Enterprise :: Sebi Et Cetera :: Works
This site has moved. For new entries please visit: www.sebimeyer.com
Regeneration
When I read the premise of this episode some
weeks ago, I could not help but feel anxious about it. I had a bad feeling that
the writers would revisit every cliché that Voyager fans learned to hate
over the run of that
show.
I really hate to be right sometimes.
I really hate to be right sometimes.
This episode was about nothing, did nothing,
and ended with nothing.
Showing flashy FX, some admittedly great scoring and camera movements can not make up for a plot that has been recycled numerous times before.
A sense of urgency was sustained throughout the episode, but while the potential was there to make an “edge-of-your-seat”-episode like Voyager’s “Scorpion,” or even TNG’s “Best of Both Worlds” there was no sense of peril among the crew. The stakes just did not seem high enough. (Forget that the only doctor on board is mutating into a cybernetic being, lets feed the slugs instead)
There were some tense moments (one might argue that they did not know who they dealt with) but none left the viewer wondering how (the if is really not even at question) they will get out of this situation by the end of the episode.
Mostly the Borg, like in so many Voyager episodes, did not come across as a real threat while Phlox was concocting ways to battle the nanoprobes that starfleet doctors with technology 200 years advanced could not seem to find.
It is also odd how well Lt. Reed works under stress. You give the man a couple of hours and he changes the phaser design. Make you wonder what he could do if he really would put his mind to the job all the time, doesn't it?
Moments that had characters actually spring to live for a few moment included the exchange between T’Pol and Archer after Archer gave the order that effectively killed some Borg.
Oh and an advice to Starfleet security: How about putting guards at the jefferies tube in sickbay? The Suliban escaped through it, so did numerous other aliens and crewmembers in the last two years, don’t you think that somebody should guard that? But I guess there was nobody there, because then the Borg could not have escaped and there would have been no episode.
Which brings up another point.
A couple of years ago I read an excellent book on scriptwriting by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), which is considered one of the best ever written on the craft of scriptwriting, but appears to be out of print at the moment.
The man definitely knows what he is talking about, as he has been the first person to write an entire season (Babylon 5’s 3rd) all by himself. He also knows a thing or two about continuous story lines that Star Trek writers might want to consider, but that is another topic.
The passage from the book I remembered while watching this episode was an anecdote he told to prove a major point of scriptwriting. He told about a freelance writer submitting a script for Murder She Wrote, a show JMS produced and wrote for.
In the script Angela Lansbury goes to somebody’s apartment and opens a package in which she finds the clue to solve the murder. JMS questioned the writer why she would go to that apartment and why, once there, she would open that package, even though there was no logical reason for her to this.
The writer responded with something to the effect of “well, to solve the case and end the episode, of course.”
This is precisely the mistake Enterprise keeps making.
In this episode the Borg’s infamous line “We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile” is changed to “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
Why is this the case? Well, continuity of course. If they said who they were, which by now is a key feature the race is known for and has done so in almost any other episode, the continuity of the show would not be preserved.
Archer remembering some speech Zefram Cochrane had given in which he mentioned cybernetic beings and people from the future is a similar example of this mistake.
Wouldn’t somebody take the man serious or follow up on it if one the world’s leading scientist says he encountered aliens? It is even implied that he mentioned this at more than one occasion. (This could easily been avoided by Archer remembering a personal conversation his father had had Cochrane. After all the two knew each other and worked together) The information, however illogical the method of revelation at this point, is needed though to develop the plot further.
So why do a show like this if you can’t or don’t want to tell the story in the way it would deserve? Why do the writers keep revisiting old races like the Ferengi and Borg, but not the races that the show should focus on, as it eventually should lead to foundation of the Federation?
I wouldn’t mind if the writers tried things and they would fail, but they should at least try something and take a leap with both their feet. Wasn’t this show supposed to be “bold and new” anyway? Wasn’t that the whole point of setting the show in a different time frame and dropping the “Star Trek” from the title?
TNG and DS9 both had numerous episodes in which they tried new things that did not quite work out at first and later were changed, (The Vorta changed quite a bit over the course of their first couple of appearances, and so did the Trill. Not to mention the Ferengi.) but at least they were willing to take the chances and deal with the consequences.
Now Rick Berman announced that Enterprise will be retooled at the beginning of the third season to make it more interesting. I can only hope, that whatever changes are made will remain and will not be dropped as easily as changes that were made on Voyager. All the retooling in the world will not make it more interesting if story lines are not followed through to their logical conclusion.
I think what annoys me so much about episodes like this is that this show, on a whole, has great potential. Seeing the writers stumble around while such potential remains untapped is more than frustrating and insults the intelligence of the viewers.
Next week: Science Fiction Double Feature.
Showing flashy FX, some admittedly great scoring and camera movements can not make up for a plot that has been recycled numerous times before.
