"Star Trek: Enterprise"

[StarFuryG7]

I stumbled upon this yesterday after Mel said the old AOL Message Boards were back and had to laugh . . .

Fans React To 'Enterprise' Cancellation

"Crambam," who is a regular on the AOL message boards, said that the quick demise of the series should raise questions about whether or not the show will be considered official canon for the franchise.

"At this point, despite all the improvement in Season 4, I will say it shouldn't," he said. "I reserve judgement, though, until May."

www.airlockalpha.com/node/1880

I don't believe I ever saw this article until yesterday.

[CRAMBAM]

I never heard of this article. That's hilarious.

At first, I wondered the context, and obviously I don't remember the post.

But I would say that it's impossible to reconcile Enterprise with real Trek canon.

MAYBE, if you treat the entire run of Enterprise as a holodeck adventure in the TNG computer, it could work.

It's been a long time since I saw the finale though. Is that even possible?

[StarFuryG7]

Does anyone remember this actress and the character she played during the first season of "Enterprise"?

I know it's been a long time, but I'm still curious as to impressions and if anyone even recalls her after all this time. She only appeared in three episodes before she died way too early.

Elizabeth Cutler (character)
en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cutler

Kellie Waymire (actress)
en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kellie_Waymire

I hope this doesn't turn out to be another situation where I find myself just talking to myself here. I sometimes wonder about the value these boards even offer anymore.

[TrekBeatTK]

I do I do!

I liked her character a lot and I thought her death was a real shame.

I liked the actress, I think I'd seen her in something else too. I always found her cute and accessible and she's one of the bright spots of ENT's first season.

What brought her back to mind after all these years?

-TK

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 20, 2013 16:10:24 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

What brought her back to mind after all these years?
-TK

I've been revisiting "Enterprise" of late, in part out of curiosity to see how well it holds up (or doesn't) compared to what I remember, and I just saw "Dear Doctor" late last night, which was Kellie's next-to-last episode before she passed on. I just think it's a shame, but I also decided to bring her up as a way to also segue into talking about "Enterprise".

I found Archer's decision at the end of that episode concerning the Valakians to be utterly deplorable and worthy of contempt. What was your opinion about it? (If you recall)

By the way, if anyone is actually interested, all first season episodes of "Enterprise", and about half of the rest, are available at CastTV. Go to Zap2it.com and you'll be able to link up to the series and which episodes are available there.

[CRAMBAM]

I don't remember her at all. I doubt I would revisit any time soon.

[TrekBeatTK]

Mar 20, 2013 18:39:32 GMT -5 StarFuryG7 said:

I found Archer's decision at the end of that episode concerning the Valakians to be utterly deplorable and worthy of contempt. What was your opinion about it? (If you recall)

I remember the episode, not extremely well. I'm not sure what my initial reaction to Archer's decision was, nor how I currently feel about it. As an episode, it's somewhat reminiscent of "Symbiosis" with that sort of catch-22 ending. I understand Archer's reasons for not acting, but I also understand why you'd consider it contemptible. What I like about it as an ending is that the show went there. So often in later Trek, especially Voyager, big ethical dilemmas were just essentially solved by emergencies so that our characters never really had to take a side.

-TK

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 21, 2013 6:58:30 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

I remember the episode, not extremely well. I'm not sure what my initial reaction to Archer's decision was, nor how I currently feel about it. As an episode, it's somewhat reminiscent of "Symbiosis" with that sort of catch-22 ending. I understand Archer's reasons for not acting, but I also understand why you'd consider it contemptible. What I like about it as an ending is that the show went there. So often in later Trek, especially Voyager, big ethical dilemmas were just essentially solved by emergencies so that our characters never really had to take a side.
-TK

How was it a good ending? Archer starts out by telling Phlox, adamantly I would add, that 'his compassion guides his judgment', and then goes on to contradict himself by doing the exact opposite of what his compassion should dictate. And then it ends with Phlox commenting to his human pen-pal, who's also a physician, that his view of Archer has gone up as a result of his decision. Meanwhile, Archer and Phlox are deliberately withholding a cure that would save countless lives, all on the basis that the intellectually inferior Menk race, who live alongside the Valakians, *might* end up flourishing a millennia or so down the road after the Valakian people die out as a species. It was completely reprehensible regardless of how someone might try and justify it, and it was the kind of ending Kirk wouldn't have stood for in the original series had he found himself in a similar situation. In fact, they also imply at the end that the Prime Directive would provide a future solution to such dilemmas, but it doesn't change the fact that there was no Prime Directive yet, and Phlox and Archer had it within their power to save the Valakian people from dying needlessly.

