Webthoughts

I just finished watching the latest episode of Enterprise. It definitely continues to follow the "darker" trend that the producers have apparently set out to follow this season.

The episode itself was decent. Definite middle-of-the-road fare, when it comes to Trek. Any problems with it that I had weren't necessarily with the episode itself, but with the whole concept of the "The Expanse" itself.

Although I understand what the producers of Enterprise are attempting to do (bring an edgier feel to the series, something that was definitely lacking in the first two episodes), I'm not sure they are going about it in the correct way.

Consider the following (WARNING! I'm about to go really "Trekkie" here, so if you don't have the stomach for that kind of thing, tune out now): The Enterprise itself is only capable of Warp 5. This is a far cry from the Warp 9+ speeds of the Enterprise-D from Next Generation, right? This means that, the NX-01 is not capable of reaching the distances from Earth that the Enterprise-D traveled in any sort of reasonable time. Follow that?

So, what we have is a starship that isn't capable of traveling nearly as far from Earth as in "later" Star Trek series apparently entering an extremely dangerous area of space that we have never heard about before now. So, compared to the distances traveled in Next Generation, the Expanse must be relatively close to Earth. Since Earth is supposedly near the "heart" of the Federation in the 24th Century, doesn't that imply that there's a good chance that the Expanse would also be near the "heart" of the Federation? Why have we never heard of it before now?

The answer to that question, of course, points to one of the major problems with Enterprise itself: it's a prequel. The producers are trying to think outside the box and provide us with "new" concepts, yet maintain established (and limiting) continuity. This whole Expanse thing is a big change to that continuity that just doesn't fit in with what has already been established.

Now, I'm sure there are a million ways that they could eventually make it all work out (tonight's episode actually provided a few hints, I think, as to what they might do to still fit in with continuity), but that assumes that they'll actually follow through with that.

I'm also not sure that the whole "darker, edgier" concept will work well with Enterprise anyway. The Captain Archer that we saw tonight is a far cry from the Captain Archer that they established in the pilot episode two seasons ago. That Archer was full of wide-eyed wonder. This Archer seemed...bitter. I think I may have liked the wide-eyed wonder better.

Don't get me wrong, the series needed a change. It just wasn't clicking. But I'm not sure this is the way they should have approached the idea of adding an edge to the series.

The season is only two episodes old, however. Not nearly enough to judge it by, of course, so I will withhold judgment, but maintain my reservations. The two episodes (and tonight's episode, specifically), were good television. I just want to make sure that Enterprise stays true to original Star Trek philosophy.

Wow...this review definitely went in a direction I didn't expect. Huh. Okay..."trekkie" moment over. It's safe here again!

"THIS IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!"

That's all I could really think about for a moment after hearing T'Pol say that the remainder of humanity had settled on Ceti Alpha Five. Interesting that the writers would choose the same planet as Khan was exiled to.

That aside, I found this to be one of the better episodes of the season so far for Enterprise. It had a good, character-driven story-line that basically asked, "How much impact can one person have in the grand scheme of things?" In the case of Jonathan Archer, it appears to be a lot.

A decent episode that gives a good glimpse into the character of Shran, the Andorian Commander that has been a recurring character throughout the run of Enterprise.

I just finished watching the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise. It's a little weird to know that that episode is the last of first run Star Trek that will be seen for quite a while, if not forever.

I will agree that the Trek franchise was getting a little tired. Star Trek: Voyager, for example, never lived up to its potential. The second season of Enterprise was awful.

But Enterprise improved a lot during the third season and the fourth season (the one that just concluded) was the best of any of them.

But the world is tired of Trek. So, Trek needs to go away, at least for a while.

Instead, we will get to watch riveting fare on television like Britney and Kevin: Chaotic and Stacked. Okay, that's not entirely fair. There are good shows on TV besides Star Trek. 24 and Arrested Development are both great television. Battlestar Galactica is probably one of the best shows out there today.

But television definitely lost something earlier this evening with the end of Enterprise. That optimistic view that humanity will achieve great things in the future is a good message. All the Trek series stubbornly stuck to that message.

