his own in this Eugenics War arc... He's no longer just airlock Archer. He's simply The Man now. And you certainly don't want to get into an "augment" with The Man...

The Augments will forever be remembered as one of the best Trek episodes ever produced, period..."

"I loved the Eugenics Brent Spiner arc, because it reminded me so much of the original Star Trek movies... I did enjoy quite a few of them, afterall...

The Forge meanwhile, was definitely an episode that showed that the Enterprise writers are truly forging ahead to bold new places... It had superb acting, perhaps some of the best the series has ever seen. And it definitely took a bold step where no Vulcans have gone before, bringing us a new depth to a species that we really haven't seen in full since the Original Series itself...

... it's just that... I didn't like the Original Series very much... at all... and perhaps the only problem for me and The Forge, is that it reminded me just a bit too more of a series I never liked in the first place...

Let's just put it one way: except for the weird ass conversation, where T'Pol was comparing Porthos to a man-eating beast, I kinda found The Forge a bit boring... It was definitely a tragic episode though. I really felt bad for Soval after Admiral Forrest's death, because you could really see the guilt hanging on the actor's brow... Those two really started the episode off well together. Soval's admittance, that the Vulcans were actually scared of humanity (since they reminded them too much of an impetulant version of their own selves), was one of the greatest speeches I've heard in Trek in a very long time (and that includes the Augment arc). And Admiral Forrest's death was just so quick and unexpected and sudden, that I couldn't help but feel bad for Soval, as he now owed his life to the man he never seemed to respect before in the series... And the acting on Soval's behalf was amazing. He somehow made a mind-meld into the most interesting thing since Star Trek 2, just from the fact that he of all people would be the last we'd ever expect to go out on a limb for the humans. And when he was even honest about the meld to his superiors? That showed real guts for his character, and it made me enjoy Soval's performance for the first time in the entire series...

There truly was some awesome acting in The Forge, but there was a lot of bad characters as well... The Head Investigator guy was so stiff and unemotional, that it really seemed like he was just reading off of cue cards the whole time. And the Head Administrator guy or whatever? I just couldn't help but keep picturing him, giving endless speeches to the SG-1 crew on the Prometheus instead of the Enterprise, but I digress... And that guy that Archer and T'Pol run into on the path of The Forge? I know he was trying to seem all pacifist and calm and everything, but he just seemed rank and arrogant to me instead. Sort of like a hippie, actually... And of course, his raping of Archer's mind was not only kinda inappropriate, but it lead to a super rank and arrogant Archer, who somehow now thinks that he doesn't need to drink water anymore. Just great... where's Airlock Archer when you need him?...

A lot of characters were underutilized in The Forge, but at least every single one of them had a moment or two... Hoshi was only in the basketball scene, but damn, did she look hot in that T-shirt of hers... Mayweather got to flex his muscles by holding up a wall over a bomb. Nice to know he can get a job as a red shirt on Alias if he ever quits Enterprise... Malcolm got to actually create some tension by simply scanning a bomb for DNA. He seemed intelligent this episode in his methodological analyses, but in the end, he didn't really have much to do... Neither did Dr. Phlox, although his superior basketball skills seemed to be a high point. And he certainly made the most of his time in sickbay, as he tried to argue for the sake of his patient in the face of the investigation... I wish Tucker had gone to the planet, just so that he'd somehow become more of a match with T'Pol if he managed to get Surak teachings downloaded into his Matrix brain. Still, he had some great acting chemistry with Soval on the ship, as the two former bicker partners were now showing great concern for one another... As for T'Pol, I see Jolene's recent backlash against the show, was showing up in her acting yet again. It was alright that she seemed pissed off as hell when her husband Koss came by for a visit, but did she really have to seem PMSey with Archer every step of the way through the desert as well?... Sure, her comments about Porthos were amusing, but the actress almost sounded offended by the sheer stupidity of her script lines or something... But hey, at least her cluelessness as Super Archer was walking through walls near the end, made up for her lack of enthusiasm in the rest of the episode. And at least she looked alright with that dainty little cotton hood over her head...

Scott Bakula had some great acting moments with Soval, especially when the two were overlooking Admiral Forrest's body together. Two enemies had come together over the loss of one, which is exactly how the birth of the Federation was always meant to play out. And it worked... I even liked Archer's little moments in the Vulcan Forge of a desert. The electrical sand storm was a nice special effect, and Archer getting completely shot down by T'Pol when offering her his sunglasses, was kinda amusing as well... But then we got stuck with the mind-meld rape scene. Then we got Super Archer acting like a complete zombie, or at least his old self from season one... I'm interested in how this Vulcan terrorist arc will turn out, especially considering it seems the High Council were the ones who engineered the whole attack. But I certainly don't care whether Archer finally gets all that logical bullshit out of his cranium... not until we got some real Quantum Leaping going on there or something...

The Forge was a very professional feeling episode in the end, but perhaps it was just a bit too sophisticated in the end for my bitter tastes?... Yes, I'm sadly the guy who liked Harbringer. I need some excitement in my episodes... and while I'm sure that the later episodes in this Vulcan arc will turn out great, I can't say that besides Soval's sudden turnover to porthos and pathos, that I really cared for what was happening in The Forge...

It was a great episode for acting. It was a great episode, story arc wise. It was a great episode to set up the birth of the Federation... and it was a great episode, for all those original series nostalgics out there...

"... but as always, for about the umpteeth time in a row, my personal bias just has to give the episode of the week award to Star Trek Enterprise...

Now, contrary to what a lot of critics are already saying, I much preferred Awakening over last week's The Forge... The Forge was a bit too slow moving for my tastes. Crossing deserts and having katras sucked into your brain may work in written literature, but I just find it boring on screen... Awakening was a much faster paced episode than its predecessor, and while some critics didn't like it because of that, I personally found it more than welcome... Because c'mon, what fan doesn't appreciate Romulan-acting Vulcans actually kicking the Enterprise's ass and taking names? Thanks to the weird ring ships the Vulcans were using, it honestly looked like a battle between Star Wars Trade Federation ships or Stargate Atlantis puddle jumpers versus Star Trek... and what Star Trek fanboy wouldn't appreciate that?...

The Awakening was definitely an episode that tried to feel epic... maybe a bit too epic however, with so many Vulcan things going on... Last week's Forge was just so full of old skool Star Trek references (like Spock's/T'Pol's pet) that it's no wonder why nostalgic critics would adore the episode... This week was mainly about having Surak's katra stuck in Archer's head. Both the Vulcan High Command the Syrannites weren't acting much like Vulcans, and Surak even mentioned that to Archer (amidst some nice nuclear naquada explosions in the background... go Sheppard...)... I wasn't impressed much by the actor who played Surak. But he was definitely the most "Vulcan-feeling" of all the Vulcans on the episode (although T'Pol's mother, T'Les, was close)... I did like young T'Pau however. While the critics on the net who remember her 140-year old self from the original Star Trek seemed to all hate this version of her, I personally had no problem with her... She acted completely like a rebel leader would - she was uptight, arrogant, impetuous, too damn sure of her own ways, and prejudice against all those who aren't on her side... Sounds like an tree hugger I've met if you ask me... and her clothes proved it, with her looking so much like a Forest Elf that it was actually quite funny. And actually quite horny as well, since thanks to her Forest nymph hairstyle, she was really the hottest Vulcan girl I've ever seen...

Awakening also improved on The Forge, by giving every character on the cast something to do... Now, Phlox was completely missing in action unfortunately. But Mayweather finally got some lines, and even got to have fun with the shuttle joystick as he was getting his ass kicked... Reed got to manually target the Vulcan vessels. Must've been fun for him to finally fire back at the allies who jeer down at humanity... Reed didn't do much else, but seeing him so damn happy to be in a shuttle firefight was enough for me... Hoshi didn't have a single thing to do either, but it felt like she did, simply because of all the communications with the sneering Administrator V'Las. She definitely had that old skool Uhura feeling of useful uselessness going there... Tucker provided all the great scenes on Enterprise. I loved his bonding with Soval over the Vulcan hiding his affinity for earth. And Tucker really does feel like a much more natural captain now, not forcing things to happen, but rather just being his usual self and thinking on his feet... I especially liked how he didn't ignore his prior distaste for Soval this episode. Whenever these two talked, you could actually seen Connor Trineer acknowledging that he was wrong about Soval after all these years. And while Soval's weird change to being completely nice is still completely strange, I must admit that his conviction is somehow making me like his character...

The episode was all about Archer and T'Pol, with some slight hints of 'shippiness between the two... Archer had a damn katra in his head, and T'Pol really seemed interested in it, not just for scientific reasons but for Archer's sake as well... Still, the stare fest between the two was minimal at most, and we got a lot of good dialogue between the two of them for once. T'Pol was not overly emotional for the first time in the season (she even seemed rather Vulcan when shedding a tear over her mother.... or was that just bad acting?...), and I liked her logical explanation of the "katra" in Archer's mind (although the audience all knew that katras existed). I didn't like how pissed off T'Pol was at her mother for joining the Syrannites, but I did agree with the assessment, that these rebels were just as bad as the Vulcan High Council was (is that why critics don't like this episode? It was saying that the anti-Bush activists are just as bad as the Bush administration is, essentially... nice...)...

Now, I didn't really enjoy Indiana Jones Archer. He discovered the Kir'Shara far too easily, and it certainly didn't help that the photon torpedoes the Vulcans were firing were so damn pitifully weak at the time (I have a pet peeve with that, you know)... Still, I liked Archer's confounding combination of conviction and confusion. He didn't want to help Surak, and even wanted to get him out of his head. But he accepted the mission anyways (did he have a choice though?), and that's what the character has always been about in the first place. The unwilling hero... who got to have mind sex with the really hot T'Pau too, but that's besides the point...

The Awakening will definitely not garner the stellar reviews online that The Forge did, simply because it wasn't as nostalgically inclined as the latter was... Still, as a fan of TNG and not the original series, I really did enjoy The Awakening a lot more than The Forge... I can complain that the Vulcan High Command was just too damn evil for their own good (and how did one man get that much power in the first place?). But hopefully, all things will be partially resolved next episode, with a nice little teaser about the Andorians getting involved...

Awakening wasn't the best episode of the season. And maybe I only really enjoyed it, because I watched it after my five assignments for the week were finally due... Still, the fact of the matter is, I did enjoy this episode. Enough to definitely make it my episode of the week, at least..."

"Truth be told, I'm not the hugest fan of this Vulcan Civil War arc... I was expecting something a lot more epic feeling, or at least a lot more action feeling, like the Augments arc was at the start. And I really do get the feeling, especially from the two first Vulcan arc episodes, that this 3-episode arc was especially designed for people like Manny Coto - huge fans of the original series, and not really of TNG...

Kir'Shara though, I think brought together a pretty good best of both worlds... I can't proclaim it as the best episode ever made. But it found a nice katra balance between The Original Series and Star Trek Enterprise from season 3... It was nice that the Xindi probe thing wasn't completely forgotten. And it was kind of neat and telling actually, how the Vulcan's "left out" details from their reports on Andorian weapons of mass destruction... At times, the Kirk-ness of the show did annoy me. Super Archer not only riled me with his annoying conversion of T'Pol to the Syrrannite philosophy, but I honestly can't believe that he can kick ass and take names against Vulcan officers... Where's the difference in strength and speed? Why the hell was T'Pol taken out, when Archer was more outnumbered than she was?... And at the time, I was getting annoyed with the Vulcan officers as well. Their hand to hand weapons looked really weird and "pointless", and their leader was acting far too Romulan-like for me to bear...

We Star Trek fans have all been bitching that Vulcans like V'Las are completely acting more Romulan than they are Vulcan... and what do you know? I was surprised that I was still surprised when the big revelation came, but I was more than happy to finally see the truth... So V'Las was a Romulan operative the whole time, working for unification? While it boggles the mind how someone like him could get so much power in the Vulcan High Command, it still started to make the past 4 years of Vulcans on Enterprise make more sense... It also provided a great ending to an episode that was feeling too short at first. And hopefully, it'll provide great ties into the inevitable Romulan War, if only Enterprise would be so bold... I mean, even if it was a bit too predictable, this was the kind of ending that season three really could've used...