You should watch the episode again online given that it's available for free viewing and see if you still feel the same way about it. To me, this was yet another area where "Enterprise" fails by moving in the wrong direction. In TOS compassion was a major theme throughout the series. McCoy is the embodiment of it, Kirk preaches about its crucial importance, and even Spock recognizes its value while claiming that logic dictates the more enlightened path, even though when push comes to shove, you know he can be counted on to put compassion first. However, in that episode of "Enterprise" it ends up being rejected in favor of a callous "What if?" prospect that might not even pan out and come to fruition.

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 21, 2013 6:06:46 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I don't remember her at all. I doubt I would revisit any time soon.

Oddly enough, this stems from a desire to watch some "Star Trek", even though there's no Trek show currently in production. And I have no interest in revisiting TNG, DS9 or Voyager currently. So ENT ended up being the one that appealed to me, but I'm seeing that most of the things that bothered me more than a decade ago still bother me about the show. And if it weren't for the fact that it's intended to be a prequel to the original series, it would probably bother me less.

And I still can't see how it fits into the chronologically in conjunction with the original series. The way I see it the show can only qualify as either an alternate universe different from the prime timeline, or perhaps with certain significant differences stemming from timeline tampering and thereby changing the original course of events, otherwise it just doesn't fit.

[TrekBeatTK]

Perhaps to clarify, I like that the episode ended with someone making a decision, even if it was a stupid one. I like that they risked making the captain look like a dick this way early in the series.

Agreed, Kirk would never do anything of the sort. Even Picard in that case probably wouldn't, but he would have all sorts of internal Prime Directive struggles first. But as even he said in (of all things) Insurrection, "Who the hell are we to decide the next course of evolution for these people?"

I also think it's an interesting glimpse at modern liberal Hollywood thinking. Sometimes intervention is good, sometimes it's bad, you never know what agendum they are pushing. So I found it interesting that they promoted this isolationist kind of philosophy here.

According to Memory Alpha, the ending of the episode was changed by TPTB somewhat. They don't give specifics, but apparently it wasn't to end with Phlox and Archer on the same page. Maybe the original ending would have worked better.

I'm not saying I think that it was a laudable decision or the "right" way to end things, but I thought it was certainly a bold way to end an episode of television, particularly from writers who'd been fudging their way around things like this on Voyager.

In the end, even despite the ending, I think "Dear Doctor" is one of the standout episodes of the first season.

As far as ENT in general, it certainly has problems. I've just decided to let the Temporal Cold War explain away most of the timeline inaccuracies. I think they get much worse in season 2 anyway. But there is a kind of "golly gee" optimism of exploration evident in season one that I think is very Star Trek and was missing toward the end of Voyager and even DS9's run.

Funnily enough for me though there was good stuff in it, when I rewatched a couple years ago I found I disliked season 4 a lot more than I remembered. I think season 2 is the worst, but 4 felt very uneven to me.

-TK

[Mel]

What I remember most is that Cutler was hot for Phlox.

An episode summary at wikipedia (link below) states that the Dear Doctor episode ending was revised because TPTB at UPN didn't like the original ending. Apparently, Archer wanted to save the race, and Phlox wanted nature to run its course; maybe that means they left the planet in a stalemate. In the episode as it aired, Phlox, with Archer's blessing, gave the Valakians something that would ease their symptoms for a decade, but not cure them.

In the first years credits, was Kellie's name listed every week? I ask because, in the Wikipedia summary, Billingsley (Phlox) said that he wasn't sure her work schedule would allow them to have a relationship in the future. To me, that indicates that Cutler wasn't a regularly scheduled character.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Doctor

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 22, 2013 12:47:11 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

Perhaps to clarify, I like that the episode ended with someone making a decision, even if it was a stupid one. I like that they risked making the captain look like a dick this way early in the series.