I suppose the title of this post is a bit wrong. The world is not without Trek. It's just without first-run Trek. All the series are still airing and will for a long time. And, who knows, maybe Paramount will eventually produce another Star Trek series (supposedly, another movie is in early pre-production, but has not yet really been given the green light by Paramount).

I'll live, of course, without my weekly Star Trek fix. But, television will become an even more barren place to me without its nearly 18-year presence.

Well, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about what I thought about the last new television episode of Star Trek for quite some time, if not forever. "These are the Voyages..." was the series-finale for Star Trek: Enterprise, the fifth show in the series.

This was not the episode it should have been. There were several problems that really detracted from the ending of this series.

I have to admit: the Star Trek freak inside of me thinks this is really cool. Yes, it is my screensaver at the moment, but that changes frequently, so who knows what my screensaver will be next week?

CBS is pulling a George Lucas move on Star Trek.

Apparently, the studio has decided to digitally enhance all 79 episodes of the original Star Trek television series with new special effects, new music and more.

I really don't know how I feel about that.

Yes, I'm you can accuse me of being a Star Trek "purist", and really, perhaps I am. But I grew up watching the original episodes in syndication and have a great love of that show and what they were able to do to put out quality science fiction in the late 60's (I should note, I wasn't around when the episodes originally aired). To mess with them just seems...wrong.

But I'm going to be two-faced about this as well. I look forward to seeing the remastered epsiodes--seeing what they've been able to do with modern techniques. It'll be interesting to see see a vision of what Gene Roddenberry might have done in today's world with Star Trek (as paraphrased from Michael Okuda).

I'll reserve final judgement until I see the episodes, of course.

HAH!

I'd like to go see the new Bond film, but probably won't be seeing it this weekend. It'll probably have to wait until next weekend. I have too much stuff going on this weekend.

Of course, although I enjoyed the previous film, the real reason I want to go see the new one is because I want to see the new Star Trek trailer. Does that make me sad or what?

I'm still undecided as to whether or not this Star Trek prequel is a good thing, especially with J.J. Abrams at the helm...uh...so to speak. They claim it takes place in established Star Trek continuity, but just from what I've seen so far, it's hard for me to accept that. I guess I'll know for sure come May, 2009.

And yes, even though I've seen the trailer online, I still want to see it in the theatre.

With the upcoming Star Trek movie on the horizon, I thought this cartoon was very well done and humorous.

I have been on record before as saying that one of the things I was most disappointed with about the new Star Trek movie was the musical score.

I didn't at the time and still don't believe that it fully encompassed the scope of the movie. It really didn't seem like a cohesive whole. It seemed to take one musical riff and repeat it multiple times in different ways. It seemed as if the composer, Michael Giacchino, came up with that riff and just said "let's see how many different ways an orchestra can play this." It definitely didn't have the sweeping, grand feel of scores from James Horner or Jerry Goldsmith. J.J. Abrams has said, however, that he didn't want a score like the previous movies. So, this was probably a deliberate choice.

However, over time, the score has grown on me. I still don't think it's one of the better Star Trek scores. But, there are aspects to it that I have started to see some brilliance in.

The best example is the piece "Labor of Love". This is the music that plays during the scene where James Kirk is born on the shuttle and his father, George Kirk, sacrifices himself to save his family and crew. To be honest, heard by itself, this piece is not all that great. It's good, but that's about it. The brilliance comes in when you listen to the piece when viewing the scene itself. The music by itself is merely average, but when combined with the images from that scene in the movie, it combines to form one of the most powerful scenes in cinema this year, if not all time.

That, truly, is what a film score is supposed to do. It is not supposed to be music for the sake of music. It is supposed to compliment and enhance what you see on the screen. "Labor of Love" does that magnificently.

So, while I still think the score to Star Trek is weak overall, it does have its moments, especially when you remember the purpose of a film score. It's raised itself in my estimation and I now look forward to what may come in the next Star Trek.