Kir'Shara was an absolutely beautiful episode. I never really saw green screens stand out like previous episodes, and the skies of Vulcan really did start looking natural at times. Sure, I can complain that the Vulcan High Command and their ships looks like something stolen right out of Star Wars: Episode I, but I still love the designs of the Vulcan ring ships anyways... I wish the final battle between the Andorians and the Vulcans was done better. Instead of more space shots, we got teasers of it through endless sparks flying on the Enterprise bridge... But while the Enterprise budget has obviously been slashed in that department, the writers certainly made amends with their Soval torture scene. Because just like with the Augments arc, Enterprise somehow made torture feel real again on screen... It wasn't the pain that made me feel sorry for Soval. It was the fact that he could permanently lose his emotion suppression skills like T'Pol that had me on the edge of my seat. And because of his lovely sense of humour only when tortured, I actually concluded at the end of the episode that I really did like Soval... he was finally feeling like both a Vulcan and an ambassador to earth. And finally a welcome addition to the Star Trek mythos as well...

I can't say that every cast member had a lot to do, but at least they all showed up... Poor Hoshi only got to relay messages between Administrator V'Las and Tucker, but at least she looked cute while doing it. And Mayweather just got to sit at his console like usual, although I think he at least got a token line or two... Reed finally had a moment with Tucker. I was hoping for some friendship thing, and was surprised when there was actually conflict between the two of them. I actually felt that refreshing, but I can't say Reed really had any moments after that... Dr. Phlox only got to check on Soval after he was returned by the Andorians. I wish the actor got more lines, considering he's one of the best actors Trek has ever had. But I assume his time will eventually come, and maybe then he'll finally shine... And Tucker? Now, this was his episode. He just felt so much more natural in that captain's chair than anyone since Captain Picard... I loved his respect for Soval, and his distaste for Shran after he was betrayed. He just felt natural in how he was feeling - the actor just had the role of the new Captain Kirk down to a pat... If Archer had put the Enterprise between the two fleets at the end, I'm sure the ensuing speech would feel completely forced. But not for Tucker - it just felt right that he would do such a thing. Sure, the Enterprise got sniped in the ass for its efforts, but still... something just felt right about him being in that chair he designed. And truth be told, this was absolutely Tucker's best episode in quite a long time...

Kir'Shara really did belong to T'Pol and Archer though... T'Pol was finally acting like a Vulcan again, at least at the end of the episode. I thought the P'nar syndrome thing was taken care of too quickly, but at least it finally got a mention (unlike season 3...)... I don't get why she would be antagonistic towards Archer's annoying sermonizing one moment, and then swearing in with the Syrrannite movement the next. Maybe something T'Pau showed her about her mother made her mind click, but then why still not believe in the Katra stuck in Archer's head?... Now, unfortunately I didn't feel any lesbian sexcraft chemistry between T'Pol and T'Pau (I can still hope for T'Pau and Hoshi, now can't I?...). But they definitely did feel more like Vulcans this episode, even if T'Pau's logic seemed to be clouded with a little too much Christmas elf-girl rebel emotion... I liked how T'Pol was strong once again, lying to the Romulan-Vulcan guy about where Archer was going. She was selfless, and finally not so bitchy for once (although she certainly had her fair share of bitchiness throughout this arc)... But her absolute best scene came with Koss at the end. And it's hard not to feel bad for Koss... We the audience (or I, as a guy who loves T'Pol with Tucker) are preprogrammed to simply hate Koss for taking T'Pol away from us. But he proved that he was not a bad guy throughout this Vulcan Civil War arc... instead, he actually proved to be really kind and throughtful, a true Vulcan even... giving T'Pol freedom out of sorrow that her mother died... and the single look on T'Pol's face then and there, really did help to make up for all the awful acting Jolene Blalock has done this season... almost, at least...

I've already mentioned that I hated Super Archer, with his nerve pinching and his ability to beat down hordes of crazed Vulcans around The Forge... He also didn't have any chemistry with the young T'Pau, although at least he didn't take any shit from her when it came to abandoning T'Pol... I also hated Archer as he was trying to act like a Vulcan, preaching about logic and the true Vulcan way. Sounds to me like he was actually possessed, although his old skool and completely illogical cockiness did sort of prove otherwise... Still, Archer at least did one thing right: he looked drained and "human" as he was crossing the desert. But besides looking like a guy who was going to collapse, I can't say he did anything I liked... He made the Kir'Shara new age bible look like a cheap triangular trinket at times, waving it around in ways that only V'Las would approve of...

But Super Archer and all the really dumbass Vulcans this episode, were the only real complaints in an otherwise brilliant episode... Now, my Smallville-advocate of a friend may hate the Andorians for looking like aliens straight out of 1967 (and yet he thinks the SGA Wraith don't look like smurfs... go figure...). But I even loved the Andorian performances, if only because of the nice nebula effects, the return of the Xindi prototype incident, and Jeffrey Combs putting in yet another great performance in a Star Trek role...

I wish the Vulcan arc was more tailored to guys like me, of the TNG and DS9 era (although I refuse to accept Voyager as a series... God, that show sucked... I want my seven years back, goddammit...)... still, the thing is, I can sense (through either logic or emotion), that this was a great 3-episode arc for Trek as a whole. It solved a lot of problems when it came to the Vulcans of this generation, and it opened up a hell of a lot of doors for the Romulan war to inevitably come... It may not have been my favourite episode, but it definitely was Trek writing at its finest.

... now, if we could only get T'Pau back, wearing nothing but silk and desire in Hoshi's quarters, then Enterprise really would be the perfect series, and this really would've been the perfect arc... the two of them do have perfect arcs afterall, but that's besides the point..."

"Well, Enterprise finally returned, after what felt like a very long hiatus, to me at least... But was Daedelus worth it? I don't know really... I can say at least, that it won't top Stargate Atlantis for the episode for the week. It may feel odd to lose out to a clip show, but that's besides the point...

Now, I appreciate what the writers tried to do with Daedulus. It was a bottle episode for Enterprise, where the characters finally took center fold. And for that, I do applaud some of the writing... Trip Tucker probably got the best of the final results. His worshipping of Emory Erickson near the start felt forced, but his interactions with basically everyone else was simply the actor at his finest. You could tell how betrayed he felt, when Archer wouldn't listen to a word of reason in the hallways. And you could really see the frustration on Tucker's face, when opening up about his sister's death didn't even get through a single phased bit to Erickson... And then you had his relationship with T'Pol, or lack thereof. I didn't like how the episode ended for them, with Trip seemingly happy (or temporarily content) that T'Pol was breaking off with their relationship. But for the most part? I don't know... T'Pol playing hard to get felt natural. And Tucker trying his best to get through to her, though ultimately failing, felt somehow appropriate considering her mother just died... This episode definitely set something up between the two of them for later episodes. This wasn't the end of T/T shippiness, I can tell you that...

But for Daedulus as a whole? I don't know, but I guess the pacing was just so off that the episode just wasn't very much fun in the end... The first half of the episode was terribly boring. I mean, none of the actors could pretend to suck up to Erickson properly. And Emory's discussion around the dinner table sounded forced as hell, if only because his daughter, Danica, made me roll my eyes at just how badly the actress rolled her own eyes... Now, I liked the brief mention of the metaphysical concerns of the transporter. And some of the Henry Archer moments were good ("don't fail" was a great poetic quote...). But those moments were far and between, especially in the first half of the episode. Leaving Daedelus feeling like a complete filler of an episode, rather than a standalone show that could really stand on its own two feet...

Now, Hoshi wasn't even in this episode as far as I remember. And hell's bells, I forgot that Travis Mayweather even existed on the show... But for the most part? Daedulus quite redeemed itself through its strong characterizations this episode... Phlox got some moments of consolation with T'Pol. And T'Pol herself, while both overly and underly emotional at times (depending on her period of the day, it seemed), definitely did feel more Vulcan. Reading the Kir'Shara, and her Panar Syndrome being magically cured by elfish lesbianism, were nice touches of continuity that really made T'Pol feel connected to a much broader arc than this lone episode encompassed... Reed got to hold a phase pistol as his red shirt got wiped out by the floating Quinn Mallory, sliding through space. And I've already mentioned how kickass Tucker was this episode, definitely setting up some sort of arc with him later on in the season... And Archer? Well, sure he was annoying, obviously putting his faith in Emory and his friendship with Quinn, over the lives of his crew. But in a sense, I can't blame him - even as a captain, he had to try to save his friend. Wouldn't you?... What I didn't like was how pig-headed he was. Except for his nostalgic moments concerning his father, Archer didn't show a sign of weakness. And considering officers like Trip and T'Pol were giving him good counter arguments, and considering he was no longer in the middle of a war, than it definitely would've been better if he at least pretended to listen to counsel...

But the whole episode, despite all the characterizations for the crew, still pretty much revolved around the Ericksons. And unfortunately for Danica, the actress portrayed the character terribly in all scenes that didn't have her friendly banter with Archer to fall back on... Emory however, was a different story. His long winded speeches dragged on and on in the first half of the episode, but I really did start feeling bad for him by the time the hour was up... Just like with the original story of Daedulus, Emory was quite a tragic figure. To save his son from an eternity in limbo, he had to kill him with his own transporter. Maybe not everyone got that the first time they watched this episode, but I definitely felt terrible for the father, as I realized his son was still alive for a moment, not even realizing that anything had happened for the past 15 years... A story with a Greek Tragedy as a name, has always got to be about pathos and Porthos in the end. And both worked pretty damn well if you ask me... It was not a happy ending. Emory would possibly go to jail (or make students like me suffer at university for all eternity), his son was now officially dead without any hope of return, and the sub-quantum transporter would never see the light of day again... The beginning of the episode definitely felt weak. But the finish to Daedelus definitely went out strong, and almost disheartening in the end...

... just not strong enough to pry the Best Episode of the Week award away from Stargate... not even from a clip show this week...

... but still, I always have had a thing for Greek tragedies, no matter how badly they turn out...

... hell, I just watched Elektra today... but the review for that god-awful movie, will have to wait for tomorrow..."

"I certainly wasn't expecting much from this episode... I mean, how many times has Star Trek Enterprise (let alone Star Trek as a whole), done episodes where crewmen are taken over by higher dimensional beings, and/or a mysterious infection spreads amongst the crew?... I most certainly was expecting to lambaste and chastise this episode, for being cliche and an utter rip off, of every single, old skool TOS episode ever made... I was sure as hell, as soon as I read the synopsis for Observer Effect, that I certainly wouldn't be observing its effects with good will and tidings...

But damn, in the end, was I ever surprised and impressed... just like the two beings were with Archer, I guess...

Observer Effect may have been absolutely the best bottle episode that I have ever seen Star Trek Enterprise do, and probably one of the best since Deep Space 9 last left the airwaves... Now, not every character on the show got to grow (Reed and Mayweather, in this case), but at least for once, every single actor and actress on the set really got a real chance to shine...

Dominic Keating played the role of the evil, callous, British alien to sheer perfection. Hell, he even got a WTF reaction from me, as he casually talked about death while beating poor Mayweather at chess a dozen times in a row... I was even more impressed with Anthony Montgomery actually. Not that his acting was great, since his emotional range is still about the same as a five year old's. But still... Finally, they threw the actor a bone. And his innocent, high pitched and sometimes whiny voice, really worked wonders well as the sometimes pompous, and sometimes too caring higher being alien, watching the Enterprise crew as if he was a tree-hugging scientist in an animal testing lab... No single scene really stood out for the two actors in quality. But for the first time in probably the entire history of Enterprise, there was not a single scene in an entire bottle episode, where the dialogue ever once felt weak or uninspired...

Like I said, every actor on the show finally got a chance to shine... Hoshi finally got to strut her Maxim stuff. And hot damn, was it wrong for me to find her hot, when she was sweating like a slut from her ever silicon sickness? But I digress... It was weird to hear that she was quite the rebel in Star Fleet Academy too. I mean, it's not unheard of, for meek and mild-mannered Asians to earn black belts in martial arts. But to run gambling rings and break a superior's arm? Umm... are we sure we still have the same Hoshi here?... But even if the characterization was a bit off, the actress truly showed her true range this episode. I may never understand why the hell her delusional mind tried to escape through an airlock, but I loved all the languages she was spouting at the time. And no matter how fugly and lame jokes got between her and Trip, her slight little snicker of a gorgeous smile always made the scenes feel that much brighter to me. She had beautiful timing and rhythm this episode, and hell, she even looked snug and beautiful underneath that blanket of hers... She even played a decent Malcolm Reed impression, when her dead body was possessed by the more anal of the two incorporeal aliens (mmm... anal...). The little, rebel, spunky spitfire really should talk back to Archer more... somehow, it suits the actress...