Hmmm...okay. I hope you didn't feel as though I was jumping on you, but I really was that annoyed by the ending of that episode, and your reasoning strikes me as a bit convoluted. For example, I wouldn't ever want to say about Kirk that he looked like a dick for a decision he made, but that I liked that he had the guts to make that stupid decision nonetheless. It's disjointed and out of whack, although I can sort of see where you're coming from in that ENT was supposed to be a prequel series, in contrast to TOS, and that of course these guys are going to make mistakes at the beginning as opposed to later on. I guess I could swallow that up to a point as it might pertain to lesser matters, but not when the lives of thousands of people are on the line and they're deliberately holding back a cure they have in their possession for some misguided view about where evolution might lead. And if anything it caused me to lose a great deal of respect for Archer as a Captain. I wouldn't want to feel that way about Kirk, and fortunately I never really had reason to. Even in "A Private Little War" where Kirk decides to take a side and arm Tyree and his people with weapons comparable to whatever the Klingons decide to arm his enemies with you can question whether Kirk is under Nona's influence, but he makes a compelling argument as to why he deems it necessary to proceed along such lines regardless.

Mar 22, 2013 12:47:11 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

Agreed, Kirk would never do anything of the sort. Even Picard in that case probably wouldn't, but he would have all sorts of internal Prime Directive struggles first. But as even he said in (of all things) Insurrection, "Who the hell are we to decide the next course of evolution for these people?"

Good recollection there.

Mar 22, 2013 12:47:11 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

According to Memory Alpha, the ending of the episode was changed by TPTB somewhat. They don't give specifics, but apparently it wasn't to end with Phlox and Archer on the same page. Maybe the original ending would have worked better.

That sounds as though Archer was going to stick to his original decision while Phlox stuck to his. That would have left them at odds obviously, which is how it looked things would play out until they speak again and Archer reveals that he has changed his mind and decided to proceed according to Phlox's outlook on the matter. What also bugged me about it was Phlox declaring that his opinion of Archer had gone up as a result of his having changed his mind, as though he had somehow done the right thing when he hadn't. And I guess there really is no Hippocratic Oath to be concerned with in Phlox's era because that is completely ignored altogether there.

Mar 22, 2013 12:47:11 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

I'm not saying I think that it was a laudable decision or the "right" way to end things, but I thought it was certainly a bold way to end an episode of television, particularly from writers who'd been fudging their way around things like this on Voyager.

In the end, even despite the ending, I think "Dear Doctor" is one of the standout episodes of the first season.

Well, we're at odds here, because I felt Archer's choice was a copout and wasn't something for him to be lauded for in the end. In fact, had I been in Archer's place I'd probably be wondering whether I should replace Phlox as Chief Medical Officer at that point. After all, if he was so willing and ready to allow a race of people to simply die by the thousands or more --people who held no ill-will toward him and did nothing to offend-- then what might he let simply happen to members of the crew if he believed it somehow warranted rather than intervening to save their lives? Now sure, he's in Starfleet and he has a direct obligation to the crew aboard ship, but if I were in Archer's place, it would leave me wondering about him nonetheless, and I don't think I would want a guy like that as my chief Medical Officer. I think I'd look to replace him as soon as I could.

Mar 22, 2013 12:47:11 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

As far as ENT in general, it certainly has problems. I've just decided to let the Temporal Cold War explain away most of the timeline inaccuracies. I think they get much worse in season 2 anyway. But there is a kind of "golly gee" optimism of exploration evident in season one that I think is very Star Trek and was missing toward the end of Voyager and even DS9's run.

I'd agree with that, but I'm bothered by the fact that these guys really didn't pay much attention to TOS even though they took it upon themselves to produce a prequel series. And it's a prequel series that's more like modern Trek than not, and considered what it was intended to be a prequel to (TOS), that's rather offensive in its own right.

Mar 22, 2013 12:47:11 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

Funnily enough for me though there was good stuff in it, when I rewatched a couple years ago I found I disliked season 4 a lot more than I remembered. I think season 2 is the worst, but 4 felt very uneven to me.