A sense of urgency was sustained throughout the episode, but while the potential was there to make an “edge-of-your-seat”-episode like Voyager’s “Scorpion,” or even TNG’s “Best of Both Worlds” there was no sense of peril among the crew. The stakes just did not seem high enough. (Forget that the only doctor on board is mutating into a cybernetic being, lets feed the slugs instead)
There were some tense moments (one might argue that they did not know who they dealt with) but none left the viewer wondering how (the if is really not even at question) they will get out of this situation by the end of the episode.
Mostly the Borg, like in so many Voyager episodes, did not come across as a real threat while Phlox was concocting ways to battle the nanoprobes that starfleet doctors with technology 200 years advanced could not seem to find.
It is also odd how well Lt. Reed works under stress. You give the man a couple of hours and he changes the phaser design. Make you wonder what he could do if he really would put his mind to the job all the time, doesn't it?
Moments that had characters actually spring to live for a few moment included the exchange between T’Pol and Archer after Archer gave the order that effectively killed some Borg.
Oh and an advice to Starfleet security: How about putting guards at the jefferies tube in sickbay? The Suliban escaped through it, so did numerous other aliens and crewmembers in the last two years, don’t you think that somebody should guard that? But I guess there was nobody there, because then the Borg could not have escaped and there would have been no episode.
Which brings up another point.
A couple of years ago I read an excellent book on scriptwriting by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), which is considered one of the best ever written on the craft of scriptwriting, but appears to be out of print at the moment.
The man definitely knows what he is talking about, as he has been the first person to write an entire season (Babylon 5’s 3rd) all by himself. He also knows a thing or two about continuous story lines that Star Trek writers might want to consider, but that is another topic.
The passage from the book I remembered while watching this episode was an anecdote he told to prove a major point of scriptwriting. He told about a freelance writer submitting a script for Murder She Wrote, a show JMS produced and wrote for.
In the script Angela Lansbury goes to somebody’s apartment and opens a package in which she finds the clue to solve the murder. JMS questioned the writer why she would go to that apartment and why, once there, she would open that package, even though there was no logical reason for her to this.
The writer responded with something to the effect of “well, to solve the case and end the episode, of course.”
This is precisely the mistake Enterprise keeps making.
In this episode the Borg’s infamous line “We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile” is changed to “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
Why is this the case? Well, continuity of course. If they said who they were, which by now is a key feature the race is known for and has done so in almost any other episode, the continuity of the show would not be preserved.
Archer remembering some speech Zefram Cochrane had given in which he mentioned cybernetic beings and people from the future is a similar example of this mistake.
Wouldn’t somebody take the man serious or follow up on it if one the world’s leading scientist says he encountered aliens? It is even implied that he mentioned this at more than one occasion. (This could easily been avoided by Archer remembering a personal conversation his father had had Cochrane. After all the two knew each other and worked together) The information, however illogical the method of revelation at this point, is needed though to develop the plot further.
So why do a show like this if you can’t or don’t want to tell the story in the way it would deserve? Why do the writers keep revisiting old races like the Ferengi and Borg, but not the races that the show should focus on, as it eventually should lead to foundation of the Federation?
I wouldn’t mind if the writers tried things and they would fail, but they should at least try something and take a leap with both their feet. Wasn’t this show supposed to be “bold and new” anyway? Wasn’t that the whole point of setting the show in a different time frame and dropping the “Star Trek” from the title?
TNG and DS9 both had numerous episodes in which they tried new things that did not quite work out at first and later were changed, (The Vorta changed quite a bit over the course of their first couple of appearances, and so did the Trill. Not to mention the Ferengi.) but at least they were willing to take the chances and deal with the consequences.
Now Rick Berman announced that Enterprise will be retooled at the beginning of the third season to make it more interesting. I can only hope, that whatever changes are made will remain and will not be dropped as easily as changes that were made on Voyager. All the retooling in the world will not make it more interesting if story lines are not followed through to their logical conclusion.
I think what annoys me so much about episodes like this is that this show, on a whole, has great potential. Seeing the writers stumble around while such potential remains untapped is more than frustrating and insults the intelligence of the viewers.
Next week: Science Fiction Double Feature.
Posted at 01:06 EST Filed under:
Quick Links
Entries in this Category
also on SebiMeyer.com:
Search SebiMeyer.com
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Visits since 5/5/2003
Web pages I visit regularly:
My Enterprise iCal Calendar
Books I liked:
Do you have $5 to spare?
Help keep this site up!
other iBloggers:
| |||
Things I am waiting for:
days.
Apple Expo Paris keynote:
days.
Currently reading this page:
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category: 9
Published On: Sep 20, 2003 02:05
Total entries in this category: 9
Published On: Sep 20, 2003 02:05