T'Pol was hit and miss this episode. I liked how she channeled a bit of Reed herself, when possessed by the ass of the two aliens. But her reactions to Trip's ensuring demise were a bit off for my tastes... I mean, as he was laying near death in sickbay, I really couldn't tell whether her 'deer-in-the-headlights' look meant a) she cared for Trip, or b) she just wanted Archer's job, now that he was going to die too. Although I did finally get my answer when she asked to be notified if or when Trip regained consciousness... Trip Tucker meanwhile didn't have much to do with T'Pol for once. Hell, he barely even winced at her as she was staring like her usual deer self through the decon chamber window... However, he had absolute wonderful chemistry with Linda Park this time around. And no matter how cheesy it got, I still got a slight chuckle from her duct tape remark, and from his unscrewing of the turkey dinner table. I mean, to be that immature at the age of 24? How could you not like the Pecan Pie, deathbed of a man then?... Connor Trinneer had great chemistry with Scott Bakula as well, no matter whether he was playing Trip or the nicer of the two aliens... He actually did sound like the naive Mayweather at times. And it's always great to see the friendship back between the captain and his best friend... even if it was spoken more with glances, tears, and gruffy facial expressions than actual words...

But really, the two stars of this episode were Captain Archer and Dr. Phlox... Phlox certainly hasn't had much screen time this season so far, except for playing the cliche blowfish (if that counts as cliche...)... But I absolutely loved his scene with the possessed Archer and T'Pol. John Billingsley looked absolutely "appalled" at the two aliens' actions. And the mere look on his face, when he realized there was nothing he could do (since his memory would just be wiped out)? His helplessness was just perfect, and made for one of the strongest scenes since the Augment Arc early on in the season... And as for Captain Archer? While Jonathan (and Phlox, to some extent) bugged me with their hypocrisy (asking for compassion, when they single-handedly destroyed an entire race back in season one's Dear Doctor), I still must admit that I loved the big ass speechifying Kirk-moment at the end. Archer really hammered through a good point to the Organians, one that the ascended Ancients back on Stargate should learn as well... Why the hell were the incorporeal beings equating compassion with intelligence, when they were showing no compassion themselves? Sure, they have a prime director to follow... but seeing people die for 10000 years from a single disease, has got to show something of the callousness and cockiness of the species...

... too bad I never saw the original series Trek episode that dealt with the inevitable "first contact"... because for once, I actually do feel like observing an old TOS episode... just for once...

... which to my utter surprise, ended up as one of the best episodes of Star Trek Enterprise this entire season to date... not to mention my personal favourite episode of the week..."

"Even at the risk of sounding like a babbling fanboy of an idiot, I still have to admit that this week's episode of Babel One, was perhaps one of the finest single hours of Trek that the Enterprise series has ever produced...

On the surface, I suppose it had a lot in common with the two Stargate episodes that aired this week. All three shows were set-ups for a much larger arc to come, and all three shows were obviously saving the best for last... But completely unlike SG-1 and Atlantis this week, Star Trek Enterprise had something that the Stargate writers completely lacked: a great flow to the overall episode, that just somehow made me want to see the second part of the arc so damn much... instead of just leaving me pissed off for more, at the pathetic table scraps I got from The Siege and Reckoning...

Now, the flow and pacing to Babel One wasn't perfect. Some of the editing was a bit weird, like the quick cut to Archer's and T'Pol's awkward "I think we're moving too fast" dinner scene... But still, overall, Babel One had me babbling like a brook, as if I was back in my glory days of TNG or some sort of crap like that. It was perhaps one of the funniest episodes that Enterprise has ever done, and it provided more suspense and more action than any episode since the first of the Augments arc, has ever managed to achieve...

I never used to like the Tellarites. But that's probably because I never really got to see them in a light-hearted episode... And thanks to their entourage in Babel One, every single member of the crew got something useful to do (more or less, at least)... Hoshi got a great introduction with Archer, sitting there so ever adorably stunned, at the captain's very Tellarite-like response to an attack on his dog. And hell, she even got to steal some thunder from T'Pol for once, with her little explanation about the weird-ass Romulan ship... Mayweather obviously didn't get much to do, but hey, at least he got to slowly increment Warp Speed numbers again. That may not be very deep for his character or challenging for the actor, but hey, at least he provided some real suspense for once... And Phlox was pretty much absent the whole episode, which was quite a shame really. But even with just a fleeting few moments on screen, at least he helped reestablish the Andorian's xenophobia towards all species... I mean, you just knew Shran and Talas wouldn't be the good guys this episode really, when they were picking on everyone's favourite Denobulan...

Now, some can obviously criticize this episode, for not developing characters besides Archer very much. But there is simply no denying, that at least all the major players finally got something memorable to do... We learned that T'Pol's marriage to Koss was now dissolved. That scene did feel awkward, because her comment came out of nowhere it seemed. But even so, it was nice to see her confiding in Archer again. And it was even more revealing, that Trip wasn't at the dinner table for once... As for Trip and Malcolm, finally we all got what we were looking for. Whether you see Reed as straight or ambiguously gay, at least we can all agree that his friendship with Trip was the best damn thing going in season one. So why haven't we seen it since?... Either way, we got a great reference back to Shuttlepod One with the "nice bum" comment about T'Pol. And it's nice to know that even when they're stranded on an evil alien ship without oxygen, that at least Reed could do the man thing and cheer Tucker on in his quest to get back in T'Pol's good graces and undies... And even outside of their characterizations, I think the two actors did a great damn job on the Romulan ship. The lack of inertial stabilizers (which I assume aren't necessarily inertial dampeners, otherwise Trip and Tucker would've been crushed by G forces, and the ship would've fallen apart...) made for some pretty damn exciting (and low budget) action scenes. I mean, for once instead of just shaking the camera, you had MACOs hanging off of railings, and the Chief Engineer reaching for dear life for his magnetize boots button... and as for the big surprise in the end? Well, I'll get to that in a little later...

As for Archer, he was obviously the star of the show. And for once, I really didn't mind... Hell, I think this was perhaps Scott Bakula's best performance all season long, and maybe one of his best of the entire series. Because here he had three completely different situations to handle: the Tellarites, the return of General Shran, and the Romulan holographic ship to boot... I've already commented how damn funny his scenes with the Tellarites were. Honestly, lines like "you're even more ugly than I remember" brought back nice memories of T'Pol in heat, and "I was about to say the same thing about you" in regards to "small and unimpressive" was probably the best damn, witty joke the Enterprise writers have ever come up with... When it came to Shran, some weird editing made their binge drinking scene into something that just didn't work (including Shran's revelation about Talas). But Archer really did a fine job mediating between the two warring parties at the TNG-like discussion table. And I just loved the look on Shran's face, every time even the "pink-skin" was questioning Andoria's loyalty after the attack from the Andorian warship...

Maybe on a normal day, I would've seen the huge twist at the end, coming from a mile away... and after the episode aired, it did bug me a bit, that Trip and Malcolm never did try to sabotoge the Romulan ship from the inside while it was tearing apart the Enterprise (or why the MACOs beamed out before the Chief Engineer did)...

But during the episode itself? None of these flaws were on my radar. Because the great action scenes alone, left me staring at my television in a swirling cloud of suspended belief. And I liked it... It was obvious that we were dealing with a holographic illusionary ship. That's always been the Romulan's style (though it was strangely lacking a cloak)... But Manny Coto actually used my fear of canon breach (that Trip and Reed would see a Romulan's face), to leave me utterly stunned when Luke the vampire Romulan was actually shown to be on Romulus (and it's nice to know that B&B are finally making use of some of their money from Nemesis...)... It was the best damn shock the show has had, at least since the Romulan at the end of the Vulcan arc of course... and the fact that I somehow never thought of such an obvious ending in the end? Sure, it bugs me a bit that the Romulans seem more advanced in the 22nd century than they did in Deep Space 9, but still... that was one damn cool ship that they had. And the whole mystery feeling of the episode, truly was more definitive of the Romulans than anything we've ever gotten since at least The Next Generation...

Let's face it - I am a babbling idiot when it comes to this episode... I loved the humour between Archer, the Tellarites, and poor Tucker "when in Rome"... I loved the return of the Andorians, even if it lead to really weird pink underwear from Talas... I actually thought the MACOs weren't bad this episode. Sure, beaming out of the Romulan ship first was dumb, but at least that one inept guard outside of Shran's quarters wasn't that inept. And at least the MACOs really kicked ass when it came to retaking the ship... And who didn't love the action scenes? The threat actually felt real and immediate, unlike in a certain other sci-fi series' shows this week... While Stargate really disappointed me with two second teases of space battles, we got really damn fine attacks from the Andorian and Romulan ships in Babel One. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say they were the best space battles I've seen since the Xindi Crisis at least... and all this from just the first episode of a three episode arc?

That's what Babel One excelled at best... Not only did it satisfy my cravings for the week, with loads of action and pretty damn decent dialogue, but it also gave me so much hope that the next two weeks of Enterprise, will be amongst the best ever made... Of course, logic and past reminders dictate, that the final two thirds of Star Trek arcs are never as good as the first episode in the series...

... but then again, babbling fanboy idiots like me, never really think with logic, now do we?...

Hell yeah, bring on the Prommie versus the Rommies, and then you'll really see me babble..."

... because yes, if you somehow haven't heard the news yet, Star Trek Enterprise has been canceled... Sure, UPN will finish off the season. And I guess the show's move to Friday spelled doom for the series long before any official announcement was ever made, but still...

... goddammit, this was supposed to be a perfect week of sci-fi for me... Stargate SG-1 has one of its best episodes in years. Stargate Atlantis truly finished off its first season with one hell of an epic bang. And hell, even Smallville wasn't bad this week, as strange as that sounds to say...

... and then we got United... a title with a name completely filled with irony, if you consider what happened to the show itself this week...

Now, to be honest, I didn't enjoy United as much as I did Babel One. There wasn't much of a space battle in this middle episode of the arc, and some scenes felt too TOS nostalgic for their own good (the duel with Shran, for example)... But United really did feel united with all its scenes, and all its glory. The feel, flow, and pacing of the episode was completely unrivaled, even compared to most of Enterprise's spectacular fourth season. And I'd by lying if I said that the final scene of the episode with the United Alliance Fleet around Enterprise, didn't give me goosebumps as a follower of the Trek universe since TNG...

... it's just such a fucking shame, that Enterprise is being canceled just when the show is finally hitting its true stride...

... it took TNG three years to become good, it took Deep Space 9 four years to become great... and Voyager?... well...

Because if United is any indication of where the series is headed? Then sign me up for every single friggin' Save Enterprise petition out there on the net... There were just so many interesting things going on in this episode that all somehow made sense, knowing what the final outcome will be centuries into the future... I mean, George Lucas should really pay attention. The building of the alliance, with every single race hating each other yet trusting Captain Archer, has been written so damn well this season... that Enterprise really does feel like a truly epic and worthy prequel series for once...

Now, there were certainly a bunch of WTF moments throughout United, with Mayweather actually getting lines being the biggest of them all... Hell, he was even useful for once. He got a few key moments on the bridge, he invented some sort of sensor network system (although he didn't even get to talk about it), and WTF? He actually kinda asked Hoshi out on a date to look at Andorian dueling pads? And he actually got lines in that scene? WTF?!... And Hoshi did too, not that I'm complaining that the Hottie was on screen more than once... Her skills weren't used very much this episode, but the whole talk about "marriage" with Mayweather somehow created a weird sense of suspense and awkwardness to the scene, that just somehow captured my attention... And was it me, or did Hoshi look damn cute as she was using that Andorian Ice Pick as a black belt weapon or something?... well, maybe it was just me...

T'Pol was in the background most of the time, and pretty much seemed useless as she was worshipping Archer's shadow. But hey, it actually felt natural for once this episode, considering season four really has made Archer into a figure that suddenly looks like a key founder of the Federation of Planets... And Phlox? Well, of course I wish the actor got more screen time. But for the limited scenes he has, John Billingsley always manages to shine, creating a sense of sadness to Talas' death that really, quite honestly, surprised the hell out of me... I never saw her death coming... hell, I was even going to comment last week that her injury was pointless because it led nowhere. I'm just glad I was proven wrong... and that I forgot to open my big mouth last week anyhew...