Well, that's why I've decided to give it another look. I only watched this series when it originally aired and that was it. I'm just looking to see, in part, if I was too hard on it at the time, or if they deserved the disdain they brought out in classic fans like me back when it was airing in first-run. I still remember a lot of those arguments in the episode folders over on AOL. But I really am looking at it with an intent to be fair, and those disagreements are in the past now, so my feelings about the show are strictly my own at this point regardless of which side I come down on. No one really cares anymore one way or the other for the most part. They're all caught up in JJ-Trek if anything.

[TrekBeatTK]

Mar 22, 2013 19:03:47 GMT -5 StarFuryG7 said:

Hmmm...okay. I hope you didn't feel as though I was jumping on you

Not at all. I quite like to debate such things. And I'd like to discuss any further episodes you'd like. It's been so long since I thought about ENT.

Maybe it would be nice for the board to arrange regular group rewatches of certain Treks or episodes so we can discuss them.

-TK

[Mel]

What channel carries Enterprise? I did a search on Dish (god, I miss DTV), and nothing Star Trek related comes up. The ME Channel has TOS.

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 22, 2013 13:13:19 GMT -5 Mel said:

In the first years credits, was Kellie's name listed every week? I ask because, in the Wikipedia summary, Billingsley (Phlox) said that he wasn't sure her work schedule would allow them to have a relationship in the future. To me, that indicates that Cutler wasn't a regularly scheduled character.

Mel, I'm sorry I forgot to get back to you about this, but no, Kellie was not a regular. She played a recurring character, and was only seen in three episodes in the first half of season one before she died. But I believe we would have seen more of her as Cutler had she still been with us.

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 24, 2013 10:34:52 GMT -5 Mel said:

What channel carries Enterprise? I did a search on Dish (god, I miss DTV), and nothing Star Trek related comes up. The ME Channel has TOS.

"Enterprise" isn't airing in syndication presently. As I said the other way, you can watch episodes by going to Zap2it.com and going to their CastTV section.

Here: tvlistings.zap2it.com/tv/star-trek-enterprise/watch-online/EP00446583?aid=zap2it

The other day when I posted about this the first season was free, along with about half of the rest of the episodes. As of now though, just a few days later, I see that has changed and all of the episodes are available for free viewing, so you can watch them all online if you so choose, Mel.

[StarFuryG7]

I noticed this last night . . .

Star Trek: Enterprise - Complete First Season (Bby) (Blu-ray Disc)
Release Date: 3/26/2013
www.bestbuy.com/site/Star+Trek%3A+Enterprise+-+Comp+First+Season+(Bby)+-+Blu-ray+Disc/8646042.p;jsessionid=37B2C83D596A1D94F029DEE76270DD31.bbolsp-app04-126?id=2657475&skuId=8646042&st=star trek enterprise&lp=1&cp=1

So they're finally releasing the series on Blu-ray starting tomorrow. I wonder when the other three seasons are set to follow.

[CRAMBAM]

There's absolutely no reason I can think of to buy this show.

[TrekBeatTK]

Funny, I was just wondering why they haven't done this yet. Surely ENT would be the easiest to transfer, particularly season 4 which was shot on HD video.

-TK

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 25, 2013 13:41:15 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

There's absolutely no reason I can think of to buy this show.

LMAO. I fully expected you to say PRECISELY that.

But as with all Trek home video releases, it's overpriced. The one thing it has going for it even in that regard though is that it was already HD ready for transfer and it already had the most modern FX of all the Trek shows. But you can see even with respect to that how we've surpassed and improved since then where CGI is concerned.

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 25, 2013 15:24:32 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

Funny, I was just wondering why they haven't done this yet. Surely ENT would be the easiest to transfer, particularly season 4 which was shot on HD video.
-TK

Not video, which is tape --digital.

[TrekBeatTK]

Mar 25, 2013 16:25:04 GMT -5 StarFuryG7 said:

Mar 25, 2013 15:24:32 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

Funny, I was just wondering why they haven't done this yet. Surely ENT would be the easiest to transfer, particularly season 4 which was shot on HD video.
-TK

Not video, which is tape --digital.