Now, I don't really mind that Blalock and Phlox have been kinda underused this arc. Not when Malcolm and Trip finally got to take center stage by kicking some ass and taking some names... Now, some of their moments felt forced, providing the only flaw in the overall flow of the episode. Trip's joke about writing up a reprimand in Malcolm's record kind of came out of nowhere, but hey, I laughed anyways. Malcolm probably doesn't even know that the word "gullible" isn't found in the dictionary... The two definitely had some great scenes on the Romulan Camaflouge ship. They never got a real buddy to buddy moment, but it was fun as hell to finally hear Reed admit that Trip's good at building things, and he's good at blowing stuff up... Using the phase pistol as a bomb was a nice touch (but why didn't they try to sabotoge the ship as it was firing at Enterprise again?...), and you gotta love the sheer seasickness of seeing the weird, strafing Romulan ship making circles with the stars outside the window hatch... And of course, Malcolm and Trip truly had a star-studded moment after jumping right out of the Romulan ship. Now that was cool, with the neat visual effects of the Alliance Fleet and Enterprise hovering in the background... I've always loved the friendship between Trip and Malcolm, and I've always adored the chemistry between the two actors...

It's such a fucking shame that after just seven or more episodes, the two may never be seen again... I guess things can get worse afterall...

And Archer? Yes, I guess I can complain that he was overly cocky and arrogant quite a bit. For a second there, I was rolling my eyes at his whole "alliance of planets" speech. When suddenly it hit me... Last season, he did hear the founding members of the Federation of Planets. And suddenly, his speech made a hell of a lot more sense... suddenly, all of his actions made a hell of a lot more sense... Everything he did, he did for the dream of the Federation of Planets this episode, an ideal he didn't even care about a season before. And the change in character was just so damn apparent this episode, that it just somehow made every scene with Bakula into something momentous... Take his scene with Shran in his quarters for example. I loved the way the two were talking, both as friends, and suddenly as mortal enemies as well. Plus, the whittling of the wood was neat... Archer was willing to risk his life for the future of the Federation. And while a season ago, I would've found that to be so damn pompous, somehow Bakula and Combs made it just feel so damn real on screen...

Yes, United did have a few flaws, notably stale Romulan characters, the return of ugly Reman costumes, a Romulan ship that was just too powerful for its own good, and perhaps a rushed ending (with the Tellarite and Andorian handshake)... But there were simply so many damn fine scenes, from Shran's reaction to Talas' death, to his battle with Archer (which was ridiculously funny by the way, steel chain WWE wrestling style), to hell, even a great moment of comic relief, with one half of Shran's antennae cut in half. I mean, even I have to admit, I didn't expect that to happen... The Tellarites weren't nearly as humorous as they were last episode, but even the ambassador got a good line in when it came to insulting humanity as a whole... And damn, did I mention how beautiful the scene of the Alliance fleet of ships looked to me? I haven't gotten goosebumps from an episode since Azati Prime, but I certainly got them in spades this time around... because United was just that damn good...

... well... if Enterprise is going out... at least it's going out the way every series dreams of doing...

... as a great series that truly capped off one of the best damn weeks in the history of science fiction television...

... or at least, it would've been one of the greatest weeks... if only there was some hope left for a fifth season of the show...

"Well, I'm obviously still bitter about the loss of Star Trek Enterprise... and couple that with the soap opera antics behind my goddam Toronto Raptors (not to mention a horrible midterm, test, and huge ass university project that I still have to do this weekend), then I guess I haven't exactly been having the greatest of weeks...

I was hoping that Enterprise would save me to some extent, just like Stargate did with Threads... the thing is, even though it was still a solid episode, The Aenar was probably one of the weakest episodes of the fourth season so far, right down there with Daedulus and Home...

I mean, sure it still had some great character development, though that was more for the shippers than it was for us Trekkers... And I will mostly avidly admit just how wondrous Andoria really was - an imaginative world full of ice, containing a subspecies with one of the coolest (literally) of towns... reminded me of Canada this winter actually, if you stripped away all the practical technology...

But I don't know... was it me, or did this episode just feel disconnected from the rest of the Andorian-Romulan arc for some strange reason? Was it me, or did the episode completely lack the epic nature that the first two episodes in the arc did?... Where were the Tellarites? Where were the Vulcans? Where was the Federation?... And if it wasn't for Shran with a lopsided pair of antennae, you wouldn't know that the Andorians were involved as well... Even with the return of the Romulan holographic ships, The Aenar just felt like an appendum to the Romulan arc, and not really of the arc itself... sort of like comparing The Aenar to the Andorians, actually...

Now, character wise, Enterprise really did feel like season two and three old skool... After three straight weeks of having a ton of lines each, Reed, Hoshi, and especially Mayweather were smacked firmly back down to their usual places with pretty much no lines whatsoever... On the other hand, Phlox got in probably one of his strongest performances since the Augments arc (or Observer Effect, actually). But really, he didn't provide much as a doctor. In the spirit of the second season, the Denubolan really acted as a pimp again, providing a Sex Doctor Sue sort of vibe when it came to Tucker's romance-in-the-workplace woes... And T'Pol? Well, she strangely acted both bitchy and Vulcan at the same time. She sure as hell seemed PMSed when she bickered out "Trip". Yet for most of the rest of the episode? She actually seemed calm (though annoyed) around him, as if she were her Vulcan self from season one all over again... I mean, I know that all women can be bitches (or all women are bitches, actually...). And she was basically ignoring him like any cold ex would... Still, if Jolene Blalock's job this episode was to make us feel horrible for Trip, then she should be commended for pulling through with Lana Lang flying colours. I mean, even my poor heart melted like ice at poor Tucker's face, when he was hoping T'Pol had thought of him near death, instead of just auxiliary power transfers...

Archer was definitely in a lot of scenes with Shran, and he definitely did seem confident as a captain should. But probably his only memorable scene was when he opened up his mind to The Aenar. His awkwardness as his mind was being scanned and commented on got a chuckle or two out of me, but that was basically all the captain did that I remembered... This episode really belonged to Trip Tucker the third instead. And even if there weren't really many space explosions or epic musical scores roaring in the background, I was still definitely entertained by The Aenar, if only because of Trinneer's amazing acting... Yes, my heart sank when he opened up to T'Pol about his near death thoughts, only to get bitchslapped back in the face for a response. And his final conversation with Archer, where he requested a transfer?... The acting was amazing between the two there. You could sense the trust that the two long time friends had, and you couldn't definitely see that Archer knew what was really going on (although he didn't try to pimp T'Pol out like Phlox did earlier). You could really see the pain in Tucker's face, and yet?... you could almost understand why he wanted to leave for the Columbia...

... though my goal remains the same: to conquer thy enemy, and to hear the cries and lamentations of their women...

Now, The Aenar was definitely worlds weaker than the first two episodes in the Romulan arc. But even so, some great scenes with Shran (I didn't care much for his molesting of the Aenar girl, but I did love his arrogant pride as he chose to rip his leg off of an ice pick all by himself), some absolutely beautiful CG sequences of the underground Aenar community, the creativity of some of the Andorian landscapes (the world looked too damn close to my own Canadian driveway for its own good, but at least the boiling worms were kind of cool), and the episode was definitely saved by some truly stellar acting from Trip Tucker the third in the end... While the Romulans were pretty much on the backburner this episode, I still enjoyed the final fight with the two Marauders quite a bit. It was kind of anti-climactic compared to the last episode, but the emotion in that scene still just somehow worked...

The Aenar wasn't a great episode by any means. It definitely wasn't even episode-of-the-week quality. But it was definitely solid in the end, still... an episode that I enjoyed, but didn't particularly like...

Now, if only this episode had aired in the goddam Canadian summer instead of the winter, then maybe I wouldn't be so damn coldly bitter towards the -28 degree temperatures... or the goddam cold bitch women I know, but I digress...

"You know, after reading the promo synopsis for this episode, I was convinced that Affliction would be one of the worst episodes of the season... not that that means much, considering the fourth season of Enterprise is now topping last season as one of my favourite seasons of Star Trek ever (only TNG season 4 and DS9 season 4 even compare)...

... Call it the Borg Regeneration factor or something. Because yes, contrary to popular Trek opinion, I did love that season two episode... Part of the reason why, was because I'm a huge fan of the Borg, no matter how badly Voyager screwed them over. And part of the reason why, was simply because of the stellar pace and musical score for Regeneration at the time... That episode literally kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through, as my body was literally riveting with goosebump tension... making Regeneration one of my favourite Enterprise episodes of all time, next to Broken Bow, Azati Prime, and this year's The Augments...

... and while Affliction still can't compare to the terse factor that Regeneration and Azati Prime did, it definitely was up there with the best of Trek... The music was just astounding this episode, as the thrill of the hunt and chase never did quite let up. Every single scene was interesting, and not a single moment felt out of place or slow... and that's definitely saying a lot, considering just how many plotlines were crammed into one hour of a show...

Mayweather didn't get many lines. But who cares, right?... I mean, we got Hoshi in a leather outfit! While I'll never be a fan of leather clad women (I prefer them to be in tight T-shirts, or just plain naked...), Hoshi the hottie at night was certainly damn hot, no matter what she wears... Now, it's nice that she now falls into the cliche of every Asian knowing kung-fu (and she sucked at it too...). I mean that in a good way, of course... And sure, that San Francisco scene did feel like a nice extension of their chat about racism in Home... But the real reason why I loved Hoshi this episode, was because of the nice twist she provided to the T'Pol and Trip love thingy fable... Heh. First, Hoshi has a lesbian mind meld with T'Pol (which was done quite well actually, with T'Pol being refilmed into the San Francisco scene). And then Hoshi steals a "romantic" dream of Trip from T'Pol's mind? With T'Pol obviously pretending like she doesn't know anything about it?... heh... I'm not normally a shipper, but I just can't help falling in love with the Trip and T'Pol relationship... and I don't know why...

Jolene Blalock has finally regained her touch. She really did seem like a Vulcan this episode, yet her old emotional self as well... She had some of her season one arrogance at the start, as Trip told her his world doesn't revolve around her (ouch...). And yet you could see in her eyes how damn hurt she was, and poor Trip knew it too... Now, out in the real Enterprise world, all T'Pol really did this episode was babysit the god-awful replacement for Trip, Commander Kelby... But in her mind, she was still babysitting Trip and only Trip, in a sexy kind of telepathic sexcraft sort of way... well, maybe "sexy" doesn't quite describe it... I mean, as a geek, I always dream of having a telepathic bond with the girls I have crushes on (though not in bland, white Matrix constructs that are ripped right off of Angel's White Room, but I digress...). And yet when Trip and T'Pol finally get what any geek truly wants, sharing the moment, they instead bitch at each other?! They tell each to leave their fantasy?!...

And how could I not adore Affliction, when the name of the episode obviously gave Phlox his first major episode of the season?... As usual, John Billingsley was the finest of actors, refusing to help the Klingons (yet we know he will... maybe by being infected by the virus himself, so the actor won't have to wear so much make-up in the future?)... Now, the reason why I didn't think I'd like Affliction, was because it would try to resolve the reasons why Klingons had no ridges in the Original Series. We all know it was because of low budgets back then, so why mess with Trek history?...

But Manny Coto really came through yet again. And give Phlox just as much credit for that, since he made it all sound credible... Now, it doesn't make much sense why Klingons ridges would disappear from a mutated virus containing Augment DNA. But I absolutely loved how this episode tied in with the Augments arc at the start of the season, I loved the joke about Brent Spiner's cell being too well guarded (so they got Phlox as their backup), I thought the Targ puppet was extremely well done... And dammit, no wonder this episode felt so fresh! We had Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, "euthanizing" patients with his lovely sitcom disruptor!... and yeah, Phlox's reaction to his live autopsy patient really made the scene incredible as well...

I assume that Phlox will find a way to stabilize the virus, so that all infected Klingons will lose their ridges and Augment strength or something?... the only question is, what's Section 31 got to do with all this?...

... yeah, I admit that I wasn't a huge fan of Deep Space 9. It was only a notch above Voyager as far as I'm concerned (except for the Dominion Wars), and I never cared for Bashir and his connections with Section 31...

But what can I say? I'm the no-name nostalgic, and I just help but get giddy at the fact, that Malcolm Reed may be one of the earliest members of Section 31 in Trek history...

Forget about the ridgeless Klingons sabotaging the ship. Forget about Trip dissing Ent's chef while on Columbia. And forget about how bad of a captain Hernandez seemed this episode (too bad we didn't get to hear her trade stories about having sex with Archer... ambiguously gay Malcolm from season one would've approved)... The real story, the real tension that I loved from Affliction, was the fact that Malcolm had gone traitor... and Captain Archer knew it...

Damn, what's going to happen to Reed now?... We'll never find out when or how he joined Section 31. But what we really care about, is where do his loyalties really lie?... I loved the actor's self-torment this episode. He looked so painfully torn in the brig, claiming he's said "too much", while Archer obviously realized that he didn't say anything at all... Will Reed reveal the truth about Section 31? Is he allowed to, considering the group was still unknown until the time of DS9?... Malcolm was literally begging Archer to let him help the ship near the end. And I just loved Airlock Archer this episode, looking so damn pissed off at the traitorous son of a bitch, that he probably would've thrown him out of the airlock if he had the time or chance... All the earlier scenes were done to near perfection. Archer was just so trusting of Reed, like a father, while we obviously saw the Klingon weapon signatures recognized on the security console...

So what happens now? We may all know the Enterprise will survive, and we all must know that Trip will return to Enterprise eventually, but...

... what about Reed? How will Hoshi fit into the Trip and T'Pol love triangle? And will Archer just look at his list of remaining friends, and realize that he's sadly really only got Mayweather left on the list?... Wow, sucks to be him then...

This is exactly the kind of non-stop tension that I loved from episodes like Regeneration, Azati Prime, and The Augments... and this is exactly the kind of tension, that I loved from Affliction... Sure, I can be disappointed by the lack of ship battles, or the wussiness of the MACOs, or how dumb the ridgeless Klingons looked, or how one dimensional the ever inept Commander Kelby was... I mean, he wasn't even a hick! How can Trip ever be properly replaced without a hick?...

... but I don't know... even though I came into this episode expecting the worst?...

"Well, at least I'm still getting SG-1 next season... Meanwhile, Star Trek Enterprise keeps producing kickass episodes in its fourth and unfortunately final season of the show. And it just ain't fair, really...

Affliction last week was absolutely one of the most thrilling episodes of Trek that I've seen in years... While Divergence this week couldn't quite keep up the momentum, it was still a rather bloody good episode, with one hell of a first twenty minutes at least...

The transfer of Trip at Warp Speed was something that felt ripped right out of Speed, yet something felt damn exciting and innovative as well. The sight of seeing the poor engineer, crawling on a wire as the stars fly by behind him, has to be one of the weirdest ideas to ever be conceived in a sci-fi mind. Yet it just plain worked in Divergence, as the suspense in that scene was killing me... And Trip's solution to the engine problem wasn't so bad either... I'm surprised that the Klingon algorithm didn't write itself to disk first or something. But completely rebooting the system at high warp wasn't just pretty damn cool looking - it probably would've worked against a real malicious algorithm as well. And seeing the Enterprise and Columbia kick ass together, both in the high warp scene (how did Columbia ever catch up to Ent though?) and the final fight scene (despite the lack of torpedoes...), was definitely enough to make Divergence into the best episode of the week...

The problem was, while the first half of Divergence was a great continuation of the tenseness from Affliction, the episode just couldn't keep the momentum in the second half... A lot of the dangling threads just started falling through... Section 31 was especially anti-climatic. I don't know whether they'll ever be touched on again, but their big plan for the Klingons just turned out to be so damn lame in the end... So all they really wanted to do, was delay Enterprise from finding Phlox? That's it?... And they couldn't even do that right? And then Sloan Jr. got his ass kicked and name taken by some generic Klingon Krell the Warrior King? WTF?... I don't know. I prefer Section 31 to seem more omnipotent and mysterious than that. And it certainly didn't help that Archer found out all about them, although I'm sure the Section will cover that up...

Mayweather had barely any lines, again. He got to fly the ship at high warp, but that doesn't really help the actor out much as he's sitting there, now does it?... Hoshi had absolutely nothing to do either. She got to break through the Klingon signal jammers or whatever. But I doubt Hoshi the Hottie was content with that, considering she just sat at her post the whole episode through... And both Trip and T'Pol were surprisingly underutilized as well. Their "bond" was touched upon in quite a fashionable way, with the two of them sniping at each other like a couple of bitter ex-es who still love each other. And Trip did have that daring warp speed tight-rope walk and all, but... I don't know. For the most part, the two just sat around engineering, with Commander Kelby being completely out of sight (as he should be, considering how pathetically red shirt the guy looked like last week)...

Now, Reed certainly had his moments. He still looked conflicted as Archer was demanding his help from the brig... But I don't know. He just felt off compared to his stellar performance in Affliction, especially considering that smug and cocky look on his face when he was being taken away by the MACOs... Malcolm still had divided loyalties this episode, but he certainly didn't seem to show them very well when he saw Harris again on his LCD monitor. I hated the final scene, where Malcolm pretty much left Section 31 for Archer (although I'm sure if Section 31 ever returns, Malcolm will be back to his old wily ways). And I just didn't like his talks with Archer this episode, as there was no heated debate or passion over his betrayal like there was last episode... Still, it was still one of Dominic Keating's best performances of the season, and I'm just glad that his British acting skills are finally getting a true chance to shine...

Phlox of course got to shine himself, with a nice shiner on his eye to boot... I admit that I preferred his performance last episode, as he was far more confrontation with the Klingons, especially about the whole Augments thing (while in Divergence, he just played along and pretended to be on their side). Still, I liked some of the comic relief he provided as always, telling T'Pol that Archer was indisposed at the moment (while he was actually getting an erection on his forehead in that scene, or so it sounded...). And I actually liked his interactions with the Klingons this time around... Uncle Phil the General was a lot more kind for some odd reason, and I loved the whole bloodwine thing. The healer Klingon, whatever his name was, proved that honourable Klingons can exist outside of the warrior caste. And while both of them got along with Phlox a little too well, I still liked the whole idea of using themselves as test subjects. I actually expected one of them to die, and was actually relieved when they both survived...

Now, Archer was a bit of a pain in the ass in Divergence... The chair scene sounded like something out of a amateur porno shoot. Which I wouldn't have minded, if Hoshi and Captain Hernandez was right there with him... For the most part though, Archer was useless without the other captain flirting with him from her bridge... He didn't really have a friendly reunion with Trip, he barely registered T'Pol as a bleep, he didn't seem relieved to find Phlox, and he just had no fire in his speecifying when it came to lecturing Reed about loyalty... And on Columbia, Hernandez was a pretty lame ass captain. She couldn't even say "fire at will" quickly enough to have any real punctuation or force to her statement... But hey, at least we got a kickass battle sequence with the two ships fighting together. At least we got a kickass scene of the two ships skimming each other's backsides, like a kickass reflection in high warp water. And at least we can really see a real rapport building between not just the two captains, but the two ships and crews as well...

I may be disappointed that Divergence just wasn't nearly as good as Affliction was. Then again, pretty much all Star Trek two parters have a chair-gasmic climax that just doesn't match in quality the first act of the arc... But as a whole, I still loved Divergence. It solved the mystery of the Klingon foreheads in a way that only made my eyes roll once. It brought to light both reasonable and generically evil Klingons at the same time. It had a pretty funny scene, with Krell the Warrior Captain holding a canister of the disease in his hands (but how the hell did they beam that through the shields?)... And as a huge Trip fan, how could I not enjoy his faithful homecoming, where he truly kicked ass and took engineering names?...

Divergence provided me with something that Moebius (Part 2) simply did not this week...

... and, well... I just hope the rest of this final season of Enterprise still holds steady at high warp speeds...

Because if the ship really must go down? Then I really, really, ridiculously do hope, that it definitely goes out with a definitive bang..."

Enterprise returned from its long slumber as a lumbering giant. For better or worse, actually... Bound was not a bad episode by any means. But there's absolutely no doubt in my mind, that a ton of scenes did feel like a waste of time in the end...

Because let's face - I may love a good ol' seduction episode or two. Hell, I even loved Raijin from last season, thanks to all the lesbian sexcraft... And hell, Harbringer was on my plus list too, if only because of the sweet, sweet tits and ass dialogue between the ever horny T'Pol and Tucker back in that episode...

But Bound suffers from the same problem that most 'seduction' episodes do... THE WOMEN WERE ALL FUCKING UGLY!...

Yeah, it's somewhat believable that the men on the ship could become slaves to the Orions (sci-fi wise, at least), simply from all the alien pheromones. But geez, was it me, or did the two sisters in the back look like they were rejects from a bad motel porn video? And the sister up front?... well, she had nice legs, but where was the face? Give me a Stargate Atlantis hottie anyday of the week... at least then I'd be caught staring at the screen without any thoughts in my head whatsoever... sharing the screen time with the actors then, I see...

The Orion women weren't bad as actresses, but so many of their scenes just dragged on... The Kelby ones were mostly aggravating. It was obvious that he would be seduced, and it was obvious that the Orions had an evil scheme for him, as all super seductive women do on sci-fi. I mean, it was decent that the one week Chief Engineer had a bit of a rivalry going on with everyone's favourite Tucker. But did he really have to keep yelling out and reiterating the same basic lines of script over and over again throughout the entire episode?... And I don't know, but I just felt no passion or real seduction coming from the Orion women. They looked like they were mind controlling Reed rather than turning him on most of the time... The sex scene between Archer and the lead Orion sister was just flat out boring...

And where the fuck was my lesbian sexcraft? Hoshi was giggling like a schoolgirl after being sexed up last season, so where the fuck was my hot Hoshi action this year?...

... uggh... can't a man just get some sort of release after fucking up three straight exams instead of three hot girls?... fuck...

But really, overall Bound was definitely on the plus column of things... I mean, I've always been one of the few out there to get Star Trek's sense of whacked out humour. Hell, I even chuckled at A Night in Sickbay, which is counted as one of the worst Enterprise episodes ever made... So take it with a grain of salt when I say that I found Bound to be genuinely funny. I mean, just watching Malcolm gaze at the dancing Orions all night long with not a single thought anywhere above his abdomen, was probably one of his most memorable scenes all year... And yes, seeing those Orion women continually do some sort of wacky, alien synchronized dance did get to me. The sheer ridiculousness of it all definitely made me laugh...

... afterall, after an academic week like this one?... I sure as hell could go for some brainless comedy...

I was disappointed in Hoshi absolutely doing nothing to stop the evil Orion women. She made a small bitchy chirp on the bridge, but that was about it... But I was very impressed (sadly so) that Mayweather finally got his first memorable scene in months. I'm sure the female fans were giving thumbs up to his biceps, but meanwhile us men were actually relating to working out (or just doing something) to get women out of our heads. There was good, witty banter in that scene between him and Reed,, as strangely all gym scenes on Enterprise seem to turn out alright... Reed himself got a lot of action in Bound, both figuratively and literally. He sure got seduced by the dancing bitches quite easily, and I was more than amused from it... I found it completely dumbass of him to keep male MACOs guarding the Orions, but hey, whatever... And I don't know, but just the little things in this episode that he did (like his little whimper of 'no' to destroying that noname, weakass attacking spacecraft) made the episode seem to have a lot more of a natural flow to it than it would've otherwise...

Phlox was quite a trooper, seemingly saving the day with his medical treatments while hibernating for God knows what reason. Still, he didn't have many humourous lines or anything, but Billingsley always puts on a good show nonetheless... And Archer? Well, he was his usual self, doing his best Kirk impression by going after the Orion girls and all. On the one hand, he had a ton of bad scenes of being seduced and manipulated and all that crap that would've worked if only the Orions were actually hot... But on the other hand, Bakula did a good job of acting like a man who tried his best not to be seduced, but just couldn't resist. That is the kind of thing that male dreams are made of (or at least, mine... usually on the woman side though, but I digress...). And the nice contrast between him threatening the lead sister out of an airlock, then motioning to open the Cage for them (pun intended, for long time Trekkers...), definitely showed that the actor knew what he was doing...

But the real reason that I liked Bound, was the same reason why I loved Harbinger a year ago... because I don't know why... but I just can't seem to resist being seduced by the damn Trip and T'Pol relationship storyline...

I mean, seriously! Where's my masculinity? What the fuck is wrong with me?... I tried to roll my eyes when T'Pol just mentioned the daydream just out of nowhere, and yet I still felt so bad for her when Trip rolled his own eyes and brushed her off... I tried to cringe at the awful dialogue, when Trip was muttering to himself about pros and cons, after T'Pol tells him about the mental bond that now exists between the both of them. And yet still, no matter how hard I tried not to, I still chuckled at the poor look on Tucker's smitten face... And WTF? The ending of Bound was actually great to me? WTF?... Maybe it was just the surprise twist of the Orion females being in charge (which seemingly contradicts everything we've seen since The Original Series... unless the whole slave trade is one big rouse...), but dammit! My goddam heart was seriously melting as Tucker conned T'Pol into admitting her real feelings for him!... And that kiss? God, maybe I'm just extra horny from Spring or something, but I still goddam found that kiss between the two of them to be perfect. There's just so much chemistry between the two actors, that Tucker's little admission of the Enterprise transfer near the end really did make Bound feel like such a better episode than it really was...