While video has come to colloquially mean tape, I think it actually is the name of the format with certain frame-rate and other specs. It's digital video as opposed to analog video yes, and not captured on tape. But you can still shoot digital and capture on digital tape. Digital is not the opposite of video. And actually I don't know whether ENT season 4 was captured on hard drives or on digital tape, I just know it was shot with digital cameras.

"[...] what I believe they once called 'video'."
"Television was the colloquial term."

-TK

[StarFuryG7]

Mar 25, 2013 19:02:20 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

[And actually I don't know whether ENT season 4 was captured on hard drives or on digital tape, I just know it was shot with digital cameras.
-TK

It was probably a hard drive, although it could have been recorded on a disc, but it definitely wasn't tape.

[TrekBeatTK]

Mar 25, 2013 19:45:24 GMT -5 StarFuryG7 said:

It was probably a hard drive, although it could have been recorded on a disc, but it definitely wasn't tape.

Well, I've done a bit of research, and it turns out ENT was indeed recorded on digital cassette tape, known as the HDCAM. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCAM
It was shot with Sony's CineAlta camera, basically this model: prosony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-broadcastcameras/cat-cinealta/product-HDWF900R/.. Check the specs and you'll see it even notes "The cassette loading is fast, simple, and reliable. It takes less than 5 seconds* for cassette change".

Other cameras in this line do record on discs or on flash drives. However, the ones used for ENT did not. Same with the ones used for Star Wars Episodes II and III. In fact, if you watch the making of features for Attack of the Clones, you can see these digital tapes.

Digital cinema is evolving of course. The RED Epic (that The Hobbit is shot with) records on flash drives. But ten years ago the standard was digital tapes (I know because I shot stuff with digital cameras on digital tape).

Don't mean to sound dickish, but I'm just making the point that "video" and "digital" do not mean what many people think they mean.

-TK

[StarFuryG7]

Over at Blastr:

Could Enterprise return with the help of Netflix? Brannon Braga thinks so!
By Dan Roth
Tue, 03/26/2013 - 1:37pm

The first season of Enterprise just came out on blu-ray, but could it return for more?

More: www.blastr.com/2013-3-26/could-enterprise-return-help-netflix-brannon-braga-thinks-so

[captainbasil]

I think Jericho has a better shot at a restart than Enterprise. I'm kind of neutral on Enterprise. I don't hate it but it never really thrilled me. I hope this happens for its fans.

[StarFuryG7]

Over at Blastr:

That infamous Enterprise Xindi arc? Bakula explains why it happened
By Nathalie Caron
Wed, 03/27/2013 - 9:28am

Scott Bakula chimes in on Star Trek Enterprise's third season Xindi story arc.

More: www.blastr.com/2013-3-27/infamous-enterprise-xindi-arc-bakula-explains-why-it-happened

[TrekBeatTK]

I kinda liked the Xindi arc. And when I last rewatched the show, I was surprised just how well it held up overall. Granted, it started with a handful of awful one-offs ("Extinction"!). But the middle of the season was some very well-plotted stuff. I do find that the very end of the season just isn't as good as the episodes that precede it (and let's not get started on the cliffhanger). And there are the awful episodes like "E squared". I didn't like everything they did that year, like the Trip/T'Pol coupling, and I'm still not sure how I feel about T'Pol's drug addiction, but overall I consider it surprisingly good. I think it was a smart move to try to speak to what was in the cultural zeitgeist (it's certainly a very Star Trek thing to do), and I think it was very smart of them not to make it an obvious, transparent 9/11 parallel. The story stands on its own merits as well.

I don't really see why ENT fans like "Twilight" though.

And "North Star", which really has no connection to the rest of the season, is my favorite episode of ENT.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

Brannon Braga is an idiot who shouldn't be allowed to WATCH Trek on netflix, let alone write for it again.

There is no public outcry for Enterprise, like other shows.

[Mel]

I think Jericho has a better shot at a restart than Enterprise.)

I take it you mean on Netflix. Is this still in the works? The last episode of Jericho aired March 25, 2008. It's been 5 years! Are they still trying to bring it back?? God I loved that show.