Hell, the entire second half of the episode was pretty damn great. We got a decent battle with the Orions, and a huge twist (for long time Trekkies) when it came to the Syndicate... We had Trip and T'Pol working together once again, half of the time acting like jealous high school ex's, and the other half of the time acting like they were already married for years... And we even got a classic TOS moment in sickbay, with Archer, Tucker, and T'Pol somehow reminding me of all those times that Spock or Data tried to lamely make a joke...

Bound was a nice, light-hearted episode... once it got past all the goddam awful seduction parts with the fugly Orion whores...

And that's exactly what I needed. A little bit of fluff, and a little bit of hope...

"This has just got to be one of the worst goddam days in the history of my entire damn life...

... or one of the best really... maybe... the details of which I'll leave to my download site...

But I will say this at least. On the bright side of things, at least there was Enterprise...

Now, I must admit that I was definitely thrown off by In a Mirror, Darkly at first. I mean, a Mirror Universe episode? Except for the one where they built the Defiant in the DS9 Mirror Universe, I've never liked a MU episode before... so I guess it's ironic that I ended up loving the next Mirror Universe episode that had the name "Defiant" in it...

I just loved how much energy Coto and Sussman put into this episode... The opening flashback with the First Contact music was just brilliant. And Cochrane pulling out the shotgun has just got to be one of the funniest, most badass moments that Trek has ever done (First Contact 2: Hunting Season - "Applesauce, bitch!")... Coto even changed the starting credits, and mostly for the better. While I didn't like the reusing of footage from past "good guy" Enterprise episodes, I gotta admit that the sight of that familiar-looking ship blasting away at some lunar colony, has just got to be one of the coolest and most convincing shots the show has ever done...

Every character got a role to play in In a Mirror, Darkly (although some definitely more than others)... Mayweather certainly didn't get many lines. But he definitely stood out with his crew cut and his love of the term "aye, sir". I guess some things never change then... Major Reed was a blast. You could see hints of the real Reed everytime the Major would smile at the pain and misfortune of others, even perhaps smirking at the sight of the Enterprise getting blown up. Too bad we never got to see him in the torture chamber. He probably would've loved it... And Phlox? That's the thing about the good Mirror Universe episodes - some characters just end up acting exactly the same way they always do in our real universe, yet seem just so evil at the same exact time... Dr. Phlox definitely did enjoy his work a bit too much, torturing Archer for 10 hours and having no qualms about dissecting a Tholian in the Decon Chamber. And yet, except for the lack of conscience, Phlox pretty much acted exactly as he would in our universe. He was just as curious about the anatomies of things, and just as frank about everything on his mind...

Hoshi finally got to play the real hottie of the show. Now, she didn't look so great in the lingerie at the start. But damn, that bra of hers with sexual sweat glistening off her arms, was perhaps the hottest thing I've ever seen in Trek... Hell, she was even quite adorable in her bare midriff uniform. There was just something about her and her hair afterall, that just screamed to me "hottest FOB on the face of the planet"... Once again, she barely got to play the comm officer, only translating a bit of gibberish from the captured Tholian and all. But with that hair and those cheeks and that god-awesome waist of hers, Hoshi the hottie was absolutely the best queen bitch at manipulating both Captain Forrest and Commander Archer. Sure, she had no chemistry with Forrest, but Forrest certainly did seem to care for her... Archer on the other hand didn't seem to give a damn about anything but Hoshi's body. But damn, considering how fine she looked this episode?... I can't blame him...

Even in the mirror universe, T'Pol and Tucker bicker like an old married couple. Although in this universe, they threaten each other's lives after T'Pol mind-controls her boyfriend into spending four hours in the torture chamber. So yeah, pretty much an old couple then... Trip sure seemed different this episode, with the warped face and the crew cut and all. His voice was so different than normal as well, sounding more like a hardened Colonel than the old sweet engineer we've always known. Nice job... And he certainly had his way with women. T'Pol simply rolled his eyes at the Pon Farr statement, but you could tell - she still liked him in this universe. She just was more of a conniving bitch than she normally is, that's all... She played Archer like a fool and a fiddle quite well. She built up her appearance of loyalty by graciously accepting the first officer position. And then she truly did kick ass when she and two Vulcans stormed the Bastille like... well?... three really pissed off, Vulcan slaves I guess... And damn, was her wig (was it a wig?) this episode much nicer than her normal hair ever was. And a lot better than Ishta's ever looked on Stargate SG-1, even if both were rather similar in the end...

But besides Hoshi the Hottie, and maybe some T'Pol hair action along the way, the thing I enjoyed most from In a Mirror, Darkly, was definitely the dynamic between Captain Forrest and Commander Archer... The mirror universe Original Series episode was great for its time, simply because of all the backstabbing and power struggles going on with the Nazi like crew. While I doubt that shotgun Cochrane alone could've all made that happen in a century, Forrest and Archer this episode truly made humanity at its worst seem believable... I kinda found it ironic though. That our Archer would put people in an airlock, yet his evil counterpart refused to do the same on two occasions in this episode... Nevertheless, Archer truly was badass in the end. Giving himself up on the bridge unarmed after setting the encrypted autopilot, really showed what his character was all about. Not about power, but about personal glory and glory for his people... Which was exactly why his character was so believable, despite the unbelievability of his 'intelligence' of the captured USS Defiant. The Jonathan Archer of this universe, was just a mirror of the Jonathan Archer that we've always known (and knew a lot better after season 3). Long live the Empire. With an added crew cut and all...

But it wasn't just the acting that made In a Mirror, Darkly into such a memorable experience. It was really an nostalgic, orgasmic experience for any long time Trekkie, like Coto has been catering to all season long... The return of the Defiant rolled my eyes at first, after remembering how it got sucked into some sort of stupid vortex or something in the Original Series (and ended up in the MU, apparently). And sure, I can't stand all the blips and bleeps of the 60s-style bridge that Archer and his crew found themselves on. How the hell they wouldn't think that spandex or whatever uniforms were primitive, I'll never know... But damn, even if I couldn't stand the Original Series, I still have to admit that my eyes sort of teared up in nostalgic joy at the sight of those Constitution-class nacelles revving up with those rotating red lights. I'd be lying if I didn't say that the Tholian Web, no matter how bad its CG looked, was just a great reminder of what kind of brilliant ideas Roddenberry had back in his day... And hey, we even got a kickass battle out of it. With the cooler leak and all the sparks, it almost reminded me Yesterday's Enterprise. Or at least, the death of the actual Defiant in Deep Space 9...

... and Forrest got blown up... again... Some things definitely never do change...

Today was definitely one of the worst days to ever disgrace my entire goddam life in a very long time... I could've literally fucked up my last four months of school, at a cost of not only $7000, but the only pathetic remnants of my pride as well...

The episode may not have been perfect, with a lack of comedic lines or even decent CG effects for the bug-legged Tholian, but...

"Remember last week, how I said that the mirror universe Archer was an honourable man, who only wanted to strengthen the Empire?...

In typical Star Trek fashion, the follow-up to last week's outstanding In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 1) was just not as good as the original... The first half of In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 2) was hampered by Manny Coto's piss poor obsession with the Gorn from the Original Series. And unfortunately for this episode, not only did the Gorn look awful in CG, but there was just no suspense whatever throughout the whole reptilian chase... The death by teeth from above was more 1960's cheesy than it was an old skool homage. And while I thoroughly enjoyed the facts that a) there were Red Shirts dead all along the Defiant hallways, and b) Malcolm Reed was the first crewman to fall, brightly wearing that red shirt of his and all, the thing is?... Partially because of the Gorn CG, the fight scenes in the Defiant 'Jeffrey Tubes' or whatever were just so damn lame and boring, that I even rolled my eyes at how obvious of a trap the abandoned communicator was... and I normally like popcorn fluff like that...

I guess poor Reed really bit into that role of a true red shirt then, eh?... What are the odds?...

There were a few things that the first half of the episode did get right though... The interrogation of T'Pol was tense, even though we knew she would survive. And I loved Archer's reaction to his school boy type of look, on that ancient looking monitor on the Defiant... The poor bastard not only couldn't take the fact that he was a wholesome goody two shoes on the other side of the mirror universe, but that the other Archer actually achieved fame and power, while Mirror Universe Archer was still stuck as a crappy, noname first officer. What are the odds?...

And Hoshi? Hot damn, this was her episode. Sure, I was disappointed that there really weren't any sex scenes with the ever hot and horny Hoshi in the first half of the episode (although in the second half, the darkness silhouette scene definitely gave some of my parts a rise for their money...). But her reactions to her alternate self were absolutely priceless... And was it me, or was this the second time that a ship from the future has mentioned Hoshi getting married? And yet she and Archer always seme to remain alone? Guess the shippers wouldn't be happy about that one...

But enough about the first half of the episode... Because what really counts as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that as soon as the Gorn was out of the way, this episode kicked all sorts of goddam ass...

Poor Tucker didn't get much to do, and I was going to complain that Mayweather was just as silent and useless in the mirror universe as he is in the real one, but... Damn, I didn't see that ending coming! I mean, I'm not normally a fan of surprise twist endings. But hot damn, would I ever bow, get on my knees, and eat out that ever hot and horny, Empress Hoshi Sato! This was Linda Park's episode, and it was just amazing how much she nailed her role. With 'nailed' being the key word here... Her sex scenes with Archer were scintillating. These two actors have had so much chemistry since they first met in Brazil in the Enterprise series premiere, and it's such a shame that the two never really developed anything on the show... I loved her little bitch fight with T'Pol. That savoury, seductive glint in her eyes of joy, when T'Pol decided to fight back, was just so alluring that it made me wish I was on the other end of a Hoshi Sato ass kicking. Too bad she got her ass kicked, just like every other time she fights on the show... And fucking golly gee whiz, I honestly swear that I did not see that ending coming! Hey, if I had to croak after having hot and steamy sex with Hoshi, I'd go out a happy man. As did Archer, I'm sure...

Only in the mirror universe, would the two most completely underutilized characters on the show, actually end up running the entire known galaxy... What are the odds?...

Mayweather didn't have many lines, but he definitely had the role of a stone cold mercenary down pat with his looks. And it was shocking that he didn't die or anything. You'd expect the black man wearing a red shirt to be the first to go, but no... Neither Reed nor Tucker got the screen or face time to ever make an impact like they did last episode. But Phlox was awarded the television time instead, and proved that deep down inside, he's still ever the lovable little Denubolan we've known for so long on the show... He confirmed for us what I've always known, but not every Trekkie believed - that the Mirror Universe started long before First Contact. I even laughed at his comment, that Shakespeare was just as grim and gory in both universes... Then the poor sap grew a heart or two, if only for the love of women (Soval looked pretty horny too... for a Vulcan...). You'd think somebody like him would put up a better fight against Phantom of the Opera Tucker. But hey, I guess Hoshi was counting on a little lovefest between her boys to throw Archer off guard or whatnot...

T'Pol didn't have nearly the impact that she did last episode, mainly because I much preferred her in her bare mid-riff Enterprise uniform than the god-awful 60's throwback from the Defiant... Still, I already mentioned the tension when Archer was threatening to throw her out of the airlock at the start. And Jolene Blalock definitely gave this episode some purpose, by being the one to plant the seeds of the United Federation of Planets in the mirror universe... She even makes quite a foreshadowing comment, that while it may take centuries, humanity will get what's coming to them. And while I did kinda hate the mirror universe episodes in Deep Space 9 (except for the one with the rebels building the Defiant), somehow T'Pol's foreshadowing made the Intendant Kira's reign seem a whole lot more... well?...

... dammit, couldn't they just get mirror universe Kira and Hoshi in the same damn room room, please? Manny Coto, make it happen!...

What Manny definitely did provide this episode, was a sequence of events that actually made the antiquated Defiant feel powerful and actually 23rd century feeling at times... While some props were just too old looking to stand the test of time (the huge monitor and the flashing console buttons, for example), there were just so many little things that definitely felt more nostalgic than they felt old... The sounds of the phasers and old school photon torpedoes were just music to the ears. And seeing a Constitution class starship kick the ass of an NX one, was definitely something that old school TOS fans have been waiting years for...

I was never a fan of the awful spandex-like uniforms of the Original Series. But they didn't look half bad on the crew this episode, if only because of the universal love for fallen red shirts... And even though he wasn't wearing red, poor Soval didn't know what hit him. Even if he didn't do much this episode, just all the little touches with his NX crew, right down to his own Mirror Universe goatee, really brought back the fondest memories of even Spock having the same kind of nonsensical nastiness on his chin... And hell, I think I even shed a tear at the return of Majel Roddenberry's voice as the Defiant's computer. It's little touches like that, that made In a Mirror, Darkly (Parts 1 and 2) into one of the absolute brightest shinest moments in the history of Trek...

Hell, even Archer did a damn fine role, as the good natured school boy turned emperor evil, by his vile jealousy of the real good natured school boy in the other universe... Scott Bakula just had amazing sexual chemistry with Hoshi (although obviously, I was staring at her the whole time, not him... yeah...). And his passion and bigotry against all alien species, was just such a fun throwback to the character's Vulcan-hating days back in season one... It was kinda odd how Hoshi was able to manipulate him into keeping Phlox on board. But then you remember, that our Archer never had a problem with Phlox in season one like he did with Vulcans... I mean, if you think about it, except for the whole "I'm going to conquer the universe" thing, Mirror Universe Archer really was almost exactly the same as our own. He had a disdain for admirals by the name of Garner, he was obsessed by the matter disruptor settings on weapons (as we got hints of last season), and we all know our good natured school boy has a thing for hot and horny Hoshi of both sides of the parallel universe rift...

... hell... I may have thought it was all so corny at first, but you know what really capped off such a fun and thrilling ride into the mirror universe of Trek?...

... the fact that our own Archer had crossed over, ironically as the little devil on his shoulder, whispering in his ear...

"I've sure as hell had my fair share of demons to sort out these past few weeks...

My close friend (and probably my only close friend) has been hounding me lately, for giving so many goddam, overly positive reviews to my precious Enterprise all the time, and then giving the shit stick on a rope to all the shows that he actually does like... Hell, he even loved Smallville's Ageless somehow. Now, WTF? Please explain to me how that's even possible?...

So to pay back my friend, tonight I had planned to make up a whole bunch of fake, shitty reasons why tonight's episode of Enterprise would absolutely suck... That the pacing would be all wrong. That none of the characters would have any memorable lines. That the special effects were subpar. That the plotline was virtually non-existent. That the actors all seemed confounded and dumbfounded in their roles. And oh yes, that the show sadly comes close to matching the atrocious awfulness that can only be known as Ageless...

... the problem is... when it comes to Demons?... sadly enough, all the above does ring true...

Well, truth be told, maybe some of the reasons why I seemed to have so many personal demons against Demons, was the fact that it starred at least two characters that I still remember all too well from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer... I don't even remember what his name was in tonight's episode. All I do know, is that Mayor Wilkens playing the Federation Minister in Demons, was just so damn boring and so damn grating, that I really wish the monotonous freak would just crack an infectious smile or two like he did before, or morph into a giant snake... And then there was the baby's caretaker. You know, that guy with the funny brow... Most wouldn't recognize him, but I still do from Angel's fourth season. He was the conspiracy theorist turned Firefly arsonist, in a lovely episode where Winifred looked adorable above all else... But my precious Amy Acker wasn't in Enterprise. And as a result, I just couldn't help but shake my head at how damn, demonically strange this whole episode felt, Buffy reject characters and all...

I guess it's official then: every episode with Mayweather at the helm has just got to be bad... I mean, I enjoyed season one's Horizon or whatever for what it was worth at the time. But damn, the actor just can't act, now can he?... Once a year, the writers throw the poor bastard a bone in the storylines. And having been mostly ignored during even the Mirror Universe episodes this season, here they decidedly threw him a boner... one that was far too large for his own good, I'm afraid...

Now, I'll admit that Gannett or however you spell her name, sure as hell looked hot with that hair and headset and all... But maybe it's just my glasses complex or something, but as soon as she took that headset off and let down her hair? God, she looked ugly... and having Travis of all people on her arm just didn't sit right with me somehow... Since when did the guy who zero lines per episode average, suddenly get a hot looking bitch like that?... sigh...

She did have chemistry with Mayweather a bit however, although I immediately groaned as soon as she pointed out the Shuttlepod (and the sexually phallic obviousness of it all, of course)... She also brought in far too much predictability to this episode. I mean, it was obvious from the way she kept skimming past questions, that she was inherently a spy or some stupid shit like that. Mayweather was too dumb to notice, so I as part of the audience just couldn't help but keep rolling my eyes the whole way through, as Travis just kept on sitting blind to the truth for 50 odd minutes or so...

... but sigh... I miss evil Hoshi though... I don't care if she'd kill me like a Black Widow. I'd fuck her anyday of the week still...

Of course, after getting the true spotlight for two episode straight, Hoshi was demoted back to being the little Ms. nobody in the corner, playing with blocks. Or universal translators, in this case... Phlox didn't have much to do either. I mean honestly, sure he's had his moments throughout the season, but why the hell didn't he ever get an episode of his own? Why wasn't he ever thrown a bone? Instead, Mayweather just to stink up the joint in Demons, when Phlox really could've been used for his medical expertise... And Malcolm Reed? He did get to return back to his Section 31 roots. There just wasn't any tension in the scene though, as Sloan Jr. or whatever his name was, just didn't seem tough or pissed off enough to make the scene work out... I did like all the skyline landscapes in the background though. But what good are skylines, when the characters have no good lines?...

Hell, even Trip and T'Pol were embarrassingly bad this episode... I mean seriously, who the hell would infiltrate an alien hating community, as a Vulcan with blindingly obvious ears? Hell, who the hell infiltrates a terrorist camp, being two of the most famous people in the whole frickin' planet?... There was no romance between T&T tonight. Or at least, none that I could register... I admit that some of the friction caused between them about the baby and possible abortions did have a certain modern charm to it. But the baby idea was just so damn stupid in the end, that if the child was really just made from synthetic, cloning means? Then quite possibly, Trek would have found its dumbest ever plotline since Threshold... and that's saying a hell of a lot...

Scott Bakula did a fine job with what he was given in Demons. Too bad he wasn't given much to work with... Whenever he was talking to Minister Mayor Wilkens, Archer either sounded too bored (such as when he was telling the ol' snake about his alleged past with Terra Prime) or simply far too obnoxiously loud (drilling him in the Enterprise briefing room, for example). It's like the captain couldn't control the pitch of his own voice throughout all his speeches, which brings me to quite possibly the worst part of Demons as an episode...

My friend actually thought Paxson or Paxton or whatever his name was, was an actually decent villain... and to that, I simply say...

All Paxton did was whine and gripe and complain, about mice and men... All he did, was sermonize and preach about shit, with god-awful script lines that would make Colin Farrell in Alexander or even Lana Lang on Smallville cringe in embarrassment... And his whole plan, to take his little mining colony to Mars and take over some comet smashing, giant frickin' laser beam? Not only was the 'Death Star' cannon a complete Austin Powers rip-off homage, but it was the dumbest damn plan in hell!... Where were the Mars defenses to block the damn mining base from coming? Why the hell can't Archer just destroy the damn weapons array with one little photon torpedo? Why can't the weapon just self-destruct or be remotely deactivated? Why the hell are we supposed to be afraid of some xenophobic lunatic that really has no advantage over the situation whatsoever?...

Demons was supposed to be relevant to today's interests, with the whole xenophobia topic hot after 9/11...

... more like irreverent though... and I don't even know that meaning of that word, so...

Because I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I just can't stand when Trek episodes make it so damn obvious as to what they're preaching...

I enjoyed Dear Doctor, even if I disagree with the morals at the end... I enjoyed Similtude last year, if only because of Trinneer's amazing performance that episode...

But Demons? Oh dear God, if it wasn't for Home and Daedulus, I'd declare it absolutely worst episode of the Enterprise year, by far...

And considering Demons is said to be the 'real' finale for Star Trek Enterprise (and Trek as a whole), then I suppose this episode will haunt me for a very, very long time...

I mean, really... at least they could've thrown in some naked Hoshi, to appease fans like me on V-E...

... either that, or just spontaneously decide to suicide myself like a certain other engineer did, but I digress...

Nothing will ever replace Star Trek in my eyes. Nothing. I don't care what the critics say.

Star Trek Enterprise was the best damn Trek, and perhaps the best damn sci-fi entertainment, that I've ever had the privilege to enjoy since at least Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Terra Prime will forever go down as the "true" finale to Star Trek Enterprise, or so the fans will surely make sure of...

I admit that I loathed Demons for everything it was. Even after watching it over a second time, last week's episode was still purely at fault for entirely being a set-up for this week's episode. There was absolutely nothing in Demons worth redeeming the episode for...

... but thank God they saved all that is good and holy in the universe for the sequel...

I loved Terra Prime. It had a great plot, a great pace, a great musical score, and most importantly, great characters and acting.

Paxton as the Robocop-like villain just never grew on me, but I admit that he was definitely fleshed out a lot more than he was in Demons... So, he got the Hitler treatment, eh? With the Rigellian genetic treatment, he became the ever hypocritical cliche... He also became a vile murderer. He essentially brought the Vulcan-Human baby (Elizabeth) to life, knowing that the child was destined to die. And for that alone, he was a true villain... Of course, all his sanctimonious talks of Trip being the one to choose between destroying Star Fleet headquarters or half of San Francisco, sort of made him an asshole as well... I never really cared for Paxton's wooden, robot like acting. But completely unlike Demons, Terra Prime truly established his motives as ones that we can really relate to here in the real world... Given more time, he would've become a Hitler, thanks to his desire to conquer the stars in humanity's name. You could actually see that in his wooden acting... almost like an older Anakin Skywalker from Episode II, actually... with sadly better acting of course...

And you gotta love that World War 3 conspiracy theory, from the ironically racist black man in Terra Prime... brings back the Jane fondest memories of all those anti-American and anti-Catholic conspiracy theories I've thankfully avoided since the end of high school, thank you very much...

Now, Terra Prime did explain to annoyed viewers like me, as to just why Enterprise can't or shouldn't destroy the weapons array on Mars. Afterall, you wouldn't want comets to accidentally hit the planet anytime soon, now would you (although can't ships divert comets until a new array is made...)?... But it still irks me to no end, that the damn idiots on Mars didn't even have security protocols to prevent their precious weapon from being taken over in a heartbeat...

Thank God that Terra Prime made me forget all about that shit, thanks to some rather damn clever action sequences... Mayweather finally got to show off his piloting skills, and he even got to bring back memories of his first season encounter with the huge ass comet. And the new comet chase in Terra Prime was exceptionally well done, if only because of Reed and his beloved barf bag... And hell, Manny Coto and Stevens even threw us modern space trek lovers a bone here. The memorial to the Mars Rover was just perfect for the end of Trek... and who amongst us didn't love the Total Recall look of the Mars landscapes? The CG backgrounds were absolutely breath-taking (pun intended)... my only complaint was that poor Paxton's eyes didn't bulge out, Arnold style, once the crack in the windshield opened up. Goddam Martian terraformers with their half assed, air pressure normalizers...

Every character on the show had truly something meaningful to do in Terra Prime... Hoshi had absolutely the least, but even she got to show some balls when she stood up to the orders of the Buffy Mayor Minister. In the first season, she was terrified of a warp reactor. And yet now, she wouldn't even budge when a giant snake was about to eat her? Nice job, Hoshi the Hottie... And Mayweather? Sure, he still has absolutely zero acting skills as an actor. But damn, can the guy pull a nice Galaxy Quest 'pedal-to-the-metal' impression when it comes to piloting CG shuttlecrafts... His romance with Gannett wasn't forced in Terra Prime, allowing me to actually enjoy her beauty with her damn fine hair for once. She became a useless prop though, with her only memorable line being about working for Star Fleet intelligence rather than the radicals. But hey, at least I actually found Mayweather's chivalry, of giving her a free ride home, as something remotely cute between the two of them... No acting is needed when you have an actress that damn hot.

Phlox was criminally underutilized as always, but damn does John Billingsley do an amazing job with whatever script lines he's given... Under any other actor, his speech about Enterprise becoming his new family would've simply been hokey and cheesy as hell. But given the moment, with Trip and T'Pol tearing up in the background, somehow the scene just plain worked brilliantly... Malcolm Reed was also underutilized for the most part. But finally, Section 31 seemed like it had a purpose, with Arvin Sloan Jr. trading barbs with everyone's favourite Brit. Once again, Malcolm was at his best when showing his shady side of San Francisco... and if only Enterprise hadn't been canceled, I would be looking so damn forward to future incursions from Section 31... or at least Area 51, either one...

Archer brought back horrid memories of Gazelles, with his absolutely atrocious speech to the alliance delegation at the end. And Soval clapping like a moron on weed certainly didn't help things out either... But for the most part, I thought Scott Bakula did a great job in Terra Prime. He kicked Paxton's ass and took his name, and made it all look good with his gasps for air and loyalty in saving Trip and all... Now, I think we really could've done without that random ensign guy going all Tripish there with the suicide in front of Archer. Besides, we all would've preferred if Kelby had taken the metaphysical bullet instead... But Scott Bakula even made that scene look decent. He actually looked like he cared in Terra Prime, about earth and the future Federation that he was told about in season three. He actually acted as if the meeting with all the different races on earth was the most important thing in history, because it sort of was... His conviction was what helped Terra Prime truly stand out from the rest...

I stated last week, that the artificial baby made from Trip's and T'Pol's DNA in a lab was absolutely pointless. And to some degree, I still agree with that, if only because I have no clue what Paxton was hoping to achieve by just showing a Vulcan-Human baby on television...

But damn, did Terra Prime truly bring to light the fact, that Jolene Blalock perhaps is the best damn actor on the entire show... Her maternal instincts with the child weren't just adorable - they were perfectly in tune with how a new mother would react... From her awkwardness of "I'm your mother", to holding the child and cradling her in her arms, everything just seemed perfect between the two... Trip was the distant Hick father, appropriately so I suppose. But he did his hardest to earn a living, sabotaging weapons arrays on his way back to sweet home Alabama... He didn't have a mother's touch with the baby. But he definitely had a father's concern, especially when him and T'Pol were just staring at their child, all misty eyed at naming her Elizabeth after his late sister... Now, I admit that Trip's tears were a bit over the top at the end, pulling me out of the moment. But damn, I just can't seem to get enough of the Trip and T'Pol romance somehow... even knowing what happened in the following episode, my heart still melted from the sight of them both holding hands and sharing tears...

"... now, Rick Berman and Braga had both called their series finale as a "Valentine" gift to the fans...

... most on the internet however, spoiled as they are, preferred to call it a "Valentine Day's Massacre", long before the episode ever aired...

After watching the episode itself with my own eyes and ears, I will readily admit that These are the Voyages was not the greatest of episodes that I had hoped it would be... and from a pacing point of view, it probably was nothing more than average compared to the rest of the fourth season at least...

It felt like an epilogue to Terra Prime. Not a true story or finale in itself, but a pleasant little footnote at the back of an epic novel... telling us how the characters and story end six years down the road, long after all the true stories have been told...

... six long years that I wish I could see with six full seasons of Enterprise, I might add... but I digress...

Now... since I don't want to end my Star Trek Enterprise weekly reviews on a sour note, let's get the bad crap from the series finale out of the way first...

Commander Riker and Counselor Troi were just plain awful. They felt like perverts, constantly peeping in and out and ruining a good movie, with all of their constant appearances in the background of the episode...

I mean seriously, I am one of the hugest Star Trek: The Next Generation fans I know. And I seriously did squeal in delight like a little school girl, at the mere fucking backside of the lookalike Picard actor in the Ten Forward background (if that sounds good, I mean...)... Hell, I even found Data's cheesy comment about rain checks to be mildly amusing, but...

Riker's face looked fine, but his gut sure didn't seem like a season seven TNG episode to me. And poor Sirtis' chest was already starting to sag...

As a TNG fan, I absolutely loved seeing the old TNG sets recreated, especially the conference room (even without all the Enterprise models TNG used to have on the wall before that season). The spinning CG spot of the Enterprise-D in the asteroid film was simply perfect, and brought back the best memories of Star Trek nostalgia... And Riker and Troi had a bit of a purpose. They immortalized the NX crew at least, comparing Reed to a larger than life man, talking about grade school field trips to the NX-Enterprise museum, and memorizing Archer's speech for little elementary school plays...

But still, even so, the whole holodeck thing completely ruined any flow that the episode had. Every single time actors were getting into their thing, either Riker or Troi would freeze the program, or end the program and completely remove the illusion of grandeur the episode was finally getting to... Riker as Chef turned out alright, considering Jonathan Frakes was always brimming with his people and culinary skills. But it just bugs me to no end, that while the major events that we saw in this episode were all true and canon, that the conversations that we heard were not... First of all, how the hell did the NX-Enterprise log every single conversation, or record enough psychological data to recreate perfect replicas of the crew on a holodeck? It couldn't - there weren't quantum computers logging everything on that ship... and as a long time Trek fan, I know that whatever was said by the Enterprise crew in These are the Voyages, could've been nothing more than a random holodeck fabrication...

... which gives hope to T/T fans, that Trip and T'Pol were still having horny Vulcan sex in secret at that stage... but I digress...

And while I'll always enjoy Jeffrey Combs and his character of Shran, the Andorian incident this episode was just so randomly "Smallville Freak of the Weekish", that it was seriously embarrassing to have it in a series finale... I mean, sure it was a nice nostalgic touch to return to Rigel X, the first planet from the Broken Bow pilot episode (though the Suliban were replaced by Stargate Atlantis Wraith clones, I see...). And sure, it was nice to see Shran's daughter, a half Aenar it seemed, along with her cute little comment of "thanks, pink-skin" to Archer... But I could've done without the random phase fight of the week (although Riker definitely was enjoying himself up there perhaps a bit too much). I could've done without the random aliens of the week... I could've done without that blinking crystal thing wasting all of the episode's time. And if anything, it pissed me off to no end that even six years into the future, we still didn't get anything from Berman and Braga about the goddam Romulan War...

And Trip's death? Golly gee, it's like he just woke up that morning, and decided that it would be fun to kill himself...

I mean seriously, his death made absolutely NO sense whatsoever. I mean, he's been in a hell of a lot harsher situations before. Hell, he even die-harded his way against an entire ship of Ferengi with that same damn room we saw him die in this week... And yet after all those close scrapes in the past, the engineer just decides not to wait for security teams to finally show up, and blows himself up just for shits and giggles? What the fuck?!...

Where the fuck was Reed? How the fuck did the aliens board the ship and find Archer in a matter of seconds? Why the hell didn't the Wraith just suck Archer's bones dry anyhew?... And why the hell didn't Trip just at least stall the aliens?... Berman and Braga have always loved their cheap Trek deaths... I was hoping for something different this time, but I guess that was hoping for too much from the killer B's...

... then again, compared to the rest of the Trek deaths I've seen (besides Spock's)? Suddenly Trip's untimely demise doesn't seem so bad...

Tasha Yar literally died from a random, overpussing blob of tar. I see there was a pun intended by Roddenberry there ("T" + "yar = "tar"... har har...)... Captain Kirk was too damn dumb to even to use the Nexus to his advantage before dying a random death to some random Trek villain... Jadzia Dax got her ass kicked and name taken by a fucking Darth Vader clone and a cheap jedi choke trick... And Data? Our beloved Data? While his death wasn't pointless (yes, I kinda liked Nemesis...), it bugged me to hell that the TNG crew simply didn't give a damn about it afterwards...

That's where These are the Voyages finally started to find its purpose... Trip's death, as pointless as it was, actually created a purpose... That's why I ended up enjoying this episode in the end, for what it was worth...

Even with only ten minutes to spare in the series, Trip's death had meaning. That wink and smile he gave Archer the moments before he died, was perhaps the best damn acting I have ever seen in a death scene before. It showed true trust between the two characters, which was perfectly highlighted by Trip's conversation with Chef. I loved his lines of what true trust really meant, of what loyalty to his captain and best friend really meant. Those will be the lines I forever remember from Trek...

And T'Pol and Archer's scene memorial together was close to perfection as well... Sure, Scott Bakula didn't seem nearly dramatic enough about his best friend's demise, until the bitter end of the scene at least. But Jolene Blalock nearly put me in tears, even going so far as to smell the poor hick's shirt out of love, respect, and hopefully eternal Vulcan horniness... I dunno, but there were just so many Enterprise nostalgic moments in that one scene alone, that it really was perhaps the most emotional scene in the entire damn series for me. You had scuba diving pictures from his Hick Florida upbringing, you had talk of T'Pol's late mother and Trip's southern sense of humour... You had a Frankenstein doll there to remind us of Trip's love for movie nights on Enterprise. And I dunno... you had the two actors there moved to tears... It just worked for me, somehow.

Now, for a series finale, most of the characters were unjustly underused. But that's not to say, that each character had a least a small moment to shine... Every character at least got a chance to talk to Riker in the kitchen. With the "were you attracted to him" transition being the most hilarious of them all...

I forget what Mayweather said. So he came out of the series the same way he went in, I suppose... Hoshi looked even more adorable than ever with her new hair. I liked her little bit of an attraction to Trip, as we all saw it throughout the series. Unfortunately, her universal contribution of the universal translator was not highlighted at all... Now, Reed was a complete mystery. Not only was he a complete dunce in not getting there in time to save Trip, but he doesn't even mention his best friend's death when arguing over seating arrangements at the Birth of the Federation? WTF?... Still, I did like his earlier conversation with Tucker. It showed how close the two of them were, not only with each other, but with Enterprise as a ship herself... And thanks to our knowledge of the future, the forgotten trio of Mayweather, Hoshi, and Reed definitely provided some comic relief with their talk about the captain promoted to Admiral. It reminded me a lot of the old conversations about Kirk and Picard being promoted as well...

... though speaking of promotions... Why the fuck were Mayweather and Hoshi still ensigns? Why was Reed still a lieutenant? Why the hell was everyone stuck with their Harry Kim promotion complexes here?... What the fuck?... but I digress for now...

I've already mentioned Trip. I haven't mentioned all his scenes with T'Pol though... It'll bug me 'till kingdom come, that their conversation on the shuttle about missing each other never really happened. But it was sweet nonetheless, how the two of them would forever be star crossed lovers, no matter how far apart they travel beyond the stars... All the talk of moving on, to new jobs and new positions, really got me reminiscing about the impending end of my own university career. I never had a girlfriend or any sorts. But damn, if I had one like Jolene Blalock? Or Hoshi the Hottie preferably? Then I'd definitely miss them too... The Vulcan and human couple was cute in These are the Voyages. We never learn why the two split apart after Terra Prime, but still... True, I can never respect this episode in the end as a 'shipper, since the NX Enterprise for sure never actually recorded the two's conversations in private. But still, the script for what it's worth, wasn't so bad in the end...

Phlox was criminally underutilized yet again, for about the twentieth fox time this season so far... But dammit, we got that infectious alien smile of his again at the end. He put so much sentiment into his words of good luck to the captain, that it was almost impossible for me not to get a little misty eyed myself... And it was nice that he was the one that Archer confided in there along with T'Pol. Seems he was next in line after Tucker on the actor hierachy list. John Billingsley definitely deserves the credit, amazing acting and all...

And Archer?... he was really hit or miss the first 40 minutes of the show, once again putting himself at risk by going on some half assed mission... He never really cared about Shran, neither from the fact that his old Imperial Guard friend was still alive, nor from the mention that he still owed him one. I expected more of a reaction from everyone's favourite boy scout, at least...

But I dunno... unlike Terra Prime, Scott Bakula really nailed his speeches this episode. The Whisky sharing with Trip, moments before his death, felt memorable, if only because of yet another nostalgic mention of everyone's favourite drunkard, Zephram Cochrane... And if there's any reason to remember These are the Voyages in a good light, it's because of the final ten minutes. Sure, we never got to hear Archer preach about Gazelles again (thank God... especially after his eye rolling sermon in Terra Prime...). But dammit, there was just something so special about that Birth of the Federation moment... about that hug out of hard-earned respect and mutual love between Archer and T'Pol...

... that just reminded me of the best moments of Trek in history... and made a new one, actually...

These are the Voyages was a decently good episode, or a good epilogue to Trek as a whole I believe...

Was it a great series finale for Enterprise? No... maybe it wasn't even a good finale in the end... but that's what Terra Prime was for...

Was it better than All Good Things? Not at all, considering nothing can ever replace that final shot of the Enterprise-D in my heart...

But I did enjoy These are the Voyages far more than I did DS9's What We Leave Behind, since that finale's religious fundamentalist crap was a huge disappointment to me... And God, was this episode ever better than Voyager's Endgame. Fuck, anything is better than fucking Endgame...